jdw

How is it ironic? I'm guessing you didn't click on the links. John

Anyway, my general thoughts on the "it's so ironic that my head is hurting" turn the thread has taken can probably best be summed up by... If they're not interested in those things then too bad for them. There's no rule that says you have to like Hulk Hogan so why dumb it down? If you don't enjoy a match like Hogan vs. Bockwinkel then you're not a Hogan fan and probably never will be. I don't need some Fujiwara fanboy coming along and pointing out that Hogan's not like Fujiwara. Why would anyone want him to be like Fujiwara? I mean pretty much everything people criticise Hogan for are things I'm actively looking for in a match. I don't mind explaining Hogan to people who have a genuine interest in him, but I'm not gonna waste my time on people who think other wrestlers are inherently superior. And... If it were a thread for people who are trying to get into Hogan I'd be all for it, but that's a very different set of match recommendations than Hogan for people who don't like him. John

Where he jobbed the title to Lex was enjoyable at the time, but I wonder if it was just for the finish and the pop. John

Suspension changed to 30 days. John

This is really odd. Has Dave's rather harmless style of reporting gotten that far under the skin of Dana that he went back for a second bite at the apple? John

It's really an amazing month and a half for Kawada: 04/16/94 Kawada vs Williams (Carny Final) 05/21/94 Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue (World Tag Title) 06/03/94 Misawa vs Kawada (Triple Crown) They're not just great matches, but they are terrific performances by him... and he really seems to get the best out of his opponents. That's not even grabbing the other really good stuff in there from Carny if it's stretched back for two and a half months. It's actually an amazing run from 12/03/93 to 06/03/94.

Heyman was a source for Dave. It's likely that other writers were as well. John

My thoughts from the Carny Pimping Posts: * * * * * * * * * * * * 4/11 Taue vs Hansen This is probably about 85% a great match.. and by great I mean GREAT!!!! Seriously, no bullshit. 50% in the form of 100% of what Hansen does is great. This is Stan's "12/03/93 Kawada Is Sublime" performance, and Hansen's performance doesn't in anyway have to take a backseat to what I've spent 18 years pimping as one of the best performances of all-time. Hansen is great before the bell even rings, selling what happened the night before. As the match goes on... he's off the charts. 35% in the form of about 70% to 75% of what Taue does is great. He's extremely focused on what needs to be focused on, and really never loses the thread on it to go into "I've Got Stuff To Do" or "I'd Rather Do Cool Stuff" mode. Those are massive positives. There are some minor knocks: about half of his early stuff looks weak, he's too slam centric without theatrically drawing well into the storyline why those are useful, and he kind of ignores something obvious to the point that he only rolls it out as the Barry Windham Transition... which kind of sucks since using it would have really tied into the storyline. They may seem minor, but they add up a bit to keep this from being a perfect-great match. On the other hand, once he gets past some of the early weak stuff, Taue does bring a ton of great stuff to the storyline and most of it is well done. Even some things like the Claw that doesn't work out to well at least had good thought behind them. This is a helluva match. I'm not sure anyone else could have had this match with Stan at the time. Hard to imagine any of the other members of the Big 6 letting themselves work what is essentially a 17 minute Single Storyline Match. At some point, they'd go off the page to mix in some of their other Cool Things. Misawa would whip out the jumping lariat and the elbows to the head... a lot. As *stronger* as Kawada's attack to the injury would be, he would stil have used the high kicks to the head. Kobashi would have gone longer, and lost the thread a few times Doc faces Hansen a few nights later, and while I like that match a good deal, the injury storyline isn't as focused. Taue... he seems to have followed Stan's lead to a T, stuck with it, etc. When he whips out the nodowa, it's not losing the thread: it's that he's fucked up Stan so much that the nodowa is there for the taking (or fits into a transition). Pretty much everything that doesn't directly tie into the injury is like that, with the injury sitting there still on display. Hell... I don't think 1996 Taue could have this match because he had some cooler stuff that he'd want to mix in, and was more confident in his work. Yeah... this is one of those moment in times. Stan creating something the night before that keyed a major loss that he inturn could use the next night to key a second major loss... with probably the one guy in the Big 6 that would/could be drawn into working a Single Storyline Match. 85% of a GREAT match, when most of the quibbles are early... that's great match. One utterly exceptional performance, with another one that was very focused on what needed to be done and then picked up some steam as he went along. * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rogers largely dropped out of major wrestling after dropping the title to Bruno, which was basically a decade before Flair went Nature Boy in JCP. In turn, Flair was right there on TV as The World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion while Landel was trying to get over as the Nature Boy. By the time Flair got the World Title, it was nearly two decades since Rogers dropped the title to Bruno. Major difference. In turn, Flair got over as a Nature Boy working in a territory. If this didn't go as great in the Carolinas for him as their did (i.e. he never wanted to leave), he had the option of heading to another territory in the late 70s and would have been fairly fresh there. With Landel, most places he could potentially go from 1981 on, other than the AWA and WWF (which would never have pushed him high on the cards), Flair already worked as World Champ. That's a major difference. Lastly, Flair had options in the late 70s to move... lots of them. After Landel has his falling out with JCP (setting aside the dope), the options were extremely limited in 1986: WWF wasn't going to push him high, the AWA was dying, he really wasn't a guy Watts would push on top, Dallas sucked other than for the Von Erichs... he didn't have a lot of options. Those were my points, which perhaps I didn't string out in detail. Setting aside the dope, Buddy probably would have done well if he reached his 1984-85 "talent" level in 1975. Could have done well going from territory to territory... or even found a home to anchor in like Buddy Rose did. John

I wonder if Landel wouldn't have been better off if he debuted in 1973 rather than 1979, and after a few years developing spent say 1977-83 moving around various territories. He had a good base for a heel, probably could have worked as a top of the card / upper card heel in a variety of promotions, moving on to another when it was time. When he hit his stride, Flair was already world champ and either working in just about any territory that Buddy would have gone into (since at that point Buddy didn't seem likely to get a strong push in either the AWA or WWF). Buddy just came off as... lesser. Obviously the dope was a problem, but he might also have just had bad timing as wrestling started to get increased national coverage (Flair was on TV all over the country every week) and shrinking territories (very quickly down to the WWF and JCP as being relevant). John

You like Cena and Modern WWE Style. I'm ambivilent to Cena (i.e. relative to Trip and Shawn), and Modern WWE Style bores me when it isn't annoying me. So it's expected that you have a few hundred Cena matches you like better. I like Rock, did back in the salad days, and have grown to like his work even more on rewatch. So put him in a good match with Cena that's laid out well and has a finish that works for me... yeah, that's going to work for me. But of course I was the contraian who at the time thought Hogan-Rock was terrific while Taker-Flair was sad / pathetic / embarassing, so my opinion on WWF/WWE stuff only goes so far. John

You actually paid for the PPV? Or went over to a friend who ordered them anyway? Or got them for free through various means? Buyrate = Actually buying it.

A Hogan Top 5 would be interesting, especially if one avoids trick answers like putting in all three available cage matches with Bossman. Actually, a Top 10 would be more interesting (or screw rankings, just 10 To Watch in Chron Order), especially if "exact comps" are eliminated. By that I mean you keep only one of the Bossman cage matches, but if one of the earlier non-cage matches in the feud is worthy, then put it in... but not the same general match from MSG/Philly/LA/Boston. Same thing with Hogan-Savage: there are all sorts of matches from 1985-86 out there, but it's generally a series and you're trying not to be duplicative. You'd likely get matches 20+ years aprart: Backlund-Hogan in 1980 and Hogan-Rock in 2002. That's... kind of impressive on a certain level. Cena is one of those guys who is polarizing. I don't mind him, but he's even polarizing to me. I was bored shitless when we watched the MitB match... probably the only times in it when I wasn't bored shitless was when it raised to the level of annoying me. On the other hand, I enjoyed the shit out of the Rock-Cena match. Cena's generally been like that for me from the start: stuff that works for me, and stuff that's much more along the lines of a WWE-style self concious epic (or whatever the phrase Jerome came up with). I probably liked some of those *** Raw matches more than the ****+ epics that had people jizzing over themselves. All that said, Cena has probably been the better worker. Hogan was (to run the cliche into the ground) a very effective worker. It would be a reach to say that Cena hasn't been as well, and at his best something beyond that. John

So much for the myth that Brock spiked UFC buyrates because he was drawing pro wrestling fans over to UFC. If it were true, that pro wrestling fans sure as hell didn't want to see him in, er, Pro Wrestling. John

Probably could be compiled from here: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/results.htm John

I think that's the story: that he reinjured it. John

In the middle of the 90s, we called the WON fans/readers who had their fandom climax in 1989 and then drift away after that "Class of 89ers". It wasn't really a compliment, since we thought that there was tons of great/good/interesting stuff in 1993-95. I've jokingly referred to myself as a Class of 94er, pretty much as payback at myself for what I thought of the 89ers. That said... I did stick around a bit longer than they did before slowly tossing in the towel on promotion after promotion. 1994 was quite good. Felt lucky at the time to be a fan with so much intesting stuff going on. John

Yeah. Remember that the TV version of this was about 22 minutes long, starting sometime after the 18 minute mark (the very last part of Kobashi In Peril before the hot tag to Misawa leading to the Elbow Suicida on Taue and Kobashi's payback spot of putting Kawada's knee through the table... what a fucking GREAT! moment to JIP a match). If you by luck got this before the WON hit your mailbox (which I did), and watched it before knowing how long it was (Hoback and I did on a day before going down to Tijuana for AAA), and didn't know who won and lost, and didn't initially pick up on the time counts... at a certain point you're thinking "Holy fucking shit!!!" once you pick up on the time counts and they were more than 10 minutes into the work to the finish... then 15 minutes... yow! I'm thinking there probably weren't more than a handful of gaijin in this country lucky enough to see the match without knowing the result and time. They basically had their 6/93 match (though this was even better for those 29 minutes) then tagged on an extra 11 minutes of *additional* work to the finish: 29:12 - 06/01/93 40:25 - 05/21/94 As far as going though a wall in World Tag Title matches, these were the only ones that had gone 30: 31:57 - 07/19/90 Gordy & Williams vs Tsuruta & Kabuki 31:18 - 03/04/92 Gordy & Williams vs Tsuruta & Taue 31:04 - 07/26/93 Kawada & Taue vs Gordy & Williams This one went 25% longer, but didn't take that 25% and put it into the body of the match (i.e. killing time) but instead stuck it on the end with Really Great Shit. The 30-40+ Epic AJPW Tag Matches eventually got over done, overworked and to me annoying. The two that really worked the best were 5/94 (the first) and 6/95 (a climax). In a sense, 12/96 was a *shortened* version of those two matches: they worked a simlar first 15-20 to those two matches, but knocked 10 minutes off the backend. One of the reasons it really worked in 12/96 even with losing that 10 minutes because it was Misawa going 1-on-2, so you it didn't need the time for Kobashi (or Akiyama in the case of 12/96) to get his Cool Shit in as well. The work to the finish was focused on Misawa, but had all the time it needed to breath in those 10 fewer minutes without overstaying its welcome. Anyway... I've always loved this match. A really brutal period in my life (my brother had just passed the month before), but guys like Hoback helped me keep my shit together... and things like being able to watch this with him with us losing our minds were really helpful. Have a real soft spot in my heart for this match. John

Some of that may come from how one watches them, and probably what the hooks are. If you were watching them in order at the time (or can now and put yourself in that mindset), 6/95 is a climax in a major chase: Can Kawada pin Misawa? 10/92? No, Misawa pins him. 4/93? No, Misawa pins him. 6/93? No, Kobashi eats that one. 7/93? No, Misawa pins him. 12/93? For fucks sake, Kobashi pinned Kawada?!?!? 4/94? Even with a "injured" neck, Kawada can't pin him. 5/94? Kobashi gets tossed another, all be it lesser, bone and gets to pin Taue. 6/94? Kawada pushes Misawa to the brink, but it's explicitly clear that it's Misawa who sucks it up and pins Kawada yet again. 1994 Tag League? Draw. 1/95? 60:00 tag draw. 4/95? Kawada breaks Misawa's face... *literally*... and still can't pin him. 11 major singles and tag matches. 0 Kawada pins on Misawa, 4 pins by Misawa on Kawada in singles matches, even Kobashi got to pin Kawada. A lesser chase: Kawada & Taue started as the "top" tag team in the rivalry. They won the tag titles in the first series that they started teaming in, from the top gaijin team of the decade. They then beat Misawa & Kobashi in the first meeting of the teams in 6/93. They retained the titles against Gordy & Doc in 7/93... then? 09/93: lost the titles to Hansen & DiBiase 10/93: failed to regain title from Hansen & DiBiase 12/93: Kawada jobs to Kobashi as Misawa & Kobashi win the Tag League and Tag Titles 05/94: Taue jobs to Kobashi as Misawa & Kobashi retain 11/94: draw with Misawa & Kobashi in the Tag League 12/94: Kawada & Taue need to beat Baba & Hansen in the Last Match of the Year to win the Tag League & Tag Titles... and fail 01/95: 60:00 draw with Misawa & Kobashi to fail to regain the tag titles 4 straight failures against Misawa & Kobashi (0-2-2), two straight failings in the Tag League, six straight failing when the Tag Titles were there for the taking. Kawada's chase of Misawa had been going on since 10/92, Kawada & Taue's string of tag team shortcomings started in 9/93. That's massive emotional hook. I'd be surprised if there are even five other AJPW matches in the 90s that have that level of emotional hook to them. The only one that clearly does is Misawa-Jumbo, and that one doesn't have hooks that have been paid for over two years prior to it. I love the storyline of 12/96, and probably was the first person who rated it higher than 6/95, but it never hit me as having better emotional hooks... just that it nailed everything just about perfectly inside the context of a great, great, great storyline. Kawada-Misawa at the Dome tried to have the hook, but to me it had been tarnished by the handling of Kawada-Misawa *after* 6/95 and 12/96. 5/92 has a certain emotional joy because of the crowd going bonkers for Kikuchi... but is it really an emotional hook from start to finish, or just a real blast of a match with a hooky finish? There are matches I probably also enjoy popping in more, such as 11/30/93, just because they make me smile or just feel good watching them. But from an emotional hook, I don't think anything is up there with 6/95 other than 6/90... and that was something that was built up in a *month*... not two and a half years. :/ Not to take anything away from 5/94. I've pimped it for ages, and as a match that was rated ***** from the day it washed up on US shores, it's not even a lesser match. Maybe it's just a match that people don't talk as much about... but don't look at me since I've always talked about it and tried to put it into its special context. John

Probably not. Or at least until you hit a spot where AJPW of the era works for you. I hated 80s WWF for a long while. There might have been a match here and there that I thought was alright at the time, but it still was 80s WWF and I didn't care for it and there would eventually be something in the match that reminded me that I was watching 80s WWF that I hated. There's no way in the 80s or 90s that I could ever have watch the Hogan-Orndorff at the Big Event and enjoyed it. Just a guy I hated in Hogan and it wouldn't have worked for me. After the DVDVR set and watching other WWF... I've come to enjoy a lot of WWF stuff. Not in the sense of thinking that it's GREAT~!, but in enjoying it... finding it was perfectly entertaining. Hogan-Orndorff isn't GREAT~! unless you're a massive fan of 80s WWF and it really rocks your world. I'm not, and it doesn't for me. But... I was entertained, found it well worked for the two, damn did it have a big match feel, and even the screwy finish worked for me. Plus I'd watched a lot of the Hogan-Orndorff stuff to refresh myself of the feud. It wasn't just a match that laid there and I forced myself to get through it because it was important: I enjoyed the shit. Will 90s AJPW ever get even to that level for you? Maybe, maybe not. It's really nothing to worry about. There's plenty of other wrestling that you enjoy. If in a decade or two you're going through your stuff and find yourself enjoying it, cool. If not... not worth given much thought to. John

I'm not buying that his low test isn't due to massive juice use for years. Also disagree with Keith on lateness to juicing. Mark McGwire did juice before getting insanely thick in 1995. He almost certainly increased his levels of use over the years: * possible some minor useage at USC * almost certainly some increased use early in the Bash Brothers era * increased use again after the 1991 horrible off season followed by rapid improvement in 1992 * massive increases after the 1993-94 injury season He just took it to an insane level in 1995-98, but it doesn't mean he wasn't using before... for probably close to a decade. In turn, it's a work that Barry Bonds suddenly started juicing in the year he set the dinger record. He almost certainly was using earlier in the 90s. He just cranked it up to insane levels after the injury season, then went higher and higher. Chael? College wrestling All American at Oregon in 1998. College athletes at a major university.... juice? I actually wouldn't be surprised if he was juicing in high school. I went to high school with kids who juiced, and that was 1984... and guys who juiced just to make the team, not even to get a scholorship. John

Well, at least according to the NSAC. The rest of us can believe that Chael has low testosterone due to years of juicing. This does really open it up for juicers to study how to get a "conditional therapeutic use exemption" and how to properly cycle so they're down below the 6:1 come the final clearance test. John

I'm trying to remember the details on that one. Was it in the Grantland piece? Or later? I thought the recent slammer possibility was due to the Highspots lawsuit. Lordy... with Ric, I can't keep track of all the messes. John

I think 1994 was better in terms of depth, while 1995 was better in terms of high end. There's some 1995 stuff on the cutting room floor that would add to its depth, such as the 60:00 six man and the Finals Night six man. Also Akiyama ended up mostly on the floor in both years, with just one match of his in each. In turn, 1994 also has a fair amount on the floor. Doc-Jun and Kawada-Jun would have been on the 1991 set if they were say Arn-Dustin World Wide or WCWSN matches with Jun being the Dustin comp. Short matches going a little past 10 minutes with the young guy looking good against the vets. It's probably a wash on the Jun matches on the floor: 1995 had stuff like Jun working with Misawa two nights after the eye injury, and are interesting in that perspective. The 1994 matches with Doc and Kawada... they really reflect well on the three workers without being the spot show that Jun-Kenta was. In terms of ratings, I'd have them above Kenta-Jun comfotably, so that's ***1/2 on the Loss scale. The Hansen-Kawada is also a good match, though without the killer end run their classics against each other have. I'd have to think a bit about 1995 to figure out the equiv that got left off... don't think there is one. In terms of six-mans, if the 60:00 draw in 1995 is the equiv of the 1994 Finals Night six-man, there probably is 1994 six man that's the close equiv of the 1995 Finals Night match. 1995 was almost entirely Four Corners Centric, while 1994 has Doc at his very peak and Hansen still able to go. Depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for a series with a lot of good matches, some of them great, along with variety of matches, I think I'd go with 1994. If you're looking for just high end matches, 1995 would be it. For myself... I'd pick 1994 this year. 1995 is pretty much what the rest of the decade would become: Four Corners Big Match-O-Rama, with Jun breaking into the mix. 1994 stands astride the earlier era, with the gajin still not just important but also good. The variety is interesting, and there's some joy in being able to watch a match that Loss gives *** (Hansen-Taue) and be awed by the performance of one of the workers (Hansen) to the point that even at *** it's a really compelling viewing experiance. I'm not sure if there are a lot of AJPW matches form 1995 that are *** and that interesting / compelling. They tend to be disappointing after that, such as the Kawada-Taue TC match. Perhaps that's me. The 1994 Carny reminds me of the AJPW that I grew into watching: 1989-92 weekly TV where you get some good, some intesting, some throwaway, some great, some that really wow you. 1995 feels like the AJPW that I eventually got tired of as the promotion became Best Of, big matches between the top guys, and just not a lot of other stuff that was terribly interesting. 1994 Carny feels a bit like you might turn the corner and stumble upon the 2/92 Can-Ams vs Kawada & Kikuchi and think, "Damn... this isn't even a bit match but it's a lot of fun!" In five years it may be that I'll tire of the "good" and want to zero in on stuff like Kawada-Taue 1995 where they're just flat out great. What I like and/or focus on changes from year to year. John

From Grantland: Pro Wrestling for Auteurs: How documentary films explain WWE's Reality Era, and a preview of this weekend's Over the Limit pay-per-view