jdw

I'd have to go back and watch everything from 12/03/93 through 06/03/94 to see if Misawa *never* worked over the knee. I'm sure Kobashi went after it and after a tag Misawa worked it over as well. Misawa also may have worked over it on occasion after Kawada "damaged" it himself. I don't think there was ever an intentional point of Misawa not going after it. Instead, it's more likely an element of Misawa: he wasn't a "work the body" guy unless his opponent forced him into it. Stan: "Look... I'm going to post my Lariat Arm and you're going to work it over like crazy. Got it?" Misawa: "Okay." It's along the lines of my comment in the Misawa-Kawada: they don't have a huge desire to work over Misawa's recent Bad Neck/Back. There's some of it, but they don't run with it a lot. I tend to think that's the call of *Misawa*, not Kawada. Let's just go out and do a lot of our good spots and stuff and entertain the fans. That's pretty common to what we see from Misawa and Kobashi as the decade goes on, and there are times where you get the sense Kawada bends and goes along with it. In turn, in El Classico it does seem like there clearly are things *Kawada* wants to do. Fuck it, he's going to work Misawa's neck/back because we're going 35 and everyone knows that it's screwed up. And look at that ear juicing, I'm going to go after that damn ear! And now it's my time to sell to fill the body of the match... you ARE going to go after my Bad Knee and I'm going to sell it like only I can. John

Here's the section from a longer piece of Bruce's called "Adult Contemporary", published January 10, 1998 in Torch #474. * * * * * * * * * And then there's wrestling's answer to the class showoff, Dustin Runnels. It would be easier for the audience to buy Goldust-Sex Pervert if the gimmick hadn't been watered down by Dustin going from Gay to Pretend-Gay to Family Man to Cuckold to Pervert so quickly. Runnels's "I'll do anything" attitude is emblematic of the lack of discipline in the WWF's approach. The WWF has to know what is pushing the envelope and what is offensive and unimaginative. Marc Mero punching Sable in the face would get a reaction. So did Goldust in black face. Both are bad ideas, and it takes discipline to know why. Actually, Goldust's attention-seeking gimmicks seem more like a guy who based his act on a couple of porno mags he bought on his one visit to the adult book store than a real life pervert, and the audience seems to sense it. Interestingly, the most perverse, unsettling, subversive gimmick in the sport isn't in the WWF or even ECW. It's in WCW, the same promotion that Eric Bischoff claims is toning down on-camera misbehavior. Raven's Nest, to put it bluntly, ought to be renamed Raven's Rough Trade. The clues aren't subtle. This All-Male-Revue features Raven, who had the classic butch/fem abusive relationship with Stevie Richards, so much that the Richards character went back to submissively serving Raven after declaring his supposed independence. Raven constantly talks of his alienation and rejection from his parents, without being specific as to the reason. Everyone in the Nest vies for Raven's love. Saturn didn't steal his look from Taz, he took it from Biker Boys magazine. Lodi's look is straight out of every college gay bar in America. Hammer, whose name fits this concept perfectly, comes right from the peep shows. Nice fishnet, too. Billy Kidman has got the Bus Station Runaway look down cold. Why do you think Raven wanted to "recruit" Scotty Riggs, whose only distinguishing characteristic is he looks like an (American) male model (and Eric Bischoff)? Tellingly, the climactic moment in Raven's courtship came when Raven DDT'd Riggs unconscious, then lamented damaging his face and claimed to feel his "pain." Hammer then carried Riggs out lovingly over his shoulder. What did Raven and his boys do to Riggs, exactly, to get him to embrace his true nature? And the Nest doesn't like Chris Benoit because he's simply too straight. Compared to that, Goldust and Luna are just wanna-bes. If the WWF wants to succeed in the alternative "contemporary" world, they'll have to sweat the details as carefully as Raven did. The WWF can take heart. Every revolution in pop culture first comes with howls from those who don't know they've been passed by. With their new direction, the WWF has offended the right people. * * * * * * * * * Looks like Google Groups still has the RSPW threads: The Torch and Bruce Mitchell (Thread #1) The Torch and Bruce Mitchell (Thread #2) Hayabu2354 is of course one of Scherer's various AOL Sockos. I'd forgotten that "Busa" was a running joke of ours for a couple of years, up there with my favorite Pauley73 who I need to eternally thank Scherer for helping me become friends with Cheetah. You'll need to hit "expand quoted text" to see what's being responded to. It is rather long. And if you think I've ever been an asshole on these boards, I was a much bigger asshole back in my early 30s... but at least in this one it was aimed at a jerkoff. John

I'm blanking on a few details but wasn't Dreamer/Raven built around them being child hood friends who ended up hating each other over Beulah Raven was unhappy that his "close childhood friend" grew up and got some pussy rather than stay with Raven. Riggs was a pretty boy that Raven wanted to join his "flock" of low life street hustler types. Riggs put off Raven's advances, and had to pay for it. That was the funny thing about Scherer going batshit over Bruce pointing out Raven was telling storylines with underlying homoerotic themes: after Bruce wrote it, Scotty told Wade the equiv of "Someone actually gets it." Granted, the Bingo Hall Circle Jerk wouldn't get it, and Scherer as the King of the Bingo Hall Circle Jerk *really* didn't want to get it. And Scotty might not now even want to cop to it. But at the time, he did and it was pretty funny. Nope. John

Thoughts from the 94 Carny recommendation posts: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Here were my comments in the 1995 Carny Pimping Post: * * * * * The six-man is a pretty good match. Strange to re-read Dave's comment that they worked over Omori for the first 10 minutes since that isn't really the case. Hansen's all fired especially at Kobashi. There are a few times in here where Omori is sloppy, and he doesn't really work as well with Misawa or Kobashi as he does with Jun in this one. Misawa's level of interest is extremely low relative to the others. That looks to change when Omori nails a really good looking backdrop on him, and you think we're going to get some Misawa In Peril. That... doesn't last long. I love Misawa, but he's just not feeling it in this series. [] The finish is one of those Great-Bad things. Kobashi hits a Super Cool New Dangerous Move: the Organge Bomb. It's awesome... it's cool... it looks like he damn near kills Omori with it. But... rewind five minutes. Listen to the heat when Kobashi and Hansen are going at it, and it looks like Hansen might get his payback win for the two jobs. It's quite loud, and there seem to be a fair number of fans wanting Stan to win (along with the large number of fans pulling for Kenta). Then Omori tags in... and heat gets sucked out of the building because fans know he's not going to stay on top, and we're going to have The Expected Finish. Sure enough, someone pins Omori. It's not like Kenta needs this win, despite losing to Doc the night before. This really was a time where they could have crossed things up on the Big Card and had Stan chop his head off. Hell, at the last Budokan: Misawa & Kobashi over Baba & Hansen when Misawa pinned Baba If *Baba* can clean job to Misawa, then Kobashi could sure as hell clean job to Hansen a few days after Stan gave Kenta the biggest singles win of his career. And I think the fans would have rocked for it, since they really were on edge when it looked like it was going to happen. Anyway, it's a keeper. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Newer comments: I like the match, and it had a lot of Cool Stuff in it. But I'm not close to as high on it as Loss, and would rate it behind quite a bit of the Carny stuff... including stuff left off like Kawada-Jun and Doc-Jun. Those may be lesser matches in Cool Stuff, but had tighter storylines in showing Jun's growth. This... it's a pretty standard six-man tag, just dropped in a big setting of Budokan. Looking at the individuals: While Hansen and Kenta are fired up, you usually get at least two guys in a standard six-man who are working fired up (and in the better ones *most* of the six are working that way). I wouldn't say this is either Stan or Kenta at their best In This Series. Stan was better in the singles against Kenta and Taue, and frankly better in the six mans that were (deservedly) left on the cutting room floor where he was really carry a massive amount of the load for his teams in making them watchable. Kenta... he was better in the match against Stan, and probably against Doc and Taue (including the one properly left off). I don't think he worked well with Omori in it, which is on Omori to a degree... but they worked well enough in the six-man earlier in the year. Here... it seemed that Kenta was intent on putting on the Kenta Show, more so that he had been at any point this year so far. Which Misawa was fine with (more below), and Jun *never* in the decade tried to outshine Kenta when partnering with him. A great "Hey! Cool Shit!" performance out of Kenta, but compared to some of the more substantial stuff we saw out of AJPW in the Carny, not really a great all around performance. Misawa... phoned it in. A perfect capper to a Carny series where he just wasn't there, whether it was due to legit injuries (which caused them to work the injury angle) or mental strain or both. Perhaps that another thing to add to the Kawada-Misawa match in the series: they were able to work a Really Good Flair Match in a series where Misawa looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but in the ring. Whether that's a sign of just how good Misawa-Kawada worked together in this first year plus of their rivalry (yes) or just how great Kawada was at this period of his very peak (yes!) or a combo of both (that one), it's a really stunning contrast to what anyone else got out of Misawa in this series. In this match... just not too interesting. On Baba, I liked him here, but as one of the bigger supporters of Good Baba in this period, it's kind of odd looking at those comments above and seeing nothing aimed at the quality of Baba's performance. I spent more time on earlier six-mans that I didn't pimp for inclusion than this. I just don't think his performance in this match has ever struck me as being at the level of his one on 11/30/93 opposite Misawa & Kobashi when he was really, really, really Good Baba. On Jun, he wasn't as good in this as he was against Doc and Kawada in the two matches mentioned. While he worked fine with Omori, there are a number of matches on the cutting room floor where he worked better, not just the six-man that was pimped, but also the young guns tourney final which was really pretty entertaining and solid. Not sure I'd say it was a Jun carry job, but he probably was the senior guy leading things, Jun looked very good, and actually looked really good in making Omori look good. Omori... this wasn't one of his better performances. Just didn't click as well with Misawa and Kobashi as he had in the earlier six-man. At times didn't click well with Stan and Baba as partners, despite working with them the entire series. Then got sucked into the finish run, which the crowd just knew what was going to happen and checked themselves down. Then there was the finish run as talked about above. If this was going to be the Kobashi Show, it really needed him to have his head chopped off by Stan rather than the expected finish. The only thing that really saved the finish was the Cool Move, and I'm a little nonplussed on that one. I like the match. But toss it in Korakuen Hall and comp it to the 01/20/94 Misawa & Kobashi & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue & Omori (which isn't even a GREAT~! AJPW Six-Man) and I think it ends up being just another good AJPW six-man rather than a really good one. John

Lodi was entertaining. I thought most of the rest of the Flock was a deep inside joke by Scotty that wasn't terribly funny. The Riggs storyline was a weaker, more openly homoerotic rehash of the Raven-Dreamer feud. The "edgy" just came across as watered down, weak WCW stuff. The feuds with Benoit and Page... eh. The break up of the Flock was obvious stuff seen a mile away, and Saturn turning on him was much more interesting when it was Rick Steiner turning on Kevin Sullivan. I don't mind mediocre mid card groups. They help fill space. Just thought the Flock was weak and uninteresting at the time. Scotty was trying to hard. John

They has a start: Hansen is fucking PISSED OFF after losing to Kobashi and Taue. His fire, and Doc trying to respond to it, is pretty hot as you say. They have a good home stretch: throw the bombs that they can do with each other (their relative size limits them against each other in ways that they aren't against the smaller natives), and actually have a clean finish. They... didn't really have a middle. It wasn't all that long at 16:35, but really was one of those times when AJPW needed to develop the concept of "Short Wars": the guys come out throwing bombs and killing each other, get a sense they're not going long but at a certain point anything might end this because they've killed each other. Edit this down to 12:30 and it would have been a much better match. Still, it's the best match between the two. They had some doggy matches before this as they never really fit together very well in singles matches. It actually a sign of how well Doc had gotten, and how good Stan still was, that they had a match at this level. The announcers on the 1994 Carny Tape didn't really sound like a pro. It seemed to have been done in the studio after the cards rather than live. One really wishes that they simply had no announcer. John

What I wrote in the Carny '94 recommendations posts: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This is prety much their Ric Flair match. Like a long Ric match, there's plenty of stuff where "they're just filling time" in between picking it up for something cool. There's a bit of storyline where Kawada goes after the recent injury (a/k/a The Bad Neck/Back). Like Ric's opponents selling the leg, they don't have a huge desire to run hard with that one. Instead, they generally go with the Flairish "We Have Stuff To Do" and run through a ton of their spots and moves and usual stuff that we've seen them do in singles, tags and six-mans since May 1993. It's Misawa-Kawada, so they have a lot of that stuff and when "on" it's a well oiled machine. In the end, it's not a satisfying finish: the crowd just saw a big "first" right before this, and there was a big one the night before... and if Kawada was going to get his first, the injury was a perfect excuse to have you thinking you'd see it. Like a Flair match you don't really get the finish you want, and instead you need to come back for the next one. Looking at this on two levels: For a Flair-style match, it's really good. Pull it out of the context of wanting/expecting a rich, deep AJPW storyline where 90% of everything you want from a match is delivered. Instead put it in the context of wanting an entertaining match where two guys go at it hard, do a ton of shit, execute it very well, give you drama down the stretch where you're not sure who is going to win (again: this is set up for you to REALLY think Kawada can take it). In that context, it's pretty much a helluva Flair-stye match, without the Horsemen running in or the ref-bump or the dusty finish or some other silly DQ. Times up, and these guys are going to need more than 30 to settle it. On the other hand, if you watch this and then watch 06/03/94 not long after (i.e. a Yearbook setting), or have 06/03/94 etched strongly in your mind from over watching and/or over writing/talking about it, then it crashes in on you: They worked a really good Flair-style match that within the context of their feud/rivalry is (and still will be after watching it on the Yearbook) pretty much an after throught. Then they went out and worked their classic where literally everything came together, and it's light years beyond the Carny match. That doesn't make El Classico "the best of all-time" by default. It's more in the sense that the 4/11 Misawa vs Kawada is something that would be a great match if Flair had it against Steamboat in 1989 or there was a Shawn vs Bret in 1994 at that level or Steamboat-Savage had it in MSG prior to WM-3. With Misawa-Kawada the expectations are higher... it's pretty insane how high they've set them that you watch this and think, "Yeah... there's a lot of good stuff here, but they've got more in the tank."

Hoback was getting me one as a birthday present. Can't remember which one it was... possibly 1992, though I don't recall. John

The only good thing about the Flock was Bruce Mitchell's comments about it which freaked out Dave Scherer so much that either he (or one of his sock puppets) had a hilarious thread about it on rsp-w. John

Other than Trip saying he's a fan of 80s NWA, what's the evidence that Trip has built up his own storylines over the past decade (which he has always had creative control over) in an 80s NWA Fashion? I'm guessing corpse-banging was a homage to Flair, Garvin and Precious? John

I love the cease & desist spot. John

Did we lose Loss? This looks like his last entry. John

I thought you knew better than to read the comments section. There are a rare places on the net where the comments sections are worthwhile, and those usually have a short shelf life before increased attention can doom them. John

Trip is a guy whose entire career has been in the "entertainment" era. He isn't a mark for 80s stuff as much as he's a mark for what's got him over through the years. John

Todd: http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-sto...-by-todd-martin Okay... I enjoy the Al Davis riff as much as the next guy, but I'd like to see him specifically include Steph and Trip in that "at the top" comment. John

Interesting reading. I suspect that the "cuts too close" comment is probably close to the mark on part of what set Dana off. Fuel hasn't been a great fit since 37M homes is still just 37M homes, and Fox isn't having great luck getting it into more. On the other hand, Fox does look like it will be doing a real "anchor" sports network coming up, similar to NBC and CBS to challenge ESPN. Fox is better positioned than both of them since they have content: BIG 12: Second-tier rights: $1.17 billion, FOX, 13 years through 2024-25 PAC 12: First- and second-tier rights: $3 billion, ESPN/FOX, 12 years through 2023-24 And of course they had the UFC. NBC has hockey, which is a ratings sink hole. CBS Sports Channels has... really nothing. That why you'll read some talk of one of those two overpaying for something like the dying Big East package: they need *anything* to fill the schedule. The properties of some value coming up that Fox, CBS and NBC (along with Time Warner and ESPN) will be fighting for: NBA: after 2015-16 season Big 10: First-tier rights after 2016 football season MLB: after the 2013 season There are other ones out there, such as ND football... but I suspect the next TV deal and realignment will force them to join either the Big 10 or ACC at that point. UFC is a "valuable" property to Fox because it fills up so much time relatively cheaply. $90M for an insane amount of hours of programing. Hockey is $200M a year to NBC, and how much content? I don't know if I would go doom & gloom on UFC given what changes are likely coming to Fox and how the UFC will be a pretty significant part of it until Fox gets so much content that UFC gets squeezed. Still, given all the content that ESPN has, it remains pretty amazing how far down the list of properties before you find squeezing going on. If Fox has ambitions with it's Sports Networks, both regional and national, UFC will keep getting rolled out. John

Have no idea. Don't recall if the WON had anything on it. Backlund had been working with Bat-Bat the prior year and earlier in that same series/tour, including with Ikeda. Don't know if he worked with them ever again. He did have a history of doing odd finishes. He had that extremely short finish with Takada on an early UWFi card. John

Yeah, that one. There was also the famous Torch interview when they were both in ECW and right before Konnan went to WCW where Carlos talking about how Rey was a good kid who loved his weed. John

Well, Brock was going to work a limited schedule, right? Not be on every PPV? So they needed an explanation to get him off tv. So him "quitting" and Paul being his mouth piece while he's off tv makes sense. Right??? "Dave... if it works, it's my idea. If it doesn't, it was that asshole Kevin Dunn who made Vince do it."

Wait... in 1999 Crash Holly was a bigger star than Goldberg... at ANY point in that year? John

Wait... what happened on Raw to make the finish suck? John

Like I said: "There would have to be a decent amount of shit on his side for her to crack the prenup." Woods had a decent amount of shit on his side that let Mrs. Woods crack the prenup... or at least convince Tiger to pay her more than the prenup (though still well south of Half). Cena having an affair will get Mrs. Cena north of the prenup, won't get her Half, and won't really be a big lasting issue as far as press. As far as her hiring Linda's lawyer, Linda didn't have a prenup as far as I recall. And the divorce didn't have any lasting impact on Hulk's public persona. He doing national ads. If he was Cena's age, he'd be the anchor of the WWE because he'd be the best draw in the world. The divorce, along with the injury his idiot son caused, have had the more lasing impact: on his finances. Rock's divorce didn't have any impact because the two did it peacefully. They split as friends, and she's managing one of his businesses now. The steriods would be tricky element, to the point that you'd think Cena would have paid her off in an agreed upon divorce rather than petitioning for it and it appearing to not be entirely peaceful (given Linda's attorney). The other tricky element would be if he abused her... but there would likely be a trail there such as police incidents *before* they got to divorce... or her petitioning after he didn't buy her off enough. Not saying that she might not toss it at him, but by petitioning you'd get the sense that he isn't worried about it. Same goes for juice. John

Won't have any impact. They got married in 2009. They got divorced in less than 3 years. No kids. It's not a big deal. There's a prenup, which is rather smart of Cena. Cena is all the one petitioning for the divorce, so it seems *unlikely* (though not impossible) that him playing the field is the cause of the divorce. There would have to be a decent amount of shit on his side for her to crack the prenup. One would think that if there were, she would be the petitioner, not him. Though it's possible that he's protecting himself by filing first before she starts tossing bombs... but that would be a little less common. We'll see in here response if there's any dirt that would reach the level of being an issue for the WWE. 95% likelihood that this will be nothing more than a blip. John

They are at least two matches in NJ that are out there: NJ Classics: 10/02/75 NA Tag Titles: Inoki & Sakaguchi vs. Jerry Brown & Buddy Roberts 1: Sakaguchi (17:31 pin) Roberts 2: Roberts (13:56 pin) Sakaguchi 3: Inoki (4:18 pin) Brown Inoki 50th Anniversay DVD: 08/01/76 Inoki & Sakaguchi vs. Jerry Brown & Buddy Roberts The date on that strikes me as wrong: they didn't face each other on that date. I suspect it's this: Taped 08/01/75 at the Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles 1. North American Tag Title: Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi nc Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown (13:09, 13:12) I don't know if Dan got that Inoki 50 set given the insane price and the generally thought that most of the stuff was duplicative. It's probably worthwhile to keep *both* the IWE and the 10/02/75 NJPW match. It's a good comp. Kusatsu was pretty much the tag "anchor" in IWE from 1970-78, not unlike Sak was in NJPW. They're paired with the two aces of the promotions, and against what was generally thought of as one of the best US tag teams of the 70s. It's not like they both need to be great~! matches: they're of great historical value to see how the Blondes could go. Probably not a lot of matches out there with them. John

That seems to be the answer, except... "Whatever I write won't do it justice. It's far and away the best match of the year, and is possibly the best match of all time." -Feb 16 2011, 08:50 PM on the 96 Tag League Final "And there it is, the best match of all time from where I sit." -Loss, Sep 2 2011, 12:06 PM on Dream Rush So he did like Dream Rush more when he watched it after the 96 RWTL Final. But he also mentioned that at the end of the process he'd go back to rewatch the top of the top to figure out where they fit for him. John