jdw

If there was only space for 01/20/94 and another match (given 01/20/94 was 26+ minutes of match time that aired), then probably the other six-man because Dave had it at 5*. The 1/7 match is nice and cool, but Fuchi is in the six-man later in the month... and folks are going to get a TON of Fuchi in the 1990 & 1991 Yearbooks. Still, this just means there some good stuff in the Bonus set. John

I'm not sure if folks could have been any clearer: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...12685&st=68 You followed up on me & Childs pointing to it, and I was even more explicit. Don't know what more we could have done. As far as dropping stuff, the one that could have been dropped is the WAR tag the following night. That's pretty much a like-for-like: NJPW vs WAR, neither is a MOTYC, one is in the end pretty much a throw away (both your comments and Childs get that across), while the other is the main event of the biggest show in the world in 1994 and Tenryu's climax of his feud with NJPW. There are times when even a ** or *1/2 match deserves to be on the sets. The Sting-Hogan from Starcade 1997 MUST be on that one: it's the climax of the NWO vs WCW feud, and Sting's long storyline. Set aside that it got screwed seven ways to Sunday early in the next year. In 1997... it's pretty much everything WCW built towards. I know a lot of people think it's a crappy match, and I'm one of the few who were morbidly entertained by it. From a historical standpoint, it's the highpoint of the entire history of WCW. It has to be on. Tenryu-Inoki is one of those. In the long term, we're covered because it will be a match on Will's Tenryu set along with some other NJPW vs WAR matches that didn't make the Yearbooks. Short term... maybe it's worthwhile to toss out late in the thread a question along the lines: "We only have space for one of these two: 1/4 Tenryu-Inoki or 1/5 NJPW-WAR Tag. Is one of these more of a must than the other?" And that puts it on our heads to jump in with one last chance to say something. John

01/20/94 Misawa & Kobashi & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue & Omori (01/30/94 TV) That really needed to be on the set. More so than one or two of these: 01/07/94 Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Fuchi 01/29/94 Misawa & Kobashi & Baba vs Kawada & Taue & Fuchi 02/19/94 Misawa & Akiyama vs Williams & Eagle 02/19/94 Kobashi & Asako vs Kawada & Omori In the long run, none of those four really matter. The 1/20 six-man remains the only example of what Omori could have looked like in that setting. John

It was a Fan Appreciation Card with reduced ticket prices. The intent wasn't to run a Budokan with a blowout card, or even one of their normal major arena cards. It's pretty similar to the pedestrian cards both NJPW and AJPW rolled out for Fan Appreciation cards. The exception was... they gave the fans a pretty special main event. So that major it worthy of running at Budokan rather than at the typical Korakuen Hall. John

I think what Ditch is getting at is that Tenry "beat everyone". He traded wins with Choshu and Fujinami because they're his peers, and he did it in the order it needed to be done: * Choshu put him over first to get across this wasn't going to be a Squash WAR feud * Tenryu put over Fujinami first because 1. Fujinami needed the win to squeeze two matches out of it 2. set up the rematch on a major *WAR* card I've never been entirely sure why they didn't do Mutoh-Tenryu at the time. It doesn't really lessen the feud at all, and does highlight that the focus among the younger wrestlers is on Hash. As far as the IWGP, my recollection was that Hash said he would vacate the title if he lost to Tenryu. John

It's worth watching the whole thing. A little surprised it was edited, since it was Tenryu's "Big One" in the NJPW-WAR feud, with Hash's win ending the feud the next month. John

I hope Dave was telling those kids how there is not great business in being an Agent of MMA fighters since Dana doesn't pay the fighters what they're worth. John

We need to make sure to get the two 1995 matches onto the Bonus Set since they close the loop on the series. John

About as many as Benoit based off Dynamite Kid. Only difference: Kawada was much more Tenryu's direct pupil as a Revolution member, while Benoit just happened to idolize Kid. John

We saw one around this time at the Sports Arena in LA. We always thought it was a really good match. They may have pulled out more stops at Mania, but the house show series appears to have been pretty damn good. John

The pin over Kawada made it. There were others: he beat Jun again on Fan Appreciation Night in September, and Omori the week before in another Fan Appreciation card in a Kobashi & Akiyama vs Kawada & Omori match. I don't recall if one of those is out there on commercial tape... think the match with Jun is. Nothing unexpected in those wins, though. In the annual 4 vs 4 survival tag match, he got the final pin... over Taue. One might technically be able to consider that the "10th" Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue match, which would make the series 4-3-3 overall for Misawa & Kobashi... and give Kobashi pins over both Kawada and Taue that year in "Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue" tag, while eating the pin from Taue in the June Budokan match. I don't recall if that's out on commercial... I'm still filling in my commercial collection from that period. There are others out there like that. Beat Doc in the 1996 Carny. Single camera clips of it appeared on AJPW 30. Crowd went nuts. Kind of dumb booking if the Babas at the time were considering the Misawa --> Taue --> Kobashi run since it wastes what could have been a good Kobashi vs Doc title defense. AJPW booking was hardly great shakes, so it's okay to criticize it. On the other hand, they were *at times* good in slowly peeling back the layers. Kobashi's win over Hansen in the 1994 Carny is pretty damn cool because we'd just seen him come so close in 1993. If Baba had thought back in 1991 that Kobashi was super over and "WTF, let's just give the fans what they want and have Kobashi get a singles win over him..." then 1994 wouldn't have been quite so special. It took nothing away from the 7/93 match that Kobashi *hadn't* yet pinned Stan, and frankly added a good deal to it: we were watching to see if Kobashi could do it, or how close he could come. In the end... damn close. Kikuchi was a tiny guy. I'm not sold that AJPW fans wanted to see Kikuchi pinning Jumbo and Taue in those six-mans... so he's not a great comp for Kobashi. On the other hand, did we want to see Kobashi taking several six-man pins on Jumbo in 1991 and 1992 when Kobashi was "hot" and "over"? I didn't. I can see that over in New Japan, and AJW had plenty of times the higher ranked wrestler lost to a person a bit below them in a tag. I kind of liked All Japan as a contrast rather than the same. The 80s saw AJPW and NJPW booked somewhat similar in results and who took pins, often frustrating in the similar non-finish-o-ramas. I liked that there was a very different style of booking pins between Choshu-style (which bled down to Yamada) and Baba-style. There are times where there are things in Choshu booking like Hase getting the "upset" on Hash at the G1. It's cool. Except... if you watched it all... there are a lot of them. Choshu lost three straight matches in the first G1, and he was the biggest star fulltime in the promotion. After a while it's "cool", but they mean... well... at the time our general comment as either: * it's Wrestler A's turn * Wrestler A needed to win for the booking On the first, at times to could predict them. I predicted all the results for the J Crown tourney based on one obvious starting point: it was Dragon's "turn" to win over Liger. They were against each other in the first round. Okay, with that obvious to me, then what else could happen? Which led to the second thing that should have been obvious: Liger wasn't putting over a Wrestler, he was putting over a Title. And the Choshu/Yamada booking flowed easily from there. Baba booking was usually pretty easy to predict, at least until 1996. So when Kobashi pinned Kawada at the end of 1993... it wasn't just "cool", it wasn't just an "upset", it had some pretty good meaning. Of course the company didn't/couldn't come up with a lot of those because there are only so many you can give out. No. In 1993 they knew the rankings were along these lines: Misawa Hansen Kawada Gordy Williams Taue Kobashi Kobashi getting a win over Gordy was a pretty big positive. Maybe... except that he was pushed. Semifinal singles matches against Hansen (July) and Kawada (Oct) at Budokan, which were really his first "big" Budokan singles matches in that slot. Main event tag matches at the Jun and Dec Budokans. First big win over a gaijin at the first Budokan of the year (Feb against Spivey). That's five out of the seven where he was a part of the big storylines at AJPW's "PPV Equiv". At the other two: * April was Carny and that tends to be one-shot: Kawada vs Williams in this case Nothing they could do there, though when you watch the Carny semifinal six-man, Kobashi is a big part of the match. * Sep was Misawa vs Williams Who did Doc go over to get the title shot? Kobashi, dropping him on his head. To a degree, Kobashi was also a storyline for that Budokan. That's... a pretty damn good push for a guy who 7th on the pecking order. It's a better push than Doc, a better one than Gordy (though the OD impacted that), and overall a better push than Taue... even though Taue got a Budokan challenge of Misawa for the TC (going through Kobashi to get it). Kobashi wasn't a "midcarder". Two main events and four semis in the seven Budokan's of the year, with the seventh (i.e. the first of the year) showing he was "growing up" by beating Spivey (the #4 gaijin in the company from 1990-92). Kroffat & Furnas were midcarders. When Jumbo was active, it was this: 1. Jumbo 2. Hansen 3. Misawa 4. Gordy 5. Kawada 6. Williams 7. Spivey / Taue 8. Kobashi When Jumbo went out, there wasn't really a #1 until Misawa beat Hansen in 5/93. Spivey was out as the year went on. Gordy OD. By the end of the 1993 it was: 1. Misawa 2. Hansen 3. Kawada 4. Williams 5. Taue 6. Kobashi Kobashi didn't really "pass" Taue until he won the TC from him in 1996, and the passing wasn't really very clear until 1997. Kobashi wasn't really fighting Kawada for #2 until 1997, perhaps 10/96 at the earliest. Before that he was Misawa's side kick, and you don't fight for being #2 to Misawa by being Misawa's wingman. Kawada probably moved up into a more clear #2 in that 1-6 in 1994 with the Carny and winning the TC from Doc when Doc was getting the significant push. But Hansen did lift the TC from Kawada in 1995, so Baba had his ways of making that a little less explicit. John

I would suspect "Guest Lecturer" rather than "Teacher". John

? Might have been the editing of what made the set. He beat Spivey at the 2/29/92 Budokan, which was his first singles win over a gaijin of note. Pinned Furnas in the Carny, ignoring non-TV stuff like the win over Ace during Carny. Got the pin over Spivey again in the 5/20/93 Misawa & Kobashi vs Hansen & Spivey that was the semi to Kawada & Taue beating Doc & Gordy for the tag titles, essentially putting the natives over the top two gaijin teams of the past 3 years leading into the first Budokan showdown. Got the pin the next night over Gordy in a singles match, his biggest win to date. Essentially it was Natives vs Gaijin on the Sapporo Double Shot that year, and the natives kicked ass: Night 1 Kawada & Taue over Gordy & Williams (win WTT) Misawa & Kobashi over Hansen & Spivey Night 2 Misawa over Hansen (TC) Kawada over Doc Kobashi over Gordy Taue over Spivey With Kobashi getting pins both nights. He pinned Ogawa in the 7/2/93 six man. He pinned Patriot singles match at the 9/3/93 Budokan. He beat Bossman in the 10/13/93 singles match. He got the pin over Ace in the opening night win over Spivey & Ace. Obviously got the pin your referring to in the Last Match of the Year. There may have been more six mans or less tags like the 7/2/93 match that I'm forgetting. It's kind of the thing with six-mans and lesser tags like this: the pins get passed around a fair amount, and when you have something like Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Fuchi, pretty much everyone know who is taking the fall. They weren't even very good about having Kawada take the fall much in a match like this, or Kawada get the "surprise" pin on Kobashi. One of the reasons I mentioned some other six man that had a nice surprise finish... I want to day a pairing that had the four corners along with Akiyama and Omori in it. John

Just curious, but what's a good example of an '80s WWF-style heel in peril tag match? I'm not sure if I've seen one, and I'm a pretty big fan of mid to late 1980s WWF tag teams. Walked through some of them in my WWF thread: 10/03/87 Strike Force vs Islanders (10:47) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9193#9193 08/28/89 Brainbusters vs. Hart Foundation (15:58) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=3258#3258 First 10 minutes are HIP, only 3:30 of FIP before it's time to work towards the finish. 12/28/84 Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch vs Briscos (26:45) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=3222#3222 My times: 00:00 - 10:05 Heels In Peril 10:05 - 12:36 Gerry In Peril 12:36 - 15:45 Dick In Peril 15:45 - 17:39 Adonis In Peril 17:39 - 21:06 Gerry Eating Big Moves 21:06 - 26:45 Faces Trying To Win + Brawl Finish 4/07/86 Dream Team vs British Bulldogs (12:02) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2937#2937 09/18/82 Johnny Rodz & Jose Estrada vs Tony Garea & Steve Travis (14:16, 3:46, 3:11) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9047#9047 That walks through how even prelim WWF tag matches fell to Heel In Peril. I didn't deal with a ton of tag matches in the thread: set them generally aside to watch later. One can find FIP matches, including one of the Dogs vs Harts that had a lot of FIP. It's just that the WWF in the era has an odd amount of Heels getting put into segments that were oddly similar to FIP... except the Heel(s) was (were) the one(s) in peril for abnormally long stretches relative to the length of the matches and the amount of FIP they contained. John

I was born in 1966. Wrestling was on TV in Los Angeles in the early-to-mid 70s, as was Roller Derby. They were blatantly obvious Fake to me... when I was 6-7 years old... after barely watching either of them. Which I why I said this: I didn't need to know the details of How it's Faked (a/k/a worked). It's a bit like Magic: the chick in the box wasn't getting sawed in half, so it was faked. Didn't need to know how the illusion was created to know that it was fake... frankly never have given a shit about how magic is faked as it just doesn't interest me. Didn't care about how wrestling was faked when I was a kid because I was then, as now, a "real sports" junkie. I only started caring about the process of Working when I got into pro wrestling in 1986 as a drunk stoner college kid who started getting a kick out of Flair and Cornette on TBS while pulling bong loads and I began to appreciate the "Entertainment" of pro wrestling. Orobably the only positive that came out of smoking weed. Anyway, if it's high and mighty in tone, I apologize. I don't think that anything in my initial post, nor in this one, is claiming that "Only The Smartest Kids" thought that pro wrestling was Fake, because the sense I got was that Every Kid at my elementary after a certain early age knew it was Fake. I get that there are kids in other schools, and quite possibly kids on this board, who got to the age of 10 believing pro wrestling was Real (as opposed to not very far below the surface knowing it was fake but Wanting To Believe enough to con themselves). I don't quite get how they could believe it was real, but what the heck... it happens. What I 100% don't get is how people going into the business claim that they weren't Smartened Up to the Business until what is ridiculously late. Jingus' post is informative... I'm not sure I can grasp those wrestlers get that far... I suspect that even Jingus drops his jaws over it. John

Another trope I loath: Old time wrestlers talking about "not getting smartened up to the business until..." You always wish they would explain what the fuck the mean by that. Didn't know that it was entertainment dressed up as fake sports? Didn't know that you stamp your foot when throwing a punch, and make sure to not throw the punch like you do in a real fight to avoid knocking your opponent goofy? Seriously... how could someone by their mid-teens not know it is what it is? Honestly, I never knew how people past "The Easter Bunny Is Real" age could watch wrestling and not see the obvious stuff that gave away the ghost on it. So... What aspect of pro wrestling were you "Smartened Up" to at that point? John

Brock Lesner is the Hulk Hogan of MMA: he took it out of the smoke filled rooms to major arenas. John

I could swear in some of the stuff he's dragged over here he's talked about having MMA fans as subs. John

There's all sorts of innovation. Tag Team Wrestling was an innovation. Frank Gotch certainly didn't wrestle any tag team matches in his career. I just used the Tenryu-Onita tag as an easy example: * people love the match * people love Tenryu * the power bomb was innovated during their careers (1) * Tenryu was key in popularizing the power bomb in Japan * I don't think anyone would claim it was a terrible innovation (1) I know Thesz did a power bomb-ish move. It wasn't the power bomb, and it certainly didn't get popular. We can point to a lot of stuff. Wrestling on Television was an innovation. John

I think Dave has said that there are. John

The above is generally pointless, but you did hit one thing that to me is a more worthwhile discussion: Innovation in entertainment isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean that basic elements / structures that have worked don't still work. In the 50s, Lucy and Ricky couldn't sleep in the same fucking bed. In Deadwood there's a brief post sex scene with Bullock and Mrs. Wolcott that is one of the most naked and honest moments of any "great television" shows that I've ever seen. It flashes by so fast, and it's not one of the Really Big Dramatic / Action / Funny Moments that Deadwood / Sopranos / The Wire are famous for, so if it doesn't strike you quickly as you watch it... it's gone into the vapor because the next big moment is a scene or two away. But it says so much about the characters (both in the series prior to it and what's coming), and so much about ourselves if we've been there (which maybe all of us haven't)... that it floors me more than just about anything in what I think is a great-great-great show. They couldn't have done that scene, had that moment in the 50s. Not on TV. Not in the movies. That doesn't mean that there are elements / structures from the 50s that don't still work in TV and the movies. Tons do... an incredible amount. But there have been a lot of innovation in TV and movies that have made for great things, be they small great moments (like the one I'm referring to above) or big great moments (Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back couldn't have been made without a lot of people innovating their asses off on technical elements that supported what were really cool / great old school storylines). Innovation in the arts and entertainment isn't a terrible, terrible, terrible thing. It just is in the hands of idiots like Russo, or wrestlers who get lost in the punch of innovation for the sake of innovation and at the expense of good elements like storyline. The powerbomb was a really cool innovation. When Onita pins Tenyru with the Thunder Fire Power Bomb, beating the guys who did as much as anyone in Japan to put over the Power Bomb as a big finisher, that's pretty cool. There is so much more about the match that is also cool. But that the two of them had finishers that had been innovated during their careers and were quite credible meant that we had a cool finish rather than a conference finish with a schoolboy and a handful of tights. Not that there probably aren't some great matches out there with conference finishes... but I suspect that most of us think that was the Right Finish to that tag match. And it was with something that had been innovated. This isn't having a MOVES! boner, but appreciating that the power bomb was a positive element that both Tenryu and Onita brought to the table and they gave it significant meaning in the stories they told. * * * * * * * * Loss: you probably aren't as extreme in your views on innovation as you made above... it just came out that way. I suspect we're not terribly far apart that a lot of innovation is pointless or poorly used or over used or diminishes from the greater whole... etc. But that we also appreciate good / decent / great innovation when it's weaved well into forms of entertainment that we like. John

I walked through why I think the LA Six-Man was a spectacle but not really a great match. I didn't say your belief that it's a ***** or MOTYC match was "embarassing". I think the 1995 Misawa-Taue matches are great... thought it at the time, still do. On Mutoh-Hash, I think for 16 years I've been the biggest proponent of the match. So it would be a stretch to say that I have called you opinions about them "embarrassing". We don't disagree at all that they're Great on some level. What we have are smaller disagreements on how the rank relative to each other and/or other matches, and why. We didn't even had a discussion on the Dangerous Alliance 8-Man Tag. You posted your thoughts on it *5* years ago, and I wasn't even in the thread. I tossed up thoughts on it last month from a random match watching get together. Called it a really good Thunder style match, but because there were so many guys in there that it came across as something of a spot-a-thon and like one of those disposable Jumbo & Co vs Misawa & Co six man tags. Wait... I like those All Japan six mans a lot, even when they're of the "Fall Out Of Bed" type that aren't at the Great-Great-Great~! level. Look at the original thread back in 2007 on it. Most of the posters, including you, put it into the context of really good/great TV match. That's what I did. I also said: You had this match #53. Sting, Dustin Rhodes, Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Eaton #59 - Arn Anderson vs Dustin Rhodes (WCW Saturday Night 01/04/92) #38 - Windham & Rhodes vs Austin & Zbyszko (WCW SuperBrawl II 02/29/92) #19 - Vader vs Sting (WCW Great American Bash 07/12/92) #11 - Rick Rude vs Ricky Steamboat (WCW Beach Blast 06/20/92) The only person not in one of those matches is Eaton. Set aside whether Arn-Dustin was a better match or not: you have them *close*. On the broader point I was trying to make, which would you rather have to get a picture of just how good Dustin and Arn were at that point? The singles match opposite each other, or the tag where they're sharing so much time with others? You've got four of these guys in a match a week later. Which would you rather keep? etc. If you want to discuss it, I've given you plenty of leg and certainly haven't shut down any other folks from thinking that it's a really good / great TV match... because that's exactly what I thought it was. So just say that you love FIP. I don't have a hell of a lot to add to FIP, but add in some comments about All Japan "peril" which isn't quite pure old school FIP... but can be pretty damn excellent / great. The objective wasn't to bother much with the FIP Rulz! or FIP Sux!!! debate, but to try to get people to think outside narrow typecasting all Peril segements as FIP. Misawa on 12/06/96 was something beyond a "face' those last 14 or so minutes. Kawada wasn't a "face" down the stretch on 12/03/93, and wasn't really a "heel" in an 80s WWF-style Heel In Peril segment. Those are two of the great Peril segments in AJPW history... just fucking awesome. Think beyond the box. Of course opinions can be wrong. We argue that all the time. I said that I'm pro-FIP. Go look at my post. As far as "Southern Tag", I've always thought it was a bullshit name. I suspect if we got a years worth of main even film from the Miller Brothers out on the west coast in the 50s, we'd see them working "southern tag" before it was "southern tag". We'd see it Chicago if more tag existed rather than all those singles matches that exist. We'd see it in what became the AWA territory in the late 50s and early 60s. I'm sure Yohe well tell you that all tags in Los Angeles were worked along those lines. It's just standard tag team wrestling, and probably was invented about five minutes after the first tag match where only one guy was allowed in the ring at a time (rather than the tornado rules that researches think were originally used). Heels... faces... put a face in peril just like we do in singles... find ways to distract the ref just like we do in singles... except it's easier with a partner and the face outside the ring over there... BINGO! So when I see Southern Tag, I tend to roll my eyes. It's just tag wrestling, common elements that we see all over the wide world of tag wrestling, and god bless southerns for wanting to take credit for something else in life. So why would I argue with someone when they claim they've never seen a Great Southern Tag Match when I think Southern Tag is a bullshit made up concept? Because it was actually a decent thread on different tropes. You got annoyed by people not liking a trope that you love, and dismissed the whole thread. Search this board for woodpile in posts by the author jdw and see how many times I've used it here and the context. I found just 4, and I don't think any of them fit into what you're thinking of. I try not to go there anymore (or certainly as often) because it became a jdw trope. There isn't anything wrong with disagreeing with an opinion. We all do it... often strongly. It just came across that you were tossing the Whole Discussion on the Woodpile. If it wasn't worth repeating what you've said before in your love of FIP or other tag tropes, the pass on it. I'm going to take the rest in another post so it doesn't get lost in what is in the end a less significant discussion above. John

Yeah... from an editing standpoint, that's the cleanest, most organized piece Dave has written in what... two decades? John

Dave seems not to be hip to how this works. At the end of your piece, you get to shill what else you do in the publishing world. Guys who write elsewhere but contribute to Grantland: The great Charles P. Pierce: Tom Bissell: Wesley Morris: And the guy right above Dave on the front page... Buzz Bissinger: Even guys who are major staffers: Jay Caspian Kang: Dave? Dave Meltzer: Nadda. A lot of guys link to their books on Amazon to... you know... Sell Their Shit. Grantland is more than willing to do it. We also know that the WON was shilled over at Yahoo in Dave's end-tag. Sometimes you wonder if Dave just takes whatever $$$$ is tossed at him and doesn't give much time to thinking how to make things work best for his overall business. That said... Grantland is a good place to be. They are a massive trafficing site, and Simmons has visions far beyond just "sports"... and frankly lets his regulars talk about all sorts of shit rather than just what you might initially be their "expertise". Becoming Grantland's "MMA Guy" is a very good longterm gig, and might shake out Dave some subs if he's smart in pointing out the WON / WO-4.com in the bottom. BTW, it's probably time for Bryan come around to the fact that branding the site "f4wonline.com" isn't a great way get across that there are two brands, and that the major one is the WON. I know that he's owns wrestlingobserver.com and is directing traffic over to f4wonline.com. But if Dave over at Grantland, a site with vastly more traffic that f4wonline.com, puts something in his end-tag about wrestlingobserver.com and folks end up over at f4wonline.com... or worse mentions the WON and says he writes for f4wonline.com... it's confusing. Go grab WO-F4.com and use it as the main URL. Don't direct traffic *from* it to f4wonline.com, but redirect the f4wonline.com and wrestlingobserver.com traffic to WO-F4.com. Shorter URL as well, easier for Dave to give places like Grantland (and whatever other freelancing he does), and easier for people to remember and type in. It also puts over *both* brands: it doesn't short Bryan by doing all business under the WON brand... but it doesn't short Dave by rolling his stuff under the F4 brand. Not... rocket... science. Christ, they've been online for nearly a decade and a half. They should have figured some of this shit out by now. John

Wrestling, like all forms of entertainment, is full of tropes. I don't see any problem with folks walking through the ones they like, and the ones they don't. Sometimes we might learn something. Take the old You Can't Powerbomb Kidman trope. I can't remember if I noticed it before someone else started making a joke about it. I know there were folks who *hadn't*, and once it was pointed out to them it stuck in the brain... Take the Barry Windham Missed Elbow Drop Transition. Beats the hell out of me who pointed that out... probably Frank Jewett. Once you see it, there it is... damn near all the time. It's not even something like Flair Shoves The Ref, Ref Shoves Flair, Flair Bitch Bumps For Ref which does what Gordi is talking about: gets a pop from the crowd. Barry's elbow... it's just there to be airballed so the heel can go on the offense... all the fucking time. I haven't watched much Bret Hart recently, but he has a few like that. Seem to recall he loved crotching himself for transitions, and you could tell whether he would hit the elbow off the ropes by how he came off: Elbow Driver (coming forward on his knees) he would hit, Elbow Drop (landing on his back) he would miss and work a transition. Those aren't big archtype tropes like FIP. Smaller ones, and I can certainly see people finding them annoying when you see a wrestler doing the same shit all the time. Yeah: even the great ones did it. Jumbo loved feeding his back to an opponent to eat a backdrop for a transition. It's great on a level: Jumbo's flat out giving it to the opponent (smart of a worker to feed a transition to an opponent rather than forcing him to pull something clunky out of his ass), it's a logical way to transition (guy leverages Jumbo over, of course Jumbo is going to be dazed), and it's Cool (backdrops are basic Wrestling throws... we even see the occassional backdrop style suplex in MMA). But... when you see it all the time, I can get someone becoming tired of it. I like it. But in turn, I hate Ric bitching out to Refs, while others think it's fucking great. Nothing wrong with breaking them down. Might learn something new, or find out that you're not the only one who thinks that way about something. John