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Dan has those listed as AJ on NTV, which is NTV Satellite rather than Sammy. Here's what he has listed: AJ on NTV 5/16/97 (t. 3/30) Hansen vs. Ace Kobashi vs. Akiyama AJ on NTV 5/23/97 (t. 4/2) Taue vs. Allbright Misawa vs. Kawada AJ on NTV 6/13/97 (t. 4/19) Misawa vs. Kobashi Kawada vs. Misawa Kawada vs. Kobashi Tag League: These are much more likely to be Complete on NTV Satellite than on NTV network, specifically the main events on the 3/30 and 4/2 cards. Don't recall if those came out in commercial version. The mini-round robin Final is on commercial I think. That would be the best way to get it since even this is likely JIP on the Misawa-Kobashi since there would be time issues otherwise. The NTV network version is JIP. That one would be NTV Sat is well. This is interesting since it wasn't on Dan's 1997 release. The match aired on NTV network, JIP I believe... I think Ditch and I talked about it earlier in the thread. The air date is kind of odd as well since Dan has Sammy shows for 1/10, 1/17, 1/25 (either wrong or pre-empted to later in the week) and 1/31. So 1/23 doesn't fit in. Are you sure that's complete? Pretty much nothing is complete in NTV network due to the 20 minute time slot which means 22-24 minutes of wrestling time. Actually, Sat was the Sammy before Sammy. They didn't get on Sammy until January 1998, which covered the Tag League. So all the complete stuff earlier in the year that might be called "Sammy" is really NTV Satellite. I think most people only understood that when Dan released the 1996 and 1997 sets... I sure as heck never paid attention. John

He did the Idiots Guide with Albano, and Wrestling's Great Grudge Matches with Napolitano. It's likely Napolitano did 98% of the work, and Sugar was used to get the book published. Sugar came across as a great storyteller in boxing, but you also had the feeling that if you fact checked his stories, 50% of them would either be stretching things or total bullshit. Old school storyteller where the story quality was more important than reality. John

Vince had lots of #2 guys to Hogan from 1984-87. None of them were consider to be anchors like Hogan. I'm not even sold he thought of Savage as an anchor face until faced with Hogan being out... and look at how quickly the belt went back to Hogan. Savage also didn't look like Dusty or JYD. He wouldn't have picked Dusty as the #1 in 1983/84 if there was no Hogan. John

Rack Posts #2129, #2130, #2132 & #2137. I wouldn't say Baba and Destroyer gave no thought to themes in their match, even if they were limited to basic wrestling themes (Dick was a cheating heel, Baba was the local face, Baba needs to look good, Dick wants to retain his heat, etc). But when they whipped out stuff like Dick's Big Book of Headscissors Escapes, the thought was much more likely: "Here's a series of spots we can fill space with that we've worked before and keep the crowd into it." They've got 60 minutes to fill. Two guys who've done a lot of 60:00 minutes matches by that point in their career, and knew stuff that could fill it. That doesn't mean that like Classic Literature that it's not worth studying, even if it's for something as simple as "if you've got to fill space in matches, how do you go about it to keep the crowd?" That also doesn't mean in a literal sense: the head scissors spots might not work these days, so you're looking for modern equivs. Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion, done spot-for-spot, might not be a best seller if rolled out cold today. That doesn't mean that they're not worth studying... something that people still are doing, not just modern writers but also students/experts in Lit that don't even have aspirations of becoming writers. In turn, Austen probably would be amused/amazed by how much thought people put into analyzing her works, point to / picking out things that she herself didn't give a great deal of thought to while writing it other than "it seemed the right thing for that point in the story." * * * * * * * * I'll add that Dave's concept of only being able to understand Sabu "in the moment" is pretty obtuse given the world of entertainment / artistic analysis and study. The notion that we can *only* judge the movie Network through the prism of 1974-76 when it was written, produced and released, is... Bat Shit Crazy. In fact, I don't think there's a movie critic or fan in the world who could claim such a thing. If one did, they'd be laughed down. There was *elements* of the movie that certainly are impacted by the times, as is the case for any movie. King Kong was "limited" by 1932 level special effects, so folks expecting wild ass modern CGI might be a big disappointed. But then again, when we're watching Flair-Steamer in 1984, are we really expecting moonsaults and power bombs? A reasonable critic / analyst / reviewer understands the context and the limitations. John

I don't think this is quite the case. I'm not sure that Dave or Bruce would phrase that first part of the sentence like that. They'd probably only get there after about five back-and-forths where one pointed out examples of the weaknesses... but it's far more likely that they would hit the eject before that and toss out some walk off point like, "He's the greatest ever" or "how could he have weak storytelling if the fans ate up all his matches?!?!". Our little circles in corners of the net aren't his most ardent supporters. Hell, even Bruce and Dave, as massive fanboys of Flair as they are, aren't his most ardent supporters. Try to get Madden to acknowledge there's any flaw in the work of Saint Ric. John

Nationally and long term? Vince wanted to push juiced up / athletic looking faces, especially as the anchor. I don't think Dusty would have fit into that. John

For what Vince wanted to promote nationally, Dusty wouldn't have worked. John

That was an interesting thread to skim re-read. John

Dave was, for his first decade of publishing the WON, all about being a Counter Thinker / Revisionist Thinker. There were the Great Known Theories of Pro Wrestling, and Dave was like Bill James in Baseball writing: taking a hammer to them. He was regularly exposing as bullshit things that people inside the business (promoters, bookers and wrestlers) were saying / claiming. Obviously not to the degree that Bill James was, but the wrestling equiv of that. Dave was very much the revolutionary thinker / contrarian. That isn't the case anymore. While he takes a hammer to WWE or TNA bullshit, or the latest crap Russo is tossing out, it's from his own Great Known Theories of Pro Wrestling collection that is his own consensus. It always happens. In some things even Bill James got set in his ways. On the other hand, I've seen him come up with newer ways of analyzing players, and go: "Player X was better than I thought he was..." "I overrated Player Y because of B. He really wasn't as good as I thought." "I don't know how Player Z flew below even my radar. His C was some much better than people thought that it really caused everyone to undervalue him. It's one of the positives of us being able to better evaluate C now, and being so far removed from the hype of D." Some of it's small stuff, and not really revolutionary. Some of it, such as how he and others have greatly advanced the analysis of defense over the past dozen years, is pretty revolutionary... to the point that it can lose an 80s-style saberhead like me. Dave has changed, but it's generally been "conservative" change: more wedded to his convictions, only tempered by a stronger "insider" view rather than outsider. It's interesting to observe. John

No. Not at all. He spent how many decades shitting on Hogan's work? I largely coined the usage of "Effective" in terms of work to try to get across what Hogan did well, and how it was on that level good. What I was trying to get across was a 180 degree flip from how hardcores (including myself) viewed Hogan The Enemy in the 80s opposite of Our Hero Ric. For Dave, Good = What Dave Thinks Is Good. Which on some level is what it is for all of us. Right? It's just that we don't always agree with what other people think is Good. Which is pretty basic for how people view everything. John

But Harley got the win, which seemed set up for Maggie to get it back later. His feud with Tully was over. One with Harley would have filled space until the Dusty & Maggie vs MX and Maggie-Nikita feuds. John

Cool... one of the matches I was at live made the Primer. Still wish the match from the big show at Rio Nilo Coliseum *before* that was available. John

Obviously Punk mentioning Colt Cabana. John

Wasn't there an aborted Magnum-Harley Race thing in 1986? Actually, looks like he did work one TBS show and the Greensboro Coliseum that night... beating Maggie... but never worked for JCP again. What was the story about that, again? John

1994 Toshiaki Kawada 1995 Mitsuharu Misawa 1996 Kenta Kobashi 1997 Mitsuharu Misawa Triple Crown holders at the end of the year when voting was going on. That seemed to be the streak at the time. Which was a snap back from 1993 when Kobashi was the top placing AJPW guy (which was batshit crazy even given the great working year). We've talked about Kobashi being a horrible choice in 1996 relative to Misawa and Taue (within his own promotion), Hash, Hogan and Shawn. In 1994... Misawa had the belt for more of the voting period (12/93 - 11/94), but the storyline of that period seemed to be more Kawada-driven climaxing with his first TC win in October. And despite holding the TC in 12/93 through 7/94 of that period, you'll find the number of defenses lacking and pretty center into Kawada/Williams stories rather than moving Misawa forward in terms of story. John

High on the list of my favorite phone calls from Dave were the series the month he was tallying votes that year and just gripping about the ECW Ballot Stuffing and the possibility that Sabu would win WOTY... climaxed by his relief when Kawada (i.e. Not Sabu) finished on top. John

The problem is timing. Slaughter was still working as a Heel at the time when Vince set his mind on Hogan. In fact, Slaughter was still working as a heel all through the end of 1983... into 1984 before the face turn on Sheik. So on one side you have someone who has been a monster babyface in the AWA, the primary promotion you must defeat to "win" going national. This monster babyface is larger than life, has some mainstream aspects, and is a proven draw. On the other side, you have a guy who has been a heel for years. With Slaughter you would have to hope you could turn him face, and it get over so strongly that he could anchor your massive national expansion plans for several years. This at a time when No WWWF/WWF anchor babyface champion had *ever* done a heel-to-face turn in the WWWF/WWF territory. It's not just that Hogan was the obvious choice for Vince, so obvious that we find it impossible to find another person at the time who could have done with Vince what Hogan was able to do with Vince. It's that folks are trying to project onto Slaughter things that *may* possibly have become known later in 1984 that simply could not have been foreseen in 1983. It's beyond a reach. We could toss out Snuka, but by the time Vince put his mind to Hogan, he knew that Snuka was a murderer with a monsterous drug problem that was actually a Problem (as opposed to the problems Vince and Hogan had in the 80s where they were perfectly functional). You have to think that Vince was concerned that if Snuka was the National Anchor to Expansion that the name Nancy Argentino would be extremely hard to avoid. John

I don't think the picture above is terribly flattering to Michelle facially/head. Lighting and graininess is part of it... John

I sat next to Dave for a match where he thought Sabu sucked. It's not like Dave changed his mind in 2012 about Sabu circa 1994. By 1995 at the latest, he thought Sabu wasn't as good as he previously thought he was. He got past the initial WOW! factor of Sabu and thought his stuff was messy. I'm not sure why he's coming to Sabu's defenses. Given some of the comments here, there appears to be some re-revision thinking about Sabu: The original He's Awesome! --> Whatta Trainwreck --> He was better than people give him credit for John

For a second I thought he was back with Sara until kind of recognizing Michelle.

John

Punk and Jericho were in the 1998 KOTR? John

I'm with Tom. It's hard to tell. Backstage in that circle, it seemed to be a bit more weedhead before they headed to the US (starting with ECW) than coke and other dope. Not going to say it was 100%, because clearly Art had issues beyond just weed. But... What I saw backstage in 1996 from the youngins was different from 1994 and 1995. The specific show and memory... it was depressing at the time, and in hindsight now is even moreso. :/ Was Juve going to turn out to be like Heavy Metal regardless? Or even a Jerry Estrada version of "Functional Massive Addict"? Hard to tell. The US, easy money, way too much time on their hands, and not a whole hell of a lot of reason to give a shit... none of that probably helped. But to trainwreck to the degree that he did/has... certainly had it in him. John

I wish I could remember who the JWP fan on rsp-w was. It wasn't Hisa, but the other Japanese native in the group. I could ask Scott Lacy, who communicated with him in e-mail a good deal back then... but lordy, it's been 16 years and I'm not sure if the person is even a fan anymore. :/ John