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So how do we compare Jumbo vs Flair? I guess their matches against each other, but they kind of stop after a certain point so we don't really get to see how they'd look against each other in 1990 & 1991. Against common opponents? If we slow down and think about it, there aren't a lot of great common opponent matches to study. There are some, they are worthwhile in some degree, but they really don't give is the whole picture of either Flair or Jumbo. What we generally have to do is compare their work against a variety of workers (and types of workers) over a period of time an mentally analyze them. This is actually *exactly* the same thing we can do with Aja. Aja vs Hotta is comparable in type to what opponets of Flair and Jumbo? How does the work compare. Aja vs Kansai is comparable in type to what opponets of Flair and Jumbo? How does the work compare. Aja vs Toyota is comparable in type to what opponets of Flair and Jumbo? How does the work compare. Aja vs Bull is comparable in type to what opponets of Flair and Jumbo? How does the work compare. There are Aja matches against other lower ranked wrestlers that are useful to comp with lower ranked opponents of Flair and Jumbo. This isn't complicated stuff. It's what we *already* do. John

This is perhaps true on some level, but: Martina > Roger And it's not even close. Yes, we know what would happen if you put them on the court at the same time at their peak against each other. But that's not relevant to the discussion: We're not putting Aja in the same ring as Bret Hart and Misawa and Kawada. But then again, we never had Hart in the same ring with Kawada or Santo or Casas or Dandy or Kobashi or Liger or Hansen. Yet Will can/does/will make a comparision between the skills of those male wrestlers based on... Watching them and judging their work. Right? John

It's largely because there are fewer quality roles for Women. If they weren't split, you'd have men dominate the nominations. Don't think so? Sample the last 20 years of Best Picture nominees. Split them into categories by Man Is The Lead, Woman Is The Lead, Tweener. Even the Tweener part is tricky, because as much as there's Johnny & June in I Walk The Line, it is more about Johnny than June. It just happens to have a strong woman role. You might even need to have Tweener Lean Man, Tweener Lean Woman and True Tweener. Why is this the case? As truly compelling as June's life is relative to Johnny's (and it's arguable even more compelling), Men for the most part Write / Direct / Produce / Greenlight movies. Even major indy houses are... The House Of Weinstein. It kind of sucks that they're split. But I'd rather see 5 women get the nod than 1. Or worse, they expand the field to 10 and 7 end up men on average, and 3 women. It sucks, but it's the reality of US movie making. John

BookDust was great, and super over. If Creative didn't have their heads so far up their asses, they could have run with those guys anchoring the tag division as on-and-off champs for a year. That SummerSlam loss was one of the points that just made me hate the WWE and start checking out. John

How successful has the music and movie business been in collecting against Consumers rather than Uploaders? Stream Consumers will be a really interesting one to carve out of Download Consumers as well. John

Yeah... Brody is the perfect one to get the thread back on track. John

Yeah, they are a good example. Got major hate heat against Watts and against the R'n'R. Popped crowds as well. John

Considering the levels of attendance and buyrates and TV ratings, it would be hard to say that Rude was the most hated heel of all-time. John

Booking is just a catch-all for the fact that the product hasn't held the fan base in what fans think is worth watching. Fewer fans watch now than at the peak. Fewer buy PPVs. Fewer go to live shows. Money? Only slightly. They just aren't compelled to follow, watch and pay for it as much anymore. In the end, it's _always_ the Product that drives that. It certainly hasn't been priced out relative to other forms of entertainment. John

I don't think anyone did. It's pretty close to state of the art level for 1992. John

I liked the two FIP sections: one on Tito and one on Steamer. The second one, on Steamer, was better and more focused. But by doing two they were able to avoid a common issue WWF 80s tags had: lots of Heel In Peril. The WWF just didn't seem to want to have faces bottoming for very long in tags. Steamer and Tito effectively got around this by each doing a segment, breaking it up with a relatively short Steamer House O' Fire stretch before getting cut off. So collectively the heels were able to work on top for what ended up a long FIP segment with the brief hope of Steamer's House O' Fire. John

I suspect it will only be something close to what we saw in the last boom: hot TV content, or what is the equiv of TV content at that point. John

I disagree with that. Who in 1992-94 thought we'd see a boom like 1986-87 again where two national promotions were reasonably strong? I didn't. I don't have much faith in the current leadership in pro wrestling. But it's not like I had any in the leadership back in 1992-94. John

I'm pretty fond of it. Suspect there might be one better than it from the 80s WWF, but just haven't invested as much time on tags as singles. There are so many damn tag matches out there. John

I'd break the reviews off from the list. Then you can link from the list to specific posts. John

And yes... Loss, Jerome and I need to stop before we thread dirft Dylan's topic... and Will runs in to smack us down. John

I'm not sure what would be a worse mental image: Trip banging the Michelin Man. Or Trip banging Gael Greene to get a good review in New York magazine. John "To get the NWA Title, Tommy Rich had a menage a trois with Gael Green and James Beard." -Pro Wrestling Babylon

Something I tossed up on the Torch Boards in a semi-related discussion (about the desire to see the return of jobber squash matches). * * * * * * * * WWE FY2011 Financials: $483.9M Revenues $340.0M Live and Televised Entertainment $94.9M Consumer Products $28.1M Digital Media $20.9M WWE Studios That $340.0M for Live and Televised Entertainment breaks down into: $131.5M Television Rights Fees $104.7M Live Events $78.3M Pay-Per-View $18.3M Venue Merchandise $4.6M WWE Classics On Demand $1.1M Television Advertising The WWE's single largest revenue stream is as Television Content via Rights Fees. 27% of the total revenue of the company. That number actually lowballs the revenue brought in from from non-PPV television, because the live gates from Raw and Smackdown go into Live Events. Other than PPVs and non-North American cards, which WWE shows consistently draw the best crowds in the Raw Era? The TV Shows rather than the other house shows. It would be an interesting study for someone like Meltzer to do to figure out what the average bump has been each year since 1996 for Raw/SD vs Other US House Shows in terms of attendance, especially in the periods before and after the Austin/Rock Boom. In addition to that, it's likely that a bigger chunk of Venue Merchandise is made at TV Events than non-TV Events. The point being: a massive amount of the revenue is made from what is essentially TV Content/Product. While a lot of us "back in the day" loved seeing the Mulkeys get squashed, it's not a given that modern wrestling fans will stay on USA Network in 50% or 25% of Raw's matches were squashes. It's an invitation to click away... and run the risk of your attention being grabbed by another program. * * * * * * * * Ratings matter a great deal. The company's #1 revenue stream is driven by having content that can be sold at a good price. In addition, maintaining those shows (Raw and SmackDown) help drive a massive part of their Live Show revenue (Raw and SmackDown tapings) and also Venue Merch. Maintaining those shows also allows them to advertising and promote their #3 revenue stream (PPV). The WWE is a television content company, via rights fees and PPV. They have been since Austin-Rock. WCW was as well through the Nitro Era. What we need to remember is that both companies where in decline and/or bad shape before becoming TV Content companies. WCW was essentially dead, the equiv of TNA: being kept alive by a corporate sugar daddy because the House Show / PPV business wasn't enough to sustain it. The WWF has been in a decline since Hogan left after Mania in 1992. TV isn't the problem with the WWE. It's the fucking idiots running the company. Take away the focus on TV and they'd still be fucking idiots, fucking things up. If there weren't ratings to chase, these idiots would have been freaking out in 1984 and 1985 over any Hogan house show that didn't sell the building out, pitch him to the curb and tried someone else. John

FWIW, Dylan's comments were pretty close to what I thought in the scan. There were some nice things popping up, and seeing knee selling pop up time after time was something that I looked foward to in a full watch. The two things that stood out in Groan level were pretty much in the "bare bottom expectations for modern" wrestling category. Hell, even stuff that I've praised in the last few years like Hero-Tozawa and Generico-Tozawa had things like that which probably would annoy me more watching it on tape than it did in the building those two nights. My comment on the Kawada no selling that Dylan references is that it struck me *at the time* that Kawada went with this more when he gave up on trying to reel in the direction Misawa and Kobashi were dragging the style. That said, I don't recall a match prior to 1996 where selling a body part was such an all encompassing theme of a match like this one where Kawada would simply Kurt Angle Up for a spot like the drop kick. Take the last match of 1988 where his knee was destroyed. Kawada only would get up and back involved after long stretches of being out of it, not involved in the action (i.e. Tenryu going it alone against Hansen & Gordy) and slow recoveries. Perhaps on the next rewatch of it I'll find things to be critical of about it, but I've tended to find it solid over the years. Not sublime in the sense of 12/03/93, but good stuff. John

Wasn't going into it looking for flaws. At the office I don't exactly have 40+ minutes straight to devote to watching a match on Youtube. I was simply scanning it. The knee selling stood out, and I'm certainly a fan of knee selling (see the words I've written over the years about 12/03/93). I'm guessing it was bad luck that in a quick scan of the match I happened to hit the dropkick in the corner. Of course when I watch the whole thing, I would run into it and be groaning, and if I wrote it up point out that it's dumbfuck indy/Kurt Angle/Kobashi style stuff of shitting on the work that's been done to just get an instant-presto pop from the crowd. The purporse wasn't to "enjoy" it but quick scan it to see if it might be worth checking out later. If in 5 minutes _everything_ I saw had me groaning, I wouldn't waste time with it regardless of how highly rated it was. I've got six episodes of Holmes on the DVR and another six set to tape on Sunday (along with a half dozen futbol matches, the ACC Tourney Final and Lakers-Celts), so spending 40 minutes on what in quick scan came off as a trainwreck would be a waste of my time. I liked the selling that I came across in quick scan. Some moves looked pretty decent without crapping on stuff. The dropkick and finish made me think that while the match might not be total dogshit, that if I actually wrote it up it would come across like all of the people who shit on Davey Richards' work: while valid points are made in the eyes of a neutral, it no doubt rains on the parade of people who think Davey have a bunch of ****1/2 matches. I'm not sure why. Hoback and I spent the Thursday before last having an off day from work and watching wrestling from 9 in the morning until 5 and enjoying pretty much everything we watched. The only thing that we had a bit of a tough time with was the Flair-Steamboat match that I tried to get some thoughts out of people in the What Are You Watching thread, but folks seemed to duck. I didn't even put in what I thought of the match, just tried to get thoughts without the influence of any comments from me. Even there, I'm not sure I'd be critical of the match (other than Steamer's horrid work on the commentary track). It was just a match that was... "there"... for some reason. I have some thoughts on that: it was a Face vs Face match, and thus the long body of the match lacked the usual tension / drama / spots of a Flair match where there would be a heel (normally of course Flair). It was an incredibly slow match, given they were going 60... which neither of us happened to know when we popped it in. James thought it was a 30+ match. I tossed out that it felt like a 60 minute match, which turned out to be true and finally at the 40 minute mark we looked over at Corey's site and saw it was a 60:00 draw, and groaned. What it did show is how well all of Ric's normal heel bullshit / spots / comedy / stooging / bitching does to fill space in matches. Especially in a slow match like this, it could have added a lot of "pick the crowd up" stuff to the match. Neither of us thought it was awful. It just was very different from a standard Flair match where you have a clear heel, or in a Face vs Face setting where Flair more clearly and consistently plays that he's going to snap and lose it to work heel. It's certainly worth watching, and very much something that I want to carve out another 60:00 to re-watch and think more about it in an analytical way. On the other hand, everything else we watch pretty much popped the shit out of it on some level. I think I posted some comments about some of the matches in the 1992 Set forum. That's the thing: Just because a person doesn't Mark Out over every match that lots of people like, it doesn't mean that person doesn't still like Pro Wrestling. I gave examples in an earlier post of two Misawa-Kobashi matches that were nearly universally praised at the time. They bored me, with the second annoying me on some level. If the was a gaijin hardcore at the time that was a bigger fan of AJPW than me, I sure as hell didn't know him. It pretty much was my rep: All Japan Fan. Not reaching Hardcore Orgasam over those two matches like other people were didn't mean that I still couldn't pop in something like that 11/30/93 Misawa & Kobashi vs Hansen & Baba and not enjoy it. I've already had the happen over the years. I suspect that just about every match that I've praised has had people rip it, some of them just to be contrarian to the "consensus" that folks like to blame on me. People are going to do what people are going to do. John

I scanned it for five minutes yesterday, and the two things that stuck in my mind where: * wrestler getting leg destroyed and selling the fuck out of it * same wrestler pulling the Kurt Angle "I'm Okay" spot of getting up off the mat for a standing drop kick on the other guy who was up on the turnbuckles. I mean... it was a Cool Move... he fucking got MASSIVE air on the drop kick... awesome!!! Except it was the leg that just got knocked the shit out of every time I skipped forward in the match with him selling it like it had gotten ripped off, put through a wood chipper, then reattached to his hip only to be worked over some more. It's Kobashi-style selling and psyche of the moment. Actually, one other thing that sticks out in my head was the finish, which was a dosey-doh counter-o-rama choreographed dance that made me think of a paid of modern indy guys thinking how clever they are in having 6 counters in one spot before hitting something Cool~! I don't think I'm exaggerating on 6 counters: it might have been 8 in the finishing sequence. Those were in two sections where I actually stopped, went back and rewatched what I saw to wonder if I was groaning by mistake... rather than just skipping ahead another 2-3 minutes. This is likely a match where I'd shit on someone's parade if I wrote the whole thing up. John

No later than the 10/98 Misawa-Kobashi, though quite possibly as early as the 10/97 Misawa-Kobashi. So perhaps the Misawa-Kobashi comp is applicable... John

In what way? John

Oh dear god... someone isn't going to force me to watch that, right? John

Awesome! John