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I kind of agree with that. The other thing to factor in is that The Streak has gotten pretty big in the past few years: 2012: Trip 2011: Trip 2010: Shawn 2009: Shawn 2008: Edge (World Title) 2007: Batista (World Title) 2006: Mark Henry (casket) 2005: Orton 2004: Kane 2003: Show & A-Train They stepped up with the Edge/Batista matches, then to another level with the Shawn/Trip matches. What does he do to have *5* more matches that are at that level to get to 25-0 (or 24-0 and gunning for 25-0)? Cena is the obvious one. But beyond that... ? Would Rock be willing to? I don't know if I expect him to retire at 20-0, but I also don't know if he's got 5 more in him. His wife retired... he's closing in on 50... he's physically a bit of a mess. It's hard to turn down the $$$ if tossed at him, and the buzz of working infront of a big crowd is a major buzz. But does he want to step down into lesser programs/matches, or does he now feel The Streak needs to be fed by big main event / double main event level matches? John

I don't care about the current product. But I still hate Trip, and Trip ending The Streak while I'm sitting there watching it would piss me off to no end. John

I'm a fan of basketball, but how much papering and cheap tickets went into the NBA achieving that number? And talk about a record that is already totally forgotten only two years later. There were reports that they "sold" over 95K going into the last week. I've seen reports (including by the terrific Mark Heisler at the time) that 20% were complimentary, which would be 86K paid and 22K not. It would be wrong to quantify all those complimentary tickets as "paper", since the massive majority of comps in things like this go to Sponsors, business partners, owners, etc. It's not "paper" in the sense that we use it: freebies to make the crowd look good. I doubt any of it was really paper, and instead a split between tickets sold and folks with connections getting in. There were cheaper tickets, but you'd get the same thing at a Mania: the joint is so freaking but and it's an All Star Game not a Super Bowl, so folks aren't going to spend $400 to sit in nosebleed seats. Heisler had the gate at $8M+, which would be in the range of a $100 per ticket average on the 86K that he reported were sold. That's... pretty freaking great for an All Star Game (read: exhibition) where a big chunk of the tickets are nosebleeders that are going to need to be reduced. John

And you wonder why Rock got tired of dealing with all that bullshit. He did his business with Austin, then did his business with Goldberg (putting him over in Goldberg's first WWE match). After that he got booked into his own special storylines, staying the hell away from stuff that Trip could fuck up. John

It's not a myth. It was a joke at the time. Which folks seem to take way too seriously. John

Dan came out with a 1991 G1 set that has every match from the tourney along with other matches from the series that were available. Anyone else get it and want to take a quick run through it for recommendations before the Yearbook gets locked in? I've got it, but it's a little lower on my long list of things to watch. John

Looking at Dan's list, which identifies gaijin on each tour, he didn't work for New Japan in 1982. He does pop up in 1983 on one of Hisa's result pages: http://www.puroresu.com/newjapan/results/nj198307summer.html Only match with Fujiwara: 1983/07/14 Sapporo - Nakajima Sports Center Niikura def Yamazaki Eigen & Arakawa def Yokpalsan & BAEK? Halcon def Black Cat Kido & Fujiwara def Roberts & Finlay Sakaguchi & Kengo Kimura def Adonis & Blair Toguchi (DCOR) Rusher Kimura Abdullah (DQ) Murdoch Sakaguchi & *Kengo Kimura (10:53 small package) Adonis & *Blair WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask* (16:52 DQ) Kuniaki Kobayashi Choshu & Hamaguchi def Fujinami & Maeda Probably what he's thinking of. A lot of matches with Tiger Mask on the series. I'd have to see if one of the old Super Book's had a list of his tours to see if there was another chance of a singles matches between the two. John

I would be interested in when Finlay toured NJPW. I don't see *any* listing of matches for him on Dan's 1974-83 NJPW listings (from an book/mag that had listings for every show) or his 1984-88 season sets. That would cover Fujiwara's time there. Did Fit just never make TV in the 80s, or did he never tour? John

A decade and a half overdue. John

Actually, looking at Joey's page and his posting of pics from WrestleReunion, it looks like the snaps are by a PWG related photographer. Might be Joey/PWG working (less likely) or a Joey Fan having some fun. John

It appears to be up from a fan. Looks like fan photos from what I suspect is the WrestleReunion tag (Candice in green & red) and PWG's Legion Hall (Candice in white). The fan is also knowledgeable about PWG in the sense of Joey being one of the owners. Also, you wonder how much of it might just be a work. There were those Snuka and Lawler comments in the very early post. John

Totally agree with you: it's hard to put together a definitive list. There would be things of commercial tapes that he'd mention on the phone as being great and as good as [insert 5* match], but it never would get in the WON. John

Facebook Page: Wrestling Fans Against Misogyny New page, appears to have been created on Monday (4:42 PM PT first post) and aimed at Joey Ryan rather than the WWE. Coincidence that it popped up before the WWE did their Monday night thing. Interesting because the pics are of Joey and Candice, and they have a singles match on the next show. Not their first, and they've worked opposite each other a lot over the years. Joey actually put her over at WrestleReunion. John

I don't even remember him reviewing that. Which issue? Pretty sure he want to ****3/4 with that rather than 5. If should go on the list since he did 5 it, but there should be a major asterick added: based on highly edited TV version. My recollection is that it was cut down well under 10 minutes on TV for a match that went 20+, and it wasn't even a JIP version of editing: they seamlessly cut it down to the highspots. I highly doubt Dave would have given it 5 if he saw the full commercial version of it. Yeah... that's buried in the WON and hard to find. I think we were talking about it here within the last year or so, I looked it up and cited the issue. Wow... I don't even remember that rating. I do wish in hindsight that I would have suggested to him that he break AAA TV out into reviews like he did with Japan. It would have been an easy thing for him to do, and made it easier to keep track of what aired. The 80s are really hard to track, especially in Japan, because he didn't do regular reviews of TV. He's go a stretch, like in 1986, of breaking them out... then drop it. Frustrating. John

I just don't get it. Well... John

So Hoback has talked me into watching this. What's the over/under of my head exploding if Trip breaks The Streak? John

Jumping Knee / Jumping Knee Attack when it just in the ring. Diving Knee / Diving Knee Attack when it's off the top. John

The second Hack-Gotch was filmed as it was talked about in terms of the cut each got from the match. Don't know about the first one. John

That was awesome. John

This was after Arn & Tully were suppose to jump back, Tully flunked the WWF dope test, Herd pulled back the offer for Tully and lowered the pay to Arn, and Ole was forced out of retirement to reform the horsemen. Remember Ole's great mic work at the Clash when the Horsemen turned on Sting? That's right in this timeframe. They pretty much killed time until Barry jumped back as well. Arn & Tully... talk about blown opportunities. John

So thinking about this thread, I'm wondering bigger picture. We're tossing around a lot of guys whose livelihoods were altered, or missed out on decent pushes. I'm wondering if there's anyone who had a potential Hall of Fame career screwed up by ECW/WCW closing? I'm trying to think of one, and I'm not sure. The problem with "closing" is that it's limiting. Take Goldberg's HOF potential. Long before WCW closed, they already had blown the potential of him being a huge draw (at least according to folks like Dave). So the simply fact of WCW closing might not have impacted him because Shitty WCW was already tanking his HOF chances. I'm not arguing he had HOF chances. There have been folks who saw him as an off the charts potential. Did anyone have that potential screwed up? John

There never was any plan for Lex to win the belt at WrestleWar. This was the match where Ric refused to job: John