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All Japan was faced with an issue of the other top guys not being able to work with Albright like this: Misawa, Taue, Kobashi, Hansen, the soon-to-be returning Doc, and Ace. Just not a style they worked well with, as became pretty evident over the next two years. Or in the other direction, Gary wasn't well suited for working against the rest of them. Even Taue in the stretches where I thought he was "off" (to be kind) was still able to eat and bump for all the stuff the other guys were throwing at him. Obviously not bump like Misawa and Kobashi, but well enough to make other folks stuff look good. Gary... he's a big mass of humanity, not a bumper... it's pretty limited what you can do with him. He's far from Vader at that same point in terms of how Leon would bump his ass off for you if you could toss him around (in a sense, Leon would jump into all of those bumps to make it easy for you). Not really Gary's game. Gary's actually the one "regular" of UWFi who fit in least with All Japan. You do wonder how much Baba was paying for Gary and if the money wouldn't have been much better spent on guys who fit in better. John

I suspect it's far from the least. Things like being graceful and "athletic" in the ring are lower. Taue was an awkward, non-athletic guy in the ring. But even in his weaker periods, he had a variety of offensive "stuff" he could do to his opponents. Over time, some of it became less over with the fans, even if he was doing it in the exact same fashion that had previously been over with the fans. Folks just found it less interesting relative to other stuff they were watching. In turn, among the things that helped Taue be appreciated by the fans as picking it up were adding the Dynamic Bomb, the Nodowa Off The Apron, highlight the Jumping High Kick more and highlighting the Released German Suplex more. Taue's Jumping High Kick wasn't exactly graceful or athletic. In fact, that added to some of the vibe that it was a dangerous/hurty spot: Taue kind of hurtled himself up and the big boot into someone's skull. Is this only the case of All Japan? I don't think so. Nor just the case of grace and athleticism in the ring. I'm sure we can all think of some athletic looking folks in the ring who couldn't put shit together. Look can be overrated. Buddy Rose had a sloppy chunky body, even before he became noted as a fat slob. Did it matter a great deal? On some level it did mean that he wasn't going to be a Really Huge Star because his look wasn't a perfect one for the top tier nationally. But he did a lot of other things well. I suspect if we watched just a 5 disk Will-style set of his best Portland stuff, we'd find that among the stuff Buddy did well was having a good offense (including things as simple as working holds well to compliment the stories he was telling) that helped offset the initial thought in people's minds: "That slob isn't an athlete in the ring." And instead make you know, this guy may be sloppy, but the fucker can go. Which all goes back to Loss' point: it's not just one thing that make for a good worker, which is what these isolated questions break things down into. John

So did Taker show up last night? John

I don't disagree with that, which is one reason I've pretty much ducked the larger/broader questions being asked in them and instead touching on smaller things or examples being offered up. John

"Flair" played 2 different characters who overlap. 1. Champ Flair from the early 80s was billed and played as a legit badass wrestler who could out-wrestle anyone. He played a version of this again in '89 and again in '93. This guy was not weak or a bitch. He was someone go could go 60-minutes with anyone. As a heel, he was not a bad ass. Watching him go 60 with Brody: Brody kicked his ass. Watching him against Kerry. Kerry kicked his ass. No, that was Ric as a Champ from day one. There were two Ric characters: Heel Ric Face Ric Then just slight variations of them. Heel NWA Champ Ric is probably pretty close to Mid-Atlantic Heel Ric where Ric was often a champ anyway. I don't know if there's any Flair vs David from St Louis available from the time where Ric was between belts (run in to Starcade '83), but I suspect we'd find pretty standard Heel Ric in those matches. Heel NWA Champ Ric just got to talk a bigger game... but one suspect his "best thing going today" type of comments were there when he was the US Champ in Mid Atlantic. Yes... that's something that went back before winning the NWA Title, especially as a heel in Mid Atlantic. Except that Ric typically was getting his ass kicked down the stretch, so the "60 Minute Man" and the notion of "wearing the opponent down" flies a bit in the face of Ric usually being the one worse for the wear down the stretch. Ric didn't "need" to be weak. He *was* weak. That was the character he chose to play because it made the Local Hero looking fucking great! That's exactly what the Local Fans wanted: they wanted the Local Hero to look gets. Look... I'll give the most obvious example I can point to. Folks should go watch the Backlund vs Harley match from MSG. I'm sure that lots of people would have liked to have seen Harley do more Stuff in it. *I* certainly did, because Harley has that Great Big Book Of Moves that would be wonderful in trading bombs with Backlund. The thing is... the match was booked/worked/laid out for Backlund to be the Local Hero and Race to be the Touring NWA Champ, which means for them to do a match that the Local Fans would eat up. Yes, there is a short segment when they lose the MSG Fans through repitition. But it's relatively short in a 35 minute match where the fans before and after it are Eating The Shit Up. Disappointing to a Harley Fan who wants to see more moves? Sure. Disappointing to a Fan who might want a 2/3 fall match where they could exchange falls (like Backlund-Inoki II) that spaces out the match a bit more interesting? Sure. Disappointing to an MSG Backlund Fan? Given the pops down the stretch and at the end, it would appear no... except... maybe... That Bob didn't win the NWA Title when he was kicking Harley's ass. Wait... what's that? Standard NWA Touring Champ Formula with the NWA Champ getting his ass kicked, bitching and stooging, but keeping the belt because of those sucky NWA Rules. Bingo. A formula that Ric nailed to a T in his touring days. Except that Ric didn't usually retain his title by being "dirty". He usually retained it by some nonsense in the NWA Rule Book. Far too often because the Face did something wrong. It's not like Ric was winning a ton of his matches in the fashion that Randy Savage beat Tito to win the IC Title: international object to the head, and then hiding the evidence. Ric as often just fluked his way to retaining the title. Take the two big title matches with Kerry in 1982. How did the "dirtiest player in the game" retain his title in those? John

Baba, Inoki or Misawa claiming to be the best wrestler in the world and then out wrestling his opponents doesn't work because... wait... the crowd actually did want it. Japan only thing? Okay, so how about Hogan? Bruno? Austin? Gagne? Okay... so it's an NWA Heel Champion thingy, which Bockwinkle was an off shoot of in the AWA. Fans don't have a problem with a Face saying he's the best, and that the gold around his waste proves that he is... then going out and beating up the heel. On the other hand, NWA territorial fans wanted to see the Local Hero win the title, and beat up the Champ. Well, since they weren't usually winning the title, the Heel Champ goes over the top in making the face look strong... and to a degree bitches out to the face. This wasn't unique to Flair: it was evident in Thesz matches, though Lou didn't take it to the extreme that Ric did. Local Fans didn't think Ric was the best. They thought Jerry or Kerry or Tommy was the best. You're projecting here. Did it ever look like Jerry or Kerry were intimidated by Ric? They just thought he was an asshole who needed an ass kicking. Except that Ric usually didn't "do anything" to retain the title. Often it was the face throwing Ric over the top rope, or punching the ref, or some other nonsense. On occassion it was Ric, but it wasn't like Ric went in there with this plan: "If I simply walked to the back after 2 minutes, the NWA might take my title away. So I'm going to wrestle for 20 minutes then get DQ'd or COR to keep my title to trick everyone. Wooooo~!" The beauty of Flair was that he *didn't* know all the tricks. For all his bullshit about being the dirtiest player in the game, most of his dirty shit typically backfired. Flair = Wil E. Coyote Except he wasn't elaborate about his cheating: it was first grade level bullshit. Most of the time, Ric would go up extremely slowly to the top to give the opponent lots of time to come over and toss him off. If you look at people doing things in a "blind panic"... well, panic typically has a sense of urgency to it. Ric didn't do much of anything with urgency. While not as slow as Harley, Ric was "methodical" on offense or when trying to do something to an opponent. He wasn't exactly Tiger Mask there. Except that it unravels from the *start*... and in match after match after match. You're a Dallas Fan. You watch Kerry kick the living shit out of Ric on 08/15/82, and Ric not surviving due to a "plan" by due to (in the storyline) that NWA Ref. Is it any surprises that Emperor Ric's shit unravels and he has no clothes on 12/25/82? Ric's matches aren't isolated events. They're not Do The Right Thing where there isn't a sequel or an movie earlier in the series. They're freaking James Bond movies. There are 20+ of them. It's not exactly a revelation by the 12th of them that Bond is a British agent and has some dude named Q giving him cool toys to play with. We've used both sports and movie analogies for Ric. He's a bitching, stooging heel... which is a movie analogy. Which is 300+ times a year, multiple times a match? I'm not buying the analogy. The Face First Flop isn't panicking. It's bitching and stooging. Getting tossed off the top isn't panicking. It's a stooge heel spot, just like when Arn comes off the top to try to his a "something" on a prone opponent and takes a boot to the mug: it's stooging, with Arn selling it wonderfully. James Brown gets "injured" and folks wanted him to leave? You're confused there. The Godfather was working his ass off all show long and wore himself out (tired/exhaustion), doesn't think he go on, his sidekick tries to lead him off... his background singers and the *fans* encourage him to go on performing... and Brown goes on performing. The fans didn't want to see James leave: they wanted him to STAY. With Ric... they want to see Ric get his ass kicked, and since Ric is a bitching stooging heel that they've seen get his ass kicked countless times, they know he'll get his ass kicked tonight. Except you were earlier saying that Ric had a plan to keep the title, which he did. Hard to say that's choking. I think that's the big thing in trying to think too hard about Ric's work and defending it: one ends up circling around on one's own argument while circling the wagon. Ric the Worker and Ric the Wrestler never put as much thought into his work as the people defending it. Worker and Wrestler's level if thought is frankly much closer to exactly what I've described it: Get and keep the crowd into the match by Keep Things Moving Along, Got Stuff To Do and Bitching & Stooging to Put Over The Face. Ric works simplistic match with simplistic storylines (if they go beyond Strong Face vs Bitch Ric). Ric isn't a deep enough thinker to dream up, "This is where I start to panic the rest of the match". Christ... he probably doesn't even think in terms of "desperation". It's just Stuff to him. Seriously... I think all of us going go to the library and pull a random Dick & Jane book off the shelf and find more layers of storytelling and themes than Ric put into his matches. Ric and his matches were great because he did so much Stuff, kept it moving along, made his opponents who the fans loved look great by bitching and stooging and selling for them, was tremendously charismatic and theatrical, and had a fine sense of drama. Key word in there: Great John

So Flair takes a face into the corner, chops him a bit, *allows* the face to overpower him and win the spot in the corner to climax with the Face First Flop to... lull his opponent into a false sense of security? No. The psych is that The Face Is Stronger. Not that Flair is using double secret reverse psychology to only make the face *think* he's stronger than Flair. John

Isn't it what we've all been doing for the past 15 or so years? John

11/25/94 from the RWTL is also available in TV form (20+ of a 30:00 draw). I pimped it for getting on the 1994 Yearbook, and kind of hope it's not forgotten. The only one of the nine matches that doesn't exist is 1995 RWTL "league" match, as opposed to the Final. John

I suspect Ric lost directly from going to the top. Harley loved to roll through for pins, as did Steamboat. There are probably some examples on all those 70s clips. Common finish. John

Will: it was pointed out earlier in the thread that Ric was hitting moves off the top rope in one stretch of his career with some regularity. They didn't win matches. The Press was never the only thing Ric did off the top, so it's a massive stretch to think: 1. Ric is going to the top 2. Ric must be trying to hit the press 3. if Ric hits it, that it! When we went whole years where we saw: 1. Ric is going to the top 2. Ric must be trying to get Tossed Off The Top 3. if Ric gets Tossed Off The Top the fans will Pop You love Ric. I'm sure others here love Ric. Can anyone point me to all the Ric matches available in 1988 and run that stats on: A. Number of times Ric tried to go to the top B. Number of times Ric got tossed off C. Number of times he failed in other ways (and the specific ways) D. Number of times he was successful (and what he did) If you go an entire year without winning with the press while failing left and right, why exactly would a fan be thinking about Ric "hitting something" rather than Ric "getting tossed off the top"? I remember the Super Sonics winning the NBA Title once. I don't watch an OKC game and expect them to win the NBA Title... until they actually do it again. John

That would be assuming that the Press was the only move Ric did off the top. It wasn't. I'd also say that a 2 Wins for 500 Getting Tossed Off The Top isn't exactly something that evens out in any sporting context. Can you think of anything where a 0.4% of success is consider good odds in sports? I can't think of one that comes to mind. John

Thought the first Philly match was mediocre, and had high hopes for it. Haven't seen the second one yet. John

I thought the Boston match was decent/watchable, while the MSG match was poor. I'd disagree that Race was all that much slower than he had been the past few years in AJPW. Also, he could still bump: it's pretty clear in his match earlier in the year with Jumbo, and his matches the following year with Hogan (for whom he bumped all over the place). The problem with these seem more a lack of getting their shit down together, as the MSG match had Tito working more WWF Face vs WWF Heel style, while the Boston match saw it move closer into working a Harley style match where he was on top more (especially the last 2/3 of the match). Given some time, working a long WWF feud (which went around the horn forever in 1984-89), you could easily see them improving on the Boston match to find the balance between a Harley Match and Tito Firey Comebacks, which draw the crowd in. This was a terrible match. Given how solid-to-good-to-great Tito looked the rest of 1986, this really felt like Adonis having a bad night or not really giving a shit at this point. The match Kevin mentioned is one I've wanted to track down. They have these matches: 07/23/84 IC Title: Santana vs. Orton (20:00) - MSG 04/26/86 Santana vs Orton (9:51) - Detroit 07/26/86 Santana vs Orton (18:22) - Spectrum 08/09/86 Santana vs Orton (28:50) - Boston I haven't seen the Philly match. The Detroit match is their equiv of a sprint. Solid, nothing great. I like the MSG match, and think the Boston match is a very good old school match with lots of good work. John

Two mindblowing things about this: Boss Man busting out a frigging Doctor Bomb as a fairly throwaway move, and Santana going over. I mean, Boss Man's time as the #1 heel in the company was over and Santana wasn't quite the JTTS he'd become as El Matador, but that still surprises me that even with Dusty interfering that they'd give Santana a pinfall here, to the point where I wonder if it wasn't a punishment of some sort for the Boss Man. Bossman was well off the peak of facing Hogan in the Heel pecking order. He had been jobbing around the horn to Dusty through pretty much the entire feud, which was getting long of tooth by the time of Survivor (the SNME blow off was already in the can at that point to air after Survivors). Before that, he and Akeem jobbed to Demo all over the place, which was pretty much the tag title feud right after Mania. They seemed pretty much done with Bossman's heel push, and they turned him face after Rumble the next year. Why did Tito get the win as opposed to a bigger face? That's a good question, which you're touching on. Seems to have played into the Survivors match, and have Dusty there to be the cause to play into their feud. John

Well he did win a World title one of the few times it worked, and getting caught never caused him to directly lose. I'm aware of him making it work... though that famous win was due to the ref tripping Race. But you're making a sports analogy that would be this: I once had a hail mary TD that won a game. In my next 100 starts, at the 7:30 mark of each 2nd quarter (our as close as I can get to it with possession of the ball), I'll toss a Hail Mary to "test" the defense. So even if I throw 95 INTS, it's "worth it" due to the 5 times I'll connect for a TD. That's kind of... A Dumb Fuck QB. Which is what I think we'd all agree if we analyzed Heel Champion Wrestler Ric Flair at any depth. Dumb, Weak and/or a Bitch in most of what he did. John

The legwork and armwork in the Sammy-Ohtani told a story. The legwork in Fuchi-Kroffat told a story. Even in a match where it's discarded, there can be story aspects. We shouldn't be so narrow in thought to think a match tells only one story. I just watched a 42 minute episode of a lightweight TV show that told at least three stories, and possibly 4-5 if I thought more about it. And that's not even like I'm watching Deadwood where't they might be juggling a dozen stories / storylines in an hour... and perhaps two dozen if we want to pick it all apart given where we know all of these characters are going. Looking even at the "throwaway" elements of El Classico: * Misawa working Kawada's leg touches on a storyline going back to the 1993 RWTL (without thinking deeper) * Kawada's working of Misawa's neck/back touches on a storyline going back to the 1994 Carny * Kawada working Misawa's ear was pulled out of thin air to play off something that happened in the match Do they play into the over riding storyline of the match (Kawada can't beat Misawa)? I think the better question is: Do they have to? I'll point again to the Hansen-Taue match from Carny '94, which I'm really hoping makes the Yearbook cut. People need to see what a very well executed one-note match looks like. And then ponder whether they want every match to look like that. As much as I think elements of the match are brillant, especially Hansen's *entire* performance, that brillance would vanish if it were a common match. 12/96, 6/95, 6/94... people's pick as the best Lucha, Lawler or Fujiwara are unlikely to be as one-note as that one, and it's unlikely that their Top 5 picks in any of those categories is remotely close to that single minded on storyline. John

Very interesting post to read and think about it. Not in the "posters here give more thought" aspect, but the rest. John

I've always hated the match. But I'll give it another chance at some point in the near future. John

Yeah... all of that. Enjoyed this match, without pimping it as a MOTYC. Just a good point here where Mutoh is on his career run, and Hirata is a fun addition to the mix rather than just IWGP defenses against the Usual Suspects. John

Yeah, I always felt bad for Tim. Really solid, but had issues because he was so bland. John

Totally agree. It's an effective spot. The psych is that Ric is a Dumb Fuck, tries something, and the face out smarts him to catch him. Effective comedy spot the fans love. On a deeper level if you happen to watch 10 matches where Ric gets tossed off the top in all ten? If you think a second about it from "Wrestler Ric's" perspective rather than Worker Ric's perspective, it's kind of stupid: going to the top fails to work roughly 95% of the time for Ric. If Ric were truly the best wrestler in the world that he claims, he wouldn't try something that fails 95% of the time. But like I said... the pysch is that Ric is a Dumb Fuck. John

You're wrong. It is psych. The psych is to fill a section of the match and/or kill time. If it's well done by engaging the crowd, it's effective even if it has dick to do with the finish. It might not be "great psych", but there is thought there. I tend to think that triple table spots are bad because the force the guy going through the table to lay around far fucking too long. But the psych is: "This is a COOOLLLL MOTHERFUCKING SPOT that the CROWD WILL LUUUUUUUVVVVVVV!!!" Well, if the crowd loses their shit over it, the thought process worked... at least at the moment. I still tend to think it's shit on a level, but Sabu's thought process on the moment might not be totally fucked up. You're going 20 minutes. You can be like Kenta Kobashi and just work a spot-o-rama because your working of holds is for shit. Or you can be like Tito, who doesn't have 20 minutes of highspots like Kenta opposite Misawa, so you need to find 7 minutes of stuff to do when you're topping early in the match. You do know how to work the leg in a way that keeps the crowd engaged *if* your opponent is good and willing enough to work the holds with you from the bottom. Reasonably smart psych in filling the body of the match until it's time to pick it up? Hmm... Tito knows the figure four to come back to late in the match to, if done right, play off that legwork if anyone is paying attention? Yeah... reasonably smart. But even if people don't remember, you've at least found an effective way to kill 7 minutes if you do it well. Wrestling cards are 2 hours. You can't have a card of 8 matches going 5-8 minutes of Nitro-style matches that everyone now seems to be giving snowflakes-o-plenty to. Some of the folks need to go longer. And few of those folks can pull off spot-o-ramas like Kenta. So they need to put a little thought into filling that time. Whether they pull it off well or not... that's something we argue about. John

That's pretty much how I've tried to describe it over the years. It's the why and thought process behind what they do. I've always argued that the claim that a match has "no psychology" to be wrong. There is psych behind Dreamer being put through three tables, even if he has to lay around there forever in a way that looks pretty dumb ass considering how quickly he comesback other times. John

Yeah, I think Mero in here is a Good Sting or Good Kerry where he knows his stuff, has some cool stuff, and the fans like his cool stuff... but couldn't have laid out this match if his life depended on it. Like a high end Kerry or Sting match, he hold up his end, does his own stuff well, but that other guy is the glue holding it together. This always struck me as Pillman's masterpiece, an example of what he could have been in an earlier era of say the 80s. John