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I tend to think that Savage-Steamer from Mania, Savage-Steamer in Toronto and the 4/86 Savage-Tito from MSG are pretty much heads and shoulders above everything else in the two feuds. One kind of wishes that the two house show matches had bigger settings, such as Mania II (for Savage-Tito) and SNME (for Savage-Steamer in Toronto) which would have them both viewed as legendary epic classics matches. John

I've only written up the MSG cage match, and I really didn't like it at all. I talked about it in Match #18 of the WWF Thread on tOA. I've seen several others, and I've always been left wanting something more from them. They're a bunch on the list of things to watch, and perhaps they'll hit the spot. Pretty sure I have the first 20 disks of Corey's Savage set which covers 80s Savage in the WWF. Hogan-Savage-o-rama is the core of what I'll watch whenever I pick it back up (soon given College Football is over until the bowls). John

Good question, and one of those rare times with AJPW 90s that I don't have a pontificating opinion. I did like this match at the time. Ditch's comment is probably spot on: On the All Asia tags, perhaps expanding to 1990 and 1991 as they bounced the title around. It wasn't always a match up with Kawada (Footloose) or Kobashi (with Misawa, Ace and Kikuchi) in them. Some of those might age okay. Problem is that most would be JIP, and the "great" ones tended to have Kobashi in them. I would toss out Fantastics vs. Malenko & Kikuchi as one of the other obvious candidates. All Asia tourney. The other expansion would be some of the Tenryu stuff before he left. The last Jumbo-Tenryu match isn't as well loved as their earlier singles matches, but it's possible that the combo of Tenryu Luv and Jumbo Luv might have people rate that higher now. The other match that was good as Tenryu headed out was Tenryu-Savage. Liked quite a bit at the time, and both Tenryu and Savage are liked online now a hell of a lot. The big problem with the first two categories is that so much of it's JIP that it's hard to know just how good it is. On Gaijin vs Gaijin, there aren't any singles that massively jump out. I like the Doc-Gordy from Carny '93, but it's not an off the charts match. I can't think of a Hansen-Gordy that is !!! in getting one going. Some solid, but nothing that's a monster. I like the Hansen-Williams in Carny '94, but it doesn't strike me as a MOTYC. On the tags, Hansen & Spivey vs Gordy & Williams had a series of good matches. Their big April title matches in 1990 and 1991 were well received at the time. It's possible that they may not age well... but the Gordy & Williams vs Steiners matches are now pretty well loved, so a pair of big gaijin teams beating each other up might have come full circle in folks like it. Jumbo vs Gaijin... I can't think of one folks would go bonkers for. His best gaijin matches have Taue as his partner. That's one of the hiccups here: you often get almost there (Aikyama & Ogawa vs Mr. K & Kikuchi) where Mr. K is Kobashi. It goes back to my oft repeated point about them screwing up with Omori, where we almost certainly would have had good Akiyama & Asako vs Omori & Ogawa vs Can-Ams matches (along with some more good Jun-Omori matches) if they'd just dropped Omori with Kawada & Taue. Anyway, here are the matches that Meltzer rated ****1/4+ that fit the bill i.e. no Four Corners (tv air dates rather than match dates): 09/23/90 Fantastics vs. Malenko & Kikuchi ****3/4 05/05/91 Hansen & Spivey vs. Gordy & Williams (World Tag title change) ****1/4 11/03/91 Fuchi vs. Kroffat (PWF Jr.) ****1/4 03/14/93 Fuchi vs. Kikuchi (PWF Jr.) ****1/4 06/18/95 Kroffat vs. Van Dam (Jr. Title) ****1/2 01/31/99 Ogawa vs. Kakihara (Jr. Title) ****1/4 06/06/99 Omori & Takayama vs. Shinzaki & Hayabusa (All Asia, 6’ shown) ****1/4 The 4/90 Hansen & Spivey vs. Gordy & Williams wasn't rated as it was before Dave got in the mode of reviewing *every* AJPW & NJPW tv show. I do think it rated quite high in his list of matches in the Yearbook, and that by looking at the star ratings of the matches right above it and right below it determine how many stars he thought it was. I wasn't to say no worse than ****1/4 and possible ****1/2. Obviously don't have the Yearbook here at work. Fuchi-Kroffat was JIP: the last 9:10 was shown according to Dan's notes. One wishes the full thing aired to see how Danny worked before selling the knee, as one suspects he opened hot before getting cut off. There are a few more All Asian matches that weren't available on TV for star ratings, but made either commercial or Samurai. I recall one big blood bath that people liked as a change of pace. I have a soft sport for Fantastics vs. Malenko & Kikuchi. John

What about Tito? Steamer and Savage have the 'Mania III match, but were any of their other matches nearly as well received? (Honest question, BTW) The Tito/Savage IC Title feud in '86 produced quite a few well-received matches. Savage-Steamboat feud arc would be best represented by this: A. 11/01/86 Boston: Pre-Injury B. 11/22/86 Superstars: Injury Angle Match (taped 10/28/86) C. 02/15/87 Toronto: Revenge Match D. 02/23/87 MSG: Elimination Match F. 03/29/87 WrestleMania: Title Change Savage-Tito feud arc is probably best represented by: A. 01/11/86 Boston B. 02/08/86 Boston Title change C. 03/16/86 MSG D. 04/22/86 MSG No DQ E. 05/19/86 MSG with Bruno as Guest ref F. 06/14/86 MSG Savage & Adonis vs Santana & Sammartino G. 07/12/86 MSG Savage & Adonis vs Santana & Sammartino (Cage) Savage-Steamer is a tighter arc with the best highpoints: monster angle (which comes after they've worked a good Nitro-style match on Superstars), terrific revenge match in Toronto, legendary climax at Mania. Savage-Tito is more sprawling because the title change is in Boston which the cleaner storyline is in MSG. Since the first Boston sets up the title change, you need it. The MSG No DQ is the one truly great stand out, while the others are all generally good. The cage is a very good payoff and a helluva lot of fun, but it's not really up at the Mania level. They're both great. There are other Savage-Steamer matches, going all the way back to 1985 and around the horn during the feud. They don't really add to the feud arc, but there are other solid matches. I point to those five as simply the clearest and cleanest in representing the feud. There are also other Tito-Savage matches. Same thing: those seven do the best job of representing the feud, and even it is a little stretched. John

I suspect that he would have learned before moving up into covering a beat. It would have been hammered home into him. His rambling nature would have been beaten out of him as well. Also worth remembering: he did write for papers, and no doubt did sports for his college paper as well as part of getting his degree. He had experiance cutting stuff down to fit. On his own, writing his own newsletter, he can do whatever he wants. He's gotten looser over time as he's moved away from worrying about space limitations. I think if you go back to his territorial sections in the 80s you can see him craming a lit of little things into a short space. I suspect his PPV write ups in say 1991 were shorter than they've become. The long intros have always been there, and depending on how newsworthy the show was, or how annoyed/happy he was about them, he could go longer. But he probably got in and out quicker. Another good area to look at would be his old pieces in The National. All of them were newspaper column length, short, in and out but reasonablly inforative for a newspaper column. I wouldn't hold up his writing in the WON as the type of writer he would be doing sports, at least not for the early part of his career. Also... sports doesn't really lend itself to those long pieces you'd see in Vanity Fair or the New Yorker where you can really stretch out in writing something at length. There are only a handful of those around, usually the long non-news "feature" piece in Sports Illustrated. You don't into the rotation of that writing assignment for ages. I don't have any doubt that he would have had a career in the newspaper business. Especially in the 80s when there were a heck of a lot more papers. NFL reporter... that's a tougher gigs, especially at one of the papers of note. It also would have been interesting to see how he responded to the current death of the newspaper business. He's not been up on, let alone ahead of, the changes in technology over the years. As sports reporting moved to TV and guys like Mort, Clayton and Gammons headed early into establishing themselves on TV, does anyone thing that Dave would be at the front end of that? Then with the net coming along and putting the final set of nails into both the newspaper business by also the magazine business, ahead or behind there? I suspect that there were a lot of people who had the same level of "sources" that Mort and Gammons had when they first crossed into TV. I know Gammons' legend long before ESPN, having read in him in SI and TSN. But a ton of his sources were stuff passed along by the Red Sox front office and the same type of sources that all sorts of guys had. Out here in LA, Ross Newhan had the same level of sources... half the stuff we'd read before it showed up the next week in a Gammons piece nationally. Where Gammons and Mort were smart was knowing when to get into TV and have their network push them as "experts" to an even bigger national audience. Every major city had a Mort and Gammons... but only a handful of them out of that generation made it big on TV. Dave? That would likely have passed him by. John

I'm not a fan of the Backlund-Patterson cage match. I've seen the Philly matches (10/20/79 and 11/17/79) and they're really disappointing: "Fifth of Gin Selling" was coined by Frank to describe Pat laying around doing nothing in them. On the other hand, the second July MSG match (07/30/79) is available, and I think it's pretty good. It's odd because it's their longest available match going nearly 30. But they put together what I thought was a real good match the last time I watched it. With the opponents I selected, I tried to go with some folks who had multiple good matches available and also few dogs. The 1979 Bob-Valentine blow off is disappointing/mediocre, but there are so many good matches between them along with at least one true classic (the 1979 draw) that it's makes Greg an obvious opponent. John

Journalism degree (from the same school my dad got one way back in 1960). Planned on being a sports writer, and those were his jobs before the WON became successful enough to be a fulltime job. I don't recall Dave being a massive football or NFL fan when we were close. But it's safe to say that whatever sport he covered would have been one he obsessed over like he did pro wrestling and later MMA. NFL jobs in NFL cities (such as the bay area where he clearly wanted to live) are rather prized gigs at major papers in the 80s. You don't just walk into the major papers in the Bay out of school and get a job covering the 49ers (since the Raiders were in Los Angeles from 1982-94). There were a number of smaller papers in those days, as even now we still have the Pasadena Star News and San Gabriel Vally Tribune here locally. Their sports coverage of the major sports never struck me as much, and instead they focused a good deal on high schools and the JC (Pasadena City College). I tend to think sports writers for those smaller papers end up being jack of all trades rather than narrowly focused. Dave's pretty focused and driven. One could see him putting in time being a sports grunt in a major paper in the hopes of eventually moving up. But the 80s were also an era where sports writers stuck around forever. Not a massive amount of upward mobility. And again, NFL was a prized job, especially in the Bay when the Walsh Era was taking off. Far more likely that after putting in time doing grunt work supporting coverage of all sorts of sports that Dave would have found an opening for some lower level sport, grabbed it for (i) moving up and (ii) security, and then become obsessed with every aspect of it and become the Dave of that sport. Think along the lines of covering Stanford or Cal Football/Hoops, or the Warriors. He actually was more conversational about 70s baseball than football when we talked, and baseball has a long season with lots of games to cover... so getting on the A's beat would have been a possibility (since the Giants beat was the more desired one on the Bay). But even that gig is something that local writers would want: you get several hundred bylines a year, regular assignments, travel, the perks of the park, etc. Pretty decent gig. I think he tosses out the NFL because it's the King of Sports and he probably thinks he would have gravitated towards it. But given his desire to be long term in the Bay Area, it would have been a tough gig to get. And again, we all know that when Dave tosses himself at something, he tends to go pretty hog wild on it. He would have found his "thing" long before a decent NFL slot opened for him, and once he found that thing, he would have devoured it (and it would have devoured him). John

I think what we're saying is: 06/28/98 Kane won WWF Title from Austin 09/27/98 Austin vacated WWF Title 05/23/99 Taker won WWF Title from Austin 05/21/00 Trip won WWF Title from Rock 10/22/00 Angle won WWF Title from Rock 04/01/01 Austin won WWF Title from Rock Austin and Rock in those two periods were Hogan. Yet the WWF found ways to get the belt off them. Far more often than they got the belt off Hogan from 1984-89. John

I agree with your point on the chase. But it has come to mean chasing the title. It's how Dave uses it, and it appears Larry M is the one he follows the lead on that. Hogan-Orndorff isn't really a chase storyline. It's a feud and revenge storyline. John

In chron order since I'd have to think more about ranking them: * Antonio Inoki First, much less seen match (also 60 minutes) is a little tentative. The second match is the more widely seen 60 minute match... and it's pretty much as good of a 60 minute draw from the 60s to early 80s as you'll see. Just exceptional all around work in the context of the time. After that there are a lot of good matches. I love their Miami match since it's not a "home" crowd for either of them, but they do get the crowd into it. These two really worked well together. It's as if they both found an opponent that they could do all their mat stuff with, all their teases with, and whip out all their high spots with. Almost the Flair-Steamboat pairing for Bob of someone who was completely on the same page. The only thing missing is that they were both face by nature, and quite effective faces. That means this doesn't tap strongly into Bob's facedom with a strong hell. * Don Muraco Two sets of matches: 1981 and 1983. In 1981 we have the second MSG match (Texas Death Match), the first Philly match (60 minute draw), the second Philly match (90 minute time limit that of course doesn't go 90) and a Cap Centre Texas Death Match. We're missing from circulation the first MSG match, which is also a 60 minute draw and one of the Grails. The MSG TDM is great. The Philly 60 minute draw is a really interesting example of how old school wrestlers broke down a 60 minute match in terms of layout, especially if they weren't trading falls. I can get people who'd find it boring because it is a long match, and there is no real payoff. I find it interesting, and the work is really solid/good if not super exciting for folks. The second Philly match is another good one. It doesn't have the epic feel of the MSG blow off, but the two work well with each other. The Cap Centre TDM is like a Nitro Style match between the two. Not epic or great~!, but a good amount of cool stuff In 1983 we have MSG matches from 2/83 & 3/83. The first is quite a good match, and one I wish we had around the time Will made the Backlund set. It would be a keeper. The second one is a 20 minute match where there's a 7-5-8 split to the match where the opening 7 and finishing 8 are the usual good stuff, but the 5 minute stretch (last part of Bob's opening dominance) is bad. It's worth watching just as an example of what can work and what doesn't work in a match up of guys who work well together, and also as an example of Bob Fans don't always mindlessly shill for Bob. The two tragic missing things are from 1981: - MSG 60 minute draw - Boston cage match The MSG draw is probably in the vault, so we might get to see it. Given the way the great MSG blow off > good Philly blow played out, it's very possible that the MSG 60:00 draw > Philly 60:00 draw.... and that would be something to see. There are 4 minutes of hand held clips from the Boston cage match, and it looks like one of the best WWF cage matches of the era. The shit on the clips is awesome. This is likely never to be found in more length as they weren't taping in Boston at the time. * Greg Valentine Really four sets of match ups: 1979, 1981 and 1984. The 60 minute match in 1979 is terrific... I think it exceeded everyone's expectations when it washed up. The blow off isn't high on the list of good Backlund matches, though it does have one of the coolest finishes ever. I'd have to watch it again to point out what's off, but my recollection is that it pretty much just laid there. 1981 had a pair of good MSG matches. They're pretty much sprints compared to the 1979 and 1984 matches. I've yet to see the Philly Cage match (which was early 1982 if I recall) in full, only the edited version that was on CHV release. The one 1984 match that's out was surprisingly good. Slow starter, methodical... but they really got the crowd into it. I enjoyed the hell out of it. * Ken Patera We have their first and third MSG matches along with the blow off / transition match in Philly. The two MSG matches are excellent, with the Texas Death Match just off the charts great. The one Philly match in circulation is solid, good work... but had a special ref and the point of it was to set up a Patera vs Special Ref match on the next Philly card. That does take away from it. In the end it's not an essential match since MSG has an epic blow off. * Sargent Slaughter Their 1980 MSG match is actually *not* good at all. Don't know what was wrong with the two, but it didn't click at all. The feud clicked in Philly in 1981. Excellent first match, solid enough second match, epic great classic awesome cage match blow off. In 1983 only one of their MSG matches is in circulation: 05/23/83. That's a heck of a match at a time when Bob is suppose to suck. Crowd eats the shit up, and the two work really well together. There matches from Philly are available: 08/13/83, 09/24/83 Texas Death Match and 10/22/83 Scicilian Stretcher Match. I've only seen the middle match. My wrap up comment on it: I still need to track down the other two Philly matches. Even if those disappoint and the feud peters out in Philly in 1983, we do get three good-to-great matches in 1981, and one very good MSG match in 1983. The two worked quite well together. John

I wouldn't go quite that extreme. Things have gotten insane in the last several years as: * the promotion chases its tail trying to find The Next Big Thing * they have two World Titles Things kind of have gone batshit from roughly 2009 on forward. Not saying they didn't do quick turn arounds before that, but you also had: 04/01/01 - 09/23/01 Austin (9/11 break up as it wasn't planned) 12/15/02 - 09/21/03 Trip 09/16/03 - 02/15/04 Brock 06/27/04 - 04/03/05 Bradshaw 09/12/04 - 04/05/05 Trip (including helped up) 04/03/05 - 01/10/06 Batista (injury stopped) 04/03/05 - 01/08/06 Cena 09/17/06 - 10/02/07 Cena (injury stopped) 10/07/07 - 04/27/08 Orton 04/27/08 - 11/25/08 Trip Of course that's with two belts rather than one, and split promotions. But in a sense treat Raw as 80's WWF and SmackDown as 80s NWA where guys the anchor guys (Hogan and Flair) may not be changing promotions as often as the top WWE guys have. I think if Trip and Cena had been forced to stay in one promotion through that entire period, and with less movement even of guys like Batista, Brock, Orton, Taker and Edge (how much did Savage and Dusty move between the WWF and NWA from 1984-89?), then you'd probably see that's true "00 style booking" isn't close to what we're seeing in 2009-2011. Add on top of it: Hogan and Bruno were more over than Cena, and didn't need to "chance". In fact, look at that long Cena dominance: 04/03/05 - 01/08/06 Cena (won at Mania) 01/08/05 - 01/29/06 Edge (won at NY Rev) 01/29/06 - 06/11/06 Cena (won at Rumble) 06/11/06 - 07/03/06 RVD (won at ECW ONS II) 07/03/06 - 09/17/06 Edge (won on Raw) 09/17/06 - 10/02/07 Cena (won at Unforgiven) An injury stopped Cena's reign. Someone who recalls WWE modern history better than I do can probably indicate when Cena was going to drop the title, and if it was going to be at the PPV later that week. Point: right in the middle of the 00s WWE booking was a 2.5 year streak where the hottest WWE face of the second half of the decade dominated the title with three "long" reigns by 00 standards, and two that were quite long even by the standards of the second half of the 90s. Cena _wasn't_ chasing the belt for 2.5 years. He chased Edge twice in it, and that's all. That also overlaps a lot of Batista's dominance of the other title. I think Flair would have been droping the title left and right. Hogan... that's a different beast. I think he would have been booked closer to 2005-2007 Cena. They would have had him drop the title 2-3 times a year, and possibly go off on longer runs with it like Cena did in 9/06 - 10/07. Someone like Orndorff with a feud like that would no doubt of won. Piper as hot as he was? They would have flipped them around. Others like OMG would never have gotten the title. Bruno would have been booked the same way. My guess is that Backlund would have started strong holding it for close to a year, and that in 1979 they would have been looking for a title change to spice things up. It's impossible in hindsight to ponder an exact who/when since clearly something as big as the WWF Title means they could have brought someone in specifically for it. If forced to play with who actually challenged, then the time would probably be Patterson's challenges starting in July 1979. Stopping back, it also would be possible to go with something I tossed out earlier: Peter Maivia's heel turn results in Maivia getting the title. Their first match was 11/20/78. That's far enough from the 02/20/78 title win to make it look like a "long" first reign by Bob in a modern sense. The feud got blown off on 01/22/79, which in turn would work into Bob holding it until a summer turn around with Patterson. Keep the title turn around with Inoki in Japan, then work one with Patera early in 1980. Maybe something like this: 02/20/78 Backlund over Graham 11/20/78 Maivia over Backlund 01/22/79 Backlund over Maivia 07/30/79 Patterson over Backlund (second match) 09/24/79 Backlund over Patterson 11/30/79 Inoki over Backlund 12/06/79 Backlund over Inoki 02/18/80 Patera over Backlund (second match) 05/19/80 Backlund over Patera You could work an injury angle in the second Backlund-Patterson that would allow Bruno to challenge on the MSG in between. The second Patera-Backlund makes a little more sense as Patera goes off on his feud with Patterson, but if Ken is winning the title it doesn't make sense for him to also win the IC... so that's a little more complicated. The Inoki one would still be ignored in the US, so it's really only the completion of one turn around and then another full one in the year. The WWF didn't believe in the "chase" with the babyface until the last few years. John

You say this but who really would have got runs after 1985? Let's just stick with WWF for now: Greg Valentine NO Would already have gotten a turn around opposite Backlund, if not getting a turn around in Mid-Atlantic opposite Flair (former partners angle, which they did over the US Title anyway). Since he was IC champ, it's a possibility. It's hard to say just how much Hogan would have dominated if things were booked 00's style. Of course he would have gotten one. Of course he would have gotten one leading into WM II. Probably would have gotten one from Flair defending in Wattsland. These aren't singles wrestlers of note. Of course he would have gotten one. Biggest Hogan feud of the era, of course Hogan would have dropped it in 00 style booking. Would have gotten have won the title in one of his two feuds with Backlund. For all our love of him, not really a singles wrestler of note. Yes, he did headline MSG. So did Bobby Duncam. None of us are saying that everyone who headlines a PPV or an MSG gets the title. Not really a top level WWF singles wrestler. A "star" for sure, and well loved. But look up the times that he challenge for the WWF title. You need to be in the mix. Not a singles wrestler of note. He was a World Champ. None of these guys are singles wrestlers of note. If Watts was desperate to create a new JYD, he might have been able to lobby an NWA booked like the 00's that one of Flair's 4-5 title turn arounds in a year happened in Wattsland to Reed. In the WWF, he wasn't a singles wrestler of note. Depends on how far Vince wanted to go with the gimmick. The problem remains that it was Hogan dominating through that 1984-89 period, so you're not going to do as many title changes say happened *this* year in the WWF. You're more likely to have 2-3. HTM might not fit into that. On the other hand... HTM in a modern era booking would be mixed into the picture with Savage rather than how long the Savage-DiBiase ran around the country. HTM *might* take the title from Savage to tie into their prior feud, and to have a blow off on one of the lesser PPVs. Could see it. Not highly likely, but possible. Vince did love the gimmick. Neither were singles wrestlers of note. OMG did get his run opposite of Hogan, but it wasn't up there with Bossman or Kamala, let along Savage and Orndorff. Would have gotten the title earlier against either Bruno or Backlund or possibly both. Did end up getting a world title in WCW. Probably would have gotten one in WCW a hell of a lot earlier if WCW was booked 00s style. He was one of the lead heels in the company from start to finish of his run. In the WWF, he already had lifting the IC off Warrior when they ran their WWF Title feud. He also got programmed fairly soon with Warrior, and I wouldn't expect in 00's style booking for Warrior to quickly lose the title. But something like the SummerSlam cage match if pushed off for later in the year... that works better if Warrior is the one chasing the belt after Rude did something so evil that they needed the cage matches. I'd say that given modern style booking that it's very likely that he would have gotten it from Warrior. Never really was stable enough in his push in the 80s to get it. In the 90s, he may have gotten the belt from Bret if they needed to elevate that feud to run on several PPV's. Things massively change when you're running monthly PPVs, _and_ the top star is on every card usually in a singles. The WWF hadn't gotten to the IYH era by the time of Bret vs Bam Bam, and it's worth remembering that early on the WWF champ didn't always appear on them, and at times got tossed into tag matches. The WWF also took a while to get into Bounce The Title Around Mode (i.e. where they reached the point in Austin's first stretch of anchoring the promotion even he didn't hold the title in lengthy fashions) If the WWF was booking 00s style when Bam Bam vs Bret happened... might have seen Bam Bam get it. Of course. I think there's a possibility. The WWF ran the feud before Hogan got the belt back from Savage, with some drag over after Mania. That was a period where Hogan couldn't have dropped the title. But think about this: Hogan was programed with Savage through _October_. His first match with Bad News didn't happen until the second half of October, unless I'm missing an isolated matches or two. He also started his feud with Perfect around that time. That never happens now. It's hard to tell if they would have frontloaded Hogan-Savage (i.e. book them together leading into Mania with Mania the blow off) or if they would have backloaded it as they did (Savage dropping the title then challenging around the horn after). If it was frontloaded, which is more modern, then they would have had Bossman in the que for sometime after the Savage feud. Given they did a three match series, and the thing drew quite well, it's possible that after the first "PPV" drew well and they saw how hot it was, they might have had Bossman take the title in the second and done the cage match for Hogan to win it back. Not impossible. Again, remember how often Austin was without the title. Probably not. Possible. He was run against both Savage and Hogan. Vince and/or Pat much have liked pushing him. Not singles wrestlers of note. Won a world title before he came to the WWF. Not singles wrestlers of note in the WWF. Possible. One could see Vince going the Mick Foley route with him. On the other hand, if Watts had a close tie to an 00s-style NWA Booking Office in the 80s, it's possible that when Duggan got hot in Wattsland that he would have gotten Flair to drop the title to him. One could see Flair-Duggan as the singles main event of the first Crockett Cup and some stip that would help draw. Still could have run the Dusty-Flair title turn around in July-Aug: that's plenty of time from the April Crockett Cup. Not a singles wrestler of note in the WWF. I would disagree with that. If so, then the 80s WWF wouldn't have been booked like an 00s promotion. What's the point of the thread? John

When Dave interviewed Superstar in 1992, there was no indication that Superstar *ever* thought of or wanted to turn face in 1977/78. Superstar only wanted to turn face after seeing Stone Cold. After more than a decade of (rightfully) taking credit for the greatest thing to come along after him (Hogan), Superstar wanted to recast himself as "I coulda been Stone Cold before Stone Cold". Superstar was quite happy to brag that he made more money the year he dropped the title rather than the year he held the title for most of the year. As a continuing heel. There wasn't nothing there along the lines of: "And I could have made even more if Vince Sr. let me turn face!" John

I laugh whenever I watch Graham interviews. Not because they're good, but because they're so mediocre and nosensical. Vince would crap his pants at getting someone who could talk like *Dusty* in the WWWF. Check out the two long WWWF interviews Dusty did on the Dusty DVD that game out several years back. One at ringside at a TV taping, the other a sit down "empty arena" interview. Both with Vince. Dusty is off the chart, going off onto tangents but always reeling himself back into his theme. You can see Vince just blow the fuck away by it. In comp, Superstar's interviews on his DVD just suck cock. Which is saying something since the WWE was combing through the vault to find the best ones it could to make Superstar look good. Just doped up nonsense, and not good doped up nonsense. If one wants good charismatic doped up nonsense, check out Muraco getting interviewed by Kal in Philly. Now that was great nonsense. Sorry for the rant. I just don't think Superstar holds up at all, and even in the context of the time, if Dusty was the A+ standard, Superstar lagged far behind. In the ring... yikes! Cena has more charisma and is better on the mic than Superstar... and I'm hardly a big Cena fan. John

Damn, Loss... you were doing such a great job with 1995 and a lot of good stuff was coming up the rest of the year (like G1 as NJPW's response to AJPW's epic Carny). John

Basically everyone of note would have gotten world title reigns. Race and Flair would have dropped it all over the place when they were touring. One suspects that the WWWF/WWF would never have gotten to the Memphis level where a title change was needed in just about every Lawler program and fans in the Mid South Coliseum were seeing "history being made" ever week (when one includes the tag titles and other belts in the territory). But ones could see Backlund and Bruno doing 2-3 title turn arounds a year. There are just too many names to name. In 00's style booking, Maivia takes the title from Bob when he turns. Graham takes the title when he comes back. Mil doesn't a turn around with Superstar when they had matches. Patera... Larry Z... Sarge... on and on. John

Huh? I assume a Billy Graham reference? Yes. One of the previous times this came up: I still would love to hear the excuse for why it wasn't in the classic 1992 interview (which was at the time one of the best things ever in the WON) didn't mention it if: * it was so critical to Graham's (reimagined) story From his (reimagined) perspective years later, Graham pointed to it being a major cause for his drug useage going off the deep end and his depression * Dave has already heard about it at the time of the interview Dave ate little stories like that up. How many times have we read/heard the story about the Dory/Brisco/Harley title change? I've seen him talk to wrestlers... there's no way in doing a formal (for him) interview and not bring it up when Graham got to that section of the interview. It's just Dave's nature. Anyway, Graham's "turned down" face turn story in the WWWF is bullshit. I tend to enjoy tossing out the Stone Cold Superstar riff simply because of who bought it. John

What do you mean by Bravo being a special case ? I'm intrigued. They seemed to protect him, possible for Canada. I'd have to run through his results, but he seemed to do fewer jobs than you'd expect for a WWF heel of his level. Similar guys did lots of jobs as the WWF usually was about making the fans happy and not much into protecting heels. John

It was a pretty minor push. I'm not saying that is was a non-existent push, but was just to give him something to do. I'd be hard pressed to say that he was as pushed in JCP as Koko was in the WWF. I do agree that it wasn't a small roster. Just that the WWF's was massive. Still, one can look at that Forum card I posted above to get an idea of the depth in the promotion when they pulled the crew together for a show: JCP @ Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - August 28, 1986 (10,000) Debut at the venue Hector Guerrero defeated the Barbarian Jimmy Valiant defeated Shaska Whatley Wahoo McDaniel defeated NWA National Heavyweight Champion Tully Blanchard to win the title Dick Murdoch defeated NWA TV Champion Arn Anderson The Road Warriors defeated Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev Magnum TA fought NWA US Champion Nikita Koloff to a no contest NWA Tag Team Champions Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson defeated Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Dusty Rhodes via disqualification TA vs Nikita and Warriors vs Russians were major feuds... and those were under Flair-Dusty and R'n'R vs MX. That's a modern PPV level card Then mix in Arn-Murdoch and Tully-Wahoo as the *midcard*? Valiant vs Whatley looks like a nothing prelim 25 years later, but Valiant vs Jones was a long running, heated blood feud that everyone watching JCP new the jist off. In a way, this was similar to the WWF where you had storylines up and down the card. Even something as far down the ladder as Herc vs Haynes had a storyline, and if you went to a WWF card you knew what it was about. You'd get some matches just rolled out, but a lot of them had storylines that were pushed in the mix on Superstars, Challenge and Primetime. John

Sharpe was a heel JTTS. One thing to keep in mind is that we need to take out 1990s mindset and set it aside when looking at the 80s. There were tons of pure jobber matches on TV in the 80s. As the 90s moved along, there were fewer pure jobber matches, and former "stars" effectively became the JTTS. Kanyon and Spike Holly were the JTTS guys by the end of the 90s, but they actually had tv pushes as characters, and got wins and programs over guys at their level. In the 80s, guys like SD and Sharpe and Horowitz were never pushed like even a Kanyon or a Holly was. Just a different beast. On the other hand, they were working around the horn, jobbing to the stars and working more competitive with guys on their level. The WWF was running three crews at the time: lots of spots on cards. Before the heel turn, he was a JTTS. I suspect that if we looked at his matches in 1986 we'll find essentially the same thing as SD. The primary difference would be that Lanny would have more tv squash match wins against straight jobbers than SD did. Virgil got a push to challenge Bret on TV soon after Bret won the title in what another poster reminded us was Bret's "fighting champion" push. Virgil was a mid-card / undercard guy in 1992: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/92.htm He had programs with guys like Repo and Skinner. He got pure squash matches beating the real jobbers. He actually looked like he was programmed twice with Shawn, once right before Shawn won the IC. If he was a JTTS, it was purely by the 90s definition where Jobbers were going away. By 1993 you had Raw, and the WWF started to book TV a bit differently. They also were in the process over the course of the early 1990s in scaling back the house show business significantly: from three crews to two crews and eventually to just one. They're not really a one-to-one comp with guys in the 90s. On the hell side, yes. No. Billy got a push. Wins over Beefcake, Sheik, Orton, Herc, Adonis, Volkoff, Kamala (right as Kamala's feud with Hogan started) and Muraco. Got TV challenges of Savage for the IC and didn't job. The feud with Herc was pushed into 1987, including a match at Mania at a time when they didn't give JTTS singles matches. He was pushed all through 1987, and started 1988 teaming with Patera feuding against Demolition. Billy was a midcarder. WWF midcard faces tend to win as many as they lose. They were JTTS similar to SD. They then got a tag push as low ranked face team. Watch their match with Arn & Tully: they don't work like JTTS, and instead pretty much dominate the match in annoying fashion. I'd put the tag team at the low end of undercard/midcard. Before that they were prelim / JTTS guys. Not in 1986. Same as Haynes: he got a push. Lots of wins over "stars", and even got to challenge Savage on a house show. Undercard/midcard guy who got pushed. Not at all. Their first match of the year was challenging the for the Tag Title on a Kiel show... and they didn't job to the Dream Team. It wasn't their only title shot of the year. They beat the Dream Team regularly when they dropped the titles. The unending feud with the Hart Foundation, and they didn't lose all of them. Matches with Sheki & Volkoff when they were pushed. The Bees were a very pushed tag team for years. Yes. Didn't work a lot, though. Jerry worked very little in 1986: well under 20 known matches... it may be under 10 since I'm going through the Ctrl+F really fast. Garea wouldn't work with SD: they were in the same boat. Jimmy Jack Funk was really two different beasts: teaming with Dory, and on his own. On his own, he had several jobs to Poffo. With Dory... he jobbed to SD & Roma in a few matches in Australia. Roma and Powers were on the same face side as SD and Poffo, pretty much the same level until their tag push. Considering Haynes got wins over Herc and Volkoff, I'd rethink this one. I'd have to look through Koko again, but he was at or above the level of most of those guys. They treated Bravo a bit differently, but he was something of a special case. Hard to say. People run their course. By late 1986 and early 1987, Sheik had run his course. We're talking about a World Champ who headlined against Hogan all over the place, and he was an undercarder. That happens with national promotions. You run through talent. The 1986 roster was rather deep. There always were JTTS. Sam Houston on some level was a JTTS in JCP. They just weren't running as many cards as the WWF, so it's no always easy to see. Italian Stallion was a JTTS. They had bottom of the card folks, like almost all of Paul Jones' Army. Come on... Shaska Whatley? Rude & Raging elevated Jones out of the mess, then they gave him the Powers of Pain. What kept Jones Army out of being obvious JTTS was that Dusty did a pretty decent job of keeping the Jones vs Boogy Woogy feud really focused. It was an undercard feud that had its own storyline going on. They had lots of prelim guys who would be JTTS if they were tossed into matches with stars: Not at all. Prelim guy. Here's the first card out here when they re-pushed as a national promotion: JCP @ Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - August 28, 1986 (10,000) Debut at the venue Hector Guerrero defeated the Barbarian Jimmy Valiant defeated Shaska Whatley Wahoo McDaniel defeated NWA National Heavyweight Champion Tully Blanchard to win the title Dick Murdoch defeated NWA TV Champion Arn Anderson The Road Warriors defeated Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev Magnum TA fought NWA US Champion Nikita Koloff to a no contest NWA Tag Team Champions Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson defeated Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Dusty Rhodes via disqualification Wahoo was a midcarder. Ron Garvin was a midcarder as 1986 wore on and his feud Tully finished. Hell, JCP was so "loaded" that Arn was a midcarder in a sense until he got the tag belts with Tully. The top of the card typically was combinations of this: * Flair World Title Match * Dusty Match * World Tag Title Match * US Title Match * Road Warriors Match They could bleed together to a degree: Dusty in with Flair, or Flair & Horseman vs Dusty & TA. But the top of the cards were often pretty loaded, and you'd end up with Barry Windham (in 1987) or Arn and Tully as singles (in 1986) in the mid-card. The WWF had more "talent", but it was spread around three crews. JCP did some split crews: But that's kind of a double shot/split crew combo where Fayetteville was a matinee, and elements of that crew went to Philly while other elements when to Baltimore for the evening show. Whatley beat jobbers on TBS all the time in 1986. He was above the jobber level. Here's 1986 for WCW: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/wcwsaturdaynight86.htm I'd be surprised if you find any jobber appearances by him. Stallion didn't get many TV wins. He did at house shows against other jobbers below him. He's a pretty direct analogy to SD. Rocky was a jobber. Not as clear as the Mulkey level of getting his ass handed to him, but below Stallion in 1986. John

That's probably better for the "What Are You Watching In November" thread than the theme of this thread. John

The payoffs are when the comeback doesn't work. We'd seen so many times where the trusty elbows turn the tide. When they don't... when there's just not enough juice in them to turn it, or he's too toasted from something to be able to take advantage, it's even better than when he does comeback. The title change with Doc is a case. He tries to fire the trusty elbows. Doc sells them as slowing him down. But Misawa is too toasted from the backdrop driver to recover, and Doc finally puts him down. 12/06/96 is similar. In that one Misawa recovers enough to have been able to take out... except that Kawada & Taue have killed off Jun. Suspect you'll run across it later in the year as well. John

Here are two data sets. The first are SD's known matches from just January. I don't want to run it into the ground with the full year or even half a year: that would be a lot of stuff. But this is a pretty reasonable example. http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/primetime86.htm Some thoughts: He worked on a fair number of shows rather than just come in for the tapings and do jobs. On the house shows, he typically beat lower ranked jobbers such as Terry Gibbs. Rene Goulet, Moondog Spot and Tiger Chung Lee are sort of at the same level as SD. Tiger was sort of the top heel at that level, then probably Spot. Goulet was on his way to being a road agent. SD as a face would beat Goulet, which he'd split things up a bit with Spot and Lee. With the stars on house show, Jones was typical in with newer guys coming in or guys between programs. So in this month he had matches with Tonga/Haku and Herc, putting them over. Poffo was also a JTTS level guy. The long win over Goulet that aired on Primetime wasn't unusual. You'd get JTTS matches on Primetime. At the TV tapings for what aired in syndication, he would job... or his team would job. Though there is the win over the Gladiator on All American Wrestling. Nothing out of the ordinary here for what I remember from the time period. * * * * * * * * * The second data set is s 1986 Primtime, at least what Graham has compiled so far. Looks like he's missing 5 or so shows, and possible a few others are incomplete. Still, it's a pretty good set of results. The value in it is that Primetime aired a lot of house show matches. They were selective on airing top of the card matches, so you'd get a lot of mid-card stuff and undercard stuff from house shows. So it gives an idea of what SD was doing through out the year without having to sift through card after card of results. Another way of doing this would probably be to look at the MSG, Philly and Boston cards. It's 30+ cards. He's not going to be on all of them, but one might find 10+ results for him. They all would be non-TV jobber matches, so it might be an even truer view into how he was booked. I find this a bit more useful because it goes outside just those three arenas, and also pulls in some of the syndication matches that got re-aired on Primetime./ Some thoughts: I'd forgotten the SD & Power JTTS Tag Team push. Wins of straight jobber teams on three different TV tapings that made it over to Primetime. Win over Rusty Brooks in Poughkeepsie would have been a TV taping. Similar collection of SD wins over other jobbers at house shows: Goulet (Cap Centre), Mr. X (MSG), Spot (MSG) and Iron Mike Sharpe (MSG). That again gives us a little flavor of how he was used on house shows when not facing a star. Similar collection of loses to stars on house shows: eating the fall when teaming with Tonga opposite Muraco & Fuji, Bret (MSG), Race (Maple Leaf), Beefcake (Houston). Similar collection of TV jobs: Adonis on Challenge. * * * * * * * * Overall, that what I typically thought of as a JTTS rather than just a Jobber. John

SD and the Italian Stallion were at the top of the jobber food chain. They'd do jobs to the stars, if they were in tags it would be their partner eating the job. Stallion would work some house shows if I recall correctly when JCP worked a split crew, and would get wins over similar low guys and of course job to the stars. John

Running a board can be a pain in the ass, and the positives don't always outweigh the negatives. Bryan and Dave don't have the time to moderate it. Which means they'd have to find someone who would moderate it. Everyone here has seen plenty of boards where you run into problems with additional moderators/admins/etc as the original founder/founders have their time impacted and can't still be the all knowing god of the joint. *raises hand* Hell, does anyone have any confidence that Bryan or Dave would pick good mods, or mods that would run a good discussion WON Moderated board along the lines that Loss has in mind? In the end, the mods' job would be to make Bryan/Dave happy more than making the posters. If you have a thread in a WON-Mod forum that was critical of Dave, and not exactly gentle, the mods would far more likely crack down on the posters than Dave or Bryan. Think along the lines of some of the old WC threads that Dave was in and were critical of him. I think all of us who have been in more heated arguments online would say that those were downright tame in comp. But if they got heated on Dave's part, and a poster responded in kind, it's likely the poster would get cracked. We can envision a Best of All Possible Dave Boards in out heads... but we've all seen Dave and Bryan's response to some stuff, and it's not exactly our Dream Board Postings along the lines of what we get from the WON when Dave dives into a topic. Dave just doesn't have a board poster mindset, and is unlikely to ever have one. That's not a negative in terms of his vast overall contributions to wrestling fandom over the past 30 years. It's just that board conversation just isn't him thing. Is it a bit sad on some level? Yes. Having seen him field a string of questions from one fan after another, often getting asked the same question five minutes later by someone else, and being extremely giving of his knowledge/information/opinion, I do wish folks could sit down to shoot the shit with him. He is exceptionally nice in person, which I doubt has changed over the past decade. Boards... they're just a different beast. It's never going to be something that fits him. John