jdw

JTTS is a hardcore fan term as far as I know. Don't recall if it was in some of the newsletters before it hit the usenet (rec.sport.pro-wrestling). Jobber is of course a term wrestlers use and didn't come from the sheets or usenet. Folks came up with JTTS to describe the SD Jones type of jobber, though years after SD ran his course. John

So what caused the poster(s) to start tossing up murder pics? John

I always felt embarassed that this won the award. It's worth noting the the June Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue only widely circulated in the JIP TV version. Neither Dave nor I saw the commercial version until August 1996... renting it from Champions while over there. I'm sure I had it #1 on my ballot anyway. Wish I chased it down in 1995 and did a pimping letter, especially as a comp to Toyota-Kyoko. Not that I had any influence, but there really wasn't a great deal of candidate discussion in the WON that year that I can recall. Beats the crap out of me what I had at #2 and #3. Certainly not Toyota-Kyoko since I wasn't terribly fond of it. Probably some combo out of the March tag match, the July Misawa-Kawada, and the two Misawa-Taue Budokans. I loved Aja-Dynamite, but don't think it quite made my Top 3 back then. John

On the Dave/Juice question/comments earlier, a most emphatic NO. Clean, to the point that people thought he was square. Dave doesn't need me to vouch for him on anything, but that one I will. Countless conversations with him on the topic, travelled with him, saw his reaction to people who were juiced and that he worried about... he was extremely sincere and unguarded on the topic. Clean to an extreme degree. John

This was always highly rated. Folks just talk about the TJ match because Dave and I were there, and the ECW matches because they were ECW matches. But the stuff in AAA got newsletter run at the time. John

The "epic" match of theirs was the 1994 one. This was more Vader's go home match: contract up. John

My WON sub ended. What were the last paragraph on the Jericho story that Rovert and Keith were having fun with? John

Since the Carny commercial tape wasn't out before this aired, it was really the first time that most gaijin got to see him pick up his game. I don't even think it was noticable to us at the Dome earlier in the month, but that also had Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Hansen in there to draw attention. Another reason the 4/2 match (and card in general) would be intersting to watch again just to see how much "new Taue" stood out. John

I'm a Tito fan. Tito-Valentine and Tito-Savage were good feuds. There are other matches out there that are very watchable against the likes of Orndorff, Orton, Reed, etc. John

I wouldn't say this is GAEA. Oz, Dynamite and Devil are all JWP wrestlers. Chigusa is at this point more linked to her AJW past that creating something new in GAEA. This would be akin to only seeing the following of a NOAH debut in 2000: Misawa & Mutoh vs Chono & Tenzan Misawa still linked to AJPW, teaming with New Japan's top star opposite NJPW's top tag team. Joshi experts could point to when one really gets a sense for what GAEA would become. John

It's a tough call, as 1993, 1994 and 1995 all have their positives. * * * * * * * * * * * * 1993 has good/interesting matches between: Four Corners: Misawa-Kawada, Kawada-Taue, Misawa-Kobashi and Kawada-Kobashi Four Corners vs Top Gaijin: Kawada-Williams, Misawa-Hansen, Taue-Hansen, Misawa-Gordy, Hansen-Kobashi (handheld) Top Gaijin vs Top Gaijin: Gordy-Williams, Hansen-Williams (though that wasn't well received at the time) Lesser Matches: Kobashi-Furnas, Kroffat-Smith along with Kawada-Davey Boy and Misawa-Furnas from the Hansen-Kobashi handheld There's a lot of variety in terms of depth that really isn't matched later. They also haven't quite lost their minds yet on spot-fu-o-rama. It makes for an interesting "before" snap shot. Also, it really is the moment where this generation of natives makes the promotion "theirs" in the absence of Jumbo. Really interesting developmental moment. Negatives would be that much if it is JIP and that there isn't much support from interesting non-Carny matches. There were two tags that got ***+: Misawa & Kikuchi vs Taue & Ogawa and Taue & Fuchi & Ogawa vs. Kawada & Kobashi & Kikuchi. The second was Kawada's last match with Misawa's group. Neither is really all that interesting. If you're making a pure AJPW 1993 Yearbook, the first wouldn't rate being on, while the second would only rate as being included for historical value. The JIP issue only stands out because 1994 and 1995 have commercial tapes with quite a few complete matches. It's not really a major negative, and instead just an annoyance in wishing that the JIP matches had gotten an AJPW Classics treatment. * * * * * * * * * * * * 1994... I touched on that over in the Yearbook pimping thread. The variety with Gaijin is down due to Gordy being out. In turn, we have lots of matches between the Four Corners and Hansen & Doc: Hansen against Kawada, Kobashi and Taue, while there are Doc matches against Kawada (two excellent ones) and Kobashi. The Final is of course great... probably my favorite Final ever. There is a Misawa vacuum due to his "injury", so we just have Misawa-Kawada among big matches, a mediocre Misawa-Akiyama, and a Misawa-Smith that had to be JIP to hell for some reason. On the other hand, everyone else stepped up. Doc was really hitting his peak. Stan was still at his 1993 level. Kawada and Kobashi were peaking. Taue wasn't at his peak, but his match with Stan was something special, his match with Kawada was very good, and the two matches with Kobashi were at the level one would expect out of them. There are other interesting singles. Kawada-Ace is about as good of Ace match as you'd get up to that point. Jun's matches with Kawada and Williams are quite good for Jun's level at the time, while his match with Kobashi at least had good spots tossed out even if it's not compelling. That Misawa match was mediocre, but it's worth watching just to balance out the view we have of Misawa in 1994. Kawada-Smith is pretty watchable even with Smith's limitations of credibility, and a match-up we didn't typically see. Where 1994 has it all over 1993 is in the supporting non-Carny matches. There is a non-Carny Taue vs Kobashi, and Misawa-Kawada is technically non-Carny. I liked Ace-Honda from Budokan when rewatching it and is non-Carny: I'd actually keep it on an AJPW 1994 Yearbook as something different and as a sign of what Ace was up to before his push with Doc later in the year. The six-man at Budokan is good though not overall great. It's certainly a keeper in an AJPW 1994 Yearbook, though perhaps not in an world wide Yearbook. There are a number of good six-mans from the commercial tapes, with probably two of the Baba six-mans being keepers (the first with Hansen and then the one with Misawa & Kikuchi opposite Kawada & Taue & Fuchi). Misawa & Akiyama & Kikuchi vs Kroffat & Furnas & Smith is just 7:30 of JIP, but it's awfully fun and I'd keep on a 1994 AJPW Yearbook. 1994 might be a bit more enjoyable than 1993 just for the sense of "Series" that you get with all the coverage: 10 shows get shot, and it's not like any of the cards are ripped off in their coverage. * * * * * * * * * * * * 1995 has the major positive of Taue becoming Really Good Taue. This is kind of important because he's all over Carny opposite Misawa (twice), Kawada and Kobashi in some of the signature matches of the series. Misawa is "healthy", both in the sense of not working an injury that took him out of matches the prior year, but also in not seeming to be banged up like he was at the start of the 1994 Carny. Well... at least until Kawada kicks him in the eye. That doesn't seem to impact him in the match with Jun two days later, nor in the two matches with Taue after it. There's a lot of Jun available on it. That doesn't seem to have made the set, which is a bit too bad. There's going to be a sense to folks that he comes out of nowhere in 1996, other than some six-mans here and there. The 1994 and 1995 Carnys are probably the best samples out there of where he was at as a worker in those series. Negatives: Zero of note from Hansen in it as he has no singles with the Four Corners that survived. Matches with Omori and Jun, edited with Spivey and one with Furnas. He is in the 60 minute six-man, and in the six-man at Budokan. There are other six-mans on the commercial set with him involved, but I haven't sift through that set in about a decade and none of them stick out other than the 60 and Budokan. Hansen is the TC Champ at the time and pretty much is a bit player in the 9 cards of Carny that were shot. Think about that. Doc got busted at the start of the series. That's a massive hole since he was at his very peak. I'd have to go back to look at the WON to see what matches of his were lined up with the cards shot (03/21, 03/24, 03/26, 03/30, 04/06, 04/08, 04/12 and 04/13 in addition to the 04/16 Budokan). I want to say that 3/24 was going to be Doc vs Taue which is why they went with the six man going 60 minutes. Not sure about the other ones. Ace is largely wasted, almost certainly due to his big matches being scheduled for non-taping dates. The possible exception to that might be his match with Doc which may have been slotted onto one of the tapings, but got wiped out anyway. This is a bit sad. I've talked a lot over the years about the Kawada-Doc that I saw live on a spot show. Kobashi-Ace was rolled out later in the year and was perfectly acceptable. Taue-Ace was also rolled out later in the year. Misawa-Ace and Jun-Ace would have been interesting to watch. Just the bad luck of the draw that AJPW was rigid in their booking: if matches are announced for a certain date, they're locked in and not going to get moved because Doc bombed out. Other than the 60 minute six man and the Budokan six-man, it felt really light on non-Carny supporting matches. That's not a must for a good Carny, but was one of the pleasant things about 1994. Overall it's a Carny carried by the Four Corners. They're off the charts collectively by this point, with whatever annoyance there might be for Kobashi wiped out by Taue's ridiculous jump up. There is no real top gaijin support, and no Ace vs top natives matches of note. The second tier support is largely Jun, with a slice of Omori put in. My recollection is the Jun stuff is good, and that I was generally disappointed with Omori relative to the promise of 1994. * * * * * * * * * * * * Without having re-watched the 1995 stuff lately, my general thoughts would be: 1995 have the best collection of High End Matches, and was fairly deep in that regards. It really lacked depth behind that, and much like 1995 in general felt almost entirely Four Corners-centric in what was really good. The one real moment is a continuing one in a sense: Taue jumping up. 1994 had some high end matches, several big moments (Kobashi over Hansen, Kawada winning Carny), some sleepers (Taue-Hansen being the most obvious), good depth and variety. You felt like you're watching a full promotion rather than just 4 guys carrying everyone else. 1993 was a wonderful snapshot of transitional moments: Jumbo dominated to no Jumbo, Kawada with Misawa before moving away from Misawa. There's quite a bit of depth with Hansen, Gordy and Williams all still in central roles. Some moments: Kawada-Taue feud ending on a hand shake, doubt on whether Misawa could hold the Ace spot with losses to Stan (2) and Gordy, Kawada's first pin on Stan (sadly of TV), Kawada leaving Misawa's group. If you're looking for high end, I'd probably go with editing down 1995 to just the strong keeper stuff because much of the rest is marginal. For a good glimpse at an AJPW series when it was still fairly deep in delivering product, I think I'd go with 1994... which wasn't without some high end matches. 1993 sort of falls behind, but I think if one has a fuller view of the TV rather than just what made the Yearbook, it's a really good series as well. It doesn't really hit a strong note in the Final as my recollection is the Misawa-Hansen in League was the better one... but that also might be something that ages differently. Regardless of how it ages, it's unlikely anyone is going to think that the 1993 Final is up there with the 1994 and 1995 versions, which allowed those series to end on massive high notes. John

Please don't tell me you buy the "Gino Was Murdered" myth. John

Being in JCP would have kept Gino off the coke? That's a hoot. John

Suspect there's bullshit in that story as well. More likely that Vince didn't want to give away a pair of WWF Title changes for free in roughly a month. It would have made for a big splash on SNME, but that wouldn't air until 11/14 which doesn't give much time to promote the co-main event if Survivors... at least how they promoted back then. They really were panicking around at the time because house show business as in something of a free fall. John

And I tend to think that it was along the lines of what was mentioned in the other thread: throwing shit on the wall and seeing what stuck. Flair was always going to be a bridge champion to the next Face. The business tanked when Hogan left after being very strong prior to Mania (the Hogan-Sid-Flair tags did business). Flair-Savage bombed around the horn, which isn't surprising how it was booked with Savage winning at Mania. They were committed to Savage-Warrior for the title at Wembley after a certain point, but got the belt off Savage at the first tapings after it. Flair-Warrior the program out of those tapings, and built towards Survivors. One suspects that when they were tossing names that Warrior and Davey Boy were also on the list, as they worked until early November. Bret was an obvious person to be on the list: pushed as a singles for the past two years, IC Champ from 8/91 to 8/92. He was in the third most pushed match at Mania: Piper-Bret was behind only Hogan-Sid and Flair-Savage. Three of those six were gone, while Flair-Savage were failures at that point. Most pushed match at Summer Slam, where the top four mix was Bret-Davey and Savage-Warrior. Beyond that, the company had no one they could slot up. They had three pushed faces at the time. If one wants to see where Tito fit into the mix, look at Survivors. When Warrior got fired, who stepped into his spot to team with Savage against Flair & Razor? Hennig. Was Tito even on the card? No. Do were really think someone who was seriously considered to be the Franchise Of The Promotion back on 10/16/92 was then thought so lowly of that he was left off the Survivor Series card initially... then not used to fill the gap when Warrior and Davey were fired? Please tell me that Bret said other people were considered. It's not like the WWF knew on 10/16/92 that they were going to fire Warrior and Davey. Right after Bret won the title, they announced Bret-Shawn and Davey-Mountie title matches for Survivors, along with the Warrior & Savage vs Flair & Razor already being the pushed main event. John

Tito was put over Taker on 10/05/91. This was at the end of Taker losing pretty much every competitive match from Mania (beating Snuka) until his push to Hogan started (beating Duggan like a drum). He initially starting losing to Warrior by DQ, then lost those body bag / casket matches to Warrior, then Sid when Warrior got fired, with others like Savage and Piper tossed in as well. He did get the rare occasional win, as I see one time he went over Savage once. But for the most part was a non-stop losing streak from 3/26/91 (his team lost in a handicap against Hogan) through 9/30/91 when his feud with Duggan got a trial run at a TV taping. He also lost to Piper by DQ in England after the Santana loss, but for the most part went on a winning streak after that (losses to Hogan of course. Taker wasn't Taker yet when Tito beat him. Hard to be after six straight months of jobbing all over the country. I don't think there's any chance that Tito was the first choice to beat Flair. Someone can go back through the 1992 WONs that are online over on WO.com (my sub just lapsed) and see if there's anything in there about it. There's nothing in Tito's push in 1992 that indicates the company had any serious ideas about him. John

So has Dave said anything after the It Begins video popped up? John

There feels like a progression from 10/21/92 to 03/27/93 to 07/29/93 to 04/11/94 to 06/03/94 that climaxes in the last one. It's a little too bad that the two 1995 matches get watched in the sets before the 1994 ones... and the 1994 ones will be a distance from watching the 1992-93 ones. Would almost recommend that you go back and watch the 1992-93 singles matches between the two along with 12/03/93 before dipping 1994 to re-focus the mind. Whatever they had planned in this one other than going to a draw sort of got pitched out the window to a degree. The match ground to a halt relative to how they usually worked, my recollection is that Kawada looked for ways to cover for the fact that Misawa was fucked up pretty bad (and kind of out of it / thrown off his game for a while after it). Of course the picked it up, and did a lot of shit... not really as coherent as they'd been in the past, but it's also hard to think of how many folks at that time would have had a match at this left if one guy's eye got crushed to shit. My guess is that barring the injury, they probably would have had a match along the lines of the 1994 Carny match, just a year more advanced. Perhaps not as much "stuff" as Kawada-Kobashi in Carny went through, but plenty of it, and arguably Misawa and Kawada at their very peak... my guess is it would have been on par with the best singles AJPW kicked out in the year. It would have lacked the "wow" factor of the Misawa-Taue matches because by 1995 everyone expected Misawa-Kawada to knock our socks off, while Misawa-Taue was a shocker. In that first run of five matches, of course I think El Classico is the best for the reasons I touched on over in the 1994 Yearbook pimping thread. That said, the earlier our have some real positives. I think the first three age well relative to a lot of the post-06/03/94 stuff in the promotion. The matches take more time to develop, they're less about trying to cram all sorts of shit in, they're before the head-drop-o-rama mentality so there are other nice ways for them to pop the crowd that seem to be cast aside / forgotten as the decade goes on. 07/24/95 is a very good match, and if it was *anyone* other than Misawa-Kawada having that match, it would probably be up there as a career match. I'm not sure that the two Misawa-Taue matches are on it's level for what gets done... it's just that Misawa-Taue had low expectations while Misawa-Kawada was hoped to top 06/03/94... and that's an insane level of expectations. El Classico is a dividing line. Watching the first four all now they don't get compared to El Classico, but instead to where they fit into the moment of AJPW and what else was going on in wrestling at the time. They feel great in the context of their time, the building of the rivalry, and the sense that these two have more in the tank. That gets hit on 06/03/94. The matches after... they can't help but get compared to 06/03/94, and having hanging over their head the promise of delivering the ultimate moment in the feud: Kawada's for singles pin on Misawa, which we all assumed would be in a TC match similar to Tenryu getting it from Jumbo in a TC match. The comp to El Classico is never really favorable, and the ultimate moment never gets delivered. So you watch stuff like this one and 07/24/95 and are usually going to get stuck with either (i) that's good but it doesn't top the classic, or (ii) it still doesn't pay off... or worse, (iii) both. John

02/05/70 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Strong Kobayashi 02/06/70 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Strong Kobayashi 02/09/70 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Great Kusatsu 09/24/73 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Strong Kobayashi 09/27/73 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Strong Kobayashi 11/20/74 AWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Billy Robinson 11/21/74 AWA & IWA Titles: Verne Gagne vs Mighty Inoue Those were all with IWE. I think I've seen some stuff about AWA sending talent to IWE less after that point. They still did have a relationship. 02/14/79 AWA Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (Hawaii) Bock was in the 1978 RWTL teaming with Blackjack Lanza. His first singles match with Jumbo that's in circulation was on 12/13/78, non-title of course. It would be hard to say at this point that the AWA was committed to AJPW. Of course AJPW was an NWA territory, but the AWA wasn't done with IWE: 10/05/79 AWA & IWA Titles: Nick Bockwinkel vs Rusher Kimura 11/13/79 IWA Title: Rusher Kimura vs Verne Gagne 11/16/79 IWA Title: Verne Gagne vs Rusher Kimura 03/31/80 AWA Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs Kintaro Oki The two title defenses where in IWE. Verne also went over there to get a cup of coffee with the IWA title. 06/22/80 AWA Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (Minneapolis) Baba also worked on the card. IWE was just about out of business at this point. 01/18/81 AWA & PWF Titles: Verne Gagne vs Giant Baba Bockwinkel & Brunzell teamed in the 1980 RWTL. We've probably have to look to see if some AWA talent was in the rotation of getting booked earlier in 1980, but that kind of is the deviding line. 02/04/82 AWA Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta That's the begining of a more focused chase for Jumbo towards the AWA Title. John

Misawa vs Mutoh as the main event of a second Weekly Pro Wrestling Dome show. With Mutoh jobbing. Hard to believe? It was *Mutoh* who was pushing for the match, and wanting it so badly that he was willing to put over Misawa. Of course there was no second Weekly Pro Wrestling Dome show, and instead Choshu went to war with Weekly Pro for some nonsensical reason (another Dome show may have factored into his decision to go to war with them). It never came close to taking place at what was probably their respective peaks. Chono being the one to end Mutoh's second IWGP reign on the 01/04/96 Dome show. Wait... you're saying that Takada ended Mutoh's reign on that card? Exactly. I recall being told at the 04/02/95 WPW Dome show by someone with New Japan what was going to big picture happen the rest of the year (Mutoh taking the title from Hash at the May Dome, Mutoh winning the G1, etc), and he was right on everything... until the NJPW vs UWFi feud popped out of nowhere and caused the company to adjust their place. In turn, Chono couldn't be the one to take the belt back from Takada: it really could only be Hash. Always felt bad for Chono that he finally got the belt when his body was falling apart (to the point that he quickly vacated it). Lou vs Bruno is probably the biggest one that went into negotiation but never took place. Well... Gotch vs Stecher would be on the same level as Lou-Bruno. FWIW, I've never bought the "Bockwinkel was offered the NWA Title" storyline, despite Dave probably having both Larry and Nick "confirming" it. Do the timeline on when it allegedly happened, and then try to make it pass the laugh test. It doesn't. Suspect we've had some discussions here in the past about it being silly. Same with the Stone Cold Superstar nonsense. Figment of Billy's mind, and another one where decades later "confermations" are laughable when you look back at the timeline and think for more than two minutes about it. John

Seriously? I don't even remember it, and suspect at the time if I ran across the rumor online, I shat all over it. Was this a Scherer or Ryder House Organ rumor? Or something that Heyman floated to Dave and Dave had a "you can read betweeen the lines that I'm laughing at this" comment? John

I liked it in the building. Liked the Kyoko-Bull perhaps a little more probably because the storyline is one that's usually pretty compelling to me: younger rising star tasting the big win over the legended, getting close... not getting it, but looking great in not getting it and earning the respect of the legend and fans. That's a storyline that plays well to me. In a sense, if Kong-Toyota also followed that, and Aja won in the end, I might have liked it more despite it meaning I missed out on Toyota winning Big Red for the first time. That is perhaps what's lacking in this from the standpoint of the Aja Era storylines. There was no real chase here for Toyota. Instead, it seemed like Hotta was more of a challeger for Aja within AJW while Kansai was the outside one, while Hokuto as on Aja's level as a star and could be tossed in to challenge he at any moment and be credible in taking it off her. After all, Hokuto beat Aja in the final at the Dome, which you kind of thought would lead somewhere. Toyota tossed in her felt more like her getting a shot, getting turned back, and down the road would get the title. It's always been a match, and booking, that I've rolled over in my head through the years. John

I guess the 10 year is the only change he made? For christ's sake... I never thought the Big Change was that level of stupid. John

I agree that Maddux and Kawada were great athletes. In terms of pitchers, Clemens and Johnson are examples of two who *weren't* dumb as rocks but happened to have insanely better shit than Maddux. For lack of a better term, they were more athletically gifted arms. There are almost certainly a hundred dumb as rocks pitchers who passed through the majors who we also more gifted than Maddux. I mean... whose natural stuff would you rather have: Maddux or Dibble. You have to think that Maddux looked over at Dibble and though: "I think I'd win 400 games if I had that arm." It's similar to Pete Rose where people like to say he wasn't a great athlete. Bullshit: he was. Relative to the vast majority of people who've played baseball, Pete was a great athlete. But his baseball athletics wasn't going to get him to 4000 hits. It was the drive, focus, insane obsessiveness, etc that push him to get better and sustain it. Kawada was like that. Misawa was more gifted. Probably not quite as smart, though I suspect the time as Tiger Mask forced him away from a more traditional native style of work where he could take Jumbo as an example. I'm not sure how much I'd blame that Tiger stuff on him since it was the promotion probably putting him into something not best for how he worked. John

He shouldn't even be on the fucking ballot next year. He'll still be 35. He debuted in 1999. For fuck's sake... why are we still rushing people on like that? Didn't Dave change the rules after Angle? John