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On the question of whether Jun was good enough to be the Ace... it's multi-fold. He had the general athletic ability to do it. Those in power in the companies (AJPW and NOAH) wanted him to grow into one. Jun probably on some level wouldn't have minded being the Ace, especially in NOAH. But Jun was missing something, or some *things*, to become the Ace. Hard to put a finger on anyone thing, but some of the things: * the fans didn't buy him as it no matter how many times he was pushed there Just didn't happen. Folks can try to analyze the booking if they want, but it's not like Kobashi was booked any better at the start of his attempted Acedoms... and the fans still bought Kobashi in the role, and never did Jun at relevant times (NOAH hasn't been relevant since Misawa died). * Jun didn't fully have "it" There is no one way to have "it". Misawa certain was an atypical version of "it"... but he clearly had it for AJPW and NOAH fans. Choshu, Hash, Kobashi, Maeda, Takada, Tenryu... they had it. Jun didn't. He was far closer to Taue than those folks in terms of having it. * Jun didn't fully want to be the Ace Setting aside the comment above that on some level he wouldn't have minded being the Ace (it's cool to be the top guy), Jun never really seemed to push himself in his AJPW time or his early NOAH period to do what it took to hook the fans as a future ace. I always thought the slide into being Kobashi's partner, and the willingness to have the team feel Kobashi-dominated wasn't even a lateral move away from Misawa: it was a step backwards at a time when he should be taking a step forward. Kawada and Kobashi left Misawa to move upward, while Jun went sideways... and was crushed under Kobashi's massive pull of all things towards him. He also didn't really seem to push himself like Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi did. It came across more as a forced "I'm suppose to be doing this, so let's try" rather than Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi being some insanely driven fuckers. On a level, those three were driven *too* hard, and it kind of fucked them and the promotions up: they pushed too hard and too far. On the other level, they set a standard and Jun really couldn't step up to it in any fashion other than "I've Got Some Cool Spots I Can Do Too", which really isn't what we think of in stepping up. The analogy I would use is that he was a pitcher who had the arm, the good fastball, a good breaking ball, and really good mechanics. But he also didn't have a good mind to put the pitches together, wasn't driven to learn the batters, and was perfectly happy to be a #3 starter rather than craft his skills into being a #1 starter. In turn, Kawada was closer to a Greg Maddux: he didn't have that level of natural stuff, but busted his ass and was smart as shit in making himself a great pitcher... and probably looked over at someone like Jun and thought: "How fucking great would I have been if I had that some athletic ability, natural size and look?" John

Taue Debut: 1988 First TC: 1992 (didn't win until 1996) First WTT: 1990 (didn't win until 1992) Kobashi Debut: 1988 First TC: 1994 (didn't win until 1996) First WTT: 1992 (didn't win until 1993) Akiyama Debut: 1992 First TC: 1997 (GHC in 2001) First WTT: 1996 (won in first challenge) That's... about the right amount of time for Jun to get TC title shots given the last two guys who came up and got similar pushes. Misawa and Kawada were too far back as it was a different promotion frankly in the 80s than the 90s, so they're not really comps to Jun. The WTT has somewhat similar arcs, even if the timeline doesn't all line up: Taue got rushed and pushed into a role that wouldn't have been if Kabuki didn't leave. Kobashi got rushed into a role where he could win the WTT because Jumbo went out. He probably wasn't terribly far off the pace of where he'd get that role: it's hard to imagine Misawa & Kawada sticking together as a team through the end of 1994 if Jumbo remained healthy... and even that is probably too long. Kobashi being Misawa's partner was always the natural fit, but if not there, then Kobashi would have been paired with one of the other guys ahead of him and been challenging for and winning the WTT. Jun got plopped into a role because Kobashi pretty much had to leave Misawa's team: it had run it's course, and to get to the next level (winning the TC), Kobashi couldn't really be Misawa's #2 tag partner. If Jun got the role, of course he was not only challenging, but also winning since Misawa would have runs with the WTT: the Ace gets those belts on occassion. Anyway... that's round about. Jun's milestones of challenging for the WTT and TC weren't too long. Where they screwed up was on stuff at the level below that. There was no equiv of these 1993 matches for Jun: 02/93 Kawada vs Hansen (under Misawa vs Taue TC) 05/93 Kawada vs Williams / Kobashi vs Gordy (under Misawa vs Hansen TC) 07/93 Kobashi vs Hansen (under Misawa vs Kawada TC) 10/93 Kawada vs Kobashi (under Misawa vs Hansen TC) Those were big matches on big cards beneath the TC: three Budokans and probably the biggest non-Budokan cards of the year (the Sapporo double shot in May). There were other, earlier matches for Kobashi and Kawada (and even Taue). There were lots of Budokans in 1994 and 1995 where they could have done something with Jun, and especially in 1996. To a degree he got sucked up into the WTT, and if you're defending that, you're not facing someone in another match. The July 1996 Budokan could have had Jun face Misawa, Kawada or Doc in a singles match. The October 1996 Budokan could have had Jun against Misawa, Taue (since the belt was off him) or Doc. I guess I should give a visual aid on how really strange this was. Here's Jun's progression of singles matches at Budokan after debuting: 02/93 Jun vs Gordy 10/93 Jun vs DiBiase 09/94 Jun vs Hansen 09/97 Jun vs Misawa for the TC I've already said that the last one was in not-so-unreasonable time. It's that massive gap from 09/94 to 09/97 with *no* Budokan singles matches that was really quite screwed up. It's also the gap from Ted to Stan where they didn't do a hell of a lot either that was wasted, especially when there wasn't a ton going on in 1994: 03/94: Doc vs Nord / Kawada & Taue vs Akiyama & Omori under Misawa & Kobashi vs Baba & Hansen 06/94: Doc & Ace vs Hansen & Omori / Kobashi & Akiyama vs Taue & Honda under Misawa vs Kawada 07/94: Kawada & Taue & Fuchi vs Baba & Kobashi & Kikuchi / Hansen vs Ace under Misawa vs Doc That leaves out the 04/94 Budokan which was the Carny Final and you don't really pre-book an undercard. Exactly how hard in 1994 would it have been to give Akiyama this: 03/94: Taue vs Jun (and Kawada vs Omori) 06/94: Kobashi vs Akiyama 07/94: Kawada vs Akiyama Then on 9/94 he's opposite Hansen. If not 1994, then some of that stuff should have been going on in 1995. I made this point before: All Japan's booking was poor long before Baba got cancer. I turned it into a bit of a running joke because I thought when the original claim that the booking only went to shit when he got sick was pretty much a sign of not understanding how long the booking had been mediocre / poor / bad / just plane shitty. But... it's not a joke. About the only thing they did generally "right" was the TC. Even the WTT was poorly handled, and supporting singles matches were airballs. John John

Ask Steve over on WC. Suspect he'll answer. I've got nothing since I don't recall ever talking much about Tanahashi with him. John

Federal case where the backstory is that the unions are the heels opposite Corporate America trying to make a profit... you don't think that's going to play well for Zuffa if the end up in front of what is now an overwhelmingly pro corporate, anti-union federal court system? All the jokes about the first amendment aside, I think overall that Zuffa laid out some reasonable claims and counts. Of course it's slanted towards the Zuffa point of view, which is what all complaints do. But if you filter out the stuff that you laugh at (because perhaps as fans we're too close to the business) and just focus on the elements that are reasonable claims, it not at all without merit. John

BTW, did anyone notice how much Dave was talking about "advertising" in this weeks WON, and no mention of carriage fees? There was this long section: And it fails to grasp that NBA TV has pushed into Basic, not Sports Tiers. NHL Net has tried working in the same direction. They're already on Basic on Comcast, which is helped by Comcast having a 15% cut in the network. They've run into problems with other carriers, largely because the NFL draws flies as far as viewers. They're off AT&T now, probably because they're (i) pushing for Basic while (ii) not taking a big enough dip from that $0.35 household fee. This kind of goes back to stuff mentioned earlier: * WWE needs to be on Basic and get that household fee rather than a "subscriber" fee on a sports tier * WWE really needs to go joint venture with Comcast It's probably not a bad time. Comcast recently announced that NBC Sports is moving most of its various operations to Stamford. The ratings for Versus are really bad at the moment as it heads towards rebranding as "NBC Sports". Most of NBC's primetime lineup is drawing crap ratings, and they're extremely limited once the NFL's season runs its course. They lost out on the UFC and the World Cup. They would appear to have money laying around, and have several networks that aren't doing business and could be rebranded. G4 is the one usually mentioned, Sleuth just got rebranded as Cloo so it's not likely to be contributed to a JV, but Chiller is out there. There really is no reason Comcast couldn't merge the programing of Cloo and Chiller to leave the husk of Chiller for a JV. I get that the WWE wants to "own" their networks. But they need to buy a clue: A&E Networks: 42.5% Hearst, 42.5% Disney, 15% Comcast ESPN: 80% Disney, 20% Hearst NBA TV: "owned" by the NBA, leased out to Time Warner (Turner Sports) Big 10 Network: 49% Big Ten, 51% Fox A&E has been a long time successful network... actually a collection of networks, made even bigger when Disney & Hearst rolled the Lifetime networks into it. ESPN is the most successful cable company ever. The Big 10 Network is probably the most successful recently launch cable company. If someone tried to buy that puppy we're talking well into the billions of dollars. In turn, NBA TV is probably worth around $100M a year to the NBA in terms of revenue on top of what they already get from TNT. The point being: there are plenty of successful networks that are a JV on some level. Comcast brings important things to bear for the WWE, namely: * existing network that could be contributed * instant addition to Comcast households * muscle to get onto other carriers That muscle doesn't always work perfectly, though a lot of that is due to everyone being greedy. For the WWE... they simply need to get onto basic, and draw some ratings to stay on basic. John

So Vince thought Viacom owned it... or is Court confused? Since Vince's primary tv partner (Comcast / NBC Universal) owns Universal HD, it's basically impossible to think that Vince (and/or people in the WWE) don't know that Universal HD = Universal. I kinda call bullshit on that one. John

Yeah... looked at a results page rather than the WON. John

Loss knows that. His point is that the Yuki "character" takes away from what he likes about Hasegawa. John

Traditionally, but it wasn't always a lock. 1988: Bull didn't get a title shot. Instead Lioness faced Chigusa. 1989: Mitsuko Nishiwaki didn't get a title shot. Lioness retired before the tourney ended. This one had an easy out built in. Toyota would have lost to Hokuto the day before winning the tourney. Hokuto "earned" the right to face Dynamite, while Toyota would want to face her when she beat Dynamite. Hokuto was around enough to be in the Tag League. She wasn't on Monday Night Sensation, nor was Shimoda... which was rather odd. They teamed in the Tag Leauge... injury? John

I enjoyed Stan Hansen using the "made up" word Puroresu in his autobiography. John

Aja --> Toyota --> Aja --> Kansai --> Toyota *wasn't* the plan at this moment. They were pushing Hokuto vs the winner (Toyota) for later in the year. That match got announced as the 9/2 Budokan, with PR and tickets (including the two signing autographs on the first day of ticket sales). Hokuto was working a very limited schedule, largely the big shows. It was pretty well assumed that it would be for Big Red. They changed their minds around the time of the title change, and also announced the Osaka card. Kansai challenged Kong after Kong got Big Red back and at the time it seemed like: Aja-Kansai Big Red winner vs Hokuto-Toyota winner at the year ending card. It struck me at time time that of course Kansai was going to win (0-3 vs Kong). I was happy to be right about that one... only wish I wrote for the Torch at the time because I would have tossed it into my recap of the second Toyota-Kong title change. There was some spec that Hokuto would beat Toyota and then beat Kansai to finally win Big Red... leaving them a big Hokotu defense for Queendom in 1996. Instead, Toyota beat Hokuto and won the Grand Prix to set her up for the year end card. Hokuto worked for AJW less than one would have thought. It was a strange year. John

I'm thinking the TS '85 was hard to control, in the sense of landing without hurting someone. He brought it back... then slid away from it into the other half nelsony stuff. John

Looking in the 1995 WON's for something else, thought I'd look this one up. Dave gave it ****3/4, so it wasn't a blown off match at the time. I *think* that what likely happened as 1995 went on is that there were a few billion highly rated matches as the star calculator kept going higher. There also was probably a "peak" of AJW and joshi interest/coverage with the 11/94 Dome show climaxing much of the interpromotional stuff. Dave was at Toyota's first Big Red win... loved the Toyota-Aja rematch... wrote good things about Aja-Dynamite IV if I recall... loved Toyota-Hokuto... and wrote up the year ender big show where Toyota got Big Red back from Dynamite to close what essentially was the resolution of the interpromotional period. Even with all the love, none of it really seemed to have the fire in the belly that say the 1992-94 period did in terms of coverage. I don't recall a lot of Zavisa stuff in the Torch, though I'm sure it was there. It just... was kind of there at that point. Still well loved, far more than it was starting in 1996 when the decline really felt like it was kicking in. John

Might be good to change the title to "recommended matches", since that's what the first post aims at. An example: 6/89 vs Spivey in AJPW isn't one of Sting's "best" matches. But it's good, as much an interesting reflection on Spivey as Sting... but Sting isn't bad either. 10/93 vs Sid at Havoc was one of Sid's best matches up to that point, and a real good reflection on Sting. I think if someone is looking for Sting stuff to watch, or doing a comp on this, having people toss out stuff like that is probably pretty interesting to someone seeking out matches... compared to say the 4th or 5th Flair or Vader match we could toss out. John

You don't think the turn on Dusty and the rubbing of Morton's face in the concrete was evil? I mean... sure... a Flair Fan like me enjoyed it. But it pissed the regular fans off. John

Yeah... the Marvin fight was the first one where I rooted for someone other than Ray. Marvin was just a fighter. He got screwed over on his way up to fighting for the title. Once he finally got it, he pretty much fought anyone who they lined up against him, and was just business. Ray's "retirement"... I thought he did Marvin really wrong that night. Ray pretty much admits now that he did, though he lays off a lot of his asshole behavior to all the coke he was doing. Anyway, once Ray finally agreed to the fight, I was hoping Marvin knocked him out for being a prick years before. It was sad that Marvin was completely washed up by that point. John

I'm not the only one who does this. Go to the first thread in the forum: that Madona one that started it was great. As far as presidents, I don't think anyone really wants to go there. My politics are pretty well known, and while there are some here who have similar views, there are others that don't. It's too easy for things to slide quickly into arguments, and I'm not really one to argue very gently. :/ John

I'd have a tough time doing Sugar: his refusal to work with Marvin until Marvin was washed up, then refusing to put him over in the first match (spunky underdog losing a close, contoversial fight against a heel is a surefire rematch), then refusing to instantly rematch with Marvin... That pretty much pissed me off more than Hogan's stuff. He also should have rematched Tommy after the first fight. After all, Duran gave Sugar a rematch. For all of us thinking Sugar was a great babyface coming out of the Olympics, he was kind of an asshole who booked himself with great care to make himself look good. Set aside the wrestling analogy: just from a pure boxing sense... there's a lot of it that's really flakey and Ray-centric. There are things with Ali that one didn't care for, like his camp really ducking a rematch with Foreman to the point that it drove George out of the game. But... Liston rematch... gave Joe a rematch after getting his win back... gave Norton a third fight after not really doing so hot against him in the first two fights. Didn't see Ray in a hurry to fight either Tommy or Marvin again after beating them. :/ It's strange to feel that way, since I was a Ray fan all the way up until the fight with Marvin. John

I don't recall having a huge problem with the concept of Kawada losing to Stan at the time, since the belts were always going back to Misawa. It held off Kawada jobbing to Misawa. I would have preferred that Kawada pin Kobashi, and it could have been done 55+ minutes into the match if Baba wanted to give the fans something special after the Quake. I did have a problem with Kawada and Hansen working a long match. The promotion seemed locked in the punch that these needed to go long. Perhaps Kawada learned his lesson and went "sprint" in the 7/95 match with Misawa. This one would have been far better if they went 15 minutes of kicking the living shit out of each other throwing bombs. The tag title match, which actually went on *before* this one, went long enough to give the fans one epic on the night. John

Strange one: Baba letting DiBiase leave as PWF Tag Champ. Took the belts off him & Hansen in the last series, then put them back on. Never made a lot of sense. Kobashi (TC), Taue (World Tag Champ), Ogawa (Jr Champ) and Inoue & Honda (All Asia Tag) all left All Japan as champs to go to NOAH. Tons of them. Probably would make your head hurt finding all of them. A number of folks when AAA opened up leaving EMLL. The National champions took their belts, but the Misterioso had an NWA title vacated. John

Larry Z to WCW while still the AWA Champ. The AWA wasn't really running shows, but Verne did strip him of the title as a last act. Lawler leaving the AWA. Strong Kobayashi leaving the IWE. Brody left All Japan while he and Hansen had one of the tag titles. Chris Adams left Texas before dropping the WCWA Title. Baba was the Int'l Champ in JWA when he left. Brock with the IWGP Title. Scott Steiner left WCW as the TV Title. There are tons. John

It's too bad we weren't more hip to Bob back in 2006 when Will was making the Backlund set. Sounds like the tag, at the very least, would have been an interesting post-script to the title change. John

Looking at the WON... 02/12/95 HI afternoon show (Koshinaka's group's fake promotion): Kosh asked Tenzan to join HI. Tenzan beat up Kosh and Ohara, leading to a Tenzan-Ohara match. HI attacks Tenzan after the matck, with Hirata, Yatsu and Masa Saito making the save. Main event was Hirata & Yatsu & Masa vs HI. HI attacks them after the match, and Tenzan & Chono make the save... then beat up Masa. Chono & Tenzan effectively join hands: they hate both NJPW and HI. 02/12/95 NJ evening show: Tenzan & Chono & Saito vs. Choshu & Hirata & Hashimoto. Wild brawl. Tenzan pins Choshu, everyone goes nuts. Sabu shows up. Hash is put through a table. More brawling back stage. I confess that the specifics of NJPW doesn't stick in my head as much as AJPW. In terms of angles/mic spots from Japan like you do for the US... this is one of the few ones from AJPW or NJPW that would fit into that. John