jdw

Not really. I have the Japanese Wrestling Journal from mid-1987 through the end of it's run in 1994. Has the results of all the house shows of the mens promotions, along with comments of matches he saw either live or on TV. Can kind of tell with something like 06/18/90 Jushin Liger vs Pegasus Kid that it was a taping (in addition to some highlight on a working copy I made probably a decade ago) and that Liger-Pegasus has no comments like the matches that made TV (in addition to an onld note I wrote on there "not taped"). Between the WON, the JWJ, Lynch's lists and Dan's stuff... can kind of put it together. Pain in the ass at times, though. I put everything "available" for 1990 AJPW into a speadsheet, with Classics going backwards and slowly trying to fill in the NTV as I can. 1990 is complete because I know Dan was missing a couple of things from his 1990 Season Set, the WON's and Lynch's list aren't complete on all the listings, and Classics crapped out in the middle of the year. I think on some of the stuff I had to pull out the original K-Tapes to see the dates Koji listed, comp it with the JWJ, and fill in the missing stuff. Even then, without having that Lynch's Special Local TV #2 in hand, it's hard to determine if the Taue-Spivey is correct, or if the reason the Kobashi & Ace vs Fantastics is on there is because it's complete. Future project is to get all of the Baba Era All Japan (up through the split) and watch/review it all, identifying where the most complete versions are from, etc. Of course that may be when I retire, since I still need to get to the Season 5 disks of Babylon 5, and finish my re-watch of Deadwoon... and then The Wire... John

Wrong analogy. Superman flying is the equiv in wrestling of it being Fake. I accept that it's fake. I don't accept it being Fucking Stupid. That would be why they go wandering around setting up COOL MOVES~! rather than doing things that you would in a Fight when you're trying to Maim someone. Fight: 1. Sandman in corner damaged 2. Sabu gets chair 3. Sabu skulls Sandman with chair 4. Sabu skulls Sandman more with chair 5. Sabu skulls Sandman with chair until Sandman is out and he's pulled off COOL MOVES~! 1. Sandman in corner damaged 2. Sabu gets chair 3. Sabu sets chair down infront of Sandman 4. Sabu runs and jumps off chair towards Sandman 5. Sandman has recovered by this time because Sabu Did Not Maim Sandman 6. Sabu splats himself into the barbed wire in the corner The first is a fight where Sabu would actually try to maim Sandman. The second is... well... Fucking Stupid. Don't sell the match to me as a fight where the two are trying to maim each other. That's bullshit. The match is a spot show of COOL SPOTS~! designed to jerk off the fans because the two couldn't actually tell a compelling story that could draw in those idiot fans. Christ... the match didn't even go 20 minutes. The two halves don't add up to 20, and that's before slicing off pre-match and post match. There is no cumulative damage: 1. Sabu was pefectly fine the second before 2. Sabu hit a COOL MOVE on Sandman that damaged Sandman more than Sabu 3. Sandman biazzare-sold it be getting to his feet with the cane 4. Sandman single-canes Sabu with a shot that's weak compared to what Sandman just ate 5. Sabu lays down for the three There is no cumulative. They just take it the fuck home. You're kidding me. We've seen Sandman cane the fuck out of people in the past. That was nothing. Sandman ate harder chairshots earlier in the match. Damn... Sandman ate a harder chair on the legdrop right before it. Which is probably why he wanted to take it home. Either that or they were running low on PPV time. Weak ass finish, out of nowhere, and dumb as hell. If that's a prime example of a Great Sabu Match, I suspect that Sabu is going to have a tough time getting onto the Top 10. John

I'm wondering if it's just a name that fell off. Someone else did one year and I pointed it out to him. John

I remember those Flair-Taylor matches being pimped as non-Flair Matches. We watched the more pimped of the two at a KOC... and at the time I didn't think there was anything in them that I hadn't seen from Ric before. I don't recall thinking they were shitty, but instead just really boring... which is hard to rate since at the time I found pretty much everything of Ric's was boring. :/ John

Think I said that about Arn. I've said a number of times that one can be critical of things you think are great. It doesn't mean you think they're dogshit. I've said that about Flair and Kobashi. I've largely tried to get people to: * see that Flair isn't perfect in the ring * that a lot of positive things said about Flair don't actually track with how he worked * that a lot of negative things said about other workers can be applied to Flair One of my favorites was one of the Torch writers putting over the psych of Flair in the Dusty match in the Flair DVD. What he wrote was staggeringly at odds with the match that he was talking about... to the point that either he didn't watch the match, or he had zero understanding of match/work analysis. The discussion that followed on the Torch boards was pretty funny. Too bad it was the old Torch Boards because I'd love to re-read it. John

My comment was "+ Basement Tapes vibe mixed in (going back to vintage Steamboat feud)". BotT came out in 1975, as did Basement Tapes. The "vibe" with Flair was him rerunning a major famous feud from his prime: Flair-Steamer, brought back in 1989 to fans who wanted to see it. Akin to the long bootlegs Basement Tapes getting an official release finally. I put BotT in their class. Ric's "prime" as a worker was as a touring champ making all sorts of local guys look great. In 1989, he was four years into being a House Champion working against the same opponents every night for months on end. In 1989, he had great material to work with (Steamer and Funk). In 1986-88, it was mixed and lesser. Some highpoints, and some marginal things. That was akin to the less than off the charts stuff Bob did between BoB and BotT... though there were plenty of good songs even in that period. John

I'm pretty sure one of the Matsunaga brothers went in. John

Setting aside Punk making Naylor's *life*, the show reads like the drizzling shits. John

That's a great thing~! John

Thanks, Bix. It always ends up being worse than I remember it. John

06/26/90 Steve Williams vs Bam Bam Bigelow (LYNCH LOCAL TV #3) 06/18/90 Jushin Liger vs Pegasus Kid (LYNCH LOCAL TV #3) 06/26/90 Owen Hart vs Pegasus Kid (LYNCH LOCAL TV #3) My guess is that it was in fact the 06/18/90 Liger-Pegasus since it was a TV taping, and that match didn't air on normal NJPW TV. 07/17/90 Toshiaki Kawada vs Pete Roberts (LYNCH LOCAL TV #2) 08/29/90 Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Mighty Inoue vs Stan Hansen, Eric Embry & Scotty the Body (LYNCH LOCAL TV #2) The AJPW matches on Lynch's Special Local TV #2 are the following dates: 07/07/90 Ace & Taylor vs Kabuki & Inoue 07/07/90 Akira Taue vs Dan Spivey (Possibly Taue vs Ace from 07/19/90) 07/12/90 Akira Taue vs Terry Taylor 07/12/90 Masanobu Fuchi vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi 07/17/90 Toshiaki Kawada vs Pete Roberts 08/29/90 Kobashi & Ace vs Fulton & Rogers (All Asian Tag League) 08/29/90 Misawa & Kawada & Kikuchi vs Gordy & Williams & Slinger 08/29/90 Tsuarta & Taue & Inoue vs Stan & Embry & Scotty the Body The Taue-Spivey could be off. I don't have the boot, so don't know... but Lynch on ocassion could be off on names/wrestlers. The Fuchi-Kikuchi could be the complete version that was JIP on NTV. It's their first title match, with these being the ones in the prime of their feud with Dave's ratings: 07/12/90 ***3/4 01/26/91 ***1/4 04/16/91 ***1/4 09/04/91 (?) 02/28/93 ****1/4 Would guess you'd want to get it. I believe that Kobashi & Ace vs Fantastics is a different from the 9/7/90 tourney final. The way to tell the difference: 08/29/90 Kobashi legdrops Rogers (21:26) 09/07/90 Kobashi moonsaults Rogers (15:24) And of course the titles. But if it's the Final, it may be complete while the NTV may have been JIP. Suspect at least one match from this was noted earlier for interest: JL-Boot-20 06/30/90 Baba & Slinger vs Inoue & Teranishi 06/30/90 Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi 06/30/90 Tsuruta & Kabuki & Fuchi vs Misawa & Taue & Kikuchi John

Now now, you know that's not fair and not the case. I just called him great a couple of weeks ago in the Flipped thread: That sums up my current thoughts on him as briefly as possible, with great tossed in. That also was in the middle of other discussions where the board (i.e. me) was taking about tossing around the word "great" a little loosely, for example in myself not being able to say Arn was up there in what I consider "great". I reserve it for guys like Ric. John

Yeah, you had to love this protest voter: 48 Ric Flair 48 Jushin Thunder Liger 48 Toshiaki Kawada 48 Jumbo Tsuruta Joined by one voter on these two: 47 Mitsuharu Misawa 47 Kenta Kobashi John

Lordy. 1989 = Blood on the Tracks + Basement Tapes vibe mixed in (going back to vintage Steamboat feud) I mean... that's pretty obvious. Flair's post-touring champ period was something akin to Dylan's post peak: some gems feuds/matches, some passable things, and some that weren't up to snuff (even if they weren't totally awful). 1990 = Desire + Rolling Thunder Revue Some gems, overall pretty solid for someone other than Bob Flair... but there also was that Black Scorpion thing, and the whole sense of time passing him bay as the year went on. 1991-93 = Street-Legal, Slow Train Coming & Saved Flair is born again thanks to Vince McMahon. 1993-95 = Infidels, Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded WCW return, people are exited to see him out of the WWF... some actually think it's vintage Flair because they feel the need. But it really isn't that good. After that, it's largely a slide for Flair. There was no Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft and Modern Times, let alone some of those interesting cover albums. Flair was a HOF probably back in 1983 after Starcade. John

Keith: where's Dave's classic "respecting other people's views" quote? John

Yeah... that's generally the case. We're a small group of fans. Even lining all of us up, the voters in the SC GWE Poll and the 50 Fujiwara Luvrs from DVDVR... we're just not a significant set. That doesn't mean that folks haven't done a shitload of good work over the years getting people engaged in thinking new about various workers. Someone asked earlier in the thread if the consensus has changed on anyone. I think the example I'd toss out would be Baba. I recall a positive comment from Dave in the past couple of years about Baba's work when he was younger, before he got old and slowed down. I don't think we ever saw that stuff in the 80s or 90s. It's not a matter of getting folks to think he was a Really Good Worker when he was younger: simply the notion that he was a good worker is a big step. In contrast, we haven't done dick to change the consensus on Sayama or Brody. Some of that battle has been going on for close to 15 years. The progress has been that folks that typically are spending time looking again at workers from that era happen to be doing it from a largely fresh viewpoint, and a chunk of them think the two are pretty overrated as workers. In 20 years? Who knows. I think that was part of the Fujiwara/Edge discussion: we have little idea how people are going to look at folks in 20 years. Some folks looking at historical footage already are coming to different conclusions, while some of us who have rewatched the stuff have changed their minds. Or in the case of the ECW example today... not so much in 13 years. John

Daffy had been a heel so often that folks didn't have any sympathy on Daffy in that to go face. When it turned out that Bugs was the one screwing him over, wasn't that a Face spot for Bugs? It would be as if the same thing happened to Hollywood Hogan, and in the end it turned out that Flair had been the one fucking over. "Ain't I a stinker?" -Bugs Flair John

It will be just fine. Most people will ignore my distaste for Sabu vs Sandman Ladder matches and move right along. As far as Sabu as a serious candidate for the Top 10 in the US for the decade, it's not like he can't survive my criticism. Anybody who is a legit candidat should be able to withstand someone pocking holes in *one* of their matches in a decade. John

Bob Clampett speaking as a self aware and reflective Bugs Bunny (only part of which made it into the Wiki citation): The other thing you have to give it up to Bugs is that his heels sold their ass of for him. Some of the best drawing stooge heels in cartoon history: Daffy, Elmer and Wile E. Bugs was such a monster face that he was able to get over often previously babyface Daffy as a definative monster stooge heel to draw some of Looney Tunes' biggest gates with the Hunting Trilogy. But you have to give bugs all the credit in the world, as when it was time to go heel, he totally laid out for the baby face. It's not like Cecil was one of the monster faces of Warner Brothers, but they worked a three match series, and by god if Bugs *never* got his face heat back in any of them: Tortoise Beats Hare: Bugs jobs to 9 turtles Tortoise Wins by a Hare: Cecil tricks the Bunny Mob to taking out Bugs, then taking out themselves Rabbit Transit: tricking Bugs into cheeting to win, and then getting dragged away by the Coppers It was as if in the last match they used the Dusty Finish... to screw over the Heel Wabbit! John, Bugs Bunny Fanboy

Loss & Will: can you split Montreal off into its own thread. It's never anything that goes short enough to be a "Comments that do not appear to warrant threads of their own" topic. John

Actually, there are some positive numbers for Taker. It's a mixed bag at times, and since he's been around forever there it's as easy to find bad numbers as good ones. But there are good ones. That Taker vs Taker thing did a surprising number. Rumble '96 did good business, and I've always thought Bret-Taker (with the Nash aspect of the feud) playing a role in it as much as the Rumble and Shawn's vaunted return (it's not like he was out that long). Shawn probably has things he can point to. Steamboat, as others have or will point out, did business with Slaughter in the Final Countdown... really huge business for the times. FWIW, it's not like Funaki drew in Pancrase consistently. Rings and UWFi did better business at their peaks than Pancrase, and in terms of sustaining that peak across a number of shows and a number of years. My choice for worst WON HOF: Funaki. Sakuraba is up there as well, since both are MMA candidates, not Pro Wrestling Candidates. As bad as people think Dragon is, he's got nothing on two guys who did very little of note in Pro Wrestling. Yeah... I know Funaki "drew" in UWF 2.0. There was nothing groundbreaking about it as the company was already popping similar gates going back. The ground breaking drawing was Maeda-Takada. Beyond that, no one argued that Funaki should be in the HOF based on his UWF 2.0 and PWFG accomplishments. John

Yep. Hennig MIGHT be the guy with the worst record as a main event draw to ever appear on the ballot. I'm trying to think offhand of who would be worse. Well... there aren't too many 10K houses that Hase drew. Beinging in the main event of a G1 show that drew more than 10K doesn't mean *Hase* drew it. Lord knows I wasn't putting over Kosh as being a "drew" for all the G1 main events he had: he was a good hand trusted with the spot to close some of the shows with good matches. Then again, it might not be a good idea to look too closely at what Hash-Hase drew at Sumo Hall in the G1. Kind of surprising. John

I think people have a soft spot for Mr. Perfect. It's pretty similar to the next generation of fans being attached to the Attitude Era or the 00's: it's what they grew into fandom with. The stars of that era have special meaning to them. Mr. Perfect was a cool WWF heel "superstar" in the era. He wasn't as good of a draw opposite Hogan as Bossman, or possibly even as good of a working opponent opposite Hogan (in that very narrow sense of Hogan Opponents). But Hennig was what hardcores inside and outside the business wanted to be / enjoyed. Bossman was a fat guy, and who the hell wants that. There are times when it seems to be hard to talk "facts" with fans of his because he just hits that spot. I suppose my own analogy would be Hase. He hits the spot, he made NJPW a hell of a lot more enjoyable to watch from 1989 when I first started watching through 1995 when he left. He was a good worker, a very solid hand who could have a watchable match in against a lot of folks. But it's not like I ever pimped Hase as a HOFer. John

Great stuff, Mike. The Brody / AJPW / NJPW stuff is a riot to read all these years later. John

I can see Dave's response: "Was Davis a great worker? Was he a great worker and a star in the US, Mexico and Japan?" To Dave, and the people who voted for him, Dragon is a HOF for several reasons, not one. John