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I was offering a link to support you to make it clear to the person you were responding to that he was wrong. John

Probably not. The amerian majors have actually done pretty well. Someone like Murdoch, who has limited "major" pluses, is sitting on the outside asking for a seat inside. Bill Dundee, anyone? * Sting has longevity on Vader. * Sting is more famous than Vader. After that... it's getting thin. My question to you would be to identify: * the wrestlers in Japan who are most like Sting in the era * the wrestlers in the WON HOF who are Japanese and had the same exact career as Sting I'm not sure who fits either of those. I'm pretty confident there isn't any of the second group, at least as of 2010. The people who have gone in have things that differentiate themselves from Sting. They are the types of things that would have gotten them in if they were US workers. On the first group, Sasaki is the closest that I can think of. Maybe Toyonobori Let's pitch out Rikidozan, Baba and Inoki. Sting isn't them... not remotely... not in Sting's dreams... not in Mrs. Sting's wet dreams. 50s? No one. 60's? Toyonobori, though without the longevity. He's not in. 70s? No one. Sakaguchi isn't Sting, and he's not in. Strong and Kimura are different beasts. Neither of them are in. 80s? Uh... who? Sting isn't Jumbo, Choshu, Fujinami or Tenryu. I mean... come on. Sayama? Different bird. 90s? Sasaki is the closest I can think of. Taue wasn't as big of a star as Sting is, and he's not in anyway. Sting isn't Misawa, Kawada or Kobashi from a HOF Voter Viewpoint. Setting aside whatever else those three had going for them as HOF Candidates, they got in because they were thought to be among the handful (and I mean *literally* "a handful with five fingers") of workers of their generation. We can argue whether they actually are at that level in hindsight, but when Misawa (1996), Kawada (1997) and Kobashi (2002) went in, at the time of those tossing ins / votes, they were generally thought to be among the 5 best workers of their generation. Sting isn't that. Christ, people debate whether he even was "good" rather than whether he was a God Of Work. Sting isn't Hash, Chono or Mutoh. One could argue Chono's candidacy, but the arguments were exactly what you heard being tossed around for Sting. I'm not a Mutoh fan, but I don't let that get in my way: Mutoh isn't a Sting comp. And Hash... he's closer to Stong Cold than Sting as a comp. Maeda and Takada? Completely different beasts from Sting, anchoring wildly successful promotions that would be the equiv of SMW and ECW doing peak buyrates at the level of Wrestlemania/Rumble that same year. People may think I'm full if shit on that one initially, but (i) if you think about it for a minute you'll get it, and (ii) if you don't get it... I'd be happy to point it out. Sting isn't them. For people who hate Takada's work, set aside that for a moment similar to how one sets aside a dislike of Hogan's work our value as a human being to grasp that Hogan Drew Like A Motherfucker. Okay, so we're down to juniors (Liger and Dragon) and oddball HOFers (Hase and Funaki). Sting isn't Liger or Dragon. Again, the comp is different and the reasons Liger and Dragon got in have nothing to do with the case people are making for Sting. I'm not going to defend Dragon, but I also don't think arguing about Dragon has anything to do with Sting. I'd say the same for Hase and Funaki. I didn't vote for them. I didn't advocate them. I disagree with those who voted them into the HOF. But are Hase and Funaki in the HOF for having the "had his EXACT same career" as Sting, only in AJPW/NJPW? Of course not. So we're left with Sasaki, and possible Toyonobri. I think the answer would be: "Jerry: you're completely wrong on this one. Get off the ledge." We can revist this is Sasaki goes in the HOF, which is entirely possible. But Sting will go in via the same voters who will eventually vote in Sting and for a similar reason: Sting/Sasaki was a Big Star for a Long Time in a Major Fed who Worked On Top a Lot for whom we'll ignore That He Failed Almost Always As An Anchor Star and vote for him anyway because We Don't Have Other Worthy Candidates To Vote For because There Are No More Hogan & Austin & Rock / Misawa & Hash & Mutoh's Coming Down The Pipeline We can add Akiyama to that bucket as well, but he's more of a star of the 00s. Except... Dave and a fair number of folks in Dave's camp think Jun was a great worker. Not Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi level... but vastly above Sting's level. There are a lot of things he shares with Sting, but that work for the voters is a big kicker. It's a little bit of a stretch. He certainly doesn't fit into the "had the same number of great matches as Sting" grouping. To sum up, through the 2010 Class, no one like Sting from Japan has gone in. Card subject to change when/if Sasaki, Toyonobori and/or Akiyama (if we stretch it to him) go in. John

Missed these earlier... Dave, and a lot of hardcores at the time, were actively rooting against the WWF. Hell, I was for years after that as well. But it did get in the way of some of the early business analysis of the WON holding up. I think as we can see in this thread, the WWF wasn't really retrenching. They always, throughout Expansion: * moved into new cities * if it popped, they stayed * if it didn't, they'd move out * if it was one they Really Wanted, they'd find ways to stick around or re-try Dave would admit now he was wrong, and probably by 1986 was regularly explicit on Hogan being the key thing in the WWF. In 1984... Hogan was the Antichrist and Vince was Satan. Granted, Hulk & Vince long held onto those roles in the WON... but there became increases willingness to address their successes. I think Wrestlemania was a double turning point for Dave: #1 - It initially made his want to get away from covering wrestling because he hated the direction it was going. #2 - in short time, he realized he still loved a lot about wrestling and that writing about it / covering it was something he really enjoyed It forced him to come to terms with the WWF: it was a monster within the business he covered. He didn't like a lot about it. But if he was going to cover the business, he had to cover the WWF and be more realistic about it. John

The Beatles: they sustained it a second week. John

Adds: #1 - Mistakes Of course there were mistakes in the initial class. I've copped to several of them over the years. The eligibility criteria also should have been thought through more, which I've talked about quite a bit in the past and again here recently. If I could pop back in the time machine knowning what I know now and work on a re-do, would it look differently? Yes, quite a bit if for no reason other than eligibility. #2 - Dave It was his HOF, and remains so even if reduced to a degree by a large number of voters. At the time, if he was locked into someone, that person was going to go in. If I could take the least worthy person in that class that I knew a ton about and could make an extremely compelling argument about him not going in, would I have been able to turn Dave around? I'd have to try to figure out who that person is, recall how strongly Dave thought about them... beats me. Couldn't even say who would fit that bill. #3 - Vader The list initial list was done on Jul 30/31, 1996. Sting vs Vader wasn't really close at the time. Hell, he was coming off a Hogan-Vader series the prior year that was booked for total shit yet still drew buyrates that in the context of 1994 through the first half of 1996 were quite good. Those three pretty much put to bed the "Did he draw in the US" concept to bed: he was a drawing opponent for Hogan. It's hard to take one's mind back to how people viewed things in 1996 because we have 15 years of stuff since then that pop into the head. I'm not sold that the selection of Vader for the HOF was a mistake. I'm about 100% certain that he would have gone in if we used better eligibility levels such as 40/20 (40 years old or 20 years of wrestling) or 45/20 (45 years old or 25 years or wrestling): Vader Born: 1957 Debut: 1985 40/20: 1997 (age) 45/25: 2002 (age) 1997 was before voting. Vader would have gone in. 2002 was after the voting. Looking at the results in that period, Vader would have gone in with a very high %. While I don't agree a lot with the voters, Sting still isn't in, and I suspect if you removed Vader would be voted back in from the Hall and put him on next year's ballot. John

John could explain it better but basically Meltzer and him were on a plane ride to Japan. Either to kill time or because Dave had the idea and wanted to hash it out with someone else or a combo of both they ended up running down a list of names effectively establishing the first class. That would generally be it. Dave had been batting the idea of a HOF around for a while. I've joked about the process on the plane a lot over the years. Dave ran over the lucha guys with Sims, who hooked up with us in Japan. I actually have a vivid memory of sitting outdoors in the plaza that contained the Tokyo Dome and Korakuen Hall (before the hotel and LaQua were built), and us flipping through the same book with Sims and running down the luchadors. Some of the Japanese guys were reviewed with Wally, since we stayed with him. I'm drawing a blank of anyone he pushed that we didn't already think was a HOFer. The one thing that sticks out was how emphatic he was about how over Mil was in the 70s. Dave hashed out more of it when he got back to the US (I stayed behind an extra week for the AJW double cards at Budokan). There were some added after the trip, like Stu and Fargo who weren't in the book we looked at. Don't know who pimped Stu to him, but tend to think Dave thought it as a no brainer. I would suspect that one of the Memphis folks pimped Fargo to him: Lance worked on the hotline for Dave, though I don't know if that was through Steve Beverly... Dave of course has always been friendly with Cornette as well. There are probably some others that I could point to, if looking over the Class of 1996, that weren't names bounced around in Japan. The majority (in the sense of 90%) were people he made up his mind on before he returned. John

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_...#United_Kingdom

Christ, it was nowhere near that. The only normal TV show to hit the 30m mark was the christmas Eastenders in 1986. The only sporting event to hit the 30m mark was the 1966 World Cup Final. According to any BARB and BFI rating stuff I've found they never even hit 20m. I have heard that they got something like 18m on a Cup Final day but I'm not too believing of that, to be honest. 70s? http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/mostwatched/1970s.html Perhaps there is a bias against listing wrestling. John

Classic... no business plan. For fucks sake. John

Here's what channels get per sub. It's a 2010 article, so the data is from 2009: Hate Paying for Cable? Here’s Why Clearer look at the image is here: http://consumerist.com/3-9-2010%202-23-31%20PM.jpg Average at the time was $0.20 per channel. Eyeball the channels and ponder where the WWE fits in, not just interms of the viewers their channel could bring to the table, but the "type" of viewers (i.e. ones who actually pay the bills to subscribe and/or force their parents to). As in the WWE Net would be a "must" for them. Also think it terms of the leverage some of the owners of these channels have compared to the WWE. In the sense of either a major player behind them, or in terms of being able to bundle a lot of channels that add up. ESPN is an anchor, which in turn is able to get a chunk for some of its more marginal properties. Also keep in mind that some of the ones that have fees far above what you'd think (MGM HD / HDNet) compared to ones that are shockingly low (Food) is because of tiers: * MGM and HDNet are on a specific tier * Food busts their ass to be on Basic Dirty secret of MGM & HDNet? No one really subs to them. They were part of a package I had, and as things like ESPN drove up my cable bill and had me looking for ways to bring it back down, the jobber tier that had MGM was one of the easiest to pitch. It was like a tier of 4-5 useless channels. There's no way in hell that the WWE is going to be able to piggy back on a tier that the NFL Network and NBA Network are on. Those two want to be on the HD equiv of "Basic" and get a major cut like off of ALL subscribers, not just a tier. From Wiki: In the long run, the NFL will win this one. They will have Comcast in the bag now: continuing to give NBC the Sunday Night Football will draw them in. They *may* suck TimeWarner into the bag as well: there has been a lot of talk to expand the Thursday Night package from half the season to the full season, with the other half potentially going up for bids rather than being placed on NFL Net. Either one works to the rather smart NFL in terms of leverage: * 8 more games on NFL net to get NFL Fans to pressure TW * 8 games to TW to get TW to roll over on the TWC carriage deal NBA TV also moved to get on the basic tier level as well. Comcast put them on their Digital Classics, which is a basic HD tier. Of course the NBA has TimeWarner in the bag due to the NBA on TNT. Those two leagues look at the WWE and laugh. They will *never* agree to be on a tier with the WWE, and instead have moved light years beyond that. On the other hand: $0.08 per month * 50,000,000 homes * 12 months = $48,000,000 FoodNetwork and Travel Channel make $0.08 a month per sub. They're on basic, so it's for _every_ home on the carrier. Travel is actually in roughly 95M homes, so one would guess Food is as well. That's a shade under 100M from just the carriers, before looking at the advertising $$. The WWE is going to have a tough time getting on basic, but they're also going to have a tough time finding the right tier. It's an uphill struggle, which is why they should have been working on this for the past decade. Look at the freaking Golf Channel. There is revenue to be made here. I don't have a ton of confidence that the WWE fully grasps how to make it work, or where the market is headed. John

Also on the point of getting to granular: there often were people on the booking staff/committee. It would get to be overkill to list them all. Key thing would be to tie down the Heads, both in terms of Booking and also the company in general. John

Russo was in a strange roll prior to that as he did a lot of work at home selling PCS while being worried about his job. He was officially out at the 10/23 Nitro/Thunder tapings when Terry & Ace took over. Eric... he wasn't really involved a ton for quite a while prior to that. Eric had some big picture stuff, but I suspect by the time of the Bash (i.e. shoot on Hogan), he was fading and instead was focusing on lining up money marks to buy WCW. I would tag it as "Russo" through all of that period. John

I assume that's a joke about the "Jumbo Was Lazy" stuff. If not, these were the TV Tapings during the 1992 Carny and Jumbo's matches on the cards: 03/20/92 Jumbo/Ogawa vs. Misawa/Kikuchi Aired 03/22/92. 03/27/92 Jumbo vs. Gordy Aired 03/29/92. 03/31/92 Jumbo vs Blaster Finish of it aired on 04/05/92, along with the finishes of Doc vs Kroffat and Gordy. They focused the time on the Misawa-Kikuchi and Kawada-Taue. "Only the finished aired but it looked good." -Dave 04/02/92 Jumbo vs. Misawa Aired 04/12/92. 04/06/92 Jumbo vs. Fuchi Aired 04/19/92. 04/14/92 Jumbo vs David Isley Jumbo was "in the clubhouse" with 16 points in the same group as Misawa and Gordy, who each started the night with 15 points. Jumbo had been booked against Deanton, while Taue was booked against Kroffat. Both Deanton and Taue got injured during the tour and were off this card, with Kroffat and Jumbo getting the points via default. Jumbo got a slapped together non-Carny match, nothing but a throwaway. Didn't air, and not something that would have aired in 1991 either. Kroffat got tossed in a sixman lower in the card, likely taking Isley's spot in the match. Hansen-Doc and Misawa-Gordy were the matches that determined who would end up in the Finals, and ate up the TV time. We likely would have gotten the finish of the two other matches if not for the injuries. 04/17/92 Jumbo & Ogawa vs Kawada & Kobashi Aired 05/03/92. Semifinal to the Hansen-Misawa Carny Final. Went 22:00 and was a pretty good match. If it had been in WCW or the WWF or SMW or even NJPW in 1992, it would have made the year book. So all of Jumbo's matches aired from the tapings other than: * finish of throwaway against jobber Blaster * slapped together match with even lower Isley after Deaton got hurt The 1992 match with Kawada was a non-title ahead of the TC match with Hansen later in the series. I'm not certain if you're serious on Baba knowing/thinking Jumbo was severely ill by the time of Carny 1992, or some point in 1991. We could look at it in two directions: work, and push. On the work side, watching the matches in 1991 and early 1992, that doesn't appear to be the case. Jumbo was the better worker in the 10/91 TC match... and that's coming from the biggest Kawada fan on the net. It's Misawa in the 1992 Carny match who looks the lesser worker having trouble "going", while Jumbo has to reel him back onto the thread. Jumbo slowing down didn't come until later in the year, and even then there were times where it looked consistent with an injury and just coming back slowly from it rather than being completely washed up there in the ring. On the push side... there's zero evidence that Baba thought Jumbo was severely injured / not able to hold up his end at the top until... well... frankly not until Jumbo was pulled from the Tag League right before it started. Evidence in the other direction? * Jumbo double main evented the first Budokan of the year He went on *last*, and won the Tag Titles. Yes... Jumbo & Taue vs Gordy & Doc went on Last, not Hansen vs Misawa for the TC. Think about that one for a bit. Baba had confidence in one of those matches being the safer bet to go on last, over his most trusted gaijin of the past decade, and his hot babyface. Any bets on it because he was confident in Taue holding up his end of a Budokan main event? [hint: look up the times that Taue had gone on last at Budokan up to that point] Gordy & Doc? Well, he did like them a good deal. But it's safe to say Jumbo factored into the decision. * booked both of Jumbo's top matches in Carny for TV tapings Gordy and Misawa were the other contenders in that group. Baba didn't hide those matches, instead putting them on the tapings and on TV. It's hard to say it was due to confidence in Gordy, who hasn't had a strong singles push since his OD in July 1990. Confidence in Misawa? Certainly against Jumbo. * Worked a full load in Carny Nothing really jumps out in looking at the results that indicates he was booked / working any different than he had in 1991. * April Fan Nights Jumbo was tossed into working 38:59 in a series of three straight four-man tags the first night, then going 35:47 the next night in a six-man. Not exactly the workload you give a guy who you think is severley sick. * Jumbo is again booked into the double main event at the second Budokan of the year TC match or Jumbo in a Tag Title match... which did Baba have confidence going on last on the June Budokan? Again it was the tag title over Hansen-Kawada. We talked about this somewhere in the yearbooks: if Jumbo was in bad shape, Baba could have booked this Budokan in a way to take the belts off him. Could have slipped Gordy into a TC challenge of Hansen, and gone with Misawa & Kawada challenging. * August Budokan double main event Jumbo is in it again, opposite Gordy & Doc. If Jumbo was trashed, he could have easily made this for the title and put over Gordy & Williams. Instead, he made it non-title... and put over Gordy & Williams to set up *another* tag title match between the teams later in the year. * last Tag Title defense of the year Jumbo & Taue vs Gordy & Williams in October... and Baba keeps the belts on Jumbo & Taue. * Last Match Of The Year Announced for Budokan: Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kawada for the only time in 1992, clearly with the Tag League on the line. Probably one of the two biggest matches of the year. Baba thought Jumbo was healthy enough for it... until it was clear that Jumbo wasn't. That announcement didn't come until days before the Tag League started in November 1992. Baba wasn't Verne. He didn't false advertise. I think we've all known people who have illnesses, which at times are just something they're having a tough time shaking... and other times far worse. With Jumbo, there really aren't any indicators that anyone thought it was as bad as it turnd out to be until November 1992. It never really went public until 1993 that he was Really Sick. Folks could sense that when he was pulled from the tag league, but Dave had to carefully talk about what it might be since nothing was official. Yeah... that piece was painful to read at the time. If I click through onto it, I'll likely put my skull through my monitor. The title changes in the 90s weren't random, other than Gordy's OD and probably Kobashi beating Kawada. I've talked about the story continuing as well: Jumbo was getting the belt back in his next challenge for it, and Misawa would keep on chasing getting a TC win over Jumbo. Similar story as Baba would later tell in Kawada and Kobashi's first title wins: they didn't beat Misawa for it, and Misawa *always* won the title back in his first challenges for it until he left All Japan. 5/95, 1/97, 10/98, 5/99. It's what Ace's did in Baba's eyes: they might drop the title, but backs to the wall they'll win it back when they challenge for it. 06/27/68 Int'l: Baba over Bobo 12/19/70 Int'l: Baba over Kiniski 11/17/78 PWF: Abby DCOR Baba 02/10/79 PWF: Baba over Abby 11/02/82 PWF: Race DDQ Baba 02/11/83 PWF: Baba over Race 09/03/86 Int'l: Hansen DCOR Jumbo 10/21/86 Int'l: Jumbo over Hansen 04/19/88 Int'l: Jumbo over Brody 10/11/89 TC: Jumbo over Tenryu 01/19/91 TC: Jumbo over Hansen 05/26/95 TC: Misawa over Hansen 01/20/97 TC: Misawa over Kobashi 10/31/98 TC: Misawa over Kobashi Baba didn't "book" the ones while he was in JWA. I left off Misawa winning the title from Vader since it was after Baba died, though it's probably what he had or would have booked. Anyway... 11-3-0. Since DCOR and DDQ where off the booking sheet for title matches after the TC was merged, it was 5-0-0. Misawa became the Ace in 5/93 because he had to: Jumbo was out, and he wasn't coming back. John

From Dave: Anyone see this yet. That "shaking and had a blank look in his eyes" is frightening to see Dave write, because even with Flair's bad apprearance last week, he didn't go that far. John

The other part of Dave's piece on Flair after what was in the other thread: There's too much in there that's sad, pathetic and sad-funny to count. John

That's some funny shit. The word is "tier", not "package". And the WWE's cut of that package would be extremely small relative to others in it like the NFL... sidebar here for a season. The NFL is likely to increase their Thursday Night schedule to either leverage: * more games on the NFL to make more fans hammer carriers to add the NFL Network * sell the new "1st half of the season" slate of games to TimeWarner to... incent them to carry the NFL Net The other key thing: the NFL Net and NBA Net *don't* want to be on a sports tier. They want to be basic so that they get a cut of ALL subs of TimeWarner, not just a cut of those who pay for the tier that the NFL Net is on. That's ESPN's deal: they're not on a special sports tier, and instead on basic... and get a hefty $$$ per total subscriber to TW or Comcast or Direct. The WWE trying to get on a tier is a... pretty fucked up business model. Lots of people just aren't going to sub to the tier. What they want to do is get on basic, like dumbass shit such as the Golf Channel is, and then create a schedule of programing that draw eyeballs. I think we've seen how well the subscriber model has worked for the WWE: 24/7 and the web. I'm pretty stunned that after 10 years of looking at this shit, this is the dumbass idea that the WWE comes up with. Fucking idiots. John

Jumbo had a singles with Fuchi on the next TV show. That would be the last Jumbo singles match that aired in 1992. Looking at the Kobashi record book on PuroLove.com, the League part of Carny was 03/20/92 - 04/14/92, with the Final on 4/17. Nine card between 4/3 and 4/14. Suspect there are a number of Jumbo singles matches in there, just no taped. Other than TC matches and Carny, they really didn't air many Jumbo singles matches in 1991-92. The only ones that I can recall was the 5/91 Jumbo-Kobashi and 1/92 Jumbo-Kawada. Balance of 1992 was non-Carny, and Jumbo was being held out of the TC until it was time to get it back from Misawa. John

Ric was a Bitch Champion. He came out of every match not only looking like the face could beat him, but should beat him, would have beat him if not totally fucked over... hell, would have beat the living shit out of Ric if not for some such bullshit. That was Ric's role: to bitch out to the local star. It had zero to do with making the title look good, himself look good, the NWA look good (in fact, in the key angle in Dallas they intentionally made the NWA look horrible and part of the problem screwing over the Von Erichs). It's not just "particular spots": it's the whole way he wrestled. Ric's key move? The Figure Four. Dirty secret about the Figure Four? Nearly *every* babyface could apply the Figure Four better than the Master Of The Figure Four. Ric would slap it on, and it would get reversed, doing more damage to Ric than the face (as shown by Ric's selling compared to their's). Lots of them would even slap Ric's own figure four on Ric, and Ric would sell the shit out of it even more than the faces would when it was on them. In modern usage of the word (i.e. street guy to guy), Ric Flair was nothing but a bitch in the ring. I'll grant that he was an extremely effective bitch and stooge in the ring: it popped the fans, and made the face look like a king. But it's really the role he played: he bitched out to the faces. 80% would be a wrong number for how much Ric was on top. Put a stop watch on the Dusty vs Flair at Starcade 1985, and break down the segments. That match was hardly unique in how Ric worked, and not just with Dusty. I found him uninteresting in that way. I prefer a heel to have some teeth behind his bitching and stooging. Savage could bitch and stooge great, but this was that dangerous kick ass nut case lurking behind it. John

Did Flair control 80% of the match? Classic "bitching": Ric Flair begging off in the corner. Savage hiding behind Liz. Classic stooging: Ric pushes Ref. Ref shoves Ric back. Ric bumps on his ass. Arn Anderson going for the Press when someone won't stay down for a pin. Arn taking it in the nuts. Arn making funny face. Heels bitch and stooge... a lot. John

I don't think any of us can imagine what goes on inside the mind of Inoki. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an element of Rev Moon in there where Inoki thinks he's a god. John

Porn folder is the best. John

As the Ultimare Heel, or potential Ultimate Heel? No. It was getting fucked up by the late 90s. John

What Bob and Ricky said. If I were doing this 1986 Yearbook style, I'd go with (and my ramblings on them linked): 1. 01/11/86 Boston: Tito Santana vs. Randy Savage (13:01) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10912#10912 2. 02/08/86 Boston: Tito Santana vs. Randy Savage (10:31) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10913#10913 3. 03/16/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana (9:30) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10914#10914 4. 04/22/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana - No DQ Match (12:23) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10915#10915 5. 05/19/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs Tito Santana (12:15 of ?) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=11143#11143 6. 06/14/86 MSG: Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino (9:42) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=11145#11145 7. 07/12/86 MSG: Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino - Cage Match (9:52) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=11147#11147 It's slight overkill on the singles match with five of them, but they do tell stories: #1-2: Savage chasing & gaining the title (Boston) #3-5: Tito chasing & failing to regain the title as the matches escalate (MSG) #5: Bruno & Adrian getting involved #6-7: the tags with Tito getting his revenge in the blowoff cage match It does end up telling a very good story. Even things like #3 and #5 are solid/good matches, and lead to the next match... so they are worthwhile to see how we got there. It also makes for a good contrast to Savage's matches on the 01/27/86 & 02/17/86 MSG cards, which are damn fun Hogan matches. They're all good enough to recommend for the DVDVR 80s redo. There are some other singles between them as mentioned, but while solid/good, I didn't think they added much that wasn't there in the seven above. John

It looks to me like Orton busted him open hardway with the chairshot. Is that what others are reading? John

Simmons really liked the Punk angle, and one got the sense that it was something that sucked him back in to watching at least the Punk angle. It comes across that Bill is in the camp that found the angle didn't go in / sustain the direction that he initially thought was cool, so he's fucking pissed off. I don't think the only one. John