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Tully was a wildly great heel. Not sure I'd vote him #1 because he wasn't quite at the Anchor Major Promotion / World Champion Heel level... but he was really great. Dundee would fall in the same boat. Terrific heel. I think a cut above them would be Savage. Could bitch and stooge and bump and sell and make a face look great. But he also had a major sense of "danger": that he really was fucking great in there and could kick the shit out of a face and hurt them, or worse just snap the fuck off and REALLY hurt them. A little disadvantaged with Hogan because Hogan was so much bigger and not a Big Wrestler Who Sells Damage Great like Windham. Still, Savage *did* have good matches with Hogan, and drew extremely well opposite him. Savage was great on the mic in his own way, and could work storylines. Could mic arrogant, pissed, half nuts, and ever so slightly under the surface chickenshit if needed. Pretty much the total package of heels. Of course Flair is up there. Never had the sense of danger in the World Title period simply because he didn't want to wrestler or act that way. He'd talk that shit, and get the rare thing of beating up Ricky Morton... but that really was a gang bang rather than Savage-Steamer where Savage did the solo number on Steamer. Flair talked and acted Champ to near perfection... except in the ring where he was his preferred Stooging Bitch Champ. He was terrific in that role... Savage was just slightly different. In a sense, Harley could stooge and bitch with the best, but he also did have a kick ass streak in his that Ric didn't really want to play as heel champ. Jumbo as a clearer heel in 1990-92 than he had been in 1986-89 was about as perfect in his specific role as you could be: super credible puroresu rudo aging Ace annoyed at the upstarts who want his spot. Different from plenty of traditional puroresu heels like Dump and Pogo, etc. You watch him and wish that in the past 20 years we even had *one* heel who could totally pull that off (or be allowed to pull that off) to that level for 2+ years. Dump of course was great in her role. Not 100% my cup of tea, but extremely effective with that right combo: perfect foil for the likes of Chigusa... with Chigusa & Co. being the perfect foil for her. Slaughter in the early 80s was exceptional. Bumping, stooging, selling his ass off. Great gimmick, and really nailed it. He was also was such a large guy, and a "tough guy", that he came across as being able to put a major hurt on the face. His opponent was in for a war, though Sarge could do everything needed to be done to make them look good. Perhaps one reason I'm not a huge fan of the blow off with Patterson: it was a massively one-side ass kicking by Patterson, and not even sure if there was a big sense of peril that Pat was ever in much danger. The way it's worked, it's almost that Sarge would win via fluke if he was going to win... rather than getting his licks in on Pat. Art was a great heel. Never know how well that came across on TV... but live, he often was up to some shit that attracted your eyes *while* enhancing the match. It wasn't like he was showboating to draw attention... but instead the attention helped sell the match. It also came across as a natural, rather than Trip-style of having to work really hard to be a heel... which is ironic since Trip is naturally an asshole in real life. Art was... just something else live. Lots of lucha guys. Fuerza is partially akin to Tully: pretty much everything you want in a heel, but not a anchor heel. Fuerza wasn't as stooging/bitching as Tully, but had his ways of making a face look like a king... while also looking at times like a king himself. As good as Tully was on the cut right below Anchor Heel, I tend to think the Midnight Express & Jim Cornette were on an even high plane as a total package. It's probably due to having three men out there to share the load of working the crowd, but there are times where their shit is nailed so smooth it's like a dance routine: this is Gene Kelley sloshes the water... this is where Gene looks up in the rain with that natural joyful smile on his face. And in a sense they shit was so smooth that it *was* like Gene: it came across natural, even when you break down exactly how: * Corny distracts the rough, giving... * Bobby & Dennis/Stan the chance to double team Rogers, causing... * Fulton to get pissed and come in, just as... * Corny points out to the Ref that Fulton is in the ring, causing... * the Ref to force Fulton back to the corner out of the ring, while... * Bobby & Dennis/Stan ratfuck over Rogers with more double team, causing... * Fulton to go more batshit and the Red have to physically hold him back out of the ring... And on and on. They have their shit down, they've done their routine so much that there's nothing calculating about it in a DDP "lets lay out every spot" sense... it feels so naturalist... except... The reason it's so natural is that like Gene, they've "practised" this so much (not just the three of them but with the opponents and the Ref) that it's all a well oiled machine by the time the "tape rolls". They can wing it because they just feel they know what they're going to do when it comes time to do it, rather than this overly do-si-do shit we see at most any match we watch these days. Add in Corny on the mic, there ability to "do stuff" which on top in face-in-peril sections and really have good stuff to fill that section, their selling and stooging with the best... they strike me as the total package of heel tag teams. Birds were better because they were on top, and they had a collecton of talents that goes together extremely well. I just find the MX package better, and as much as I like Hayes on the mic, Jimmy was better. One of my favorite Birds moments where Mike, higher than a fucking kite, was rambling a promo in GA that eventually ended up going nowhere... and Stoned Terry Fucking Gordy had to reel the shit back in to put over who they were facing in the coming week, where and that the faces where in for a good old ass kicking. Mike didn't go off the thread that badly regularly, but how often did Corny go off too far that he wasn't able to reel himself back in? That was one of the things that was great about Corny: he could go over there during an elongated squash match in the studio, talk shit with Tony & David, sound for a bit like he might just be bouncing off walls, but find ways to tie the thread back together to the storylines they were working, and then when the MX were done and it was time for the promo at the desk, he'd just fucking nail the hell out of it. I'm sure there were bad Corny promos in his prime... but I'd must have missed all of them at the time. John

And while I wasn't trying to phrase that in the form of a pep talk... Loss & Will: You're doing a really good job. Fellow Posters: You make this an entertaing and informative and fun place to swing by each day. John

The feud started at Mania, with Hart's face turn starting. They went to Bret not wanting Jimmy at ringside, which is another face spot. I would say the whole thing was a clear move to make Bret (and the HF) a face. John

#5 - Wrestling Talk I wouldn't worry too much about the topic. Different people enjoy different types of conversations. The quantity of conversation is at a pretty good level right now. It's certainly up since the post-Benoit drop... say within a year after the murders were a lot of people were burned out of wrestling in general. Conversation here dropped quite a bit. It never was as narrow as folks coming in to defend Dave/Bryan would claim (i.e. all we talked about was Dave & Bryan), but I think we'd all admit it was low volume and pretty burned out. It's now pretty vibrant. It's not as massive as DVDVR, but never will be given the number of posters... and I'm not sure that Loss & Will ever wanted it to be that spawling even in terms of the wrestling talk. There are lots of other places with pertty vibrant discussion/conversations on wrestling such as WKO. I don't think chasing or aping any other discussion board is terribly useful. This place hits a variety of topics / themes / areas of discussion. Someone visiting here can pick and chose what they like, wade in where they feel comfortable. It doesn't appear that many are getting driven off (WP not withstanding, though that seemed to be global rather than PWO). Instead, we've seen some newer folks come in, or at least post a bit more like Jerry, Nintendo, cm funk and Ricky. There seem to be some older posters that might have wandered off for a while who are posting more often again... I'm thinking Mad Dog and Coffey. FLIK's been around the net for a long time, but has gotten really active here with the Yearbooks, and his joshi contributions are really helping push along the discussion on that genre. I think the convesation in the various areas is generally well done. We may disagree, there may be some heat from time to time, but it's pretty mild relative to what all of us have seen and/or been in the middle of over the past two decades. I also think that if you ever get a chance to go back through some of the Behind the scenes talk / Gossipy/salacious stuff, it doesn't reflect too badly on the place or the posters relative to what we've seen or been in the middle of elsewhere. The Benoit thread for example... I had the chance to go back and re-read the "real-time" stuff in the early days of the thread. It's pretty solid. I thinks we all saw some pretty crackers stuff around the net in those early days... PWO was pretty solid and level headed at a time when a lot of us were shell shocked by the events. In turn, the thread has been a really good reference point for people like Bix and Keith to bring in later news, and for the rest of us to bounce around thoughts. The conversation on the Hardys has been similar. Sure there are some jokes tossed around, but that is our nature. But there's also a lot of good analysis in there, a good amount of cutting through the bullshit, and given the variety of posters that we have bringing different experiance & knowledge to the table, it can be pretty informative. There's enough volume of posters that you get that postive, but also not such a mass of posts where the signal gets lost in 200 useless posts: good, on topic, solid, some humor, some brutally honest stuff. Are there things that I would like to see? Perhaps... but when the place is at a pretty good place, why bother pushing too much for fear of derailing what's working pretty well. So... #5 - Wrestling Talk It's not a case of "it's working so don't fuck with it", which usually gets tossed out when something is long of tooth and actually *not* working. It's a case of "things are on the upswing in PWO and working pretty well". John

To be honest, Ric didn't look good from the minute he got in the ring. He just looked out of sorts before the bell even rang. He went downhill from that. I do like the elbow causing it excuse, given when the elbow issue happened. John

Agreed. And that Reb Sky is: A. An attention whore like Matt B. Enabling Matt C. Dumb as a fucking rock D. All of the above John

He didn't look healthy in what aired, which makes you wonder just how bad he looked in the raw feed. Bix: do you have a source in TNA that could sneak out the raw footage? John

They did build Piper vs Hogan for Starrcade 96, and Hogan vs Sting at Starrcade 97 had been build basically for 14 months. There's a lot of back-and-forth in here, but I'd agree with those: Starcade in 1996 and 1997 were the biggest shows of the year, and treated as such. Prior to and after that... it's more of a mixed bag. It clearly was JCP's biggest show. To a degree, TBS continued that... but the company also seemed to get burned out by the end of the year, and not have a good idea of how to make it the biggest show. Then it went into the mode that all PPV's were the same, some just had bigger matches given where they were in promoting feuds/storylines. Then starting in 1994, the "Big PPV's" were the ones with Hogan on them. The funny thing about Starcade 1994 is that it was suppose to be the biggest of the year, and was going to be Hogan-Sting. And Hulk did a great job of changing it and getting a new contract. That really is the only reason Starcade wasn't the biggest show of 1994. In 1995, it seemed like they put more focus on Nitro at the end of the year, and the PPV's were almost an after thought come Starcade that it was oddly put together. No chance of being the biggest show of the year. 1996 & 1997 turned that around. 1998... they were screwed up by that point. John

If you're Shane, you have to be pissed off at how much of the inheritance Mom has pissed away in these two runs. On top of the Idiot & Doofus fucking up the company, and lessing the inheritance as well. John

It was: "This ballot is being sent out to major wrestling stars, past and present, major management figures in the industry, writers and historians." In 2009. I don't know if I've got the earlier ones: Dave use to send most of them to my work e-mail, and they would have rolled off by now. The earliest ones might be in my Pegasus Mail archive. Think it's been "writers" for a little while, though he may use the word interchangeably with "reporters" in the results issue. John

Aw... and here I was worried that we wouldn't have the fun of Linda running next year. John

You have to love that Hardy: * keeps his dope locked up *outside* of the house * just recently moved his Dope Safe * did so in such a way that anyone could find the new location Dumb & Dumber. Dope Safe outside... hmmm... reasons for that. If it were inside, someone might be taking his dope? (Jeff? Girlfriends?) Paranoid about home invasion, and of all the valuables inside the house that meant something, it was the dope he really cared about? Or dumb enough to think that if it was outside that somehow law enforcement with a warrant wouldn't find it in a search, and then get a new warrant to cover something they observed on the property outside the house? I think we understand why Matt is ready to go into rehab: near rock bottom with time in jail looking him in the face. That is how a lot of addicts hit rock bottom. Some turn it around, some don't. John

NR Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage (Mania 4/5/92) ***1/4 #19 - Vader vs Sting (WCW Great American Bash 07/12/92) ****1/2 #21 - Rick Rude vs Masa Chono (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/12/92) ****1/2 NR Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior (Summerslam 8/29/92) #40 - Bret Hart vs Davey Boy Smith (WWF Summerslam 08/29/92) ****1/4 #9 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 10/21/92) ****1/2 NR Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels (Series 11/26/92) *** #10 - Vader vs Sting (WCW Starrcade 12/28/92) ****1/2 Interesting to see 4 of them all end up in the same general range, and a fifth just a shade below. Loss didn't rip the work of Savage-Warrior, but more the clusterfuck booking and nonsense. John

That Dr. X shirt and mask in the left background is great. John

It's in there to support the charges. The DA knows it, and Matt's lawyer will know it. He'll plea down to a lesser charge. John

Wow. Looks like we need to start the push for Groups again as a way to get the Dynamite Brothers in. BTW, since Cien Caras (and the Dynamite Brothers) were clearly a big draws, what would keep Cien out of the HOF? Could it be... Work? Can we put to bed the notion that Dave only looks at Wrestling now as Business and that it's the over riding thing on his HOF voting? Cien's work is enough to keep him out (though not enough to keep Carlos out). It's a pretty clear sign that work still has a big impact on Dave's voting. John

"You're the real star of the promotion, Trip. You and me, brother." John

So what happened on the PPV? If I'm reading between the lines, it sounds like Trip beat up Punk. John

He has some fun in it (I enjoy the rope shake at Warrior), but it's painful to watch him walk, hang onto the ropes for his balance. John

It's their last singles match. I'm not sure if Baba would have changed the booking if he knew. Hard to know how Baba thought in those ways. He never put over Jumbo himself, while putting over Tenryu. So his views on that are a little different. The Feb-Mar series ended with Hansen-Misawa for the TC. If he knew Jumbo was ill, would he have kept the belt on Jumbo in the January series and instead had Jumbo drop it to Misawa at the March Budokan thinking it might be his last chance? I... don't know. I do think that Baba cleared the deck of a lot of Misawa-Jumbo in 1992 for two things: * only Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kawada of 1992 to be the climactic Last Match Of The Year * highly anticipated Misawa-Jumbo in Feb 1993 The first was booked and announced. The second got replaced by Misawa-Taue as part of those first three series of the year where the top program was a little aimless without Jumbo there, and Taue not enough to carry the other side with Misawa-Kawada-Kobashi as a trio of heavies on the technico side. They did a really good job of avoiding Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kawada, both in how the June Budokan was booked, and also going back to Jumbo & Taue vs Gordy & Doc in October on a card where they could have put Misawa & Kawada into it. It's an interesting contrast to 1995 which was the "third" year of the Four Corners feud, and they: * ran Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue into the ground before the Final * you didn't get much of a sense that they were heading into anything clear in 1996 John

Misawa let a lot of people have more of the match. That was an element of Misawa By Numbers: throw Misawa all over the fucking place, he sucks it up, he beats you. I'm trying to recall Misawa having more of the 10/95 match, and I'm drawing a blank there. He long let Kobashi have his way. In the end, he was stronger and he won. Did it feel like Misawa dominated him in the 4/97 Carny Final match? Seemed like 30 minutes of a Kobashi Match, with your standard Misawa spots of firing back up. I thought even in the 1/97 match that he let Kobashi have loads of the match, maybe even a higher % of it. Had Misawa on the ropes, Misawa certainly tried to create doubt... then Misawa was stronger down the end and planted him. I don't think those two put a great deal of thought into their matches in the "we're going to work as equals for the first time tonight". They really comes across as two guys who had been winging shit for several years, having a key thing or two they wanted to get to in a match, but usually ending up with other folks in their slightly deeper matches. John

Yeah... that. There's a fine line between Buying The Legend Bullshit and Finding The Legend To Be Bullshit. Flair in that match from last night that folks are talking about... that just exposed Ric as an old man huffing and puffing in the ring that you worry is going to keel over, not from anything Sting has done to him, but because he's an Old Fucking Man. Ric in the ring in that match is just bullshit, and there's nothing really to buy. Baba in the 11/30/93 tag match, and in *some* of the tags/six-mans heading into the next year, are Buying The Legend Bullshit. The fact that he's old, the opponents are selling their asses off to make him look good (as opposed to their normal selling), and that Baba really isn't up to their snuff... that does peak out here and there. And if one just can't buy into the Baba Bullshit, I certainly can understand that. He's not Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Hansen or Doc in there, and if that's the level you want in your 1993-94 AJPW matches, then Baba isn't at that level. And there are plenty of matches where I'm in Finding The Legend To Be Bullshit mode with Baba. I don't care at all for the Baba & Andre tag matches, and not just because I find Andre circa 1990 & 1991 to be unwatchable. Andre... I'm not that much of a fan of "peak" Andre because he just never has been my cup of tea. But declining Andre when it's painful to watch him even move around in the ring? There's something incredibly sad about it. Perhaps not as pathetic as Flair last night. But you rarely get the sense that Andre is really enjoying himself out there. It's feels like a grind on him, which makes it a grind to watch. That's a difference between he and Baba, because you really get the sense in Nov 1993 - April 1994 that Baba is enjoying himself in there with his "boys". John

I'm always a fan of the "I Stopped Talking Because Of You Asshats!!!!" concept. John

I think Sting looked mediocre in it, but having an old man as an opponent distracted me from spending the whole match paying attention to Sting. John

Hard to say they're equal. Kobashi still wouldn't win a big match for over two more years (by one definition) or until 2003 (by another arguably even more reasonable definition). It's a bit like saying Misawa and Kawada were equals because Kawada got a few pins here and there. Even after the Dome win, it's really hard to feel they're equals... I mean... Kawada instantly dropped the straps. Pretty *not* Misawa-like there. :/ John