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Always fuckin hated that Austin/Stacy angle for the reasons allready mentioned but also because they came back the next week, had Austin come out again to confront her and this time she chuged the beer happily then took off her shirt and danced. Yay peer pressure and violence, totall bully move. FWIW, the comments about Austin and Stacy were in the context of the over-the-top joking in the "poor sportsmanship of Hulk Hogan" thread. I'm not a fan of SCSA smacking around women. John

When Lex jumped from WCW to the WWF, Hogan conned Lex & Vince into sending Lex over to the WBF. Hogan wanted to eliminate a potential rival. John

I think it was because Misawa was going to get the push, and NJPW promised him a push if he jumped to them. Kosh worked a pretty modern style as a junior in terms of selling. That was going to get crapped on. The thing is... I'm not so sure that Kosh's consistancy in sustained selling in 1986 is all that different than say Flair or say Savage in 1986. That pretty much sums up Kosh's opportunities: the Three Musketeers + Sasaki were always pushed as heavies from the start. Kosh was one of the long line of guys to "grow out of" the junior division, not of them ever really making it higher than Hase and Kosh went. Fujinami was a different beast: the junior division was created for him as a place to park him and give him high profile matches until it was time to push him as a heavy, where he always was being viewed as Inoki's heir (not that Inoki wanted to give up the crown). I don't know who the comp for Kosh is. The one that pops into mind is Arn Anderson. Hash, Mutoh and Chono were the Flair's who were going to get pushed. Kosh was the Arn who went about his business putting on matches the fans enjoyed, often in support of Hash, Mutoh and Chono. Only difference: Kosh has a rather big number of good singles matches to point to, while Arn is kind of sparse in that nature... even when having good opponents to work with in throwaway matches. Pointed out several times: 1995-96 G1 Main Events / Final Matches On Cards 08/11/95 Shiro Koshinaka pinned Keiji Mutoh (15:47). 08/12/95 Keiji Mutoh pinned Masa Chono (11:36). 08/13/95 Masa Chono pinned Shiro Koshinaka (11:10). 08/14/95 Shinya Hashimoto pinned Masa Chono (10:05). 08/15/95 Keiji Mutoh pinned Shinya Hashimoto (24:08) to win the 1995 G-1 Climax 08/02/96 Riki Choshu pinned Shinya Hashimoto (17:14) 08/03/96 Shiro Koshinaka pinned Kazuo Yamazaki (13:50). 08/04/96 Shiro Koshinaka pinned Masa Chono (22:10). 08/05/96 Keiji Mutoh beat Shiro Koshinaka (11:59) via submission. 08/06/96 Riki Choshu pinned Masa Chono (13:45) to win the 1996 G-1 Climax. 10 cards. Kosh went on last in 5 of those. Three straight nights in on stretch. Sasaki went on last 0 times in that stretch. That's not saying that Kosh was pushed as hard as the 3M+1. He wasn't. But he was a valued reliable hand. Fans like him, and the office had confidence in his being able to pull off singles matches. Not a guy ever pushed up to a major Dome match, and not really a main eventer on the big cards in the balance of the years. But they knew had a valueable guy they could go to in certain situtations, and he'd deliver for the most post. So in a way, an Arn type, just having stuff like those singles matches. John

Mayumi Ozaki & Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) vs Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue (AJW) John

There are no "tag finals" until 1995. This is simply a League Match, the last one of the league. Same as 1993. And yes... it was a bit underwhelming relative to other matches in that spot. Bad break with Jumbo out, and like we were discussing in the other thread, Baba wasn't creative enough in dealing with Jumbo's withdrawl. John

Yikes... I don't even remember *liking* Barry-Dusty, let alone thinking it was a standout match. I had much more enjoyed the Barry-Bigelow and Barry-Lex matches at the time. Anyway, looking at BW from post-Starcade '87 through his departure, here's what made Punk's set years ago in terms of matches with some teeth: Barry Windham vs Larry Zbyszko NWA Sat 12/2/1987 10 mins Barry Windham vs Tully Blanchard Superbouts 1/23/1988 23:30 Tully/Arn vs Windham/Sting WWW 1/16/1988 16:49 Barry Windham vs Larry Zbyszko Bunkhouse 1/24/1988 19:12 Mike Rotunda vs Barry Windham NWA Pro 2/26/1988 9:30 Arn/Tully vs Windham/Luger NWA Pro 3/12/1988 14:13 Anderson & Blanchard vs Luger & Windham Clash 1 3/27/1988 9:31 Flair, AA & Tully vs Sting, BW & Luger Main Event 4/3/1988 12:51 Barry Windham vs Tully Blanchard Main Event 4/10/1988 15:35 Tully/Arn vs Windham/Williams Main Event 4/17/1988 15:00 ----------------------- Windham/Luger vs Tully/Arn NWA Sat 4/20/1988 20:09 ----------------------- Barry Windham vs Brad Armstrong Clash 2 6/8/1988 14:05 Flair/Arn/Barry vs Lex/Nikita/Williams NWA Houston 6/10/1988 19:06 Barry Windham vs Nikita Koloff Main Event 7/3/1988 6:07 Barry Windham vs Dusty Rhodes Bash 7/10/1988 15:55 Barry Windham vs Sting Clash 3 9/7/1988 21:04 Flair & Windham vs Rhodes & Bigelow (JIP) NWA TV 11/23/1988 18 mins Flair/Windham vs Midnight Express Clash 4 12/7/1988 17:41 Barry Windham vs Eddie Gilbert NWA Sat 12/24/1988 20:43 Barry Windham vs Bam Bam Bigelow Starrcade 88 12/26/1988 16:18 Barry Windham vs Eddie Gilbert NWA Sat 1/14/1989 12:18 Flair & Windham vs Steamboat & Gilbert NWA Sat Night 1/21/1989 15:25 Flair/Windham vs Hayes/Sting NWA Main 2/12/1989 14:51 Barry Windham vs Lex Luger Chi Town 2/20/1989 10:43 Flair/Windham vs Luger/Gilbert NWA Main 3/12/1989 17:45 Luger/Hayes vs Windham's (Hayes turns) NWA Main 3/19/1989 5:14 There is quite a gap in there from the Bash to Clash 4 where there wasn't a lot of his stuff that made the set. People who have jumped into the Crockett / WCW stuff for the DVDVR 80s project and perhaps are watching all of the weekly shows probably have a better sense of whether Punk was just missing stuff, or what not. Anyway, I suspect that if one were working on a 1988 Yearbook, there would be more keepers from this than just the two Arn & Tully title changes, the Dusty match, Clash 4, and Starcade. My thought at the time when he popped up on my TV was that I was seeing a pretty damn good worker. John

I think the discussion broke down into the following shifting items: * work vs shoot * it's work, but it's still fun and it going to get Punk over huge * Okay... it's starting to have some issues, but give it time, it's going to get Punk over huge * Well... about this HHH involvement... it's going to get Punk over huge And with varying degrees in there of how long it would be sustained, how over it would get Punk, how committed the company was to it, how big of a problem HHH's involvement would be, etc. It's less that people actively rooted against it. More that people were jaded by Steph & Trip & Vince & WWE Creative screwing up Really Big Things like this through the years, and not have much faith in it, either short term or long term. "It was a cool promo, but..." I don't think anyone wanted this to crap out like a drunk falling on its face. Just that folks don't have a lot of confidence in the WWE Creative team, and any cracks that popped up struck them as signs of doom. John

Eghads, Jon... we're talking about the UFC-Fox deal over in the Meltzer thread. Just the thing for your insight, and you're slumming in this thread talking about BW?!?! John

That is an important aspect of the Yearbooks: people thought this was good/great at the time, let's take a look at it again in the context of that year. There is value in that. John

The comment was more in the sense of Loss using his magic admin powers to split off the Austin posts from the other thread. I think IP Boards has that ability from the Admin side. John

The other thing with NBC is that their Prime Time schedule is a wasteland at the moment. *If* they were able to get UFC to draw, they would probably be more likely than Fox to try to get more UFC Live Shows onto Prime Time on NBC (as opposed to Versus / NBC Sport Channel). Now NBC is a little more conservative / less edgey in their broadcasts than Fox, who despite being owned by Murdoch who is politcally conservative... he's pretty much a pimp of what ever racy shit will draw. Fox might not wimp out over the violence and any backlash, where as NBC has a track record of rolling over even when things draw. Perhaps that's a factor: Fox will give them more freedom / less headache, while NBC is... flakey. The value of a channel is pretty high, though how it gets wrapped up in a joint venture and how well protected UFC is in ownership if UFC moves to another entity in the next contract... that can be a bit tricky. Probably more tricky with someone like UFC that has very little than say the WWE in a similar JV setting where the WWE brings so much existing content and production ability to the table. Vince & Co. are also probably a bit more savy in dealing with media companies as well. I really think the biggest concern here is the length, especially if UFC "takes off". By that I don't man 10+ ratings. But if it does above current Fight Night ratings to a strong degree, has UFC undersold their programing and locked themselves in too long. I know that UFC will see that as being a positive towards increasing their PPV buys/revenues, but I'm not sure that it's the right business model to focus too much long term on PPV as the key revenue stream. John

Perhaps all the Stone Cold stuff can be split off into a Stone Cold thread. It's actually not a bad topic for people to discuss and give some thought. But it is a side drain from this thread. John

Special Ref? The choice of words is odd, though. John

You'd think Ric rubbing Ricky's nose in the concrete was more evil. 1996 seemed more cartoon stuff. John

Shawn Michaels Never was quite the mark for him that my fellow sheet readers were back in the day. Didn't like his comeback at all, other than his jobbing to Taker twice. Liked his AWA stuck. Rockers were a mixed bag for him, perhaps because they were stuck in WWF Tag Style when it would have been more interesting to see them down in Crockett. Singles Shawn... eh. The Shawn Show just never did a ton for me. Kurt Angle Liked the goofy character early. Didn't care for Killer Kurt during the stronger heelish run in the WWE. His ring work had the tools to appeal to me, but his brain was pretty much the biggest jerkoff worker of the era. Had to love his getting laid out, the opponent heading to the top, and Super Kurt magically being fine to hop off the mat, run over and bound up the ropes to his a cool move. Or shit like the match with Shane. Kenta Kobashi Enjoyed young Kobashi through 1993ish and on into 1994 to a degree. Over time they basically let him do his thing, and he got more masturbatory in the ring. Hard to pin down exactly when he started to annoy me, but the TC match with Doc going 40+ minutes really struck me as being just excessive. Which would be the word that sticks with me through most of the rest of his career. In a sense, Kobashi the bridge between Flair's I've Got Stuff To Do style and the modern spot-o-rama style. Bruiser Brody Well, lots of people don't like him now. Just toss him out here as one of the early folks to think he wasn't as good as folks pimped him up to be. Ric Flair Great wrestler on a certain level. I really don't need to see another of his matches, though I suspect I'll see pleny of them since they pop up on everything. Dory Funk Jr. Yeah... boring far too often. It's not just because Terry was so non-boring. There *are* some watchable Dory matches/performances that you stumble upon, like Dory vs Horst. You kind of wish there was more of that out there like that. Don Muraco I'm trying to think of any match of his where he was fully enaged for the entire match, rather than looking for stretches to take off. As frustrating of a wrestler as there ever has been since he was so gifted at just about everything in the ring, but really looked to get by doing the least possible. A good counter argument to being tired of Flair: at least with Ric you know you're going to get the Flair Show where he's Got Stuff To Do and Keeps It Moving Along. Ric's problem isn't laziness in the ring, but over familarity to the point that "new opponents" in his prime don't really bring much out "new" in Ric, but just shades of the Flair Show. I've been worn down and bored by the mass of Flair matches. In contrast, Don didn't give a shit enough to produce a mass of great matches to eventually get bored of. The thing is... Don was talented enough to have better matches. John

Dave doesn't give a shit about that. He's known Barnett for years, and has been pretty complimentary of Barnett's impact on wrestling. John

I can't remember what thread it was in, but we were talking about Davey Boy Smith being the first one to get a guaranteed deal in the WWF. "I believe that Mark Henry's deal is a ten year contract at a $250,000 per year downside guarantee. He isn't the only person that's been ofered a 10-year deal and most of the high level wrestlers are getting $250,000 per downside guarantees." -09/02/96 WON Dave then goes on to recommend folks over 35 to take it, and guys under to sign shorter because salaries are likely to escalate. Dave has the story on DBS signing a guaranteed contract the *next* WON. As of the 9/2/96 WON, Dave reported that he hadn't heard of DBS signing. So DBS clearly was one of the people being offered guarantees, but hardly the only one. What he signed as a five-year deal with $250K downside... which is consistent with what Dave said was getting offered to a number of wrestlers the issue before. Davey's probably is just remembered the most because he was practially in WCW as #5 of the nWo, and his contract issues got more press. Other people's didn't get as much. John

With in five years it will reach the point that Barnett blew everyone from that era. John

I think the reasons why I liked about the 11/93 more was: * there never was any doubt who was going down here Kobashi was getting pinned. In 11/93, especially if you didn't know the result (I didn't at the time), you only know Misawa isn't getting pinned and Hansen highly unlikely to get pinned. It was possible that Baba could eat a pin here for Misawa like he did for Tenryu in the Tag League, and of course it was possible that Stan could chop Kobashi's head off. There was doubt in the result: draw possible, Kobashi losing for the "upset", and Baba getting pinned for the "holy shit that's kinda special". * Misawa & Kobashi didn't seem to be "holding back" on Baba as much Did it slow down? Yes, relative to Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue. But it felt in 1992 more along the lines of holding back, while in 1993 it felt like Baba was "picking it up". * exhibition vs competative 1992, as fab as it was, felt more exhibitiony. Kobashi was losing, Baba wasn't competative at the time, it's more a "fun" match. 1993 was worked more like Baba & Hansen had a shot to win. Like the old goats might pull one out of the air to shake up the expectations of the tag league (i.e. only Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue mattered). Baba felt more competative in that he was helping his team inflict some damage and put Misawa & Kobashi on the ropes, while the year before... he was just a Special Attraction in the match. I honestly can't remember the last time I felt that Baba was truly competative in the Tag League... that he and his team could do some "real" damage in it rather than "bullshit" damage like Baba & Andre winning matches because they were legends and it help keep things close down to the end. Probably back when Baba teams with Jumbo. That's a decade. Baba & Kobashi vs Misawa & Kawada just never struck me as being much more than I expected it could be on the high end: Kenta would put on the Kobashi Show, Misawa & Kawada were great, and Baba wouldn't screw it up while the fans enjoyed him being a part of it. Baba & Hansen vs Misawa & Kawada struck me as being much more than I expected: a competative match, Misawa & Kobashi and Hansen all working at the very high end of their very high abilities at that moment, and not just that Baba didn't screw things up... but that he added to the match in a not insignificant way. The Kobashi show in this match... it was on display a lot in 1992-94. Perhaps a little special because it was one of the rare times prior to 5/93 that he was opposite one of his partners. But not really unique even in that sense, and not really beyond what you would expect out of him if he was dropped into this match. I've recommended this match in the past. Pimping post: That pretty much still is my opinion. Dave had it this was: Misawa & Kawada vs Baba & Kobashi ****3/4 Misawa & Kobashi vs. Hansen & Baba **** I would have had it when writing the Pimping Post as: Misawa & Kawada vs Baba & Kobashi ****1/4 Misawa & Kobashi vs Baba & Hansen ****1/2 And still like the 1993 match about 1/4* better. John

Said better than I could. I wouldn't even say Austin was the bully with Vince. In a sense, Mr. McMahon was the bully: the boss constantly trying to screw over Austin. Of course Austin snapped, and eventually terrorized Mr. McMahon. John

Taped ones from the time Misawa took the mask off to Stan dropping the TC for the last time to Misawa. 1992-93 eventually felt like overkill: 7 matches in 19 months, 6 of them Big (TC or Carny Final). 5/93 showed they could still pull off a great match. 10/93 showed they weren't imaginative enough to come up with a fully different match after the prior 6 in that period. They really should have just done a 12-15 freaking war beating the shit out of each other. John

I think it might be the case that there are so many of them: 07/90 TC: Hansen vs Misawa (decision bout) 04/91 Carnival: Hansen vs. Misawa 03/92 TC: Hansen vs Misawa 04/92 Carnival: Hansen vs Misawa (Final) 08/92 TC: Hansen vs Misawa 03/93 Carnival: Misawa vs Hansen 04/93 Carnival: Misawa vs Hansen (Final) 05/93 TC: Misawa vs Hansen 10/93 TC: Misawa vs Hansen 05/95 TC: Hansen vs Misawa And some of them aren't super hot. The very best of them aren't quite at the level of the Four Corners matches, but are very good. Some are just there... and some like 10/93 & 05/95 feel long of tooth. John

Since Jesus didn't seem to have issues with gays, one gets the feeling that Paul might have been protesting too much when he saw the light and decided that the gays were bad-bad-bad. John

BTW... one has to give it up to Stacy for bagging Clooney. John

Savage is the bully: the clearest bully in the WWF at the time. Steamboat was the Ultimate Babyface. The fans rooted for who again? You're rolling out something after Austin retired? Anyway, Stone Cold was sharing his beer with her. Would any bully share his favorite drink with someone he didn't like? Stacy heeled it up by showing she didn't like the beer, being kind of ungratefully about the generosity of Stone Cold's soft heart. So Stone Cold stunnered her. Granted, I'm not a fan of dudes beating up chicks, so I tend to see Stone Cold as being an asshole in that (other than beating this shit out of Steiner, who was a douchebag). John