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That was my favorite. Hoback's son is a big Hogan Fan. We don't quite get it since he's not a massive wrestling fan like his dad, he doesn't watching a lot of wrestling, his dad hates Hogan, but the wrestling he does like is watching Hogan beat up heels. Actually... I think we do get it: he's a Hogan Fan because his dad hates Hogan, so it's a way to be a wise ass to his dad. Pretty smart for a pre-teen. Anyway, I let Hoback have my copy of Corey's terrific redone Hogan set so that he could watch a bunch of Hogan with his son. Of course there's load of stuff in there Caleb had never seen, including the entire Hogan-Orndorff angle. And Hoback loved getting Caleb gripping over how Hogan isn't treating Orndorff right by not returning his call, that you just don't do that to a friend, how Hogan was showboating in the Moondogs match, and... BAM! Orndorff takes out Hogan. "Hogan deserved that! You don't treat friends like that." Damn near drove the kid to tears. Which was fair payback for driving his old man nuts by being a Hogan Fan. John

I always thought that these would make an interesting comp, to the point of being a broken record: Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage (Mania 4/5/92) Vader vs. Sting (GAB 7/12/92) Rick Rude vs. Masa Chono (NJ G-1 Climax Final 8/12/92) Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior (Summerslam 8/29/92) Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith (Summerslam 8/29/92) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJ 10/21/92) Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels (Series 11/26/92) Vader vs. Sting (Starrcade 12/28/92) They're the fairly high rated heavyweight of the year. I may be forgettng one, and intentionally leave off Piper-Hart since I've tossed out a different comp for it over the years (Pillman-Zenk). What I've usually tried to point to is that Misawa-Kawada, though highly rated at the time (****1/2 before snowflakes were handed out left and right), it was thought to be "disappointing" on some level because expectations were so high. Star Calculator was one of the jokes tossed around when it was announced. Most of the other matches weren't thought to be disappointing, other than perhaps Flair-Savage if people were hoping the two would have a MOTYC. Most of the ended up were thought to be a bit better than expected. So I was looking for to seeing how people viewed these matches in the context. John

So did Trip kill off the brand extension? John

Two other AJPW matches: the 6/89 Spivey-Sting and 8/92 Spivey-Kawada were also watchable. John

Yeah, that grab assing at Summer Slam was way over the line. John

They really don't rebook the schedule of the Tag League when things happen this close, or even during as was the case in 1993. They would have had to pull that match out of its existing slot where tickets had already been sold (ignoring the opener that didn't have any big matches): 11/21 in Kumamoto (air 11/22): Tsuruta & Taue vs. Hansen & Ace, Baba & Kobashi vs. Gordy & Williams 11/27 in Sapporo (air 11/29): Baba & Kobashi vs. Misawa & Kawada, Tsuruta & Taue vs. Gordy & Williams 11/30 in Osaka (air date 12/6): Misawa & Kawada vs. Gordy & Williams, Tsuruta & Taue vs. Baba & Kobashi 12/2 in Tsuyuhashi (air 12/13): Hansen & Ace vs. Misawa & Kawada 12/4 at Budokan (air 12/20): Tsuruta & Taue vs. Misawa & Kawada, Hansen & Ace vs. Gordy & Williams One of the two strong second tier cards. They pretty much only had a sub to work with, someone not in the tourney. Or... breaking up the teams. I think what I probably would have done: Misawa & Kawada Tsuruta & Taue --> Taue & Kobashi Gordy & Williams Hansen & Ace Baba & Kobashi --> Baba & Akiyama Which would have shifted the cards like this: 11/21 in Kumamoto (air 11/22): Taue & Kobashi vs. Hansen & Ace, Baba & Akiyama vs. Gordy & Williams That might be disappointing to someone looking forward to Baba & Kobashi vs Gordy & Williams, but one suspects that seeing Taue & Kobashi team would be a nice change for them. Also gives Taue & Kobashi a team they can beat: either of them pins Ace. 11/27 in Sapporo (air 11/29): Baba & Akiyama vs. Misawa & Kawada, Taue & Kobashi vs. Gordy & Williams I suspect that fans won't mind that one at all. The Baba & Akiyama is a lot less competative, but Taue & Kobashi vs MVC would interest the fans more than MVC vs Taue & Jun. 11/30 in Osaka (air date 12/6): Misawa & Kawada vs. Gordy & Williams, Taue & Kobashi vs. Baba & Akiyama Less compeative in the second match, but again suspect the fans wouldn't mind. 12/4 at Budokan (air 12/20): Misawa & Kawada vs Taue & Kobashi, Hansen & Ace vs. Gordy & Williams Suspect fans would have enjoyed that a great deal more. John

Yohe has a copy for me, and we just haven't hooked up to pass it along. Sounds interesting. John

"Rack him." -Jim Rome John

Interesting to go back through the WON and see how close to the vest this was. Oct. 26 1992 WON All Japan announced this week the teams involved and arenas for the 18th annual Real World Tag League tournament. The show opens on 11/14 in Omiya and the championship match will take place on 12/4 at Tokyo's Budokan Hall. As was the case last year, the final night's card will be broadcast on closed-circuit television in several other cities. The round-robin tournament, which will consist of every team in the tournament wrestling every other team with two points being awarded for a win and one point for a draw and zero for a loss and the winning team is determined by the most points has 11 teams. Back as defending champions from both 1990 and 1991 are Terry Gordy & Steve Williams, plus current PWF world tag champs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue, Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada, UWA tag champs Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas, Giant Baba & Kenta Kobashi, Abdullah the Butcher & Giant Kimala II, Stan Hansen & Johnny Ace, Joel Deaton & Billy Black, The Patriot (Del Wilkes) & The Eagle (?), Dory Funk & Al Perez and Danny Spivey & Kendall Windham. I think it's pretty obvious the winning team will be one of the first three teams mentioned. ================== 11/09/92 WON (results through 11/02/92) Television taping cards for the tag team tournament series are: 11/14 in Omiya (air date 11/15): Misawa & Kawada vs. Joel Deaton & Billy Black, Hansen & Johnny Ace vs. Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas, Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs. Dory Funk & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Steve Williams & Terry Gordy vs. Danny Spivey & ?, Giant Baba & Kenta Kobashi vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Giant Kimala II, Andre the Giant & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota vs. Wild Bunch (Haruka Eigen & Motoshi Okuma & Masa Fuchi) and The Patriot (Del Wilkes) & The Eagle (Jackie Fulton) vs. Jun Akiyama & Yoshinari Ogawa. 11/21 in Kumamoto (air 11/22): Tsuruta & Taue vs. Hansen & Ace, Misawa & Kawada vs. Funk & Kikuchi, Baba & Kobashi vs. Gordy & Williams, Andre & Kimura & Mighty Inoue vs. Wild Bunch. 11/27 in Sapporo (air 11/29): Baba & Kobashi vs. Misawa & Kawada, Tsuruta & Taue vs. Gordy & Williams, Hansen & Ace vs. Spivey & ?, Andre & Funk & Kikuchi vs. Deaton & Eagle & Patriot. 11/30 in Osaka (air date 12/6): Misawa & Kawada vs. Gordy & Williams, Tsuruta & Taue vs. Baba & Kobashi, Hansen & Ace vs. Eagle & Patriot, Funk & Kikuchi & Akiyama vs. Abdullah & Kimala II & Black. 12/2 in Tsuyuhashi (air 12/13): Hansen & Ace vs. Misawa & Kawada, Tsuruta & Taue vs. Butcher & Kimala II, Williams & Gordy vs. Eagle & Patriot, Baba & Kobashi vs. Spivey & ?. Finals will be 12/4 at Budokan Hall which will also be closed-circuited to several locations around Japan plus the finals airing on 12/20 on television. The final night line-up has Tsuruta & Taue vs. Misawa & Kawada, Hansen & Ace vs. Gordy & Williams, Spivey & ? vs. Deaton & Black, Kroffat & Furnas vs. Patriot & Eagle, Andre & Baba & Kimura vs. Wild Bunch and Akiyama & Kobashi vs. Abdullah & Kimala II. ================== 11/16/92 WON (results through 11/09/92) Nothing ================== 11/23/92 WON Just before the opening of the annual All Japan tag team tournament, Giant Baba announced that Jumbo Tsuruta wouldn't be working the tour because he was hospitalized with an undisclosed internal disease. The disease is believed to be related to the gout that kept him out of action during much of the summer. Baba announced that Tsuruta's partner, Akira Taue, would team with rookie Jun Akiyama in the tournament that started this past Saturday night. The elimination of Tsuruta seems on paper to make this one of the least interesting tournaments in years, as one would figure only two teams have a legitimate shot at winning--Terry Gordy & Steve Williams, who have won it the past two years, and Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada. It also throws a monkey wrench into what has traditionally been the most carefully booked tournament of the year anywhere in the world. Obviously the team of Taue & Akiyama isn't going to be put over all of the teams Tsuruta & Taue would, and those changes in a loss or two extra here and there throw careful planning right out the window. The tour opened Saturday night in Omiya with a television taping that included five tourney matches, Misawa & Kawada over Joel Deaton & Billy Black, Stan Hansen & Johnny Ace over Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas, Taue & Akiyama over Dory Funk & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Gordy & Williams over Dan Spivey & Kendall Windham and Giant Baba & Kenta Kobashi over Abdullah the Butcher & Giant Kimala II. The tournament finals, on 12/4 at Tokyo Budokan Hall, saw all 16,300 tickets sold by 1 p.m. on 10/21 (tickets were put on sale at 10 a.m. that day) and it'll be aired on closed circuit in several other cities. ================== As far as I can remember, they had held off on Misawa & Kawada vs Jumbo & Taue since they last RWTL (where it was earlier in the series), and were saving it's 1992 appearance for the Last Match of the Year. And it looks like Baba went down to the wire before pulling it. John

Covered them similar to any other indy Japan fed. Results, and what he considered newsworthy went into the Other Japan section. John

Good stuff. Probably should open a thread on Classic on him with that. John

I haven't watched it in ages. Jumbo's last signficant competative match. Was it noticable that he was sick / slowing down? John

From Classics, a poster tossed out: "Flair was partying at the Kid Rock concert in Charlotte over the weekend. All night long...buying drinks for people all over the place." Was this reported anywhere? John

Shouldn't Punk go over the "boss"? John

Didn't hear that. Did see that he hotshotted himself against Punk. John

I think the key for Mania III is less what happened in the ring, but what happened outside it: Boatloads of $$$ & Prestige for Vince Shortly after it, you had Crocket's World Tag Champ happily walk away from the belts (and a pretty reasonable push) to head off to VinceLand. Rude wasn't the first, nor the last, and other territories like the AWA had been hammered before. But that one struck me after a "good" 1986 for Crocket that they were out of their league. I know folks at the time pointed to Survivor Series / Startcade as the major gae changer, but Mania III and the aftermath struck me at the time as a fan that he was clear Vince was going to win, and JCP was going to be fringey. It felt like for years after, it was just the long, slow defeat after Mania: we couldn't come close to that, and every in JCP who wasn't inner circle knew it as well. John

Only in Madden's head. John

WrestlingClassics: Extensive article on Flair from Grantland Someone makes a crack on the second page: "I've seen people bend over backwards to defend something many times, but man is McAdam really setting the bar in this thread." Refresh my memory on what McAdam's socko on Classics is. C.C. Milani? John

Yeah, Bix noted that like two posts later with a link to the book. John

You have to love the meme that natural disasters are the fault of sinners. John

Yeah, that's the enabling piece you'd expect out of Madden. John

Good piece, Keith. John

WON Most Outstanding Wrestler Awards 1986 Ric Flair 1987 Ric Flair 1988 Tatsumi Fujinami 1989 Ric Flair 1990 Jushin Liger 1991 Jushin Liger 1992 Jushin Liger 1993 Kenta Kobashi 1994 Kenta Kobashi 1995 Manami Toyota 1996 Rey Mysterio, Jr. 1997 Mitsuharu Misawa 1998 Koji Kanemoto 1999 Mitsuharu Misawa 2000 Chris Benoit 2001 Kurt Angle 2002 Kurt Angle 2003 Kurt Angle 2004 Chris Benoit 2005 Samoa Joe 2006 Bryan Danielson 2007 Bryan Danielson 2008 Bryan Danielson 2009 Bryan Danielson 2010 Daniel Bryan Everyone who has won it more than once is in. Bryan has won it five straight years. Other than Bryan, only Kanemoto and Joe aren't in. Kanemoto's was odd at the time, and he kind of stands out in the "Which of these is not like the other" in terms of how they were viewed over a number of years. Joe is a strange beast because he went to TNA and to a large degree stalled there, despite pushes here and there. Bryan went to the WWE and still won. I would be willing to bet that Bryan gets in at some point in the next 10 years as "the best worker of his generation". John

Can't be his homeboy Mark Madden's fault, and Ric would never have intentionally lied in his book (the best wrestling book of all-time up to that point)... so it has to be Greenberg. Ric never wanted him on the project anyway. John

I hope someone tweets that Flair book link to the Author, Simmons and TMZ so they can all have a good laugh. It's long been a little secret that Ric's become sad and pathetic: we know it, his friends who give a shit know it, people in NC close to him or following the stories know it. But now Ric's become nationally sad and pathetic, and his response to it was to contradict his own autobiography. Anymore pathetic than that? John