jdw

Why is that, John? From what I've seen of them both, in singles and tags together, Eddie usually looks like the better of them. Eddie's selling is even worse than Davey's. He has a stunning ability to get hit with something and a minute later be perfectly fine because he has to hit his own cool shit. Just staggeringly bad seller every time I've seen him live. It's almost laughable: Eddie can get nailed with something and you can litterally say, "Don't worry... Eddie's okay..." and BAM! Eddie is up hitting something. As a reference point: Hoback is about as happy-go-luck fan as there is. Tolerant of just about every worker, and style (other than say over-the-top garbage wrestling). Not at all the negative cranky bastard that I am. He's tolerant of *Davey*, for example. I can't think of very many wrestlers that he's actually loathed watching over the years. He HATES Eddie. Did from the first match we were at where Eddie worked. When I said we might be watching Eddie three times on Saturday, it sent him into a funk. About the only think I like about watching Eddie live if watching/listening Hoback suffer. John

I think the point was: "There wasn't a single finish to the match. Savage pinned him sometimes. Ricky won by DQ/COR sometimes. There were some DDQ/DCOR matches. The were times when Savage won by DQ/COR." Unlike some feuds where one finish goes around the horn, this one wasn't terribly consisent in its finish. John

08/15/92 Hokuto & Yamada vs Bull & Aja fits in where? You'd think a "helluva match" would at least get ***. John

So rather than put Meltzer stuff in this thread, we should open up a new thread every time we want to talk about Dave and use the search to find all the earlier threads? There is value to some omnibus threads. The conversation in the WON HOF on a lot of candidates doesn't change much from year to year. Do we even remember what was said about Taue as a HOF candidate the last time he was on the ballot? I don't. John

Good hardcore match. Steen worked over the leg, Fit sold the shit out of it, Steen made him tap. John

Here are the matches that aired on some form of TV, though obviously not nationally available. The Angle Match isn't listed since we all know how that ended. Pre feud: WWF @ Boston, MA - Boston Garden - December 7, 1985 (matinee) Televised on NESN - included Gorilla Monsoon & Jesse Ventura on commentary: Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) pinned Ricky Steamboat at 11:15 after Savage hit Steamboat in the head with a foreign object while in the middle of a back suplex from the ring apron; after the bout, Steamboat stole the weapon away from Savage and chased him from ringside with it (Macho Madness: The Ultimate Randy Savage Collection) WWF @ Toronto, Ontario - Maple Leaf Gardens - July 27, 1986 Featured Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan on commentary: Ricky Steamboat defeated WWF IC Champion Randy Savage via count-out after Savage failed a bodyslam on the floor, with Steamboat falling on top of him (Best of the WWF Vol. 9) Feud: WWF @ Boston, MA - Boston Garden - November 1, 1986 (announced as 9,057) Televised on NESN - featured Gorilla Monsoon & Lord Alfred Hayes on commentary: Ricky Steamboat defeated WWF IC Champion Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) via count-out at 14:47 after Savage dove from the top rope to the outside and twisted his knee when Steamboat moved out of the way WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - November 8, 1986 (7,226) Televised on the PRISM Network - included Dick Graham & Lord Alfred Hayes on commentary: Ricky Steamboat defeated WWF IC Champion Randy Savage via count-out at 12:53 after Savage dove from the top rope to the outside and twisted his knee when Steamboat WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - January 10, 1987 (14,067) Televised on the PRISM Network - included Gorilla Monsoon & Dick Graham on commentary: WWF IC Champion Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) defeated Ricky Steamboat (sub. for Andre the Giant) via disqualification at 6:10 after Steamboat elbowed the referee as he attempted to get a steel chair away from him WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - February 14, 1987 (matinee) (19,416) Televised on the PRISM Network - featured Gorilla Monsoon & Dick Graham on commentary: WWF IC Champion Randy Savage pinned Ricky Steamboat at 7:42 with a roll over and using the tights for leverage WWF @ Toronto, Ontario - Maple Leaf Gardens - February 15, 1987 (17,000) Featured Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan on commentary with Billy Red Lyons subbing for Heenan during the Race / JYD and Harts / Bees matches WWF IC Champion Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) pinned Ricky Steamboat at 13:39 with a reverse roll up and grabbing the tights for leverage The last one is the match a lot of us point to. From Graham's site, there are also known pins in the New York area (02/09/87 Meadowlands), Columbus (02/10/87), Pittsburgh (02/13/87) and Chicago (02/20/87). Probably a few more, as things like the No DQ Match in Montreal would have needed Savage to pin him. There wasn't a single finish to the match. Savage pinned him sometimes. Ricky won by DQ/COR sometimes. There were some DDQ/DCOR matches. The were times when Savage won by DQ/COR. John

I don't recall them having any plan at this point. There isn't really any evidence in this series or the next that they expected Jumbo to go out for good. They had the opportunity to get the belts off Jumbo & Taue the following series, but had them go over Gordy & Doc in the rematch of the August non-title match. They also booked the final match of the year to have Jumbo in it. They probably would have booked things differently, and possibly pulled the trigger instantly if they thought otherwise. Kawada-Taue talk started early in 1993 when it became clear Jumbo wasn't coming back. At some point they would have had to split up Misawa-Kawada and Jumbo-Taue for Kobashi to move up. There really wasn't a 6th native ready for that spot anytime soon. Jun didn't move up until 1996... kind of hard to see him being the #2 to either Jumbo or Misawa (if they did the pretty unthinkable of making Kobashi the #2 to Jumbo) in 1993. John

They had a number of other singles matchs in early September 1992. I can't recall if one was captured on HandHeld similar to Flair-Warrior. John

When you wrote what you wrote, in the back of my mind two things popped up based on memory: * they did take it home not long after the second bump * but they also did seem to want to get in a few spots Mick wanted like the thumb tacks So I looked up a youtube clips to refresh my memory. I was surprised... By how freaking long they went after the second bump. They did buy some time for Mick to get his shit together, such as Funk taking the choke slam. But it wasn't *that* long: in other words, they didn't stall for five minutes then rush through five minutes of stuff Mick wanted to get to. Stalled a bit, then actually went back to working the match they had planned. It's really jarring to watch the match again. I was one of the few people who didn't like it at the time, and really have avoided watching it as much as possible since. Watching it again... yeah... I really don't like the match or performance. John

I don't think Dave hands out a ballot to an entity. That would be like giving the Torch a ballot, with Bruce and Wade sharing one. John

Misawa beat everyone for two straight years. Williams wasn't on a roll: he's last big match was the Carny Final job to Kawada, who in turn jobbed to Misawa on the prior Budokan. Williams lost his last challenge for the TC the year before to Misawa. Williams beat Misawa for the TC. People bought it. Was Doc a vialble threat? Fans thought so, but it wasn't exactly a mega build up. Riko had issues. I think we all have covered this ground a ton. The only truly viable wrestlers in NOAH to the fans to take the belt from Kobashi were Misawa and Jun. Misawa wisely want to get the next generation over. They didn't execute it well, nor did Riko have the shit to make a good Ace. But it wouldn't have matted if Riko beat Kobashi back in 2003 or 2004: he didn't have the shit. Turning Riko into Goldberg with a similar push wouldn't have changed that. Misawa did make mistakes with Riko that didn't help, but having Kobashi hold the belt for two years wasn't one of them. Sasaki didn't suck during his first reign as IWGP Champ because Hash dominated the IWGP "too much" from 9/93 - 8/97. Kensuke sucked because... he fucking sucked as a Champ at the time. People want to find magic bullets for why Riko failed. There were booking issues. But the majority of the reason wasn't that Riko wasn't Misawa-Kobashi-Kawada level, he wasn't even Jun level, and NOAH Fans just didn't buy him as the Ace. John

Goldberg is a special case. It wasn't an effect of a long reign. It was the effect of HHH being a cocksucker and not wanting Goldberg to become strong. 4 months out of AD's reign isn't too bad. Sounds like most of the reign worked, and then it just ran out of steam and Gabe neither picking up on it nor being ready/able to pull the trigger. Was there a specific match where it was clear the fans wanted the change, and then after that they never really got back into AD? From what you say about Morishima, it wasn the 8 months that were the problem, but the wrestler who was. That's different, and what I was getting at with the Warrior/Savage comments. Savage worked. Two years later, Warrior didn't. It wasn't the length of Warrior's reign. It was Warrior. It was clear pretty early that things weren't super hot under Warrior, while Savage had been hot for a while. Of course any bad / disappointing / not ready Champ is going to feel like their reign is too long. As can a poorly booked champ. Babyface Stone Cold didn't have a single reign that got to 100 days. Is that a sign that shorter reigns work? Or that Austin in that time frame couldn't have held the belt for a year straight and sold tickest and PPV buys like crazy as a dynastic champ? We know what they did worked. Don't know if we could stretch it to say that WWF Fans / Stone Cold Fans wouldn't have bought him as a dynastic champ that Mr. McMahon lined challengers up against. John

Friend is probably a stretch, since Dave in the past didn't throw that word around lightly. Doubt Dave would consider Walhers a "friend". But he wrote for the WON site, so Dave gave him a ballot. Vouching is the wrong word. Dave knows Kris. How long has he been popping up in the Special Thanks section? It hasn't been like Yohe getting a Thanks or two a year. Kris has been in there regularly for ages, about as consistently as Dr. Lucha shows up. What I sent to Dave wasn't a vouch, but pointing to someone right under Dave's nose contributing to the WON pretty much every week for a decade. A vouch would be sending a note to Dave next year that *you* should get a ballot, assuming: * you don't have one already * you're not regularly contributing to the WON * Dave hasn't been buying comps from you over the years * you're not sending Dave freebies of comps * i.e. he doesn't really know you all that much Lots of assumptions there, and any of them could be wrong. But if they're not, one of us who has a ballot sending Dave a note recommending you get a ballot and walking through why you warrant one (because at least in my case I wouldn't just send a note to Dave saying X should get a ballot with no explanation)... *that* would be a vouch. I'm not adverse to vouching for people getting ballots. I haven't done it through the years, perhaps in part because I think Dave's handed out too many ballots, especially to people in the business. I have mentioned to Yohe over the years that he should let Dave know of any historians who should be invited to vote. John

Dave sends you a ballot. John

Long reigns aren't a problem if you have someone who can win the title and make it work. Kobashi drew. The fans bought him as champ. That the fans didn't buy Riko wasn't Kobashi's fault. Nor does any blame we might want to toss at Misawa relating to "He ran with Kobashi too long". There were issues with Riko, and arguably how Riko was booked. Not with how long Kobashi had the belt. I think when being critical of a long reign, you need to split it into two halves: #1 - did the long reign *itself* work That's on various levels: draw, good matches, entertain and hook the fans, them buying the champ and his defenses, etc. #2 - did the company do a good job with the next champ By that I don't really mean Iron Sheik, because he was just a transitional champ with the plan being to get it on Hogan. I would mean Hogan. Whether a planned transition champ worked or didn't work isn't terribly important when the success of the next key champ is really what's going to be the key for the company. Long reigns, like long matches, don't automatically mean they're great/cool/good. But whether Warrior's title reign worked or didn't work really isn't the fault of Hogan dominating the belt from 1/84 - 3/90. Unless the failure of Warrior was that fans woke up after Mania and thought, "This fucker isn't as good as Hogan so I don't really want to pay to see him." I don't think length had anything to do with that. After all, Savage *did* draw in 1988 when getting the title after a long Hogan reign, with people wanting to go out to see him. I think with ROH, you'd want to look at the same thing. Did AD's reign work? Were the fans burned out of it by the end and just wanted to see him drop the belt? Or were they still buying it, and it was the matter of the champs after him not being able to reach, for the fans, the levels that AD and Joe did? It's also not like Morishima's reign was "long". 8 months. I guess we have short attention span theater now, but 8 months isn't too long if a champ and reign are good. If 8 months feels too long, then usually the problem is the wrestler, his challengers or how the promotion is handling things. John

Yeah, Kurt probably is the Prince of Self Conscious Epics, riding them all the way into the WON HOF. I'd say Trip is the King of Kings of Self Conscious Epics because his are so methodically laid out and overkilled for drama / theatrics / etc. Kurt's tended / tend to be more spotfu. I know people shit on Davey Richards, but I actually hate watching Eddie Edwards more. John

I think Jerome has walked through what he hates about WWE-style quite a few times since say 2003 and is probably as tired of writing a long, detailed post on it as people who love WWE-style are of reading it. How does that one count? Especially considering that from the second bump onward, Foley was basically out on his feet and the rest of the match was hastily improvised. Yeah, that unbelievable first cage bump was Foley's self-conscious attempt to top everything that Shawn had done in the first Cell match, but the rest is one of the more painful "the show must go on" experiences with Taker leading a dazed Mankind by the hand. The first and second bumps are planned jerk off spots by Mick to top the Taker-Shawn HitC. There wasn't anything "hasty" about what they did after the second bump: they went nearly a full 10 mintues after it until the tombstone finish. That included stuff like Taker walking the ropes, the refs "relocking the cage", Mick getting the tumbtacks so he could bump on them, and the mandible claw. The "out on his feet" legend is one of many things about the match that make it clear that Mick was went in to work a self conscious epic: he's spent years bullshitting it up to get over the epicness of it. John

Generally agree. But with the WON HOF, the discussion of a candidate from last year (say Steve Williams) is relevant to the candidate if he's still on the ballot. There are several threads like that. The Benoit thread isn't an easy thing to go back through and read. :/ But when we were recently talking about what we first through when hearing the news, it was useful to flip back to the top of the thread and read the first two pages. [FWIW: Having seen and been in too many death related thread over the years, this was a pretty level headed bunch of posters.] If there isn't a WON HOF Thread buried somewhere, I'd suggest that the new 2011 thread be turned into simply "WON HOF" once the current cycle is done. If someone is going to pimp Kensuke Sasaki for the WON HOF, it would be nice to find it in a catch all thread. John

What Loss said. Toronto has the bloody revenge, is fantastic... and Steamer loses in the end by kind of screwing up with the temper. Mania is full circle: taking the title is what hurts Savage as he seems to value it over even Liz. Steamer knows how to "beat" Savage: he was beating Savage in the pre-injury match, and was beating Savage in the Injury Match... to the point that Savage lost his shit on Steamer. So Ricky goes back to what works, and lordy does Macho bring the kitchen sink in response to try to put Steamer away in the ring. As much as the Animal stuff is annoying, in a sense it does also play into Randy's secondary storyline after the Tito feud was over: the bizzaro Animal-Liz plot, and Randy losing his shit over that as well. It's one of those shitty finishes that actually works in a WWF 80s way as Macho's glorious reign gets done in by his two enemies. I've watched Mania several times since the Toronto match came to light, and it really re-holds up as a super fun match, and two workers who flat out have their shit down pat together. I wouldn't pimp *every* match they had together. Their pre-feud match was good in spots, and formless in others. They had some matches once programed together that didn't quite nail it, rambled a bit, or just seemed tossed out. But the five above are all pretty fun, and when there's a 1986 & 1987 Yearbook would be easy keepers that I think would (along with some of the other feud angles / interviews / goofy spots) tell the tale of a really good feud with a start, "shocking" moment, terrific middle and great climax. John

I'd add in the Montreal match between the two. Watching it then the Mania match, *both* are really quite good. Watching the "series": A. 11/01/86 Boston: Pre-Injury B. 11/22/86 Superstars: Injury Angle Match (taped 10/28/86) C. 02/15/87 Toronto: Revenge Match D. 02/23/87 MSG: Elimination Match F. 03/29/87 WrestleMania: Title Change And Mania really works well in that context. One could toss in the 05/15/87 defense by Steamer, though it's not really critical. John

Good example. NFL Films has done at least one "Greatest Games Of All-Time" show on that Fins-Chargers game. Even years after it, the Fins were pained that they lost that game. Same goes for the Colts-Pats where the Pats lost and Manning & Co went on to win the Super Bowl. The Pats players on it were very open about how much they HATED losing that game. Being in an All-Time Classic meant nothing to them. John

I think one has to get to Takada-Maeda first with the re-launch of UWF. If you don't stick to calendar years, at some point you're going to be going, "We need to get in the 1988 Jumbo-Tenryu" and do it by specific days. Early 1988 has Hase-Takada. The Jan-Feb junior league is a good representation of where juniors was at the time in the pre-Liger era (love it or hate it). Full year of Revolution vs Olympians. I'd sspect that people would want the MX vs Fantastics, which is earlier in 1988 rather than late in the year. Just keep it simply. John

Shawn-Trip at SS when Shawn first came back. Earlier? In a sense, Foley-Taker HitC was as well. Earlier? Shawn-Foley struck me moreso than Bret-Austin. Watching it cold, there was a vibe that they're really trying to have a "classic". Wade's comments later (some of which may have been on the phone) made it even more clear. Now... is all of that a Bad Thing? Depends. I'm not a fan at all of the first Shawn-Trip clusterfuck, nor of the Foley-Taker HitC. "Self conscious epic" does a good job of capturing some of the elements that I don't like. On the other hand, I liked Shawn-Foley at the time. Was 6/94 as "Self conscious epic"? Didn't feel that way. 1/97 Misawa-Kobashi didn't feel like one, instead more along the lines of "they seem to be nailing a TC Title Match this time around." On the other hand, the 10/97 version probably would feel on re-watch like the "Self conscious epic" vibe was creeping in, while the 1998 & 1999 versions would be over the top in that. I don't think that "Self conscious epic" is something that can just be applied to the WWE. Misawa-Kobashi took home three WON MOTY Awards with them, and then Kobashi bagged another pair with Jun and Joe. There's a good chance I'll see one tommorow night at PWG's BOLA. Still... the WWF/WWE likes to do them. It especially seemed like Trip liked to do them when the WWE/WWF shifted from Theatrical Spectacle WWF Big Match (Rude-Warrior / Hogan-Warrior / Savage-Warrior / Austin-Rock being obvious examples) to Self Conscious Epic WWE Big Match (a lot of Trip "classics"). Is it splitting hairs? Not sure. Choshu-Tenryu at the Dome feels more Theatrical Spectacle, as did Hogan-Warrior. What we jokingly refer to as Patterson Specials where Pat carefully laid out a match... those feel more like Theatrical Spectacles. Foley-Taker came across as more obviously manipulative on the part of Foley. All matches are about manipulating the crowd, but a Self Conscious Epic feels more like a "look at me!!!!" manipulation, or "aren't we having a great/epic match" rather than just busting your ass and letting it flow. Foley-Taker really felt like that at the time, and the years haven't changed that vibe. For all the criticism I've thrown at Flair, has anything come across that Ric was going for "look at me" or "we're working a classic here!" vibe? When I talk about Ric's I've Got Stuff To Do style, it's not about Ric trying to cram stuff in to pop a star rating or get praised for having a great match. It's just that Ric's got spots that he knows pops the crowd, and he wants to keep the match and crowd moving along by getting to them. We can knock Ric at times for not thinking some stuff through (making Kerry run the ropes when Kerry was selling the knee). But did it often in his prime look like Ric was really trying to Work An Epic, or just having one of the various versions of a Flair Match? That might be a decent positive to add to Ric's ledger. * * * * * * * * * * * * * I've been to cards where workers have slipped into the crowd after their matches to ask Dave how many stars he gave it. Sure, they tried to small talk around before popping it, but whenever they got there, it was pretty obvious it was the reason they slipped over rather than wait to talk to Dave after the card. Then I'd reflect back on the match, and could come up with the stuff they did to try to pop Dave (and recall a "X is fired up to night" comment out of Dave after those spots). Not exactly Self Conscious Epic, but certainly Self Conscious. John

Damn... I was hoping there was some good RE Defends Rand vs SLL Rips Rand in that thread. Instead, it got all Jerry Lawler vs Tatu creepy. John

It is kind of funny looking back and seeing 1999 beat up 1998: http://www.deathvalleydriver.com/Bestof90s/bestmatches.html And 1998's numbers propped up by 5 US Indy matches. Anyway, even at the time no one was pimping 1998 as being a good year. John