jdw

Robberies in homes? Or out on the street, or 7-11's? Serial killers don't typically take out a household of Father + Mother + Son. In serial killer stats for a year, it's likely a extremely small % (probably not even cracking 1%). Drug and gang vendettas can, but far less than one's imagination would think. Taking out a household, especially a kid, attracts a shitload of cop attention. Take out the one specific individual who is a problem attracts less attention, and is easier for the cops to write off as gang violence. It doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. But as a % of drug violence, it's small. Domestic violence? Exactly. The overwhelming % of murders that happen in homes are family/friend related. There is the old classic cliche: "Woman murdered? Where was the husband/boyfriend?" Except it's not a cliche because it's the most common thing. In this case, it didn't take long for muder-suicide to pop into the head. Wife dead... husband dead... it pops up quick. :/ I think a lot of us didn't want to think in that direction becasue we had some affinity to Chris as a worker/performer/etc. I would have preferred not to go there, and perhaps it didn't pop up as instantly as it would have if say news broke of something similar happening to say Bret Farve who I don't like at all. But it's still there. You might chalk it up like Bix mentioned: I'm a cynical by nature. Or as likely, I've read too much true crime over the years. There really aren't too many Manson Family crimes out there. It's one of the reasons that one and Capote's famed books stand out: they're relatively rare. For all we want to say about a former SNL guy getting shot by his wife and then her killing herself as being a bit rare, it really isn't other than a woman doing it. My folks live in a relativly small gated community. Two murder suicides in the past year. John

To your (or anyone's knowledge) is there any truth the notion that 6/98 was originally slated to be Kawada/Akiyama? It's something I remember reading years ago when I first started watching All Japan. Don't have a clear recollection. I'd have to look at the WON's to see if any other match was announced. My guess would be "no" to it being planned for Jun. 01/98 Misawa vs Jun for TC (non-Budokan) 04/98 Misawa vs Jun in Carny Final It doesn't seem likely that of the first five high profile matchs of the year (those two plus Misawa-Ace on the first Budokan and Misawa-Kawada on the Dome) that Jun would be in three of them gunning for championships and jobbing. 6/98 strikes me as the place for Kawada-Kobashi especially with Misawa planned to be off the show due to the injuries prior to the Dome. Don't think you want to run Kawada-Doc or Kawada-Taue there, and instead want to hit it with a bang. We can debate Kobashi winning, and of course Jun came right back and challenged before Taue. That's probably the order I would have gone in if Kawada retained: Kawada-Kobashi, Kawada-Jun and Kawada-Taue... perhaps flipping Jun and Taue to space out Jun's TC/Carny Final matches a bit more. Beats the crap out of me what I would have done on 10/98 since I wouldn't have wanted to run Kawada-Misawa. Perhaps since Kawada is the Five Crown at that point (he and Taue won the belts from Kobashi & Ace and held it the entire year), if you're that committed to Kobashi & Jun joining hands, you let them challenge on a Budokan. They challenged for the first time on 10/11/98 in Nagoya. You wouldn't want to do it at the 10/98 Budokan since it leads right into the Tag League... but then again, you are going with Vader & Hansen vs Kobashi & Jun in the Tag League Final. Could perhaps have done: 06/98 Kawada-Kobashi 07/98 Kawada-Taue 09/98 Kawada & Taue vs Kobashi & Jun 10/98 Kawada vs Jun 12/98 Kobashi & Jun vs Vader & Hansen With Jun pinning Kawada to win the tag titles on 9/98 and set up the TC the next month. You *could* go Kobashi-Jun as the semifinal on 7/98, with then shaking hands at the end to join hands and announce their partnership. Of course they'd try to steal the show. And I really didn't like the Kobashi & Jun team in terms of growth for Jun. But if you're wedded to it, bingo. Keeping the belt on Kawada allows you to go Kawada --> Vader in 3/98, and have given Kawada his "long" run with the belt rather than the one-and-out reigns he typically had. And keep it away from Misawa. Business was bad after the Dome, so Baba made a quick change. I tend to think business was bad prior to that, and business decisions going back 4 years were worse in leaving the company in a bad spot. On Takayama, I suspect if Misawa stayed and smoothed things over with Mrs. Baba, it would have been Kobashi-Jun in June. With everyone knowing Misawa & Co were leaving, Misawa looks to have booked a throwaway TC challenge. Beating Takayama on a smaller, non-Budokan card gave away nothing of what Misawa would use in NOAH. In turn, it did give Takayama a bit of a positive bump.

I don't think it was expected that Omori would get 0 points in 1995, unless he was hurt and forfiet all his matches (which I don't recall). Jun's first full Carny was 1994 (he got hurt in 1993). He finished with 9 points in 7th. Behind the 5 of the Big 6 (Misawa went out hurt) and Ace, who he drew. Ahead of Nord, Furnas, Smith and Eagle. Carny always has a number of people in it to job to make guys like Ace and Jun look okay. 1995 had Misawa, Taue, Kawada, Kobashi and Hasen up at the top. There was no Doc thanks to the Narita Nightmare. Then Ace. Then Jun tying with Furnas with just 6 points, which is odd. Kroffat and Spivey at 4 points, and Omori at 0. My thought would have been that Furnas, Kroffat and Spivey are specifically there to job to Omori. Then if I'm booking it, I'd toss Jun and Omori on a smaller show and have them go to a draw simply to (i) see if they can do it, and (ii) show some growth for Omori. I'd have both job to Ace, since he needed a run with Doc out. Since Kobashi wasn't in the Final, I actually would have put Ace over Kobashi to give him that run and seperation from Jun and Omori. In turn to give Jun a bit of a gap from Omori, I would have looked for two placed to give him draws (in addition to the one with Omori). I'm think probably Kawada and Kobashi, again to see how he does and show growth. You then could run singles matches with Jun later in the year where Kawada and Kobashi beat him. The 9/95 card is an obvious place for one of them since the semi was that goofy survival tag. They certainly could have put another on the 7/95 Budokan rather than run that mini-tourney. Don't really think Taue needed to the tourney (and a draw against Kobashi) to warrant a title shot at Misawa. None of that really goes outside of how All Japan was booked from 1990-94, in fact it's pretty consistent with it. Instead, All Japan lost sight of Omori after he "failed" as Hansen's partner, and Jun had a pretty thankless 1994 and 1995. I understand the point of not wanting to overpush Jun. But I think by 1995 you could have rolled out some higher profile jobs. Not in the sense of going 25+ minutes, but a good 17 minute job to Kawada on a Budokan would have shown he was doing *something*. Instead, his booking on the Budokan's in 1995 was meaningless. Then boom... he's main eventing with Misawa the next year. And the important thing to remember is that 1995 became Four Corners Centric on the Budokan's with Williams gone and Hansen fading after dropping the title: 06/95 El Super Classico 07/95 Misawa vs Kawada TC IV 09/95 Misawa vs Taue TC (rematch from 4/96 Carny Final) 10/95 Misawa vs Kobashi TC 12/95 Tag Final: Four Corners IX (#5 this year) Wouldn't disagree too much with the choices for the main events... but the undercards were booked in an uninteresting fashion, and really not in a way to get anyone else over. Though it's not like 1994 Budokan's were booked in a strong or interesting fashion. Big change from 1993 where a hell of a lot more thought was given to them. Other irony: Jun's booking on at Budokan in 1993 and 1994 was actually more interesting than in 1995 when he was a year away from a push. I'm running this joke into the ground, but... the cancer isn't the reason All Japan's booking when downhill. It was sliding starting in 1994. The Four Corners were just so freaking great in 1994 and 1995 that a lot of people watching Usual Suspects matches a decade later just never saw the decline: it's not there in the tapes. You can watch something like the 10/95 tag title match and think, "Holy shit is this a great draw"... and lose sight that the promotion had so little else to put on that this match was overkilled: 11/94 Tag League 01/95 Tag Title 06/95 Tag Title 10/95 Tag Title 11/95 Tag League 12/95 Tag Leage Final No wonder why after 2.5 years they needed to move on from it: after just three times in the first year and a half (6/93, 12/93 & 5/94), the thing was run into the ground six times from one tag league to the next because they had nothing else to roll out. A big part of that is Doc going out, since no doubt there would have been Kawada & Taue vs Williams & Ace in there somewhere... probably a couple of times. But perhaps a more creative (and not really *that* creative) way to go would have been after the 6/95 tag title would be to split off Kobashi from Misawa then, and elevate Jun up a year earlier. Kobashi has a partner with whom to challenge, and Misawa does. 10/95 (or 9/95) then becomes Kobashi challenging Misawa for the first time... and it's as a rival rather than his partner. Not terribly hard to find Kobashi a partner. Ace is sitting there without Doc, and Kobashi & Ace have history together earlier in the decade. Or the choice they made the following year: Patriot. Or... put him with Stan, which would pop things as a Super Team. Any of those works. With Ace, you can have Ace "turn" on him when Doc comes back in 3/96. With Patriot, you have Kobashi able to help get over another gaijin. With Stan, you have a super team. It never was terribly hard to fix things. You don't need to get overly creative, and frankly it's best not to. Pretty much look for what worked earlier in the 1988-94 range, think about why it worked, and do similar things in a not terribly heavy handed fashion. John

It is of every promotion. Sting-Flair for 45 minutes. John

"This isn't even one of the "great" WWWA Tag matches, and pretty much all the stuff folks rip on is there..." -jdw My point is that if you put this on SmackDown! or ROH with their WWE or ROH equiv talent doing this spot for spot, people would cream over it. Sure, the folks who don't like Davey Richards would probably find stuff like the Aja spots you mentioned eye rolling stuff. But most fans? "[Aja equiv] put them through the MOTHERFUCKING table like a KING!" They'd accept the sloppiness and goofiness. Hell, we're people talking about the sloppiness/goofiness of a certain recent ***** match? I think the Mita & Shimoda match was already pimped, and it's one that's been rated highly in the past decade. I'm just pointing to a match that ain't going to be on the set and it probably "better" than half the stuff on some of Will's annual MOTY sets, simply because what we bitch about these four doing in one of their not-so-great matches is acceptable these days, as long as they bring all the other great shit. These four bring a lot of shit that would be considered great in it's time... and frankly a lot of it that it it were on Raw, ROH or even DGUSA would be considered great. Again to be clear: I'm not pimping it to be on the set. If someone were making a series of annual AJW Yearbooks, this would have to be on it because it's a title match and I'm a pretty firm believe that from the standpoint of annual promotional Yearbooks in Japan, the title matches need to be on it. But on the type Will and Loss are putting together? No... not pimped. John

Either Misawa or Kobashi was always going to win the initial GHC Title. Kobashi if he was healthy since he was the last TC champ and Misawa wanted to pass the title to him. With Kobashi out, it was going to be Misawa. Think about the major titles and the initial native to hold them: NWA Int'l: Rikidozan PWF: Baba NWF: Inoki IWGP: Inoki Triple Crown: Jumbo The #1 guy in the promotion wins it. Not in the sense that the win "makes" the person #1, but that he already *was* #1. JWA was Rikidozan's promotion, hence the Int'l. AJPW was Baba's, hence the PWF. NJPW was Inoki's, hence the NWF and IWGP. NOAH was Misawa's. He'd done enough in All Japan for Kobashi to be the first name on the list, but not enough for Jun yet to be on the list. So of course Misawa was going to win it so that Jun's winning it would have more meaning: winning a belt from a defending Misawa, which only Kawada as a native did (after about a billion attempts). And... Misawa was going to do it on the biggest show of the year for the promotion, their first Budokan. It was both the obvious and right thing to do. Jun didn't work. Shit happens. Not a lot more that Misawa could have done for him at the time Takayama always was just a shirt bridge to get it back to Misawa. Misawa didn't want to put over Kobashi in a Kobashi defense: he wanted to put him over for the belt. What's missing here: 07/96 Kobashi over Taue to win the TC 06/98 Kobashi over Kawada to win the TC 02/00 Kobashi over Vader to win the TC It's late 2002. Kobashi is back and semi-healthy. Time for Misawa to put him over for the title. Look at the booking of three straight Budokans: 09/02 Misawa over Takayama for the title 01/03 Kobashi pins Misawa in tag 03/03 Kobashi pins Misawa for the title Pretty clear that it was Misawa's plan all along. How many times did he challenge Kobashi in that long reign? Honestly, only people who weren't paying attention back to All Japan and the early days of NOAH would have thought that. He specifically put the NOAH title on himself to put over his two younger guys that he wanted to fight for the Ace-dom. It was really obvious. Rikio was the one who bombed as champ, even with putting him over Kobashi to end the long reign, and Misawa stepping in to do a challenger job to him. Count up the number of those Misawa did between 8/92 and 09/05: that would be the *first* since challenging Hansen in 3/92. Yow... seriously, that's how invested Misawa was in trying to get Rikio over. He used Taue to bridge to Jun so that it wasn't so obvious that he was a failure. One suspects he would get second time lucky with Jun, but that bombed. It was only then after the failure of Riko and re-failure of Jun that he got desperate and went with Marufuji. That didn't work, and what did he have? Couldn't go back to Jun. The person that he was now high on was Morishima, but he didn't think he was ready yet. If he had Kobashi, the belt would have gone to Kobashi to do a chase for Morishima. With no Kobashi and business way down, he was essentially forced into the role that he didn't want. Aging champ that would hold it long enough for Morishima's win over him to hopefully having meaning. There were potentially some mistakes in there. 2005 Dome arguably burned off two potential people who could have stepped in when Rikio bombed and made for fresh matches: Kenta Kobashi pinned Kensuke Sasaki (23:38) Mitsuharu Misawa pinned Toshiaki Kawada (27:04) The problem is that Misawa wanted to help stamp Rikio on the next Budokan, so he "had" to win at the Dome. In hindsight, and arguably at the time, which ever of those might be a fallback for Riko should have gone over Kobashi. He was fresh off his title reign, and in good form to do a job. Of course having Rikio-Tanahashi lower on the card didn't help, but it was reality: the matches above it were the draw. Really should have let him have Jun to put him over, and move it up the card. But that's really the only obvious big mistakes where he could have avoided the belt the third time: he would have needed another major star vet to have a run with the belt that Morishima circled back to beat. But in a sense, Misawa's way was for the top star in the promotion to try to put over the younger aces for the belt: Jun over Misawa Kenta over Misawa Rikio over Kobashi Morishima over Misawa He really tried to avoid Baba-style booking that protected the ace: Jumbo --> Hansen --> Misawa Where Jumbo was going to get it back. Misawa --> Doc --> Kawada Where Misawa was going to get it back (via Hansen). Misawa --> Taue --> Kobashi Where Misawa was going to get it back. Misawa --> Kawada The one time in this generation under Baba where that happened. Kawada --> Kobashi Where Misawa didn't want to get it back, but Baba told him he was getting it back. I'm leaving out the second Misawa --> Kawada since it seems pretty obvious that Kawada had been passed in Baba's eyes by Kobashi, and Kawada was just getting the title to drop it to Vader rather than have Misawa do it. That's Baba's use of Misawa. Misawa himself was much more direct. He put the person he hoped would be the new Ace over for the title. My guess is that it was something that Zach pulled out of his ass. John

Misawa booked in general. The Babas booked big picture. The run through the 199 Dome is pretty much how Baba would/did book it: Misawa --> Kawada Kawada --> Vader Vader --> Misawa Kawada got hurt, so Taue did the job for Vader. Defenses over Kobashi and Kawada are pretty Baba-ish. The September Budokan was different from anything that Baba ever ran. From a Baba standpoint, that looked like Jun's spot to challenge for the TC. Just a WAG, but Misawa had this in mind: 10/99 Vader over Misawa for TC 01/00 Vader defends against Jun 02/00 Kobashi over Vader for TC / Jun over Misawa And have Kobashi-Jun elevated to the top. It's pretty clear that Kobashi-Jun was his top plan when launching NOAH, then Kobashi fell apart and he had to switch things up. Anyway, working backwards from having Jun be Vader's one successful defense, that would have knocked him out of 9/99. And Misawa got "creative" in trying his youth movement. Chalk it up as another example of Misawa selfishly booking to put himself over like Dusty: what looks like his first move away from Babaism was putting the next generation in a Budokan main event without the TC. One of these days I'd like to figure out who first game up with the Selfish Misawa Booker trope so I can tell him that he's the dumbest puroresu fan on the planet. John

Statistically, I think murder-suicide stats are far higher than home invasion murder. Home invasion murder gets more media run. Murder-suicide, before it got reported. Remember having that feeling with both Lee and Hoback. John

Regular jobs by Jumbo render 6/89, 6/90 and 9/91 a hell of a lot less meaningful. Dittos Kobashi's first win over Hansen. Watched that yesterday, and it just isn't the same if Kobashi already had 6+ tag wins over Hansen in 1992-94. Listen to that crowd down the stretch and put yourself in their place: Kobashi was 0-for-Life against Stan. Six years at that point. "It's a big fucking deal." -Joe Biden AJPW was AJPW. It was different from NJPW, and from AJW. It's flaws were less in predictablity (which frankly NJPW had as well if you paid attention to the booking back then) than when it either: * dragged things out too long; or * failed to deliver things in a properly big way. 6/89, 6/90 and 9/91 were big deliveries. 12/93 was a perfect setting and execution for Kobashi's first pin on Kawada. 6/95 was probably 90% of the perfect setting for Kawada's first pin on Misawa. Kobashi's first singles win over Misawa was wasted. Kawada's first singles win over Misawa was both dragged out too long and also wasted. Kawada's first singles win over Hansen was wasted. Kobashi's win over Hansen would arguably been better if it came in the semi-final at Budokan in 6/94, or maybe in Sapporo in 5/94. But it was filmed and one of the major selling points of the commercial tape. Generally speaking, they delivered. Anyway, on this specific match... Either Misawa has to get pinned, or Kobashi. You can't really have Misawa & Kobashi win the tag titles: they're not regular partners. Misawa would be main eventing the next Budokan, which Baba likely already knew at that point. And you have this with Misawa on Big Shows since getting the big win over Jumbo on 9/91: 10/91: out with broken nose 12/91: Gordy & Williams over Misawa & Kawada to win RWTL (Kawada eats pin) 01/92: nothing matches on both of the bigger shows 03/92: Hansen over Misawa in TC 04/92: Hansen over Misawa in Carny Final 06/92: Jumbo & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in World Tag (Kobashi eats pin) He was booked into a nothing match on the big show on the next series. Does anyone really want to see Misawa go into his TC match with Hansen in August coming off this in his big matches: 03/92: Hansen over Misawa in TC 04/92: Hansen over Misawa in Carny Final 06/92: Jumbo & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in World Tag (Misawa eats pin) That would suck. Kobashi ate a lot of pins. But the "shock" on gaijin hardcores part is probably 95% due to gaijin's not really understanding where he fit in the structure in 1992: 1. Jumbo 2. Hansen 3. Misawa 4. Gordy 5. Williams 6. Kawada 7. Taue 8. Kobashi And the gap from Taue to Kobashi was large: Kobashi didn't get his first singles win over Taue until that big match in 1996. Tags pins prior to that, and a big ones starting in 5/94. But he really hard to earn being even on the same level as Taue. In a small, generally closed promotion like AJPW, that means Kobashi is going to do jobs in matches like 6/92. In the US, there would be a screw job. A US booker would have booked the match thinking it's Cool~! to toss onto Budokan along with the Hansen-Kawada. Then he would realize: * can't have Misawa & Kobashi win the titles * can't have Misawa eat the pin given plans Then he would go: * "Dustin Rhodesbashi is a young star and I don't want to job him." And so he'd have Fuchi & Ogawa run in at the end to "save" the Tag Titles for Jumbo & Taue right when it looked like Misawa was going to win. Baba says "fuck that, someone is doing the job." And it has to be Kobashi. Did the fans "know" that Misawa & Kobashi were losing, and that Kobashi was eating the pin? Listen to the crowd heat... it doesn't quite sound like it, right? That's one of the positives of the slottings: * Misawa beats Taue all the time * Misawa had pinned Jumbo in a singles * Misawa made Jumbo submit in his last title match with the old goat They don't think it's *likely* that Misawa beats Jumbo, but it's possible. They think it's entirely possible that Taue could get beat. Then in their heart of hearts, they're hoping Kobashi finally gets a big pin over one of the guys above him. They're popping for his chances against Taue due to that hopes. Jumbo & Taue are the "favorites". But to regular fans not thinking too much about it, Misawa & Kobashi have a chance. They were considerably less interesting in the six-mans and non-big tags. Your mind would hurt if you watched every tv show from 1990 through 3/94 (the period when it was still 60 minutes) and counted up the % of "bottom two guys in this match" that ate the pins in those types of matches. On the other hand, I pointed to a six man with Jun and Omori on opposite sides, and said one of the cool things about it is that the predictable guys didn't eat the pin. If that happened 50% of the time, and given how many matches of those type aired week after week, it just stops being cool. It's "normal". Watch every 1996 junior tag from New Japan that's available on original TV, Classics, and commercial. Does specifically "who pins who" matter in any of them, or is memorable? I watched all the TV at the time, and not a single one sticks out in my mind. I haven't watched all the other stuff that's available, but I suspect it will be more of the same. There might be a finish that's cool, but it isn't in the sense of "Hey... Ohtani pinned Liger!" because he'd done that over the years". It worked for NJPW. AJPW's worked in a different way. Neither fully nailed it, though. John

I don't even think they're at the cutting down stage. 1995 seems like the next one. So keep tossing stuff out. John

So I'm sifting through all the 1994 Carny material (League, non-League singles, tags, six-mans) to give some recommendations, and came across on a Bob tape between two Carny show this: 02/27/94 WWWA Tag Titles: Toyota & Yamada vs Kong & Hasegawa About 33 of the 45+ air. Korakuen Hall heat. For all the/our valid knocking AJW in the 90s and how it doesn't age great and how it's so spotfu-ish, it's hard not to watch this and come to the conclusion that if any over dudes in the WWE could put this off, or say KOW vs Briscoes or KOW vs WGTT or KOW vs the beloved Richards & Edwards could pull this off on a "big" ROH PPV, it would get five billion stars and be an easy top 5 in the 2011 WON MOTY voting. This isn't even one of the "great" WWWA Tag matches, and pretty much all the stuff folks rip on is there (though it's not terribly sloppy relative to the sloppiest matches). Perhaps moves have gotten more advanced, but given these four that's not really an issue: they pretty much could have done any move, and frankly the moves they do were pretty advanced at the time and hold up. I'm not sold that I've seen any match live in PWG "better", and I've seen some good ones (and some that folks jizz all over themselves about). I certainly like Generico vs Richocett better since it plays to a type of match that I like a lot... but is it really "better" than this? I suspect if you could drop Naylor down in Reseda for that one, then send him back in the time machine to sit on press row in Korakuen Hall for this one with a 1994 mentality... he'd say this tag gave him more wood than the PWG match. I'm not even recommending it. Suspect there's better (such as the really good Nakano & Kyoko vs Kong & Toyota a few nights later). But... yeah... if you like modern indy wrestling with all its positives and warts, AJW in the early-mid 90s was cranking out that stuff left and right. With more people watching it, more heat, frankly a hell of a lot more drama. Not always my cup of tea these days, but watching it and Taue-Kobashi go 30:00... yeah, I have my AJPW bias, but I can also get people going bonkers for AJW at the time. Actually, that tag match is fresher and less annoying to me than any iterations of the Misawa vs Kobashi vs Jun singles after 1/97. Odd. John

On the Nov/Dec 1996, I only pulled in the matches that made the Top 100 and those 5 or so additional honorable mentions. There were a number of other matches that month that you tossed "good" and "very good" at, but didn't make your Top 100 (Dean-Eddy and Toyota-Kyoko are just two examples). Plus there's the Beniot-Jarrett match from Starcade that got droped under the Beniot Rule... and it was a pretty good match. Other Nov matches: Volk Han vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, RINGS 11/22/96 "Really good match, but I'd probably call this middle of the pack compared to most of the RINGS on the set. Great drama and some awesome mat exchanges, as usual." Steve Austin vs Mankind, WWF Monday Night RAW 11/18/96 "Really good, hard-hitting match." Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delphin vs Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu, Michinoku Pro 11/12/96 "Super Delphin is just awesome. I think this is a guy who had a good singles run in him that never really happened to its full potential. Another awesome match in a long line of them for this group." Didn't make the Top 100... maybe they have so many in the Top 100. But strangely, this wasn't even on the Top 162 that you did through Novemeber, that went all the way down to: #159 - Shawn Michaels vs Leif Cassidy (WWF Monday Night RAW 03/25/96) #160 - Dean Malenko vs Disco Inferno (WCW Bash at the Beach 07/07/96) #161 - Ric Flair vs Randy Savage (WCW Monday Nitro 02/19/96) #162 - Sting vs Scott Steiner (WCW Monday Nitro 05/27/96) Were those really better than the MPro match? Maybe the MPro accidentally got left off the "through November" list, than got forgotten from the Top 100? There aren't a ton of matches from Nov 1996 on the set: 18 of them, some of them highlights/finish. 10 make your Top 100, and three others look like they'd get ***+ from you (or in the case of the MPro tag quite a bit higher than ***+. Other interesting thing about the month: no NJPW and no AJW. That's not saying you missed anything, since NJPW was largely between series (Nov tv was largely eaten up by the Tag League which actually was 10/13-11/1). Don't recall what AJW was up to in Nov 1996... perhap their tag league commercial tape? Not arguing strongly. At the time, May 1992 was considered a really good month. I'd toss in April 1993 as a month that is likely better than what's on the yearbook, with a few missing Carny and DreamSlam matches probably pushing it up, especially the semifinal on DS-II (not really sure how that didn't make it). I think we said at the time that 1993 was brutal to cut down because there were so many good/great matches, and also some repitition (Hansen-Misawa have a better match a month later). John

It was the 2/3 fall HH match that I saw. John

I was there live. At the time, it was a pretty "different" match, and wild in that sense. Watching it now... it's pretty much a clusterfuck. Negro and Santo are fab, but it's pretty much doing their own thing, while the FWM guys are doing their own thing... and it not really adding up as much more than a spectacle. On a spectacle level, it strikes me as well short of Bret-Piper. I should be pimping this as one of the best matches I've ever seen live. I can't... it wasn't. Choshu-Hash at G1 in 1996 isn't one of the 10 best matches that I've seen live, but it sits in my mind as far above this. That was #71 on your 1996 list. I know you love Negro and Santo. I did as well. But it would be a bit like calling the Wargames ****1/2 if it was just Barry and Austin being great in it. Negro and Santo were great. The other four were just doing standard garbage. I can get putting "great garbage" like Kudo-Combat high: it doesn't really float my boat, but I understand people getting more out of the drama of the match than I do. With this, it was just standard garbage. Not really even the drama and intensity of that first Tenryu-Onita tag match in 1994. :/ John

You didn't hand out star ratings in 1996, but the last two months killed it in your rankings for the year: six of the top seven. November has the #2, #4 and #5 matches of the year for you. December had #1, #6 and #7. #1 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 12/06/96) #6 - Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delphin & Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji vs Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Taka Michinoku & Shiryu & Shoichi Funaki (Michinoku Pro 12/16/96) #7 - El Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas vs El Dandy (CMLL 12/06/96) #15 - Great Sasuke & Masato Yakashiji & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Gran Hamada & Super Delphin vs Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Shiryu & Shoichi Funaki (Inoki Festival 12/01/96) #29 - Katsumi Usuda & Takeshi Ono vs Daisuke Ikeda & Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 12/25/96) #31 - Nobuhiko Takada vs Genichiro Tenryu (WAR 12/13/96) #43 - Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delphin & Gran Naniwa & Tiger Mask IV vs Dick Togo & Mens Teoh & Taka Michinoku & Shiryu & Shoichi Funaki (Michinoku Pro 12/09/96) #82 - Kazushi Sakuraba vs Hiromitsu Kanehara (UWFI 12/25/96) #87 - Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki (BattlARTS 12/04/96) #101 - Steven Regal vs Psicosis (WCW Monday Nitro 12/16/96) #2 - El Dandy vs Black Warrior (CMLL 11/02/96) #4 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 11/29/96) #5 - El Hijo del Santo & Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr vs El Dandy & Negro Casas & Hector Garza (CMLL 11/29/96) #19 - El Hijo del Santo & Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr vs Negro Casas & El Dandy & Hector Garza (CMLL 11/22/96) #20 - Bret Hart vs Steve Austin (WWF Survivor Series 11/17/96) #22 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 11/22/96) #28 - Rey Misterio Jr vs Ultimo Dragon (WCW World War 3 11/24/96) #30 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 11/16/96) #73 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot (AJPW 11/22/96) #86 - Sabu & Rob Van Dam vs The Eliminators (ECW November To Remember 11/16/96) John

I love how polite Khawk's "he was nuts" post was, instantly followed up by Sek's "he was REALLY nuts" post with more details. John

So why bother making the post: we all read that shit, or people drag it over. John

He always does stuff like that. He also jacks every post from the newsletter recap thread on this board and posts it as if he did it himself on C-Max and probably multiple other boards. Read the first posts of those thread. I don't take credit for anything. You're joking or thinking we're rubes, right? Sources? Source? Source? Source? Source? Source? Source? Since I don't think you actually had a stopwatch on the show. I left out a few others that frankly looked like copy&paste of someone else's work. In an earlier post last year, you cited at the top PWI and WON, but to me even if you did it here, that's a cop out. You need to cite the source for each item. Give the people who do the real work credit for their specific items. Anyway... it's not like we need that here. We have a lot of posters dragging over individual items from different places, and giving credit where it's due. We don't need an old Kunze style weekly wrap up of what's in the Sheets / Sheetwebs. John

Flair vs Koshinaka from 8/12 & Flair vs Hase From 5/3 were also really good in 95. All I can remember abot the Kosh match is that it didn't strike me as much as the typical Good Kosh G1 Match did. I do see Meltzer gave it ***3/4. I'd defer to folks who saw it more recently that I did. I really didn't like the Flair-Hase at all. I see Dave gave it ***, and that's pretty telling: he's as big of mark for Flair is there is in the world (Ric got an automatic *** for coming to the ring without falling down), and he was a huge fan of Hase's. *** isn't a positive reflection on the match. There are a lot of NJPW matches that are better than that in 1995. Two Flair vs NJPW matches isn't bad. John

I'm thinking more of things like his first item, and the "Alberto Del Rio has once again been victimized by..." item near the end. Both are so clear taken from one of the sheety sites. John

I always liked Molly. John

Why even create a second title that (i) changed hands instantly, and (ii) will be merged out of existance at SummerSlam if it's Punk vs Cena? This is the WWE. Not a lot of it makes sense, and they change their minds left and right. Since he's more sourced in, perhaps MKJ can do a Timeline of all the Plans they've had going back to the Shoot Promo. It would be interesting to see how many times The Plan has changed. John

What I meant was Dave was a little off on his facts: it wasn't 74:40, and he didn't mention that it was an elimination match. It's too bad Taue got hurt in Carny. The thing could have ruled if the last two matches were Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi then Misawa & Kawada vs Tsuruta & Taue. John

It's the WWE. Why is it beyond the possiblity that was what they were planning? What happened to Nexus last year? John

Would be nice if you cited the sources of where you got the stuff. An example of how to do that can be found in the work of Bix and Keith. John