jdw
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I know Yohe just likes to read the paper one more. Suspect there are a fair number of long time readers that are that way as well. John
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This one went 36:36. I recall something about a 74 minute match, but the six mans pretty much always had 60 minute time limits. I don't think one in this era went to 60 until the 1995 one. 04/20/91 went 51:32, though through Dan G, we believe that bell time is incorrect. 01/24/92 went 44:23. The 04/18/92 survival went 66:50. The 07/29/93 survival went 54:11. I wonder if the survival one is the one that got tagged as going 70+. *heads over to WO-4.com* Apr. 27 1992 Observer Newsletter Behind the firewall, of course. Dave was a little off on his facts. John -
I may have said it first. Doubt I was the only one to have pimped it as such. Also copped recently to it being flat the last time I watched it, though that may have been the setting. John
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I almost worry about you watching 1992 before 1990 & 1991. You're missing the context: It was two years in, everyone was sick of Jumbo & Co. vs Misawa & Co., and they just wanted it to go away so the company could come up with a new storyline. For you... it's all "fresh" and "new". John
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He was also old and broken down in there with a pair of quality college wrestlers who probably thought at the time (as mot tough guy college wrestlers did) that that Gotch shooty stuff was bullshit and they could just steamroll it. Highly unlikely that the Steiners "respected shooter Fujinami" as opposed to simply "respected high ranking vet Fujinami in a company that treated the Steiners like gods". Iizuka was a young, lower ranked guy. They'd seen/heard how younger guys were treated in Japan. After getting pissed and becoming pricks in the match, they knew who they could take advantage of and not have any negative issues with the NJ front office. You'll notice they never did that with Mutoh, Hase, Chono or Sasaki. Seriously doubt that the Steiners were anymore "afraid" of those guys as "shooters" than they were of Fujinami. They just were stars once the Steiners got over there, and they knew not to fuck them up. They largely treated Iizuka like one of the job boys in WCW. John
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Simmons is a rather major podcast. I suspect Hoback will love this. John
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Not that I'm aware of. He was in 1992 a top star in NJPW, and the senior vet along with Choshu. It's likely that the Steiners, even as out of their minds as they were, grasped the concept that roughing up Fujinami like they did Iizuka wasn't a terribly smart idea. John
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I'm pretty sure they went with an "opening 2 minutes" in this rather than the old "opening 5". That's a bit of a difference between this and the 1991: Pillman-Barry had to fill more time/space before others joined the party. Austin-Barry is a really good start. Like you point out, a lot of people are really good in this. Only Eaton was subpar due to the injury. He'd been in Wargames before, so he would have been good in this if healthy. On the outside, I thought Madusa was good and great in the one spot, though it was hard to figure out just what in the heck she was up to. Paul was mixed as usual: he's semi-effective at drawing heat, but he also seems to hog it a bit too much unto himself. There are stars-o-plenty involved in the match and Paul's job really should be to support it rather than overwhelm it. John
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From prowrestlinghistory.com: August 11, 1992 in Tokyo, Japan Sumo Hall drawing 11,500 7. Rick & Scott Steiner beat Tatsumi Fujinami & Takayuki Iizuka (12:27) when Scott pinned Iizuka It was underneath the Chono-Mutoh and Rude-Sasaki semifinals of G1. Interesting Steiners tour: 08/10/92 Steiners vs Choshu & Saito (12:13) 08/11/92 Steiners vs Fujinami & Iizuka (12:27) 08/12/92 Steiners vs Mutoh & Sasaki (15:33) 08/15/92 Steiners vs Bigelow & Norton (12:06) The 8/12 is on the Yearbook, from the G1 Commercial tape. There was taping going on 8/10 and 8/11 given the Commercial Tape. I remember Dan G had a link to a website that had really detailed coverage NJ Classics, so it would be interesting to see what they aired when they got to 1992. We know that in 1995 and 1996 that a lot of stuff turned up on Classics that wasn't on TV or was cut up on TV. John
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Seeing how poorly last year's MITB drew (and how poorly the non-Rumble gimmick match shows draw in general), and that this year's MITB matches were much weaker on paper than last year's (was there anyone in the Smackdown MITB match who seemed like someone they'd seriously dedicate a World Title program to? I know their roster is dessicated after the draft, but still....), that seems deeply unlikely. Either Cena/Punk popped a buyrate, or nothing popped a buyrate. I use MITB only in the sense of it being the name of the PPV where Punk pinned Cena / Screwed Over Mr. McMahon after the build up leading into it. That perhaps for fans in terms of getting over: Punk over Cena/McMahon > Greatest Promo Ever The GPE was simply the latest in a long line of heels shooting their mouths off. Other than hardcores, did it have meaning? Going and taking out Cena and screwing over Mr. McMahon who promised you wouldn't leave town with the belt... perhaps that means more to fans. Not saying it's the case. The both probably mean nothing if Punk quickly drops the title back to Cena. But if he doesn't, and the push is sustained in a major way, it may be that the back-to-back wins over Cena are what really cemented him with regular fans, not the GPE. Those are big ifs, since we both agree that the WWE is in Throwing Shit At The Wall mode. John
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Perhaps a little, but Hogan also typically was on the Big Shows. Starcade 1995 was one of the exceptions. WCW always promoted the bigger shows bigger because it was usually when storylines were peaking, especially in the sense of World Title matches. John
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Someone in the WWE is feeding Dave/Bryan the talking point that internally the Triple H Takes Charge is the biggest storyline they're working on. John
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I'd rather watch Pillman-Zenk than Pillman-Liger (US version) and Bret-Piper than Bret-Davey. But the snowflakes, fame and rep has always gone the other direction. So it's not an argument I worry about making. I'm just trying to get across that the nice thing about a yearbook is that you don't have to be as "great / famous / legendary" as those to be solid / good / entertaining / satisfying. John
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Mitchell is a columnist, not a reporter/journalist. At the time Sid was unemployed because the WWF just fired him after a dope testing issue leading into Mania. Sid was an moron to screw up a big contract with the WWF. I'd be interested in whether this holds up as a great "match", or if the greatness is the spectacle / trainwreck / spotfu / the Steiners just being cocksuckers aspects of it. John
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Yeah, that's pretty much the comp I've made. Both smartly worked. This probably technically and highspot better, while Piper-Bret had the drama/setting/emotion/young gun going over cha-ching. I like them as examples that you don't have to be Liger-Pillman (as a comp to Pillman-Zenk) or Bret-Davey (as a comp to Bret-Piper) to be a good, entertaining, satisfying match. I think in a yearbook setting where you get a vibe for good matches, solid matches, upper end matches... you also get a vibe for ones like these two where they're good-solid and hit a spot. John
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Have you seen his 11/01/90 defense against Hash? John
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01/04/92 Riki Choshu over Tatsumi Fujinami (12:11) 05/01/92 Riki Choshu over Scott Norton (10:31) **1/4 05/17/92 Riki Choshu over Keiji Mutoh (15:55) ***1/4 06/26/92 Riki Choshu over Masahiro Chono (17:57) ***1/4 07/31/92 Riki Choshu over Super Strong Machine (11:43) 08/16/92 Great Muta over Riki Choshu (11:26) I can't find the ratings for the Dome match. The title change to Muta was only on commercial tape if I recall as New Japan was pre-empted a ton that year. Dave skipped a ton of recaps due to the August trip, so the SSM match fell through the snowflake cracks if it was on TV (I don't remember it as all). A come between Jumbo's last run, Hansen's last run (since he was one-and-done in 1995), Fujinami's last sustained run on top and Choshu's last run in 1991-92 doesn't come out all that great for the New Japan legends. Choshu was a bit hurt by not having a defense against Hash. John
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I know that... but Bryan is up on Tuesday while Dave is on Wed, so it's easier to grab Bryan's version of Bryan & Dave Speak rather than wait for Wed. John
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The question would be to look at each year from 1995 to 1999 and ask if Jun, Omori and Mossman were each where they could have been. Jun? Generally... yes, other than being put under Kobashi's thumb in 1998. I think up to that point his career path was on a good arc. Some minor mistakes (no decent rivals in 1994-95 like Omori and Ace), some slightly larger (they didn't book singles matches with Kawada, Kobashi and Taue in 1996-97 in a helpful fashion). But overall, not bad. Omori? Lost in the weeds forever. Team No Fear was late 1998... that's a hell of a long ways from these early 1994 matches, and not a lot done in that period to grow him. Those three full years with the All Asia tag did nothing for him. Comparing early 1994 Omori (about year and a quarter into his career) with second half 1989 Taue (a year and a half into his career) and early 1990 Taue (two years into his career)... you don't think there's growth potential in Omori to be a decent worker, let alone a good one? Mossman? I always thought the Mossman push to the juniors was a waste of a year. I also thought he was a pretty obvious person to toss onto Kawada's team similar to Jun getting paired with Misawa and Kobashi to learn how to work. We're not talking about projecting them to be Top 10 workers in the world... with he exception of Jun who certainly had that projection when he was young. Just becoming solid hands knowing how to work with the others. That's what Taue learned with Jumbo and Fuchi, opposite those other guys. Eventually he had the desire to be great, and pushed himself to it. Don't know if the others would have, but they certainly would have made the depth of the roster more interesting if in 1994-95 there were clear plans and pushes for them. John
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"Originally, as we wrote last week, Del Rio was going to leave Money in the Bank as the WWE Champion. The plan for months has been Cena vs. Del Rio at SummerSlam, and that would indicate that Punk wouldn't be in the title picture by mid-August. In fact, the plan was still Cena vs. Del Rio as of the afternoon of July 25th. I don't know what the plans were for Punk, but with Del Rio and Cena fighting for the title that would indicate that Punk was going to be involved in another match. I was told that whatever the original plan was for him, it was awful and would have killed the angle dead." -Bryan Alverez "One very important thing to note is that as much as people have loved the Punk storyline, and as much as it was clearly a box office success given Money in the Bank, the reality is that it's still not considered the most important thing in WWE internally." -Bryan Alverez I'm barely touching on Bryan freaking out over Monday. That's enough to wet subs taste. Anyway, we may be Thinking Too Much about the WWE having a plan here. It really does sound like they're in typical booking mode of throwing shit at the wall. John
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didn't have Internet access at this time so I would have been suprised as hell to hear that. WCW felt like a dead product in 1995 and was on fire in summer of 96. That's really mind boggling. I'm having trouble thinking of reasons for those discrepancies Numbers are above. One of the major issues was that PPV became pretty much fully monthly in 1996. IYH were started in 1995 and were in full in 1996. WCW filled in nearly all of their monthly schedule: January remained a hold out until Souled Out if I recall, but most of the months were filled in. Plus... There was now tons of hot shotted Free TV. Raw & Nitro initially *hurt* PPV because people could get tons of the Good Stuff for free. It took some time for buys to get a positive impact from all that free TV, at least enough to overcome also having 22-24 PPV a year / two a month to chose from. That was one of the big buzzes of late 1995: that head-to-head TV would kill PPV. Initially... the signs were that was happening. The WWF held off the tide in Jan-Mar 1996 with the Rumble to Mania run due to Shawn and the wildly underrated Bret-Taker-Nash feud that turned around house show business, help the Rumble (Bret-Taker in addition to Shawn's Rumble), and did the best IYH buy of the period in Feb (Bret-Nash cage). Then they started to be a little shakey over time after Mania before hitting the rails by 1997. WCW was shakey in late 1995 and into 1996, then rebounded to close very strong in 1996. John
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At this point with the six-mans, I toss in the towel of trying to say which ones at #1, #2, #3, etc. I think watching the Kawada & Taue & Omori vs Misawa & Kobashi & Akiyama last night just brings that more to bear in my mind. Is it a MOTYC? Who knows, and who cares. Where does it rank in the six mans from 1990-95? Who knows and who cares. It's a terrific match. Fun, intense, cool, heated. They're not blowing shit in there. There's freshness in what they do where everything isn't the 6th counter of a move that they did previously. It captures a general moment in time (Four Corners and Misawa-Kawada still fresh) and a specific moment in time (when you felt that month that you were watching the next two years of AJPW open up infront of you). And in hindsight while you see one thing missed (Omori growing into this role), you know that Misawa, Kawada and especially Taue get so much better than this over the course of the next two years (I'm less sold on Kobashi being any better in 1995 than he was in 2/94 and instead pretty much at the same level of greatness). Figuring out where it ranks is of less value that saying: "People need to see this... and here's a few hundred words on why rather than some snowflakes or a number." And that's not fully knocking the snowflakes and the rankings. I enjoy seeing stuff like Loss's year end rankings. John
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I'm a little less forceful on trading with the top guys rather than simply developing and getting involved in the mix. 06/18/62 Misawa (1981 debut) 12/08/63 Kawada (1982) 05/08/61 Taue (1988) 03/27/67 Kobashi (1988) 10/09/69 Akiyama (1992) 10/16/69 Omori (1992) Misawa, Kawada, Taue and Kobashi never beat Tenryu. They simply were in the mix in various levels and ready to move up when he left and took a ton of talent with him. It was advancement earlier than planned, probably in the case of Kawada over *ever* being planned. Only Misawa ever beat Jumbo. Kawada never did. Yet when Jumbo went out, Kawada moved over and up. That's something very telling in the six man recommended above: Misawa-Kawada was still insanely heated/over, and the two worked it intensely as all hell. I think the development of talent was a bit too slow even at this point, but part of that is due to the hole of talent Tenryu took. Some of those guys fit into the gap between Misawa/Kawada and Kobashi/Taue. But the gap to Akiyama/Omori is a major black hole for the company. They were flat out poor in developing heavies there, and not a heck of a lot better after it. They didn't need Akiyama or Omori to jump in and get wins over Misawa or Kawada in 1994. Kawada hasn't even beaten Misawa at that point... Kobashi didn't have a singles win over Kawada, and Taue's record was poor to say the least. They just needed to get them in the mix. People are watching the 1992 set now. Keep an eye on the June Budokan: TC: Hansen vs Kawada TT: Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi Kobashi isn't even Misawa's "regular partner" at that point: it's Kawada. But he's advanced far enough to be part of a double main event at Budokan. Kawada isn't the top guy on his side nor the top young guun: that's Misawa. But he's advanced far enough to double main event at Budokan. By getting Akiyama into the mix in 1993, and Omori into the mix in 1994, what you're looking at is those two being ready for credible Budokan main event roles in 1996 and 1997. Not to actually be pinning the top guys at that point, but to be holding their own and playing a strong role in big matches. Jun got there. Omori didn't, largely because he was taken over into being Stan's partner and missing out on the training environment of working opposite Misawa's side under the watch of Kawada & Taue. And behind Omori... they screwed up Mossman by making him a junior for a stretch rather than putting him under Kawada's wing. John
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I know that when I start doing my big AJPW rewatch that it's right around here that I'm going to have those mixed feelings: * the great stuff is off the charts * Doc picking it up is fab * the cut to 30 minutes really sucks * the mid-cards vannish * the depth of the product (i.e. non Big 4 + Doc) fades Even things like in 1993 seeing Tracy Smothers or Bossman come in... there just isn't much of that in 1994. And the depth of Misawa and Kawada's "group" isn't handled well. John
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I don't recall even paying attention to WWF ratings at that point. We probably were more interested in WCW's goofy ratings once the WWF started beating them. It was similar in WCW: once they started clocking the WWF, week-to-week and month-to-month ratings weren't terribly interesting. Whether the WWF was sinking or improving was more interesting to follow. John