jdw

I don't think this is inside baseball at all. We also all know that the WWE is so lost in the punch of Owner/GM/Boss/Authority Figure(s) after 14 years that they have no other concept of how to write a TV show without those characters. Christ, even when they don't have a clear Authority Figure on Raw, it's such a core crutch of their philosophy that they create a phantom one with Cole as his/her/its mouthpiece. They literally know of no other way to write. It's like a coach who only knows the Wish Bone offense and wouldn't know a forward pass based offense if his life depended on it. We also all know that WWE Creative is stacked with Lackies who are quite smart in understanding that a key part of retaining their jobs is stroking off The Family. We all knew that Trip has long been so wildly egocentric in his place/role in the company that he was going to keep an on-air character even after "retiring" to the front office. Ergo... Trip was always going to move into an on-air Authority Figure role once he retired. This was pretty predictable. Either Trip was going to get shipped off to anchor SD! as the Authority Figure, or... well, fuck it... we all know that Raw is the show they care about, and Trip's ego is too big *not* to evolve quickly into the Authority Figure on Raw. Putting on the Casandra hat, I'd point out that Trip historically for the past decade has rarely been as over as he, the Family and the Lackies think he has been. He's also been weaker on the mic than they think, and generally been poor in getting *others* over. For all we want to throw as Vince of being a gigantic egocentric bastard, we need to remember that: * he sold/stooge/bitched the living fuck out of himself to get over Stone Cold * for all the "hell" he put Mick's characters through back in the late 90s / early 00s, he again sold the shit out of Mick's wackiness to help get it over. Think Mr. Socko in the hospital, where even "angry" Mr. McMahon got over that Mick's comedy was funny as hell for WWF Fans. * everyone forgets that Vince sold his ass off to lunch the major push that finally got Trip over: Vince --> Mick --> Rock and off went trip. Vince sold it by getting his ass kicked and having his own daughter turn on him. * We could also go back and find a fair number of things where Mr. McMahon helped sell Rock as a top star. While everyone probably would point to stuff like the Beer Truck and the Hospital Show as definative examples of Mr. McMahon stooging his ass off for Stone Cold, I'd point almost as equally to the Rumble / St. Valentine's Day Massacre run where Mr. McMahon "won" the Rumble in a pretty damn creative fashion only to set up Stone Cold kicking the shit out of him in the Cage including the Foley-esque bump of doom. Vince totally sold out for Austin for that run heading into Mania, while Foley was over in the also hot feud with Rock. Does anyone see Trip being Vince-esque in getting over the talent? That's going to be an issue in any long term authority role for Trip on camera. John

That's the WWE we know and love. John

The match was horrible. Totally agree, and clearly some of the dumbest work ever. But it came after the show had been sold. It didn't have any impact on whether the angle worked or didn't. John

This has been thought about Vince's "comebacks" for what... 6-7+ years? I probably liked Vince as a character back in the 90s and early 00s more than most. But as short attention span as WWE fans are, it's only been a year since he was heel with Bret. There was the Cena stuff. He was all over the place in 2009. It's not like Rock where he's been gone for years. It's also generally the same old Vince character here too, and while it might be fresh for a week or two, after a while it's the same old Vince character that every fan has seen countless times over the years. That's why I thought elsewhere that Cena going heel with Vince to screw over Punk would be moderately fresh: Cena going heel is "new", and the dynamic of a heel corporate champ Cena playing off The Boss against a Punk. John

Again, that's something of the Inside Politics comment I made above. It's something that plays to us: it's an angle almost specifically designed to play to hardcore fans. Which isn't new: we've had this shoot stuff a lot through the years. I said early on: it was an entertaining promo he cut. But I wanted to carve it out and away from the title of the thread: Greatest Promo Ever It kind of needs to do great business, and sustained business, and have some sustained impact to be that. Rather than simply be something that gets us hardcores all fired up. I'm all for the concept of wrestling promotions booked and writing and working matches that are specifically designed to appeal to ol' jdw. But I'm also realistic enough to want to see promotions that I give a slight shit about do good business so that they can keep giving me good product, and for the good business to justify what I see as good product. The WWF putting on Misawa vs Kawada infront of 200 fans... that really can't be sustained. I think that Bret-Vince fell flat as an angle and as a draw is an indication that Montreal as a signature moment for current WWE Fans has passed. John

Dylan's comments on Curt moving from the AWA to the WWF are pretty interesting. I recall being really underwhelmed by Curt's 80s work that made it onto the original WWF 80s set, and scratching my head over how highly rated some of it was. I think Dylan nails it: bumping, stooging, a move or two, stomp&punch... and really didn't work a holds at all. There was an interesting Bret-Curt and Bret-Ted comp on the set, and it wasn't even the more praised Bret-Ted match (which was their SNME one in the 90s if I recall). Bret and Ted actually smartly worked holds, while Curt worked a really aimless match while on top. He certainly had all world talent at that point. But it's almost as if he dumbed himself down in the WWF. I know there are a number of other Bret-Curt house show matches I have on the list to watch, and I'm hoping for one that's more Bret-style where Curt is forced to work a bit more like he did in the AWA to fill space. The Martel stuff is interesting. He seems like a guy who would make for a really good career comp. On Jumbo-Fujinami... I tend to see more career growth/arc than Dylan does for Jumbo. The Jumbo of the early Brisco and Dory matches is different from the one of the Terry / Harley II / Mil / Rusher / 1976 Baba / Brisco-UN matches, who in turn is different from what we see in 1984 when he's reached the top (AWA and Int'l titles and partnering with Tenryu). The Jumbo against Kerry really is miles removed from the Jumbo against challenging Brisco for the NWA Title. I also think Jumbo opposite Choshu & Yatsu in tags is quite removed from Jumbo in the 70s opposite the Funks or say Billy & Horst. Opposite Tenryu is in turn different from being the Int'l Champ taking on the Gaijin of the Month: here's a native peer pushing him to the limit for the top spot, with Jumbo moving not exactly being the overwhelming fan favorite (nor had he been in stretches of the feud with Choshu & Yatsu). Then of course against the young punks in the 90s which was an entirely different dynamic than he had with Tenryu. Had Fujinami gone through a lot of the cycles as well? Yes. Each of them as effective? I'm not sure. There really isn't any Fujinami prior to the Jr King run, and in a sense that wasn't really "growth": he was instantly the Jr King defending against the Gaijin of the Month. I think the earliest Fujinami match is either his first defense (against a masked Piper in Los Angles) as I'm not sure the MSG match where he won it is available. It's more along the lines of Jumbo's UN run, without having Jumbo already in a position where he'd grown into from the young gun challening Brisco and generally getting schooled by Dory. In a sense, they sort of flip some of their timelines. Young Jumbo came before his UN period, while Young Heavyweight Fujinami came *after* his UN equiv as the Jr King. Fujinami's feud with a Native Peer came before his brief run as the Top Star, while Jumbo's first similar feud with a Native Peer came after he'd been the Top Star for three and a half years. Anyway, from a growth/change standpoint, I don't think Jumbo takes a back seat to Fujinami. Slightly different, but multi-stage and a rather long path from the kid opposite Brisco to being the Brisco opposite Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi. John

At his peaks, Luger is better. I was one of the first people to be singing his 89 work:) Always been a big fan. Overall though, I have to go with HHH. People in 1989 were singing praise of Lex's work. I think he won Most Improved in the WON. John

We're not. There is no WCW now. Punk isn't Leaving with the belt to a WCW. Christ... Bret wasn't Leaving with the belt to WCW: he always was going to drop it. This is something so Inside Politics that only means something to hardcores and doesn't mean dick to the majority of current WWE Fans. For fuck's sake... Montreal was 14 years ago. How many of the WWE's *current* fans were even WWE Fans in 1997? Think I'm full of shit? Someone should track how many DVD's the "Shawn-Bret Montreal" set sells when it comes out, and then do the math on what % of WWE Fans dropped a dime on it. You'll find it's a low %. Montreal meant something to a generation of fans... but even within that generation it's wildly overblown. More people watched "Rock: This Is Your Life" and the freaking Beer Truck than Montreal, and Rock & Stone Cold are more iconic to that generation than Bret & Shawn and something like Montreal. I'll give you a real sports equiv: The 1975 World Series, Game 6, Fisk hitting the dinger. It was an iconic moment. Huge in that era. Now? It means dick except to baseball hardcores and fans like me who were fans in 1975 and lived that great moment live. "But jdw... that was 36 years ago. Montreal was only 14 years ago. They're no analogous." Okay. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1993/B10230TOR1993.htm Four years prior to Montreal. Massive baseball moment. 25-30M people watched it live in this country, which is saying something since one of the teams involved was a non-US market. How big is that dinger to current baseball fans? Do we hear people talk about it like they did Maz's HR when we were kids in the 70s? Now also recall that Baseball Fans tend to be an older fanbase than Wrestling Fans, and that Baseball tends to have less "drift" among fans than Wrestling where fans grow up and away from it similar to a lot of forms of Entertainment. The non-actualization of Montreal means something to a group of pavlovian hardcores like ourselves (well... other than those who go tired of hearing/talking about Montreal back in 1998-2001), but means little to the mass of WWE Fans. To them, this angle lives and dies on whether they give a shit about: Punk Cena Vince I suspect the Cena aspect means little since the "Cena Is Fired" gimmick not only was crippled by being recently run, but by Punk specifically pointing out it was meaningless. So it comes down to Vince, who means a hell of a lot less now than when he was going around in circles with Stone Cold, and Punk... a wrestler they're trying to elevate up. Basically comes down to whether they give a shit about Punk being the latest in a long line of wrestlers who have had issues with Vince. Not hardcores giving a shit about Punk, but WWE Fans. John

All of the lines were cleared in advance. They always had the right camera angle to highlight/underline/bold the "OMG!!! DID HE SAY THAT!?!?" lines, right down to the que of when to cut him off. That's been my points: * The whole thing was laid out from the start, and obviously at that * he never was Leaving the WWE * he no doubt already had an extension agreed to when they started the angle * he only was (and now is) "leaving" the WWE as part of the angle On this: That's what Russo and Eric and Vince have spent the last 10+ years attempting to do. But other than us hardcores circle jerking over it because It's Punk, exactly how batshit are WWE Fans going over this? Does it really have the buzz/excitement/emotion/entertainment to them that say Taker-Shawn did... or Hogan-Rock? Or is it closer to say Triple H coming back from the injury in 2002? Which lead... where? Go back and read through the thread. Folks worked themselves up into believe this was real on some level. Then worked themselves up into "well, maybe it's no all real... but it's sorta real". Then worked themselves up into, "Well... okay... maybe none of it's real, but since I love Punk and he's saying mean things about Vince it's the greatest thing since the last greatest thing." Now we know not a damn bit of it was real, that we're going to see a month or several months of attempts to pretend it's real (like that belt in the frig shot), but it's still great. I'm getting a Ogawa-Hash vibe here were people so much wanted NJPW to get "real-ish" and got so lost in the "reality" of the angle that they lost sight on whether it was going to lead to anything positive for the promotion (in the long run it hurt the promotion tremendously) and whether it would be a positive for the wrestlers involve (it destroyed Hash as NJPW's generational anchor and frankly in the long run didn't help Ogawa because it fucked up his head). Not saying Punk-Shootfabe is going to have a negative impact on him or the WWE, just that people are getting lost in the weeds of an angle playing specifically to their hardcore desires rather than whether this long term is going to be turned into a positive for the WWE. These are Vince and WWE Creative. Are you really holding out hope for that? John

Christ... the posters in this thread three weeks ago "reported" that Punk had a new contract and this was all a bullshit work about him "leaving" as the WWE never would have let him say what he said if he was Leaving. Big scoop there, PWI Boyz... John

WWE Production has the Right Shot yet again? Have they had the wrong camera angle yet in this "shoot angle" where no one knows what's going on? I think we shouldall be happy that Punk got a nice new contract out of the WWE as a part of this thing. John

You basically need to do it like ELO in football/soccer. There is no reset there. They also tinker with stuff like Full Squad Tournaments vs friendles being of different value. Even tournies are tough: 2011 Copa America: Mexico B/Olympic Team 2011 Gold Cup: Mexico A Team 2009 Confederations Cup: USA A Team 2009 Gold Cup: USA B Team Then there are issues like the not-really-A Team of countries not going to Copa America in some years for various issues. Wrestling runs into various things like that. House shows aren't TV... though MSG is more important than a TV Squash in 1986. Hell, there is the whole squash thing back in the day. SNME and The Main Event were the equiv of a PPV in 1985-88 at least... possibly into 1990. But then there's the issue of beating 5 mid-carders Similar to beating Brasil >>>>> beating Mexico 5 times. Wrestling also has DQ, COR and other forms of losses that aren't really losses... certainly not Full Losses. Then there are those pesky Non Title Matches. Hell... Flair's ELO would be a hoot in Crocketville. It's really complicated because of the screwy booking and how people move around the cards. John

Well, Hogan got over in the WWF back when Vince was the lead announcer. Then he got over in AWA when there was no Gorilla. And he got over in Japan where there was no Gorilla. Then he got over in WCW where there was no Gorilla. Is it not possible that Hogan was able to without Gorilla? Are Gorilla Fans going to argue that Hogan, Savage, the Warrior and Co. got over ONLY BECAUSE OF Monsoon? You've offered no "evidence". Baseball Product has gotten over at one time or another in about 30 cities in this country, not even counting the minors. Do all of those teams have Vince Scully? Ernie Harwell? Jack Buck? Guys at that level? Have not some of those teams had shitty pbp men and shitty color men, and still gotten over? The main PBP man was Vince. He called the primary syndication show (Super Stars) and called SNME. The reason he didn't call the PPVs was so that he could work the live backstage and make sure the live show went off to his liking. Gorilla did MSG and other house shows because the company could afford to send him around while Vince ran the shit. Frankly, MSG and the other house show broadcasts didn't do as much to get the product "over" compared to syndication and SNME: the majority of WWF Fans around the country didn't see those house show broadcasts in the 80s. Even stuff like Primetime in the 80s was relatively small in the expansion: cable was growing throughout the decade, but syndication and SNME were available in vastly more homes. Cable penetration was only 56% in 1989, and that was after growing over the prior half decade. John

I'd buy into this theory of not for the fact that Gorilla was exactly the same way *before* the WWF even got into the concept of "marketing characters". He was the same full of crap asshole prick before hosting Primetime and getting paired with heels like Brain. It's a bit like saying "Megan Fox can't act" is nitpicking because the average person thinks: "Tits tits tits tits tits." I think a lot of us who don't like Monsoon only point out a few things because we've got a lot of other things to talk about when reviewing/recapping/rambling about a match rather than spend the entire thing on Monsoon. "It's a 20 minute match and you only found one thing Monsoon did wrong? Nitpicker!!!" No... I wanted to talk about the _match_. Gorilla was annoying through most of it, and I wanted to make my point on his shittiness by one rather ripe example. Going back to Megan Fox: if you're reviewing Transformers 2 and among the various things mediocre about it you toss out that Megan can't act and reference one scene or example where she blows, is that just nitpicking? Or do several paragraphs of the review need to be devoted to supporting her mediocrity? John

I clicked this not expecting to see what I saw. I thought it might be kind of goofy but this is full-on infatuation! I laughed so hard about thirty seconds in. It really did look like Kal was going in for a kiss! That's what's so awesome about it. And Kal in the announcing booth has that level of bizzaro enthusiasm for what's going on in the ring. It really is damn near like he turns off his "this is a work" brain. John

Exactly. John

That's Yohe's joke: ref/time keeper screwed up. I can't recall if we tracked the time counts one of the times we watched it, looking for 50 minutes gone / 55 minutes gone. Sounds like something we would do if having a good laugh at it. John

It's a 60:00 draw. Baba takes the first fall at 48:10, then it goes to a time limit. The Destroyer complains that there was more time on the clock, and Yohe always has joked that he was right: it didn't go 60:00 unless there was something edited out. John

This is my kind of goofy: Don is clearly one of Kal's favorites and he digs interviewing him. Don has a great buzz going on, and is having a hell of a good time. John

Hmmmm... see in the WON that next year we get DGUSA + PWG at WrestleReunion rather than ROH + DGUSA. John

So was this Richards-Edwards ROH all that? John

Similar thing. Ace, Franchise, Anchor, The Top Face. Bruno was the Ace of the WWWF... then Pedro... then Bruno... then Bob... then Hogan... then things get fuzzy after he leaves in 1992 after Mania. Vince had problems coming up with an ace. Hart was sort of by default (usually getting the belt by default in a sense). Shawn was pushed as such in 1996, but one kind of saw how that went when he lost his smile. They didn't really have a clear ace until Austin beat Shawn at Mania. Messy after that around his injuries, but in a sense Austin was the ace when he was around until say early 2002 when he was aced-out. Trip sort of wedged himself into acedom, and one tries has the issues of trying to figure out how Brock, Angle, Batista and Cena fit in there. Real messy. All Japan is a bit easier: 1972-83 Baba 1983-92 Jumbo 1993-00 Misawa 2000 Kobashi attempt I'd say the transition from Baba to Jumbo kind of evolved in 1982-84 with various small things. It's perhaps too narrow to point to Jumbo winning the title of Rikidozan in 1983 as the point. There were various other things: Jumbo teaming with Tenryu in the 1983 Tag League, Jumbo winning the AWA Title in 2/84, and the Int'l Tag Title transitioning from Baba & Jumbo to Jumbo & Tenryu from May to Sep 1984. Baba kind of moved over into a Vice Chairman role, had his own feuds, bounced the PWF Title around with Hansen in a big feud, and got respect in the Tag League. But Jumbo was the Ace, and remained it until he went out in 10/92. I typically point to the 5/93 TC defense over Hansen as Misawa becoming Ace. Winning it from Hansen in 8/92 wasn't it: Jumbo was still around and Misawa had yet to beat Jumbo in a TC match. Jumbo going out left a gap, but it wasn't obvious Misawa stepped instantly into it. Winning the Tag League by being Taue & Akiyama in the Final Match Of The Year wasn't very acey: Akiyama debuted *three* months earlier. Retaining the TC againt Taue in 2/93 wasn't acey: Misawa never lost to Taue to that point, and wouldn't for several more years. Then in Carny... he lost to the only two active TC holders on the roster: Gordy and Hansen... then to Hansen a second time in the Carny Final. Started to look like 8/92 was a fluke: he caught Hansen with a flukey knock out blow. Which to me made the 5/93 match the ace moment: with what would become *his* belts on the line, Misawa sucked it up and beat Hansen. 2-2 in their last four matches, but 2-0 when the belts were on the line > 0-2 in Carny. Misawa's ace wasn't completely unbeatable, but he had a tendancy to step up when his belts were on the line. In 2000, it was pretty clear that Misawa was trying to transition Kobashi into being the ace. Gave him the TC and the major push at the top guy. Then they split... and he tried to continue it in NOAH. Kobashi got hurt, and Misawa spent the rest of his life trying to create an ace. The closest he got was Kobashi's run, which was effective in making an aces, but (i) seemed always on borrowed time with Kobashi's mess of a body, and (ii) wasn't able to be used to create the future long term ace. John

Subject to change with the JCP 80s set coming out and listening to a heck of a lot more of him... At the moment, I'd rather listen to David Crockett than Gorilla. John

I actually think David is perfectly fine. There would be times where Tony was blathering on about whatever talking point he had written down infront of him to remind himself to go back to it for the 4th time in the match... and David would just have to cut in there to call the freaking match because SOMETHING JUST HAPPENED!!!! Was David excitable? Sure. He certainly could get annoying. But he called matches, worked in storyline, pimped feuds, and came across as a bit of a fan calling the matches. No going to say he was great, but he was far from the horrid that we thought he was way back in the 80s. John

See didn't care for DOMA or DADT, which are rare positions for a GOP nominee to take these days. She's a little wishy washy on marriage: the old man+woman saw and "states should decide", which is a little inconsistent with her DOMA position. I suspect that if you got her off the record, not running for office, and you were a friend of hers where you would get a shoot answer, the answer would be that: * she's pro gay rights pretty much across the board * that "states should decide" position was just an election item * she doesn't buy into the man+woman bullshit and it was another election item * she'd favor gay marriage rights across the board * she'd probably favor seeing Prop 8 overturned by SCOTUS if she saw it as the only way that nationally it would get allowed It's likely the one place that she would not be pro gay rights is work related: harrassment lawsuits at the work place and pressure from outside forces on the WWE not to go too far. But those would be consistent with how she would view all minority rights. John