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Gorilla: "Standing room crowd tonight in the Garden!" *two minutes late a shot that clearly shows quite a few empty seats around the Garden* John

Contrariness? WON Worst Television Announcer 1984 Angelo Mosca (WWF) 1985 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) 1986 David Crockett (JCP) 1987 David Crockett (JCP) 1988 David Crockett (JCP) 1989 Ed Whalen (Stampede) 1990 Herb Abrams (Universal) 1991 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) 1992 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) 1993 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) 1994 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) 1995 Gorilla Monsoon (WWF) No, not contrariness. Hardcore wrestling fans have thought he sucked for a quarter century. Contrariness would be thinking David Crockett got a bum rap. Which I do. John

Okay. John

Hisa isn't the only one to think that. On the other hand, we had one trainee with our department who was a massive AJPW Fan (the biggest of any of the guys puroresu fans that I've worked with), and Fukuzawa was his favorite. Reason? Fukuzawa liked Kawada. The rest of the announcers like Misawa. My friend was a Kawada fan. Bias. John

I'm not mainstream. I just don't like Gorilla. I thought he sucked all the way back in pre-boom days, so it has nothing to do with the boom/expansion. I walked through some of the WWF 80s guys I liked, some I didn't, and some that I thought were "effective" even if I wasn't in love with what they did. If that's being a snob... WTF. I'm a guy who hated Hogan *in* the 80s with a passion as a Flair Fan, yet have spent more words in the past 5+ years praising Hogan's 80s work than Flair's 80s work, and more words being critical of Flair's 80s work than Hogan's 80s work... which is pretty much the opposite of being a snob. Disagreeing with *your* opinion doesn't make one a snob. It's just means we don't agree, and you don't agree with what other people think. It's not something to get bent about. John

Ditch: do you host the Hash-Sasaki match from this same series? If you do, can you toss a link to it up in the backlot? I'd love people to see that as well. Hash-Mutoh gave folks at the time an inkling that Hash "might be okay" during "his turn" with the IWGP Title. [Yeah, I know that sounds odd in hidnsight, but as I've written a few times, people had low expectations for Hash as a champ... he was very much less thought of by hardcores at the time compared to Mutoh, Chono and Hase.] But the thing with Hash-Mutoh is that there was still a lot of Mutoh-Love among hardcores at the time left over from 1989, so Hash-Mutoh being seen as good might have been chalked up to some as Mutoh. Hash-Sasaki... that being long and at the very least "okay" surprised people, as there wasn't a lot of love for Sasaki at the time. I tend to think that's the match where, if more were paying attention, they might have grasped onto the notion that Hash kinda had a good clue on how to be IWGP Champ. It's not as great as some of Hash's best matches, but it's certainly worth watching, and I'd be interested in what people think about it. Wouldn't be a bad place for people to toss their thoughts about it into here, and also people seeing it in the context of a full year's worth of 1993 Hash and right in the context/comp of the Mutoh match. John

It is two matches, not two "matches". So from a ranking standpoint, they either need to be split up or need a major * next to them. I know it sounds odd, but it's something that I've struggled with for nearly 18 years since I first watched them. I usually just leave it off comping with something like Dream Rush, and instead kind of send them off into their own little corner when pimping them: It's this great little "thing" with great multi-match storylines and loads of stuff... and you need to see it. "Thing" is about as much as I can come up with it. It's a cheat, but it's a cheat to rank them together. It's a bit like if 12/03/93 was a League Match (which it was rather than a Final which wasn't used until 1995), and had: * a Kawada & Taue win or draw meaning they take the RWTL * a Misawa & Kobashi win means the teams tie * a tie means an extra match (which *is* the AJPW RWTL rules at the time) * they work the exact same killer match * we get the extra match * we send 1996 Taue back in the Time Machine to "go it alone" to start the second match * Kawada eventually gets the knee in enough shape to "help" Taue * they go 18-20 minutes * we get something memorable at the finish... hmmm... * Kawada pins Misawa for the First Time after the knock Kobashi out So what do we have combining them together into one match? Best Match Ever Never To Be Topped Right? On it's own, 12/03/93 is a freaking great, all-time classic especially given the context of the time (prior to 5/94). Add on top of that another match, with Taue in the heroic role trying to keep his team in it for 10 minutes... and we know 1996 Taue could have pulled that off because he was a killer worker. The Kawada rising from the dead to help out, but still selling the shit out of the knee because he's Kawada... but Budokan is lossing their shit over it actually pulling for him... and then toss in the Right Finish... Yeah, it wouldn't be fair to rate them together as one "match". But the power of the second match comes from the first, not as a stand alone. So it would be a "thing". A pretty epic "thing". I love Toyota & Hokuto vs Inoue & Yamada. Have tried to point people to it for years. It's a pretty nice finish to what was a pretty terrific AJPW year. Melodrama... yeah, that is the right word for it, Loss. John

On Will's point above, I was 20 when I started watching wrestling regularly in 1986, so my POV at the time is colored differently than his. On Loss' question, at the time... I thought Ross was great in UWF and better than Tony when joining Crockett/WCW. At some point I tired of him and thought he was trying to hard. At some later point (probably online at tOA in the late 90s), I turned on him like a lot of us did. Rewatching that Crockett/WCW stuff now, and to a degree the UWF stuff, the "tries too hard" part comes up regularly. It's perhaps an unfavorable comp to Lance: Ross came across the first time you listen to him back then as a Sports Announcer calling wrestling That was cool relative to Vince and Gorilla. Except... that's exactly what Ross is trying to do/be. It's his little corner of the con of pro wrestling where we are to believe that he's The Best because he's just as good at what he does as those guys calling the real sports. It comes across really manipulative once you notice it, you can't get it out of your brain, and you just start getting annoyed by him. Ross at his most annoying is every bit as manipulative in what he does as Joey Styles, and not in a good pro wrestling manipulative way. Lance in turn came across as a local bumpkin when you first listened to him back in the day, not as "sharp" and "on top of it" as Ross was. He was like one of those bad homer sports announcers in those cities who don't know that they in fact have a Shitty Announcer rather than a God of The Mic like we out here in LA had with Vince and Chick and Dick Enberg... Except... Some of those local bumpkins aren't bad. Some of them are really good. They might not call games like Vince, and they might be way to close to the local team... but after all, doesn't Vince know more about the Dodgers than anyone else, and could compare Garvey at 1B to Hodges, sort of like Lance if pressed could compare Lawler to Fargo because damnit... he knows these guys? His deliever is different, but it's his way of calling a match... and it does get across what's going on... and the storylines.. and the twists and turns... Damn, this guy is actually pretty good. Solie vs Lance is that one is suppose to be The Best because that what was always said and pimped and jesus christ did he take his ass way to seriously in that role... while the other was The Best because he actually did what needed to be done and got it across to the fans at home like they were sitting there right next to him. Ross is the successor to Solie. It's kind of funny that Ross later became "home spun" as Ol' JR on Raw, but his home spun act came across like another manipulation on his part to be a "regular guy" calling matches rather than the Slick Sports Announcer that he once was. It also was weak relative to Lance. Can Ross call a good match? Sure... but there often is way too much effort being put into it. "Game plan.... Game plan... Game plan..." "Jim: how about you and Tony take that Game Plan you have for calling this match and shove it straight up your asses. Then try to just call the match as it flow." John

May 1994 in Sapporo takes them in another direction / the next direction, not only of the specific match up, but seemingly where they were headed in terms of work. It's pretty amazing how in five months from this (and a year from the 6/93 match also on this set) that they would reinvent the wheel to such a massive degree. Even when I "think" 6/95 and 12/96 are "better"... I'm not entirely convinced that's right. 12/93 works so well without having to toss the kitchen sink in the ring, you kind of wish there were another 5 of these the rest of the decade rather than how common the spawn of 5/94 became. John

I'm not a massive Ace fan. He did click it off well with Doc from mid-1994 through 3/95, and did again from 3/96 through 12/96. Obviously they had some great opponents to work with (largely Misawa + Kobashi/Akiyma). But they did really mesh well together. One of the key reasons to me in hindsight is because they aren't a Super Team. Doc's clearly the #1, and Johnny is the guy trying to hang. Johnny so clearly not being on the pecking order level with Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue makes it more firm in out eyes that Doc is the big swinger on the team who will have to kill guys dead. Johnny can bump and sell, but has enough offense where he can turn things around and help contribute to damaging the natives. I think they screwed up to a degree that Kobashi was too far ahead of Ace that Johnny couldn't swipe a singles win or two off him in 1994 and 1995 for a little mini-rivalry. When they did rival them, my recollection was that it was via draws and Kobashi won the blow off. Then they did nothing to strongly highlight a Johnny-Jun rivalry later. Crap booking... which as I said in an earlier thread didn't magically happen when Baba got cancer. They weren't very sharp going back earlier. Anyway... I digress. I think Ace fit better with Doc than anyone in Japan other than Gordy. It came at the perfect time when Doc looked like he was challenging Hansen for the #1 Gaijin spot and had taken the TC from Misawa. It wasn't the time for him to have a #2 who was as strong as Gordy (who was stronger than Doc in their partnership). Having his own "Jun" or "Kobashi" was the right move. Don't know who else could have fit the role. I don't think anyone working regularly in Japan at the time. John

It's an interesting contrast to the Flair-Vader that is coming. John

I think the thing with Bossman is to try to put him into the context of what was coming: the three Misawa & Kobashi vs Doc & Ace matches from 7/94, 12/94 and 3/95. Would he have made them better? Was Ace, for all his positives/negative, make a better fit with Doc given when AJPW was going in work? John

I always enjoyed getting items into the WON before Dave watched matches. I always wish he hadn't sat on my 6/3/94 letter for several until after he got the tape and recapped it. I thought my rambling did a much better job on the match. John

Scherer redemption story... almost brings a tear to my eye. It's too bad it happened in an era where I don't care much at all about the WWE. John

I think in 1993 they still were all working "hard" even on the non-TV cards relative to say other promotion where folks could sleepwalk through stuff (or be zonked out of their minds). Kobashi just worked "harder". There's a ying/yang there: Kobashi was always willing to eat up tons of time/stuff in matches, and the "junior" partner in a six-man (Jun, Kikuchi, Asako) was also expected to eat up a lot of space allowing the Big Dog to pick his spots. So of course Kobashi is going to come fashier: he's flashier to beging with, and everyone lets him do his thing, and let him have as much time as he wants. There's some irony there when Kobashi & Jun teamed together later in the decade: rather than being the Sr partner and let Jun shine (like Misawa did with Jun), we still had the Kobashi Show. He kind of knew only one way to work. In turn, Misawa had been the Sr Partner all the way back to 1990. In the midcards, he frankly was often the Sr guy of midcarders... so he had years of working that way, picking his spots, doing his heated moments, and checking back out. He was good at it in 1993, especially with Kawada opposite of him. I don't think he was as strong early in the year with Taue opposite him in the first two series... not horrible, but the Buzz that was there for Misawa-Jumbo and would be with Misawa-Kawada just wasn't there with the Misawa-Taue when Jumbo went out. One of the reasons it was kind of obvious Kawada needed to switch sides. In 1996 once paired with Jun, Misawa was really good in the Sr. Role. Pretty much the perfect young guy as his junior partner: could hold up his end, but not as overwhelming as Kobashi so you were really able to pick up on what Misawa was doing to highlight the match. To a degree that was also the problem with Misawa & Kawada: Kawada is such a powerful, compelling figure on his own that he drew a lot of our attention... at a time when Misawa was also getting over at the Top Rival to Jumbo. You kind of wanted to see Kawada (and Kobashi... and even Kikuchi) in there in tags and six-mans opposite of Grumpy Jumbo as much as Misawa. And pretty much always wanted to see Kawada in there with Taue in those matches more than Misawa-Taue. Okay... I'm rambling around in circles. 1993 AJPW does that to me. John

Mikey was always more solid than Scherer. And I scratch my head why Mike doesn't go out on his own unless he's getting 75% of everything coming into Spyware.com... though of course Scherer probably have a good skimming racket going on as well. John

I think a lot of that is what I was getting at when I said Jesse became a cliche after a certain point. He always was going to do the "I saw nothing" spot when a heel cheated and the "Why aren't you talking about that, McMahon!" spot when a face cheated. He didn't develop new, strong material. The Chicho Santana stuff went on and on and on. It might have been halfway fitting in 1986 since they weren't far off from working some tag matches in 1985. But as the decade went on... it was run into the ground. He also got caught up in his "Tell It Like It Is" crap, which was meant more to put himself over than the product. On the other hand, Jesse was more part of the product than Gorilla. What Monsoon didn't grasp is that he was just another one of the pbp. Obviously #1 when Vince wasn't around/available, but still another pbp guys. Jesse was The Heel Announcer, part of the shows. So Jesse putting himself over was similar to one of the *wrestlers* putting himself over. Monsoon didn't need to... just felt like it because he was a jerkoff. John

The plan was for a Big Four of Kawada & Taue, Misawa & Kobashi, Gordy & Williams and Hansen & DiBiase. Gordy's brain died DiBiase's back died Kawada's knee blew up. Half the Big Four went up in flames. And the key member of a third team looked like he might be fucked for the tourney. That's "disappointing" from what they had planned. Baba "saved" the Tag League by teaming with Hansen, and pulling off at least one really good match. In turn, Bossman stepped in as a decent partner for Williams and they pulled out a pair of good matches. And Kawada has one of his greatest performances in the last match. It actually turned out to be a good tag league via miracle. But it wasn't the one they had planned. Also note the time when that was written: right after watching the match. Here's what had aired (and I'd watched) from the Tag League to that point: Some quick summary: Kawada & Taue vs Kroffat & Furnas: Kawada's knee makes things very worrisome. Also, Kroffat & Furnas were having a lot of strong matches in the year (usually opposite Kobashi), and this just being "solid" really wasn't a great thing. Hansen & Baba vs Patriot & Eagle: Patriot & Eagle weren't any great shakes... though Kobashi & Kikuchi had a good match with them earlier in the year that didn't make the set. This looked bad on paper, and was pretty mediocre. Spivey & Ace vs Smothers & Slinger: my recollection is that this was one of the early matches where it was clear Spivey was totally shot. He had a match earlier in the year with Kobashi that wasn't bad, but Kobashi could put on the Kobashi Show and hide the fact that his opponent had nothing. This kind of showed that Spivey & Ace couldn't be counted on to have a solid match in the tourney, since Smothers had looked good on his prior trip in the year, and Slinger was a solid guy. Misawa & Kobashi beat Williams & Bubba: much better than expected. There is hope... Baba & Hansen drew Taue & Kawada: Dave liked this more than I did. I'm a Kawada fan, and I popped for the Baba Tag match the following week... so if this didn't make an impression on me and I haven't pimped it for the past 20 years... this isn't exactly one of those Big Four Tag League Match Ups that ends up being memorable. Williams & Bubba beat Ace & Spivey: Another match that I think Dave liked more than me. Not saying it was awful, but didn't really grab me. Kawada & Taue beat Akiyama & Honda: sure, only the finish. But after major play in the Tag League the prior year (replacing Jumbo), and after having a strong year in 1993, here's Jun getting thrown into a partnership with Honda that doesn't have a chance of having a good match. You wanted to see Jun do something in the Tag League, and here he was being wasted in a Finish Only match in his only match three shows into the Tag League. Looking foward: At the time it wasn't a given that Kawada & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi would be "excellent" given Kawada's knee... and no one was thinking "You know, that could end up the MOTY and one of the best of all-time" because of the injury. The semifinal was Baba & Hansen vs Doc & Bossman, and that had all the chances of being not-so-good at all. We also had one more Big Four match coming up in Kawada & Taue vs Williams & Bubba, that was worrisome: Kawada brought something special out in Doc... Taue up to that point didn't always... and Taue-Bossman was worrisome. So there in addition to Baba & Hansen vs Misawa & Kobashi coming up next, there were three other Big Four matches later in the series... and all had question marks. That's what it looked like when popping in the match. Buzz hadn't hit yet on whether it was any good (I typically picked shows up on the Tuesday after they aired in Japan, about as fast as any gaijin in the US would see them). The final match had just happened, and I had heard nothing on it's quality. So things were looking really bad. And then Baba & Hansen vs Misawa & Kobashi. It was good... very good. Then Kawada & Taue vs Williams & Bubba turned out to be good... very good. Then the Last Match of the Year was off the hook. Three out of four going way beyond what one could have expected at the time, along with the Misawa & Kobashi vs Williams & Bubba being much better than one could have expected... It remains the Miracle Tag League. It went from clearly disappointing (and seemingly hoplessly doomed) to being solid enough with some memorable matches. John

If you like 1993, and like 1993 AJPW, I'd recommend getting Dan G's 1993 TV set. If you watch week in and week out: Kobashi is the better worker. I was pretty much the only one strongly singing Misawa's praise at the end of 1993, which is the reason I wanted to make the point in that letter. But Kobashi was on another level. I can't think of any Kobashi performances that stand out as clunkers like the Misawa-Hansen Carny Final and the second TC match between the two. You also had in the regular six-man tags where Kobashi was consistenly bringing it, while Misawa picked his spots. Kobashi had matches with Furnas and Patriot that didn't make the set that you'd wonder if Misawa at that point could possible have. Kobashi's singles with Taue in January is a very good match, and a good comp with the TC match at the next Budokan. I want to say that there was a Kobashi-Bossman that was watchable, and there was a good Hansen & Bossman vs Misawa & Kobashi where it was Kobashi really carrying the load for his team, especially against Bossman. Lots more. I'm pretty well known as *not* being a Kobashi Fan, and I'd love to say over the course of the year that Kawada was better than Kobashi which might be reflected in a match such as 12/03/93. But he isn't. It's always struck me that the pecking order in 1993, even on re-watch, was: 1. Kobashi 2. Kawada 3. Misawa 3. Hansen In the sense that Hansen and Misawa are closer to each other than the other two. John

Dave's recap at the time:

Here it was: John

Bix: you do name them. When you talking about "That Site With Spyware" (or words to that effect), everyone knows you're talking about Scherer.com. That's a massive difference from the bullshit Schemer plays ("I'm hearing...") or the kind of douchey stuff DM pulls at times ("Contrary to what you might hear elsewhere..."). You (and Keith) are really good at naming where stuff comes from, being generous with direct quotes, and linking when stuff isn't buried behind a paywall. Big props. John

Vince pre-expansion was a terrific solo pbp man. The Dick & Kal team at the Spectrum is probably my favorite annoucing team of all-time. It's not that they're great... really. It's that they were so campy, at times so awful, at other times so great, and almost always having so much fun in what they were calling that they're constantly entertaining. I mean... "HE HIT HIM THERE!!!!!" by Kal is probably my favorite call of all time. I'm not a Jesse fan in general, and don't buy the arguments that his color work in the WWF warrants him a spot in the WON HOF. But overall he wasn't bad in his roll, helped get the product over, gave someone in the both for those of us who wanted the Heels to get some positive rub, and he had a certain charisma with Vince that worked. At a certain point he become a cliche of himself, and I never enjoyed the Gorilla-Jesse booth as much as Vince-Jesse. Expansion Vince isn't remotely as good as Pre Expansion Vince, but he is effective in what the WWF was trying to do. He's a bit like Hogan: he might not be exactly what we want in the role, but he helped get the WWF over. In general I liked Brain in the booth in the WWF in the 80s... just didn't like him having to bitch out to Gorilla. I thought Lord Al was total shit, and you kind of never know what you're going to get from him in the both on a given show. Grumpy Al... shit on the heels Al... shit on the faces Al... I can never figure it out, and none of them work for me. Most of the other color men don't do a lot for me. Bock could have been interesting, though he was probably a bit too old school for that the WWF was trying to do. He also got stuck with the incredibly horrible Rod T also brought over from the AWA. I'd have to go back through the WWF thread to see others that I liked. I'm sure there are some others that get some props, but generally speaking the ones who got the most comments have been: Pre-Expansion Vince being great Gorilla sucking Kal & Dick being wildly entertaining John

The hooking the leg was one, and frankly we can find WWF matches where there were pins with no hooked legs. It wasn't a study rule. After all, what was Bundy's pinning gimmick? I also hated Gorilla blowing off stuff with "He's not going to beat him with that..." which helped educate people to shit not mattering in matches. One rarely got a sense of Gorilla being a *fan* of what he watching, instead being above it. And not above it in a detached, objective, "I'm just calling it" fashion. Above it in the sense that I'm better than this sit. People think Vince Scully is detached... but I suspect that a lot of those are people who didn't listen to him a lot locally, and instead got him nationally in a booth with other people. While Vince wasn't exactly pulling the Joey Styles / Gus Johnson orgasm-o-rama play by play, it was very clear Vince loved baseball, love good stuff when he got to call it, and at times just couldn't believe how cool something he just saw happened. He was a pro's pro, so he didn't go overboard with it... and he had a classic signature spot of taking a step back after Really Big to let the crowd emotions/reactions and images play rather than talking over all of it... then he's slip back in at the right moment to put things in perspective. We can joke about Vince going all Noise in pbp as the WWF went national, but he got across that you're watching something cool and exciting because Vince is freaking popping for it on the mic. In a different way, Lance got across that some big shit was going on, but in a different, understand way. A simple "Oh no..." was enough to get across it was Bad Shit, while the slight raising of the voice for a "Lawler coming back..." made you know it was some Good Shit. Beats the living hell out of me what Gorilla thought was Good Shit or Bad Shit, other than him punking Brain was Good Shit while anything Brain said to get over himself or the heels was Bad Shit that needed to be punked. John

One suspects that AAA will join the HD World shortly. John