jdw

These aired per Dan: 05/19/1983 Dick Slater/Roddy Piper vs. Hara/Inoue 05/26/1983 Baba/Tenryu vs. Slater/Piper 06/03/1983 Baba/Jumbo vs. Slater/Piper The last one was a Int'l Tag Title, and one of only two matches on the tv show. It's probably complete or mostly complete. The other two might be JIP given what else was on the TV shows.

You watched this before but it might warrant a comment here since everyone seems to love it: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/15536-genichiro-tenryu-ashura-hara-vs-atsushi-onita-tarzan-goto-war-revolution-rumble-030294

I think I was explaining it a little differently that you were: Parv: "This is the problem when things become hyper canonical, it's like the thing has got to the point where no one feels they actually need to review it." jdw: "That folks talking about the match in this thread did their review/discussion of it a decade or two ago." I'm not sure if Greil Marcus feels the need to actually review Self Portriat today if someone asked him about it. He did it back in 1970. The album and his comments about it have probably come up to him so many times over the decades sense, and he's had to hash them out with people again, that it's beyond played out. So...

I saw Parv's and was going to respond to it. Then I noticed your post, which I hadn't responded to back when various of us were talking about when Kawada could / should have gone over Misawa. It warranted a response in the discussion, so I responded in order of the posts: your's than Parv's.

El Clasico is probably the single most played discussion in puroresu. Loss, Ditch, MJH and Pete have probably all written or discussed or debated the match at length several times in the past decade. I first wrote about it in the WON in 1994, and have loads of times since then. El Super Clasico is the same thing. Looking at the discussion of it, I only got into "reviewy" mode for something specific that Loss talked mentioned. The general review type of discussion of the match is probably something that feels pretty been-there, done-that for most of the folks in these specific threads. :/

So, Kawada winning would have helped business in the long term because New Japan drew well when the belt came off Hashimoto? They both seem like short term business decisions to me. The 5/95 Hash-to-Mutoh title change wasn't a short term business decision. I was told the month before it happened of the plan by a NJPW employee. He also told me what they planned after it, from the G1 winner to the next champ at the Dome in January and after that. The title changed happened as planned. The G1 happened as planned. Then... Then you have a real short term business decision: Takada dropped in their laps, with the chance to make a lot of money, and they went with that. They actually didn't take the belt off Mutoh in that first match as if anything fell through, they could go back to the original plan. It didn't fall through, Takada was co-opperative with what they came up with, and New Japan made a crap ton of money. So, no... taking the belt off Hash wasn't a short term business decision. 6/3/94 was Kawada vs Misawa because Kawada won the Carny, while Misawa was "injured" during it. The point of Carny was to set up Kawada and Doc as the next challengers. The tag match between the teams was a lesser match, hence being at Sapporo earlier in the series... and Kobashi getting the drop on Taue in it. 6/95 would have been Misawa's first defense after winning the belt back from Hansen... 14 days earlier. When lifting it from Hansen, Misawa would have been going off on his second run as the Ace with the promotion's #1 title. Baba-think is that the first run established the Ace, while the second run re-establishes that he really is the Ace rather than the title bouncing around all over the place. Baba's second Int'l run in JWA: 06/27/68 - 12/03/70 Jumbo's second Int'l run in AJPW: 10/21/86 - 03/27/88 Everyone already knew Baba was the Ace in All Japan even before he got the PWF Title, but he still did the same thing after his first reign ended and it bounced around between Kamata and Billy and Abby for 8+ months: Baba's second PWF in AJPW: 02/10/79 - 10/26/82 Baba was never going to have Misawa's second reign be 14 days long with him dropping it to his top native rival. That's why when we talking about Misawa being "ripe" to lose the title, it wasn't until the following year that he was truly ripe in Baba's mind to drop it. They wouldn't have gone Misawa --> Kawada --> Williams --> Misawa. The job of putting Williams as a/the top gaijin via jobbing the belt was the Ace's, not Kawada's. Jumbo and Tenryu exchanged pins. It didn't end the feud. Dittos Jumbo and Hansen. It's All Japan: feuds don't naturally end via wins and losses. Misawa was always ahead in people's eyes anyway. It never really was about "winning the feud". Not really how things worked in All Japan. Frankly it wasn't how things worked with their peers over in New Japan either where they traded wins left and right. Misawa was the Ace. No one is saying that Kawada was going to win the belt and go off on a June 1994 through May 1996 run with the belt similar to Misawa's first reign. It always was going back to Misawa. That doesn't mean other people can't be strong or draws, or have runs on top. A strong company and stronger roster of stars allows a wrestler to take time off. Fujinami was gone for more than a year, and Inoki was phased "away" (for lack of a better word). New Japan did fine, and they didn't even have to push Choshu as the only big star. They got the younger wrestlers over in increased fashion, and mixed things around. Heck, Vader held the belt through most of that stretch of Fujinami being out anyway. The company also weathered stretches of Mutoh being out hurt, and Chono. All Japan weathered their Ace going out... forever. Why? Because Misawa had been well elevated over the court of the prior two years. The plan wasn't for Misawa to have a two year run with the belt when he won it from Jumbo: it was just a short turn run before it went back to Jumbo in early 1993. Misawa's Acedom was still a ways off. But when Jumbo went out, Misawa was strong enough to run with it. A smarter All Japan would have had a strong Kawada. They weren't terribly smart about it. They didn't need a new Misawa in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997... frankly at any point before the split. To a degree, Kobashi was as ready for a run as Ace in 2000 as he was in 2003. The problem in the late 90s and 2000, beyond just that Misawa and Mrs. Baba didn't get along? They didn't have the next generation of wrestlers who could challenge Misawa and Kawada and Kobashi. Not to be the Ace in 2000, but simply challenge them similar to those three pushing the Ace Jumbo. They had Jun, but he had limits as every one saw in NOAH. * * * * * I've always said that for what Baba wanted to do (put over new top gaijin Doc), the "right person won" this match: Misawa was the one to put over Doc after he ran the table again with Kawada. For the long term health of the promotion, what was more important: put over Doc at that moment as the new top gaijin or put over Kawada to create a stronger #2 in the promotion? Put over Kawada. It's even more obvious in hindsight given the Narita Nightmare killing the elevation of Doc in less than a year.

Cool!

I tend to think the Taue match needs to be watch because the entire match is about Selling. It's a 17 minute Single Storyline Match, unlike anything else that I've ever seen Stan do. Stan does it perfectly, to such a degree that it seems likely he did it other times in his career that we just don't happen to be lucky enough to have on tape. Matt's comment was: "But, it stems from the fact I like matches with broader and deeper selling more than hard hitting, face crashing affairs." There is no Hansen match with broader or deeper selling. Of course it would also be helpful to watch Hansen's from the night before to understand why he's selling and how it ties into this match. But that tends be an issue when dealing with "Give Me 3 Matches" to try to sum up a wrestler, or an aspect of a wrestler.

Yeah... that Billy vs Baba match is probably the best thing to throw at people when they start saying stupid things about how Billy was as a worker (such as boring or colorless) or how Baba was as a worker (limited stiff who just got over on his size or some such nonsense). It's just an exceptional match, really well laid out.

I suspect it's online. I'm certain there are torrents of it. Ditch may also have it.

Hansen's selling of the ribs against Taue is the best selling that I've ever seen Hansen do. Hell, his selling against Kobashi in the 7/29/93 match is fanfuckingtastic... and the selling against Taue is on another level. To the degree that other than Kawada on 12/03/93, I have a hard time thinking of any better selling... and I'm not sold Stan even takes a back seat to Kawada's best. So...

After multiple watchings, I still love the 9/30/80 Backlund-Hansen match and their 2/16/81 MSG match. Fun matches. I've never cared for their cage match. I'm pretty sure that I've seen the 3/16/81 MSG but I'm drawing a blank on it. The 12/09/80 match in Japan was on Dan's Misc NJPW set... draw a blank on it as well, which strikes me as not leaving a mark like the 9/30/80 and 2/16/81 matches. I liked Yohe's comments on it half a decade ago when watching the Hansen set:

Would have been interested in seeing your thoughts of Takada-Tenryu's two matches in order. Basically a standard home & home series, each getting the win in their own park.

Probably better viewed in the context of the G1 that year, especially since they had another match in it that folks liked better: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/18659-masa-chono-vs-shinya-hashimoto-njpw-g-1-climax-080991 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/18670-masa-chono-vs-shinya-hashimoto-njpw-g-1-climax-081191

Hashimoto vs Ogawa's second series of matches.

Yes. It's worked wrestling. Worked wrestling comes in a lot of forms... We did at the time. We'd watch All Japan, All Japan Womens, UWFi, Rings, AAA, WCW, WWF, SMW, FMW, etc. We might not have liked all of them, but you get use to flipping around. UWF-style isn't UFC. It's never really been about chosing to watch UFC over Pro Wrestling, anymore than chosing Fake Wrestling vs Real Boxing was an issue once I started enjoying fake wrestling. I watch UFC over Boxing, and it competed with my sports watching time. Now it competes with my movie watching time. Ma Williams and I use to kick my dad out of the TV room on Friday and Saturday nights when I visited and watch movies. Since 2006, we've been kicking my dad out to watch UFC on Friday and Saturday nights. I was thinking that she was getting burned out last year, but the past three times I've been down she's loved every show we've watched. Considering UFC 189 is on tap the next time I'm down, I don't think the streak is going to end. Pro Wrestling competes with Entertainment watching that I do. UWF-style was just another fun pro wrestling item in the mix.

Yeah... people were on Han's cock at the time. Yohe was praising him from close to the start, and there's probably a letter of his in the WON pimping him as well. Even Dave praised him at the time, and lost his shit over some of the stuff after Tamura jumped. The "purity" of Fujiwara is a good one. It's akin to Lou Thesz always working straight and serious, which Thesz himself the leading proponent of the meme.

a1wrestling was 13-15 years ago I would buy the shit out of a Sano comp. Williams loves bringing up that thread despite arguing in circles about a really stupid point -- that Sano "won" the 1989-90 Liger feud. The entire analogy about Sano being a ronin after the feud disn't make a lick of sense then and doesn't now, but if it's morphed into a metaphor for Sano being journeyman I guess that's fitting. That was a fable, Daniel. Just like your one where Sano is crushed by the defeat and forever altered by it. My fable was purely to contrast your invention of Sano's inner emotions. There was a lot more to the discussion than just the fables.

I'm well aware of the Code Red Discussion and got the reference.

I don't have a problem with Cena adding stuff. Though it would be a stretch to call what Baba added as being indyriffic. Or Tenryu or Jumbo and Hansen adding the powerbomb to their moveset.