jdw

Now this all makes sense after all these years... Carlos got that finish from WCW. John

This depends on how you define hands on. Baba: "Kenta... I want you to use the rolling cradle, the jacknife power bomb, the legdrop, the chop spot in the corner, three lariats, two backdrops, that vertical suplex where you hold it up for a while, a german suplex, the half nelson suplex, let him kick out of the first moonsault and cry like a baby before your second moonsault puts him down." Kobashi: "Okay boss." Anyone buy Baba did that *at all*? I don't. Not at all. Lay out a match? Baba: "Okay boys, here's what I want you to do down the stretch. Kawada's knee is shit, so while he starts the last segment looking strong, it wears down as it goes along. Akira... you save his bacon a few times, but it's no good: he just can't tag out. Tosh, you sell the living shit out of that leg. Now Kenta, you're going over... but here's the deal: it's not really you who is truly beating Tosh. He's actually knocked you for a loop. It's Misawa who knocks the crap out of him, then knocks the shit out of Akira, then gets you to wake up and finish Kawada." Four Corners: "Okay Boss!" Really? I'm not buying it. We can debate "spot-a-thon" and what not, but if you watch the arc of All Japan in the 90s, the style was moving in the direction of spot-a-thon long before Baba died. How radically different is the 7/95 Misawa-Kawada from the 1998 Misawa-Kobashi or the Noah Misawa-Kobashi? They're all on the same path of where Misawa and Kobashi were headed. The notion that we wouldn't have gotten to the Misawa-Kobashi and Kobahsi-Jun of Noah if Baba hadn't dropped dead is wishful and/or delusional thinking. All Japan was already on it's way there before Baba died. So we're left with one of two things: (a) Baba specifically instructed Misawa and Kobashi to go down the path that led to those Noah MOTY, and they fully realize his vision of where the future lay ( Baba gave Misawa and Kobashi a ton of freedom on what they could do in the ring, where they could push the boundries, how they could work as long as it was (i) within a general overall structure of things Baba *didn't* want to see, and (ii) they delivered certain things he wanted such as who won. The first one is a bit of a problem given the thing that lauched this tangent was that pre-split All Japan wouldn't have gone in the work crapper if Baba didn't die. Those seeds were already sown before he died, and he *allowed* it. The second is far closer to reality. Baba didn't want Kobashi putting Misawa through three tables. He didn't give a flying fuck if Kobashi used a jacknife powerbomb at the 15 minute mark rather than a backdrop. Baba didn't want juice after a certain point in the 90s. He didn't care of Misawa used the tiger splash 7 minutes in or 20 minutes in: that was Misawa's call. Baba didn't want Taue running in from the back to save Kawada from getting pinned by Misawa in a Triple Crown match. He really didn't care if Misawa when Rolling Elbow + Rolling Elbow + Released German Suplex + Tiger Driver + Kick Out + Tiger Driver + Kick Out + Tiger Driver '91 + Three Count to finish the match. He wasn't Pat Patterson in laying out matches. It's kind of funny that we've come full circle on Baba. In the early 90s so little was known and/or talked about inside All Japan that Baba by default got credited with everything. Over time, the Funks started taking credit for booking All Japan and training everyone and what not that you got the impression that they were taking credit for *everything* for long stretches of AJPW history... and that they were happy to leave that impression. At around the same time, we started to get more about Mrs. Baba and her involvement, which grew from barely touched upon initially into dragon lady with her hands in everything to the point that she was the real brains leading the aging Baba around. Then we had the rise of the Selfish Booker Misawa cult, which was the funniest one yet given reality: *late 1998* Misawa (to press as he returning from injury): "I won't be challenging for the Triple Crown until next year. It's time to see what Kobashi has." Baba (to Misawa a week or so later): "You're challenging for the Triple Crown on the next Budokan, and Kenta is dropping the belt to you." Misawa: "Oh fuck..." Now we're back to Baba to the point that we think he was detailed to such a degree that he was laying out matches and spots for Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue. John

Damn... you're right, and I have Jerad on fb. "We can blame that jdw asshole for all those confuding intials." John

It was build as a submission match going in From Graham's site: It's kind of why they had Shamrock as the ref. I'm at a loss on how the Dream would make Bret "sympathetic". It's just a hold. It's like saying Bret should stop using the Sharpshooter when going heel because it was a beloved babyface finisher for nearly a decade by 1997. Or that Face Stone Cold shouldn't use the Stunner because he debuted it as a Heel. It's just a spot. One the fans knew. One that was the finish of the prior match, that any fan who had a memory would recall... and I'm not one to chalk up wrestling fans as being such extreme dumbasses that they couldn't remember in March 1997 what happened in November 1996. Lord... sympathetic? If the point of the commntary is to get Austin over (which was the case for a lot of what Ross was saying that day), you could easily have Ross pop wood over Stone Cold going to the dream in the first 10 minutes of the match, getting across how smart he was because while he lost with it in the first match, now he can't get pinned... "Bret's in trouble!!!!" Then if we're so intent on gettig symapthy on Austin and making Bret looking like shit (which I'll dispute were the full goal of what they were trying to do in the match), then simply have Bret get in position when he can pop Austin in the nuts. Doesn't matter how much of a man's man that Stone Cold is: a good shot in the nuts is going to break a hold. Oh god... I feel like I have to watch the match again and offer up a moment where they could have simply replaced what Austin was going with a short Dream segment. I love the match. It's a really entertaining match. I don't think it's a massively flawed match. I just think that could have slipped the Dream into it to play off the first match. And I suspect that if we actually block out the match, it wouldn't be hard to figure out there to put it in without rebooking / rewriting / fucking up the living shit out of the rest of the match. This isn't terribly complicated. It's a bit like people getting up at arms about two long standing issues / wish list items that people have with Macho-Steamer at WM-III: * Steamer fire * Steele suck Over time a lot of us have come to see the "fire" issue in a different light because of the Toronto match. But still... Folks weren't/aren't arguing for radical revision of the Mania match. It takes how long to get across hate? 30 seconds? 60 seconds? In a match that goes 875 second, not even counting the pre-match where you could do something to get it across? Absent Toronto, it wouldn't have been hard to get it in. No one ever was asking for this to be Maggie vs Tully from Starcade. Just Steamer showing that he thought the guy across the ring was a cocksucker for trying to destroy his throat. On the Animal thing, again people weren't calling for a total rebook of the match: they just didn't want Animal involved in the finish. That's not really complicated. Now... I don't have issues with Animal being involved. The Savage-Animal storyline went back quite a while, and this played into it okay. On the Hate issue, Toronto gave me what I want, and I've come to see Mania as Steamer dropping the hate (which ended up leading to a loss in Toronto) and going back to the basics that helped him have Randy's number at the start of the feud. So those aren't my criticism anymore. The points, though, are: * those criticism would be pretty easy to address without "ruining" Mania * Mania still is a good match even without them Bret-Austin still is a good match. In terms of internal logic if one wants to think about it a bit, there is a problem of Austin going into a Submission Match without trying for what is frankly his *only* submission up to that point in his WWF career. I happen to think about it a bit, so that one stands out to me. It's a bit like racing in the Indy 500 with a Nissan 370Z. Sure, you've got a pretty fast care. But it's *Indy* racing, and you can't win with a non-Indy car. It's a submission match. As a wrestler with Austin's No Dream Startegy, he's: * at best just stuborn in wanting to beat up Bret and thus going to lose because he has no submission * at worst a dumb motherfucker because he can't win the match and is to stupid to grasp it John

I was at the one in Los Angeles... didn't know it was available. I recall enjoying it. I do recall that the San Jose one was circulating. I think it was part of khj's run through a ton of handhelds years ago. If I recall correctly, his thought was that while it was good, they clearly improved the match by the time they got to Mania. I wonder if I have that set of handheld reviews laying on the HD somewhere... it was pretty awesome. John

It's a 22 minute no dq *submission* match, in which Stone Cold had exactly one submission coming in: the Dream, which was the finish of the last match. It's obvious to use. It's obvious to tease Austin's best chance of winning the match. So if you're going to do those two things, you might as well play off the finish of the last one where Austin was in a position where he wouldn't lose this time. It's the WWF: it's not impossible to come up with a creative way for the hold to be broken. Kick him in the nuts if you feel it's vital for Austin to "look strong" and Bret to "look heel", though frankly it wasn't explicit until the following night the Bret was heel. As far as inferior, Austin *is* inferior in the match. Bret beats him clean, and bloodies the fuck out of him. Austin looks "good" by not quiting and eating the Dusty Passes Out Finish. There really isn't any reason that he can't have the Dream broken/reversed. I'm willing to bet that is at least one spot in the match as it is where Bret "out wrestles" or "out smarts" or simply counters Austin. Please don't tell me that there aren't any Missed Lariat Transitions in the match. I actually like the powerbombs comp of Kawada-Williams to Misawa-Kawada better. Don't recall every making a link in the powerbombs to Jumbo-Tenryu unless it's that Kawada's primary finisher is that of his mentor, which is less happenstance than a factual statement. The powerbomb comp of Kawada-Williams to Misawa-Kawada is likely happenstance, one that they kind of lucked into and is kind of cool. On the other hand, I have more fun talking about Misawa Fan in the powerbombs that a tie-in to Kawada-Doc. I never saw the backdrop as synononmous in All Japan with the Ace role. It wasn't a critical move of Baba's. He used it, but things like the neckbreaker drop were his key finisher in some very major AJPW matches. Jumbo certainly used it, but he used other things as well. It clearly was his primary finisher in the 90s. As far as Misawa, it always was a low end move for him. He frankly even had his own way of doing it that linked to pretty much one thing: Misawa. It is wrestling. That doesn't mean we can't think about it. Of course All Japan had heels and faces. They often took different, less obvious shape than say Face Hogan vs Heel Orndorff with Heel Manager Heenan, so people not knowledgeable or paying attention might not get who the faces/heels/technicos/rudos are. I haven't watched the start of the 5/94 tag in ages, so I don't recall the specifics. I take it that Kawada didn't want to work with someone? Which is a pretty common thing: we see Tenryu wanting to start against Jumbo and Jumbo can't be bothered with it. Does it have an origin in chickenshit stuff? Sure. Is it what we think of as typical chickenshit stuff like Macho hiding behind Liz or Cornette in a handicap match only tagging in when the face is down? Not really. But that also isn't uncommon. I recall people getting offended when Frank or I pointed out that Lou worked an NWA Champ style opposite Gagne, right down to stooging stuff. Then Frank took a screen capture of Lou "begging off". It isn't quite Ric Flair level of begging off, but it's also clear that he is. Were/are we a bit strong to say that Lou was being a chickenshit stooge at times in the match? Sure. It was trying to get across the point that the percept that Lou worked as a straight, sporting Champ was bullshit. He was the NWA champ, and aspects of the style go back to him... and almost certainly prior to him. It's wrestling and we can fancy it up to high heaven. Like I said, I'm not a Wrestling Is Art guy. But I'll talk about the positive aspects of the TV show Castle and things they do well similar to how I'll talk about positive aspects of Kawada-Misawa. Or in turn, I like the show Justified but if we had a conversation about Season 2, I'd like probably point out some things that I didn't like so much about it. There's this notion that how we talk about Wrestling isn't what we do elsewhere. I tend to think that's bullshit. Those of us who are sports fans will talk endlessly about it, going over what are teams should and shouldn't do. If we're movie fans and let's say comic fans, we would talk endlessly about Thor. I talk with the gf all the time about Castle... or Leverage, etc. Somehow we want to reduce our pro wrestling talk to this: "That was a nice home run A-Rod hit." "Sure was." "How many was that for the year?" "Beats me. I don't pay attention to those stats." "Yeah, me neither. "I think he's having a good year, but couldn't tell you if he were hitting .200 or .300. Stats suck." "Yeah, I agee. Hey... are the Yankees in first place?" "I don't pay attention to the standings. I just care about the game I'm watching right now." "Me too. I like to be surprised if they end up in the post season or miss it." John

AJPW ringwork declined in 1997. Not sure that Baba's health had anything to do with as all of the decline in 1997 was in motion going back to at least 1995, very much a function of the direction they were headed in. Really never heard that Baba was detailed in what people should do in the ring. There were stylistic things he liked and didn't like. But he pretty much let Misawa and Kobashi go where they were going. John

Please don't tell me someone did this. John

active imagination is a bit strong. Do you follow any sports, Loss? Do you have anything in your sporting fandom that's similar to say Bucky Dent hitting the dinger off Mike Torrez? If you were a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan in that era, that play was forever branded in your brain. When you see Bucky Dent, if it's not the first thing you think of, it's high on the list. Same with Torrez. If you see Dent in Fenway park, it jumps into your head *instantly*. If you saw Dent playing against the Red Sox later in his career, it was what came to mind. If you saw Dent facing Torrez, it came to mind. Put some of them together: If you saw Dent in Fenway hitting a dinger over the Green Monster to beat the Red Sox... "Fuck me... it's happened again." Put some things together: If you saw Kawada in the last match on the last Budokan of the year with his knee shredded and one of the members of his team working the long last stretch of the match before getting worn down in defeat... "Fuck me... it's happened again." Pro Wrestling is entertainment... fake sports as entertainment. If any time we see young Phobe Cates in red bathing suit we think of Fast Times, and every time we see Bucky Dent hitting a dinger in Fenway to down the Red Sox we think of the 163rd Game of the 1978 American League Season, then... Why is it an active imagination to actually remember what Kawada has done at a key moment earlier in his career. A rather famous match, with some rather famous guys in there with him, in a rather big setting... in the biggest match of his career to that point? I think everyone knows that I'm not one of those Wrestling Is Art folks, as I went so far in the opposite direction as to offer up Porn Is Art as an example of how silly the Wrestling Is Art folks were being. But I also tend to think there's a desire for us to reduce it to: Wrestling Fans Are Dumb Motherfuckers And any time we try to give a bit of thought to watch we watch, enjoy, dislike, praise, criticize, we're end up back at... "You think too much." -Dave Scherer John

Actually, it could have easily fit in. Didn't have to be the finish of Mania or even near the finish, but it easily could have fit into it. I'm not sure if Mania is a less match without it. But it was a simple thing to add. 2/97 Liger-Ohtani has the finish of the 3/96 Liger-Ohtani. Except... it doesn't work this time despite being hit. So Liger needs to do more, they go past their prior midnight, and work more into the match. Is the spot a positive spot in 2/97. It was to me, because I remembered the prior match. If I were there live, I would be thinking it might be the finish: Liger beat him with this before, and he's gotten it over as one of his finishers in the past year. When it doesn't keep the kid down, I'd be thinking: "Cool... they got more shit thought out here to do." I'm at a loss of anyone claiming an entire match is based around such a concept. There are a variety of things that people point to in the old "reaching back" concept. Some of them are very specific, and obvious plans by the wrestlers. Liger-Ohtani is one of those. We can toss around a lot of analysis of what they're doing in the two matches, some of which we'd agree on and some of which we might not. But if one watches those two matches back-to-back, it's pretty impossible to claim that repeating the finish of the earlier match and using it as a pass through wasn't an intentional thing Liger and Ohtani were doing. One would basically just want to be a contrarian to claim that wasn't the case. That's a specific spot. Sometimes there are themes where somewhat similar spots are used repeatedly to get across a theme that eventually is paid off on. Some of the most obvious are drawn out "turns", even more obvious when either overplayed by the wrestlers or the announcer. Some maybe are less obvious, but they are out there. Again, Loss saw and wrote about some themes touching back on earlier matches that fit in with stuff that I could probably go back and also see talking about in my Torch reviews of the matches. I don't think Loss was a Torch reader. Those things are pretty clearly planned by the wrestlers. Probably less planned are when they use common structures / layouts / themes, which also happen to be used in other matchs. All Japan in tags love to roll out the Go It Alone storyline. One member of the tag team gets toasted, the other member has to fight against the odds against the 2-on-1. All Japan didn't invent it. They aren't the only people to do it. Not even going to argue they do it better than anyone else. Simply that they do it, and you'll run across it in a lot of tags. The Funks loved doing it with Terry getting knocked goofy and Dory going alone (which always was odd since Terry was the better face in peril). The Funks spawned a lot of All Japan wrestlers who used it, either their pupils or simply guys who saw it and used it. Does 12/93 intentionally "play off" 12/88? Did Kawada sit down with the other three: "Look, my knee is fucked up, so here what we can do: play off that last match of the 1988 Tag League where Tenryu had to go it alone because Hansen & Gordy screwed up my knee. Wait, as a twist, rather than Taue going it alone down the stretch because of my knee, we'll put me in the spot of symbolically going it alone because I can't tag out. I'm playing both roles... cool, right? This is like Oscar level shit." No, of course he didn't. But there's little doubt that they did sit down and talk structure: * the knee would be a storyline in the match * Kawada would work the long final stretch * the knee eventually would prevent him from tagging out to Taue * Kawada would eventually get worn down and pinned So while the structure isn't intentionally planned to play off 1988, we do have in that earlier match: * Kawada's knee becomes a storyline in the match * Tenryu would work the long final stretch of the match * the knee prevent Kawada from being able to tag *in* for Tenryu * Tenryu would eventually get worn down and pinned They laid out a storyline in 1993 for the match that is very similar to 1988. Not terribly surprising since AJPW liked the Go It Alone storyline. Unintentional? Sure, probably, none of us have ever talked to Kawada about the match, and even if we did we'd be unlikely to get a straight answer. As a fan watching it at the time? 12/88 wasn't a throw away match. It was All Japan's Final Match Of The Year. Those weren't all memorable, but that one wasn't in the bottom 25% in terms of AJFMOTY's at that point: it was into the mid-90s a reasonably well known match from the Revolution era, to say the least. In terms of Kawada, the 1988 Tag League was a reasonably well known event in Kawada's career arc, to say the very least... as was that specific match. You watch Kawada in December of 1993 in AJFMOTY with a knee injury, with someone going it alone down the stretch, and the higher slotted guy Kawada's side eating the pin... you're going to think of 1988 if you: * have been watching AJPW since then * are paying attention * are paying attention specifically to Kawada It would be a bit like if in the late 80s Phobe Cates was coming out of a pool in a red bathing suit, you know a bit about her career, and happened to have seen one of his most famous roles (frankly her most famous role), let's be honest that one of the most likely things is going to pop into your head: "Please don't tell me Judge Reinhold is going to pop up in this scene and..." It may not have been intentional on the part of the writer, director or even Phobe, but we as the audience who've been watching her for a while can't help but remember Fast Times At Ridgemont High and the defining moment of her career. 12/88 might not have been the defining moment of Kawada's career up through 12/93. I could point to something, I guess... if I try hard enough... maybe. I don't know, let's just say that 12/88 was up there. I suspect a majority of us, had we been AJPW fans from 1988-1993, would have had 12/88 cross our minds while watching 12/93. Look at some of the amazingly *small* details and triva that we toss out all the time. We've got people on the board who can keep all the Rock-Austin matches straight when I can barely remember all the details of the one I like the most. Is 12/93 rich, deep psychology and storytelling reaching back five years? I don't think intentionally. For match storytelling, of what they wanted to do in the specific match, it does come across that they laid out a pretty smart psych match. Did they think about having Kawada in the 1993 match play elements of both the Kawada and Tenryu roles from the 1988 match? No, they almost certainly didn't think that deeply. It just kind of happened. As a fan watching the soap opera of AJPW over those past five years, does what they did end up fitting into a rather rich, deep storyline even if they weren't specifically trying to? Yeah. We more often get the opposite: "Why is Sting trusting this guy who will only turn on him?" Which forces us to either be dumb: "Well, I'll just play along, pretend it's not obvious and Sting should have seen it coming." Or wise asses: "Sting is the dumbest motherfucker in pro wrestling." 12/93 was one where you could play along with the match in it's obvious narrative, and also put onto a book shelf and ponder how it fit in with other books earlier in th series. In this case, it happened by luck or fluke or devine intervention to fit in rather nicely. Now the finish of 12/93 is something else entirely different. John

I'd also wonder: what does past matches have to do with Mutoh? John

I certainly talked about playing off earlier matches, though it's something that goes back a long time before I ever started talking about wrestling. And we just had Loss going through 1996 and pointing out things that built off themes developed through the year. I think that was a lot less "influence" of old writings on him than "obvious": some things are pretty obvious when you see a run of matches in some context. But "Learned psychology"... yeah, that phrase ain't mine. john

Jerry: I would get Will's 1993 Yearbook set. The 1996 was released earlier, but 1993 might be a better introduction to some of the folks who are sort of in their prime around 1996 (i.e. AJPW's Four Corners and NJPW's Hash). It also has a pre-Monday Night Wars era US coverage, which probably is a good contrast to 1996 where the US is starting to change. Anyway, it's an easy way to get a variety of Japan, in a way that isn't hammering you over the head with just one wrestler or promotion. John

I think the later ladder / tlc stuff was pretty clusterfuckish. I think the last time I watch Shawn-Razor, it didn't come across as a cluster, instead a nice mix of decent stunts and campy fun. TLC takes only a little while into the match to remind me, "That's right... this is why I hated all this crap." None of that's due to any soft spot for Shawn. I still don't care much for him, and it would always be nice to add one of his matches to the Overrated pile. But that one... it kind of holds up, especially in the context of the time. It spawned a bunch of shitty matches, and fucked up the health of a lot of workers. But it still is pretty watchable in context. John

I don't even know what "learned psychology" is and how it relates to AJPW. I'm glad to know there's at least one thing about AJPW analysis that I can't be blamed for. Really? My recollection is that in the circle I ran in, we ripped the shit out of Mutoh and his Pro Wrestling Love bullshit... right down to the Gimp Photo that Swing made. Did the DVDVR guys think he was the shit? Version 1.0 - Nov 1999: 139 Kenji Muto Version 2.0 - May 2000: 130 Keiji Muto Version 3.0 - Nov 2000: 183 Keiji Mutoh Version 4.0 - May 2001: Not ranked Version 5.0 - Nov 2001: 13 Keiji Mutoh Version 6.0 - May 2002: 164 Keiji Mutoh Version 7.0 - Nov 2002: 300 Keiji Mutoh Version 8.0 - May 2003: Not Ranked Okay, there was a brief moment of insanity for six months in 2001, and then they snapped out of it. While we're at it, who accepts the blame for the Nov 2001 ranking? Lord knows some of us get slagged for dumb (and at time correct) things we said a decade (or two) ago. Some folks need to step up and take the hit for that one. Hmm... I can see how this will go... "It was Ganc's fault. We all had his rated down in the 100's, but Ganc had him #1 and that outweighed us." John

I don't think smarks had any impact on what Dave over-pimped in that period. Also don't know if selling body parts was ever the high church of psych. I mean, did Misawa regularly sell body parts... or just sell that he was getting his ass kicked? It didn't stop the push for a few years that every time he got dropped on his head that the *opponent* was attacking his bad neck/back/spine/what-have-you. To the point that it was painful to read. Beats me when the "h" came in vogue. I flip back and forth between them, probably using the h one day and not the next. Mutoh is so common not that his wiki page is Mutoh. Otani's doesn't have the h. So... beats me. John

I think this got something like ****1/2 from Dave, right before he started tossing the snowflakes around left and right: ****1/2+ AJPW Matches 1991: 7 1992: 12 1993: 19 In the first three series of 1992, he only had 3 (the other two in Jumbo-Misawa six mans). 9 of them in the last 5 series... snowflake-o-rama started. So it was a well rated AJPW match for the year, even after he went batshit as the year went along. It's a different set of opponent to see Kawada with, and nice to see Kawada pairing with Kikuchi rather than Kobashi. John

Is this the thing that featured Kobayashi vs. Akitoshi Saito (at least I think that's who it was), just beating the ever loving hell out of each other over some wooden board with some writing on it? That was on one of the first blocks of NJPW TV I ever saw. Totally unlike anything I'd ever seen in north America before. Bizarre, awesome, bloody, not that long, and a ton of fun. It's something that really stuck with me over the years because it was one of the first things I saw from Japan that was so clearly "different" from what I would be seeing otherwise. Yeah, that's part of it. And the Dojo Sign Feud sort of morphs at the end into Koshinaka's new group that goes to war with New Japan. Sort of an A to B, similar to Chono going Blackjack, then getting Saito, then finally Tenzan joining up with him. Anyway, the Dojo Sign Feud isn't too long, not of the matches are exactly 40 minute marthons, and they're quite different from the rest of what one saw in New Japan. I thought a good example of NJPW at the time having a lot of stuff going on the cards. You have your top guys, mostly split between the Choshu era and the Three Musketeers era. You've got your juniors. You've got your young prelim guys, who won't make this set. Then you've got some folks who've been around for a long time, and don't have a lot going on but Choshu & Co. often gave them a little something to do. This was one of the bigger somethings. Kosh came out of it as a bigger star, and for the first time started down that path of being a valuable heavyweight for the company... kind of a Tony Phillips utility man that they could plug into different things. Tony Phillips was never going to be Frank Thomas: an anchor player. But guys like Tony helped a team. Guys like what Kosh evolved into help a promotion. He'll pop up a lot in later sets, as we saw especially in 1994 with the G1 and as he did in the 1996 one. John

Oh hell, that match doesn't count. And I seem to recall Dave's comments / reviews of puroresu heavies in that time frame being not-so-good, with the stuff about the greatness of Mutoh being especially not among his best analysis. John

I have seen Final Conflict. Final Conflict better? Probably, especially when one sees all the Road To stuff that was on the DVD to build to the blow off. But it is long, sort of more traditional (in the sense of peril stretches to fill the time)... I'm wondering how easily accessable it is. The 1992 Wargames is a pretty simple match to get into. I kind of tried to balance out the list with some that have a point for being there (Sammy-Otani), are the first that jump to mind (12/96), or are accessable to what the concept is generally about. I'm not sure if Vader-Sting is the best gimmick match that I've seen. But it's pretty accessable, it's good, and it kind of opens up the mind to the notion that you don't need to have the gimmick limit you. Wargames is an easy match. It gets across a lot of cage concepts. I think if folks liked that, then you start getting them into other cage matches. I love Backlund-Sarge, and think the are some really great "cagey" things in the match. But I also think people sort of need to get to the point they like Bob first, and maybe see some other cage matches from the era, and probably even need to see the earlier Bob-Sarge in Philly. Wargames... it's kind of a match you can go in cold. It helps to know how some of the specific folks are fueding, but even without it, the match pretty much loads up the action, spots and juice. Don't know if that makes sense? If the list was about "best", my answers probably would be different. John

I would expect that the easy stuff in the vault will come out. That falls into two categories of easy: * things they've already moved or already are moving that's to 24/7 * thing that need extremely little effort to move in terms of time and cost On the first, examples would be some of the TV shows that they are already slowly going through on 24/7. It looks like they've done several years of the weekly Primetime show... it looks like 3/20/89 is airing in May. That's easy to throw out at 9 am in the morning. They may have already done everything on the TNT series. Etc. One reason why a lot of the house shows from the 70s and 80s will be done is because they're cheap to do. There isn't the logo issue. There aren't any great production numbers. They may have to tinker around with the music here and there, but when converted it's 2+ hours of stuff, especially figuring in commercials. There's a 3 hour block of primetime TV they can fill ones a week with MSG, Philly, Boston and various other ones. Lots of Big Stars from the 80s on them as well. Pretty cheap and easy. And there are quite a few of them, so it would give the series several years to run by doing it. 24/7 is probably a good guide of what they've found easy and/or worthwhile to do, or what they simply like. John

Google: UKFF "Kenny McBride" gay John

This likely will be overly cliched: Must see high flyers match: 1996 Samurai-Ohtani Must see match with blood: Hokuto-Kandori I Must see mat work: 1969 Destroyer-Baba Must see gimmick match: Vader-Sting strap Must see world title bout: 6/94 Misawa vs Kawada Must see 1970s match: Terry vs Jumbo Must see 1980s match: 6/89 Jumbo vs Tenryu Must see 1990s match: 12/96 Misawa & Akiyama vs Kawada & Taue Must see tag match: See above Must see cage match: 1992 War Games Sort of grasping at the last one. Pretty well booked, pretty well worked, pretty well heated, juiced up and "creative" (even if some of the spots were thing guys like Arn had done before). Kind of hits the marks you want in a cage match, though sustained "hate" is in there as it's hard to pull off with 10 guys each needing to do their own thing. But 10 guys... it does give you a fair amount of variety in what they do. Don't know if it's the best cage match I've seen, but it's a pretty easy one to watch every few years. John

They don't need to fill 24 hours of programing with "new" stuff each day. Not really how the cable world works, especially niche channels. I think some of us have had some discussions on this board and elsewhere about this over the past decade or so, which means some of this might be repetative... sorry in advance if it is. Two good examples to look at are FoodTV and Discovery. Tonight, Food's primetime lineup is largely made up of four series: Throwdown (30 minute episodes) Triple D (30) Dinner:Impossible (60) Best In Smoke (60) They air two Throwdowns, two Triple D's, one D:I and one Best In Smoke as the core block. Six episodes for a total 4 hours. They then repeat all of those episodes, eating up a total 8 hours this evening. None of those six episodes are "new". D:I hasn't aired done a new episode in 2011. One of the Throwdown's debuted in January, the other is older. Both Triple D's are old. Best in Smoke is the closest to new: this episode debuted on Sunday, got an initial re-run that same night, and now later in the week is getting two more re-run in primetire/core time slots. Discovery has six hours of Mythbusters anchoring it's core times tonight: a debut of a new episode, a re-airing of that episode later in the night, two airings of last week's episode, and those four hours loosely wrapped by two older episodes (one going back to the first season of 2003). It's not limited to entertainment. MSNC's prime hours are largely packed by: 1 new Hardball 1 new Ed 1 new Last Word 1 new Rachel 2 Hardball re-airs 1 Ed re-air 2 Last Word re-airs 2 Rachel re-air That's 11 hours of "programing" that are really just 4 "new" hours. The balance of Food and Discoveries programing day (i.e. morning and afternoon) are filled up with a lot of re-run stuff. One of the times these discussions come up, I should probably sift through Food and Discovery for a Month to see just how many hours of "debut" material they show in a Day / Week / Month. I think it would surprise us just how little it is. Anyway, think of just one night's primetime of the WWE Channel being eaten up this way: "Friday Night PPV's" Let's just say that we don't edit any of the show out. I know that's not likely given thing like Benoit and whoever else is on the shitlist this week, but let's go with that. PPV is roughly 3 hours. With TV, a 1 hour block is roughly 40 minutes of programming and 20 minutes of commercials. Not perfect, but on a DVD it tends to be "42 minutes" of which a chunk is opening and closing credits, though they are getting wiser on that (many shows don't have old school credits, and instead roll even the lead actors names under the actually action of the current episode). Many shows on cable have teasers and resets built into the 42 minutes to preview what's coming up and what just happened... which sucks, but it's there. The WWE would also likely do new "wraps" such as what we see Mean Gene doing on MSG Classics, which eats up time. Anyway... 40 minutes of programing, 20 minutes of commericals + other crap. A "three hour PPV" could easily be tossed into a 4 hour time slot. Then instantly re-aired. 7-11pm 11pm-2am There's 8 hours, your entire Friday night core. 12 PPV's a month from 1996-2011 in the WWF/WWE. Set aside that some of them were IYH that were shorter, because we're not factoting in the Mania's that are longer... or the times the WWE/WWF ran extra shows in month, or anything else like that. Just a simple 12 PPV times 16 years. That's 192 PPVs. That's 3.69 years of Friday Night PPVS. Wait... We haven't counted 1985-1995. Or WCW. Or ECW. Or other oddball things like Shea Stadium, UK PPVs, early pre-ppv Starcardes / Crockett Cup, all of the WCW PPVs, ECW PPVS. Conservatively 7 years of Friday Night PPVs? And each year they generate another 12 to add onto the end of the run? That's one night, it doesn't seem like much... But Raw has been two hours for how long? Use it as an anchor for a night. 2 hours + Re-Air = 4 core hours eaten up. Same for Smackdown, Nitro, Thunder. Those have shorter runs, but still eat up time. Stuff like old Crockett and World Class and WCW and SuperStars and Challenge can eat up the daytime / afternoon There would be a certain amount of New For WWE Channel programing created, along the lines of the Roundtables and the Bios, etc. You probably also want to create some show that in a sense form a weekly wrap up of what's going on the various shows. You probably want to air this after all new current programming (i.e. Raw and SD) airs. In addition, something like "Road To [insert Current PPV Coming Up]" is an easy thing to roll out on PPV day. There are a ton of cheap things they can do. I think some of us have also advocated them running a Live Saturday Night House Show. Don't run it like Raw or Smackdown with over the top production and backstage stuff, but in a sense like a spiffed up house. They run Raw and Smackdown on Saturdays, so this allows you to alternate them so it's not the same crew every night. It also lets you do think to cover for when one is out of the country and it might be expensive to send in a film crew (Mexico recently). Also, with an every-other-week aspect, you can adjust your booking on cards so that you're not giving everything away nor be stressed to come up with 52 different cards, but instead 26 (or less if you do things like the HOF on the WWE Channel). Two major reasons to run live? * Live programing draws more eyes on TV * TV shows draw more than House shows in the arenas Raw and SD tv tapings draw more than non-tapings. This had the potential to bump some attendance. On the other side, Live Saturday is likely to be the biggest draw of the week on the Channel, despite the night of the week. It will out draw any old re-run they'd thrown on Saturdays. Cost likely can be kept cheap: don't throw a shitload into the production side. You want to do it professionally, but don't go insane. It should be budgeted for a fraction of what Raw and SD are costing. The other easy thing for them to do is work with their current Raw/SD partners so that with the next contract, the WWE Channel airs the prior week's episode in the two hour block before the new Raw/SD airs. In a sense a "lead in", and flip over to the partner's channel. It's a small thing, but in a sense creates a four hour WWE viewing block those two nights. Anyway, there are a lot of things like this they can do. We did the math at some point, and it was major huge. Very few cable channels have launched with as much in the vault as the WWE has. And probably few of them can as cheaply create "new" content as the WWE can. Creating new content like the Mythbusters takes a lot of time, a large staff, five on air people doing something new, etc. Doing a "Shawn's Greatest At Mania" show could take almost nothing of you go bare bones of just airing the matches with no new comments or wraps. Even simple wraps that don't feature new on-air speaking (i.e. Mean Gene or even Shawn talking about them) cost little. Vince should have done this a long time ago. I'm a broken record on this: the time for it was at the time they jerked off with the XFL. All those resources and good will toss at this... really dumb not to have done it. John

My thought would be to ease away from the Bix & Phil vs XX stuff. Let Loss and Will figure out what they want to do with it, but there isn't any good from any of the rest of us piling on or working the fringes of their discussion. John