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I wish the full version of that was out there somewhere. I wish Classics went through all of 1991 and into 1992 rather than end its run in mid-1990. Though Dan has mentioned that there is a variation of Classics that possibly went into 1991. You might be right there. I think in just about any era of the WWF that you would have wanted this version of the Can-Ams to start off as heels. It would be possible to turn them at the right time and against the right opponents, similar to the MX (or could have been done with Arn & Tully, though obviously they would have preferred to work as heels). Agreed the the Lafon thing was dumb. John

There are times where Kroffat worked face in peril well. I'm recalling a title match with Fuchi in 1991 where he was coming back from a knee injury, Fuchi destroyed the knee, and Kroffat sold the fuck out of it. He was better as a dick heel, and not consistently great as a face or face in peril, but I do think there were times in AJPW where he pulled it off. John

Do people really talk about the various Hase-Mutoh/Muta matches as being great old school matches? I thought people largely talked about them being bloodbaths. Maybe someone has talked about the blood aspects being Old School, which in a sense might be correct. Just don't think anyone ever thought the Hase-Muta were mat matches. John

I think the title match is a bit better. The finish here felt less like "Hey cool Hase gets the upset!" and instead more like "Well, it's Choshu booking and it's Hase's turn to get an upset". Not a massive knock, but Choshu had so many of these upsets that this one didn't hit me much. Tenzan over Hash or even Kojima over Kosh in the 1996 G1 seemed to have a better upset vibe, probably since it was the Young Guy pulling it off rather than Hase actually being older than Hash. The finish of the title match seemed to hit the spot better: Hash is pushed more than he would have expected from a guy a ways down the Challenger List, but Hash eventually puts him away. John

That refreshes my memory. John

Their ECW run was impacted by them: * being physically a mess by that point * them just viewing ECW as a "pass though" to cash in on a contract with either WCW or ECW Even if healthy and in their prime, they probably would have hit WCW or WWF in that era at the wrong time: one without managers getting paired often enough with solid tag teams that couldn't really talk. They would have fit better into the Midnight Express era of 1984-90, though even by the tail end of that there was a movement away from managers begining in the WWF and WCW. John

I disagree with this point. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...amp;oq=wayne+gr http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...ackson&aq=f It's imperfect, but there are a similar number of Bo highlights as there are Wayne highlights on Youtube. Mike is on a different level: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;oq=michael+jo That's a basic search. On could do different ones to find more Wayne, such as looking for the Oilers and the Cup. But something similar could be done with Bo and Auburn. I do agree with the notion that Wayne is Ruthian, and Bo isn't. Globally, of course Wayne is bigger. John

Ouch~! I missed that one. John

I think Steve has written something about that. Don't recall if it was on tOA years ago, or more likely on the Lou Board over on Classics... or somewhere else on Classics. I know I've had conversations with him about it, and he certainly enjoyed it that Verne got his ass kicked. There were pretty loaded cards if I recall correctly. John

It never really went south. Dave plugged everything in the 80s and early 90s. Then as the "Readers Page", especially the shilling section of it, died over a few years, Dave didn't really plug anything. Other people had issues with that (take some guesses), but Wade never really did. As Wade has said a dozen times, including in a thread on his board in the past month or so, Wade just set out on his own path at a certain point. You cover the same stuff, and you talk to Dave all the time, and your eventually reporting "Dave". I'm sure folks who've read the Figure 4 a lot of years, especially before Bryan developed his own sources in the business (I assume he did), people who read both probably could pick out the "Dave" in the Figure 4. Wade wanted to have the Torch stand on it's own. It wasn't a feud, just that if you're going to Newsweek opposite of Time, you probably don't want to be comparing notes on every piece you both run. Wade has often pointed to (and I'm sure Dave would if you cornered him) that Bruce is something of a filter between the two. Bruce talks to Dave all the time, pretty much daily if they have the time. Bruce talks to Wade all the time, again daily. Wade and Dave can get a sense of what the other one has on a story through Bruce, if they cared to know. I think for the most part they don't seek it out. When I first started dealing with Wade in 1995, he already was in the early part of going his own way. I'd been dealing with Dave for a few years by that point. The time I was with them together (Bash at the Beach weekend), they got along very well, and I think to this day they'd have the same thing to say about that PPV: the waves were better than the show. The WCW/Fusient thing didn't change anything. They had different sources. Wade stood by his version of what was happening, even if Dave was reporting some different things. Wade ended up being the more correct in covering it. Wade is correctly proud of his coverage of it. I think looking back we were lucky to not only have two people covering it, and that Wade had made that decision more than a half decade early to build his own coverage rather than have the Torch be "Dave Jr. + Columnists". Someone who read the Fig-4 through that period could highlight whether Bryan's news on that story was along the lines of what Dave was reporting, or if he had anything different. John

I think Trans World is just what they called the World Title, a fake governing body similar to Baba's PWF. That was Lou and Hodge in IWE, and the belt quickly died. IWE went on without them and had a slew of titles before narrowing down into the World Title and the Tag Title. Inoki's was Tokyo-Sports, which sorta also was IWE. Inoki's crapped out quickly, collapsed, and IWE rebooted the following year with that series that had Lou and Hodge. I'd love to read a detailed history of it by someone who knows it. I've seen the results through 1972 or 1973, and it's interesting how it evolved. Kobayashi evolving into the Ace, but Kimura at the same time having his Cage Match gimmick at the top of the cards as well. The results don't quite read like the promotion that they started out with in 1968 intended to be where they were in 1971, but they ended up there anyway. A pretty strong contrast to say NJPW or AJPW, who in 1975 were pretty much on the path they were leading out of 1972, with minor adjustments (such as Sak ending up in NJPW). John

Patera was awesome in 1980. John

I haven't read them in a lot time, but would suspect they got some mention in the 1996 G1 issue and even more likely in the Inoki "retirement" issue if Dave did a bio (seem to recall that he did). I think some of the more recent play was due to people other than Inoki who were involved in it either dying in the past few years or making the HOF. It would make for interesting history of someone from Japan wrote it up in detail, as I don't know if Dave has ever really detailed it well. There was the Tokyo-Pro Wrestling with Inoki opposition, which sort of morphed/co-promoted with IWE. That died a quick death in 1967 and Inoki smarted up to run back home to JWA. IWE then re-opened, sort of felt their way around in 1968 before settling down into a long term promotion. John

I'm a Beatles fan. Likely a bigger Beatles fan than anyone on this board... jesus, I use to go to Beatles conventions when I'd never get caught dead at a pro wrestling convention if my life depended on it. I don't think Outkast are bigger than the Beatles. I simply point to them as an example of something that was huge that years later (frankly not many) aren't a blip on the radar. As far as the "Wow... Paul was in a band before Wings?" quote, my general take would be that if one hasn't heard the joke, one isn't a huge Beatles fan. It's a joke that Paul himself has commented over the years, and not really to put over Wings. Simply as a sign of how things move along. It's old and famous: http://ask.metafilter.com/177032/You-mean-...nd-before-Wings I suspect I could fill the thread with 250 links to joke without much effort... google search has 4.3M hits. Just to be clear for anyone who thinks the biggest Beatles Fan on the boad is slogging the Beatles and so there's no misunderstanding: Bo isn't the Beatles. Wayne isn't the Beatles. Michael Jordan isn't the Beatles. Combine all three of those guys into one God of Sports, and they still aren't the Beatles. Clear? That said, it's not hard to find people who don't know dick about the Beatles. I could go one office over and I'd say it's a 80% chance that the person sitting in it doesn't know who they are. A bit too young, from another country, and he really isn't a music fan. On the other hand, he would know who Inoki and Baba were. John

I'm not saying the Beatles aren't known, or that they aren't known more than Bo. Of course they are. Simply an example of time moving forward. There's the old joke of "Wow... Paul was in a band before Wings?" It was around when I was a kid. Sure, a bad joke even then. But... We shouldn't underestimate the ability of things we think are Big to fade into the back ground. Outkast? John

As the Beatles Fan referenced above, I know. And I was pleased to see 1 end up being the best selling album of the decade 30 years after the Beatles split. Still, there are lots of people who don't know who the Beatles are. John

When I was in high school (1981-84), there was exactly one Beatles t-shirt that ever got worn by one person in that school. Of course the same person also wore Who, U2, Stones, Pretenders, Clash and a variety of other shirts. But a fair number of other folks wore those other shirts. The Beatles in that period were "known"... but that was less than 15 years after they'd split, a year after John got shot... and they were way in the background. Time passes rather fast. Bo was monsterous in the late 80s. To a generation he still has meaning. But it's on 20 years now. John

Freshmen in college and high school don't know the Beatles. It means... what? John

Like TJ for wrestling at the time. We weren't exactly a group of party heads at the time, so it was just for the wrestling. Did TJ while in college several times in the 80s. Hard to offer an opinion on it back then: one of a lot of drunk/stoned/high that fades in the mind after a 25 years. John

It's not my forte. But I did watch and go to AAA (Los Angeles, TJ, Mexicali, couple of big Guadalajara shows) in 1992-96. Panther-Love Machine turn was pretty memorable. The Panther & Santotito & Octagon vs Barr & Eddy & Fuerza Guerrera the following month in Los Angeles was heated as hell. Looks like it made the set, along with 3 other matches form that card. Pretty fun times. John

Perro was second of Love Machine (the face at the start of the match). Love Machine started going heel in the third fall. Went for the tombstone. Perro came in to stop him. Ref sees Perro in the ring, and DQ's Love Machine. Bye-bye hair. Perro is sorry. Love Machine isn't happy, so he goes off on Perro. Heel turn sealed. This is the rather famous double turn: Love Machine to heel, Panther to face. It was strange how quickly they turned Panther back heel. Panther is a damn good heel, but the fans were pretty strongly behind him at the first Los Angeles show after the turn, and I tend to think that was the case around the horn. There was at least a bit more run for him as a face, building towards at least something. Barr of course found his natural calling as a heel. John

There are a lot of matches like this that get lost in the mass of heavily pimped All Japan matches in the 90s. There are some that get a little pimping, like say the Can-Ams vs Kobashi & Asako that I've talked about over the years as being fun. There are some that were pimped when they happened, but quickly got lost. The Can-Ams vs Kawada & Kikuchi from early 1992 was highly rated when it popped up on tv, but within a couple of months the Can-Ams vs Kobashi & Kikuchi came along, and the earlier one become something of a throwaway. I haven't even watched it in a decade and a half, so don't even know if it holds up as being good relative to say MX vs Southern Boys. This had the good angle, built to Budokan, and quickly got forgotten as one of those "fall out of bed" matches thay they had in this period. John

Well, futbol is entirely different from hockey. Just about *every* country has people who follow the big boys on some level. We in the US follow it less than just about everyone. John

Awesome. John

We probably are mixing things up with Wayne. No one says that on a global level he is as big as Tiger or MJ. Hockey was/is rather big in eastern and northen Europe. It's not like Northern Europe is massive population base, but the percentage of the population that has some knowledge of hockey is pretty high. The analogy to Jackie Robinson isn't a great one. He played in the 40s and 50s, not in the 80s and 90s. Jackie never was "Baseball"... in the sense that Babe Ruth was Baseball, or Hulk Hogan was/is Wrestling for an era: that singular person that lots of people, including non-fans, think of when the word is thrown out. Wayne was Hockey. Still is to a lot of folks like his direct peer Hogan is still Wrestling to them. Is he becoming something of "yesterday's news" because it was the 80s and 90s not the 00s? Perhaps. But it's a bit like Inoki still being huge in Japan even though his salad days were the 60s and 70s and 80s: there remain a lot of people alive who saw him. I barely follow the Dodgers now, but I know who Garvey-Cey-Lopes-Russell were because they were who I watched when a kid. I'll remember Kirk Gibson's dinger until the brain goes. John