jdw

Come on Loss. Dirtiest Player In The Game vs The Enforcer We're suppose to think this was going to be Billy Robinson vs Verne Gagne working a technical match? Christ, neither of them were technical wrestlers. They were brawlers and fighters who bled all over the place for more than a decade. Note: I'm setting aside the Stooging Bitching Heels who don't beat anyone aspect since that probably doesn't work well in any Arn vs Flair feud. To expect them to "wrestle" was laughable at the time. Terry Funk wanted to prove he could "hang" with Ric Flair in 1989. Go back and watch how Terry brought *hate* to those matches, and it's not like he was fighting someone whose ass he'd been covering for years. Terry just wanted to prove he wasn't washed up, that he still warranted a chance at the title... and he still was a hateful fucker opposite Ric. John

You're giving too much credit to WCW. At the time, it felt like the "fuck over of Sting" was because: * they were done with Ric-Arn and had nowhere else to go * Ric was always more comfy working heel by that point, so the flip ws going to happen * Sting is a dumb fuck constantly trusting people he shouldn't and who is surprised when another turns on him Elaborate measures? No, just seem like they were throwing shit on the wall, praying something would stick. John

Watched them both back in 1994 on their initial airing. Was looking forward to them as an opponent that Ric could work with rather than someone like Vader that he couldn't. Both bored the living shit out of me. I'll eventually watch them again, but I doubt my opinion will change. Even the Flair-Steamboat matches that I loved at the time (such as the 1989 trio) are matches that are akin to pulling teeth for me to get through when re-watching them. Not terribly likely that a pair of matches I thought were mediocre at the time are going to wear better with me. John

Really boring, mediocre matches. The match with Arn sucked. I've made this analogy before: These are two "brothers" finally fighting. Has anyone here seen brothers *really* fight? Not the jawing shit, or the shoving shit that gets broken up by Paw, or the drunken shit where they'rejust being stupid... but the *real* drag out fighting? I've seen at least three sets of brothers from three different families with a wide age range go it, and there isn't anything like it (unless one wants to go to Husband vs Wife). No matter how much the two love each other there's years of deep seated feelings boiling over, every little thing each has fucking hated about each other... it's about as close to murderous rage coming out as you'll see where it doesn't cross that line. Just fucking wailing away at each other, not being able to turn it off. We made "bringing the hate" one of the great bullshit tropes of the past 15 years of online conversation, but wrestling "hate" is comic book shit in comp. Flair vs Arn? Weak ass hate. The two of them just couldn't bring it off... fuck it, let's be honest: they were too fucking stupid as wrestlers to tap into it and even attempt it. A hateless match, when it should have been their most hateful of matches. You think Terry Funk would have been as much of a fuck up if he had to work a feud with Dory where the storyline was real Brother vs Brother stuff? Did anyone think Ric was losing? The retirement angle simply meant he was a lock to win. It wasn't like he was wrestling Hogan or it was a match against Taker at Mania. Ric sold the fuck out of the storyline. WCW, as shitty as they were through that era, for once had their ham handedness work well in a storyline. But... The match was painful to watch, and not in a "good painful" way either. Ric was uncomfortable as an opponent for Vader, so clearly someone out of a time warp dropped into a match against someone from an entirely different era. Hansen was about the same age as Flair, working for damn near as long. We can watch the 7/93 Hansen vs Kobashi (Stan against a wrestler for a newer era) and the 12/93 Flair vs Vader, and which of the three workers just don't fit at all in their match? It's not even that Ric takes "a good beating". It's sad and pathetic to watch him take it. Watch the older Inoki on the 1996 set take a beating from Vader. It's another Old Man getting beat up by Leon, but vastly more impressive in taking the ass kicking. With Ric, it's almost like Leon is holding back at times, at those in that Benoit vs DDP mode where Benoit had to slow and dumb down his shit so that DDP could keep up / not get exposed to much. With Inoki, Leon wasn't slowing down when handing out the beating. I'm not going to say this match sucked. But it was wildly overrated at the time by people caught up in... well.. what in the hell where they caught up in? Ric wasn't losing. It's like saying you're caught up at the end of Season 1 of Justified in the big shoot out thinking Raylan is going to get killed? You're joking, right? If course he's not getting killed... we all know that. Instead, the writers put a couple of other people at risk as well, and while we knew Raylan was making it, there was some doubt in there that some other characters that some in the audience might have liked would make it. So some drama there... and what would happen to lead heel Bo, and those Miami fuckers, and Raylan's old man... there was some twisty shit to sort out there. Flair-Vader didn't have that. Ric was winning. I guess some might delude themselves into the drama of "How is Ric going to beat the Monster"... but come on, it's Ric Fucking Flair. He wins by weak, cheap as shit. The "how" is never terribly interesting in Ric's matches. It's a "spectacle", but really not a great one. Riki vs Tenryu pulled off spectacle better. I don't remember what Taboo Tuesday was. One of his matches with Trip, or with Foley. Yikes those were terrible. The match with Shawn was actually pretty laughable. That would be Riki Choshu. Ric's work isn't as cerebral as Bob's. Ric is probably somewhere along the lines of McCartney and Elvis. Though not remotely as popular as either of them at their peaks. I'm a Flair Fan, but I got tired of watching him in 1993/94 and wish he'd just gotten out of the ring for good. I'm dumb founded that he's still working almost 20 years later, and only gotten increasingly pathetic and embarassing. We've spent 15 or so years of getting to see what would have happened if they hadn't put a cap in Old Yeller's head. John

Hash is the one who gets the win over Tenryu as the NJPW vs WAR feud ended. Basically *the* end. Right after Tenryu got the biggest New Japan scalp of them all. John

When reading the first post, I knew that someone would say just that within and hour of the time stamp. Others caught Steamer, pointing to the "heel" aspect. Mutoh stands out to me as being an odd one. We can take someone like Kawada who hit the majority of them... frankly almost all of them. But the "style" thing makes you pause a but. Hansen worked differently on some level than Misawa did, but it it really a "style" thing? Albright worked different from your standard AJPW worker, and Kawada's first singles match against him is probably as good as Gary ever looked in AJPW. But is Kawada "changing his style", or is it a bit more than Kawada's style fit better with Gary than anyone else in AJPW, and that Kawada was able to take things in his own style that lined up well with some other things someone else did who had good matches with Gary (i.e. Takada)? I'm not sure. It was a tremendous performance by Kawada, but a style change? Hmmm... not sure. It's tough to find people who fit everything. Jumbo? I guess... maybe... kind of. John

Very high covers a lot of ground. I'm very high on Hogan vs Orndorff at The Big Event. But I wouldn't pimp it as ***** or even ****. I wouldn't pimp it as one of the best matches in the world in 1986... or even one of the best matches in the US in 1986... I'm not even sure where I would have it among the best matches in the WWF of 1986. But it's something of a spectacle in the era before heavy PPV rotation. It captures that the feud was a Big Fucking Deal, the two work well together (Brain is good too), and it's pretty damn watchable. I'm not even sure if it was a match any of us talked about much a decade ago, except from the aspect of "Hogan vs Orndorff was a big drawing feud" with this being the prime example. So I'm very high on watching it nearly a quarter century after it took place and really getting a good feel for what was hot in the WWF at the time, and how this big match delivered for the fans. There are tons of matches like that. I've long since dropped snowflakes to rate matches, and instead try to be descriptive in saying something is a match people should check out and why. But I'm not sure that's terribly helpful to folks trying to collect definative matches on why someone is an all-time great worker. I'm high on Jumbo vs Animal. But I don't offer it up as an example of Jumbo being an all-time great, nor as one of his great matches. I've pointed to it for different reasons, very specifically to other issues people have raised about Jumbo ("Jumbo Was Lazy") and also how people can see different things from different matches ("I don't think Jumbo wanted it to be this good"). Thoseare wildly different from say offering up Jumbo-Kerry as an example of Jumbo being exceptional and Kerry being, at the top of his game, better than what a lot of us might have thought. I think a lot of people like Ted vs Virgil. Folks liked it back when it happened, and the series got comments about being better than people thought it would be. But is it the MOTYC from Ted that people want to see? John

My recollection is that Tony played a big role in keeping Ross from coming back. Tony hated Ross going back to the days of essentially taking Tony's job, Tony heading to the WWF for that stretch, and never wanted to see Ross come back to the company. I'm not sure if there was any bad blood between Ross and Eric at the time when Ross had his falling out with Vince. But there was a reason Ross went to SMW: the natural place for him to go was blocked. He either was heading back to Vince eventually, or he was fucked. The irony is that in the long run it worked out. When returning to the WWF he eventually got the executive gig, took over Raw when Vince realized it was time to get out of the booth, and pretty much was an institution at the peak of the company. On never knows if he was smart with his money, but it turned out well. Even with all the times the WWE tried to ease him out after, he retained both an on-air and a paying gig for a lot longer than his peers in the mid-90s. Of course Tenay has gotten lucky that TNA had a money mark and he's ended up with a gig longer than I suspect he even expected. John

I don't think there's a lot of restraint. This is how tags were worked up to that point, and they certainly did set out to have a great match. I think our minds miss some of the context because a lot of us have come to Misawa & Kobashi/Akiyama vs Kawada & Taue (and frankly all AJPW tags) from the other direction: later matches working back. Things changed with the 5/94 match between the teams. Same old structure of working to fill space early before picking it up for the run to the finish. Slightly different in storyline: this was a first match feel while the 5/94 match had teams that had gone around the block with each other, knew their shit and they could get down to something like destroying Kobashi's knee. Then they picked things up. 6/93 had what was becoming the standard: 7-10 minutes of run to the finish. Perhaps longer here than some others, but not really standing out... other than they did it really well. 5/94 went past the 29:12 mark of the first match... went past 30 as some other Tag Title matches had and lots of RWTL matches got to... at 35 it was a really long run to the finish... it hit 40 and you're in Holy Shit uncharted waters for what AJPW had been doing. And that run to the finish was Really Good, not quite yet at the insane over the top crap we'd see later in the decade (and beyond). It felt like a match that "could happen" given the teams rather than one where they were trying to hard to have an epic... hell, it wasn't even at Budokan. And much of what followed tracked closer to the 5/94 template than 6/93. In a way, 6/93 a bit of climax to where they'd been going, 12/93 was the resolution (very much a story match), and 5/94 started a new series of "books". I suspect it's easier for folks to go back now in something like a Yearbook setting and/or starting at the front of the decade and working forward and appreciate this match than how it's been for much of the past decade and a half: "You gotta check out 6/95 & 12/96, brother. Then 5/94 and 10/95. If you want a story match, get 12/93." Which leaves 6/93 an after thought and only seen in the context of coming after the wrestlers moved onto an entirely new series of books/adventures. We have a little of that with the 1996 yearbook being out first, and it has in the sense the climax of the next series of books: 12/96. John

Yeah, Spivey-Sting is a fun match. It and Spivey-Lex are kind of eye openers in the "Damn... Danny was pretty decent there for a stretch... how in the hell did that happen?" way. John

It was one of the three most pushed matches: Taker-Trip, Lawler-Cole, Cena-Miz-Rock. One can argue about where each one fit in, but clearly Taker-Trip was extremely pushed. This wasn't a Mania where there was a Hogan-Andre and everything else paled. Of the other pushed matches, neither of them was a MOTYC On Paper. Despite the injuries, pretty much everyone has seen Taker "suck it up" to have matches that folks/fans like despite being a mess. I suspect everyone also knew this would be a theatrical dramatic as all hell match that was going to at least *attempt* to be a worthy Taker Mania Streak Match. Who exactly were they stealing the show from? It would be like saying Hansen-Kawada stole the show on the 2/93 Budokan. They weren't in the main event. Misawa was defending the TC in the main. But: * it was Taue in there with Misawa, and he'd never mained Budokan in a singles * Hansen-Kawada won a big award the last time they were against each other in a single * it wasn't like Hansen or Kawada wasn't going to try to have a good match It wasn't the Most Pushed match on the card, but it was pushed fairly strong relative to other storylines. It wasn't the Main Event, but popped into the Semi at a time when AJPW often put pretty damn good matches into Semis/Double Main Events. When I think of Stealing The Show, I'd think more along the lines of the 06/05/89 Footloose vs Can-Ams if Jumbo-Tenryu happened to suck. It's not like people didn't think the tag match didn't have a shot to be good, but folks probably didn't think *that* good. It was the 7th match on an 11 match card, with the following above it: * big push for Sting, who was given a fairly well push recent addition in Spivey as an opponent * "dream match" of Hansen & Gordy vs the Bulldogs * "top match in the promotion" of Jumbo-Tenryu Footloose vs Can-Ams was for belts that kind of meant extremely little in All Japan prior to the Footloose getting them. Can-Ams were just getting their push going. I don't remember the Yatsu-Takano storyline, which was positioned between the All Asian Tag match and the Sting-Spivey. Down below, MomotoMania was getting a push. One could say Footloose vs Can-Ams stole the card prior to the main event... and that's pretty close to an example of what we mean by Stole The Show. Of course the main was great, and it turned into a card with two hardcore favorites. I don't think anyone would say Taker-Trip was like that. Probably the opposite: it was the Jumbo-Tenryu, and if they had a spectacle it clearly was going to end up the memorable match of the night. John

We really need to stop using the term "stole the show" for matches that are massively pushed and that no one is surprised were good. Was anyone really surprised that Taker-Shawn I was a match that people liked? Or that Taker and Trip would pull out all the stops to have something that could follow the last two matches with Shawn? If not "top", at least not look like dogshit to fans relative to the last few Taker Mania matches? Did people really have the Star Calculator out for Cena-Miz thinking that it was going to be Misawa-Kobashi? If folks think Taker-Trip might bust their ass to have a good match in a massively pushed match, and folks weren't exactly thinking Cena-Miz was a dunker MOTYC on paper... then there's no stealing. Fan X: "Flair and Steamboat really stole the show at Clash of the Champions VI." jdw: "You're kidding me, right? It was the most pushed match on the card." Fan X: "Well... they had the best match on the card." jdw: "And you were expecting JYD vs Reed to be better? Admit it: you're fucking with me, right?" Fan X: "Um... er..." John

I never said I don't care about wrestling. I think I might have been the second person online to say that "prime" Dory was boring as all hell at matwork. Frank would have been the first. Dean may have been busting cracks at Dory looking like a shop teacher or something, but I don't think it was directed at Dory putting matches to sleep with some of his mat work. I'd offer up the Funks vs Baba & Jumbo and Funks vs Robinson & Hoffman matches from the 1977 tag league. Each are 45:00 draws, so there's 90 minutes to watch the six of them work, and see how each does stuff on the mat or working holds. Dory's pretty not-so-hot. On the other hand, I'd recommend (and have often) his singles match from 1975 with Hoffman. It seemed like Horst really pushed Dory outside his normal comfort zone, and Dory responed really well. One of my favorite matches of the 70s because it's so different from most of the usual types of stuff you'd see in All Japan and New Japan. There also is a Dory-Baron Von Rascke that was surprisingly good. I don't think Dory completely sucked, or even that his matwork was 100% always sucky. There are some in the 70s that are more painful, like Sakaguchi being just horrible in a match with Pedro Morales. I also think that matwork wasn't something that Race was very strong at... pretty pedestrian and repetative. But Dory as the Master of Matwork is problematic. John

The tough thing about "Dory's Prime" is that back in the mid-80s, no one was saying that Dory's Prime was limited to the four years where he was Champ. He was 33 when he dropped the title. I don't recall ever reading anything in the 80s that he got "lazy" like say Jumbo did. Dory rep was thought to be a very good worker into the early 80s. Look at the ages: 02/03/41 Dory Funk Jr. 09/21/41 Jack Brisco 04/11/43 Harley Race 06/30/44 Terry Funk All in the same generation. Terry and Harley had good matches well into the 80s, and no one every said that Dory slowed because of injuries or made up any bullshit excuse for his work (i.e. "Brody didn't bump on his back due to a bad back.") Allegedly, Dory was thought of as one of the top workers in the world through the entire 70s, a decade where he hadn't yet turned 40 by the end of. So we can take that and take a step back: There's frankly *more* video of Dory in the 60s and 70s than most top workers. There's more Dory than there is Brisco. AJPW Classics is our pimary source for both, and there is a ton of Dory. I think it would be safe to say there's more Dory than Terry as well, especially singles matches... quite a bit more in the 70s. There may be more Race singles matches, as they both participated in the 1975 AJPW singles league and then Harley had a fair number of world title matches that have popped up on Classics or been hunted down by people like Dan. On the other, Dory swamps him with all the tag matches that are available. I suspect we get to see Dory in there with a wider number of opponents in the 70s than Harley as well. My guess is that there's more complete/mostly complete "competative" Dory matches from the 70 than Backlund, Flair, Terry, Brisco, Bockwinkel, Race, Beyers... perhaps any gaijin. Only guys like Inoki, Baba and Jumbo have more matches available. Which takes us to: 07/11/30 The Destroyer 12/06/34 Nick Bockwinkel If we're going to claim that Dory was somehow past his prime and washed up the instant he lost the title, and all those matches of his available in 1974-79 somehow don't reflect him at his best... we run into the problem of Beyers. I think even Yohe would admit he was better in the early/mid 60s in Los Angeles than in the 1969 match with Baba (when he was 38) or the matches with Mil (when he was in his 40s). Yet it's safe to say he looked good in those matches. Same goes for Bock. Who in the heck knows when he peak was. Early 70s taggng with Stevens (when he was in his late 30s)? Second half of the 70s when he was Champ (and past 40)? Regardless, there are examples of him looking good into the 80s... and he's six years older than Dory. There's a lot of Dory out there. There are the matches with Inoki, and one I believe with Sak, to show what he looked like as a touring champ. There are matches with him opposite Bisco. You get to see him as a vet opposite young gun Jumbo. You get to see him facing all sorts of folks. It's pretty hard to say there aren't enough matches out there to draw an opinion on Dory. John

My recollection is that he was negative to Moolah before I was negative to Moolah. I didn't need to jog anything. John

My memory if differ from Dave's, though not a 180. My recollection is that both of us didn't think she deserved to be in. I mean... folks who have the WON's in the 80s can read what he had to say about Moolah back then, and none of it was positive or would give much indication that he thought she was an all-time great. John

I remember being bored by those three matches. On the other hand, they did all finish quite well in the voting (8-18-23), so my opinion on them is an outlier. John

I've written this before... probably several times over the last 15 years. This is pretty much that match that made Misawa the Ace. 08/92 - knocks out Hansen to win the TC 10/92 - defends against Kawada 12/92 - wins RWTL with Kawada over Taue & Akiyama 01/93 - drops World Tag Title to Gordy & Williams 02/93 - defends against Taue 03/93 - Carny loss to Hansen 04/93 - Carny loss to Gordy 04/93 - Carny Final loss to Hansen I'm leaving out other matches that he "should" have won: non-title with Taue in 10/92, Carny wins over Kawada, Taue and Kobashi, along with a Carny win over Doc. But... * The RWTL win is lessed because Jumbo was out. * The two TC defenses are against lower ranked natives that he's never lost to. * Instantly dropped the Tag Titles to a regular, top team. * 0-3 in the Carny against former TC Champs So the match against Hansen to win the TC is starting to look like a fluke. He caught Hansen with a knockout elbow. He got lucky there, then lucky that he didn't have to defend against Jumbo. The belts on the line, he sucks it up and wins. This pretty much set the patern for him the rest of the year. He may lose some matches, but the next time he'd be in a TC match with someone who beat him, Misawa would show who the ace was. John

So I'm told that on Wed's show that Dave blamed me again for Moolah not being in the HOF. John

Looks like WO-4 is trying to run a script from z4kf.cz.cc. Symantec on my system didn't like it at all. John

When did Big Blue debut in the WWF? I know they used it for Mania II for the Hogan-Bundy. It also was used in the SNME Hogan-Orndorff. My recollection is that the Hogan-Muraco cage match in MSG in 1985 was in the normal wire cage. Bruno & Tito vs Savage & Adonis was in an old style cage. Superstar vs Reed was in Big Blue in 1987. Savage-DiBiase in MSG was in Big Blue, and it looks like the rest through the decade in MSG were as well. Bruno-Piper and Hogan-Orndorff in Philly was in an old cage in 1986. Savage-Honky in Philly was in an old cage in early 1988, but Savage-Ted in Philly was in Big Blue. Hogan-Bossman in Boston was an old cage, while the MSG and SNME ones were in Big Blue. Savage & Strikforce vs Honky & the Hart Foundation was in the old cage. It wasn't exactly consistent across the board in how they moved, but: * Big Blue was on the PPV's and SNME * it seems that MSG transistioned to using Big Blue in 1987 * other arenas were slower in transitioning John

The two things that seemed likely: * easier to shoot through as mentioned * safer to climb The second strikes me as a Hogan thing. And not entirely a dumb reason. John

Here are the matces in 1997: WCW @ Salt Lake City, UT - E Center - September 22, 1997 (7,923) Monday Nitro: Bill Goldberg pinned Hugh Morrus with the Jackhammer at 2:43; late in the bout, Goldberg kicked out of Morrus' moonsault; after the bout, Gene Okerlund attempted to interview Goldberg in the aisle but Goldberg walked off (Goldberg's TV debut) WCW @ Worcester, MA - Centrum - September 29, 1997 Monday Nitro: Bill Goldberg pinned the Barbarian with the Jackhammer WCW @ Dalton, GA - October 1, 1997 WCW Saturday Night taping: Bill Goldberg defeated Roadblock WCW @ Orlando, FL - Universal Studios - October 10, 1997 WCW Saturday Night taping: Bill Goldberg defeated Manny Fernandez WCW @ Tampa, FL - Ice Palace - October 13, 1997 (12,000) Monday Nitro Bill Goldberg pinned Scotty Riggs with the Jackhammer at 2:36; prior to the bout, Raven, Perry Saturn, and another man were shown in the audience (the debut of Sick Boy); Mike Tenay mentioned during the bout that there had been talk that Judo Gene LaBell might be wanting to train Goldberg WCW @ Biloxi, MS - Mississippi Coast Coliseum - October 20, 1997 (5,950) Monday Nitro: Bill Goldberg pinned Wrath at the 20-second mark WCW @ San Diego, CA - Cox Arena - October 27, 1997 (6,281) Monday Nitro: WCW TV Champion Disco Inferno fought Bill Goldberg to a no contest WCW @ Gainesville, GA - Georgia Mountains Center - December 16, 1997 (1,494 paid; sell out) WCW Saturday Night: Bill Goldberg defeated the Renegade Starrcade 97 - Washington DC - MCI Center - December 28, 1997 (17,500) Bill Goldberg pinned Steve McMichael with the Jackhammer WCW @ Baltimore, MD - Arena - December 29, 1996 (12,196; 11,040 paid; sell out) Monday Nitro Bill Goldberg pinned Glacier at 1:00 with the Jackhammer; prior to the bout, Raven's Flock was shown sitting ringside The WCWSN guys were very much the mid/late 90s equiv of jobbers. Renegade was pretty much the equiv of a pre-Power & Glory Jim Powers type. He'd beat heel jobbers on WCWSN, and lose to higher ranked wrestlers... which was far more people than not. Run through what he was up to on WCWSN and Pro in 1997 with Ctrl+F: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/wcw97.htm It's Jim Powers / Barry Horowitz level stuff. He'd trade wins with people at his own level, and lose to low level guys like Hugh above him. By that point, Hugh was the same thing, just one of the Top Jobbers. Again, it's the equiv of the era. When you rolled those guys out on Nitro against Page or Mongo, you knew what was going down. Things had already morphed by then. The Mulky types were practically dead, replaced by a bunch of Italion Stallions and Jim Powers. John

On the Fatal Fourway, it's been years since I've read the specific plan of it and it sticks in my head far less as it's not as interesting as Shawn's crybaby spot. But it's pretty clear that with the plan changing from Shawn --> Sid that the winner of the Four Way would be Taker to set up Taker vs Sid. Now whether they would have had Shawn cause Bret to lose to set up their match, or simply book something on the next Raw or two... don't recall that either. Don't even know if anyone every rolled out what the detailed plans were since: * Vince changed his mind suddenly to going back to Big Guys In The Main * those plans were instantly trashed when Shawn lost his smile John

Was he supposed to job to Sid in Feb '97?. That would have blown the presumed Bret-HBK rematch at WM13 out of the water. The way I recall it was HBK going over and coming into Mania as champ facing Bret who would have won the #1 contender spot at Final Four. Vince decided to change to Sid defending the belt against Taker with Shawn vs Bret as a non-title match. Shawn was told he was going to lose the title to Sid on that special Thursday Night Raw (02/13/97) in addition to the payback job to Bret at Mania, and suddenly his smile went. It was in the Torch, and I'm sure that Dave has mentioned it quite a few times over the years. It's been out there for sol long that just tossing it out refreshed Jerome's memory. John