jdw

Some new stuff in Japan has popped up, such as IWE. Less AJPW and NJPW. Since the weekly stuff isn't available, it probably would be best to throw the three of them into one large set. A 70s Japan would be interesting down the road. Some WWF stuff trickles out. Overall, the amount of US stuff available is pretty light. That probably isn't going to change over time, other than perhaps all of the taped MSG & Spectrum shows getting released at some point. John

I agree: that is almost exactly what one could have predicted out of Madden. Corrected so that we can include Ric among the addicts and ne'er-do-wells that TNA harbors. John

This is pretty interesting. It is a bit hard to drop UWF-spawn into a bucket with Onita-spawn. But it does make for some smaller sets. You also have juniors stuff across MPro and WAR and FMW that stylitically isn't that different from one another, and the WAR and FMW jr's having a bit more in common with MPro than they do SWS/WAR heavies. Heck, there are those Big Japan jr's as well. There's also that mophing period where Hayabusa moves out of the juniors into some garbage then moves into FMW doing their mutated less-garbagey main events as the decade went on. When we think of garbage, we think of the death matches and the over the top stuff. Don't know if it's a promotion thing, or match-by-match thing, or... ECW gets tossed into big bucket, with Eddy-Dean right next to the Rottens. In a sense that's the way it is in Japan. I would think the one clear exception would be UWF-spawn since there is no blur there except when they work in other promotions like NJ and WAR. Looks to be. It and joshi are probably the two most interesting eventual 90s revists as the Usual Suspect will likely be greatly expanded and/or tossed to the curb. John

I suspect that all of us have faked our way through somethings in life. In this case, it's extremely easy to do because there's a thread on literally every match. If you see that 8 out of 8 poster that you respect/agree with usually hate the match, while one person you think is wrong all the time loves it, you can fake it. "Oh god no, not another match between X and Y. Looks like people on the board think this is worse than their other two, which I hated. Damn... Phil really hates this match. I'll just stick this down there in the 135-150 range with the others..." I understand the thought process in thinking it forces everyone to do it... but we're also all smart enough to know that people are going to watch it all if they want, and there are going to be people taking short cuts because they don't have time. John

There are so many people voting for matches that even an isolated #1 votes getting 100-175 points doesn't make much of an impact. 175+7 (175 for 1st plus the bonus points) would have had Inoki-Fujinami finish Dead Last. By a mile. Still, it would have been On The List. In fact, the "Sub 175" could be turned into the Write In Section. And in that one, 183 points might have come in #1 among the write-ins. There's value in that: these are matches that people thought highly enough to write in on, and here's how they ranked among those 10-15 matches. Usually worth taking a look at. The voter could be crackpot, or may have a point. I know it's not going to happen in the 80s project. Simply toss it out there as something to consider if it morphs into a 90s project in 5 years. We are likely to see a wider degree of what people like at that point, since it's what a lot of people on the DVDVR cut their teeth on... and opinion has changed over time. John

I agree on this. One thing to remember about the 90s voting is that expanded as it went along: 24 AJPW 22 NJPW 20 Joshi 7 Indy 29 Japan Indy 10 Lucha 22 ECW 44 WWF --------- 107 WCW If I recall correctly, there was some pimping with SKeith for the WCW poll? WWF was about what one would expect given the numbers for AJPW/NJPW/Joshi and Japan Indy (which was th DVDVR rage at the time). But WCW was a massive jump. The other ones largely represented DVDVR Poster Consensus at the time, while the WCW probably tapped into a wider base of fans. Won't touch whether that's was good or bad. Very much agree with that, though it would depend on how wide the voter base is. You do see in the 1996 discussions that the juniors stuff is still generally liked. This is one of those where it may be high on some ballots, and down at the bottom of the junior haters... and I'm not sure when you get that level of deviation whether you're getting anything useful out of it. Probably would radically change: 1990 UWF and the entire PWF promotion. Ctrl+F "fujiwara" on this page: http://www.deathvalleydriver.com/Bestof90s...ndyresults.html We all know that if there's a redo that's not going to pull a "No Matches Found". It's very Juniors intensive... don't know how well that would age with the voters. Top probably would probably be mostly Usual Suspects. If it's going 150 deep with a Set, there would be quite a bit more variety and probably see stuff that consistently gets "middle of the pack" votes do well. There were no Kawada vs Taue matches on the list. Suspect that would change. Agree that more early 90 would be on the list. Also suspect that there is a fair amount of stuff that aired in full on Sammy that didn't get watched at the time, such as the 1996-99 Tag Leagues, along with the 1997-99 Carny's. I know Ditch ran this again several years back, and wouldn't encourage anyone to do it again anytime soon. But if the 80's Project turns into a 90s Project once the long and winding road is done in several years, it would be interesting to revist the 90s of AJPW and NJPW after folks had seeing the 80s for those promotions. My guess is that JWP would get some high slots. Perhaps a very different batch of AJW matches would move up, while others slide down. I would be surprised if Toyota is still in 9 of the top 20 matches, and would suspect Hokuto moves up from just 3 out of the 20. There is so much more that is available that wasn't seen during those votes. So many commercial tapes, all the different promotions... this would a big project. 10 of the top 20 being Bret matches, #2-4-5-6 being Shawn matches. One wonders how much that would change. Lucha would change insanely. Probably the most interesting set/sets. I think there were some who wanted to be able to vote for Inoki-Fujinami. And from a "famous" standpoint, I tend to think you need to include certain matches that reach a certain level of fame. In the past, I haven't been a huge fan of Hogan-Andre. Don't know what I'll think of them when watching them coming up, as they're in the que. Still... there kind of needs to be a number of "This one was so famous we need to put it on even if it comes in #150" matches. Hogan-Andre at Mania pretty much is that. If it's not on the set, and you have someone like WP who loves it and wants to vote for it... I don't think it's bad. Fujinami-Inoki... perhaps not the Hogan-Andre of NJPW in the 80s, but pretty damn big. For all the knocks of the WWF set, and admitting that I was one to knock, it was excellent as a starting point. It got people into the project. It got people thinking about the project. Got people thinking about WWF in the 80s, which was pretty low on all of our radars. And help people think about ways to improve things down the road. The first car didn't go 0-60 in 4 seconds. Building the first car a important first step. The WWF set got the ball off the ground, and there'd be no project without it. You done good. John

I'm not violently ill over the process. Not to reopen the prior discussions, but simply give context in case anyone wonders what your referencing, I think my two issues/suggestions would be: * I'm not a fan of having to vote for all 100 / 150 / 175 / 200 I think the sets are terrific, and putting a lot of matches out there is a big positive. Just think that using them to create a ballot of 50 or 75 (roughly half of the number on the set) is more useful. Figuring out what is #136 and what's #137 on a ballot isn't terribly useful on a ballot. Leaving something off a ballot is a tougher call. I suspect that Will and others who put together the sets know this: leaving stuff off the sets are the toughest calls. * I think people should be able to include X number of wild cards If you happen to think Bob-Muraco is better than the Hogan-Muraco's that made the WWF set, and happen to think it's one of the best 75 matches of the decade in the WWF, you should be able to add it as a "write in". It's hard to argue that having good matches that might have been missed end up on the final results isn't a Good Thing. I've never argued that that X number should be 20 or 50 to turn the thing into a wide open wild, wild west. But a small 5-10 which could be used for matches that a voter passionately thinks are really good is a positive. Again, the sets are great, and the process has improved. Quibbles are minor, and go to rigidity. John

Is this better or roughly the same as their 04/22/86 MSG version of the match? Was updating my WWF 80s spreadsheet with Hogan and Savage matches off of Corey's sets, along with another closer run through Graham's site, and saw this listed. I've seen the 5/31/86 version of the No DQ match from Philly, which is fairly close to the MSG match, though not really better. Their matches at the regularly taped arenas: Boston 01/11/86 Tito Santana vs. Randy Savage 02/08/86 Tito Santana vs. Randy Savage (Title Change) 03/08/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana MSG 03/16/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana 04/22/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana - No DQ 05/19/86 Randy Savage vs Tito Santana - Bruno as Guest Ref 06/14/86 Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino 07/12/86 Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino (Cage) Philly 12/07/85 Tito Santana & Tony Atlas vs Randy Savage & Jesse Ventura 03/07/85 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana 05/10/85 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana 05/31/85 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana - No DQ MLG 03/02/86 Tito Santana & Junkyard Dog vs Randy Savage & Jesse Ventura 04/19/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana 05/04/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana - No DQ 06/15/86 Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana The MLG tag and the final singles match from MLG may not be out in circulation. The MSG feud builds nicely from match to match. The No DQ is a high point, but it does have the resolution of Tito getting his "win" in the cage match while Randy finishes it with the belt. The other cities didn't have that transition into a tag and the cage match. Fun stuff. John

If you like Hogan-Race, get their two matches from MSG in 1987. Fun matches. John

Psic was pimped more than Juve. I don't have the 1995 Poll handy, but I'm confident he was above Juve, and might have been above Rey. He was above Rey in 1994 (11 to 15) and 1993 (22 to 37). Crazy bumping heel... that's what people loved. I was one of the few banging the drum for Juve in 1995. A chunk of that was from watching them live. My thoughts on Psic at the time are probably close to what I think when seeing spot-fu indy guys these days. There are those spot-fu guys who get the "This Is Awesome!" chant by throwing a ton of shit at the wall. Then there are things like Generico-Ricochet that while having plenty of spots kind of get across a storyline as well. Juve did stuff like the Perro Jr. debut that I just didn't see Psic being able to do. Or the pre-run in part of the Rey-Juve in TJ in early 1996. I loved some of the Rey-Psic matches in Mexico, especially the one we're they slow built with some watchable mat stuff early. Just thought that Rey-Juve laid stuff out better. Of course Rey-Psic could do their 1994-96 "fall out of bed" match pretty much anywhere and get it over. If you've got it, pop in the Rey-Psic match form the 1995 J-Cup. Actually it should be in people's minds *before* they watch the Rey matches in 1996. My recollection is that it sets out the state of the spot-art for Rey heading into 1996, and is a useful baseline/contrast to his praised matches of 1996. John

15 years ago most of us were the ones creaming our shorts over what was at the top of the WON awards at the time, while people who made up the core of voters in say 1986-89 were scratching their heads at what we were loving. We were willing to go to the matresses to defend the greatness of what we popped for. Little different from today, and those who love what's at the top of the lists. There are some things poke fun at (such as taking some of Flair's WOTY Awards and retro-giving them to Boxers given the current way things are done now). But... eh. I get the feeling that ECW Fan were wondering why we were crapping on Sabu coming in second similar to how Takashi Sugiura Fans are wonder why people are being mean to Sugiura finishing second. I kind of look back at the 1991-99 period where I took the awards with great seriousness and wonder... It's the American Music Awards, with Dave as Dick Clark, but with the voters limited to the people who dance on Bandstand. If you're one of the dancers or Dick, it means a ton. If you're watching at home, it's just someone else's awards show. If some of the dancers get into a row over who wins, or Dick and some of the dancers are arguing the awards... Eh. I'm going to shows the next two nights that might produce something that draws MOTY votes in this year's Awards. That really wasn't something that crossed my mind when watching Hero-Tozawa. A big difference compared to 1996 when I thought at the end of it that Dragon-Ohtani might pulls some votes. The thought crossed my mind then... doesn't at all anymore. John

Okay, I'll bow to the crowd. Matt will need to consider those Tiger Chung and Rusty Brooks matches when talking about the evolution of Hogan's work in Big Matches, and I'll make sure to track them down for the Hogan-A-Thon section coming up in the WWF thread. I'm going to have to fight down the urge to drop "Big Match" when reviewing throw away tv matches. I have been trying to cut down on the snarky comments in the thread in the second 100 matches, other than standard one when Bob takes a two count(!) that he allegedly never took. John

I guess those first few ones educated me: "Hey, Hogan is on TV... need to watch this. Oh... he's facing Volkoff. This is a throwaway." They dressed it up pretty by making it a Flag Match, but it really was lipstick on a pig. If one watched the syndicated shows, you knew who the real opponents were simply by the TV storylines and the promos for the local house shows. JKohn

I guess Sabu that makes the WON Moral Victory Wrestler Of The Year in 1994 because so many ECW Fans tried to stuff the ballot box that he damn near beat out Kawada in the closest WOTY vote ever. Or maybe Kawada is still Dave's "Thank God He Barley Won This Thing Because It Would Have Been Fucking Embarassing For The Next 30 Years If Sabu Was Listed" Wrestler Of The Year for 1994. That you're a lucky SOB. I liked it best of what I've seen of the year. How'd you like it? I thought it was a good match, pretty entertaining. We saw three last year that were in the same general level: Hero-Tozawa, Generico-Ricochet and Steen-Tozawa. Not sure which I liked the best. The Generico match probably played the best as it gave the fans the best finish while the other two had the underdog win. John

So we need to add these ones to the list of Big Hogan Matches as they aired on national TV: 03/11/84 All American Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated Paul Orndorff via count-out at 12:24 after Hogan threw Orndorff over the top rope to the floor (2/20/84; Madison Square Garden) 04/14/84 All Star Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Afa bout, taped 3/7/84 in Hamburg, PA 01/01/85 Prime Time Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Big John Studd (w/ Bobby Heenan) at 7:38 with a lariat; after the bout, Studd backed out of Hogan's challenge to attempt to bodyslam Studd for $15,000; pre-match stipulations stated that Hogan could lose the title via count-out (10/22/84; Madison Square Garden) 02/19/85 Prime Time Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned the Iron Sheik (w/ Freddie Blassie) at 3:31 with a powerslam and the legdrop (12/28/84; Madison Square Garden) 04/17/85 Prime Time Wrestling: Big John Studd (sub. for Jesse Ventura) (w/ Bobby Heenan) defeated WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan via count-out at 11:09 when Heenan helped shove the challenger back inside the ring after Studd and Hogan began brawling on the floor; after the bout, Studd & Heenan left ringside with the world title belt (Heenan's surprise debut) (9/22/84; Madison Square Garden) 05/15/85 Prime Time Wrestling: Don Muraco defeated WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan via count-out (4/22/85; Madison Square Garden) 05/28/85 Prime Time Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Big John Studd (w/ Bobby Heenan) (sub. for Jesse Ventura) with a clothesline even though Studd clearly kicked out before the 3-count; after the bout, Hogan attempted to slam Studd but Studd escaped to the floor (10/13/84; Philadelphia Spectrum) 6/1/85 Championship Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated Ken Patera (w/ Bobby Heenan & Big John Studd) via disqualification at 3:05 when Studd interfered and both men double teamed the champion; after the contest, Paul Orndorff made the save for Hogan as Heenan prepared to cut the champion's hair 06/25/85 Prime Time Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan fought the Iron Sheik to a double count-out at 10:47 after Hogan began attacking the challenger on the floor with Sheik's own boot, cutting him open, after Sheik did the same thing to the champion earlier in the match; after the bout, Hogan continued attacking the challenger inside the ring with the boot until he was pulled away by several wrestlers (5/5/84; Philadelphia Spectrum) 03/29/86 Championship Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Moondog Spot at 1:56 with the legdrop 02/23/87 Prime Time Wrestling: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned King Kong Bundy with a powerslam at 6:11 after the challenger hit the corner; prior to the bout, Bobby Heenan escorted Bundy to the ring and then returned backstage (10/12/85; Boston Garden) 05/23/87 WWF Superstars: WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Bob Orton Jr. (w/ Mr. Fuji) with the legdrop at around the 9-minute mark; during the bout, the top rope broke when Hogan sent Orton into the corner 5/14/88 WWF Superstars: Hulk Hogan pinned Boris Zhukov (w/ Slick & Nikolai Volkoff) at 1:59 with the legdrop; after the match Nikolai Volkoff and Slick came into the ring, with Volkoff receiving a powerslam and legdrop and Slick an atomic drop to the outside (Hogan’s final appearance until the summer as he was filming ‘No Holds Barred’)

Good stuff. LLW was a fun sheet. Have a bunch of them buried in a box somewhere. John

I suspect that: * Beth got a chunk of that If they existed prior to the divorce, they would have been part of the property in the divorce. Very common for those to be fully acounted for and delt with in divorces. Not knowledgeable on how you split it up, but suspect that the laws have been written in a way that rather than having to pull the funs out (i.e. penalties and taxes) that it can be split in the case of a divorce so that Beth's chunk goes into a similarly covered retirement plan. * Ric has taken out the equiv loans against those bad boys We know that the financial services industry has gotten completely sharkish in sucking money out of old people like vampires. Reverse mortages, selling rights in your life insurance, etc. I suspect there's predators out there who have similar things for pensions, 401K and other retirement benefits... waits... what's this just published yesterday? The New 401(k): Not Just for Retirement Anymore: Contrary to standard financial advice, taking a loan from your retirement funds can sometimes be a smart move The new ATM. And while there's a "cap" of $50K, we know that the financial services industry are a bunch of blood sucking vampires who re-write laws to clean up their prior unlawful activity. Laws don't apply to them. This is also Ric Flair we're talking about. Does anyone think he cares about there being a $50K max? John

Wow... I saw the #5 match of the year live. I'm trying to figure out what that means. John

I thought it got bad back in Crockett when the IRS was after him and Crockett had to bail him out. John

Ric has been living like this for decades. John

Misawa-Kawada and Kobashi-Sasaki. Fans seemed to take Kobashi-Sasaki as more of the main event, but those would be the two mains. Nakamura seemed more to have been positioned as the future ace: he had the IWGP already at that point, he seemed to be the more pushed of the two in their tag team, he never was put into a U-30 title match where he'd have to lose to Tanahashi... except the time when Tanahashi dropped the belt to Nakamura. Nakamura had been consistently in the IWGP Title picture since winning the belt, including just coming off the 60:00 draw with Kojima. Tanahashi had just one IWGP challenge by that point. I think the reason it was Tanahashi is because they didn't want to sacrifice Nakamura to Rikio. Yeah, we hit that. Interesting concept. I tend to think that Kobashi, much like Flair, worked his matches without great thought. It was done in a fashion that "worked for Kobashi", popped the crowds, and he'd been allowed to get away with doing whatever he wanted all the way back to All Japan. I think we all knew Kobashi had the tools to work like The Man, in his own way, once he started acting like it. He already was doing the dominating spots against Taue and Kawada even when they were higher on the All Japan pecking order: winning the chop spots in the corner were already there, at times annoyingly. We tended to point to the crying stuff as it was the most obvious way to get across: He's the freaking Triple Crown Champ but he's still working like an underdog. Fucking grow up. I suspect we could go back and pin point him shedding some of that in 1999-2000. Perhaps that was the positive of the Kobashi-Jun team: it forced Kobashi to wake up to the fact the he wasn't the underdog anymore and high up on the pecking order. He certainly had it by the time NOAH opened as he moved from TC Champ to NOAH Ace right off the bat before going on the DL. I'm not sure how much blame we can put on how Kobashi worked the match. An example would be the 6/92 and 2/93 Kawada-Hansen matches. When people think of those matches, do they think of them as "That was a fucking War!" or as "Damn... Stan really dominated that more than you'd think". In watching them again, Stan kind of dominated them more than I remembered. Kawada got his licks in, but there was a lot of Stan Match in there. At the time, it didn't really matter. Kawada stayed strong (and arguably got over more) by beingin them, and getting his licks in. And then going out and having other great matches. Is there anything Rikio or NOAH could have done to get him over as the Ace? Even if he squashes Kobashi (which never would happen), would he have been able to sustain it? You talk about heavyhanded bomb throwing monster. Would that really have been sustainable for a NOAH Ace, whose fans grew up on Misawa and Kobashi over the past decade and a half? John

What David said. Kobashi was ready to move away from Misawa: 10/95 TC challenge (his third overall and first against Misawa) along with winning the third straight Tag League. Nothing more to do there, and the need to freshen things up a bit. Very clear that Akiyama was being pushed up into the partner role. Their problem is that they didn't have bodies around to form a group for Kobashi. Pretty much a mess of several years in the making, tying into my comments about Omori above. If Omori had been Kawada & Taue's #3 for several years (rather than just two series in 1994) similar to Jun being the #3 to Misawa & Kobashi, they could have made an easy transition: Misawa & Kobashi & Jun + Kawada & Taue & Omori to Kawada & Taue + Misawa & Jun + Kobashi & Omori But they wasted developing Omori, and worse stuck him with Jun rather than being Jun's rival (and having several years of Kobashi beating him up before joining hands with him). It's a big reason why the transition in 1996 looks so awkward relative to the transition in 1993 of Kawada over to Taue, and Jun over to Misawa & Kobashi's side. Kobashi was something of a man with out a group, still with Misawa but pushed aside for another partner. The plan had been Patriot, but my recollection is that he got a little banged up and then let them know he was heading to the WWF, which is why Ace moved over. Among the dumbest moves in the later part of the decade was moving Jun *laterally* over to team with Kobashi. It's not just failing to allow Jun to lead his own team, but it was putting Jun with Kenta who was always going to be doing the Kenta Show in tags. Oddly it seemed that Jun was perfectly happy with that, and his growth hit the wall to a degree. I do wonder if that stretch was the first sign that Jun didn't have it in him to be an ace, or if simply teaming with Kobashi put his mind in the "I'm never going to be better than this guy, so what's the point" mode. Yeah... those were trainwreck times for All Japan. Wanted to put my fist through the tv all the time. So much wasted. John

Probably most of the second half of the decade was poorly booked by All Japan. I suspect if we look back at what "worked", most of it was obvious stuff or continuation of what they started earlier in the decade. If you wanted me to pinpoint a specific place where the decline in booking started, I'd go with the decision to move Omori over to teaming with Hansen in 1994, then transitioning him over to teaming with Akiyama to hold the All Asia tag title. Not saying that they missed the next Misawa. But he was a pretty obvious choice for specific role in which he was already over with the fans in Feb 1994. There were a lot of smaller things like that which laid the foundation for bigger things later in the decade. John

Someone needs to grab some of this before it falls off archive.org: Ric Flair Finance: Home of the Figure-4 Process Did anyone ever get the dirt on what level of scam that was? John

Was there ever a second book by Flair? Keith pulled an item from the 09/03/08 WON: "Ric Flair is now looking at doing a second autobiography, working with Mark Madden. There is no timetable set for the project, but it was one of the deals he wants to do as a free agent." Did that ever come off? John