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Two problems with that: * Ric would have to pay a financial manager * Ric probably would pick financial managers as well as he picks wives John

I wouldn't disagree with that. I think part of the problem is that it's a bit different from our attempts back in the 90s to book an All Japan that was as lazy and unfocused as you're pointing out NOAH was. All Japan had a base of Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue and Jun. Some useful gaijin. Some "available talent" out there that could compliment the top, and lots that could compliment the middle. NOAH had past it Misawa, past it Taue, past it Kobashi (when he was available), "prime" Jun who never reached the level of his old All Japan mates... and a batch of younger heavies who were ace-challenged. There's been available talent out there, but for the most part it's all from the prior generations (Sasaki, Tenryu, Takayama, Kawada) that only further points out that the younger heavies are all that. I agree that you could rebook things to make for a Better Product. But a batch of Better Next Aces? That's the tough thing that faced All Japan / New Japan / NOAH when looking for the successors to the Four Corners and Three Musketeers. John

I think if they knew they were going to have Rikio be the one to end Kobashi's reign (which at some point they did), then they needed at the same time to be building up the person who was going to face him at the Dome. If it wasn't going to be Misawa, which I would agree it shouldn't have been, then the other member of the Top 3 of the promotion was Jun given Taue just wasn't consistently pushed up at the level of Misawa / Kobashi / Jun. Can you work a storyline off it? Certainly. But at the same time they're getting Rikio ready for winning the title, they get Jun ready so he's hot heading into the Dome challenge. Could the allegedly great Jun get an accceptable Dome main event out of Rikio? Could it have been positioned as the main relative to Misawa-Kawada and Kobashi-Sasaki? If you can't get Rikio and an acceptable opponent ready for the Dome, and can't position it in such away that it's part of a triple main event, than they should have put Kobashi dropping the title off until the show after the Dome so someone isn't in such a bad spot. I'd agree with the notion that there was a mistep in that. On the other hand, could Rikio ever have gotten over as the ace? Did he have it in him? John

Oh boy... that 5th paragraph is brutal. John

I wouldn't say that was the key. He was over before Tenryu came in, and in hindsight was probably Choshu's choice to be the future ace before that point. He lost twice to Tenryu, but they weren't as high profile as the Tenry-Choshu, Tenryu-Fujinami and Tenryu-Inoki matches. In a way, Tenryu-Inoki was the climax, and Tenryu-Hash was the resolution with Hash getting the win with Tenryu heading out the door. He was the IWGP champ, the right person to get the win. Choshu positioned him for that, then transitioned him into getting put over by Choshu and Fuinami personally I think what really got Hash over was the 9/93 - 5/95 run as the Champ. He ran the table on his peers and his elders. His reign buried Mutoh's, while Chono stagnated before going heel. He didn't need heel Chono to look good: he already was the ace, and treated as one by the fans. It more along the lines that Hash made Chono's group look good. He was seen as the top guy before the UWFi feud started. It was Mutoh who'd just taken the spot and was made to look even more acey by his first match against Takada. Watch him come out after the second Takada-Mutoh match. Does that look like someone who needs Takada to look like The Man? They both look like mega stars already. We talk a lot over the years about New Japan working Outsider Storylines. There's no doubt that they did. But they don't have a ton to do guys getting to the next level of being the ace. Inoki was the ace from the start, long before Kobayashi came in, and long before Rusher did. Fujinami's runs as the ace weren't group driven. Choshu was initially made by a fake outside group, but Inoki wasn't letting him get near being the ace. When Choshu's group came back, Inoki prevented it again. Choshu didn't really solidfy his role as co-ace (with Fujinami) until 1990, and groups weren't much of it: long past his Ishingundun days. Muta rarely felt like an ace. Hash was largely internal beating of rivals. Mutoh first felt like an ace after beating Hash at G1, though the win over Takada did make him seem even larger... while the loss shrunk him back down. Hash was as big of a star as Takada when they faced each other, akin to Choshu-Tenryu when Tenryu came into NJPW. His last reign was largely him beating his peers when the belt was on the line, rather than groups. After that, the company went into decline, and also had issues ever again getting an ace over to the degree that Hash was. I would argue that "outsiders" had a lot to do with that: Ogawa, Inoki's insanity, the shoot shit. So while I agree that outsiders and groups often played a major role in succesful NJPW programs, I think there were other things that were key in their making of aces. It might be more along the lines of having the over ace first, then being able to run groups opposite him or around him. You need an Inoki for Kobayashi or Rusher to mean anything. You need Inoki and Fujinami for Ishin Gundan to mean a thing. You need Choshu and Jumbo for Tenryu to mean something, in turn you need Jumbo for Misawa and Kawada and Kobashi to grow up against. They ran a lot of singles, and Choshu's booking style was "even steven" as others have described. Choshu could put over Hash three times in 1989, 1990 and 1991... and get his wins back in each of those years. In turn, Hash could put over Choshu in 1996 then open 1997 by giving it back. We see in the G1 matches in the 1996 set that Tenzan and Kojima are given their "biggest singles wins ever", which help move them forward a bit. Different style of booking. Worked for them, but it takes some effort to avoid having all of those matches end up being meaningless at some point. Choshu somehow avoided that to a large degree. Loss was talking about the Mutoh-Chono at G1 1996 and referencing back to their 1991 G1 match. They also had G1 matches in 1992, 1994 and 1995 along with the IWGP-NWA title match in 1993. Kinda of Misawa-Kawada in that way, but different in because they had finishes and advanced the story a little more directly. By 1996 if was the sixth straight year of having a match that meant a little something, in effectly the semifinal of the G1 (winner advances out of the block) between the guys who had won 4 out of the first 5. New Japan heavies tended to get downplayed by all of us back then, including an All Japan fan like me. But there was a fair amount of stuff going on in the division. Choshu & Co. were giving a good amount of thought to what they were doing. Not epic levels of depth, but solid stuff. I wouldn't argue for that either. Part of the problem, though, is that none of those guys in NOAH were young Misawa. And at that point Misawa and Kobashi weren't Jumbo. What I keep going back to is: who was Rikio suppose to face? He beat Kobashi. Can't go back to that soon, and Kobashi fell apart anyway. Misawa? He was saving that for later in the year, after building himself up a bit to give Rikio the rub. Which he tried to do. I grasp the concept of Rikio-Tanahashi at the Dome... I think we all do: give two of the younger stars a spotlight on the big card. It's not terribly different from what New Japan did with Chono-Mutoh on the 1/93 Dome show. Tenryu-Choshu was the big match. It's a bit tough because Chono is running around with the NWA Title while Muta is running around with the IWGP, and those two old farts are bogarting the main event on the Dome show. So Choshu put them together in a unificaiton match. In this case, Rikio-Tanahashi is beneath Kobashi-Sasaki and Misawa-Kawada. I'm willing to cop that this was an error, and probably Rikio-Akiyama would have been a better match. Slight worry that Akiyama was in the main the prior Dome show losing a title match to Kobashi, so it's a bit of wash-rinse-repeat. But probably a better match up. Saito was a throw away. Who there? Tanahashi there, and Akiyama at the Dome. We'd agree that Misawa was the right third defense, and Misawa tried to elevate him by jobbing. Then they go with Taue, and he drops the title. We could argue that Sasaki, Tenryu and Kawada were all drifting around NOAH at the time, and rather than having them job to Kobashi, Misawa and Misawa respectively, it would have been more productive to have one or more job to Rikio. Do you think it would have worked? Kobashi jobbing the title, and Misawa doing the personal job, didn't turn Rikio into the ace in the eyes of anyone. Sasaki and Tenryu were as over as Kobashi, and Kawada wasn't as over as Misawa. Morishima is more of the same. Who was around in 2008 to run against him after he lifted the belt from Misawa? That was one of the things that jumped out at Misawa in his last reign: he was defending against mostly a lesser rank of opponents. Go back to Misawa's first run with the Triple Crown: Kawada Taue Hansen Kawada Gordy --> Williams Hansen Kawada Williams It's hard to blame Misawa for the quality of opponents he books his guys with relative to what he was booked against by Baba.... when he didn't have remotely close to that level of talent to work with. What he did each time was try to make sure that he had a "rub" guy drop the title to the person he was trying to make the new ace: Misawa --> Jun Misawa --> Kobashi Kobashi --> Rikio Misawa --> Morishima He had a tougher time sustaining it as he had only those guys plus arguably Jun and Taue for defenses within those runs of new potential aces. Add in that Kobashi was on the DL for long stretches, and that Taue in 2005 wasn't exactly the major star that he was in 1995-96, and it wasn't easy. Misawa tried to use some care in handing out title matches to himself, keeping each one of those meaningful. You can give these guys storylines, but in the end they still need opponents. Your comments about Saito and Tanahashi doesn't give any indication that giving a those two stronger "storylines" against Rikio would have made them stronger opponents. :/ Could they have gotten 10% more, 25% more, 33% more out of those guys? Maybe. But my point originally was that I bang my head against the wall when I see people claim that Misawa was the New Inoki pushing himself to the moon. From mid-1998 through his death, he was constantly trying to get someone younger then himself over as the new ace of his promotions. He wasn't able to for various reasons, and the belt(s) often came back to him for various reasons, mostly because he was the most over guy in the promotion at the time. But when he had full power under those circumstances, he focused again on getting the belt(s) to a new ace. There's something King Lear about the whole thing. John

So Ric was broke again and needed to take an advance to pay for his lifestyle? John

The biggest problem with this match is that unlike just about every Iron Man match, these two didn't trade falls. Rock-Trip traded a ton of them. Probably too many for Bret and Shawn to have used, but in turn probably the right amount given the work style of 2000 and shorter attention spans. Bret-Owen and Bret-Flair traded them. In a shorter setting, Rude-Steamer traded them. It's part of what makes an Iron Man "work" for fans: they get to see the match broken into shorter segments ending with high points of falls. If Bret-Shawn simply did a 2-2 finish before going to overtime, they could have broken up the match into six sections building to high points: Fall #1: 1-0 Wrestler X Fall #2: 1-1 Fall #3: 2-1 Wrestler X Fall #4: 2-2 Fall #5: furious work towards the time limit Fall #6: overtime with Shawn winning 3-2 60/5 = 12 average segments in the original time limit Not saying that you do all at 12 minutes, but it gives an idea of how you can break up the "laying around". I probably would have avoided doing quick finishes / short falls because it mean you then have to take it down for a longer period. I probably would have had Fall #4 end no later than 55 minutes, and probably closer to 50-52 to allow for developing another movement with some back & forth (which isn't hard to stretch out by selling the length of the match / being tired). You break up the match, have falls, mix in finishers being used as finishers, the pops of the crowd, and the overtime finish... and the match is a lot better. It wouldn't have taken much more effort. That's before we even get to what the storyline of the match would be. It's just not that hard of a match to block out. The problem is that the two already hated each other, and this wasn't going to be a happy title change. If someone like Patterson tried to sit down and block this out, it's not clear either would have given a shit. At the time, in the building, what I morbidly enjoyed about the match is that Bret mostly forced Shawn to work Bret's match "If you're going to beat me, we're working my match even if it doesn't look flashy and shit." It's one of those at the moment reactions to the match that made me enjoy it. Not in a MOTYC way, though. It wouldn't have cracked the top 10 of matches I saw live that year. In hindsight, I don't think it was terribly good. I'm not sure if Bret even cared a ton about have a great match. Blame both ways, and to whoever allowed them to screw with the standard formating of Iron Man matches. I do think that the 10/95 Kawada & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi match worked to a strong degree. They went with what at a time was an interesting way of breaking up the 60 minutes: different segements of 2-1 while one of the wrestlers was knocked for a loop. As it's going along, and if you didn't know it was going 60, most of those segements looked like they might be the one what someone gets beat. Perhaps by the 4th you pick up the patern, but the match does stay rather heated until very late when the fans get it's going 60, and the workers don't really have a strong near fall in the 58-59 minute range. In a way, it might have been better if it went 58 minutes with a finish, especially having already done three 60 minute draws ealier in the year in configurations of these four. 60 minute draw became tougher in one fall settings. While a 1-1 60 minute time limit has it's own obviousness that it's going long and might be a draw, at least the match is broken up. One fall going long takes a lot of work by the wrestlers to stay connected, and reconnect. I do think Backlund-Valentine was a great match. Inoki-Backlund, Destroyer-Baba... there are some great ones out there on tape. John

Inoki, of course. Both were really dumb. John

Groups are somewhat useful, and I don't mind them. But when you look at Aces in NJPW and AJPW, being a member of a group doesn't seem to be all that important when the promotions are strong. Jumbo was Jumbo. Taue, Fuchi and Ogawa got rubs by being with him. Misawa was the guy opposite Jumbo, which got him over instantly. Kawada, Kobashi and Kikuchi got elevated by being partners with him. He didn't need them to become Ace. I'm trying to think of a group that was critical to a true NJPW Ace. Choshu got over huge as part of a group, though he didn't quite get to being an ace at that point. By the time he reached the top in 1990, he really wasn't as group centric as he had been. Looking at Mutoh and Hash, there really isn't a group there. Chono never really got to be the Ace... his chance got hammered by Takada coming in (Mutoh-Chono at the 1/96 Dome if there hadn't been a NJPW-UWFI feud). Chono was part of a group, and they did get over... but much of the overness was Chono as the heel. Even then, did he ever look like having a shot at being the ace that Hash was seen as from 1994-97? Tough one. I think groups/teams are useful for depth of storylines. I like regular partners/teammates rather than people just being throw together. But in the end, the wrestler needs to get over. An Ace is above his team and teammates. What I'm more wondering about is what more NOAH/Misawa could have done to get Rikio ready for carrying the company, and being over at the Ace? Morishima? Those seemed to be the two he thought of after Kobashi ran his course, and Jun wasn't up to it back in 2001-2002. Jun in 2006 seemed more along the lines of the WWF when it use to go back to Bret Hart: "Plan 3 failed. Let's go back to Bret until we come up with Plan 4." I think they tried, and after Rikio / Marufuji / Morishima they were realizing that it was nearly impossible. Shiozaki was next, but who knows how much hope they held out. One gets the sense of FMW after Onita. It's hard to replace Onita. I suspect that if we got ahold of Bahu, he'd point out how many good matches and storylines FMW put on in the 1996-99 time period. It wasn't as if they were a dead company. But they had issues replacing Onita. Rikidozan --> Baba --> Jumbo --> Misawa Rikidozan was an ace from from the early 50s through 1963. Baba was an ace from 1966-83. Jumbo was an ace from 1984 through 1992. Misawa was an ace from 1993 through 2008, give or take some years. For wrestlers, one dynasty across three promotions, nearly 60 years. That is a rather amazing run in a line. At some point it was going to end. :/ Misawa did try to push several wrestlers into the role of successor, hoping one would work. Didn't. John

I don't really see in it what Misawa could have done differently that would have worked. None of us really have been able to identify who could have been the next generation's Misawa, who could have been his Kawada, who could have been his Kobashi, his Taue, his Doc, his Hansen, his Jun, etc. Baba didn't really do a better job: he had better talent to work with. His booking was pretty basic, much of it pretty obvious in terms of next moves, and most of his "adjustments" due to talent issues were pretty obvious. At times it might be a 50/50 call (2/93 Budokan for example), but there's not anything special about a 50/50 call when neither is clearly ahead of the other. When Kawada, Taue and Kobashi won the TC for the first time, they had a deep bench of talent to draw from as opponents: Hansen, Kawada, Kobashi, Hansen, Kawada and Misawa. That's the five challengers in their first reigns. Who did know have active that could match that for any of the people they were trying to elevate to Ace? We could speculate that NOAH could have done something with Kawada when he went Free. I tend to agree that it could have given them a year of matches using him like NJPW used Tenryu. But in the end, that's just good booking use of filler: Kawada isn't the future of NOAH. Someone younger is. Kawada just allows you to give the fans some matches they might like, and buys time to developed another Ace. The same would go for feuds/matches with New Japan. I tend to respect that NOAH avoided getting guzzled in their feuds/matches with New Japan. I also respect that they seemed aware of the risk of overplaying the feud on their shows. The problem with a interpromotional angle is: What do we do next? They can be so hot, and deliver such Big Matches, that going back to Normal can be a major speed bump. If the NJPW feud/matches are again just filler while buying time to develop the next set of Aces, you still need to develop aces. Which is circular: there really wasn't a next Misawa, or Kobashi, or Kawada. All promotions have that issue. The WWF had issues when Hogan was done. They got lucky with Stone Cold... it was almost an accident. They've had issues post-Austin/Rock, but have continued to be successful on a different level. NOAH didn't have a Cena, and pretty much were left with a Trip and Taker and Shawn getting older, more broken down, and feeling more recycled. The Fans still popped for Kobashi and Misawa, and their reigns did better business than other guys holding the belt. But there was no Cena... not even sure if there was a Rey, or some of the other guys. John

Misawa, like Baba, made the decision on who held the Big Belt. One can debate the success of NOAH pushing guys younger than Misawa to the top, but one can't debate two things: * Misawa constantly tried to find a younger Ace rather than be Inoki with the belt * those attempts failed for a variety of reasons The closest he came to success was Kobashi, but that was also the fourth time he tried to push Kobashi to the Ace role. In the first, Baba decided to put the belt back on Misawa well before Misawa wanted it back. In the second, Misawa & Co. left All Japan. In the third, Kobashi got hurt... not terribly surprising. Fourth time... Kobashi had the run which is really the one time someone other than Misawa was successful as the Ace. That's 1-3 on just Kobashi, and really none of that was Misawa's fault... well, other than leaving All Japan (shared the fault there with Mrs. Baba). One could go through the rest of the folks he tried to push up there who failed, and it turned that 1-3 to a far worse number. In the end, the reason they failed on one level or another can be summed up as: They weren't Misawa. By that I mean they were missing one or more elements of what made Misawa someone who could Ace for more than a decade. Either connecting with the fans, or the drive, or carrying themselves like an Ace, or the ability to stay healthy enough to sustain the role. That last one is a bitterly ironic thing to say given what a mess Misawa was even back in the mid-90s and how his life ended. :/ But there is truth to it in contrast to Kobashi: Misawa was forced back into the Ace role twice while Kobashi was on the DL. John

Relatively speaking, Choshu did extremely well of not putting himself over at the expense of other talent. People might scratch their head over that as all three IWGP reigns came while he had the book. But they were warranted by his level of overness, and came at a time when he was already putting over the younger generation. Then look at his reigns: 0 successful defenses 1 successful defense (payback win over Hash) 4 successful defenses (again, mostly payback for jobs in the prior year) In turn, his three title losses: * established Vader as the clear top gaijin ready for a year long run with the belt * re-established Fujinami back at the top level after coming back from a major injury * put over the first of the Three Musketeers to hold the IWGP They all fit. He probably could have put himself over Hash at the 1/97 Dome show: fans were that into one last run of his. Instead he returned the favor of Hash putting him over in the 1996 G1, with that being Choshu's last run. Instead gave his long time rival (including who eventually ran the company) Fujinami one last run with the IWGP Title by beat Choshu's protege. There's a lot more. I'm sure I've run this point into the ground over the years, but it's worth pointing out again. In the 80s Dave wrote several times that Choshu was one of the least liked people in wrestling because he was considered one of the most selfish. Choshu's reign as booker through mid-1998 is about a 180 degree change from that. In addition, his booking assistants like Hase and Liger acted in the same way. As I went into in one of the Yearbook posts, Yamada could have pushed himself a lot harder. The push and his spot in the Jr division was entirely warranted, and there were times when was thought to have lost too much in the Choshu-style "My Turn, Your Turn" booking. I'd toss out Misawa. Vastly underrated in his attempts to get himself out of the Ace spot, and pretty much screwed from 1998 until his death from getting it done. Almost Misawa's great white whale of a quest, and it's always annoyed the shit out of me when I've read people ripping Misawa for putting himself over. John

Shortly after the 5/99 Dome show, but before Misawa & Co. left All Japan. John

Not trying to be argumentative on this, but where does one draw the line? Was Poffo vs Hogan a Big Hogan Match? I (and I suspect others here) watched that when it aired and pretty much thought it was a throw away. Hennig was the feud, and we were going to have to pay for it. Hogan-Hennig didn't air on SNME until the feud was well over, and Hogan dropped the title to Warrior. If those aren't ones, what's the next level? Hogan-Herc? Or Hogan-Ted, which was long after their series was dead? In a sense is every Hogan house show match a Big Hogan Match because people are being asked to pay for it. Do we pick two representative Hogan-Kamala matches from House Shows because it was a strongly pushed feud on TV, ran in pretty much every market, and usually was a two-match series? Rather than one Hogan-Bossman, should we really look at the earlier matches in the feud? That takes us circularly back to where we started the conversation: me talking about one type of Hogan Match, and Matt else talking about a different type of Hogan Match which was based on Big Matches, specifically PPV singles matches starting after a certain point: Hogan-Savage at Mania IV. I don't have a problem including all the SNME matches, and all his available house show matches. That actually was where I started from in my original post talking about Hogan Matches. I was the one willing to bend away from that to consider someone else's set of Big Matches to ponder. :/ John

That is brutal. John

I assume we both watched it at the time and have different opinions of what we were watching. Hogan-Bundy hit me as SNME fodder, similar to most of Hogan's SNME singles matches up to that point. They stretches it out to a two-match fodder series. But since we were both watching syndication, we were seeing: * Hogan-Andre wasn't dead after Survivors and we all expected another singles match * Dibiase was talking about buying the title, which Hogan turned down, and Ted was pissed off about * we could see Hogan-Ted was the major program focus because of that * if we were getting a house show pimmped to us, it was overwhelmingly likely to be either the tail end of the Hogan-OMG feud, or some form of Hogan-Ted (often in tag involving Bam Bam and Andre or others) There were a handful of tag matches involving Bundy, but they all come across as Bundy in the "other guy" role similar to Bam Bam being the "other guy" on the Hogan side. Bundy felt like a throwaway. Wasn't even a feud at that time, even remotely close to say something like Hogan-Kamala which has gotten forgotten in time. Hogan-Orndorff in their first SNME match felt like a Big Match: the feud was just started and going around the circuit. Rare that you got to see a Hogan Match on TV while the feud was still red hot. The Hogan-Orndorff cage match felt like a Big Match: despite the feud having just finished up about everywhere at that point, it was a Cage Match (first Hogan cage match on SNME), and in a sense felt like the blow off to the feud if you didn't get the cage match in your city. Hogan-Bossman was similar: cage match, the feud had wrapped up in most places but this came cross as a blow off. Really, Bundy at the end of 1987 felt like yesterday's news. Orndorff did as well. Their time had been 1986, they had a peak moment, and then were just guys in the promotion. :/ John

This followed Dragon-Ohtani, which probably had a bit to do with the heat. The early stuff felt like killing time, whereas the early stuff of Dragon-Ohtani seemed to play better with the crowd. John

Dave's storyline on Hash was that he was "tough", and he's always stuck with it. There was more to Hash than that, and I'm pretty certain that it's why so many of the hardcore fans in the early 90s were slow to get how good of a worker he was. Hash drew because like Inoki and Choshu he was a charismatic son of bitch and could work the hell out of the crowd. Pre-Blackjack Chono had issues with charisma, and while Mutoh clearly was charismatic, he wasn't a really strong wrestler at consistently working the crowd. One of the more interesting things to watch in 1995 if you get the weekly TV is to see after the title change that the fans still think Hash is the man. They had seen enough of "it's Wrestler X's turn" title changes over the years that they just took it to be Mutoh's turn. It's that way up until G1. Then Mutoh has a good storyline run in it, along with matches that work for the fans. In the end, he beats Hash again in another match that really works for the fans. At that point, they buy him... and Mutoh seems to final have some confidence in himself as the top guy in the promotion, which he and the fans take into the match with Takada. What's also interesting is how quickly that ends. Almost as soon as Mutoh drops the title to Takada, and Takada calls out Hash, it's as if everying (fans and wrestlers) get it again: "Oh yeah, that's right... Hash is our guy." G1 in 1996 is fab because Hash takes that role of being the ace of the promotion and turns it on it's head. He's booked into the role, obviously... and it's very similar to Choshu in the original G1 of hitting an airball. But Hash really nails it, and by the time of the Tenzan match is jst selling the shit out of the knee like a king. It's a big upset, but once it's over it feels "right". The storyline and his work had done that good of a job of it. As much as the J Crown was fun, I really dug being there to watch Hash's work through the G1 live. Fab stuff. John

Again, they weren't Big Matches. Hogan-Bundy had its big match in 1986. This also was a recycle to have an angle leading to something else, which you point out: Hogan-Andre. I'm not saying they weren't entertaining matches. But they were just SNME matches, and a chance to see Hogan wrestle. It wasn't even playing in the arenas at that point. The two Hogan-Orndorff and the one Bossman-Hogan cage match are about as close as one can get to a Big Match for Hogan on TV. It was a different beast back then as Vince wasn't raking money on SNME, while PPV and Arenas were his business. He was very careful about what he gave away for "free". The Main Event obviously is a different beast: Hogan-Andre was a Big Match. John

Here's where House show stuff played into things. Hogan/ Muraco was a HUGE program at MSG. It followed the typical three match formula at MSG, but for those of us on the East Coast who got MSG network and the local promos, Hogan/ Muraco was a major fued. Seriously, local promos for this had Muraco/ Hogan as THE major fued of the year. And then it seemed to us the blow off match was on SNME, where Bundy attacked Hogan. And then Muraco got Orndorff at Mania 2 in a match me and my pals thought was gonna rule and it stunk. When was the last Muraco-Hogan match in MSG? Who was Muraco feuding all around the WWF at the point of the SNME match, and had been for a while (set up by a rather famous SNME angle the prior year). Muraco-Hogan was long over, and blown off in MSG in a cage match. If it ran in other cities, it had long since been blown off. The SNME match wasn't a Big Match. It was recycling an old opponent of Hogan's to use as a base for a Major Angle: Hogan-Bundy. John

Sometimes I worry about 'running out', but then someone like you or Will says this and my hope is restored. I suspect you've topped my by this point. I've watched far less than a lot of people. John

I don't remember Patterson-Rikishi... that was a long time ago. I do remember Frank did the post on the Stinky Face Match involving the Stooges and how smartly it was worked. I recall a Trip-Rikishi world title match right at the peak of Rikishi being over, with the crowd going bonker for it, and it being really smartly worked (even the nonsense of the finish to get over Steph-Trip). I want to say very early 2000, right after Trip won the title back, and probably on SmackDown. They did a rematch at some point on Raw and it wasn't quite the same. Anyway, I recall that a lot of us, especially those who already didn't like Trip, praised that as being a very solid, smart match. Nothing epic since it was probably an 8 minute match, but a good, solid match. John

Okay, and understood. My Hogan focus has largely been limited into the four corners of the 80s, working off the original DVDVR 80s project, my thoughts on those 100 matches, and trying to work through other matches that may be worth checking out in that period or might want to be avoided. It's a little tricky to figure out the big matches for Hogan in the 80s. Setting aside the tag at SummerSlam and Survivors, these seem pretty obvious: 02/18/85 Hogan-Piper (The War to Settle the Score) 11/07/85 Hogan-Piper (The Wrestling Classic) 04/07/86 Hogan-Bundy (Mania - Cage) 03/29/87 Hogan-Andre (Mania) 02/05/88 Hogan-Andre (The Main Event) 03/27/88 Hogan-Andre (Mania) 04/02/89 Hogan-Savage (Mania) Those are the PPV's and the two major TV singles matches. Classic was pretty limited in exposure, and one could debate how major that match was in the storylines at the time. The others seem pretty clear major matches. Two major stadium matches that exist: 08/28/86 Hogan-Orndorff (The Big Event) 07/31/88 Hogan-Andre (Wrestlefest 1988 - cage) Hogan-Orndorff was exploding at the time. The card did get some run on WWF TV, though not what it would get if it were today. It's useful to look at as a big match. Hogan-Andre at Wrestlefest was similar: it did get some push on TV, like The Big Event a chunk of it ended up on Prime Time. It's useful to look at as a big match. SNME is a problem. From a storyline standpoint, very few of them meant much though some of them did in the sense of angles coming out of them. An obvious example would be the 02/15/86 Hogan-Muraco. Hogan-Muraco meant nothing, but the post match beatdown of Hogan played into Hogan-Bundy at Mania. There also are a ton of ones like Hogan-Orton, Hogan-Volkoff and Hogan-Funk that really weren't even feuds that had strong storylines going on around the circuit. Those are the first three Hogan singles matches on SNME, and we haven't gotten to Hogan-Sika. Exactly which of the Hogan singles on SNME were Big Matches is really tough. The two Hogan-Orndorff matches? Hogan-Bossman in the cage? Those feuds ran their courses by the time the cage matches aired, though one could argue that they put a fine point on them. So overall, there's a small number of Hogan Big Singles Matches to look at. Probably the nine listed at the top. I've hit very few of them so far. Hogan-Savage at Mania and Hogan-Orndorff at The Big Event. I was saving the Hogan-Andre for the 300th match, then running through the three rematches right after that. Since the last match I did was the 201st, and that was back in June... it could be a while. Though with football season nearly over, I did plan on going back to the thread. I will be interested to see how differently he works the Big Matches than his usual house show match. I don't know if much can be taken out of the four Hogan-Andre matches since that's such a unique opponent. John

I understand that Dan Ginnetty found the full version of Hogan-Shultz on World Pro. I'll have to track it down, if I don't already have it in the various World Pro discs that I have. The jump cuts didn't seem to miss a ton, so we'll have to see how much longer it is in full. It was about nine minutes in CHV version. My short review of it in the WWF Thread has Schultz beat him up early (with juice), Hogan comes back to beat him up (with juice), short Schultz comeback, Hogan turns thing to win. My comments are that it's not a Hogan Match yet, but has the elements being developed. Probably closer than some others. I haven't reviewed Hogan-Valentine yet. Actually see a DM link I tossed into an admin section thread on stuff to watch way back in 2008. And I know I have it on Corey's redone Hogan 1984-92 WWF Set (though Hoback's son has all 30+ of those disks at the moment). So it's in the cue. Same goes for Studd. I wanted to watch Bob-Studd first, along with some Andre-Studd that happened before the Hogan-Studd feud started. There are a ton of Hogan-Studd matches over the years. I'd have to sift through my spreadsheet and look through the thread to point to the specific matches that stood out as early, pre-Hogan Matches and proto-Hogan matches. One could see the template existing by the time of the Hogan-Orton from Superstars. My wrap on that was: My apologies for the references to Japanese matches that might cause people to roll their eyes. But: * it was 2006, and lord knows that I'm a kinder/gentler poster these days... I probably would have written that just a bit different * I did want to get across a point early in the thread that while I might be saying positive things about Hogan and his matches, people shouldn't over read into it that I'm pimping them as MOTYC or the greatest thing since sliced bread * I wanted to also get across that early the theme of Effective Work I go to the well on Effective Work a lot, and I tend to think that a lot of us over the last 5-10 year have tried to get across a concept along those lines. We're trying to get across what we're praising about something like that TV match between Trip-Rikishi long ago, and spending some time on why it really works. And at times you worry that someone reading it thinks you're putting it up there with Flair-Steamer. Or in praising smart work / layout / structure in a Hogan match that someone thinks you're putting it up there with a MX vs R'n'R match. No, there's another level of basic quality / goodness / solidity to a match where it works well for what it is, moves things long, pulls the crowd in, delivers what it's suppose to, doesn't screw much up. Or a worker who does that. I just use the word "effective" because that's what I see in Hogan when working a solid match, and in some others. What they're doing is effective in putting on a match for their fans. I'm sure that when I've had discussions on Flair and people think I'm ripping him that I've tried to get across a point: for what ever I'm trying to point out as being goofy, I still think Flair is an extremely effective worker. Probably the most in that sense. His matches may not tell a story beyond the most basic (Flair bitches out / gets his ass kicked by the face), he has a shitload of stuff to keep things moving along to pop the crowd. I might cringe these days at Flair bitching out to Tommy Young, I also admit that the spot pops the fans even when they've seen it for the 10th time. On a "hey let's think about this" level, it runs into a quick brick wall: If Tommy can kick the shit out of Ric and does it time-after-time, why has Sting squashed Flair in all these matches yet? But then you hear the crowd pop, and you accept it as a Turn Off Your Mind, Don't Think About It Too Much, Ric Has Stuff To Do moment that the crowd loves... so fuck it, it's an effective spot. Ric's just about the best at that, as he has a Ton Of Stuff. Now a paragraph like that can annoy folks, especially when the word putting over Flair is also being attached to Hogan. But think about this for a moment: Flair shoves Tommy, Tommy Flair back, Ric bitch-bumps for it yet again. Crowd pops Hogan is huffin' and a puffin', Heels punches aren't working, Hulk's up and a waggin' the finger. Crowd pops There's not a great deal of difference between the Flair Ref Bitch Bump and the Hulk Up. Neither is "believable" for the folks into the Suspend Belief stuff. Worse still, both are signature spots that fans saw over and over and over again, so they know what's coming. But... they pop the crowd anyway. Effective spots, effective work. Doesn't mean Hogan > Flair, or Hogan = Flair. But I do think it means we should take a step back and understand a lot of what annoyed us about Hogan was actually pretty effective work, and in turn a lot of what made Flair great~! is actually little more than effective work rather than epic, deep, great storytelling and work. They both were pretty simple workers, knowing what worked for them and their fans. Sorry for the long post. More fun than doing work on a Friday morning. John

By my tally I got 10 out of 16 for Edge, excluding the star ratings for 2010 which weren't included for some reason, which is the correct number of ****+ matches, but two main event matches short. Maybe Edge was in two sub *** main events over the years? Does your tally include multi-person matches? John