jdw

High ranking Dems were wrong on 2000 left and right. As they were in 2002 and 2004. Same jackasses who said that the Dems needed to run strong in the deep south in 2006 and 2008. Dumb fucks, and if Dave is actually beliving anything they had to say about 2000, he's naive. John

Won't happen. The GOP will run a real candidate this time. Frankly they don't have much control over that anymore, as we've seen in a lot of states or districts. They'll try to win the seat, and hope that Lieb bleeds the Dems. Which won't happen. Dems in the state don't trust him. The Indies don't trust him. The GOP in the state are going hardcore teabagger, and they don't care for "moderates" like Lieb. In a three-way he's draw 10% at most. And likely a 10% that won't hurt the Dem. He's toast: the state has been waiting to kill him off since 2007 when he started upping his lies. John

Joementum says "I can make JDW hate me even more!" http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/...l#ixzz0p9IRJDTC "Joe Lieberman open to backing Linda McMahon" Joe is sticking his finger in the air to figure out what will help him in 2012: He knows he's getting 0 Dem support in 2012 other than perhaps the Establishment, and he sees how that helped Specter. He worried that his prior Indy method won't work this time: the GOP might just field a teabagger who sucks up the GOP vote rather than have it sit under 10%. That would kill him off. So he's going to see if Linda gets traction and has a chance of winning in November. If she does and the GOP are close to taking the Senate, you could see Lying Lieb (and possibly Ben Nelson) jump to the GOP if they think it helps them for 2012. I think _all_ paths lead to Lieb losing. Even if he jumps and the GOP Establishment circles around him, a tea bagger will run and likely knock Lieb off. If he goes Indy, Lieb and a teabagger will split the GOP vote, probably not get a ton of Indy votes (they hate Lieb too), and the Dem nominee will get almost all of the Dem vote and win the seat. Joe's a rather delusional and egocentric person, so I don't think he's quite seen that he's screwed. He's gotten away with so much shit over the years that he probably think's he'll fake his way to re-election. One of the more enjoyable things of 2012 will be seeing him crash and burn. One of the less enjoyable things will be watching how vindicative he gets with his votes ones he sees he's toast. John

I was history & poli sci with a second major in recreactional destructive behavior... so I trashed much of what I learned. "That brain was in no condition to retain things long term." But the Cali stuff sticks in my head since the strange GOP-Dem stuff here has been going on all my life, while Wiki has real good resources to look stuff up these days and I've spent way too much time in the past decade looking up stuff like that as we worked towards 2006 & 2008. John

Dodd (D): 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998, 2004 Smallest margin: 56.34% vs 42.91% in 1980 Lieberman (D): 1988, 1994, 2000 Won a tight 49.76% vs 49.04% race against Weicker (the incumbent) in 1988. Lieberman (I): 2006 Won because the GOP threw their support behind him (Schlesinger drew less than 10%). Weicker ® won in 1970, 1976, 1982. That was a different era as their were quite a few "moderate" and "liberal" Republicans in the Northeast. They've largely been purged from the party over the past 20 years, with Collins and Snowe among the few remaining. Frankly they aren't really liberal nor very moderate except relative to anything other than the extreme winginess that the GOP has become. It's worth noting that a Dem hasn't won the Gov's office since 1986. Sometimes the run in offices like Senator are as much about the candidate than they are off the party. Incumbents tend to get re-elected and/or survive tough times. The Govs office have more turnover, often due to term limits (which isn't the case in CT), so they give a little clearer indication on a state's willingness to elect people from each party. People think CA is Liberal Central and it's impossible for the GOP to win there. My lifetime: 1966 Reagan ® 1970 Reagan ® 1974 Brown (D) 1978 Brown (D) 1982 Duke ® 1986 Duke ® 1990 Wilson ® 1994 Wilson ® 1998 Gray (D) 2002 Gray (D) 2003 Arnold ® 2006 Arnold ® Brown wouldn't have won in 1974 if Ronnie wanted to run for re-election. Instead, Ronnie didn't and focused on running for President in 1976. Wilson gave up a Senate seat that wouldn't expire until 1994. He almost certainly would have been relected then, and held the office at least until 2000, and quite possibly held it again if he ran that year. In fact, it's kind of hard to find a point at which he would have lost the seat before 2006 which was something of a wave election for the Dems. Instead, he beat DiFi in 1990 for the Gov's job, and DiFi turned around and won Pete's old Senate seat and turned into an institution there. In Boxer's case, there have been times where she looked on the ropes, but the GOP has run a string of crappy candidates at her. On a statewide office level, California isn't as "dirty fucking hippy liberal" as folks outside of Cali would belive. CT has a similar streak, as seen in the Gov's office. It's just that Dodd was unbeatable until the banking scandals, and Lieb wasn't beatable until he turned into a neocon. John

I wonder if Keith will beat me to posting this in the Ric Flair there on Bruce's board... John

Good news for the Dems. Joh

Davey Boy vs Iron Sheik got a good USA chant out here in Los Angeles. There are others like that which I've fogotten over the years. John

Blake is an icon. John

09/05: Rikio vs Misawa with Kobashi & Taue vs Akiyama & Tenryu 11/05: Misawa vs Tenryu with Kobashi-Sasaki tag in support... and Taue winning the GHC from Rikio 01/06: Akiyama over Taue for GHC with Kobashi-Akebono tag 03/06: Akiyama vs Suzuki I tend to think that things weren't going well by October 2005 if they felt the need to eject out of Rikio and go back to the Old Boys. Rikio drew on 9/05 thanks to the opponent and an interesting tag in support. Taue-Rikio didn't draw, and instead the under card did. Very hard to imagine that the Akiyama-Taue drew, and even with Akebono one wonders if the number was a work. Dittos the Akiyama-Suzuki. But it also goes to my earlier point. If it was Misawa (opposite Rikio), Tenryu (opposite Misawa), Akebono (opposite Kobashi) and Suzuki (opposite Jun) that drew those crowds as something relatively fresh in NOAH, I don't see why you couldn't roll all of that into a *single* wrestler and storyline. Obviously Misawa wanted to put over Rikio personally and hope it gave him the rub. Hence looking strong at the Dome then jobbing to Rikio. Just didn't work out, similar to most of Misawa's attempts to create successors. John

Sounds like a lot of conflicting shit in all of that. Hall being on-off of antabuse is damn strange, but not inconsistent with the reality that Hall's nuts. You'd have to go back and actually watch the beer dumping to see if it looked like a planned spot or if Hall was surprised and trying to get away from it. From CRZ: http://slashwrestling.com/smackdown/020221.html Looks like beer is pretty much "written" into the whole script of the ongoing skit. Hard to blame Austin for it, since it's not just one ad-lib. Looks like dumbass WWF Creative, and probably Hall (if he was really trying to stay sober which is always doubtful in his case) for not standing up when the storyline was pitched and asking for beer not to be a part of the skit. John

I was going to bring this up at Cageside Seats, but do we really buy the Scott Hall was taking Antabuse story anymore? I get Jake Roberts becoming a born-again Christian vibes from that story. I'm pretty sure that other wrestlers saw him vomiting from the reaction. When was the beer spot? I seem to recall Hall being drunk off his ass Mania weekend, so it must have been before then. John

He was crying that much over a shoulder? Yow... John

His spot has been hitting the shit out of the mat hard to "fire up". He hit it at a bad angle, and it snapped. Keller's comments were that he wasn't terribly surprised ("could see this coming"). John

After the spear/kick, Randy pounding the mat and there you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XODhlcXlqmw Goofball. John

Dave publishing the Kunkle letter in that era wasn't a surprise at all. He often would print letters that disagreed with him, and didn't always feel the need to defend himself with comments after it. Bruce's letter is exactly what you would have expected from Bruce, and frankly don't just reflect Bruce's. A lot of us viewed "WWF vs NWA" the same way at that point, and the Arn & Tully jump as one of the pull back the curtain moments where you felt the NWA was dead. I didn't have the link to Mid Atlantic like Bruce did, having started watching Crockett only through TBS when we got cable. But they were the wrestling that hooked me, and the WWF was a "joke" to me that I followed simply to (i) keep up, and (ii) watch the few guys in it that I thought were decent. Among "hardcore" fans, this was very common. Hell... I didn't even read the WON at the time of that letter, and when coming across it in the early 90s when completely my collection of WON's, the thought very much was: "Bruce captured what I was thinking at the time". Kunkle's was the one that was a bit different, as you just didn't have as many hardcore fans in the 80s and early 90s that were WWF fans. I think that really changed with the growth of the online world, and lets be honest that as that happened it was a slightly different WWF. Online hardcore fans of the WWF tended to point to the good workers (Shawn, Bret, Perfect, recalling Savage and Steamboat) more than they pointed to love of Hogan or Warrior. Kunkle was writing outside the box of the typical harcore wrestling fandom, which makes for an interesting letter two decades later since he ended up being a bit more correct. I wouldn't say 100%, because I do think you could have a successful promotion by taking the strengths of each promotion. John

Thought the plan always was just to use him one time, and nothing more. They liked to put on special added drawing matches on their domes, and that's what Misawa-Kawada was, along with Kobashi-Sasaki and Tenryu-Ogawa from that card and Takayama & Suzuki vs Rikio & Morishima and Misawa & Ogawa vs Mutoh & Kea was from the prior year. There seems to be a pretty clear mutal dislike between the folks running NOAH and Kawada, and that it's been there from the start. They've been willing to put over freelancers like Takayama and Sasaki for the belt, and have Suzuki challenge for it. That show seemed like the point to put over either Sasaki or Kawada to set them up for a match with Rikio (and frankly win the belt) later in the year. But the company had other idea, and wouldn't get back to Sasaki with the belt for several years (after he'd already gone to All Japan). If there wasn't heat, I tend to think it would have been a good time to run with Kawada as something to fill time and relatively fresh for the younger wrestlers to challenge (hell, Akiyama had never had a title match with Kawada in All Japan). Kawada was also fresh off the long reign with the TC. Hey... I don't book this shit, and no one asked me. John

Doubt they had an "endgame" yet in mind. My recollection is that they didn't know Jumbo had the hep when he missed time in mid-1992. He came back and they continued to push him: he and Taue retained the World Tag Titles in October, they were booked for the Tag League, and the final night in Budokan was to be main evented by Misawa & Kawada vs Jumbo & Taue. It was a surprise when Jumbo didn't work the tag league, and not announced until right before the league started. None of that is the type of stuff you do when you know someone has serious hep. Their original plan when Misawa won that belts was almost certainly that Jumbo was going to win the belts back the first time that he challenged for them. That's what almost always happened to the dynastic native champs with the top belt in promotions Baba was in: 06/25/68 Bobo beat Baba for the Int'l Title 06/27/68 Baba beat Bobo to regain 12/03/70 Kiniski beat Baba for the Int'l Title 12/19/70 Baba beat Kiniski to regain 06/01/78 Kamata beat Baba for the PWF Title 02/10/79 Baba beat Abby to regain 07/31/86 Hansen beat Jumbo for the Int'l Title 09/03/86 Hansen DCOR Jumbo to retain 10/21/86 Jumbo beat Hansen to regain 03/27/88 Brody beat Jumbo for the Int'l Title 04/19/88 Jumbo beat Brody to regain 06/05/89 Tenryu beat Jumbo for the TC 10/11/89 Jumbo beat Tenryu to regain 06/05/90 Gordy beat Jumbo for the TC 01/19/91 Jumbo beat Hansen to regain 07/28/94 Williams beat Misawa for the TC 05/26/95 Misawa beat Hansen to regain 05/24/96 Taue beat Misawa for the TC 01/20/97 Misawa beat Kobashi to regain 05/01/98 Kawada beat Misawa for the TC 10/31/98 Misawa beat Kobashi to regain 01/22/99 Kawada beat Misawa for the TC 05/02/99 Misawa beat Vader to regain One exception, a DCOR with them stretching things out for another series back in a year where their booking was a little different (five title matches from 3/29/86 to 10/21/86 between Jumbo and Stan as they final got around to a singles feud after so many years). You lose it, and you get it back the next time you challenge. If the title is going to be on someone else's waist for a while, you hold off on booking the Man back into title matches. If you want several people to have a taste (Williams --> Kawada --> Hasen or Taue --> Kobashi), you again hold off on putting him into title matches. Look at Misawa's win in 1992 as similar to Kawada's in 1994. A top gaijin was the one who got to beat the Ace, then the #2 beat the gaijin. The belt went back to the Ace when the Ace challenged next. Back at the time, it looked like Jumbo was getting it back at the first Budokan, in the match that Taue got thrown into instead. Jumbo would have been just shy of 42 at the time. Before he got sick, it hadn't looked like he was slowing down. Frankly he was the best worker in the promotion in 1991, and one would have to look week-by-week in 1992 to try to get a sense of when the health hit that started to drag him down. They hoped some time off would get him well. Didn't. When beyond 1993 would Jumbo have put Misawa over as the new Ace? Really hard to tell. Baba was the ace in All Japan until 1982/1983, sort of clearly by the time Jumbo won the Int'l belt for the first time and followed it with the AWA Title. Before that's a little fuzzy as they were in a bit of a transition period. Baba was 45 when Jumbo won the Int'l title for the first time. Jumbo was in much better physical shape at 40 (1991) than Baba had been at 40 (1978), so it's hard to think that when Baba was pondering what he needed to do in early 1992 that he thought Jumbo was close to the end and it was time to make Misawa the man. Most likely, we'd have something like 6/89 where Misawa beat Jumbo for the TC at some point, only to have Jumbo fire back up to get the belts back and have some doubt over who was the top dog. All Japan was really slow in developing that stuff. Look at how long it took Kawada to win the Triple Cown from Misawa after 10/92: five and a half years. Kobashi *never* won the Triple Crown from Misawa, though it's clear by the end that Misawa was planning on having it happen (just as he would in NOAH, but Kobashi's injuries kept it from happening until 2003). John

I talked about these ones: http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....c&start=293 11/09/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (15:35) Taped: Boston Garden Aired: 11/09/85 NESN http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....c&start=294 11/22/85 Don Muraco & Mr. Fuji vs. Ricky Steamboat & Tito Santana (12:39) Taped: The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA Aired: 11/22/85 PRISM Network http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....c&start=295 11/25/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (16:38) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York Aired: 11/25/85 MSG Network http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....c&start=296 12/07/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (8:33) Taped: The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA Aired: 12/07/85 PRISM Network Watched more of them, but they all were weak for reasons I went into in those four posts and didn't want to run the points into the ground by writing up more. If you want to point me to the three Very Best Steamer-Muraco matches, I'll track them down and give them a fling if I haven't watched them before. But I've seen Steamer in a lot of great matches, and even just solid watchable matches. And I've seen Muraco in classics with Backlund. What I've seen of their feud not only isn't good, but it's wildly disappointing. It's no Tito-Valentine or Tito-Savage feud. Like I said, let me know what your three best are, and I'll look at them when picking the WWF thread back up. Always looking for inspiration to start watching again, and I've a load of other WWF stuff laying around to get to. John

That's been out there forever. Would rather see other matches in the feud. The stuff in the studio was great, even better than the Starcade match. ??? What's this??? Ugh. I really didn't think the Orton match was all that great, and I've yet to see a watchable Steamer-Muraco match. Looks like they got the right one. Sort of has to be on there, but it's been out there forever. That eats up a lot of space. Don't know why they don't go with him winning the title. These work, even if they've been out there. Recall that being watchable. Was this the best match they could get with Rick on one side and Austin on the other, setting aside Wargames? I guess the title change makes sense. Maybe a little too predictable with the exception of his winning the World Title not being on here. Since this is his first DVD set with the bio, that does make a lot of sense. But if they'd gone to the World Title Change, they would have given themselves another 30+ minutes to play with to put more stuff in. :/ John

Yeah, my guess is that Jim will work on version 1 of the book: the WWE Version of the book. Hope it maks Vince happy, and gets him a nice new contract. If that fails, and Jim gets pissed off, we might get a good vesion. But as hateful and grouchy as Jim as, he's still very protective of the business and isn't one to air loads of dirty laundry. John

I expect to see something like that from a writer of a newspaper or someone on the tube railing against criticism on the internet. I don't expect to see it from someone who is on the internet. The net simply gives of the ability to share our throughts with a wide public just like we did in the past within our tight circle of friend. Don't like whats happening with the Yankees? Yankees Fans use to complain about it to their friends, co-workers or call in talk radio. Now they can just post it on a board. Are the Steinbrenners stupid enough to say, "If you don't like how we run our team, do root for the Red Sox"? I mean... for fuck's sake, only idiots would through that out. Same if a Yankees Mark told a Bitter Mean Spirited Yankees Fan that if he was that unhappy, he should go root for the Deil Rays. The fuck?!?! Life is full of criticism. We are _all_ critical of things, even stuff that we like or we keep doing it. I'm a fucking broken record on this, but I also keep running into people pretending that they aren't the same as us "critical obsessive bastards". Jesus christ... go into the other forum and read the recaps of Dave ripping the WWF in the 80s. Was it in any way valid for a reader of his to write in and say, "If you don't like the WWF stop watching it, Dave"? Just mindfuckingly dumb. We're freaking wrestling fans. We watch wrestling. We read about it. We talk about it. We write about it. We praise what we like. We rip what we think is crap. Baseball fans do the same shit. Go onto a baseball boards and you'll find far stronger things that what we write. Wrestling *writers* do the same thing. How many years has Dave been sticking a hot poker up the ass of Michael Cole for various failings that Dave sees in him? A decade now? Todd has spent close to a decade ripping the shit out of the failings he sees in the WWE. If he can do that, he needs to get big enough balls to accept that people will be critical of him as well. As should his readers. Especially since we're all on the net and we know that it's there for us to toss out what we think. John

Blume story took an interesting turn: The flaws in the NYT Blumenthal story Don't think Blume comes out of it clean as a whistle, but quite a bit worse with a pair of heels to work against: Linda and the NYT. I think for his target voters who might be on the fence after the initial break of the story, those aren't bad heels to be working against. John

Typical TNA stuff: throw money at Cappetta when you could get any local indy ring announcer for chump change because he'd like to hang out with the boyz. John