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The question is less about individual female fans existing and more about, well this: - When do people think wrestling had the most female wrestling fans? - Why do you think those women came to the matches? What was over with them? - Why didn't they stay fans? How long were they fans for? - What do you think would be some ways to get similar fans now? If we're getting in a huff about those questions being answered, let's give it a go: - When do people think wrestling had the most female wrestling fans? There have long been women and girls fans, and still are. Peak? Who knows. We have no demographics data for the entire history of pro wrestling, be it age demos, sex demos, religious demos, racial demos. - Why do you think those women came to the matches? What was over with them? Because they enjoy Pro Wrestling. - Why didn't they stay fans? How long were they fans for? They're fans just like Manfolk Fans. They come, they go, some stick, some move on, some get back into it when their kids do, some don't. That they have a vagina doesn't make them different in that sense than the ones that have a penis. - What do you think would be some ways to get similar fans now? Who knows. Don't really care. I care less about the Mass of Fans than being able to watch and/or interact with the Individual Fans. One of Hoback and my favorite things about PWG when we were going semi-regularly was that a father would bring his 13-15 year old daughter and his 10-12 year old son. Watching the son was fun because you're seeing how a boy reacts to an indy show that's a bit more adult than the WWF in the 80s, but in the end... his reactions were pretty similar to the boys you'd see at shows in the 80s and 90s and 00s, not just in the US but in Mexico and in Japan. Watching the girl was a lot of fun. Most of here reactions were similar to her brother: she was just a fan, though being a bit older she got some of the jokes and nonsense a bit more than he did. Some of her reactions were priceless, which James often recalls as: "That's funny... should I laugh" as she'd check out her dad out of the corner of her eyes. She was great to watch reacting to the shows. Much of the PWG crowd, similar to any wrestling crowd, is just a mass of humanity that isn't terribly interesting. After the initial sense of what they react to, whether they're into it or not, are they popping, are they smart or assholes, it all wears off. Be they women or men. But some... they stand out. I know that James and I will be talking about PWG Girl for years to come just like we talk about (That Damn) Misawa Fan dancing the jig in the aisle when his idol kicks out of the power bomb. Both for far different reasons, and to us far better reasons, that fans like Sign Guy always being on your TV.

I'd put Sasuke failing to run the Samurai-Liger-Pegasus gauntlet at the Super J Cup as high on the list. He did get two wins, including the big one. But in the end, he did job to New Japan. He became a Someone coming out of it, while he'd been just a minor leaguer before that.

Hansen-Kobashi didn't elevate Kobashi up the cards. He was in the same spot for another year. One can debate when he got to the level he was at in July 1993: either May/June 1993 or June 1992. One could see differences in May/June 1993 from what he'd been in June 1992 that might be subtle 20 years later. And yeah... he lost in June 1992 and June 1993 just like he lost in July 1993. If we're trying to thread the needle on singles losses, the one to Hansen didn't mean more than or "make Kobashi' more the earlier losses to Jumbo. It's a great match. People loved it at the time. But it didn't change things a great deal.

On the original question, my girlfriend was/is a pro wrestling fan. So... they exist, did into the 90s, and still do.

Decline in AJW had set in by 1996. Other mens promotions fell off prior to that, but that mostly was due to bad business (UWFi), cult of personality running out of steam (FMW), up cycle running out of steam (AJPW), etc. AJW was probably akin to AJPW. It had it's up cycle for the 90s. Interpromotional helped it spike some big business. By 1996 that had run its course. The stars of the 90s had peaked in terms of storylines, and what was coming up behind them didn't capture the fans quite as much. The bottom didn't really fall out of AJPW for a while, but one could see business wasn't as hot as it had been. New Japan was peaking in that era in 1995-97. Pretty much the exception to the rule until they started screwing up. The debt was a major issue by the August 1997 Budokan, and for it to have gotten public meant that it had to be impacting it for a while prior to that. Yeah... even if things had been good, that looks like it would have butchered the promotion.

My bad memory: thought the Greatest Hits was between Adore (1998) and Machina (2000), not after Machina.

Rodman = Gordy might not be a bad one at all. "Championship" run with the Pistons/Birds, sort of farted around for a while, then second Championship run with Bulls/All Japan. Rodman eventually lost his mind, and Gordy OD's his mind away. To a degree both are tragic, but it seemed like people in the business / teammates loved the guy when his mind was on right. Neither were anchor stars like a Jordan or Hansen type, but were excellent in the teammate / roster role. Taue wasn't as good as Pippen. Scottie is one of the 2-3 best defensive players of the modern era (along with Rodman and... it's harder to find #3 than it is to find the Top 2). Taue wasn't one of the 2-3 best at any skill. Shaq doesn't have Tenryu's longevity. Tenryu doesn't have Shaq's level of dominance. Karl didn't have the break down or the substance abuse that Shawn did. Shawn wasn't the revolutionary juice head that Karl was. Karl was also a choker on the biggest stages, and while I tend to think Shawn was wildly overrated, he wasn't a choke in big matches (though he was as a Champ). 1985 Lost NBA Eastern Conference First Round (1-3) versus Milwaukee Bucks 1986 Lost NBA Eastern Conference First Round (0-3) versus Boston Celtics 1987 Lost NBA Eastern Conference First Round (0-3) versus Boston Celtics 1988 Lost NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals (1-4) versus Detroit Pistons 1989 Lost NBA Eastern Conference Finals (2-4) versus Detroit Pistons 1990 Lost NBA Eastern Conference Finals (3-4) versus Detroit Pistons 1995 Lost NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals (2-4) versus Orlando Magic Jordan jobbed. He's a good match for Hogan: they both jobbed early to Backlund and Andre types. Then they got the belt and didn't lose... except for screwy booking.

There are other similarities: Part of a "tag team" before breaking off. It's just probably one that would make people uncomfortable remember the unending Boogie Woogie vs Paul Jones' Army feud.

Harden is really tough. There are times when he's awful (usually in the post season over the years), yet still has an oddball impact. There are times when he's terrific, but it's painful to watch if you're not a fan of his team. He's "great", but is a flawed ugly fashion that is also effecitive/efficient more often than not. You clearly can build a promotion around him: 45-37, 54-28 & 56-26 not just in the West but in the Southwest Division with the Spurs, Mavs and Grizzzzzz. That's like Onita or Maeda drawing big with New Japan and All Japan working the same "region" as you. It's not like he's doing that with Westbrook as his sidekick. Don't really want to say he's either Onita or Maeda. He's is somewhat similar to them in working a different "style" than the more successful franchise players. He's tough. Unique player. A bit like if Pistol Pete were actually a great hoops player rather than one of the most overrated ever.

Just because what? Trying to be some sort of passive aggressive " look at me, did I ever mention I went to Japan with Meltzer" zero who actually answered this thread in Japanese? Get over yourself, man. Seriously. I was hardly the only person to answer the thread in "Japanese", or engage in a discussion about it. As far as "just because what", my guess is that there's any number of people here who've read what I've wrote about Kawada & Taue over the past two decades to know that they have a special place in my tag team heart. Does anyone really need me to write 4000 words on them in this thread to explain it. You really need to get the bug out of your ass, Sorrow.

Now now... Billy sold about 19 millions of those albums in the 90s. It's about like saying WCW did some big PPV numbers. They did: close to two decades ago.

1. The Midnight Express & Jim Cornette (both versions) 2. 川田 利明 & 田上 明 Why? The first, along with Ric Flair, made me a fan of pro wrestling. The second, just because.

There isn't a difference. If you agree to a finish, then you agree not to fight. You're just bullshitting in there faking things. The specifics in Whistler-Muldoon were that Whistler agreed to have a draw at Muldoon's request. Does anyone with a brain read that to mean that they agreed to kick the living shit out of each other... but just not finish each other off, and instead keep kicking the shit out of each other until time is up? No. Everyone reads that as them having a fake match agreeing to go to a draw. There's a reason why fighters always got up at arms about "taking a dive" i.e. agreeing to a finish: it called into question the whole thing. If both guys agree to a finish, they're faking it in there. None of them want to wack the other guy, pissing him off, and screw up the finish.

Yep... that.

Sumo Hall--Vader's debut? Yep. Japan, where they treated it like sport and it's on the front page of Tokyo Sports. Fans went batshit not because Inoki & Vader roused their passions with a great performance. They went batshit because they had been looking forward to Inoki-Choshu all year long. Inoki and the promotion tried to pull a fast one by pushing Vader into the main, then tried to pull a second fast one by putting on a quicky horrid Choshu-Inoki (where Choshu jobbed), then put on an even quicker shitty Inoki-Vader... and they fans just had enough of the bullshit and went nuts in prime, proper Sumo Hall.

Yep. I pointed to Vince, but he was just one item in a long line of exposures of the business. Yohe is working on a revised version of the timeline that was in that old PWI Yearbook. He's having a blast slipping in examples of the working of the business being exposed. Clarence Whistler in major papers in Los Angeles and San Francisco copped to his match with William Muldoon being worked at Muldoon's request. He copped to it two days after it happened. This was in 1884.

Better security detail at arenas would probably be a good start in terms of guessing what's changed. I think law enforcement has cracked down on a lot of stuff. Not just in wrestling, but elsewhere.

Newspapers and 20-20 aren't very popular with kids and teenagers. My guess is that more wrestling fans watched that 20-20 episode than non-wrestling fans, who generally don't give a shit about Fake Wrestling. As far as newspapers, perhaps that's the case in your generation. In my generation and in my town, kids checked out papers especially when the topic was something that interested them. Again, we seem to be projecting that Wrestling Fans Are Dumb Fucks who can't read, don't watch tv, and are too stupid to tell that Fake Punches are Fake Punches.

We have to come up with one for Josh Smith. Perhaps Sabu. One of the dumbest fucking players ever... but not without talent... but just dumb as rocks.

I wasn't reading wrestling newsletters in the 80s, and I knew about it. I don't really want to say that pro wrestling fans are dumber than I am and weren't able to read things that got in the newspapers and other publications (for decades). Or were too stupid to watch things like a popular show such as 20-20. But that really does seem to be what people are trying to imply.

I was reminded recently by a fellow fan out hear in Los Angeles (Jorge Oseguera) about how I hipped him to going to Little Tokyo go get New Japan and All Japan weekly television from a video store that was located there. I have fuzzy memories of doing that for a few folks back in the 90s, and it's really cool that he remembered. I remember the lady who ran one of the stores down there. She was always nice and friendly to the gaijin who came to the store for puroresu. If there was a rush on tapes one week, she'd always stash one behind the counter for me when I came in, busting out a smile to tell me: "All gone... I save one for you!" Wondeful woman to treat one of her crazy customers like that. I remember the trainee from our parent company who took me to one in Torrance in 1989 where he got his weekly fix. Life altering moment. Don't recall when I thought to swing by downtown to pick them up as well. Probably during the few short years I lived in Pasasdena and thought about Little Tokyo while driving up the 110.

Will's Kawada set has 15+ discs with 99 matches covering his post-split career. Looks like 14 Hustle matches. The rest are AJPW, NJPW, Z1, IWA, NOAH, Kaientai Dojo, U-Style, Dragondoor, Muga. Really a wide variety, getting extremely close to the end. It looks like there were only three tv/ppv matches after the end: Jul-14-2010 NOAH: Takuma Sano & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Masao Inoue (13:08) Jul-19-2010 NOAH: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Genba Hirayanagi & Mohammed Yone & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (15:37) Aug-15-2010 NJPW: Genichiro Tenryu & Tiger Mask & Toshiaki Kawada vs Riki Choshu & Super Strong Machine & AKIRA (8:17) Will's timing was pretty amazing. Set came out as he walked away. Anyway, that's a ton of matches to make the cut. I wasn't a big fan of the post-split stuff, even that stuff that was pimped like Muto-Kawada. But I also wasn't a fan of the NOAH stuff that was pimped even more.

It was also a decade after Vince publicly said wrestling was worked.

The most famous "riot" of the Observer years (1983 to the present) related not to Performers Working Up The Emotions Of The Fans to some fever pitch, but instead the fans being pissed off at the Promotion for Booking. Ironically, in a county that treated wrestling as "sport" for far longer than was done here. Even in that setting, the fans knew booking bullshit, and went bonkers when feeling that *they* had been screwed over by the booking.