jdw

84 is a bit of a problem because of his move to Texas. One would need to check on when he moved there, and when he moved back. John

He went to pretty much all of the JCP/Turner shows that hit the Bay, along with some in Fresno and I think a few in Vegas and/or LA. He also road tripped on occassion for big shows such as Starcade, and the Crockett Cup, though those of course had cameras going. How many of those had Dick... who knows. Worthy looking up. John

It would be interesting if there were match reports by Dave of house shows in the WON back in the 80s of Dick being lazy. I recall how that went with Jumbo - there were none despite Dave seeing lots of Jumbo's match while in Japan. The one match he ended up trying to point to ended up being a problem. John

As I wrote on TPM a while back, the Dems are wasting their time going after Linda. The GOP Meat Grinder will eat here up, regardless of the $$$ she wants to blow on the race. Dems should save their time (and obviously $$$ researching this stuff) for the General Election. If Linda gets through the primary, which she won't, then go after her then. For now, they should just let Linda opponents go after her and eat up their own resources doing it. John

Dave is being conservative here. The costs of Hogan are more than just what Hogan is making (and expensing). Eric isn't doing this for free. You're going to have the usual host of Hogan Hangers On, such as Hart and Sully and eventually the likes of Beefcake and whatnot. Looks like they may bring in Flair, who isn't going to come in cheap as he knows he's risking pissing off Vince. The entire cost structure of TNA is going up-up-up while this "plan" is taking place, and we here rumors that bigger things are coming. The people they're dealing with in the plan don't give a shit about the promotion, but are little more than vampires looking to suck cash out of what they see as easy to rip off money marks. If TNA is lucky, one of two things happens: * their revenue skyrockets to cover all this; or * the can easily eject themselves from things if it fails If the first doesn't happen, and they're locked into some expensive deals they can't walk away from, it could be brutal. John

Dave's cover of the belt in the WON before last (10/26/09): Week before that: Ric has millions (though it's in retirement accounts), is making millions this year and last, has had 43% of his alimony payments knocked off each month, had deals coming in with tons of state lotos and a big Coke deal... But can't payback Highspots their loan. Has other loans out for the same collateral. Blows off meetings to settle his debts. It doesn't add up. I look forward to reading his BK filing when it will finally be explained just how fucked up his finances are relative to how it's been palmed off. John

Anyone listen to the interview with Billy Robinson? Should I just stay away from that one? BTW - Hoback mentioned that Meltzer explained on one of the shows in the past month why Molah isn't in the HOF. Does anyone know which show that is? John

Assuming Jim Ross's health allows him announce. WWE changing up announce teams leads me to believe no one knows when or even if Jim can return to the booth Agreed. I also think that for whatever shit he eats from the McMahons, Ross is realistic about the WWE paychecks clearing. One could have seen him jumping with Stone Cold somewhere years ago when a big pot of gold might have been dropped infront of him. But now, riding the ups and downs of the WWE is pretty safe money for Jim. John

Good review, Bix. John

No. John

My guess then is that TNA will also help fill Hogan's International Tours. One wonders where Ric fits into all of this. John

I agree that he does do historical non-bio pieces. He didn't do many of them back in the 80s or early 90s... I'm trying to recall the first of these type, and am drawing a blank. The first that sticks out in my mind would be the New Japan one during the 1996 G1, but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have been the first. If he did one on the death of SMW and looking back of it, that's more akin to an Obit. He did a few College Wrestlers In Pro Wrestling pieces over the years, and the earliest of those may have been his first non-bio historical piece or any note in the newsletters. John

If you like Inoki-Hansen, Will's Hansen set has quite a bit more of it. There's also a more of it that didn't make Will's set that can be found on some Dan's NJ Classic re-release along with his recent NJ Original TV set of disks. It has a pair of singles from 1977 & 1979 that hadn't been out, along with five tags (including a Bisco & Hansen vs Inoki & Sak from 1979). There's still more Inoki-Hansen out there, including their first two singles matches which never made Classics for some reason. One really wishes that this one could get a full release: 10/17/79 NJPW TV Taped 08/17/79 at Stampede Grand Victoria Pavilion, Calgary 1. WWF Jr. Title: Tatsumi Fujinami DCOR Dynamite Kid 20:33 2. NWF North American Title: Tiger Jeet Singh COR Seiji Sakaguchi 11:51 3. NWF Title: Antonio Inoki d. Stan Hansen 9:15 First meeting between Fujinami and DK on TV. NJ stars road trip to Canada, which fits into Inoki's dream of being an international star. Frankly, I never could figure out why the Inoki-Backlund from Miami didn't make classics since it got good heat in Miami. Inoki never got his match with Backlund in New York, but that one was a good match in the US. Anyway, I digress. There's more Inoki vs Hansen out there. Will probably pulled the best of the stuff from the 80s to hit the DVDVR Set, and also pulled other stuff he thought was good as well for his Hansen set. John

Brody was the first bio that got remembered. Dave had covered David and Gino's deaths in World Class. Tons of stuff on David, though a lot of is was copies of local covereage and I don't think a great deal of it was "bio". Things forgotten about the Brody one: * it isn't in remotely close to the detail of the ones done today * it didn't set the trend for the ones today If you look at the ones when Buddy Rogers died or when Dynamite Kid retired, they aren't what we see today given the stature of those two guys. My memory is that the ones that ended up setting the tone for the ones today are the Kerry and Andre ones that came within a short period of one another. Kerry was more than just a bio of Kerry, instead pulling together a lot of WCCW elements like the deaths of David, Mike and Chris. Dave being there for a chunk of that period no doubt spurred some of it, and also that there were a lot of themes in it that were things he had been noodling on for nearly a decade. Andre in turn was the start of "Big Star Dies And I Need To Write It Up Well". But those were also huge stars, either in the sense of an all-time biggy like Andre or one who had been at the center of the launch of the WON Era in Kerry. The next step would be people like Eddie Gilbert, John Studd and Junkyard Dog. Eddie wasn't that big of a star, but his life and path through wrestling hit on some themes that hit a spot for Dave, and seemed to drive him to write a good bio that was more detailed even than the retirement one of Dynamite, who had been a fav of Dave's. JYD was someone that Dave really didn't like at all once he hit the WWF, as anyone who reads those old WONs comes across time and again. But Dave really put a lot of effort and space into that bio, and didn't come at it from the direction of ripping the WWF JYD but instead telling the story of the star he was before he got there, which laid down the foundation for what a fall the time in the WWF was. And Studd... perfect symbol of what WON Readers disliked in the 80s, and someone Dave could have done a nothing bio on and had no complaints from WON readers. Instead, did a bio that we take for granted today but back then was, "Wow... there's a lot of stuff on Studd here that I didn't know". I'd have to go back and look at the timeline to see who set the trend on "historical" ones after Andre-Kerry. I want to say Stevens, which I recall reading in Chicago after Barnett faxed it to me in a hotel... and then spending a big chunk of the night after reading it on the phone with Dave going over it. As anyone can see from the Shire piece recently, Stevens hits a soft spot for Dave. He put a lot into that bio because of it. I think we're a bit lucky that those ones, and probably a few others in the 1993-96 time period, inspired Dave to expand the length at which he wrote on wrestlers that died and/or passed away. If that had been moved back to 1997 when the Monday Night Wars took off, ECW was starting to run PPV, and a few other things were drawing his time to cover, it's likely that the Big Ones would have gotten some length, but the ones like JYD or Gilbert or even Louie Spicolli (think of how long that was even relative to Brody) might have gotten something less. Instead, he set a standard for himself and pretty much feels he needs to hit those marks each time. I don't always agree with everything in one of his bios, and at times think some are weak/poor (the two on Jumbo) or am mixed on them (Misawa, Baba). But I do appreciate that he puts in more effort on it than he probably has to (as no one else really is doing it), and that he continues to push himself on them rather than cut them down to a third of their size and not worry about it. Anyway... We've come a long way from Brody. To a degree I don't care to see him ever "re-do" the Brody for the obvious reasons. But it's too bad that Buddy Rogers came at the time it did. I'm sure if it happened in 1994 it would have been much longer and far more interesting. In hindsight I'd worry about how much of it would come from Lou, who just hated the shit out of Buddy after a certain point, and brings some of his "stories" into a little doubt. Frankly, I wish Dave would each year take six of the Dead Hall Of Famers who he hasn't done an in-depth bio of and write a bio on. He probably could farm at least two of them out a year: one Old Timer from before 1950, and one non-US wrestler (alternating a luchador and a puroresu)... if he could find someone to help build the foundation to them. He already does that to a degree with the Real Old Timers that he puts in the HOF, and gets a heck of a lot of help with the older luchadors that have gone into the Hall in recent years. Of course that's a lot of work. There always are people dying anyway. There's lots of wrestling and MMA to cover. Hmmm... well... perhaps not as much wrestling and MMA to cover as in 1999-2000 before WCW and ECW died. Anyway, I'm rambling and this isn't anything I haven't said before. John

I thought Lex and Sting fell out when Mrs. Sting helped Sting get religion and Lex continued to chase the demon. Perhaps now that Lex has found religion (well... for now since one always keeps Jake in mind), Sting has rebuilt his old friendship. John

Setting aside the "you killed Liz" meme of the WWE, it's pretty hard to tell the story of Lex in an article coming back from the depths without mentioning one of the central parts of the depths. Which makes it a puff piece, which of course reading it makes clear. It's a 180 for the WWE to go from "you killed Liz" to a white-washy puff piece. While Vince and the WWE go in 180's all the time, this one is really odd. I'm just not seeing who in the WWE heirarchy has a soft spot for Lex to 180 on him. It's not like Lex was well liked in the business, or had a lot of friends. Sting was a friend, but they split when Sting got religion and Sting isn't in the WWE. Other than that... It's really strange given the years of hate. As much as Vince hates Savage, one could see Vince and Steph waking up one day and forgotting the hate and suddenly loving Randy. He was always one of Vince's all-time favorites. With Lex... Yeah, I'm just not seeing it. Really odd. I look forward to Dave reporting the story behind this. John

Strange article. No mention of Liz at all. John

And I get in trouble for comparing Ginger Lynn to Ric Flair. John

Semi, but not exactly. It's pretty much just a long, start-to-finish run on three-colum thing with either a Border around the text or a Page Border around the pages (with the cover page formatted to include the newsletter baner). Wade tried (and still does) lay it out like a magazine/newspaper where the cover items flip back to pages later in the product. Certain pages in the newsletter have set content for each week: Page 2 is always something, page 3 is where he throws something, etc. Columns were always on the 3rd and 2nd to last pages (with the back cover being the last page). He's switched that up to have columns be a second item (in addition to the Lead) to start on the front page before continuing to the back. Bryan's looks like a slightly prettier version of the WON layout. Not passing judgement on what's most effective because I think what most of us care about in the end is Content. Dave's layout has always sucked, but when he's got good content, not of us care. Wade's layout has often been very good (some versions over the years better than others), but if the content of an issue wasn't any good, it was useless. John

I'm cool with Hulk lying like this. It's "a great story", which is what wrestling books are all about. Also, we need to remember that Hulk isn't innovating here. Lou Thesz use to talk about how he blew out his knee when losing the title to Bronko, usually in blaming Bronko for it. Put him out for a long time. When people pointed out to Lou that he wasn't out long, it got kind of funny. Probably hard to find on Classics. So Hulk is just doing what Lou did. John

You seem to want to ignore that posters here *have* told Dave and/or Bryan what they think. Loss indicated that talking to Bryan is like banging your head against the wall. At some point, one gives up on that. I certainly can understand that: people have thought the same things about talking to me for years. Bix largely gets thrashed over on the WO-4 boards. More power to him for continuing to be a masochist. For others, you're implying that WO-4 is a freebie. It's not. Are you willing to pick up the subs of all the posters on this board who don't sub to the WON so that they can head over to the WO-4 boards simply to have conversations with Dave and Bryan, and get hammered by their defenders? Which is why people don't bother with the criticism: it gets dimissed as "nitpicking" because people don't want to address the criticism. I don't see that as a defense of criticism. It's just trying to sweep it away without even considering it. I also don't think "criticism" equates to "being upset". I laughed and groaned through Bryan's piece, which is hardly being "upset". I haven't talked much about Dave's two pieces, nor really has anyone. I think I said that above. It appears to be largely why you're here: dismiss and apologize. Which is fine for what it is, but a pretty limited role. I think the difference is that if you look around closely, you'll find that among the criticism of Dave and say Wade, you'll also see regular posters defending them on some things, or clarifying some things. For someone who has the rep of ripping Dave, you'll find posts on here of me defending Dave, or adding some points of clarification that aren't critical. John

The thread still regularly talks about columns. It's also become a catch-all for stuff that Dave and/or Bryan say. Would you rather have individual threads for each one of them? It's basically polite for people to dump it into one thread, making it easy for people to ignore it if they want. I'll second the comment by Loss: many of the posters in this thread have made similar comments to Dave and/or Bryan over the years that they have made here. The boards here contain examples of conversations that some have had with Bryan or Dave. One can go over to the WO-4 boards and find plenty of examples of Bix saying pretty much what he's said here over there, and more. I'll also make a pretty educated guess that the posters here bite many of their words of criticism of Dave and/or Bryan. That there is more that they don't agree with or scratch their heads over than what they toss into this thread, or other threads. This thread has been open for almost two and a half years. There are just 274 posts in it, and clearly far less than that number of items being talked about since most things tossed in here get several responses (such as this one). Why? Because they don't want to be seen as fanatically obsessing about every little comment Dave & Bryan make. But it's a catch-22. They still get tagged with that meme even when biting their words. An example? The biggest story of the year was Misawa's death. Misawa is someone that a lot of the posters here have watched a great deal of over the years, and talked and written about a ton over those years. You'll find the critisicm of Bryan's Misawa piece here to be rather mild and limited compared to what it warranted. Discussion of Dave's Misawa pieces, and given his pieces some deeper thought, was pretty non-existant. John

This is all kind of odd. So Dave and Bryan ignore the matches when they get those wrestler DVDs, like the WWE's Flair or Michaels DVDs? John

I don't really take that as a wrestler comment. It reads more aimed at people who are watching older matches, or rethinking matches (such as the one Bix tossed out). I don't think wrestler care too much about that, especially since most of the feedback they likely are to get on older matches is fawning. Does that sound like something that Cornette would say? Because I suspect most of what Jimbo gets on his older matches is people thinking they're The Shit. One doubts that Flair gets any of the critical comments tossed around about his work, and if he did, he wouldn't give a shit. He cares more about what Bret Hart and Terry Funk say about his work than what the DVDVR Folks do. The comment sounds more of a defense from: People Are Questioning This Old Match Rating and: People Are Rethinking Wrestler X Bix could give a better context to it. John