jdw

BTW - someone should create a good, solid, in one place "piece" on each of the Euro candidates. I'm open to voting for people, but need to read through something. A 10 page thread (if one exists) is a bit like reading though the Ole Anderson thread on WC. While there's a boatload of fun in that thread, by the end it's a clusterfuck. Put it together, and I'm more than happy to point Yohe and even Bruce to it. John

What's funny is that they're almost a lock to have someone go in. I don't know if Dave has a rule of a minimum number of votes in a region. It would be odd if only 1 person votes in the "Euro Region" and those guys all get in with just one vote. That's not likely, but 5 votes? 10 votes? Could be a very low threshold. There also doesn't seem to be someone in there who could split up votes. I'm willing to bet one or more gets in barring: * a group of voters manipulating the vote (easier to do in a region with a small number of ballots) * Dave had a minimum number of voters needed to get in John

"Anyone who receives mention on 60% of the ballots from their geographic region (broken down as United States & Canada; Mexico; Japan; or Europe) will be added to the Hall of Fame this year." -Dave's note They appear to be Europe. John

05/04/81 if it's the one I'm thinking of. John

I'm not sure who in the US could have had that match in 1994 or even 1996. By that, I mean top stars rather than Benoit and Eddy trying to match it move-for-move. But among tops stars, even trying to block out their signature spots/moves in the place of those of Kawada and Misawa... I'm not sure who could have worked that match for 35 minutes. I'd go further. If Shawn and Bret could have worked spot-for-spot the 7/95 Misawa vs Kawada match, it would be the consensus greatest match in US history. It's obviously not my favorite match between the two, and probably is one of the starting points to AJPW style getting out of hand over the balance of the decade. But it's a match that would translate in Pavlovian ways if a pair of major US heavyweights put it on in a big match setting. It's a bit like comparing the 6/89 Jumbo-Tenryu match with say the 2/89 Flair-Steamboat. Ric and Ricky couldn't have had the 6/89 match. They just didn't work that style. But if they could, we'd still be calling it the clear best match of all-time. The stuff in the match would translate to US wrestling fans *if* US wrestlers did it, and would be molten hot if those US wrestlers were top stars working a similar storyline. Which to a degree Flair-Steamboat were: one wrestler trying to take the top spot long held by his rival. Instead, they had the match they could work... and plenty of us think that it's a really exceptional match. The Misawa-Kawada would easily translate in the US if Shawn and Bret could do it. I think we're fooling ourselves to think otherwise as pretty much everything Misawa and Kawada did in that match was over at one point our another in the 90s, with the exception of the finish which I don't think anyone did in a major promotions. John

Exactly. Misawa-Kawada has meaning to people that Misawa-Kawada has meaning to. Little different than Flair-Steamboat, only that far more fans and *smart* fans saw the Flair-Steamboats in this country. In constrast, Hogan-Andre has meaning to far, far, far more people in this country than all the Flair-Steamboats added together. I've always though the term "smark" is a nonsensical term. The folks captured by the term "smarks" aren't really any different than those captured by the terms "smart fans" and "hardcore fans" in the 80s. The launching of the WON in the 80s and newsletters like it is a better starting point for modern smart fans than the 90s. These types of existed before that (as pointed out above going back to the 1800s), but the WON and the other newsletters became a rallying point, a place of increased knowledge and information. I think the departure for modern smart fans is that rather than just enjoying and following the "entertainment" aspect of wrestling, they became much more knowledgable about and intently followed the "business" aspect of wrestling. That would be following not just the storylines, but how they came about behind the scenes. Following not just the wrestlers, but the reasons why they've changing promotions/companies, or changing pushes, etc. Those elements of the business, in addition to what's making money. And of course in following the "entertainment" side of the business, starting to cover it similar to other entertainment: talking about / reviewing the quality, as people do with movies, music, TV, plays, books, etc. The would be the general starting point of the modern smart fan / hardcore fan / smark. Nothing really changed until the growth of the internet made smart fan thinking widely and easily available to the masses (now just most anyone who follows wrestling if they chose to can find "inside info"), and in turn the business began to react to it far more strongly and far more openly. I think most anyone who was around at the time would point to the growth of AOL giving the internet to the Masses rather than what had largely been college based before (students and teachers). Not to dismiss Prodigy or Compuserv or things like that, as they had some impact. But AOL was the monster that first exploded things to the masses. Also not saying it was the endpoint of the growth, as the shift towrds information websites and message boards and file sharing and everything else since then have had massive impacts. I see them as continuations of that online growth and improvements on sharing of information, opinion and not literally media. To a degree they're a bit like the ongoing growth of the subscriber bases of the newsletters from the WON launching up through say 1995, where it wasn't just the WON but also the Torch and a number of small newsletters at that point. Some overlapping subscribers, but still vastly bigger than the number Dave had when rolling out his first issue. Anyway, long post and maybe the point is lost at the end. 1992-94 didn't have a major impact on the growth of the modern smart fans unless we look at the technology side. The matches and the promotions didn't have much to do with it. In a sense, ECW's initial growth and buzz among smart fans was generated by fans who had been around for a number of years, and who looked at ECW as giving them a bit of what they loved in prior years (say 1989) but had been fading by 1993. It's not like Dave Scherer or Jeff Amdur became smart fans because of ECW. They had been for years. John

I do that because I'm *not* trying to convince people that Backlund is a "great" worker. I've just been trying to get people to open up to him being a "good" worker. That's been an easier goal than trying to shift the view of him from "shitty" to "great". I don't shy away form pointing out when he's in a great match, when his contributions help make such a match great, or how he does a lot of really great things in the ring. Or good, cool, terrific, nifty, funny, etc. People can then either buy the specifics or not, and then draw their own opinions. That's the general method: I point to specifics and people can do the math on adding them up and how they rate him. I try not to comp him in the sense of "He's greater than Flair". Instead I try to comp him with reference points. He works the crowd in WWF Face Style, similar to Bruno and Pedro and Hogan playing to and connecting with the crowd, and even looking down the card you see someone like Putski playing to the crowd in a similar fashion. I'll contrast it with a DiBiase when he was in the WWF as a face. The point isn't to say Bob > Ted as a worker. Simply that Bob understood out to play face to WWF Fans of the era, while Ted worked a bit more "in the box", almost like Dory. Or something like Bob is a great worker of holds. I'll give specific examples, point to how it plays to the crowd, and point to how he moves things along while a Pedro might lay in them. But folks can do their own math on what it means to them. They end up being long walk throughs because people generally have dimissed Backlund in brief fashion with the standard cliches. In a sense the burden of proof is on me to give examples contra to the cliches, and it takes space to walk through and explain them. There are some that's I've run into the ground [ 2(!) ] simply because the cliche has been so strong that it needs to be pointed out what a joke it is. Same with the "Bob is dumb" stuff. I frankly don't know how smart he is outside of the ring and the learning issues he has. Inside the ring, he did an amazing about of things that are really smart, and it's pretty clear that someone wasn't whispering in his ear to call all of it. So you may get a point I've made in 12 prior walk throughs, but that's the point: it's not some isolated, flukey thing to just dismiss. It's a common thing he does. I point it out. People can judge and weight it on their own. Sure. It's in the walk throughs. That was one of my complaints about the DVDVR set is that they ignored several previously pimped great matches (05/19/80 Backlund-Patera, 09/21/81 Backlund-Muraco and 08/30/82 Backlund-Rose being the most obvious since we had threads on them on tOA a year or more before the set) and instead included some really shitty ones (10/20/80 Backlund-Slaughter, 04/06/81 Backlund-Hansen, 06/04/83 Backlund-Koloff and 07/07/84 Adonis & Murdoch vs Backlund & Blair) instead. Beats me. I haven't seen enough of Buddy's stuff in Portland. Both he and Slaughter would be guys worthy of a set by Will. I don't know if Bob is better than Patera. My pimping of Patera's work in 1980 has been a constant theme of the "second 100" that I've looked at. He was a fantastic all around heel in that year, and I keep saying that I want to see stuff from his earlier run in the WWF, and his run in AWA and anything else that might be out there of his. My points with Bob and Slaughter, and Bob and Rose, is that they're great *together*. There's clearly stuff that each brings to the table to make their great matches. Each has ways to enhance the matches, move them along, draw the crowd in and get the big payoffs. There's still quite a bit more to get to. I haven't written up any of the 1977-79 stuff that's available. I've talked more brielfy about some of the stuff I like or think is great such as the 07/27/78 Backlund-Inoki, 08/28/78 Backlund-Ivan, 02/19/79 Bob-Valentine, but haven't talked about them at length. There's a lot of other stuff in that period that's also available. There's quite a bit more 1980-83 stuff in the WWF to get to, along with the international stuff and the Inoki-Bob from Florida. And I haven't talked about the stuff after he left the WWF nor his return in the 90s. There's stuff like the Bob-Superstar matches that I've been setting aside for ages because I know they'll be painful to watch. So it's an ongoing thing. It remains fun to come across something like the 11/29/81 Backlund-Muraco match from Landover and see them work a short 12 minute sprint with juice. John

Coke and roids impact people differently. Len Bias died young. Vince and Hogan and Keith Richards (sans the roids) are still alive. There never is a good reason why other than different people have different body chemistries that let them survive what kills others. John

That's a bit hefty. There were 25,163,600 shares of Class A stock out on May 1, 2009. Even at $10 a pop (say the price goes down from $13 if Vince drops dead), that's $250M. Now Vince has been sucking money out of the company over the years, but who knows what he's been doing with it. It also would go to Linda first, with whatever he has set aside for the Kids. Anyway... $250M is a sizable chunk of change. The company doesn't have the resources to buyback that amount unless they cut off the dividend and tap out the Cash & STI's... which they're not going to do. So they'd have to take out a loan for it. Why bother? Outside shareholders exert very little impact over the company because of the way the voting is set up. If the prices drop, the company can slowly buy the shares back on the cheap. The bigger problem is how the Estate is split. How much to Linda, how much to Steph and how much to Shane or how much goes into a Trust run by Linda. I think as long as she is around, it will likely stay in the family. But if Steph and Shane have joint control with Vince and Linda dead, at some point there will be a disagreement. One of them buying out the other is going to be a big headache and not cheap. Perhaps Shane and Steph get along fine. My guess is that Shane thinks his sister is an idiot and his brother-in-law is a prick. He hides it, and doesn't let it bother him too much. But if Dad and Mom were dead, at some point there's going to be a slow burn and he probably would just as soon have his $250M to $500M (or whatever) to go off and do his own thing. John

I don't see any of that. More than no one will be afraid of pissing off Steph and Trip like they were of Vince. AJW died, as in the big picture did all of the groups that split from it. Fear of Vince within the business has always been driven by money: if you get on the wrong side of Vince, you're cut off from the Money Train. No one is afraid of Vince punching them. They were afraid they could end up like Slaughter: a big star kicked to the curb (though in the end he got a job). Or now like Savage. When I made my post, it was aimed at people inside the business. I doubt the people outside the business who deal with the WWE and Vince have much fear for him. Same as always would: dumb money marks. For the last fiscal year, the Company had $526.5M in revenue, $45.4M in net, paid out $81.4M in dividends, had $177.3M on the books in Cash and short-term investments and has all of $3.9M in debt. For all our knocking of the company declining, financially that's a company with really good books. Someone out there would offer up a fair amount to buy it. John

I tend to stick by all that. John

Mr. Schemer is right on top of breaking this story. Wait... it's appeared in newsletters before this? John

You get the full version of that, or the TV? I think the TV is JIP. John

This is a great, great, great match. Lock for my JCP/WCW Top 10. John

Matter of taste? The liason we had in the department from the parent company in the early 90s loved Fukuzawa. Of course my co-worker was a Kawada Fan and thought the other play-by-play people sucked Misawa's balls a bit too much. But he also was a big Choshu fan going back to the turn on Fujinami, so he followed both promotions and listened to all of the announcer of the 80s and 90s. He still fondly recalls Fukuzawa to the point that in our conversations after Misawa's death he brought up Fukuzawa's name calling old Misawa-Kawada battles. John

1973 is like the dawn of calling house shows for the WWF. It really isn't anything to judge Vince on except to comp with later Vince: pre-Expansion Vince, Expansion Vince, Raw Era Vince. Vince by the time of the Backlund-Valentine draw was a strong announcer. By the following year with the Patera matches, he was flat out fantastic for the era. John

Dave going off is pretty enjoyable. John

I'd be surprised if Vince shut up for two minutes straight in a matches. I doubt if you took a good 20-30 Backlund match and times all the spots where Vince shut up for 30 straight seconds (and "extremely long stretch") and added them together, you wouldn't get half the match. Or even close to it. Shutting up for 10 seconds isn't a bad thing. John

I love the silence. I don't think an announcer needs to be talking for 30 straight minutes over Backlund vs Muraco. I like hearing the sounds of the arena, the fans, the wrestlers, the ring... without in being one giant mix of noise tossed at you. I think Vince did a great job of calling the action, the holds, the storylines and the development of the matches. He was willing to put over the skill of the heels. He brought plenty of passion to the table, but without it being overplayed like it's gotten in the 90s and 00s (including by Vince during the expansion). John

Gorilla was just horrible. It's night and day between Vince calling MSG solo and Gorilla joining him and then Gorrilla getting partners. Vince was awesome back before expansion. There's plenty of campy old "Good-Bad" announcing in the 80s from the WWF. Dick Graham & Kal Rudman on PRISM is probably the best "bad" announcing combo that I've ever heard. So if the argument for Gorilla is that he's great bad campy fun, I'd far prefer to listen to Dick & Kal. If the argument is that he actually effectively calls matches, I tend to think that's pretty laughable compared to Vince in his pre-Expansion prime. If it's that he gets across storylines and brings enthusiasm to the matches he calls, I don't think he does it better than expansion Vince did with Ventura... and I'm not a massive fan of Ventura. John

Dave knew me before he even knew there was an internet. I doubt that Dave would even think of me as an "internet enemy". We may disagree on things, and there's little doubt that I've annoyed him over the past decade. But pretty much every conversation we've had over the past four or so years have been very cordial. Our conversations after Misawa dropped dead are still sitting in my inbox, and they would disappoint people who think we hate each other, or that I hate Dave. This is the point that people don't get: you can be critical of something that you respect and/or find informative. Nothing is 100% perfect. It's not only readers that should keep an open mind to criticism, but also authors themselves. John

Beats me. We didn't have many posts where we disagred back-and-forth with each other a ton. When we did, he wasn't too happy in response. The two that come to mind are discussing (i) Hash-Ogawa and (ii) the WOTY thread with the "intolerance" quote. I think in both of them Dave wandered off, probably feeling like he was banging his head against a brick wall. The WOTY went on for a while longer, with some decent discussion... it was good enough that AL's attempts to troll the thread to death got ignored and the discussion kept moving forward. There was another thread about how current HOF voters would rate Maeda that was pretty funny. I don't recall Dave getting terribly upset in the thread, but I think at a point he wandered off as well. Let's take a look: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...=7;t=000257;p=1 My response to him on Maeda was really hard. Much harder than I recall. Dave just wandered off, not feeling it was worth it I suspect (and probably thinking I was being a nutter). Glove/Scott stepped into the breach, and it goes from there. That's more common of threads with Dave. He reaches a point and wanders off. The one thread he stayed around in for a long time was the Ole Anderson thread. My recollections is that I was a "tweener" between the Pro-Ole Gang and the Anti-Ole Gang, pointing out errors on each side. John

I tend to think Dave knows who you are and who I am. The Ring of Hell comment would support that. He probably would toss something else at me. John