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It's a zero sum game. Do I like some 80s WWF more than some of the 00s WWE? Sure. Do I think Rock vs Hogan > Taker vs Flair & Flair vs Shawn? Yes. Do I like the 2001 Austin vs Rock more than pretty much anything in the 80s WWF? Yes. I think I only had one WWF 80s match ahead of it, my #1 match. And possibly only one other match in the poll, since I'm pretty sure I had Austin-Rock in my Top 3. Go across decades or stay within decades, people are going to find things that they disagree with me on. Come back to me in a decade to have me take a look at the WWE in the first half of the 00's or relook at the WWF in the 90s, and it's possible I'd rate more of it into higher slots. Or I may look at Austin-Rock and Bret-Owen and wonder what I was smoking. John

I don't recall those matches doing exceptionally well in the WON Awards. I'd frankly be surprised if 33% of the voters from the time of Panther-Machine are still voting now, or that 33% of the voters now were voters then. You really think a lot of the folks who voted for that match have watched much Panther over the years and have a clue about his work? I don't think Dave has that huge of a *paying* readership that's huge Lucha marks. Huh. How so? Because once they got reset back in the ring they quickly went to mask pulling to kill off the first fall. Then went quickly to the payback mask pulling to kill off the second fall so that V could head back stage to take a break, get checked out by the doctor or switched out with his brother depending on which version of the "story" one cares to buy into. Personally, I don't find *quicky* mask pulling finishes to falls being too dramatic. One could try to pimp it as Bringing The Hate, but really is was low end hate here compared to strong lucha hate. For us, it just killed the match until Panther hit his second tope in the third fall. And I'm suppose to think that's great? Back-to-back mask pulling finishes bore the fuck out of me. Always have. It's bad enough to watch Panther wandering by loosening up his own mask to make it easier to come off. He actually wandered back. Really? Which lucha match had hospital and commandeering ambulance spot? Is this another of the stupid things Konnan brought back from the US to "improve" lucha? Currently big mask match formula is two short falls leading to third fall where guys put it all out on the line, which mostly ends up being guys trading big moves "your turn-my turn" style. The two shmozz finishes leading to guys putting it all on the line by doing dangerous potentially self destructive spots excessive numbers of times in a row was a cool format. We have a different idea of what's cool. John

I doubt most of the people who voted for it really knew all that much about Panther as a worker. I wanted it to be great because it's Panther and he's losing his mask. But that isn't exactly a great Panther match. John

There isn't much that I put over in that thread as Match of the Year Candidates. The overwhelming majority of what I put over is in context - good for what it was. Hogan-Orndorff in Exhibition Stadium is a good Hogan match that hits a big match aura in that setting. In the same setting, Steamboat vs Jake is a horrifically shitty match. But I'm not pimping Hogan-Orndorff as being remotely close to Choshu & Yatsu vs Jumbo & Tenryu. It's similar to what I'm doing above. I don't get Panther-Villano being rated higher than Panther-Atlantis. People are reading too much into the WWF Thread if they think I'm pimping the stuff as the be all, end all of 80s wrestling. It's pretty clear that I think other stuff is better. The points of the thread are: * there were some good WWF in the decade, some of it that got overlooked * there was a fair amount of good WWF matches that didn't make the DVDVR set * there was a fair amount of shitty WWF matches that made the DVDVR set for some reason * My view of WWF matches doesn't exactly line up with the results of the Poll, and I wanted to walk through why There are some other sub-points that pop up while running through the matches, but those were the reasons for starting the thread. Not to compare matches in the 80s to stuff in the 00's. John

Looks like Grover posted a better lit version of the match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zidIDa2LpXA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTC4zVryIUY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZDtc5ergRo Haven't looked to see if it's edited. John

Yeah, and it was great. If one wants to say it was a nostalgia match, so was Taker-Shawn at Mania this year. I don't think either Taker or Shawn looked as good in that match as Panther and Atlantis did in their match... and I actually liked Taker-Shawn as a watchable "spectacle". Know it was a big stip match - it was the main event of the freaking 75th Anniversary Show. But the first two falls, other than the tope by Panther, were short with shit mask pulling finishes and then the heel wandering off to the back. The three topes in the third were "cool". The three superplexes really weren't much. But overall, the third fall wasn't exactly off the charts in drama like a great stip match, and the match felt about five minutes early in the drama cycle - one wanted *more* for such a major show's main event, especially with that match going bye-bye. Post match cool, largely because of Panther and how respected he is. But overall, pretty crappy. I can't give it much credit for V taking the header into the arm rest. It basically screwed up the first two falls rather than add drama. 4th or 5th. Must have been a lot of shitty matches if that could finish Top 5. Then again, I thought the Flair-Shawn that finished ahead of it was laughable, and Angle-Joe in the cage finished ahead of it and I seem to recall groaning through that clusterfuck. John

How did Panter-Villano V finish so high in the WON MOTY poll last year? We thought it was wildly disappointing, was dogshit in the first two falls, and a third largely of Panther's cool 1-2-3 dives... we didn't even get worked up for the 1-2-3 superplexes. When it finished, we looked around asking "Is that it?" All three of use through the Atlantis vs Panther match ran circles around it as a strong old school technical lucha title match. We watched that first, which added to making V-5 vs Panther come across so weak. Was the consensus outside the WON Circle that Panther vs V-5 was all that? And that Panther-Atlantis was the weaker match? John

MS-1 vs Sangre was in the Munari collection when Barnett bought it. Can't remember what tape it was on, but could swear we watched it way back when Bob got it. Lynch may have gotten it from Munari. Might even have been on a World Pro show. Unless I'm recalling another mid-80s Sangre hair match with buckets of blood and a rabid crowd. John

Put one of those Portland Buddy Rose matches on that you were pimping, Will. I think most folks have seen the Bob vs Buddy MSG match, so something from Portland would be better. A good 2/3 fall tag match. It's good tease for the later DVDVR set, and isn't exactly giving away the farm since there's so much more to come. Also perhaps something to tease the El Hijo Del Santo set. Perhaps Santito vs Panther in England, or one of the great, lesser known matches. If you do these maybe every other month (6 a year) or every quarter (4 obviously), it's not a bad place to drop in some tastes of things that are either topical or sets that are coming out. John

The stall was alive and active during his entire AWA run, from 84 through 90. From my perspective, it isn't overblown at all. I'm with KHawk on this. It became attached to Larry in his AWA years - that's where he made his bones among hardcore fans as stalling his ass off. So his WCW stuff was after it, and perhaps his attempt to shake it off. He had plenty of stalling in his WWF Heel run as well. There were times when it worked, and times when it dragged. It wasn't uncommon in the WWF - lots of heels opened with heel stalling and bike work to "build the heat". Some of it was okay, some of it was good, and some of it was just shit. Muraco when he wanted to would just stall away matches until it was time to lay around to kill off more of the matches. When he really didn't feel like doing anything, which was a lot for such a talented guy, his stalling was painful. In his better matches, it was pretty good stuff leading to some nice paybacks for the face. Savage, in contrast, got to the point in his first heel run with the WWF where he had his opening bike routine down pretty pat and it usually worked pretty well. With Larry, at his worst the Bike was pretty much the dominant aspect of his work. So "Zbyszkoing" became a pretty common term for hardcores to describe someone stalling. John

Which is kind of funny since all the recent big league all cop to it being Fake. And have for close to 20 years now. John

Who knows. They could just be boozed up. They could be nuts. They could "believe it's real". They could just see it as an opportunity to act out a little inner demon, like people during a riot. Again - who knows. People want to make the leap that all people who attack heels "believe it's reel". I don't think there's any evidence for something that broad, anymore than thinking they're crackpot fans. John

This guy is the starting point: Also looks like you can number: Pretty cool. John

I haven't watched this in a few years. I thought it was disappointing relative to Spunky Jumbo vs Brisco and the Baba-Brisco matches a couple of years later. I really am not a fan of Inoki in this time period, be it this match, the one with Murdoch, or the one with Destroyer. :/ John

Wrestling pretty much has always been a fake. Bix's link hits it, and there are twice as many as those. One of the best was Gotch, after they'd cleaned out the Pacific Northwest of all the gambling money and started to get exposed, basically saying that even if it was fake he was still the champ because he said so. Wrestling storylines have been booked for ages. Muldon use to win matches in his style, and draw or lose when wrestling on another person's style. Evan Lewis did the same thing. It's similar to the old Pancrase gimmick of Smith losing "Pancrase-style" matches, but going over in Kicking Boxing matches to build up the return. Gotch's title matches with Jenkins were well booked over the course of the years, especially when you look at how they're played to rip off the marks laying bets: Gotch winning in Jenkins home town of CLE where the money was laid on Jenkins Jenkins looking strong in winning the first fall of that match to get even more money laid on Jenkins Jenkins winning in MSG when all the hype was around Gotch, and all the money was going towards Gotch making Jenkins long odds Jenkins, after getting smashes by Hack, winning the MSG rematch with Gotch when no one thought Jenkins would win... and Gotch even doing the equiv of a stretcher job finish needing to be carried back to the dressing room Gotch's matches with Beel were booked. The booking in 1919 and 1920 was strong to set up Stecher cleaning up the title picture for one consensus champ, and to lead well into Lewis chasing him to get the big win at the end of 1920. So it's not just that it was "fake". It's that what we see as pro wrestling, not just worked matches but booked storylines, has been around for about as far back as we can track things. Pro Wrestling = Fake John

People are nuts. Doesn't mean they think BBW and LRRH are "real". Or that one nuts attacking the BBW means that everyone in the theater, or even the majority, or even 5%, thought it was "real". It's a bit like Benoit: Benoit was a fucking insane juiced head pill popping wrestler who killed his wife and kid. It doesn't mean wrestlers are going to kill their wives and kids. It doesn't mean that all wrestlers are pill popping juice heads. It doesn't mean that all wrestlers are insane. There are plenty of insane, pill popping, juiced head wrestlers over the past 30 years. Not a lot of them have killed their wives and kids. People seem intent on finding "proof" that Wrestling Marks Think It's Real. We know why people in the business are intent - it gives them a hardon to think that wrestlers are such great performers that they make people "believe it's real". John

There were times in the theater where I would have wanted to "jump" Peter Jackson for what he did to Lord of the Rings. That doesn't mean that I thought his movies were "real", or the books that he based them on were "real". I just happened to be pissed off at Heel Jackson for what he did to my favorite Face Books. Heck, I wasn't even liquored up when getting pissed off. Perhaps this needs to be moved into the Mythbusters thread: "The Majority of Wrestling Marks thought Wrestling Was Real back in the Good Old Days." John

Mark David Chapman isn't representative of 100% of John Lennon Fans, or 1%... or even 0.001%. John

I suspect that the % in Charlotte would be *higher* than the Nation in the 80s. The population base in "Mid-South" and Louisiana doesn't have a pot to piss in relative to the rest of the country. People in New York, California, Florida, PA and IL... I'm willing to bet that a smaller % of them thought Wrestling Was Real than in Charlotte. I went to Star Treak on Thursday night. Pretty decent crowd for an 8:45 showing where the movie starts at 9 and ends at 11. The hardest of the hardcore Trekkies and "Need To See A Blockbuster Movie Opening Week" had already gone. 100% if the people knew the movie as "fake". A high % of it laughed at the jokes and clapped at the end to signal their enjoyment of it. I've been to things that were "real" such as earlier round college baskeball tourney games that got far less Fan Reaction than a Fake Movie. Fake things get reactions. Often times strong. Anyone here go to one of Springsteen's concerts in 1984-85 and see the reaction to Born In The USA? It's a fake song. Bruce wasn't in Nam. Bruce is singing as a character. No one in the crowd believes that Bruce was in Nam. People in the business get wrapped up in thinking they're such great performers that the "marks" Believe It's Real. The marks aren't that stupid. It usually surprises me when smarter fans try to project onto the mass of fans that they're too stupid to know that what they're watching is fake, rather than they know it's fake, go along with it and enjoy it. John

They had these matches: 05/13/84 AWA Title: Jumbo Tsuruta vs Rick Martel (Title change) 07/25/84 Int'l Title: Jumbo Tsuruta vs Rick Martel 07/31/84 AWA Title: Rick Martel vs Jumbo Tsuruta 10/11/84 AWA Title: Rick Martel vs Jumbo Tsuruta 09/29/85 AWA Title: Rick Martel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (St. Paul) The title change isn't good. I wouldn't defened it. The 07/25/84 match is solid, but it's a spot show TV taping so it doesn't have Big Match aura to it. The 07/31/84 match is terrific. Major heat, really good work, the crowd seriously thinking they were going to see Jumbo win it back. I'm not sure if I've seen a better Martel match. Runs circles around his match with Flair. I haven't seen the 10/11/84 match. Don't know if it was even taped. Dan would be the one to check with if he's close to a 1984 Season Set for AJPW. The 09/29/85 match seems to be well loved. Good heat from the crowd, and good work from the two. I think for Khawk this is the match because from an AWA Fan viewpoint, seeing them work together in the AWA and the AWA crowd responding well to it gives him a bit of a buzz. I'm an AJPW fan, so seeing them nail a match in Japan on a major card (Sumo Hall) and the crowd digging it gives me a bit of a buzz. They both flat out are must matches on a Jumbo comp, as they would be for a Martel comp. The title change would need to be there for historic value. And at this point simply to offer the contrast that they didn't nail it the first time, but in both Japan and in the AWA they later nailed it well. Ginnetty had a disk with the two AJPW episodes with the July matches. Khawk and others have the St. Paul match. I can't be too critical of Martel saying the title change wasn't good. I tend to think it's an example of the knowledge of the Slammer interviewing him, and to a degree in making the smack, that they didn't bring up later matches between the two. *That* would be interesting to have the thoughts of Martel on - how one can improve a match when working again with a wrestler. John

I actually think someone in the last few months (possibly Dave) pointed to the origin of the tradition in Japan. John

Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura volunteers to waterboard Cheney. Video. It shows my age, but the line about the Tate murders had me on the floor. John

So much of this is duplicative. The Rockers-Busters is already on Shawn's set. Use the Lost Angeles match, or the SNME match that wasn't on the SNME set. :/ John

Lawler: AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship AWA Southern Tag Team Championship CWA Heavyweight Championship CWA International Heavyweight Championship CWA World Tag Team Championship NWA Mid-America Heavyweight Championship NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Memphis version) NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Mid-America version) NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship NWA Southern Tag Team Championship NWA United States Tag Team Championship WCWA World Heavyweight Championship USWA Heavyweight Championship USWA Texas Heavyweight Championship USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship USWA World Tag Team Championship And there are probably a lot of others ones. John