jdw

There are lots of other comments hitting the point Bix made in getting across my earlier post. Bix said it in two sentences, cutting to the point. I'm stupified that anyone who knows anything about wrestling and steroids even bothers defending Jim on it. I mean... it's obvious exactly what Jim was saying. Even Meltzer, who defends Jim to the death, didn't defend that comment. Yohe, Jewett and I were in the theater with Meltzer watching that movie, and Dave wouldn't defend it or try to pawn it off as anything other than what it was - Jim speaking in wrestling code to tell Jones to get on the sauce if he wanted a chance in the big time. John

Can someone point me to what set Daniel off on this one? And what he means. Anyway... obviously one can still like something and criticise it. I love Zep, but the Shark Episode was pretty sleazy, and it frankly doesn't even scratch the surface of the shit they were up to from the dope to the thugishness to Jimmy's yen for young chicks. One sleazy fucking band, but I still dig the music. John

I wonder if Youtube has the clip from Beyond the Mat where Ross is telling Jones to get on the juice. "Now hold on there a cotton picking minute, jdw. I never told that young man to take steriods, by god!" -jdw Fuck you, Jim. You spoke in wrestling code that everyone in the business knows (and tons of fans know) that Jones needed to work on his body, especially a certain part. Jim probably has done as much to encourage wrestlers to get on the juice as anyone this side of Vince McMahon. John

I always love the "there are no wrong opinions" claim. It allows one to defend saying Sid was a better worker than Flair or Jumbo or the Funks or Lawler or Kobashi or Shawn. There are stupid and wrong opinions. We all know this. We all apply this to aspects of our lives every single day, on all sorts of things. A friend of yours thinks his girlfriend is great. You happen to know she's fucking another friend behind his back, and know his opinion is delusional. Your boss thinks a co-worker is great. You happen to know the person does nothing, and just plays on the internet all day, doing the bare minimum to avoid getting caught. Your friend thinks Godfather 3 is the best movie of the series. You laugh - he's fucking nuts! A friend thinks Skinemax is the best porn in the world. Well hell, you surf the web and have run across porn from all over the world over the decades that smoke Skinemax like a cheap cigar, and you know your friend just doesn't know what he's talking about. A friend thinks White Castle is the great burgers on the face of the earth. You're not exactly a good snob, as you like mediocre fast food... but you also know that White Castle if dogshit bad. We do this every day. We hear other people's opinions, we have our own, they are often opposite, and we often think the other person is full of shit. Every single one of us. We never slow down and say: "Well, I happen to disagree with you on White Castle but technically you're not wrong. Since it is your opinion that they're great and tasty, that's perfectly valid since opinions can't be wrong." The fuck? Look... I understand the notion of being open to the opinions of others. I'm far less argumentative on stuff like that these days. I don't really care anymore if someone puts Shawn in the Top 10 of all-time. Someone putting him #1... if it was someone either of note doing that, or a person who's opinion might mean a bit to me, I'd be interested in seeing the justification and might probe it a bit. But overall... I'd frankly rather read a book that worry about someone having Shawn in the top 10. But that doesn't mean that opinions can't be utterly full of shit. We all know that. John

I was missing one #1, and assumed Rob missed someone's (rather than me). Clearly I must have. John

Highest ranked guys with no #1's: #3 Chris Benoit (two #2's) #7 Mitsuharu Misawa (three #2's) #10 Stan Hansen (one #3) #11 Terry Funk (eight #5's... it seems) #13 Ricky Steamboat (one #3) Highest without a Top 5: #17 Vader #24 Shinya Hashimoto Highest without a Top 10: #26 Akira Taue #27 Shinjiro Ohtani #28 Barry Windham John

Looking back at the votes, I'm remembering something that was mentioned at the time - Baba's numbers had to be wrong. His average vote was about 20th place (20.3). That while getting no Top 10's from the 27 people who voted for him. It was far out of wack from other people around him. Destroyer, for example, averaged 26th place (26.4) on the 33 ballots he was on. That was with four Top 10's, and three people putting him #3. He had 2463 points to Baba's 2180. Rob added something up wrong, and I think agreed that it looked off and he would put up a revised list after double checking stuff. John

This is how concentraited the #1 picks were. The only people outside of the Top 20 to get #1's were: #23 Jaguar Yokota (1) #40 Ted Dibiase (1) #41 Jerry Lawler (1) #55 Dave Finlay (1) #118 Hayabusa (1) That was the only Top 10 that Busa got. Dandy was the "lowest" to get a #2, and got two of them in fact. He finished ranked #67. John

I enjoyed the person who had Busa #1. That was a fun list. John

That's right... it was Curtis D rather than Andy. Curtis was a fellow Candadian. John

Yes, Herb had a very high opinion of Shawn's work It always suprised me that Herb was such a proponent of his work with Shawn's obvious problems with selling. IIRC, Herb said he was a better worker than Bret (who Herb said tricked fans into thinking he was a great worker). Herb's old "Tidbits" columns are both maddening and gleefully entertaining at the same time. Herb said some weird things but I couldn't stop reading On the questio - Dave was on Shawn's cock strongly all the way back to 1990, and liked him a good deal before that. Herb was strongly influenced by Dave. That would be saying it very lightly. I'm sure there's something where Herb took a different viewpoint from Dave... but I can't remember it. Perhaps Herb was more critical of ECW than Dave was. But people need to remember the whole point of The Lariat as an ECW House Organ was that Meltzer wasn't giving enough love to the greatness of ECW. So Schemer was more than willing to. John

For Dave, he's the successor of his favorite wrestler of all-time - Ric Flair. Just about any bumping heel got positives from Dave, be it young Austin, young Trip, Hennig, etc. For Keller, Shawn *is* his Flair. He watched him "step up" in the AWA, then become "the man" in the WWF. Sort of a vested interest that his era was relevant in comp to Flair, who he never was as fond of as the prior generation of hardcores. For Bryan... who knows. Perhaps include him in the group of people who were "inspired to get into wrestling" because of Shawn. John

Andy Patrizio. It would be fun to read those again if anyone can find them. John

Wow... I didn't think Super Chico was 20 when he started the Fig-4. Christ, didn't even think he was 32 now. Why do I think he started the sheet when he was 15-16 like Keller? John

I'd actually be tempted to put Rude-Warrior on a Top 100. It's a prime example of laying out a match working to strengths while avoiding weakness, in addition to bringing things you didn't expect. Especially when one of the workers is as limited as the Warrior, while no one was confusing Rude with Ric Flair at the time. Is it a Pat Patterson booking & layout miracle? Perhaps. I don't mind if it is. I'd take it over Adonis-Dick vs. th Briscos any days, which I see as a bunch of good workers jerking off for more than half the match. Hell, it's not even the best WWF tag match of the decade. I probably would have other WWF matches in the Top 100 as well. I don't see the point of having 10 Flair-Steamboat or MX vs. R'n'R matches in a list. John