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Yeah, I suspect it was something that came out when he passed away. John

Jeff himself did a comp. It was very 80s/early 90s VQ, which was spotty at time. In the day, people wanted to "see" stuff rather than get overly worked up about VQ. Use to drive me crazy to see the horrendous Yohe had gotten on some older tapes, or Hoback got from some of Meltzer's tapes. But that was semi-accepted in the days. You had to have horrific VQ before people were totally up in arms, with the one example everyone from those days remembers being the "Rogers Memorial Tribute Tape" that Lano put out. Hell, I don't know if any of those exist anymore so that we could see just what people were bitching about. Had to be off the chart bad. Only Munari has strong VQ off a lot of his K-Tapes, and then Lynch started to change how people viewed things. Anyway... Bowdren's set was whatever was available at the time. TV version, or the rare commecial version like New Japan's 1987 summer tape. Don't know in what form he had the Slaughter & Kernodle vs. Steamboat & Youngblood. Possibly only what might have aired on TV, which would have probably been clips towards the finish since it was a title change and pretty important... some bit of it must have aired. I'd not - even if he didn't have the full thing on the tape (which is almost certainly the case), it's entirely possible that Jeff actually saw the match on tape. Cornette took a variety of thing from the vaults back then for his own viewing, a big chunk of which ended up on the Cornette Tapes. It's possible that like Private Nelson, he also wandered off with a copy of the famous big match (and other pro shoot stuff from the 80s). And that at one of those get togethers that hardcores had in the era Jimbo was a part of it, and brought that. Maybe. John

Not sure what Tom meant by that, so I passed on it the time before. But... To WON Readers, especially the hardcore inner circle of which no one was more in Dave's circle in the 80s than Bowdren, Inoki was seen as the Dusty and Hogan of Japan all wrapped up into one. He was absolutely loathed. Hated beyond belief. Baba was joked about, but at least he got out of the way for Jumbo, Tenryu, Choshu, etc. Inoki "held everyone back", ripped off the promotion's money, was the one who caused the Beloved Sayama to leave pro-style wrestling, made the Beloved Choshu jump to All Japan, wouldn't job to Fujinami (except in a tag) or Brody. Just pure Evil in Japan. The rebirth and reinvention of Inoki in the WON didn't begin until 1996 when Dave did his G1 piece. That would have been it if MMA hadn't taken off so big in Japan, which move Inoki from Icon in Dave's mind to Inoki becoming The Lord High God of the Wrestling-MMA Connection. So when Bowdren put together his list, he had zero love for Inoki. If you read closely, the praise is for his opponents or the other people involved in the team setting. The only one where you *might* thing he's praising Inoki is the 1987 Ten Man Tag, but really he's not putting over Inoki or Sak there. It's the other guys who made the match. I seem to recall reading a piece he did in the Torch where he talked about that and other top puroresu matches, and the praise on the Inoki side largely went to Muto showing his fighting spirit against the New Leaders. I mean... look at the comment on the Brody match. Brody was at his best there. We're talking about a Brody Fan, which should be obvious looking at the rest of the list. John

If you can find that documented in some puroresu mag or book, please feel free to scan it in with a translation. Not trying to smack you here, since I'd actually love to have some additional ammo on Jumbo. Dave didn't have it in the report of the card, which focused a bit more on the crowd drawn. He also didn't mention anything about Choshu looking bad when talking about seeing the match airing on TV an issue or two later (11/09/85 TV according to Dan's list, and the only match that aired). I have some doubts about the story. Choshu at the time wasn't one to put anyone else over, instead playing the rebel. He also wasn't the most cooperative person in All Japan booking, though it wasn't like Baba was offering up a Jumbo job to him either. When you talk about Choshu not liking talking to the press, it was mutal - there was a comment a time or two in the WON from the era that Choshu was the most hated man inside the business in Japan... and one got the feeling that the press didn't like him. They covered him because he sold issues, similar to PWI writing about Hogan (and putting him on tons of covers) despite them being at war with the WWF. Hogan sold mags, so you couldn't ignore him. So Choshu being "honest" with the press is a stretch. The press taking anything Choshu said as being anything other than a storyline is a stretch. And Choshu at the time putting over a rival to the press is a stretch. Perhaps this is a "rememberance" much like Superstar Graham's "Stone Cold Superstar" delusions - a story that came out decades after the fact, and people nodded along with it because they thought it made sense *now* rather than slowing down to give it much sense if it made sense at the time. By this I mean: I can see after Jumbo tragically died too young, someone asked Choshu about wrestling Jumbo for the obits, and Riki "told the story". Or a reporter "told the story" at that time. And since what was written in the 00's when Jumbo died is far clearer in people's minds, it's the "story" that has stuck with the match and the toughness of Jumbo. FWIW, the same story circulates on the Brody-Flair one hour draw in St. Louis - Brody admitted to being wiped in the locker room afterwards, while it was just another night at the office for Flair who was ready for a night on the town. Larry tells that tale, and I think everyone knows that I take just about everything he says with a massive grain of salt. So... It's a common, common, common "wrestling story" to put over the stronger person (usually the one use to going 60 minutes opposite the guy not use to it). There are probably earlier versions of it than Stecher-Lewis. John

I know I passed on submitting a ballot because I couldn't do the list its proper justice (especially the lucha). Didn't mean that I didn't enjoy the poll, and participate in the discussion on the wrestlers that I knew. John

I confess that my favorite things as the list was getting released were: Brody not making the Top 100 was like the coolest thing ever. Shawn weezing into the Top 50 but instantly stalling was the next coolest, especially given the various people ahead of him. John

100. I think some submitted less than 100. Joh

My recollection just on work, and dependant on how the voter defined great work within his/her own mind. John

Fun to watch this in near complete form after all these years. I wonder why they bothered to edit three minutes out of it. If they needed to cut three to fit the air time, I almost would have been tempted as a producer to cut out the intros instead, JIP it roughly three in, and include the title presentations. It was Kikuchi's first title win if I recall correctly. To things jump to mind watching it: It's far more My Turn, Your Turn down the stretch than I recall, rather than "runs" on offense down the stretch. To a degree that makes it feel more "modern", as in Nitro-style and what we see all over the place since. It also is probably a good exhibit for what was being talked about in relation to Alverez. I tend to think if a match *exactly* like that happened today on Raw with wrestlers who were over with the fans _and_ who were held in respect of hardcores as workers similar to how the Can-Ams, Kobashi and Kikuchi were held in those days, and that had the sort of emotional payoff this did (fan favorite faces winning the title) that it would be rated as a *****. Easy. Someone might say it would need to be updated to "modern moves", but I don't think that's the case at all. The flying was perfectly modern enough - diving headbut (Benoit), moonsault (Kobashi's always smoked the fuck out of Shawn's pancy ass versions), splash (Eddy's frogsplash is a variation), and a pair of sky high lariats with wicked bumps. I don't think you need to update any of that to a shooting star press, or dives out of the ring. The non-flying was modern enough, and didn't have the some of the overworked set up you'll see with the Kanyonesque moves that form flashy non-flying moves these days. The mat work wasn't off the charts, but if someone got Kikuchi'd like Kikuchi did in the crabs, the ground back stretchy thing (my memory of the Big Book Of Moves is fading) and the later corba clutches, with the moves being as over as these were here, then it would have gotten some big bonus points (especially for stuff like Kobashi's cool legdrop to break on, and his efforts to break Furnas' crab). I don't think this is the best All Japan tag of the era seeing it in near-full. But it's pretty darn watchable. John

I suspect they're going to bury the fuck out of Savage in the "profile" as being a total nutter... unless Randy plays nice and comes back to Papa Vince. Dave had a comment a while back about Savage being one person that Vince wants nothing to do with. It's really surprising in all this that we still don't have Ric Flair Set #2. The first one sold so well (for the era), and they never did an explicit tie in with the book release (paperback would have been the perfect time for it). It's not been years, and they have dick. We've got Ric's sorta-retirement thing going on, and still dick. John

Looks like WCW released every Starcade from 1988-2000 though I don't see Starcade 1996 at prowrestlinghistory.com (possibly he just couldn't track down a reference to it). They also released a Best of Starcade 1983-90 (different from the earlier 1983-87). Whether that stuff is "complete" or in "edited" form, who knows. I don't know how much has made it onto WWE releases. Probably something that could be split off into a Projects thread - a more definative Best of Starcade. Don't know how many disks it would need at two hour speed. Maybe 5 to 6. I can't recall how crappy some of the shows got as the 90s went on. BattleBowl was a horrid, show killing concept. But 1992 was saved by non-Battle Bowl stuff like Vader-Sting and the Barry & Pillman vs. Steamboat & Douglas. I remember 1996 having a good card, and even enjoying the weak work of Hogan-Piper as being very effective for what it was. John

Yeah, and the five hour Stecher-Lewis is famous as well and comes up every time people talked about Stecher-Lewis for decades. And Dave happened to hear the Stecher-Lewis story, and wrote about it a few times. Good riff, right down to Baba being in the Toots Mondt role. John

I enjoy your riff on Lewis-Stecher, Daniel. John

I think people talk less about the latet Sting-Vader matches because the 1992-93 trio have the arc that works well. Vader wins the title. Sting wins at Starcade. Vader wins the strap match. They are all very good, stand out as quailty main events in the US for the era, reflect well on both as workers. By that time you've had three, and it's hard for a later one to feel "fresh"... it's almost like one of them would have done something extraordinary to be talked in the class of the other three just because they had the buzz in people's mind. My guess is that it would have taken something similar to the 01/04/96 Inoki vs. Vader to do it, probably with Vader winning with a moonsault. John

Agreed - fun post. Jonh

There really are two "bios" of Jumbo. One was when he had his "retirement" appearance before heading off to the US. The second was when he died. The obit was longer, largely with pre-pro stuff and 70s stuff. The balance seemed very much like a copy of the rest without amplification or deeper thinking. Neither were among Dave's better efforts. The obit did well on Jumbo getting into the business, and his pre-pro background. Largely because the pre-pro stuff was straight out of stuff given to him by Japanese reporters, and the "getting into the business" stuff would have been from the Funks to a degree... and despite Terry being full wrong on most of his stuff on Japan in his book, it's not like it's easy to fact check what they have to say about Jumbo breaking in. The stuff on the 70s after breaking in hits the basics, but it's isn't great on what lays behind the basics. It was pretty laughably off in some places, such as the AJPW vs. IWA stuff. It's also in hindsight is ironic reading since it revolves around dates, matches, match times, results rather than the story behind the matches or the storylines leading to them. This is ironic because Dave and Bruce are critical of historians who pull results, dates and match times from sources, but don't have the real story behind the matches. If one actually pays attention to Dave's historical writing, a crapload of it is nothing more than... well... what the historians that get ripped do. Look at the recent Flair piece, which really had a surprising lack of back ground on all those holiday matches involving Flair. "Thanks to Bruce Mitchell" on that one. Where were the "Great Stories"... or even the angles/storylines behind all of those matches. Anyway... There are a lot of stuff on the 70s if you were trying to get a taste of the big matches of Jumbo. The attempts to get across backstory, such as the IWA/Rusher stuff, was problematic. The stuff on the 80s and 90s was mediocre. The AWA stuff was handled okay. The chase for the NWA International Title was handled okay, though that was pretty basic and obvious stuff. Baba's booking of Hansen from 1982-86 and how it related to Jumbo wasn't addresses as far as I recall, and I've always thought that was pretty interesting. The invasion of Choshu's Army was handled in the expected poor fashion - Jumbo being passed by the style, etc. Dave didn't understand the booking, and couldn't be bothered to go back and look at the coverage in the WON at the time. The Revolution vs. Olympians and Jumbo & Co. vs. Misawa & Co. feud was handled in something like one or two paragraphs. Combined with the Choshu stuff, it was perhaps 3-4 paragraphs... I don't even think a full page. We're talking about 1985-86, then 1987-89, and then 1990-92... seven years, three major feuds that were at the heart of one of the major promotions in the world, each that got tons of coverage in the WON over those 7 years... and they got little play in the obit other than the obvious, with some of the obvious in hindsight by Jumbo's death already being wrong. It was as if Dave blew up and just wrapped it up. Guys who've done less in their careers have had the last seven years of their career covered in far more depth. It is somewhat interesting when one thinks of what is available of them on tape. I think there is vastly more stuff of Jumbo available from the 70s, especially in the form that allows one to get a true feel for their work. A lot of Flair stuff that's available from the 70s is from the old Cornette Tapes, which were the Mid Alantic handheld stuff. Loads of JIP, jump cuts, short pieces working to the finishes, etc. How many things exist in full similar to that early Jumbo vs. Bricso, or Jumbo vs. Terry, or the first Jumbo vs. Race title match? With Jumbo, those are drops in the bucket - we have loads of those from the 70s from Classics and the commercial releases. As far as working week-to-week in the 70s, we're never going to get anything from Flair on that. It's not like Crockett was putting Flair on TV weekly like Baba put Jumbo on TV. The US business wasn't like that, about wouldn't be like that for Crockett/Turner/Vince until the 90s. We're just not likely to dig much of that up either as time passes. In contrast, there is quite a bit more of Jumbo's week-to-week work that's out there and that someone like Dan can over time track down. People at home were taping back into the 70s - that's were "lost" stuff like the first Backlund vs. Inoki and the two Race vs. Jumbo one hour matches came from. It's just that Dan hasn't been able to get *all* of it out of sources, and instead is forced by the slow flow to pick off what look like the more important things. But the week-to-week stuff is there. Over time he likely will get it, and push those Season Sets further back, though there may have gaps. We'll *never* have the same equiv for Flair's work. For much of the 80s until he moved out of competative matches, there is a ton of Jumbo available... much of it in week-to-week form via Dan. My recollection is that he has a lot of stuff from the years that he hasn't released yet back to 1982, and is just trying to get 100% of the years before rolling them out. In addition, more of 1980 and 1981 is out there on tape... it's just that Dan hasn't been able to pry it easily out of sources. Jumbo is really well covered. What I've seen of Jumbo's "weekly" work (i.e. tv matches that aren't big matches) in the 70s from some of the disks Dan has gotten is that he's Jumbo. He's the one doing most of the work in matches where he's teaming with Baba to set up stuff later in the series. One of the matches was a early in the series Baba & Jumbo vs. Bobo & Wahoo tag main event. Jumbo and Wahoo would have a UN Title match on 10/03/77 that this was a preview for. The work between the two was such that at the end you *really* want to have Dan track down the UN Title match because it might end up being the best example we'll ever find of just how good of a worker Wahoo was because the two would have to fill 17:49, 8:10, 1:14 of match time over three falls. Point - weekly TV, early series match setting up stuff later in the series, and both Wahoo and Jumbo were good. I'm confident that we'd find a ton of that stuff like that. We'd also find a ton of stuff like the Jumbo vs. Wahoo that never made it to Classics. Such as: 11/27/75 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Baba & Jumbo vs. Murdoch & Rhodes 06/02/76 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Baba & Jumbo vs. Jimmy & Johnny Valiant 07/26/78 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Baba & Jumbo vs. Terry Funk & Dick Slater There's just loads of stuff that didn't make Classics. I'd like to get more Hodge. But stuff like this where we know the quality of the opponents and can make comps to other US workers: 01/03/69 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki vs. Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge (15:46, 17:53, tl) 01/08/69 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki vs. Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge (18:08, 4:34, 3:45) 02/04/69 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge vs. Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki (23:59, 1:03, 2:59) 02/11/69 NWA Int'l Tag Title: Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki vs. Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge (21:32, 3:25, 3:42) This series of matches is high on my holy grail list for even just *one* to come out of the vaults. The first was the series opener, so it had to be taped for TV, especially since it set up the rest of the series (which also included a Baba-Snyer NWA Int'l Title match that went 16:31, 3:27, 3:27 and is another grail match). The second was a title change in Hiroshima. The third was the title change back on the second night of a stand in Sapporo, and the first night had a lesser main event. The fourth may not have been taped. But at least two have to be in the can, and possibly three. We're unlikely to get any better example of Hodge's work than those... and probably of Snyder's. One wishes that the cable explosion would hit Japan where one of 100 cable channels out there would want all that old stuff to fill up time. John

I like this as well, Loss. Hard project because there's so much to walk through. And there may be weeks where you don't get much by way of people responding... just the way things go. But very interesting reading. John

No. I don't know. You'd have to ask Jose what he's been able to find out. John

It wasn't a throwaway comment. It's one he's gone through about five different "explanations" / "defenses" of why it is true. Each time one was proved to be wrong, he fell back to a new line of defense, that in turn would be wrong. The "tag match with the Funks" defense was only come up with after Bix called him on a WO Live show and pointed out all the house shows Dave saw him on where Dave gave him high star ratings. Dave graspes around for a new explanation, and grabbed the one low rated matches, and came up with that reason. By the point, it was about the 4th explanation he made. It was shot down as well, as was the next one he made (using Foley and Brody's words as defenses). What you have to go back to was Dave's original claim - Jumbo only worked hard in "Big Matches". He said it with some force, but it was so laughable that it was shot down in about two minutes. After a bit, he fell back to "Big Shows". That was laughable as well, shot down in about two minutes. At some point he fell back to "When TV Was Rolling" with some line of defense in between. That's struck me as odd from reading the WON over the years, and it's when I looked up the shows Dave went to where he saw Jumbo work. I rolled them out, and Bix took it to call Dave out on his show. Dave stammered, and came up with the next line. When Bix dragged that back over, it took another two minutes to shoot down. It actually was Terry who sucked in that series, and Dave at the time had an excuse for it - Terry's back was thrashed from an injury in PR the month before. Terry couldn't work his usual type of matches. The JWJ coverage of the Tag League had the same comment - Terry wasn't working well. If Terry blamed it on Jumbo (which isn't likely), then Terry was simply looking for an excuse for the one poorly rated tag match sucking. I say it's not likely since Terry already pointed to an excuse for his mediocre matches and work - he was hurt really, really, really bad. Dave kind of ignored that one, and shifted over to Foley and Brody for his next line of defense. John

Eghads... people have been saying this stuff for more than a decade. It wasn't just with Foley-Taker and HitC. One can go back more than five years before that and find Meltzer talking about the dangers and issue. Of course he would then turn aroud and give **** to a match where Kikuchi is getting dropped on the back his head a dozen times. And someone like me still finds that Kikuchi match pretty memorable, even knowing what became of Kikichi within a few months of it. But still... Talk of damage has been going on for years. It's not just a current fad indy thing, or a Benoit kills the family thing. People were talking about this in 96 with ECW (and all the ECW Rubes defending their promotion and working style to the death), and people talked about Benoit's working still even before the neck went out. To many of this, the discussions rub up against The Same Old Shit we've been talking about for more than a decade. There simply are a few things better understood such as concussions. John

I think only the naive don't know that. Too narrow. Even regular, non-hardcore fans have dirty hands. They pop for the same shit. I don't think having contempt for something that you're a fan of makes you dirty and graceless. No more than it makes one a saint or "clean". I have a great deal of contempt for the MLB Players Association for how they handled the performance enhancers issue over the years. I otherwise admire the hell out of the MLBPA, and support much of what they've done over the years. It doesn't make me dirty and graceless to be critical of them on one aspect while being strongly supportive of them on others. It also doesn't make me "clean" for copping to their short comings. It's simply dealing with reality. But even that has shades and colors. While I have contempt for the PA for how they handled it over the decades, I also understand why it was a difficult issue for them, and why it wasn't easy for them to roll out a solution. Their membership was using, and lying about it. Even players who mouthed "we need to clean things up" were likely taking performance enhancers be it juice, HGH or uppers. The membership really, really, really didn't want anything done about it. In addition, the relationship between the PA and Ownership was dogshit after collusion and the 1994 strike. Ownership, along with the Commissioners Office, didn't have a good track record of working with the Union, even on the drug issues. Ubberhoff tried to get unilateral, which is a similar thing we saw out of Bud when this started breaking. The PA was caught between a Rock (membership not really wanting it cleaned up) and a Hard Place (Ownership that has a long and current track record of not working with the Union as partners in the Game). And it made a rather shitty spot for the Union Leadership to be in. They didn't handle it well at all. Understanding *that* doesn't make me any "cleaner" in my contempt for how the MLBPA handled the issue. It's simply taking time to look at things from different angles to see how things got to where they were. The issue of injuries, risks, drugs and the like in pro wrestling is similar. It isn't a wonderfully black-and-white, right-wrong thing. There are a lot of shades, colors and angles to the issues. A lot of it makes one pissed off. A lot of it makes one a bit embarassed at time for your role in it. I suspect most here get that there is no silver bullet that will make it all go away. John

And it should be noted, that second fall was accidental and shouldn't have occurred in that fashion. I never for a moment have believed that the second fall was accidental, anymore than what happened with Rock and the Chairshots went any different from planned. Just Foley bullshitting people. Foley was suppose to go through the cage. Pretty clear from how they set up the chokeslam. The "shouldn't have occured in that fashion" more accurately could be described as "Foley stupidly thought he could control the bump through the cage more effectively". He was just a dumbfuck in thinking that. John

Yeah, the key phrase there was "best work". Dave liked what he thought of as the best of Jumbo's work. John