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Yeah, the SNME/ME contraction is a forgotten aspect of it. Still, if they had not decided to keep Anvil, they could have worked something into the show where it was a "standby match", they have to go off the air, and it will be shown on one of the weekend shows or on Prime Time. Or of course easily retaped in the next set of TV tapings, which due to Survivors was only a week away from when Meltzer reported it - 11/19/90 in Rochester (Superstars) and 11/20/90 in Syracuse (Challenge). Those started airing 12/08/90 and 12/09/90, which isn't terribly far after the original planned air date of 11/23/90 on NBC. The 12/15/90 Superstars had the IC title change back to Hennig from Kerry, so they could have taped a tag title change to air the week before, either on Challenge (highlights which would also air the next week on Superstars) or on Superstars (to have a storyline of title changes on back-to-back shows). What strange is that they didn't really have much of interest going on with either of the teams through that taping and the next. They could easily have rematched it on the Rumble rather than the Rockers-Orient Express match, which was given 19 minutes. The Nastys program for the tag title match at Mania didn't start until the 01/28/91 tapings and aired on the 02/16/91 Superstars (the tag team battle royal for the title shot). Anyway... How long is the match on the DVD? Meltzer wrote that it was a long match. Is it edited up? John

Yeah... I don't think Austin was toning much down after either the injury from Owen or after coming back from the longer stretch off for the short face run and longer heel run. I use to cringe at what Austin was willing to eat. Massive amounts of painkillers will help you get through shit... :/ John

I actually think Chris finished with NJPW somewhere, but the person who did the HTML never grabbed them. Chris' lists may be somewhere on the hard drive. John

The one I saw live was from Fan Appreciation Night later in March 1995: 03/27/95 at Tokyo Gym. Same night as the Kanakishi-Nagata Young Lions Final, which was taped. I don't recall if the junior tag was taped, or if it ened up on one of the NJPW classics. It wasn't as spectacular as the junior tag league matches. More just the type of match that they could fall out of bed and have when given 14+ minutes to work with. Type of thing that would have gotten 5* in ECW Arena or 4 1/2*+ on a WCW or WWF PPV. Meltzer gave it 4 1/2 * probably judging hit on the second of those scales. I recall an ECW Fan (Herzog if I recall) giving the two better Peace Festival matches 5* on the first scale... and I don't think the Liger-Sasuke and the AAA match were better than this. John

They were just pulling something out of their ass to cover for chaging their mind and airing the title change. John

How is the Busters vs. Rockers match? John

Inoki's investment issues in Brasil have been well known since 1983, and the old Sayama & Co. rebellion (since NJPW profits were being used to fund it rather than tickle down to the wrestlers). Meltzer had them in the WON back in 1983 as current news. Inoki's relations with other governments while a "Senator" was always a grandstand. Just about any politico of that level can travel the world. In this country, we hear about roughly 1% of the trips made by Senators and Reps. Most of them are only when the shit hits the fan over them, such as the wingnuts trying to smear the Speaker earlier this year for doing exactly the same thing Republicans were doing when they ran Congress... and continued to do at the same time Nancy was. Inoki was able to get a greater level of PR on them because he's Fucking Inoki. A master of PR, manipulating the press/media, and grandstanding. But in the end, they were almost all grandstanding. My recollection on the "Inoki Frees The Hostages" story was that it was grandstanding by Inoki, and instead it was others who actually got them released. Inoki simply didn't have the means to get anyone released - i.e. the backroom payoffs and deals between Japan and Iraq that would seal the deal. The people who actually got the deal done were more than happy to let Inoki and others take credit for it since it would throw the scent off what it really cost to get people released. That's typical of why Inoki is one of the greatest con men in wrestling history. John

I think in the case of Flair, most of the praise that I could give is the obvious - it's stuff that people have praised for years. I try instead to distill it into ways that people have perhaps not thought about: * Ric liked to Keep Things Moving Along, i.e. he Had Stuff To Do. Beyond laying down the usual simplistic themes (Ric as a stooging, bitching, cheating heel opposite a better, stronger, more talented face), Ric tended not to sustain storylines in matches. They were little more than segments of stuff to do, that once done were tossed to move onto something else. In a way, a spot-bu style of work. Ric had spots and segments to get to, so time to move along. People have issues with this since they think of spots in terms of spot monkey, Kanyon style work, or Chris Daniels... or pick your wrestler of choice. What can I say... if you watch Ric's matches and look beyond that basic pair of themes mentioned above, the overwhelming number of his matches don't sustain other storylines, and instead just keep things moving along. * That *is* an effective way to work a match There are lots of ways to work a match effectively. Hogan was one of the most effective workers of all time. Jumbo was effective. Race was effective. Destroyer was effective. Liger was effective. Someone like Bix could walk through why Lawler was an extremely effective worker. Ric was an extremely effective worker. He filled matches with lots of "stuff" and "spots" that popped the crowd. For a good amount of his career, it also would get fans to come back and buy tickets again. People thought his matches were exiting. Faces came out of them looking strong. Etc. Those to me are important ways to look at Ric. Saying that Ric was a great bumper is stating the obvious. Everyone knows it. Saying he made faces look strong and sold his ass off for them is stating the obvious. Saying that he was a master of psych is something that I don't agree with, so I'll point out where his psych is off (blowing off in-match storylines) and instead that he decided it was time to move along to the next batch of spots. It "worked" usually because the fans enjoyed the next set of spots. But skip telling me that Flair sold the knee great because he'll ignore it in two minutes because he Has Stuff To Get To. That's Ric. For other wrestlers, I'll go out of my way to sign their praises because it might be something that I believe people are missing. If you go back and look at the WWF 80s thread, you'll see me putting over the Steamboat-Santana vs. Valentine-Beffcake matches because the workers largely nail the basic structures of tag-style work. It holds up as a pretty strong contrast to what could be called typical WWF Tag Style of the 80s, which even limits quality teams when forced into it. It's something that I see as more worthwhile of expanding volume on these days than joining the decades old chorus that Ric is a great bumper. In the end, I don't think it's really that hard to find me being positive. I tend to think people would rather pitch the positives overboard and hang onto the criticism. It usually is easier, and no doubt my comments over the years makes it easier. But I think at times it's missing the forest for the trees. John

I think I've joked over the years about Meltzer and I seeing Benoit jogging around an arena hours before a New Japan show in March 1995. Chris was extremely "stiff" in his running, in an over muscled, harder to move way. Meltzer's comment while watching him was that he looking like "Little Hawk" - an juiced out of his mind junior heavyweight. Chris stopped after he was done doing laps to talk to us, so it wasn't just a distant observation of him, but up close. It was the biggest Dave had ever seen him up to that point, and frankly Dave had been watching his career longer than just about anyone at that point and across every promotion and country he worked in. "Alarmed" would be the way I would describe Dave's reaction to the size. Chris didn't seem quite as big for most of his WCW career. It was as if he was putting on size to get a gig with the Big 2, knowing how things were at the time specifically with WCW through that Sullivan pipeline that was going on. Bodies change as you get older. It takes more and more effort to keep weight off, and you just naturally carry more weight. His time in the WWF/WWE was half a decade after that, and he died this year more than a decade after we watched him. There are a lot of times in the WWF, and even WCW, where I think we'd all agree that Chris looked alarmingly juiced out of his mind. And I'm not going to pretend that Chris hadn't been taking juice for years prior to 1995... could be as long as a decade as he might have been taking something when trying to break in. He took ridiculous amounts of juiced for decades. I don't recall ever being more alarmed by just how insanely huge he looked relative to his body frame than I was in March 1995 watching him do those laps. Dave and I joked about people doing juice throughout that whole trip, including the longtime joke "Good Diet" coming out of it from a response by St. Clair on why his body had drastically changed. But Chris... there wasn't any joking on his size. It worried the shit out of us. Chris worked so well for so long... came back from so many injuries to work hard again... you sort of mentally doped yourself up as a fan into ignoring the impact. Anyway, while I agree with Bix on how huge Chris was in 1995 and it's something that will always stick with me until I drop dead... debating when Chris was at his most massive misses the point. Chris abused shit for ages. I think that's Bix's point. He didn't suddenly start accellerating in the WWE. He had for years. It's *possible* that if we had full documentation of everything Chris took from 1985 to 2007 we would see an increase over the years. It *is* tougher to maintain a look as the body ages, so he might have increased over the years. I also think there's little doubt he was increasing abusing the non-performance enhancers as time went by. I'm confident that he had a long history of those as well - it's rare for people who worked like he did in the era he did to not have taken painkillers. He had a number of serious injuries as the years passed, and probably had countless ones prior to that which we know little of because he "Worked through Them" with the help of painkillers. If we had what he took throughout his career, it's likely our heads would spin. We simply hear about the levels, but to date there's nothing akin to Dr. Nick for Elvis or the Tawny Kitean list for a pro wrestler. John

*laugh* Peobably like some think that I conned the net into thinking Kobashi sucked. Criticism is always read as "hating" or thinking something "suck" rather than simply pointing out flaws, weak points, etc. Of course Flair has sucked in the ring for years. But Flair was good at one point. John

Tough one for the WWE, since settling it may open up the door for claims by others who had deaths that were impacted by what went on in the WWE. On the other hand, I do agree that with the right/wrong judge and the right/wrong jury, the WWE could eat a verdict for more. Frankly... simply fighting it if it goes that far will cost them $2M. John

They don't consider pain killers or sleeping pills to be "real drugs" either. Of course when I was a kid, people didn't think of coke as a "hard drug". Recreational fun... harmless. John

I don't think there was any denial going on. The general gist has been: Wrestling = Sleazy Porn = Sleazy Then a debate over which one is more sleazy. Saying this: Hank Aaron = Great Willie Mays = Great Willie Mays > Hank Aaron Doesn't mean that Hank still isn't great. Wrestling is an utter shithole of an industry with very little redeeming of it other than it can be "entertaining". The same can be said of porn. John

I don't believe that I called her a "porn star". Artie Mitchell wasn't a "porn star", though he was rather big in Porn. The thread is about porn. As far as her death getting mainstreem run, it got a lot... and it was as sleezy as Benoit (without a kid, but a certain kink element). It spawned several mainstream movies (tv and theaters), along with a few books. TV has changed since 1980... so it's hard to compare the coverage. I think if Benoit happened in 1980, it wouldn't have had coverage in all media that Stratten. To a degree, and this is just going by my memory, Playboy in 1980 was far stronger culturally than wrestling is in 2007. A "star" in death. John

I'm old enough to remember when Playboy and Penthouse *were* porn. And frankly it still fits the definition to a degree. You don't actually have to have fucking, sucking, spreads or toys to be porn. John

*Mainstream* Japanese porn is quite a bit sleazier than than mainstream US porn. I don't think it's even very close. The "blur" on genitalia seems to get the attention of US porn fans when they watch it, and to a degree they miss the psychology of what's going on. (Then again... I often get the feeling that US porn fans aren't always hit to the pysch of US porn, even when it's pretty basic shit). About the only thing that Japanese porn doesn't "top" US porn in is anal, which is so common in US porn these days it's kind of laughable. But S&M/B&D is far bigger and more mainstream in Japanese porn than here. Humiliation, domination and rape themes aren't uncommon here, but in Japan are almost the norm (going in both directions). I can't think of anything in US mainstream that is the equiv of the Schoolgirl fetish in Japan that hits you over the head in Japan. I guess the whole "Barely Legal" and "18" concept here... but honestly, the Schoolgirl stuff plays far more to psych. Daniel is almost cerainly talking about stuff beyond that. Underage nude photobooks were mainstream in bookstores in 1995-96 when I was in Japan. Anime and heantai with tentacles and monsters and rape and lolitas and incest remain extremely common in Japan. I haven't run across to many people, even big watchers of US porn, who've spent time sampling Japanese Porn who don't come away with the almost idendtical phrase - "there's a lot of fucked up stuff". I'm a fan of a fair amount of Japanese porn... but I also think that most people would think my tastes tend to run to towards the "vanilla", and frankly the whole humiliation pysch is never one that's appealed a great deal to me either in porn or in real life encounters over the past 25+ years of being active. Just not my thing. On the other hand, I do like beautiful Japanese women. Anyway... I am with Daniel that there is a lot of fucked up things in Japanese porn. I'm not sure if their "industry" is more or less fucked up and sleazy relative to the US. But their content, on the mainstream level, is quite a bit more fucked up. John

Totally disagree. If you want to say counting dogfighting in with dog racing and horse racing, I'd say it's more valid. Illegal porn is part of the "industry", and frankly always had been. Porn *was* illegal until recently, and in even basic form remains illegal in places... and even highly regulated in most places where it's "legal". I suspect the major players in the supply chain of underage porn in Russian/Ukraine/etc. are making vastly more money than the chick who is taking a ride on Captain Stebbins' boat for a shoot. Even if you count in *all* the shoots she does, it's not even close. The point of illegal porn is the same as legal porn - to sell sexual content to consumers. There simply are those who will break the law in that content. It's a bit like saying Playboy and Penthouse weren't magazines because they were sold in that small, closed off part of the newstand rather than on the shelf next to Time and Newsweek. John

I don't have a hang up with Sex or Porn, and admitted as much in my first post - I'm a porn fan. As far as being healthier to break into, I suspect that for the overwhelming majority of people around the world, the porn business is far more *unhealthy* to break into... especially these days. John

I agree... though I suspect we disagree on just who doesn't know. I suspect that if we look at the entire porn industry globally (which it is far more so than wrestling these days since the global net is driving it these days), there is probably nothing that porn comes out ahead of wrestling in a positive sense. I can't even go to the "at least porn doesn't kayfabe and pretend it's a work" stance since so very much of porn at its core is nothing more than a work. You're joking, right? Dorothy Stratten, Shauna Grant, Artie Mitchell... these all were long before Benoit. I think the problem is that people focus on "the big stars" and/or the more "mainstream" and established porn. Join a few networks and you'll get a quick idea of how the "big stars" don't really have a great deal in common with the overwhelming majority of porn that's out there. I'm not even touching on the underage stuff which has due to the internet turned into a massive business in places like the former Soviet Union nations and elsewhere that parents are literally pimping their kids out to "content producers". We may joke about Lawler or Art Barr or others, but they're not even a drop in the bucket compared to the exploitation that's going on there. :/ The porn business *as a whole* is off the charts. John

Porn. I'm a fan of porn, and the cesspool of wrestling has gotten increasingly depressing over the years (or pehaps the other positives lessened to balance against the shit). But... Porn is an utter fucking shithole. Perhaps at its higher end it's little different from wrestling. But join any "network" with a load of sites, click through what's available, and you're quickly going to reach low levels. And even there, you're not even reaching the lowest level of shit and exploitation. Internet porn has driven it even harder. Like I say, I'm a fan of porn... but I have no illusions about what a shithole it is. As far as the industry shutting down for a while over AIDS, one of the troubling things you'll find these days is just how much unprotected sex is going on in porn sites. It's really fucking numbing. John

Kurt needs to be broken off into his own thread for all the lies he tells. John

Kurt might be the only person who can give Heyman, Russo and Vince a run in the "Biggest Liar In Wrestling" race. Even Hogan's lies are nothing compared to how constantly and consistently Kurt is full of shit. John

What was the story? Dylan... John