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The company will go off the cliff after Vince dies. They'll have money to burn, and the family egos (Shane, Steph and Trip) to do so. But the Fear Of Vince won't be there to keep people in line. It will just be about the money. Creatively, those three are bankrupt. I suspect that when reality sets in, they'll look for someone to buy the company out. With the several 100M Vince has already taken out of the company, they'll be well set. John

I'm not sure how Brody was a given as a strong drawing card. WWF was running cartoon stuff at the time. Quake squashed Hogan in a stretcher type job, put him out for months, and led to that hold "Get Well Hulk Wrist Band" nonsense. So how does Brody top that? Vince wouldn't have booked Brody to juice the crap out of Hogan, especially not after NBC bitched about the juice in the Bossman-Hogan match. So he uses the chain and barks a lot? For all the talk about Brody on the mic, he really wasn't all that great in a WWF way (Savage, for example, was exceptional). So you put Brody with Heenan? Again, I don't see that working. After Scorp flopped, they went back to Flair. Dusty got the book around the AZ Wargames PPV in Feb 1991 when Ole got the boot. I'm not sold that Dusty would have brought him in. Certainly not to face Flair with Flair as a face. By that point Herd was looking for a face to get the belt off of Flair, and that face's name was Lex after Sting bombed. I don't see Frye or Watts using Brody at all. They had Vader. Brody rather than Jake against Sting? Watts had history with Jake in Mid-South, and Jake went on to be a WWF Superstar. Do you really think Bill would have asked 46 year old Brody in? For even an extended period? Vader was champ from 12/92 to 12/93. I don't see Eric bringing in 46/47 year old Brody as a monster heel on top when he had Vader than then brought Sid back in the middle of 1993. WCW had a boner for Sid, and he'd also "headlined" Mania against Hogan He was a "Superstar", while old man Brody would have been an indy wrestler at the point. I don't think WCW and the WWF would have looked at Brody any differently than they did Abby, another indy "star" of the late 80s and early 90s. Abby had a cup of coffer with WCW, and nothing with the WWF. I think Brody Fans project onto WCW and Vince their own fantasies. John

He probably would have had a cup of coffee in FMW. I doubt that Brody would have had a mindset to put over the former All Japan prelim boy who was the Franchise. Wing and IWA were later, and not exactly goldmine paydays. They also would have wanted him to make their stars look good. On thing that people forget is that Native vs. Native hit its stride after Brody died. Onita could make great bank opposite Pogo for years, and Tenryu in the short run. Who needs to deal with the headache of an asshole like Brody when you can make as much money, while paying *less*, for a Pogo? The question would be whether Brody would have left with Tenryu to SWS. I'm not sure if there would be anything prior to the AJPW-SWS split that would have made Baba bounce Brody, other than Brody being an asshole. Brody would likely have only worked 3 series total in 1988 with All Japan. He only worked one prior to his death - July 17, 1988. That was the March-April tour. Obviously he would have been back for the Tag League if he was on his best behavoir. There also was talk (Dave in the obit, and often since) that Baba wanted to book a Brody-Hansen for the 8/29/88 Budokan, which turned out to be the "Bruiser Brody Memorial" show. That would be the third tour. 1989 would probably have been similar. These were the days before it became common for gaijin to work every series, or every show of every series. Even Hansen in these days wasn't working every series and every show (one of the various myths in the Funk book was the item on Baba wanting Terry fulltime in 1985 - just didn't happen in that era). Tenryu was throwing around the cash when he left. By that point, if Brody hadn't worked with the WWF (which I have doubts about), we're talking about a 44 year old man who'd been a vagabond in the business for close to six years. It might have been hard for him to resist the offer. On the other hand, if he stayed in All Japan, where does he fit in? Baba clearly loved the push of Misawa up to be Jumbo's top rival. While Hansen got pushed hard and taken care of, the primary focus of the company was even more clearly off the natives than it had been in the Jumbo-Tenryu feud. In addition, Baba had other favorites bubbling up in Taue, Kobashi and even pre-doghouse Kawada. Hansen, Gordy and Williams made them look far better than Brody ever let young natives of their age look in the past. (That's not to say that Stan sold his ass off like a bumping fool for them - just that he sold vastly more and better for them than Brody had a track record for). But... it does come back to Misawa. Would Brody at 44-46 have been willing to make a kid who he saw break in as a job boy carrying his luggage look good and put him over? I don't think so. If he didn't instantly jump to SWS, he would have pulled the Kabuki-Yatsu move of jumping later. They jumped after Misawa took off the mask and was aimed at Jumbo. Much like seeing the handwritting on the wall with Choshu's Army and the Road Warriors in 1985 in All Japan, which led Brody to jumping. Dave often talks about Vince taking him on for a run against Hogan. I'm not sold. When after July 1988 would this have taken place? And why would Vince have thought he needed Brody rather than someone else he ran at Hogan? I just don't see it. As far as WCW, who running WCW at any point would have thought to bring in Brody? Dusty could have brought him into Crockett from 1985-88 if he wanted to. What makes one think he would have in the 90s? Did Ole have any love for Brody? Flair as booker bringing in Brody? He brought in Steamer, then went to Funk. If one wants to say "after Funk" in late 1989 and early 1990, one needs to remember that the Horsemen were turning on Sting to set up Flair-Sting. Which Herd wanted to see as the begining of the Sting Era. Brody doesn't fit into Flair's era as booker. Watts? Watts didn't seem to be using him when he had his own promotion, at least not by the 1985-87 period. One would think that Brody's brawling style would fit in. I would take it that by that point Watts didn't want much to do with him. Bischoff? When? Dave has talked several times about how Brody would have cashed in during the Monday Night Wars. I don't buy that. Brody would have turned 50 in 1996. Unlike the other oldtimers who made money in that era (like Flair, Piper, Hogan, Savage, etc.), Brody had no cha-ching in the 80s with the WWF or Crockett. He wasn't even like Superfly, who had been a WWF Superstar under Vince from 1982-85 before getting bounced. I don't see why Vince or Eric would be spending money on a 50 year old who meant nothing to them. It's more likely that Brody would have had a vagabond existance like Abby. The difference is that Abby didn't seem to piss people off as much as Brody. There's as much mythmaking on "Post-Death, What If" Brody as there is on the real Brody. People, including Dave, mark rather than bothering to slow down and think things through. John

WTF? He was savy enough to burn bridges in both Japan and the US. He was hanging by a thread in the business when he was unsavvy enough to piss off someone to the point of killing him. John

I like Brody-Jumbo matches for the humor value - there are always lots of laughs to be had in their matches, usually due to Brody doing something goofy. John

It's SKeith. Why do people bother? John

I don't even think Brody looks like he can screw you up in the ring. He looks like a cartoon character. A pre-Taker. Stan Hansen looks and wrestled like a Texas redneck who would drag you out into the bar parking lot and kick the living fuck out of you. Brody looks like a guy on his way to a Halloween costume party, or some kind of Dark Ages role playing week end. Basically he looks fucking retarded. I guess if you're a 6 year old Hulkamaniac, you might be scared. John

A friend is on the phone laughing about how goofy the 3/28 Figure Four daily show was with Matysik on it. Seems like they going on about what a great worker Brody was, and how certain smart fans don't get Brody. Some such nonsense that he wouldn't bump unless it meant something. Yadder yadder. "Great stuff." -Unnamed Figure Four Subscriber I don't subscribe to it. Perhaps someone else can confirm whether it's as funny as I'm being told it was. John

The JWP ladies opened the year before, so I think I would do it again. So as to not put the JWP and AJW matches back-to-back, I think the rest of the promotions would conspire to put the Pancrase match on #2 as the crowd is still showing up. Riki: "Fuck those shooter assholes." Then comeback with AJW. Then they puro-style guys conspire to fuck over Maeda by forcing the RINGS match to follow whatever AJW sends. Riki: "I hate that cocksucker Maeda. Fuck him too." Then Riki decides to screw with FMW by forcing two not so well known FMW guys to follow the juniors matches. In the "rankings" of the promotions, MPro would go on before WAR... but since the "MPro match" is for the IWGP Title, Yamada flip-flops them. So WAR-MPro-FMW. And then you take intermission where all the fans can mingle and talk about how that FMW match didn't really match up to what was on before. After intermission are the five "main events". Takada and Tenryu want to go on first because their whole point is to give a "new" match with a Legend before the rest of the matches come on. Then Kobashi-Hansen, since they're slower build will get the crowd into it eventually. Then Inoki-Vader, the AJPW tag, and Riki-Hash. 1. JWP Match 2. 09/07/96 Pancrase: KOP: Bas Rutten vs. Masaharu Funaki (17:05) 3. 03/31/96 AJW: Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue (21:19) (or some other AJW match) 4. 08/24/96 Rings: Volk Han vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 5. 08/04/96 "WAR": Ultimo Dragon vs. Shinjiro Ohtani 6. 04/29/96 "MPro": IWGP Jr: Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke 7. 08/01/96 FMW: Wing Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka (14:51) Yep... that should fuck FMW in the ass. Intermission 8. 09/11/96 UWFi: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu (19:30) 9. 09/05/96 AJPW: Triple Crown: Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (26:07) 10. 01/04/96 NJPW: Antonio Inoki vs. Big Van Vader (14:16) 11. 12/06/96 AJPW: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (31:37) 12. 08/02/96 NJPW: Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto (17:14) I think the crowd would be into it fine. The problem with the Hash-Chono the year before is that they worked far too long farting around on the mat. This is a big match in a big setting... Riki will be fired up, and Hash will be told to kick the fuck out of Riki before it's time to turn the tables. If I can figure out the JWP and AJW matches, that's kind of a pertty cool card. Lots of variety in it. The top four singles matches are all more along the lines of "spectacles" rather than "great matches". I think they'd play well here. The tag match would work anywhere with that storyline. John

I think something different rather than the standard "all-time". When that happens, you get a "card" filled with a bunch of matches that don't fit together at all. Perhaps a 1996 card that tries to be somewhat similar to the 1995 Weekly Pro Wrestling card where each promotion sends their "best match". Not always their best in terms of quality, but what they think would also play to the crowd. Toss out the small fry promotions. Have All Japan and New Japan "force" that they be given two matches. Perhaps these as starting blocks: 08/02/96 NJPW: Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto (17:14) 12/06/96 AJPW: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (31:37) 01/04/96 NJPW: Antonio Inoki vs. Big Van Vader (14:16) 09/05/96 AJPW: Triple Crown: Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (26:07) New Japan, being New Japan, gets to force themselves to have the closing spot. Rather than exactly trying to roll out their "best match", they go with one of those Spectacles that they hope will play in the Dome - old man Choshu against their IWGP champ Hash. They actually would have a Dome match on 01/04/97 playing off this, trying to repeat it, and it was sort of passable. The one from August would play even better in the Dome given the structure and it being semi-fresh - they hadn't run the match-up since mid-1994. To counter this, All Japan announces their first match will be their young gun Kobashi defending the TC against their own legend Hansen. It would be nice if they shortened it to more of a sprint. But this is a decent match, and they do work it in a theatrical way for a big crowd. One suspects that Stan and Kenta will be even more fired up with those New Japan bastards following. For their second match, rather then send in Mutoh, Chono, or any of the young guns, Inoki forces New Japan to humor him and gets onto the card. He wants to wrestle one of his old favorite opponents - Vader fresh off his run with WCW. Vader gets all fired up and kicks the living shit out of Inoki. Facing the Legends angle of New Japan, the Babas say "Fuck it... we're just going to have to rollout our best match. Round up the Usual Suspects~!" Choshu-Hash can actually follow that match, and they have a payoff the fans love. But it's clear to everyone that Kings Road has again put on the best match on one of these multi-promotional cards. What else... 09/11/96 UWFi: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu (19:30) UWFi and WAR see the early announcement of the Choshu-Hash and Kobashi-Hansen matches, and realize they're fucked. UWFi doesn't have anyone they can run against Takada with that star power since Vader and Albright are gone, and a potential Takada-Tamura rivalry if gone since Tamura jumped to UWFi. Takada contacts New Japan to see if he can get his old rival Koshinaka (03/01/96) to work a match, but Choshu tells him to fuck off. Tenryu calls Choshu and leaves a message with Masa Saitoh to see if he could run the first ever Tenryu-Mutoh match (10/11/96) on the Dome. Riki and Masa worry that goofy Mutoh, if told to have a bad match with Tenryu, might not remember and actually go out there and have a good one showing up Choshu-Hash given their earlier placement on the card. Riki ignores the call, and when asked by Tenryu at the Dome why Riki never returned the phone call, Riki and Masa blame it on Sakaguchi: Masa: "I gave the message to Sak to pass on to Riki." Riki: "He never told me about it." Tenryu: "Really?" Riki: "He's fucking up like that all the time." Saitoh: "He never liked you anyway, brother. He hated it when we got Inoki to job to you." Tenryu: "Really? Cocksucker." Anyway... Takada and Tenryu happen to run into each other at a Soapland and agree that they run their first singles match against each other. 08/01/96 FMW: Wing Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka (14:51) Onita has retired. Hayabusa has bombed as their new top star. Choshu has dimissed FMW as garbage wrestling. FMW decided to send Tanaka and Kanemura to the Dome to prove Terry Funk's claim that they're better than Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi. 08/24/96 Rings: Volk Han vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka Rings is a bit fucked because Maeda is banged up. They also don't want to give away Volk vs. Tamura for free. So they send Volk vs. Koshaka, and hope that the change of pace is appreciated. 09/07/96 Pancrase: KOP: Bas Rutten vs. Masaharu Funaki (17:05) Funaki decides that since Suzuki was on the Dome show the year before, so this time he'd get to. Then he starts wondering how best to put over Pancration... hmmm... well... maybe I can let Bas kick my ass? 03/31/96 AJW: Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue (21:19) Toyota-Kyoko headlined two of the company's biggest shows. I sorta... kinda... guess? I draw a blank on an alternative. So that's a starting point. Not sure what JWP would send. Perhaps a death match with Kansai vs. Oz? That might play as something different coming from joshi infront of a big, "mainstream" Dome crowd. We still have the "WAR" match, since Tenryu is in the "UWFi" match. Perhaps Tenryu let's Yoshihiro Asai have the match and tells him to put on something cool. He puts calls up Keiichi Yamada and Masanori Murakawa to see what they could come up with. Perhaps: 04/29/96 "MPro": IWGP Jr: Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke 08/04/96 "WAR": Ultimo Dragon vs. Shinjiro Ohtani It would be hard for Murakawa to resist Yamada's offer to let him win the IWGP Jr. Title, probably the only title that's going to change hands on the card (Yamada knows Baba-style booking, and knows there's no chance in hell that Hansen is going over Kobashi). And Yamada can sell Asai that Dragon will then get to beat Sasuke for the title on a WAR show. Murakawa and Asai ask if Yamada will get in trouble with Choshu for puting himself and Ohtani into two interpromotional matches while his boss isn't letting any of the heavies work interpromotional match. Yamada chills them out - "Riki lets me do what I want. As long as I don't embarass the company, he's cool with it. He's a great boss." Okay... I haven't got a clue of which semi-big promotions I'm missing here. Honestly, MPro wasn't a semi-major promotion. But everyone has enjoyed them at prior Dome shows (11/94 AJW and 4/95 Weekly Pro) that puroresu fans were clamoring for a MPro match on the card. I had thought of having Murakawa run this match: Dick Togo, Mens Teoh, Shiryu, Taka Michinoku, & Shoichi Funaki beat Gran Hamada, Super Delfin, Gran Naniwa, Tiger Mask IV, & Masato Yakushiji (32:07) And go over the "alotted time" of "18 minutes" to piss off the promoters. But getting the IWGP Jr. Title would be too much of an ego fuck for him. Anyway... The attempt isn't to put on the Greatest Card Ever. Instead, it's more to come up with a "stars aligned in an alternate universe" card for 1996 Japan. I think most everyone of those matches turned out to be either entertaining, or better than one expected, or in the case of Liger-Sasuke a "perfectly acceptable juniors dome match." John

Angle has learned the first rule of Roid Club: 1. Deny, Deny, Deny John

I'm looking forward to the coverage of local Ring of Muay Thai promotion. I hear they have a lot of great Fight of the Year candidates. John, who has no problem with Dave covering MMA and never has...

One gets the feeling that half the "Kevin Dunn Stories" are a work. He's one of the great satan's of hardcore fandom. John

It's too bad that Victor is dead, since he likely would be the one to be the WWE's "hook up" for WWE Latino. The worst part of all this is that if it goes through, Vince will buy up a load of lucha talent cheaply, damaging the industry down there while creating a new generation of Juve's who pissed away their potential. John

No... let's hope they *are*. We'd get to see just how much of a Super Genius Paul really is. John

WrestleWar really hasn't aged very well. The other two age better. I've got the house show match that's on CMPunk's set, but haven't watched it yet. I assue it's the Landover match. John

I think he was hurt more by "jobbing in". As in how the WWF used him. I saw five of Vader's first six matches in the WWF live in the buildings: Rumble Mania vs. Yoko (Raw after Mania) vs. Fatu (Raw after Mania) vs. Taker (Raw after Mania) The sixth was: vs. Savio (Raw after Rumble) Which was live on TV rather than taped, edited and tinkered around with sweatening and whatnot. Vader was over like hell at the start of *every* match. This is with WWF crowds. They knew who he was. They'd seen him go through the Hogan feud. If they knew about the Orndorff thing, they didn't care. He was over like hell and they were super interested in seeing him in the WWF. Any changes in how over he was happened "as things went along" in the matches or shows. At the Rumble, he was over tossing out a fair number of people. But then he got bogged down with another even bigger guy - Yoko. And then Shawn eliminated both of them. To a degree he was put into a no-win spot - Shawn was going to win the Rumble, which means he was going to get eliminated. Then again, even seen a Big Man put into the match, elminated lots of people, and get out of it more over. That was happening here, but the decision to put him opposite of Yoko was a mistake. At Raw, he squashed Vega and then did the angle squashing Monsoon which got him suspended (for the shoulder surgery). He actually was over very strong there and after the angle. Good stuff. He was over coming out at Mania, but got stuck in a 13+ minute six man tag. He won, but the length and the fact it wasn't a single sucked some heat from him. The next night at Raw, he taped the angle "breaking" Yoko's legs which got him over. He was *super* over in the match with Savio, to the point when he went up for the Vader Bomb, a large chunk of fans who knew him from WCW were pointing upward, he paused, then went up from the second to the top rope and hit the moonsault. The crowd went freaking bonkers seeing the big fellow do that. On TV the crowd noise was edited into boos. The WWF of the era still had the mindset of freaking out when heels had fans or did anything cool, and it was far too early in the run to have Vader go face. Then later in the show they sent Vader out to job to Taker. Which sucked Vader's heat right out of the building. *That* crowd of fans would never look at him the same in the WWF. It was also after this match where Taker told Vader that if he ever worked that stiff with him again, Taker would go to Vince and get him fired. And it wasn't like Vader worked very stiff with him. Vader jobbed again the following night in San Diego to Taker. You can look up his results from there until he got booked into the feud with Shawn later in the year (July IYH leading into SummerSlam), and then coming out of it. He jobbed a surprising amount to Taker, Yoko and even Ahmed Johnson. And then, other than the initial pin over Shawn in the IYH six man tag, Vader jobbed around the horn to Shawn. Hell, he even jobbed to Shawn at SummerSlam. The WWF booked Vader to fail. They were sort of the mindset that what happened at house shows didn't matter. One of the problems is that house show business was on the upswing at the time, while PPVs in general were on the decline (IYH and overexposure didn't help at that point, and wouldn't come around until 1998 with Austin). The WWF was drawing it's *core* fans to house shows and PPV at that time, rather than the earlier and later fanbase that was expanded to include more mainstream fans. So many of these fans were the same ones who saw Vader jobbing around the horn. Pretty much a blown opportunity. He could have been a very strong drawing heel in the WWF if used better. John

Fixed. John

Steamboat didn't really job on the way out. 03/05/85 - Steamboat debuts in WWF 06/02/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM (airs 06/13/87) 06/22/87 - Steamboat stops touring regularly for the WWF 07/25/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM in MSG (18,100) 08/22/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM in MSG (18,000) These were surprisingly strong crowds for MSG that year. Perhaps summertime had an impact with more kids being able to go, but I've never paid attention to seasonal drawing. The credit went to Steamer-HTM, as even without a national angle to hype those matches that local promos did the trick. Ricky came back to work more often leading into Survivors, and then for the balance of the year. He wasn't getting beat on TV. 01/24/88 - Steamboat vs. Rude at 1988 Royal Rumble 01/26/88 - Steamboat vs. Rude rematch (aired 02/06/88) Steamer didn't job in either of those. Feuded with primarily with Rude and Bravo with a few matches against HTM through Mania 03/27/88 - Steamboat vs. Valentine at 1988 Wrestlemania He had been scheduled to face Valentine in post Mania matches, but quite the promotion. He did job to Valentine, but it wasn't the case of going around the horn to lose. Even the loss there seemed spur of the moment rather than trying to bury Ricky. He was out a full year. Showed up in NWA in Jan/Feb 1989. Left in the summer. He was out a year and a half, though he did some local work in Mid Atlantic. 02/16/91 - fire breathing Dragon vignettes start airing in the WWF 10/18/91 - final match in WWF 11/19/91 - back in WCW for Steamboat & Rhodes vs. Anderson & Zbyszko I don't think how he went out of the WWF had much of anything to do with how Ricky drew in the NWA. More likely a variety of things: * as sek69 points out, NWA fans didn't really take to Ricky as a face with his Family Guy persona It didn't help. I don't think it was the only thing, but it didn't help. * a general anti-WWF vibe among Crockett/Turner NWA/WCW of the era Not to say that they hated all things WWF, but they seemed to care for their "own" guys and storylines more than folks from the WWF heading in. Flair-Luger in 1988 and Flair-Funk in 1989 did some strong box office for the promotion relative to other things they were putting on. Flair-Sting in early 1988 did do as well, but it almost was a life saver considering how poorly Crockett closed 1988 and opened 1989. They all had good storylines that helped, but Flair-Steamer had a good storyline as well. There were some WWF guys who came in and did well... again "relative" for a promotion that was horrible at the box office for most of 1988-95. Rude did decent. * What was touched on above - Crockett/Turner NWA/WCW box office in the era was horrid John

Because it was both funny and cringe-worthy to watch a stiff Wild Pegasus do laps like a mini-Hawk. I honestly don't think Kenta was more flexible than say Edge. And his neck, for his size, doesn't look any stronger than Benoit's. Those two blew their necks out. Kenta probably has as well, but as far as we know hasn't had surgery. Of course this doesn't go to the fact that Eddy is dead, and he didn't die for a lack of "flexibility" and "great neck strength". And flexibility and neck strength hasn't kept Misawa from being fucked up beyond belief. Kikuchi was an amazingly flexible wrestler. He was a mess by 1993. For whatever it's worth, Plum was probably more flexible than Kobashi. One of them happens to be dead. I think you're better off heading back to the "shit happens" explanation of why some get hurt and others don't. Well, there is Akira Taue who is both far less "flexible" than Kobashi and Misawa and Kawada, and happened to have avoided the degree of injuries that those three have eaten. He happens to work the same schedule as the other two. More so, since he hasn't gotten as injured as often as they do. Flexibility, or not quite taking the headdrops? Well, that explains Taue vs. the others of the Four Corners. It doesn't explain him versus Shawn Michaels, Edge, Rick Rude, etc. Those guys weren't taking head drops either. Frankly, Taue in his career has probably taken more headdrops than all of them combined. It isn't forgotten. It's a rather obvious thing like Water Usually Is Wet. You and I couldn't go out today and take the bumps that even a second year worker can take without our bodies being a freaking mess. Our bodies and minds haven't learned how to bump, not matter how much of this shit we've watched. Flair's been bumping for years. But if you asked him to take a headbumping drop in the exact style that Misawa does, given to him by Kawada or 1994 Dr. Death, you likely would have a maimed Flair on your hands. He just doesn't know how. Misawa's body would have a tough time taking Foley's stupider bumps, which while they do maim Foley, don't exactly put him in a wheelchair. We all know this. There's a differnce between saying that (i) Misawa knows how to take a head drop and his body has learned how to deal with the damage of the comes with it, and (ii) through body metamorphasis the head dropping doesn't hurt/damage/injure Misawa at all anymore. John

I don't recall buy this one. Kobashi isn't especially flexible, and never really was. I had the pleasure of watching Benoit run laps around a Japanese arena in 1995 hours before a card, and his flexibility was terrible relative to what it had been because he was juiced so out of his mind. Mini-Hawk was the comment that the person I was sitting next to made, and he'd been watching Benoit's career longer than just about anyone. Shawn was more flexible than Hawk. Shawn went on the shelve, and Hawk never really did until he dropped dead. Animal has a similar "neck strength" to Hawk, and probably was the more flexible of the two (Hawk was really overly stiff in movement). Animal is the one that went on the shelf for years with the back. Benoit went on the shelf with the neck. Edge went on the shelf with the neck. Angle went on the shelf with the neck. Liger hasn't. Why? You've got a variety of body sizes and types there, along with differences in flexibility. Throw in Arn and Malenko as well. Liger's been maimed a lot in his career, but it's hard to figure out why the neck hasn't gone. More than that, it's not like many Japanese wrestlers have gone out to the neck surgeries that we have here in the US. Even among guys working a more impact style, and not exactly being very flexible. John