jdw

The Brand Split had a massive impact on workload. Each brand initially worked a four night load, then three nights off: Fri-Mon: Raw Sat-Tue: SmackDown Eventually, the Monday night SmackDown shows were dumped due to horrid gates (people stayed home to watch the free Raw). Other nights got taken off here and there, and wrestlers at times would be given nights off as well. For example, here's Eddy's workload in 2002: Jan - out hurt Feb - out hurt Mar - out hurt Apr - 6 matches + 1 run-in May - 14 matches on 13 cards (one quicky Heat match) Jun - 16 matches on 15 cards Jul - 17 matches on 16 cards + 2 quicky Hardcore Title spots Aug - 15 matches on 14 cards Sep - 14 matches Oct - 11 matches + 1 run-in Nov - 16 matches on 15 cards Dec - 10 matches I suspect that Graham might be missing a handful of cards, but not likely very many. I think he's got the WON's from that period, and Dave had all the cards by that point. Anyway, if I were to carry on into 2003 until Eddy's death, I don't think we're going to see a much higher level of matches per month. He largely stuck to SmackDown, and while by 2005 they would on occassion book Monday night cards, they often wouldn't. Just eyeballing Jan and Feb 2005, I see 22 matches. Off the top of my head, I don't recall the WCW schedule and whether they worked 6-7 days a week. I seem to recall that the promotion didn't run that often, though in the back of my head I recall that they gave lighter schedules to the top guys while making folks like Eddy work more shows. The WWF was working more nights a week when Eddy jumped there with the Radicals, but we also need to remember that he took the double hit - first injuring the arm on almost his first night in that put him on the shelf for quite a while, and then the dope issues that got him booted from the promotion. Going backwards in WCW, he had the long stretch out after the car injury. I strongly suspect that all in all if we could track the matches each worked from January 1995 (when Eddy stopped working regularly in Mexico after the Peso took the hit) until 11/08/05 when he had his last match, we'd find that Misawa probably worked in the same neighborhood or possibly more matches than Eddy. NOAH works a shorter schedule than AJPW did in Misawa's time there. I think we'd find Eddy work shorter matches on average. It's quite probably that Eddy worked more singles matches, but he worked a lot more tag matches than one might think, especially in the WWE. He also worked a fair number of short Nitro-style matches in both his WCW and WWE career. So... I don't think schedule explains why the younger Eddy is dead and Misawa is still selling out Budokan in World Title matches. The worst of the WWF and Crockett/WCW schedule was back in the 80s and early-to-mid 90s. I'd have to check to see when the WWF went to the shorter weekly schedules... I think it was not long before the Brand Split. But by the mid-90s the WWF got a bit more sane in setting up their schedules to have less long distance criss crossing the country. A large part of that was that they stopped running their major buildings on a monthly basis and could get even more "nodal" on setting up the schedule. What's interesting is that it seems like more guys are dropping dead *after* the schedule started easing up than guys back in the days of the psycotic schedules. Eddy and Pillman dropped dead. Ricky Morton and Tully Blanchard didn't in the 80s. You'd have some Gino's dying, but that really couldn't be chalked up to a WWF 80s style schedule. Basically he just partied his ass off far too much. Same for David Von Erich. So I can't really chalked up the radical difference in death rates in the US vs. Japan to the schedule. It may possibly be a positive to run "series" with longer breaks between them as opposed to running a four day, three match series over a weekend then having three days off as the WWF does now. But I think there's also little doubt that someone like Misawa probably has a tough time even getting out of bed and functioning on an "off day" without medicating himself. Perhaps he's able to get by with less on off days than the ones that he works. But that would in theory be the same as in the US where they get three off days every week. I go back to what I said earlier - I think that the usage is more "controlled" in Japan, and the recreational use is likely way down. It's hard to see Kobashi sitting on the couch chewing down 30 somas like Louie would do over a period of time. While I suspect that it's almost certain that Kobashi takes an amount of painkillers on a daily basis simply to function that would be unhealthy for a normal human being, I'm willing to bet it's a far lower level than say Kurt Angle was doing at his most stoned level. And they're not likely mixing in the degree of recreational dope that the US guys are. And I think that's probably what's keeping the death rates down. John

He trashed his knee in 1985 and 1989 to the degree that he needed surgery and going on the shelf. Wrestlers tend not to go on the shelf over there, so it's usually a sign of something major. The one in 1989 put him on the shelf from March 1989 through January 1990, which is a hell of a long time in Japan. For reference, Kobashi tried to come back from totally destroying his knees after a little over a year out, re-destroyed them, and came back four months later. So Misawa's knee in 1989 was in pretty bad shape. After that, it gets difficult to be specific because he took serious time off only in 1998. But he was a wreck in 1991 and through part of 1992 before finally seeming to get into his best shape of the era in 1993. In 1995 he had his orbital bones crushed by a high kick from Kawada. A similar injury put Hawk on the shelf back in 1988. The injury happened less than a minute into a match scheduled to go to a thirty minute draw. The match went 30 as planned, and Misawa worked his next scheduled singles match two nights later for the simple reason that he was suppose to win Carny 1995, so he felt he had to keep wrestling. Again, lord knows what he took to work the balance of his matches, which include a pair of singles matches with Taue that went 27+, the second of which is considered one of the best performances of Misawa's life. By some point in 1996 he was noticably slowing down, especially with the knee and the back not seeming to be right. Going into the 1998 Dome if I can recall all the things that were fucked up: * his back and neck were toast. The comp at the time was to Shawn Michaels recently injured neck, and people might want to recall what Shawn did after Mania 1998 * the knees were in horrid shape * I seem to recall Johnny Ace cracked his sternum in their Carny match. I don't recall if this was a worked injury to take some pressure off him, but my memory is that Dave reported it as legit * I seem to recall that his wrist and shoulder were screwed up as well Of course he couldn't take time off because he was booked to win Carny, booked to main event the Dome in dropping the title to Kawada, the top star in the promotion, and had a big chunk of the book from Baba already at that point. He went out after the Dome (May 1998) and pressured himself to comeback by September when business was weak under Kawada and Kobashi headlining the company without him. The was pressured by Baba to take the TC back in October at a time when Misawa wanted Kobashi to run with it. There's a load more than that. There are "minor" things like Kawada giving him that massive scar under his chin in their 1996 Carny match, which he didn't take time off of. There are slightly more serious things such as in the Kenta match from December where he took a bump that pretty clearly screwed up his neck. Misawa isn't like Sabu where he picks odd times in matches to sell odd things like they've gotten injured. With Sabu it got to the point that one couldn't tell if he'd maimed himself (which was always possible) and when he was doing fake-shoot bullshit to get people to think he injured himself in a match and was being heroic going on. If Misawa starts yanking his head and neck around to try to work out a jam of it so he can go on with the match, it's usually pretty legit. And it's something that longtime watchers of Misawa have seen happen too many times over the years. The same with the knee getting tweeked in a match in a non-selling/worked moment, and Misawa trying to work through it. I suspect it's ridiculous. But since not a one of these guys who is an utter mess has dropped dead with the exception of Hashimoto, I suspect that there is some reason why they are not dying. I don't recall if there was anything definative on why Hash died. It's likely the combo of his weight, the bad effects of the "Ogawa Diet" he was on, likely impact of painkillers which he was no doubt on to work through a lost of injuries he had while his body was falling apart, and possibly some recreational useage. But you can look at someone like Chono. His neck and back have been a mess since 1992. He rushed back from that since he had scheduled matches and plans with the NWA Title. It clearly changed him as a worker, but he kept rolling out there. It's possible that he took some time off prior to this, but the first time I remember him going out for a semi-extended time was in 1998 when he was such a wreck. Again, I suspect his back and neck were at the level of Shawn's or Benoit's when they took time off. Chono is still working. He long since passed being the worker that he once was. But he's still going out there, will take bumps, and obviously is taking something to get through it. The pain relating to the neck and back go all the way back to 1992. That's a decade and a half. Yet is he dead? No. Dave has started over the past few years to write comments about the painkiller usage over there, after it was semi-taboo from his for a long time. He doesn't give a lot of details, but at least it's now on the table rather than the old super human dedication to "work through injuries" stuff. But still... they're not dropping dead in the numbers that we see here in the US. There has to be something beyond simply having a some time off between series. I suspect it's something about their usage being considerably more controlled (even while excessive) than it is in the US. John

Massive amounts of drugs and a rather insane willingness to take the abuse. In the match against Kenta from December, Misawa has a tough time even walking from the back to the ring. He comes across almost like a corpse. This was a guy who was a mess even back in 1996... and 1997... and 1998 to the point that after the Dome in 1998 he should either have been out for a year with a variety of surgeries or on the shelf for good. Generally speaking, they're insane and we probably don't want to know the level of pain killers and other things they're on to perform... or simply function. I suspect the reason we haven't had more deaths over there than here is that the "recreational" use level isn't as high, and while lord knows how many are addicted to large numbers of painkillers, they likely aren't as nutty at popping them as Terry Gordy or say Louie "Munching Somas Like They're Candy" Spicolli were. Not saying that's a good thing, as frankly most of them shouldn't be working at this point. But they do seem to have a way of not dropping dead, whereas their counterparts in the US are dropping dead. Misawa has been physically messed up for longer than Eddy Guerrero was - Misawa has several serious injuries that forced him on the shelf before Eddy even got in the business, and by 1991 was a mess in a variety of ways before Eddy's career started to take off. Misawa hasn't gotten healthier over the years since then. Yet he's not dead yet. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of deaths in that generation of wrestlers before they reach the age of 50-55. As in a higher rate than in the prior generation (Choshu, Fujinami, Tenryu, Jumbo, etc.). John

An example of a round robin league with two brackets (1996 G1 Climax) and a knockout tourney (J Crown) can be found here: New Japan: G1 Climax 1996 Series Go to the bottom for the first show in the series. Then block out the G1 in a text file to see how it's booked. You can see how the B Block is intricately booked to have three wrestlers (Chono, Mutoh and Koshinaka) coming into the last night with 4 points. The A Block was impacted by Hirata blowing out his knee in his first match. If I recall correctly, Choshu wasn't suppose to "run the table" in the A Block, leaving the matches in the Block on the final night meaningless. In addition to the "booking to take it down to the last match" aspect, there also are the storyline aspects of the booking that reach backwards, and project foward. The J Crown has its own booking aspects as well. All Japan's Carival in the 90s was usually a League Plus One - everyone in one "group" in a league, then the top two facing each other in a Final: 1995 Champion Carnival The 1991 and 1992 were in two blocks like the G1. Anyway, a big league like that has it's own booking aspects, again trying to get it to come down to the last night prior to the finals. In this case, going into the Final Night: 17 Misawa 15 Kawada 15 Taue 14 Hansen Misawa is "in the clubhouse" (not working a singles match in the final night of the league) and at worst in a three-way tie for first if both Taue and Kawada win. Hansen has the biggest "gimme" in Jun. He win, goes to 16 points. If Taue and Kawada lose, he's in the final with Misawa. If one eats a loss while the other draws, there would be a playoff for second to face Misawa in the Final. If both draw, it's a three-way playoff. Pretty much anyone who knew anything about All Japan at the time knew that *none* of those things were going to happen. Hansen at 16 was done. Taue's win over Kawada and then draw with Misawa give him 15 points going into the final night with a "semi-gimme". Ace isn't going to beat him. There's a chance that Ace may pull an upset and draw him, much like Ace drew Kobashi earlier in the series. Taue wins, which pushes him to 17 to tie Misawa in 1st and lock up a spot at Budokan. Kawada now needs to beat Kobashi to make the Final a three-way mini-round robin. At that point, it had never happened in Carny history. There had been two ties for 2nd place, forcing a playoff for 2nd, but there never had been a three way tie on top. So if you were in the stands and a student of All Japan history and Baba's booking style, you would think it's about a 95%+ certainty that Kawada isn't winning this match. The tricky part is that to this point, Kobashi had never pinned Kawada in a singles match. They'd gone to a 60 minute draw earlier in the year in a Triple Crown match, which was Kobashi's high watermark in a singles against him. So a Kobashi win in this setting wasn't very likely. 92.5% Draw 5.0% Kobashi win 2.5% Kawada win And they go to a draw, letting Misawa and Taue be the Final. The Real World Tag League from 1977-94 was simply a "league" without a Final. In other words, the team with the most points at the end of the league was the winner. The "Final Night" was simply the last night of the round robin, usually loaded up with two matches that "mattered" where top teams faced with the championship still in doubt. 1991 would probably be the best example of booking one of these to keep it in "doubt" right down to the end with a lot of teams having a chance. Puroresufan doesn't have the full results of that so you can see how it plays out. But, they came into the final night: 20 Stan Hansen & Dan Spivey 19 Terry Gordy & Steve Williams 19 Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada 18 Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue 18 Giant Baba & Andre The Giant Baba & Andre won a "gimmie" to go to 20. Jumbo & Taue beat Hansen & Spivey to leave both of them at 20. If Gordy & Williams vs. Misawa & Kawada went to a draw, it would be a five-way tie at 20 and an utter cluckerfuck playoff. Pretty much everyone knew that wasn't going to happen. So the Gordy & Doc vs. Misawa & Kawada winner would end up the champs. Misawa & Kawada had lifted the Tag Titles from Gordy & Doc ealier in the year, then gotten the big Budokan defense over Jumbo & Taue in September. Likely results: 90% Gordy & Doc payback win 10% Misawa & Kawada monster push 0% draw for five-way playoff Gordy & Doc won. All Japan was nicely predictable back in that era. Often times it was predictable going into a league. But if it wasn't, it usually would be at some point as the league unfolded. John

Hey look, my WWF ballot, SHOCKING #1 pick - Bix 40.Mr. Perfect vs. Ronnie Garvin (12/12/89 Nashville, TN) 41.Mr. Perfect vs Ron Garvin (3/18/89 Boston, MA) Probably time to go edit it to make sure it's in the right order. John

Been a while since I've been able to roll this out of Frank's: John

Back to Shoe's comment... I have the Barry-Tully from Will now and need to pop it in to watch. I am sort of tempted to save it for the next KOC since it was a blast watching Tully-Garvin for the first time with Yohe and Hoback. John

Egahds... if that's a beautiful match, then Tully-Ronnie much be "a million billion stars". Hell, the December 1985 Flair-Garvin runs circles around it, and I think people know my reputation over the last 4-5 years for handing out kudos to matches involving Flair. John

You had then 40/41 with the Nashville match #40. Dean and Phil had them in the same order, though Dean liked the Boston match considerably less than you two did. John

Oh god no... please don't tell me I have to watch a *second* Garvin vs. Hennig match... *looks at DVDVR 100 list* 03/18/89 Mr Perfect vs Ron Garvin (Boston MA) Oh shit. The only entertaining thing about the first Hennig-Garvin match on the set was watching Garvin outwork Hennig. I guess I have that to look forward to in the second one. John

I don't know if TNA is the "worst". I do think they've pissed off more money to do less than any promotion. Some might say that Abram's UWF or the AWF or some of the other fly-by-nights did even less, so their pissing away money was a bigger waste. But TNA has pissed away a shitload of money basically to get on PPV and now on TV and really have nothing to show for it. For most of the history of the promotion that money was simply to fund an egofuck for Jeffey. Since they moved a bit away from being Non-Stop Jarrett, things having gotten any better on ROI. John

Who did you piss off to be left off the list? Cien Caras John

You don't really need to do that stuff to get across being a heel. Bobby Eaton in the MX was a heel. He had even less "charisma" than Benoit in the ring. But he also knew how to work heel in the context of tag team wrestling. John

I would be happy if Vince circa 1979-81 was back in the booth. He was a hell of an play-by-play man, both in calling the matches, telling the storyline, and getting over the wrestlers. He also had a good amount of enthusiasm for it as well, but not so much that it was all that he brought to the table. John

Top Lucha Stars ever It would be interesting if there's been an update to the 1993 list Tamalie posted, and also where Perro might have moved to since then. John

I really disagree with the notion that they've gone scattershot as their primary booking theory since Shawn's first reign. I gave the example of Survivor 1998 to Mania 1999, which even at a certain point added another long term storyline item to it - the need to turn Rock back face, which happened after just one PPV rematch with Austin on the next show. Trip's initial "successful" run on top was also some long term thinking. They went to Foley again in the "bridge" spot to keep he and Rock apart until Mania. He and Rock would then have a feud ontop. I would 100% agree if someone wants to say that the Rock-Trip storyline was "tweaked" as it went along, including things such as Trip (and Steph) being able to convince Vince to end the long standing Mania booking of The Top Face Always, Always, Always Win The Main Event. Be that as it may, at the end of the feud at KOR in June, Rock had the belt as they no doubt planned all the way back in January. We may not think of January to June planning as "long term planning" in the sense of 80s WWF where things were planned out even longer in advance. But in the 90s, that's decent long term planning. Another example would be Batista-Trip. Austin vs. Michaels for Mania 98 is something that was planned at least as far back as December 1997 when Bret was heading out the door. Now no doubt Shawn in his head was plotting ways to screw over Austin before his back went out (and of course even after that happened and there was no reason he shouldn't lose). But it was the match that was planned. Austin vs. Rock at Mania 2001 was likely planned from the point Austin got back and they didn't have a decent storyline for the Driver Angle. Even as they were building to Austin turning at Mania, they were laying the plans for what was to follow - Trip going face to be his first opponent. Granted, Trip was a cocksucker and quashed that *after* he got his win over Austin at No Way Out, but it was the long term plan. The "throw stuff at the wall" was the crazy stretch of going to Double Chris followed by WCW Invasion followed by WCW-ECW Connection followed by Austin going "WCW" followed by the rushed Austin-Angle followed by the Survivors blow off to the Title Unification to Co-Owner Flair to the nWo "Injection" to The Brand Split to the Brock Push.... That was the period of throwing shit against the wall *consistently*. It was also the period of certain people (largely Trip) using his power (given who he was fucking) to negatively impact potential threats in the company. It's also the point where the bloom radically came off the company from the salad days. Really some of what we call "throwing shit at the wall" isn't really that. It's what I mentioned before (and have re-quoted at least once before): "Adapting to changes in what fans want, and to deal with injuries... is a good thing." Eddy (and Rey as well) getting over wasn't throwing shit at the wall. In reallity it was talent getting over with the audience almost despite what Creative and the Company were doing with them. It was then the company realizing it and trying to do something with it. In fact, let's be honest and admit that the company *fucked up* in realizing what the fans wanted. Eddy started getting strong as a singles and a draw in the middle of 2003 around the time he got the US title. What did they do with him? Stuck him with Big Show, had him job the title, and that was it. The company failed to strike when the fire was hot. He then fluked into a spot opposite Brock for the title, Brock was basically losing his mind at the time, and Eddy got hot again. The company didn't handle that one very well. To a degree Eddy didn't, but he really didn't have the full support of Creative like a typically annointed top babyface in the company would. For throwing shit at the wall, they rolled out JBL, who instantly became a VKM favorite... and the rest was history. The company on occassion responded to the changes that the fans wanted with Eddy. The company didn't really hit an homers out of the park - Eddy never was as well executed as say Sting In The Rafters was done in maximizing money. But they did get some hits here and there. Rey has been the same thing. It's not really tossing crap at the wall, but instead responding to the obvious. John

Yeah, Dave points to various sellouts as being a big postive and indicator. I think it's a valid point. I'd like to see it supported a bit with some prior examples of what it meant and how it was sustained. I'm not going to question the current "upswing". My question is more on the "much of 2007" aspect. Dave could be entirely correct on this. He studies the business side more than any of us, and possibly more than the WWE itself. But to me "much of 2007" means that they'll still be on the upswing through July 2007, which would be seven of the twelve months in the year. I think through Mania looks like a reasonable bet, and a big Mania does as well. But Mania is April 1. It's literally a quarter of the way into the year when we knock a few days off for the short February. What's going to sustain them beyond Mania? Is the track record that once they have this momentum they hold it for several months even after the product stops delivering? Or was post-Mania so low last year that it's an easy threshold to reach in year-to-date comps? It would be interesting to see him write a piece on it. Even in this week's WON with all the positive business news for the WWF we got: (i) More evidence that Creative and Vince are still nutty (ii) the pretty alarming news that WWE B-PPV's are down in the 150K buy range in North America (iii) that Rumble responses for Dave were down relative to last year. While not always tracking with the final buyrates, he's pointed to them being a decent "fast indicator" of interest level in a PPV (iv) not a lot of incite into where they company is "locked in" headed to Mania, and even less for post-Mania So... Like I say, it would be interesting to see him do a piece on it. John

There are degrees of throwing shit on the wall. Go back to the finish of Survivor Series 1998. Were they throwing shit at the wall? Or was there a clear plan in November 1998 to go Rock vs. Austin at Mania, while also laying out Rock aligned with Vince, Foley's face turn, and the bridge feuds of Rock-Foley and Austin-Vince (specifically *in the ring*) to pass time keep Rock and Austin apart after 11/16/98 until it was time for the final run to Mania? As I pointed to: "Adapting to changes in what fans want, and to deal with injuries... is a good thing." But to totally "wing it" is one of many things that led WCW to go off the cliff. A strong promotion needs to have in mind what they want the audience to buy while *also* keeping an eye on what the fans are and aren't buying. The WWF at its best did that. At the moment, I don't really see that from them. John

"Hot" is a relative term. It's probably more accurate to say that the WWE is on an upswing right now, and that it is very likely to continue through Mania. For the balance of the year... it's really hard to say. If Mania spikes up huge for (i) Shawn's current run, (ii) Taker's Streak vs. Title, (iii) Trump vs. Vince, (iv) Hogan's return, and (v) Stone Cold's return all working together to attract a wide base of wrestling fans... it's not a given that those fans are going to stick around. One needs to keep an eye on the fact that not a great deal of what's going on right now, or in the run to Mania, is because the company has nailed it on several great storylines. They've largely fluked/lucked into things. Other than Batista vs. Taker, what happens at Mania isn't going to look like anything they planned even a month ago. Adapting to changes in what fans want, and to deal with injuries such as Trip's, is a good thing. But when one reads the WON week after week over the past four months, it's really a case of (i) the WWE throwing shit at the wall, (ii) the same old problems existing in Creative, and (iii) Vince still being insane. That remains a volatile mix in the company being able to sustain things. Perhaps Dave's read on all this is that the WWE and/or "wrestling" are hot again, and that when you're hot it really doesn't matter what you roll out, the fans are going to buy it. I don't read that into what Dave is writing, so I don't want to project it as his thoughts. But I also don't see anything in what he's writing that gives one full "lock" confidence that the WWE is going to remain strong after Mania. WWE Creative still doesn't instill any confidence in me. If they can't come up with key storylines and stars to carry things past Mania, they'll be back in the same position they've been in the past 5 or so years. John

One also needs to remember Shawn's paranoid, delusional, strung out mindset of the time, along with Trip's always great ability to manipulate those he gets close with. John