jdw

You really need to watch the 12/85 Flair-Garvin, 4/86 Garvin-Tully and Valentine-Garvin all in one general sitting and in that order. They're good contrasts. John

Which is amazing since the JYD bio was on some levels one of the better ones Dave wrote. For a wrestler that he just didn't like at all, Dave set it aside and gave a good overview. John

04/28/86 Tully Blanchard vs. Ron Garvin Aired: 05/03/86 For people who liked the Garvin vs. Valentine on the DVDVR 80s WWF set, this and the 12/85 Flair vs. Garvin (from 12/28/85 World Championship Wrestling) are the True Shit. The Flair-Garvin bring the "hate" and "intensity" that Garvin-Valentine can only dream of in its wildest wet dream. In fact, it's rare in his career that Flair got this intense, but he seemed inspired by Garvin's intensity. It's far more of a "fight" feel than Garvin-Valentine. Eve when Ronnie whips out the headscissor take downs, it's almost like he's dropping Ric on his head when taking him over. Tully vs. Garvin is an epic, even through Ronnie basically kicks the living shit out of Tully for most of the match. Garvin is brillant in being able to kick the shit out of Tully at the same time that he's selling his broken hand. Tully sells the beating like a king, everyone once in a while probing to see if this is the time that Garvin will let him go on offense... only to find out that Garvin is channeling the spirit of Billy Robiso working to the drum within his own head and cuts him off yet again. Despite the 25+ minute time, and three or more commercial breaks, the match never feels like it's dragging since the two are almost always up to something. By the end of it, Hoback had it as his #2 match of 1986 behind Choshu & Yatsu vs. Jumbo & Tenryu. I liked it a great deal as well. John

Rudo pointed out who Masa was. Simply a "really big wrestling fan in Japan". I found him to be a nice guy when meeting him in Japan. "Really Big Wrestling Fan" types in any country make one leary, given the Lano Factor. He never struck me as Lanoesque... but he was a Big Fan, known by the gaijin and to a degree it seemed like the natives even knew him. Not really a source. I do seem to recall that either Zach or someone had issues with him. The Fumi that I mentioned was an youngish (probably Dave's age range at the time) editor with Weely Pro while Wally's was at Weekly Gong. Fumi was young and flashy in a thriving scene, while Wally was more of the vet who'd been inside the business (with All Japan). Wally was more guarded, but I took his opinions mixed with information to be more useful/valuable than Fumi... who I tended to think mixed bullshit with what-you-wanted-to-hear with more bullshit that even Dave had to sift through a bit and come it from a different direction in a follow-up question to get at the real answer. I haven't dealt with Zach much in the past few years, other than a brief discussion on the Zach Boards about Hase and Funaki in the WON HOF (where I thought Zach was looking at things a bit incorrectly). Puroresu was hit externally (MMA) at the same time it was hit internally with two massive issues that had been building for years - lack of front office people with a vision to see the issues puroresu faced, and the lack of the next generation of stars being developed. That someone like Inoki waded into puroresu's midst to work both ends (trying to position himself for the MMA Boom while also having no promotional clue on puroresu and destroying the current and future stars) to destroy the country's strong promotion didn't help. One of somewhat sad ironies is that the bloom is off the MMA Boom. It remains popular at a level that blows aways MMA here - the rating for Ortiz vs. Shamrock was a fly on the ass of the ratings for New Years Eve this year, even though it was was "down". The biggest pure MMA promotion in the country looks like it's about to be sold in some degree, possibly even to UFC. Some one gets the feeling that if puroresu had a bit more vision when it needed it, it would be "downsized" rather than on "life support". Considering the mass of promotions in the 90s, downsizing wouldn't have been a bad thing. Of course the television make-up in Japan remains an issue. The absence of both the cable penetration that is seen in the US *and* the variety of channels (looking for content) makes it tough for even a visionary puroresu company to thrive. I don't know if Hustle is the route to go. Perhaps the next generation of mainstream puroresu fans will need it to be feed to them in that degree. I would hope not, but who knows. John

How many chances do you give a guy who keeps bombing as the top guy? John

Kawada. Grab him exclusive for a run before he goes back to New Japan to job. John

Fumi, Wally and Koichi have been primary sources for him for years. Koichi more on an informational of events, results and news. Fumi was at Weekly Pro... beats me if he's still there, or even still interested in current puroresu given the changes. Don't know what Wally is up to. Fumi and Wally were more good sources for insider stuff. Dave of course has/had sources at several of the promotion's offices, and also a slew among the workers of the promotions (more with the gaijin, but also at least one native that I recall). I don't think Zach stalked any of those guys. Are you thinking of the guy who would write long letters to the WON back when there was a letters page? Was the last name "Tanaka"? I seem to recall Zach didn't care for him. I also seem to recall that he was more oddly connected rather than totally connected into the puroresu world (and seemingly a bit more connected into the growing Pancrase and then MMA side of things). I don't think he want back decades as a source for Dave. In the two trips to Japan I went on, we stayed at Wally's. We met hooked up with Koichi at every show we went to that Koichi covered. And we hooked up with Fumi several times on each trip as well. I don't recall meeting the letter writer ever, nor even his name coming up. In contrast, we talked to Masa Horie at a few shows, even through he was "just" a big fan and longtime reader of the WON and Torch. I think there's a bit of that. I also think that Dave has said it for so long that it's the "true" state of things in his head. At a time it was a bit of a defense mechanism when the Scherer's of the world (and probably some withing the business) ripped him for taking up space with "that UFC shit". We've long ago moved past that, and even people like me who think there's MMA and there Pro Wrestling *aren't* suggesting that Dave stop reporting on MMA. But it's just the way Dave looks at the world, it's been that way for so long that it's not going to change. If you want an anology, it's akin to Vince's desire to push people who weigh more than 250 pounds. It's how Vince see's wrestling/sports entertainment. Since Vince literally is pro wrestling, the WWF is booked to please him. So it's his call. Dave is the WON. "Wrestling" is going to be defined within the four corners of the WON on how Dave views it regardless of whether others think it doesn't make sense. He's been doing it for close to 25 years. It's not terribly worth arguing about within the context of the WON since it isn't going to change. It's an argument that's more useful when one steps outside the WON, if there is any value or hope of getting people to see your point of view. John

Because Dave isn't always consistent, nor thinks things through fully. Not trying to rip Dave with that. They're things I said even when we were closer. John

"Pro Wrestling" was, to the best of anyone's research, never "real". It didn't evolve from "real" to "fake". Pro wrestling as we know it and as far back as most anyone can research was always a con to work the marks out of money. I'm sure that someone might be able to dig up some cro-magnum wrestling prior to Pro Wrestling that may or may not have been legit contest. It is no more relevant to Pro Wrestling History than cricket and rounders are to Professional Baseball, or the concept of putting Cricket players into Cooperstown. On Phil's comment about boxing, we can go a step further - all forms of entertainment use things that are common in Pro Wrestling even more than MMA. That's why I made the point with a simple one - Worked Fighting in the Rocky movies. But it extends far beyond just the obvious movies. John

Rocky Balboa was released on 12/20/06, which makes it eligible for the 2007 WON Awards. It's pulled in $77M worldwide so far, and just starting to get rolled out internationally. It will finish up raking in over $100M worldwide at the box office. It will also do good DVD business (more than any wrestling or MMA release in the coming year), and likely spur a new box set of all the movies in the series (raking in more money). It's safe to say that no Wrestling or MMA event will gross more than Sylvester Stallone's entry into Sports Entertainment in the voting period. So let's see... The "Rocky Balboa" character gets my vote for the Lou-Ric Award. Sly wrote it, so that makes him the "booker" of the most successful Sports Entertainment event of the year. Booker of the Year is in the bag. Sly directed it and was the executive producer, so that's got to be Promoter of the Year. Given it's total rake come 11/30/07, it will have to be Event of the Year. Before anyone says that Sly wasn't a good worker here, or that it was a mediocre event, the movie pulled a rather strong 77% on the Critics Tomatometer at RottenTomatoes.com. It was a well review film, which speaks highly of Sly in all his various hats. John, who thinks Pro Wrestling has far more in common with the movies than MMA...

Because Dave considers MMA fighters as candidates for the Flair-Thesz was, which is the Wrestler of the Year award. He's advocated them in the past, and argued strongly for their positives in a recent issue looking at all the candidates. Mistico isn't likely to duplicate his 2006 season. Who knows what's up for the WWE. ROH and TNA, because they're small indies, will always have issues getting votes from a broad base of WON readers. There's a big question whether Morishima is going to take off to the degree that would get him the award in 2007. Which leaves MMA likely building on it's 2006 year. It's possible that the bloom will come off. But the "mainstream" buzz on MMA *hasn't* peaked yet. It has a chance at more upswing at least initially in 2007 before hitting whatever is its peak. I also suspect that a growing number of "Pro Wrestling Is Pro Wrestling While MMA Is MMA" old farts who can't keep up with the times are either not voting (as I haven't in years) or letting their subs lapse (which from time-to-time I have over the past five or so years). Unless pro wrestling produces someone who stands a bit above the crowd, as Kobashi did and Mistico sort of did this year, there will be enough voters for an MMA guy to get the Lou-Ric Award. That's not a complaint. Just an observation on where it's headed. John

I can't remember how the WON wrote it up. I get the feeling that Liger came over with the title changes planned (to pick up his 11th reign) despite having just won the belt back in October. Russo or ED came up with the great idea of the bottle, and Liger went along. Liger's whole final run with the belt over those two reigns was odd anyway. So it's kind of fitting that those two title changes were a mess. John

Tully was interviewed on the Flair DVD. They looked as current as the other recent interviews on it. John

It's recognized: http://www.njpw.co.jp/histry/jr_main06.html Juve is #36. http://www.njpw.co.jp/histry/jr_main07.html Liger gets it back as #37. AltaVista doesn't translate things very well, but one of the items that comes through is "recognition to provisional throne" which I think ties into Juve being hurt and Psic facing Liger for the belt. I don't think New Japan liked it, but Liger could have easily said "no". John

Treat is as a must. There are just too many spammers/spambots out there. The one thing you'll want to do is clean out (delete) the spammers every week or so. Members Lists on sights that don't clean them out ended up getting useless. SC has 2000+ "members", but the overwhelming majority of them are spammers/spambots. 47+ of the 58 "pages" of the Member List are people who've never posted, and most of those are spam registrations. I know most people might ignore Member Lists, but I tend to use them to find people to PM or find their posts. John

The admin side of the boards should have two features: (a) people can't post without being registered users ( registration has to be manually approved by the Admins I know at tOA we have both. I've been pretty hard on throwing the spambots out (get them every day), and in not approving those I don't know. Considering not a single person has shown up in my e-mail to complain about not getting approved, I tend to think I've made correct calls. I've seen other boards with auto-approval, and it lets the spammers in just long enough to cause problems. John

Pro wrestling hangs tough for another year. I would expect that next year is when someone from UFC will break through. John

It's an interesting project that I'm enjoying. It's been a long time since I've written much on what I think about "work" in any kind of a focused fashion. It's nice to be able to walk through where and why I think Bass-Tito goes off the rails, or how Valentine was excellent during his time on top against Steamer in their MSG match and how I wish the rest of the match was up to that level. Or stuff like Tito-Steamer vs. Pre-Dream Team working a very simple tag team structure, but doing it very well with a big payoff at the end. If my internet would get it's shit together, which would free up some of my time to watch another match a night, I might add another project similar to it. Add, as allows, comments from others are always welcome in the thread. I like to hear what others think of the stuff, even if they don't agree. John

Really? I guess I've misses that stuff. When I walked Hoback through my review of the Warrior-Rude match from SummerSlam '89, the first thing he said to me is that we need to re-watch the Savage-Warrior match. Somebody (likely Patterson) worked hard to layout some pretty good Warrior matches. Even in the Rude match you can see flashes of the stuff that typically dragged Warrior into the seventh circle of worker hell, but they never really amounted to anything more that flashes and hints before the match zoomed right past it. I really don't like the warrior at all, and would just as soon not see 98% of his matches. But he did end up in some excellent matches, and he did play a part in them being good. John

I'll have to pop it in again, but there is a very clear point in the second fall where Inoki is picking it up and heading towards the "finish" of it... and Billy just cuts him off. When Billy finally gets around to giving Inoki the fall some time later, he's farting around, the clock is really running down, the natives (including Inoki) aren't looking to happy at all, and Billy almost gives it to him in a kayfabe breaking fashion with his selling. It leaves the match no real time for a third fall, again everyone is look extremely unhappy... other than Billy who doesn't seem to mind. The post match is similar with the NJPW side not happy and Billy not giving a shit. One very much gets the feeling that "the match as laid out" left considerably more time for the third fall to build through. More than that, there looked to be some real concern for a while that Billy wasn't going to even give Inoki the one fall and that it would end 1-0 for Billy... before he farted around and gave it to him late. I've seen worked finish and post match "heat" spots in New Japan from the era to build for a rematch. I've seen sort of work-shoot finish and post match spots the make you think more is there, such as the two Backlund vs. Inoki title changes (Bob selling in the first that he thought he was quick counted, then all the nonsense in the second). This came across far closer to the looks on people's faces when a real trainwreck is in progress in the ring, such as Andre-Maeda and "Break Gary!". One of Inoki's strong points as a work are his facials, and the ones in here after the match veers off the script aren't something you typically see out of him. The only other match I can think of is the one with Roop where Roop goes off on long stretches of doing his own thing and cutting Inoki off. But but that match never goes far off the bend since Bobby does eventually get back into working towards what appears to be the planned finish. The various times that I've watched it I've never bothered to take notes with times. So again, I'd have to pop the match in and point to it. John