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I wouldn't blame Dave for any reaction. I don't think goofy or crank calls play to him, especially when it's to his own show. John

I'm recalling a thread over on classics about WON wrestlers of the year: WON Wrestler of the Year - Worst Winners *reading through it* Holy shit! I forgot this was the thread with this gem: "When you grow up, you realize that intolerance of other people's divergent opinions, which was certainly a trait I had, is a bad vice." -Dave I think that was a running gag on tOA for a year. Anyway... Dave would morph "Great Matches" into "Great Fights" to support MMA candidates. Despite being a sub, I don't vote in the WON Awards. I haven't for years. I think I tapped out after HHH won in 2000 over Kawada. John

I've heard the 1971 thing as well, and I believe Dave has written it in the WON as well - Inoki was hung out to dry. The Robinson thing is problematic, even if it's something Billy himself claimed. I still think from watching the match that Billy went into business for himself going off the script in the match with Inoki. I suspect "stiffed" was more of a payback by the New Japan office for Billy's actions. I also think the "Baba beat Billy in short order" is a bit overplayed by Dave. The length of the match wasn't out of line with Baba's PWF Title defenses of 1975-77. It wasn't any shorter than Baba's trio of title matches with Brisco in December 1974, a pair of which Baba won two of the three falls cleanly. One thing always missing from Dave's comment about Baba beating Billy in 20 minutes is that Baba got Billy over in All Japan to the point that he remained a top gaijin in the company for the balance of the decade. The first match wasn't a squash job, nor did it kill Billy off or damaged his drawing power. When one reads Dave's writing on it, one tends to get that mistaken impression. John

I actually think the buyrates are far more impressive than a 5.7M viewership. I don't have the network, primetime ratings for that week. But for the week before, a 5.7M for an entire show would place it #70 among primetime shows ahead of Barrera de Amor. That would limit it to just primetime network (meaning tossing out all the weekend sports programs such as the NFL), and give the entire UFC show credit for 5.7M for the entire show (it pulled a 3.1 rating), rather than just for the fight (it pulled a 4.3 rating). UFC's prior best rating was a 2.0. They bumped that to a 3.1, for a free broadcast. The bump from a prior high of 280K buys to 1M or more buys is really much more impressive, especially when people are handing over hard earned cash. John

I don't even think Crash TV had massive benefits. I tend to think that a lot of things that get rolled into "Crash TV" are really *other* things that were working in the product. John

People sold for the chop, and the fans went nutty for it. Hard to drop something that "works". I also think that's just one element of his "offense". Baba actually had a pretty large moveset for a wrestler, in addition to the holds he knew how to work. More than that, Baba was willing to let just about any wrestler do anything to him that they physically could. Harley could break open his Big Book Over Moves and throw Baba around as needs. Suplexes. Piledrivers. Neckbreakers. Whatever. In the 90s, there's Baba letting Kobashi moonsault him or Misawa give him the Tiger Splash... no problem. I don't get to worked up about the chops. They at least were connecting. More annoying to me would be Tenryu's enzugiri, which often would miss or be a "neighborhood play" that the opponent would have to sell. Inoki's enzugiri at least connected, but it was as "light" as Baba's chops, and every bit as critical in leading to finishes. I guess as I get older and more jaded, weak strikes don't drive me as nutty as they once did as long as they work. The People's Elbow really was a ridiculous drop. But fuck it... the thing worked in that wacky WWF setting of the peroid, so what the heck. He was physically weak, and often looked like he was going to fall down. But I can take a look at the 1979 title change with Race where he won the belt, see that he's physically shot by that point, yet also see that they work a hell of a title change given one of the workers is past the freshness date. It's also not 100% because of the greatness of Harley that it's a really good match. Harley *is* freaking terrific in the match, put on one of his great performances. But Baba brings all the goods to the table that he has left at that point, and is game as all hell. Baba being Baba helps that match be strong. I wouldn't disagree with that. But I tend to look at some of the holds being worked by Beyers against Baba and against Inoki, and what the two natives are bringing to the table. Inoki's stuff isn't all that good opposite Beyer. It's hard to see anything the reflects it's Beyer. A similar example would be the Destroyer-Matsuda match. Matsuda has this rep of being a great matworker. He frankly sucks hard in his match against Destroyer. It isn't Dick, as he gives Matsuda similar opening that he would give to Baba or Mil. Matsuda just seems intent to lay in them and not do much. It then forces Dick to move to Plan B to move the match along. And then Plan C. John

Agreed. John

The Flair-Thesz *is* the Wrestler of the Year award. Dave has always let it be open to MMA fighters. Is he wrong for doing so? I believe he is. But it is his newsletter. Like Vince McMahon, in the end he can book the newsletter to what ever he choses. I tend to think if he were smart, he'd break the awards into two different votes over two issues - the Pro Wrestling Awards and the MMA Awards. Those would be two "must have" issues for readers. Similar to how he has with the Wrestling HOF and MMA HOF, though even that has been bastardized by Sak and Funaki. If he were smart, he'd also change the voting period to 01/01/xx - 12/31/xx, with the first year dealing with the change by going 12/01/06 - 12/31/07. In the days of Snail Mail and a longer amount of time it took for people to see matches around the country (world), there was some logic for using an earlier cut off where it would give time for people to see stuff *and* mail their ballot to Dave. That really isn't as big of a concern today, and will be less as each year passes. Go 12/31 and give people until 1/20 or so to get their ballots in. The key reason for doing this is because December is a rather huge MMA month with the various New Years shows and UFC's year end show. These tend to have some major impact on fighters candidacies. John

Meltzer. John

If that's the case, then he's working a pretty long planned out socko angle. His other ID still exists (I don't think he's been banned), and this ID has been laying in wait for use for more than a year before being used to post. The person in that other thread didn't seem to be of the depth of through to pull off something that long term. He frankly came across more as someone who would use a socko to come in and do the classic "I agree with Poster X - Meltzer is wrong" sock puppet spot than have one laying in wait for later usage. John

This isn't the same guy who was taking Dave to task on Hogan? John

I think when you work through a larger sample, like Barnett's 70s Japan that Frank put together, you get less skewing. You'll have matches like Baba vs. Rusher in 1975 that aren't very good, or even the Baba vs. Jumbo from the same Open League that isn't very good. Neither of those reflect very well on Baba. On the other hand, you'll have some so-so matches like the 04/26/1974 Baba vs. Pedro Morales that actually reflects well on Baba despite it not being a great match. There are times where Pedro gets a bit lost and it's Baba who reels him in. There are other matches like the 1977 Funks vs. Baba & Jumbo from the Tag League where Jumbo and Terry are the stars, but when you look at the "support" Dory and Baba give to making truly great 45:00 draw, Baba doesn't really take a back seat to Dory. He brings a lot of nifty stuff to the match and is pretty frisky. I describe Baba elsewhere as the equiv for his era of Good Taue (3/95 - 1997). He has limitations, but he's a game motherfucker who brings some good things to the table. Except that Baba got good at a younger age, was even more game, was a *smarter* worker, and was regularly adding things to his game. I don't know when Baba did the DDT for the first time, but it wasn't a move that became popular until the 80s. There's Baba rolling it out in 90s when he was an old goat. He sure as heck wasn't doing it in the 70s. I try not to call Baba a "great worker". It strikes me as too hard to pull people over that far. So I try to get across that he was a "good worker" in his prime and a "smart worker", hoping that you can open people's eyes at least that far. John

Actually, as bad as Conan is in that thread, meltzerkiller takes things to a new level of nuttiness: View Recent Posts: meltzerkiller I confess that whenever I see a "poster" who was created (12-26-2005) a full year before making a post (01-10-2007) it screams out SOCKO loud and clear. Over the years, WC has had a lot of these Sleeper Cell posters who seem to lay in wait for months and years before being "activated". I'm only half joking. The thing with WC is that you *don't* have to register to read the boards. The only reason to register is to post. Who would register and then not post until a year after registering? It's never made sense. But this isn't the first time I've pulled up the profile of a new-to-me troll/attack poster that over there and seen this rather odd thing. I don't really think I've seen it on any other board, though I don't get out as much as I once did. Since the smack is aimed at Dave, and in support of Russo, it beats the living hell out of me who it could be. The Russo-support eliminates a lot of the Usual Suspects. John

Blogs really are a pain in the ass for discussion. John

Everyone wave "Hi!" to Google, which is already spidering the site. They are pretty amazing how quickly they show up. John

I actually had a concept of, when sitting down to watch Dan's 1993 season set in order, trying to see how well it would make for converting into a "Digest" format similar to Frank's WCCW Digests. As he explained them, he usually tried to build each digest to a big show or a climax of a storyline. AJPW naturally breaks into Series, climaxing with a big show. They did in this era at times have a less show and/or taping after the big show. But anyway, the idea would be trying to take a look at each series and see what is keeper in terms of quality, storyline, development and/or wrestling introduction. There would be series like Carny and the Tag League that generate more than one disk. Others... who knows. 1993 is an interesting testing ground for it since it was still nearly all on TV. 1994 the TV went to 30 minutes and things started getting more complex with commerical tapes (The Carny commercial tape, the complete Carny Final split off into another tape, the full May tag match, at least one match in full from the Tag League that was JIP on TV). There is some commercial tapes in 1993 that I would have to see if Dan has and send some cash for. John

It's perfectly okay. Which is a good thing. John

Oh... and I tended to like Bret-Owen the last time I watched it. That has been a while... perhaps six or so years. My taste my have changed since then, but I suspect it might only slip like Savage vs. Steamboat did in my eyes. And damn... I need to get the 1987 match from Toronto between the two. John

That's a good place for him now. John

The post is generally a joke. I can revisit the 06/03/94 match, or the 12/06/96 one. I do every year or so, and give it some thought. I'm just not likely to get into any of the in depth discussions about the match that I may have in the past. I've probably said everything I can say about them. Hell, what I've said about the matches has bred, mutated and even morphed around the net. If I were to do something on All Japan in the 90s like I'm doing on the WWF, my comment would be something like: John

Fixed. Had 1993 on the brain for some reason. John

Google: AngryGerman.com + Russo Go with the Cache copies. John

Yeah. Xavier Von Russo Fan: Why I (and you should) miss Vince by Xavier Von Erck John