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For the most part it isn't worth arguing about Russo. Just say he's an idiot and move on. It's an old discussion that was played out back when he was still in WCW. It's about as played out as Bret-Vince-Montreal and 06/03/94 Misawa-Kawada. It's best just to stick with the cliches: And: And: Then when someone tries to argue with you, or even might agree with you but you're tired of talking about it, go with: John

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=1;t=063660 http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=1;t=070529 These are especially funny since they're about the same TV show: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=067301 http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=069347 Posted 3 months apart. He likes Russo. One could explore more of his thread to see if he's a troll. There are elements that read troll, such as the last two posts seeming to troll a board that doesn't like Russo. But he also simply could be a nutter Russo Fan. We saw plenty of those in the WCW Days, and shortly after them. The guy who runs the website that caught RF happened to be a massive Russo fanboy, including being invovled in running Russo's website. John

Russo essentially sucks. He tends to take credit for everything good that happens while he's employed by a company whether he's responsible or not. He's able to distort things into positives, and wash away the negatives by blaming others or saying it's not his fault. He generally doesn't have any idea of why things worked in his time with the WWF, and as everyone points out has failed in trying to recreate them ever since. He's really quite delusional. John

Please don't tempt me to read that thread over on Classics. I've been avoiding it. John

I thought the Cactus stuff in World Class/USWA-Texas aired in 1989 on ESPN. I didn't think it aired that far behind the times. Cactus won the Light Heavyweight Title from Embry about two weeks after Super Clash III, and ESPN had been decently close to being up to date on World Class at the time. Since I didn't get Memphis at the time, the dualing AWA-USWA thing was on World Class for me. I seem to recall one or more Lawler vs. Kerry matches in early 1989 where I actually thought Jerry was going to lose the title to Kerry since... it's freaking Texas. Also, don't forget that this was on Super Clash III: Chavo & Mando & Hector Guerrero beat the RPMs & Cactus Jack John

Dittos. John PM'd you. -- Loss, 01/15

As Bix pointed out, that's AJ to a tee. John

I suspect getting some of those "very strong numbers" is likely what induces Randy to come out of retirement. There is simply so much money potential on the table for one of these guys main eventing one of their shows that pops a big buy rate, and there is in contrast so little non-fighting potential money out there for them unless they work really hard at it, that it's hard not to want to get a seven figure payoff or two or more. John

James Hoback. The longtime third member of our group along with Yohe. He rarely posts - jkc31 over on tOA. I've spent years trying to discourage him from posting since he's far too nice for the typical shit that we all have to put up with online (or also dish out over the years like I have). A bit younger than I am - mid-30s. Old school Carolina and WWF fan in the 80s. As an *early* teen subbed to the WON (I'll have to ask him again how he found out about it), and everyonce in a while will bring over a Meltzer tape to a KOC for us to watch. Dave has been out of the business of doing tapes for so long that it tends to date how James was a hardcore can before Steve and I even found out about the one. Good guy. John

I suspect it's a gold mine. I *think* Steve once sent me an e-mail version of the typed up Word document that he sent Dave with info. This would have been 1996 or later after I got online. I'm trying to remember why he sent it to me as well... there must have been news about someone that he knew interested me a great deal. Possible HOF related or something. Anyway... it was nifty. I tried to not be pushy with Steve and ask him for anything over the years, so that was the one and only one I got. Cool. Much obliged. Yeah. A lot of early Dave writing on workers was based on what others were telling him. Then AAA came along, and he went wacky for spot-fu. On the other, there were times like Panther-Mariachi where Dave pimped the match. I think the only difference is that it's max out in the ****1/4 or ****1/2 range with something like that, then go ****3/4 for a Rey-Psic spotfu. I think Hoback and Yohe were already starting to head over in the direction of the Panther-Mariachi camp by then, dragging me with them. John

I don't doubt it. As I said - I gave up reading Dave's lucha comments years ago. I know he was a natural. I don't recall seeing anything of him as Canelo since it was before my time. I sincely *doubt* that Dave got into him because of his matwork - Dave was always a lucha highspots & bumps fan. Yow~! He didn't care for it. John

I'll check it out. Robert should try to get 1990 as well as that's probably when Dave started doing a lucha section. Boxes of Sims faxes? Where these from Steve or Kurt? If you correspond with Steve, tell him that John Williams says hello. I fondly recall the shows we went to together in Mexico, here in LA, and especially in Japan. John

I don't know when Metal was sent back to wrestling school. He was down on Metal at many of the shows we went to when Metal would stand in the corner stoned out of his mind, come on to take a bump or move or two, then go back to stand on the apron lost in his own little world. The contrast of being able to see stoned out Jerry Estrada be a good part of good matches while stoned out Heavy Metal didn't feel like doing anything (and blow half of what he tried) turned even Dave. This was no later than 1994. John

He went a long time without liking Metal. In fact, I don't recall Dave ever saying a good thing about Metal at any of the lucha shows we went to. Metal was a joke by then (the joke usually being Von Erich related), and Dave thought of his as having pissed away his talent. I've zoned out of Dave's lucha coverage for so long that I don't know what's he's written about him over the past few years. I could see Metal flashing some of the "old form" and Dave going bonkers for him. I honestly never quite understood why people were nuts for him as a worker in the first place. Perhaps it was the Casas bloodlines (the old "He's suppose to be good" influence), that Heavy was a bit of a theatrical fast bumping heel that folks in this country tended to like (Flair, Curt, Shawn, etc) and that he had a flashy move or two. Dave wasn't the only one who thought that highly of Heavy. I think a fair chunk of the original lucha fans of the WON thought that as well. I know Sims was very high on him in the LLW, at least initially. I think Kurt Brown like him as well. Those two had a fair amount of influence over Dave when he first started getting into Lucha. Psic would probably be an example of a "luchador" that got over big on Dave without anyone really needing to initially pimp him to Dave (though I suspect Carlos/Konnan did). Psic is the type of 90s heel who worked right in Dave's wheelhouse - bump-o-matic with hot moves working exciting spot-fu. Dave was extremely high on Dandy when he first started getting into lucha. There was a time when he rated him right there with Negro Casas as the best luchador, and I think for a while called him the best. That would be pre-split/AAA when Dave rated him that high. I think at somepoint Dandy started getting written up like Yatsu - former great worker who doesn't seem to have it anymore. After the split, he tended to be very high on AAA (until the talent left for the US and otherwise fragmented up), and pretty down on EMLL as a boring product. I confess that I tended to see it the same way, though we had some different preferences in AAA. I'd have to sift through the WONs to find the stuff on Dandy early in the 90s. It's not always to find the lucha stuff since it tended to be so news based with the opinion buried in it. The 1990 WON probably has a piece on Lucha (I'd guess by Kurt Brown), and the June 1990 trip to Japan to watch lucha (now largely rememebered for watching a certain match on a certain All Japan card) had a lot of lucha coverage. Those might be good starting points. John

I think I found that if you had too many "quotes" and/or quoted text in a single post, that the board doesn't like it. I think that's why I responded to someone's post here ones in 3 different responses - I had too many different quotes. John

Yeah, that attitude is sadly widespread through most of the major columnists. Whether it be Bruce Mitchell taking cheap shots in his forum at DVDVR for calling Mark Henry gasp a good worker now and making the cardinal sin of criticising Angle's and Michaels' work, James Caldwell standing by what he wrote when Dave Meltzer criticised his horrible Bret Hart columns on Figure 4 Daily or Dan Wahlers also slipping in cheap shots to the DVDVR brigade in his most recent column, they are all the same. They treat the outspoken minority who watch wrestling with a critical eye like they do but come to different conclusions than them like delusional idiots, which really encourages bitching and trolling rather than debate and discussion and does their profession a disservice. Old discussion, but lots of interesting things in it. One of the interesting things is that Meltzer, Mitchell, Wade and Bryan were all at one time "outsiders" who were critical of pro wrestling in ways that got them hammered by people in the business. Included in that were comments on the concept of "work". I've been with Dave, Bruce and Wade each when people in the business tried to explain why their match was great *and* watch Dave, Bruce and Wade either disagree openly with those people, or later over food recall how the person was delusional. They had a different view on "work" than the majority of people in the business *and* the majority of people watching wrestling. But that didn't stop them from being willing to voice their opinions on what they thought was good, what they thought was bad, and why. They irony now is that despite all their attempts to toss at others the notion that some folks think there's "only one right way to work", it's actually those other folks who are the open minded ones of this era, while they happen to get wound a little tighter in their views. The Hogan analogies drawn by Loss in the thread are pretty spot on. John

I would be interested to see this contrasted with Steiner winning the title over Rotunda (full version since I think the version on the NWA-Crockett/Turner set is edited) and then Rotunda winning it back. Frankly, even a mini-comp of these three along with the later key TV Title matches of the year since this period was all about some younger wrestlers getting their first national singles titles - Steiner, Sting and Muta. There seemed to be so much promise there. 12/26/88 Mike Rotunda vs Rick Steiner (17:59) - Starrcade 88 01/14/89 Rick Steiner vs Mike Rotunda (9:28) - NWA Sat 02/20/89 Rick Steiner vs Mike Rotunda (16:21) - Chi-Town Rumble 03/29/89 Mike Rotunda vs Sting (16:31) - NWA Sat 07/23/89 Sting vs Great Muta (8:40) - Bash 89 09/01/89 Sting vs Great Muta (13:53) - Power Hour 10/13/89 Great Muta vs Eddie Gilbert (15:13) - Power Hour 11/25/89 Ric Flair vs Great Muta (15:26) - NWA Sat 01/02/90 Great Muta vs Arn Anderson (12:56) - Power Hour I sort of toss in the Flair-Muta for the heck of it. One could add the Flair-Sting from Starcade as a comp. But that year period of younger stars holding the TV title sort of came to a close when Arn won it. Anyway, those are some of the matches I'm looking forward to watching when I sink my teeth into the NWA Set. John

Nah, he still posts. Open a MMA thread and he's sure to pop up. John

Good stuff, Loss. John

Not sure why anyone would be surprised. WWE writing sucks. Trump's own stuff has been past the freshness date since the 80s, with the current Trump run of the Apprentice essentially camping him up. Put the two together and it always was going to be shitty. But shittiness on it's own is less important than whether it works in getting something positive in either fanbase or attention. The Mike Tyson stuff was, when you go back and watch it, really shitty on Tyson's part. Michaels stuff wasn't any good in it either. It really was Austin and Vince who saved it: "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU RUINED IT! YOU RUINED IT, DAMN IT!!!" -Vince McMahon going heel In the end, having Stone Cold vs. Mr. McMahon taking off helped the company since Shawn was done at Mania, and Tyson wasn't going to be around long anyway. Can the WWE get a Stone Cold vs. Mr. McMahon out of this? I don't think so. John

I tend to be mixed on going straight wrestling. I tend to only visit NMB and SC for wrestling. I tend to avoid the non-wrestling, even if I have talked to some of the posters in those folders about non-wrestling stuff on other boards. On the other hand, if this is the "home board" for any of the posters, it is nice to have a place to talk about some non-wrestling topics. Wrestling may be what brings a place like this together initially, but the posters have other things they enjoy and like sharing. I've learned a fair amount of new things over the years through wrestling fans, as wacky as they are. I don't know if anyone here views the place as their home board, and that when they've seen an interesting new TV series want to see if anyone else is watching it. Of if there's something goofy going on with the coach of the Louisville football team, you know you've got a poster you can get the skinny from. I can see wanting to pitch the politics and porn boards. I tend to hate all political forums on wrestling boards, and had for years largely avoided political stuff on tOA. But at the moment I tend to hate out current administration more than political discussions. And porn boards... my thought would be to go join some of the porn discussions boards. Like everything else on the net, they're not hard to find. But a place to dump occassional discussions on movies, TV, books, games, sports... I tend to consider it Value Added to a healthy board. Giving it a place to go splits it off from the Wrestling. If one, like me, wants to come over and read the wrestling, it's easy to find and the "OT" posts like Wrestling Classics aren't clogging it up. But not having it is a bit like cutting off the pinky because it's shorter than the other fingers next to it. In the end, that pinky does have some uses and makes the hand healthier overall. Not sure if any of that makes any sense. John

He looks perfectly healthy in the picture. Cena isn't exactly a monster like Trip. Benoit hung in there opposite Trip. Eddy opposite JBL. Rey's survived. Shawn looks terrible physically. I could see WWE fans buying Jericho if the storyline works. The bigger problem is that I don't think Jericho has ever meant a great deal up there as a heel, other than briefly when he came in. He's had stretches when he's been a decent character as a heel, but I don't think the fans have every cared in a $$$ paying way about him as a heel. Whatever "drawing" power he had in his heel world title reign, it was more that Rock, Stone Cold and a returning Trip were opposite of him. And even those didn't work a great deal. As an "emergency" filler on top, I think he would be far more effective as a face. Almost a nostalgia guy from the Hot Days that the fans can briefly get happy he's back. That original speach he made when the Clock finally counted down could be aimed right at the WWF today, without a Rock to interrupt him preaching the truth: I mean, he could almost say that word-for-word and it would apply. He could point to the guys who were once here like Stone Cold, Rock, Foley, Eddy Guerrero... and contrast it with the folks who are currently booring the hell out of the viewers. The problem is that the company doesn't have a hot heel that WWE fans (current or ones have wandered away from) would pay to see Jericho beat... and who would stooge in the program in a way that would be needed. Say what you will about Rock, but opposite Austin when he was a heel and Stone Cold was the mega face, he was willing to go all the way with the program even if Stone Cold was the one who got to shine while he had to stooge. Trip is a heel that people bought into for a "chase" in the terms of Batista and a lesser degree Benoit. But even if he wasn't hurt, he'd never go balls to the wall for Jericho (in fact, Trip more than anyone in the company has worked to cut off Jericho's legs and keep them cut off). So, you can bring back Jericho for Cena, but I'm not sure the fans really want to pay for Heel Jericho even if the storyline ties in and is strong. I think the fans would rather root for him to get their Benoit-Eddy moment. John

Cool. I find the 1975 Open League and the 1977 Open Tag League as always being good sets to get me back into 70s wrestling. There's that variety of wrestlers, styles and quality of matches that starts getting my mind bouncing around. They also a certain arc to them because of the league format building to a "winner", so they're both a self contained unit but also make you think back to earlier match ups to watch, and later ones. John

That made my day. John

It's sort of the Negatives vs. the Positives. Triple H has some positives as a wrestler in this decade. He's had moments of drawing. He's had moments of working good matches. He had moments of working good storylines, angles and mic spots. I think he's also unquestionably been a massive negative on the Creative and directional side of the company due to his spot as Bangs. It's how one weighs those. To me, the negatives outweigh the positives by a big margin. I tend to think the company would be in better shape if he'd dropped dead the day after King of the Ring 2000 rather than some of the other people who've dropped dead in the business. It's entirely possible that Steph would have fucked up the company just as much from a creative standpoint, or that Vince would have lost his mind to the same degree he has in the years since then. But... there's a chance that they wouldn't have gotten quite so screwed up, and that other talent would have gotten over stronger without him there to make sure no rival to his spot got over. John