jdw

One other quick add: It is *really* useful to others (such as me) for the Big Collectors (such as Will) to toss up even brief notes on things they just picked up or put in comps that: (a) haven't gotten much pimping in the past ( B ) really caught the eye of that collector as something nifty for whatever reason I know that some will read it as pimping their own shit. In a few words - "Fuck them". If Will gets in some stuff, is converting it, and sees a Barry vs. Tully that really choice and folks aren't talking about, even a simply note like this is *freaking great*: "In the latest stuff I'm converting, there was a Tully Blanchard vs. Barry Windham match from early 1988 that aired on ____. This is a really good match, with both Barry and Tully in top form." Two sentences. Throwaway comment rather than a detailed discussion about the match. But it instantly opens a few eyes of folks that it's a match to look for. The Savage-Steamer from Toronto is *exactly* like that. Someone over on DVDVR mentioned it after the voting period. He did it with more sentences than two, bit same point. It's always stuck in my mind. Now that I'm going through the WWF stuff, and inviting folks to point to more stuff that should be watch, it was one of the first matches I put in my "Need to track down" section of the thread. If you see something that's good, or that you know certain folks will like (such as a Backlund match for Backlund Fans, a Tully match for Tully Fans, a Steamer match for Steamboat Fans, etc), do not be shy about mentioning it somewhere *nor* worried about not writing enough. Just toss it up on one or more of the boards you frequent. Don't be shy about mentioning it in *several* places. John

Even if it's throwaway comment, it's worth tossing them out. It was one of the things earlier in this thread that gave it some spirit - one comment could draw in others to yammer as well. Lord knows I'm going to have a lot of throwaway comments in the WWF 80s thread over on tOA. It's one reason why I'm taking it a match-a-day _and_ also working on getting other people to toss out potential matches worth watching. I want to force myself to plug away on something consistently rather than go manic on it - a big massive spurt of comments then burning out on it. If I get into a comfy zone with that, I'll likely open up another thread on something else. Either Crockett-Turner, or Other Japan, or perhaps 1993 All Japan which I really need to do something with. But want to see how this goes before biting off more. I think that's one of the things being discussed in the other thread about getting more discussion going on around here - you just need some people to constantly plug away. Consistent plugging has advantages over big flurries and then long stretches of nothing. John

Here's my thinking by examples: (a) Jumbo vs. Nick for the AWA Title in the AWA in 1980 I would put that both on an AJPW set (since it's an AJPW wrestler in the match) and an AWA set (since Nick is an AWA wrestler). The added bonuses is that it a good match, it's for the AWA Title, it's heated, it shows Jumbo wrestling in the US. ( Steamboat & Youngblood vs. Stevens & Snuka for Crockett's Tag Title from Toronto in 1980 I would put this on a Crockett set and a Toronto set. I wouldn't put it on a AJPW set. Crockett's guys worked in Toronto, and it's a complete match so it's a good example of the work of the wrestlers. It really had nothing to do with AJPW other than as a preview of wrestlers coming in. © Inoki vs. Backlund in Florida for the WWF Title in 1980 I'd put this on sets of the WWF, Florida and New Japan. I frankly think it reflects well on all of them. Backlund was the WWF champ. He toured a bit, I think we see it did so far more than he was given credit for back in say 1996. It shows him going out of territory as the Champ (in fact to "hostile" NWA territory) and being able to draw heat. Dittos for Inoki. And for a Florida it shows the different types of wrestling they'd see in the area. Flair is a bit of a mutation. He was the last "touring champ", but he largely was still Crockett's Boy. He's as tied into the history of JCP as he is into the NWA, especially since to a generation of fans JCP and then Turner became "the NWA" in their minds. John

Every "set" has it's own dilemmas. I tend to think hashing things out i.e. "thinking things through" in advance is a pretty good was to go about it. Some of the folks you talk to have experiance in doing sets/comps. Other are "customers" who have some insight into what works or doesn't work. Others are familar with the material and can hip you to stuff that might get overlooked. Wrestler comps can be massive beasts on their own. Something like a comp on Jumbo or Kawada... that's such a beast of a project that it tends to make my head hurt rather than give me the thrill of thinking about what the end result will be. Jumbo is basically the God of Work. He has to be done just right. And we know that there is still a ton of stuff from the 70s and early 80s out there waiting to be found, or at least upgraded in quality. Doing a rushed job on him now, and then having to re-do... gives me shivers. John

I do think they have value. What to do with them... I don't know. I'm less tolerant of watching them than a lot of folks who grew into wrestling in the "fan cam" era, so when going through a tape and suddenly hitting a handheld is a bit of a mental block for me. Too many of them on a set, simply because they exist... I'm not a big fan of. Selectively using the ones that are important or of note, that I mind less. If there are a lot, I'd just as soon see them on a all handheld disc or discs. Flair vs. Michaels at MSG was "historic" and people thought it was "great". Setting aside that it wasn't great , I don't know if I'd want to see it in the middle of a primary WWE set rather than as part of a Handled set. I actually was joking there! I do think that is true. It's also a pretty decent quality shot by the camera man. That's more an exception to the rule. I don't know how much handled from Carny has shown up over the years other than that one match. I could see the argument on that. I suspect that if I were to do AJPW, I would probably move that stuff off into a handheld series rather than the primary series. I don't think anything absolutely essentially for AJPW is out there on handheld only in the 90s. The RikiPro stuff from the 80s is handheld only for the most part, but the critical stuff of the 90s seemed to make commerical or TV. The one major exception that I can think of is the 1996 Carny. 30 minute TV. The commerical tapes were limited to largely what TV covered anyway. In 1994-95 we had the commercial tapes to suppliment the cut back TV. In 1991-93 there was the one hour TV. I guess it would be nice to see some of the JIP stuff in full, especially the matches that got lots of praise in JIP mode. I don't know how one would handle that... try to "splice" them together? No point in watching a full handheld of 1993 Kawada vs. Taue when the last 10-15 is on TV. What we really want is the handheld to fill in the missing space. that would be interesting. Anyway... From 1997 on they had Samurai to cover more than just the regular TV space allowed. Some stuff is MIA, like Kobashi's first pin on Misawa. Tag League would be a possibility in 1994-95, but the 1995 league was horrible anyway. It wasn't like there were a number of missing match up one is longing to see. 1994 was the 30 minute slot, but I think only a couple of interesting matches might be cut badly or missing. I thought the 4/94 match was in full on the commercial tape, bit I haven't watched it in ages. It went 30, so it should be easy enough to check. Yeah, if one is a completist. No doubt. It doesn't mean one can't start planning now. I don't know. Rey-Juvi in Arena Mexico just doesn't seem to be an item for a puroresu focused juniors set. Their match at the 1995 Super J Cup... that's fine. I think there are parts that fit in. Then there are other parts where you're looking at Fuchi being the junior equiv of Jumbo's style. I'd recommend watching all the AJPW jr's stuff while working on the project and getting a fell on whether it fits in, or if it's more an extension of Kings Road than juniorism. I agree on those two. There's also Liger vs. Rey from Starcade. How far to open the door... play it by ear. John

I agree on that. Full, complete and in good quality. It's nice to have Steamer vs. Harley in that form in December 1982. My biggest problem is that we're getting "Crockett Storylines & Angles" while in the other promotions we're getting "matches". I'd prefer to see Florida just handled as its own promotion so that the entire Bass vs. Windham feud gets the time to be told, while other feuds do as well. That's even more the case with GA. I tend to look at supplemental discs differently if they're handled well. I'll use Frank's 1980-82 WWF sets as an example: * the obvious point of "here is some great shit that didn't make the set." * one doesn't have to replace their entire set or large chunks of it to get the additional materials I think people get the first. It's pretty straight foward, and is accepted by everyone unless there's some feud going on between the person who did the original set and who did the supplimental (which in the case of the WWF one is entirely possible). On the second point... 100+ discs of CMPunks set isn't a small number of discs to replace simply for 10-20 additional discs of bonus material, if even that much. :/ The only reasons I tend to encourage a re-do would be if (i) the first was horribly done, or (ii) the VQ of so much of it can be improved that it makes it worth replacing that many discs. If it's the VQ of just several matches (such as my copy of Tully vs. Barry sucking), then that's something I think would be better added to the supplimental sets. The difference in my preference is that the others weren't Crockett's Boy. I know CMPunk was doing it as an "NWA Series", thought in the end it really wasn't one but rather a Crockett-Centric set. If you pull off the Flair stuff, the rest of the NWA is really covered in a very minimal fashion. I don't quite see it as an "all" or "nothing" area. It's more like these options: (a) do all NWA ( go Crockett-Centric, but show Crockett wrestlers when out of the territory © Crockett with only matches in the Crockett territory or shows co-sponsorred by Crockett You're kind of an (a)(1) option - do certain of the NWA, but cut off others for their own sets like WCCW. I kind of prefer (. I like seeing Ric in Japan, Steamboat & Youngblood in Japan, it would be nice to get Steamboat & Youngblood for MSG, etc. I'd avoid the Road Warriors until they become officially Crockett's, but after that get their stuff from Japan while they're with the promotion. Etc. That's my preference. I don't complain about how CMPunk did it. Someone could do more with the FLA and GA stuff as it gets organized. John

And you're suppose to say stuff about these matches. Content, you know. If I can ramble some lines about mediocre WWF matches over on tOA, you certainly can ramble about the stuff you like! John

This looks like: Volume 13 09/24/94 Muneco/Santo/Octagon v Panther/Fuerza/Psicosis ***1/4 From Roland/Barnett Volume 13. John

I think there's some point between "Best Of" and "Season Sets" where a digest would fit. I guess modern tape/disc collectors Want Everything. I often find that over-the-top. Two years of Dan's 1991-92 AJPW seasons is 100+ episodes, nearly 100 hours of stuff. There really isn't 100 hours of good stuff on there... or even 100 hours of stuff that really needs watching. Spread that across 10 years of AJPW, say 1984-93 when it was all still a 1 hour show. Mix in certain matches that were complete on Classics (Flair-Race, Footloose-Can-Ams) that was not complete on TV that *needs* to be seen... and you're talking probably two *thousand* hours of AJPW for that 10 year stretch if you're going to grab the seasons and the Classics and several comm tapes to cover it. Insane. I'm the biggest All Japan fan of that era around, and I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone. I don't know how deeply I would distill something like AJPW 1993 down, and how that would contrast with distilling AJPW 1987. Those would be two good years to test my thoughts on since I think 1993 might have been the height of AJPW filling up it's TV time with loads of quality matches, while 1987 was a crossroads year as Ishingundan slit apart and caused the product to overall be weaker. That would be interesting ones to map out and bounce around with people to see if they do justice to the years. The years *after* 1993 get interesting for digests because the TV gets cut to 30, much more commercial footage starts getting released, and eventually Sammy comes along in late 1996. TV "seasons" begin to fail capturing the promotion in a rather big way at that point. As far as handhelds... I don't know what to do with them. I've found them to be the least satisfying part of CMPunk's series. That's largely *me* - I've never been a big fan of fan cams. Admittedly they have gotten better through the years. The ones in the 80s were pretty brutal. Ones in Japan are often interesting, and Dan has snapped up some really interesting ones that were also shot pretty well. But they can be pretty jarring in a set like these. I also would just as soon see them shunted off onto their own "Handheld Digest" set. Folks who like handhelds can grab them. Folks who don't can skip it, and also not be worried about a handheld eating up 20-30 minutes of one of their discs. I think collectively the handhelds in AJPW are far less vital than getting complete matches where television was clipped or non-exitant. At times the clipping is minor such as Kawada-Doc Carny Final, though in that case some of the early missed stuff gets across the intensity of the match. At other times, half a match ended up on the cutting room floor like the 5/94 and 6/95 Four Corners tag title classics. And then finally, there are the matches that completely hit the cutting room floor such as the 1/95 Kawada-Kobashi and 10/95 Four Corners tag title match. And it's vital stuff like that that needs to be put into the context of an All Japan series far more than handhelds that help us show that Jumbo Wasn't Lazy. This really has to be done in combo with Dan sorting out what's available and in what form. We're working on a project of putting together the TV match lists. He's got a lot of the Classics tape lists as well. Then the comms. Then getting that all dumped into a spreadsheet where you can sort out things and see that there are three versions of one match... and here's the one you want. Things like the Hash-Hase IWGP match or Hase-Chono G-1 match getting pimped... those are important because TV simply didn't do the first one justice, while it didn't bother with the second (largely because NJPW's tv time was limited for parts of the year in 1992-93). It is a massive, massive, massive task. I don't think it's impossible at all. It's just going to take a lot of love and care. I think experiance learned in doing the AJPW and AJW would be vital for this. AJPW has a lot of TV, quite a bit of 80s Classics, and a variety of commercial tapes. AJW has less TV, an huge amount of comm tapes, and some overlap of TV and Comm where things need to be sorts out on occassion. NJPW takes all that to a nutty level - weekly TV like AJPW, comms out of their ass like AJW, a monsterous amount of Classics, and some much overlap and different versions that your head will spin. But... I don't think it's impossible. I just don't anyone should try to short cut a project like that. It really should be one of the magnum opuses of a tape/dvd compiler... not really attempted until things are all laid out. I hadn't thought to include Mexico. One of the problems with Mexico is that other than your handful of heavies, it's all "smaller guys". It's also not exactly straight juniors-style. I'd rather see Mexico handled with it's own series where Perro-Cien Caras stands next to what's going on with the undercards. With juniorism, I was more focused mentally on Japan with New Japan as an anchor. I'm not certain what to do with Universal when it opens. Obviously Dragon is a key player in juniorism at some point, but I'd have to watch all that to see if it fits more into the Lucha set than juniorism. Honestly... I tend to think more Lucha than juniors. It's when he hits SWS/WAR that I would include him. In contrast, though Michinoku Pro was referred to as Jap-Lucha or Lucharesu, I think it's far closer to juniorism in concept - the NJ Juniors Division was always willing to accept and incorporate new styles into their style. MPro was as well, taking some of the old Universal influence and bending it further towards junior-style. Of course there some junior stuff in other promotions over there as well. It's really hard to call junior wrestling in the Fuchi Era as "juniorism". Kikuchi had the Dynamite influence. But I never got the feeling that I was watching a juniors match in that Era. The Tigersawa vs. Kobayashi more clearly was juniorism. There's an interesting fork in the road in there at some point. The US... I don't know if I'd want to see it mixed in. It's pretty spotty in jumping around, inconsistent in style, and oddly booked. It also morphs and mutates around too. At some point in WCW, Eddy and Dean move into other things, Jericho does as well, and the division becomes little more than US Spotfu style rather than anything close to juniorism. Even Rey after the injuries starts to morph into a different type of wrestling. I think that evolution is worthwhile to watch, but probably on it needs it's own set. I more envision (and am more interested) in the evolution of Shinma's baby from Fujinami to Sayama to all the children in the country coming after as people come in and out leaving their mark and it spreads to other promotions. I tend to agree with that. I don't know how some of the other promotions will look side-by-side with AJW, and if they might get the short end of the straw. Who ever does the 90s needs to have a good understanding of not just AJW, but also get a strong understanding of the JWP and LLPW and even FMW storylines to know what matches, while not exactly "great", are important in telling the story of what's going on over there. It is one of the problems of dumping everything into one bag - some promotions don't reflect as well in a mix as they do on their own. One needs to keep an eye out to make sure the important stuff from those promotions hit the set. Yeah... something like that. The thing problems with them are: (a) most other Japan is "niche" that would have it's own sets - Garbage, UWF-style, Juniors ( the semi-traditional promotions like IWE, SWS/WAR and Zero One tend to be spread out with little continuity. In contrast, the UWF-style has a pretty continuous arc from 1984 until the point that RINGS stops working. In the end, IWE, SWS/WAR and Zero One(and BatBat depending on where it falls since it's such a mutant promotion) almost warrant their own smaller series as perhaps a subset of a larger collection: Other Japan Series One: IWE Other Japan Series Two: SWS/WAR Other Japan Series Three: Zero One Or some such thing. I think that would also allow one to take the IWE vs. AJPW and IWE vs. NJPW and show them in two contexts - over on the NJPW/AJPW sets as part of All Japan, and over on the IWE as part of their history. I know that usually "double accounting" is a bad thing. But within their own promotion discs, they tend to stand out in different ways. In the case of SWS/WAR, you've got a promotion that was pretty mediocre from the start. When they hit the feud with New Japan, it literally is the highpoint of the promotion. It's Tenryu's biggest and best matches of the era. Over on the NJ discs, what it comes across as is a good heated feud. It's an important part of the storyline of New Japan, it dominates the promotion for more than a year, and it has a nice payoff at the end. But... it's not really the high point of the decade for the promotion. It's a piece in the chain. Anyway... I'm rambling. Tend to agree, and that's likely the way people would like to see it. Call it "UWF-style". That's what I've come to call it. Gaijin screwed up for more than a decade calling it "Strong Style", and Dave ingrained that so deeply in his reader's heads that some still don't understand that New Japan is "Strong Style". "Shoot Style" really doesn't cut it. We've seen shoot not for a lot of years. UWF isn't shoot style. It's clearly worked, quite dramatically. For lack of a better phrase, what Maeda, Fujiwara, Takada and Yamazaki came up with was a style out of UWF. "UWF-style" for lack of anything else that's better. I think the shoot and work is less hard to figure out than most people think. UWF-1, UWF-2 and UWFi are worked. You might have some things the break down into being uncooperative ("Break! Gary... Break!"), but it's largely all a work. Fujiwara Gundan is largely a work, but it would be worth carefully watching some of the laterday things to make sure. I suspect what anyone would call a "shooting match" is closer to "gym sparing" where they're working out with each other, backing off after applying a hold rather than trying to get a tap, and in the end going with the planned finish. RINGS evolves into shoots far later. Tamura getting his ass kicked shortly after winning the tourney is a shoot... and a really stupid one by the promotion. While there were some earlier than that (I'm recalling one *great* undercard match between a Lions Den fighter and a BJJ fighter), it's after that point that it gets tricky. There remain some works, and some shoots. The person doing it just needs to keep an eye open. The thing is... after compiling the evolution of the style up to that point, the person doing it will be extremely well versed in the working aspects of the style. He'll start picking up on holds and counters being *given* to the opponent, whereas in a shot they aren't. Pancrase has more works than Dave thinks, and done in a fashion not quite as he explains. Dave has a lot of skills, but seeing through Pancrase style never really was a good one. Yohe and I had a lot of arguments with him over Pancrase matches back in the day, including some that he now cops to being worked in that strange fashion that he does. Perhaps if he rewatched some of that now with the knowledge he has now he'd see more of it. Still, the majority of the matches in the promotion were shoots in those early days. Even the worked ones weren't really done in UWF-style, so I wouldn't bother with it. BatBat... I don't know. Might be one of the Other Puroresu series. I tend to think the true form of the art died out as RINGS turned to shoots. And also keep in the back of one's mind what may be heading down the pipeline. Jumping into NJPW and/or AJPW when they likelihood of more stuff turning up in the next few years is, to me, a mistake. Dan's taken NJPW back to 1983. There really is quite a bit more non-Classics stuff from that promotion that's available in tape collections in Japan. Some of the folks he's finding and dealing with. But it's a bit of hunting and pecking. But you saw me toss on the boards the Jumbo-Murdock matches. There really is quite a bit of 1977-84 AJPW and NJPW that's still in the pipeline and just a matter of shaking loose. If you like Joshi, that's a good place to start. It is on one end largely "unexplored" - the older stuff hasn't been shaped into a form that's easy for people to get their teeth into. Instead, it's been a bit piecemeal over the years. In the "middle" (though actually closer to the end), the early to mid 90s is a monster of TV and comms that's never been brought into an organized form. Down the stretch as AJW fractures and joshi starts to fade, there remain a variety of promotions that also could stand organizing into the end run of the series. If you're looking at something to really sink your teeth into, that's it. It's possible that over time Dan will shake out more stuff, or that a new version of AJW Classics will come out with fresh matches. Nothing wrong with that - either supplimental discs can add them, or even early discs can be redone from #1 to #1-A and #1-B if the amount warrants it. In fact, it would probably be better to use a different numbering style than CMPunk that allows for redoing if a trove of material washes up for a series of years - go with the year and call it 1988 Disc 1, 1988 Disc 2, 1988 Disc 3, etc. As you get further along in the series, it's pretty complete by the 90s - nearly everything is available. I just don't know how hot you are on doing Joshi. John

Big project. Agree on all that. I think the earliest part of the project confused what the overall project would be. To a degree, I wish that it was just "NWA Crockett-Turner" in the first set. By that I mean the Mid-Atlantic company that then went national that then Turner bought. I'd prefer everything that wasn't Crockett-Turner being left off. That includes GA, FL, and everything from Japan that wasn't specifically Crockett related (i.e. Flair, Steamboat, etc.) Harley or Terry or Brisco defending against Baba and Jumbo... I would have left off and dealt with in other sets. Instead, I'd try to get in things like the Roadies in Japan *after* they come to Crockett in 1986, Nikita in Japan, etc. I think in both series there are things missing. The thing is... I don't think the whole series needs a re-do. It just needs some "Supplimental Discs" of things that are missing. I have little doubt that CMPunk would be happy to do that if people point him to missing stuff, and present it to him in a nice chron order. I'd suggested that with stuff from Japan on the first series and he was receptive to it. But re-doing a massive set like that is a bit over the top. See above. I think the set should have been more focused on the one promotion that eventually morphed into Vince's primary competition, and that the other promotions largely should have been left to their own sets. I think watching World Class in the context of World Class is better than mixing up the Von Erichs vs. Freebirds into Mid-Atlantic stuff. I do understand the concept of showing what else Flair, who was "Crockett's Boy", was up to. It does give a major central theme for the set... I'm not sure I would argue against the concept of including Flair's major matches from elsewhere on the set. I actually think it's a project that should be done. I'm just not likely to buy it. Agreed. And loads of that stuff is getting available. Agreed. Frank is working on something from "some point in 1985" through Super Clash 3. I'm looking forward to how that comes out. If it's looks good, I wouldn't mind seeing it go backwards. I really tend to think keep each-their-own is the best, unless it's a major stylistic thing. The UWF-style series I suggested I think lends itself nicely to being put *together* come the 1991 split in promotions. I also think the contrast in RINGS and UWFi as the move along would be interesting to see side by side. Memphis sort of needs its own thing. (cont)

Jose asks what the best way is to get it out there. My thoughts... I don't know how many "episodes" there are of AJW TV that Dan dug up, that were previously available (Lynch and others), AJW Classics, and the odd commerical tape here ant there. But... I think simply doing "seasons sets" of the TV is the WRONG way to go. I agree with Jose's notion that people need to see more than just AJW Classics, and the flow of TV moving from one show to the next in telling storylines and showing wrestlers develop is really important. It's one reason why I've always tried to get people to watch more than just the Big Matches in All Japan, and instead also seek out matches that have "importance" in storyline or wrestler development like the 07/02/93 Kawada & Taue & Ogawa vs. Misawa & Kobashi & Akiyama or 07/09/93 Kawada vs. Akiyama matches. But... The problem with TV *only* is that there is just so much clip-o-vision to it. Jaguar vs. Lioness was butchered on TV to the point that folks think it's "perfection", while the Chiggy vs. Devil was a "lost match". There's just some much great stuff available in full or longer form on Classics or commerical tape. I think what someone really needs to do is make a loving AJW 80s series like CMPunk on CrazyMax has/is doing with the NWA Crockett-Turner and WCW-Turner stuff. It's part "Best of", but not so limited that it's only the very best stuff. It's a really deep survey into that stuff in a chronological order. I think there are a number of ways in doing that. CMPunk's is in the direction of getting as much as possible, though for me it's a positive in not trying to be "completist" which I often think is over-the-top. Frank's "digest" method is similar, but works with a tighter, more focused set of cuts. There are a couple of projects I'd like to work on in the future, or see others take a crack at, that are along those lines... my own taste is somewhere inbetween Frank and CMPunk's cut-level. All Japan digest are of course a personal fav concept of mine. I'd love to see Tabe do something on the History of UWF-style in digest/chron form. I think a History of Juniorism in puroresu would be interesting, not just focusing on New Japan but instead using it as an anchor while also showing what of note is going on in other promotions. So... I think AJW in the 80s would be a really great one as well. You could start with a "Background" disc or two stuff from the 70s (depending on how much is available) that gives a bit of understanding of where things were pre-Jaguar. I know we're moving in the direction of downloads as the central way that people look at stuff. I guess I'm old school, but I tend to prefer tapes/discs. The ability to toss something in the bag and take it over to a King of Chicken, or send it up to Frank, or not worrying about space on my HD... that's worth cash money to me. John

Hogan is the greatest. I get the feeling that he says this stuff just to troll people. In this case, Bret. John

Russo's a fucking genuis. Stop your nitpicking and complaining. John

I need to stop before quote more movies while implying that Ric be thrown in the Woodchipper ala Fargo. John

MICHAEL: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop? HAGEN: Come on, Mikey... MICHAEL: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop -- that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about ah - ah - a dishonest cop -- a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom? And they might like a story like that. HAGEN: They might, they just might... MICHAEL: It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business. -Mario Puzo's The Godfather John

CHANEY: So what're we going to do about this Beale son of a bitch? HACKETT: I suppose we'll have to kill him. I don't suppose you have any ideas on that, Diana? DIANA: Well, what would you fellows say to an assassination? -Paddy Chayefsky's Network John

And I just don't think that's a "good thing". :/ John

I tend to think it's sad the Ric still gets the pops. It means he'll get rolled out there no matter how washed up and horrid he is. He's literally going to have to die or be in a wheelchair before we stop having him out there. :/ John

Dave's comments about Morishima are far more recent than the Misawa match. It's something he's been talking about more in the past 2-3 months. I'm assuming that Morishima has gotten a lot better (allegedly) in the past few months. John

I think the money for gaijin now relative to what's available on the TNA & indy route is radically different now compared to what that same match was in the early 90s. It's not just at the Hansen, Gordy, Doc, Vader level, but also for the Kroffat & Furnas level. Joe likely can do well enough here, and control his own bookings, that Japan money isn't a major incentive. The business there has also changed. No one is getting the push that Hansen, Vader, Gordy and Doc were. Nor is there the comfort level that a job you have this year will be there for the next four as long as you stay clean. John

I will see what I can do. I have a match list in my bag, but it's for Punk's Crockett-Turner NWA set. John

I tend to think the "overness" of the match with the crowd as being overplayed. It had heat in spots. It had heat in the end. It didn't exactly have the level of heat that Tully Blanchard had against Barry Windham infront of far less fans. Part of that is Budokan. Part of that is the NOAH-style. Part of it is the fans who tend to pop here and there these days compared to sustained heat of the past. But it really was only "way, way over" with the crowd within that narrow context. I expected to see a molten crowd that was on the edge of exploding. You know... Backlund vs. Patera finish. It wasn't remotely close to that. I hope Misawa eventually finds THE guy to replace himself. I have some doubts. To become The Man, one really needs rivals rather than simply replacing the prior generation. Misawa didn't become The Man while Jumbo was around, and he wasn't going to become it simply by beating Hansen, Gordy and Doc. He needed Kawada, Taue and Kobashi to be judged against where we clearly saw that he was #1 among rivals. We saw the same thing from Hash over time with the IWGP Title, and Mutoh only had his brief moment of looking like The Man within New Japan (when it mattered) after being Hash a second time and then beating that evil UWF-stylist Takada at the Dome. They can put Morishima over Misawa, Kobashi and Taue all they want. It really will mean disk unless not only he steps up, but also a core of rivals opposite him step up. John

Exactly. I need to scan in Roland's match lists with notes on those tapes. There's too much in there for me to type them all up, but I can make the PDF available to Bob and on tOA for people wanting it. I *think* I'm missing a 2-3 of the lists... probably misplaced them. Hoback may have copies of those. Add to my list of things. They are sort of important because many of the matches repeat at some point. John

Loss - do you have any dates for this stuff? Or is this off the Barnett set where, for whatever reason, he chose not to take the dates off Roland's list and put them up on the web for his own tape lists? John

The Misawa-Morishima match earlier in the year wasn't all that great. On the other hand, NOAH Fans in the building enjoyed it, and as physically screwed up as Misawa is, there isn't any reason why he couldn't put on that same performance again (or top it for that matter). There wasn't anything terribly complex from a Misawa-standpoint in that performance. Allegedly, Morishima has improved greatly since then to the point that he's the best heavyweight in the world. So if you take: March Misawa + Misawa In Fired Up Big Match Mode + March Morishima + Miroshima Improved To Being The Best Heavy In The World I suspect people will think their match in January will be great. As far as whether it should be Marufuji or Misawa winning to hold the belt, the voice of the fans was pretty clear - they wanted Misawa to win the title. As I wrote on tOA - I have sympathy for Misawa. He has never wanted to be the Ace of NOAH. He frankly didn't want to be the ace of All Japan down the stretch, but that was Baba's call. A variety of circumstances have tended to screw up his hopes. John