jdw

When your best writer (Zach Lowe) and your most popular writer (Simmoms) and an interesting analytics guy (Kirk Goldsberry) cover the NBA, why the hell would you invite this idiot to write a shitty piece about the NBA? http://grantland.com/the-triangle/fantasy-booking-the-nba-playoffs-wwe-professional-wrestling-lebron-james-chris-paul-james-harden

Wait... Todd Martin? That seems odd. Lord knows I worked stiffer than Stan Hansen with him in any number of threads. No matter how cheesed off he'd get, he never aimed "heavy language" at me. He just never seemed to go there.

I agree with this. I have no idea what I'll think of Hotta-Lioness or Kong-Toyota or Bull-Kyoko or the All Pacific three-way or the Mita & Shimoda or the Hasegawa-Kimura matches the next time I watched them. Live, it was pretty fanfuckingtastic to watch those six straight matches on a card, after having watch two perfectly enjoyable matches of the four earlier on the card. I'll always remember that show, that arena, those performers, who I watched the card with, and that it all was a blast. Would it suck if I watched Hotta-Lioness today and found it to be shitty, or not especially good? Not really. I don't have a problem reconsidering my initial views. I not only doesn't take away from that original fun I had watch the card, but presents interesting challenges for me to ponder: * were we hitting the Live Ratings Bong? * did we miss some obvious flaws we should have seen at the time? * is it simply something that doesn't age well due to 20 years of MMA since then? * is it not as good as we thought, but actually not that bad given the shape of fake-MMA in the era? And probably a dozen other things to ponder, from individual performances to specific items within the performances. There are other times when it doesn't really matter. I recall liking the hell out of a Can-Ams vs Kawada & Kikuchi match in 1992 that was a few months prior to the famed Cans-Ams vs Kobashi & Kikuchi. If I watched it now and found it flat or sloppy, there would be two outcomes: If I'm doing a recap of the entire era, match by match, I'd spend some time copping to the change in views, and probably walking through why. If I just popping in a random AJPW tape/disk, had the vibe, it would be an easy toss off: "Well, there's one that I was missing the boat on" and move on. Neither would lessen the fact that I had a ton of fun watching AJPW in near-realtime in the 90s, and that was a match that contributed to my enjoyment. Of course if I watched El Clasico or El Super Clasico and thought they sucked... that would be crushing to the soul.

"Lots" Most AAA shows we went to were better live, in the crowd, seeing the rudos and technicos play the crowd and the crowd respond, etc. The first night of the 1996 G1 was vastly better live than on TV because they screwed up on micing the event for some reason. The rest of the series played well enough on TV. Then again, I don't know if any of it was better on TV than in the building. I was pleased by how Loss and other wrote up what made the yearbooks: stuff that I liked there and worried wouldn't hold up got some positive comments. I suspect that if people like Loss & Co. were sitting next to us during those shows, they would have had a great time watching it.

Before anyone tosses out, "Doesn't that ruin your enjoyment of stuff?" The answer would be: No When I think of what I thought (at the time) was the best match that I ever saw live, and the star rating I gave it at the time, walking through these stages: 1. "I think that's the best match I've ever seen live." 2. "Is it as good as DreamSlam or the 2-3 best AJPW matches I've seen on tape?" 3. "No." 4. "Alrighty... it's not going above ****3/4" That took nothing away from the fact that I just watched an awesome match that I lost my mental shit over enjoying the hell out of it, and will always remember that match. It's not hard to do. * * * * * On the other hand, I really can't be bothered to go snowflakey anymore, nor have I for over a decade. It's just not something I want to waste time with, though it's perfectly cool if others have fun with it. The comparison part? Still enjoy that. Ranking/slotting? Doesn't matter as much to me as it once did, though there are times I'll still do it in a more narrow sense, and I certainly enjoy reading stuff like Loss putting together his yearbook rankings. But coming up with snowflakes? I'd rather say something was solid, excellent, good, etc. I'd rather articulate why someone might want to watch / track down a "solid" match then toss a *** on it that makes people feel it's not worth their time. When doing those Carny 1994 recommendations, the notion of putting snowflakes on Doc vs Akiyama was a waste to me. What was important was to try to get across why it should be on the set, and/or why people should track it down. Either the words convince people that it's worth their time, or not. I don't mentally skip to the end to look at what snowflake I give it, and really don't want people to do that with what I'm writing over the past decade or so.

It is, but I don't think it's impossible to get your brain in the mindset to rate. That Queendom that Dave and I were at was a blast live, with a surprise finish in the last match. It's easy to get wrapped up in it and go all *****+++. But by that point it was also easy enough for me to roll over in my head rather quickly: "Was that better than Hokuto-Kandori?" You have reference points that you can go to. I recall a Rev vs Psic match we were at that Dave lost his shit over and went to ****3/4 when it was over. Not a single person in the group had it above ****1/4, including a certain noted award winning announcer. Why? Not because we didn't think it was a good match, or one where they executed their shit well compared to having a sloppy match. But because the rest of us seemed to have the equiv of a NASCAR restrictor plate in our brains that let is avoid adding on 1/2* to * extra simply for losing our shit live over a good match. We were able to both go "Damn that was a lot of fun" while also quickly being able to slip on the reference points and understand "That really isn't rubbing up against Sasuke-Pegasus range". It's not hard. I just don't think most people care to do it, or are able *at the moment* to do it. Same goes for movies when you see people snap-judge snowflakes on them. Yohe does it, and I'll go, "Is that really as good as [Movie X that he gave the same rating to]?" Which both tends to annoy him, but also quickly get him to think, "No... it's really good but not that good" and knock the snowflake down a bit.

I can think of any number of matches that I've loved more on second or later viewings. Ohtani-Sammy was better for me on later viewings, and I loved it more off the first viewing than anyone of that era. Wrestling is just another form of entertainment. How many movies or records do we like more on second viewing/listening? Happens all the time. I recently watched Notorious for the first time in decades. I've always loved the movie, but this time it was off the charts watching it for whatever reason.

I was gonna bring up the elephant in the room, too. No way Kawada should have jobbed on 6/3/94. Yeah, Misawa made Williams and then Kawada got his first title, but I think it would have worked out better that Kawada won, even if the Williams booking was straight out of the Hansen playbook and was the transition to him as the #1 gaijin. But you know better than I on the intricate details. I just figured it would have been better business for Kawada to be the guy to take the belt off Misawa. Ace puts over New Top Gaijin, going all the way back to Rikidozan. Baba did it. Jumbo did it. Kawada wasn't the Ace. Misawa was. It was his spot to put over the new top gaijin.

The wrong folks won in both the main events at Budokan on March 4, 1995. They got lucky on the first one due to Doc's Narita Nightmare, but that's just dumb luck rather than good booking. People like to point to the wrong guy winning at a certain match in 1994, but it was actually the right guy given the next card and who needed to put over whom. But 1995 was largely a year of poor booking coming off the 03/04/95 card. All of it was entirely predictable, save the Last Match of the Year, which was just dumbass booking as well. July 24, 1996 and October 18, 1996 were terrible booking as well. The first blew the one time Taue was over at that level, and with matches left on the table for him. The second blew the obvious Kawada-Takada (and then Takada-Misawa) that was sitting there when Takada's wrapped his 1996 dates. There was a lot of pretty nifty booking in 1996, mostly tag related but also Taue's upset of Misawa. But there was some major dumbass nonsense.

I don't think Bob ever went.

Did he actually write that somewhere in the Observer? I only heard him on the radio show saying that he initially thought it was one of the 2 or 3 best Manias, and that it was one of the best shows he's attended live. And even that was something he seemed to dial back once he realized that much of the show wasn't as exciting on tape. I enjoyed Mania. I don't think it would rank in the Top 10 of shows that Dave and I watched together, let alone were in the same building for, let alone other shows he went to that he lost his shit for like Starcade 1986 or Big Egg or some of those 1989 cards. Mania is Mania, and it's in a Stadium, and when the crowd is into it in a sustained fashion (as opposed to the match or two they came to see), it can be an amazing spectacle. I totally get that. But... Dave often says a lot of things that he doesn't slow down to think about. Even if the card on TV held up to what it was live for him, I suspect that if you started tossing out 10-20 cards he'd been to that he lost his shit over, he'd quickly go, "Yeah.... Mania wasn't *that* good." We all do that. I recall people giving a pair of matches at the World Peace Festival ***** stars: the Liger-Sasuke and the Rey & Ultimo Dragon vs Psicosis & Metal match. These were folks who also tosssed out ***** for a number of ECW matches. We had no ability to talk them off that ledge, that's Liger-Sasuke wasn't close to Ohtani-Dragon later that year (which I didn't think was *****) or that we'd seen Rey and Psic in a dozen better matches live than that 12 minute thing at the WPF. Watching things live is great... a lot of fun. Watching something really great live is great and a lot of fun. But it can really screw up your perspective.

35 year old Dave and I were sitting in Yokohama Arena watching this card 20 years to the week before this year's Mania: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/japan/women/ajw/queen.html#iii Setting aside the "shootboxing" match in the prelims, I'd be surprised if he would rate the Divas match *close* to any of the other matches, let alone above any of them. The WON with the star ratings for that show appears to be online: April 10, 1995 Observer Newsletter: WrestleMania XI in-depth report, Weekly Pro Wrestling show at the Tokyo Dome, major World Championship Wrestling shake-ups, tons more Someone may want to go pull them over for comp. Star ratings were in order: **1/4, ***, NA, **3/4, ****1/4, ***1/2, ****1/2, ****3/4, ****1/2 and ****1/2. Let me see if I can line those up: 1. Rie Tamada pinned Kumiko Maekawa (10:37) **1/4 2. AJW Junior Title: Chaparita Asari pinned Candy Okutsu (15:33) Δ *** 3. Noriko Tsunada and Kaoru Ito battled to a draw (5 rounds) in a "shootboxing" match 4. Jaguar Yokota & Lady Apache beat Mariko Yoshida & Felina (17:58) **3/4 5. UWA Tag: Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda beat Tomoko Watanabe & Suzuka Minami (19:01) ****1/4 6. Sakie Hasegawa pinned Bison Kimura (10:05) ***1/2 7. All-Pacific Title: Toshiyo Yamada beat Takako Inoue and Reggie Bennett (20:43) Δ ****1/2 8. Yumiko Hotta KO Lioness Asuka (22:53) in an "ultimate fight" match. ****3/4 9. WWF Title: Bull Nakano pinned Kyoko Inoue (17:07) ****1/2 10 WWWA Title: Manami Toyota pinned Aja Kong (23:21) Δ ****1/2 Are you sure the All-Pacific went to ****1/2? I remember him liking the rest of the stuff to the degree that he did, but 4.5 seems above what he rated that. Quick note: I'm not going to vouch for the snowflakes being what I thought of the matches at the time, or what I'd think of them watching them now. I know some of those don't hold up well, and the Hotta-Asuka is a match that a lot of people hate these days. But I will say... in the building, this was a spectacle of a card. Aja had been the champ for years, and to see her drop it after kicking the crap out of Toyota was pretty amazing. I loved Bull-Kyoko. Hotta-Asuka in the building, in the years before MMA has taken over the world, in a bullshit-wrestling setting, was miles above the other work-shoot bullshit that we were getting at the time, or would be getting in the near term. That's excluding the UWF-style stuff, which was it's own beast. The All-Pacific Title match was entertaining. Mita & Shimoda live was like watching the Midnight Express live: their standard match against even uninteresting opponents had loads of cool bullshit heel spots, playing to the crowd, pissing off their opponents... it was just really solid stuff, even before you getting into the cool moves (which lord knows the Midnights had more cool shit that any tag team in the US in their era as well). This was a really entertaining card live. Snowflakes might be a bit high, but I'd be happy to go to that show again right now. Anyway, if they were on the same card, he would not have rated the Divas match above the Jaguar match. He probably wouldn't have rated it above the Tamada-Maekawa, which was little more than a simple AJW prelim match. But I don't think the Diva workers were even at that level.

Did he really think it was the best card he'd ever seen? Or just the best card he'd ever been to live, which would eliminate (Dreamslam & DreamRush) but Big Egg and the 1986 Starcade and 1995 Weekly Pro Wrestling show, etc.

That would be pretty damn cool.

People have done some Chicago research in the past. If you're looking to do more, I'd go over to the Thesz board and ask what's been done before. I want to say that someone actually published a results book on Chicago, so a lot might have been done.

Londos. Complete match footage from the 20s and 30s.

My second trip to Japan was to be built around this: 08/30/95 AJW "Champions Night" in Osaka (Kong-Kansai, Double Inoues vs Toyota & Hasegawa) http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=38461 09/01/95 Pancrase at Ryogoku Kokugikan (Rutten vs Funaki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_in_Pancrase#Pancrase:_1995_Anniversary_Show 09/02/95 AJW "Destiny" at Budokan (Hokuto-Toyota) http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/japan/women/ajw/budokan.html#090295 09/03/95 AJW 1995 Grand Prix Final at Korakuen Hall (Toyota-Hotta) http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=38463 Then there was this: 09/10/95 AJPW at Budokan (Misawa-Taue) http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/japan/alljapan/bud95.html#0995 Not sure if we both would have stayed for the 9/10 card, but I would have looked to extend it to see a TC match live. There were almost certainly more shows in Tokyo between 9/3 & 9/10 to fill in the time. Dave got a chest cold, wasn't sharp in getting to the doctor quickly to get on some anti-biotic, so we had to shelve it. Missed one of my favorite joshi matches: Kong-Kansai with Big Red on the line and Kong finally putting her over to let an outsider hold the belt. And never got to see a TC match. * * * * * Beyond that, regret never getting to drag Hoback and Yohe to Japan on the two trips that I did take.

Sort of a mix: * They'd use talent in the area * They'd bring in outside talent for big matches (say Londos with his belt or other "champs") * They'd cycle through some larger talent for periods In varying degrees based on the size of the city / territory / promotion. The one I was talking about above had Buddy come in for several months straight working a program. It might never get one of the major champs to come in. It largely had its Local Crew, and might get lucky to pull in someone like pre-peak Buddy to run a program. In a way, they were a bit like Memphis without the AWA/NWA champs coming in, since Memphis didn't seem to cycle through Big Stars to quite the same degree that other NWA territories did. A territory / city / promotion like Los Angeles in the era might get a big start to drop in for longer stretches. They also could always get a Londos or Longson or Bronko or whatever other Champ they wanted to, if they were willing to pay. They'd also bring in second level champs (Junior Heavy & Light Heavy) to come into for extended runs before the Champ headed back to the other territories / cities that they ran in (Tulsa for example). There probably were a lot of those mini-Memphis promotions around, that were 95% Local Guys, and a certain percentage of guys passing through, a lot of them not even big stars but someone they could push against against the local star. Kansas City was a promotion like that going back to the Brown days. It's remembered by us, and documented to a degree, because (i) it was still around at the dying days of the territories, and (ii) people went hunting in search of NWA origin stories and Orville Brown. Dozens of similar promotions have had their history die either because they are in cities no one cared about or because the city got eaten up by a larger promotion at some point, like what ever the real history behind Mid Atlantic is.

I'm not sold that she's highly educated, the degree to BU notwithstanding. We all know people who got through college the same way they got through high school and jr high school and elementary, with "education" being very little of it. Do the work that needs to be done, grind stuff out, in one ear and out the next once the class is done and you're onto the next semester of classes. Along with drinking, doing dope and getting laid. After all, George W. Bush graduated from both Yale and Harvard Business. He doesn't come across at all as educated, and instead comes across as dumb as a rock. One gets that sense as well from people who've dealt with him far closer than any of us, and not exactly in read-between-the-lines stuff they've written. It's hard to tell if she's book smart either. Not going to say she's an idiot. But most of her life has been lived in the insular world of Pro Wrestling, within that more narrow world of McMahonLand with a delusional father and a mother who didn't come off as playing with a full deck in her Senate campaigns. Lacking common sense might be part of it, but also with a bent reality that narrows what she needs to be smart/educated about.

Hogan-Rock holds up.

No, people thought the match stunk at the time. That isn't a new notion. If there has been a change is that at least in some circles, there's a greater appreciation for match layout, psychology, selling and storytelling than there used to be, so even matches that lack speed and a diversity of offense get praised for what they do well, which I personally think is a good thing. Maybe some circles at the time thought it stunk, but it wasn't the generally consensus among fans. There isn't a change towards math layout, psychology and selling, those have ALWAYS been what makes a great wrestler. Even if a lot of people are sidetracked from that way of thinking, doesn't make it true. The consensus among PWO-style wrrestling fans at the time was that it stunk donkey balls. It's not just Dave. Look at 1987 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wrestling_Observer_Newsletter_awards#Worst_Worked_Match_of_the_Year Hardcore fans, which is exactly what everyone here is, thought it sucked at the time. It's cool that people here now think it's great, or it rules, or it's well laid out. Whenever I happen to watch it again, I probably will like it a hell of a lot more now than at the time since (i) I tend to like most Hogan matches better now than in the 80s, and (ii) I was an NWA fan who thought 90% of WWF wrestling was boring as all fuck. It's 35 years ago. Hardcore fandom tastes and opinions change. In 35 years from now, people will be sifting through the equiv of the Wayback Machine looking at post on here and wondering how much meth we were smoking to love Lawler, Fujiwara and Tsuruta so much.

This is consistent with Dave's prior inconsistencies. Keith could probably pull up the quote of Dave tossing the old "being tolerant of others opinions" quote at someone in a heated discussion, only to later then call his own sites poll voters the equiv of an Idiot Vote.

I agree with that. Irony? People in the 90s were bitching about Dave "hating everything" and tended to ignore how much stuff during a given year he was insanely enthusiastic about. There's always been stuff in wrestling that drive him nuts and grinds him down. It's right there in the old large format WONS in 1983-85. In turn, there's always been stuff that he loses his shit over.

35 year old Dave and I were sitting in Yokohama Arena watching this card 20 years to the week before this year's Mania: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/japan/women/ajw/queen.html#iii Setting aside the "shootboxing" match in the prelims, I'd be surprised if he would rate the Divas match *close* to any of the other matches, let alone above any of them. The WON with the star ratings for that show appears to be online: April 10, 1995 Observer Newsletter: WrestleMania XI in-depth report, Weekly Pro Wrestling show at the Tokyo Dome, major World Championship Wrestling shake-ups, tons more Someone may want to go pull them over for comp.

I know this is a surprise to nobody that commentary sucked but it really does explain why there are so many different spectrum of opinion on this match. It's kind of funny, but everyone in Hoback's living room loved the Sting vs Trip match. That was not just the teenager, but also all of the adults felt it was an entertaining spectacle. We really could have given two shits about the announcing, since we all talked all over it while the match was going on. I get announcing being an issue while watching Raw, or even a normal PPV, or even watching a PPV solo. Lord knows I bitch and moan about shitty announcing on old stuff, and bitched and moaned when my brain was melting watching Raw & Nitro & SmackDown & Thunder & Joey Styles sucking on ECW Bullshit TV Shows. But Mania for most is a group thing, and no one cares while it's going on about the announcing. A group of fans watching the show in most living rooms (or at bars) provides the announcing.