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Got a front page asking me to input a code # (randomly generated I suspect) and a message to the admin. Strange.

People were rethinking the hype about Brody less than 10 years after he died. I've told the story plenty of times of Yohe telling Meltzer that Hansen carried the tag team and was better than Brody. Dave didn't agree, and on it went. This was before the interwebs. It's an old discussion / debate... 20 years old by now. All the interwebs was (i) allow more people to come to it semi-fresh, and (ii) with the ease of getting more matches allow older fans to think about Brody as they were watching his stuff.

But Doc hit a much higher peak there than Ace or Spivey, who didn't exactly crank out singles classics. I think it was the perfect setting for Doc's power and physicality to translate, but he also deserves credit for not getting lost in the complexity of those matches. I'd put Ace's 1997 match with Taue above any match Doc had with the possible exception of the one where he won the Triple Crown from Misawa. Anyway, MVC/Steiners is funny because it shows what matwork would look like if wrestling was real. Guy gets a takedown, other guy scrambles for the ropes. Repeat until they get tired of it and start beating the hell out of each other. Heck... I like Doc's match in the 1994 Carny with Jun better than the 1997 Taue-Ace.

It's from the WWE's public filings. They wouldn't lie about it because it's a no-no to lie in what you file with the SEC.

I'd love to hear Dave talk again broach the subject of reevaluating old footage. Since World launched that's pretty much all he's been doing. It's a pretty seismic shift from someone who once directly told me that reevaluating old footage was a waste of time because you have to be in the moment to get a match. Not this shit again. He doesn't believe in rerating old matches, because he believes in sticking with the rating he gave it in the moment, which is perfectly reasonable and makes a ton of sense, yet is constantly misinterpreted by some here. This has nothing to do with rewatching old matches, and *gasp*, enjoying them. It doesn't make a ton of sense. We all re-rate things in life. Good lord, we've all re-rated girlfriends or wives, let alone pro wrestling matches. Beyond that, we all grasp the explanation Dave gives for refusing to re-rate / re-think old stuff. We just happen to think it's rather obtuse and inconsistent to how we all think and then re-think about a lot of things.

"Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely right." -Otter Let's try this: I'm pretty sure the not re-evaluating movies thing is in deference to the fact that movies are ultimately a business of selling movies and pleasing the ticket buyers in the movie theater or watching it on TV via dvd, VOD, pay channels, or free channels. Yeah, Dave's view works on some completely nutty level that treat pro wrestling differently that other forms of entertainment. John

There were probably two generation of viewers who saw this monster as either being a sign of Entertaining TV or Excellent TV and watched in droves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must_See_TV It's actually a bit like the WWF in a sense: Expansion Era = The Cosby Show + Family Ties/A Different World + Cheers + Hill Street Blues/L.A. Law Attitude Era = Seinfeld + Friends + ER Wild Success: #1 show in 12 seasons, the #2 another 9 times, 49 Top 5 & 65 Top 10 series in 20 years Critical Success: an insane number of Emmys, including 16 Best Drama/Comedy awards It had been completely rebuilt between in initial era and second era. Then it hit the wall. The business changed to a degree. Just as importantly, after Friend & ER the promotion couldn't build a new anchor program to carry the night until new strong programs could be added and get hot (to a degree what Seinfeld did in 1993/94 before Friends & ER came along the next season). I think in 1991/92 one could see Must See TV running its course. Cosby ran its course, Different World was running its course, and LA Law had peaked. While Cheers was going strong, it was down from #1 and was heading into its final season. In contrast, by say 1998/99 it seemed like Must See TV was train that had no end in sight. It had all 5 shows in the Top 5 for the second time in 4 seasons, and the Top 4 for the 4th straight year. Anything could get plugged in and draw: look at the shows from 1995/96 - 1998/99 that made the Top 10 yet were tossed aside for "not doing well enough". Pretty insane. Creatively NBC fell apart. Business-wise they seemed to lose their track as well. One thing that sustained NBC in the 20+ years was that they had some turn over, both in the creativity in making the shows, and also on the business side in marketing them and have a reasonable finger on the pulse of TV changing over those 20 years. By the early 00s, they seemed to dry up on both ends. * * * * * An example/analogy of probably the most successful entertainment in the US over that 20 year period. They had one disadvantage that the WWF doesn't now: direct competition. That's both in the genre (the other networks were cranking out comedy's and dramas) but also in time slots. Cosby took a hit when Fox insanely moved The Simpsons opposite it. Then in 2000/01, CBS put the second season of Survivor opposite Friends, and moved CSI from Friday to Thursday after Survivor and a new ratings monster was created. There isn't any wrestling competition for Vince. The television competition is the same he's been dealing with for decades: other TV, and a longtime decline/dispersal of primetime viewers.

The hive mind thing has always been pretty funny. I probably go back with Bix and Dylan longer than anyone on PWO. We've had some rip roaring, heated debates that were likely uglier than anything that people think of as heated debates on PWO. On the flip side, we've been in some heated debates where one or the other or both have been on the same side as me. Here. Same goes for Loss and I, where just two words about Ric Flair will send us down the rabbit hole against each other. That's representative of nothing more than there are hundreds of topic about wrestling that will pop up, of which a third we'll agree on, a third we'll see differently, and a final third that one or the other of us doesn't have knowledge or interest in. Flair is just one of those topics, fitting into one of those buckets of how we see things. That tends to get lost outside the bubble, or by people new who don't know the decade (or decades) some of us have been interacting.

Date is a fuzzy thing to define, but let's say going out to the movies and having a semi-steady girl... Bockwinkel was in his first reign, Harley was the NWA Champ, Bob was the WWF Champ, Inoki was the NWF Champ and Baba was the PWF Champ. That's kind of a cool batch of dynastic champs.

On the broader question of whether he's in decline or not, I'm at a loss on why people would think it's impossible to consider. His career as a promoter hasn't been one of constant upward motion, either in terms of creative success or business success. He's had several periods where business went down or when creatively the company was down. The company has bounced back on one, the other, or both areas as well. But when you have a career that's gone past 30 years at this point, it's a bit naive to expect it to always bounce back to where it once was, or beyond. I think we all can look at other forms of entertainment, business and sports where past success doesn't mean current success and future success are locks.

I'd argue that the WWE isn't really running it like a cable channel. They have one item of "new content" to draw people in: the monthly PPV shows. Which, as you pointed out several times, was already a declining item of content. The rest of the "new content" isn't terribly well thought out, nor really fits into being must see for current WWE Fans. While some of us might be disappointed that the WWE isn't putting up the stuff that we older fans want to see, we also tend to get that: the small numbers of us that want to see all the old MSG/Spectrum/Boston Garden/Misc House Shows aren't significant enough for the WWE to invest a great deal of thought or money in.(1) But you would have expected Vince / Network Management to have invested more thought and time into content that Current WWE Fans feel they need to see several times a week to justify the $9.99 in addition to the PPVs. That they drop the ball on that basic concept remains pretty gobsmacking. (1) One could actually argue that that old content doesn't cost much: they have a crapload of it in the can from 24/7 and other projects. The hosting cost looks mixed: fair amount of storage space, but limited bandwidth/resource strain due to the limited interest.

It would be a bit like Dick Cheney admitting that they lied us into Iraq. It's not a surprise, nor a surprise to hear it. People shouldn't be surprised by any of this. Just thankful to Punk for confirming it in a colorful fashion. And in turn for people who aren't Punk marks for generally confirming what they think about Punk. I'm neither a mark nor a hater of his, so perhaps am a bit more objective to the two extremes when listing to this. My take on listening to what I've been able to (around the holidays) is generally: "No shit." Not really mind blowing. I think the only truly enlightening thing is the Wrestling Fanboy turned Aspiring Wrestler turned Big Time Wrestler turned Hater Of Wrestling life arch/path. Podcast isn't a great place to fully craft that narrative as opposed to touch on it or have it be an underlying theme that pops up from time to time. It's really something that I'd like to see him develop and explore in a book, especially if he's as insightful and self reflective as his biggest fans believe. Though... since they happen to still be wrestling fans, I'm not sure if it's the central theme they want to have anchor his bio, even if it is the arch of his life.

I'm surprised that anyone finds any of this surprising. Stuff that's been talked about for a decade and a half now, in places like this.

Just to be clear on the Jumbo-Inoki from JWA: It was Inoki who was mediocre to me. Jack was good, but held back by Inoki's work. Which is why I felt the match was mediocre. My standard for Inoki being good are fairly tough. If you've seen Inoki in the July 1978 match with Backlund, you know he can go. And we all know Brisco can go. So you toss them in together in 1971 and you have some hopes of Inoki flashing he was good, akin to how Jumbo looked against Brisco in 1976 when he was *less* experienced than 1971 Inoki. Instead... Inoki was pretty yawntastic.

What matches does Jumbo have in the 70s where he looks like a top 10 worker in the world? In the Brisco matches you reviewed he was inferior to Inoki and Baba. I thought Inoki was pretty mediocre against Brisco. The 08/28/76 Brisco vs Jumbo is fantastic. Granted... Brisco is fantastic in it, but Jumbo is excellent. John if you thought Inoki/Jack from 71 was mediocre. The one from 79 will cause you to poke your eyes out. I've seen them both. Not a fan of either.

Pretty much all of the stuff that's circulating on Jumbo from the 70s has been out there for well over a decade, most of it for much longer than that coming out in later 90s via original AJPW Classics. Even the "new" stuff that came out on the G+ Classics has been out for ages. The UN Title match with Flair, for example, was new when it came out on G+... but that was January 2004. Jumbo being one of the best workers of the 70s was an old saw before Classics, then a "renewed" saw with Classics. The decade since then hasn't added a ton of new material (at least material that's widely circulating) to the 60-70 matches that were out there a decade ago.

What matches does Jumbo have in the 70s where he looks like a top 10 worker in the world? In the Brisco matches you reviewed he was inferior to Inoki and Baba. I thought Inoki was pretty mediocre against Brisco. The 08/28/76 Brisco vs Jumbo is fantastic. Granted... Brisco is fantastic in it, but Jumbo is excellent.

Just since he's getting overlooked here, Gagne is terrific in this match. Plays ultimate babyface to perfection, sells his ass off for Lou when he needs to, and kicks this shit out of Lou when he needs to. Lou has a lot of middling matches. Matches that tend to stand out are (i) Schmidt kicking the fuck out of him, and (ii) Verne being terrific. The difference between this and the hour draw with Buddy is that Verne brought out a better Lou here.

My recollection of this was that it was stunningly disappointing, especially compared to the entertaining Lou-Verne draw. I'll have to watch the shorter one since people appear to have liked it.

The majority of the "IWC" is made up of WWF/WWE Fans. They're perfectly happy with the structure of the WWF/WWE matches, could give a shit about Crockett, don't know what AJPW is, will never watch Euro, couldn't be paid to watch Inoki, and are pefectly fine watching Hogan lock up with Paul Orndorff or the Big Bossman. It's a myth that the posters here, or similar ones elsewhere, represent anything in the "IWC" other than a niche within a niche within a niche.

We've already seen that: there was a generation of fans who started watching the WWF in the 80s post-Expansion and accepted Vince's version of History. Some eventually stumbled upon the truth, while plenty of others never did nor never cared. Heck, we have a generation of fans who buy all the nonsense in Shoot Interviews and Shoot Books. What can one do...

And also this site, and potentially it's posters, attracting WWE attention. I have no idea how hardcore the WWE is on enforcement these days. They were in the past. Just me... but things that risk attracting WWE attention never strike me as either wise or worthwhile.