jdw

Not at all. We go off on tangents like this that start off as Dave-related. It's 4400 posts long.

Star ratings for fights are ridiculous because it's not something prepared ahead of time like a meal, a movie, or a wrestling match. I don't tend to hand out start ratings for sports, but then again... I've long since stopped doing it in wrestling or movies. Back when I was, I did a long write up of this futbol match at the time it happened and called it a ****3/4 classic... and I don't recall anyone complaining about a star rating being attached to the end of the write up: So... It's up to the reviewer. Similar as it is to movie reviewers, album reviewers, wrestling reviewers, etc. Did you agree with Roger Ebert on all his reviews? Are you even able to sum up how Roger handed out snowflakes and what his criteria were? I've got a slew of Ebert books at home, read his reviews covering 30+ years, probably read him on occasion explain his thinking behind rating movies... but I couldn't explain it if my life depended on it. Same thing with rating fights. A lot of folks think Frye-Takayama is a great slobberknocker slugfest and an all-time classic. If a reviewer only rates a ****1/2+ pier six brawls, and never goes that high on something that's got multiple layers of drama to it (say Hughes vs Trigg 2 which is about as good of a one round fight as there's ever been), then it's up to the viewer to wonder if theer's any value to the reviewer. If Dave was giving ****1/2 to a bunch of 30 second knockouts, then we scratch out heads. But *** for a great 30 second knockout? I don't think any of us would really care. No one ever says, "I had fun watching that fight!" What they say is: "That was a GREAT~! fight." "That was a helluva fight!" "This was a good back fight." "It was really technical, but a good fight." Etc. John

Yeah... the arrival of clusterfucky sig.file pics.

I think ROH eventually found money marks. Was more talking about the earlier days when the need for draining massive amount of money out of the money mark were significantly lower than what Heyman was conning out of various sources.

I would love this. I have a friend of mine who is working on a book anthology of her zine, and thought how great that was. It would be neat to see something like this done with the WON, covering every year. In the past, I've lost issues from time to time, so this would help me out a lot. Also, would be great to keep notes on certain issues. Anyone else interested in this? I would like something of the sort. Granted there would be other years available that aren't already on the site (being 1991-1996 at this point). I assume he has the "at least from 1992 on" line since those are the issues saved on computer? 1992 was the first all-PC year. Most of 1991 was on computer. Kinda of a sign of how, after 20 years, Dave still isn't very computer knowledgeable. It would take very little effort to simply scan in the non-PC issues from 1991, and only moderate effort to OCR Scan & Clean up those issues. The first would be an easy way to include in a "hardcover"/"softcover". The second really wouldn't be that hard given the number of techy Observer fans with a scanner & OCR who would volunteer to help. Earlier years would take more work as they all would need to be cleaned up and that would be a lot of work with the columns and the screwed up letter (was it an O?). But even a simply scan rather than OCR, and turning them into a "book" wouldn't be hard. The issues were shorter back in 1990 and earlier, and two-issues-a-week pretty much never happened. My binders for 1986-90 aren't overstuffed at all.

The reason that ROH and ECW weren't analogous is because Heyman had far more overhead. ROH was run on the cheap. ECW was cheaper than WWF and WCW, but it wasn't cheap. ECW was going to die. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because Paul was a con man and conned a lot of people out of a lot of money to keep the hand-to-mouth operation of ECW running. edit: were --> weren't

That was my point. Is it a good fight, in a limited number of characters, rather than having to sift through a long review of a Card to try to get an idea of what the good fights on it are.

Sorry, but the idea of rating an actual sporting contest is stupid. If somebody won via a KO in ten seconds, does that make it a zero star fight? You're not actually being series, right? http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/30453/the-10-greatest-world-series-games http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/10-most-memorable-mlb-world-series-wins http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-10-23/greatest-world-series-yankees-dodgers-reds-red-sox-mets-braves-twins I could literally post another 100 links to people rating the Greatest WS Games of All-Time... without putting much effort into finding those 100. We could do the same with most every major sporting event. In fact, people in the first *two days* of this season's NBA were talking about how many really good games there were. People do it all the time. I'm 100% confident that you "rate" sporting events as well on some level.

I don't get the PPV in bluray quality, so normal DVD quality is perfectly good. My mom also doesn't have a bluray player... though her current dvd player is getting long of tooth, so it's probably something I'll get her to replace the current one. Wouldn't disagree with the argument that the FOTN isn't always the best fight on the card. But it usually is a good fight on some level. They also tend not to be 1 minute knock outs, and my mom tends to like fights that build to some good back and forth. She's someone who would like a good ***1/2 fight that went into the 3rd round with quality fighting over a ****1/2 match that ended in 2 minutes but got a high star rating due to the two throwing bombs for 2 minutes and having an EPIC FINISH~! Melendez-Sanchez, which did win FOTN and made the set... that's far more her type of fight than say Browne-Barnett that also made the set. Melendez's extremely strong & smart performance in the 1st and 2nd rounds, then Diego's comeback in the 3rd, the strange/interesting choice of Diego to try a sub when he had Melendez hurt. It's Diego, he's had so many quality fights that when he has another it's going to get on a set like this. There are other times where she's watched a match of two less famous dudes have a similar fight that she's dug.

Just to be clear: The Best of is a cool thing, that price is a good value and they are some good matches. There's a good, quick cheap way for folks to get some cool fights. Just that the Collections... they're like the Yearbooks that we tend to love here. They really do rock, and are the price of about 2 PPV when released shortly before Christmas and then drop from there in a few months. There's just a lot of good stuff on them, along with all the important stuff.

The solution to that conundrum is to wait for the best of the year Blu-Ray set (the DVDs since 2011 only have the highlight special) instead of buying the annual Ultimate Fight Collection box. You'll get the very best fights of the year, including the bests prelims. There are always omissions (but usually stuff like "Well, they can't put on everything from Fight for the Troops...") and title fights are favored when they shouldn't be (Cain-JDS 3 is not something I ever need to spend half an hour on again), but it's generally a nice set with all of the must-see fights of the year. 2013 25 Matches - 13 PPV Matches -- 1 Prelim -- 2 low/mid Main card -- 3 Semifinals -- 7 Main/Co-Main Events (counting Rhonda-Misha as a Co-Main on the last card) Half the matches are PPV Main Card, which my Mom and I watch anyway. Looking at the non PPV: * UFC on Fuel TV - Cub Swanson vs. Dustin Poirier Semifinal. Fight of the Night was Watson-Nedkov in the prelims. * UFC on Fuel TV - Wanderlei Silva vs. Brian Stann Main Event and it was the Fight of the Night. * TUF 17 Finale - Cat Zingano vs. Miesha Tate Middle of the main card. Fight of the Night. * UFC on Fox - Josh Thomson vs. Nate Diaz Middle of the main card. Brown-Mein was the Fight of the night, opening the main card. * UFC on FX - Vitor Belfort vs. Luke Rockhold Main event, one round knockout. Martins-Larsen was the fight of the night, the opener to the prelim section. * UFC on Fuel TV - Fabricio Werdum vs. Minotauro Nogueira Main event. Fight of the night was Silva-Cavalcante in the middle of the main show. * UFC Fight Night - Travis Browne vs. Alistair Overeem * UFC Fight Night - Chael Sonnen vs. Shogun Rua Semifinal and Main. Fight of the Night was McDonald vs Pickett low on the card. * UFC Fight Night - Vitor Belfort vs. Dan Henderson Main event. Fight of the night was Akhmedov vs Perpetuo in the prelims. * UFC Fight Night - Mark Hunt vs. Antonio Silva Main event... and that was a war. * UFC on Fox - Urijah Faber vs. Michael McDonald * UFC on Fox - Demetrious Johnson vs. Joseph Benavidez Semifinal and Main, which we watched together. Fight of the night was Barboza vs Castillo in the prelims. The Best Of doesn't really care about Prelims, and focuses heavily on Main Events and Semis. That's the case for both the PPV and non-PPV cards. On the flip side, the cost and content of the sets right now are: $19.96 / 500 Minutes - UFC: Best of 2013 (Blu-ray) $60.23 / 3200 Minutes - UFC Ultimate Fight Collection 2013 I mean... the price value isn't close. The reason I get the Box Set is to fill in the Cards that my Mom doesn't watch since she's spotty with setting the DVR especially on prelims and her cable company didn't carry on Fuel. And then to sift through those for good fights, which usually means doing some online research. It's not impossible, but a nice star rating list would be cool. I'm not even batshit crazy above limiting it to GREAT~! fights: my mom and I enjoy "good" matches and will enjoy a card of 4 good matches over 3 stinkers and 1 great. So I'm a bit more interested in quick references when sifting through the 239 matches on the Ultimate Collection. Which we're still doing with the 2013. FWIW, for anyone trying to catch up on the last few years of UFC, I'd highly recommend the Collections. They have the good stuff and the big stuff, even if some of the big stuff is poor. It's pretty much like the Yearbook concept, just Jul-Jun and organized by Card. They all look available for $60 a pop, and if you're someone who buys "used" you can find them for even less from reputable sellers on Amazon and eBay. I buy them new since they're a gift... but whatever works. It is a crapload of matches each year, with the crap non-Big matches pitched, and most of the bullshit on cards cut out. Great stuff.

I wouldn't say "best". Everyone has known for years that Tori is a worker and full of shit.

He references Meltzer and the WON a good deal in it, but I'm a bit surprised that: (i) he didn't have Dave (or Wade as an alternative) as one of his four Interviews (ii) he does appear to have subbed to the WON during his "survey" period The Bibliography just sites Tributes from Dave, rather than the WON itself. You'd think when writing something like this that he'd take out at least an $32 for 12 issues sub... or what the heck, fake it and take out a 4 issue one and C&P the past 12 issues to study for journalistic content.

On some level, I do wish that he tossed star ratings at MMA matches. It would have more value at this point than the wrestling ones: when I get my Mom the UFC box set each Christmas, I try to remember which quality matches from TV (largely PPV Prelimes, but also the Fuel shows she misses) were hot fights to put the dvd in. I guess I should keep a running list during the year... but star ratings would be useful.

They wouldn't have made any money off distributing stuff off the net, especially not at levels to keep talent. ROH came after Heyman, "learned" everything they could from his model, cast a net out far and wide for new talent, used "developing technologies"... and never had more than a pot to piss in. John

Basically take 95% of what Heyman says about ECW and throw it on the woodpile.

For the record, people need to remember the year Bob won the award: Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic 1982 Bob Backlund as WWF Champion What's kind of funny is that Bob had a pretty good 1982 as champ. A pretty decent number of good matches that year that were available on tape. Here are the MSG and Spectrum cards in the standard "WON Voting Period" of December the prior year to November of the current year. Not all of them are in circulation, but the majority of them that are happen to be pretty decent. I know Will loved the Adonis matches. The Rose ones are a good deal of fun. WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - December 12, 1981 Greg Valentine defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via count-out at 19:48 when Valentine got back in the ring following a brawl on the floor WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - January 16, 1982 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Greg Valentine in a steel cage match by escaping out the door after hitting a piledriver WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - January 18, 1982 (18,301) Adrian Adonis defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund when the referee stopped the match at 30:54 due to excessive blood loss WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - February 15, 1982 (22,034) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund pinned Adrian Adonis in a Texas Death Match via a backflip pin at 16:33; Ivan Putski was the special referee for the bout WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - February 20, 1982 (10,972) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund pinned Jesse Ventura at 17:43 WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - March 14, 1982 (matinee) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund pinned Jesse Ventura at 9:21 with a roll up into a bridge and a fast count from guest referee Ivan Putski; after the bout, an enraged Ventura attacked Putski until Backlund and Putski together sent him out of the ring WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - March 20, 1982 (9,438) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund pinned Adrian Adonis at 21:50 with a pin reversal into a bridge WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - April 17, 1982 (9,230) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Blackjack Mulligan via disqualification when the challenger hit the referee at 11:15 WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - April 26, 1982 Jimmy Snuka defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via disqualification at 10:42 when Backlund refused to break a choke; after the match, Snuka hit the splash off the top and the champion had to be taken from the ring on a stretcher WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - May 22, 1982 (11,513) Bob Orton Jr. defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via count-out at 16:12 when, as both men fought outside the ring, Orton wrapped a foreign object around Backlund's neck to hold him back and then got back in the ring himself to win WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - June 5, 1982 Jimmy Snuka defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via count-out at 20:53 WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - June 26, 1982 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Bob Orton Jr. in a lumberjack match at 12:12 with a roll over after the challenger was tripped by Ivan Putski at ringside; prior to the bout, lumberjacks for the match included: Putski, Blackjack Mulligan, SD Jones, Tony Atlas, Mr. Fuji, Adrian Adonis, WWF IC Champion Pedro Morales, Steve Travis, Johnny Rodz, Swede Hanson, Laurent Soucie, and Mr. Saito WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - June 28, 1982 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Jimmy Snuka in a steel cage match at 15:10 by avoiding a lunge from the challenger and escaping through the door after Snuka missed a splash off the top of the cage WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - July 31, 1982 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) fought Jimmy Snuka to a double disqualification at 21:06 when Capt. Lou Albano, who Snuka brought ringside early in the contest, interfered as Backlund had the Crossface Chicken Wing applied, with a brawl ensuing between Backlund & Skaaland against Snuka & Albano, and several other wrestlers, including Salvatore Bellomo and the Demons, having to come out to pull Backlund and Snuka apart WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 2, 1982 (22,000; sell out) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Bob Orton Jr. at 23:38 WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 30, 1982 (19,908) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Buddy Rose via submission with the Crossface Chicken Wing at 20:24 after reversing an attempt at a back suplex WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - September 18, 1982 (9,464) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) pinned Jimmy Snuka at 21:33 by reversing a piledriver attempt into a backdrop and falling backwards for the pin, even though Snuka's foot was outside the ring during the cover; after the bout, Backlund offered his hand to Snuka to shake, which Snuka did; moments later, Snuka also shook the hands of Skaaland and the referee before Backlund gave him his personal towel, which read "WWF Champion"; SD Jones was the guest referee for the bout WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - October 4, 1982 (22,101) Superstar Billy Graham defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via disqualification at 15:10 WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - October 16, 1982 (7,075) Buddy Rose defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via count-out WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - November 22, 1982 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund fought Superstar Billy Graham to a double disqualification at 10:14 when referee Danny Davis threw the match out after being knocked down by the participants, with both men brawling their way backstage moments thereafter WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - November 25, 1982 (15,644) WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Buddy Rose via submission to the Crossface Chicken Wing at 13:02 in a lumberjack match; SD Jones was the guest referee for the bout; after the match, Kal Rudman conducted an interview with Backlund and Skaaland Everyone hated the Superstar angle, and "Bob crying over the belt being destroyed." But there was just one match in the period, and it was quickly followed by a Bob-Buddy to wash the taste out of the mouth. It really was a silly award.

As a side note, a throw away item in here from Simmons last week: http://grantland.com/features/the-worlds-most-exclusive-club Simmons is increasingly "connected". He was actually spot on about the Bucks deal before it went down, and perhaps broke NBAfabe on it. It's highly likely he has strong enough dealings with ESPN's business people handling their side of the new NBA deal to know where the number is heading, either in the sense of what the NBA is demanding (and is going to get) or where ESPN is willing to go to retain. Massive contract. There is a lot of talk of the NBA opening up a "Third Piece" of the deal along with the current ESPN/ABC and TNT parts, which would allow them to: 1. both keep & squeeze more money out of their longtime partners ESPN & TNT 2. play FOX/FS1 and Comcast/NBC/NBCSN off each other for a massive overpayment of the 3rd Piece That's going to lock up a lot of $$$ until it gets sorted out.

Kinda quiet on the tv deal... keep expecting that shoe to drop.

Unlikely.

I love Jumbo in 1991 a lot, and loved his role. We also have an entire year of TV to look at as well. But this was awfully good from a singles match stand point. It's akin to Kobashi's 1993 in terms of where they were in their careers: Jumbo wasn't ready to win these... except the last, which was a big break through. 03/10/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Verne Gagne 03/28/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Rusher Kimura 05/01/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Giant Baba 06/11/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk 07/17/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Billy Robinson 08/28/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Jack Brisco I liked each of those, and most of them are pretty terrific. I even like his 10/22/76 match with Abby since for the most part the "wrestle" and "fight" rather than brawl & bloodbath, saving the juice and brawling outside for later in the 3rd fall when Abby kind of snaps over Jumbo pushing him. Not in circulation is his first UN Title defense: 11/30/76 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Billy Robinson (30:50, 2:08, 5:27) Which had a shot of being pretty good. And of course loads of other TV matches. His 1977 is pretty choice as well, and that again is just on available footage when loads of stuff isn't out there.

It's fun for variety. His matches with Jumbo that year might be the more interesting ones of their long rivalry, and he has the bloodbath with Gordy that is really bloody. On the flip side, the stuff with Choshu is pretty so-so, and I'm drawing a blank on a tag with Ted that really grabbed me. Hmm... looking at the DVDVR 80s results: #114 Stan Hansen vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (4/19/86) #119 Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (7/26/86) #115 Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Stan Hansen (7/31/86) #18 Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Stan Hansen (10/21/86) #59 Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen & Ted Dibiase (12/12/86) Not a lot of matches that year, very Jumbo-centric, zippo with Choshu, the Gordy bloodbath didn't even make the extra. Only one match strongly liked. Not one of Stan's better years in Japan. He had a lot of variety in the year with the AWA, PR and AJPW.

Savage's 1986 was his "national" best year. Kobashi's 1993 as a hole was his best. Split on Kawada's 1993 vs 1994. 1993 has a start and finish, along with a change in roles to bridge the two. 1994 had some classics, but not finish, and the high point of the TC win was in a matches that was much less than the Carny win over Doc. If you gave me a choice of everything from either year, I'd probably take 1993. Misawa was probably at his best in 1995, but the start is slow and the finish is disappointing (vs Kobashi and then an largely uninteresting tag league). Lack of Doc took an opponent away. Hansen match was uninteresting. On the singles side it's Carny and the TC's against Kawada and Taue. He's strong in the Four Corners tags, at times flat out great. But it's really an odd year. On some level his 1993, 1994 and 1996 are more rounded and probably deeper in good matches. Even in 1996 when he's starting to get banged up again, those matches partnering with Jun give him a fresh role. Yeah... a really hard one to pick. 1995 was probably Taue's fullest year, though he was probably a better and more confident worker in 1996. It got botched a bit by having the belts go to Kobashi, but you could see in the Tag League just how confident and comfortable he was in his role. Jumbo's 1976 was pretty interesting...

What profits?

ESPN had a long rep of both being low paying and underpaying. On the other hand... Harold Reynolds signed a six year deal back in 2006 that paid him: * an escalating $750K / $775K / $800K / $825K / $850K / $875K per year base * the base covered: - - 85 Studio Days - - 15 "Games" other than LL World Series - - MLB Post Season Coverage - - the entire LL World Series * an escalating $6.8K-$7.9K per day if he worked above those 100 Days/Games * plane + ground trans + hotel expenses * per diem on travel days * negotiated fee for any additional Event (say ESPN got the MLB Draft like the NFL) Harold was pretty high on the ESPN Food Chain for Ex Jock Talking Head Analysts. He'd been around for a long time at that point, and was something of the "lead" analyst... but Kruky had just come over from Fox and was king of the hot thing. But of course there were a lot of other talking heads who had been around even longer than Harold on things long the NFL, NBA, etc. There are plenty of guys who are underpaid for that they do. Dan Patrick was wildly underpaid for the SportsCenter + Radio Show + Other Hosting duties that he had. But he also wasn't being paid only $100K for that... he was getting pretty damn good money. It's just that when he decided to look around, the offer to do radio elsewhere was so much that he was rather surprised by just how underpaid he was at ESPN. Anyway... Coach and Grish likely started out low, and they had to make their bones at ESPN News where it's pretty much sink or swim to determine who might have potential to move up to better slots. If you suck there, you're gone. If you're solid, you stick around. If you're good, you got a shot to move up. It's likely that Coach is now with the radio show making more than he did with the WWE, since the WWE isn't a "pay them what they're worth" employer anyway. Grish... hard to tell. But he's doing pretty well there, so he's likely getting paid decent enough. Long term... they have opportunities to move up and earn more, or listen to offers from places like NBC & NBCSN, CBS, Fox & FSN, Big 10 Network, Pac 10 Network, NFL Network, NBA TV, MLB TV and on and on. Someone like Rich Eisen was "underpaid" at ESPN, though likely made a pretty good living once he and Stuart got over. But look what he did: cashed it in to be the Face of the NFL Network. He's making bank now.