jdw

Thanks for the schedule info!

Embry is a perfect one.

Can someone post the "schedule" for the week as far as the the "Network" aspect? In the sense of what's on Daily, and when. It's more than just a VOD service, right?

We don't really have a thread on it, with things going into various thread. Thought it might be useful to start a more general thread for more general items. Chris put up a good piece on the WWE's stock prices going up-up-up and took a look at whether there are numbers behind it: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/03/07/the-mystery-of-the-soaring-stock-price Worth a read. John

Some examples of decent quality at Grantland. Beyond some of the folks we've mentioned before: Ben Lindbergh on Baseball GM stability: http://grantland.com/features/mlb-duracell-general-managers-billy-beane-brian-cashman It's not off the charts, but a reasonably short piece that actually makes you wish there was a longer say 20K in depth piece going deeper into each of the "factors". Mark Harris had a six-part piece on predicting the Oscar winners, which can be found under his pieces: http://grantland.com/contributors/mark-harris Oscars are done, and things went largely "chalk" so it might not be an interesting series now. But for what's a kind of throwaway annual concept he did a good job of explaining why certain movies were likely to win, which ones could pull the upset if the favorite didn't get it (like Her in Original Screenplay), etc. Could any number of folks have written the series? Perhaps, and lots do every year. But for someone whose read this stuff for 30 years in papers and mags, I thought Harris' were the most readable that I've seen in a long time. Some guys we've talked about in the past... I don't hate Barnwell's stuff, but it doesn't blow me away like say Lowe. He gives off too much of a "feel" like fitting into Simmons and Grantland vibe/style. The contrast would be Lowe having his own almost laconic voice that hits the facts and while also getting across the things he really digs without going all wank-off on it. That said, I thought this was pretty good out of Barnwell: http://grantland.com/features/the-curious-case-of-jim-harbaugh At looking at it again, I see that he avoided footnotes. Anyway, with the Harbaugh story you're going to get all sorts of wild speculation. I think Bill did a good job of looking at it from a variety of differing directions, organizing it, and presenting it in a clear fashion. Low on snark and cracking jobs, solid enough of analysis. Given how more stuff leaks out on Harbaugh and San Fran, there certainly is something odd going on. Simmons on NBA Tanking: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-bag-volume-2-10-steps-to-tanking-perfection His Steps 1-10 have a lot of joke-o-snark-o-rama. One can like it, or not like it... but it is a pretty reasonable walk through of how various teams tank in the NBA, and how Philly is mastering it. He also ends with thoughts on whether it's good for the league, punts Stern for turning a blind eye to it, and pretty much calls out Silver for doing something about it. It's basically "Good Simmons-toh" - he's not in the piece aiming too high, he's having some fun as he goes along without it all being total bullshit ("Bad Simmons-ta"), the "fun" is there to make the points being made go down easier, and in the process of it you might get him going off on the jag that more thought needs to be given. Anyway... it's to me an example of while it's easy and common to completly toss him on the Woodpile that he can actually still crank out some decent pieces. Some are lighter pieces like this that have beneath the lightness some topics that he thinks need more thought. Some, like the piece he did on Juice in the NBA last year, shake off the jokes and hit on something that most folks aren't talking about, and probably something some don't want him talking about given his position.

I never got Wildfire as being a babyface the chicks dug.

Vault stuff getting pulled makes it pretty much a lock that I won't sub. I get "slow roll out" rather than giving people everything at once. But yanking sucks. John

Freebie. We were there for that one: Dave, Wade, Bruce, Yohe, Hoback and me. About as bad of a show as any of us ever saw.

Rude-Steamer. Sting wasn't even really feuding with Cactus at the time, so it was a bit of a throw-away. His feuds that year had been (i) Rude, (ii) Dangerous Allience including Rude, and (iii) Vader. The Cactus match was a way to get Sting on the card while not giving away Sting vs Vader which was the headline of the Bash the next month. The tag title match was something that Watts slapped together because it gave him a woody to see all those tough guys go at it. John

Earlier articles: http://www.wctrib.com/content/witnesses-testify-zumhofe-relationship-wasnt-appropriate-0 http://www.wctrib.com/content/zumhofe-takes-stand-molestation-case-denies-charges

Buff's got the stuff.

Here's an earlier thread, one where Bix, I and others walked through it a good deal: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/12930-true-story-of-wrestlemania-dvd The formating of a lot of the posts is screwy due to the upgrade making stuff all run together and a bit hard to read at times. I'll try to clean mine up when I get a chance. John

I'm inclined to not believe the 78K number based on events in not similar buildings but that exact same building. Super Bowl XVI drew 81,270 fans. It wasn't a worked number. The 1994 World Cup drew 77,217 for a Brasil vs Sweden game. It wasn't work, nor were the other three games held in the Silverdome in that Cup (if they were worked, the US's opener would have topped the Brasil game). Here's a Lions season with attendance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Detroit_Lions_season Those aren't worked, unless you think the Lions liked showing they drew under 50K at home twice that year. The top that season was 75K. What's the difference between football and futbol games at the Silverdome and pro wrestling at the Silverdome? People sit on the Field for wrestling, while the players are on the Field in football and futbol. Since revising the number, Dave has never claimed there were 90K+ in the building but 12K+ of them were "papered". In fact, his reporting at the time was that the place Sold Out. If there wasn't paper, and if the place was sold out, 90K were in the building. There were at least 10K on the floor, while every photo of the place shows the stands to be packed. Anyway... it is funny that 5 years after the event, Dave still had the 93K number, and while talking about paper for other events, doesn't mention it for Mania III.

Yeah... the Mania III number is pretty funny there, especially with him making a note on every set of numbers whether it was a real number, if there was paper and what the paid was. It wasn't until later that we had "Zane's Information" and: "New shit has come to light." John

I tend to agree with Loss and Ditch a decent amount on "body work". I don't have a problem with a 16-20 minute match where, after the initial opening, they take it down for 9-10+ minutes of working body parts / holds before eventually picking it up to work towards the finish. It's what I grew up watching, and I've enjoyed countless matches that way. What I tend to ask from those "body of the match" sections are: * do a solid enough job working those holds / body parts * do a solid enough job selling those holds / body parts during the section * sell the work in the transitions I don't expect someone to sell solid kneework or armwork for the next 10 minutes. I accept that they eventually have other shit to get in. But sell it in the transition rather then getting up to run around like nothing happened to get your shit in. That's annoying. I don't require that the working of the holds / body parts be UWF-style, either in application or selling. I was watching and enjoying Dennis and Bobby of the MX work holds on faces well before I watch UWF-style work, so I don't have some unrealistic level of work that I want out of it. On the other hand, Dennis & Bobby worked the holds, and in turn the faces sold underneath. The faces also tried to escape / counter out, and the heels shortcut them back in. The faces tried to make tags, and the heels cut them off. The heels got a little rought, cheated on occassion, and worked things so that the ref wasn't looking right at their nonsense and having to pretend he didn't see it. Except when they wanted him to see it, and break the hold / cheat. In turn, when it was time for the faces to work holds against the MX, the MX would sell the shit out of them, the faces would work them, and it was all solid stuff. A contrast would be say Muraco vs Morales where they lie around when working holds (both as the top and as the bottom), just killing time. That's kind of the destinction for me: I have no problem with "filling space/time" of a match as long as it's solid and they're working, while I hate "killing time" where they're not putting the effort into working. I actually far prefer watching some solid matwork for 10+ minutes at the start of a match than guys coming out "throwing bombs" or brawling outside the ring or "punching each other right in the nose" and other such stuff to fill their first 10 minutes. And yeah... All Japan in the 90s got away from working over folks with holds to start matches. Perhaps one of the reasons I like El Clasico: Kawada works over Misawa's bad neck/upper back, then goes to work on the ear when it starts bleeding, while Misawa turns things by going after Kawada's linger bad knee. It's not like what they do is some of the best body work that you've ever seen, since it's not. But it's solid, it fits into what's going on in recent injuries for the pair (Misawa's neck/back from Carny, and Kawada's knee linger since the prior RWTL) and something that just popped up (Misawa's ear is popped, and Kawada is smart enough to take shots at it). None of this is at the level of say Kawada's knee in the 12/03/93 match, but it's solid, makes sense, is worked well enough, is sold well enough, the transitions are well done and solid well, and helps fill space and time well for a match that ends up going 35 minutes at a time when All Japan singles matches hadn't been going that long. Does it play into what happens once they start working towards the finish? Not really. Not a problem.

An exceptional worker.

Whether it's true or not, it had nothing to do with Steamer leaving shortly into his IC title run.

What Loss says. The first match was the League Match, the last one of the League. If Hokuto & Toyota win or draw, they win the League. If Kyoko & Yamada win, then the League ends with the two teams tied. That's what happens, and it forces effectively a "playoff" match between the two teams to determine a winner. So it's really 2 matches. They're connected, and there's storyline across them, which is going to happen when you book it this way. John

He's dumber that we all thought.

Of the 5 that have been mentioned in the thread, all 5 aired on 24/7 or Classics or MSG Classics or what not. Nothing "new" there. I'm with Kevin: does "all" mean "all", and does it also mean "complete" in the sense of the whole card. My recollection is that some of the shows that have come out of the vault were incomplete.

Any chance of changing the header to reflect his earlier name that he used for year? Suspect that folks will eventually get around to talking about his whole career, and it would be good to have it all in one thread. Anway... I liked Claudio a lot when seeing him live in PWG and a couple of times in ROH. One of the ROH matches was where they split KOW and the Briscos into a pair of singles matches. Claudio's was surprisingly a storyline based match... in the sense of working a leg injury (Claudio working over the Brisco brother's knee), avoiding a more obvious Big Man vs Somewhat Smaller Face storyline. We all thought it was a smartly worked, solid match... and basically Claudio doing the solid work of anchoring the match. I quite liked his WrestleReunion match against Generico, which was in a tough slot: last match on a long unending show, again working more of an old school story match, working up and down with Generico's comebacks rather than just working a spot-fu match. I always would have loved to see that same match at the home base in Reseda because the crowd would have eaten it up. There were a number of other matches, but I always came away thinking that by 2010/11 that for all of Claudio's "Indy Big Guy" look that he really was a solid, well grounded, smart worker rather than some big doufus... or a common indy spot junky. We pretty constantly liked his work live, and that was with two sets of fans: my friends on the East Coast at ROH shows, and my friends on the West Coast at PWG.

That's a hoot. Edit: and yeah, I tend to agree with Dylan.

In the grand scheme of things, 5/94 was a leap forward. Since the tag titles had been unified, not of the matches had gone 40. The time progression was: 13:48 - 06/10/88 Tsuruta & Yatsu vs Road Warriors 18:37 - 07/16/88 Tsuruta & Yatsu vs Hansen & Gordy 29:51 - 08/29/88 Tsuruta & Yatsu vs Tenryu & Hara 31:57 - 07/19/90 Gordy & Williams vs Tsuruta & Kabuki 40:25 - 05/21/94 Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue There hadn't been an tag title bout with either of those belts to go that long since the Funks and Baba & Jumbo went 48:01 back on 04/24/81, and they needed a 10 minute "overtime" period to get there. Before that, the last one was in 1976 (Red Bastien & Al Hayes of all people). In turn, the following year these two teams had three matches together that went a combined 162:37, and contained just one pinfall. So it's a match that in terms of AJPW in the 90s breaks through a major wall is less a precursor to El Super Clasico, but to what became the more common tag style of the rest of the decade. It also never really was just a tease to El Clasico on 06/03/94. Kobashi's first big pin on Taue, much like his first pin of Kawada back on 12/03/93, aren't tossed away in light fashion and instead play a major role in charting his growth across 1993-94.

That would get me to sign up. Hopefully Philly follows soon after, since MSG and Philly are the ones that go back Pre-Expansion (along with the occassional oddball Landover, etc).

Kawada blew out his knee early in the RWTL. It pretty much was the story of the HDA in the league: Kawada not able to fully go, Taue having to carry things for the side, and it catching up to them in the end. It's JIP on TV because their old one hour show was cut down to 30 minutes (effectively about 22-23 minutes) early in the series (with the Kawada-Williams draw in the league portion of the Carny). The match (along with post match) was too long to fit into the show, so they JIP about 4-5 minutes. The full version is available on commercial tape, and probably youtube. Hard to tell if you watched the TV (JIP) version of that, or the full 40+ minute version. Historically, it's the Ace's job to put over the Top Gaijin. Rikidozan put over The Destroyer. Baba made O'Connor and Brazil in Japan. He put over Brody and Hansen. Jumbo put over Hansen. Jumbo put over Gordy when they were trying to elevate him, but then Terry had to go and OD. That was the point of Williams beating Misawa: it moved Doc up to the level of Hansen... which of course Doc screwed up the following March. Having Doc lift the titles from Kawada would have meant less. On the flip side, they were a year into the Misawa-Kawada rivalry. It didn't really damage it at all for Kawada to come up short here, and he got his double payoffs around it: winning Carny and then lifting the belts from Doc. It's in 1995 that they started screwing up the booking. Overall, the transition in 1993-94 from (i) Jumbo being the Ace with Misawa as his Native Rival and Hansen as the Top Gaijin to (ii) Misawa as the Ace, Kawada moving over and up to be the Native Rival, and Williams moving up into Top Gaijin level with Hansen... that was all booked pretty well. They stumbled in finding Hansen a suitable long term partner after Ted went down, but did find Doc a good fit as a partner after Gordy had the second OD and Bubba didn't last long. John