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The WWWF/WWF was strange in those regards. They were perfectly fine having a face kick the shit out of a heel, especially in the equiv of a blow off. In turn, it was still around in the late 80s. I wrote a fair amount about Heel In Peril in the WWF Thread years ago. It was annoying to watch Arn & Tully HIP so much after seeing them do a good job in JCP when working on top in FIP situations. John

Which you took to mean that all selling is bitching. Which I pointed out was being silly. You got to the point where your responses were at this level: 1. Yesterday is a song. 2. Satisfaction is a song. 3. Therefore, Satisfaction and Yesterday are Beatles songs. :/

I'd go even further: he use to side with the Hardcore Fan viewpoint, and has since the early 00s been more Wrestler/Office viewpoint. That's more of the Beltway (or as Digby coined it last decade, The Village) type. John

It always felt in the 80s and 90s (and even to points in the last decade) that he was getting a lot of info from people in the office, such as Zane (in both the WWF and then in WCW), Ross, Cornette, Heyman, etc. I can't recall if it was very clear on his relationship with JJ... there's one comment that sticks in my head after all these years, but it may something passed on by someone else in the office. I always think that people have underestimated the breadth of people Dave has talked to over the decade, be it short term contacts/sources or long term ones. "Hey... I've got a new best friend." "Who?" "Vince." "You're shitting me." "No... really. Just spent a long time on the phone with him. [Then proceeds to go into everything that would be in the coming WON from the call and more]" Not saying Vince was a regular source. But when Vince calls you to spill his guts / spin a story, guys further down the food chain have been doing it for years. There has been a changing of the guard over the past 5+ years in the company, and a lot of the old guard has moved out or on. But there always have been people in the offices that want to talk.

Pages 20-24.

I don't know why I just pushed off going to lunch for an hour to sift through the wreckage of 26 pages of this thread... But I did pull out of my funk when coming across the Five Shits Of Doom riff. John

Looks like Grantland got a redesign.

The Superstars on the Superstation match? I always thought that was the one most commonly praised since it was the one most widely available back in the old days. The 1985 Studio Match was liked, but there was so much studio TV that it got lost in it. The Starcade match got saddle with the general bad vibe of Garvin being champ. I don't even remember people talk about the title change for ages. Superstars on the Superstation and Super Towns on the Superstation were sort of the pre-Clash equiv of SNME, with the 1987 one being a major disappointment after how cool the 1986 one was. John

"Do be careful! Don't lose any of that stuff. That's concentrated evil." Just can't resist the Time Bandits spot. Actually, it's been a cool thread. John

The Spectrum match, which went 4 minutes longer, is on DM. Don't see the MSG match. It was Vince & Gorilla on the MSG show, Dick Graham & Gorilla on the Philly show. John

I liked Harley's piledriver in the match. It's not quite my favorite type of his: I like when puts the opponent in the driver spot, then takes a look down his body towards the mat as if he's making a "sight line" to where he's going to drop the guys head. This one... he fell back on his ass. Bob has some great ones. He also has some horrendously awful ones where his legs go in strange directions, or where the opponent's head is way too low and not properly protected. But it's one of the loveable things about the Bob Driver: being a trainwreck only makes it more of a hoot. John

The "41M Passionate and Casual fan households" remains a hoot. "So Vince... you've got 41M Passionate & Casual fan households, yet you can only get 4M people to tune into Raw and less than 200K to buy an average PPV? What's up with that? Or are your numbers just full of shit?" John

Again, I don't think he did either: Harley hit a headbutt drop, a swank kneelift to the skull and another, more theatrical headbutt drop before trying for the second pile driver. That one didn't get hit: Harley wanted to get back body dropped. John

The Backlund 1-count thing was a classic meme, to the point that Meltzer once wrote that Bob never took a 2-count. I found it so funny when watching Bob take two counts that I came up with my counter meme: "... for a two count (!)" And variations of it. He'd have some 1-counts. He'd have some 2-counts. He'd have some pretty terrific 2-counts. I kind of like with Bob that you never know what you're going to get in a kick out, and when he goes deep on one, it's pretty cool. Lots of other folks roll out the 2.5 and 2.9's early and often, and the kick out is kind of meaningless until the finish comes.

I love Harley's piledriver here. It's the second pile driver (after a few things by Harley between) that Bob backbody drops in a pure *Harley* spot: he has faces do that to him all the time when going to the pile driver well a second time. It was an awesome Bob Driver, though he sold after it. They actually go back really nicely here, both selling damage, both getting stuff in, the juice and payback juice which is when Bob really starts to go to town. I don't really think Bob shrugged off the pile driver. John

It looks like I didn't completely hate this, just really hard the first third: http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10329#10329 I like all the Muraco matches with the exception of the 1983 blow off in MSG... but that's something we've always disagreed on. John

One day you will see the light. I like Lawler, though am hardly as ga-ga over him as others. I like Race. And I always enjoy seeing how people work/fill 60 minutes, much more than most. This wasn't that great. John

Yep. I'm sure that Dave could get some stuff from talking to WWE folks there. In turn, I suspect Wade could have banged the phones to talk to his WWE sources. If I were Dave living in the Bay, would I go? Sure... if nothing was going on with the family that would be impacted. Easy trip, easy to get in that day, and if you wanted to fly out that night it would have been easy enough to do. If I were Wade in the Twin Cities? No way in hell would I fly out to Vegas in January on a week's notice. Booking a flight and a hotel to stay would suck. It's about a 3-3:30 non-stop, you're trying to do that both ways, and I don't think there's a non-stop red eye out of Vegas to Minny. So you're fucked into staying overnight in the middle of CES... flying into Vegas in the middle of CES... non-stops a week out are probably in the $800 range each way... That's pretty fucked up for something you can just put your son to bed and fire up the laptop to watch the stream. I can't knock Wade for not going. It's pretty useless from that part of the country, and given the event itself. John

Hmm... looks like the Bob vs Khan from Philly didn't make the cut. That doesn't bode well for it. On the other hand, the Bob vs Jess from Philly doesn't appear to be on, and I liked that more than their MSG that was 7:30 shorter (one of those things that supports Shoe's longer = better point). So... still hold out hope that Bob-Khan in Philly doesn't suck as much as the MSG match. John

I didn't see that as a clash of the titans. Patera was the more pushed guy, and here is Bob working another Bob vs Big Guy match. It's kind of broken down into (i) Hogan gambits that Bob has the answer two, (ii) Bob in control, (iii) Bob In Peril with Hogan working the arm (and doing surprisingly good work with it), (iv) Bob In Peril in the Bearhug, and (v) work to the finish. I thought the highlight was Bob kicking out of the vert suplex, laying in way deep for an excellent near fall. Hogan's two Bob In Peril section where longer than Bob's control of Hogan. Really good match, both looked good, really loved Hogan's work of the arm at a level that no one probably expected when first watching the match. I don't see what's wrong with struggling when someone is putting a hold on you. That's the thing with Bob: he wants you to work when he has a hold on you, and he's going to work when you have one on him. If you lay around too long, he's going to force the action, even if the result is being taken down into the hold after a "I'm Almost Out!" moment. It's not good. The MSG match is mediocre, and disappointing. Khan can be hit and miss, but I had some hope that this would be watchable. They do have a rematch in Philly that I have laying around but have never gotten around to watching. About 3:30 to 4:00 longer. Sometimes the Philly matches are better (Bob vs Sarge), some times worse (Bob vs Pat), and sometimes different (Bob vs Jesse). The Bob vs Jesse is actually interesting because it's longer, and Jesse is forced to work a bit more. Not great~! but certainly interesting and watchable for being something more than the MSG match. Good stuff. Bob's in peril in so many of his matches, and has such a regular bag of tricks to use, that ages ago we coined the term Bob In Peril. He gets in trouble, and he tries to work his way out of it. That's old school wrestling rather than just taking a beat down and then pulling a comeback out of the air (say Dusty style, or in the WWF it being Pedro style). One of Bob's gimmicks in the ring was that if you put him in a hold, he'd have ways to try to get out. Billy Robinson was similar, to the point you'd love to see someone put him in a hold and it was time for the Billymatic where he's pull something out of his ear to make the opponent end up holding nothing or being countered. Fun old school stuff. That's kind of why I'd often riff on Mid Atlantic Hold Work, where how you would get out of a hold was to get to a base and throw the opponent into the ropes... or back him into the ropes. Not terribly technical stuff.

Bob is more than willing to sell and be controlled. It's kind of funny to watch him force Muraco to work in controlling him. I'm sure that's going to get the old, "How do we know Bob was forcing Muraco to work?!?!" spot... except now everyone has watched a ton of Muraco laying around doing dick against opponent after opponent after opponent, and that his matches with Bob was pretty much exceptions to the Muraco Rule. Anyway, in their 1981 MSG Death Match, Don controls a good chunk of the early match, both with the old beat down and then working holds. Bob sells his ass off for Don before getting his payback control section. In their "hour" draw in Philly that same year, the match broke down: Six Minutes: Stalling & Feeling Out Four Minutes: Muraco works the Head Seven Minutes: Backlund works the Arm Nine Minutes: Muraco works the Stomach Seven Minutes: Bob works the Head Ten Minutes: Don works the Leg Six Minutes: Bob works the Leg Five Minutes: Don works Neck One Minutes: Work to the Finish Bob let Don control just as much of the match as he did, as they worked to fill the time. Taking 1980, he let Patera control him in both of the existing MSG matches, and sold his ass off for Ken. He sold for Hogan in the 30 minute match in Philly. He sells a good deal for Khan to close the year, and the match is quite bad when Khan is on top. The Slaughter match in MSG has a long Backlund control section that drags, but Slaughter needs to eat some of the blame there because it's really more Mid Atlantic in how the control is worked that we typically see from Bob. The Larry match that I've seen from Philly... the big thing I recall is Larry stalling his ass off, and I tend to hate that when he's not in there with Bruno. Bob-Harley is really just how the two chose to work. Matches hit people different ways. Some people think the Harley-Lawler draw is a classic match. I thought too much of it was overly repetitive and dragged. In turn, I've grown to enjoy some of Bob's goofy shit. John

Doubt they think it matters. They've covered wrestling for years when a massive amount of it was given away for free rather than being charged for: 4M people watch Raw 150K buy a typical PPV The ratio won't be quite as extreme with the Network, but it will still be more people watching for free than paying for it. Dave and Wade think they're in the "news" business rather than the "review" business. As long as there's new to cover, they think they have a niche. Whether they're right or wrong? Scherer has worked for his own site for years, and does enough business that I believe MKJ works for it as well rather than having a fulltime job. If there's room for Dave, Wade, Bryan and Scherer... we're quite a ways away from all of them falling off. John

I don't think Bix or Chris went either, but I think they were able to cover it. Since it was streamed and what not, it's not like one needed to be there to cover it. Modern world and what not. That's setting side the quality of his coverage, which is a different thing. But honestly, what added benefit was there to fly out from the event to be there in person? John

Oh for sure. Though I don't think the ref shoved him down. John

For it to really appeal strongly to me, I tend to agree that they needed Harley taking it to Bob with a run of busting his shit out. I would have liked to see their match in a non-WWF territory to see if we got that. My only point in the review was that despite that lack of appeal specifically to me, it was a pretty effective match. In a 35 minute match, they lost the crowd for a very short period. In turn, they kept drawing the crowd back in and popping them. Then there was that 14 minute stretch to the finish after Harley backdropped out of the headlock section, and that's a pretty rare length of time in a WWF Backlund match... and it did have the crowd rocking by the end. I wouldn't say it's a flawed masterpiece, but instead probably a "flawed good" or "flawed really good" match. There's a lot of good stuff in it, and the crowd was into most of it, especially the home stretch. Agree on all of that. I have it as a "good match", which is the equiv of ***. I'd recommend it for the reason I think I hit in the original walk through: I'd definately recommend it. It's historic and is loaded good stuff. It has great heat early, down the long stretch and in the highspot sequences throughout. While the two don't hit it off well on the mat or working the holds, that just isn't Race's strong point. Race's strength is in "spots" (and not just "moves), and the two work spots together very well and pretty much state of the art for the setting. Which I think is pretty fair. It's not the 7/78 Inoki vs Backlund, or even the 5/80 Bob-Patera, or a lot of other Bob matches I like more. Certainly not the 6/78 Harley-Jumbo, or even some of those Harley-Baba matches that are surprisingly really fun. But it's worth watching, and there's a load of really good stuff in it. John