jdw

Nope. This would have happened if anyone said that Warrior-Rude at SummerSlam was a carry job. Kind of clear since I disagreed with Bix. Nope. He came back in to try to defend the carry job without watching it. Brain disagreed, at which point Jerry copped to not watching the match anytime recently, at which point two of us laughed. Then he took his ball and went home. I have. Did it get me to change my mind about the match. Not at all when I re-watched it a couple of months ago.

I thought the Slap was a far bigger deal than Jake talking about the slap post match. Someone smacking the shit out of Liz was a bigger deal than someone talking about doing it. Not dissimilar to the Wedding Crashing and The Bite: all three of the angles were hardcore and memorable (peaking with the second one), and they were supported by some good promos. Jake cut great promos. He almost always did. Anyway, on the original premise of the thread: Jake vs Macho was a main event feud. It main evented the non-Flair vs Hogan/Piper cards around the horn: WWF @ Minneapolis, MN - December 28, 1991 (9,000) Tito Santana pinned Skinner Ted Dibiase pinned Jim Brunzell (sub. for Kerry Von Erich) with a powerslam Davey Boy Smith defeated the Berzerker via disqualification after the Berzerker shoved the referee IRS pinned the Big Bossman with a small package and using the ropes for leverage Hulk Hogan defeated Ric Flair via count-out after attacking both Flair and Mr. Perfect on the floor Hercules pinned Greg Valentine after 15 minutes by using the tights for leverage WWF IC Champion Bret Hart defeated the Mountie via submission with the Sharpshooter after 10 minutes Roddy Piper & the Bushwhackers defeated the Genius & the Beverly Brothers when Piper pinned one of the Beverlys with a roll up WWF @ Richfield, OH - Coliseum - December 28, 1991 Chris Chavis defeated Kato Sgt. Slaughter defeated Col. Mustafa & Gen. Adnan in a handicap match The Undertaker defeated Jim Duggan WWF Tag Team Champion Road Warrior Animal pinned Typhoon Randy Savage defeated Jake Roberts via disqualification The Warlord pinned Chris Walker Virgil defeated Repo Man via disqualification The Nasty Boys defeated Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - December 29, 1991 (11,000) Televised on the MSG Network 12/31/91 - featured Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan on commentary; included an in-ring promo by Col. Mustafa & Gen. Adnan in which they insulted Sgt. Slaughter: Prime Time Wrestling - 2/3/92: Davey Boy Smith pinned the Berzerker with a small package at 5:05 Prime Time Wrestling - 2/3/92: Sgt. Slaughter defeated Gen. Adnan & Col. Mustafa in a handicap flag match at 3:27 by pinning Mustafa with a clothesline; after the bout, Slaughter led the crowd in saying the Pledge of Alliegence Prime Time Wrestling - 1/20/92: Hercules pinned Greg Valentine by lifting his shoulder out of a back suplex into a bridge at 7:44 Prime Time Wrestling - 1/27/92: The Nasty Boys defeated the Bushwhackers when Knobbs pinned Butch at around 9:45 with a clothesline; after the bout, the Nastys continued to assault their opponents until Sgt. Slaughter made the save Prime Time Wrestling - 1/27/92: Skinner pinned Jim Powers with the reverse DDT at 6:51 Prime Time Wrestling - 1/20/92: Chris Walker pinned the Brooklyn Brawler with a flying bodypress at 4:02 Virgil defeated Repo Man via disqualification at 9:35 when Repo began choking Virgil with his rope Prime Time Wrestling - 1/20/92: WWF IC Champion Bret Hart fought Ted Dibiase (w/ Sensational Sherri) to a 20-minute time-limit draw at 19:06 as Hart chased Sherri around ringside and into the ring; late in the bout, as Dibiase had Hart in the Million $ Dream, Sherri ran over and rang the time keeper's bell which resulted in the match pausing until referee Earl Hebner ordered the match to continue; after the bout, Dibiase attempted to attack Hart with the title belt but was clotheslined to the floor Hulk Hogan defeated Ric Flair (w/ Mr. Perfect) via count-out at 10:09 after ramming Flair's head into the ringpost on the floor; after the match, Flair jumped Hogan from behind but Hogan fought him off and sent him to the floor (Hulk Hogan: The Unreleased Archives) WWF @ Chicago, IL - Rosemont Horizon - December 29, 1991 Chris Walker defeated the Brooklyn Brawler The Warlord defeated Greg Valentine Sgt. Slaughter defeated Col. Mustafa & Gen. Adnan in a handicap match The Nasty Boys defeated the Bushwhackers WWF Tag Team Champion Road Warrior Animal defeated Earthquake Virgil defeated Repo Man Tito Santana defeated Ted Dibiase Hulk Hogan defeated Ric Flair WWF @ Auburn Hills, MI - Palace - December 29, 1991 (5,500) Chris Chavis defeated Kato The Beverly Brothers defeated Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty Kerry Von Erich defeated the Mountie Tito Santana defeated the Warlord The Big Bossman defeated IRS WWF Tag Team Champion Road Warrior Animal defeated Typhoon The Undertaker defeated Jim Duggan Randy Savage defeated Jake Roberts This was still the era of the WWF working split crews in the house shows, and they always had 3-4 main event programs. For example, Flair-Piper was a main event program at the time, since Hogan only worked weekend / a limited schedule. It's a bit like seeing Tito vs Macho / Tito & Bruno vs Savage & Adonis main event the 3/16/86, 5/19/86, 6/14/86 & 7/12/86 MSG cards.

Jake is the Don Muraco of the Expansion Era. Fun guy, excellent memorable angles, worked the mic strong, people thought he was better than he really was, an aura has built up around him, you can see flashes of "great" within matches but the whole is rarely better than the pieces. Macho vs Snake on SNME in 1986 was terrific. That's pretty much a match where it all came together for Snake. Except... Macho was the best worker in the WWF and was having the one year that could challenge Patera '80 for the title of Best Year By A WWF Heel In The 80s. Macho actually had a watchable match with Steele on SNME. John

Bix and I were talking about it. You chose to come back in with this: Brain chose to do what you refuse to do: rewatch the match and think about it. He indicated that it wasn't a carry job. You then copped to: Despite claiming 5 hours earlier that "it's still a massive, massive carry job". As a side note: the "If anyone else in the entire world wanted to argue the point, I'd have been happy to" claim isn't terribly supported by the fact that almost 16 hours passed between the time Brain posted his comment and I posted mine that you're crying about. You didn't talk about it after Brain's comment other than to throw your podcasters under the bus, which was a chickenshit thing to do. It's a 16 minute match, and a good one to boot. 16 hours since then, even with the time difference. So the "happy to argue about it with people other than jdw" is a big stretch. I'll avoid the L-word, but... um... yeah. Anyway... Kevin found your comment odd. I did too, pointed again back to my write up and indicated again that I'd be happy to rewatch it yet again. Then you started crying and took your ball. John

It was about this: And then later this: Angles rather than promos. John

So when people disagree with you on a carry job, rather than re-watching it and either (i) defending your original opinion, or (ii) agreeing with the other folks that they are right, you: That's... pretty inconsistent to what the thread was about. One of the points in my long walk through link above wasn't that "other people" were wrong. It was that *I* had been wrong, both when I watched it live back in the day, and then when I re-watched it a couple of years prior to the post walking through. I was also wrong in my expectations of what I'd be seeing. I wasn't looking to be revisionist: I was expecting to agree with my earlier feeling about the match, and how a large number of other folks felt about the match. It frankly would have been easier simply to write that it was a great match, point to some cool stuff in it, and just duck having been wrong for close to two decades on the match. I could have... But it would have been a cop out in looking at the match and thinking about it. John

Yeah... that is kind of how I felt at the end of it. Brain and I don't always (or often) get along, but at least he watched it. In turn, the last time I watched it, I tossed up 1700+ words on walking through it in detail. More than just walking through it, I also walked through my own mindset and prejudices coming into a re-watch match: I was expecting Rude going all Kawada-Albright in it with the greatest carry job in WWF history. It's actually what I wanted to see. And... it just wasn't there. I'd be happy to watch it yet again, and take my old walk through an expand it to 2500+ or 3000+. I'd be more than happy to find out on a rewatch that I was totally wrong, and that Rude carried the thing. But I'm really doubtful: if I didn't see it when actively looking for it and hating Warrior... it's going to be hard to find.

I don't think there is a Pat Patterson shoot. We (as in hardcore fans) tend to credit Pat for matches that are inexplicably good and/or involve wrestlers we don't like / don't think are good workers having performances / matches well above their talent levels. Whether Pat actually warrants that credit... who knows. There are just some WWF matches that end up feeling like "WWF Matches" rather than the two guys in there pulling it out of their asses on their own.

Kawada-Taue from 1990-92 wasn't a "main event" feud on it's own. If they were in tags that were in the main, it was more Jumbo-Misawa that were the main event anchors while Kawada and Taue were their respective back ups. There was only one title match involving Taue and Kawada on opposite sides, and it as well is (very) famous because of Jumbo and Misawa. It was pretty good. John

It also drew for total shit. I don't recall it being especially good, either. I think most of Jake's feuds in the WWF ended up being better on Superstars/Challenge than in the ring/PPV. Jake-Steamer was better as an angle than in the ring. Jack-Rude was a great angle and pretty so-so in the ring. John

I like Rock-Austin at both 15 and 17.

Corrected.

You're losing me. This in the first six minutes isn't Rick Rude Pacing: UW - Lariat UW - Press Slam to Floor UW - a little outside the ring action: apron smash, table smash, belt shot UW - vertical suplex on the floor UW - fist drop outside RR - great bump taking a toss over the top UW - slam on the floor UW - double axehandle off the top - NF RR - some nice Bret-style corner bumps selling the back UW - slam - NF UW - vertical suplex - NF UW - reverse atomic drop UW - buttbuster (for lack of a better word) Rude's control section after that was "three and a half minutes" in my write up. Then they did the double knock down transition and the ref bump for the Warrior House O' Fire comeback and the phantom pin, which ate up 3 minutes (1 minute of transition / Warrior Up and 2 minutes of Warrior kicking Rude's ass). There first 12:30 of the match isn't Rude Pacing. 8 minutes is Warrior kicking the fuck out of him, 3:30 were Rude working him over, and a minute were the transition around the double knock out / ref bump. There wasn't a lot of the perpetual motion chin locks in those first 12:30, certainly not relative to Warrior kicking the fuck out of Rude. From 12:30 to the finish aren't really Rude pacing either, or Rude spots. That powerbomby thing he did that nearly killed Warrior... I guess we can find him using it on some house show or other match before that, but I don't remember it and it got a "HOLY FUCK!" out of me when I watched it for the first time in more than a decade. Same thing with Warrior's Germanish Backdropish Suplex Thingy which was cool. The Piper thing is pure WWF rather than anything in the Rude playbook. Seriously... I looked for shit that I wanted to give Ric credit for. They don't at all work a Rick Rude Match. They don't work a Warrior Match. It's something else, which is why it's so fucking awesome. I'm willing to give Patterson credit for laying it out. But if that's the case, he carried *both* of them because neither of them were ever this good before.

I had it like this: Is there a longer version? I liked it, but I wasn't blown away by it and that's a pretty short write up for me (that's the whole thing). I seemed to have liked the 11/26/84 and 01/21/85 matches more. Been a long time: I watched all of those back in May-Jul 2008. Reading the various write up, it does look like I was hoping for a strong blow off for the feud, but neither the MSG lumberjack or this really hit the spot for me like the double MSG blowoff for Tito-Savage: the No DQ and then the Tag Cage Match.

Fuerza did more in his typical Octagon matches than Rude did in this. Warrior did more in this match than Octagon did in his typical Fuerza matches. I walked through the match in detail. If all that shit Warrior is doing is because of Rude calling it for him, that's a bit surprising because it's not like Rude called other guys to do that shit in matches before... or that Warrior was doing it in every match as well. I'm willing to credit Pat for laying it out, but Warrior still had to deliver. Seriously, Bix... I couldn't be more explicit in what my mindset going into that rewatch was: If Rude carried it like that, I would have written it up: it's exactly what I was looking for. And I HATE Warrior with a passion. Instead, I saw something quite different. :/ Since it's not a Ric Flair match, and I actually liked it the last time I watched it, I'd be happy to watch it again and write it up in even more detail. That stuff I listed at the beginning were just spots listed, and I didn't write them in detail. I'm not sure anyone wants to read something longer than I wrote. John

For fucks sakes. Fully Loaded 98 - Fresno, CA - Selland Arena - July 26, 1998 WWF IC Champion The Rock 1-1 Triple H in 2/3 match WWF World Champion Steve Austin & The Undertaker defeated WWF Tag Team Champions Kane & Mankind (w/ Paul Bearer) to win the titles Summer Slam 98 - New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 30, 1998 Triple H (w/ Chyna) defeated WWF IC Champion the Rock (w/ Mark Henry) in a ladder match to win the title WWF World Champion Steve Austin pinned the Undertaker So basically a shot at Austin, Taker, Mick and Kane. Weeeeeeeeeeeee~!

I'm guessing that Trip didn't analyze how badly his first title reign bombed, how the took the belt off him, and how he didn't start getting top level heat until the murderers row of Vince (with Steph angle), Mick and then Rock to put him over. My recollection as well is that Austin was dealing with injury issues at the time which was central to getting the belt off him at the time: he was having a tough time working a full schedule of matches. He only worked one match between Summer Slam (08/22/99) and coming back for the 10/11/99 Raw and 10/17/99 No Mercy. He was done before Survivor Series, where if he wasn't 100% healthy he would have won the title back since it ended up with Show. Instead, he was such a mess that he went out on the shelf and didn't come back until 2000's No Mercy. Trip got the belt because they needed to give Austin a rest. Couldn't quite go back to Rock since he was the whole first half of the year and they turned him face after Backlash (or kinda-sorta at Backlash and more clearly the next night). They thought Austin would be back, which was what they were trying to do at No Mercy and Survivors... but he was too much of a mess. Of course it's a nicer story for Trip to point out Austin was a dick that the reality that Trip was a throwaway temp champ who bombed to the point that even with Austin out, Vince panicked and took the belt off him. It wasn't until *after* the feud with Vince and hooking up with Steph (who we have to admit was an excellent heel early on in that role that the fans just HATED) that Trip got the belt back. Yep... Trip revisions... John

Since I mentioned it in there... yeah... Kawada- Gary was a terrific carry job. John

I hate the Warrior. I think Rude really grew as a worker over time. I really wanted to think Rude-Warrior was a total carry job. But on rewatch in 2007, it really isn't. Not really close to it. Rude is pretty choice in it. But Warrior brought far more stuff to the match than we recall, and it wasn't clubbering: Match #29 - 08/28/89 Ultimate Warrior vs Rick Rude (16:02) Before that I walked through the match in detail... and like I said, Warrior brought a shitload to the table in terms of spots and delivered on his own sell and the transitions. Again... I hate Warrior. I'd just as soon give Sid credit in a match, and I hate Sid too! This is less of a carry job than we thought back in the day, and instead is really a well laid out match where both hit their marks very well relative to their own talent levels.

The 02/15/87 Macho vs Steamer that people mentioned was fantastic, as is Mania when you watch them together. Tito vs Valentine feels more like a great "series" rather than any one great "match". I'm not sure if any one of them stands out, and instead they had one really good MSG match, and after the next you're thinking, "Damn... they had another really good match, and they worked it different". The flip side would be Macho-Tito. A number of good matches, but the No DQ felt like it stood out above the others as something terrific.

I think Jerome is probably right: Match of the Year 2009 The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels (WrestleMania XXV) 2010 The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels (WrestleMania XXVI) I'm guessing that was the end of That Era, which this is part of This Era. Of course Era's are short.

One kind of wishes that Lawler went to bat for Lance to prevent the huge paycut. "Look... Lance wouldn't have gotten that idea if I didn't want to go out on my own and planted it in his head. This is a thing between you and me, and Lance got dragged into it. Don't take it out on him." Or some such thing. John

1983 was kind of late in the game: last couple of years of the glory era. Was thinking more along the lines of if, when the split with Gulas happended, that Lawler stuck with Gulas for a good % of the promotion. Does Jarrett win? If he does, would he make peace with Lawler... or stick without whatever / whoever it was that let him beat Gulas+Lawler? Does Lawler keep Gulas winning, and over time look to do his own revolt? But most of all: with Lawler on the other side, does Jarrett have a shot? In other words, how much of the "Jarrett" case is really just Lawler? I kind of need more to understand Jarrett's own case before voting for him.