jdw

Every time that Flair thread pops up with a new message, I wonder if this is the one where he's dead. :/

Would any of us admit to agreeing with Russ.

More in the sense of that going through someone's head. I certainly wouldn't ask Ric it in that way. I'm guessing Austin has talked about going out and wrestling after Owen died. I haven't read his book, and haven't looked for what he's said about it. That would be a tough question to ask Austin, and you'd have to come around to it in a circular fashion: talking about Owen, then talking about the night, then talking about what everyone was feeling, then talking about whether there was any talk of stopping the show, then how hard it was for him, and then perhaps getting to an "on reflection / in the years since then, do you think about doing anything differently..." type of a question. Tough one to ask or get to the point of asking.

Which would be counter to any number of posts you've made over the years.

There is that.

Okay... that's a good point, and a pretty reasonable way to look at it. Hadn't thought of it that way, and yeah... "Went out and worked an hour" does take Ric's bullshit to another level where follow up wouldn't be out of line.

Don't give yourself credit there, Jerry. Daniel was there more than a decade before you were.

I think DDP enjoyed it. The "enjoy" was more aimed at a *viewer* who get's that the two are in their working together. With a lot of good wrestling, you get that they're doing cool stuff and it's meant to get a reaction. But there's a flow to it that holds together, and you can enjoy it. With other stuff, it's very clear that they're mentally counting along to the dance steps they've learned: 1-2-3, a 1-2-3, dip, spin, 1-2-3... etc. It's really hard to get into the work when the work is at that level. The most obvious is if you're watching some backyard wrestling shit. With DDP, the shit came across as laid out... which was also the rumor that was out there. It also felt like certain people had to slow down / dumb down their shit so DDP could keep up. That made it tougher to watch as well. I don't think DDP was a shitty worker. In fact, I like a decent amount of his stuff in WCW. He tried hard, and tried hard to get better. He worked at connecting with the fans, and learned what got reactions. It's just that... Large chunks of his work didn't have the flow of good dancing, and instead looked like someone really having to remember his steps, and dance at a pace to keep from getting lost. And that's not even a "slow methodical" thing, which I don't mind either. Sasaki felt like that to me.

JDW has told the story before that Dave once laughed at Terry, when he said that Masato Tanaka was just as good as the guys in All Japan. I'm glad I didn't have to point to that. John

I thought the balance of my post did a good enough job of making my point. The ending that you quoted was simply there to entertain anyone who read through all of it. Kind of like the center of a Tootsy Pop. But folks are welcome to go back and read the rest of the post that you ducked. My thought would be that if that thread from A1wrestling.com were available, and we could link to it, no one reading it today would think that I dug a hole for myself at any point in the thread. What they would think is that you were wrong in it, time and again. I was hardly the only one in the thread pointing out that you were being loopy. As far as my silly examples in it, my primary one was that Sano was like a wandering martial arts master going from town to town to perfect his skills and craft. That the wandering actually made his career interesting on a level unlike most wrestlers. That had he stayed in New Japan to feud with Liger for the next half decade or more, he would have had a far less interesting career. I thought it was an apt analogy at the time. Still do, and suspect that if people read it now they would agree. Also suspect that if Will ever does a Sano set, the silly "wandering master" analogy will come across even stronger. As far as winning their rivalry, rather than their short 1989-90 feud which isn't what we were talking about back then: http://www.cagematch.net/?id=91&nr=203...llation=Singles Sano vs Liger = 3-1-1 With Liger happy to put him over in the last match at the time were were talking. The questions you asked: I answered. I answered. Both of those things were well known at the time. More than just by WON readers - my Japanese co-workers who were puroresu fans knew them as well. That's good, Daniel. It's also Puerto Rico. Of course I would tell him he wasn't Baba. There are no ghosts, so it would just be someone working a sock puppet angle talking out of his ass. John

That's one way. But Savage and Steamer were the same size, and Steamer would control Savage in some of their matches. That is one of the points. Another is to fill space.

The WWF in the 80s did as well. We didn't coin the phrase "Heel In Peril" for no reason. We didn't even coin it for Backlund, thought Bob controlled loads of time in his matches and it wasn't "shine". Just on standard everyday matches:

That.

I was trying to recall the times I've seen him live, and he leaves such a memory with me that I had to go look them up. 03/27/95 Masahiro Chono over Kensuke Sasaki (21:33) This one comes back to me. This was one of those matches that "in the building" and "in the right mood" is the type that comes off as being perfectly decent. Main event of a card that had only one quality match (Pegasus & Otani vs BT & Kanemoto) and one other good performance (Nagata carrying Nakanishi). They were going main event length rather than working 12-15 minutes, so they killed time working holds and what not. None of it had a lot to do with the finish, but they're New Japan guys so they've had the basics of Strong Style drilled into their head. Solid, slow build, professional match. Of course I'd rather have Hash in there, but this one looked "bad on paper" and turned out to be pretty watchable. Probably wouldn't come off well on TV. 08/02/96 G1: Kensuke Sasaki over Hiroyoshi Tenzan (15:03) Same night as these: Chono vs Kojima Yamazaki vs Mutoh Choshu vs Hashimoto Choshu vs Hashimoto is one of my favorite, most memorable live matches every. In turn, I really enjoyed Yamazaki-Mutoh live as well. Chono-Kojima was fun as well. I see Dave gave Sasaki-Tenzan ***1/2, but it's the one that's most forgetable. 08/03/96 G1: Kensuke Sasaki over Junji Hirata (5:08) Kensuke maimed Hirata in this, sending him onto the DL. Whatever they had planned couldn't come off. Same night as: Mutoh vs Kojima Choshu vs Tenzan Koshinaka vs Yamazaki I'm forgetting Mutoh-Kokima. The Choshu match was disappointing as Riki didn't seem up to do much, and pretty much topped Tenzan. Kosh-Yamazaki was a load of fun, and a surprisingly effective main event. Sasaki had the next night off, with us getting: Yamazaki vs Kojima Hashimoto vs Tenzan Koshinaka vs Chono Choshu would have faced Hirata here. Anyway, the main was very solid. Hash-Tenzan was terrific for what it was (Hash working the injury). Drawing a blank on the Yamazaki-Kojima. But overall, two more entertaining matches. 08/05/96 G1: Riki Choshu over Kensuke Sasaki (15:13) Other G1 matches that night: Chono vs Yamazaki Mutoh vs Koshinaka Liked the main event a good deal, but I'm biased: I was really digging Kosh working three straight main events against tricky opponents and getting the crowd into all of them. Chono-Yamazaki was well below the Mutoh-Yamazaki and Kosh-Yamazaki matches. Choshu-Sasaki? It was disappointing, and never really hit the teacher-student tension/dynamic that one would have hoped for. 08/06/96 G1: Kensuke Sasaki over Shinya Hashimoto (9:13) Other G1 matches: Koshinaka vs Kojima Chono vs Mutoh Choshu vs Chono (Final) Kosh-Kojima was fun. Chono-Mutoh was solid, and they filled a lot of time with it. I've always been glad to have seen one of their matches where they were working together well. Not their best, but very solid. Choshu-Chono was a pretty flat final. Sasaki-Hash? Really rough after Hash's terrific performances with Choshu and Tenzan. And that's pretty typical of what I felt about Sasaki in the 90s. There were a lot of other guys in New Japan putting on matches that were entertaining or solid or fun or great. With Sasaki, you might get one of those out of five, and usually in the Solid range. He strikes me as the New Japan equiv of DDP. He gets pushed because of his connections. You tend to see the effort in him work, not in the sense of "working hard" but in the sense of: "Here's is where I do A... and then I do B next... and wait a minute... C... C... what was C... right, that was C..." DDP worked hard, but there was a strong sense of rudimentary work and thought process in it, rather than anything that felt like it was flowing. You could see DDP working, rather than just enjoy it. Sasaki was like that. Without the charisma, which of course DDP really worked far too hard at in the ring. Sasaki did last forever, while his peers dropped dead, or broke down, or just faded away. By default he got to be at a certain level among them. Hard to say I hate him. Largely bored by him in the 90s, and kind of got nervous when ever you could see some of the pushes coming along.

And just to be clear, I don't expect Austin to have corrected Flair. Who knows if Austin knows the facts on it, and it really isn't any skin off his back if Flair is lying. If Flair were on a Meltzer show, I would expect Dave to try to gently reel Ric in.

Interviewer? Beyond pro wrestling interviews? Happens all the time. Less often for the type that Austin was doing which is conversational shooting the shit. But interviews in general? Here are two that stick in my mind because of the author/film maker: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cenk-uygur-dest...r-dinesh-dsouza http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heathe...sh-d-souza-over Podcasts are a slightly different beast, and I certainly don't listen to enough to give a fully qualified answer. But even in limited listening to Simmons, I've heard him correct people. Not to the degree that, say, we do here. But if someone is wrong on something pretty obvious (say Tom Brady claiming the Colts and Peyton Manning ended the Pats undefeated season in the Super Bowl a few years back), Simmons would gently reel him in.

07/30/79 in MSG was quite good. I never thought the cage match was worthy of the praise. The Philly matches are extremely tough to get through.

I've never watched the full version. The JIP version... not really something at the level that makes the cut. Perhaps Ditch or I could have pushed for "use the finish / end" as something worthy, but I don't think we thought of it at the time. The match itself might not even be supplemental worthy, and the end part really makes more sense in the 1993 set than on the supplemental. Hard call. It's not massively critical in the big picture other than a cool footnote. Only mentioned it here because the Break Up question game up, and it's bearing on 06/09/95 isn't terribly significant.

Different carriers have different groupings. It's possible that New York has stuck to an old grouping, while out here we've gotten reorganized.

I'd add that my creative context creation at the end of it wasn't even my best line of the post.

Misawa was pushed above Kawada because he was banging Mrs. Baba. Their falling out was because Mrs. Baba took Johnny Ace as her new lover.

Which match was that? 04/21/93 Taue & Fuchi & Ogawa vs Kawada & Kobashi & Kikuchi. Aired 05/09/93 in JIP form. Full version is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EiixzcHsQw Gotta watch is eyes and expression closely in the post match as he's quick with it and doesn't make a production number over it. Taue is does try to get across in the post match their coming partnership, and is less subtle.

On the bigger theme of the post in the thread since that last time I posted (page 1), I'd go back to what I said: Get one of the Yearbooks. There's Japanese stuff mixed in with US stuff. There's "good stuff" from Japan, some "set up stuff" from Japan, and the Big/Great Matches from that year that we'd suggest if it was a straight Best Of. There's heavies, and juniors. There are different promotions, and different styles. There are even women. 1993 is pretty accessible. There's cool US stuff right off the bat. There's some Japanese guys out of the box that you might recognize: Muta and Liger. You get the Steiners against Hawk and another Japanese guy. Maybe the first All Japan match doesn't float your boat, but the second one in the context of US tag matches on the disk right around it... yeah... it's pretty fun, and is a good intro to some guys you'll see a lot of if you watch Japanese wrestling, especially Kobashi. Gordy & Williams show up for the third All Japan match. The women show up, with an ass kicked (Aja) and two workrate women (Toyota and Yamada), with all kinds of stiffness. You can pace yourself, but the set does that because there's so much US stuff in there, along with some of that stuff from Mexico. And like I said: there's a helpful post on *every* match and promo and angle on the disk over in the Yearbook section. If you get through the first 10 discs of that, which are again loads of US stuff as well, you're going to find one of the following: * you don't care for any of the Japanese stuff Which is fine. That happens. * you only like certain stuff You like the juniors. Or you like the women, because it's so different from any women you've seen. Or you like All Japan. Or you like it when there's a gaijin in the match. Or you like FMW. Or... That's good. Whatever you like, they're a lot more of it. You like the juniors? There is a metric ton of it. Like All Japan. Loads of it. Hate all Japan? You've learned what to avoid. * you like a lot of stuff and find it not to hard to watch Then you can go to town on it. You have 20 more discs just in the set. There's loads more on Youtube, or in the other sets, or where ever. But the easiest suggestion would be to try one of those. It gives about as balanced of an intro as you'll find, along with what was going on in the US.

Setting aside the mythical out of the ring stuff that the fans may or may not have known about (which is silly to me anyway), and the stuff dating back to their high school days when Misawa was on top and Kawada bottomed, and their entire pro careers up through the point their partnership ended where Misawa topped and Kawada bottomed... Misawa was the top dog. Kawada was the #2 native and wanted to beat him. He was 0-for-Life, which at that point was almost a 13 year career. Think of someone jobbing to me for 13 years on message boards. There'd be a little bit of animosity. Baba: "Jumbo isn't coming back. I want to you team with Taue." I mean... there wasn't a break up. Kawada had tears in his eyes at the end of his final time in the ring with members of that group. This ain't now Choshu turning on Fujinami. So for enjoyment of the storyline after April 1994, it really isn't critical. They were partners. The big tubby dude on the other side lost his partner. The Boss told Kawada to go partner with the big tubby guy opposite Misawa and his old partners. No of course that's a big more important with respect to the Kawada-Taue dynamic, but that's a different "why". For enjoying the 06/09/95 match? The second wouldn't at all. Knowledge that Misawa and Kawada use to be partners helps, but why they "broke up" isn't terribly important to understanding the match. They had been opposite of each other for a year, and Baba telling Kawada to pair with Taue wasn't terribly important anymore. That Kawada and Taue paired up, and buried the old rivalry is of... pretty limited importance to understanding the match. It doesn't play into it: that the two team together well after a year isn't terribly relevant. Kawada being 0-for-Life against Misawa? Kind of important. Hard luck? It's not hard luck when the other guy beats you like a drum for 13 straight years. Not going to say that no one has used the phrase "hard luck" in connection with Kawada before, but really the focus on that specific match has tended to be far more about Kawada being 0-for-Life going into this rather than any bad breaks of luck he's had over the years. Totally agree. Kawada hasn't lost for 13 years to Misawa. Misawa didn't have an eye damage in the Carny when Kawada kicked him and thrashed his orbital bones, which Taue and Kawada hadn't been trying to target since. Misawa had lost to lots of Japanese wrestlers since Jumbo went out back in late 1992, rather than being undefeated against his age group peers in the company. Misawa wasn't the Triple Crown champ and the clear Ace of the company, holding a spot that Kawada and Taue would like to have. Kobashi had singles wins over Kawada and Taue all the way back to his rookie year in 1988... That's creating context. I mean... it's all utter bullshit that's 180 degrees opposite from reality, but it's creating context for it. Now it's entirely possible that if Kawada & Taue won, they got to have 30 days with Misawa's wife... and that because I don't speak Japanese, I didn't catch that part. Or that Dave didn't have it in the WON. Or that the reporter who use to fax Dave and I results and storyline stuff like that failed to mention it. It's possible, and maybe that's what the Triple Crown match between Misawa and Kawada the following series was really all about: Misawa trying to win his beloved back, and Kawada not really giving a shit about the belts but wanting another 30 days with Mrs. Misawa. Creating context... yeah... this is fun. Kind of like Gary Albright vs Kawada years ago...