Victator

I love the WWF and the NWA. I probably love the NWA more since I remember it more vividly. But its cool how there were so many distinct wrestling companies around back then.

Look at Teddy as a referee. I could see him being pals with Norman.

I loved Sarge vs Warrior at the 91 Rumble. Slaughter really put in a great performance pinballing for Warrior. I think Warrior was very good as well. All of his stuff looked good. The weird thing with Warrior is the better he got as a worker the more charisma he lost. In 88 he had this incredible manic wild animal energy. That he lost as time went on.

Watching the first episodes of NWA on TBS with Ross, Crockett and Tony Schiavonie and Tony is getting ran over. He hardly talks at all. To the point Crockett has to invite him to talk. Tony and JR become a pretty good team by the middle of 88.

The first Triple Threat with Ki/Lynn and Styles had a terrible finish. Somebody did a a dive on to a guy who was pinning someone and the ref kept counting instead of it breaking the count.

He was really good after Fall Brawl 97 when he walked out because of what happened to Flair. Tony has a baseball blog. He rarely mentions pro wrestling. Once he called it an experiment and another time he talked about how WCW dying was a blessing in disguise because he had wanted to quit for years. One other one mentioned how calling Baseball aided him in calling wrestling matches.

On one TBS show from 88 Jim Cornette goes on this tirade about Bobby Fulton. He finishes with hoping Bobby Fulton's mother died. Tony responds with a shocked "For goodness sakes Jim." Which I thought sold it better than him getting overly indignant. I hated Ross working with heel announcers. He rides them so much you start feeling bad for the heels.

I'm a big fan of Tony. When he cared I think he was one of the best. I preferred his low key delivery over the more bombastic nature of Jim Ross. I think his style made it easier to sit thru boring or outright bad matches. He was not good with Heenan but Heenan was pretty bad by 95. I thought him and Dusty were a great team. Dusty had such enthusiasm that it was contagious.

Nexus had little potential because none of those guys were ready. They got as far as they could with their current skill/charisma/promo level.

Barry said Baba loved him and he could work in AJPW whenever he pleased. In 97 he asked Vince if him and Bradshaw could do the RWTL and Vince said "If Baba books you I'll kiss your ass." Barry did not say how Vince reacted when they got booked. They really did not do anything with him til the middle of 91. Even the feud with Doom was a last minute thing to cover for Flair being the Black Scorpion. I think Barry should of been the Black Scorpion in the end.

That is the first genuinely witty thing he has said.

With Austin they had him working against heels a lot prior to his big turn. He had TV matches with Vader and Mankind and a mini feud with the British Bulldog. The odd thing was Bulldog was the kinda face in the feud. Heel vs Heel is the rarest treat in any type of serialized fiction. For some reason its more rare than a good guy vs good guy fight.

I love his work. He's a square peg in the round hole that is King's Road style, and that makes me love him more. His run as GHC champ may be my favorite title run from my favorite puro company. Sniveling heel with zero offense that keeps pulling out wins was really compelling, and at the time it was actually really over (he managed to get inside cradles and small packages over as finishers to the crowd). It would be like if WWE gave Stevie Richards a run with the title at some point. I like how he looks like a tinier, sleazier version of Misawa. I watched a match with him and Shiga vs Sabu/RVD and enjoyed it a lot. Its a really fun sprint. Ogawa did not dom much but I usually enjoy his stuff. I saw a little of his GHC reign and enjoyed it for the reasons you gave.

Have you seen his match with Pre Vader Leon White? It was pretty kickass. the only AWA Leon White match that I nominated during the Vader project a few years back.

That Taker angle was awful. Later they had HHH pay these guys to impersonate cops and handcuff Undertaker so HHH could beat him up. Why wasn't HHH arrested? They have already introduced the concept of the law into their universe so you can't ignore it. WWE always portrays law enforcement as being either corrupt or incompetent.

What is the general opinion on Yoshinari Ogawa as a work guy?

The Sting/Lex/Barry vs Flair/Arn/Tully six man from the first NWA Main Event needs to be on the list.

It's up (and reviewed) at my blog, too. Very fun competitive squash. Whats the address, or is it Segunda Caida?

At the time Lashley was ECW champ it was equal to the other titles. Hell during Show's reign it was above the World belt.

Yeah Horner was on a higher tier. Slightly above Scott Casey and worked competitive bouts at MSG. Barry had an even better squash with Terry Daniels around that time. Its up on my blog with a bunch of other Barry matches.