Dylan Waco

This isn't quite the same but there are indie territories near where Exposer lives and I was born who run weekly/bi-weekly (depending on the season), without a real loop, but part of a loose federation with another promoter who promotes out in the country (or on off dates in Chattanooga proper) using the same talent. The main hub is a building owned by a promoter, with another that the promoter has free reign in out in the country. The shows generally do well enough to sustain themselves. But it's an explicitly regional arrangement, with no tv (that is a goal to be fair), let alone national tv. Which means there is no pressure to expand, let alone "go national."

This will seem weird, and I will address it more later when I'm at home, but WWE was actually MORE enjoyable to me on a week-to-week basis before Mark Henry's "Hall of Pain" run made me care enough again to be perpetually disappointed

I don't think you realize how much those type of "Net" reviewers were influenced by Meltzer.

PR will be the smallest remaining set. I'd like to get to 75 personally, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. We make these decisions as a group, but I am fairly confident we can do a 100 for Portland. In terms of other sets besides what was mentioned "Other Territories" is still looming and there is an outside shot of a Canada specific set Person1 * Was there a Ted DiBiase of this set? (Someone who did a lot of high-quality work but also had a ton of matches where they phoned it in?) On the set I don't think so, but I'm not sure I agree with this characterization of Dibiase. * Do we have to re-evaluate Greg Gagne’s reputation as a poor wrestler? Basically agree with Will here, though I probably like him a bit more as a singles guy than Will does. * Was DeBeers better than his matches on this set would have you believe (i.e. competent, could be carried, occasionally good) or worse? I can't think of any examples on the set where DeBeers was carried. I think he's awesome. He probably two of the three matches I most regret leaving off the set, though I really don't regret it that much and they wouldn't have done well. He was the best squash wrestler in the promotion. In Portland we will see some great Big Ed, though even there some of his best stuff was before 1980. * Now that you’ve seen Brody sell like a champ for Blackwell, can the healing begin and the Brody hate stop? No. I don't think Brody was particularly good in those matches. He's got at least one performance in PR that is better. Person2 * Heel in peril sections: was this something distinctly AWA and why did it originate? Did it affect the viewing of the podcast members one way or another? HIP I thought was exaggerated on the set because you never had anything like the WWF did where you had heel teams getting there comebacks so late in a match that it made it look like babyfaces were surviving a curfew. There were definitely HIP type matches here, but I think they were more subdued. I also think they benefited some from the double heat sections that were staples of the AWA, so the HIP stuff isn't what I think of when I think of AWA tag quirks. No clue why it came about * How losing the boards changed the voting results for this set, not so much in terms of the amount of ballots but if we're seeing less "hive mind" voting? I think we kind of touched on this on the podcast in a roundabout way. I think we might have gotten as many as ten more ballots if the board hadn't crashed and almost for sure would have gotten around five more. I don't know that I would use the term "hive mind," but I do think it is common for people to reevuluate things in response to criticisms people make among other things. I don't think that was really changed at all. I do think the general lack of consensus for this set was pretty obvious and I do think that might have been exacerbated by the board being down, but that's just guessing and I don't think it effected the top portion of the ballot much at all. In the end there were only two matches that really had shots at number one * Rose, Somers & Sherri: just how awesome this trio was, how they came to be put together, where they rank all-time among heel tag teams, whether or not they could have made any halfway decent blowjob tag into superstars during their run together. Can we get a Doug Somers set from Will?? Tons to answer here, but I think they are one of the best units ever and the greatest short lived tag team ever. * Is Verne Gagne a shithead? He's a wrestling promoter. They are synonyms

Another crazy result I just noticed - someone had Adonis v. Hogan as their number ten

I had Martel v. Rheingans 19 myself. I know I saw the ballot that had it at 11 but I can't remember who it was. Maybe Clayton Jones?

Also the Wahoo v. Manny strap match had slightly less consensus then Rheingans v. Martel and finished 80.

To me the most shocking result was how close the race for one was. Based on released ballots and chatter I figured Bock v. Hennig would win running away. It wasn't terribly close, in the sense that it would have taken one pretty big outlier ballot to shift things in favor of the 8/30/86 tag (my number one match), or a couple of ballots with the tag on top and Bock v. Hennig out of the top twenty (more likely, though probably not super likely). On the other hand it is possible that had the board not gone down and another five to ten ballots been submitted (which is what I think would have happened) that you could have seen 1 and 2 flip flop. I wouldn't say it is likely that would have happened, but it's not out of the realm and that shocks me based on the public statements and ballots that were released. The 8/30 tag match actually having the lowest standard deviation was a surprise too (though the difference there was marginal to be fair). The other big stat that really jumps out at me which we touched on some in conversation, but I can't remember how much made air is the massive drop after the top four. After the top four matches, no match averaged a top twenty placement and only the top two averaged top ten placements. The top two were also the only matches on the entire set that didn't have a single vote below the half way mark for the set. Expanding a bit farther only the top nine averaged top thirty placements. I'm not sure offhand how those numbers compare to other sets and I'll check Chris' stats later, but going through the results those things really stood out to me

Great match. That whole show had a tremendous atmosphere. We talk about it on the show, but the introductions alone for that were incredible

What was your number one Kevin?

Results are here: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...80s_awa_results Minor note. Chris got one more vote after we recorded so the top twenty was mildly altered (no changes in the top ten, though it came VERY close in one place and the gap between one and two got smaller).

Khawk I've said it before, but owe the entire set to you. Thanks for all the help with the process, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you felt was too high, too low or just right on the final list

You didn't like Wahoo v. Bock? The number one pick shouldn't have surprised anyone who had followed the publicly posted ballots and discussion. If anything the biggest shock of the results to me was that it was as close as it was and that the number two match (which was my number one) actually had the lowest standard deviation.

To be honest there was very little about the top twenty five that I found disappointing. Obviously there was one match that I think got tanked (Martel v. Rheingans), but as with the other majorly polarizing match of that ilk (Wahoo v. Manny Strap) it floated almost exactly to the middle and I expected that. There were a few matches I thought should have been rated higher (Battle At The Bay Six-Man probably being the biggest one for me), but on first review of results there was nothing that I thought was absurdly low or absurdly high. Generally I was pretty happy with results.

The bolded here were all in my top fifteen WCW matches ever for the Smarkschoice poll. Goldberg v. DDP wasn't far off

This is a great show and I had a ton of fun doing it. I will wait for Chris to post some of the more detailed stats to expand on some of the points I made in the show, but I think people will be surprised - mostly pleasantly - with some of the results.

I cannot believe there have been two Billy Anderson references in the last two days of my life and I only made one of them

Awesome Wes Blaze write up Devon. He's got a shot at my top five hundred. Not sure he's a top fifty local guy, but there is a lot of local talent in that area. There is a ton that should be written about TWA but Devon isn't the guy to do it and neither am I. I will say they were a local promotion that ran for twenty years which is fucking nuts when you think about it

Jovica was definitely a co-promoter on some DR shows at one point, but that was long ago. Also thanks again for the awesome history lesson. If you don't mind, would you cross post the PR related stuff in that thread? I may ask some about the WWC/IWA war later tonight.

I strongly doubt that. Well it's not unusual for you and I to completely disagree, but if you had Pat Paterson helping lay out main events, that were heavily promoted and going on last, I see little reason to believe a guy with his talent wouldn't have padded his resume with enough "epic" matches to get him to the level where he would at least be on the fringes of that discussion. I'm sure he would have had good matches. But I don't see him significantly bettering Steve Austin's output during that period. Adding an Austin-level run to his existing resume doesn't strike me as GOAT-caliber. He was and is a better worker than Austin in my view. I think if he had been put in those spots his output would have been as good at minimum, likely better and he'd have iconic matches to point to. Couple that with his pre-prime and post-prime stuff and I think he would at least be on the fringes of the discussion as I said before

Not sure if Dave is going to report the details. I have now heard the same story from multiple people who don't know each other so I'm fairly confident with what happened. Without going into details, or saying anything that could potential betray confidences, there was an intervention, it was WWE sponsored, it was NOT just the WWE pushing for it, and Flair was having an understandable emotional crisis related to Reid's death that was obviously making things worse.

It is definitely true. 100 percent positive of it.

I strongly doubt that. Well it's not unusual for you and I to completely disagree, but if you had Pat Paterson helping lay out main events, that were heavily promoted and going on last, I see little reason to believe a guy with his talent wouldn't have padded his resume with enough "epic" matches to get him to the level where he would at least be on the fringes of that discussion.

God damn Southern indies are the best. Devon get off your ass and bring some more stories. This thread needs that youtube clip I found of UEW from the news

Since Devon mentioned seeing Gordy I would note that one of my all time favorite seemingly carny bullshit stories that actually ended up being true was Crazy Eddie - the UEW promoter in East Ridge - being Terry Gordy's uncle. I had thought that was complete bullshit when Devon, Dustin and my uncle Dale would tell me that all the time years ago. Eddie told me the same thing to my face and I figured it had to have been a work and just a way to drum up some cred for whatever scam he was running. Well I am reading Tributes II one day (Meltzer's obit book) and I get to the Gordy obit and I'll be damned if Crazy Eddie wasn't right in there as Gordy's uncle who he debuted with at 13 or 14 years old