Dylan Waco

Patera was never portrayed as an anchor to that end HE never sold out MSG. Did he sellout as an opponent for others? Yes. Some of them don't have figures (for example the three match series with Bruno in 77. He was in the main event at MSG ten times (though that is up for debate, which I will address below) and I think of those ten I can account for two that were most definitely not a total sell out, though pretty close as I recall. So on the high end eight. On the low end probably no less than six if you look at who his opponents were. Which brings me to Graham. So Graham sold out MSG a lot which is impressive but I think we should be really careful about presenting that fact in isolation without context. For example this is Graham's first MSG main event as champ WWWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - May 16, 1977 Carlos Rocha defeated Jan Nelson Ron Mickolajoka defeated Doug Gilbert Baron Mikel Scicluna fought Ivan Putski to a draw Ken Patera fought Chief Jay Strongbow to a draw Billy Whitewolf defeated Rocky Tamoyo Tony Garea & Larry Zbyzsko defeated Stan Stasiak & Nikolai Volkoff Bruno Sammartino defeated George Steele when the match was stopped due to blood WWWF World Champion Superstar Billy Graham (w/ the Grand Wizard) pinned Gorilla Monsoon with a knee drop off the top after repeatedly ramming the challenger into the steel barrier on the floor (History of the WWF Heavyweight Championship) What was the big draw on that show, Graham v. Gorilla or Bruno v. Steele? Tough to say. You could probably make arguments both ways, but the point is it's not at all clear. How about this? WWWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 29, 1977 Televised on the MSG Network and HBO - featured Vince McMahon on commentary: Lenny Hurst defeated Rocky Tomayo Johnny Rivera defeated Joe Turco at 10:51 SD Jones defeated Jack Evans at 8:19 Peter Maivia defeated Stan Stasiak at 7:35 via count-out after Miavia avoided the Heart Punch on the floor and Stasiak accidentally hit the ringpost; prior to the bout, Vince McMahon interviewed Miavia on the ring apron Tony Garea & Larry Zbyzsko defeated George Steele & Baron Mikel Scicluna in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0; fall #1: Steele & Scicluna were disqualified after Steele shoved the referee; fall #2: Garea pinned Scicluna with a sunset flip off the top WWWF World Champion Superstar Billy Graham defeated Ivan Putski via count-out at 18:01 after the challenger was backdropped to the floor; prior to the bout, McMahon interviewed the champion inside the ring; the Grand Wizard escorted the champion to the ring before the match (20 Years Too Soon: The Superstar Billy Graham Story) Bruno Sammartino (w/ Arnold Skaaland) pinned Ken Patera in a Texas Death Match at 12:13 by kicking off the corner, as Patera had a full nelson applied, and falling backwards onto his opponent; prior to the bout, Capt. Lou Albano escorted Patera to the ring (Bruno Sammartino: Wrestling's Living Legend) Verne Gagne pinned Nikolai Volkoff at 7:10 with a roll up as Volkoff attempted an over-the-knee backbreaker Chief Jay Strongbow fought Mr. Fuji to a curfew draw at around the 6-minute mark; prior to the bout, Freddie Blassie & Prof. Toru Tanaka escorted Fuji to the ring, with Tanaka on crutches and announced as being unable to compete Well fuck. Patera and Bruno worked the Garden three straight times earlier in the year and this is a blow off to what was a very successful series. Meanwhile Graham is working Putski. In the run down I did for Patera some time back I called this a co-main event to be conservative. But if you ask me what is the match that was likely the primary draw I wouldn't be arguing for Graham. As champion the shows where we can point to Graham drawing without that degree of support were v. Bruno, Dusty, Backlund (when he lost the belt) and Mascaras (and even Mascaras is arguable because Dusty was on at least one of those shows and was very hot in New York). The first two are people you would absolutely expect a top heel of any sort from the era - Patera, Valentine, Jardine, et. - to draw very well with. Mascaras is perhaps more impressive, perhaps not, depending on how you view the novelty/special attraction factor. I would argue that the Backlund title loss is probably the most impressive "single" accomplishment of Graham's reign but that's not really the point. The point is that Graham - while he was admittedly red hot and delivered in the role he was placed in - was not even close to an island unto himself during that run and their are good reasons to believe it's less impressive then he and Meltzer have argued it was for years

Pretty great

I didn't think the lariat looked particularly good or bad last night, but the idea of Harper having light offense is pretty laughable.

I don't disagree much at all with Matt's post above, but it's worth noting that ECW was doing similar things in 08 and even in his best year, I don't think he was the best in ring babyface in the company (Rey)

Went to an OSCW show in Charleston late last year with Vordell Walker, John Skyler and a few other semi-well known indie guys I don't like as much (Caleb Konley comes to mind). Will probably go to their Sept show as well

Jardine is someone I really think should be on the WON ballot to be honest and I'm glad he came up in this thread as he is worth thinking about

Smaller territories ran there own shows. ECW did not.

Another thing with MACW is that it's not even easy to tell by size of market because the arena sizes in some of the smaller markets were bigger than they were in some of the bigger market areas.

Christian was effectively a t.v. champion. To anarchist point(s) in recent years I think Christian has absolutely decimated Jericho as a worker and though its a more controversial assessment I guess I'd take him career v. career over Jericho too. Also hard to see how Orton is viable if we are concerned about guys with shitty history drawing on top

Looking at Greensboro results often gives you a decent idea of the MACW depth chart, though not even that is always reliable. It is a pretty tough, especially relative to other spots.

God damnit now I have a bunch of NJPW to watch

I think you can make a case for Patera over Graham. You could argue that Graham at his peak was better than Patera at any point but here is the thing - Patera was basically the number two heel in the WWWF during much of Graham's run IIRC and was working guys like Bruno on the regular himself in the big cities. Graham would rate ahead of Patera before he dropped the strap to Backlund, but I don't think you can say he was so far ahead of him that Patera may not have passed him on the back end (79-81). To some degree I guess it depends on how you interpret the influence of Graham during the period. Funk seems like a better pick on paper because he is a former NWA Champion and his most memorable stuff stands out a ton. Was he actually a bigger heel star in North America during that period? I'm not sure sure. He's exactly the sort of person I would like to see an argument for because when I look at where Patera was working, who he was working, how in demand he was, how he was presented on the cards, et my immediate thought is that Funk is not an easy pick over him at all. With Bock I'd want to go back and look at when he took the lead singles heel spot in the AWA. I wouldn't rule out Bock out of hand, but was he really an anchor during the period in question? Was he as in demand? I'm not certain this is true. I think it's hard to make a case for Patera over Harley, though that's more based on general feeling about the NWA champion and this being Harley's peak than anything else.

I should have sketched that out better in the initial post. Basically I am trying to look at the full scope of what I guess we would often call "stardom." In my mind this would include, but is not necessarily limited to... - Placement on cards. Was the wrestler in question getting consistent main event or meaningful matches. Were they involved in feuds and storylines that seemed to have a real impact on the business during the period? - "Anchoring." Were promotions and territories built around them and/or were they in the lead heel spot in a promotion. - In Demand. Were promoters all over the country trying to get dates for them? If so were these big time spots, small time spots, or a combination of both. - Opponents. Were they working big name opposition consistently? Were they getting title shots when and if they were brought into territories. - Titles. What titles did they hold if any and would they be considered important/relevant reigns? - Drawing Power. Did the person in question pop attendance figures? If not were they working on top during hot periods that they were able to help sustain? Other things like national magazine coverage (how did they do in things like PWI Awards, were they well covered, et) doesn't feel quite as important to me but can certainly be a value piece of the puzzle. Beyond that people can add in anything they feel may be relevant that I am missing

Northeast

I THINK there may have been an implication somewhere in the storyline building to this that Kim was a slut and Page was a wimp for letting his wife pose naked.

In the area Exposer is talking about there are two promoters who have excellent reputations (and a few others who have the exact opposite). One guy runs a weekly/bi-weekly show (it changes to bi-weekly in the summer because of the heat and other factors), in a fairly large warehouse that I would guess he owns. I imagine the warehouse is also used to train wrestlers. The operation is low budget but they have increased their visibility some over the years, have good social media presence, have started doing video packages some and have cultivated a reliable local following. I know a guy who works for them and he tells me they almost never do less than 125 paid anymore and they average around 200 paid a show. This year there biggest show did close to 400 paid if you believe the guy I know and it's certainly not implausible. Of course they also only charge five dollars a head. The other guy runs primarily out in the middle of nowhere, but seems to draw between 100-200 to just about every show, sometimes more. He also promotes some in other towns, including occasionally the warehouse mentioned above in off weeks. I think he may also have some minor sponsorship deals on some of the random shows. His shows are also dirt cheap to attend.

I like Empire Wrestling from Chattanooga a lot as an indie that actually builds angles, builds to title shots, has good build within the matches, has a nice clearly tiered roster, et. The problem is that they never put up whole shows and their main events almost never see the light of day. Also in order to follow the angles you have to follow them on facebook. NWA Anarchy and Rampage Pro have web shows and to some degree fit the bill, but the production on both isn't great and I think the roster of both companies is extremely weak when it comes to depth, especially if you are averse to the modern indie style. TCW markets themselves as old school, but I really don't see it in the big picture sense. I enjoy Metro Pro, but I think it would be a real stretch to say it fits the bill. I hate to agree with Matt, but in many ways I don't think his time machine comment is that far off

I think it's unrealistic to argue for those who were only heels for the whole run. Turns happen, but that doesn't negate how hot someone was prior to the turn. I don't want to stack the deck for Patera, I'm just trying to get a feel for where he fits during his peak years, so if there was a guy who was a beast as a heel for a couple of years during that period I'd like to here the case for him

I could have put this in the Ken Patera or WON HoF thread, but I didn't want it to get missed and this might spark some interesting side discussion on it's own. I am about to start working on a Gordy List for Patera and possibly an article of some sort. One of the things I'm trying to figure out is where during Patera's peak years he would rate as a heel in the U.S. The argument about when exactly his peak was is something I would rather hash out it in his thread (or perhaps the HoF thread), but for the purposes of this thread we are looking at 76-81. Obviously I have my own thoughts about whether or not Patera is an HoFer but for the purposes of these projects I want to be as objective as possible when outlining something like where he would fit on a heel depth chart at his hottest point. I am opening the floor to suggestions but a few things to note here so people will have a better idea of what I'm going for.... - I'm sure we can point to some obvious names worth discussing and I do not want to discourage discussion of them. But I don't just want this to be a thread about the obvious figures, so if people have ideas or other names they feel are worth discussing bring them on. - The goal of the thread isn't necessarily to rate the heels in order, but by no means is that something I would discourage. I am more interested in seeing if my view that Patera was a "first tier" heel during that period is one that stands up to scrutiny or not. - Even though I have my own motivations for this, I don't want people to feel like this thread has to be narrow in scope. If we end up arguing Race v. Funk or Bock v. Graham I'm not going to be bitching about people going off topic. - While I don't want to say that I am totally disinterested in opinions on guys ability in the ring, that's really not the purpose of the this thread. I am trying to look at this from the angle of over all stardom and value (or perceived value) to promoters. So, who were the best heels in the States from 76-81?

UWA Elite: Crossroads 2013 The X-Klan v. The Phat Boyz v. King Tek/Zane Williams v. Archadia/Joey Adams This is pretty much exactly how you would imagine an opening indie match involving teams with these names wrestling in New Jersey to go. You could pretty much call what was going to happen, from the stalling/coward spots of the scrub heels, the Phat Boyz dancing and working jive spots, to the small athletic guys doing dives and big spots I wouldn't recommend it or anything, but I've seen far worse matches than this and for what it's worth the finish so the fat guys almost kill themselves and their opponents on a cross ring assisted splash attempt. Dr. John Bowes v. Brandon The Bull v. TKO This is pretty much exactly how you would imagine a second on the card match involving three guys with these names working in a New Jersey indie to go. Pretty much spot running, though slightly more structured than your absolute over the top indie spotfest. None of the guys really impressed me, but this was the second match in a row where someone was nearly killed on a dangerous spot off the top and I admit that is perversely entertaining. And for guys like this working a horribly flawed style it wasn't awful. Hedges v. TJ Blade v. Drake Chambers This was actually as well laid out as an indie three way is going to get. Opening segment was all about Chambers working flashy spots. His execution was comically bad at points, but that almost works in an environment like this, even if there is no way you can call it good. Then he gets cut down by the other two guys working together and takes a big post bump. The two remain guys stiff each other some and it leads to Chambers in peril one on one with Blade. Chambers working comebacks around these guys taking shots at him made for an easy to follow story even if it wasn't one I gave a shit about. I'm not going to bog this down with a detailed review of low end Jersey indie talent, but the point is this was at least organized on some level which made it more watchable than you might think. Chris Powers v. Cypress v. RJ Gerhart At this point I want to give a big fuck you to Phil, because if I had any clue the first half of this show was going to be random NJ indie guys working four way and three way matches I would have just skipped to Nunzio and Mack. But now I'm almost an hour in, so fuck it I'll go with it. Anyhow, this was easily the worst match so far. Lots of shitty "should I work a double team with this guy or not?" schtick, a guy who looks like Jeremiah Plunkett but isn't a tenth as good and some really stupid multi-man spots. Don't get me wrong - this wasn't ROH level bad, but none of these guys were engaging, interesting or good on any level. Dynamike Davis v. Michael Massacre v. Sean McNelis Fuck me another god damned three way. I like Guido as much as the next guy, but if I saw this lineup before the show they'd have to pay me fifty bucks to come out as this is pretty much my idea of how not to book a wrestling show. Also look at the names for these motherfuckers in this match. Note that Sean McNelis nickname is "damage." Jesus fucking Christ the match feels like an elaborate troll of me before it even starts. Then Massacre takes the least convincing bump I've ever seen, albeit for the least convincing offensive move I've ever seen. I literally have no clue what was even going on but it was some sort of full nelson bomb thing and it was just awful. After that I mentally checked out of this. I mean it was still on but I couldn't tell you what happened. Fuck this. Swag Mean v. The Heavy Hitters - No DQ Well this is the one of the reasons I'm watching this. Hitters are the challengers and the champions come out first and they honestly look like the sort of thinly closeted freshman year frat boys, who end up turning tricks on backpage.com for blow money by the end of their second semester. One of them even comes out with a Caution Wet Floor bathroom sign, which I initially thought was a clever homage to Larry Craig's propensity for twinkish airport sex workers, but maybe not. Anyhow they are the perfect others for the Heavy Hitters and while this was pretty flawed, it was also pretty fun. Yeah there are some moments where you can't really buy the pretty boys offensive spots, but almost every time they get over on the big boys in this it's due to some shot with a weapon. Mack is fun as fuck in this as he takes a big double superplex, murders one kid with a lariat and does the wall toss onto another only the kid doesn't make it and ends up splatting into a bunch of chairs and a morbidly obese audience member. Ramos takes a bunch of shots to the head with plunder, bleeds and eats a huge twisting bump through a couple of chairs. Finish sees one of the backpagers eat a DVD through a board and then Mack crushing him with a huge splash off the top. This wasn't outstanding, but certainly worth watching. Eric Corvis v. Eddie Thomas - I Quit Match I haven't seen Corvis in a while and can't remember if he always had the look of a steampunk aviator, but it got a chuckle out of me. Anyhow I was hoping this would be good and then about a minute in Corvis murdered Thomas with a knee and then ran around chopping the fuck out of him and on this show that was more than enough to win me over. Then Corvis took a god damned DDT on the floor. Now normally this would really piss me off as that feels like the sort of thing that should be an absolute finish, but the thud was so sick that I honestly didn't give a fuck. Maybe on another show it would have pissed me off but not here. Corvis briefly came back after catching him with a German (literally catching him), but took a nice bump in the corner and Thomas went to work on the arm. I would have liked the armwork to mean more in the course of the match, but I really dug the hope spots that Corvis worked around Thomas offense here. Figure four spot and subsequent escape from Corvis was pretty cool too. Thomas ends up beating Corvis with a belt and tries to get fancy by working a spot with it around the post, but Corvis ties him up around the post. I thought this was setting us up for a really awesome finish, but then they go the coward route and Thomas quit's before getting hit with a belt shot. Shame really because the idea of Corvis turning the tide due to superior expertise with knots was actually really compelling, but it felt flat. Still this was a good Corvis showcase up to that point and a good match. Nunzio v. Myke Quest Man Nunzio is still in good shape and can still work a really fun "feeling each other out" opening mat exchange. I've already seen him a few times this year and he's always looked decent, but he's been saddled with some really shitty opponents in matches that were intended to be card fillers so it is cool to see him work in a title match. Still this didn't get a ton of time and the real takeaway from it was that Nunzio is still in good shape, can still hit all his signature spots and will still bump. This is more than you can say for a lot of guys his age, but this really wasn't much as a match. John Bowes v. Hedges v. Cypress v. Dynamike Davis God damnit another one of these. This thing where indies do one night tourneys filled with multi-man matches is just about the worst trend in all of indie wrestling and that's saying a lot. This was a elimination rules which actually ended up making for a better match. Hedges was the best guy in this by a safe margin. The guy worked hard, took some big bumps and had the least offensive offense of all parties. I really liked the first elimination and the second wasn't bad either. This was building into a surprisingly solid match and then there was a shitty screwjob finish. Still this was better than I expected on paper. Kyle Winant v. Brian Bass If you ever wanted to see a cosplay Sami Callihan v. Kevin Steen match this is it. Yep. Overall Thoughts The Corvis and Heavy Hitters match are good and worth watching. The rest of this ranged from okay to trash. Now I kinda wish I'd watched New Japan

I tried to watch Hardcore Justice 2 and couldn't make it through it. The show was that bad. This I will try as well, mainly because it means I can put off New Japan

My daughter is ten and likes wrestling so it's not that had, but I also am a multi-tasker and I watch most stuff when other people are asleep as I am an insomniac and only get a few house of sleep a night

Rheingans is vastly better in the Martel match but I know that is a losing battle with you. Anyhow I love that tag. I think this set is loaded so not sure how high up the depth chart it goes, but it has a good shot of finishing in my top thirty

I don't hate that Mando v. Tanaka match but I don't think it was very good. Fun sure, but Mando came across like a dick heel, to the point where it felt like babyface justice for Badd Company to try and beat his ass. It will be near the bottom of my ballot, but not in the cellar. I still think that Wahoo v. Manny handheld is clearly the worst match on the set

Both guys were talked up a good bit in PWI at the time