Dylan Waco

Awesome background info here. I am going to get back to watching PR in the next few days and as questions come up I may throw them at you. Welcome aboard

I want to see the Dupre shoot myself, but no way I can justify paying for it and I'm too lazy to go out o my way to find it illegally. Does he talk about the plan to reopen the Maritimes for this summer, or did that news break after it was recorded?

To be fair to Larry I don't really blame him that much for that. If the publisher tells you you have to do something to sell books that's basically how it goes. I do think his choices from the modern era were questionable. Also I don't care what you think of Shawn Michaels as a worker, 15 is insanely high.

Babinsack has a review of the book up at the Observer site and it is one of the most bizarre, poorly constructed, things I've ever read. I'm not even saying that to rip on Babinsack. It's just...unbelievable

There was no love between the St Louis Purist and Memphis. John Anyone care to give the story on these issues? Orton over Lawler on his list seems a bit silly. I actually thought Larry would rank Brody much higher. St. Louis was (allegedly) a more traditional, "wrestling as sport" style presentation. Memphis was Memphis. Orton was on the list because Larry was told to pick some modern guys to help sell books. That's not my opinion - he's literally said that. Orton is from the St. Louis area. Do the math. Lawler being left off entirely is something Larry goes into detail on. Basically he argues that Lawler wasn't really that good in the ring (this is a minor part of the argument to be fair), Lawler wasn't a star anywhere other than Memphis, Memphis was a small time territory so being a star there really wasn't that big a deal relative to the "major markets," Lawler controlled Memphis booking and presented himself strongly all the time at the expense of others which is why he was on top so long (to be fair IRRC Larry does qualify this by noting it wasn't uncommon and was in many ways smart business). In and of itself I disagree with this and Lawler would probably be in my top fifty if I were excluding stars from Japan and Mexico like Larry. But I would not care that much if Larry at least tried to be consistent in apply these criticisms. Reading the book I thought it was clear that he didn't (for example several guys are actually given points for playing politics, or at least that's how the book reads, but Lawler is penalized for booking himself on top when that was working well?). Far more annoying than that were the constant digs at Memphis and Lawler which littered the book. I must admit I do find it funny that Lawler is dismissed on "major market" grounds when Memphis was a bigger and growing city than St. Louis during the period he was on top, when Lawler worked a loop with some other big towns and St. Louis was a one shot non-territory, and when St. Louis had shows less than half as often as Memphis (literally).

I'm leaving the Hogan stuff alone because I think Hogan belongs over Austin. On Flair I think you can construct an argument for him at three but arguing him v. Austin on Impact, particularly for the reasons you outline, is something I'm not buying. Austin clearly had bigger impact than Flair to the point where I don't even think you can make a reasonable argument for Flair and I am from Flair Country and like Flair a hell of a lot more than I do Austin. In particular the NWA title DID die during the 80's, and I don't think there is any argument that Flair is the reason there was a WCW and/or Monday Night Wars. WCW survived as long as it did because of Hogan. WCW kicked off with Nitro because of Hogan. I don't like it, but I think it's definitely true. Where Flair WOULD have a case on Austin potentially - Longevity. We can argue about how much value that has but Flair was a draw of some note for a long time. An all time level draw? Not really, or at least not in the transcendent sense we often think of that term. But Flair had value as a drawing card from the time he came back from the plane crash through til at least the first part of 1990. Yes there were ups and downs, but there are lots of positives. Flair also has positives after this (to some degree the Hogan stuff in WCW, the Savage feud that helped reignite house show business pre-NWO, the fact that he was a consistent quarter hour ratings draw for much of the Nitro era IIRC). - Work. I think Flair is clearly a better worker than Austin by virtually any metric. - Mic Skills. This is more arguable and I wouldn't even want to debate it (mainly because this isn't something I enjoy debating), but I think you could argue for Flair over Austin in this regard. - Getting over in multiple places. This is another one that is arguable because of the issue with crossing eras, but Flair was a guy that was over absolutely everywhere and Austin is a guy that really never got over huge before the WWE, other than perhaps Texas in his rookie year.

It's glorious

Austin was a star of note in the WWF from 96-03. Even when he was injured he was more often than not on television. Hell even now when he comes back he's a star on television. His stardom eclipses Flair's by a massive magnitude and I'm a guy who thinks Flair's stardom is somewhat underrated by some. You could argue that his peak as a drawing card was two years or so maybe, but those two years were insanely. You cannot argue that his entire case is two years.

Prior to Austin as the character he was the WWF was bleeding out. Prior to Austin v. McMahon it was still highly debatable whether or not WWF could "win" the war v. Turner. Austin v. McMahon is ultimately what won that war. It's what radically expanded revenue streams, it's the reason there is so much wrestling on tv, it's the reason WWE has such a high percentage of market share, it's the reason it's a dominant brand globally. That was the impact of Austin. I like Ric Flair and would not discount him as a contender. But Austin's impact is unbelievable and unlike anything anyone in wrestling history has ever done - aside from Londos, Hogan, Rikidozan and El Santo

The Confederate Railroad talk is the best thing ever on a wrestling podcast

I would also note for the record that unlike Larry I wouldn't ignore wrestlers from Mexico or Japan if I were working on something like this, so you have to start thinking about guys like Santo, Rikidozan, et

Hogan is above Austin in my mind so I don't worry about that. Having said that Austin was the catalyst for something massive and unprecedented. Even if you want to argue that others were the centerpiece of the promotion at points (mainly when Austin was injured and even then he was always on tv), Austin v. McMahon was the defining theme of that era

No, I'm just not confusing "title match in the middle of the card" for "main event." I staunchly agree that Rock/Cena needs to be kept one on one. Undertaker not being fit for the proposed Punk/Undertaker match is not justification for me to sabotage the Rock/Cena rematch wherein Cena takes the title and gets his win back from Rock, which was the best explanation for the nostalgia act beating the top guy last year in the first place. Cena retaking the title in a three way affords him negligible bragging rights compared to beating Rocky one on one. Worse still, Punk could take the fall and it looks like Cena is incapable of beating The Rock. Find something else for Punk to do. There isn't anything else compelling for Punk to do.

I don't think Flair is a ludicrous third pick. Londos is the biggest draw in the history of wrestling, aside from maybe Hogan

John, I'm curious. After Londos and Hogan, who do you slide into the three slot. I think a lot of people would say Austin, but I'm not sure if that is a reflexive answer based on generational importance or not.

Neither of those matches were bottom ten on my rewatch. One of them I think might even break out of the bottom third. I won't have either in the top half. Look forward to listening to the show. Might squeeze it in tonight as I'm not tired at all.

Johnny P will get an HoF vote next year, so I'm calling three voters! I am hoping the vote was pro-Brody

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...4052&cmd=tc Had a blast doing this show with Tim Noel tonight. Don't worry Musgrave I still love you best. Still this was an awesome time and I think an interesting show. Here is Tim's rundown from the DVDVR: Topics: 90s country music!; origin of "DylanWaco" name; place of Chikara in today's wrestling scene; current New Japan; where faux MMA fits in today & dangers of promoting it; wrestling philosophy topics: --where do you draw the line between assuming everyone knows what wrestling is vs. maintaining the mystique vs. it's all just BS & who's kidding who? (cite social media w/ guys using real names) --idea that guys wanting to present wrestling as a sport are old & outdated, US wrestling is largely seen & presented as complete BS nationally --importance of rivalries & blood fueds; importance of wins, titles --fulfilling wrestling at the niche level --thoughts that there’s an indy resurgence going on… to me if that’s the case it just shows that people need to beef up their video collection, there’s much better stuff from the past to watch than seeking out some indy with 2 matches you want to see --iPPV market becoming oversaturated? Seems there’s one every week now from some company or other, maybe just inevitable or is there room for all if a lot of the smaller ones have their isolated fanbase? --should certain moves be considered outdated (sleeper) & not done anymore based on fans being able to see thru them?

My favorite Hogan match might be 1/19/87 v. Kamala Excellent match. On first watch it felt like the best Kamala match I've ever seen and a top five Hogan match. Both guys are just excellent at their role here. Kamala ambushing Hogan and belting him out the gate was awesome and all of Kamala's offense came across really violent, but also fitting his gimmick. I also loved the way both guys sold in this. Hogan was great with his visual reaction on the missed elbow and Kamala was great when he tumbled to the floor and with his body language on the big slam spot. Both guys were just milking the shit out of everything here as this had minimal weaponry by modern standards, but the set up for everything was so fucking awesome that it felt like the biggest thing in the World. My only minor complaint would be that I actual thought this could have gone on another three or four minutes. Still an awesome match.

I said last year that they could run whatever on a Rock v. Cena card and it wouldn't matter in terms of buyrate/attendance so that is true. Will it matter down the road with Del Rio? Possibly

WCW really never produced anyone viable for this list. I can't even think of a serious contender. There are actually TWO honorable mention chapters and even though I have strong disagreements with Larry on a lot of the things he said in them, in some ways I found them to be the best part of the book. Rey and Jericho were guys he considered though it was clear he treated Jericho more seriously then Rey.

Cena is on the list

Rey

Angle has no place on the list. At all. Hodge really doesn't belong either, but Larry was giving tons of points for those who were legit and it was obvious throughout the book.

Pretty sure Ted is still a good friend of Larry's