tomk

Umm. While Dean probably still watches more prowrestling than anyone else around, I don't think Dean has watched a WWE match in three plus years.

Umm. While Dean probably still watches more prowrestling than anyone else around, I don't think Dean has watched a WWE match in three plus years.

I wish I could find what I wrote on the MTV2 Lucha Libre USA show. Lucha Libre USA had Allan Funk working an exotico gimmick of Chi Chi paired up with the woman who played Rhaka Khan working as Leona Caliente. Allan Funk who has worked other “gay” gimmicks in the past was doing a full on tribute to Adrian Street’s shtick (strutting, pouting and flouncing like Street with no references to the shtick of any other exoticos). But watching his act you really realized how much the bookers and Funk missed the point. Funk did a bunch of British matwork mixed with the shtick and well there was nothing particularly remarkable about a guy doing flamboyant fruity shtick and flamboyantly fruity embellished mat work. He also was working tiny femme bottom to Caliente’s giant butch top. Again this seemed to completely miss the point. I watch a ton of Silent movies and read a lot of early 20s comic strips: tiny effeminate man being bullied by his giant battle axe butch wife is an old comedy trope. Think Chaplin with Phyllis Allen. What Street and Miss Linda did that was different was that they had tiny effeminate Street as abusive member of relationship. Turned it from comedy to sadism. And that I think is the whole key to Street in the U.S.-he’s a flouncy sadist. If you watch his matches in Mid South with Terry Taylor or Bobby Fulton, Street isn’t a guy who works an arm or a leg…he works the inside of opponents cheek or does finger/digital manipulation. He isn’t wild savage working the cheek and hand nor is he cheat-to -win guy who relies on cheap shots…he is full on Khmer Rouge, guy who is knowledgeable in multiple ways to torture and hurt. He doesn’t do a lot of technical cooperative matwork but instead he does these really violent and quick nasty takedowns. He’s not a technical dandy, he’s a sadist dandy. He is a guy who is working femme gimmick who had fewer playing bitch spots in his matches then probably Hansen or Race. When Ross puts him over as tough---that sadism is the key to toughness. I’d also say it’s worth watching his matches roughing up jobbers. He doesn’t rough up jobbers the way Manny Fernandez will stiff a jobber. He’ll stretch, takedown at will and nastily work extremities. I’d recommend both the jobber matches from Midsouth as well as some of the stuff against guys who aren’t trained enough to be able to take a snapmare in Continental.

1)Super stoked that this made the 91 set. Part of what I wanted to capture in that old write up was the sense that the match has an EPIC feel to it. Stalling like suplex exchanges can be throw away time killing stuff or it can be stuff that has build and pay offs. For a throw away match on the Pro I kind of think holds up well against a lot of 91 tags. 2) There is this thing that takes place where people defend WWF heel in peril formula tags where it's compared to a straw man WCW face in peril tag. This ignores that WCW tags weren't as locked into that one formula. There are Pistols v Freebirds workrate tags, PIstols v Freebirds heel in peril tags, and stuff like this thing here. 3) One of the points that Tim Cooke made about the match is that "The criss cross sequence which puts one of the Pistols as the face in peril was like watching a multi-person Dragon Gate spot where everyone is running around and it all ends perfectly. But being this is Hayes and Garvin doing it, you wouldn't expect it to work as perfectly as it did. You would have thought someone would blow a leapfrog or fall down at some point. Not the case at all."..the actual non stalling spots in this match are really well done. That spot which is essentially a couple of drop downs a leapfrog and a punch feels as spectacular and state of the art as anything in Jungle Jack matches or the Rockers v Orient Express Rumble/Mania matches.

Is this the segment where she accidentally gets ko'd but manages to fall down while keeping her legs crossed cause she was "raised to be a lady" (TM Dean)?

Perry Como's Glendora on 78 http://youtube/QiYfTDQnE9A Olavi Virta (King of the Finnish tango) cover: http://youtube/K34ZDIVJWLs Slikee Boys: http://youtube/f8QUlEzkIUM

There has been a ton written about the construction of the illusion of competitiveness and how U.S. sports do it vis a vis the rest of the world. I do think this is worth reading: http://crookedtimber.org/2009/05/27/uk-vs-...ation-analysis/

eh... Mania 20 Batista/Flair/Orton v Rock/Foley Mania 21 HHH v Batista Mania 23 Undertaker v Batista Mania 24 Umaga v Batista Mania 25 Cena v Batista That's pretty much all wheat no chaff. None of these do a ton for me, but everyone other than 24 is something that I've seen people argue as candidate for the MOTN.

Can a mod move the discussion of academic writing to the publications and podcasts subsection and out of the Flair one. 1) To see the feud between Dusty and Flair as a direct contrast to the values of the Reagan revolution would suggest a real misunderstanding of that period in US history. Reagan was not running as a royalist, he ran a populist campaign that appealed to massive resistance to the civil rights movement and to anti elitist values. It positioned sons of plumbers as faces. 2) There has been a ton of academic writing on pro-wrestling. I'd say the majority of it is as bad as the majority of non-academic writing on pro-wrestling. Things that I thought were well thought through: http://spq.sagepub.com/content/71/2/157.short Smith supposedly has a book coming out this year. http://sexualities.sagepub.com/content/1/3/275.abstract Levi has a book which I didn't think much of. http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=c...oncordeid=67270 This is book based on thesis work on culture of post 50s female fandom. I think I would prefer to read this as a dissertation than as a popular book as pieces of the argument seem to be lost in that translation. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=...50.2portnoy.pdf

So I'm not a particular fan of Como's vocal stylings (probably ruined by SCTV impression) but this is a Webster Hall 50s recording which even on youtube over shitty cell phone speakers is loud and full. http://youtube/VwIeP9eDb-s And this is ridiculously awesome Glendora cover from Columbian garage rockers: http://youtube/fXbjIES2uYY

On this board, someone's long list of movez isn't often considered a positive. No one has ever said having a big moveset as a bad thing.

To make a music analogy, Perry Como had the 9th best selling album of the 1970s, with sales of at least seven million copies. He was part of a 'boom'. Nick Drake sold about 5,000 copies of 'Five Leaves Left'. Yet it is Drake who has had far more archive releases and DVDs/books/programs about his life. No music fan is interested in Como anymore: most are still interested in Drake. Como's fans were merely casual. Extreme example but maybe that is how WWE sees Bret - a guy whose fans were long term fans, in comparison to the more flash in the pan stars who appealed to the casual fan as the industry boomed. This is an absolutely insane analogy. Perry Como first recorded and was broadcast on national radio programs in late 30s as lead vocalist for Ted Weems Orchestra. Was the star of his own nationally broadcast radio show in the 40s and of his own Tv show in the 50s (where he's credited with introducing Bossa Nova to North American audiences). He was able to score a huge selling album in the 70s because people who had followed career in 40s and 50s (and some as far back as the thirties) continued to be interested in what he did. People who follow a musical career for 50 years are "merely casual"? The guy with a 50+ year of recorded music is a "flash in the pan star" vis a vis a guy with three albums? Yes there aren't a lot of people interested in his music today but how many people are interested in any music of the 40s.While I don't think many music fans today are interested in his 40s output ( despite recently reading an Esquire Jazz Yearbook from late 40s where Billy Holliday picked him as ideal boy singer, and in several of the Motown books Marvin Gaye cites him as an influence) but his period with Weems orchestra is constantly revisited. I imagine that there is an interest in his work with Raymond Scott Orchestra among fans of early electronic music. Audiophiles talk about the great full room sound of his 50s Webster Hall recordings. And "Glendora" has become a garage rock standard.

This would have been worked on 4/30 Children's Day which is part of the charming atmosphere of let's do it for the kids.

Who else has been given the opportunity? It's Mania, they can only squeeze so many wrestlers and so many matches on a show. Undertaker match plus Taker video package eats up time. HHH is a guy who will go long and have video packages eating up time, then you have Michaels showing back up and eating another large chunk of time. There's not a ton of time left. Big Show's been in the WWE since 99, I can't think of more than four Big Show mania matches that broke the 6/7 minute mark. I like those four matches, but the majority of his stuff is under 7 minutes and going to be forgettable. Oddly, I'd say the guy who never had a forgettable Mania is Batista (consistently got time and was never stuck in a multiperson clusterfuck).

Where can I find out about this different June 05 houseshow in San Diego? What was on that card? What he wrote in Observer about the smackdown match--- what he wrote about the houseshow match e saw that weekend

Well what Dave said depends on if it you asked Dave in June or August. In June he wrote In August he wrote The live show reports from snarky gringos for these shows was that Eddy v Rey was super hot match with crowd of dumb markish Mexicans eating out of palm of hand because they had never seen Halloween Havoc. Controlling crowd at will but people wanted to see X division sprint becoming stank up the joint do to bad cardio... I would suggest in this case that the difference between Lords Of Pain show reviewer [email protected], is that 420 at least recognized that the audience wanted a different match than he did.

One of the recurring things that happens in WCW, is you have these midcard angles start ...develop...then someone higher on card gets wind and demands angle gets dropped...and then it gets referenced again. So you have Jason Hervey and Eddy Guerrero develop the LWO angle only for someone to go "whoah we're diluting the NWO..this needs to be dropped". Raven has a ton of stuff that develops and goes nowhere (Raven as illegit son of Piper angle)...I want to say the Armstrong stuff was part of this. In 98 Raven did a thunder promo on the Armstrong curse and Brad, a WCWSN promo on Armstrong curse and Scott, tried to recruit the Armstrongs, Lodi held up signs referencing curse...sacrificed Brad while threatening DDP...and then not heard for again...but every so often they would do another Raven and Armstrong segment where he'd reference their WCW history...he definitely references this 2 on one match later...and part of some sort of goofy arc that I'm figuring Raven put together himself.

The matches tend to suggest the opposite. When I watched last years Mania Rock v Cena match I was struck by the degree to which Benoit had influenced the way Us heavyweight wrestling is put together these days.

If you want to do a bourbon tour, Jim Beam is the only brand in a dry county. The N.O.-Nashville-Louisville trip is a nice one and all the other stops on the Bourbon trail involve tour guides getting you soused. Atlanta is a giant fucking city with an active night life and lots to do. I assume anyone who is interested in wrestling the way you are is also interested in puppetry…the Jim Henson Center for Puppetry is in Atlanta. You’ve expressed interest in Rap… I would recommend going to one of Big Oomp’s record stores. Atlanta is pretty much been on the cutting edge of the link between stripping and rap and is place where you will see the future of athletic stripping (headstand butt cheek clapping supposedly got its start there) and full service strip clubs (strip clubs with built in barber shops etc)…rappers and producers will use the clubs to try out new beats/new songs etc. If you have money to throw around, 300 Bowling Lanes is a nice place to interact with the more Bougie side of the industry. If you’re into metal, Dark horse tavern does live band metal karaoke with no cover. If you are planning on making own meals on this trip, I would recommend stopping at the Decatur Wolrd Market, pretty much best and cheapest place to stock up on spices, produce , etc for the trip. Atlanta does have horrible horrible traffic and I wouldn’t want to enter or leave the city between 3:00-7:00. Also if you are legit "terrible" in the heat,(1) this whole trip feels like a bad idea (2) you should be aware that Centenial Park in Atlanta (where the Coke stuff is has no trees and is just like a magnifying glass for Atlanta heat. You want to get to Prince’s for some Hot Chicken which is Nashville specialty. You don’t really need to do the tour of Mardi Gras world, but outside the tour area you can see a bunch of their stuff without paying for tour. Alternatively you can take the free ferry ( $1 round trip by car) from Harrah’s Casino to the West Bank (crossing Mississippi every half hour) and walk along the levy to see the west bank part of Mardi Gras world (the Styrofoam work is done on east bank the plexiglass on west) you can normally see many of the floats parked behind the West Bank Mardi Gras world. If you go further down the levy you will see Club Caesar’s which is worth going to if you are interested in New Orleans bounce. As to safety of going to hip hop, bounce shows in N.O., use good judgment. In New Orleans in general two things should be remembered. 1) Part of why the cops are as corrupt as they are is because most of them supplement income working in uniform as private security (this means if you see a cop someplace—he isn’t necessarily there to protect the citizens interests so much as the club/ establishments, etc). 2) New Orleans isn’t New York, Atlanta—it isn’t a nine to five town with a happening night life—it is a 6 -3 industrial town with a happening night life (you will see more guys with industrial accident missing arms than diabetes missing legs---which isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of people with diabetes)---outisde of the French Corner (and even in parts of French corner) the night life is there for the residents entertainment you are visiting---if a guy with an arm cast challenges you to arm wrestle he’s testing and fucking with you-it isn’t Vegas- don’t finger fuck a girl on the dance floor ( best possibility is that she’s someone’s work buddies’ neighbor’s cousin—worst case scenario she’s another patron’s mom). I would go to N,O number one cemetery (where the orgy scene in Easy Rider was filmed and where Nick Cage has had his pyramid built). I always recommend doing a swamp tour. One of the things that people don’t get about New Orleans is how close it is to Cajun country. Essentially the places you see on Cajun reality shows are suburbs..the distance of Newark to Philly. If you want to see modern New Orleans brass band, the Stooges have a regular Thursday night gig at Hi-Ho lounge. I like the Stooges a lot , they have a real “I want to start a fight” energy similar to TI’s “What You Know”. The Hot 8 who have a more polished ( I don't want to say commercial sound) have a regular gig at Howling Wolf Sunday nights. For Jazz brunch: Court of Two sisters I think is the tastiest one I’ve been to (not the best seafood but the best everything else). Roosevelt Hotel Sunday Jazz brunch has the best band (guy who plays in all Clint Eastwood movies). Best brunch in general is LA Provence in Lacombe which is farm to table food. You need to take the bridge to Covington to get there which is the longest continuous bridge I think in world (half hour across and a neat experience as there are chunks where you can’t see land on either side). It is a big food and drink city but I’d really need to know what type of food you like before starting suggestions. I do think everyone should experience buying drink or jello shot from a drive through Daquiri shop. I stay away from sweet Bourbon Street daquiris but the drive throughs tend to be good. Open container law in your car is you are not allowed to have the straw in the cup, I don’t know how that covers jello shots. Additional shots of everclear are a buck a pop. The drive from New Orleans to Atlanta is about 6 hours…only two of them are in Alabama but the two hour Alabama drive feels mind numbingly long and the boys are out to catch you for whole ride. I would strongly recommend breaking it up. You can do gulf shore beach,wind creek casino, or Birmingham, ala. Birmingham has the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Museum across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is also a couple of blocks from the Abortion clinic that was bombed in the late 90s, plus there is the Vulcan Park and Museum.

As part of Hangmen in AWA and USWA. I think he was just Mean Mike in Windy City (I want to say he trained either Christopher Daniels or Kevin Quin there)

My 2008 Black History Month Segundacaida Henry-Rock/Henrry-Goldberg post : What we wrote about Henry in the 03 workrate reports

The big earlier source of 80s Puerto Rican wrestling was Eddie Gries of Relic Records. He put out doo wop comps and Pr wrestling tapes, guy who was always talked about in interviews with Cramps and Psychobilly guys as "Yeah man this guy has the craziest doo-wop singles and is friends with Abdullah the butcher". He may have been a friend of Brody's and got out of the tapes post murder. He would be an interesting guy to get on a podcast.

#1 recomendation would be to watch all the rest of the Texas Hangmen in Puerto Rico matches you can find. It is a super hot feud. I think it also might be worth taking a look at whatever Pierroth in Puerto Rico you can find. Garvin has two PR title runs one at end of 80s and next at end of 91 begining of 92. The other super fun match from first run is Garvin v Orton. The one I like the most from second run is Garvin v Invader Favorite absurd match from Race's 1990 Carribean Heavyweight Title run is Race vs highflying baybyface Gary "Air" Albright. It may have actually been Jumping (Gumping) Gary Albright either way not good match but we all need more Albright as blowjob babyface. I think there are a couple matches in this series don't remember any of them as much as I remember the great fired up Morton promo "You may know Kay-rate and ty-quandoe, but we do know ka-two-by-four and tire-iron-do"

I watched a ton of Valentine for some project or other about five years back and for whatever this is worth, I don't think this was a feud in 88. The New Dream Team broke up after Survivor Series, which would be Thanksgiving 87. So my sense is that they already ran Dream Team break up/ Valentine v Beefcake, New Dream Team forms, that one feuds with Beefcake and then moves on to other feuds and then that one breaks up, Johnny V leaves the WWF and both Valentine and Bravo are with new managers. My sense is that by January of 88, Beefcake v Valentine is less a feud and more something like JYD v Valentine in late 86: two guys who know spots to work against each other.

1) Jerry says: The point was that Vince is clever by putting all eggs in one basket. Pumping up Michael Jordan by surrounding him with a league of Vinnie Del Negros is brilliant. The 88-92 argument you are making is kind of a fascinating one. Traditionally people would say that in 1989/1990 in the process of feeding Ultimate Warrior enough meat to make him credible as a challenger for World Title, they failed to also build up any heels to be credible opponents to World Champion Ultimate Warrior. People point out that there were no credible main event heels and so Warrior was forced to go back through his IC title challengers ( Perfect, Dibiase, Haku, etc) and then team with Road Warriors opposite Demolition (none of whom were credible enough to work Warrior as main event singles opponent). Hogan v Perfect did poorly, the Hogan v Earthquake houseshows dissapointed, and the business was so bad that the WWF cut down the number of crews they used and fired a bunch of folks, with stuff not really recovering till 96. So argument being made is: "Vince stopped putting all eggs in one basket in 88, and it all fell apart"? 2) JDW v Kramer argument Jerry says huh? Jerry's argument #1 jdw engagement in argument Jerry moves argument to 88-92 Jdw engaging and this interesting piece: 2a) At this point Jerry seems to list a whole bunch of cards from 88 which look to me to reinforce jdw argument. This is not an example of "quite a lot of meaningful stuff going lower on card". Not a show where they were "giving fans 4-5 (possibly even more) matches to care about rather than just 1 or 2." This is instead very much "which on non-Hogan cards tended to be IC/WTT Match + #2 Drawing Feuding Match + Everyone Else." This is IC Honkey v Savage and half of WTT match Tito v Hart and everyone else. That reinforces jdw's argument. Second argument about huge difference between 88 and pre-88 I get that Jerry is more interested in Dibbiase being pushed than Billy Jack Haynes being pushed but there doesn't seem to me to be a ton of difference between the 86/88 card. Again not show "giving fans 4-5 (possibly even more) matches to care about rather than just 1 or 2." Hogan match, Ic match and tag match and everyone else. The difference between 88 and 86? 86 has IC match vs. jobber as opposed to the Ic feud from 88. Muraco v Steamboat feud ends in Feb 86 but don't know how IN was booked, so ignoring. So 86= "Hogan match, plus 2 half tag champ matches" v 88 "Hogan match, Ic match and tag match" I don't see the big change, don't see "giving fans 4-5 (possibly even more) matches to care about rather than just 1 or 2." Don't see "meaningful stuff going on lower down the card. And quite a lot of it." These are the exaples that Jerry rolled out to prove his point, and they seem to be disproving it. Jerry then leaves the major arenas to look at nothing shows in small markets. Again doesn't seem to be any major difference between shows in this type of venue in 86 and 88 4) Jerry: Sandy Scott leaves in 86. Argument that you sometimes hear is that Sandy Scott is credited with expanding the depth of WWF shows. He's credited with Steamboat v Savage and hot workrate midcard IC title stuff, credited for some of the Andre angles, most of the hot non-world title angles, and credited for stuff like the Orton-Piper relationship (traditionally you would have Piper built up to challenge on top, then after he lost would be pushed back down the card and then leave...followed by Orton being pushed up, losing then getting pushed back down before leaving---relationship between two allows both to hang out and have stuff to do longer). So yes there is a change. As to argument that WWF had meaningful feuds up and down the card in 88-92 period , it would help the argument if someone could point to some. Walk through some of them. No-one is asking for a list of all of the non Hogan feuds between 88-92. But it would be nice to look at a couple of cards and be able to point to more than one or two other feuds taking place at time. Examples are useful.