JerryvonKramer

Also, just a reminder about this: Number of PMs so far: ZERO.

Tonight. But late.

Re: forcing guys to do stuff they don't normally do, this point is a little moot if the worker is not all that good. If they are good then Flair is literally giving them a showcase for all of their offense. The storytelling is only "one-sided" in cases where Flair is doing a carry job. Again, this would be a point I'll make in part 4, but if all of Flair's matches were with a select group of elite workers, no one would be saying any of this stuff about him. You are literally using his ability to be a "broomstick worker" back against him, which is just ass backwards.

One of the things I love about this is that that screengrab that jdw has posted was done by me and used as a front cover for an episode of Titans. jdw clearly has no clue about that and has listened probably to not one second of any podcast that I've ever done, but I just love that the top image search for those two comes from us. I'm also glad to see Dick and Kal getting the love they deserve.

I am going to review two hour-long matches on an upcoming All-Japan Excite Series. None of the guys involved cut the same pace as Steamboat and Flair did in Clash 6. That is impressive conditioning by anyone's standards. After reading some of GOTNW's reviews before though, he's just a guy I'm afraid I have to write off completely. I just can't take him seriously. He might do the same to me, but whatever.

I have watched several Tamura matches, as it happens.

One slightly annoying thing: Flair tells that getting Ole fired story every week!

He really needs Kal there imo. Making random noises, inappropriate comments, unintentionally breaking kayfabe and just generally being hilarious. Kal also very funny as a creepy interviewer. He's a close talker, as Seinfeld might say.

Listening to Flair on his show, there are times when he talks about work or working with other guys where he seems to show real awareness of psychology and strategy, but we only get glimpses because he tends to prefer to keep things more upbeat or gets onto a different track. I was thinking listening to a recent one when he was throwing out his habitual hatred of working in Kansas going an hour with Rufus R. Jones or Bulldog Bob Brown whether any of those kinds of matches made tape. Might be interesting to sit and watch something like that. I think Flair sees the first duty as ensuring that the fans who paid money to come to see him are entertained and come away wanting to see him again. I also think, as I said somewhere (maybe on part 4, not yet uploaded), that that ability to go an hour with a total stiff can't be sold short. It's an asset and something only a handful of workers could do. But against more skilled opponents you will see Flair break out other ideas. Someone mentioned the Undertaker in 92, Flair probably saw him as a stiff and gave him the Sting / Nikita treatment. But there are so many other opponents who don't get out into that match. And you know the one I mean. Just seems a bit strange to assume that the intent is not there. How do you know the intent is there with Misawa or any other guy? ----- Brain, you asked about WWF run in terms of work, and I think Flair was booked and worked very weak in that promotion. But pretty much all heels were. Even guys like DiBiase and Savage would squeak wins against the Koko B. Wares of this world, but WWF was a babyface company, where every heel was a bitch. Lawler worked the same way in 93. Any heel that wasn't a monster was a chickenshit, and they didn't make an exception for Flair. Although you could say the Rumble win out him over pretty huge. I have wondered if the reason they ended up programming him with Savage and then Bret is because Vince might have thought the average fan wouldn't have bought him as a legit threat to Hogan. Whatever the case, I agree with you that in general he'd had his offense nerfed in WWF, and got his ass kicked a lot.

The most underrated announce duo of all time are, of course, Dick Graham and Kal Rudman.

Dunno, but convention is convention. That said, I never use "op. cit.", find it makes things too vague, and tend instead to go author, short version of title, page ref after the first citation to any given text. But yeah, we've strayed far from the topic. If Si writes anything else, I'd like to read it.

Holy shit, Hogan!

Basically every single person knows that, but thanks for the clarification anyway OJ.

There's nothing "needless" about ibid., it has only four letters and is quicker than writing "in the same place".

I thought that was excellent and deserves to "stand alone" in its own thread. I've always wanted to see more writing on wrestling along these lines. I think you might be able to write 1000s of words just on the depiction of middle eastern heels alone. And pretty much every point you make about Watts's ideology being completely infused into every aspect of his promotion is spot on. I particularly liked the passage on Ross being a sort of loser / bullied nerd / outsider wishing he could be one of the boys. It's a really good article. Personally, practically everything you said is why I love watching Watts. The fact that the babyface values are completely perverse, the fact that he deplores "sissies" etc., to me is absolutely awesome as a time capsule of a particular mindset at a particular time. I have a near-total divorce between my personal politics / views on any number of social issues and what I like in my wrestling. I don't want my wrestling to be acceptable to a feminist in 2015, I want it to be hard-boiled to the point of ludicrousness and absurdity, I want the crowd to be genuine redneck, or blue-collar, all shades of rough and all types of wrong. It's one of the reasons I love the old-school so much, and care less for 00s indies environments or modern WWE. The old couple who sit grim-faced in the front row of Watts shows who you know genuinely want the heels dead. So I agree with practically every single point made in the article, but in my (perverse, twisted, distanced, totally aestheticised, selfish) view that's precisely what makes it awesome. The sorts of characters you get in those crowds, the sorts of attitudes the product represent are just so much more fascinating to me than smarks chanting "this is awesome". World of Sport from the 70s is fascinating. Some RoH show from 2005 just isn't, can't compete. I guess this artcile brought home once again how much of my love of wrestling is bound up with time and place. The context is important. I mean for me, it's basically impossible for a show in WWE in 2015 to be as interesting as a show from any of the territories from the 1970s or 1980s. Point-blank impossible. And it's bound up with that. I think this is something that not all fans share -- I'm in it for the things around wrestling as much as for the wrestling itself, whereas I think a lot of fans on this site especially are just in it for the wrestling regardless of where and when it took place

Don't understand the DiBiase comment. Are you saying you think Gordy had more great matches to his name than Ted?

Just to throw out a completely random bunch of guys, how would Gordy stack up against: Adrian Adonis Barry Windham Harley Race Terry Taylor Jerry Blackwell Sting Genuinely interested in people's views. These sorts of comparisons can be fun.

I haven't really been a fan of many of those matches because Cena seems to be working a strange hybrid of Indy spotfest and WWE main event psychology, compounded by this sense that everything is a bit rehearsed. I'd give it to Brock, but then I've only been watching the PPVs. I'd probably have Reigns above Cena too based on this year. Lower on Kevin Owens.

I watched a lot of Harley and for the most part that I've seen, he doesn't really work holds much period. Even in Japan. There are exceptions, like that Andre match on Classics and the ones jdw mentions, but a lot of the time he's a bomb worker. My observation was that he was much more likely to work offensively when he didn't have the belt. When he did have the belt, he's more likely to give the opponent the lion's share of the match, with the Backlund example being the extreme case. When I say "modern style" by the way, I don't mean modern as in now, I mean the suplex / throw / spot orientated style of the 1980s, as opposed to the mat-heavy style of the 1950s, which kind of finished with Dory and Jack. I'd agree that Terry was better at working holds than Race or Flair, but his style was also more "modern", bump and move, than previous NWA champs. Dory had his share of bombs, but bumped around less, the emphasis in his matches is less on movement (which ironically gets him criticism from some of the exact same people who criticise Flair), Jack had a more amateur base, and does more takedowns than "bombs". Ray Stevens's bumping style is probably the missing link. From what I've seen Pat Patterson worked in a similar big bumping style too. I guess jdw and I are on a similar if not identical page on this. I just disagree with the assumption (not necessarily made by him) that a more action, movement and spot orientated style necessarily means "less psychology". See also Part 1 of this series. Incidentally, parts 3 and 4 coming. Probably will be posted tonight.

I'm gonna run some stats on that soon.

Genuine lol!

I actually agree with most of that. I credit Race with basically inventing the modern style.

New York could book practically any wrestler they wanted to, especially at MSG, so I can only work out that it was by design. Also, I've theorised that Vince Sr was extremely tight and outside of his champ and guest heel star was running a virtual slave labour camp. This can also been seen in the extremely small and shitty room he used at the hotel where he'd book matches with his group of old men. Anything to keep costs at a shoe-string. Vince Sr intrigues me as a figure for all these reasons.