JerryvonKramer

Still disappointed by this Kam Chancellor situation. I'll stop there before Will bans me!

I'll be doing only the latter. I'll have to watch this later in the week. Go Hawks!

I will make a judgement call in October. We have a neat in-game story reason: Vince McMahon Sr dies and rather than sell to his son, he sells to Bill Watts. In that scenario, we run a WWF-MSW merger. I host three different podcasts, and have to get a book to publication by February. I've also had to make time for a girlfriend who has been getting more serious. It's been hard to make time for everything. You might have noticed Titans and All Japan Excite have both been on a mini-hiatus, that's a lot on me. The way things shook down, podcasts and then GWE have taken priority over this, but everything has taken a hit in the past couple of months. I won't say I'm completely out yet, if I can get the book completely done I should be able to find the time. 20,000 words to go, which is less than all of my shows for this project, so it's possible. Although fantasy booking doesn't need research or footnotes

To explain on that, I'm familiar with Liger and have seen my fair share of his matches in both US and Japan, even saw him live once, but he's not someone I think of for top 10-20, whereas Chad does. So I need to see more to understand where he's coming from to talk about him in those terms. (Thanks for feedback all)

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-76-top-100-matches-special-part-2-50-1/ In a marathon show, Chad and Parv complete their countdown of their top 100 matches, running from 50 to 1.

Did that go an hour?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Buddy Hackett was a spitting image of Wahoo McDaniel.

Hey Si, cheers for doing that. Unfortunately I'm going to be away till Saturday, so if you want me to drop in could you hold off till then? But other than that feel strangely honoured that you'd make a marathon based on our lists. I can't wait to get the 50-1 list out, I feel passionately about pretty much every single match in my top 50, there are none that I consider to be interchangeable. I've worked and reworked on refining the order and now feel happy with it. Whereas my 100-91 might easily be replaced with another nine matches I really dig but aren't quite classics. I also kinda wished I'd gone a bit higher with MX vs. Watts and Stagger Lee, on reflection 76 wasn't high enough.

I think this was the best if the trial shows that you guys have done. Case for the prosecution was really strong, even though I was on defence's side. Structure of the whole thing was very well done. Excellent job.

Anything to get away from the nu-metal which plagued wrestling for at least a decade is good in my book.

I can't really envision what that looks like. If Backlund worked exactly like Ted did, he'd be bumping his ass off, feeding his opponent and executing scoop powerslams and suplexes with real smoothness. He'd basically just be a different worker. What we're talking about is one spot or one trope really -- it's closer to Ray Stevens, Harley Race and Ric Flair all being slammed off the top. So I could answer a question like "what if Backlund always did the 360 over the neck bump Ted always did?" They question becomes more about the spot itself and whether it's a good one. I like that bump, so if Backlund did it -- great, I mean, he'd actually be selling and showing vulnerability for once, so it would be an improvement. And I think this discussion was about one trope: hidden foreign object play. My only point was that on that front, there seems to be a double standard, depending on who is doing it. If it's Lawler it's a master psychologist at work, if it's the Baron it's a poor worker relying on schtick to cover him his limitations. Understand where I'm coming from?

That seems like perfectly fine logic. If someone sucks they probably suck at doing that spot where someone is good it's probably good. That's like shitting on Iron Mike Sharpe for having a shitty dropkick but praising Ricky Morton for having an awesome one. I don't know about that, Scicluna's foreign object play wasn't terrible, he was perfectly fine at doing that stuff and made an entire career out of it. Certainly, I don't think -- personally that is -- that he is self-evidentally any worse than Lawler at doing it, which was my point. And Pete's point never seemed to me to be "well Lawler does that stuff better, the way Baron does it sucks" -- and even if he claims that was his point now, it was not explicit then. I'm just saying what is praised as good psychology in one context, is shit on in another, even when the stuff being done is similar. Seems to me that Lawler is praised because of the other stuff he can do, and Baron is shit on because that's ALL he does. The distinction between that and what you are saying is nuanced but significant.

1. Randy Savage - excellent in both roles, but I think his character and skillset work better for babyface. His core skill in the ring is being able to sell and generate sympathy. Most of the best moments in his career came as a face. 2. Ric Flair - this appears straight forward right? Ric's a heel right? I actualy think it is more complicated: - Starrcade 83 and Starrcade 93 both demonstrate that he excels in the role of babyface ace. - Fans in the Carolinas loved him even when he was booked as a heel. - Even though he was a heel, he had so much charisma that men secretly wanted to be him, and women wanted to shag him. - Related also, the Horsemen were cool and always had their pockts of fans. They were always over when booked as faces. - Flair was audibly cheered vs. Garvin in 87 and vs. Steamboat in 89 and even vs. Hogan in 94. - Realistically since about 1998, it's been difficult to present him as a heel and for him to get over as a heel. - His best heel runs in terms of actually getting booed and getting over AS A HEEL were probably the 91-2 WWF run and the 95-6 post-retirement WCW run. Both times were Ric as an outright heel. As I've said before Flair was at his most evil in 1996. So because of all of that, I actually vote face for Flair, even though his character is a heel. 3. The Rock - so Rock is a similar case to Flair in that the character is ostensibly a heel, but he's so cool and so charismatic that fans could only cheer for him. Rock is face. 4. Kurt Angle - Three I's, "It's true" Kurt all the way. He peaked as a heel in his first year or two. Whatever you say about his in-ring work, he played that role to absolute perfection 5. Mick Foley - face. Foley is naturally likable and has an everyman charm. After he wrote his books, it was hard for people to take him seriously as a heel too -- they knew he was playing a role and was actually a "nice guy". 6. Shawn Michaels - heel. No brainer. Thoroughly dislikable human being. Has "go away" heat with me and has done since 1995/6. 7. Bret Hart - face. Taking the shades off and giving it to a kid. He's a classic babyface. 8. Daniel Bryan - face. Has an underdog quality. I've not seen him work heel much though, but I find it hard to imagine him as anything but a face. --------------- Incidentally, I think there were some *more interesting* ones for this: Sgt. Slaughter Hulk Hogan Bob Backlund Sid I think the podcast would be more interesting if you discussed any of those over Angle / Foley / Shawn / Bret, which all seem like total no-brainers.

Just a quick note to say that LowBlow will be taking over booking of WWF for September -- he has a lot of the shows written already. Behind-the-scenes kayfabe-wise this can be explained that Vince McMahon Sr has been taken ill and is in hospital and he's made arrangements for Bill Watts to come in an take care of business while he's gone (much to Vince Jr's chagrin). I should be back next month, but I've been v. short of time this past couple of months for various reasons.

I do think there is bit of a double standard on this. I will never forget being roundly scolded by Pete for "daring" to compare Baron Mikel Scicluna to Jerry Lawler. But it still seems to me that his argument rests on a circular logic: hidden forgein object play is fine when Lawler does it because Lawler is awesome, but it sucks when Scicluna does it, because Scicluna sucks. The best and most amazing hidden foreign object play I've ever seen is in the three Abby and Sheik vs. Funks matches, because they ratchet up the cheating and villainy to about an 11, to the point where it is drawing serious heat from a sit-on-their-hands-70s-Japanese crowd who are out of their chairs and throwing trash at the ring. It remains the most incredible example of simple rulebreaking generating heat that I've ever seen, and is a masterclass in psychology. I'd love to hear Jingus's take on the foreign object play in those matches and how it compares to what he's talking about.

The Baron had a wife and kids to feed, some people would see them starve.

Terry Funk vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (6/11/76) Reviewing this match so it can be eligible for my top 100; I have seen it before though. A young Jim Crockett Jr is there reading out some stuff making every effort to look like he can't read. Terry is NWA Champion, of course. First ten minutes or so is a mat-based affair with Terry working a clean, technical style as champ reminiscent of Dory. He focuses on Jumbo's left arm with a hammer lock and knee drops. There's a lengthy Greco-Roman knuckle lock test of strength segment -- another standard Dory go to, and not one of my favourites it must be said. Around the 12-minute mark, Jumbo has turned things around as he's now in control of Terry's left arm. Hip-toss escaped by Terry, but a follow-up is reversed into a back slide -- yet another Dory go to. Technical Terry has a very similar move set to his brother, hence his comment that the 81 match was almost like wrestling himself. You can see what he is talking about in a match like this, where, so far, Dory might have worked this hold for hold. Jumbo still controlling the arm at the 17-minute mark. And then we get our first real high spot - an atomic drop. Misses the elbow, Jumbo back to the arm bar. This match has almost been 1950s-style to this point. Butterfly suplex by Terry (another Dory move), sunset flip by Jumbo steals the first fall. He's emotional to get a fall on the champion. Second fall and Terry puts in a little cheap shot on Jumbo. Strike exchange now. Back to the Greco-Roman knuckle lock. Swinging neckbreaker by Terry. Cover gets two. Jumps on the back of his neck. Cover gets two. Pulling piledriver. Cover gets two. Dumps him. Snapmare on the floor. Drop kick. Back in the ring. Snap made. Chinlock. Jumbo starts fighting back with elbows. Terry takes a tumble. Suplex back in by Jumbo. Cover gets two only. Abdominal stretch. Rolling cradle around and around for three by Terry. Evens it up 1-1. Second fall had more action than the first, and was contests less cleanly and less technically than the first. Third fall, Jumbo gets dumped. Back in and they trade side saltos. Butterfly suplex by Jumbo. Big back suplex by Terry. Jumbo sells the shit out of that. Rolling cradle. Backbreaker by Jumbo. Release German suplex. Cover gets one only! Hot shot! Terry with the Jumbo killer! Hot shot will always take Jumbo clean out. This match has the classic 70s All Japan structure of matwork building to strikes building to throws. The third fall is very hot and I like the gradual escalation of violence through the second fall. However, the first fall, which takes up the first 17 minutes is on the dull side to me and feels interchangeable with the opening portions of any number of other matches from this era that I could point you to. Don't get me wrong, I do like this match, but I do not think it is the best match of the era or even close to that. I'd take Dory vs. Jack from Florida over this, for example. I'd take Jack vs. Baba, I'd take any number of Funk tags, and a number of Robinson matches also. All of this makes me sound like I'm down on it -- I'm really not -- I just think it's more typical of its time than it is an exceptional example of its time. ****1/2

Nightstalker's cardboard axe.

I don't know about "dumbest", but I'd like to give a shout out to Titans of Wrestling LEGEND Baron Mikel Scicluna for his foreign object which ... may not actually exist.

Dory vs. Jumbo 74 is not the match I'd have recommended for the marathon, or indeed for anyone. Any of Dory's 75 CC matches would have been better.

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-75-top-100-matches-special-part-1-100-51/ To celebrate the third anniversary of WTBBP and as a thank you to listeners for their support, Chad and Parv rank their top 100 matches of all time. Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a long one. This first part runs from 100 to 51.

Bruce, is the Terry Funk title win in full? I have seen clips of that match as well as Terry's amazing promo from after it. Florida footage always seems to be clips because of the way they did the TV, often with Solie and one of the wrestlers talking over it after the fact. From what I've seen Terry and Brisco had amazing chemistry. There is so little of Terry-as-champ on tape, anything at all would be interesting.

Bruce = awesome.

OJ tell me about Steve Wright.

Great! Here's my review of it by the way. Will try to drop in at some point.