JerryvonKramer

Sorry Matt, I legit missed that post.

Also, Matt D, the exchange about Flair studying crowds before having his match so he could tweak the performance to suit the market AND Luger putting him over for being able to get a smarky crowd to boo him and cheer the face is the surest evidence we've had yet that Flair was a smart worker and not the "idiot savant" that you've painted him to be. Not just what Luger says, but what Flair says about the differences between a Baltimore crowd and a Chicago crowd, or a Charlotte crowd and a Philly crowd. Tell me he's not smart. Also, the idea of him carrying a greener than grass Luger stupidly booked to go an hour in Florida is another testament to him as a great worker. These are all things that you should consider next time these arguments come up. It would be stubborn and willfully overlooking eyewitness evidence from one of his long-term opponents to deny what Luger is saying on this show.

Luger thanking Ric genuinely and from the bottom of his heart for helping to make him a star was a beautiful moment.

"In the middle of the match, you called a sunset flip and I said 'what's that?'" Absolutely hilarious!!

Yeah, I've said it before in this thread and on Titans that even though Vince Sr said he was shooting for a Jack Brisco, what he got in Bob was more like Dory, especially in terms of how they worked. Which is on top and controlling a lot, whereas Brisco worked from underneath. The Dory / Bob comparison is not unfounded. The main difference is that Dory worked more heelish during his run as champ, so his opponents were charismatic territorial aces, whereas Bob was facing charismatic travelling heels. I've said before that I think Dory smokes Backlund in terms of GWE and as a worker, and I stand by that, but Backlund was definitely a guy in his mould and the closest thing we have to a true heir to Dory. Brisco's heirs were Martel and Steamboat.

4 week job cycle for JTTS (TV) week 1 - week 2 - week 3 - week 4 over - job - off - off: Dominic DeNucci off - over - job - off: SD Jones off - off - over - job: Dean Ho job - off - off - over: Fred Curry over - job - off - off: Swede Hanson off - over - job - off: Victor Rivera off - off - over - job: Baron Mikel Scicluna job - off - off - over: Man Mountain Link

Allocation of roles: Special attraction: Andre the Giant Tagteams: The Briscos: Jack and Jerry Brisco The Minnesotta Wrecking Crew: Any combination of The Andersons The Animals: George Steele and Crazy Luke Graham A-crew: Ricky Steamboat Jack Brisco Jerry Brisco Arn Anderson Ole Anderson Gene Anderson Lars Anderson Blackjack Lanza George Steele Mr. Fuji SD Jones Dominic DeNucci Baron Mikel Scicluna Johnny Powers Pete Doherty Steve King Swede Hanson Tony Colon Jack Carson Luke Graham Tony Russo B-crew: Bob Backlund Superstar Billy Graham Billy Robinson Victor Rivera Jose Luis Rivera Dean Ho The Destroyer Chief Thundercloud Fred Curry The Goon (the fake Igor Volkoff) Randy Barber Rick Link Jerry Monti Jack Armstrong Job crew for TV: Gatekeepers to the mid-card: Face: George Steele Heel: Mr. Fuji JTTS: Faces: Dominic DeNucci SD Jones Dean Ho Fred Curry Heels: Swede Hanson Victor Rivera Baron Mikel Scicluna Man Mountain Link Pure jobbers: Face: Jack Carson Jack Armstrong Tony Russo Jerry Monti Steve King Heel: "The Duke of Dorchester" Pete Doherty The Goon Randy Barber Tony Colon

The Dory Funk Jr High Spots Shoot. Dory makes it clear quite early that his memory is hazy on early Amarillo stuff but is crystal clear on his NWA title run. It's very obvious that he's still super proud of it. He claims he has had over 7,000 matches but can only remember specific dates of his world title run because it meant so much to him. Had three months of special intensive training in preparation to be champ. He says he thought he had a great match with Kiniski for the switch. Says Kiniski helped him through a knee injury, and he likes him.Whenever there's a new champion, promoters are worried about how he'd draw. Says Eddie Graham, his father, and Jim Crockett Sr made sure that Dory was booked in loaded cards when he first became champ to ensure they were all good gates. Crockett Sr out Joe Luis in a boxing match in his first defense in Mid Atlantic. So it gave the appearance of him being a sellout wherever he went, so then he became a sellout wherever he went. Clever. He was booked against heels initially, until he worked an hour against Rick Hunter ("the Gladiator") that did well, so Eddie got the idea to program him with Jack Brisco. The world title meant credibility and Dory saw his job as being primarily to give the title that credibility. He runs through most of the champions ever from Eddie Strangler Lewis through Thesz, O'Connor and so on. He says the world title schedule was 26 days out of 30 a month, wrestling a different opponent in a different place every night. First trip to Japan in 69. Met him once in press conference, then in the ring, spoke no Japanese. They went an hour. They were a little concerned about Inoki shooting. Same with Johnny Valentine. Dory thought Inoki was a great performer, and he proved that that night, a year later in 1970. They were meant to have a match in 71, and word got out that Inoki was going to shoot. Inoki no showed. Instead he had a great match with Sakaguchi. THAT night Inoki started New Japan. Dory Sr. Helped Baba with the application to join the NWA and booked the first tour of American talent for him. He said for the next thirty years there wasn't a tour of All Japan that didn't have Funk-booked talent on it. He gave Johnny Ace his first tour. He gave Stan Hansen his first tour. He trained Jumbo Tsuruta. So Dory stayed loyal to All Japan because of the association between Baba and his father. Title defences: Lord Alfred Hayes apparently had his shoulders down for three in Amarillo, and Dory has a big smile and kayfabes that he best Lord Al and he'd beat him today! Dory I have to say is a likable character. Johnny Valentine. Tough guy, great worker. Known shooter. Draw in Charlotte, Texas and St. Louis. Box office wherever he went. No gimmicks. Did it by wrestling alone. He was also the stiffest of all wrestler as well as Wahoo. He was prepared to get chopped hard for a bigger payday. Lonnie Maine in Portland, where he was a big attraction and Don Owen was the best pay off man in the business. 10% meant 10%. He was the straightest when it came to the world champ. Although Fritz, Sam Muchnick and Paul Boesch were all great payoff guys too. He rattles off some more guys he defended against. Too many to type out. He seems to remember ALL of them. Says that Calgary drew very well. He had great matches with Billy Robinson there who was a terrific technical wrestler from whom he learned a lot. He said he learned elements of the British style from him and tried to incorporate it into his own style. You can see that. Talks about Jack Brisco now. Interviewer says that their most famous match was from St. Louis in 1971. Dory disagrees and says Bayfront 1972. They once went 90 minutes in Jacksonville and sold out six weeks later. He says some of their Japanese matches were good too. Why did Race get the title? He was on the cattle ranch with his father driving a pickup truck, and ran over a six foot embankment into the ice. Separated his shoulder, facial and head lacerations. Says it's the only match he missed in his career. He means the match with Brisco in Houston. He was being pressured by Fritz and Sam Muchnick and probably came back too soon from the injury. Dropped the title to Race in Kansas. He says it worked out well because Brisco had never beaten Dory for the title, so it made an ideal rematch scenario. He doesn't understand why Jack would complain about that. After he lost the title he was back in Amarillo because he father and brother had been running it for four years and saw Dory coming back as a chance to go on vacation. Loop Thursday - Amarillo Friday - Abilene Saturday - a spot show in Hereford or Layfield, sometimes Colorado Sunday - Albuquerque Monday - El Paso Tuesday - Odell Wednesday - Lubbock And then it starts all over again. TV show happened in Saturday as well. Sometimes they did a double shot on Sundays. They lived wrestling. More Brisco talk. Said he thought he was technically phenomenonal. Mentions that Brisco was one of the first to transition from Amateur to pro. Mentions here that Kurt Angle is another trainee of his. Says that Angle's work is a lot like Brisco's. Jack could do any move in wrestling. Dory thinks he threw the best ad drag on the business to this day. Great drop kick. Great fire man's carry takeover. Mentions a match he had with Giant Baba now that went 58 minutes, says its famous in Japan. I can't find any record of this. He says he doesn't really know where ole's comment that he was a great worker but not a great booker came from because he never worked for ole. Or where he got the idea. Says he was the booker for for a very successful Amarillo promotion for many years, Japan for many years, Florida for many years, and North Carolina. So he feels like he's a pretty good booker as well as a great wrestler. So take that Ole! Dory gets into some ring psychology now where he says that in world title matches where the stakes are so high every little thing counts. Who has the first take down. Who gets on an arm lock first. Who gets the first cover. Is it a 1 count or a 2 count. Dory said he loved working like that. Go through some territories now. LA: had a great match with Chavo Gurrero. Talk about Barry Windham and Black Jack Mulligan a bit now. That's the end of part one. Change discs. Talk about Charlie Cook in Florida now, he got the feud over when he slapped him in the face. They needed Cook to draw because Dusty had just left and all the angles were over. Mentions Hulk Hogan came to him around that time wanting to work in Florida. "How important was charisma during your reign as champion?" Oooooh a hard hitting question from this high spots interviewer. Dory said he shot for credibility. He said many of his opponents were the charismatic side of it, and he was the credibility side. Georgia - he wrestled Paul De Marco, Mr Wrestling II Johnny Walker, Bob Armstrong. Detroit - 10-minute matches with The Sheik. They went to Joe Luis Arena and got a decent gate. He has mixed emotions about The Sheik. He was box office in Amarillo. And treated him and Terry very well in Detroit. So when him and Terry went there late 70s working for virtually nothing, it really was to help him out. After the Joe Luis Arena show, his son came running in saying all the money had been stolen. Dory said it didn't matter, he would have worked for him after that and probably did. In terms of greatest heels, he'd place him alongside Fritz and Mike DiBiase. As a draw and consistent sell out probably better than those. Fritz could draw a sell out but you couldn't run him three weeks through the territory and sellout every place with him. With sheik you could. He could sell out anywhere in the world. Bobo Brazil, he had a match with him in Columbus, Georgia. The only time they ever wrestled that once. Mid-Atlantic. First time he ever met Jim Crockett Sr, he said to him "remember you're a world champion and not a recruiter for your father in Texas" ha ha. He said he once had a sell out in Greensboro in a six man with him, Terry and dory Sr but he can't recall the opponents. I'll look that up in a bit. Says that later, when he was booking for Jim Crockett Jr and he was ready to quit the NWA over the title switch to Race. Dory says he talked him round and said thre was more money to be drawn with Flair in the chase. And the led to Starrcade. Dory says that after that Crockett made quite a gutsy move in using Flair exclusively. St. Louis - Sam Muchnick was more strict than any other promoter for wrestler. Would tell his refs to legit DQ if anyone broke the rules. Houston - like a carbon copy of St. Louis. There was friction between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio because different stars were over in each place. Biggest crowd he ever wrestled in front of? He travelled to Nigeria. Eddie Einhorn ran against the NWA with bulldog Brower, Mighty Igor, and Ernie Ladd. He got his TV across the country by packaging it with the Chicago White Sox. He also got it to Africa. Through Carlos Colon they travelled to Lagos, Nigeria. Power Mike was the promoter, crowd was 80,000. He said they'd all snuck in. Was a good payday but not as great as he thought it would be. WWF run - George Scott gave him the call. He said he never even met Bruno until 1983, because NWA and WWF were so separated. He left after nine months for an obligation with All Japan. He liked the pay offs. Tag partners who weren't Terry: liked working with Ricky Romero. Had great timing. WWC: can recall match with road warriors exactly. Describes it pretty well. Says Terry pissed off the fans and the roadies so much someone threw something and it hit him and Dory had to work the whole match alone. He then puts over his brother huge as a great worker. Also talks about the match vs. Carlos Colon where Marti Funk worked. Says his wife got tremendous heat. Brody - liked him, nice guy, would seldom job. Doesn't really have much to add on death. Sheik / Abby feud - one of the most violent matches he was ever in. Bloody. The intensity of that match is more than any other match he's been in of that type. He says of that type because there was one with Brisco one time when the fans came to the ring. But the Sheik / Abby match is one of the hottest he's ever been in (they are talking the 1977 one) Match with Terry in 81: finals of a tournament for the international title. Says he was a bit frustrated in the ring because he felt like he was wrestling himself, they both know the same holds. Baba: brilliant man and great handler of talent. He learned from baba, not just his psychology but his wrestling skills. Great wrestler. Jumbo: learned quicker from him than anyone else that he's ever trained. Great worker. Hansen: reason for the jump from New Japan was because Abdullah jumped the other way. They set it up for it to be overnight. DiBiase: super athlete Had a match with Dan Severn in 1995. Said he was a great wrestler but not a box office draw. They did a worked shoot. Thesz: great wrestler. Have credibility to NWA championship before he got there. Flair: flamboyant. What you see is what you get. Dusty: charismatic. Drew a lot for Eddie Graham. Mike DiBiase: good friend of his father. Tough guy. Out of the university of wrestling. Whipper Billy Watson - got give the best bump in wrestling, but he didn't take a lot of them. Andre - super friend of his. Travelled together. Wanted people to know that he was a human being. Made them watch the Princess Bride a lot. Bruno - would have loved to wrestle him but both NWA and WWF were strong so it took away the need to have the match. Dick Slater - good friend. There is about thirty mins left, but I'll have to come back to it.

WWF abstains.

I honestly think Clash 6 has very little fat. It's a 45 minute match worked like a ten minute sprint that I believe is breathtaking and the benchmark ***** in American wrestling.

I think he needs more basics. Flair vs Steamboat, Steamboat vs Savage, Andersons vs Rock n Rolls, Magnum vs Tully. I mean if I'm designing my wrestling degree, first few weeks of the freshman year has to start with something like that.

I could not be more excited for this Houston stuff after listening to this. Good job Pete!

I'm just wondering if the advent of NWA Classics, which may well provide a tremendous boost to 70s candidates, whether there might be a case for pushing back to Summerslam 2016 just to give us a chance to absorb all the new stuff. Here are some people whose cases might be enchanced by the Houston stuff: - Terry Funk - Nick Bockwinkel - Andre - Harley Race - Wahoo McDaniel - Gino Hernandez - Dory Funk Jr - All of the Von Erichs I fully expect this to be shot down, but I'm putting it out there that "footage" is an issue with some of these guys and ... well, there's going to be a lot more of it released over the next year. I get the point about it being important that this poll takes place in 2016 as the ten year anniversary of Smark Choice, but is there any reason the deadline has to be WM?

I'll take back the bit about wanting to be different. It is a bad habit of mine that I tend to accuse people for hipsterdom for its own sake. I should stop doing that. Yesterday, I'd slept 3 hours in 48 and was in an unbelievable bad mood, so apologies. I stand by everything else I said about Flair, but the bit accusing people of bad faith is not necessary.

http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrestling-50-interview-with-nwa-president-bruce-tharpe/ The Titans celebrate their 50th episode and there is much cause for excitement as Pete interviews NWA President Bruce Tharpe about the forthcoming NWA Classics streaming service that will feature hours of never-seen-before content from old Houston cards promoted by Paul Boesch in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

I have no desire to continue this further. The people who won't have Flair in their top ten, won't have him. It's not worth arguing over.

We've had people on this forum say exactly that, so I don't know what you're talking about.

I really do see these as lazy criticisms. Go and watch that match from Starrcade 88 where the finish is Luger buckling under Flair's weight because his legs are so fucked up he can't stand. Watch closely everything from the transition to the home straight and see how laser-like Flair's focus is on the leg. Psychology is amazing. Now watch the Morton match I listed above where Morton comes in with the nose injury and count how many times Flair deviates from the core game of attacking the injured nose. It's just such a lazy misnomer of a criticism. But ALSO even if it was true, there's no great crime in switching from an arm to a leg and if there is I am going to harp on it till kingdom come in every Kawada, Misawa and Kobashi match we have left to watch and ask you to justify why they they switched limbs or from the back to the arm or whatever. The idea that you work one part and one part alone is just one way of telling the story. Even the Andersons would switch up limbs. I'm not saying this against you in particular Steven, but it's just really lazy criticism that doesn't bear up to any sort of scrutiny. "Ah but I'm talking about Flair in 2004!!" Well fuck Flair in 2004. What difference does it make? Anything great after 1991 is a bonus. And he has more of that than most people have in their actual cases. I just don't get it beyond "well Flair's the boring choice and I want to be different", which is what it boils down to. I'm not getting into it again beyond this post, said it too many times in too many places, but stuff you're coming out is some Scott Keith level stuff.

You've skipped on your homework GOTNW

For what it's worth, I do agree that there are times when "goofiness" by Funk can undercut the seriousness of a match. I find the same thing with Dick Murdoch.

Don't you at least think VJM put a cap on it though and to an extent controlled the how hot the Graham run could be? This will be interesting if we ever get to it in the alternative universe timeline on Titans. I can see the arguement you're making and it's interesting. There is a guy on KM saying that he thought that the contenders might win as a fan. But much longer than 10 months and I guess that would start to get old, so switching at the point he did was a good idea. It worked as a once off short term thing.. I think maybe Putski at this time was a little bit above the others because I recall reading somewhere that the guy didn't lose clean until something stupid like 1983.

Apparently even Carlos Rocha dominated in their match ...

1.You can't look at Graham's reign through modern eyes as someone who was pushed to the title and was expected to be the face of the company but was undone by "bad booking". 6-7 months before he beat Bruno, Graham was told exactly when he would win the strap and exactly when and who he would lose it. He was never meant to have an extended run with the belt. Backlund going over on Feb 20 1978 in MSG was the plan, set in stone, 1 1/2 years before. Vince Sr wanted Bob to be truly over and accepted by the fans as the potential next big champ when the switch went done and figured it would take a year plus for that to happen organically (Bob debuted in the territory Dec 76) 2. Each major town in the territory had its own schedule as far as when programs were run. The TV in each town promoted different matches and feuds at different times. So Baltimore was it's own universe, NYC it's own, Boston, Philly, etc. The rematch in Baltimore was just the rematch in Baltimore, not the territory - wide rematch. Each town had its own cycle of Bruno - Graham matches that existed independently of each other Both of these points spot on, Kelly, but I guess my point was that even within that paradigm VJM wasn't exactly pushing Graham to be "hot". He was programmed with Garea, Strongbow and Putski which is very different from the steady diet of Koloff, Hansen, Brody, Patera that Bruno was getting fed not long before this, or the diet of Patterson, Patera, Valentine, Koloff etc. that Backlund was fed. Bruno and Bob both dined out as champs being fed top stars, whereas Graham was feeding off scraps for the main part. Strongbow, Garea, Putski etc. where the guys who most challengers would come in and beat en route to Bruno / Bob. So him having them as his main challengers and barely beating them isn't exactly putting him over strong as champ. A guy on KM said that Putski beat him to a bloody pulp in one match and he squeaked out with a draw or narrow win. Another one said he saw him vs. Strongbow in various matches and Graham got in zero offense, it was all Strongbow. Yes, granted, he was a heel, but most big heels would come in and beat Strongbow. But the champion can't? Even looking through a lens that understands the context and that understands that Backlund was getting that belt no matter what come the date, Graham wasn't booked strongly over the summer. It looks like things were allowed to get hot when Dusty came up to MSG and the Mascaras gates across Decemeber are huge -- and that's probably a case of him allowing Graham to get hot at the right time for Backlund to gobble him. I just thought it might be interesting to look at what he did when he couldn't go to his standard formula. And the answer was "huh, not a lot".

I'm just going to go on record to say that I will raise an eyebrow at anyone who puts a ceiling on Terry Funk for jelly legs and will then read whichever names are ranked above him with an expression somewhere between "quizzical" and "outright disdain".