JerryvonKramer

Awesome little match that I'd never seen before. Four bona-fide legends going at it, great brawling, big bombs. RIP Terry.

I feel like an underrated aspect of Ted when he was really on was his intensity. He has it in spades in the 79 WWF babyface run (see Patterson matches in particular), he has it in his GCW and Mid-South runs and he has it in 1988 WWF and in his best matches in AJPW. This is “input” more than “output” argument but it’s an intangible aspect of his work. I think it’s fair to say that Ted knew how to phone it in and in his WWF run he increasingly did that: but late Ted phoning it in, even in 1993, is still 10/10 fundamentals. Trouble is that it gets a bit samey. Every 10-minute Ted match starts with him bailing early, spot on the outside where he’s clotheslined from behind, back in and he’s still cut off, round for the atomic drop. Then he starts his heat sequence, typically hits a gut wrench and a vertical suplex as commentary put over his expertise and experience etc, goes to a choke, babyface comeback to finish. That’s pretty much every match. At some point he puts his head down for a backdrop, “that was a cardinal mistake for a pro” and that usually triggers the comeback sequence. If you’re lucky you’ll get both the scoop powerslam and the spot where he misses the ax handle from the second rope and flip over bump or the signature 360 bump — however by 93 he often cuts out these high spots. I feel like this isn’t remarked on enough, the extent to which Ted insisted on the same tv match over and over effectively means that it doesn’t matter if the opponent is Virgil, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Hogan, Bart Gunn, Beefcake, literally WHOEVER, it’s the same match. That means that the quality of the match is dictated almost solely by whoever he’s against since Ted is just going to do phone-in Ted. Probably tremendous from the point of view of a Booker since phone-in Ted is 10/10 fundamentals but from the point of view of a fan watching back 30 years later it can be a bit dull. The sole exception in WWF really is Savage who somehow made Ted bring his A-game rather than his phone-in game.

One of the most incredible things about the 83-94 period (Vince’s first decade) is that one still even now after years of on and off again obsession can find obscure corners one did not know about. Tonight, I fell down the rabbit hole of All-American. Random discoveries: - Bad News Brown had a physical altercation with Jack Tunney some time in 1987. I had never seen that before. - Tugboat “transformed” into Typhoon on an Ep of Prime Time in 91. And is introduced to the studio by Jimmy Hart and Earthquake. - Just before Wrestlemania IX on the March 28th 93 episode of All American, Heenan and Okerlund infiltrate WWF headquarters in search of Jack Tunney. The link segments definitely worth a watch with some cameos in there from Steph, Sarge and others. - Around the late Summer of 1994, Ted DiBiase “bought the set” of All-American, decked it out with new chairs and displayed the Million Dollar Belt on it. This is a schtick maintained until the final show which has the set literally dismantled on air with Todd Pettigall delighted and Ted with head in hands. That final show has clips from the previous decade. Quite interesting. The DiBiase set running gag reminded me a little of the Ian Mooney stuff on Spotlight. Completely random in-show angle lost to the mists of time.

For what it's worth just watched this match from Superbrawl 9 and thought Windham was shockingly bad in places.

Just watched this randomly and thought it sucked. Went way too long, Malenko botched a ton of spots, and somehow both Hennig and Windham in 1999 just seemed way off the pace. Weird to see stuff like this received **** at the time. This is a disjointed match.

I just randomly watched Bull Nakano and Dump Matsumoto vs Veltvet McIntyre and some rando from a WWF Boston Garden card in 1986. Had to check if Dump has ever been discussed here. The American girls get an absolute mauling in this match. Some amazing culture clash stuff with Monsoon and Lord Al on commentary. When Dump does some really nasty stuff, Lord Al is audibly shocked and just says “my word!” She comes out in full samurai armour too, it’s wild. same jerk in the crowd tries a boring chant and Nakano gives a middle finger. Dunno just something about seeing these two in a 1986 WWF setting is wild. They bring some proper punk energy. McIntyre for what it’s worth hangs in there, I checked to see if she ever had a run in Japan but she didn’t.

Doing a bit of research for the commentator stuff, and stumbled on this. Howard Finkel on color!!! This was a Meadowlands show, Capetta the ring announcer, and Finkel with Gorilla. Finkel isn't bad either.

Don Muraco’s show is really good. It has just finished sadly but his co-host is light years better than Conrad.

I've been tracking down some of the jobber vs jobber bouts at MSG and was interested to see Iron Mike Sharpe vs. SD Jones from October 19th 1990, an ATROCIOUS 10-minute match with an audible BORING chant. This match would have been bad in 1983, so to see it in the 1990 setting is something. Last SD Jones appearance at MSG and for WWF period, Sharpe would be relegated to pure TV squashes after that and never appeared at the Garden or major house show again. What interested me is that the original broadcast had Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan on it, with the commentary dominated by Heenan complaining about Mr Perfect being screwed out of the IC title in the prior bout against Texas Tornado (double CO). However, it was broadcast later on the November 12th 1990 edition of Prime Time and the original commentary has been dubbed over by Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes, with the two of them generally hyping Survivor Series. Can anyone recall how common this dubbing over of original commentary for Prime Time was? Was this match an exception or by 1990 did they always do it?

Here are the first two matches of every MSG card from 1984 to the end of 1989. I have also included what I will call the "cooler" match on every card. A cooler match was typically inserted after a hot match or angle to bring the crowd down. In some cases, there was no such match and I've simply gone for the weakest match on the remaining card. Bold denotes a star, but we are interested in the jobbers who are not bolded. There are some marginal cases here who I have included as jobbers, such as Paul Roma as a singles when he was part of The Young Stallions, Boris Zhukov in singles, and very late end-of-career Chief Jay Strongbow. Some notes: 1. Just before this period a ton of Vince Sr mainstays retired including Baron Mikel Scicluna, Dominic Denucci, Victor Rivera, and Frank Williams (who did a few last TV shows in 84-5). Pete Doherty also just does Boston shows after 84. Johnny Rodz, Swede Hanson and the Vachons are all finishing up in 84. It seems Vince, for whatever reason, also stopped using long-time jobbers like Israel Mata and Tony Colon in 84. Long-time Bob Bradley only did TV tapings and rarely house shows right through the 80s into the 90s but very seldom did MSG (just 3 times). There core job squad is thus: Jose Luis Rivera (after the departure of Rodz, he must be seen as the "head jobber") Jose Estrada SD Jones Iron Mike Sharpe Rene Goulet Lanny Poffo Steve Lombardi Tony Garea Sal Bellomo 2. There is a clear delineation between the PURE jobber, as in a Frank Williams or Bob Bradley or Terry Gibbs or Charlie Fulton and the "competitive jobber". All of the guys listed above were "competitive jobbers" and yet clearly a rung below a JTTS like Koko B. Ware. The guys listed above AUTO defeat pure jobbers whether at house shows or on TV. 3. Whenever any of these guys win a match against another competitive jobber it is treated on the commentary as a "major upset". This was the case in 1983 when, for example, Sal Bellomo defeated Baron Mikel Scicluna who was on his way out. It was the case when Pete Doherty defeated both Lanny Poffo and SD Jones in Boston in 1987 and 88. With all that said we can basically rank them, in ascending order of hierarchy: Rene Goulet - basically never wins, he even has an MSG job loss to Barry O in 1985 (ouch). He has losses to Scott McGee also. Time limit draw with Rick McGraw. He is only not a "pure" jobber because he wore a cape and had some vague name recognition. Extremely low down the card, more than you would think. Jose Luis Rivera - has a loss to Goulet on his record and one to Charlie Fulton (brutal!) at the Cap Center and one to Barry Horowitz (oof), but Rivera would also pick up more very occasional wins than Goulet and the Los Conquistador deal was a very slight push. For whatever reason, Rivera's matches always seem to go a bit longer. Jose Estrada - Estrada is only very marginally above Rivera for the sole reason that he got a win over Siva Afi in June, 1987 at Boston Gardens. That Afi push really died a death didn't it. Steve Lombardi - from 83 to 87 he is basically a pure jobber, even losing to Ron Shaw and Rene Goulet, with just a single televised win in that entire period against Jack Armstong at the June 85 Boston show. His next televised win would not come until the March 88 Boston show against SD Jones. However, his very slight push during the Brooklyn Brawler run on balance puts him above Goulet, Rivera and Estrada. Sal Bellomo - it may seem strange now, but Bellomo was being properly pushed by Vince Sr in 1982-3 period to be the next big thing, and he was basically undefeated for his first year and hyped up, clearly groomed as an ethnic babyface for the Italians in the crowd. When Vince took over, he clearly didn't see it and as soon as he takes over Bellomo starts getting massively jobbed out -- including a loss to a debuting Bobby Heenan. However, in 84, Bellomo would still beat a guy like Moondog Rex and was relatively treated still as a name. His last televised win was in July 85 against Ron Shaw at the Cap Centre and after that he's pretty much a pure jobber. Tony Garea - he slipped into the Chief Jay Strongbow role of the former star now jobbing out as he winds down his career, but would still trade wins with Iron Mike Sharpe in 1984 but has very few wins after that. SD Jones - you might imagine at some point in the 1970s that Jones was once a big star but he never was really. He was always a JTTS as far as I can see. His only significant win in the 70s was over Nikolai Volkoff in 1978, at the February Philly show -- Volkoff was a title challenger in 78 so not to be sniffed at, but in the 70s he was still jobbing to stars while defeating jobbers on TV for the most part. In 83 he went over the likes of Baron Scicluna, Swede Hanson, Butcher Vachon and both Estrada and Rivera. By 84 though, he's only beating Rene Goulet. He has very occasional wins after that also. The reason Jones is relatively high up on the jobber ladder is that he was always presented as being competitive in a way that some of the others were not. Iron Mike Sharpe - in 83 Sharpe comes in with a decent push and is booked as a star heel. As with Bellomo, when Vince takes over Sharpe starts getting jobbed out but still wins against Goulet, Lombardi, Jones and others. By 85's slipped further and now trades wins with Jones and has time limit draws with Poffo. Still in 87 he was a win over Sivi Afi. However, by 88-9 he's losing to Sam Houston and Tim Horner and is a more pure jobber after that. Lanny Poffo - even without his run as The Genius, it is clear that Poffo is at the very top of the jobber hierarchy and represents the dividing line between JTTS and jobber. He won relatively frequently on house shows even beating Tiger Chung Lee. He seems to beat most of the others here in match-ups apart from draws with Sharpe in 85. He does have an embarrassing loss to Barry Horowitz to his name in 87, but wins a return bout. So there it is, the jobber hierarchy!

This is a placeholder but there are a few other nerdy bits of data I want to compile. First, a wholistic understanding of commentary duties in this stretch down to Jack Reynolds and Ken Rensick and even Pete Doherty level. Second, an in-depth look at the job squad. For example, I recall Doherty once got a win over Lanny Poffo in Boston. Poffo himself would sometimes pick up house show wins. Guys like Terry Gibbs or George South would never win. I want to work out the actual hierarchy. I always find it interesting just how much TV time those guys got, especially those 15-20 minute house show matches which aired on Prime Time. I learned that Gorilla Monsoon would INSIST on watching the entirety of every match for Prime Time tapings; so Monsoon and Heenan were sitting through these entire cards — and for Monsoon it would have been a second go round most of the time since he did most of the commentary on the house shows. He must have really loved 20-minute jobber vs jobber matches, it’s some dedication!

I noticed something a little odd: Prime-Time didn't feature a single match from Philly until 1987, then it features a lot, but by 1988 it's down to six matches for the whole year and in 1989 zero again. I have a theory that Vince didn't want Dick Graham on his main cable TV, but anyone know why Prime-Time tended to be the other big shows but never Philly?

I've been watching the old George Steele 1986 Timeline -- Steele is actually a very very good interview. He puts a slightly more positive spin on Hogan not being able to draw on the return match. In his view, it is because Hogan was booked so strong that fans simply wouldn't buy that he could lose on the return match so that's why they did so many one and dones. On paper, it's the same as Bruno's long standing criticism, but it just gives a slightly different reason.

I've gone back to listen to some of the old Kayfabe Commentaries output and every single show would be improved right now if Conrad just sat back to handle the business and let Sean Oliver be the host. Oliver is probably the best shoot interviewer in history.

This took a good while to put together and there's a chance I missed a date here or there as I was zoning out towards the end. Just a few notes: 1. I can't really work out any logic or pattern, but it's clear that at any one time the WWF was running split crews and Hogan headed up one side and someone like Savage, the IC champ or the Tag Champs would head up the other side. Still, the number of major shows Hogan did not make during his primary run as champ is still a little shocking to me. Obviously, not every venue here ran every month (e.g. Nassau) but a good number of them did and he just wasn't on them. Meadowlands in particular, but also I was expecting more Maple Leaf Gardens appearances. 2. The sheer number of matches with Orndorff is something: he was the go-to opponent across almost every secondary market in both 84 and 86 and for a good chunk of 85 as well. Many of the regular stops and the smaller towns are not listed here, but I'd say Pittsburgh or the Cap Centre are pretty representative of what was happening around the horn. It could be that Hogan loved working with Paula and that they had great chemistry together, but I can't imagine Vince would run the match THAT many times if that is all it was. Orndorff must have been insanely over to be given that many main even gates in one of the hottest ace runs in wrestling history -- and not just once, but TWICE over. 3. Distinct lack of Piper matches in general especially when you compare with Orndorff. As a basis of comparison, I reckon Adrian Adonis had as many title shots in 1985 if not more. Just a bit surprising given how hot Piper was and with him being the main villain of the cartoon. 4. The booking around Ventura vs. Hogan -- a natural feud -- seems incredibly tentative. I know Jesse had injury issues, but every shot looks like a testing of the waters and a dipping the toe in. Maybe natural animosity between the two men? 5. Both Studd and Muraco were still treated as major deals in 1985. Studd in particular seems to have been used to break into new markets. I'm guessing he was over on the West Coast because the booking seems to switch to Studd from other opponents when they were breaking into Cali. Given the general state of Muraco in 1985, it's strange he was given so many shots including THREE in a row at MSG. Of other workers, only Savage got this. 6. Hogan seemed to be struggling for opponents in 1987. They'd run every other feud into the ground (Orndorff, Muraco, Piper, Studd, etc), but -- at least to my eyes -- Kamala, Killer Khan and One Man Gang just don't seem like top caliber opponents. Harley Race still had big name recognition, of course, and Race basically played that Orndorff role across the summer in most markets. If memory serves an injury stopped that program short? Just on paper though, the 1987 booking starts to look a bit Dungeon of Doom-y and regardless of what else was going on, you can see why they took the belt off him, there was nowhere else to go. Also he seemed to work noticeably fewer dates that year. 7. Finally, this is just a little quirk, but those Masked Superstar matches have never been collected either on VHS or DVD. I'm guessing this is because they didn't want to remind people that Bill Eadie worked another gimmick, but he's the only opponent of those listed who doesn't have at least one of the title shots on a WWE release to date.

This was exactly what he ended up doing in the WWF too, so you're probably right.

Tough just watching the clips, but pleased he got what he wanted.

I'm just lurking on twitter and looking at clips and things, I can't bring myself to watch.

To be clear, I'm not saying Ted didn't have great matches, but that they are not *technical* masterpieces and that was his rep. That double-turn Flair match for example is am all-time great juice job and sell job and angle. The Magnum TA matches are just very very good babyface vs. heel matches, etc. Mid-South in general had a kind of slugger / brawler vibe through the whole promotion. I mean it is an awesome style, but it doesn't lend itself to *technical* masterpiece. *Technical* masterpiece would be something like Flair vs. Steamboat or Bockwinkel vs. Hennig or Bret vs. Owen or the the great AJPW matches. I think the point is that there was a general mismatch in how Ted was thought of by the boys and sold on commentary and thought of by fans and the sort of worker that he actually was.

Since making this thread, I became quite interested in how exactly Hogan was booked in the major house shows as compared with Bruno and Backlund. Let's just take three big ones and see his opponents month by month year-by-year and just his initial 1984-8 run. MSG 1984 Jan: Title win vs. Iron Sheik Feb: Orndorff March: not on card April: not on card May: Schultz June: not on card July: Valentine August: not on card September: Studd October: Studd (2) November: not on card December: Iron Sheik 1985 Jan: not on card Feb: Piper March: not on card March [Wrestlemania]: with Mr T vs. Piper (2) and Orndorff (2) April: Muraco May: Muraco (2) June: Muraco (3) July: not on card August: not on card September: not on card October: not on card November: not on card December: Savage 1986 Jan: Savage (2) Feb: Savage (3) March: not on card April: with Hillbilly Jim vs. Studd (3) and Bundy May: not on card June: not on card July: not on card August: not on card September: with Big and Super Machine vs. Bundy, Studd (4) and Heenan October: not on card November: with Piper vs. Orndorff (3) and Race December: Kamala 1987 Jan: Kamala (2) Feb: not on card March: no card April: no card May: Race (2) June: Race (2) July: not on card August: not on card September: One Man Gang October: not on card November: not on card December: not on card 1988 Jan: with Bigelow vs. DiBiase and Virgil loses title Philly Spectrum 1984 Jan: not on card Feb: Masked Superstar March: not on card April: no card May: Iron Sheik June: Iron Sheik (2) July: Orndorff August: Valentine September: not on card October: Studd November: not on card December: not on card 1985 Jan: not on card Feb: Beefcake March: not on card April: Orndorff (2) May: Patera June: with Orndorff vs. Piper and Orton Jr July: not on card August: not on card September: Savage October: not on card November: not on card December: Funk 1986 Jan: with Andre vs. Studd (2), Bundy and Heenan Feb: Bundy March: not on card April [March 30th]: with Steamboat vs. Muraco and Johnny V May: with Orndorff vs. Muarco (2) and Bundy (2) May [May 31st]: not on card June: Bundy (3) July: Adonis August: not on card September: Orndorff (3) October: Orndorff (4) November: not on card December: Orndorff (5) 1987 Jan: not on card Feb: Kamala March: with Piper vs. Kamala (2) and Orndorff (6) April: no card May: Race June: with Patera vs. Race (2) and Hercules July: not on card August: not on card September: Khan October: not on card November: not on card December: One Man Gang 1988 Jan: not on card loses title Boston Garden 1984 Jan: not on card Feb: Iron Sheik March: Schultz April: not on card May: not on card June: not on card July: Orndorff August: not on card September: not on card October: Piper November: Piper (2) December: not on card 1985 Jan: not on card Feb: not on card March: Muraco April: no card May: with Snuka vs. Muraco (2) and Orton Jr June: Studd July: no card August: not on card September: Bundy October: Bundy (2) November: not on card December: not on card 1986 Jan: not on card Feb: not on card March: with JYD vs. The Funks April: not on card May: Savage June: Savage (2) July: no card August: with Steele vs. Savage (3) and Adonis September: not on card October: not on card November: not on card December: Kamala 1987 Jan: not on card Feb: not on card March: with Piper and Haynes vs. Orndorff (2), Adonis (2) and Hercules April: not on card May: Race June: Race (2) July: not on card August: not on card September: Khan October: not on card November: not on card December: not on card 1988 Jan: Rude loses title ---------------- I may fill in some other arenas later like Maple Leaf Gardens, Cap Centre, Meadowlands or LA Sports Arena, but from this we can see a few things: 1. Hogan made drastically fewer shows than either Bruno or Backlund. He was booked almost like Andre as a special attraction and often not in back-to-back months. 2. Orndorff was the standard fill-in opponent especially at Philly. 3. They seldom worked the old 3-match loop, in fact in 4 years across three different venues, they just did it once: Muraco at MSG in 1985. 4. Not all guys who got a shot at Philly or Boston would work MSG.

Ironically, I made that comment after listening to some of the older shows with Pritchard where they picked individual workers and went through their careers. He was saying things like "what happened there, he was basically done" because he was only looking at PPVs and SNMEs. I was almost screaming: MSG, PHILLY, BOSTON GARDENS where the worker in question had title shots around the horn. Bruce even tried to explain to him but he's just obtuse. I get that he has numbers to look at but come on.

MSG Broadcaster: MSG Network First broadcast: 10/25/76 Last broadcast: 3/23/92 (ONE OFF: 3/16/97) [+ occasional Meadowlands and Nassau Coliseum cards] Philly Spectrum Broadcaster: PRISM First broadcast: 7/21/79 Last broadcast: 2/11/89 Boston Garden Broadcaster: NESN First broadcast: 5/18/85 Last broadcast: 6/3/89 LA Sports Arena Broadcaster: Z Channel First broadcast: 7/15/88 Last broadcast: 1/29/89 Why did Vince pull the plug on airing House Shows in 1989? How come they did the MSG Network show in 1997?

One thing I don't understand about Conrad is that no matter how many 100s of hours of shows he does with some of the best brains in the business, he still has absolutely no feel for the old territorial loops or the significance of WWF House Shows (MSG, Philly etc). He seems to think only PPVs are of any significance. I just don't understand how anyone's skull can be that thick and resistant to learning.

The only thing I care about is the prospect of a long-form Vince shoot interview before he dies on par with the 13-hour Flair High Spots one.

Have people forgotten what a shitshow committee booking was?