JerryvonKramer

I wanted to take Andre if I can control his bookings.

Absolutely incredible.

Initial

I watched Hash vs. Tenryu last night from 93. I had a review written out but didn't post it, because I had to take a phonecall in the middle of it, and was distracted during the match. I did think that Tenryu looked kind of sloppy and scrappy in the match though. Tenryu is like the ultimate "I'm not an execution guy", but it can be jarring at times when things don't connect where you expect them to and when the timing is thrown because of his strange positioning. I wasn't going to mention anything but then he was like that ten-fold in that Ivan match I just watched. Something I will have to think about as I explore more Tenryu in the 90s.

Just watched this match completely randomly. I was looking through something and it jumped out at me for looking so weird. Ivan Koloff vs. Genichiro Tenryu (1/3/90) This was just a short match, about 8 minutes, but it was really interesting to watch. Koloff was working as monster heel here, back to his early 70s version: bigger and slower than his JCP Uncle Ivan incarnation. And he fucking brought it here, the first 4 minutes are him kicking Tenryu's ass. Tenryu makes a bit of a comeback in the middle, but then Ivan takes it outside and gives him a couple of chair shots, before coming back in for the finish (obviously Tenryu wins). On a side note, I thought Tenryu looked really really sloppy in this match, like his timing was off, his execution was off, his selling was weird. One of the worst Tenryu performances I can remember seeing. But this was a great showcase for Ivan's versatility: he was 48 here, a good decade or more from his prime, a long time after he was last working as a "monster", and he could still go. I don't know if it really adds to his case, but it's interesting to check out. Terrible off-night for Tenryu though.

And lesser partners in other teams (e.g. Youngblood, Jerry Brisco) might easily have a role outside of the team.

Separately I say. I mean for some (Steamboat, Brisco) there's obvious value in them as singles. For others, the tag partner's value plummets of you take the partner (just as an example, Robert Gibson), so you'll probably be able to pick him up cheap later.

Come on let's do this now. Random/ snake option

The phoney postcard drama of it all. The sense of portent. The narcassistic and self-important wish-fulfillment fantasy. Shawn's self-conscious sense of importance is like a teenager's idea of "deep". That's the only way I can put it. It's not even inauthentic, it's just gauche. As much as I have defended Vince on this board, I loathe his "late vision" of pro wrestling more than just about anything else. Not the Monday Night War comedy stuff, the 00s big dramatic "Wrestlemania moment" stuff. And there in that picture you can see it all. That's intended to mean something to people, and I'm sure it does. What it means to me is the dawning of an epoch of false sentiment and self-important "weightiness". I feel like even though the Monday Night Wars was built on Stone Cold's success, modern WWE was built in Shawn's image. I have nothing against anyone who doesn't share my complete disdain for this, I understand that these are my own deep biases.

I actually think if we're going to say Abby/ Sheik /Brody roll together, that the midgets roll as another touring troupe and the women as another. I think that's all pretty realistic too. Midgets and woman HAD to travel together or they'd have no opponents.

The Sheik was also a "true freelancer", even though I'm not entirely sure what he was up to in 83.

Depending on how long this goes on for, maybe these guys could be introduced later, along with wrestlers who debut in 1984 and "come on the scene". I'm happy with Lauper and Mr T not being available yet.

Okay, if everyone is agreed, I'll change my save to Andre. He was the most over worker in the country, a big attraction and probably the biggest legit star, so he should be a number 1 pick anyway.

If I can use Andre for trades and loan him out a la Vince Sr., I might switch my save to him. But only in the scenario where this is allowed.

I agree with this, even if I don't agree that Tenta could have stood in for him. I reckon you could stick Mike Rotunda in there though and he'd have a string of ****+ matches to his name. Or Terry Taylor. Or any guy who could in any way go.

I should explain that my "Great Match Theory" comment was more about actually getting at what workers do within said great matches as opposed to how many they were a part of. Quality within a great match rather than quantity. That is, if you just take the great matches Kobashi was in, how many of them were great mainly because of him? I often feel the logic of Great Match Theory is simply pointing at a list of great matches and saying "he was in these great matches, therefore he was great". I have not seen all of the Kobashi matches that year, only the cherry picks. And for me, within those matches, many of which were great, I thought Kawada and Hansen came off as being the better workers, with Kobashi very spirited and rapidly developing into being a great worker, but not quite there. He's a guy who does 10 moves where he might do three for the same effect, which not only isn't always "smart work" but also can serve to detract from matches at times. I preferred the Hansen vs. Kawada match to Hansen vs. Kobashi. Kawada felt like Hansen's equal -- I don't mean in terms of hierarchy, I mean in terms of being a great worker. Whereas I felt that in the Kobash match, it was all about a great Stan Hansen performance elevating a younger (and lesser) talent. This is how things have come off to me. Of course, people can disagree with individual assessments of matches. So I guess my point is that even if Kobashi "had the best year" in terms of consistency, in terms of putting in full shifts every night and in terms of having very few bad matches -- I still don't think he can be called "the best worker in the world" because he wasn't. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah, I think that's a great post.

If you put prime Tenta in All Japan in 93-96 would that still be the same? If you take any average or better worker in their prime and put them in 93-96 AJPW with main event opportunities they will almost assuredly have a few great matches or classics under their belt. If not, they're pretty awful. Not sure traveling time to All Japan does anyone any favors. This was really the talking point on the show. I asked "Who could you replace Williams with in that match with Kobashi and still have a similar result?" We ran through some alternatives. And then Steven randomly brought up Tenta. For the record, I don't think Tenta could have had a ****1/2 match with Kobashi.

Right, but we're not following what happened in reality to the letter. Unless you want to do it that way.

He goes back to WWF and has another go round with Backlund after the Final Conflict.

It can be a good and a bad thing I think. Hyper-awareness is undoubtedly bad, as is guys copying things without really understanding them. The older generation didn't learn by watching footage, they learned by taking car rides and on the job in the ring. Flair clearly watched a lot of other wrestlers when he was younger and freely acknowledges his sources (Stevens, Brisco, Wahoo, Harley etc.), but I imagine the first time he saw a lot of guys wrestling in All Japan is when he was in the ring with them.

The weirdest thing to me about Williams is that he is good 85-6 in Mid-South / UWF but then fucking terrible in JCP -- and that's not just because of how he was booked. He sucked in a lot of matches. Then he gets better again. Although I do think he's limited overall and probably won't make my top 100.

Maybe with Cyndi Lauper and Mr T also being available?

Yeah, I was just looking at that. Man, what a roster. I'd probably take ... Dean Ho??

- Ability to take a DDT from the railings to the concrete. 1-0 Williams - Ability to deliver a scoop powerslam. 1-1 Ooooh, it's close. Everything to play for in this thread.