JerryvonKramer

Oh

I just looked up to see if George Scott is still alive and they've quietly brought him back. But sadly it seems he died a year ago.

Oh my god, was that a DQ for not breaking the five count? Might be the first time that finish has been used since 1976!

Because it is literally the only dream match they have left short of literally putting the rotting corpse of the Undertaker back in the ring? Also, in a weird way, HHH is sort of like WWE's Sting. It isn't a 'dream match' at all, though. In all my years of following wrestling I have never heard a single person express a desire to see it. It is insomuch as they are two name guys who've never faced each other. To most WWE fans HHH is a name on the same level as Shawn Michaels, Sting, Undertaker, Kurt Angle or any other major star. I think he's more in touch with reality that you guys are giving him credit for.

Because it is literally the only dream match they have left short of literally putting the rotting corpse of the Undertaker back in the ring? Also, in a weird way, HHH is sort of like WWE's Sting.

Because he's not a very good promo? I thought that segment was the best and most engaging thing on this show by a country mile. I also liked the tribute to the late 90s with HHH cutting a semi-shoot promo.

Vs Flair vs Luger, Starrcade 95

I found the HHH - Sting stuff totally compelling.

The Usos vs Cesaro and Tyson Kidd - I like the way this is worked a good bit. Heels were great here, Kidd works like a proper heel. Focused work on the leg during the initial FIP sequence that I wish might have gone a bit longer. But they actually worked double heat here, even if the second FIP sequence was a bit short too. They mixed in some cool spots with solid psychology. I felt that this went into parity and the finishing sequence a bit too early. I'd have preferred the heels spending longer to build up their heat. Their work was really solid on top, but it's almost like they didn't have the faith or confidence to stick with the FIP sequences for long. Best thing on this show so far though by a mile. ***

I feel like I'm watching an episode of Smackdown.

Goldust vs Stardust - huh? What the fuck was that? A match that was so devoid of heat it was actively distracting. *

Terry and Dory faced each other in All Japan in 81. Terry cites it as one of his best matches. Everyone else thinks it's really boring, still not seen it myself. Think it goes 60 mins.

I didn't know the Briscos faced each other. I'd like to track down Jack vs Jerry.

Rhodes stuff came across as fake, overwritten and badly acted.

Ryback, Rowan, Rollins vs. The Authority - completely listless and unengaging opener devoid of heat or any moments of emotional engagement, compounded by the virtually no-sold return of Randy Orton -- an event so unremarkable that Gary MIchael Cappetta might as well have announced a jobber coming out. Nothing at all of interest here. *1/2

Oh right, here I am watching the Network live for the second time. Genuinely awful name for a PPV. Also, I reckon this is the most cartoony wrestling has looked since 1993. It's almost ridiculously colourful.

Here's episode 4: http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/the-sprouts-4-come-and-see-la-confidential-im-alright-jack_40048 More cinematic nutrition with Adam, Dan and Parv. Adam's Pick (sprout): Come and See (Elim Klimov, 1985) Dan's Pick (mainstream): LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997) Parv's Pick (free): I'm Alright Jack (John Boulting, 1959)

Pat Patterson is easily one of my favourite people in wrestling period.

He can be terrible (see Legends of Wrestling appearances) or he can be engaging. I liked him on Austin. I enjoyed the 13-hour High Spots one, which I need to sit through again now. But then, I'm a true Flair mark. Like a proper one.

I can't wait for Ric Flair's podcast to come on. The only thing I worry about is it having either a current WWE focus or it taking an interview format where Flair has to talk to different guests. I'd MUCH prefer it if Flair had like a sidekick who would just ask him questions. I reckon Flair could record 100+ hours of audio and not run out of new stuff to talk about. He had the most amazing career of anyone in US history when you consider all of the greats he faced through all of the different eras. This podcast has such amazing potential, but I feel like Flair needs to be channeled in the right way.

Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Paul Jones/Dory Funk, Sr. (has to be early 70s) I am not sure where this is from or who the commentator is. Sounds like the man who Gordon Solie might have replaced. It's definitely from Florida, but it's strange that Dory Funk Sr is here to tag with Jones. Maybe he was up from Amarillo for an NWA convention? Beautiful fireman carry takeover by Brisco, and this exchange between Jones and Jack is cutting a ferocious pace. Bodyslam by Jones. Bodyslam by Jack. Really heated stuff. Forearm smash by Brisco. Kneedrop by Brisco. Jerry in. Jones wants Jack back in. Jerry obliges. Jerry back in but Jones is fixated on Jack. Brisco back in. Jones has looked pretty good here. Works Brisco over with stomps. Brisco tries to fire back but Jones levels him. Hot tag to Jerry. Irish whip. Snapmare. Brisco goes over and drops Jones to the outside. Dory Sr and Jerry lock up. Dory Sr is pretty old! His movements are slow. Jerry scores a pin on Dory Sr with an "abdominal stretch gullotine". Interesting historical curiosity this. Work between Brisco and Paul Jones in the early going was good. **1/2 Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Terry & Dory Funk, Jr. (late 70s?) This is after Dory had lost the title. Florida again. Solie on commentary. Very heated. This is just the finish. Brisco and Dory pound away back and forth. Jerry goes for a dropkick from an Irish whip but Dory clings onto the rope. Spinning toe hold! Jerry comes back with a figure-four. Terry and Brisco go at it. But Dory taps to the figure-four Would be interesting to see the whole match. Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Butch Bronson/Len Denton (aka The Grappler) (1979) I think this is from Georgia. Studio match. Solie on commentary. Brisco starts out with Denton. Jerry in. Bronson in. Solie's commentary is fantastic. Arm drag by Jerry. Knee drop. Jerry is a very good worker in his own right. Double underhook suplex. Brisco in and he goes straight to work on the leg. Figure-four. Forget about it. Just a squash. Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Mike Graham and Steve Keirn (12/06/77) Solie on commentary. Graham and Birsco start out. Jerry in. Jack in. Fast-paced stuff. Keirn in. Eventually he catches Brisco in a sleeper hold. This is clipped to shreds but Solie calls it as if it isn't. Big atomic drop by Graham on Brisco. Big suplex by Graham on Jerry. Fifteen minute time limiit goes. Solie is forced to admit it's just highlights. Looked good this. Mike Graham with the high spots! Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Stan Hansen & Ole Anderson (2/28/82) From All Japan. Looking at Brisco's bald patch, my guess is early 80s, maybe 83. Actually, I think this is from GCW with Japanese commentary (for whatever reason) and was the final match in a tournament for the NWA World Tag titles. Ole and Hansen is such a bruising team! Hansen kicks the crap out of Jerry to start, who struggles. Ole in with a waist lock. Jack in. Bearhug by Ole. Jack tries to fight out with forearms. Hansen in. Back to the bearhug. Hansen starts busting out bigger offense now. Back breaker. Into a chinlock now. Up to a vertical base. Brisco gets the tag to Jerry. Ref didn't see it. Classic southern tag stuff this. Ole in with knee drops. Ref didn't see that tag either. Hansen comes back in with kneedrops. Sunset flip by Brisco. Just a hope spot. He crawls through Hansen's leg to get the tag to Jerry. Ole stops his momentum. Hansen with a knee drop. Arm wrench. Ole in to work on this arm some more. Jerry counters by kicking at Ole's leg. Great bit of counter wrestling there. Ole lays his body down on this arm now and tags Hansen in who drops a knee across the injured arm. Wristlock. Ole back in to work the arm. Jerry eventually gets the tag and Brisco comes in to target Ole's leg. Ole tags out and it's a slugfest between Hansen and Brisco. Brisco gets in his signature offense on Hansen's leg setting up for the figure-four. Ole back in. Snapmare by Brisco. Knee drop. Laying in shows on Ole now. Back drop. Tags Jerry back in. Suplex by Jerry. But Hansen comes in. All four men in now. Ref gets in Brisco's face allowing the heels to double team for the 1, 2, 3. A decent match somewhat lacking in heat I'd say. Very sound fundamental psychology. ***1/2 Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Terry & Dory Funk, Jr. (1977?) I think this is from the same tournament as the Graham/Kerin match. The Briscos manage to isolate Dory early and give him several Irish whips into the turnbuckles. But the chessmaster is wily enough to bail. Criss-cross between Jerry and Dory now. Forearm to the jaw by Dory. Terry goes for a cheapshot outside but Brisco cuts him off. Dory waits in the ring. Solie calls Dory "Mr Cool ... The ring generals of all ring generals". Back in the ring and Dory comes in with uppercuts on Jerry who comes back with forearms. Brisco in with an abdominal stretch. Terry wants to break it up but the ref stops him. Solie calls this move the "standing gullotine". Terry is beside himself during this. Brisco moves into a headlock and tags out. Dory goes for a suplex. Blocked. And again. Jerry gets the suplex. Terry tags in. Elbows to the back of the head. He dumps Jerry to the outside. Solie calls Terry "the more explosive" of the Funks, "a high intensity competitor". Terry with the Texas jabs. Jerry tries to fight back. Single-leg pick up by Terry. Spinning toe hold! Jerry counters with the figure-four. Dory tries to break it but Brisco cuts him off. Dory in with a snapmare and an elbow drop. Misses with the right. Jerry comes back with strikes. All four men in, pier six brawl. Dory manages to get in a cheap pin on Jerry with Terry holding down Jerry's leg. Very cool to see this match. These guys had excellent chemistry. Didn't go very long, but I enjoyed what we got. *** Jack & Jerry Brisco / Terry Allen (aka Magnum T.A.) vs "Wild" Bill Snyder/Rick & John Davidson (10/14/82) This is from Florida sometimes in 1982. Allen starts off as the FIP getting worked over by all three heels. I am not familiar with the Davidson brothers. One of the Davidsons comes in with a double axehandle. They are doing a good number on Allen here. Backbreaker on Allen. Brisco tags in and quickly takes over on offense. He takes on both Davidson brothers. Eventually one of them eye rakes him and gets a slam in. Brisco tags out and Allen comes in with big rights. Snyder in. Big bodyslam by Allen. Atomic drop. Cover gets three. Didn't get to see much of the Briscos here. Jack & Jerry Brisco Interview & Hi-Lites of Briscos vs Sir Oliver Humperdink & The Japanese Team Jerry Brisco is in his 70s threads here. This is 1981, Florida. But he's set upon by some Japanese heels (Professor Sinata, Mr Pogo and Hiro Matsuda). Pogo has luminous face paint. Jack comes in for the save. Interview with the Briscos now, and Jack has broken Sir Oliver Humperdink's leg for getting involved with their match.We see the footage of the Briscos breaking his leg. Jack gets him in the figurefour and Jerry splashes it. Humperdink has to be stretchered away. Jerry says that it's not their style to do something like that, but the hurt and humilation of the attack from last week is what led to this. He said he lost control of himself when he saw Humperdink in that figurefour. Jack says that it's not just that they tried to humilate Jerry, they were trying to put him out of wrestling. We see footage of another attack on Jerry. Jack uses the phrase "Humperdink and his Jap friends". Jerry tells them to watch out for trying to take on two "Oklahoma Indians". Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Mr.Pogo & Hiro Matsuda (5/17/81) That was the lead-in for this. Brisco with a fireman carry take over on Matsuda. Pogo in. Brisco with a great kneedrop on him. Headlock. Pogo with a full arm drag and twist. Matsuda in. Hammerlock. Solie tells us Humperdink has put a bounty on the Briscos' heads. Pogo back in. Reverse knife-edge by Pogo. Jerry in. Big lefts. Knee lift. Snapmare. Cover gets two. Jerry with a lot of energy. Front facelock. Matsuda in with a series of chops to the back of the head. The Japanese work over Jerry a bit now. Matsuda with a sleeper. He's not wearing any boots by the way. Pogo in. Big stiff chop by him. Jerry gets a foot into the gut and tags out. Brisco with a big left. Elbow drops into Pogo's inner thigh. Hiptoss. But Pogo catches him in the throat and he tags out. Matsuda with Jerry now. Ref bump. Jerry gets the figurefour on Matsuda. But Pogo comes off the top rope. Matsuda covers and Jerry takes the pin. Wow, so they lost the match too! This was pretty interesting and some good stuff. *** Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Terry & Dory Funk, Jr. (North American Tag Titles) (2/6/82) Footage now of Terry slapping a ring announcer and stomping on him with him on commentary trying to justify it. The Briscos come in now and Dory is there in a red jacket. Back to the studio and Terry is in full swing cutting a promo with Solie. Dory is there too, he's got the NWA International title too. The Briscos are here now too. Brisco mocks the Funks for "beating up ring announcers". And wants Dory to put up that International title right now. Dory says "where's the contract". Jack says that he doesn't care, they'll put up their North American tag titles right now. Awesome confrontation between two legendary teams in a legendary ongoing feud here. Dory isn't happy because he's not dressed to wrestle. Terry says he doesn't care and wants to fight. Briscos hit the ring and they are waiting. Dory is pretty annoyed -- and since he's actually wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a tie here, he's NEVER looked more like a Maths Highschool teacher than he does at this moment. Ha ha ha. The Briscos are fired up. The Funks in their shirts and jeans attack Jerry. This is just an out of control brawl. Briscos get the better of this. Dory is sent packing over the top. Terry is isolated. Dory back in and takes a bodyslam. Dory is wrestling in a fucking shirt and tie here -- Irwin R. Shyster eat your heart out!! Dory has a buckle from his belt and as the ref is distracted with Terry, nails Jerry with it to steal a pin. Dory goes to get the belts, but Jack grabs on. This is just chaos. Belts everywhere. Solie has no idea what's happening. And the footage cuts out. Man, it's agonising we don't have more footage of these guys in the heyday of this feud. This was very cool to see.

This show is absolutely fantastic. The history of the JCP / WCW TV in the early going is great. Graham and Brad know their stuff, and it's great that Hudson has such a passion and knowledge of the business. I honestly fucking loved this.

Week 6 (Feb, Week 2) Philly Spectrum House Show: Another really shitty crowd at the Spectrum. These house show numbers aren't good. Going to need to depart from the Vince Sr loop I think. The company just isn't doing well enough to run these big venues every week. Less than 50% full at the Spectrum. Note that Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard made their in-ring debuts for me here. More on that in a moment. Pedro continues to underperform as IC champ. Just not good enough. I am not sure he can make it all the way to Wrestlemania. Here he is with an opponent against whom he has good chemistry and he still can't get a good match out of it. These semi-main matches are important. This is dragging the whole show rating down. Backlund doing a little better, but I'm sick of seeing that no-selling note in his matches. AND in order to grow these matches have to be better on top. Challenge: So I'm using this show to push the new heels and get them over with the crowds. The main problem at the moment is that the crowd ONLY care about these guys as far as they care about Andre and Bruno. They don't care about them in their own right. Take a look at the notes on these matches: "Completely devoid of heat" means they don't care about Arn at all in his own right. They only care in terms of what's happening to Bruno. Same deal. "Non-existent crowd heat". And again. Incidentally, Mil Mascaras is very close to being fired: He complained about doing this job. I will have members of The Elite go over him clean again and again and then I'll fire him. DiBiase is the most over of the four because the New York fans know him a bit more. He also had the luxury of working with Strongbow here, who is a bit more over than the other faces on this card. But it's promising to see him getting a rating like this against an opponent he doesn't click with in his first match. Superstars: Once again, this show is carrying the main load for the main feud. Soul Patrol just aren't cutting it. Atlas keeps underperforming. This tag scene is dire at the moment. Graham: Welcome again ladies and gentlemen to the Superstars Supershow on Superstars! It's my pleasure to introduce to you today, brothers, a man who has achieved legendary status in this great sport we call professional wrestling. The man, the myth: The Nature Boy, Buddy Rogers! Rogers: Thank you Superstar. I'm here today because I have something that I wanted to say. I watched this show last week and saw something that disgusted me to the pit of my stomach. These young punks coming out here. Ted DiBiase running his mouth about things he THINKS he understands, but he doesnt. It was 1963. I was the best wrestler this country had ever seen! I'd taken them all on, all the greats. Lou Thesz, Pat OConnor, Killer Kowalski. I'd seen em all, and I'd beaten them all. And then let me tell you about being a wrestling man, Ted DiBiase, let me tell you about pain Arn Anderson ... I saw this kid come up here. He was younger than you guys are now. An Italian kid. Bruno Sammartino! And of all the guys I ever faced, this one was the greatest of them all. Make no mistake. You're running your mouth about how no one knows the name "Bruno Sammartino". You're wrong. You go to LA, you go to Chicago, you go all the way to Seattle if you want. When Bruno Sammartino beat me for that World title, the WORLD knew about it. Everyone knew that was the man that beat the great Buddy Rogers. And now, I didn't like it at the time. I was eating up inside. But it takes GREATNESS to beat GREATNESS. You said you guys are from wrestling families. Well, Ted, I remember when your old man was up here. He faced that man Bruno many times. And he pushed him close. He died in that ring! And he was a true wrestler. And he'd be ASHAMED to see what you're doing now! DiBiase runs with a pair of brass knucks and storms the set. He goes to attack Rogers. Graham: You ... mani ... no!!!! That's an old man!! NOO! Graham goes to block DiBiase's punch, but Arn Anderson comes flying in with a football tackle. And Tully Blanchard comes from behind the set to hold Graham down. DiBiase lays a punch on Rogers as Savage emerges from behind and scoops Rogers out of his chair. DiBiase performs a fist drop with the brass knucks onto the now bloodied Rogers. Bruno has seen enough and runs in. All four heels clear the set and run away. Bruno arrives but its too late. Buddy Rogers is in a pool of blood on the floor. Billy Graham is still staggering from the ambush. Bruno roars out a cry of pain. Bruno: ARGGHHHHH!!!!!! He is almost in tears at this scene. He lifts up Rogers's head to check to see if hes okay. Medics arrive with a stretcher. Bruno is beside himself. Ventura has been sitting in the commentary booth all this time and I thought I'd try him out as a potential WM opponent for Backlund. No chemistry. Pretty disappointed in Bob that he wasn't able to get a better match than this out of Ventura. And then I was hit with a bombshell .... Backlund only has one month remaining on his contract. And ... That's right. Bob Backlund. Bob Fucking Backlund is sticking his middle finger up at me. So he's going to jump before he's pushed. This calls for an emergency plan. I had not at all thought about Backlund leaving before we even get to Wrestlemania. I'm not sure what to do. DiBiase isn't ready for the title yet, needs more build. This is a crisis now. Need to *think*. I'm wondering if it might not be unreasonable to put the title back onto Bruno? Someone like Sheik or Koloff as a 1-week transitional champ and back to Bruno? I dunno, Sheik and Koloff have both lost to Backlund twice or more. This is ridiculous. I might have to go back to the market and see about bringing someone in. Dusty? Emergency!! There's another problem too. The company is losing money. I think the main problem here is running MSG, Philly, and Boston on a monthly loop. The promotion isn't over enough to draw big gates at all three so the crowds are thinning out. Two solutions: 1. Run them less frequently 2. Downsize the venue so that it's a 6,000-seater not a 20,000 one. I'm thinking about doing the latter and only running MSG, Spectrum etc. when the expected ticket sales are more than 14,000. Sorry Vince Sr!

Yeah, we've talked about this before and it was one of my drops on the early Titans shows, The Wu-Tang definitely watched the Vince Sr product circa 78-81. Method Man mentions Bob Backlund quite a few times. Elsewhere GZA name checks Ivan Koloff. Masta Killa calls out "Chief Jay Strong".

We did the Top 50 Heels a while back, any interest in the Faces list? I personally cannot be involved in the matches ones, because I can't watch shit tons of footage like these sick fucks.