JerryvonKramer

Wrestlingdata.com is incomplete, seemed really low to me too.

I don't care about any of this, I know Backlund made money, I'm saying Steamboat or Martel would have made more. I sometimes get the impression that Backlund was Vince Sr's weird project to prove to all the other promoters that he could still draw with literally *anyone* on top. Like a bizarre experiment. I wouldn't be surprised to learn one day that Eddie Graham and him had a "Trading Places" sort of deal. "Eddie, see that goofy little shithead Backlund? I can sell out MSG with him" "Get out of it, Vince ..." "Want to bet ONE dollar?" It wouldn't surprise me at all. The Backlund deal is one of the weirdest things in wrestling history.

Just push it forward a couple of years. Put either guy over Backlund in 1980. No need to stick with Howdy Doody for the full 6-years. Have someone like Hogan or Patera or Valentine or Slaughter beat him in a Koloff/Iron Sheik sort of deal and then have Steamer or Martel beat them. Steamboat commanded the garden in his one appearance there in that tag match. He was crazy over. Martel was amazing and given the same push as Backlund would be thought of as a total legend even by casual fans today. Both guys were all the things Backlund wasn't: charismatic, sexy, dynamic, great at selling. I fully believe that either guy would have made Vince Sr a boatload of cash. It's not like Backlund didn't draw, but I think that either of them would have drawn more -- despite being Southern / Canadian / ethnic-looking.

I think Rick Martel or Ricky Steamboat should have been made WWF Champion instead of Bob Backlund.

See, I think this is one of the conclusions from the 80s AJPW committee -- that "Dory sucked on offense" -- that needs to be overcome, because it's not really true. It might be true in some of those longer tag league matches from the 80s. From all the reviews I've done so far from the 70s and in singles matches from all over the place, Dory's offense has been a consistent strength. Not necessarily working the mat either, he's very good at building up the offense to the point where he's busting out the European uppercuts or the big delayed butterfly suplex. I'd argue that getting his ass kicked is one of the less effective roles for him, because he doesn't really sell enough. I will get to some more 80s All Japan with Dory soon, but I don't agree with Will's conclusions -- mine are basically the opposite. Will: what do you think of Dory in the tags with Abby/ Sheik? What do you think of him in the singles match with Lawler from 81? Have you seen him kicking the shit out of Steve Keirn in Florida in 81? Have you seen him trading suplexes with Horst Hoffman or Jumbo in the 70s? I don't think you can come out of those matches and argue that the guy didn't have good offense. He's also surprisingly sinister as a heel in that Florida 81 stuff. I do also think that Dory is a victim of some people going into matches with a negative mindset about him and then inevitably coming out shitting on him. And he can look especially boring in the all-action environment of mid-80s All Japan. I do know some of the matches Will is talking about and it is true that matches seem like they are about to get going and Dory seems to suck the life out of them by going back to a hammerlock or something, just as it looks like things are getting heated. I do get the criticism -- I came out of the AJPW 80s set thinking Dory might be one of the most boring guys ever ever -- but it's not ALWAYS true. And I feel like I've seen a lot of matches now where it isn't. We also have to remember that Dory's USP -- the thing that he brought to the table more than most -- was credibility. Solie constantly talks about him being a master at "the human game of chess". And that was his whole deal. He was the subtle heel. His game was all about staying cool, calm, and collected and making his opponent lose their temper and their control -- and that's when he's going to go in for that spinning toehold. It's also that aspect of his makeup that produces the oddly chilling moments when he completely loses it himself -- because even what seems like red mist like decking Keirn with a chair -- comes across like a calculation. That's why I love that 1978 deal with him destroying The Sheik's hand with the bell so much, because it's a rare moment when even the calculation's gone and we get raw primal hatred. When Terry loses it, you kind of expect it. When Dory loses it, it's downright scary and he might legit kill someone -- because this is the guy who is always in control. Larry Matysik is actually pretty good on this. He ranks Dory #13 on his top 50 list: He's right.

I'd argue their best matches are with The Steiners in 1993. They also have good ones against The Beverley Brothers themselves in 92. Money Inc are underrated, I think. They were are really classic old-school CHEAP heel team at a time when that sort of thing wasn't really being done. The abdominal stretch switch spot, taking the count out to keep the titles, and so on was all quite throw-back booking. I think Money Inc carried that tag division for about 18 months all-in-all. They good good heat. They worked well against a variety of opponents. It was a good use of DiBiase, who was slowing down and arguably the most effective use of Mike Rotunda ever witnessed.

Magnum, you're selling the Battle of Atlantic City (Andre and Ted vs. Baron Scicluna and Jerry Valiant) WWF, 1979 a bit short there. Andre and Ted actually tagged together in Amarillo in the late 70s, 1979 WWF on numerous occassions, once in GCW against the Freebirds in 81, and then in 88 of course. All-in-all, they tagged 33 times -- which is actually 10 more than DiBiase and Williams, which no one would question. I've done my due diligence.

Pete, don't tell him about the time I compared Jerry Lawler to Baron Mikel Scicluna.

Are there any minimum requirements? I am going to watch a good sampling of the matches for the GWE project, but was planning only to hit those in bold and possibly some of those in italics if it features guys I'm assessing. This project is pretty awesome for someone just looking to get a feel for what was going on, and the spreadsheet is really great! I wasn't planning on submitting a ballot because I don't want to be a Johnny Come Lately or skew results based on not having watched everything. Plus I'm hardly a 00s Japan guy. But I will try to turn something in if you want.

I wouldn't try to argue that Ted was a bigger star than Murdoch in Japan at all. The whole purpose of all this win-loss stuff was this: Do you think that Murdoch does come out of it looking much better than a sort of Kane-level guy? Is Kane a WON HoFer? How is Murdoch demonstrably a bigger star in Japan than Kane has been in WWE since 1997? And if you don't think these are legit questions, explain why they aren't. Incidentally, don't feel compelled to try to prove Murdoch was a bigger star than Kane, not strictly necessary ... Kane-level star in Japan + reasonable star in West Texas and Florida + regular challenger for NWA title, including in St. Louis + exceptional worker for 20 years = HoF case If that is his case, that's his case -- and there are probably guys who are in already with weaker ones.

I'm not!

Personally, I'll be more interested in the top 100 lists of individual people than I will by the aggregated list. Part of me agrees with the line of thought that the more diversified and "opened up" the voting becomes, the more diluted and meaningless the list becomes -- and the less interested I'll be with it. And that isn't intended as a knock on anyone at all. It also won't lessen my engagement with the project. But ... I have zero faith that everyone is going to take part in the same spirit of open mindedness, exploration and eagerness to view footage that we might hope for. And I guess I'm only *really* interested in the lists made by the guys who put that work in.

On the last Titans show, which has just dropped, we reviewed a Martel match which I thought demonstrated just how fantastic he was. It's on Youtube: Starts about 1:31:20 in, and goes about 15 minutes. It's Martel vs. The Hangman, a lower card opponent. Date is 03/16/80, MSG. We were divided on this. Johnny thought the match was boring and sucks, I thought it was easily the best match on the card and a real showcase for Martel. Kelly and Pete were somewhere in between, with Kelly a bit higher on it than Pete, but not as high as me. I'd really like to know what others make of this. People who are high on Martel, people who aren't etc. I'd say it's about a ***1/2 but an MVP performance from Martel. Let me know what you think.

http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrestling-35-wwf-at-msg-march-16-1981/ Join Pete, Kelly and two grumpy old men to argue about Bob Backlund matches from 1981. On the docket tonight: Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Baron Mikel Scicluna SD Jones vs Johnny Rodz Rick McGraw vs Moondog Rex Dominic DeNucci vs Larry Sharpe Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen Pedro Morales vs Moondog King Andre the Giant vs Sgt. Slaughter Rick Martel vs The Hangman Tony Garea vs Bulldog Brower Tony Atlas vs Hulk Hogan Highlights include: - More tales of The Baron - The stat attack: win-loss records for SJ Jones, Johnny Rodz and many others - The great matwork conspiracy of March 81 - Brief discussion of Dominic Denucci's Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame case - Plus: card games out the back, why Hansen and Brody never worked Hogan, Parv vs the world on Backlund round 254,some discussion of Rick Martel, and Tony Garea's magnificent hair! The PWO-PTBN Podcast Network features great shows you can find right here at Place to Be Nation. By subscribing on iTunes or SoundCloud, you’ll have access to new episodes, bonus content, as well as a complete archive of: Where the Big Boys Play, Titans of Wrestling, Pro-Wrestling Super-Show, Good Will Wrestling, and Wrestling With the Past.

In any case, having looked at all of this, I don't really think the win-loss record tells us all that much anyway. Baba / Inoki were going to be on the winning side, most of the time. The big thing in Murdoch's favour is that he is only behind Hansen, Abdullah and Brody as Baba's most regular gajin opponent, and only behind Andre as Inoki's. If the win-loss record says anything at all, it's just that he wasn't on the level of guys like Bobo Brazil or The Destroyer at any time in his career, and was booked a bit weaker than Hansen and Brody, and about the same as most other guys vs. those two. I knew The Destroyer was a big name in Japan but had never thought about Bobo Brazil as being a guy known out there ...

Ted was getting those wins in '76 because of Bobo. As for the others, look at the guys Baba was tagging with. I've never even heard of some of them. My Ted and Gordy comment was actually meant semi-facetiously as a response to this: The implication -- at least how I read it -- was that Murdoch was working singles matches and closer to their peaks. My comment was more or less saying "well, actually, most of Murdoch's matches were tags too". In fact, most of Baba's and Inoki's matches period at least vs Gajins, seemingly, were tags. I guess it was a neat way to for them to be on the losing side without necessarily eating the pin.

For interest's sake, here are the Baba / Inoki records for singles only. (in bold) [baba] vs. Murdoch: 77-1-1 3-1-0 vs. Abdullah: 179-13-47 8-7-2 vs. Hansen: 36-12-40 3-2-2 vs. Bobo Brazil: 49-7-17 4-5-7 vs. The Destroyer: 33-9-28 4-3-3 vs. Brody: 66-15-28 1-4-0 vs. Harley Race: 46-6-18 8-3-2 vs. Cyclone Negro: 52-3-8 6-2-1 vs. Terry Funk: 34-11-10 3-2-0 vs. Dick Slater: 41-4-7 1-0-1 vs. Killer Karl Kox: 41-2-6 1-0-1 vs. Mark Lewin: 35-1-8 2-1-0 vs. Dory Funk Jr: 23-8-14 1-2-2 vs. Billy Robinson: 24-4-15 1-2-0 vs. Terry Gordy: 24-3-12 1-0-0 vs. Ted DiBiase: 20-3-12 2-0-0 vs. Wilbur Snyder: 16-3-8 2-2-0 [inoki] vs. Murdoch: 93-13-18 9-0-0 vs. Andre: 74-28-30 4-5-4 vs. Bad News Brown: 99-6-9 5-0-0 vs. The Masked Superstar: 86-6-14 8-1-2 vs. Brody: 29-11-7 1-3-2 vs. Hansen: 31-4-9 7-2-2 vs. Abdullah: 34-2-6 2-0-0 vs. Adrian Adonis: 27-7-6 1-0-0 vs. Bam Bam Bigelow: 32-0-5 6-0-1 vs. Steve Williams: 21-3-4 4-2-0 vs. The Destroyer: 4-4-16 1-0-8 vs. Hulk Hogan: 13-5-6 1-1-1

But Ted was tagging with Bobo Brazil in 1976 and with Slater in 1980 and Billy Robinson in 1982 when he got about 25% of his wins vs. Baba. See here: Some of Gordy's wins over Baba come from the Freebirds era of his career. Guess the point is, Baba was on the losing side sometimes in the 70s and early 80s, just never when Murdoch was on the opposition.

In fact, the vast majority of those matches were tags. I've found a setting on Wrestlingdata that allows you to "include only one on one matches". Here is Murdoch vs. Inoki 0-0-9 Murdoch vs. Baba 0-1-3 I have checked the full listing to see if this isn't a glitch in the system and sure enough all 90+ matches with Inoki and 70+ matches with Baba were in tags. So perhaps DiBiase and Gordy are not bad comparison points after all ...

I said this recently in the big summary post: Every time I see Martel crop up in whatever I'm watching, he makes me think he's one of the best babyfaces ever to step into the ring. He is almost the perfect embodiment of what I'd look for in a babyface.

Nominate: Money Inc (yearbooks, DiBiase microscope threads ) Ted DiBiase and Steve Williams (Mid-South set) Ted DiBiase and Stan Hansen (AJPW set) Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant (Titans, various reviews of Summerslam 88)

Larry Matysik has definitely said more than once that Bruno was not over in St. Louis and never popped the gate for them either, which is backed up by the numbers. The loudest and most electric crowds I've ever heard are those from MSG and Philly in 1980 for Larry Zbysko vs. Bruno. *I think* it's the 03/24/80 MSG show and the 04/12/80 Philly show. We were legit stunned at those crowds. The MSG and Spectrum crowds were generally pretty hot even for Backlund on an average night, but those two nights in particular they were something else. "White heat" and I am struggling to think of another time when I've seen anything like it. Certainly blew me away. It's like those crowds somehow found another secret gear of hotness hitherto only witnessed by the gods. Still probably the coolest thing we've seen on Titans to date.

I do think Austin was more authentic than either Rock or Hogan, but the main problem with the comparison to Bruno is that he was on top from 1963 till 1980, and he was even brought in to headline some shows in the mid-late 80s. Part of what Bruno had was that innate earthiness and integrity that I'm talking about, but another part of it is having been there year-on-year for so long. I don't think the connection was forged overnight, whereas I do think Austin was more of an "overnight sensation". This is also going to be a weird thing to point out, but if you look for Austin's biggest pops, they are usually as the glass shatters and he walks out from backstage OR when he's delivering a stunner to Vince or whatever. If you look at Bruno, it's when he's introduced or when he's making his comeback during the match -- literally every single show. Obviously, some of that is down to environment, but I think part of Austin's appeal was always the idea of him as an "impact" player. Bam! There's Stone Cold! Holy shit! Type thing. Bruno was getting over basically with no gimmicks or apparatus to help him. Stick with me here ... I think if Stone Cold had gone for another 20 years, people would have surely got burnt out, because of that Bam! It's Stone Cold!! STONE COLD! Deal. It's just the way that character was booked. Even now when Stone Cold turns up, it's usually in that "unexpected impact", sort of way. There's only so many times you can go to that well, week in-week out before it starts getting old. Not trying to knock Austin here, but rather try to get a measure of where some of his pops were coming from. I do agree that he had a special connection with crowds in the late 90s and "meant more" to people than your average babyface hero did. If we're doing Austin vs. Bruno comparisons, there are areas where I think Austin has Bruno beat. Better promo (although Bruno was pretty great in his own right). Probably a better worker all-in-all. Better matches on tape. Greater variety of ways of working, certainly. But in "crowd connection" Austin's about an 93 whereas Bruno is a 100 and probably a "once in a 100 years" sort of deal.

Have to agree with Johnny, he's not exaggerating. He wasn't just a champion either, he was a genuine hero. I think the "ethnic" card tends to be much too overplayed when discussing Bruno, it's clear that he was over with EVERYONE. I also think Bruno's connection with the crowd was much more genuine than, for example, Hogan's. They talk about when Hogan went back to places month after month it was a case of diminishing returns, because a certain amount of Hogan's overness has always been based on novelty: i.e. it's the pop you get at seeing the massive icon. Once a crowd "gets used" to Hogan, some of the excitement dies down. Hogan was champ-as-special attraction. A guy like Cena could only dream of having the sort of connection with the crowd Bruno did. Given how crowds turned on Dusty in 88, I think you can argue that Bruno also connected better and deeper even than him. There's something really unique about what Bruno meant at MSG, the Spectrum, and in those secondary markets like Boston and Pittsburgh. It's a quality that is extremely difficult to quantify, and it's more than "aura" or "x-factor" that you could point to with guys like The Rock or Riki Choshu. Bruno had something else ... Authenticity, genuine integrity, values ... trust. This all sounds ridiculous, but I think it's true. Bruno was more than just another headliner or star to that audience, in a way that has very few parallels. Perhaps Baba or Inoki had "that" to the same sort of extent. Does all of this make the guy a great worker? I think -- if you take some of the non-work-rate-y sort of criteria like charisma or "aura", or crowd control, or connection with an audience -- Bruno is 10/10 in practically all of them. I'm also totally willing to admit that he SOMEHOW made me, a lifelong heel fan -- and one who was getting very weary and bored by late 70s WWF, Vince Sr's formulaic booking and all the rest of it -- a Bruno mark, years after the fact. He has *something* special about him. It's very difficult to know how I'm going to rank him.

Zero chance of making my list and I won't being spending a single second on him. Reason? It's the moment before he goes for a big flashy high spot from the top of a ladder or something. The way he readies himself before the swanton of doom makes him look more like a trapeze act from a circus than a pro wrestler. Since I wrote off The Mountie, and Jacques Rougeau actually had some decent understand of psychology as both a face and a heel on his day, I don't see how Jeff Hardy is coming close. I don't see anyone from that late 90s WWF Attitutde Era scene -- Edge, Christian, Jericho, the Dudleys, the Hardys, etc. etc. -- making my list in any way shape or form. It's the one era that I feel absolutely sure about writing off. If I never saw another TLC match in my life, I wouldn't care.