JerryvonKramer

I want to "like" the fact that the like function has been disabled Also, we can have "friends"? Please be my friend!

If you're watching All Japan or a Bob Backlund match, this is another name for a piledriver.

I don't think an NY-area audience is apt to cheer Batista and HHH and not get behind Bryan. I think they would be the opposite, although an NJ crowd is typically a lot less fun than an MSG or Barclays crowd. I really want to do a thread on the characters of different crowds in different towns / areas. Been thinking about it for a month or so but can't figure out how to phrase it.

New Japan 2.5 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Steve Keirn (11/6/80) Very hard for me to get into this one. Matwork left me stone cold and that's all there was of it.The problem with Keirn's matwork in this match is that it felt like it wasn't doing much more than eating up time. Not blatant Rick-Rude-style restholds but not far off them. Fujinami's legwork was better and the German on the finish was sweet, but blah. ** New Japan 2.6 Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (4/23/81) Feel like I've heard about this match somewhere before. A lot of flash here obviously, but some of this was surprisingly sloppy. Actual botches. There's a moment when Tiger Mask misses DK's head by about a foot but DK still sells it. I do like some of DK's subtle or not so subtle heeling, but this was very very underwhelming in general. I had to go and check the date on the match again to make sure this was the right one. A little baffling as to why this was held up as a classic for so long -- even viewed in context there isn't anything that special about it. Fujinami, for example, has had better matches in this style to date. Honestly thought Tiger Mask was awful in this match. **1/2 New Japan 2.7 Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (4/23/81) Hansen gets the American National Anthem to start, nice to see the Japanese crowd showing their proper respects for it -- If only Nikolai could see this. With this particular haircut, Hansen looks vaguely like a playing card. If you want me to be specific, I'm going to say the Jack of Spades. Yes, I did just compare Stan Hansen to the Jack of Spades, but look at his hair and then look at that card. Now look at Inoki's chin and look at the biggest potato you can find. The chin still has the edge right? Yes, a lot of slow build to this one. I'm amused by the fact that Hansen keeps going back to the chin lock. That's right Stan! You've found Inoki's achilles heel, attack that chin! Sadly this one did not excite like the 5/9/80 match because Inoki was in the sort of mood when he was stubbornly only doing admonible stretches but still kicked out of a lariat and got the three count. I'm tired of this match at this point. Inoki is another guy (like a certain early 80s WWF champion) who never seems to show enough vulnerability for me -- don't think he gave Hansen enough here and I never felt like he was ever in any real danger. ** Post-match we get some sort of career highlight reel for Inoki. I booed. New Japan 2.8 George Takano vs. Stan Lane (7/24/81) Quite interesting to see the young Stan Lane here. Match is nothing to write home about but I was surprised to see him win with a Russian Leg Sweep -- a rather tame finish, no? Takano looked quite spotty to me. **

I don't really care at this point, John, you fill every thread with so much stuff that very simple arguments get convoluted fast. You don't talk to me like a human being having a conversation, but rather hound me looking for errors and ways to trip me up. That's a dick move. And you make it time and again, because you're a dick, it's as simple as that. 'Cause there's always someone, somewhere With a big nose, who knows And who trips you up and laughs When you fall That's you that is. But you do it even in cases where someone is making pretty reasonable points. For example, Meltzer reports the Gorilla deal as being the prelim package. This has been corroborated by several other eye witnesses down the years. Yet, for some reason, you think you know better. And so in your basic pig-headness put yourself in the position of the one with the big nose who knows. Every time, even when you don't have much more than a gut feeling that the numbers are "laughable" to go on. Likewise, my only point in that thread on Mid South, which I thought was clear then and still is now, is that just because Watts and co pin everything on the oil crisis, doesn't mean that it wasn't a factor. You can't discount it as a factor, because it was a factor. Was it the only one? No. There were at least four, probably more. But your seemingly psychopathic desire to crush any possibility of the oil crisis having part of the decline of the company -- when it so clearly did have some impact -- is the work of a sick mind my friend. It's not the work of a particularly academic or intellectual mind, but one whose only will is towards, by whatever means necessary, ridiculing the person you are talking to. Not a very nice man. Even after I point this out to you, with crushing and inevitable predictability, you'll come back trying to prove this or that. Trying to show that on October 4th at 6pm I said this or that or the other. You don't deserve to have any friends.

It wasn't very fun to take part in. The conclusion that any sane, thinking person would take from that debate was that a slump in the economy does affect the box office, but ultimately it's down to the company just to try that bit harder to draw. Therefore they can't use the economy alone as an excuse and Watts should accept more blame / responsibility for the decline of his company. That's a balanced and nuanced conclusion. Do you know what isn't? Totally discounting external factors. Back on the WWF takeover stuff, I still don't think jdw has any real reason to discount the Gorilla story other than his own reactionary knee-jerk "it's all bullshit" response. The story we have is from Meltzer, who protects his sources. If we don't believe Meltzer on the Gorilla payoff deal then what do we believe him on? How do you decide what is and isn't legit when in lots of cases he's our only source for numbers?

Here's what happened last time we discussed this: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5534458 But all of the raw info is in there.

Is there a difference between 85-9 AJ style and 90s AJ style? By which I mean are they typically given different names?

Hey NL, why don't you come on a podcast to discuss this with me, that'll draw the ratings.

Are you seriously telling me to fuck off, you total bitch? Let me also tell you something: football is football for billions of people around the world. Billions. You want us to call it by a different name because 300 million Americans call another game that? How about you fuck off. I HAVE to note that I mean soccer to avoid confusion, but I won't ever stop calling football, "football". I'm watching NFL next season too by the way, I got into the Superbowl and think I'm going to enjoy it now I understand all the rules.

I get sold a lot on injuries within matches. Jimmy Garvin's leg vs. Flair springs to mind. But a lot of injuries of that ilk look legit to me.

Read my last post, take aside the fact that I'm talking American Baseball, but I'm curious about your perspective since Football fans tend to have bigger reputations for being notoriously viscous more so than any of the worse American professional sports towns known for their attitudes. I don't know it's very hard for me to see any cross over between football ("soccer") fans and pro wrestling ones. The dynamic is so different, especially in these post-kayfabe days. When fans boo their own players it's generally frowned on in all but the very worst circumstances. I tend not to like it. Fans who booed Arsenal first game of the season vs. Villa must be feeling pretty stupid right now (for example) and voices within the game criticised them for it when it happened. But you get other scenarios: evil foreign owner sacks beloved manager (see Cardiff recently), will see fans chant for the old manager and voice their discontent at the chairman. Sometimes fans protest outside grounds at top level decisions, etc. However, I'm a sneery so and so and my reaction has usually been that they need to grow up and learn that the only way they can make clubs sit up and take notice is to BOYCOTT games, not stage these childish protests or, y'know, pay money for a ticket to tell the owner he's a wanker or whatever. That's just stupid.

My interest in all this from a week or so ago has now waned because I've decided that I hate the fans as much as I hate modern WWE.

I'd like to co-author a book with Matt D one day called The Taxonomy of Professional Wrestling in which we break down all 457 different varieties of match structure, 35 varieties of faces and 57 varieties of heels. jdw could provide the afterword in classic academic fashion by shitting all over the preceding book with his best petty quibbling. I have hopes of it being a best seller.

I think it's much higher than people are saying for the reasons Matt D outlines. The world is online now. And "everyone" is a "smart" fan. Where are all these totally clueless marks people are talking about? I thought they died in the 90s.

I broke this down somewhere ... here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5560607

The "Heat" segment of a match is basically another name for the heel control section. Think Hogan formula matches when the heel is on top.

I think the Three Wise Men had more parity than Heenan, Hart and Slick where Heenan was always clearly number #1 and Hart was number #2 with Fuji / Slick bringing in shittier challenges. Arguably Slick was approaching top manager status during the Twin Towers stuff and possibly Hart during the Earthquake run in 90. We did this in another thread somewhere but generally: Wizard = Heenan Albano = Hart Blassie = Slick / Fuji But I don't think you could say Wizard was clear #1 out of the three wise men.

I think there are loads of areas in which you might quibble with one or the other. There were lots of margin calls. The difficulty is that often the "super villains" weren't facing the champ but doing their own shit elsewhere on the card. Savage in 86 is an example. DiBiase for most of his run. So you get situations where your de facto "number 1 heel" is not tied up in a feud with the champ who is facing the likes of Studd or Kamala or whoever instead. I still think that's generally how the promotion ran.

He's there almost exclusively for his role in Flair's run.

90 we have to write off because Warrior was champ for most of it and Hogan worked almost exclusively against Mr Perfect, Earthquake or Dino Bravo 1991 Supervillains: Sgt. Slaughter, Flair, Heenan Villains of the month: Earthquake*, Dino Bravo*, The Undertaker One-shots: Col. Mustafa, The Warlord, Typhoon Chumps: none! Let's stop there. *Warrior was champ

1989 Supervillains: Bossman*, Savage, DiBiase Villains of the month: Akeem*, Zeus, Bad News Brown, Mr. Perfect One-shots: none! Chumps: none! * Savage was champ 89 is VERY spotty because of the movie schedule.

01/25/86 - St. Louis, MO - Kiel Auditorium (attendance: 8,000): WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan beat Rowdy Roddy Piper by countout Piper shouldn't really be listed in 86. He spent a chunk of the year injured and then turned face later on and was tagging with Hogan vs. Orndorff and Orton Jr. by the fall. It's a "hangover" from 85 really, I might put it in brackets to note that.

1988 Supervillains: DiBiase, Andre, Heenan, Bossman* Villains of the month: One Man Gang, Bad News Brown*, Haku*, Akeem* One-shots: Rude, Virgil, Zhukov Chumps: none! * Savage was champ