JerryvonKramer

I suspect that "selling" will win this in a landslide, and it probably should, but I voted for "offense". When I look at comparisons like Bobby Eaton vs. Ricky Morton it comes down to this: Eaton did swank as fuck tilt-a-whirl backbreakers, threw awesome punches, and innovates cool shit pretty much every match, Morton just rag dolled. So I'd pick Bobby every time. In terms of what makes wrestling good, selling is more important by far, but to me it's like comparing brocolli and ice cream. You know brocolli is good for you, and has much better nutritional value, but don't you just love ice cream? For me, Scott Steiner hitting a sick-looking full-nelson suplex on a jobber is like ice cream, whereas appreciating a guy who can sell well is more like brocolli, unless it's big over-the-top selling a la Steamboat, Martel etc., then it gets more like ice cream again.

If I could time travel, the main thing I would do is take my TARDIS to each and every one of the TV studios, and ensure that every single one of them had 100s of reels rather than just taping over the same stuff. I'd make a visit to Sam Muchnick's office appearing like Zodd in Superman II, and would say these words: "Mr. Muchnick, I am from the future. I am from the year 2016 with technology at my command beyond your wildest dreams. Future generations of wrestling fans will come to lament the hours of lost footage from this era. We from the future would like you to call an NWA meeting -- be sure to invite all of the major family heads, especially Eddie Graham and Dory Funk Sr, and stress the vital importance of preserving matches. Lest your vision of this great sport will be lost ... forever." And then I'd stick around to ensure that he does it while asking loads of questions.

I think the lineage on the heel side would go something like: late 70s / earl 80s: Johnny Rodz / Baron Scicluna 83-6: Rene Goulet / Tiger Chung Lee 87-early 90s: Brawler / Iron Mike Sharpe I feel like those guys were the "gate keepers" to jobberdom. Baron was slighty above Rodz, Lee was slightly above Goulet, and Sharpe was slightly above Brawler. But from these guys the next rung is actual jobbers. There are two "tells" in the same way you're talking about the babyface JTTS getting the "crank it up": 1. Heat sequence. As in they'll get one. 2. Getting heat back after "competitive matches" on arena shows, specifically MSG / Boston / Philly / Meadowlands. So let's say Iron Mike Sharpe drops a fall to a low level non-pushed guy like Sifi Avi, he'll probably get his heat back.

It's a show I completely can't get into Brian and I thought the segment in question was an embarrassment, and painfully unfunny, but listeners of theirs like you seem to love em so more power to them. Seems to be one of those things you either get or you don't. Just at base they aren't my kinda fans or even my kinda people -- which goes to show there are all sorts of reasons people do and don't listen to shows.

Episode 8: http://placetobenation.com/letters-from-kayfabe-8/ Allan and Parv dip back into the sack for more little-known moments from the WWF's past. 1. The Mailbag: Mr. Hughes not on PPV in 1993 / Rita Marie, female ref / The Big Red X 2. The Event Center with JT Rozzero: The debut of Action Zone in October 1994 3. The Long Topic: Higher than pure jobbers, but not quite JTTS 4. WWF Magazine corner: Jim Neidhart attacked by the Beverley Brothers To write in to the mailbag, tweet @allan_cheapshot or @JerryvonK Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS1QYjCSmymjjG2Mh0hXUh51ygH1-lvUJ Grab the mag: https://www.sendspace.com/file/2uvus2

Vince: He "urns" it. They get very tenuous ... tuna-ous? "Didn't say that on purpoise", "you better change your tuna". I think the cleverest one here was Perfect: "Well, you better go back to school." The Perfect pun.

Disagree with point 2. Record in stereo, then convert to mono after editing in Audacity. It allows you to see your side separate and just makes the whole process easier. Bonus points if it's two people it's easier to clear out any background noise too. Well, yes, that's true. And especially true if you are going to do close editing in post-production. LOL at actually doing editing I've always done some editing and would encourage it as best practice. I think especially as the field has got more and more crowded, actually having some decent production values is an easy win. A lot of people will just turn off in the first three or four minutes if it's all just ramshackle. Also, nothing more annoying than having to deal with complaints about audio quality after the fact.

Glad to see all these new guys coming in, especially Dean who has been very entertaining on Twitter recently.

I have to disagree with two of these. Yes, I agree: fuck Lawler, fuck Madden, fuck Tenay, fuck Dok Hendrix even, but I have to stick up for Lord Al a little bit. He makes MANY an undercard match more enjoyable. I watched this match a couple of nights back and it was genuinely one of the highlights of my week: I feel like Mooney and Lord Al are the only commentary team in WWF history who could legit carry an 8-minute match with virtually nothing but cheesy cat puns. Gotta be a place in the world for that! ---- The second defence, and more serious, is that I legitimately think Bill Watts is one of the very best announcers for getting over angles, stories, and psychology, and I think him criticising the odd leg not being hooked or pointing out a mistake is a decent price to pay for that. I don't really get that knock on commentators in general, real sports commentators point out mistakes all the time, so the school of old-school wrestling announcers who did that were doing a great job of maintaining the illusion of a legit contest if you ask me. PS. Loved the Dory gifs!

My advice remains exactly the same as it was a year ago: Then again, those Lapsed Fan Guys read that out on air, and spent almost twenty minutes shitting all over it, and they break every single one of those guidelines and seem to be pretty over with big numbers, so maybe disregard all that and do whatever it is they do.

Disagree with point 2. Record in stereo, then convert to mono after editing in Audacity. It allows you to see your side separate and just makes the whole process easier. Bonus points if it's two people it's easier to clear out any background noise too. Well, yes, that's true. And especially true if you are going to do close editing in post-production.

Cool to see someone else watching this stuff. Here's my review of that one:

These type of shows remain the bread and butter and if there are no other shows out there looking through ROH, then this is absolutely the sort of thing I think we'd encourage. You'd be surprised what doesn't exist. AJ Excite still appears to be the only pod ever to go through peak 90s AJ.

Here's my all purpose guide to podcast production. 1. Download latest version of Skype, MP3 recorder, CN Levelator, and Audacity 2. Before you start your call, ensure that MP3Recorder is running. SET IT TO RECORD IN MONO. If you don't do this, one host will be on left ear and the other on right ear. To be on safe side, get your co-host ALSO to run it. 3. Start Skype call. MP3 Recorder should now start recording. You will know because in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen a little box will pop up saying "Recording started". 4. Do your show. 5. Finish call. You should now get a notification in the bottom right saying that the recording has finished. 6. Open audacity, use that to open the MP3 (that MP3Recorder has created). 7. In audacity now do this: Edit --> Duplicate. And "make stereo". This step is necessary if you want to splice in audio from youtube or songs (which are typically in stereo). 8. In audacity, export audio. Save to nameofshow.wav format. 9. In other folder, there should now be a copy of your raw audio in .wav (need to select this from drop down menu, .wav) 10. Open CN Levelator. Drag that .wav file ONTO the levelator. It should process. Eventually it will make a file called something like nameofshow.output.wav This will sort out an audio level differences between the people on the call. It makes quiet people louder and loud people quieter, etc. 11. Open that output.wav file back up in audaicty. This is where you edit in music etc. Google "Youtube to MP3" to rip videos from online in audio format. You can open those up in audacity and make edits that way. 12. Once you are done, export the final file as a .mp3, and send to feed editors / upload. -------------- This might seem like a lot but it really isn't, and once you have it down, it'll be easy. All this stuff is pretty easy to use for anyone who knows how to turn on a PC.

Just checking and Jake match I had in mind was: Ted Dibiase vs. Jake Roberts (7/22/85) This is the best Jake match I've seen on tape.

I like all three of these, and rather than just going with one, you could essentially rotate them in one series, and that way the show could still have legs even after you'd exhausted those three considerable topics.

woops, fixed

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Akira Tozawa (10/13/11) There's a package before the match in which Tozawa spits in Mochizuki's face. Disgusting! This really does look like wrestling as imagined by the makers of Shenme. I never did complete that game. Tozawa should have kept the beard by the way, he looked cool, like a Japanese Abel Xavier. Fast opening with good action. Tozawa's heel work is pretty good, he is actually making me hate him too. Legit as a mark. Which is rare. Tombstone on the apron by Tozawa, sick! Stiff kicks from him now. Mochizuki comes back with some of his own. Takes a tumble. 8 mins in and this has been a good competitive encounter with good action, and not too much your turn, my turn. Tozawa has essentially been working a heat sequence with some hope spots for Mochizuki thrown in. Mochizuki hits a slam on the apron now. Another sick spot. Back in and some chop suey. This has been helped along by a strong heel and face dynamic and a crowd who is really into it. Hot sequence culminates in a massive German from Mochizuki. Twisting vertical suplex is the reply from Tozawa. Dragon suplex by Mochizuki. This is awesome fast hard-hitting action here. Almost like poetry. Cover gets two only. Struggle over a reverse waist lock now, Tozawa wins and hits a German, Mochizuki seems paralysed. Pretty great selling of the impact. Head butt on the top before a superplex from Mochizuki, crowd are into it. The chops come out now. Earned. Kick exchange, counter of a German, Mochizuki hits an awesome kick from the turnbuckle, shades of Ibrahimovic, and that'll do. Well, this was an awesome match and the best I've watched from those Case linked to initially. Feels like it would have been MOTYC for 2011, just great high energy all-action wrestling, which told a great story through traditional face / heel dynamics. Some of the counter spots were great and there's a sequence in the middle portion that I thought was almost transcendent and poetry-like. Really excellent. ****3/4

Masato Yoshino vs. Don Fujii (1/18/11) Fuji comes in being carried on the shoulders of young boys. Yoshino appears to come out to a guitar cover of a Megaman 2 track. I'm favouring Fuji here because Yoshino has committed the cardinal crime of not wearing proper wrestling tights or boots. Fast stuff to start. Yoshino criss crosses and Fuji is happy to send him on his way. They break out chops early, feels unearned. Double stomp from top by Yoshino onto Fuji's arm. He moves to a headlock. Fuji stomps on his back and his a back suplex. Smashes him outside. This sequence wasn't very good at all, since both guys established injuries and yet neither one was capitalised upon. What happened to that injured arm of Fuji's? He went straight to a headlock. No real attempt at coherence. Spot now where the ref drops down and Yoshino jumps off his back. What the fuck was that? Never do that again! Should be fines and suspensions for putting his hands on the ref if you ask me. Running diving slide thing from outside to apron now. Crowd doesn't feel into this, despite Yoshino's efforts to get them up. Choke slam by Fuji after this thing from the top (looked botched) gets two. There's this gimp young boy outside the ring who looks like a Telly Tubby. Someone should tell him so he takes that stupid thing off his head. Missile drop kick from Yoshino gets two. Some twisty submission move from him now. If I was in this crowd I'd probably be chanting "you can't wrestle" at him. About 12 minutes in and this thing has lacked any sense of flow, purpose, story, psychology or anything. Fuji hits a slam off the top. German suplex. Nice nearfall. What this match needs desperately is a decent heat sequence now. Snap German from Fuji. Lariat. DDT. Dragon suplex gets two. Quantum leap in the quality since Fuji took over on offence. Lariat. And again, Yoshino with a tilt a whirl thing on the arm. All his moves have been tilt a whirl seemingly. That twisty submission spot again, Fuji reverses, two count only. It seems like the crowd are rooting for Fuji to me. I am for sure! Another near fall from a counter. But Yoshino gets the three. Nearfalls were dramatic I'll give them that. I'm afraid this is the first of these DG matches that has been pretty poor. Yoshino is awful here, just egregiously trying to get whatever rehearsed spots he has in, no attempt at conveying a sense of story, struggle, or pretty much anything. The first twelve minutes or so of the match, which he controls is an ABC example of how not to work or engage a crowd, and it did feel like he lost the crowd. Fuji was a lot better when he got on top but they pretty quickly went to a finishing stretch which like most of the others has been ended by a flash pin which felt anti-climactic. Yoshino easily the worst worker based on the sampling so far. **

Totally with the chap who thinks Sting vs Flair is terribly overrated. It's ***1/2 max typical Flair vs. Big man formula match with Sting himself having virtually no ideas of what to do throughout. Enjoyable show so far. Also generally agree with the comments on Jake Roberts never really bringing it in the ring. There's one or two good matches from Mid-South, but really not enough to justify his rep as this master of psychology. Loved the Hardy rant too.

Listened to the ECW ep and thought Conrad was a complete twat on it to the point that I was embarrassed for him. Pretty badly exposed on that one. I was cringing.

For the 15th edition of Mystery Titans, Parv and Johnny debut as a pairing as Kelly takes a well-earned break from the booth for this star-studded card. Subscribe to Titans of Wrestling and many other great podcasts at the Place to Be Nation: http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrestling/ Jim Powers vs. Barry O George Wells vs. Jose Luis Rivera Danny Spivey vs. Ron Shaw Sivi Afi vs. Rene Goulet Junkyard Dog vs. AJ Petruzzi Tony Atlas vs. Iron Mike Sharpe George Steele & Cpl. Kirchner vs. Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik

84 has: NJ 5 vs 5 gauntlet Sheik / Slaughter Devil Masami & Jaguar Yokota / Crush Gals Jumbo / Kerry Flair / Kerry Cota / Rocca Watts and Stagger Lee / Midnights Ted / Magnum Greg / Tito Bock / Martel 85 has: Magnum / Tully Ted / Duggan Ted / Flair Duggan / Sawyer Greg / Tito Savage / Tito Lawler / Dundee Flair / Garvin Flair / Taylor Flair / Wahoo Chigusa Nagayo / Dump Matsumoto Hansen and Ted / Choshu and Yatsu 86 has: Bock / Hennig Rocks / Rose and Somers NJ Elimination Jumbo and Tenryu / Choshu and Yatsu Hennig / Hansen Flair / Windham Flair / Morton Maeda / Fujiwara Aguayo / Chicana Hansen / Leon White Lawler / Dundee

1992: Jumbo tearing it up with the kids in AJPW, Kip Frey giving out bonuses to produce amazing stuff in WCW, Hase having great matches in NJPW, Flair lighting up WWF. 84, 85, and 86 were all totally amazing years too across Mid-South, NJPW, AJPW, WWF, JCP, AWA, and various other territories.

I've been focusing pretty intensely on 83 to 84 transitions from Vince recently, and the moment Okerlund turns up it is like "wow, we're on, this is Vince's vision". Seems like first week of Jan 84 is when Vince presses the button on his creative vision. From that moment, we get Hogan in the titles, new music (Thriller / Modern Love), Piper's Pit debut, etc., and Gene all over the TV. Okerlund is as synonymous with the boom period as any single indvidual I think bar Hogan and Vince himself. Also, he should get into HoF for his intereviews with Bock and Heenan in AWA alone, cos the chemistry between those three is electric.