JerryvonKramer

Joe McHugh was a ring anouncer for about 50 years. From the 1930s right till the mid-80s. He was synonymous with Allen Town. No one cares. Dr Tom Miller was a long-time ring announcer in Greensboro, and he had some immortal lines. No one cares. Did it make a difference when Gary Capetta replaced Miller in that region? Did it make a difference when Michael Buffer replaced Capetta? Did it make a difference when Lilian Garcia took over from Fink? I think I'm broadly with Dave insomuch as it's clearly not a money role. As for Fink vs. McHugh / Capetta / Miller / X it's just subjective. They all had legendary voices and calls. -------- With Okerlund, I think there's a lot of other ways to demonstrate his value. He hosted shows, he carried segments, he interviewed 100s of guys, he did the hotline, he was amazing.

I'd put Okerlund's value to WWF / AWA over the years at something like 20 times more than Finkel's, if not more.

For those of you not on twitter, this was sincerely one of my happiest moments as a wrestling fan

Share this with all your wrestling friends. The Pro Wrestling only podcast feed is looking for new voices. http://placetobenation.com/announcement-its-pilot-season-on-the-pro-wrestling-only-feed/

After that last card it feels like we've been through a war together. Changed men.

Age comparison point on Bryan is interesting. Having watched all that AJ stuff pretty recently, the head-dropping complaint seems a little overplayed to me as a criticism especially prior to 1997, and I see it brought up against Misawa more than I do Kawada, even though Kawada is as guilty of it as anyone else -- and is often the guy taking the sickest spots. Why do people think the head dropping is a charge brought against Misawa more than Kawada? Is it because of the way he died? I think peak AJPW from 90-97 is particularly marked by its layered psychology, where that comes from exactly we've been discussing, but I wouldn't want us to lapse into "there are head drops therefore this shit is stupid" territory, when I'm not sure how many matches in history build on each other as that series does. I just think we should remember why they have their reputation, and I don't think it's because of the head drops. The highly touted matches are mostly masterpieces of psychology, and building to a finish. The big huge landmark moments like the Tiger Drivers or the first time Taue gets a pin, or whatever, stay with you. The most egregious head dropping I've seen probably comes in Steve Williams matches of the period. Elliott's perspective always interesting, and I'd be really interested to hear from Chad on this as someone who voted Misawa #1 and Tamara in his top 10.

I cannot watch wrestling on a PC period, I watch everything on the big screen TV.

Looking into this further, it seems like the Worzel Gummidge TV show only started in 1979, and WoS Catweazle was knocking around a good 5-6 years before then. He was a straight rip of the TV show Catweazle. I guess his slightly more straggly appearance makes him look a bit more like Gummidge, but just a coincidence.

There's an argument to say Catweazle is one of the most on-trend wrestlers ever. Here is the "real" Catweazle. I think the wrestelr Catweazle also took a bit from this chap though: That's Worzel Gummidge, the scarecrow come-to-life, used to advertise Harvester restaurants during the 80s but heyday in the 70s. Played by former Doctor Who Jon Pertwee. I think the guy who played Catweazle was also in Worzel Gummidge.

Episode 7: http://placetobenation.com/letters-from-kayfabe-7/ Allan and Parv take it to the very edges of the cheese platter, and introduce a new regular feature. 1. The Mailbag: The Mariner / Nikolai Volkoff in 1994 / Adam Bomb 2. The Event Center with JT Rozzero: The final matches of Akeem 3. The Long Topic: The WWF's use of music from 1984 to 1996 4. WWF Magazine corner: Greg Valentine's motives for turning on Jimmy Hart in 1991 To write in to the mailbag, tweet @allan_cheapshot or @JerryvonK Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS1QYjCSmymgXS1IPLq25iQwb0onG-Ylg Grab the mag: https://www.sendspace.com/file/2z3j5o

"No chance Mr Whalen"

I'm currently writing a book on morality and ethical decision-making. Partly, I'm drawing on something called Moral Foundations Theory, which argues that moral intuitions are somewhat like taste receptors on the tongue, there are six of them to which we are predisposed to a reaction. I'll just drop them in here: 1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance. 2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives] 3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one." 4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions. 5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions). We think there are several other very good candidates for "foundationhood," especially: 6) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor. We report some preliminary work on this potential foundation in this paper, on the psychology of libertarianism and liberty. Interesting to think about from a wrestling perspective.

Let's support the divas revolution by doing a women's special.

Yeah I liked that he put Mooney over too, about time he got his due. I also liked the discussion of the transition to the studio as well as the transition to the early Raw and the thinking behind it. The early Raws are actually of real interest to me at the moment. They seemed to skip over the period it was a panel show though, unless I missed something.

As a quick basis of comparison, I recently gave Benoit / 2 Cold Scorpio from Superbrawl III ***3/4, and I'd happily say the Kondo / Dragon Kid match is comparable in quality to that.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Don Fujii (5/11/05) Is Don Fuji a Yakuza gimmick? He has slicked back hair and his name is "Don". Mouchizuki gets colour early after diving into a chair in the first minute. This means Fuji controls the first half. They seem to be following shine-heat-comeback-finishing stretch structure pretty solidly in these matches. Putting sympathy on the face is tried and tested psychology that works, unless it's a Pedro Morales match from 1982 because Pedro sucks. Hope spot comes when Fuji loses out in a slugfest and runs into a kick, but he cuts it off with a full scoop powerslam, a move that will always look cool. Double collision spot, were about ten or so mins in. Fuji cuts off another comeback attempt, but misses a chokeslam from the top. German and Mochizuki gets some time on top now. Full nelson suplex. Fuji comes back with a powerbomb from the corner, and finally hits his top-rope chokeslam. German out of nowhere from Mochizuki is an exciting nearfall. Finish seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere from a basic counter, a "flash pin" if you will. This again was "just a match", worked solidly. Fuji didn't seem to have a lot of ideas during his heat stretch, his work on top was a bit basic. Mochizuki always felt like he was winning this to me so there wasn't much suspense in the finishing stretch and the finish itself felt anti-climactic. This lacked the innovation of the previous match, but was still solid. The scoop powerslam counter was a highlight. ***1/2

Shuji Kondo vs. Dragon Kid (7/4/04) Set here is strongly reminiscent of Nitro with the ramp and rig around the locker room entrance. Kondo has a cool tough guy heel disposition, liked the way he flicked off fans trying to touch him coming to the ring. Cool spot in the early going where Kondo goes for a delayed vertical suplex but Dragon wriggles and squirms so he can't snap it off. Logical if you think about it. Kondo takes his time over this heat sequence, pace is at Harley Race levels. Pretty cool choke slam where he catches Dragon trying to sneak through his legs, grabs him by the throat FROM there and choke slams. Second spot I've never seen before. Eventually Dragon gets in a hurricanrana and then one from the top to the outside. But he's still getting over the the beating he's taken for the past eight minutes. More flash from Dragon now, looked cooled enough. Transition comes where Kondo catches him going for some flippy thing and hits a backbreaker, then another cool counter when he catches him in midair and hits a spinebuster. Also probably the best snapmare you'll ever see as a counter to a back suplex. For some reason it appears outside guys are allowed to just get in the ring and do moves randomly, ref was right there! Wake up, DQ! Can only assume it is no DQ since Kondo uses a box or tray or something now right in front of the ref. Military press by Kondo, lariat, that'll do it. After the match Dragon gets his masked ripped off. This was basically a ten-twelve minute match between a normal-sized wrestler with good moves, and a little flippy wimp, and it was worked exactly as one would want. Kondo kept it grounded and tried to slow it down and relied on big throws, Dragon had to rely on speed and flash to get anywhere. Not a classic by any means, more towards "just a match", but a very very good one with sound psychology, good action and some very innovative spots throughout. ***3/4

My honest answer for this is Sting. Before I started the Where the Big Boys Play podcast with Chad, in my mind Sting was like the ultimate main eventer: everything that Hulk Hogan could have been but wasn't. The process of watching through 1988 to 1993 in chronological order has had the effect of exposing and highlighting a lot of his flaws during that time frame. He gets hot in 1988, and so naturally they book him into the main event, but Sting consistently seems like a rabbit in the headlights who cannot take hold of his own overness. He flounders in the spotlight, and -- and least to me -- is completely over-shadowed by Lex Luger who is absolutely fantastic in the same 88-90 sort of time, and felt a more natural fit eventually to take over from Flair. Sting's 1990 run isn't helped by booking (see Black Scorpion), but he's terribly disappointing for me through all of it, and then he ends up getting injured in early 91. His performances in 1992 get a lot better, and obviously the Vader feud is fantastic, but over the past five years, I don't think I've had quite so much stock fall in a guy than I have for Sting. Also, once it occurred to me that his character was essentially that of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, I couldn't "un-see" it, which somewhat hurt my capacity to get into his mostly not-very-good promos.

I still maintain the narratives in sport are made by the observer -- stuff happens and you put the story together yourself -- whereas in wrestling the narratives are written from within. It's the simple difference between there being a booker / writer and there not being one. When we dream, there is no narrative or story, it's just lots of random fragmented images hitting you. But you wake up and automatically put it into a story, because we can only think in those terms. You could see sports as just one swirling ball of contingency and chaos which we make sense of through the narratives we weave together. Some of them are natural or self-evident like you said, others are less obvious, others still debatable. But it's still constructed post-hoc. The stories around sports are closer to news and history -- stuff happens and then we report it (news) and make sense of it (history). All I'm saying is as simple as: wrestling is written so it is a narrative form whereas sports is not written so it is not a narrative form. And I'll maintain that. Comes down to the entire notion of something being authored or not authored.

There's some really great info on the Prime Time ep like that original producer of the show who was there 85-6. If you've ever tried watching PTW from that time frame, it's dire and Bruce gives an excellent explaination as to why. Sort of thing I've never heard before. Also, burning the flag was made legal in June 90 and Ventura left the company in August, so it's entirely possible that story is true.

Think I'm gonna print all this out tomorrow and read the whole thing then. But thanks for sharing.

The bit about the champ not travelling to Detroit to George Cannon's Superstars of Wrestling promotion is something I've never heard before. In fact, I don't know much about Detroit post-Sheik at all.

Thanks for this, of extra special interest to me because I've been looking into that in some depth recently.

Do any current heels use twitter to rile up and troll fans? Seems an ideal medium for it. I thought I saw an indy worker ("The Knightsbridge Fashionista, Jinny") heeling it up on there a couple of weeks back. Don't know if she was going for heat or not, but it struck me then what a great heel could do with the medium. Imagine someone like Freddie Blassie on there.

Let's take two specific scenarios: Asking in earnest: What is difference between these two things?