JerryvonKramer

I'd agree with that. See my post here for more.

I've talked about this with a few people here now and this is interesting enough for me to be hosting a roundtable discussion on it next week with people young (18-21) and old (in their 50s and 60s) attending. I've found quite a hard split on those who agree with my theory that it's more than simply a generational gap but down to a shift in delivery mechanism -- from TV (passive audience all watching same stuff at same time) to internet (active audience watching different stuff at different time) and those who think that it's basically no different from any other generational gap. I've been interested to learn that several books and studies have been done on this phenomena; it's the sort of thing they study in "Communciations" -- a discipline I'm only vaguely aware of. It's not that surprising to learn that "my theory" is not original, I'm not the first to make this observation. There is a lot of stuff on the effects of the internet and the "fragmentation of culture" or in other books, the "diversified dominant". I don't know what this roundtable will achieve but it will be interesting to hear it from the point of view of actual 20 year olds. I brought this up with my American students this past Monday and we talked about it for like an hour, they were pretty into the discussion. And they were also largely split 50/50 on "my theory". If enough people are interested, I can report back next week after this roundtable takes place. I'm going to try to remain neutral as the chair, but as anyone who has listened to my podcasts knows, sometimes I can get carried away and cant' resist ...

It's hard to say but most of the examples you picked out were either guys who had a pre-existing schtick or it was like "Here Koko, carry this bird to the ring". I don't know which other characters had pre-existing concepts but it seems like Mr. Perfect might be one -- I don't know about that though, just a guess. Undertaker? Nailz? Doink? IRS? Skinner? Duke the Dumpster? Adam Bomb? Those are the sorts of gimmicks I'd look at. Like you say, the MDM story is very well diseminated.

Just thought I'd share some VHS covers and posters to bear this out:

All through 92 until Hogan leaving in 93 they ran "co-main events" and I always remember the VHS tapes had "double main event" on the front of them. WM8: Savage vs. Flair / Hogan vs. Sid SS92: Savage vs. Warrior / Bret vs. Bulldog Survior Series 92: Savage and Warrior vs. Flair and Ramon / Bret vs. Shawn WM9: Money Inc. vs. Mega Maniancs / Bret vs. Yokozuna KotR: Hogan vs. Yokozuna / Tournament final Coming from it from one end we always think of the last match on the card as the "real main event". But this looks like Vince returning to old-school WWF booking. Watching the 1980 stuff, they'd often run MSG or the Spectrum with Bruno vs. Zbysko in the middle of the card with Backlund vs. a challenger at the end. And announce them as "co-main events". A lot of the time it's obviously the Bruno match drawing the gate. I think this set of cards are similar. Savage was a big star for WWF and Flair was the champ - obvious main event type match. Hogan was Hogan. I don't think we can say that Hogan vs. Sid is categorically the main event of that show. Some fans would have bought tickets to see that match, some the championship match. Likewise, look at Wrestlemania 9. Hogan coming back was built us as a big deal and that match is billed as a "co-main event". Plenty of fans there in Vegas would have been going to see the Hogan vs. Money Inc match over the Bret vs. Yoko one. Looking at Survior Series 92, that tag match with Warrior, Savage and Flair is also quite stacked and look at this poster: You can be sure not every fan in the crowd would have bought tickets to see Bret vs. Shawn Michaels in 1992.

Still think there's too much emphasis being put on the house show circuit in some of this analysis. It's true that the WWF burned through heels, but if you watch the TV and the PPVs, most of the bigger name ones were protected. Doesn't matter if someone sees a heel lose at a house show so much (especially as you'll note countless BS finishes at a lot of them, they aren't telling us much), if they are built reasonably well on TV. I don't agree with the idea that none of these heels were built back up. Some of them were. I don't think the house show results give you an accurate picture of how these things were presented. Look at the TV and what went down on PPV, it's all that matters. A heel can lose 20 house show matches in a row and then get a big win on SNME and the latter is the one that really counts. "Around the horn" is neither here nor there in my view. Look at Flair's WWF run for more on this. House show, schmouse show. The problem is not so much that guys like Ted and Rude weren't built back up or protected -- I think they were, 1990 Yearbook watchers might want to comment on this -- it's that Hogan and Warrior were made to seem indestructable to the point where it wasn't believable that anyone could beat them.

My point is that most of those cases are when a guy is acquired by Vince and then he thinks "hmmm, what shall I do with him?" Take Honkytonk Man, he brings in a guy from Memphis and then thinks of making him an Elvis character. There's not a million miles away from sticking a cowboy hat on Dory and calling him "Hoss Funk". With MDM, Vince came up with the character first, then cast Ted. He didn't sign Ted and then think "Hmmm what shall I do with this guy". He came up with the concept and then thought "hmmm, who would be good for this role?" The difference is marked. Read my post again and you'll see me pointing to that as being the key differentiator. Let me spell it out explicitly to make sure there's no doubt at all about what I'm saying: 1. Worker --> repackaging 2. Concept --> worker hired to play role If you want to argue that Hercules Hernandez existed as a concept before Herc was hired, I'd like to see that argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISZacjyerqc

I don't agree with this.

Inoki

I think the drop to Taker at SS91 was to give Tuesday in Texas a boost -- just a short-term thing to pop the gate and buyrate. Given that they never ran This Tuesday in Texas again, I'm guessing that didn't work. Also, be careful of starting threads about Hogan AND Taker in these parts, you never know what might happen to them ...

I'd have thought that if you made it over 45s only, it might help to filter out voters who probably shouldn't have a vote in the first place -- it would assume at least a baseline knowledge.

http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrest...-to-march-1980/ Parv, James, Johnny, Pete and Kelly eat up more 1980 goodness: On the docket tonight: 02-09 Vince McMahon conducts an empty arena interview with Bruno Sammartino (Championship Wrestling) 02-80 Lou Albano (w/Wild Samoans), Bob Backlund promos (WWF TV) 02-09 BOB BACKLUND vs BOBBY DUNCUM (WWF Title – Philadelphia Spectrum) 02-09 TITO SANTANA & GORILLA MONSOON vs WILD SAMOANS (Philadelphia Spectrum) 02-16 LARRY ZBYSZKO vs MIKE MASTERS (Championship Wrestling) 03-01 BRUNO SAMMARTINO vs LARRY ZBYSZKO (Philadelphia Spectrum) 03-80 Bruno Sammartino & Larry Zbyszko promos (WWF TV) 03-24 BRUNO SAMMARTINO vs LARRY ZBYSZKO (Madison Square Garden) 03-24 BOB BACKLUND vs SIKA (WWF Title – Madison Square Garden) - The debate topic: The Lost Art of the Manager, including what makes a good manager?, why did managers decline? and the "Mount Rushmore" for managers - Kelly gives bios for Grand Wizard and Mike Masters - Introducing Super 800! - Parv and Johnny debate whether a crowd can be "wrong" - And more general marking out for the awesomeness of the Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zbyszko storyline 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.

You have to question the booking policy. The WWF had DiBiase, Rude, Savage, Jake and Curt Hennig all on the books. If you ran a poll of "best ever heels" I'd expect at least 4 out of those 5 names to be in the conservation. The problem is that they booked Warrior and Hogan to the point where they were supermen and no one seemed credible or in their league. The answer eventually can't be "bring in more heels". Short of Flair, they had every top heel in the game. And by 91, they had Flair too.

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-b...ican-bash-1990/ Chad and Parv welcome fantasy booker extraordinaire Derek Cornett to review the Great American Bash 1990. - [2:02] Derek's background as a fan - [21:13] Observer and Torch roundup, including: talk of Hogan vs. Flair at Wrestlemania 7, Brutus Beefcake's boating accident, Wade Keller on Ole Anderson's booking, and an Eddie Gilbert interview. - [47:57] Gordon Solie Wrestling News Network Update marathon, including Solie's lunch with "former world light heavyweight champion" Charlie Lay - [1:01:13] Great American Bash 90 review, including the Fabulous Freebirds in some of the worst ring attire even seen in the squard circle, Arn's priceless facials taking on the fearsome El Gigante, some discussion of whether or not crowds can give "wrong" reactions during matches and about crowd dynamics in general, and is Sting's post-match promo good or just plain weird? - [2:44:50] End of the show awards and 'Question for the Listeners' 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.

One thing I want to flag up: looking at houseshow results can skew your perception. Take Jake vs. Ted -- DiBiase might have been doing jobs at houseshows but on TV he was kept strong. Check out Ted's TV or PPV losses to Jake by pinfall and count up how many there are. Heels often would lose at houseshows but be kept strong on TV.

Holy shit this was awesome! I am pumped for tomorrow's show now Chad. Amazing!

While I do agree with that El Boricua, I think the reaction to Savage that night (October SNME) will have started the wheels turning in Vince's head for a possible Hogan vs. Savage main event down the line. We've talked about Vince getting money hard-ons, that night is an example you can point to. The process by which Vince changed is mind on what to do is probably more gradual than a single moment. The point I've been trying to make in this thread is that Vince sort of allowed himself to be pushed into switching by HTM. Does anyone think that HTM had the sort of pull to get Vince to actually change his mind if he didn't want to?

For those of you who haven't been listening to the Titans shows, now we're done with 1979 I can make some conclusions re: babyface DiBiase in 1979. He was a much more "technical" or "scientific" worker than either Ted in Mid-South or Ted in late 80s WWF. He'd target a bodypart and work on it with some aggression. Still not really a mat worker though. He's not working holds so much as punishing limbs. Typically he'll isolate an arm and then do 7-8 kneedrops on it. He also does punches. Soon I'll be seeing some Ted in St. Louis. If he works in roughly the same way, I think there's enough to say that at no time in his career was Ted a true "technical" worker in the vein of a Billy Robinson or Dory Funk Jr or Dean Malenko. I don't really see him working holds much.

On paper at least, Georgia 1980 looks amazing. I have seen listings with a lot of 79-81 Georgia on tape, but am told there are a lot of squashes.

The idea that Vince decided to yank the belt off DiBiase because he wasn't drawing during the "shadow" run is faintly ridiculous. Bill Watts always says in interviews something like "JYD would draw you the gate, Ted would give you the match". Vince surely knew that. He wasn't buying Ted to draw a gate, he was getting him for his performance -- both as the character he'd planned and in the ring. I don't think Ted would have been champ all the way till Wrestlemania V, I can't see that. It's not impossible though -- as I said, Vince was trying new stuff -- and he'll have remembered Billy Graham's run. But the main problem with that is that you need Hogan or Savage chasing him for all of that time. It's not going to be Ted drawing the numbers, he wasn't a super-charismatic heel like Graham, it's going to be his opponent. A year is a long time to keep that candle burning. I can see it through to Summerslam, but through Survivor Series and into February 89 Main Event? There would have needed to be a "filler" challenger or two. Who else faces Ted? Duggan? In a main event angle? Jake? Warrior? That's the problem I see with this. In the way things played out with the Mega Powers, the "filler" angle through the fall was vs. The Twin Towers. I don't know if they had enough goods on the babyface side to do that with Ted as champ (or with any heel as champ).

If you've ever spent any time on Comic Book forums you'll always find a particular obsession with the question of "continuity". What's "in continuity", what isn't, and so on. I'm a DC guy and DC fans in particular are prone to asking these sorts of questions. As wrestling fans, however, used to the carny absurd world of wrestling, we don't tend to ask them. In this thread, for fun, I'm going to have a go. I want to highlight some of the grey areas. For example, Is the Robocop who turns up at Capital Combat meant to be the same Robocop as in the film? And does that mean that the Robocop films belong to the same "universe" as WCW? Is Sting able to go to the near-future version of Detroit we see in that film? Do the Horsemen have connections with Omni Consumer Products (OCP)? Ole did run a lot of shows at the Omni after all ... More questions ... How deep did Donald Trump's friendship with Ted DiBiase go? Were Smash and Repo Man meant to be the same person or two completely different people? Were Virgil and Vincent the same person or "alternate universe" versions of each other. In fact, were WWF and WCW in the "same universe" or were they separate like DC and Marvel? Was there a moment (Flair's promo in 91? Luger in 95? DX raiding Nitro? Final Nitro?) when the two universes collided and then were retconned into being one universe? Who the hell was Zeus meant to be? And if the world of No Holds Barred is part of the WWF universe, then who the hell is "Rip"? Technically is Rip the same as Hogan or another guy? The career of Ed Leslie? Discuss. Are the versions of Ted DiBiase and Hulk Hogan we see in 1979 "in continuity" or are they meant to be different people? Or do we assume that anything that happened prior to Hogan beating Sheik is out of continuity? Or is it like the Golden Age "Earth 2" Hulk Hogan? Answer and ask all of these questions and more in this thread!

Plus his travel and accommodation paid for, plus a "spending allowance". Everybody's got a price ...

The more I think about this, the more the idea of DiBiase winning the tournament seems absurd. You build up a super-villain for months, he's hatched one of the most evil and dastardly plans of all time (evil twin ref angle at Main Event), he's been a total prick for weeks buying out swimming pools and bitching out fans ... and then at WM after a boring-ass 4-hour tournament he wins the belt too?! I can't see that at all. I actually think that when Ted was promised the title, they promised it to him with the buying the title angle in mind but hadn't worked out the details yet. Can you see DiBiase really giving a shit about whether it goes in the record books? In 87 all it would have needed was "main event angle with Hogan ... oh and you'll have one of the best gimmicks of all time as well". I'd need to go back and have a look but Ted's always been pretty vague about the HTM deal in shoots. Does anyone know if he goes over this in his book?