JerryvonKramer

I thought the announcers article was a pretty good read and it was fun to see so many irate comments, especially the ones about Joey Styles. Without really thinking about it too much and with the qualifier that I've yet to watch through the Memphis set so can't rate Russell yet, my top 10 would be -- and none of this is intended ironically: 1. Jesse Ventura - just think the guy was absolutely perfect in his role and pound-for-pound is the best commentator. Very funny too. 2. Jim Ross - has his flaws, but there is no one better at calling a big match. 3. Vince McMahon - first glance this looks absurdly high but I think he was absolutely great, whether it's 70s Vince on his own, or hyped-up total loon 80s Vince on SNME, always got across exactly what was needed, perfect counter-point to Jesse. So he didn't know the names of many moves. Doesn't matter. 4. David Crockett - Basically the JCP version of Vince only about twice as mental with about half as much knowledge of wrestling holds. My love for him knows few bounds. 5. Bill Watts - terrific announcer, hits all the vital story points, great breakdown of moves and holds, calls key action -- most of the time Boyd Pierce need not be there. 6. Bobby Heenan - always funny, my feeling is that he didn't always pay enough attention to matches or angles because he was busy getting over his jokes. Great during bad matches, but there are times when he can be a detriment, especially in WCW late on. 7. Tony Schiavone - very underrated in my view. Feel he was one of the best at getting over historical importance -- not his "it's the biggest night in the history of our sport" stuff, but when he'd hit details. I'd point to Starrcade 93 as a show on which he really adds to things. Gave up in the late 90s. 8. Gorilla Monsoon - controversial pick, but I think he was very likable and would help the viewer through some atrocious stuff. You can rag on him for his flaws: yes, he criticized workers sometimes, yes, he relied on stock phrases too much, but I think it's very smark-y to argue that he didn't add something to that product. If he was really bad -- like a Ron Tronguard -- everyone would say he was bad. But only hardcores maintain that he was bad, everyone else loves him -- my take is that that means the hardcores aren't getting something and I stand by that. 9. Gordon Solie - Seems like sacrilege, but his emotional detachment from the action often leaves me cold. I do like the FEEL of those matches from the 70s where he's in the booth alone talking us through some footage, but I'd be being dishonest to rank him higher. Think he was actively bad during Starrcade 83. 10. Sean Mooney - He is so entertainingly bad that I can't in good faith leave him off this list. So you'll notice there's no Bob Caudle but that shouldn't come as too great a shock. I have yet to see what he brings to the table beyond stock phrases. I don't really understand why he is exempt from Bix's line here: "I get that many people will always love the announcers they grew up with, but some of them weren't very good." What did Caudle do that was good? How is he demonstrably better than Monsoon? I don't get that.

Surely Greg Valentine was a main eventer in 1979 in WWF?

Going to throw out some more names for consideration. Mostly just interested to know in what sort of esteem people here hold them: Buzz Sawyer Raymond Rougeau Buddy Landell Mr. Saito Dan Kroffat / Phil Lafon Doug Furnas Haku

I think Flair added to his legend massively by jumping. Not just what he did during the run, but I don't think we get Starrcade 93 the way it went down if he had never gone away. Mike Rotunda is another person I think who benefited a good bit. Say what you want about IRS, he got 3 tag title runs, a series of memorable vignettes, an action figure, a co-main event vs. Hogan at Wrestlemania, the last match on a Survivor Series and decentish IC title feud vs. Razor Ramon, and he probably added about 5 years onto his career by being considered a guy with enough name value to bring back to WCW once the run was done.

Random note: did JCP / WCW during the 80s and early 90s have way more injuries than WWF or were they just unlucky with the timings of the injuries affecting their angles and big events? Or was Vince better at hiding injuries?

Sorry Dylan seem to have missed where you said this. I think I agree with you although I can see a strong argument being made for Slaughter based on his mainstream overness and late WWF World title run. Meltzer seems to put a lot of weight on real-world impact and stuff like the GI Joe deal might go a long way in his mind. Lesnar's UFC stuff will also probably help him. Ivan should be a lock this year if the voters are informed and vote fairly.

Luger's heel run in 89 is not a million miles away from The Narcissist. He didn't have the women and the mirrors, but 85% of the character is already there.

Take a look at this thread to see just how far Garvin fell after this point.

I can't speak for Loss or anyone else, but for me I'd honestly take down in the shits 1995 WCW or WWF over the best stuff from the late 00s or from the past few years. It's not about quality for me, it's something much more fundamental and unfixable.

I've only listened to the first 15 minutes, and probably won't get to listen to the rest until tomorrow as I have to do some wrestling viewing, but this has been great so far and am excited to hear the rest. You're still on Tully and I don't know if you come back to Dusty later on but a talking point for us on some of our early shows was: while Dusty giving a rub to the title was great for the title, during that time frame it sort of eclipsed the US title and hurt it as the number 2 title. It felt like the TV title was the bigger deal. Then when the Tully-Dusty feud transitioned over to the National title and Arn became champ in 86, it really feels like the title becomes the 4th title behind the US which was now clearly back to being number 2 with the Nikita vs. Magnum TA feud, and the National title. Then the Dusty vs. Tully feud transitions to the TV title in September 86 and suddenly it's a bigger deal again. So while Dusty can elevate and bring focus to a title, it can also have potential detrimental effects and I'm not sure how long lasting it would be. When Nikita got it, it feels like a step down for him and his heat really started to fizzle. Will stop there, but just wanted to put it out to generate some conversation. Look forward to the rest.

This may be where I'm a little less "Matt D" than you Chad, but to my mind just because something makes sense in a certain context, or just because something is logical, it doesn't automatically make it compelling. I can appreciate the idea that Backlund is working to a gameplan, but shit ... 40 minutes! Entertain me! Even aside from that though, I think the way Backlund works the headlocks sucks. Bockwinkel can make headlocks interesting by doing little things. Backlund literally just sat there in them in this match. I like his arm wrenches, that's a great matwork spot from Backlund that gets the crowd into it and looks like it hurts. Him sitting in the same headlock for god knows how long is the opposite of the "little things", it's just doing nothing. So I'll take an entertaining match with logic gaps over one that is logically worked but which bored me to tears for long stretches any day of the week. Maybe this little taste difference between us has never really surfaced on WTBBP because we've always had Flair jumping here, there and everywhere in the long matches to keep things moving and me entertained.

It may be because I've read an awful lot about him recently, but I think Ivan Koloff is the strongest name left on the modern US ballot. He had an extremely solid career for over 20 years, main evented everywhere, had a legendary feud with Bruno which drew well, held the WWWF World title in 71, challenged for the NWA title in St. Louis and elsewhere, challenged Backlund for the WWF title in his second run in New York, good run in Georgia, good runs elsewhere, and anchored the Crockett tag division in the 80s with a variety of partners and never really fell off as a performer. I don't think anyone else on that list has a career in that sort of league. Although welcome the Patera counter from Dylan. Maybe, arguably, Patera had higher peaks, but I think Ivan had a much longer career as a top heel and had a great 1980s, whereas Patera fell off. Finally, a perhaps more tangentially, Ivan was by far the best of the "Russians" and defined the role in an era when there were an awful lot of them. Other than that, exactly the same as last year, I think Gene Okerlund is a slamdunk non-wrestler pick and can't believe he's still not in there. I may attempt a Gordy list for Ivan.

I'm likely to continue to catch heel heat for this, but no match with that many boring headlocks in it is getting a 4.5 from me. I don't know if you guys text or browse the internet or otherwise do something else during "the boring bits" while watching matches. I don't do anything but watch the match and make notes while doing it. If I have to make a long note, I'll even hit pause to ensure I don't miss something. I might just have a big blind spot here, but I can't see how that opening 30 minutes of Backlund doing a headlock takeover into a headlock and just sitting there about 10 times in a row is "compelling". As I said on the show, it shows a paucity of imagination on Backlund's part and to me it's the definition of "boring" and came off as just eating time until they got to the second half of the match and the hot finishing stretch. Second match had the fat cut off and that alone puts it ahead. In addition, I prefer Valentine's offense when he's on on top to the master of the headlock's, which the second match had more of. Finally, I think the first match suffered a lot for me because I'd only recently seen Bockwinkel vs. Hennig and thought they did a much better job at keeping the slow build interesting.

Early 1976 and Larry M loses his shit over a match involving "All World Tight End" Russ Francis. Just raves about him as a guy who had absolutely everything and who easily could have been world champion if they could have lured him from pro football. Talks about how everyone backstage was basically gobsmacked at how good he was. Has anyone seen any Francis from this time frame? Or anywhere else aside from the WM2 Battle Royale? Or heard anything else about him? In 20+ hours of these interviews so far, Larry M has not lost his shit about anyone quite like that until now.

NL - as WTBBP listeners will attest, time estimation is not my strongest suit. I guess the epic feel of that match made it seem longer in my memory. I was totally blown away by it though and my memory of it was being "go go", maybe it's not and only seemed that way coming out of the slower style of 80-5 AJ, I dunno.

I'd honestly like people to use Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu (1/28/86) as an interesting test case. -It's a match to which Meltzer gave 5 stars that finished top 5 in the All Japan 80s set rankings. -It's a 30-minute match worked like a sprint and doesn't slow down. -The offense seldom lets up. -Massive bombs are sometimes worked like transitional moves. -Everyone loves this match. Would would be great is if we could get someone to do a blow-by-blow account of what exonerates that match from the charges made against Angle or The Steiners maybe with a test case for one of them.

Thanks for this elaboration. I guess I've seen people use the term "go go" in a looser sense to refer to fast-paced, intense bombfests. The way you are using it suggests a level of premeditated choreography or spottiness. Is there a difference between that and being a "spot monkey" a la your late 90s Jeff Hardy-type? Don't wish to be tedious but sometimes it's good to go through this stuff from the ground up for the sake of clarity.

Is "Go Go" always pejorative? In what way does "Go Go" as applied to Kurt Angle differ from "Go Go" as applied to something like the Choshu / Yatsu tags from AJPW in 1986 which are worked 100 miles an hour with bombs flying everywhere? Something like that Race vs. Martel match in AWA is "go go" in my mind. And I liked that a lot.

I wouldn't dream of giving myself credit Sensei.

Don't worry OJ, we've all been there. That said, quite interested in a Sano as Ryu from Street Fighter comp if only for the amazing potential of the front cover.

I was thinking about this and the logical extreme end is, to take a prominent example, something like Dory Funk Jr vs. Jack Brisco where you have two de facto faces playing by the rules and getting down to a legitimate struggle for position by way of matwork, counters and "control" in the true sense of the term. I still need to watch that series of matches, by the way -- if only to see why it was a benchmark for that generation. A more topical recent example might be Brad Rhenigans vs. Rick Martel from the AWA set, or for a more fast-paced variant something like Bret-Owen from WMX? I do think that there's value in maintaining at least the illusion of the idea that if everything was clean, and if there were no heel shenanigans, you'd be left with a match along those lines. From that point of view, the 10 minutes B. Brian Blair spent working over Orndorff's leg can be justified as more than a time kill by the fact that it is maintaining that illusion. I can actually buy that. Think this is quite an interesting idea Matt. It's getting over the idea that "if you give this guy half a chance, he's going to hurt you". Particularly effective if it's an underdog vs. monster situation a la Sting vs. Vader. I think what happened as the 80s and 90s wore on is that faces became more punch-kicky and heels more "technical". You can look at Jim Duggan as a proto-typical late 80s face who is set up for a shine and a comeback and little else in between. In that environment, there's less call for a Steamboat or Martel type, so I guess you can see why we had "The Model". The idea of "who is the better wrestler" goes out of the window when it's Hogan, Warrior, Duggan, Sid, Luger, Bulldog, Piper, or The Texas Tornado. The "technical" guys were all made into heels in WWF. There's one possible obvious exception: Bret was a "technical" face, but I'd have to look into his matches from 92-4 again to see how much of them he controlled. I think there's a lot to Loss's idea that Vince started booking Bret like Bob Backlund mark II in 94.

Think he looks vaguely ill in the middle one. Like he's stacked with an eating disorder.

Babyface control? See the heel control segment has some obvious functions and its rationale is pretty clear: - generate heat for the heel - generate sympathy for the babyface - build the crowd to the point where they are ready to pop big for the comeback For a babyface control segment there is no such obvious function. The only one I can think of is: - kill time What else is a babyface control segment in the middle of a match really doing?

While watching an edition of TNT from 1984 last night, a match between B. Brain Blair and Paul Orndorff irked me a little bit. This morning, I'm not sure if the criticisms I leveled at the match are justified or not. I will paste in the little match review later in this post, but first of all I want to walk through what I consider to be classic US match structure with particular emphasis on what the babyface does in the match. Let's take a hypothetical 15-minute TV match. I'd break down the timings like this: 1. Shine sequence [about 3 minutes] This is where your babyface pops the crowd at the start of the match and gives showcases a glimpse of what he's about. Your cleancut "technical" babyface -- Steamboat or Martel, say -- might throw a couple of armdrags here to establish both their technique and the fact that they play by the rules. Your powerhouse types might do an early Gorilla press slam to establish their strength. A highflyer might do a dropkick or even do a move from the top to establish their quickness and agility. 2. Heat / heel control segment [about 8 minutes] Your babyface will mostly be getting his ass kicked here and the heel should be showcasing their offensive arsenal and moving through the gears. Here the babyface's offense is limited to hope spots, escapes and / or reversals. 3. Comeback [3 minutes] At some point the babyface will start to fire up and this is where the match should transition into the high spots. And the babyface will have a chance to throw some bombs and their top end offense. 4. Finish [2 minutes] And then the match ends. That's your typical ABC by-the-numbers match. However, there are at least five relatively common variations on this as I see it. I'll detail them, if these have "proper" names I don't know them and have made up my own: - "Jump start": this is where the heel dives straight in and skips the shine entirely. Happens all the time and is good for establishing underdog-against-the-odds type matches. The likes of Stan Hansen and Vader start a lot of matches like this, and that makes sense. - "Extended shine": this is basically where the shine takes up a much greater proportion of the match than is usual -- we saw a lot of it in the AWA. - "All shine": this is rarer but still relatively common. It's when the heel just can't get anything going and the babyface eats up 90+% of the match and then usually the heel sneaks away with a cheap win. Chad and I have talked about this at some length on various episodes of WTBBP. Some examples: Ted DiBiase vs. Pat Patterson (WWF 7/21/79) Nick Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan (AWA 4/24/83) Tully Blanchard vs Don Kernodle (JCP 05/11/85) A lot of Honkytonk Man IC title matches - "WWE Main Event Style": this is essentially a normal match with an extra-long finish sequence that might go on for 15 minutes or more. ONE, TWO an-he-got-im NO! And again. And again. And again. My dislike for this formula is well known. - "The Flair Match": now Flair often just throws out the rule book but then again 9 times out of 10 he's going long. A Flair match is much more "all over the place" and might look something like this: 1. Early matwork, could be Flair giving or receiving 2. "Stuff to do" (jdw) 3. Figure-four / high spot 4. Back to "stuff to do" (jdw) 5. Flair takes over on his real heat segment (often happens quite late in the match and the transition is marked and obvious) 6. Finish It's a little ironic that people talk about "The Flair Formula" because he's one guy who very often actually throws the traditional formula out of the window. But this thread is not about Flair! Repeat, this thread is not about Flair, consider this a footnote. -------------------- So all of this preamble is because I'm struggling to get my head around what my real problem was with that Blair vs. Orndorff match. Here's the review again: What troubles me a little about about my own critique there is if it holds then basically all babyface offense that isn't shine, hope spot or comeback is essentially a time kill. Is that really true?

If you get past that stuff I have kept booking the angle through March and now going into April. Ricky Jackson seemed to like it.