JerryvonKramer

I think the more interesting discussion is probably one that pits the so-called "revisionism" of the 80s project / PWO against Meltzer's (for lack of a better term) historicism. But there are more interesting test cases than Brody. Lawler, for example.

He sold for Dory and, for whatever reason, Dory comes alive, shows real fire and -- if only for that one match -- stops coming across like a Maths supply teacher. Count me out of any Brody symposium / podcast if anyone is really serious about it.

Forgot to mention two things: 1. the quality of this disc from start to finish is great and I encourage people to check out this stuff, pretty much every match beyond the opener. There are real hidden gems here. 2. Here's the image for my nerdy Mario 3 reference re: Ivan Putski

Parv and James welcome back The Three Wise Men (Ricky Jackson, shoe and Johnny Sorrow). http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrest...e-to-july-1979/ Here is a visual aid for a portion of this show: On the docket tonight: 06-09 TITO SANTANA vs MOOSE MONROE CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 06-23 TED DIBIASE vs PAT PATTERSON NORTH AMERICAN TITLE CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 07-79 JAY STRONGBOW PROMO WWF TV 07-21 JAY STRONGBOW vs GREG VALENTINE PHILADELPHIA SPECTRUM 07-21 BOB BACKLUND/IVAN PUTSKI vs VALIANTS TAG TITLE PHILADELPHIA SPECTRUM 07-21 PAT PATTERSON vs TED DIBIASE NORTH AMERICAN TITLE PHILADELPHIA SPECTRUM 07-26 ANDRE THE GIANT/TED DIBIASE vs JERRY VALIANT/BARON SCICLUNA ATLANTIC CITY Some other topics include: - Bios for Tito Santana, Moose Monroe, Pat Patterson, Jay Strongbow, Baron Scicluna and Andre - Yet more Gentleman Jerry Valiant detail - More cheap innuendos than a Village People convention - Some pretty major disagreements over a particular match

Into 1974 now and developments on the Pringle front. Cubetta emails him to ask for an interview and he declines. Matysik once again has a dig. "I was there and stood right next to him. He'll say it was a different man, that it was another Percy Pringle: it was him. Maybe he was reborn when he became Paul Bearer ..." Honestly it's pretty strange how adamant Larry M is about this.

We did a big Sting vs. Luger comparison a while back too. Can't remember which show now, but there's no doubt who is better 88-91.

Alright. I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible. 1. As to the original Perfect / Martel comparison, I don't think Martel was ever as high on the card as Mr. Perfect was. "Midcard heel" probably sells Perfect short a bit, he was an upper midcard heel in the same sort of spot as Rick Rude but one year behind if that makes any sense. Perfect was IC champ and a contender for the world title. Martel was a contender for the IC title. 2. This is the point I want to make that is less on the topic of this thread. But I think in this time period that we're looking at, it's not really possible to rank the heels 1, 2, 3, 4. I want to make an analogy. WWF in this period roughly 88-94, was booked like 1960s Batman. There are always two faces elevated above the rest. And it's typically Hogan + 1. Your Batman and Robin. 1988 - Hogan and Savage 1989 - Hogan and Warrior 1990 - Hogan and Warrior 1991 - Hogan and Warrior / Hogan and Savage 1992 - Hogan and Bret / Bret and Savage 1993 - Hogan and Bret / Luger and Bret 1994 - Luger and Bret / Bret and Undertaker Beneath the top 2 faces, things get a bit more complicated. You have a harder time picking out no. 3 in any given year, at any given time could make arguments for Jim Duggan, Jake, Bossman, Bret, Texas Tornado, the likes of Demolition or Legion of Doom, Bulldog and even Nikolai Volkoff -- yes, I said Nikolai Volkoff! Now the way old 60s Batman worked is that there was a "villain of the week". But 4 super villains were clearly elevated above the rest: Penguin, Joker, Riddler and Catwoman. In the terms of the show, there's no clear number 1 out of the four of them. But each of them are clearly above the likes of Louie the Lilac, King Tutt, Mr. Freeze, Egghead, the Bookworm, Lord Ffog or that infamous outlaw Shame. Now clearly, each of the "lower" super villains was still evil enough to go up against Batman or Robin and they did so, but they'd typically be done after 2 episodes. But the "big four" villains would keep cycling back through. Penguin and Riddler keep coming back for more time and again. Who were the "big four" in WWF? Well Bobby Heenan was clearly one of them for most of the time. I said it before: there are layers of evil in WWF and Heenan simply put was one of the "most evil", a heel could turn against Heenan and automatically become face -- and that happened lots of times. Also he'd never stay down for long, no matter how many times his master plans were foiled by the main two faces, he'd be back with a new plan within a few weeks. Who else was like that? The Million Dollar Man. Another ultimate evil guy who'd be used to turn other heels and who kept coming back for more time and again. Beyond these two who else? The third members of the "big four" simply put is Heenan's main charge at the time: Andre in 88, Rude in 89, Perfect in 90, Flair in 91 and 92. In 93 things change. The fourth -- a bit like actresses who played Catwoman -- is a rotating slot: HTM in 88, Macho King in 89 and 90, Jake in 91, 92 is harder to say (Sid? IRS even? Shawn?), 93 is Lawler Twin Towers, Zeus, Slaughter, Earthquake, Undertaker -- these are your Batman-style "one shot" villains of the week. In for a programme and out again, they don't cycle back through. Things change in 93-4 because Heenan and DiBiase leave and I don't think either of them are properly replaced. Yokozuna is clear top heel, but things are pretty thin behind him. First half of 93 Money Inc are still around, then you've got Lawler, Shawn and now you're really reaching. DiBiase comes back in 94, and even though he's retired comes back as a "big bad", but by this point there's no real "big four" any more, the roster is too thinned out.

Don't want to take this too off-topic but Chad, I've noticed this a few times now, but is it a US thing, a Southern thing or just a Chad thing that you shake your head in agreement? I associate nodding with agreement and shaking with disagreement. Just wondering really.

I just want James to somehow make a bat signal with DiBiase's face on it.

Sorry for bumping this, but I wanted to talk about wins and losses in a modern-day WWE context somewhere. Do losses hurt anyone any more? And do wins put guys over? I found the Orton angle at Summerslam alienating because in my mind the big win over Cena had just established Bryan as a guy on the next level -- it was a step up for him. And then in the next moment they killed it. I want to drill into that a bit. Can someone who really understands the modern WWE booking mentality explain what's going on there and how that Orton angle wouldn't actually *hurt* Bryan in the long run? To my way of thinking it's counter-intuitive booking. Bryan is just given the rub of all rubs in the middle and then you take it away? I didn't get the strong impression that it translated into great heel heat for Orton/ HHH either. I'm just using that match and angle as a lens to get at how losses actually work in modern WWE. Feels like everyone beats everyone.

Ha ha. I tell you what khawk, I'm about to go and play football now and I'll have a think about not saying any more and leaving my contribution at that. In the meantime, maybe jdw will show up.

This is one of my absolute favourite topics (who were the top heels during that period in terms of WWF heirarchy) and I will weigh in soon. Great post, I have a ton to say here.

I just spent two hours sitting in Starbucks and then in McDonalds eating a McFlurry listening to this. 1. Couldn't be more pumped for this new podcast series. I was having a Facebook chat with Chad about it and this image pretty much sums up my feelings about it. And this was a good first show. 2. Mad USA 3. I feel like with every show we watch on WTBBP, Sting's stock goes down a little bit more. Was interesting to hear you legit compare him with Warrior, because I don't think the comparison is ridiculous. I'm starting to build up a view that Sting just wasn't very good before about 1992, and that's even if you think the Flair match at Clash 1 was great, which I really don't. 4. Listening to this do you know it occurred to me that I'd actually forgotten that Hogan wasn't the champ during that Earthquake feud. I think that's a testament to what you were talking about here and how effectively Hogan worked the Warrior match to ensure he was coming out absolutely as top babyface.

Can we make them root beers?

I'm about to share with you one of the grand secrets of podcasting Will: http://snipmp3.com/

[To Rick Martel:] "The only thing you'll be modelling is my fist on your nose!" [To Greg Valentine:] "Stop. *punch* Hammertime!" [To Irwin R. Schyster:] "I'll be brief: this fist is about to get on your case." This might be the worst thread ever made.

I don't really see why there's some special case for Brody to be honest. Fans were hot for the Road Warriors. Fans were hot for Ultimate Warrior. Fans were hot for Sid. Fans were hot for George Steele. Fans were hot for Brutus Beefcake. Fans were hot for Ice Train. What's the big difference with Brody? Only one as far as I can see: he had a lot of influential friends, backstage pull and Meltzer was high on him back in the day.

So what's his answer? Don't watch anything from the past because we can't possibly get it? Incidentally, my books are on this very topic. Except my argument isn't with Meltzer it's with the people who argue that you can't really understand Shakespeare unless you read him through 1590s eyes. He's wrong. Wrestling matches can transcend the moment of their gestation. The root is not the flower, and you don't have to be part of the root to appreciate the flower -- although naturally it helps to have knowledge of said root. I'm still curious about what Meltzer thinks Brody actually did well. I might go back and have a look at 83 era WONs to see if there's anything substantive there.

Digging around, it looks like it's this guy: http://www.wrestlingdata.com/index.php?bef...1&details=7 From the photo, I'm guessing that's not the Percy Pringle we know, and Larry M must have been confused about it. One for Brick: Show @ Fort Scott 1977/02/19 @ Memorial Hall in Fort Scott, Kansas (United States of America) Bob Brown, Percy Pringle and Benny Ramírez vs. Pat O'Connor, Ted Oates and Big Red Reese - winner unknown [Elimination Match]

Is the match with Snuka the one that finished 20th overall in All Japan voting? I had it at #25. https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...of1980salljapan Nothing to sniff at. Don't think the community is as totally clueless as he's making out, everyone will give good stuff its due. But what about the dozens of totally shitty Brody matches we've all seen?

If it really was him, why did he want to hide it?

I think as fans we all have a massive disconnect when it comes to Brody and when it comes to Dory Funk Jr. Two guys consistently touted as all-time greats by their peers and old-time experts who pretty much consistently suck from everything we've seen. It would be good if someone asked Meltzer about Dory Jr in that thread, I'd love to know what he says.