JerryvonKramer

Sure, but you don't need to watch matches to get that. You can just have someone tell you. Do you think it's the same though? I mean I listened to the Lucha podcast but I'm not sure how much of it went in, I'm not familar with any of the guys being discussed. I'll probably go back and listen to it again after I'm a disc in and it will all make a lot more sense. I did the same thing with the preview podcasts for All Japan and AWA, despite having a greater sense of the starring cast than for Lucha. Being told something and actually experiencing it make for different levels of connection and emotional connection. No amount of me telling you about the backstory of Hamlet to get to the moment where he's got the sword over Claudius as he's praying can substitute for actually watching Acts 1 and 2. The context is not just an intellectual exercise, it's an emotional thing and a recognition thing -- at least for me anyway. You need to build up familarity and "trust" with a set of performers. Hennig vs. Bockwinkel is a better match for having seen where Hennig has come from. Being told "Hennig was a young midcarder before this billed as 'Larry's son'" can't stand in for having seen a bevy of Hennig matches. I don't want to come across like a headmaster saying "do your homework", but I think context is more than you're giving it credit for here. There are a set of intangibles that come just with SPENDING TIME with footage of a given worker. It can't be substituted.

A bone of contention has come up on the 1973 Part 2 show: There's a Percy Pringle doing jobs on these St. Louis cards in the early 70s who Matysik swears is Paul Bearer. Years later, Matysik saw Pringle working for WWF and he swore blind that this Percy Pringle wasn't him. Pringle gets offended somehow, and Matysik gets affronted by it and the two of them never talk again. Who is telling the truth here? This one seems bizarre. Like Cubetta, I never knew Pringle wrestled.

No Matt, you're doing it all wrong, just watch the absolute best matches in a vacuum.

The eloquence of a Frenchman there

You've missed the argument: the veg enhances the enjoyment of the meat. A bunch of **1/2 and *** matches enhance a ***** match. A slow build enhances a big crescendo. Beeline to the meat, the ***** match and the crescendo and the payoff is less, your appreciation is less, and ultimately your "fun" is less. Like I said: instant gratification offers diminishing returns. Hard to explain this in the day and age where you can get most things you want within a few clicks of a button. But I absolutely believe it. I've had friends who have mocked me for bringing "a puritan work ethic" into areas where it is not appropriate, but I disagree with them. I think I get more from the payoffs than the guys who take short cuts and beeline. I have a friend who takes this to the extreme actually. He refuses to "binge watch" TV series and instead works out a schedule and watches only one episode of a given thing per week on the basis that people don't make a TV series to watch in one day. He might have a point, but even I think he's taking things too far there. I am definitely more towards that end of things though. I sincerely believe that you need to experience things that aren't that fun in order to get more out of the things that are.

80 All Japan doesn't seem that angle heavy or full of intricacies to me. There are the few big ongoing feuds. What else do you need to know? - Baba is a legend there. - The Funks are both legends there, but the fans have a special affinity with Terry - Jumbo is Baba's protege who makes a step up to be the ace. - In turn, Tenryu is his protege who eventually wants to make that same set up - There is always hierarchy and it is explicitly marked - Brody and Stan Hansen are at the top of the tree on the gajin side, and when Brody goes, Hansen replaces him with a series of partners (DiBiase, Gordy and eventually Tenryu) - When Choshu and friends come in they rip shit up like the NWO. If it's not obvious from the crowd losing their shit, Choshu is an established big star. They've come in from New Japan and this is an invasion of All Japan by Choshu and his key allies, probably the most prominent of whom is Yatsu. - After Tenryu establishes Revolution, it's clear that group doesn't respect the old hierarchies and traditions which are basically embodied in Jumbo (and Baba), it's a classic "uprising of the youth against the establishment" narrative. Tenryu has no respect for his elders or superiors and kicks all kinds of ass. Have I missed anything? Most of that is obvious within 5 minutes of seeing any of these guys. It's always obvious who the main event guys are in tags because they fucking deck midcarders. While face and heel dynamics in terms of fans actually booing for heels are not quite the same (Hansen will always get cheered even vs. Funk or Jumbo), it's always obvious who is the antagonist and if it's not, well, it's usually the guy taking on Jumbo or one of his allies. I had a problem with Tenryu early in the set because the dude's faces never fucking changes. He's permanently non-plussed 24/7. It works amazingly when he's leading Revolution, not so much when he's meant to be Jumbo's plucky number 2. But that's just my take. I honestly don't know what MORE context you could want to get through that particular set, for example. That said, I'm high on building up context too. I'm personally glad that unlike 99% of other people, just through circumstances really, I actually started my watching in January 1980. So now when the All Japan guys are coming up in the 1990 yearbook I understand what's going on. When the high-end stuff comes up later in the decade, I'll be able to see the transition to a new cast of main event guys. Like to my mind in my watching, Misawa is still Tiger Mask and Kawada's still that dude from Footloose. Obviously I vaguely know they go on to great things, but it's going to be all the more fun when I get there having seen the journey. I will probably get more out of them than if I'd gone in cold. I mean, sure, you have to "go in cold" somewhere, but it's like I always say: you can't really truly enjoy and appreciate the "delights of the plate" -- the meat, the Yorkshire puddings, the roast potatoes -- until you've worked through all the veg -- the Brussels sprouts, the cabbage -- first. There are those people like my brother who beeline straight to the meat and then end up leaving the veg, I've argued with him in the past that it's an instant gratification strategy with diminishing returns. Yes, I've made my brother argue with me about strategies of approaching a meal. Yes, I've digressed here ...

Remember all those films with Arnie in them where he'd punch a guy in the face and deliver a cheesy one liner? I thought it would be fun to come up with convoluted scenarios within the world of wrestling for the delivery of these lines. Admittedly, this is 99% because I randomly came up with one while while making a cup of tea. Get ready for this people. [said to Buck Robley] "The only thing you'll booking, Robley, is a date with the sidewalk"

There really isn't a great deal of negativity on these shows, it's more or less 3 hours of critical appraisal. What negativity there is, is stuff you already know: I don't like Brad Rhenigans or his match with Martel, Chad doesn't like Debbie the Killer Tomato, Dylan doesn't like the Manny-Wahoo handheld (neither does anyone else really), PeteF3 and shoe don't like Col. DeBeers (as much as everyone else), no one likes Mr. Elecriticty Steven Regal. That's about it going off memory. I mean shit, even WOAT-contender Boris Zukhov gets his day in the sun here, which is still something I find mind blowing.

And Flair did give us some quite interesting stuff aside from all the fun. He argued that Crockett would have stayed in business if they'd stayed East of the Mississippi and given up trying to take the West Coast. He talked about how he and Terry Funk worked their matches 50/50 on who called the match. He talked about why he thought Dory Jr was a better worker than Bruno and about specific things each guy would do in the ring. It's not like the stuff is completely worthless. You'll get occasional tidbits and insights. I know the "all wrestlers are carnies and lie all the time so nothing they have to say is of value ever ever" point of view is popular with some members of this board, but y'know Flair has legit wrestled in 1,000s of matches and can bring perspectives to bear that you'd never get from a Dave Meltzer. And Austin gives him a relaxed atmosphere to share them in.

Listening to part 2 and honestly don't care if they are true or not, the Jack Brisco and Harley Race stories are awesome, especially the confrontation between Harley and Jumbo. It also takes Flair about 3 minutes to remember Dennis Condrey's name, despite Austin basically shouting it at him, so it's pretty clear his memory is not great in places.

I'd say some of the Terry Funk stuff from 83 is "unmissable".

I'm going to shoot you a PM recommending some books on this brainfollower. And yeah thinking about it I guess 87 is a bit late for Race-JYD.

Well I do have the rather unrealistic expectation of hardcore fans to just know each and every detail of Hogan-era WWF like the back of their hand, so shockingly bad from my point of view. I see Cowboy Wally recently did commentary for the All Japan Champions Carnival 2013: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...8762&cmd=tc So maybe he's just a hardcore Japanese fan. There is someone out there providing what you want though.

Brain, I found watching All Japan from start to finish that you can basically work out a hell of a lot just through the crowd reactions and the way the dynamics shift. Jumbo vs. Tenryu was absolutely captiviating by the time I got to 1989 but the context was all there in the matches themselves. I went into the set knowing next to nothing and came out thinking Jumbo was a GOAT contender. That said, when I watch the New Japan set for my 80s Catchup Thread, I'll be taking the Cowboy Wally shows with me for company: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cowboy-wally They did live "watch throughs" in the same vein as goodhelmet and co did for the AWA set recently. I don't know if Cowboy Wally and whoever was on with him were "experts" -- actually I thought their knowledge of 80s WWF was pretty shocking on the one show I've listened to so far (they were watching DiBiase vs. Hogan), which put me off a bit -- but, it's got to be better than nothing right?

To be fair to him that's one match that legit would have been "main event anywhere in the country".

I don't know or care who Pitbull is. And this is even after watching that video. But if I had to pick out a guy who is a "singles artist" rather than an "album artist", I'd point to Sgt. Slaughter. Now I don't think Sarge is particularly inconsistent, but I do think his "Greatest Hits" are probably better than any single run he's had. I hope that makes sense to someone.

I just did a facebook status update: Now while I think my baseline love of wrestling is greater than my baseline love of football in terms of how much enjoyment it gives me to watch it, I do think to some extent the same sort of thing is true of my wrestling consumption. If I did enough soul-searching I'd probably come to the conclusion that all of my various interests and obsessions, I've only actually got one: analysis.

The 1971 Matysik show has surfaced: http://www.infinitecore.ca/superstar/index...?threadid=78739 Still no sign of 66 part 2-70 though.

I'm stepping out of this before I get myself too worked up, but on the same board where some people thought I was a total idiot for thinking that external factors may have had a part in Bill Watts's downfall in Mid-South. That no, in fact, it was him alone and his product all along that was to blame. I'm not going to take it from some of those same people who in this argument are going to argue that, whereas Watts was to blame for his failure, no in fact Vince actually isn't responsible for his own success.

So he won in 80s with daddy's money and won in 90s through blind luck? I guess that's giving him credit where it is due isn't it.

This would take us too off-topic but there's an interesting question to ask about Taker's role for the company and when he really became a big megastar. How did he draw in 94? (awful angle I know) How did he draw vs. Diesel? If someone looked into that in detail I'd be interested. I also don't think Cactus Jack is much of a name to be putting up against Hogan and co looking from BEFORE the Monday Night Wars. If you were a coach choosing draft picks without any hindsight, your 1 through 5 picks are probably all working for WCW.

Did Colon and Flair go an hour in 86?

Context. The former was a big part of the 80's push to be the main game. The later 90's and the WCW wars were different. Right, and my point is that in two completely different contexts (there's actually 3, breaking the UK market and other European markets in the early 90s is a third context), he came out top both times. The narrative of inheritance plays down what Vince actually did on his own merits (the stuff me and Loss are talking about) and plays up his advantages and the significance of the talent raids. There'll be some who say "it was all Hogan" too. But when the tables were turned and it was the big boys coming after him -- with superior resources and a superior roster* -- he still won. The point is that the tools of success did not come down to Vince Sr's money or talent raids -- they helped sure, but they alone do not account for why Vince was successful in the 80s. And the 90s example demonstrates it. * It's easy to say in hindsight of course that "yeah but with The Rock and Austin he could have taken anyone", but the reality was if you look from the other way he was going up against Flair, Hogan, Savage, Nash and Hall, Bret Hart, and basically any other major star you care to name with Stunning Steve, Rocky Johnson's son, Jean-Paul Lévesque and Ken Shamrock.

I'd also like to talk about advantages. "He took daddy's money and bought out the talent, making him the only game in town". Did that sell out Wembley in 92? Let's think about advantages. Turner owned a TV station AND he's Ted Turner. They also bought out all the talent. Who won? Think people are quick to sell Vince short.