JerryvonKramer

When Chad and I talked to Loss last month, he mentioned that Starrcade 89 is the first full show he'd watched in ages. I have a friend who has an almost militant (and in my view insane) stance when it comes to music albums. He argues that you're missing out on too much context if you skip tracks or hit "play all --> shuffle" on your i-pod. He insists on only listening to albums from start to finish and says this is the best way to get the best out of good music. I often make fun of him for this. I wanted to drill into this a bit more vis a vis wrestling though. I quite like watching full shows for a number of reasons. - shitty matches or "down time" sometimes allow me to focus on some of my pet loves in wrestling like commentary. I've always maintained that that's where someone like a Jesse Ventura really earns their money. Keeping us entertained while we sit through this crap. - sometimes crap is fun - you need crap to really appreciate the good stuff. When I was watching the 80s All Japan set I got burnt out quite a few times because the quality was just so high all of the time. Past a certain point you're talking back-to-back ***1/2+ matches for hours on end. But then the upside was I had watched and been exposed to literally 100 or so really good matches. I don't regret doing that. What are people's preferences when it comes to this?

If it's just "great moments", I'd also have the Flair promos associated with these matches. post-match WM8 might be my favourite promo by anyone ever.

Does anyone actually not like Magnum vs Tully?

Curious to see who would agree with me here, but Rude vs. Steamboat from Beachblast 92? Dylan suggested on the last Wrestling Culture that it would have a shot of making best ever WCW match if there was a poll. I also think the other two Flair-Steamboat 89 matches plus Flair-Funk GAB89 and "I Quit" should be considered "canon". In any other year those 4 matches would have been locks for MOTY. And they tick all your boxes. On the WWF side of things? Bret-Owen WM10?

Pretty good. Show 1 will be recorded on Sunday, we're hoping to get through the first 16 then and cover 88-89 in the second one. Safe to say that most of these would have been "match of the night" contenders on any supercard, so I'm still not sure how it's going to go. Reviewing 16 longish matches in 2 hours or so may be ambitious. Guess it depends on how long I let Chad talk about Chikara for at the start I couldn't love watching matches from the old WCW shows at Techwood studios more.

Been watching some Magnum in the past week for the podcast, and having seen a lot of Sting in 89 recently, I have to say that Magnum in 85 is maybe twice the worker Sting is in 89. In terms of his punches, his fire, his comebacks, his connection with the crowd, everything pretty much. It's made me think again about him. Would have loved to see him vs. Luger in 88-89. I was just wondering about general PWO perceptions of a Magnum / Sting comparison.

I watched IRS's "Top 10 Tax Tips" earlier. Quite literally incredible. "Having your daughter's bucked teeth fixed doesn't constitute a proper medical claim" I maintain IRS is one of the most entertaining, amazing gimmicks ever to hit wrestling. PAY YOUR GIFT TAXES TATANKA. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Bix, did Verne have any stake in the Heart of America promotion (aka Central States)? I know those two offices (Central States and St. Louis) were "close" with Giegel and Race being players in both. The second of the Hogan-Race matches was in Kansas and promoted by Heart of America. I'm wondering if Race would have been the de facto face and Hogan the heel in that match.

John, are you still involved in the Plain English Campaign? Where do I sign up? I mention you guys in one of my books when trying to cover Derrida and flatout call it "bordering on being unreadable". That particular bit has recently been picked up by someone else who has written a whole article around it (see here). I'd join the good fight against jargon. Dylan - I don't think it's just the way you remember it because it comes across on tv. Sting gets some of the loudest pops I've ever heard in early 92,and Rude some of the loudest boos. I think as the year progresses and the belt is put on Simmons and the MVC get that monster push it dissapates a little bit. Crowd for GAB 92 is pretty quiet but then it's full of long mat-worky matches and has about half a dozen tag matches in a row with heels going over clean, so you've got to expect that.

Where is this printed program you speak of? I've only seen the PWI/Apter spread with that tag match listed, never a printed program from the night of the event, aside from maybe the cover. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'd just like to see it. I haven't seen it, it's just mentioned by a few people in that Kayfabe Memories thread I linked to a few pages back. And then mentioned again and again on that board whenever this topic has come up (4-5 times since 2003). Often connected to discussion of a perhaps mythical match between Hogan and Flair that may or may not have taken place in 83.

Watching a lot of those 92 shows on tape, and despite the fact they were sparsely attended, the crowd heat seems off the charts, especially for Rude. Were these small crowds particularly boisterous Dylan? What's your memory of them? Can't think of a heel who was more over than Rude in 92, even if there were never more than 5,000 fans at once booing him.

Starrcade happened on November 24, 1983. Hogan's last AWA date before going to Japan was just 10 days before this: 11/14/83 – Phoenix, AZ - Hulk Hogan defeated Jerry "Crusher" Blackwell (Hogan's final AWA match) Works Japan for the rest of November starting 11/18/83 to first bit of December. First date for WWF: 12/27/83 – St. Louis, MO - Chase Park Hotel (Wrestling at the Chase taping - attendance 1,100; sell out): Hulk Hogan pinned Bill Dixon with the legdrop (Hogans return after nearly a 3 year hiatus) -------- My question was this: how far ahead was that planned? When exactly did he agree to go to WWF? And how far in advance did Verne (or anyone) know that he was definitely leaving AWA for WWF (rather than an NWA organisation)? If they just didn't know, it's perfectly possible that 2-3 weeks before Starrcade they had a plan of putting him in that tag match and printed a program / ran an ad in a mag with it, either not knowing he was off to Japan or not knowing he was off to WWF after that.

When I was looking last night, he was still working AWA dates when he had those matches with Race right through October and into November. khawk do you have any insight on this one?

Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen that suggested by anyone and it never occurred to me then or since. Could have been a pretty great angle. I think DiBiase was always used as a benchmark heel, by which I mean he was so evil that he could be used to turn established heels. Even a guy like Jimmy Hart. Heenan was also at that level of evil. Wondering if DiBiase and Rotunda ever had a match now.

Have you paid your gift taxes Mike?

They must have known he was off to WWF by November right?

Been enjoying this so far up to early ECW: 1. Think the 88/89 stuff with Cornette is really great. If I'm surprised by anything it's by just how long Corny and the MX stayed as faces. 2. Dylan, for two guys who disagree so often, we have some real common ground on 92 WCW. Steamboat-Rude is probably in my top 5 favourite matches. Has any promotion ever had such a big gap between high quality and low box office than Kip Frey era WCW? 3. Zybysko over Eaton is quite a big claim. Dangerous Alliance over the Horsemen is an even bigger one. 4. I think Bill Watts was what I'd want to call "culturally racist". By that I mean a guy who was racist without actually realising he was or understanding how. Parallel I'd draw is to the former soccer manager Ron Atkinson. You don't need to know anything more about him than these two things: 1. he pioneeered teams with lots of black players in the 1980s, 2. years later he was sacked for using the N word off-mic when it was accidentally broadcast. He later made a documentary ostensibly trying to prove that he wasn't racist where he went around trying to understand how what he said was so offensive. My main take-away from that documentary was that a guy like that fundamentally doesn't believe he's racist, but it is so culturally ingrained in him that he doesn't realise it. He sees skin colour in a way that I never have or would, but I grew up in very different circumstances. That's not making excuses for him, it's just accounting for this odd thing that sometimes happens / happened. I think Bill Watts is a guy like that. 5. "In a way it was an anti-carny carny move"

Johnny, you were right, FOUND IT: There's Wahoo in a WWF ring in 1994. I think that was the only appearance though. EDIT: lol, what a ridiculous angle. "You owe gift taxes on that headdress", what the fuck. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Are you sure Johnny? Only Strongbow here: This site lists Wahoo coming out during the Kwang but, but it's Strongbow. PAY YOUR GIFT TAXES TATANKA! Tatanka's journey is pretty dark if you think about it. IRS wrecks his ceremonial gear and then he sells out to DiBiase and ends up tagging with the man who destroyed his heritage. Vince McMahon's post-colonial commentary on the fate of the Native American peoples.

Who was Hogan actually working for when he had that match with Race? Seems like a strange thing to do in Race's last major defense before Flair, even allowing for the hyperbole of the article. EDIT: Digging around and it looks like the match in the article happened in St. Louis on 10/08/83 and there was a second match in Kansas a few days later 10/13/83 (ended in no contest).

The one other thing I'll say about that Dusty vs. DiBiase feud is that it's one storyline where Ted comes out on top in an almost ridiculous way that hardly ever happened for heels in the WWF. Think about how it goes: - Ted buys Sapphire off. 1-0 Ted. - Ted and Dustin do the 10-minute challenge. 1-1, I guess, but the match puts over Ted really strong. - MSG Nov. 24th. Virgil and Ted go over Dusty and Dustin basically clean. 2-1 - Royal Rumble. Ted goes over Dusty and Dustin basically clean and ON HIS OWN. 3-1 Pretty rough ride for Dusty there. Ted completely fucks him over. Takes his wife. Kicks the shit out of his son. And all he gets for his trouble is a train ticket back to Atlanta. Don't know how many examples there are in that era of pure villainy winning out like that.

Were the NWA committee so old-school that it wouldn't have occurred to them to think about putting the belt on him or at least get him into a main event? I mean I know Flair was Crockett's guy, but surely Hogan = cash and that was plain to see by all, no? Looks like he more or less killed Race in that match too:

Turns out they had another TV match in August 1990. DQ win for Ted. It's on Daily Motion. Mooney and Hayes on commentary. Looks like it's on the Supertape 3 VHS, an item of which I'm a proud owner. Looking at historyofwwe, they had house show matches all through May, June and July, generally with Bossman winning with an inside cradle or small package (same finish as MSG match). That August TV match isn't the last though, it keeps going. WWF @ St. Louis, MO - Arena - August 24, 1990 (2,500) Dustin Rhodes pinned Black Bart The Orient Express defeated Marty Jannetty & Shane Douglas (sub. for Shawn Michaels) Haku defeated Barry O Paul Roma pinned Jim Powers Jimmy Snuka pinned Iron Mike Sharpe Ted Dibiase defeated the Big Bossman via disqualification Earthquake pinned Jim Duggan; prior to the bout, Duggan busted his own head open after throwing his 2x4 into the air and miscalculating the catch Looks like you are right that it didn't really end. Until just now I always thought that MSG match was the culmination of it.

After Mania VI when DiBiase jumped Bossman before the Akeem match, they had a match at MSG (April 30th). Bossman got the pin. It was followed by a post-match beatdown but eventually Bossman gets the better of it and Ted and Virgil run away. I'm pretty sure that was the blow off.

Wow. Just doing some digging and according to this thread: www.infinitecore.ca/superstar/index.php?threadid=69957 It was meant to be Hogan and Wahoo vs. Orton and Slater. Was even in the program booklet. I'm a little stunned.