JerryvonKramer

As it happens Dylan I do think there is an element of Austin's run being a fad. Not a fad for any of us wrestling fans, but in terms of the mainstream, yes. I've said it many times, but in this country WWF itself was little more than a fad for thousands of people. The Attitude Era was that too.

Did those almanacs ever get a UK release? They look amazing.

I actually question this received wisdom. And I question it pretty hard. Have you read Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow? In that he explains how people are very drawn to coherent explanations for certain phenomena. It helps to keep the world neat in people's minds. So it figures that hardcore wrestling fans will always look to "the product" as the chief factor for declining numbers. In this formulation there's a direct correlation between "the product" and business. But is that really the case and what are your reasons for being so sure that it is? If we look down the years, can we really say that the hottest years in the box office coincide with the hottest feuds and angles? We'd like to think so, but it isn't borne out. It just isn't. It seems to me that wrestling hits booms and slumps. That isn't always dictated by the product. Any of us can go and find great stuff in years when the box office was through the floor. Any of us can find evidence of awful stuff drawing just because wrestling happened to be hot at that time. But you say that 95%, I'll repeat that NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of the time when a company dies it's because of the product. That's a strong conviction jdw and I'd like to know why you think that with such certainty. Is that the case in all industries in your view, or just wrestling? This is the most embarrassing thing I've seen on PWO since Resident Evil went bye-bye. Do you think it's possible for you to discuss something with me, just once, with out this crushing condescension? You seem intent on escalating something, I'm only interested in getting to the bottom of this issue. Your refusal to accept external factors in the decline of Mid-South is tantamount to a faith position. JYD's figures for 85 and 86 were hardly setting the world on fire either. It doesn't look like "drawing and drawing and drawing" to me. It looks like a 4-year stretch where he burned brightly, and then for whatever reason, when he went to WWF, it was over. At least in terms of New Orleans. We haven't been looking at JYD in terms of being a national draw or what he did in other states.

But Dylan, this collapse wasn't immediate was it? It took a full 2 years after JYD left for the attendences to go through the floor in NO. If it was all down to JYD, why were 10,000+ still turning up in 85 and 86? That's quite a delayed reaction isn't it. What? They suddenly woke up one day and figured out that it was JYD and not wrestling that they were into? (Also, JYD was there on those WWF cards and barely 2,000 people turned up.)

But Crockett didn't draw well in New Orleans either. Are we going to say they didn't draw well in the south too? That's three different promotions with three very different products failing to draw in the same town and yet you're still content to lean on the explanation that says "it was the product"? Ok then.

To me, not only does this reinforce my idea that JYD was a fad, but also it lends some extra weight to the oil explanation. The "product" explanation might explain a dip in Mid-South's numbers from 86 to 87, but can it account for WWF and Crockett not drawing there either? At a time when both companies were ripping shit up nationally? External factors have to have played a decent part. We've already seen that the Nola fans weren't exactly hardcores, so you'd expect them to be turning up for WWF shows, especially with JYD and Hogan on the card. But they didn't. What's more convincing to you? That 1. It's because Mr. Wrestling II missed a kneelift or 2. It's because the economy was suffering?

I still think it points towards JYD being a fad in the area rather than anything else. I don't recall seeing figures from WWF in 1985 and 86 that suggested those fans "followed" him there and we know that at least 50% of them stopped going to Superdome shows in 85 and 86. These weren't wrestling fans, they were casual fans. So they did what casual fans always do once the fad is over: something else. I'm not sure if we can say for certain that those fans would have stuck with JYD all the way till 87 and beyond. We have the example of Hogan and we know that even that phenomena had a shelf life. This doesn't do anything to diminish JYD as a draw, it's just to recognise the type of fan he was pulling in. What's harder to say -- I think -- is how many of those 10,000 people still turning up to watch the DiBiases and Duggans in 85 and 86 had been "converted" to become proper wrestling fans. These, ultimately, were the people Watts would have to have been counting on post-JYD. Johnny Sorrow has suggested they were still an overhang of the JYD fans. I'm not sure about that. November 86 is TWO years after JYD and 13,000 fans are still turning up for whatever reason (the prospect of gimmick matches is still appealing, really, to wrestling fans rather than casual fans). RE: "stacked cards" in 84. It is noticable that shows headlined by MX vs. RnR aren't pulling in numbers like those headlined by JYD. I'm sure that having such a loaded card "helped", but the 85 cards aren't necessarily "less stacked" they just don't have JYD on them and there's a difference of 10,000 people. I'm calling those 10,000 who didn't turn up the"true casuals". What were they doing in 1985? Playing Mario on their NESes and whatever else came along that wasn't wrestling. The other 10,000 who were still attending -- even if JYD pulled them in initially -- I'm calling "converts". The fact that shows with Flair defending the title are pulling in 15,000 around that time means that by 85 there was at least a core of people who were "turned on" to wrestling. To the extent, I think, that we can think of them as regular fans. This is really what I'm looking at. What happened to those 10,000 fans? I'm not buying "they realised it was JYD they were into" because it wouldn't take them TWO YEARS to realise that. Product is part of it. The 87 cards aren't as strong as the 85-6 cards, we can see that. But really 7,000 people turned away because of product? There is another explanation that none of us have pointed to yet: - These fans turned to WWF I haven't looked into the numbers, but is this a possibility? We know that WWF was hotter than hot in 1987. If oil was not a factor and if it was "product", they should have been pulling gates over 15,000+ in New Orleans that year. AND they had JYD. Let me have a quick look at Graham's site: WWF @ New Orleans, LA - UNO Lakefront Arena - February 27, 1987 Ricky Steamboat vs. Paul Orndorff George Steele vs. WWF IC Champion Randy Savage The Junkyard Dog, Jake Roberts, & Jim Duggan vs. King Kong Bundy, King Harley Race, & Bobby Heenan Unfortunately no numbers here, but that's a 10,000 seater arena. If they sold this out, then the oil explanation is bunkem, if they didn't, then you've got to ask why not with JYD in the headaline and the "product" super hot at this time. This is the biggest of the WWF bookings for New Orleans that year and also the LAST. Why didn't Vince go back to New Orleans in 1987? No booking in 1988 either. But then we get 3 in 1989, two of them at Lakefront Arena. Let's see what Crockett was upto on the New Orleans front: JCP @ New Orleans, LA - Superdome - June 13, 1987 No numbers or card info UWF @ New Orleans, LA - Superdome - August 1, 1987 (5,000) Shane Doglas pinned Gary Young Davey Haskins pinned Mike Boyette Terry Gordy pinned the Angel of Death Terry Taylor pinned Steve Cox UWF Western States Heritage Champion Barry Windham pinned Shaska Whatley Rick Steiner defeated Chris Adams in a taped fist match in the 5th round Sting pinned the Enforcer UWF Tag Team Champions Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner defeated NWA US Tag Team Champions Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane via reverse decision Dusty Rhodes & UWF World Champion Steve Williams defeated Eddie Gilbert & Dick Murdoch in a double bullrope match when Williams pinned Gilbert Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, & Buddy Roberts defeated Big Bubba, Black Bart, & the Terminator in a steel cage first blood elimination match; Roberts was eliminated; Terminator was eliminated; Hayes and Bart were eliminated; Rogers was eliminated Up from Watts's last show, but this is still bad. And why oh why are they running the Freebirds on top again?Are we saying Crockett's "product" was bad in 1987 too? Or just that fans in this area weren't watching? JCP @ New Orleans, LA - Lakefront Arena - November 26, 1987 (1,610) Starrcade 87 was shown in closed circuit following the live matches Jimmy Valiant & Bugsy McGraw defeated Tiger Conway Jr. & Shaska Whatley at 7:32 when Valiant pinned Conway Ron Simmons pinned Johnny Ace at 4:00 with a flying shoulderblock Sean Royal pinned Killer Khalifa at 4:11 with a kneedrop off the top UWF Tag Team Champions the Sheepherders (w/ Johnny Ace) defeated Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner via disqualification when Horner grabbed the flagpole from Ace and used it as a weapon; the match was advertised as Chris Champion & Sean Royal vs. the Sheepherders in a steel cage match but both Champion and the cage did not appear lol Clash of the Champions VI - New Orleans, LA - Superdome - April 2, 1989 (matinee) (5,300) Shown live on TBS - featured Jim Ross & Michael Hayes on commentary; included Bob Caudle conducting a backstage interview with Ric Flair regarding the night's main event; featured Jim Ross conducting a backstage interview with NWA World Champion Ricky Steamboat after the conclusion of the Flair / Steamboat match in which Steamboat made mention of other top contenders he would be defending against and reviewed footage of Flair's foot being under the bottom rope during the finish of the third fall: The Samoan Swat Team (w/ Paul E. Dangerously) defeated Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane (w/ Jim Cornette) at 20:33 when Samu pinned Eaton after Fatu hit Eaton over the back of the head with Dangerously's phone behind the referee's back after Eaton hit the Rocket Launcher on Fatu and made the cover The Great Muta (w/ Gary Hart) pinned Steve Casey with the moonsault at 8:11 The Junkyard Dog pinned Butch Reed (w/ Hiro Matsuda) at 8:55 after Reed collided with Matsuda on the ring apron; prior to the bout, JYD was escorted to the ring by a jazz band Bob Orton Jr. (w/ Gary Hart) pinned Dick Murdoch at 9:48 when Hart swept Murdoch's legs as he attempted the brainbuster and then held the foot down during the cover; during the bout, Pat O'Connor, Lou Thesz, Sam Mushnick, Buddy Rogers, Gene Kiniski, and Dory Funk Jr. were shown in the crowd Mike Rotunda & Steve Williams (w/ Kevin Sullivan) defeated NWA Tag Team Champions the Road Warriors (w/ Paul Ellering) to win the titles at 11:37 when Williams pinned Road Warrior Hawk with a roll up and a fast count from referee Teddy Long, moments after Long refused to count Hawk's cover on Rotunda following the Doomsday Device because the champions manhandled him shortly before; after the bout, Jim Ross conducted an interview with the Road Warriors about the controversial decision Ranger Ross defeated the Iron Sheik (w/ Rip Morgan) via disqualification at 1:55 when Morgan hit Ross with the Iranian flag after Ross hit the Combat Kick; prior to the bout, Ross was propelled down from the rafters with the American flag; after the match, the Junkyard Dog made the save and helped clear the ring NWA US Tag Team Champions Eddie Gilbert & Rick Steiner (w/ Missy Hyatt) defeated Dan Spivey & Kevin Sullivan at 3:52 when Gilbert pinned Sullivan with an inside cradle after hitting him with Missy's purse; after the bout, Gilbert was double teamed in the ring until Steiner cleared the ring with a chair NWA World Champion Ricky Steamboat defeated Ric Flair in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match at 55:32, 2-1; fall #1: Flair pinned Steamboat by reversing an inside cradle at 19:33; fall #2: Steamboat forced Flair to submit to a double chicken wing at 34:14; fall #3: Flair pinned Steamboat with the double chicken wing, though Flair's foot was outside the ring during the pinfall; Terry Funk did guest commentary for the bout; prior to the bout, Ross announced the bout between NWA US Champion Lex Luger and Jack Victory was scheduled for that time but in order to give ample time to the main event, and because it could run long, it was pushed back to later in the card; during his introduction, Steamboat came to the ring with his wife Bonnie and baby son (voted Match of the Year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter) (The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection, Ricky Steamboat: The Life of the Dragon) Dark matches after the show: NWA TV Champion Sting defeated Rip Morgan via submission with the Scorpion Deathlock at 3:25 after a Stinger Splash in the corner NWA US Champion Lex Luger defeated Jack Victory via submission with the Torture Rack; late in the bout, Michael Hayes appeared ringside to be in Victory's corner

Jason Hervey

I don't have time right now to go in-depth replying to all the counter-arguments, but I just wanted to mention that if what Dylan says is true about New Orleans not being a wrestling town before JYD, then I'm quite interested by how he was able to make it take root. What did that process look like? How was he able to take it from "dead" to 21,000? I'm genuinely interested by that, because the Bruno analogy doesn't quite work -- NY and MSG were always big on wrestling. Is there a definitive take on the JYD story? Seems fascinating to me.

jdw, even if you don't agree with my overall conclusion, what do you make of my reading of JYD as a draw? That he was essentially a social phenomenon in that region drawing in casual fans mostly from the black community. That those gates of 21,000 at the Superdome were only ever going to be a temporary boost while JYD was "in" like yo-yos or tamagotchis. In other words, the extra tickets JYD was bringing in were being bought by fairweather fans. Watts couldn't have relied on them in the long term and 1985 wasn't a decline but "regression to the mean".

I can accept the Wrestling II stuff as part of the explanation for why the Superdome shows went from 21,000 to 10,000-15,000 after JYD left (although JYD leaving itself would have to account for the bulk of that). I don't accept that it was the reason they went from drawing 13,000 in November 1986 to just 3,000 in 1987. I also find it hard to accept the plausibility of goc's explanation. Can a bad card reduce a crowd by 10,000 people? Can people point to other instances in history when a card was so bad that it stopped 10,000 regular fans from attending the next show? As I said, the oil explanation seems simpler. Although I guess you might say that towns like Tulsa might have been affected by oil too, but my understanding is that Oklahoma is more of an agricultural state than an oil state. When I think of oil, I think of Texas and Louisiana. I'm sure OK does have oil but how reliant is their economy on it overall?

Incidentally, the two other books I bought were Larry Matysik's 50 Greatest Professional Wrestlers of All Time and the Official WWE Encyclopedia 2nd edn, which I've read surprisingly good reviews of. They haven't arrived yet. The sort of library I'm building up here is more an idea than anything else. I like the idea of a guy coming up -- especially an historical guy -- and then being able to consult 5-10 reference books for a look at that guy. The Greg Oliver books are good for that, but I wanted to bolster them with other stuff. The ONE other book I'm considering getting but haven't committed to yet is Tim Hornbaker's Legends of Pro Wrestling. Seems like it might be a decent edition.

Turns out this was an issue with the place where I uploaded my avatar originally two years ago. They ran out of space or something and old photos got deleted -- in such cases they were replaced with trollface. That clears up another mystery gang.

I picked this up super cheap off Amazon recently: http://www.amazon.com/The-Encyclopedia-Pro.../dp/0873496256/ I was buying a few other wrestling related books and saw this pop up down the bottom and thought "for £3 why not?". I've only had a flick through but it looks like it gives quite a nice run down on wrestling history from the very start through the 70s, 80s and 90s. The best thing though is that it is incredibly well illustrated with pictures. Lots and lots and lots of nice pictures, especially from the territory era and pre-50s. There is an A-Z of wrestlers at the back too with little profiles. These are a bit too brief to be of much worth, but there are some interesting tidbits in there. For example: Stuff like that. I think it would occupy you for a train journey without being too taxing. Something you can dip in and out of, or just look at the pictures.

Thanks for posting those figures Kris. Saved me a lot of work I was planning on looking through old Observers. Without doing any detailed analysis straight away, I have a few initial thoughts. I'm mainly looking at the Superdome dates here and then expanding to look at other towns as we move on: - Shit! They were doing 20,000+ at the Superdome regularly in 84. That really does beg the question of why JYD wasn't on that list of top draws in the 80s. The benchmark was 10,000+ shows right? I don't understand why JYD isn't on that list. - Taking nothing else into account, JYD seems to be adding as a bare minimum 8,000+ fans through the gates, if not more. The typical New Orleans crowd seems to be about 6,000 on a bad night, 10,000 on a good night. With JYD on the card this almost doubles. This says, more than anything, that Watts's basic product catered to "a core"audience in that region that could get a crowd of 10,000. Who are the other 8 to 10,0000 that JYD is pulling in then? They have to be casuals. We all know that these are the black fans that Watts always talks about, but make no mistake, they aren't black hardcores or even necessarily "wresting fans", they are casuals. This is the definition of being a "draw" -- someone, like Hogan, who could reach beyond the typical wrestling audience to get more people to come. JYD was a draw in this sense and there is no doubt at all about that. - Ergo, the loss of JYD hurt Watts in the sense that he no longer had this throng of casual fans to count on. He was back to his core audience. - However, this core audience wasn't small. We can see from 1985 that 9,500 still turned up for DiBiase vs. Duggan. And 15,000 people turned up if the NWA Champ was in town. Gates were down from JYD 84 levels, but it would be a pretty harsh readaing of the situation to say that things were going disasterously for Watts here. Crockett would have been happy with those numbers in 1985. 8,000 people for DiBiase / Williams vs. Gordy / Duggan is not bad at all. - By 1986, things had dropped off A BIT. 7,200 in the middle of the year is not a good performance for a card with Flair, DiBiase, Dusty, Williams, Michael Hayes and Bill Watts himself on it. That was probably a disappointing night for them. But look at November! Back up to 13,000. I am pretty sure that when Terry Taylor said "we were roaring", he was thinking about nights like that. That's a show with Williams vs. Hayes on top with Taylor vs. Buddy Roberts and Duggan vs. OMG underneath. What does that say? It means that even in late 1986, right in the midst of the oil glut, the company was still drawing a reasonable crowd and there is no Flair or other special attraction there to artificially inflate the gate. That's 13,000 people who've turned up to see people like Terry Taylor and Dr. Death. Taking things into perspective, that's a VERY impressive figure for that timeframe. As I said, Crockett would have LOVED to get 13,000 in New Orleans at this time. - Then in 1987, a few things seem to happen: 1. The numbers drop off significantly. The Superdome is down to 3,000. Some horrible numbers in towns around the place. 2. But look at where they were going! For some reason in 1987, UWF starts wandering around the country. What were they doing in LA and the mini tour around Cali? Those towns were DEAD and the numbers show that. But what they hell were they doing there in the first place? Why this incursion into Chicago? Minneapolis now?! Any particular reason to take a sojourn into Verne country? The numbers show that this was not a good idea. 3. The card starts to thin out and we get some real under-cardy types showing up in the main event. Bill Irwin? Angel of Death? The Viking? Steve Williams vs. One Man Gang is not a very strong looking title picture either. You've gone from DiBiase and Duggan to, let's face it, a bunch of guys who aren't going to be winning you any new fans and who might even turn away your existing ones. 4. Despite all this -- in core Watts country, New Orleans aside -- the numbers are still not disasterous in 1987. DiBiase vs. OMG in Albuquerque still did over 6,000. The Houston Show headlined by a battle royal (where "wrestling" is the star) over 6,000. Not world beating by any means, but COMPARABLE with the sort of numbers they were drawing in those towns in 84-5. Down a bit, but it's not doomsday. - All of which leads to one conclusion for 1987: Watt's over-expanded. He was running towns he shouldn't have been running and neglecting his core market. 206 fans looks AWFUL on paper as you are skimming these results but then you realise that they were in San Bernardino, CA. Clearly, there was some push to take the West Coast that went badly wrong. Do you have any idea how far away that is from Oklahoma? I do, because I drove it on Route 66 and it took us the best part of 3 weeks to get there. - All of that points to one more thing: escalating costs. How were they getting the rings and all the wrestlers from Fort Worth to fucking California in 2 days? How were they running a week of dates in Cali and then ending up in Chicago (which we know from the song is "3,000 miles all the way")? Those shows didn't draw either (why would they so far outside of Watts country?), but it doesn't take a genius to work out how the costs of operating such a lunatic plan would hurt a company. ------------------- JvK's conclusions on the decline of Mid-South: 1. JYD leaving is an undeniable factor, but it's far from being the CAUSE of the decline. Rather, JYD was a temporary boost who was able to draw in a ton of casual fans. Those casual fans were never going to "stay" as it were. We've seen from history, casual fans don't stick around more than a couple of years. If JYD was massive with the casual black population of Louisannia, I would bet my bottom dollar that within a couple of years the fad would have faded away -- like yo-yos, or any other craze. This is actually borne out by the fact that neither WWF not WCW were able to draw 20,000+ fans with JYD in Nola. This is important because it is possible to overstate JYD's value to Watts here. He was a BONUS. Watts's core business model didn't depend on JYD being there for success. Yes, he made LOTS more money with JYD than without, but be under no illusions: it was a temporary boon, a social phenomena. 2a. One you take into account that JYD was artificially inflating the crowds with legions of casual black fans, gates didn't really suffer in 1985 or 1986, they were simply regressing to the mean. That is, after a boom, they were returning to "normal levels" for a wrestling promotion in that area. This in itself was not a problem for Watts. He was still doing decent gates, which means: 2b. Terry Taylor was, at least partly, justified in saying they were still drawing. He was obviously thinking about shows like the November 86 Superdome Show where they still had 13,000. To put this into context, WCW Nitro in January 1997 -- at the height of Monday Night Wars -- drew only 10,000 at the Superdome. Which is to say that 13,000 shouldn't be compared negatively to the 21,000 the JYD craze was drawing -- it's a very healthy number. 3. Costs definitely rose. Travel and transportation alone must have been eating a huge chunk out of 87 profits. Which is because ... 4. The decision to expand was a mistake. The 86 and even some of the 87 numbers show that in traditional Watts country, the company could still draw decent crowds. I don't really see the point of trying to break into LA, Chicago or Minneapolis when you know you can rely on 6,000+ in Tulsa, OKC, and Houston. This was a business error on Watts's part. 5. New Orleans looks like it was dead in 1987. 13,000 people turned up in November 86 and only 3,000 people are coming just a few months later? Why? It seems odd to blame the booking or the cards because we've seen that 6,000+ people are still turning up to the other key towns. Something ELSE must have been up in New Orelans that year. Could this be an economic downturn? Could this be the point where we see the oil glut affecting the gates? We might look at the card and look at the angles leading into it -- but LOOK there's a show headlined by Chavo Gurrerro winning a battle royale drawing 6,000 down the road!! Booking has obviously got little to do with the numbers here. On this occassion Occam's Razor is pointing towards an external factor, and we know that is oil. Bottomline: From the original theories on the table, we can categorise them into four groups: 1. Hotshotting and / or the product wasn't drawing (DiBiase, Loss, jdw) 2. There was an oil glut that killed business (Watts) 3. We were drawing well, people were coming to the shows, but costs spiralled out of control (Taylor) 4. JYD left (various) Looking at everything, I feel that number 3 there is getting towards the fuller picture, but 2 and 4 certainly need to be taken into account as part of an explanation that can't really be summed up in a single point. This is not to say that DiBiase, Loss and jdw were entirely wrong either though -- the cards in 87 are noticeably thinner than the 85-6 cards. Also, you get the impression that certain guys by that stage (DiBiase, Duggan, even Williams) had already been through everything and more than once. We might attribute the slight drop off from the typical crowds of 7,000-8,000 in 85-6 to the 6,000-type crowds we see in 87. The oil theory can't be dismissed entirely. There's no way bad booking alone can account for a drop off from 13,000 to 3,000 in less than a year in New Orelans -- must have been the economy. That was such an important city for Watts historically, that I can see its significance being magnified many times in his mind. It looks like he relied on Superdome shows as a core revenue stream. Let's say Watts has a bad quarter -- historically, he would have been able to make some of that back at the Superdome. In 1987, he had his worst Superdome show ever and he put 2 and 2 together. It doesn't tell the full story though. It seems to me that the most compelling story here is the decision to try to expand. This actually pins the blame squarely on Watts's shoulders -- not Ken Mantell's -- Watts's. He decided to make moves into California, Chicago and AWA land. You can see it was a total disaster, not only in terms of crowds, but also in terms of how much that must have cost him. I would be willing to say that if he'd concentrated on his core markets instead of doing that in 1987, he probably could have seen the year through and not sold up to Crockett. The problem wasn't the product (even if it did have problems), the problem wasn't the oil (even if this was an obstacle, it wasn't insurmountable), the problem was business strategy.

Still want to know this dammit.

No, but if anyone is skilled at this sort of thing a Muta mist infographic would be OUTSTANDING. As well as reading the Observers before each show, I always make a point of cross-checking Meltzer's ratings with Matt Peddycord's and Scott Keith's. I just like to have a sense of "consensus". Anyway, Scott Keith's review has this:

We don't discuss the yellow mist on the show, but Ross and Cornette do run down what each colour means. Ross makes a big point about how we've seen green and red so far, but Muta has been holding back the yellow one, which is famed in Japan (or something along these lines). With this show, I want to know if I'm basically the only person who doesn't like the main event. That match typically gets at least ****, I think it's a total mess.

Here is a picture of the character from Final Fight that Dick Slater reminded me of with his silly facial expressions: One of the more bizarre performances I can recall. Also, this is the first show we've tried with no play-by-play. Where the Big Boys Play #39 – Clash of the Champions 8 Chad and Parv celebrate "Ric Flair Day" by watching Clash of the Champions 8: Fall Brawl. In this show: is it better to cater to core audience or try to expand to casual fans?, Jesse Ventura: colour commentator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, thoughts on both the Z-man and Tommy Rich, for the last time in a while ... it's Ranger Ross!, why would you ever ring the WCW hotline?, and (finally!) some listener comments.

I've got some random trollface. I'm going to relink to Mooney.

What the hell is this avatar? Whose idea of a joke is this?

When you look beyond the top 5, I think you are right that things seem to get thin awfully fast. Honestly, I'd probably put Col. Parker up there and am willing to give Gary Hart the benefit of the doubt based on what people tell me about his World Class stuff. But after that, even I might be looking at Pringle. I am not a big fan of the Paul Bearer character, but Pringle was definitely a talent. Looking down the list though, it does feel like slim pickings for 6-10. I feel like Pringle should be floating around 11th sort of spot, but there really isn't anyone else you can put in there. On another note, I still can't see any serious argument for putting Long above Slick. Why? Was Long a better promo than Slick? Did he have more important feuds? Who had the better music? I think Long is coasting purely on the strength of the badassery of Doom. I'd take the Twin Towers over The Skyscrapers any day of the week.

Your 6-8 stretch is legit shocking to me Chad. Is there some cult of Wippleman I'm unaware of?

Good idea for a show this. I want to comment but without giving spoilers so I'm just going to do this. General comments - Laughed when Scott tried to do a radio recap and you massively torpeadoed him Justin. - You two know more about the territories than I would have imagined. - When you started talking about someone about to blow a whistle, I thought to myself "what? They're picking The Coach?!" - Scott saying "Have you ever tried to watch a Crusher Blackwell match?" is just asking for trouble - No argmument with the top 5, it almost picks itself. My order would be different though. Oversights - Three women who might count as managers, Miss Elizabeth (who I can see the argument for being a valet), Chyna (more of a bodyguard, I guess), and Alexandra York (Terri Runnels who really was a manager 90-2, and then she managed Goldust and The Radicalz). I think York would realistically rank above some of your early picks. Hell, I'd probably put her top 25. - Frenchy Martin. Well I mean why not? If you've got some of those guys like The Genius in there, but he deserves a mention just for taking that Garvin stomp and selling it like he'd been electrocuted. - Oliver Humperdink. I don't like him much, but seems like he would have been included if you'd remembered him. - Devari. He was a guy who managed in the past decade. Too High Ted DiBiase - I think you hit the nail on the head when you said he overshadowed his charges, but it was more than that. The Million Dollar Man gimmick was only effective at getting Ted himself over, and as a manager he was booked in such a way where that's all that would happen -- it was basically a reverse rub. Rather than DiBiase helping them get heat, he was sucking whatever heat they might have had for himself. To make matters worse, he was injured so couldn't take any bumps. That meant you never got any payoff with him. I'd put him below some of the others you had early on. Paul Bearer - might just be me, but I don't see him as a lock for top 10 at all. Not a big complaint from me, he's going to be there or there abouts, but a smidge high I think. FAR Too High Teddy Long - I don't get this one at all. If he should be anywhere it might be right around where you had DiBiase. I kinda feel that his importance is retroactively boosted by the long career he's continued to eek out on Smackdown. If he hadn't have had that run, would he really have been in your thinking that far up? Harvey Wippleman - I know he's your friend, but c'mon dudes. Wippleman?! Can't think of any real reason for him to be that high. Paul Jones "This is going to make Chad and Parv happy" -- are you fucking kidding me? We HATE Paul Jones. I, especially, despise him. We ragged on him for about 25 episodes straight, he just sucked. Crap on the mic. Didn't do a lot ringside. Bad matches when he had to have them. Crappy stable. This ridiculously high placement undermines the top 10 for me. Absolutely outrageous. This is a pre-emptive "FU" to Johnny Sorrow as well. Paul Ellering - again, I don't get this AT ALL. What was he really bringing to the package? He might have done real-life managing, but really who cares? I can see an argument for him making top 20, but not as high as you guys have him. Too Low Lou Albano - instrumental in 84-5 and expansion. Big character on TNT. Always strongly featured. I can't remember exactly where you had Long, but I'd put the big fat sloppy pig above him. Adnan - from what I've seen of AWA, he was pretty effective and important in the overall scheme of things. Not a major problem with the ranking, but maybe would have bumped him up a few places. Slick - only on the basis that you've put Teddy Long that high. Seriously, what did Long have that Slick didn't? He had bigger time feuds, and his music was way better too. As you demonstrated at the end.

Dylan, since I'm reading the observers week-by-week anyway, it wouldn't take a lot for me to note down TBS ratings. Meltzer was obsessed enough with them. Not sure if I can be bothered to go back through the 80s but if I started from now we could have from Fall 89 on. Need to know one thing though: how many people had TBS? Was that a cable channel on subscription or a network channel you got through an aerial? I ask this because I know SNME doing a 5.0 means a hell of a lot more than your average WWF cable show doing the same.