JerryvonKramer

I was just fleshing out the picture of exactly how that transition happened -- although I'm now wondering where Vince got $300,000 from in the first place in 1982. Did his dad just give him that money? Was he on a salary as an announcer or exec? Did he just use company money?

Do you remember we were talking about wrestling and PhD theses? As I suspected, it has been done. I just stumbled on this: http://www.wrestlingperspective.com/AcademicBooks.html I must admit to wincing a few times reading some of the quotations there. Those writers have not done academics proud at all. I do think it could be done though, but it has to be by someone who is a massive wrestling fan first and an academic second. I have thought before about writing a book about the changing face of good and evil in the American popular consciousness during the 20th century. In short, why fans cheered Hogan in the 80s and booed Angle in the late 90s or why they booed Bad News Brown but cheered Austin. Or why Batman went from being a nice superhero to a super-dark-asshole. Wrestling would only be one case study among several, but that's the sort of context in which I could see wrestling being used. Do you remember when they did those cringe-worthy "debates" between JR, Lawler and Mohammed Hassan? I could also see someone writing a pretty good essay on that. I also think it's interesting that guys with characters like Flair and DiBiase as Million Dollar Man were heels in Reagan's America -- the feud between Dusty and Flair is in direct contrast with the aspirational values of US entertainment. If you look at American TV shows, especially those made in the 80s, like Dynasty or Dallas, they are always focused on rich and successful people. There's an in-built layer of aspiration there -- you can see this most readily if you contrast it with British soaps like Eastenders and Coronation Street, which are ... not at all aspirational, working class, and downbeat. American TV focuses on winners, British TV, at least historically, has focused on losers. But the wrestling equivalent of Dynasty was Flair, and Flair was a heel. Dusty was a plumber's son and a "working man" -- someone who was basically excluded from the picture of the world you got Dynasty. I find that interesting. That's the sort of stuff I could see people writing.

Thanks Jingus. What is the deal with your standard suplex or your basic suplex variations? I ask this because I recently saw an Iron Sheik vs. Sting match where Iron Sheik did his standard gutwrench suplex (which is usually really good) but it didn't look it. My default was to blame Sheik, but later it occurred to me that it might have been Sting's fault. Your talk of the powerpomb being all on the guy doing the move immediately made me think of Sid and Brian Pillman. EDIT: As to your question, others will know more, but I'm fairly sure that significant portions of the money Vince Jr paid went to guys like Gorilla Monsoon who had a stake in the old territory, the majority would have gone to his dad, but I don't think Monsoon's stake was small (at least 1/6) and he was one of a number of stakeholders (the others were Arnold Skaaland and Phil Zacko). I remember Cappetta saying that Monsoon was basically responsible for running Philly and New Jersey for WWWF (although Zacko was a Philly guy too, and hated by everyone). RE-EDIT: I've just been having a look round for more info on Zacko. Quite a bit of stuff on him here. Apparently, contra-Cappetta, he was actually responsible for running the Hamberg and Spectrum shows and, among other things, overseeing the construction of cages! I've also found a photo of him: Dude looks like a gangster. Most sources seem to suggest he received $100,000 from Vince Jr for his 1/6 of the company, as did Monsoon and Skaaland who also got jobs. It also seems like Vince Sr didn't take payment from Vince Jr, he just gave him the 50% stake when he stepped down. Vince Jr then bought out the other three to get 100% control. Monsoon and Zacko's stakes in the company go all the way back to Toots Mondt -- he sold 50% of his shares to McMahon and then 25% each to Zacko and Moonsoon. I'm not sure how Skaaland got his share.

Pretty sure Sky can do On Demand now: http://www.sky.com/mysky/makethemost/on-demand/ Or is this something else?

I'm surprised we don't have a thread like this already, but I'd like one that is distinct from comments that don't deserve a thread. This is an all-purpose thread for small questions, chances are someone here will know the answer. Here is my first little question, and it's mainly directed at people here who have some in-ring experience: - When watching matches, if someone does, for example, a sweet-looking suplex, I tend to give the credit to the guy doing the move. But how much of the work is being done by the guy taking the move? How much complicity does the guy taking the move have? And how much credit should be given to the guy taking the move?

I didn't know he was only a year into his career in 89, assumed he'd been around for a while.

OJ - do they ever boo anyone though? I don't think I heard them do it once in 150 matches on the All Japan set. Their four modes are: excited, stony quiet, laughing at a comedy spot, running away from a crazed worker who has charged them (e.g the Sheik or Hansen). Booing does not appear to be part of the culture.

What would be really nice is WWE 24/7 here in the UK. I find it baffling how we still don't have that, especially as TV in this country is now 100% digital. Hell, it would be nice just to have some option on their website to open up content for an online subscription. It's strangely antiquated to make these things TV only.

I've just watched this and my usual philosophy for these sorts of threads in the 80s project is writing down my thoughts and then reading what everyone else said to see what consensus is just before hitting "post". I don't want to fake anything just to go along with the crowd, because I think that's dishonest. Here though, I had to see what everyone else had said before writing anything. My immediate thought was that this match was a little messy and I know soup's a big structure guy so I had to understand what made him nominate this. From what he's said, the appeal of this match is chiefly about the subversion of expectations and hierarchy as a means of realigning things for the future. I thought that was some interesting analysis, and clearly context is everything here. So what I'm going to say is with the caveat that I watched this without most of that context -- although just from knowing a bit about All Japan and watching it was CLEAR that Hansen and Misawa were the big dogs, Kobashi and Williams next rung down and Ace and Kikuchi the junior partners. I enjoyed the early segment with Kikuchi being chased all around the ring by Hansen and Williams as they missed serial elbow drops after him. That made me laugh out loud and the commentators seemed to find it funny too. The Dynamic Dude, Ace, seemed to come out of this match pretty strongly as a guy who could sort of hang with Misawa and Kobashi. Misawa had a long FIP section and Ace gave him a number of suplexes and things -- I was expected Misawa to come back and take his head off, but that never really happened. In the main I felt moves were undersold, especially by Kobashi. The thing that really struck me about this match though is that -- and this is coming off the back of watching Steamboat vs. Flair trilogy again -- the stiffness isn't there. I mean the work is stiff relatively speaking compared to the average American match, but nowhere near the levels I have come to expect from All Japan based on the 80s matches. I have been "saving" 90s All Japan for the yearbooks but on this little sampling, I have to say I was little disappointed. Hansen was good, as expected and he had one nasty kick on someone's back that made me wince at one point. But there were quite a few things Kobashi did in this this match that I didn't like. His chops seem weak. I think his multiple forearm smash thing looks silly. I didn't buy his "hot tag" from Misawa from about 20 minutes in when he unloads on Hansen. None of it seemed to have much impact. Again, this might be a little unfair because I'm comparing it to Steamboat-Flair and stuff like the high end Jumbo-Tenryu matches, but if this is indicative of Kobashi -- combined with all of his underselling -- he doesn't look like a guy who is going to be on that level. Also, man it took guys a long time to work up the card didn't it. In 89 Kobashi was a plucky youngster in a little over his head who had a lot of fight and spirit. Here he is 5 years later and he's still not a top dog. There were a lot of things I liked, some of the double-teaming was cool. Steve Williams was aggressive and dangerous looking. Hansen sold his ass off for the Japanese, and looked sufficiently brutal on offense. Misawa's selling was really good. Kickuchi and Ace played their roles well. But if this is "the best post 1993 All Japan 6 man", then I'm not sure it's saying a lot. I am also hoping this was an off-night for Kobashi. Re: Face/ Heel - In my experiences of watching All Japan -- which are mostly confined to the 80s set -- it's mostly a mistake I think to look for a face / heel dynamic. The crowd always responded to Hansen. I never heard them really boo anyone. Even when Tenryu was at his most dickish, they still cheered for cool stuff he did. Sometimes Revolution were cheered more than Jumbo and co. Sometimes Choshu's crew were cheered more than Jumbo and co. Sometimes Hansen was. I might be wrong, because let's face it, I always am, but I don't think Japanese crowds work like American crowds at all.

I don't want to derail from Florida too much, but I was under the impression there was loads of WoS footage availavle from the 70s. I can't remember what channel it is, but that stuff is constantly being re-run. There were also serieses on Sky Sports (hosted by Jeff Stelling) and ESPN Classic (Sid Waddell's Wrestling Show) that between them showed quite a lot of stuff from the 70s in reruns and package shows going back to 1998. I have no idea *how much* there is, but I imagine there's a lot more 70s footage than we have for many other places. Just having a look around and John Lister's site says the channel I couldn't think of is apparently The Wrestling Channel (I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere though) and he has a listing: http://www.johnlisterwriting.com/itvwrestling/twc.html Sure there's lots of 80s but there's a lot of 70s too. My comment wasn't based on availability of footage so much as it was based on the idea that the 70s is perceived as the heyday (culiminating in 81) and I imagine the 150 you could pull from what's out there might be better than the 150 you could pull from 80s stuff. There might be more 80s than 70s, but there's more than enough 70s. Same with Florida. That's all I was saying. EDIT: The channel I couldn't think of is called "Men & Movies". What I don't know is if what is shown on there are re-runs of the TWC stuff or different stuff.

Thanks once again to Lee and Jason for this. Talking with Lee and also reading other British people's origin stories in this thread, I was struck by just how similar our trajectories were as fans from the UK. We went long on the recording so this one will be a two parter. Here's a link to the site where you can get Lee's books: http://historyofwrestling.weebly.com/ Here's a link to the vast Wrestlespective archive: http://wrestlespective.com/ Where the Big Boys Play #35 – Wrestlewar 89: Part 1 Chad and Parv welcome Lee Maughan, co-author of the multi-volume Complete WWF Video Guide, and Jason Mann, host of the Wrestlespective podcast. In this episode: Lee talks about his background as a wrestling fan growing up in the UK, his experiences writing the books and Ken Patera, round-up on April / May 89 newsletters including a Wrestlemania V vs. Clash 6 readers’ poll, Barry Windham’s status as an assistant booker to Dusty, The Oakridge Boys vs. Run DMC, Doug Gilbert, ranking Sean Mooney among WWF’s C-string commentators, it’s Ranger Ross!, would Michael Hayes make a top 10 promos of all-time list?, when precisely did Hayes go from being cool to lame?, and wrestlers who don’t wear boots.

OJ, using "World of Sports" pretty much as short-hand for Joint Promotions. Did other promotions get their matches shown by ITV in that slot?

I think Florida and World of Sports are the two promotions where 70s sets would be justified over 80s sets, although obviously that does jar a little bit with the core aims of the 80s project.

I was hoping no one would noticed the mixed metaphor ¬_¬

I like that OJ is like the engine room of The Microscope.

After rewatching some of those Mad Dog matches last night, I'm going to flip and put him in there in the total package list at 3. and bump everyone else down. That's right, I'm saying I'd take the hour or so of Mad Dog I've seen over Chris Jericho's entire career, and I like Jericho. I may reverse that at a later date when I re-watch his WCW stuff, but it's a reflection of what I think right now.

Was Legends' House canned?

I'm drinking Pepsi Max Cherry. I bought £10 of "skype credit", hope it works.

Very amusing ring announcer, he's not Gary Michael Cappetta, but I liked him. He calls Dory "Dory Hoss Funk". I like him in the spangly jacket and cowboy hat. Terry is looking quite ripped here as he threatens members of the crowd. Awesome. I like that the Puerto Rican rubbish is different from the usual American trash. Did I see one person throwing a potted plant? Y'know for perhaps the first ever time, I kinda like the idea of Dory as the "iceman" to Terry's total nutter -- makes for an interesting contrast of characters and styles. He also, weirdly, looks in better shape here than he did in the early 80s in All Japan and in WWF in 85. He looks better with more weight on. Dory bails early and tags in Terry from outside the ring. Is that allowed? Hawk's chops are unusually stiff for him. Say what you want about Dory, his European uppercuts aren't bad. Spike Piledriver! Albeit not a great looking one. Thought this was fun with the Funks getting way more of this that you might expect in 1987. I like dthe commentator shouting "Ave Maria" at one point. I didn't think I'd be interested in PR at all, but this match has made me think otherwise.

I have to watch that match right now.

I am also known as Parv. I am 30, from the UK, originally from South Wales but now living just outside London in England. I didn't discover wrestling until I was 8 in 1990, but when I did was absolutely captivated by it. My parents did not have satellite TV so I mainly had to depend on WWF VHS tapes or catching shows at friends' houses. Around late 1991, I found they were showing WCW Worldwide at around 2 or 3am on Thursday nights so I'd set the VCR to tape them and sometimes even stay up to watch -- caught the whole Dangerous Alliance angle and Flair coming back in 93, but there was no way to get the PPVs. I was always a heel fan through and through. I cheered heels and hated the faces. This possibly because heels were usually intelligent characters and faces were guys like Jim Duggan. Little Parv was never going to root for a guy like Jim Duggan, he meant nothing to me. "Look at the snot hanging out of his nose!" I know, Jesse, what are these idiots cheering for? After a bit of a dip in 95, I more or less stayed on board through the Monday Night Wars which was made easier by the fact my parents got satellite AND, for whatever reason, we got all PPVs for free in the UK. Followed things pretty much until about 2005/6. By then most of the things that had got me into wrestling in the first place had been eroded to the point where the presentation was actively annoying me and I couldn't watch it anymore. This remains my view now -- I'm sure there are great wrestlers active today, but the presentation on WWE TV, scripted promos and all the rest of it, is something I can't tolerate. I've been through spells of being a purely "ironic" fan, liking wrestling mainly for its kitsch value and collecting Coliseum Home Videos in order to watch dodgy Dino Bravo matches and be mildly amused by Sean Mooney skits. I discovered PWO through the Good Will Wrestling podcast when I got in touch with Will to buy the Mid-South Set and then discovered this place and through that a whole world of footage and a community that at one point I could never have even dreamed existed. I remain chiefly interested in the 80s and early 90s and, for the past couple of years, have been generally trying to see as much as I can from that period. All time favorite matches: 1. Flair vs. Steamboat, Clash 6 2. Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA, Starrcade 85 3. Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu Yoshiaki Yatsu (1/28/86) All time favorite wrestlers: 1. Ric Flair 2. Ted DiBiase 3. Arn Anderson or Irwin R. Shyster Jumbo Tsuruta

I have not been bowled over by Vachon so far on the AWA set, although I understand that's him old and towards the end. I am going to move towards a top 10 from my point of view (work): 1. Bret Hart 2. Chris Benoit 3. Rick Martel 4. Ronnie Garvin 5. Owen Hart 6. Ivan Koloff 7. Chris Jericho 8. Roddy Piper 9. John Tenta 10. Dan Kroffat (Total package) 1. Roddy Piper 2. Bret Hart 3. Chris Jericho 4. Ronnie Garvin 5. Rick Martel 6. John Tenta 7. Ivan Koloff 8. Owen Hart 9. Christian 10. Abdullah the Butcher Need to see more Pat Patterson, Vachon and pre-WWF Dino Bravo. Gene Kiniski is the worst guest ref of all time.

jdw, I accept there was a fundamental disconnect in that whole argument which has led it, in my mind, to be something of a trainwreck. Also, I really appreciate the time you take in breaking things down -- this is not a joke or sarcasm -- I really appreciate it. Stuff like the early parts of this thread from 2 years ago and the early part of the JTTS thread and many other examples of times you've done that are invaluable. Not just for me, I'm sure for lots of people who post or lurk here. That's it. I am interested in booking philosophies and also in the very different ways JCP and WWF were booked in the 80s (more from the promoter's point of view than from a fan perspective to be honest), and think that the list of questions I outlined on the page prior could lead somewhere one day, but maybe the timing and context isn't right.

I did listen to that a couple of years back but it was on a plane, on an overnight flight and I was drifting in and out. I'd probably get a lot more out of it now.

I realise I may be alone in this but here's a trope I hate: The test-of-strength spot in any match that isn't two power guys vs. each other (e.g. Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons or ... I dunno Hogan vs. Warrior). I don't like the test-of-strength spot otherwise because there's often no logical reason for one of the two guys to get involved. There are only two outcomes: 1. Stronger guy over powers, establishes strength advantage (does that *need* to be established if one guy is built like a brick shit house and the other one is Tully Blanchard?) 2. Sneaky heel or smart veteran face takes a shortcut and kicks them in the gut (establishing a "smartness" advantage?) In either scenario, if the smaller guy is meant to be using smarts, why's he getting caught up in that scenario in the first place. I'd be happy never to see another test of strength spot in my life.