JerryvonKramer

Was there any chance of him going to Crockett after he was done with AWA? They were really crying out for a new top babyface in that time-frame (before Steamboat was back, before Luger and Sting were really main event material, as Dusty was winding down). Vince, because of his mindset, was never going to give Martel a main event run and turning and keeping him heel for so long when he was such an effective babyface seems counter-intuitive. I know we shouldn't play "what if", but I imagine he'd have had a much bigger rep (back then) if he'd have had a feud down in JCP with the Horsemen (or whatever). I'm just thinking of what he actually did in WWF and there *must* be a Martel vs. Shawn Michaels series out there right? They were feuding for a good while in 92, a curious and rare heel vs. heel feud (must be a specialty of Sherri's as she would instigate ANOTHER heel vs. heel feud with Col. Parker and Harlem Heat a couple of years on). Also, are there no Martel vs. Hennig matches? I just had a look on youtube and the only things that came up were a Model vs. Mr. Perfect match from RAW in 93 and ... most bizarrely ... Martel and Mr. Perfect vs. Jumbo Tsuruta and Haku (?!) from 1990. I'm at the stage were more or less any Martel is intriguing to me, but THAT is is a very weird match, especially as both Perfect and Haku were in the Heenan Family at the time. I'm wondering if there's an AWA-connection thing going on for the local crowd.

You know with David Cameron booking, not only might we lose that top rope rule, we might find ourselves out of Europe too. I never saw Frankie take a bump. Damian was great at selling.

Instant DQ!

I've not seen much Florida at all, but from the research I did before on Jack Brisco, I know he spent a lot of time there. I'd be interested to see if there was a ton of Brisco on that set, Jerry Brisco too looked great in the few matches I was able to find and sampled.

I would like to see you explain how that's a misreading jdw. Those two things weren't implied by you? Really? It wasn't strongly implied in that thread that strong cards are a good thing? You didn't point out WWF having 20 JTTS on the roster when doing a depth comparison in order to imply that there wasn't really that much depth? Why did you mention it then? I get it though, the fault can't possibly be yours, it has to lie with me, right? Fine. Anyway, this is not really about you -- or indeed about me -- even if you didn't have those assumptions in mind, I still think it would be good to interrogate them. There was a general conclusion that JCP used their roster better than WWF in that thread (or is this a misreading too?!), I think going through those questions might put some doubt on that, or at least complicate that conclusion.

How was Martel thought of by the smart fans / hardcores back in the day? Doesn't seem like he always had a rep as a super worker, but I'm not sure why.

Ronnie Garvin has to be a lock for top 10, I think.

Kinda disappointed no one bit on this. Does it look THAT much like a trap? Shall I change my name to Wile E. Von Kramer? I was hoping it might develop into a good look at Dusty's relative strengths and weaknesses as a booker as well as those of Vince/ Pat Patterson. Who really did use their roster better after you work through all those questions? I think that's interesting. This could also be applied to other promotions and bookers and also to the way wrestling is booked today, although the role of the house show has changed dramatically since the 80s. It's a common criticism of the Monday Night Wars era that they were giving top matches away for free on tv every week, but in a way JCP wasn't booked all that differently. The one thing they did do very well was keep Flair TV matches a relative rarity.

Will - does it matter that I've already seen these? Maybe I should wait for later discs before making an appearance.

Strange ordering there. Didn't know Tolos was still working at that point.

Is Vince basically semi-retired now?

Is it possible to Skype in?

Was good to hear you guys were high on that Bock vs. Hogan match, if you go to the DVDR thread I think I'm the only one who goes big on it and rates it over the Martel match. Was nice to know I wasn't the only one who felt like that.

I'm listening to this now and it's good fun. I've laughed out loud 4 times already and I'm only 36 minutes in. Musgrave is very funny -- if Wrestling Culture didn't have Dylan on it talking about Ken Patera for 30-minutes at a time, would it just be Dave making one-liners? Ha ha. My wife is away all weekend from tomorrow night, and even it's it's 3am here Friday, I don't sleep. If it's possible to Skype in, I'd be up for it. Mental image of Johnny dressed as Ventura in tie-dyes from 82 is funny. I also love Will's amazingly laid-back style. Tentative start for Chad here, I think it's because he's used to getting 10-20 minutes to analyse matches and now he's having to do it on the fly with Musgrave making jokes about people in the crowd to contend with. I am standing over a stove cooking a beef stew and looking forward to the rest. This sounds ridiculous but watching beef and onions cook while Will describes 30-year old matches in his Texan drawl feels therapeutic.

Ranger Ross makes it to 1991??!!

It is possibly the worst AWA commentated match ever. I reckon worst commentated match ever, period. I think Hogan vs. Adonis might be my eventual 150. Really disliked that match. Look forward to listening to this later.

So this is the different argument. I think it's important it takes place in a different thread because while related to the one we were having in the JTTS thread; I think there's too much baggage and legacy there to be clear-minded when talking through this one. The seeds of this argument were planted in that thread and I will quote it here: Hell yes, this sounds like it has potential. So in this thread, 2 years ago, we talked about the importance of jobbers. In the long debate we've just had, there seem to be two general assumptions made: 1. That a strong card is a good thing. 2. That jobbers and JTTS are just fodder. Or at any rate, that a lot of JTTS on a roster isn't adding any depth. I want to stop and pause here and wonder about those two assumptions and ask a series of questions: - What's the better idea: putting on strong cards week after week or putting on lots of middling cards possibly leading upto one strong card? Sub-questions: A. What is the benefit of putting out variations of your strongest card week after week? B. Are there any potential benefits of putting out weaker cards? C. If there is a benefit to B., then does it make sense to maintain a larger roster? D. Is scenario A. necessarily "better" than scenario B? Why? - What is the difference between booking tv and booking house shows? The idea of TV is (was) to get over talent in order to get folks at home to fork out money and come to see them live, correct? But what is the real function of a house show? Is it: A. Just to make money? B. To showcase the talent even more, possibly teasing a bigger show to get folks to come again to said bigger? C. To test out combinations of talent to see how well they can work with each other AND to give guys time to build chemistry so they can work together again in the future on TV or at big-money PPV shows? D. To further build guys? E. To continue feuds? F. All of the above. G. Something else I'm missing? - To what extent do guys need wins to build momentum? - And if guys do need to build momentum by going over other guys on the roster: A. Is that just on TV or at house shows too? B. Doesn't it make sense to have a healthy supply of semi-credible JTTSes to burn through? - Finally, does it make SENSE to have every match on a given card be part of a feud? Is that a good idea or a bad idea? Sub-questions: A. Might a 100% feud-match ratio on a normal show (not a PPV) actually serve to devalue feuds? B. If everyone is always part of an on-going feud then when do they get time to "build" by gaining momentum through wins? That should be enough to get things started I think.

To be fair, JCP and early WCW are much different promotions if you're only watching the big shows (and that goes double if you were watching the home video versions of any of those shows, and I don't know if you were or not). We have not been watching week-to-week TV, and the closest thing to that I've had exposure to has been Will's Horsemen set which obviously only gives Horsemen related stuff. What I've tried to do is to use the Observers week-to-week as a means of filling out some of the gaps. If I didn't have a job,a wife, a book to write, an AWA set and a yearbook to watch AND if I was privy to endless amounts of time then I would ideally watch the TV week-to-week since I just love watching studio wrestling. I do understand that this approach will lead to some slightly skewed views. I fucking hate Paul Jones, for example, and think he sucks. Johnny who was watching at that time has fond memories of that feud. The main thing that led to this whole argument was my view -- which I will admit has been strongly influenced by Meltzer moaning so much about the roster and whining about how the promotion needed new talent -- that the JCP roster was thin, or at least a lot thinner than WWF's. A view that jdw thinks is "strange". We established: 1. WWF had greater numbers. 2. That JCP put on stronger cards. This led somewhere down the line to Dylan's argument that WWF's greater numbers -- which I was calling "depth", was in fact "meaningless". I accepted this, but only to a point. When tomk ressurrected the thread a fortnight later, I came back with a view WWF shifted the way it booked from the 84-6 Hogan gold rush period to a more diversified way of running things from 88 onwards where a healthy dose of "meaning" was injected into things -- not necessarily on a card-by-card basis, but across the promotion. jdw rejects this view, or at least, he rejects the idea that 1. that there was any change in the booking and 2. that there was much more "meaning". This was complicated by the fact there was a little misunderstanding over exactly what I was saying. An unfortunate phrase "up and down the card", where I was still talking about roster depth and "meaning", was translated into "ability to put on stronger individual cards". I've done my best to rectify this, although I've yet to see jdw admit that any such misunderstanding took place. It's not in his DNA to contradict himself or go back on anything he's already committed to screen, gods and kings have to play by those rules -- and I respect that. I, not being a god or a king, have made some mistakes in this thread, sure -- I've also been ready and willing to adapt and change my views throughout the debate since it has started -- but I also think there's a general point I've made that stands which is being rather whitewashed. I don't think I'm arguing with someone who will ever concede any ground. I am less wound up this morning than I was last night and don't mind one way or the other. I will thank jdw for his education -- and parts of this have been really educational -- and move on. It's not often threads about wrestling stress me out. I'm also ready to have a different argument -- one that, I think, complicates the idea of roster depth further and one that directly challenges some of the assumptions made in this thread by jdw and others. I have gestured towards this already twice, but will advance it in a different thread because this one is starting to become detrimental to my mental health and also I think there are lots of people put off from taking part because of its general fierceness and the length of posts involved.

OJ - the thing is I never doubted that. I've never argued against that. I've never said they weren't spread out over multiple cards. As that post I've linked to says, which no-one seems to want to read, the point of my post looking at the first 9 days of Jan 88 was to demonstrate depth in the roster across the promotion, NOT to say that each of the individual cards were stacked. I was talking about how people who weren't Hogan played a role in drawing. I can see how the misunderstanding came about. My phrase "up and down the card" was taken to mean "up and down individual cards", I was really talking about "up and down the roster". This isn't moving the goalposts, it's clarification. I don't think you'll find me anywhere in the 10 pages of this thread arguing that WWF put all its storylines onto one card or that their individual cards were stronger than JCP's cards. I would concede the point if I'd ever made it, but I don't think I have. It's simply not the way I think about promotions. I'm a big picture guy, I think about booking across a promotion over a period of time. jdw seems to be a details guy and he is seemingly obsessed with trying to demonstrate things with individual cards. So when I post a sequence of cards, assuming the take-away is 1. the impressive amount of towns run in 9 days with the roster and 2. the amount of hot stars, feuds, storylines etc. spread across all those cards, jdw's takeaway is to look at individual cards and draw conclusions about from the specifics of each card -- not helped of course by aforementioned misunderstanding. If no one disagrees that WWF had multiple storylines running spread across different cards, then the point about "meaningless depth" can't apply. This is the argument I've been trying to have. I think the "meaningless depth" criticism only applies up to 86 and after that things start to change. Somehow we've got from that to people telling me I'm arguing that random house shows have 5-6 storyline matches on them, an argument I never made anywhere. I'm fried by this now.

I'm very frustrated at this stage jdw. I said look at this post, you go back to a post I made 2 weeks ago. And then use it as evidence to say I don't know much about JCP. At this point, I've spent over 40 hours talking about JCP, and god knows how many watching it. And god knows how many more tracking the observers and so on. I don't think it's fair to say I don't know the promotion. I'm sorry, I didn't check Solie's info closely to see he'd made so many errors in there. I just wanted to make the glib point that one roster was almost double the size of the other one. Maybe I should be more anal about these things. If you go back to the post you are so adamantly ignoring, you'll see that the past two pages of this argument -- especially the one between me and you -- are built mainly on the misunderstanding or miscommunication of a single phrase. The argument you think I've been making has not been the argument I've been making. I did throw out a parting shot in that post. One about JCP always putting on strong cards actually being a kind of weakness. I think that's something that, on another day, maybe even with a different set of participants, might be an interesting discussion. "Actually IS it such a great idea to put on so many strong cards?" But I think this thread has had enough different arguments. It's now becoming increasingly tedious. It's flogging a dead horse. I even said I'm not taking part anymore. Do you just like the sound of your voice? I don't understand what point you're even trying to prove anymore.

We gotta get through the Dungeon of Doom first.

God. Final thoughts here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5533535 I'm not saying more about the debate. Just to say it's easy to play that game if you know where to look. Bolded matches had feuds / storylines. WrestleMania VI - Toronto, Ontario - Skydome - April 1, 1990 (64,287; announced at 67,678; sell out; new attendance record) Rick Martel defeated Koko B. Ware via submission with the Boston Crab at 5:30 Demolition defeated WWF Tag Team Champions Andre the Giant & Haku (w/ Bobby Heenan) to win the titles at 9:15 when Ax pinned Haku following the Decapitation after Andre's arms became entangled in the ring ropes; during the contest, it was mentioned Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart had already challenged the winners to a title match; after the match, Heenan berated Andre for the loss and slapped him before Andre grabbed Heenan by the jacket, slapped, and punched Heenan out of the ring; moments later, Haku attempted to attack Andre but Andre assaulted him and cleared Haku from the ring, with Andre then stealing the team's motorized cart to leave ringside alone (Andre's last TV match) Earthquake (w/ Jimmy Hart) pinned Hercules with an elbow drop and the sit-down splash at 4:54; after the match, Earthquake hit a second sit-down splash; moments later, Hercules struggled back to his feet under his own power Brutus Beefcake pinned Mr. Perfect (w/ the Genius) at 7:47 after a catapult into the ringpost; during the bout, Mary Tyler Moore was shown in attendance; after the match, the Genius attempted to steal Beefcake's hedge clippers and sneak backstage but Beefcake caught him on the floor, rolled him back in the ring, put him in the sleeper, and then cut the Genius' hair (Perfect's first national TV pinfall loss) (WrestleMania's Greatest Matches Vol. 2) Roddy Piper fought Bad News Brown to a double count-out at 6:47 when both men began brawling on the floor and Piper attempted to hit News with a steel chair; Piper had half his body painted black for the match; after the contest, both men continued brawling in the aisle all the way backstage, with Pat Patterson, Chief Jay Strongbow, Rene Goulet, and referees trying to break up the fight (Born to Controversy: The Roddy Piper Story) Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart defeated Nikolai Volkoff & Boris Zhukov when Bret pinned Zhukov following the Hart Attack at the 18-second mark The Barbarian (w/ Bobby Heenan) pinned Tito Santana with a clothesline off the top at 4:33 Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire (w/ Miss Elizabeth) defeated Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri at 7:31 when Sapphire pinned Sherri with a roll up after Elizabeth shoved Sherri as Sherri grabbed at her on the floor; prior to the bout, Rhodes introduced Elizabeth to be in his and Sapphire's corner; after the bout, Rhodes stole Savage's sceptor before dancing in the ring with Sapphire and Elizabeth (Miss Elizabeth's surprise return after a 3-month absence) (the first man-woman tag team match) (American Dream: The Dusty Rhodes Story, Macho Madness: The Ultimate Randy Savage Collection) The Orient Express (w/ Mr. Fuji) defeated Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty via count-out at 7:36 after Jannetty had salt thrown into his eyes while on the floor Jim Duggan pinned Dino Bravo (w/ Jimmy Hart) at 4:15 after hitting him with the 2x4; after the bout, Earthquake attacked Duggan and hit two sit-down splashes Ted Dibiase (w/ Virgil) defeated Jake Roberts via count-out at 11:53 as Roberts was distracted by Virgil on the floor; after the match, Virgil returned backstage with the Million $ belt while Roberts hit the DDT on Dibiase and passed his money to fans around ringside; prior to the bout, Gene Okerlund conducted a backstage interview with Roberts regarding the match; stipulations stated the winner would earn the Million $ Belt (WrestleMania 26 Collector's Edition) The Big Bossman pinned Akeem (w/ Slick) at around 1:50 with the sidewalk slam despite interference from Ted Dibiase before the match; Dibiase hid underneath the ring after the previous match Rick Rude (w/ Bobby Heenan) pinned Jimmy Snuka at 3:51 with the Rude Awakening; Steve Allen did guest commentary for the match WWF IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior pinned WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan to win the title at 22:50 with a splash after Hogan missed the legdrop; after the match, Hogan presented Warrior with the world title belt; both championships were on the line in the contest; voted Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Match of the Year (Hulkamania Forever, The Ultimate Warrior 92, Best of the WWF: Ultimate Warrior, WrestleMania X8, The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, The History of the WWE Heavyweight Championship, Hulk Hogan: The Ultimate Anthology)

The point of my 9-day demonstration wasn't to show how there were 4-5 stories on every single card, but how the promotion as a whole had quite a lot of hot feuds, hot stars and so on -- who weren't Hogan -- and how they used them over a 9-day stretch. We talk on this board sometimes about macro and micro, more or less everything jdw and tomk said up there have zeroed in with laser-like precision on individual cards. Fuck the fact that WWF put out FIVE different cards with different headliners on the same day in one of my examples. Fuck the fact they were running Hogan vs. Rude in some towns, Ted vs. Jake in others, Savage vs. Honky in others, Strike vs. Hart Foundations in others and variations of guys like Ultimate Warrior or Demolition on top in yet more others -- let's ignore all that and zero in on the fact that SD Jones is curtain jerking. Let's ignore all that because JCP put on varations of the same strong card night after night. Tunnel vision can do that sort of thing. But I've been told in no uncertain terms that I'm just wrong, so fair enough if it helps you sleep better, I'm just wrong. I have resisted the temptation to go through PPV cards from the era I'm talking about tediously listing all of the various feuds that blew off on those cards, because I thought it just didn't need to be done. That everyone is very very well versed in what those feuds are and who took part in them. Maybe I was mistaken, or maybe people are willfully overlooking some of the most famous feuds in wrestling history for the sake of winning an argument. Either way, I give up. If the lady's not for turning, she's not for turning. EDIT: One more thing I'll say is that there seems to be some semantic confusion about what I mean by "up and down the card". What I had in mind was a Wrestlemania card with something like 8 or 9 out of 14 matches having feuds connected with them. "Up and down the card" meaning feuds at all levels of the roster at any one time. It seems to have been taken for "up and down a given card on a given night", which is obviously bonkers. Why? Because guys need time to be built. They need wins to build momentum. So you can't have big feud-y matches up and down every single card. If JCP did, I think that's a weakness for them, it means they didn't have enough guys to go around so they kept having to run feuds into the ground through endless repetition -- short term booking, which can risk burn out fast. Both of these quotations demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding between us here. All through this thread, I've been speaking on the level of roster and promotion. You've been speaking on the level of individual cards. "Up and down the card" to me was talking about throughout the roster and the promotion; "the card" referring mainly to different tiers of workers based on their pushes (main event, upper card, and so on). You took it to mean "up and down every card they ran". Once you see that misunderstanding, I don't think some of points you've made are a million miles away from some of the points I've made. Finally, my aim was not to prove number of storylines per card, it was to prove "meaningful depth" and that by 88, WWF had it as much as JCP had it (and then some) -- "meaning" being not just feuds but guys with storylines or pushes that the fans care about in some way (a la Jake or Ted). It was, as you've said, stretched across multiple cards and there was *necessary* jobber and JTTS filler on those cards, but the meaning and the depth were both still there. That's the point I was trying to prove, which I stated. And then stated again. And again. You seem to have me pegged as trying to prove a different point, which suggests you're having a different argument from the one I'm having. This really is my last word on this though.