JerryvonKramer

I've seen people talk about a talent raid on WWF, but seriously were any of the top line guys going to jump ship at that point? I think the only way you could lure a Rude, Hennig, DiBiase, Savage or even Martel at that point is a promise of a world title run and a significant pay rise. Would Flair have been willing to drop the title to any of those? The only other thing I can think of is somehow elevating Butch Reed or Ron Simmons to main event level. Whether Flair vs. Reed would have drew a dime in 1990, I don't know.

Why the fuck is Dragon Master part of this feud? What's this odd cage? I kind of like it, feels solid. Horsemen seem like awesome asskickers in this match. Dragon Master actually gets a face pop for his comeback against Ole. I liked seeing Wahoo McDaniel as the 1990 WCW version of mid-90s WWF Sgt. Slaughter. It's interesting just how EFFECTIVE this turn was, the crowd is 100% with Sting and against the Horsemen. The match ends to ZERO reaction from the crowd who are too busy chanting "we want Sting". I liked this for what it was.

I do wonder if Flair had stayed face in 1990, who would he have feuded with?

This match looked pretty hot. I look forward to watching Clash 10 in full. I like how Butch Reed acts as if he's been blinded by the unmasking. Doom might just be the coolest, most badass team of all time.

Fuck Norman is fat, not fat like most fat man wrestlers but a kind of horrible slobby cellulite fat. Solie being there was weird.

I accidently posted in the wrong thread:

Mascaras doesn't look in bad shape here. Terrible Missy promo.

Thought Ole was really good in this segment. I do wonder if this booking makes Sting look like a bit of a loser or a chump though.

How many years of study do you think it took Williams to become an official doctor of death?

Just got to this. What made me laugh more than anything was Dylan trying to stay composed and serious throughout it.

I am truly pumped for this. How exciting.

I seem to remember him being super motivated and actively enjoying himself during his 94-5 run in WCW. I'd be interested to see him right at the end of his WWF career as well. That period as the Avalanche feels like peak Tenta to me though.

This week's podcast should be interesting because I think it might be Rotunda's career match

What are people's views on the Rick Steiner match from Chi-Town Rumble?

The best post-Mid-South Duggan match I've seen is vs. Vader at Starrcade 94. I think Duggan was reasonably good around that time, he's probably in the best shape he had been for a decade and I want to say he had a good match with Bossman in WCW too, but can't quite remember where or when.

I've just spent more time than I cared to trying to find out when that Roma vs. DiBiase match is from. I refuse to believe it's from June 1990. Roma was in the middle of a push there and on the surrounding weeks of Wrestling Challenge has several wins over Buddy Rose. DiBiase just didn't wear that light green suit after early 1989, he had music and the Million Dollar Belt by 1990. Why would they randomly show a 2-year old match on Challenge and even go to the trouble of getting Mooney and Hayes to dub it over? I'm baffled by it.

DiBiase vs. Poffo was not available but when I searched I got this instead: Ted DiBiase vs. Paul Roma From what I can tell this is Wrestling Challenge from June 3rd 1990. And fucking YES, Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred on commentary. And Mike McGuirk of the Wrestlefest arcade game fame as ring announcer! Two things immediately here: 1. Surprised by lack of music in 1990 for Ted. 2. Even more surprised to see the old light green suit. Hmmm. Curious. My suspicion is that this is from Roma's Young Stallions days taped back in early 88 or something. If you look at his tights, that's definitely the gear he wore back then not when he was in Power and Glory. That coupled with the lack of music and the light green means this is definitely old footage dubbed over by Mooney and Hayes. I need to concentrate here instead of marking for Mooney. Ted very generous in the early going as Lord Alfred RIDICULOUSLY suggests that Paul Roma is creeping up the ranking as a contender for the world title. What a stupid thing to say. Ted jaws some fans, which is enjoyable but spends quite a long time on the outside. Kneelift from Ted, couple of forearms, Irish whip, nice clothesline. Stops to shout at the fans and pose a bit. Two rights and sends Roma outside. I think the idea of "technical Ted" does need to be put out to pasture at this stage. He's constantly working his character though, which should be commended. He's spent as much time shouting at the fans as he as doing stuff in this match. Takes it outside, slams Roma into the apron followed by a bodyslam. Goes back inside to jaw the fans some more. Roma rolls in, another right. Brief hope spot from Roma, cut short by a eye rake. Reverse knife edge from Ted now. Another right. That right punch is his default basic offense, as a graduate of West Texas State, he throws a good punch. Rome makes a comeback now with a couple of elbows, but it's just a hope spot. Ted cuts it short with elbows and knees and a double axehandle from the 2nd rope. Pair of fist drops gets a 2 count. Roma gets a sunset flip out of nowhere for 2, then an inside cradle for 2. Fans seem to be cheering him. Ted is pissed now. Backbreaker. Lax cover gets a two. Gorilla: "He didn't hook the leg!!!" (Gorilla wasn't actually there, but someone needed to say it). Really weird rights and lefts from Roma now who is moving like a plastic action figure. Gets a foot in the face in a turnbuckle spot for his trouble. Stomp from Ted as Lord Alfred says "Rockin' Robin is a bit skinny for me". Throws Roma back outside and this match seems to have died. More posing and jawing the fans from Ted now -- really we need to transition to the next gear at this stage. Suplex back in by DiBiase and Hayes says "really, I haven't seen Roma take a beating like this for some time in a match". Gutwrench suplex (Gorilla: "and a beauty"), another lethargic cover gets 2. Ted very pissed off now and slams the mat the frustration. Big bodyslam. Ted goes for his 2nd rope elbow spot but waits for AN AGE before doing it. Of course, he misses. Time for another really shitty Roma comeback now. The fans do still cheer! Big dropkick by Roma but for some reason he awkwardly hesitates and then does an elbow drop. This match is not helping the case for Roma as an underrated worker at all. "Sloppy cover" says Lord Alfred, "very sloppy Paul". He hits a crossbody from the top rope but Virgil jumps up on the apron and like an idiot he breaks his pin to go and see him. Clothesline by Ted. There's the scoop powerslam. Million Dollar Dream and it's over. He stuffs some bills in Roma's mouth for good measure. "He's a great philanthropist", says Lord Alfred. This was a fucking terrible match. It went 12 minutes or so but it felt like 20. DiBiase was very very slow here in his offense. Move. Pose. Jaw the fans. Move. Throw Roma outside. Pose. Jaw. Pose some more. Move. and so on. He also gives Roma very little after the initial shine. It's a 4 minute squash match stretched out to three times that length. We got all of the signature offensive spots here apart from the piledriver, but they were too spaced out in the lethargic pacing of the match to really hit the spot. Even the powerslam was anti-climactic. Not a good Ted performance and the less said about Roma here, the better. MVP was Alfred. Also, Chad ... look what I found:

Oh definitely. Some on this board, for reasons I simply can't get my head around, don't like Jesse. I think he's easily the best colour man ever and by some distance. I'd take Vince / Jesse over Gorilla / Bobby any day of the week. Shit, I might even take Tony / Jesse, because they had an interesting chemistry. The only partner Jesse isn't great with is JR. I am finally going to get around and watch some Ted tonight. Watch this space.

So in short, they might have squeaked into 89 or even 90 but the writing was on the wall for JCP. What interests me now is: what on earth was David Crockett saying in those meetings that was holding things up? The saga goes on for months and David is a constant barrier to the deal taking place.

From what I read in Meltzer, Crockett still owed Watts something like $2million. GAB '89 did pretty good and made about £3million on PPV. Starrcade did the same, so that's $6million coming in from PPV alone. The Crockett Cup drew reasonably well. The Bash tour drew pretty well. Bunkhouse Stampede not so well. The Clash shows were getting around a 1.8 to 2.0 rating the third highest rated show on TBS behind The Gator Bowl (and another "Bowl"), the WWF were only getting 2.2 themselves at this time. As a VERY conservative estimate, let's say JCP made somewhere in the region of $12million revenue in 88. What were the total costs? I'm not saying they were doing amazingly well, I'm just saying that the debt to Watts was hardly going to put them out of business, especially when they could just offer him a job at any time.

How about Crockett in 88?

Will, have you paid your taxes?

I am interested in this topic. Reading the WONs through 86, 87 and 88 and into 89, it seems to me that JCP's financial position was not in dire straights, it wasn't like they were on their last legs and going bankrupt. The same, indeed, is true of Bill Watts's UWF. Sure, it was a struggle, but I don't get the impression either promotion was about to go bust. David Crockett is against the Turner takeover pretty much every step of the way, and it seems as if he'd have been able to sway his brother, JCP might have continued into the 90s. It's not impossible. I also think Watts might have survived beyond 87. This happens in the business world all the time: companies tend to buy companies who are either doing okay or are on the up. I'm not saying that UWF or JCP were necessarily "on the up", but I do think it's possible to exagerrate the extent of their financial losses. Crockett seemed to be turning over some pretty decent gates, viewing figures and even PPV revenue in 88 (pre-Turner). Yes, Dusty's booking meant that he killed some towns and there was a slight drop off in gates, but it wasn't a doomsday scenario and certainly nowhere near as bad as 1992 WCW figures. That's one thing I think it's worth dwelling on, because conventional wisdom says that Crockett was a busted flush in 88. I question that. The other thing I want to bring up is this old thread I made on another board back in 2009: http://officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi...p;thread=262216 We can't overlook the fact that Vince was in New York and JCP were down in Greensboro or Atlanta. You can be Ted Turner or Coca Cola:Atlanta isn't NYC. That has to play a part. It doesn't answer why people were watching USA Network and not TBS, but it might be able to answer how many channels Vince was able to carry WWF programming on Syndication. Crockett had 3 big shows: the old Mid-Atlantic show (later NWA Pro Wrestling and after that WCW Pro), World Championship Wrestling (later Saturday Night) and Worldwide. After the Turner deal they added Power Hour which was pushed as a semi-A show. My understanding is that of those four only TWO were in syndication (the old Mid-Atlantic show and Worldwide), and the other two were exclusive to TBS. Does anyone know how many markets the syndicated shows ran in? My guess would be that it would be far fewer than Vince's syndicated shows.

I'm going to throw a PILE of shit at the wall here and see if anything sticks: Big Men + Little Men tag teams Transitional Champions and Interim Champions Chicken Shit Heels Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards Play-by-Play Commentators, Colour Men, Interviewers, Ring Announcers, Referees Great matches on terrible cards Bad wrestlers who do one move really well Masters of multiple gimmicks Masters of the moustache Wrestlers who are least deserving of their big reputations Wrestlers of "European descent" (e.g. The Italian Stallion) Babyfaces you just hate Wrestlers with one outstanding year Japanese stars in the US US starts in Japan Most heinously inexplicable gimmick changes (e.g. Iron Sheik becomes Col. Mustafa) Most hit and miss wrestlers (e.g. The Great Muta) Most obscure wrestlers to get runs in either WWF/E or NWA/WCW Best jobber matches Forgotten workers (e.g. Norvell Austin) Scenario: Hogan and Flair both die in 1982