JerryvonKramer

I love SNME, I really fucking love it. Ventura and McMahon are an amazing double act. Vince was also the ultimate hype man. This stuff is my bread and butter. I quite want to watch Bravo vs. Garvin, out of curiosity.

Dynamic Dudes just look out of place in this company. If only it could have been The Fantastics. Heels have a Survivor Series dream team. I think Jim Ross's voice dropped a decabel between 88 and 90. His voice is less high pitched here than it was in 88. He's good solo though. "Pink shirt, purple tie, red jacket ... man, he's dressed like he lost a bet or something" Ha ha. Don't like Shane Douglas's dropkicks. I liked the little spot where Eaton was pretending to help Morton up outside the ring who then socked him when he realised who it was. Crowd made it clear they didn't care for the Dudes, they didn't even give the dropkick from the top into a suplex a cheer. Nice bump from Cornette.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares 1. Gordon arrives at a struggling restaurant, the food is shit, the place is empty, the kitchen struggles to make 3 covers without melting down. 2. He eats the food and thinks it is shit. He inspects the kitchen swears a lot and is disgusted by the lack of hygene. 3. He looks at the menu and says there are two many items on it. 4. He designs a new menu with just 6 items on it. The important thing is LOCAL produce for RUSTIC food. 5. He teaches the new menu to the chef and kitchen staff while shouting and calling them rude names. 6. The restaurant gets a make over with new modern decor. 7. They have a big re-opening with all sorts of people from the local town, the kitchen struggles initially but eventually come over the odds to make a success of it. 8. Gordon has saved the day, but warns that if they don't stick to his methods they'll go to shit again. Credits Rinse/ Repeat for 10 seasons. Every single "expert" show on TV follows this formula. Super Nanny being the one that most readily springs to mind.

Here's a question: who were better The Fantastics or The Rock 'n' Roll Express? You'd think this was a no brainer, right? But I wonder. If I had to rank the 4 workers, no question it would be: 1. Ricky Morton 2. Tommy Rogers 3. Bobby Fulton 4. Robert Gibson How much better is Morton than Rogers? How much better is Rogers than Fulton? How much better is Fulton than Gibson? Would like to hear thoughts.

This Lyle Alzado thing is going to run and run I'd like to point out that on the Clash 1 show where he first appears, I do point out that he must have been a reasonably big star to get his own tv show. It would be a shame if Chad becomes known as "that guy who said Lyle Alzado wasn't a star", because I think his contributions to the show and indeed to both the 80s sets and the yearbooks are really good. I am also committed to making it to the end of the AWA set. From my end, I'm not even sure if it's even that hard to get into from what I've seen (didn't like Verne vs. Bock at all, but have liked some other stuff), it's just that the AWA has got shunted down in the mix of stuff to watch. Most weeks I struggle just to watch one JCP show, if I get more time for watching, my tendency has been to go to the 1990 yearbook. Then it's AWA and after that the TNT and Primetime stuff. Just as with All Japan, I won't miss the deadline though and am *really* looking foward to some of the matches coming up in 85, especially those involving Slaughter.

Overall I think I preferred Clash 4 to Starrcade. I am convinced that Fantastics vs. Gilbert and Simmons tag is a ****1/2 match and is probably the best Crockett match of 88 we've watched for my money -- actually Arn/Tully vs. Luger/Windham from the Clash 1 is probably the best, but I wouldn't put that match too far behind it. Windham/Flair vs. The Midnights is on Clash 4 as well and is probably better than anything from Starrcade. I'm lower on the Luger match than most because I don't like Luger's hulking up and his general babyface performance in it. 88 is a real mixed year for Crockett. Arn and Tully were great. The Midnights had a good year. The Fantastics had a good year. Flair had a good year. But Dusty's booking sucked hard for the most part and he was pretty bad in most of his matches that we saw. Steve Williams sucked, and hard. Haven't thought much of Kevin Sullivan. Rotunda was a very boring tv champ. Nikita was terrible. Fucking Paul Jones was still around. And they lost a lot of talent. EDIT: And yeah, part 2 is at least 30 minutes on Flair - Luger, if not longer. I will put it up in a couple of days.

Thanks once again to Scott and Justin for doing this. And note their upcoming interview with JJ Dillon. We recorded this several days ago and before Clash 4 was uploaded, so we'll do a big comments roundup on the Clash 5 show. Thanks for all your feedback. Also, damn that Starrcade 88 theme is fucking great. I can't decide if it's better than the classic theme or not, but either way it's one of the all-time great bits of wrestling music. Where the Big Boys Play #30 - Starrcade 88: Part 1 In this special episode, Chad and Parv welcome Scott and Justin for a joint show between Where the Big Boys Play and The Place to Be to review Starrcade 88. Topics include: Scott and Justin's backgrounds as wrestling fans and how they started the podcast, how open are you in your wrestling fandom?, some general talk about AWA, Lyle Alzado update, final thoughts on Nikita Koloff, some talk about the ring announcers Tom Miller, Gary Michael Cappetta and Michael Buffer, NWA finishes vs. WWF finishes (again!), which is the best version of the Midnight Express?, Mike Rotunda's tv title reign, some talk about our various screennames and AOL instant messenger in the 90s, and Justin hypes the P2B's upcoming interview with JJ Dillon.

There are a whole bunch of Money Inc matches that happened in 93 that I refuse to believe actually took place. WWF were doing loads of title switches on house shows at that point for some reason.

Here are some guys I want to know about: Yatsu - a guy I really loved on the All Japan set who by all accounts had lost it by 1990. When would people say was his peak? I still haven't seen the New Japan stuff but have the 80s set for that mythical rainy day that never comes. Ted DiBiase - yes, yes, I know, but I'm going to claim that I don't go on about Ted as much as Dylan goes on about Patera. I also bring it up because I think you could make separate arguments for 82-3, 85 and 88. Or a general argument for 82-88, a very generous reading might extend that to 91 -- as far as I can see he is the same worker in 91 as he was in 88. Greg Valentine - was it in the 70s? Or was it 82ish till the IC run? Jake Roberts - someone I don't see discussed too much these days. Looking at his career, hard to think of a definitive peak run for him. He was real young in Mid-South right? That can't be his "peak" surely. I'm mostly disappointed by a lot of his WWF matches -- they all follow a pattern: the feuds are great and well built, and the promos out of this world, but the matches don't hold up. This is certainly true of the DiBiase feud from 90 and the Savage one from 91. Haku / Meng - someone with several distinct phases in his career, where would people put him at his prime? HHH - it's been too long since someone mentioned him. Bobby Eaton - this one I'm interested to see responses too, because arguably his peak ran from 83 until 93. Anyone got a counter argument to that?

I only have volume 1 so far and it is really worth having. The Keith-ishness is not enough to be really irritating for me, and I basically can't read Keith himself anymore. But there's just enough there to make me roll my eyes occasionally, it's mainly from the contributors who made their name on 411.com. We'll be talking to one of the authors in a couple of weeks, and I have to say that his contributions -- probably about 40% or even more of the whole thing -- are really quite good.

From what I've seen, Nikita has a moment when he gets really quite good, arguably better than either of the Road Warriors ver were, coinciding with his initial face turn after Magnum's injury which is late 86 until about May or June time in 87. He is, I would say, actively good in the period. But the decline is rapid after that and by the time he's got hair and dropped 40lbs he's horrible. I'd argue that in the very brief hot streak period though that he was better than Luger was in 87 and even 88. I'd probably say he was better than Sting in that timeframe too, it's just that like Solomon said he jumps off a fucking cliff not long after that and it's difficult to remember that he was pretty decent at one point. Prior to that in 85 and early 86 when he's still the monster heel tagging with Ivan, he's not polished enough. So Nikita's peak is about a 5 month period from late 86 to mid-87.

Nikita in 88 is a contender for my all-time least favourite wrestler.

"Two nations united by a common language". JYD might as well have been speaking another one here. Well I've learned something I probably would never otherwise have come across. Kaka Lacki, lol, bloody hell.

In this thread, I'm talking about occasions where two guys hate each other so much that the rivalry seems like its beyond wrestling and getting into the depths of their souls. Where it feels like there is more than just a match at stake but their pride, their manhood, even their entire values systems. This is quite rare. I am not talking about great or well worked rivalries, for example, Austin vs. McMahon as good as it is does not have it. I am talking about times where there's just something intensely personal about the hatred these two men have for each other. I can only think of three examples: 1. Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard, not just the "I Quit" match at Starrcade 85 but some of the segments leading up to it as well. 2. Jumbo vs. Tenryu 3. And this is a weaker pick, but it still has it to an extent, Savage vs. Flair, particularly in the 95-96 version. I cannot think of other examples that reach those levels of intensity. You feel like Jumbo and Tenryu are genuinely affronted by each other. There are times when Jumbo looks as if he's going to be sick at Tenryu's antics. It's not about being the better wrestler it's about a million and one things. I feel that with Savage and Flair too. There's something there. I can't put my finger on it, but it's not there, for example, with the Savage - Jake feud from 91, as great as that is. It's not there in any iteration of Flair - Sting or Flair - Steamboat or Flair - Hogan. It may be there in the Bischoff feud but it's been a long time since I've seen that. If you understand what I'm talking about here, what I want in this thread is some other feuds or even single matches that you could point to that have this extremely rare quality. It's not necessarily about being well worked, there's something else there, almost something that can't be faked.

It would only really be a theme of Flair playing the chickenshit pussy if he played that character the whole way through. Chickenshit pussy is supposed to represent his true character under pressure, but it's a bit more nuanced than that. Flair's character isn't a chickenshit though -- not like Honkytonk Man or Lawler in 93 -- he often plays a chicken shit to lull the opponent into a false sense of security (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), he's buying time and looking for an opportunity. Flair's "true character" is not a chicken shit but a desperate borderline psycho who will do anything. ANY. THING. To keep hold of that title. There is also a third layer (cocky / arrogant strutting heel, which is obviously a front) and a fourth layer (the true blue athlete who will never say die -- yes, that's even there when he's a heel -- even shades of it in Rumble 92). Flair switches between these 4 personalities a lot. But they are always swirling about. Two of them -- the cocky arrogant Slick Rick character and the chicken shit are an act. The other two -- the borderline psycho and the true blue athlete only surface under extreme pressure.

We actually recorded this the same night as the Clash 3 show which accounts for the little joke at the start and the fact that there is only one comment (which was posted while we were recording), disappointingly it did not mention Lyle Alzado. Also, I will personally send a wrestling-related prize of some kind to anyone who can decipher what the hell JYD is saying in that promo. Where the Big Boys Play #29 - Clash of the Champions 4 Marching bravely into the Turner era, Chad and Parv review Clash of the Champions 4: Season's Beatings. In this show: Jim Herd's never discussed wrestling background, the Road Warriors heel turn, Parv goes nuts over a match that no one else seems to rate highly, the long-awaited return of Jason Hervey, more Steve Williams hate from Parv, a totally ridiculous JYD promo, a critique of Matt Farmer's method of ranking draws, where Rick Steiner rates among the people with mental disability gimmicks, who is better Bobby Fulton or Robert Gibson?, and a look at Meltzer's big article from late in 88 on 'how to save the NWA'.

SLL, two of Vince's flagship shows TNT and Primetime were almost exclusively angle and skit driven. There were clips of matches and occasionally they'd show full matches from MSG (often just squashes though to showcase one guy), but there would be maybe 15 or even 20 minutes at a stretch where there were no matches going on. I don't believe Vince saw matches as the most important part of his product. It was the colourful characters. It was the promos. He's the most successful wrestling promotor in history and his product wasn't match heavy. Primetime was carried by Gorilla and Bobby Heenan as a double act, not the wrestling. Hell go and watch the Halloween special SNME or the one where they have a bloody water slide race. I don't accept though that because it's so entertainment driven that it's "just another TV show". Clearly that's what Vince thought in his head somewhere, especially when it came to TNT, but the fact that these guys are ultimately getting in a ring makes it pro wrestling. I cannot explain the appeal of that product to you if if you'd rather watch Dallas or Citizen Kane.

As a good contrast with that that the Luger match from GAB 88 where Flair basically just gets his ass kicked period. There is a very brief control segment midway through the match, but it's all Luger, which viewed in context, all makes sense because he's pissed off about the Horsemen jumping him coming out of the limo and Flair has been ducking out of a match with him for months. There Luger is screwed out of the title by bureaucracy and bullshit. He had Flair beat. In the Starrcade match Flair out-strategizes Luger BECAUSE he has to -- there's a stipulation in that match that if Flair gets DQed, he'll lose the belt too aka "there'll be no bullshit this time" -- so he has to pin Luger somehow. Hence you get this really viscous attack on the leg that ends up winning him the match. Neither of those two Luger matches are particularly great in my book, they wouldn't make a Flair Top 50 for me. But it's ridiculous to say that the story of both matches is the same. It isn't. And Flair doesn't work the two matches the same either. Yes, he's bumping around like a madman for Luger for 15 minutes+ in both matches, but you've got to consider that JCP had NO top faces other than Dusty (who was over the hill) at this time and Flair had to MAKE this 25-year old muscle head into a star somehow. Neither of these matches are the same as the Sting match from Clash 1 either. In fact, if I was ever going to point to a "Formula Flair" match it would be that.

I stopped watching wrestling in 2005 and yet I probably spend more time watching, thinking about and talking about wrestling now than at any time previously in my life. There is so much stuff to see from the 80s and 90s that I could go the next ten years without exhausting it or getting bored of it. And beyond that there's vast unchartered waters: 70s World of Sport, Lucha, hell everything post-2005 which I'll get round to one day. The thing that keeps me going is that I rediscover guys I had long since written off. Ronnie Garvin, for example, is a guy I just thought was a loser up until not too long ago. And now he's a guy I appreciate. And of course discovering people I haven't seen before. Stuff like the 80s sets can take me from literally zero knowledge to thinking Jumbo Tsuruta was one of the greatest workers in the world. And the more you see, the more it makes you reassess what you knew before. And finally, honestly, this place is one of the things that keeps me interested. The whole process of watching stuff would be much less enjoyable without a sounding board to play off of, especially one comprising the sorts of characters who post here on a regular basis. I've probably never been happier as a wrestling fan than I am right at this moment in early 2013.

Frankensteiner, there's another version of me and Loss vs. Matt D and others on Flair here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5523106 I feel like we'd had this convo 20 times already which is why I vow silence on it. What I want to know now is how you can come up with a break down of Bret similar to the one I did earlier that has him coming up on top of Flair. Flair wasn't just "good" at those things, he was one of if not THE best, GOAT level in all of those things. "Just nuts & bolts" is half ways towards what your match is. I like guys who were good at nuts & bolts, solid fundamentals can carry a guy a long way. It's why I much prefer a guy like DiBiase who is so good at the basics to a guy like RVD who does some flashy shit that looks cool once in a while but doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to the basics. I don't think you can dismiss all those things as "just nuts & bolts". The number of guys who are as good as Flair at all of those things can be counted on two hands. Bret isn't one of them.

Just catching up on the show with John Lister and I really REALLY want to see that 70s WoS throwback gimmick. That's one of the gimmicks I've always wanted to see. Jack Gallagher immediately became the current wrestler that I am most interested in anywhere in the world. Also, about a month ago there was a random 5-minute showcase clip shown on *I think* Channel 4 of two guys in an empty arena doing various spots. Looked really good. I can't for the life of me find it. Was wondering about who those two guys were.

I feel like I wrote this post in invisible ink. Nevermind.

Ok I can accept that argument.

I did have a go overleaf at breaking down Flair as a performer in general and what he did well without referencing specific matches. Unfortunately, it seems not to have ignited. I would have liked a like-for-like reposte from Matt D or another champion of Bret.

Things Flair does well in his matches: - selling. Yes it is theatrical but not to Hennig / Steamboat cartoony levels, he makes a lot of noise and cries of pain and so on and that adds to how convincing it is. You can be Lex Luger, Nikita Koloff, Ronnie Garvin, Jumbo or Ricky Steamboat and Flair can put on a match that will not only make you look like a million bucks but ALSO extenuate your strengths, so Luger and Koloff come off like supermen, Garvin like a guy who would clean your clock down a dark alley, Jumbo like respected star who has proved he can move onto the next level and be company ace by hanging with the world champion for 45 minutes, Steamboat like the best wrestler in the world. - working the crowd. Look at the way he'll take time out to shout at a fan in the 5th row and call him a "fat boy", he's one of the best at that sort of thing. Look at his stalling. That sort of thing we take for granted, but Flair is seriously one of, if not THE best staller of all time. I'll give you a point of comparison: Barry Windham. Windham as a heel US champ does quite a lot of stalling. He's not as good as Flair at doing that in such a way that riles up the crowd and fires up the opponent. Flair is basically the master at the bailing / stalling stuff. We all take that for granted, it's not that easy to be GREAT at something like that -- and there are lots of examples of people who suck at it like Mike Rotunda. - execution. Again, something we all take for granted with Flair but laud a guy like Bret for. Who else executes the standing vertical suplex as brilliantly as Flair? He doesn't have a SHIT TON of moves, but the ones he does, he does expertly. I don't think I'd put peak Bret over peak Flair for execution. I don't think I'd put peak anyone over Flair for that. - offense and pacing. This is distinguished from the above by the fact I'm not talking about HOW Flair executes moves, but what he does when he's in control of a match. Flair is one of the BEST guys at transitions and switching gears, again something no one ever gives him any credit for but when Flair wants to move from 2nd into 5th you can FEEL the intensity turn up in a match. He can bring violence. It's not just about getting desperate in the final 3rd, it's about the way he is able to hone in like an assassin on one bodypart, it's about how he can flick a switch from stalling and begging off to pushing someone's knee out of joint and almost breaking their leg. That's what I like about Flair as a wrestler. He was one of the greatest ring generals ever to lace up a pair of boots. There are little things we can all find annoying about his matches and I agree that structure is not his strong point (although his fundamentals listed above are so strong that he can overcome that), but these aren't enough to detract from what I find so great in him. To me Flair is at GOAT levels in each of the 4 areas I've listed above. I think Bret is only at GOAT levels in 1 of them (execution) and arguably in the 1 area I've said Flair isn't that strong in (structure). Even taking great matches out of the equation and breaking down on what makes Flair a good wrestler, I still think he's better than Bret.