JerryvonKramer

Does anyone believe the phonelines were really going haywire for Jarrett?

Good promo from JYD. He is immensely likable, you can understand why he was so over. I didn't like Lawler's promo as much with the "dog" theme. The casual racism does make him pretty heelish though. "And all the rest of your kind" ...

Why is Lawler standing in front of stacks of what appears to be bails of freshly cut grass? Where the hell is he there?

This was a FULL year before Virgil's actual face turn. I still think that whole storyline doesn't get enough credit for how well it was booked. Jake has some magnificent promos in this particular feud and I'm looking forward to them.

This will sound weird but shit like this report is one of the reasons I'm a wrestling fan. Dusty's promo is incredibly camp. Did The Ultimate Warrior always refer to people as "normals"?

I don't know where I stand on Brother Love. Part of me has always thought he was hilarious, part of me is annoyed by him -- probably "he's both" is the correct answer. Typical Hogan promo.

I liked Tenryu's arrogance at the start of this waving Jumbo away as if to say "let me take on this chump first". Also love the way Takagi just fucking goes for it after that 100 miles an hour. Jumbo's cheeky elbow on Tenryu is fantastic and his reaction. This is a lot of fun. Tenryu is just totally mental here. Coming in when he's on the outside unloading everything he's got on Jumbo, the hatred is real and intense. Awesome. His kicks at Takagi are just so disrespectful. Tenryu is on form in this match to the extent where Kawada and Takagi seem like actual jobbers in comparison. As a result things go a bit flat when either of the big 2 are not involved even if they are headbutting and piledriving each other. Tenryu is basically out of control here, almost scary psychotic kicking Takagi in the head like he's a piece of shit on the floor before snapping and taking on half a dozen guys at ringside. Pretty great. Probably the highlight of the set so far for me.

As I mention at the top of this show, I turned the comments on the homepage recently, so if you do listen to this podcast do drop by and leave us a comment and let us know you are there. Also, did anyone actually see "Learning the Ropes"? Looks like the worst show ever made. Where the Big Boys Play #26 – Clash of the Champions 2 Chad and Parv review Clash of the Champions 2: Miami Mayhem! In this show: Parv has a big announcement, a look at the state of American television advertising in 1988 including a veritable who’s who of d-list celebrities, discussion of the Lyle Alzado star vehicle “Learning the Ropes”, the big contract signing aboard the Black Hawk with Flair’s red sweater, Kevin Sullivan’s parchment plans for the Tower of Doom, Dr Death’s white-kid gloves, Al Perez: least talked about “lost worker” ever?, more discussion of NWA managers as compared with WWF managers, and Dusty Rhodes: 268.5 lbs.

Guys I dislike fall broadly into 3 categories, so I'll pick a representative from each of them: 1. Wild men. Kamala. The Samoans. George Steele. The Headshrinkers. Generally hate those gimmicks. I know Kamala has some fans on this board but he does nothing for me at all. 2. Internet darlings of the late 90s, especially from ECW. Since Sabu and Raven have already gone, I'll go for: 3. Guys whose reps derive almost entirely from the fact they were underrated or didn't achieve their potential during their careers. Poster boy for this is probably Terry Taylor. 4. My fourth pick is reserved for Pete Roberts. I hate that guy.

Are people saying that Flair is like Samson from the Bible? Cut his hair and he's nothing?

I don't disagree with that, but in that case the cut off point is 89. I can accept 89 is the last time he's having GOAT-level matches. But he has a lot of good to very good matches in the period from 90 to 96. 95 and 96, the triangle match sticks out in my mind, and some stuff with Savage. Again they aren't STELLAR but in no way worse than anything he was doing from 90-94. I'm just saying the drop off happens after 96. If we're saying the Steamboat matches in 94 are "very good", I think he had matches at that level in 95 and 96. I don't know how much stock anyone would put into this but in 96 he was second runner-up in the PWI Wrestler of the Year and WON's readers favourite wrestler for that year. I think it's the last year that the Flair we all know and love was still around. Two years later and we get the insane lunatic late-WCW Flair I never much cared for, and his work in that period really goes downhill fast. If we're setting a boundary for when he was "still good", it should be 96, if it's for "Top 5 worker anywhere in the world" it's clearly 89. On a side note, how do people view his year in WWF here?

Dylan, for what it's worth I also thought Jumbo was very bland until about 85 or 86. Then something happens, it's like a switch is flicked and he becomes a total badass, "the man". Cranks up the stiffness, the intensity, the pace of working. Partly it is down to the atmosphere of Choshu coming in, but I think Jumbo became that guy even before then. Do you think Jumbo is bland in 86? What about in the famous matches with Tenryu in 89? My only real disappointment with him in that period is that there was something lacking in the matches with Hansen.

I can accept that and that it's lost in translation for me -- and Jumbo's exposure to working the US may well be why I find him much easier to like and relate to. I will never be Japanese and no amount of me understanding what you just told me will make it easier for me to appreciate what is known as Tenryu's charisma. I think a certain amount of things getting lost in translation is why there's certain other guys -- Dick Murdoch, Terry Gordy -- I find it difficult to get into too. I talked with Chad about this. Makes it a lot easier to appreciate Murdoch when you can see guys like that in your local bar. I live in

I've seen enough RnR now to know that I don't like Gibson much, mainly because he let his partner do 90% of the work -- not just in matches but in promos and when they played in their band too. If they were on the same money, I don't like that. Didn't pull his weight.

You know I'm a guy who always always considers "total package" when working out the worth of any guy. Is Ric Flair the BEST in-ring wrestler ever to strap on a pair of boots? Probably not. I would never argue that he is. But he is in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches against a greater variety of opponents than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches over a longer period of time than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Is Flair the best wrestler of his generation? He's in the conservation. Is Flair the top 2 or 3 draws of his generation anywhere in the world? He's in the conversation. Is Flair the best talker of all time? He's in the conversation. Was Flair involved in more great and memorable angles than any other wrestler? He's in the conversation. Was Flair the best heel of all time? He's in the conversation. Was Flair the greatest NWA champion of all time? He's in the conversation. This is the reason I will continue to pimp Flair as a GOAT pick. He might not necessarily be number 1 in any of those categories, but he's going to be top 5 minimum. That's what makes him exceptional. Take the other GOAT candidates and they aren't top 5 in each and every category. I think you have to be very generous or favorably disposed to Terry Funk to make him top 5 in some of those. Naturally, different people use different criteria. Some people don't consider things outside of the ring to be important when assessing a guy. For me, as I've argued many times, the match is only one part of the whole thing. It's a big part, but it's still just a part. We wouldn't care about Flair half as much as we do if he wasn't such a great promo and if he didn't have such an infectious character -- it's part and parcel of why he was on top for so long. Even with that question aside, taking only the in-ring related questions, he's still there or there abouts.

Only the January tag match from 1990 yearbook so far. My plan is to watch each of the yearbooks in sequence. The last 6 months have been a bit of a busy time for me, so I've been slow as hell getting through AWA and 1990 -- most weeks I barely have time to watch a show for the podcast and record it. However, 2013 should be different and the yearbooks are quite a breezy watch. So I will be seeing probably all the major Tenryu matches in due course. He's a guy I'm predisposed not to get on with though. He's never going to be my favourite guy. I'll give him his dues and he is legitimately great in many matches from 86 to 89 that I've seen but I don't like him. Possibly I don't get him. He has a face I find it difficult to read. Look at his face here: That was his face as a young babyface. That was his face as a rebellious heel. That's his face at the start of a match. That's his face after he's taken a beating. That's his face when he's fired up. That's his face when he's happy, when he's pissed off, when he's against a guy he doesn't care about, when he's in a blood feud. I don't GET that. Why doesn't his fucking face ever change? Call me shallow, but my trouble with Tenryu boils down to that.

I really like Flair in 95 and 96 as well. I think 89 is far too early and don't really see why 94 should be the cut off point.

This is my position for Tenryu. Honestly, don't think the 90s stuff will change anything, seen enough to know.

I'm ready to go to war with Dylan re: Tenryu and Jumbo.

This thread wasn't started like this, I was replying to something in another thread, but Loss liked the idea of wrestlers and food analogies. NintendoLogic - why are you still sticking to this idea that Flair wasn't versatile? I don't understand it at all.

"Really dislike" might be strong, but after watching the entire All Japan set, I'm still not as high on Tenryu as probably anyone else on this board. He has only one emotion which is to look slightly bored and pissed off. He's had some great matches but I don't like him much at all.

The idea that Flair was not versatile is just batshit insane to my mind. Let's talk about versatility. What's versatile? This: The good old potato. You can make them into fries and have them with your steak or burger, or you can put them in a wildly different context like in the main course of a meal at the 3-star Michelin restaurant and they don't look out of place on the plate. And what's more, in both contexts, the potato is doing a lot of the work in terms of making you full and giving you a nice dining experience. You can mash potato, you can make it into chips, you can roast it, you can boil it, you can fry it, you can sautee it. You can serve it with fish, meat, eggs, pies, as the "feature of a dish" (e.g. jacket potato). Probably in the top 10 meals you've ever had, potato features somewhere. So do you rag on potato because in EVERY meal it's kinda the same thing? I mean whichever way you cook it, it's a bit starchy right? No matter what you do to the potato, it still has a certain potatoness. Ric Flair is the potato of wrestling. You can stick him in there with Sting or Luger or Hogan or Jumbo or Funk or Steamboat or Fujinami or Vader or fucking Sam Houston .. you can have him in All Japan, New Japan, Mid South, Memphis, Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta, WWF ... you can have him in sprints, 45-minute broadways, cage matches, tag matches, last-man-standing matches, hardcore matches ... and he'll still be fairly enjoyable, he'll still be working hard to make your meal as nice and filling as it can be. If that isn't versatility then was is it? You can't do the same thing with every food. You can't take, for example, artichoke and make it work in all the contexts in which potato works. It just isn't as versatile. As much as anyone wants to praise certain guys what does Tenryu look like in WWF if not a fish out of water? Can you take Kawada and slap him in a mid-80s Texas setting, does he still work in the same way? You can with Flair. No matter the opponent, no matter the setting, no matter the context, Flair works. It's fucking insane in my mind think that he wasn't versatile because he does a flop, a flip and chop in every match. There isn't a single wrestler who doesn't get their shit in every match. You don't see Terry Funk matches where he doesn't do his standard spots. The recent thread has borne out that this is true of Lucha stars as much as Japanese stars as much as US stars. It's a total fucking misnomer that Flair is doing something wrong that other people are getting right when it comes to varying repertoire. I don't want to read ever again from anyone that "Flair always has the same match", it's a total nonsense. He brings the same basic ingredient to every match -- potato, Flair -- and the opponent brings something else and they combine to make a meal. Fish and chips is not the same meal as burger and fries. Potato gratin is not the same meal as shepherds pie. Flair vs. Luger is not the same as Flair vs. Garvin, which is not the same as Flair vs. Jumbo. Please wake up and smell the coffee on this.

Forgot to mention but Jesus Christ that Mike Awesome vs. Tanaka match was the stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen. Tanaka no-sold about 15 chair shots. And god knows how many high spots. Represented everything I never liked about ECW.

Ric Flair vs. Jimmy Garvin cage match

Been a really annoying week for me in which I've got to watch nothing wrestling related at all save for the 24/7 roundtable. So I've still not seen this, but did it shed any further light / bring anything new to bare on the old "Big Daddy for the HoF" debate?