JerryvonKramer

What do people think of Rude vs. Sting from Clash 27 in 1991? I'd probably have voted for Rude vs. Steamboat Beachblast 92 over Magnum vs. Tully, were it a title match.

Just a quick google for "Worst WWF Champ" will bring up myriad articles where Koloff makes bottom 5 or 10. e.g. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/693472-...ons-ever/page/8 However, even allowing for the fact that the people who write these articles are both clueless and probably in their early 20s, the major factor seems to be that he held it for just 21 days rather than any knock on him as a worker. There's a strong suggestion that he wasn't a great worker in most of these sorts of things though. After seeing him bump around for Morton and Gibson in 85 I'd actually like to see some peak Ivan Koloff. Seemed at least above average to me.

The Nikita strap (Russian chain) match from 92 is awful. However, he's looked good in 85 on the Horsemen set from what I've seen so far. That said, Ivan does 90% of the bumping and Nikita just does a monster heel act, so he's bound to look good. What do people think of Ivan Koloff by the way? Got a rep has the worst ever WWF champ, but I've been impressed by his 85 stuff.

I believe Jesse was also the guy who was big on setting up a wrestler's union and was always very very tough when negotiating contracts and getting himself a decent payoff. His WCW contract was massive. Guess it's the sort of thing that made him an electable politician. Here he is in some random interview:

Bugger. Could have sworn that was for the US title. I did have Sting vs. Vader strap match from 92 originally too, but that was also non-title.

He's one of those guys that seemingly everyone in the industry hates. Like whenever he's brought up in shoots, they don't have good things to say about him. I did a bit of reading around these Destroyer matches the other night when you mentioned them so might watch them over the weekend. I get the general impression though that Mascaras was an average wrestler who just happened to become a big star and the Destroyer matches are his all-time best. Still I'll go into them with an open mind. If I was to watch one, which one? On another note, I've got the US Netflix and this Clash set popped up on it the other day. I was going to watch it but the dubbing out of Ventura has pissed me off a bit. There's a ton of WWE sets on Netflix, been meaning to watch at least the documentaries - AWA, Heenan and so on - but in a weird way I'm worried about "spoilers". Would watching the WWE AWA set spoil the DVDR set?

Ha ha, you're not wrong.

My picks are admittedly rather uninspired, I'm a big fan of Arn's run with the TV title in the early 90s. My obvious biases are easy to see. I can't do Japan because I've still not seen any of the 90s stuff at all. I'll be better placed to do this after watching all the yearbooks. WWF title: Savage / Flair, Mania VIII (92) NWA World title: Steamboat / Flair, Clash VI (89) WCW World title: Flair / Vader, Starrcade '93 WWF IC title: Savage / Steamboat, Mania III or Perfect / Hart, Summerslam 91 NWA US title: Magnum / Tully, Starrcade '85 WCW US title: Steamboat / Rude, Beachblast '92 NWA / WCW TV title: Great Muta vs. Arn Anderson, from a WCW Power Hour of Jan '90 OR Bobby Eaton vs. Arn Anderson, Superbrawl I (91) WWF tag titles: Dream Team vs. British Bulldogs, from SNME (Oct, 85) Triple crown (based only on AJ 80s set): Jumbo vs. Tenryu (6/5/89)

Mil Mascaras is a bottom 5 wrestler for me, just hate the guy, mainly for stinking up any match he was involved with on the All Japan set (apart from the one where he bleeds under the mask).

I don't think Tony was shit at it. Young Jim Ross was all "Lex Luger was the captain of his little league side and had a 3.78 grade point average and was the top of his under-12 trampoline class" Schiavone was more like "It was 1983, Harley Race and Ric Flair, one steel cage, one title on the line ..." (see his performance for the build to Vader vs. Flair on Starrcade 93) Occasionally he'd mention things like all the title reigns of Steamboat going back to the 70s. Or bring up old feuds that two guys had had long ago. JR never had that because he wasn't with the company before 1987. Aside from Flair and Arn, Tony pretty much WAS WCW's continuity with its JCP past. And as phony as he could be, I always got the impression that when it came to that stuff, the old NWA shows and that era in general, it was coming from the heart and from real love of that product. Hey, I could just be a mark, but that's one area I'd give Tony credit -- and it also happens to be an area which was more and more subdued by Bischoff as the 90s and the NWO stuff wore on. This isn't the first time you've gone on about early Vince, and I need to see more of his stuff from that time, but I fucking love Vince from the SNME era, especially teaming with Jesse. I also love the sheer insane levels of hype he used to give those full run downs of the cards at the top of PPVs, especially the Survivor Series, nothing can get you more pumped for a show than Vince screaming at the top of his voice. Has a guy ever been as excited at the prospect of Dino Bravo or Hercules wrestling as Vince in those intro segments? I feel like they are an overlooked achievement of his. Going national and international? Creating Wrestlemania? Austin vs. McMahon? Screw all of that -- those intros are his major contribution to pro wrestling.

I think threre are underrated aspects of Tony that aren't given their due credit. Not necessarily his calling of moves, but his sense of history -- the stats, the facts and figures. He put over that stuff more than just about any announcer I can think of. Also, he was GREAT at analysing the relative strengths and weaknesses of two guys. Best example I can think of is Luger vs. Windham after Flair left in 91. Schiavone always talked about wrestling like it was a real sport and more like a general sports fan than a wrestling fan. At his best, he brought out the idea of a real physical and tactical contest. But he was also a guy who just did what he was told and I feel like the more he's fed, the worse he is. He sort of clams up and becomes rigidly professional, he delivers lines like they were written by a marketing department so it's really obvious when he's shilling a company line. He was a very unnatural shill, unlike Gorilla or Vince who were -- somehow -- natural shills. But when he's just calling a match and not being told to sell stories, and concentrating on strengths and weaknesses and bringing up key stats and things from the past, he's as good as anyone. I should mention that I just don't care about an announce guy calling moves. I mean that's something I associate with late 90s / early 00s smarkdom. Guys who thought Mike Tenay was the best play-by-play guy ever. I don't think the calling of moves is important at all, as Vince prooves every time you hear him call a match.

Tony is still solid in 94, but I think by Starrcade he's already showing signs of not being the guy from the NWA years. I should mention though, that I'm basing this mainly on PPV performances and clashes, I haven't seen the TV and when I get round to the 94 yearbook will be interested to see what the announcing is like. Ventura, at least on the PPVs, is just Ventura. I don't see him derailing anything in particular (any examples?), Schiavone was never ever 100% comfortable with a heel smartass next to him but part of what made that relationship WORK is that Tony so often didn't get Jesse, or as you put it got "dumbfounded". It's a little awkard at the start of 93 but after a while like El-P said it's probably the best WCW announcing pairing. I think they even had chemistry. For me, Heenan in WCW was never good and never clicked with Schiavone. Like for me, it comes across like they don't like or understand each other. With Ventura, there's a certain amount that Schiavone plays up to his straight man role and a certain amount that you can tell he enjoys Jesse being Jesse. With Heenan, I always got the impression that Heenan was just pissing him off and throwing him off his game. For more on this, see my long Ventura HoF argument from last year, but I think he was twice the colour man Heenan was in WCW.

How many times do you think Tony used the line "Where the big boys play" during that period? Do people really believe Eric was on the headset feeding him that line or did he just have it as a note to keep using that line at various intervals? Big turning point for Tony, in my view, is Ventura leaving and Heenan coming in roughly coninciding with Hogan and all his cronies coming in. He steadily gets worse and worse over late 94, 95, 96 until he's just utter dogshit by 98. Before 94 Schiavone is like a B to B+ announce man, but 98 I'd give him a D or even E+. Heenan by that stage is barely scraping a C+ too. While I'm at it, my honest feeling is that Ventura never goes below an A- for his entire career - A- in early 85, then A* for all his WWF run and A-A* in WCW. Even when he wasn't interested, he was still really good, unlike Heenan.

I can see a place for the TV title, but not for the US tag titles. I am exhausted right now, but with a bit more energy tomorrow may be willing to dig into some reasons for thinking that. I disagree though, I think less is more with titles. By Starrcade 85, for example, stuff like the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship was a total anachronism. Guys like Sam Houston and Black Bart shouldn't have titles for where they are on the roster.

They often made no sense though. Were Arn and Ole an undercard team? Or the Midnights? Or the Fabulous Ones? You get teams vacating those titles because they won the world titles. Then from about 1990 onwards around the time the Hayes / Garvin Freebirds had them and the likes of the Patriots and the Young Pistols and bloody Big Josh, you're talking about the most meaningless titles ever. Apart from probably the 6-man titles. One thing that I've never liked about NWA is the overkill on titles. Reckon the pure World, IC and Tag titles that Vince ran for years was the best formula. When was that wrecked? When they brought in the European title probably.

Also, this is as good a time as any to mention the fact that I HATTTEEE the US tag titles. I really hate them. Most pointless tag belts of all time. Hate the NWA National Tag titles too.

Also, this is as good a time as any to mention the fact that I HATTTEEE the US tag titles. I really hate them. Most pointless tag belts of all time. Hate the NWA National Tag titles too.

Was he the Taylor Made Man at this point? Legit contender for second worst Taylor gimmick ever. Valentine in WCW in the 90s always comes off as odd to me for some reason.

Wow, pretty cool. Summer Rae looks a good foot taller than Rob too.

I've just had a good look and the TV from 1988 does seem a bit less odd when you look at it: http://do.ioffer.com/i/all-japan-pro-wrest...d-set-506097737 The two matches from 8/29 and 8/30 were both from "Bruiser Brody Memorial Night" which aired in two parts over two weeks (9/4 and 9/11). I think Tenryu and Hara lost the titles in the second match so the rematch for the titles came on 9/15 (aired 10/30). Then the Tag League that year was for the titles which I'm guessing were vacated after Hara left. Buy yeah, the booking makes a lot more sense when you look at when stuff aired Was struck looking at that by how many guys who passed through AJPW who didn't make the set. Buddy Landel for example had a few matches in 88, but didn't make the set.

This is for all of the 80s, and that's the thing I don't get. Like the exact same match run the very next night and both on TV with commentary. Look at this: Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (12/5/87) - Match 1, guessing as part of the tag league Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (12/11/87) Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Tiger Mask (1/23/88) Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Hiroshi Wajima (1/24/88) Genichiro Tenryu & Samson Fuyuki vs. Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa (2/20/88) Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & John Tenta (2/29/88) Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (3/5/88) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Mask (3/9/88) Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (3/9/88) - Match 1 Jumbo Tsuruta, Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Ashura Hara Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki (3/11/88) Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (3/27/88) - Match 2 Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Bruiser Brody (3/27/88) Jumbo Tsuruta & Hiroshi Wajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara (4/21/88) Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara (6/4/88) - Match 2 Tiger Mask & Isao Takagi vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada (7/16/88) Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki vs. Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano (7/19/88) Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (7/27/88) - Match 3 Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (8/29/88) - Match 3 Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (8/30/88) - Match 4 Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki vs. Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano (9/15/88) Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (9/15/88) - Match 5 That's five iterations of the same match in a 10-month spell, with the last three coming within 17 days of each other. And three versions of Tenryu vs. Hansen in the same period. And these are the ones that made the set, don't know if there were further rematches that were left on the cutting-room floor. Justs seems a bit strange to me. Almost like running all your house shows on TV.

Was hoping jdw might be able to shed some light on this:

I have a question about Baba, watching the All Japan set, the booking was pretty alien to me, with so many rematches in a short space of time. And on TV too not even house shows. Like the same tag match 4 times inside a month or two. Clearly, Japan has its own booking logic, but what is it? In the US that would be considered hotshotting, so how come the same rules don't apply?

Was that really a power play by Hogan? Perfect had gone around the horn on house shows with Hogan and was one of his worst-drawing opponents. Why would they give him a rub when he had just proven he couldn't draw on top? They were building toward Warrior and Hogan needed to be as strong as possible going into that match. All I know is that Perfect was booked to win that Rumble for months until the night of the event. If it wasn't a powerplay, why the late switch? Hogan could have suffered a screwy elimination and easily kept his heat. There's no good reason for Hogan to win. But then so guess they were never logical with booking the Rumble till 92. Dibiase should have gone over in 88, and Studd won. I'm on my phone here so can't look it up but did Hogab win it in 91 as well? That's insane.

Yeah, let's do that then. I'm mainly wondering if Vince isn't just the default answer. The question of whether Heyman is or not is surely up for debate.