JerryvonKramer

It's not like he lives on Mars, we can just ask him.

Here is jdw himself making what is substantially the same point: Indirect, not direct. I don't think SKeith was a regular sub of Meltzer at the time Scott was posting on RSPW. The Meltzer influence in RSPW would have been more on Kunze, and Keith wasn't exactly a Kunze follower. The indirect influence was more than Keith was a member of a group of smart fans who talked about pro wrestling. They came at it from a lot of different directions. Some were WON subs, and while not Meltzerites certainly had been impacted by Dave's "methods" for a lack of a better word. Before the internet blew up with AOL, most people in that pool had some of Dave rubbed off on them whether they knew it or not. On some level similar to the impact that Dean Rasmussen has had, even among people that never read him or even know who he is. So, you said it yourself. I mean, God, let's just ask him, he writes for PTBN.

Where did Scott Keith and friends get their "backstage news" from? I have gone through every NWA/ WCW PPV from 83 to 92. In doing so, I've read practically every Keith review for that period and all of the observer coverage. The frequency with which Keith repeats Meltzer talking points is more than notable, much too often to be a coincidence. The frequency with which their star ratings are within half a star of each other also. Meltzer liked workrate and action. Keith liked the same things. I've also read plenty of reviews of those same shows by many random others. And you get the same stories in the same places. Where do those stories come from? What the flying fuck are you talking about? The basic framework that ALL of those guys thought through was Meltzer's. Maybe Keith got it second hand, third hand, fifth hand, who knows, but to deny that Meltzer was a huge influence is absurd. Also, don't worry, you are still the most condescending, most arrogant asshole around.

Yeah, sure. WWF drew a lot more people, ratings and money in 94-95 than WCW did in 96-97. That's factual. That red hot Razor vs Jarrett feud in 95 under Diesel vs Sid was much more substantial than Benoit vs Sullivan under the nWo in 96. Eddie vs Rey at Havoc 97 is nothing in term of hot undercard match next to Razor vs I.R.S. in 94. Self-evident indeed. ..... for fuck's sake. If you're going down that road, Rick Martel meant more as the model than he did drawing flies for Verne. And pretty much any WWF midcarder in the 80s was "made a star" by Vince, not by the territory who booked them originally.

Not the run. But the gimmick. Save for the accent, it was basically the same. But of course, you're ignoring my point. How is Bischoff making Diesel, the biggest failure as WWF champ ever, and Razor Ramon, WWF upper midcarder when WWF wasn't drawing shit, into true STAR drawing shitloads of money different from what Vince did with Rey/Eddie/Jericho/Benoit (except those really didn't draw shitloads of money in WWE) ? Still waiting for you to make sense and stop the double talk. Hall and Nash were much bigger stars in 94-6 than Jericho, Benoit or Eddie in 96-9 in terms of name recognition to the average fan and in terms of card positioning. Ramon was an upper mid-carder but being IC title holder in WWF in the mid-90s was a bigger deal than being a cruiserweight or at US champ level. If you list the number of guys in front of Ramon in 94-5 and the number of guys in front of WCW Jericho, it's not even comparable. I can't be botheredd to spell it out, because it's self-evident. You can't realistically compare Razor vs. Shawn feud to Jericho vs. Dean (as an example). While, we're at it, Vince takes Jericho and makes him a star. Eric takes Bret and ... oh. Come on, he didn't know his arse from his elbow. We're talking about the greatest wrestling promoter of all time, ALL TIME, no question in terms of making money and stars, and Eric Bischoff, little more than a shooting star in the long history of the sport, who ... fucking tanked a promotion with the greatest roster we'll ever ever see.

Pretty interesting. So he did have *some* foresight, and he did try, but failed anyway. goc, what does this do to your thesis sir?

Well, see, I watched the footage from 1980 and it was a HUGE talking point, then, on camera, that Hogan was going off to make Rocky. So it was known about THEN. And Hogan was playing up to it THEN. And Kal Rudman was losing his shit over it THEN. And Rocky was already big because it was the third film. If you watch that footage, Vince -- who is on commentary don't forget -- clearly has a virtual boner. Clearly. He was generally pretty calm on commentary back then, but Hogan perks him up in a very real way. So if there was buzz around Hogan in 1980, even when he was a heel, in boring old Vince Sr land, then it's not much of a jump to say that WHEREVER he landed up post-Rocky he was going to blow up. It was just on the wall. In fact, I seem to remember that the very reason he left WWF in the first place was because Vince Sr, being as anti-celebrity as he was, didn't want him to do it. ---------- It is good though, because no one in this thread can take the line that Verne made Hogan without ALSO giving Vince credit for making Austin. So if you want we can bump Verne up to 2/10 in that category. But then we have to give Vince some credit for Austin. Horses for courses.

It's was a different time. Martel had mainevented in other places before. He'd worked on top against Bock in Hawaii. He'd mainevented in Portland against Rose. He'd main evented and held titles in New Zealand, and in Canada. You just can't compare a mid-90s ECW stint with any of that. Martel was already a star in 85, in a way that some of these other guys weren't. I'll give Verne credit for making him champ at a difficult time. I don't think doing so made him any bigger of a star. It's not like the difference between Jericho in 1997 and Jericho in 2002.

I see you basically just added "new star" next to talent spotting just to justify your point. You're a riot. The category has been "Talent spotting / New stars" since I made the thread 5 hours ago. Fucking hell, is this 1999? Are we in a WWF vs. WCW time warp debate? It was a double-edged sword wasn't it. Rely on the big old stars, but then realise when their demands are so high that you've basically hamstrung yourself from ever making new stars. Bischoff is one of the worst managers of talent the business has ever seen, and WCW tanking was the result. I feel like R.D. Reynolds here. You have just legit compared the WCW Diamond Studd run to the WWF Razor Ramon run. I'm worried thatif you get any more rope we won't be seeing you again.

Well YOU can't give Vince credit for Austin and then deny Verne credit for Hogan because "Verne didn't make Hogan a star, Hogan made Hogan a star. Verne even initially wanted to book him heel. Hogan was a huge phenomena pretty much despite Verne, not because of him." Which applies as much or more to Austin. Bingo. Well yes, I saw that coming, bozos -- that's why I said it. Verne wouldn't have seen it coming.

You weren't the only person to live through the 90s, El-P. Hogan, Savage, and co never vacated those top slots to let Jericho and co be main eventers, which is exactly why they ALL ended up jumping ship. Radicalz, anyone? There's being a star, and then there's being a STAR. Until you are main eventing, you aren't really made. Vince made Jericho a world champ, many times. Same Eddie, same Rey, same Benoit. He also made people like Edge and Foley world champs. Bischoff meanwhile didn't make any of those guys champions and stuck with ... The stars Vince made in the 80s and early 90s for the best part. Eric gets 0 for making new stars all day long. He had the best roster of ALL TIME, all time, no question. He didn't know what to do with it.

Bischoff gave Jericho his start, Vince made him a star. Same with Eddie Same with Benoit Same with Rey Before that he made: Bret Shawn Even if you don't give him credit for Austin or Rock, which I know you won't.

Well I haven't rated the rest. And fact is, despite all that, Verne's ratings are pretty generous.

Verne didn't make Hogan a star, Hogan made Hogan a star. Gagne just completely lucked out. Hogan was hot after Rocky. Verne even initially wanted to book him heel. Hogan was a huge phenomena pretty much despite Verne, not because of him. You only need to see him in WWF in 1980 (vs Backlund in particular) and Japan in 1981 to see that he was going to be huge no matter what. The idea that it as Verne who "made" him is faintly ridiculous to me. He just happened to be the guy booking him at the time he blew up. Would have happened in Florida, would have happened in WWF, would have happened in GCW, or Crockett. And they each tried to get him too, he'd just already decided he was going to AWA. What planet do you live on?

Well it's a bit like saying why did the music stores not move to digital sooner than they did? Or how did AOL manage to botch their early position so badly. The winners and losers of history are sometimes decided by being able to ancipate things others couldn't see. Joe Blanchard had national plans as early as 1980; Verne himself had a history of expansion, invasion and breaking away from alliances. If he properly had his wits about him, rather than just maintaining status quo, he could have moved before anyone else or seen what was coming. He didn't, that's why history will always judge Verne in terms of his losses rather than his successes. I've been reading Machiavelli of late, the chap makes a lot of sense. Verne lacked virtu.

Sabu = Greatest things ever, the icon of ECW. Crowd ate it up. Then. "Oh, fuck Sabu because he's not showing up !". And the crowd ate it up. Then. Sabu's back, handshake, he's the greatest thing ever. And the crowd ate it up. All this is reflected in a very fair rating of 6.

LA was already up shit creek by the late 70s, I think his realistic chance to challenge Vince would have been to buy out LeBelle and also Shires with a close close working relationship with Don Owen. Relocate HQ to LA, and the very attractive Hawaii trip on the way to Japan plus California sun would eradicate the cold issue. LA was actually the first place Vince got, but it was there for the taking long before 1983.

Classic beach bum behaviour!

We discussed this at some length on the AWA special a few years back. You're right that making him champ would have made no difference. In a sense it was too late. However, there are lots of things Verne could have done differently, lots and lots of things, which might have put him in a stronger position to negotiate in 1984. He had to be dynamic and aggressive, but he was neither of those things. Imagine a world where a more imaginative Verne had booked Flair vs. Steamer in 1978 and made moves to bring in guys like Piper who would have been simply huge in AWA. Ignore the way things typically worked for a second, just imagine if he'd actually done whatever he needed to do make it happen. I mean he had Heenan. He had Bock. He could bring in practically any worker in the country. He was so risk averse that he was never able to give the top spot to anyone else. And it blinded him to spotting new talent or giving them new opportunities. For a contrast, see Georgia where Jim Barnett wasn't a worker, and look at the stars they created. They had the station, but then Verne had strong TV spots. He could have been more aggressive on the West Coast. He could have made a more formal deal with Don Owen to supply new talent. He could have done so many things. He could have brought in Roy Shires to revamp his TV product (which as umpteen workers have said he never watched). Rather than running Bock vs. Crusher / Bruiser in a cage for the 8 millionth time in Chicago, he could have given those spots to up and comers. I realise it's easy to give Verne a hard ride, but whichever way you look at it, he lacked vision.

This is just an excuse. If he REALLY wanted those two, he could have got them. Verne had one of the biggest territories, and personal connections with both of them. They were both big regional stars by 1978. Vince Sr REALLY wanted Backlund, and he got him. And Backlund was a complete unknown in New York. Flair was a Minnesota boy. I mean, who knows, maybe Verne was on the phone every day in 1978 trying to get him to come back. Maybe. But the fact remains that Verne had the two biggest stars of the 1980s (Flair and Hogan) working for him at different times, and he lost them both. History has to judge him harshly. What other stars did he make anyway? I don't see a JYD or Tommy Rich or Piper or DiBiase or even a Boogie Man Jimmy Valiant among the AWA alumni. Someone like Don Owen would get a monster rating in this category, but Verne? His bag of tricks was mainly relying on old already established stars. Even in the earlier period, he took guys who were mainly already big names elsewhere. Ray Stevens, Wilbur Snyder, Billy Robinson -- none of these guys were really stars "made" by Verne. The closest is probalby Jim Brunzell and his son.

Verne is always getting a 1 in that because he trained Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat and yet ... let them both go! And he had Hulk Hogan and yet ... didn't make him the champ. It's hard not to define him through the lens of totally missed opportunities. He kept the belt on himself instead of putting over other guys and then put the belt on Bock forever and a day, as great as Bock was. The other AWA mainstays: Crusher, Bruiser, Maddog were all known quantities. Martel was a known quantity too, and 85 was too late really. The time to put him over was earlier. Hennig, I'll grant you, but you'll note that 1 is not 0. Hogan became a star babyface in the AWA. That's just a simple fact. Before that he was almost always a heel. So you're just going to ignore that Hogan was still the top star even though he didn't have DA BELT~! And ignore that it just wasn't possible because Verne had a deal with All Japan and Hogan was a New Japan guy? Are you now going to tell me that ridiculous theory that if Hogan was made AWA champ he'd have never left for WWF and all of wrestling history would have changed? Martel was a "known quantity" sure but where else did he got pushed to the level he got pushed to in the AWA? He was a tag champ in WWF, he wasn't getting pushed at the World Title level. Punishing him for training Flair & Steamboat and "letting them go" is pretty stupid as well since guys never stayed in the territory they started in. You HAD to leave that territory after a while because the fans had seen you at your greenest and doing nothing but jobs in opening matches, you had to go somewhere else to start becoming a star. Even for a Verne apologist, I don't think it's a stretch to say that making new stars was not his strongest suit. What number would you give him? Are we arguing the toss of the difference between 1 and 3 or the difference between 1 and 7? I could stretch to 3 at a push, but no higher. I also don't think Verne made Hogan a star, Rocky did and having a very distinctive look plus electric charisma did. Verne just so happened to luck out on the timing of the run. It was obvious Hogan was going to be a star in 1980. He wasn't some unknown, he was co-maining MSG with Andre. If Verne was a promoter with a real eye for talent and vision, he COULD have been booking Flair vs. Steamboat on top in 1980. He could have! What did he actually book? Himself vs. Bockwinkel, Chapter 322.

Verne is always getting a 1 in that because he trained Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat and yet ... let them both go! And he had Hulk Hogan and yet ... didn't make him the champ. It's hard not to define him through the lens of totally missed opportunities. He kept the belt on himself instead of putting over other guys and then put the belt on Bock forever and a day, as great as Bock was. The other AWA mainstays: Crusher, Bruiser, Maddog were all known quantities. Martel was a known quantity too, and 85 was too late really. The time to put him over was earlier. Hennig, I'll grant you, but you'll note that 1 is not 0.

Based on this post we really need a re-evaluation of 90s Vince's Mastery score. He went with the crowd on Austin and made his top babyface a guy who drinks beer, flips off his boss and does the Stunner to women? He should have told the crowd to fuck off and pushed The Patriot. No, no, all it means is that you can't be a 10 in all categories, and that it might not even be DESIRABLE to be a 10 in all categories. 90%+ of bookers would have turned Graham face in 78 and given Kobashi the triple crown a lot earlier than Baba did. With a 10 in that rating ALSO comes a certain rigidity and brittleness. No one has really commented, for example, on the 0 I have Sr for innovation or on the 2 I gave Baba. Their firmness of principle might mean that sometimes they might have missed opportunities and / or left money on the table. For them, the principle and staying in 100% control of the direction was more important. I mean we might add a category for "opportunism", which is essentially spotting a tendency in the crowd and capitalising on it to the max. See also Vince with Hogan in 84, Vince with Austin in 97. But that's not "mastery over the crowd", it's something else.

It's a mixture of things, but there is no way Heyman is a 10 in that category. A 10 is Vince Sr faced with the hottest wrestler on the planet in 1978, who'd sold out MSG a ton of times, in Billy Graham and refusing to turn him face and giving the belt to Backlund REGARDLESS. AND still getting Backlund over, selling out MSG, etc. It's Baba faced with Kenta Kobashi in 1992-3 and saying to both him and the crowd, "no kid, you have to wait your turn. And I'm going to make you wait". And the fans essentially accepting that their will was overturned. Your bias is showing... Taz as the baddest mother fucker on the planet. RVD as the world's greatest wrestler. Dreamer as a big time hero. Public Enemy as a great tag team. Heyman owned that crowd. I think as much as he owned the crowd, the crowd owned him. In a way that simply isn't true for Baba or Sr. Give me some examples of Heyman really defying his crowds and still getting over with it.

Hogan-Sid 92 Luger 93 Rocky Maivia Shawn-Sid 96 If a dog begs for a bone and I give him a bone and then he loves me for it, and then tomorrow the same thing happens, is it mastery? Hogan/Sid 92 is an interesting thing. I am not sure if Hogan was refusing to refine his role at all or if Vince should have strong armed more. Still, it was a pretty isolated moment with huge backlash that happened at the Rumble 92. This is why I negate the Sid vs. Shawn match as well. Look, SID has something that elicits cheers at certain points. People realize how foolish they are so they quickly move away from it but it is there. Luger in 93 is a good example and Diesel I guess in 95 although he was pretty stubborn with that one giving him a year long reign. I actually think Vince could be broken into two rankings from the 90's as I see his back half as a 9 or so and the front half in the 7 range. I mean there's more to it, I guess. There were a lot of acts in the 94-6 period who had really lukewarm heat. It was a shitty time, but was any single member of the Million Dollar Corporation over? Save perhaps Ted himself (and even that was diminishing returns). I feel like in 1987 Koko B. Ware would have got bigger pops than Sparky Plugg did in 95. In the later period, more people were over up and down the card. But still: X-Pac heat was a thing.