JerryvonKramer

But you ARE still getting to see a star in every match, it's just instead of getting to see star vs. star, it's star vs. a nobody. Hey, they don't even have to be pure "nobodies", they could do it with JTTSs just as well I guess.

Because the marquee says "wrestling". So back in 2003, I was actually kinda paying attention to the current music scene for the first time in my life. At that point, t.A.T.u. was getting a bunch of airplay, and their whole schoolgirl lesbian shtick was getting a big media push. At some point in the middle of all that, Bone Crusher showed up, and he had this really goofy, bombastic live presence that I don't think I can properly articulate. But I found it amusing. Thing is, while his actual vocal delivery was as charmingly silly as his stage presence, he kinda struck me as having lousy flow, and really, his whole appeal was in his gimmicky presentation. Similarly, both of the t.A.T.u. girls were awful vocalists with a dreary, unremarkable band, and their appeal lay solely with their gimmick. And this argument briefly emerged in my head over which musical act whose music I don't actually care about was more interesting to watch. I pretty easily chose Bone Crusher, since his music relied on gimmicks, but did so somewhat effectively, and also because I have the internet and, by extension, access to actual lesbian porn. But it's 2011. t.A.T.u. and Bone Crusher haven't had hits since 2003, and I'm inclined to think you can tie at least some of that to them being musicians who didn't have much to offer in terms of music. And that's not to say "bad" musicians never hit it big beyond one-hit wonder status, but their actual music usually offers something that appeals to their fans, even if it doesn't always appeal to someone like me. Can DiBiase's "Abbey Road" be the basketball skit? Can t.A.T.u.'s "Abbey Road" be them making out on-stage? I like DiBiase a lot. I'd really like to think he had more to offer as a wrestler than t.A.T.u. had to offer as musicians. I don't see why that has to be the analogy to music. Why can't the analogy be to someone like David Bowie? Would you say that the Ziggy Stardust persona wasn't a key part of what he was doing in 1972/3? Hasn't image always been a huge part of what made Bowie great? I mean as well as the music? In any case, I don't think the two things are as divisible as you are making out here. Wrestling matches don't exist in a vacuum, they often have a context within a storyline and the storyline WITHIN them is often driven by the clash of different personalities in the ring. Tomk actually made a great post up there - Flair in the ring behaved as he did outside of it, so did Rude, so did Dusty, etc. Point is: the persona is indivisible from the working style and you can't consider the match exclusively beyond that. Example: Bill Watts and Stagger Lee vs. The Midnight Express w/ Jim Cornette from the Mid-South Set. That is a match in which the most complex move we see is a right-handed punch. But it's an awesome match. Take the characters away and it's nothing. I think the view of both wrestling and music you give in this post is reductive. I stand by the claim that wrestling is AS MUCH about the characters and gimmicks and personalities as it is about "wrestling". The name on the marquee? Are you kidding me? "Wrestling" is not just what happens in the ring it's the whole bizarre, weird, slightly-cartoon world we've all known and loved since whenever we started watching. And that goes as much for Puro as it does for American wrestling. The conventions might be different, but you still can't take the characters out of it.

Just wondering, completely random question, but ... Has anyone ever had a pirate gimmick? I was just thinking about it this morning and I don't think there's ever been a wrestling pirate.

Why would there necessarily be a drop? What's the highest rated free-to-air wrestling TV show of all time? Is it still The Main Event from 1988? I don't necessarily buy the logic that jobbers = ratings drop. Why? Because star vs. star matches ONLY EVER MEANT ANYTHING BECAUSE OF JOBBERS. So now a star vs. star match has no value, and no meaning. What is going to sell your show? Haku vs. Bossman, who have both routinely destroyed jobbers for the past 6 months, as the main event of superstars? Or yet another random, meaningless, utterly devalued Kane vs. Cena match? I'd be interested to see WWE's ratings over the past two years vs. ratings over the period 1987-1990. Where the peaks are, and what matches were on those shows. "But ah, tastes in 1988 are different from tastes now". Nonsense, I say! If the average Joe back then could watch stars being built and protected and then mark out when they faced each other, then why can't the average Joe now? I think to suggest otherwise is to concede Vince Russo's point that the audience basically has ADHD - that they'll flick over the very moment they are bored. I think that moment has gone. The people still watching wrestling in 2011 are watching it because they are still into it and they'll watch no matter what (I mean CLEARLY, because they tolerate the rubbish they are served week in-week out). How many people do you think would actually switch off if 50% of your RAW and SD matches were jobber matches? Don't worry, you'll still get your 20-minute HHH promos and stomach-churning/ cringy Orton-crawls-like-a-snake segments, just that some people can have their chance to shine. And PPV matches can actually mean something again. I'd love to see the creative have the balls to do that. Jim Ross would do it.

I'm happy with 1983 as a starting point. It makes sense for many reasons, most of which you point out there.

Would it be out of order to ask him if he was hoping for a permanent deal when Bill Watts asked him and Dean to wrestle in that NWA tag tournament in WCW circa 1992?

Loss, let me know what needs to be done, you're probably more experienced than I am conducting these sorts of things - as well as being a "name" over at DVDR etc. Happy to help out in whatever way I can. I think we could go 1980-present for "Modern era" given that's when all the sets start. I'd be genuinely interested to see the results.

Shall we try to do it? Could be interesting to say that "non-wrestlers" are allowed to rank too, so the likes of Heenan, McMahon etc. could be considered.

I'd agree he is not a Top 10 contender in either, but on "full spectrum" I'd expect to see him in a Top 100 or even Top 50 and ranked higher than someone like Benoit. I can see that being an unpopular view, but I stand by it.

Yeah, it's all been said. If there was ever such a thing as a wrestling Satan, he would have Vince Russo's face. The guy just plain doesn't understand wrestling. Not only that, but also, he actively DISRESPECTS it. He disrespects the industry, the workers and the fans and seems to have it as his goal to destroy wrestling. He has succeeded, in my view, at least in breaking it. His legacy is one of the reasons I no longer watch the current product. As much as I dislike Eric Bischoff - another guy who doesn't seem to understand wrestling - at least he has some redeeming qualities: he was actually ok as an on-the-screen personality and booked some very solid shows (if only because he was willing to be hands-off and let another booker do it - e.g. Spring Stampede '94). Whenever I've put on TNA on random occassions, only ever for 10 minutes or so before I switch it off in disgust - it seems like a time warp. All that authority figure, GM bullshit feels dated to me. That's one of the things I'd love to see go in wrestling today, the on-air GM. At best he should be a ceremonial figure who only gets wheeled on when a MASSIVE call has to be made.

There's a non-British version of Top Gear?

That is kind of my point. But my question would be: why is that such a bad thing? Would Rick Rude be as fondly remembered if he'd just been plain old Rick Rude? When they think of Rude, do people think of first, or do they think of the Iron Match match vs. Steamboat? I think it's a mistake to have GOAT-type arguments and restrict the criteria to in-the-ring alone. I mean for a start, does in-the-ring take crowd heat into account? Because for crowd heat during a match Hogan and Warrior smoke Dean Malenko, as do Rude and DiBiase. Why should the questions be restricted to: "did they have great matches?" and "did they draw?" For me, this is one of the classic problems with the so-called "smart" approach. I honestly believe that Ric Flair wouldn't be as highly rated as he is were it not for his persona, incredible mic-work and ability to get a reaction from the crowd. If he was just plain old Richard Flare during all those great matches, surely we'd think of him much more like a Backlund or a Dory Funk Jr. Who disagrees? Who agrees?

But my point jdw, is that with a wrestler it isn't as simple as saying matches = their "works". What about great promos, skits and so on? Why can't, for example, DiBiase's "Abbey Road" be the Basket ball skit? Did I just ask that question? Ha ha.

Virgil has a 100% Mania record.

I should probably qualify what I said about Americans liking football. I meant no disrespect by it. It's just that whenever we hear Americans talking about "soccer", they apply terminology from American sports. "Offence" and "DEEEfence", things like that. "That was a real nice kick!" I dunno, they just say things you'd never ever hear said here. The language of football in Britain is very idiomatic. Pretty much any interview from any manager reveals this instantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bn8kXyWK4 That's just the first one that came up. So hearing it spoken about with a different set of terms with an American accent is always very comical. Likewise, it's always really strange to hear a British person in Wrestling - Davey Boy or Regal. Especially Regal, because he's booked as an aristocrat but blatantly speaks with a Midlands accent rather than a posh one.

Passed with flying colours

Don't want to come across like a dick here, I mean I'm a Brit who loves American wrestling, but I've always been slightly amused by the notion of American "soccer" fans. So I just want to test your credentials real quick here John. If you're as big a Man U fan as you say you are, who was United's and England's right-back before Gary Neville? I'd want you to answer that almost instantly. Almost like who did Rick Rude beat for the IC title at WM5, y'know? That should be instant knowledge for anyone who has followed the game since 1992, not least a Man U fan. I'm a massive football fan by the way - and get this - I've never had a team. I don't support anyone which is admittedly highly unusual but I have my reasons. And I agree with the notion that there are really two types of fans: fans who only care about their team, who tend to have a narrow fairly parochial view of the game, and then "proper" fans. The sort of fan who'd be excited to watch, I dunno, say Milan vs. Barcelona in a random Champions League game. Often the latter type will have a team they follow, but do not try to transmute any and all footy chat to that team. EDIT: Incidentally, my football fandom is in a bit of a slump at the minute. Probably parallel with jdw's wrestling fandom slump. Once upon I time I could name the first XI of pretty much any team across Europe, now I'd probably struggle with anyone outside the top 4 of the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A.

Just to go back to the OP for a second, one thing people haven't mention in this thread is that the size and basic assets of the two guys involved already tells half the story. If you watch classic NWA - with Schiavone or Ross on commentary. Or any event on which Jesse Ventura is on colour, this never fails to come through. If there's a size or power mismatch, then the smaller, weaker guy needs to work out a strategy to compensate for that. For me, that's where the story starts. I blame commentary for not selling this type of thing enough since the mid-90s. I mean Schiavone used to be amazing talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors as they'd lock up. How much weight one guy was giving to another and so on. And when what you were seeing in the ring matched up with the analysis, that's some great storytelling. I don't know if it's that in the Attitude Era guys stopped working in that way, or if they just stopped pointing it out, but "storytelling" to me means THAT.

Again, Arn is close to being a total package for me, but for me a phoned-in Arn match is often worse than a phoned-in DiBiase match. Arn had a lot of matches against good opposition which, for whatever reason, didn't take off. I put that down to charisma alone, which is kind of a hard to define X-factor. I properly LOVE Arn, great psychology, probably the best worked "intelligent"/ thinking-man's heel there has been, but I don't think he had "X-factor" charisma, whereas I think DiBiase did. This isn't about playing an over-the-top character, it's just about a little something. I mean if we were to do a pound-for-pound break down of DiBiase vs. AA, for me it'd go something like this: All round in-ring ability: equal Psychology: Arn Workrate: DiBiase Mic work: Arn Charisma: DiBiase Working-the-crowd: DiBiase That's probably not an exhaustive list of assessable traits, but the point is that for me it is a close calll. If you then had "matches" as a measurable then probably Arn wins on that - if you accept the idea that DiBiase had a dozen great matches in Mid-South and 0 in the WWF - but then he worked most of his career in NWA and against some of the best tag-teams. There is scope to be subtle and I think Malenko had some charisma. But even being as generous as you can be, he is absolutely incomparible to a Flair or Hogan (through the roof charisma) or even to an Arn. What's the best example of a guy who was subtly charismatic? Jake Roberts. He never shouted from the rooftops. I stand by my assessment of Benoit though. No charisma at all for my money. He had intensity, but that that was about it. So if I was to do my pound-for-pound Arn vs. Benoit it'd be more like: All round in-ring ability: Benoit Psychology: Arn Workrate: Benoit Mic work: Arn Charisma: Arn Working-the-crowd: Arn To my mind, Benoit isn't even in the GOAT discussion. If it's GOAT purely for workrate, then sure, but if it's total package not close to the Top 50. This seems to be quite at odds with how I see most people discussing these things.

The recent DiBiase talk has precipitated this question. For me, DiBiase is close to being a total package. Incredibly solid in the ring, both as a brawler and as a technician (don't quite understand the arguments against the latter, his execution of the basics - suplexes, piledrivers, backbreakers, that SWEET powerslam, etc. - is pretty much perfect), he can talk with the best of them, he can act, he has natural charisma, he can work the crowd into a frenzy - what more do you want in a wrestler? I say "close", because he's probably more like a B+/A- in most of those areas than an A*. But from the conversations we've been having here, he'd automatically be disqualified from GOAT-type conversations because he never applied those skills to produce a great match. But when the match is only one part of the product, does that matter? Can we not say that DiBiase (for example) had some ***** skits (e.g. basketball one)? And if not, why doesn't it work like that? Wouldn't he be on, like, your top 5 or 10 heels list? Wouldn't Heenan? For me, I'd easily, and I mean EASILY rate those guys above a charisma blackhole like Benoit. Doesn't matter how many german suplexes he did. I mean the obvious example is not DiBiase, really, it's Hogan. While his in-ring work IS underappreciated (I think he's a much better seller than he's often credited for), he was never amazing in the ring. Why don't we talk about ***** promos like we talk about ***** matches?

I, for one, am fascinated with how in the space of 6 years fans could go from cheering Hogan or "Lex Express" against Yokozuna to booing the All-American, milk-drinking, vitamin-taking, Olympic hero Kurt Angle and cheering a character like Austin. It's the complete reversal of family values. But you see it across American culture of the period. Look at something like Batman in the 90s. By 1999, Bruce Wayne/Batman is as dark and twisted himself as any of the psychotic villains he faces. I think it was a cultural moment in which which traditional morality was flipped on its head. George Bush Sr. famously talked about wanting Americans to be more like the Waltons than the Simpsons. By 1999, Bill Clinton was telling us he did not have sexual relations with that woman and Jerry Springer was on TV 5-days a week as myriad couples wore infidelity on their sleeves and were proud of it. What slightly amuses me about this moment, however, is how sanitized it all was. This wasn't proper counter-culture a la the late 50s or 1960s, this was the similacrum of counter-culture. An ersatz version of it borne of a certain kind of individualistic thinking. So what counted as "evil" in 1985 was someone attacking traditional family values. What counted as "evil" in 1999 was someone stopping you doing what you wanted to be doing. I am convinced there is a great academic book to be written about wrestling one day.

So this topic was completely no sold. I suppose what I was looking for more than anything was for people to DESCRIBE each of the different territories. At this point my only real exposure has been to Mid-South since getting the set. I have some vague impressions of what some of the others are like but would like to see what people say. AWA seems to be more of a gimmicky-type promotion. More for talkers and big characters like Heenan, Ventura, Okerlund and so on. It seems to me to be the "most like WWF" of the territories, if that makes any sense. Also, a lot of older workers for some reason. CWA - I have no real idea beyond the general impression that Lawler is in every single match. World Class - So WWE seem to like showing lots of clips from Texas on the Legends of Wrestling show. I always just think of that big stadium and Freebirds vs. The Von Erichs. I don't have a strong impression of what the product was LIKE beyond that. St. Louis - no idea Portland - no idea Florida - very little impression apart from knowing it was dominated by Dusty Rhodes and that Solie was the main commentator. And that Eddie Graham was a tragic figure. Georgia - this is the one I'm most confused about because to my mind it's just the precursor to the classic JCP "World Championship Wrestling" show we see in all the Horsemen promos. I also know Solie was the main commentator here too. I've never been clear on the difference between this and JCP in the early 80s. Obviously, in time my intention is to watch as much footage as I can and to get all of the different sets, but since that's pretty much going to be a 10-year project, any help in helping me get a picture of the style and type of promotions each of these were would be much appreciated. This is the sort of thing you can't just look up, you know.

Don't know if it was just me but I thought both Orndorff and Steamer were REALLY intense in that match. I mean to the point where the thought of a heel Steamboat actually flickered through my mind. I might be the only guy around who really digs Orndorff in his WCW run. He seems a lot angier than his 80s incarnation. Permanent chip on his shoulder. And like I said: INTENSITY. Might not be "great" matches, but he has decent stuff in almost all his PPV appearances apart from a completely random match against Muta in 95 and of couse vs. The Renegade. He's even good tagging with Shockmaster against Steamboat and Regal at Battlebowl (92). People seem really down on Orndorff here.

Not saying this would ever happen, but how's this for a pair of ideas: 1. Undertaker nearing his 50s, or even after he is 50, changes his character significantly. Now being old, he can no longer dominate opponents as he once did, but instread had to rely on more classic heel tactics. He starts getting really cheap wins on DQs and countouts. Maybe he has an outside of the ring enforcer to help him out. One Wrestlemania he continues his streak CHEAPLY. By DQ or countout. And it's obviously cheap. This cheap, old Undertaker gimmick lasts a whole year. Fans do not like him at all. Then you can book WHOEVER to beat him because everyone will want to see him beat. Is that unreastically old school? 2. Flip it. Instead someone like a Jericho is playing more of a classic chicken-shit and one year, instead of going for a big finish or something, he ends the The Streak with a CHEAP win. DQ, countout, something horrible. IWC would explode. Fans would riot. Next week Jericho (or whoever) starts bragging about the fact he ended The Streak (despite it being the cheapest win ever): Feud of the Decade follows.

You guys don't think any of the 1988 series with Savage were great matches? There's a good 10-minute Dustin Rhodes match from early '91. Dustin was very green in that match too. I also think the the crowd reaction of the Virgil matches and just how OVER Virgil was in 1991 are testament to his sheer ability. Matches with Jake and Warrior are at least ***. Isn't that the point though? He wasn't a guy you put in there with Stamboat. He was a guy you put in there with Warrior or Virgil or a green Dustin Rhodes, or Boss Man. Or Hogan even. And he'd give you the best possible match that guy could have. Isn't that the definition of a broomstick worker? Aren't his performances in those matches "great"? Ok, Flair could carry Luger to a ****+ match, but Luger was a lot better than Warrior or Virgil.