JerryvonKramer

I think a large part of this for me comes down to the character itself. I mean out of all the xenophobic gimmicks, that one has got to be the worst. Why was Kamala a heel? Did people watching him actually believe that you could have a "savage" out of the "dark heart" of Africa? So just on a purely political level, I hate that role. Even more than the Iranian Iron Sheik playing the Iraqi Col. Mustafa or the flat-out embarrassing Hassan vs. JR and Lawler "debate" years later. Once you get past that and accept that that was the role and simply look at the way Kamala played it, sure he was reasonably effective at it. But does effectively playing your role automatically constitute a great match? People say DiBiase never had a great match in WWF (he did imo, vs. Savage Wrestlefest 88), and I don't think anyone ever played a role as well as he did as the Million Dollar Man. Hell, Brutus Beefcake was effective in his role. But does that mean DiBiase vs. Beefcake from Wrestlemania 5 was a good match? Do you see where I'm going here? I don't think any of the Kamala matches I've seen get even close to DiBiase / Beefcake, and that's not even a good match. I suppose the question is: CAN you have a good match involving a guy with Kamala's moveset and general ability? I always think of Kamala's style of taking bumps to be at best "very unusual". It's like George Steele - his style was so unorthodox and "crazy" that most matches inolving him unravel at some piont. I dunno, for me, if I see Kamala's name on a card, I know that there's going to be at least one nothing match on the show. This has nothing to do with his build or "workrate" by the way - I'd even say I've seen a few good John Tenta matches. I'm saying that the Kamala gimmick, moveset and general style is incapable of creating a good match.

Are you kidding me? Pretty much every Kamala match I've ever seen whether it be 80s WWF, early 90s WWF, or mid-90s WCW (Dungeon of Doom) has sucked. What would you say was good about Kamala? I'm having a hard time believing his Memphis stuff is any better than his mid-80s WWF stuff.

So on one of the podcasts, Will and Phil claimed that Butch Reed is the best black worker ever. With Too Cold Scorpio and the Rock 2nd and 3rd. I'm just wondering who else you think might be legitimately in the conversation. Has anyone seen any early Ernie Ladd?

So most of the following are guys who are just worthless to my mind, I'm wondering if any of them ever had anything of note in the territories or even in the WWF or Crockett. I'll just make one thing clear before I start this, I hate wild man gimmicks. Always have always will. I'm not talking about Terry Funk here, I'm talking about when a wrestler is depicted as some sort of indigenous "savage" or as being mentally retarded in some way -- only one I've got any time for really is Rick Steiner. Here's goes: George "the Animal" Steele Afa or Sika (singles) Kamala Uncle Elmer Hillbilly Jim Dino Bravo Fred Ottman Nikolai Volkoff Boris Zhukov Soul Train Jones / Virgil (other than vs. DiBiase) Mr. Fuji (never really seen him other than vs. Demolition and vs. Steamboat on SNME) I'll leave it there. But there are probably 20-30 more guys I could add to this list.

I think there's still something to be said for Pillman in 95 too, he was entertaining as hell.

Alright, so as I've said, I'm very down on the current mainstream product and have been really for a long time now. Going on for about 10 years now. The reasons for wrestling being "broken" now have been noted many times before by many people - meaningless titles, too many PPVs, every wrestler being invincible/ able to take 2-3 finishers at big shows, underselling, the total eradication of any semblance of realism, the death of kayfabe, the inability to run long angles, the fact that we seem to be perpetually stuck in the same moment, etc. etc. I've given up a long time ago, hell, I mean even if someone told me that WWE was the best it's ever been, I couldn't bring myself to watch it. The music and presentation style alone is enough for me to hate just about every thing about it. But, anyway, one thing people don't point to all that often is the good old-fashioned "wimpy". I guess these were phased out in the Monday Night War era, when every match became a star vs. star match and you had massive marquee matches just happening on random free TV every week. Generally no one complains because jobber matches sucked, right? Or did they? Against a jobber, you can generally get to see a guy's main repertoire, his chief offense - what a "routine win" for that guy looks like. You know if it's say, a WWF DiBiase match against a jobber, you'll get a suplex, a piledriver, a falling fistdrop, maybe a backbreaker or that sweet powerslam, axe-handle from the second rope, million dollar dream, $100 bill in the mouth. That shows you in 5 minutes how this guy can really hurt you. So the five other squash matches you got in a row back on Prime Time or Worldwide or whatever all served the same function. More importantly, they were keeping the big stars, even the midcarders, separated so when they actually got to the big blow off matches it actually meant something. Even like Dino Bravo vs. Greg Valentine could feel like a big deal in the "main event anywhere in the country" match at the end of the show. After a few years of this, almost every guy on the roster, including Koko B. Ware, could seem like legit stars. Ok, so Koko isn't going to be beating Mr. Perfect any time soon, but he'll still beat Iron Mike Sharpe, Barry Horowitz and SD Jones. (not sure why, but I always thought SD Jones was like the toughest of the jobbers, like the one who might possibly cause an upset -- he might have actually been the lowest on the roster you could be without being a pure jobber.) More importantly, it saves most of the roster from getting over-exposed. If you think about it, on any given night, you'll only see at best half the roster on TV in any given week, maybe even less. Maybe you only got Hogan once or twice a month. Whether or not we enjoy jobber matches, this seems to me to be the most logical way of building momentum for wrestlers and for selling PPVs. I don't know if it's ever possible to go back, but what are the arguments AGAINST the above? Seems to me that from the promotions point of view, you are just making life as difficult as possible for yourself.

How about Hacksaw Jim Duggan for this? Basically for his entire post-Mid South career? Any thoughts? Or was he just playing the character he was supposed to? Also, and this is something no one ever ever says, but how about Regal early in his WCW run? He had a lot of matches against top top talent at that time, including Steamboat and Austin, but none of those matches rise above about the ** mark, despite going more that 15 mins. The ONLY great match of his from this period is against Bulldog in 1993. Not sure if he was de-motivated or just green, but I've been very disappointed with early Lord Steven Regal on the whole.

I was actually considering mentioning Marc Mero for the forgotten/underrated workers thread. I think he was really quite good by this stage. The idea that Diamond Doll was the real winner of the money was teased here but not confirmed. A lot of this stuff from 95 is new to me as I was completely not watching around that time.

Ok, so as I mentioned before and as you can see from my sig, I've been embarking on a little project for the past 18 months or so to watch every single WCW PPV from Wrestlewar '91 onwards. Kind of an arbitrary starting date, but I think 91 was generally when WCW really branded itself as a distinct entity from NWA, even if Turner had owned it since 88. My basic motivation for doing this (see here) was, in short, to fill in the massive gaps in what I'd seen from WCW. Being from the UK, we got Worldwide here, but never got the PPVs. Very frustrating, I'd have to wait till PWI or another of the mags hit my little town, and the programming was usually about 7-8 months behind where the mags were so it was all really hard to follow. I was GUTTED to miss the Dangerous Alliance War Games match, for example. So when all these had become available through the internet, this was my big change to "catch up". As I got into these shows, I started making some small notes to capture my reactions to each show. These are sort of crap little review things, of little to no worth, but since there are very few sites out there systematically reviewing the WCW PPVs of this period, I thought I might as well stick them on my site. I accept that my analysis is hardly stunning, but I do think I offer a slightly different take on things from the general IWC orthodoxy. Since I've joined this site, might as well post each new review as it comes. I'm very very slow on these things, because I'm busy and wrestling competes with many other interests for the small amount of spare time I have but would like to hear your memories of these shows or if you have any profound agreements or disagreements with the stuff I say. Again, I accept I'm no Meltzer here, and I'm proud of being no Scott Keith, don't even give star ratings most of the time, I'm just noting my reactions as I come to these shows freshly and nothing else. As I've joined you, I'm up to Halloween Havoc. The review on the site is here, but I'll also paste it to save you clicking: I have to say, I really really enjoyed this show. It's 1995 WCW, so I went in expecting absolutely nothing, but there's some decent wrestling here and a few real laugh out loud moments, whacky booking and one stone cold classic moment of wrestlecrap. Badd vs. DDP surprised me, after a lack lustre first five minutes or so, I sighed a little bit. Badd seemed to open every PPV for the past three years in TV title matches where he was the nearly-but-not-quite face challenger. Anyway, suddenly the pace picks up a bit and these two really go at it for about 15 minutes. The execution isn't perfect from either guy, but I genuinely didn't know which way this was going to go and I was into it. Easy *** for me. On a side note, how long did DDP have to be with Kimberly/ Diamond Doll before he realised that she just wasn't supporting him? She'd been booked pretty solidly as a face manager who hated her man for about 3 or 4 months before this. Watching it, I couldn't help but wonder "well, if you hate him that much honey, stop gold-digging and leave him!" I mean what was the moral core of Kimberly meant to be at this point? Is it ok to be two-faced on the side of the ring, but still keeping playing DDP to take your pay check? Savage vs. Zodiac (subbing for Kamala) is just a blank, as you'd expect, but I don't understand the point of saying "IF Savage beats Zodiac and IF Luger beats Meng, then they get to face each other" - I mean, was there ever any doubt that that would happen? It doesn't make sense at all to make the condition one way: if they are going to do a conditional, any contingency should be possible (i.e. Zodiac vs. Meng should have been a hypothetical possibility), just to keep some semblance of verisimilitude alive here. Anyway, Savage cuts a really incoherent, even crazier than normal promo, in which he sort of challenges Hogan for the belt while criticising the angle of Gene Okerlund's mustache (I am not kidding here). Then Mean Gene, who is in a sort of irritable mood this evening, snipes back attacking Macho's beard. You couldn't make this stuff up. I was really confused for much of this PPV, but still vaguely enjoying what was going on in a state of bemusement. Hawk vs. Kurosawa (Manabu Nakanishi) is a little curious. It's pretty short and Hawk jobs reasonably cleanly, which is something I have never seen and neither was I expecting it. So does that mean Kurosawa was being pushed here? Who knows. Also, I'm consistently surprised at how late Col. Parker stuck around. We're in November 1995 here and Parker is still making PPV appearances. What became of the Sherri love angle? Where are Harlem Heat tonight? Nevermind. I was pretty surprised to see both Sabu and The Sheik on this show. Pretty random, and seems like a one-shot deal because they were in Detroit. I thought this match against Mr. JL (Jerry Lynn) was pretty sloppy. Just seemed disjointed and like a short spotfest to me. Also, the camera seems to miss the Sheik's fireball, even on the replay. Heenan sells it like the most incredible thing he's ever seen. Heenan is in quite an annoying mood this evening too, more on that later. Next a promo from THE MASTER and THE TASK MASTER who are in the Dungeon of Doom. No idea what's going on at this point. The Master shouts lots. Luger vs. Meng is again short and there is intrigue as Sullivan interferes to ensure Luger wins and costs Meng the match. Shenanigans are afoot! Match of the night is Arn and Pillman vs. Sting and Flair. Flair is injured so this is a handicap match to start. Sting seems to fare well against both of them for a good 6 or 7 minutes. I mean the heels get no offence in at all. Then Flair shows up. Cue lots double teaming from Pillman and Arn as Sting plays face in peril for the next 15 minutes. Terrific stuff this. Heel Pillman is just so awesome. He's a real cock y'know, I love it. Love the dynamic between him and Anderson here too. A lot of classic Horsemen style double teaming here, and the crowd is just electric with the "WE WANT FLAIR" chants and Heenan is selling it like a madman. Then when Sting finally makes the hot tag, it's a great double cross. I should have seen that coming but I didn't, and it made me laugh for about two or three minutes. LOVED this. **** for me for the entertainment alone. Real 80s NWA style. Then there's the Monster Truck "Sumo match" on the Roof! Eric Bischoff is here inexplicably to take over commentary just for this one segment with the guy who designed these trucks, who also happens to be a charisma void. The monster truck duel is just bizarre. Anyway, I had a little mark out moment when Giant fell off the roof. You've got to remember I've been watching WCW shows from 1991 on pretty much solidly now for about 2 years, so this stuff is shocking to me -- I'm sort of experiencing it as a fan back then might. In the aftermath, I laughed at Bischoff's worked shoot panic and Heenan's complete overselling. As a side point here, I can't believe that throughout 1995 WCW consistently tried to get over the fact Paul "The Giant" Wight was Andre's son. It's so absurd on any number of levels, a) he's blatantly not Andre's son and b ) the comparison massively draws attention to Wrestlemania 3 and, basically, the competition. Schiavone even mentions the Pontiac Silverdome at one point. What were they playing at here? Compare that to how Vince treated NWA guys like Harley Race, where he'd repackage them and essentially erase their histories and you can see clearly that WWF in the 80s had the confidence to do its own thing, whereas WCW in the mid-90s felt the need to hark back to the successes of its main rival in order to get over. This pisses me off really, and it's Uncle Eric all over. Why didn't he have the confidence to let WCW be WCW? That Arn and Pillman vs. Flair and Sting match was NWA/ WCW through and through, and by far the best thing on the card. Not only that, the crowd were WILD for that match, much wilder than they are for any of the Hogan/ Dungeon of Doom bullshit. So why not maintain the identity you have? Why try to be WWF circa 1987? Anyway, before the main event, there's the quick business of Luger vs. Savage to deal with. Now on any other show from about 1988 till 1994, Savage vs. Luger would have been a massive deal. I mean you could probably have main evented Wrestlemania with that match. But here's it's just nothing, just a throwaway. Jimmy Hart -- in case you've forgotten, Hogan's manager at this time -- comes down to interfere, creating MORE intrigue. He seems to want to tell Luger something, but ... anyway, Savage wins. GREAT PLAN SULLIVAN! Let me get this right, you deliberately caused Meng to lose to Luger only for Luger to lose to Savage? What was the point then? Why didn't you come down or send someone just to make sure? Or was Jimmy Hart the person you sent? Hmmmmm .... Another side note: Savage's elbow looked really poor on this show, the angle wasn't right, he usually got a lot more elevation on the jump. Savage looks like he's winding down by this stage, not even the same worker he was at Wrestlemania X just a year earlier. So now it's time for the main event. I should mention here that Hogan has been wearing black on this PPV with NO MUSTACHE! This is the little-remembered "darkside" Hogan (here's a thread on it). So first there is the speculation as to whether the Giant is dead. I mean he has fallen five stories. But NO! He's ALIVE! He's immortal! Hogan uses a lot of heel tactics in this match - raking the back, gouge to the eyes, biting, thumbs to the throat - curiously Fat Tony completely neglects to mention this, unlike whenever Hogan "lost it" in the WWF when they'd go to town on the fact that Hulk clearly means business (trying to remember when he did this before, I think vs. Slaughter?). Anyway, a huge amount of stuff happens at the end here, some of it alright, some of it hilariously bad. First of all, Jimmy Hart finally turns heel by knocking out the ref to interrupt the pin count after Hogan has dropped the leg. This would have been a lot more effective and surprising if they hadn't TELEGRAPHED it in the Savage / Luger match. Secondly, Luger and Savage hit the ring, and -- to the surprise of no one -- Luger double crosses Savage because he has allied himself with evil Jimmy Hart and The Dungeon of Doom. The only element of surprise here is that they teased a possible Savage heel turn earlier in the show, so there was at least a tiny question mark over whether he'd help Hogan. Then ... an all-time classic moment. A very tall man wrapped in bandages walks down the isle like a mummy and Tony Schiavone completely loses it: "THE YHHEETTTTAAAAYYYY!! It's THE YYHHEETTTAAAYYYY!". First of all, why can't Schiavone say "Yeti"? That had me in stitches. Secondly, what the flying fuck is this guy now? The Yeti?! Why's he costumed like an undead mummy then? Thirdly, why does his offence consist solely of the gayest looking bearhug I've ever seen? On what planet does standing with your arms around someone and sort of humping their back as a dog might do constitute damage? Do you know what it reminds me of ... the enemies from the old NES game Kung Fu. Fourthly, WHY is he there? I mean plot point 1: Jimmy Hart has just double-crossed Hogan and united with Sullivan and plot point 2: Lex Luger has just turned on both Savage and Hogan, given them both torture racks, and joined the Dungeon of Doom too! Did we need plot point 3: The YHETAY comes out for, well, basically no reason? Made me laugh though, so I guess it was worth it. So the Horsemen reuniting and that match itself are awesome. Everything else here is symptomatic of the best and the worst of WCW in 1995. Unlike some of the other shows from 95 which are just bad and boring, at least this one is funny and goofy and brings the wrestlecrap thick and fast. And in a way, the storytelling, while completely overbooked, is actually compelling because I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen next. The Luger/ Jimmy Hart/ Dungeon of Doom angle was reasonably interesting as was Savage teasing a bit of heelishness or at least tweenerness early on. This felt to me like more promising things were round the corner - 95 was a pretty bad year, and with the Horsemen back together with awesome heel Pillman as a member, Sting still getting crazy heat, simmering tensions between Savage and Hogan and an ambitious Lex Luger backed by Sullivan and co, the possibilities were at least decent. I can imagine this being a bit less entertaining if you watched it cold though - I think a lot of my enjoyment derives from the fact I saw this in sequence.

So one thing I've been looking to do of late was get more into the territories-era stuff. I'm looking for you to rank AWA, Georgia, Memphis, World Class, Florida and Mid-South, and give a few reasons for why you'd rank them that way. Also, would you rank any of them above the WWF or Crockett taking the whole of the 80s into account?

How about Windham himself after about 1993/4? I don't think there was a guy who could put on weight and get out of shape quicker than Windham. His WWF run around 96 is horrendous. Actually, Windham seemed to have stopped caring in 93, even while he had the NWA belt. I'm probably going to get ripped apart for saying this, but for me Barry's just about the most overrated guy going because for at least half his career he just didn't seem at the races at all. That said, I love his suplex into a pin every time I see it.

Douglas and Steamboat against Austin and Pillman at Clash 22 is pretty good. And at the next clash Flair and Arn vs. Austin and Pillman, 2 out of 3 falls. The Clashes of 1993 were generally better than the PPVs.

Which version of the Orient Express do you think was better, the Sato/ Tanaka one or the Kato/ Tanka one (aka Badd Company)? While we're on this subject, what do people think of the early 80s Mr. Fuji/ Mr. Saito team?

Hi Phil, sorry to keep bugging you man - I've been locked out of my account. It's saying for -393 minutes Is it always so hard to get on DVDR? I'm guessing you validated the "Dr. Jerryvonkramer" one right? Your PM inbox is full.

Have you seen Valentine in WCW after his WWF run? I quite liked his feud with Ron Garvin though.

Oh you're right it was Uncle Elmer!

I think his WCW does is very overlooked. He has a great intensity, and even has quite a decent falls count anywhere match vs. Cactus Jack. I think Orndorff after he came back from the injury is sort of "forgotten". As for all the praise of Dustin Rhodes during his "natural" period, I find him quite a boring worker to be honest. I mean even with a very good opponent, the matches tend towards being a bit dull. And that King of the Road match against Blacktop Bully on the truck is a contender for worst of all time. I find Dustin Rhodes very middling to be honest. As for forgotten workers, how about Alex Wright? He had a lame gimmick ("Das Wunderkind") but he was not bad at all. Here are a few other guys I'd be interested to know what people think of in general: Tom Zenk The Orient Express (Sato and Tanaka) Maxx Payne Shanghai Pierce Haku / Meng Craig Pittman Dick Slater Just interested to know what people make of these guys.

One thing I've always interested in, is when you see a guy who has clearly come to the end of his run in one of the major feds -- a good year or two past his sell-by date -- who is being used as a jobber to the stars. Often a sad sight to see, but I'm trying think of the best possible example of that. A guy where you can just see the fire has gone out of his eyes. I'm thinking Hercules Hernandez in 1992. He was in a pretty sad state of affairs. Look at this Survivor Series team from 1991: That's Col. Mustafa (Iron Sheik), who also had a very sad run well into 1992, fat, out of shape and over-the-hill, jobbing in a string of 2-3 minute squash matches. I heard this one match where Alfred Hayes just BURIED him. Things must be bad if you're getting buried by Lord Alfred Hayes and Sean Mooney. (EDIT: I found it, vs. Ricky Steamboat in 1991: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xaf0eb_th...-vs-col-m_sport about 3.40 minutes in, Hayes goes on about how fat Mustafa is for about about a minute, the Mooney points out Mustafa's long string of recent defeats.) Then going clockwise: The Berzerker, The Bully and Skinner. Arguably the worst ever Survivor Series team. And poor Herc was a sub for this match! He replaced The Bully at the last minute. He must have been so low here. This is his last match for the WWF against Sid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7mZChJZ1io Just no sells a powerbomb and walks out. Really sorry looking. Can't think of another guy to look that dejected. WWF had a lot of the old 80s guys in these sorts of roles circa 1992. Dino Bravo was still around.; Virgil; Sanatana as El Matador; Nikolai Volkoff. I have a morbid fascination with this sort of thing. Ken Patera in 1988. Tommy Rich in 1992. Buddy Landell in 1996. Bobby Eaton in 2000. Perhaps my all-time favourite example is Jerry Valiant getting squashed in 8 seconds vs. Bundy on SNME in 1986. Sad figure.

Hi guys, I'm a new listener to this pod who got here through Flairchop. As I said on there, this is a great show and Will and Rob have such a staggering knowledge of everything that it blows me away most of the time. Really really like Lars when he's on too. Just a bit of an intro about myself, I love 80s and 90s wrestling and talking about it. I have a little website which has a little wrestling section (http://www.parviniworld.110mb.com/wrestlecrap.html) and I give a little run down of my background as a fan here. I'm a pretty strange fan. I'm from the UK, I don't think I know another real fan in real life, at best they'd have "memories" of wrestling, by which they are talking about WWF circa 1991-2, when wrestling was big here. I have a PhD in English literature - I tell you this because one thing is patently clear: I'm not the intended target audience for American wrestling. I'm an over educated middle-class Brit, wrestling is designed for working class Red-state America. This means my views and tastes as a fan are somewhat twisted. For a start, even as a little kid I supported heels 100%. My favourite wrestler was Ted DiBiase. I hated Hogan and Warrior. I'd share Jesse Ventura's pain when he complained about little bits of hypocrisy from the faces. I ABSOLUTELY DESPISED Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Secondly, my love of wrestling is mixed with a kind of detached irony. I mean it fascinates me as an insight into a set of cultural values. Which is to say, that there's always be a part of me that will chuckle at the brand of morality wrestling gives us. Thirdly, I'm not a workrate junky or a "smart" fan. I can appreciate great booking and great storytelling as well as great matches. But there's also a bit of me that really appreciates the crap, y'know. Junkyard Dog and Jimmy Hart having a waterslide race on SNME, y'know? That sort of thing. Also, I get really wound up by people who insist on calling every submission attempt a "rest hold" and a lot of little things like that. From what I've heard from Will and Rob on the pod, those guys don't have that "internet smark" mentality that annoys me sometimes. Which is to say, they properly understand wrestling - probably much better than I do, to be honest. Fourthly, I've basically given up on wrestling since 2001. Haven't watched Raw or Smackdown since 2004, last PPV I saw was Wrestlemania 25 and that was the first in a long time. Have practically thrown up on my TV screen whenever I've put TNA on. Have zero knowledge in the indies. I am not sure if this is a sensible position, but it does mitigate almost everything I'll have to say. I know the names of modern wrestlers and roughly what they are like and how they are thought of, like I know who Dolph Ziggler is, but really I've got no interest in anything wrestling has to offer today. It's become something other than the thing I love. I think it's been irredeemably "broken" by the death of kayfabe and the fact that for some reason every wrestler now has to have a certain youthfulness and look. I'm so down on what it has become now, that I should stop here because I don't want to get into any big arguments with people after my first post! NB. Will, my DVDR registration doesn't seem to have activated. Not sure if I'll post there or here more. They both seem like the wrestling boards I've been looking for, for the past decade. I posted a lot on the Wrestlecrap forums a couple of years ago, but still too many Attitude Era/ pure modern fans there for my tastes.