mookeighana

Well, if you're getting technical, the highest ratings for Wrestling in Japan ever were for Destroyer matches (5/24/63 and 2/26/65) - see #4 and #34 on the page marked #14: https://www.videor.co.jp/rating/wh/rgb201111.pdf which had 64.0% and 51.2% ratings respectively. I can't read Japanese, but the Japanese Wikipedia page about TV Ratings does specifically call out the NJPW Tiger Mask/Riki Choshu era in the "Friday 8:00 War" section so I infer that early 80s was a high point for modern professional wrestling on Japanese Television (I think around a 20% rating?). By the late 80s, it seems like the rating might have dropped to 5-10% which was considered poor.

(Apologies up front for flooding this thread with posts) I did find this tidbit connected to "Nagayo Chigusa" for "What happened - my heart" http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/237429...king/cd_single/ I'm not sure what that means - they hit #63 one week in 1988 ?

I found this article about Brody's death in the 1980s, and decided to post it here. Indeed. The Night the Fun Was Drained Out of Pro Wrestling Ostler, Scott. Los Angeles Times 20 July 1988

The book was published in 2000, so these numbers are obviously reflecting a situation at least a decade old, but it's an interesting piece of context. I found a 1982 NY Times article about Dallas failing on Japanese TV which has a similar tone: 'DALLAS' STRIKES NO OIL ON JAPANESE TV Lohr, Steve. New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) [New York, N.Y] 10 Feb 1982: C.30. A 1986 article about Miami Vice, also failing in the Japanese market had a similar tone: MIAMI VICE' FAILS TO SNARE JAPANESE TV VIEWERS: [sUN-SENTINEL Edition] SCHWEISBERG, DAVID R. Sun Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale] 31 Oct 1986: 12E. Now the question is, did the WSJ not understand that a 12 rating isn't that spectacular, or is the context being misconstrued?

I'm back in the old article hunt. I found an NY Times article from November 1989 titled (what brilliance!) "THIS IS NOT REAL" Kleinfield, N R. New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) [New York, N.Y] 26 Nov 1989: A.1. Two highlights:

I found an oblique reference to a lawsuit involving Mark Madden and the WCW Hotline (ruled on in July 1998): Wrestling Producer's Reporter Not Covered by Reporter's Privilege ( News Media & the Law. 22.4 (Fall 1998): p7-8. ) It appears this is related to the WWF/WCW Lawsuits of the time around when Kevin Nash/Scott Hall jumped ship and something said by Mark Madden on the hotline, possibly this quote from the lawsuit: You can read the court's decision on whether Madden was determined to be protected by Journalist shield laws here.. Favorite line:

For what it's worth, there's a book "5,110 Days in Tokyo and Everything's Hunky-Dory: The Marketer's Guide to Advertising in Japan" by (honest-to-god) Sean Mooney which makes this claim about Japanese TV Ratings (page 97) The book was published in 2000, so these numbers are obviously reflecting a situation at least a decade old, but it's an interesting piece of context.

I also found a St Petersburg Times 9/16/92 article that mentions the Crush Gals but there wasn't much that jumped out to me: Shah, R. (1992, Sep 16). Japanese women have fighting spirit series: COLUMN ONE. St.Petersburg Times by Reena Shah

There's a WSJ article about the Crush Gals that is frequently cited which is the source for some claims like the 12 share rating. I finally found a copy of it: WSJ: Japan's Crush Gals Croon Sweet Songs Before Crushing Foes --- Women Pro Wrestlers Start Matches With Decorum, But It Doesn't Last Long By Stephen Kreider Yoder. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 10 Sep 1986: 1. There's some other articles from the time period that mention that Crush Gals but unfortunately I don't have access to the article full text including: Snyder, J. (1987, Sep 20). DUMP MATSUMOTO: EVIL QUEEN OF JAPANESE WRESTLING. Seattle Times. Neilan, E. (1987, Apr 26). Japanese schoolgirls go wild over 'dump'. San Francisco Chronicle (I love the fact the writer is implying the old "blood capsules" or other fake blood origin. It's ketchup I tell ya!)

Is Booker the only wrestler to feud over the rights to a letter and a shampoo commercial? Hopefully, Mookie can pore through his records and give us a definitive answer on this. I found lotion contract and a Roman Numeral with Bobby Blaze.

And keep in mind that a lot of territories were getting paid by local television stations (and in turn local advertisers) to tape & show pro-wrestling. Vince comes in and promises to pay the stations (syndication) fees for them to show his product. Suddenly that stream of revenue is drying up, and as others pointed out - it's a glitzy product with some big, charismatic stars. As WCW proved, there was certainly room for two major groups (and third/fourth niche ones) in a national format, but the television revolution changed things incredibly. I put together a year-by-year look at (Domestic) WWF Television: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wwftv One thing that hit me was how Vince really embraced the trends - he went from local, to syndication, to cable at the right times. If a National broadcast network in the 80s had ever had interest in showing wrestling weekly (not just periodic specials), I wonder how much that would have changed things too. Essentially, it was there through syndication (WWF Superstars on my local Fox station every Saturday!), but could you imagine a weekly nationally broadcast (non-cable) primetime wrestling show in the 80s? (This is probably where someone is going to give an example of exactly that proving my ignorance.)

Sylvester Terkay always puzzled me because he had that legit MMA background and did his Brody clone stuff in Japan, but in WWE was just so bland. Kizarny obviously had the look, but to see them start with someone and abandon ship so quick was surprising. Was Erik Watts brought in WWF because his dad got hired around that time? I was looking up Bam Neely's background when I discovered this EPICLY TRUE AND COMPLETELY UNBIASED FACT in his Wikipedia: Of course - that's why Vince hired them - was the legendary GUTZ of the Hellrasiers! Big T (Ahmed Johnson) in WCW was so legendarily bad. Do you think him coming in was at all connected to WCW reeling from the Racial discrimination suit?

Oddly enough the two matches that jumped off the Observer results pages were also on his DailyMotion playlist: http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x2fyu5.../1#video=xy4o7y

Oh! I understand now. Yes, if I knew how to set up a website so it could store values based on people's voting, the ELO algorithm isn't hard to implement.. I think it would help to have categories though - promos, technical wrestling, brawling, etc. If I ever get a pro wrestling analytics website off the ground, I will certainly incorporate a X vs Y matchup/voting feature.

Just beyond belief. Either Austin has a huge ego and wants his win back from all those years ago, or Trips is a huge mark for himself and thinks he is the top 'dream match' of any returning star. Maybe both. You're bringing Austin back after eleven years and you have him face the guy he has wrestled a million times already? Why not Cena, Orton, Punk, Lesnar? Rey should just accept he is done as well, or he is going to become an even bigger wreck. I suppose it is harder for him, because he can't carry on in a non wrestling/special attraction role like others due to the mask. I agree that the idea of HHH/Austin doesn't seem nearly as interesting as Punk/Austin, Cena/Austin or even someone like ADR/Austin. However, I think the storyline makes some sense and Austin has the ability to be pretty choosy about what he wants to come back for - if he wants to wrestle Triple H, so be it.

This is a very good article, Chris. If you ever do a refresh of it, you may want to point to sites like on the "data collection" side: http://www.baseball-reference.com http://retrosheet.org The first was started by Sean Forman in the "early" days of internet websites... though for a lot of us, 2000 isn't that early. But at the time, there wasn't a good historical baseball reference site for just basic stats. Sean created that, and a interlinking database to run it. Boom. He has over the years kept adding to it, while also making it rather straight forward and simple. Sean was a stat-guy from the generation of writers after Bill James, writing/working on one of the annual series that came up after him (not Prospectus but the other). RetroSheet is the "historians" site, springing up because Ellias doesn't share shit. The goal was to find the equiv of box scores for every game, and create simple things like splits and game logs that we take for granted. Data from the mid-80s on forward was available from various sources, like Project Scoresheet and it's successor STATS. But earlier stuff... a bitch to get it. Heavy labor, the work of a lot of folks. Now one can look that stuff up. In turn, they shared the info with folks like Baseball-Reference.com rather than keep it locked up like Ellias. We're never going to get *that*. There just isn't enough stuff in old papers, and we're unlikely ever to get inside the WWE archives to fill in everything even for them from the 60s on forward. But as you say, as far as we've come with things like what Graham does with historyofthewwe.com, there's more out there than can be compiled. It's just a real bitch to do it. I always thought that someone would be this for wrestling http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/elo.cgi I did. https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...wf_elo_rankings I had the idea to work on it for awhile, but when I got my project funded, I finished the initial version. There's also shorter ELO entries I did on WWF Tag Teams, SMW, CMLL (2011&2012), AAA (2008-2012).

Got the strange urge to see Rikishi work heel against Necro Butcher. Imagine the heat if he gave him the stink face in front of a massive smark crowd. I've heard a few wrestlers talk about the experience of working the Gathering of the Juggalos on podcasts, but I was wondering if any posters here have ever been to a JCW show?

Cool. Actually, I think Vinny (from F4W) works over at Football Outsiders, so I might reach out to him. I've met him once or twice at Wrestlemania and he's always given me good feedback on my wrestling stats. In fact, he was the guy who introduced me to Gephi which inspired me to create this:

This is a very good article, Chris. If you ever do a refresh of it, you may want to point to sites like on the "data collection" side: http://www.baseball-reference.com http://retrosheet.org The first was started by Sean Forman in the "early" days of internet websites... though for a lot of us, 2000 isn't that early. But at the time, there wasn't a good historical baseball reference site for just basic stats. Sean created that, and a interlinking database to run it. Boom. He has over the years kept adding to it, while also making it rather straight forward and simple. Sean was a stat-guy from the generation of writers after Bill James, writing/working on one of the annual series that came up after him (not Prospectus but the other). RetroSheet is the "historians" site, springing up because Ellias doesn't share shit. The goal was to find the equiv of box scores for every game, and create simple things like splits and game logs that we take for granted. Data from the mid-80s on forward was available from various sources, like Project Scoresheet and it's successor STATS. But earlier stuff... a bitch to get it. Heavy labor, the work of a lot of folks. Now one can look that stuff up. In turn, they shared the info with folks like Baseball-Reference.com rather than keep it locked up like Ellias. We're never going to get *that*. There just isn't enough stuff in old papers, and we're unlikely ever to get inside the WWE archives to fill in everything even for them from the 60s on forward. But as you say, as far as we've come with things like what Graham does with historyofthewwe.com, there's more out there than can be compiled. It's just a real bitch to do it. Thanks for the feedback! I called the article "Pro Wrestling Analysis" but I really meant "Pro Wrestling Analytics". am really curious about learning more about the evolution of baseball reference sites and how the sabremetrician community has grown in the internet era. I've heard Ellias has been quite the impediment for those fans to gaining information.

They're all on my website: http://ndeedwrestling.com (the beta version, not really official but kept for posterity) wwf: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...80s_wwf_results (the Fujiwara is your new god) other japan men: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...men_80s_results (the JYD/Bockwinkel brought the snoozes) MidSouth: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...idsouth_results (the if a loser is leaving town and dundee and lawler are there it's gonna be great) Memphis: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...idsouth_results (the by gawd andre vs stan is magnificant) New Japan: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...new-japan-dvdvr (the muthaf'en khan is back with a vengeance) Texas: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...w_results_1980s (the fear of tenryu will keep you up at night) All Japan: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...of1980salljapan

I wrote a piece today about Pro Wrestling Analysis (like the stats): http://bit.ly/1aINWuT This board is probably the closest thing to the clearinghouse on that sort of information right now though it's certainly not solely dedicated to that subject (nor should it be).

I think it's more subtle than that. (Here are twelve month looks with a tiny gap between May 05-Dec 05).. FY1997: $81.9 TOTAL $26.6M PPV $16.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $20.9M LIVE EVENTS $4.0M LICENSING $14M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY1998: $131 TOTAL $43.7M PPV $24.3 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $28.9M LIVE EVENTS $7.8M LICENSING $26.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY1999: $254.1 TOTAL $80.8M PPV $42.2 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $49.7M LIVE EVENTS $25.6M LICENSING $55.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2000: $377.8 TOTAL $106.4M PPV $90 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $68.9M LIVE EVENTS $43.7M LICENSING $68.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2001: $438.2 TOTAL $128.2M PPV $125.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $82.0M LIVE EVENTS $37.4M LICENSING $65.1M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2002: $409.7 TOTAL $112M PPV $137 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $74.5M LIVE EVENTS $24.4M LICENSING $61.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2003: $374.3 TOTAL $91.1M PPV $131.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $72.9M LIVE EVENTS $22.5M LICENSING $56.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2004: $374.9 TOTAL $95.3M PPV $130.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $70.2M LIVE EVENTS $22.6M LICENSING $56.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2005: $366.4 TOTAL $85.5M PPV $122.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $79.4M LIVE EVENTS $20.9M LICENSING $57.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2006: $415.3 TOTAL $93.6M PPV $96.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $84.4M LIVE EVENTS $32.0M LICENSING $108.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2007: $485.9 TOTAL $94.3M PPV $104.1 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $100.1M LIVE EVENTS $47.1M LICENSING $124.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2008: $526.5 TOTAL $91.4M PPV $115.9 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.0M LIVE EVENTS $60.5M LICENSING $127.2M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2009: $475.2 TOTAL $80.0M PPV $126.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $110.9M LIVE EVENTS $44.7M LICENSING $105.5M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2010: $477.6 TOTAL $70.2M PPV $138.6 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.1M LIVE EVENTS $51.7M LICENSING $90.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2011: $483.9 TOTAL $78.3M PPV $138.7 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.1M LIVE EVENTS $54.4M LICENSING $84.5M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2012: $484.0 TOTAL $83.6M PPV $147.7 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $106.2M LIVE EVENTS $46.3M LICENSING $92.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) Yes, they've grown TV Rights (really it was split between growing TV Rights and declining TV Ads until 2006 when TV ads went away and it was all just TV Rights) and if they were to go back to only getting $24M in Rights/Ads like they did in 1998, that would be disastrous. But, I don't think that's going to happen. But, it's not like that's their only source of revenue: * in 2012, WWE got 31% of their income from TV Rights ($146M in Rights), but that's balanced with Live Events (22%), Licensing & Merchandising (29%) and PPV (17%). * You can look back a decade and see in 2000, it was 23% TV ($78M Ads+$12M Rights), 18% Live Events, 30% Licensing & Merchandising and 28% PPV. They've managed to grow the contribution of Live Events and keep Licensing/Merchandise as a sizable portion of their income stream. PPV declined and UFC proved that you could have been stronger, but I for one applaud WWE for looking to a future past the PPV monthly world. Short of a second boom, that's not a surprise and they're still pulling in more money than ever per buy (which is down more than 50% from peak, but still) because of the HD upcharge/price increases. (Numbers are from me culling over a ton of annual reports to prep for a piece in my book, and converting all of the segments to a common terminology.)

It's another one of those unsourced wikipedia stories. From how it's worded, it seems like it might be something Mero or Windham claimed in an interview but two minutes of googling didn't render anything.

I was wondering what matches have been released the most times on DVD on various compilations.. Leaders seemed to be: Foley/HBK (Mindgames) * Mick Foley: Hard Knocks & Cheap Pops (DVD) * Mick Foley: Greatest Hits & Misses (DVD) * Shawn Michaels: From the Vault (DVD) * The History of the WWE Heavyweight Championship (DVD) * The Best of In Your House (DVD) Foley/Taker (KOTR98) * Mick Foley: Greatest Hits & Misses (DVD) * Tombstone: The History of the Undertaker (DVD) * Hell in a Cell (DVD) * The Best of King of the Ring (DVD) * For All Mankind: The Life and Career of Mick Foley (DVD) Summerslam 2000: WWF Tag Team Champions Edge & Christian defeated the Dudley Boyz and Matt & Jeff Hardy in a TLC match at 14:49 This was on FIVE DVDs: * The Hardy Boyz: Leap of Faith (DVD) * The Ladder Match (DVD) * Most Memorable Matches of 2000 (DVD) * Allied Powers (DVD) * The Atittude Era (DVD) Runner-ups with at least 4 DVD releases: Hogan/Andre (WM3), Davey/Bret (SS92), Warrior/Hogan (WM6), Hogan/Rock (WMX8), Edge/Orton (Vengeance 04), E&C/Hardyz/Dudleyz (WM2000) What did I miss? Any other 5+ DVD releases (besides being on the original event DVD release...)