PeteF3

Probably a submission move that starts off like a neckbreaker and then the attacker leans forward, pulling the opponent off the mat by the neck and holding him there. That was Butcher Vachon's finisher and he and Mad Dog were often billed from Algeria.

What were we supposed to be looking at there?

Rusher vs. Jumbo from '76 is the big match of his from that era. But if you get all the IWE stuff that's out there, that's quite a bit of Rusher. The standout singles that I remember seeing are against Blackjack Mulligan and against Strong Kobayashi.

We've gotten another match of Horst's in the French catch footage, which is a good glimpse of him in the '60s when he was closer to his physical prime.

I think in his original rant he said something like, "Two possibilities here: 1.) the wheel wasn't gimmicked, 2.) Bill Watts is a moron." So...sort of? Coal miner's glove is such an incongruous stip for the time and place that I don't know if we can hold Keith solely accountable for a widespread belief that it was a shoot spin. Not nearly to the degree of other bullshit he's peddled that educated people even in the business sometimes still believe (Mr. Perfect was going to win the '90 Rumble, Mankind was going to win at Mind Games, etc.) And just to clarify, they went with coal miner's glove because it hadn't been done on PPV before and because they weren't going to be allowed to blade, so they went with a match where fans wouldn't feel cheated for not seeing blood.

It was not really a "one-off appearance" by Flair, either. Kerry's chase for the title had been the dominant story in World Class for the previous 6 months, from their match at Reunion Arena to the mysterious bounty to Flair being revealed as the source behind it, leading to the big cage match. It's one of the greatest builds in wrestling history.

It wasn't a worked vote. Hayes was over like gangbusters as a babyface.

And Ricky mostly teamed with Ivan Koloff, who, God love 'im, was like the platonic opposite of "fresh" in 1988.

Janela has value as a promoter, I guess. But yes, he's godawful at anything performance-related.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PZPYQi8B6Bg Roy Lucier has already taken care of Arroyo-Sweetan for us. https://www.youtube.com/embed/AfgPw_IaEXI Arroyo vs. Mach Hayato. https://www.youtube.com/embed/a6EeDd_-zsY Arroyo vs. Isamu Teranishi. https://www.youtube.com/embed/rw7_wpXSTQc Arroyo & "The Invader" (Roberto Soto, Invader II) vs. Mighty Inoue & Animal Hamaguchi.

Because I happened to have it available, here's a list of all the French Catch footage guys who went to Japan...unfortunately, very little of it is on tape, just a few matches from an old Jose Arroyo in '81. Oh, and we're skipping Andre and Carpentier as "givens." - Jose Arroyo (3/69 IWE World League, 10/72 IWE Big Winter Series, 1/81 IWE New Year Pioneer Series) - Fred Magnier (3/71 IWE World League, wrestling as Magna Clement or Magna Clemente or Magnier Clemente) - Rene Lasartesse (7/1970 IWE Big Summer Series) - Conde Daidone (10/73 IWE Big Winter Series, wrestling as Daidone Mussolini) - Horst Hoffmann--tons of appearances in IWE and AJPW. Had an AWA run teaming with Von Raschke in the early '70s. - Spartacus (9/69 IWE Royal Series) - Andre Bollet (1/69 IWE Big Winter Series). Also had a run in Texas in 1959. - Gaby Calderon (5/74 NJPW Golden Fight Series) - Mammoth Siki (5/74 NJPW Golden Fight Series) - Robert Duranton (2/71 IWE Dynamic Big Series) - Quasimodo (1/70 IWE New Year's Challenge Series). Had a run in Texas in 1960 as The Hunchback. - Frank Valois (bunch of tours of IWE and New Japan. As you may know he was Andre the Giant's original handler and often wrestled the same places overseas that Andre went to.) - Charles Verhulst, who appeared in the French footage as Allan le Foudre, toured numerous times for IWE, New Japan, and once for the first UWF, either as himself or as Johnny Londos. - Gil Voiney (11/68 IWE World Series as himself, 1/72 IWE New Year Pioneer Series as L'Homme Masque, 5/75 NJPW Golden Fight Series as The Masked Gladiator). Wrestled in the U.S. in 1964 as Max Mortier. And I think that does it for the Showa Era. Bernad Vignal was supposed to have an IWE tour in 1972 but cancelled shortly before. Unfortunately most of these guys wrestled for IWE and while we have a bunch of IWE footage thanks to some box set releases, I dunno how likely it is that any more late '60s/early '70s footage is going to turn up. But if you want to watch an old Jose Arroyo mix it up with Bruiser Bob Sweetan or Isamu Teranishi, you can find it.

Yes, because they had Mad Dog Vachon at the same time.

Boss Man had left the WWF sometime in the late summer/early fall of '93 (according to Jim Cornette, because he felt that the imminent federal indictment of Vince might reflect badly on him as former law enforcement). All-Japan needed a replacement partner for Doc with Gordy out permanently. I think they had designs on making him a regular foreigner but then WCW offered him a contract and that was that. Style-wise Boss Man fit in really well with AJPW while he was there and he and Doc had a couple of pretty awesome matches as a team. Even showapuroresu.com which has a rundown of all the big tournaments from the rise of the JWA through 1988 (the Showa Era ended with Hirohito's death in the first week of January '89) doesn't seem to know why Tiger Mask and Snuka were matched up, just noting it as "unique." It also notes (thanks deepl.com for the translation): "Fans who knew the team in its prime were saddened by the poor performance of the Slater team, which would have been the favorite to win ten years ago." Slater got to the 1980 Champions Carnival finals but I wasn't aware that Tommy Rich was that highly regarded at the time.

I think joeg's question was less about running against WM and more about why you'd do it in the Superdome.

Of course it's too late to read it and I haven't found any screen caps, but apparently it wasn't so much that SRS no-sold him as called his bluff, but did it in a very casual manner--something like, "Sure, what time?"

Also Dusty was around for a few more weeks as talent after getting fired as booker before leaving entirely.

Watts (and almost every other WCW honcho pre-Bischoff) didn't grasp that increasing PPV buyrates by just a few percentage points--maybe even percentages of percentage points--would bring in more revenue than anything short of practically doubling house show business (or more). I think Watts gets a little too much shit for his focus on the Omni--it was an issue before him as well--but it was definitely an issue nonetheless.

This is definitely something I've seen Scott get credit for as it pertains to 1984-86 WWF specifically. Piper and Orndorff may well have finished up shortly after Mania 1 if it had taken place in 1980, but now they had to stick around, and it required the result to lead to Orndorff turning babyface, leading to Orndorff feuding with Piper, leading to Orndorff teaming with Hogan, leading to Orndorff turning on Hogan, etc. Those types of storylines dovetailing into new ones never really happened in pre-expansion WWF, but they did in Mid-Atlantic where they ran towns more often and had to cycle through storylines quicker even if talent turnover was probably roughly the same as in New York.

I do think Cornette is guilty of retroactively undermining Scott's 1970's work to an unfair degree. Cornette will downplay Scott's contributions by saying he had Flair, Steamboat, etc., but a.) Cornette himself has pointed out that all successful bookers have great talent. b.) Scott was the one who gave Steamboat his first push and reinvented Flair as the new Nature Boy. Scott deserves all the criticism he gets for his 1989 booking but he was a legitimately great booker for JCP in the '70s.

I think it's just a Vince thing of guys almost always being in their gear. Branding and all that. Flair is in a suit during the famous Perfect turn on Prime Time. But his out-of-ring-clothes of choice generally were either his robe and trunks or Cosby sweaters.

Same. And thanks for introducing me to deepl--it kicks Google Translate's ass as far as translating Japanese into readable English. I've been using it to read random bios on Dr. Mick's showapuroresu.com site. This has some pretty good info on the origins of SWS--I think it was originally posted on the Other Arena but it made its way to Classics sometime later. Some of the info from this thread contradicts it, but for 2000 this was as good first-hand info as we were gonna get.

Even if the bulk of it was carried by Sarge, Steamboat was still the main foil in the Road to Greensboro/Final Conflict angle, which was a masterpiece of booking and build in addition to a killer match.

Watts once told Cornette, "Keep your hands off me, sissy, 'cause I don't want to have to get my blood tested." Cornette was sometimes more of a misogynist than straight-up gay but when talking about Baby Doll once remarked that other than doing dishes, he "couldn't think of any other use for a woman anywhere in life." It wasn't exactly Adrian Adonis but it was 100% there for awhile.

The last time I watched the Love Her or Leave Her Match at SummerSlam '99 against Test, it still held up. Has he had a good match since?...probably not.