PeteF3

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.

I know Steele didn't give us a lot of **** (or ***, or **...) classics, but I would argue that no one in history except possibly the Macho Man himself did as good of a job as getting Elizabeth over as he did. You could draw a line from the Steele-Elizabeth storyline all the way through the Bad News, Jake, and Flair feuds--I don't think any of those have the same impact if Steele hadn't set the tone.

The finish of Austin-Rock was such a demonstrable failure that I cannot in good conscience call it a great match. We talk about matches "accomplishing what they set out to do" and that match utterly failed to turn Austin heel, at least for that night, so how can it truly be great? It's ****1/2 work with * booking, timing, and psychology. Mankind-Shawn gets a lot of love still, but I think it would be more remembered with a better ending...I just don't know what that ending is. Maybe a double countout after the table bump. They were in a corner because the first guy to beat Mankind has to be the Undertaker and Mankind wasn't winning the title. I think there was a better way out of it than just Vader arbitrarily running in, though.

I usually defend Dave Meltzer to the death against accusations that he's on the AEW payroll and shit, but holy crap, is he serious with that fucking Tweet? Take the fucking L and move on, guys. Edit: Okay, did Dave did respond to another question with, "It was a bad ending," so it's not 100% rose-colored.

"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

My point was not that Al Snow was a definitive top-5, top-10, or top-15 guy of the Attitude Era. But a random sampling of Attitude Era fans, in a market (Columbus, OH) that's incidentally one of the top test markets in the country and in what was once a bellwether state for national elections, indicated that he was more memorable than Christian. "WHAT DOES EVERYBODY WANT?" was more memorable than the 5-second poses or even the big TLC bumps. If you think that's "obnoxious," then there's not much more I can say.

We all got sick of him, but Jeff Jarrett managed to get a genuinely good match out of Chyna. That's probably enough to put him ahead of Christian.

I mean, it might be tautological, but if the WWE and Vince underestimated him then it's sort of per se proof that he wasn't really that important.

He definitely wasn't better than Taka Michinoku, though I would grant that Taka was rarely or never in position to actually have good matches so Christian may still beat him on pure output. But come the fuck on. He's a "maybe" for a top-5 in-ring worker and a laughable no for top-5 star.