ohtani's jacket

Seriously, I'm watching an excellent Brian Pillman vs Barry Windham match. And there we go, Ross go on a tangeant about Pillman never being the biggest guy on any athletic team he was part of. And he drops the line "He was the smallest kid on his little league team." For fuck's sake Ross. And then he goes on and on with the *entire* Pillman athletic credentials, complete with coach name and awards he recieved, while there's a wrestling match taking place. That kind of stuff is what annoy the shit out of me. It's not good announcing, plain and simple. It's not fun, it's not interesting. Ross is noticably worse when he's alone, because there's no Missy or Paul E. to distract him from college sports. Also, I realized it's a lot worse when you actually pay attention to it, which means this thread hasn't helped my watching lately. EDIT : and then later on the same show, during a Dan Spivey squash, from nowhere he talks about how the Atlanta Hawks could use a guy like this and goes on another tangeant... This on the same show. I mean... And then talks about yet another damn football team, during the same match !! Jeeez... Those are great examples of the shittiness of Jim Ross.

PWFG is a void to me that I need to fill eventually. But I'm not convinced since I thought Fujiwara already wasn't as great in 1989 as he was before. The greatest Fujiwara matches happened in the first UWF to me. I agree the second UWF was a far more developped style. Almost straight away after he jumped he had the best UWF match to date with Kazuo Yamazaki. Physically his prime may have been years earlier, but in wrestling I think a person's prime should cover the peak of their in-ring work and I think that came later than the first UWF & his return to New Japan. To me, that's like the argument that Tamura's UWF-i work is part of his prime when his RINGS stuff blows it away.

Interesting divide between people who like the football references and those who don't. I don't have a problem with the concept in general. Walton did it all the time on WoS for Grey's football background, Myers' arm wrestling and all of the various judokas. The problem was the way Ross did it. WoS had that time between rounds for Walton to drop in little facts about the pub some worker owned or whatever a guy had been doing since the last time he was on television and it was all very colloquial. Ross would beat you over the head with it. I do agree with Loss that he did a great job of getting the powerhouse Lex Luger over, but my recollection of it was less to do with real sports and more to do with Ross gushing over the total package's physical credentials. And I disagree that what Jesse and Vince did was unremarkable. Didn't we have that big long thread that touched on doing the basics right? I doubt listening to Bruce Prichard or somebody else would have killed my enthusiasm for wrestling at that time but it sure would have sucked. Perhaps to enjoy Jesse you really have to appreciate how right he was whenever he pointed out babyface hypocrisy, McMahon's bias and the other side of the coin in most of the angles and storylines.

The second UWF was a far more developed version of shoot style and Fujiwara was the best worker in the company and arguably the best worker in Japan in 1990. Stylistically, I think his work peaked in PWFG with the classics he had there. He probably could've had more great matches in that timeframe if he hadn't taken a backseat to Funaki and Shamrock, but PWFG is definitely the peak of his artistry to me. His New Japan stuff is a fun distraction, but the real wrestling took place in UWF & PWFG.

Well, if that didn't happen during Fujiwara's peak in the first UWF, or even during his comeback to NJ and then the second UWF when he was already past his prime but still excellent, I don't see how it would happen. I'm not sure what was on the 80's project, but I would guess most of his big matches were there. Really, basically, if the first UWF stuff didn't do it, well, don't hold your breath. Fujiwara's prime was from '89-92.

I can understand why Ross did it in theory (WWF commentators did the same thing and Ross himself continued doing it when he moved out East), but in practice it was ridiculous. Whenever a guy turned heel, he'd flip it and start saying things like: "I can't believe this former one-time member of the Green Bay Packers could commit such a heinous act" or "I wonder what Luger's Jacksonville teammates think of him now." Sometimes he wouldn't even bother with that and lust over their football background even when they were a heel. I don't buy the whole "real sports" play-by-play gimmick. He was a big fat company shill. And if you watch enough WCW for a project or a poll he starts to really grate on your nerves. The most annoying thing about him was the ridiculous 180s he'd do when people turned. All commentators do this, but Ross was exceptionally bad. He was so unbelievably whiney. I don't think he ever got the emotional tone right his entire career.

The problem was that you had to hear about it every single time you saw Brian Pillman, etc. Not only that but he'd drop lines in the middle of a match like: "what courage, what tenacity from this former two-time Second Team All-American defensive tackle for the Miami University Redskins." The guy should've commentated college football. It was obviously his calling in life.

I really don't need to think about JR making love.

The first PPV they showed on TV when I was a kid was SummerSlam '89. The SummerSlam the year before had been a massive deal on home video. The last one they showed was Royal Rumble '91. After that, parents got WWF taken off the air.

That was the same for us. We only got Superstars, but we got to see the PPVs free-to-air. They were months and months behind, however. If you wanted to see them sooner you had to rent them on home video.

Me and others like me. If you've never seen wrestling before and you don't know who any of the wrestlers are, what the storylines or angles are, or even the internal logic behind the whole thing, you tend to pay attention to the commentators. Vince and Jesse were extremely good at this, because like all good wrestling commentary they were the moral compass of what was going on. When you go back and watch that era, the matches aren't good but the commentating of Jesse and Vince holds up. Later on, when Vince went through his whole "whatta maneuver/Shawn Michaels" phase, do you really think Lawler was as good a foil as Jesse? Early Monday Night Raw with Vince, Macho Man and Bartlett was atrocious and even when they brought in Bobby it wasn't much better. I can't think of anyone who was a better fit with Vince than Jesse. What's more, there was so much terrible commentating in the the WWF in the 80s and 90s before and after Jesse that I can't understand why anyone would think there was anyone better. Well, he's not as inextricably linked with wrestlers as Russell with Lawler or Ross with Flair and Austin or even McMahon with Michaels, but they were all play-by-play men. Still, I would argue that Jesse was associated with certain wrestlers in a memorable way the same way that Bobby Heenan was associated with Ric Flair or Stu and Helen Hart. He wasn't particularly good at in WWF until '98. With the better workers he probably would've done a good job, but not with the sillier gimmicks. I don't think it was a particular strength of Ross' getting over shitty gimmicks. But do you enjoy Ross' football fetish? Jesse made his fair share of inappropriate remarks and was never shy of throwing in political comments, and he had a whole bag of bullshit whether it was his fake made-up Navy SEALS career or his Hollywood ties, but that was part of the package. Jim Cornette rambled all the time. Half the match he was going off on some rant. Obviously, we have different tastes, but Cornette was hardly PC on commentary and he loved an andecote or bad joke as much as Ventura. Hayes on the other hand was forgettable. Anyway, I wouldn't put Jesse in the Hall. I wouldn't even have a ballot or put things to a vote. I think Meltzer should simply induct people based on his own research. But it seems Dave loves a poll and a good vote.

I'm not trying to deflate the argument for Hart. I simply think there's an element of favouritism where people try to draw as many positives as they can for the candidates they like.

I don't know what order Jesse enters my head, but this idea that it was all Hogan and Vince and everyone else was window dressing is far too dismissive. Hell, Hogan wasn't even on TV when I became a wrestling fan. He was off hiding under a rock somewhere. You can't have much of a show with just Hogan and Vince. The WWF's success stemmed from Hogan and Vince + the product. Jesse fronted the product and played a big part in getting it over. I wouldn't say he was as synonymous with WWF as Russell was with Memphis or Ross with WCW because the WWF was bigger than those two companies. Mind you, being synonymous with a company doesn't necessarily make you good. Russell was a great commentator and Ross was an annoying prick who was worse at getting people over than Jesse if you ask me. How was Hart's music production influential? Should we put Rick Derringer in the HOF? How about James Alan Johnston?

That's easy. They're both overrated.

Which is exactly what Jesse and Vince did. There was a massive audience who were sold on WWF because of Jesse and Vince, many of whom had never seen wrestling before. A worker comes out and does a segment or match, but Jesse commentated entire shows. He was a visible and audible part of WWF's image. To me, growing up, he was on par with the other wrestling personalities. You got it around the wrong way. When I think of Jesse I think of Hogan not necessarily vice versa. Hogan, Tito, Rude and Steamboat were guys that Jesse had continuous shtick about. There's probably others but I can't recall them. Jesse ragged on Steamboat all the time, which continued through to his WCW run. And he pimped Rude hard. I don't think anybody got a wrestler over more in that time frame than Jesse Ventura with Rick Rude. WWF wasn't that kind of wrestling or at least it gradually moved away from it. 80s WWF was very good at angles and storylines and turning people but there wasn't much payoff with the matches. Jerry already explained the dynamic Jesse brought to those matches. Do you really think peak Jim Ross could've made those matches any better than they were? I can't say I particularly care about any of these things, but every commentator has their annoying quirks whether it's JR's obsession with football, Walton's racist jokes or Lawler and puppies. Cornette was no different from Jesse when it came to rambling. Gorilla Monsoon had a whole laundry list of annoying quirks. Lord Alfred Hayes would mishear a question and go off on some unrelated spiel.

Jesse was synonymous with a major boom period for the WWF not only nationally but internationally as Jerry and Jerome and I can attest to. It's stupid to compare him with what Russell did regionally. Russell would have flopped in the WWF just like he didn't pan out in WCW. The same thing happened to Ross the first time he was in the WWF and Solie when he worked for the NWA yet no-one holds these fish out of water periods against them. Besides, they were all frontmen and the straight guy. It makes more sense to compare those guys with Monsoon. People are massively underrating how difficult it is to be a good commentator. There simply haven't been that many in the history of professional wrestling. There's also a bit of favouritism going on. Jimmy Hart sucked after leaving Memphis yet people are trying to find extra reasons for him to go in like music production.

C'mon, Bobby Heenan wasn't a character? Good Ol' JR isn't a character? Lawler? Lance Russell? Kent Walton? Unless you have zero personality you're a character to some extent or another. Jesse could go off on tangents at times, but I agree with a lot of what Jerry wrote. Jesse was awesome and I don't get the disdain. How can people like that dipshit who commentated for All Japan and dislike Jesse? And Rude was definitely a guy you associated with Jesse since he was the winner of the "Body Award." Other guys I immediately associate with Jesse are Hogan, Steamboat and Tito. I don't think Jesse belongs in the Hall but it's perplexing to why people don't think he's good. And what was wrong with Tony? The standard of wrestling commentary was never so high that Tony was poor.

Personally, I like Jesse's WCW work better than his WWF stuff with Jesse and Tony being my favourite WCW pair. The WWF may not have skipped a beat when Jesse left because they had Bobby, but listen to some '93 commentary after they've both left and tell me Jesse wasn't missed. Alternatively, listen to the rancid Bobby/Tony pairing and tell me Jesse was replaceable. Jesse was an awesome part of pro-wrestling from that era. One thing that needs to be taken into account about heel commentators is that Lawler had to gradually move away from a heel colour gig otherwise people would have gotten sick of him. Plus it didn't really fit the attitude era of shades of gray. Another thing I wanted to point out is that it's bullshit that Walton didn't bury workers or matches. He did it all the time. He also made uncomfortable racial comments especially when Kwango wrestled, but I think that was more a byproduct of the times. Walton was an easy one to get in because voters can watch one or two WoS matches and think he's worthy. Getting guys like McManus and Pallo and Kellet in is going to be much tougher.

Yes. I'm not saying every single person who should be in is already in. I am saying that it seems like we've crossed a threshold of inducting obvious people, and now we're just arguing almost entirely about borderline candidates. When that happens, does it mean less to be in the HOF? Wrestling has happened less and the system has produced less stars in the last decade than in any other 10 year period ever. Hans Schmidt should probably be in. John Cena should probably be in. The Rock & Roll Express should probably be in. Jerry Jarrett should probably be in. I'm sure there are others as well. But we seem out of slam dunk picks after Cena goes in this year. If, from here, keeping the HOF open means someone is just going to get in every year, then I think the HOF will weaken over time and in a decade, we'll be inducting anyone who ever had a modicum of stardom. A HOF needs an industry that continues to churn out worthwhile candidates to stay relevant. That isn't happening. Therefore, the concept feels self-serving now. We induct people every year because someone has to go in, not because there are still dozens of worthwhile people to induct (without lowering the bar). While I don't think anyone is arguing candidates that they don't think deserve to go in, I do think most of the people being argued now would not be argued if the system were still producing stronger picks. It just seems like it's run its course. There are Mexican and British wrestlers who deserve to go in but never will because of the stupid voting system.

What's next? Sean Mooney? Danny Davis? Earl and Dave Hebner? Mr. Fuji?

It was pretty much a squash from the beginning, I thought. Iron Eagle seemed okay to me. It takes all sorts to make the wrestling world go round.

BTW, the Horsemen vs. Armstrong/Horner/Allen Iron Eagle six-man from the following week is a fun match with Eagle & Co. eating some big offense.

That tag was all right. The body of the match with Arn, Windham and Armstrong is good, but Horner sucks. Didn't really strike me as anything special and no-one gave a top draw performance, but I guess you need to watch it in context albeit while torturing yourself. Did you watch the Bobby Eaton/Scott Steiner part of the guantlet? I loved that match so much I think I voted for it in the Smarkschoice poll as a quirk.

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #32 -- The Earthquake I used to dig using Earthquake in WrestleFest, but that's about the only thing I dig about Tenta. This turned into a schmoz involving Earthquake, Tugboat, Dino Bravo and Hacksaw Jim Duggan, which is a pretty sad indictment of where Tito was at by this point. TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #33 -- "The North-South Connection" Dick Murcoch & Adrian Adonis This was really weak. I can't stand these WWF face-in-peril matches that are half the length of a Southern tag. Rocky Johnson was Tito's partner. TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #34 -- "The World's Strongest Man" Dino Bravo This was surprising good considering it was Dino Bravo. Of course they didn't really do much of anything, but still it's Dino Bravo. I wonder if Bravo wasn't as bad as I remember or if I'm just going soft. The finish was weird as Dino caught him clean off the ropes with the sidewalk slam. Kind of anti-climatic.