Beast

Keeping that in mind, here is Dave's summary when not faced with character limits. "Yep, quite the argument, I got asked why Butch Reed was never made NWA champion and said it was because Ric Flair was a better fit at the time. Bix says yes, Flair was better, but if Reed was better he'd still have never been champ. I say you don't know that. He says Bill Watts pushed Master Gee, Snowman and some other guys AND was racist, so every single promoter was racist. I say whatever Watts was, and he said some pretty abhorrent things in the 90s which he later himself said he was wrong in saying, he cared more about making money than anything else, and pushing blacks ahead of whites who were far better doesn't constitute being racist against blacks in how he operated his business. Personally, that's a different issue which has been debated. Watts said some really dumb things which ended up costing him his job with WCW (he said them before he worked there and it was inevitable they would bite him in the ass) and if you call him racist because of it, I won't argue, but to say he wouldn't push a wrestler who he thought was marketable due to skin color, I know well enough as a promoter, he cared first and foremost about making money and his track record of who he pushed showed if anything, he erred in the other direction. I used the word reverse racism, probably not the best term, perhaps affirmative action would be it, but I don't believe that's the term either. The real term is he made mistakes as a promoter in quest to make the most money he could and was wrong about the marketability of some talent. Just like everyone who promotes. Not to mention Watts wasn't even in the NWA at the time in question. But the argument is that if there in the 80s was a black wrestler who could work like Flair, draw like Flair and promo like Flair, would he have gotten an NWA title run. Given that there was no such individual in the 80s, the answer is we don't know. But some people need to believe everyone was a racist, including Bix who said every single promoter was racist which is such bullshit it's not even funny, as foolish as saying every promoter beat his wife, when the obvious answer I gave, we don't know, is the only answer that can be given honestly. I talked to enough promoters then about the NWA title, and never once did anyone, when I brought up that every Butch Reed, say he couldn't be champion because he was black. In fact, one promoter brought up Reed to me and thought maybe they should make him champion because he was black, just because it had never been done with that belt before, while conceding he couldn't draw or promo like Flair and was working at the time for Watts so it wasn't going to happen. He wasn't considered because the people in charge felt Flair was better or he wasn't working in the NWA. He wasn't given a transitional run because he was not as charismatic as Dusty nor working in the NWA, and in 1987, when Garvin got it, he wasn't in JCP so wasn't under consideration. And the idea there was a quota that a territory could only have one black wrestler working there at a time, and I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find somewhere that's true in the 50s or 60s (and Verne Gagne never pushed African-American wrestlers except in Chicago where he did), but the heyday of Butch Reed was probably 1984-85, so that's hardly applicable. But one look at territories will show in most cases that wasn't true at all. Without a doubt there were racist promoters in pro wrestling, but the idea every single promoter from that era was racist is ridiculous. Then he started quoting anti-Gay stuff Watts said and claimed he was the most liberal of promoters when everyone knows Watts was a raving conservative."

It's hard to make points not clumsy, when they are completely wrong. Clumsy but not wrong

The discussion was about why guys like Dibiase, Windham, and others weren't given the NWA Title in the '80s. Butch Reed was brought up, Dave said if they thought he would draw he would be considered, Bix said no he wouldn't because the business was super racist back then. Dave said green was the only color that mattered, Bix said Watts was the most progressive promoter of the time and was still super racist. Brought up how he tried to replace JYD with Wells and Snowman because he thought blacks were all the same. Dave said that proved Watts put money before race because he was pushing black wrestlers, regardless of ability. Dave has been consistent in saying that racism existed, but most promoters didn't let it impact their booking to the point where they'd sit a drawing wrestler because of skin color.

She donated a ton of money and was given a position without prior qualifications in an administration run by a guy who claimed he was going to "drain the swamp" of lobbyists and financial interests. Don't act like this is just another thing.

Fantastic stuff here. I recently went on a spending spree picking up a bunch of old Apter mags and I love reading the various wrestlers/angles focused on in each issue. Your column is a great resource.

Went to a Raw taping in Hartford as an 11 year old (6/9/97) and was turned off by seeing guys wrestle multiple times in one night since they taped Shotgun and a postshow dark match. Knew it was fake, but that was too much. Missed everything until the Foley title win a year and a half later, watched for all of 1999, and then stopped again for some reason for all of 2000. Basically, I missed two of the best eras in WWE history.

Are we really going to start this on here now? The "liberal media" didn't create the things Trump and his vocal supporters said. Is Dave supposed to follow the Fox News viewpoint of Trump is an outsider who built himself up from the ground up and is going to drain the swamp (using lobbyists)? Dave was just about as neutral as a person could be in his writing so let's not start using it as an excuse to jump on every little thing.

Wasn't seeing any big issues with this until I spied James Ellsworth as a number 11 seed. The seeds can't actually mean anything; just look at it like a random collection of 64 wrestlers.

Cue frequent checks to see if the list is posted yet. Also, back in 2013 you seemed pretty gung ho about the '90s and were going to do a series of podcasts covering each month. I guess BTS kinda does that now anyway, but I'd still be interested in hearing your thoughts on all things Yearbook-related. Plus I was set for September '95.

But, Loss, please post the top 500 of the yearbooks and just call it that if you feel more comfortable with it. Selfishly I want to see it as someone who has all of the yearbooks and also respects your opinions on match rankings. Or if you don't want to post it just PM it to me What he said. We're happy to help find ways to caveat and asterisk the list, but it would be great to see that perspective from someone who's already been through all of the Yearbooks. Doesn't even have to be Best of the 1990s. It could simply be Best of the Yearbooks -- 1990s Edition. Exactly. Whether the Yearbooks are on permanent pause or not, a culmination on the contents on the first ten (encompassing the entire decade) would be a tremendous reference for us all.

Might as well throw myself out there as a possible co-host if anyone knows how to record/edit a show. Off the top of my head, something like a show that focuses on a different feud or series of matches each week would be an interesting idea.

Except he didn't do that. This is a total "let's be outraged" controversy. He went on to admit that he should have clarified that they were not comparable but were used with similar vitriol. He made a mistake even bringing it up, but let's not act like it's an example of him being "the living embodiment of white privilege."

[MEDIA=twitter]779394612297216000[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=twitter]779395384099557376[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=twitter]779395543407599616[/MEDIA] Is Dylan serious? That's a pretty large leap from "Dave makes misguided comparison between two derogatory terms/doesn't add a n-word is the worst word ever disclaimer" to "Dave is the living embodiment of white privilege". WTF?

Great show. Only detriment being that knowing that Sabre and Ibushi hadn't signed contracts took away much of the suspense. I would have been more shocked if Ibushi beat TJP. Though that doesn't really impact the quality of matches tonight.

Also, he did watch it and wasn't impressed. I get the idea that he wouldn't have been blown away by it in 1983 either compared to other stuff around, but who knows?

If this was any other fighter who never fought before and debuted on UFC and got his ass kicked in 2 minutes without getting any offense of his own and people laughed at him and said he sucked, no one would be complaining about them being overly negative. It was terrible. It was just like everyone expected. Good for him for achieving a dream, but it was a joke.

Dave kinda tore into the Last Battle of Atlanta today on Wrestling Observer Radio. No heat, finish out of nowhere, not as good as other things happening at the time in wrestling. Not sure why people were super excited to get to see it.

There's also the fact that Punk is by most accounts a raging A-hole with an overly high opinion of himself, so maybe it's harder for people to root for that type of guy, especially when he's still fairly terrible at fighting. Pulling that no handshake BS because "I'm here to fight, not shake hands" also doesn't help. Good for him for achieving his dream, but this was the equivalent of a Make-A-Wish kid getting the chance to throw out a pitch at the World Series or ride shotgun in a Nascar race.

This was the most pro wrestling-esque UFC in a long time. In a row we had: 1) CM Punk jobbing to the hot young star who then challenged another hot young star. 2) Browne calling a "time out" to fix his finger (which the ref somehow allowed) and then Werdum mocking him as a "cry baby" and attacking his cornerman. 3) Overeem pulling a 2000 Royal Rumble Big Show and claiming the ref's missed a Miocic tap out, only to be caught in his lie when they immediately showed the sequence twice on the big screen. I loved it.

Jordan overthinking the Akeem gimmick is the first time he's misstepped on these shows. I don't care if it's a knock on Dusty or vaguely racist. It's an awesome gimmick and much more entertaining than One Man Gang. Plus, who cares what George Gray's face looked like when Vince explained the gimmick? It's obvious that he took to it immediately and had a ton of fun with it. A pimp managing a white African Dream and a southern prison guard is enthralling in its randomness. Akeem is the best.

Seriously? Are we really going to start accusing Dave of using steroids?

No, it was held in September. Bret was still WWF Champion and the USA/Canada war was in full swing.

Doesn't it take some of the suspense out of a federation in 1991 when the formula is so old school and predictable? How does AWA Reborn win fans away from WWF and WCW when they're partying like it's 1983?

According to Dave on Twitter, he believes Jerry Estrada is the most underrated wrestler ever.