Matt D

We should really do a "debunked accepted stories" note.

I would like some clarification on youtube embedding once we move forward. I know that DVDVR is a bit more lax in what they let people post and traditionally for both reasons of caution and principle, it's been a bit stricter.

I know I saw at least one of them elsewhere which inspired me to mention them in the first place. Warrior's full one is another story though.

Any reason why? On a separate note, I've been thinking a lot about hashtags and I do think there are some very cool things we can do there. There's a juvenile subconscious thing where you might post differently in order to garner likes. I think it has led to some of the trolling over on DVDVR and less genuine posting. It's not a huge thing but I don't see that as necessary here. I'm not saying there's necessarily something more academic and adult and mature about this place, but the level of discourse is pretty high and I don't think inviting that level of sophomoric popularity pushes is necessarily a good thing.

i'll be honest. I've learned from what happened at DVDVR and I've been backing up some of my ridiculous write ups elsewhere. I think, maybe, if you do upgrade, it might be best to disable the "like" functionality. We just don't need that here.

Ah sorry. I thought it was the Mania match. Yeah, I can see the arguments against the cage match.

Generally, when you get to the level of people in the GOAT argument, I find that the major differences of opinion are in what people value most.

What's the general argument against Bret vs Owen? Or is this just a case where everyone admits that it's very, very good but not necessarily five star? People are pretty effusive in the yearbook note I think.

This is again one of those times where we have to remember that the majority of customers are not us.

I'm with loss on the Gayda mixed tag.

I wonder if those Monsoon columns were archived somehow.

Regal is still injured and is giving up the belt and going home to heal. It means they won't get the blowoff match with Borne over his quizzical heel turn. No sign of Stasiak this week. Rose wants a 6 man army match with anyone (Rocky/King/Hack). It was a really good army promo. The previous Tuesday Johnson had beat Rose and Buddy had to get taken back by Masters. Johnson is lined up against Masters. There's talk of LLT. Buddy Rose/Matt Borne vs Rocky Johnson/King Parsons © - 2/3 Falls - 12/5/81 - Non-Title Johnson and Borne to start. This will be the first heel Borne I've seen from this period. Some sloppy heel miscommunication comedy to start. Obviously, when Borne hits Rose by accident there's that underlying real life stuff that the crowd knows. They're gracious after the fact. Johnson really did have a pretty good act. Some good rope running by Borne/Johnson and then hammy cowardly heel powder-taking by Buddy who tried to sneak in for the cheapshot. Borne moves Johnson into the corner and they double team and take over. Buddy starts some legwork. Fans chant "Rocky." Heels make a wish and Borne starts to work over the leg, giving Johnson some mild hope stuff. Rocky finally kicks out but Borne makes a quick tag and then does a great job of cutting him off. Buddy keeps on the leg. Parsons tries to break it up but this just lets the heel make an illegal switch. Borne's leg stuff looks a bit "huggy." Buddy's is pretty nasty, grapevining the leg in a toehold and leaning in with the tights to help him. Johnson tries to fight back but he's stuck too close for the corner. Parsons gets frustrated, gets chased out by Barr, and Buddy slams the leg into the post multiple times. Borne pulls him to the center of the ring, locks in the spinning toehold, and gets the fall. Textbook tag wrestling. I know there were some questions about the narrative of the 2/3 falls. Here, Borne goes for Johnson's leg but Johnson scrambles to the corner and tags Parsons in. It's not really a hot tag. It's more of a reset with the heels getting beat up a bit and hitting the floor. Borne tries for a full nelson. Parsons reversed it. Buddy stopped his punch. Borne reversed it. Buddy went for a punch and Parsons ducked. We're back to the comedy shine stuff with that underlying tension that they're trying to shrug aside. Buddy in and they trade some kneelifts off the rope. We're definitely in a reset shine here, with Parsons looking good. Borne eats an awkward kneelift and a headbutt, then a really high back body drop. Buddy tags in reluctantly. They're doing a lot of reversals to make Parsons look great. He tosses Buddy into the corner and the ring falls apart! Johnson is IMMEDIATELY in to slam the loose turnbuckle into Buddy's head, but Borne breaks up a pin as everything breaks down. Johnson comes back in. Borne grabs his leg and tries to slam his leg into the pole on the outside again but Johnson powers him into it and does his little back sommersault up. As he does so, the leg magically becomes okay. He dropkicks Buddy, then hits a sunset flip for the second fall. If you buy the adrenaline/magic recuperative powers of the heated comeback move, this was pretty good with a nice callback. If not, I'd understand.I missed the tag to Johnson, at the least. Johnson and a hesitant Buddy to start. Buddy draws a line on the mat. Johnson crosses it. Johnson draws one. Buddy does not. They do a THIRD heel miscommunication spot with Borne not paying attention and Buddy getting whipped into him off the apron. I have no idea what they're going for but Bonnema sells it as Borne's fault. Buddy ends up tied in the ropes. Faces use Borne's head as a battering ram. Buddy eats a butt butt but Borne makes the save and Buddy's able to tag him in. Borne is portraying pissed off and hot pretty well. Parsons tosses Borne (who takes a big bump) over the top, then Buddy. Johnson gets his hands on Buddy and tosses him into the post. Buddy walks around ringside hurt and Borne's on his own and immediately into a grinding (and counting) headlock by Parsons. Borne uses the tights to get him off and Buddy, from the outside tries to slam Buddy's head into the turnbuckle but it's reversed. Borne uses the distraction to get him from behind and they start to doubleteam. Ref takes out Johnson and heels have control. Buddy his his big back elbow and a dropkick. Parsons hits a kick and gets the now very hot tag to Johnson, who clears house. Johnson locks on a sleeper. Borne is controlled by Parsons and Masters comes out for the DQ. Hack Sawyer comes out to equalize things and immediately goes after Borne, since he's pretty much taking the Regal spot. This sets up the six man nicely. I don't necessarily think that the 2/3 fall format has to be shine fall/heat fall/comeback fall. Here, the first fall had Shine+Heat leading to the pin. The second started with a small comeback and then a face domination shine for Parsons with a brief heat tease that led to the finish. We rolled back into the face domination to start the third fall until Parsons took some heat leading to the hot tag and comeback/finish. It wasn't as streamlined or beautiful as the last tag but it did accomplish some things, had callbacks and an overarching story (the Johnson legwork fueled by the heel tactics and Parsons' hot headedness, Johnson preventing it at the end of the second fall, the ongoing heel miscommunication, and Parsons really getting to shine). Pretty good stuff.

The WWE marketing machine is different. The goal here is in part nostalgia.it's in part why I'm frankly shocked they didn't rush through a deal with Hogan.

He potentially drew eyeballs if not asses during the one year of the boom, which is the issue here. There's nostalgia for the Monday Night Wars era and it's obvious they're trying to tap into as much of that as possible.

So the internet tells me that negotiations with Sting are happening again. Do people think that would potentially benefit the Network more than Wrestlemania to get him on board? He seems like a guy who could, with the right publicity, draw back some of those WCW fans who turned off and never turned back on, no?

Make sure to see some of his Portland face work since that obviously wildly expands his versatility.

This is mainly me wanting to fact check Dave, since after watching a bunch of Portland, I'm confused about the timeline and I want us to work through this together. Please use this note for anything you want though. I just want to get this down. Dave said this in his bio of Borne: Now, admitting that the dates on youtube may not be correct but I think most of them are relatively incorrect at least., let's look at what we do have here. Borne was around as a prelim guy in 79 or 80 but he really starts interacting with Buddy in 81, teaming with Buzz Sawyer vs Buddy/Rip and Buddy/Destroyer in February and March. His one night reign with the title was between April 29 and April 30. He has a pretty good singles match on TV vs Buddy on June 6. It's on June 20 that he comes on TV and announces the wedding to Toni Rae and that they've been dating for four months (months where Buddy and Borne have been wrestling fairly often) Then, instead of keeping them apart like Dave suggests, they use this to immediately intensify the program with Buddy claiming that he wants Borne as part of the army so they can team as brothers and so that he can help out his career. Tony Borne comes out now and again this period which includes the Aug 28 Battle Royal which was built almost entirely around Rose and Borne matching up. It's possible that between June 20 and August 28 they kept them apart for the most part, but it certainly wasn't the incident where Matt Borne attacked Buddy that led them to wrestle again. It's all pretty cordial for a bit but gets continually heated as the next month or two goes on. September and October have the tag feud between Buddy/Partner vs Borne/Partner (usually Regal) and everything comes to a head first with the talk of a blowoff match where the stips would be LLT, Head Shaved, or Winner gets the contract of the loser, basically. It was leading to either Borne getting control of Buddy or Buddy getting control of Borne. Immediately after this we get the Talk show appearance on 10/21, which made me think that the incident happened somewhere between 10/17's TV and 10/21. The following Saturday, Buddy confirms the divorce and says the match is still on and that he still wants to team with Borne. In the midst of this build, they introduce Rocky Johnson as the new lead face. Within two or three weeks Borne is now a heel and the forth member of the army and Hack Sawyer is getting built up for the Flair title shot. Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that the narrative presented in the obit is way off, way off, and frankly, I'm just boggled by the Borne heel turn. People knew what Buddy did to his sister even if it wasn't really referenced on TV. I don't get how anyone would buy it if things were how Dave said.

I'm writing an extended post about the Matt Borne/Buddy Rose timeline because it confuses me. It needs to be noted that this night, the woman who sits in the front row, yells at Buddy, and bakes everyone banana bread, Irene (who Bonnema calls their "consulting referee" is in the hospital. Chung Lee has debuted. I refuse to figure out who he is. Apparently "times are tough" since Owen's offering kids nights now and again. Buddy Rose/Stan Stasiak vs Rocky Johnson/King Parsons - 2/3 Falls - Tag Title - 11/28/81 Stan and Buddy are the champs. Rocky is hunting for Buddy, so we know how this is going to work. Stasiak starts. Buddy wants nothing to do with Johnson. Johnson gets a quick shot to the ribs on Stasiak and tags to Parsons. After a quick hammerlock Buddy comes in, perfectly willing to face Parsons. Parsons puts on a headlock, gets to the corner for a tag and buddy runs for the hills. He slides halfway back in and tries to tag. They fans start to get irate. Barr doesn't allow it since he wasn't fully in the ring. Buddy rolls in and quickly tags. Fun stuff. Johnson puts on an armbar but Buddy won't accept the tag from Stasiak. Repeat. Both heels are great at this shtick. Ha! Stasiak has a headlock on Johnson so Buddy finally accepts the tag, but the second he does, Rocky sneaks out like a ghost. Buddy storms around the ring pissed off and ultimately we get a brisk but entertaining rope running exchange. Buddy gets a brief advantage but Johnson does his thing bouncing up and hiptossing Rose. Tag to Parsons and they start on the arm with wrenches and headbutts, axehandles and clubbering. Very solid shine work with a lot of repetition for fan involvement and quick tags. Buddy sells like a king, including trying to attack Johnson's head only to writhe in pain and shake his hand. They work out of the armbar as a base once or twice to let Buddy try to escape but the faces keep control, making sure to vary their offense and keep things interesting. Particularly nice was a grounded top wristlock by Johnson that he was really grinding with Buddy selling it like death. It ends in my favorite Portland submission, the endless pumphandle over the shoulder. Fifteen times (with the fans counting) and Buddy gives it up. Really entertaining shine, half comedy and story and half face domination armwork with everyone playing their role perfectly. Almost exactly what a first fall, establishing a new threat should be. Second fall starts with Stan trying to start, which is, of course a no go. Rose gets a momentary armwrench but quickly assaulted on his left arm again. Eye rake and a rush to get Stasiak in. Parsons gets driven immediately to the corner and gets swarmed. Johnson tries to break it up which lets the heels double team more, and it looks like he'll be the FIP for the second fall. Stasiak with a pretty good shoulder hold, with a hair pull cut off, which pisses off Johnson and lets Buddy make an illegal switch. Buddy's shit eating grin as Barr questions him is great. Stasiak back in and another use of the hair as Barr is talking to Johnson. Stasiak feeds Parson's arm to Buddy on the outside who slams it around the pole even as Johnson tries to stop it. This stuff is great, as Johnson keeps trying to get Buddy on the outside who manages to cheapshot Parsons every time Johnson starts to head back to his corner. Heels keep on switching and cheating and doing some armwork of their own and rose making use of Barr's distraction to BITE. They're really ratcheting up the heat, including Buddy reaching over the ropes to grab Parsons and cut off a comeback, and more froggy attacking on the outside as Parsons tries to run. For some reason I really like Stasiak's shoulder claw. I know it's a weird thing to like but he just torques it somehow. Regardless, he gets the submission with it. Afterwords, Buddy continues to be amazing running around and getting a last cheapshot in. Johnson gives Parsons advice between falls, and Parsons comes out bobbing and weaving and jabbing. Stasiak, super grumpy old man that he is, just shrugs it off and hands off the arm to Buddy on the outside who drapes it over the top. I really like Stasiak's punches to the shoulder. His clubbering of it, not as much. It's not as effective either as Parson's able to come back with another jab with his good arm, bearing out Rocky's advice and making it to the corner. Stasiak tries to cut him off, but Johnson does the super athletic thing, rolls under a punch, hits the Thesz Press. Buddy can't get back into the ring in time and the faces win the belts (or belt as one is apparently missing). I thought this was really good.

It's been less than a year ago since HTM appeared on Raw (It was early in March I think), so I don't thing the bridge is that burnt.

It was very "story driven" and I think that's why I liked it so much. Even though some of the holds Goldust put on Johnson got a little boring, pretty much everything that they did in that match stuck to the story. Whether you think the story of "guy sexually harasses and molests his opponent to get into his head" is a good one is certainly subjective and I know in 1996 I was pretty turned off by the Goldust character. Looking at it now though I have to credit how original it was and how good Goldust was at working a character that very few guys in wrestling would want to do, and even fewer would be able to pull off. Dustin had a huge rear chinlock problem as heel Goldust. Huge. It was easily the biggest problem with him in 95-96. Every match, almost, and not worked in any interesting way as a base or anything. Occasionally, he'd do some decent hope spots/cutoffs with it, but generally it was just a frustrating bore. In the Johnson match, it's actually far more interesting than usual since it all plays into the wearing down/sleeper/kiss spot in the end. You can draw a throughline in that match that you can't in most other heel Goldust matches from the era.

I see your slant on this, but I'd still like to be able to quantify it. I had a long draw out debate with a work colleague over a similar point. What's more popular worldwide? NASCAR or Formula 1? In a way this is similar... a American sport that's televised worldwide, but still most popular in the US vs. A global sport that televised worldwide. After 6 months of debate I finally got the evidence to get him to concede and agree it was F1. Either way, I think it's not as clear cut as Dave implies in this weeks newsletter (MLB vs. WWE Worldwide popularity). In the end what matters for this specific situation is money, not international prestige, unless they can find some way to meaningfully monetize that. It's not that international markets don't matter in any form of entertainment. I feel like the international box office has become a much better deal for movies over the last 2-3 years. That's the impression I get at least. Hell, how important to TNA is their international contracts? Would have NXT Redemption lasted so long were it not for int'l contracts? Likewise Superstars? It's not totally umimportant, but it might well be, as of now, for what Dave was talking about.

The match was one of the more impressive "story driven" ones I've seen out of WWF. That's not to say I necessarily thought the story was great, but the way they stuck to it was pretty impressive.

Is it totally unreasonable to posit that MLB is more popular in the US than WWE is in the world? According to wiki, game six of the world series last year, which is probably a worthwhile high point, had 19.2M viewers in the US. WMXXVIII had five million viewers overall according to WWE, according to this random wrestling site: http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2012/0419/551910/ I'm too lazy to find anything else but it's not a bad starting point for someone like John of Bix or Chris to come in and do something with.

I watched Royal Rumble 2006 tonight and it's probably my favorite Hunter performance ever by a good degree. He was eating everyone's stuff and was super giving for almost the entire thing. It was his long term "full body selling" that really stood out, though. I think in this setting, a lot of his usual structural excesses couldn't shine through so what he was actually good at made more of an impact.

When did they switch away from the Warrior centric Superstars opening. He didn't draw but that didn't mean he wasn't otherwise marketable. They had Hulk vs Flair on the horizon so losing Warrior wasn't that big a concern, right?