Matt D

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?

July 13. Was there any reason that they didn't just say screw him and put Sid in the role instead? That was plenty of time to build him up, right? I don't have time to look to see if all the pre-summerslam tapings were done by that point though.

I love the text of the letter that they sent him to get him to work Summerslam 91. I know I saw that sometime in the last 24 hours but I forget where. Whaa? I can't find the thing, but I know I read it. When temporarily caving into his demands, Vince wrote Warrior a letter of apology that basically said that Warrior was the most valued member of the WWF family and he respected him as a friend and a performer, or something. Then they suspended him right after the show.

Ok I came across this and it goes against everything I've always heard. Shawn and Razor only went :17 long?

PWO is going to become a PR wrestling thintank.

I'd go even further: he use to side with the Hardcore Fan viewpoint, and has since the early 00s been more Wrestler/Office viewpoint. That's more of the Beltway (or as Digby coined it last decade, The Village) type. John Would it be fair to say that he's less involved with what's going on now, as in he has less of a personal stake, this between his friends in the industry dying and his interests shifting to MMA and some level of general maturity from aging. The Junkfood Dog and Anabolic Warrior stuff seemed personal to me, like on some level it was an affront that they were getting pushes over other people. I'm not sure how true that was in the late 90s though.

I love the text of the letter that they sent him to get him to work Summerslam 91. I know I saw that sometime in the last 24 hours but I forget where.

The flip side is that we have so many promos and angles and most of them are really enjoyable. Portland was such a community territory that it really wasn't necessary on a week to week basis. When he does do it, it's about something that happened years ago usually.

There's a Fair to Flair joke in here but you guys are being so earnest that I would hate to make it.

Usually you can figure this stuff out from Bonnema's announcing. I know in watching them, I did feel a sense of progression from Match 1 to Match 2, but maybe that was just a construct in my head.

Savage starts getting really passive aggressive after WMX. Whenever Vince asks a question about who could win a match, he jumps in and says that HE could win the match and he's often trying to make things about him. It's ultimately both funny and sad and definitely writing on the wall. The two man Vince/Savage team is not great. EDIT: hey, it wasn't just me that noticed. Dave said this in the 4/25/94 WON

Not after this performance:

To be fair, even I said that it went "Maybe a little long." Watch the second match before revisiting the first though. Also, as always, this stuff is even better with the promos and what have you.

Duck Dynasty IS huge.

I am glad that you're letting go of that idea, because now I don't have to write a few thousand words about it, which I was really getting primed to do. Looking at my notes, I thought the match the next week was even better too. It's not a huge surprise by any means, but It's great that you're enjoying this stuff.