GSR

Very true. I suspect people are going to love Jim Breaks even if they don't care for WoS (which is hard for me to fathom really, but I guarantee you there will be plenty of people who don't "get it.") And Breaks is really the tip of the iceburg. Breaks is absolutely incredible and I have never seen a match of his that I haven't enjoyed. I can't imagine how people could come out of this set (never having seen him before) and not be blown away by his performances. Matches versus the likes of Young David, Jackie Turpin, Kung Fu, Sammy Lee are all worth searching out even older stuff from the 70s that is outside the timeframe for the project. He has one match against Kamakazi (a masked Maurice Hunter) from October 1981, where the match is stopped after Kamakazi falls through the ropes to the floor and is unable to continue the match. The ring announcer states that in an instance like this the winner would say how he doesn't want to win the match like this and it would be declared a no-contest; Breaks wants none of this and accepts the decision anyway (it plays out far better than it reads). I know it will be a while before this set is done but I am really looking forward to seeing who people really start to appreciate and enjoy after seeing this set. In recent years the likes of Johnny Saint, Steve Grey, Marty Jones have gotten a fair bit of exposure through the internet, but for everyone of them there is a Mike 'Flash' Jordan, an 'Iron Fist' Clive Myers, a 'Superstar' Mal Sanders who all seem to be relatively unknown. I have also sent Will 10 discs of Satellite Wrestling for him to look through for this set, so hopefully these have safely arrived with him.

Just a couple of dark match appearances. The first at a Saturday Night taping, the other on a Nitro dark match: 10.14.97 Fort Myers, FL (Saturday Night Taping) Lanny Poffo bt L.A. 10.20.97 Biloxi, MS (Monday Nitro Taping) Lanny Poffo bt Johnny West No. As Boondocks said he was resigned again in the late 90s. He had a tryout match on 10.16.97 in Minneapolis, MN before Nitro and defeated Yuji Nagata whilst wrestling under the name Kevin Kelly. Maybe Nagata pulled a Bret Hart/Tom Magee situation out of the hat and made Wacholz look way more better than he actually was. According to Meltzer, the plan was for Wacholz to join the nWo and get a huge push, although that obviously never happened and he just ended up wrestling a couple of house show openers against Barry Darsow. PRetty sure both Tatum and 4 X4 were in power plant pre-Master P. Yeah, Tatum was definately in the Power Plant prior to being in the No Limit Soldiers, though dont know about Teddy Reade. No idea what sort of pay they were making pre-NLS, but from his writings (and considering what they paid Swole), you got the impression that Master P persuaded the powers that be to sign them up to six figure deals. Another interesting thing about Swole from Big Dave was that apparently Bischoff had been convinced that Swole had wrestled for New Japan. For any Brits out there who enjoy their football, just think Graeme Souness - Southampton - Ali Dia. Couple more payment details that I forgot to add last time were: *Sonny Onno earned $160,000 a year for his role as manager, although he coined in more money in side deals, and as being some sort of liaison to foreign talent. *Buff Bagwell in March 2000 signed a three year contract for $700,000 the first year, $800,000 the second and $900,000 the third. This was clearly one of those that enabled him to be cut/get fired.

For another board I did something similar, in going through old issues of the Observer and seeing what WCW paid various people from around late 1997 to 2000. Here are some of the details: *Michael Buffer paid $500,000 for his role in the film 'Ready to Rumble' and for the rights to use the phrase. *KISS to receive $500,000 to perform to songs on the 8/23 Nitro. *Karl Malone paid $900,000 *Jay Leno paid $1,000,000 *Dennis Rodman paid $2,250,000 *Hardcore Battle Royal at Bash at the Beach '99 which ended up with several of the roster injured cost over $100,000 to produce *Master P getting $200,000 per Nitro appearance *Swole (Master P's bodyguard) signed to a $400,000 a year contract. Master P also convinced WCW to sign both Chase Tatum and Teddy '4x4' Reade to deals although Meltzer doesn't mention how much they received. *Tank Abbott $300,000 a year *Wrath $350,000 a year *Stevie Ray $750,000 a year *Vampiro $350,000 a year *Hak (The Sandman) $250,000 a year *Scott Norton $800,000 a year *Rick Rude in late '97, when the sole purpose for signing him was with to screw with Vince as he appeared on a taped Raw with beard and a live Nitro sans, signed a 3 year contract at $300,000 a year *John Nord $150,000 a year *Kevin Wacholz $150,000 a year (after his late '97 tryout, wrestled a grand total of two matches) *Lanny Poffo $75,000 a year (for at least 3 years, and only managed to locate him wrestling on two occasions) *Bam Bam Bigelow $450,000 a year *Mike Awesome signed a 3 year deal for $300,000 a year. He also received a $250,000 signing bonus, and WCW had to pay ECW a further $250,000 after Paul Heyman went to court and got a restraining order against him showing up on Nitro *Eric Bischoff Tonight Show set cost $70,000

Cool, thank you both for your help. I actually have Joshi #156, so I will need to go and revisit that disc, and then hopefully search out someone who has volume 193.

Hopefully someone will be able to answer this, and I am thinking that this place would be the best to ask. I was recently reading some old issues of the Observer and came across the Jackie Sato obituary. I was completely unaware that Sato actually made a return in the mid 80s after her initial retirement, and was part responible for the formation of the JWP promotion. I then learned that she ended up having a match with Shinobu Kandori in 1987, where the latter was convinced to put a legit beating on Sato, which led to Sato's retirement. I was wondering whether anyone knows if this Sato vs Kandori match is available and in circulation. The date listed was 18th July 1987. Any help is appreciated.

The use of the term "shitarse" in his post should have been a pretty good indicator of who Matthew Jones actually is.

That's not a credible argument, thats just evidence that Alvarez is an idiot. Oh, I know. Just felt like mentioning it. It was actually much worse in context, if you can believe it. It was Alvarez. I can believe it.

Was all this on boards or in the WON or someone talkign to Dave? I guess we should be glad that it lasted even a couple of years because it got those guys off the Wrestling HOF ballot. Too bad he didn't have the idea before Sak and Funaki got in. John The MMA Hall of Fame was always a bit of a mystery to me, as the last I found out about it in my back issues was the 09.25.06 issue which saw Wanderlei Silva, Frank Shamrock, Bas Rutten and Chuck Liddell inducted, to join the original class of Randy Couture, Royce Gracie, Kazushi Sakuraba and Ken Shamrock. Meltzer did a bio for Liddell, and said 'we'll have more Hall of Fame bios over the next few weeks', and I don't think anything else was ever written about it again.

double post

After seeing that Martin Karadagian got elected this year, it made me think more than ever that British Wrestling is completely neglected in the Hall. Bert Assirati is the only person in based on his work in the UK, whilst Dynamite and Robinson are in due to their work in US and Japan, and Finlay was only added to the ballot due to his work in WWE from the past few years. I dont know enough to make a case to Meltzer, but I wish someone who did could plead the likes of McManus, Pallo, Breaks, Saint, Rocco etc. Whilst I wouldnt expect all to get in, I would hope that a few would.