PG-13 vs. The World

[Victator]

The WWF "heel in peril" thing is a myth. Faces spent no more time of offense than any other promotion.

I'm sorry but that's just not true. WWF ran heel in peril matches FAR more often than any other territory/wrestling company with a serious tag division. Was it a dominant theme for the entire run of the companies history? No. Was it more prevalent their than anywhere else? Yes. Worse yet a lot of the more traditional style tags with FIP segments would end at curfew with the fucking faces being saved by the bell which is just as absurd.

 

Not true at all. Faces dominated the first eight minutes before the heel got on offense. No longer than Rock and Roll Express would dominate the Midnights or Tully and Arn.

[Dylan Waco]

I doubt even now that there are20 indy guys i would rather watch. So im not buying the old, fat and lazy stuff.

PG-13, top 20 tag team of all time.

Jamie Ice and Wolfie D, top 20 indy wrestlers in 2011.

 

But seriously, I'm actually enjoying this thread a lot. Keep on coming and argue about the merits of tag teams.

 

From the joshi ranks : Marine Wolves, Crush Gals, Toyota & Yamada, LCO, Oz & Kansai, Oz & Cuty, HamaKINO, Juming Bomb Angels... there are more.

 

Joshi is tough for me because I have not watched any Joshi in years (well, I did watch Nakano/Aja Cage Match fairly recently, and I watched several matches from last year where Satomura shocked me by still being really good, but in terms of "classic" Joshi I can't remember the last time I really even thought about re-exploring). Stylistically there are things about Joshi I don't like at this point that are hard for me to overcome. of those teams Crush Gals and LCO seem like the two teams I MIGHT be willing to see over PG-13 but that would require going back and watching a lot of Joshi. I do have some Joshi at the house I HAVE to watch and may pop some in soon enough in which case this can be re-explored.

 

On the top 20 indy wrestlers thing, and at the expense of being accused of "hedging" again by John, that's not quite what I wrote and not quite what I meant either. My point is that if I see a PG-13 or Wolfie/Jamie singles match somewhere online in 2011 I am very much inclined to watch it and give it a shot. I thought El Generico had a better year last year than either guy. Thought Paul London did too. But I would still be more likely to watch and/or seek out a match from Jamie or Wolfie than either of those guys for styllistic reasons. Hell the best individual performance I've seen in a indy match so far this year was Jamie in the Dundees v. Lawlers tag from Evansville so realistically he probably would be in my indie top 5 for 2011 at this point. Have not seen any Wolfie D this year.

[Victator]

Also on the discussion at hand. PG-13 was a great team. Have not seen enough USWA to make a proper analysis on if they are top twenty. As far as I'm concerned Demolition is one of the best teams ever. I honestly can't accept any team being outright better. Equal but not better.

 

I actually think the LOD squash was a great showcase for PG-13. They got destroyed but they made sure the spotlight stayed on them. It was about PG-13 getting killed not LOD squashing jobbers.

[Loss]

I cannot name a single great match from the Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs or Demolition.

[Dylan Waco]

The WWF "heel in peril" thing is a myth. Faces spent no more time of offense than any other promotion.

I'm sorry but that's just not true. WWF ran heel in peril matches FAR more often than any other territory/wrestling company with a serious tag division. Was it a dominant theme for the entire run of the companies history? No. Was it more prevalent their than anywhere else? Yes. Worse yet a lot of the more traditional style tags with FIP segments would end at curfew with the fucking faces being saved by the bell which is just as absurd.

 

Not true at all. Faces dominated the first eight minutes before the heel got on offense. No longer than Rock and Roll Express would dominate the Midnights or Tully and Arn.

 

Face shine segments were drastically different in the WWF. Something like North/South v. Brisco's which was a loved match by many is so obviously HIP it can't be argued against, but not every WWF match that was HIP was like that. The point is that the faces were building heat on the heels often in WWF matches. You almost never got that impression watching the RnR's. It's not mythical. It's the reality I encountered over and over when watching shit tons of WWF over the last several years.

[Jingus]

My question to Jingus would be - what wrestling trope hasn't been run into the ground at this point? Hell most effective wrestling psychology is built on consistently repeated spots and themes that have been going on for god knows how long.

Oh yeah, of course that's true. You could also reword my statements to say "every shitty match I saw on these indy shows involved the basic shine-heat-comeback-finish psychology, ergo that psychology is a bad thing". Cliches become cliches for a reason, usually because (at least at some point in the past) they were true or they worked. The difference here is that I was never much of a fan of stalling even before I got "in da biz", and my personal experience on these shows only served to intensify my dislike to an exponential degree.

 

I like to watch wrestling for the wrestling, period. I'm not a fan of talking. Whether that be an in-ring promo or a backstage vignette or a guy stopping during the match to jaw with the fans, I just don't like it. I know it's an integral part of the business, and something that is required to build up heat and hype for the matches. I'm completely aware of that. But I just don't like watching it. To a large extent, it doesn't entertain me. It's like the dialogue scenes in an action movie. You've gotta have them, the movie doesn't work without them, but I'm not here to watch that shit. I'm here to watch big shootouts and chases and explosions. If I want scintillating dialogue, I'll go watch Shakespeare (and I do, happily). I come to watch an action movie to watch shit get fucked up. And I come to wrestling to see guys hitting each other, not guys talking about hitting each other.

 

And part of this does go back, once again, to my indy experiences. I know I talk about that a lot, but for chrissakes, I did it for five goddamn years and it's played a pretty huge part in forming my viewpoint of wrestling. When I was doing play-by-play commentary of a match, I hated having to call the stalling bits. What can you say? "Well, Jamie Dundee has stopped wrestling and is yelling at the fans... again... boy, he's got a big mouth." Fucking yawn. That's the sort of moment where I desperately hope that I've got something else to talk about, something to put over in the storyline or hyping up tonight's main event or anything like that, because what's currently happening in the ring is nothing that I can put much of a spin on. The job of an announcer is similar to that of someone who draws illustrations for a book; they don't tell you the story, the story is right there in front of you, but the announcer is there to fully flesh out the details and maybe point out a few little things that the audience might have missed. In stalling, there's not much to flesh out. There's only so many ways to say "man, Heel #1 sure hates the fans and loves the sound of his own voice, he really needs to stop worrying about all that and start worrying about his opponent". It's tiring to call that sort of thing, because it briefly makes whatever the announcer has to say fairly irrelevant. He's there to call the action, and for the moment, the action has stopped.

 

But I don't think you can group "every match ending with a Canadian Destroyer" in with tactics that exists primarily to build heat. The difference in degree there is so big in represents a difference in kind.

The thing is that nearly every match on these indy shows did use the old Southern stalling schtick. Part of that was necessity: many of these shows were held in a really terrible ring, and in buildings with low ceilings, and other various roadblocks in the path to workrate. And nobody's getting paid much, which is a disincentive towards working hard. But regardless of the cause, crappy work is crappy work, and the vast majority of crappy work involved dudes doing the old Memphis bullshit during their matches.

 

Another part of my dislike towards the style comes from all the sermons I've heard from veterans (or guys who like to pretend they're veterans) who preached that the old Southern style of heat-building was "real wrestling" and the only style worth a damn. They would rant and rave about how all those guys in WWE and TNA and ROH were all doing it wrong, and that the southerner with his cheap heat and his hidden chain was "what people really want to see". Meanwhile, they were totally ignoring the fact that this style was barely drawing a hundred fans to lackluster shows in shitty venues, while all that stuff which they insisted people didn't want to see was drawing a MUCH bigger crowd. Years of being force-fed those kinds of bullshit lies and justifications for not busting their ass in the ring have given me even more of a dislike towards matches involving that kind of thing.

[Victator]

I cannot name a single great match from the Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs or Demolition.

Demolition

 

VS Brainbusters September 89 MSG

 

VS Twin Towers both Boston Garden matches

 

VS Rockers MSG 88

 

VS Hart Foundation Summerslam 88

 

 

Hart Foundation

 

vs Demolition Summerslam 88

 

vs Brainbusters Summerslam 89

 

 

Bulldogs had a match with the Demos that bordered on great if not for a shitty finish. Harts had a great match with the Twin Towers that I need to rewatch before adding it to the list.

 

I figure most people here know. But me and Matt D spent two months last year going over Demolition matches. That is why I did not clarify earlier.

[Dylan Waco]

I cannot name a single great match from the Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs or Demolition.

I actually agree with this. I really like the Hart Foundation v. Killer Bees match from Bret's DVD set but I don't like it as much as the two or three best PG-13 v. Mikey/Spike matches, one of those USWA matches you reviewed (I have not seen the other), the match v. Dudz at HH, the RnR where they work babyface from Evansville (I think) or the better Thugz match I reviewed. And again that's just off the cuff small sampling stuff from PG-13 as I haven't watched much of the USWA stuff I have with them on it in more than a cursory way in some time.

 

Isn't the Bulldogs best match from AJPW?

 

I like Demolition and think they had lots of good matches but nothing I would call great off hand.

[El-P]

Not wanting to derail things, but I fail to see how Demolition was even a *good* team. Was Bill Eadie a good worker ? Yes. Was Barry Darsow a decent worker ? Yes. But the Demolition gimmick which forced them to do (sorry if I have to use the godforsaken "moves" arguments) shitty punches and double hammer on the back limited them a lot. Darsow was better as a Russian, Eadie was a lot better as the Masked Superstars. To me the Demolition love is strictly a product of childhood memories, I would take pretty much any other WWF 80's team that doesn't involve Volkoff, Andre or Jim Powers over them.

Yes, they had a few good matches with great team like the Rockers and really good team like the Hart Foundation. Big deal.

[Matt D]

Not wanting to derail things, but I fail to see how Demolition was even a *good* team. Was Bill Eadie a good worker ? Yes. Was Barry Darsow a decent worker ? Yes. But the Demolition gimmick which forced them to do (sorry if I have to use the godforsaken "moves" arguments) shitty punches and double hammer on the back limited them a lot. Darsow was better as a Russian, Eadie was a lot better as the Masked Superstars. I take the Demolition love as strictly a product of childhood memories, I would take pretty much any other WWF 80's team that doesn't involve Volkoff, Andre or Jim Powers over them.

Look. Actually watch the matches and see how they're laid out. That they could do so much with such a limited arsenal of moves is absolutely amazing and is a point FOR them, not against them. That they changed up the matches that they were wrestling almost every single time out, even against the same opponents is mindblowing. Instead of just outright no-selling like people remember them doing, they instead made their opponents work for everything they got out of them and the end result makes for astoundingly logical matches.

 

Here, if you can stomach dailymotion (protip: use firefox with the proper combination of ad and script blockers), we've got a ton of matches all set for you to watch. We did the work for you in finding them.

 

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=51663

 

Also, the Colossal Connection is one of the best WWF teams ever from their body of work. (granted, they only have a few Demos matches, a few squashes, and the Rockers match but still. Broken down Andre was the single smartest worker of all time).

 

As for great Demolition matches. The 88 MSG Rockers match, the Twin Towers series, 88 Summerslam vs Harts, the MSG Colossal Connection match, and the Brain Busters series all have matches I'd consider great, especially considering the time constraints. Some of the Bulldogs matches are really good too.

 

And for the most part, the heel-in-peril stuff doesn't happen much with Demos (save for maybe some of the longer Bulldogs matches) due to the aforementioned making their opponents work for everything.

[jdw]

Oh hell... Heel In Peril in the WWF 80s Thread:

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2937#2937

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=3222#3222

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=3258#3258

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9193#9193

 

I've barely scratched the surface of Golden Tag Era matches, saving them for the end of the process.

 

Heel In Peril was so noticeable in WWF Tag matches in the era that it was a breath of fresh air when things were even 50/50, let alone FIP-centric matches.

 

John

[Herodes]

Just sticking to the 90s here to keep things simple..

 

PG-13 were great in Memphis. In the dying days of the USWA they had some great matches against Steven Dunn & Flash Flanagan in 97, and the feud with Tommy Rich and Doug Gilbert in 94 needs to be seen by more people. In 93 they were an under-card comedy team doing Vanilla Ice schtick and feuding with Miss Texas and the feud with Rich & Gilbert made them legit in the eyes of the fans, which carried over into the feud with SMW especially the great match with the heel Rock n Rolls in USWA an the THUGS in Smoky.

 

Other teams from the 90s that were great although their runs were short:

 

Quebecers - the 93/94 run with the matches against the Steiners (tag win), 123 Kid/Janetty and Harts

Moondogs - various incarnations from 91 to 94. Brutal jobber squashes and great brawls with Lawler, Jarrett & Co

Headhunters - even now the freak factor of 2 fat sadists doing moonsaults still appeals to me. Beyond the WING/IWA bloodbaths they had some great matches in EMLL

Orient Express - I know they were mainly jobbers in the WWF and struggling to think of a defining match outside of the Rockers rumble match..any suggestions? Still they were always fun to watch

 

Rock n Roll Express had a great revival in SMW which was the perfect territory for them, and Heavenly Bodies were great opponents.

 

Best series of tag matches I've seen from the 90s is Santo/Negro Casas vs Scorpio Jr/Bestia Salvaje. Aside from the incredible mask/hair match there's at least another 3 matches out there on tape both leading up to the match and after that match. Santo/Casas may be one of the best teams ever, and as awesome as the rudos were, I can't think of any other matches they had as a tag team against different opponents..but that feud was so good that they should at least be mentioned.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm a Lucha novice, but Cerebro/Terry v. Gringo Loco/Diablo had a couple of incredible tag matches at the beginning of last year if you want to talk about great short runs.

 

Another great short run would be the Bubba/Spike tandem which had a match with the J.T/Guido FBI that is one of the best matches in ECW history, plus very good matches with teams like the Erotic Experience and the Bad Crew among other things. Mikey/Spike were also really great and were great dance partners for both PG-13 and the CanAms (really the only team that made the CanAms work to their potential stateside). Of course Spike was a legit great FIP during that period so that helped a lot.

 

Again I repeat that the Smothers/Guido FBI is better than most of the teams that have been mentioned in this thread. They were around for longer than people realize too. While most of their matches were merely "good" they had some weak/uninspired competition and they also had some legit great matches despite never being booked seriously. They easily have the best Eliminators match of all time almost entirely due to Tommy/Guido/Tracy

[Jingus]

Broken down Andre was the single smartest worker of all time).

True dat, yo. In my little collection of "students" I've garnered recently, I always make them watch a bunch of Andre matches. Nobody was as great as he was at taking a massive pile of liabilities and turning them into positives. (Well, Baba kinda did the same thing, but his health was rarely as shitty as Andre's often was.) His charisma, his timing, his pacing of the matches, his selling, all of it combined into matches that even the current young fans will enjoy. I'll show the kids something like Andre vs Duggan at a meaningless house show from '89, and they love that shit.

 

 

Also, somehow I missed these before:

 

Blu Bloods. Probably the all time paper team. Where are the matches? No way they were better though they should have been

Fuckin' A. No way that these guys should have had the lame, mediocre matches that they usually did, considering the talent involved. Admittedly, half their matches were with Harlem Heat or the Nasties, which will ding your score down a bit automatically. But still, you'd think that a Regal/Eaton team should've done much better than they did.

 

When I was 9, I thought that Hogan was TERRIBLE because he only punched and bodyslammed people. And then when on the UNREAL History of Professional Wrestling on A&E when Bruno or someone made that exact same comment, I felt so vindicated.

LOL at fuckin' Bruno knocking Hogan for in-ring skills. Both of them wrestled a nearly identical style, with tons of punching and similar fiery feels-no-pain comebacks and everything. Both of them broke out of the rut on occasion, you can compare Bruno's long matches with Baba to Hogan's mini-sprints with Muta when it comes to changing up the formula, but largely they did the same things.

[Matt D]

Orient Express - I know they were mainly jobbers in the WWF and struggling to think of a defining match outside of the Rockers rumble match..any suggestions? Still they were always fun to watch

Unfortunately there is a dearth of great Orient Express matches, at least taped. There are the Rockers matches and the New Foundation match. The Demolition match is pretty weirdly laid out if I remember right. The Hart foundation match that aired is a glorified squash. The Power and Glory match isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. The MSG Haku and Barbarian vs Orient Express match turns out to be Kato and Fuji vs Barbarian and Haku, which is a damn shame. The Six man vs Kerry/Steamboat/Bulldog is a squash. The Rockers + Virgil vs Orient Express + Fuji match isn't very good.

[Dylan Waco]

Terry Funk is the greatest wrestler of all time and these guys had some fucking awesome matches because Terry Funk is the greatest wrestler of all time. Remember what I said about the Birds and Hayes? Well that can be applied to the Funks fifty times over. Dory really was a non-factor in most of their best matches and at times made otherwise good/great matches way worse than they otherwise should have been. When a guy is THAT big a detriment/non-factor I can't seriously argue that the team is an all time great team.

I agree with you Dylan on most stuff, but I'm sure you didn't mean imply that Gordy and Roberts were as much a non factor in Freebird tags as Dory was in Funk brother tags...

 

Dory was the real Robert Gibson. Everyone talks about how great Rick Morton was and kind of write off Gibson as a turnbuckle decoration for the Morton show, but a lot of my favorite RNR tags feature extensive Gibson FIP segments where he's actively a great worker throughout (like the DWBs tag from Mid South, for example) Dory is the epitome of a dude who, in that role, was ok for hot tags and not much else. Consistently the least guy in all their matches while Gibson a lot of times felt on par with Morton.

 

I'm rambling but yeah, while i agree Hayes was great in a ton of situations, Gordy and Roberts were great workers in all of those matches, too. Unlike Dory

 

You hit the nail on the head. Didn't mean to come across like I was shitting on Buddy and Gordy who were great wrestlers.

[Dylan Waco]

Orient Express - I know they were mainly jobbers in the WWF and struggling to think of a defining match outside of the Rockers rumble match..any suggestions? Still they were always fun to watch

Unfortunately there is a dearth of great Orient Express matches, at least taped. There are the Rockers matches and the New Foundation match. The Demolition match is pretty weirdly laid out if I remember right. The Hart foundation match that aired is a glorified squash. The Power and Glory match isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. The MSG Haku and Barbarian vs Orient Express match turns out to be Kato and Fuji vs Barbarian and Haku, which is a damn shame. The Six man vs Kerry/Steamboat/Bulldog is a squash. The Rockers + Virgil vs Orient Express + Fuji match isn't very good.

 

Like with PG-13, they had a very entertaining squash with The Roadies from memory.

[Matt D]

Orient Express - I know they were mainly jobbers in the WWF and struggling to think of a defining match outside of the Rockers rumble match..any suggestions? Still they were always fun to watch

Unfortunately there is a dearth of great Orient Express matches, at least taped. There are the Rockers matches and the New Foundation match. The Demolition match is pretty weirdly laid out if I remember right. The Hart foundation match that aired is a glorified squash. The Power and Glory match isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. The MSG Haku and Barbarian vs Orient Express match turns out to be Kato and Fuji vs Barbarian and Haku, which is a damn shame. The Six man vs Kerry/Steamboat/Bulldog is a squash. The Rockers + Virgil vs Orient Express + Fuji match isn't very good.

 

Like with PG-13, they had a very entertaining squash with The Roadies from memory.

 

The big problem with the Orient Express is that by the time they came on the scene the aired Boston Garden/Philly Spectrum/MLG matches were already over and done with.

 

It means we lose out at least four or five Rockers matches (one of which I was at live as a kid, I think), a couple of handicaps w/Fuji vs LOD, and some Bushwhackers matches which I actually wouldn't have minded seeing and a Shane Douglas/Marty Jannetty vs OX match.

 

Actually, the 7/17/90 Rockers vs Orient Express MLG match made one of the "HOTTEST MATCHES" tapes. I wonder if I've ever seen that.

 

OH! by all means, DO watch the Barbarian/Haku vs Fuji/Kato match though. Not a good match but it has some really neat and rare Heenan/Fuji stuff. I think it was set up the month before with Fuji guest managing the Barbarian or something.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZIeW9XOyZw

[Dylan Waco]

Pat Tanaka is so god damned underrated. He's also a Marty Jannetty type who was always good when he would randomly show up and was always good with any partner they gave him

[Herodes]

Jannetty and Tanaka had a great match at MSG in 91 which was shown on Prime Time. Badd Company vs Ken Patera and Brad Rhenigans from AWA where they lost the title in 1989 was excellent, especially considering their opposition was a washed-up con and a zero-charisma jobber.

 

Have The Armstrongs (Scott and Steve) been mentioned? I'm sure there's a ton of really fun matches on some obscure syndie shows from the mid to late 90s. And on that subject I'll show some love for other WCW jobber teams that kept the tradition of post-relevance tag team wrestling going on shows nobody watched like Disorderly Conduct, Texas Hangmen and Los Fabulosos.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm watching all the SMW tv now and literally JUST watched a Scott/Steve match. They were a fine team and they had a solid run in 99 WCW but they aren't even the best Steve Armstrong team. That would be the Southern Boys who also haven't been mentioned but were a really good team

[Matt D]

I'm watching all the SMW tv now and literally JUST watched a Scott/Steve match. They were a fine team and they had a solid run in 99 WCW but they aren't even the best Steve Armstrong team. That would be the Southern Boys who also haven't been mentioned but were a really good team

The Southern Boys were really good and all but the Young Pistols, after the heel turn, were AMAZING.

 

One reason I can't get myself to watch much SMW Smothers is because of the face turn where he turns his back on that run and embraces his podunk roots or whatever. Not for me.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm watching all the SMW tv now and literally JUST watched a Scott/Steve match. They were a fine team and they had a solid run in 99 WCW but they aren't even the best Steve Armstrong team. That would be the Southern Boys who also haven't been mentioned but were a really good team

The Southern Boys were really good and all but the Young Pistols, after the heel turn, were AMAZING.

 

One reason I can't get myself to watch much SMW Smothers is because of the face turn where he turns his back on that run and embraces his podunk roots or whatever. Not for me.

 

You are insane. The Tracy pre-tapes begging forgiveness for falling for big city scheming are incredible. Also Smothers was incredible in the ring in SMW. The best run of his career probably.

[Herodes]

Maybe my favourite Steiners match is against the Young Pistols from WCW tv in 1992. Steiners bring their pet dog with them and both Pistols do some great bullshit against the mutt especially Tracey squaring off in a karate pose against the dog and then doing the cowardly escape into the crowd when he's off his leash. Heel Young Pistols were great.

[jdw]

On the top 20 indy wrestlers thing, and at the expense of being accused of "hedging" again by John,

Not really accusing you.

 

A number of time people tossed "Top 10" at you. You came back by saying you hadn't said top 10. What you said needed to be made clear in this thread. I quoted what you said, in full.

 

You were explicit that you think they're Top 20. On Top 10, you weren't as explicit though people could easily read it as such.

 

Hedge / waffle / etc

 

Lord knows we all do it.

 

"I don't know if Backlund is a great worker. I will say he was a good worker."

 

That's a hedge by me, one I'd cop to.

 

I don't know if Backlund was "great", "excellent", "Top 10" or "Top 20". But it also wasn't what I ever worried about arguing. Getting people to see "good" seemed like a big positive.

 

PG-13 "Top 10" or "Top 20"? Does it really matter? I suspect getting people to the "Damn... PG-13 was a really great team" level would be a big positive.

 

John