AWA Thread

[Matt D]

I feel like it might have been a part of the longer HOF thread and not it's own thing. Anyway, thanks.

[Dylan Waco]

It's part of the big HOF thread. I may move it to a separate thread eventually.

[Smack2k]

I am so happy to see the AWA getting the love it deserves....its one of the best promotions of all time in my opinion. Finding KHawk years ago and his vault of AWA greatness has provided me with a ton of great matches and TV from all eras..thanks for being the "AWA guru". The AWA was one of the first shows I got hooked on wrestling with in early 1986 and one of the main reasons I started collecting...I will still say 85 - 90 had some greatness in it at various points that rivals others at the same time period....some of the lesser liked things not on the set that I still enjoy:

 

Nick Kiniski / Kevin Kelly (w/ Madusa) - I dont know why but these three worked really well together as a cocky arrogant, "better than you" tag team. They had some good tags against other teams aside from the Midnight Rockers

 

Nasty Boys vs. Midnight Rockers (1988) - These guys a good TV match as well, worth finding if interested

 

Nikita Koloff vs. Larry Z - 2/3 Falls - AWA Title - Not sure if this is the one on the set, but I like this match better than their first singles encounter

 

Boris Zhuchov / Barbarian vs. Midnight Rockers - These teams had a couple good TV matches

 

Boris Zhuchov / Barbarian vs. Greg Gagne / Jimmy Snuka - Really enjoyed this as well

 

Road Warriors vs. Baron Von Rasche / Curt Hennig - AWA Tag Titles - I think this in Wisconsin. The Roadies beat the living hell out of Curt after he gets his head stuck in the ropes (ala Foley in later years) with a chair. Its funny seeing Curt blade and Hawk quickly try to put the chair in front of him to hide it. Hennig bleeds buckets and does a great sell job after the match lying in his dad's arms. This would lead the Road Warriors vs. Hennigs on 4/21/85. But the best part is the absolute RIOT that almost breaks out when the Warriors are heading to the back...these people are pissed and attacking... EDIT - Its in the extras...ENJOY IT, ITS INCREDIBLE

 

Badd Company vs. Guerreros - AWA Tag Titles - 1988 / 1989 - These two teams had several great matches on TV

 

Destruction Crew squashes - They beat the fuck out of teams and their "Decapitation Device" used to look like it hurt people...one in particular I will forever remember was the poor guy landing on the top of his head...it was brutal..

 

Jimmy Snuka gets attacked by Col. Debeers - This was during a Snuka vs. Larry Z TV match. If you havent seen it, find it...Debeers attacks Snuka and leaves him in a pool of blood, and I especially love the fan at ringside ready to attack Debeers. Snuka's interviews over the next few weeks are great as well...a subdued, injured Superfly..

 

 

SOO MANY MORE!! The AWA will always be one of my top 2 promotions of all time (with JCP)

[Frankensteiner]

So I've always thought 90s WWF workrate style was an extension of the AWA style. Would people agree with that now that they've watched more of this stuff? I think it's pretty easy to see influences in matches like Martel/Bockwinkel. Then you had the likes of Hennig, Michaels, and Jannetty who worked the AWA early in their careers and would carry things over to the WWF. And I recall Hart mentioning in his book something to the effect of the AWA having the best and most credible wrestlers out of all the territories.

[Matt D]

Pure curiosity. Did anyone go for the Wendi Richter and Joyce Grable vs Velvet Mcintyre and Judy Martin match from the same AWA All Star Wrestling show which had the 2/3 falls Buck+Steve O vs Sheiks match. It's kind of a crazy synchronized spotfest.

 

Also, I haven't seen the commercials disc yet, but I sure as hell hope the Mad Dog Vachon Chicago Lake Liquors commercial made it on.

 

"Local Beer, United States Beer, Canadian Beer, Imported Beer."

 

[goodhelmet]

The commercial is on there.

[Matt D]

The world needs to see it, so I am glad. I've been watching in order except for the Blackwell turn.

[Kevin Ridge]

My number one match didn't change over the course of the set though it did get some serious competition. There isn't a whole lot of bad but I felt a lot of stuff was in the middle of the pack which makes it incredibly tough to rank them in my ballot. Some of the later discs are really good which kind of surprised me. Yeah, the crowds aren't as big/intense as earlier in set but there is some real good quality matches. Take a break now but will go back and rewatch a bunch of matches I felt I did not give a good enough viewing the first time around. The bonus material was alot of fun.

[Dylan Waco]

Shit you are already done Kevin? You should post some of your thoughts over at the DVDVR. I'm curious to hear what your number one is.

[Kevin Ridge]

Yeah, I totally burned through stuff this past week and just finished up this afternoon. I didn't do disc rankings like people over on DVDVR or take sufficient enough notes sadly which is why I will need to rewatch stuff. But I'm pretty sure my number one will remain the same which is found on Disc 2.

[Dylan Waco]

Disc 2 is really fucking loaded.

 

Glad you enjoyed the stuff later in the decade. Watching the stuff the first time through the Showboat era was WAY better than I expected to be.

 

I'd still like to see you add your thoughts on some specific matches over there when you get some time. On my rewatch I'm up to Bock v. Hennig draw which I will watch this evening. I'm still not entirely sure of what my number one will be, but I'm even less sure of what my number two is going to be.

[khawk20]

I'm getting behind on reading the comments on DVDVR as I keep getting an "IPS Driver Error" when I try to log in. Only been able to get on a couple of times in the last several days.

[Clayton Jones]

Yeah the board being down is unfortunate timing because I keep having a backlog of like 5-8 matches to comment on when I happen to catch it up. And then I can't remember in detail what I wanted to say about half the matches, and then before I'm able to post it's back down again. I don't do individual disc rankings either (I see the appeal but it's a kind of arbitrary way to group the matches) and I don't keep notes as I go other than the DVDVR Too Short posts. But I've had a good amount of matches pegged for a rewatch anyway so this will just motivate me a bit more to actually follow through with that (and the motivation is always the hardest factor for me when it comes to the rewatch pile).

[Matt D]

The board being down has slowed me down a little, but I toss my comments in an e-mail to myself post match and then put them on later.

 

I love the names of the AWA jobbers. Rooster Griffith. The Black Panther. The IRON DUKE~. Nacho Berrera. The best is how they made NO attempt to hide the fact Referee Jim Mitchell was the Iron Duke. They just called him something different when he was wrestling. Hilarious.

[goodhelmet]

I don't do individual disc rankings either (I see the appeal but it's a kind of arbitrary way to group the matches) and I don't keep notes as I go other than the DVDVR Too Short posts. But I've had a good amount of matches pegged for a rewatch anyway so this will just motivate me a bit more to actually follow through with that (and the motivation is always the hardest factor for me when it comes to the rewatch pile).

 

I agree with this. I have done individual disc rankings before but then it just fucks me up when I am doing the final list. I prefer to keep a word document where I just color code the matches in how I feel about them.

[khawk20]

The board being down has slowed me down a little, but I toss my comments in an e-mail to myself post match and then put them on later.

 

I love the names of the AWA jobbers. Rooster Griffith. The Black Panther. The IRON DUKE~. Nacho Berrera. The best is how they made NO attempt to hide the fact Referee Jim Mitchell was the Iron Duke. They just called him something different when he was wrestling. Hilarious.

You did notice why he's called "The Iron Duke" right? Some people miss it sometimes.

 

Rooster Griffith was also a manager for Bruiser's WWA in the early 80's. Not a great one, but he was a regular part of that version of the WWA at the same time he was jobbing for Verne. I always found that funny.

[Matt D]

I get the glove because of the missing finger. But he doesn't seem to be working a Wellington gimmick so I have no idea.

[rzombie1988]

Hold on, there's a Rooster Griffith? I was watching Memphis today and found a Rooster Cogman. Is that the same person? I cannot imagine that there are two different wrestlers with the name Rooster.

[JerryvonKramer]

Now the Olympics is over, come the weekend and I'm going to start on this in earnest.

 

Re: disc rankings, I go by match grades and then make decisions between two matches on the same grade. At least that's what I did for All Japan and I plan on the same method for this only swapping star ratings for letter grades (just think stuff like B+ is better than ***3/4). I do the disc rankings for two reasons: 1. because it's fun to compare with other people's and 2. because it's easier to think in blocks of 10 than it is in one block of 100+.

[Kevin Ridge]

This is my first ballot since the WWF set. I hate doing star ratings but it's what I ended up doing as I wasn't sure I was even going to do a ballot anyways. Problem is so many of my matches have similar ratings which is a lot of pain to then go back and rank. So I'll rematch (a good thing) bunch of stuff again and try to come up with a different scoring system I guess. Take better notes too. Thinking of maying doing a 1-10 scale or something like.

[Matt D]

The Greg/Hennig vs Bock/Stevens match is just nuts.

[goodhelmet]

This is my first ballot since the WWF set. I hate doing star ratings but it's what I ended up doing as I wasn't sure I was even going to do a ballot anyways. Problem is so many of my matches have similar ratings which is a lot of pain to then go back and rank. So I'll rematch (a good thing) bunch of stuff again and try to come up with a different scoring system I guess. Take better notes too. Thinking of maying doing a 1-10 scale or something like.

When I put my lists together, it consists of Top 20-25 stuff... the classics or near classics.

 

Next, there are the good-great matches that may have a shitty ending or a bad bump or a small issue that hurts them from popping up in the above category.

 

Then, there is shit you just disagree with the other guys on that goes at the bottom of the pile.

 

The only listing people should stress over is the Top 20-25 of your list. Everything else is gravy.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I gotta be honest. I've never sent on a ballot on any of the projects. I'm so appreciative of the work that goes into these sets that are so much fucking fun that I can't "ruin it" by dissecting and judging. I realize the point is to come up with a list, but by this point in it...it's taken on the role of "Holy Fuck, check out these dvd's!" and "Holy Fuck! I never knew (insert promotion here) was so great!/ "I haven't seen this stuff since I was 16...THIS IS AWESOME!"

[khawk20]

I get the glove because of the missing finger.

I always got the impression that he was missing more than just a finger...more like most/all of them except for the thumb. I could be wrong, but yeah, you get the gist of it.

 

Iron Duke was sort of in the same mold as other wrestlers that did refereeing early in their careers, they didn't try to hide the fact that they were wrestlers.

[Matt D]

I gotta be honest. I've never sent on a ballot on any of the projects. I'm so appreciative of the work that goes into these sets that are so much fucking fun that I can't "ruin it" by dissecting and judging. I realize the point is to come up with a list, but by this point in it...it's taken on the role of "Holy Fuck, check out these dvd's!" and "Holy Fuck! I never knew (insert promotion here) was so great!/ "I haven't seen this stuff since I was 16...THIS IS AWESOME!"

Hippie!