Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 3

[Graham Crackers]

If it wouldn't register, what's the point in saying it at all? If the goal was to try to get Flynn over as someone who poses a threat to Goldberg, why not use terms that casual fans would understand? So there's that too.

I can't find it on youtube but a few years ago someone posted some PPV commercials advertising a "Shootfighting" PPV in the mid 1990s that I think was just UWFi with English commentary. I can't remember the year and I'm not sure how successful it was. Maybe he was thinking of that?

[cm funk]

Stevens was a cartoonish bumper at a time when not many people did that. He was also a good brawler. Unique style, and sort of an originator for the time. Very charismatic as well. Guys like Flair, Perfect, HBK and Ziggler have all taken a page out of his book, whether they know it or not

[Eduardo]

The term "Shootfighting" was seen frequently in Apter magazines in the mid-1990s. I remember my casual wrestling-watching friends and brothers would regularly use that word at the time (they picked it up from those publications). Pretty sure the term was uttered at some point in ECW and WWF as well, but I think the latter company preferred to use "No Holds Barred" instead of "Shootfighting". Like Clayton said earlier, "Shootfighting" was a very common term and Tenay wasn't alone in using it.

[Loss]

I'm surprised by this. How did the Apter mags define it?

[cm funk]

My understanding is that the term "shoot" comes from shooting in for a takedown in wrestling. MMA, obviously, has roots in grappling

[Eduardo]

It was mainly in ads but it was also used when writing about Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn in those magazines. It was used to describe UFC, Pancrase and UWFi. Maybe someone here remembers, but I think the term was used in the first PWI Almanac.

[Loss]

I just think from a kayfabe perspective, the only difference between that style and pro wrestling is the rules.

[goodhelmet]

I'm a William Regal guy. He is creeping into my Top 5 right now the more I watch him.

[khawk20]

A few days ago I read Ray Stevens' biography as it was posted on a classic WON last week. I remember back when I was heavily into tape trades he was the second biggest letdown ever once I got to see the footage. After reading for years and years and years about this "legendary superworker" all the stuff that I found of him on tape was not very good. I just assumed his best stuff was never taped. That being said that was a decade ago and I'm sure a lot more footage has surfaced. Is there any must watch Stevens matches that I should track down?

 

In case anyone is wondering the biggest letdown for me was El Solitario. I was always told by pretty much everybody that he was the best worker in Mexico for decades but he is actually terrible in most of the dozen or so available matches with him and is only good in one of them.

I have a list kicking around of Stevens footage that I can PM you if I can find it. I did one for Barnett some time ago as he was looking for a comp. I didn't end up making it, though.

 

The one thing about Stevens that has been universal in wrestler commentaries about him was that he was a complete "night off", and one of the easiest guys to work with, ever. Another thing that comes up constantly is his impeccable timing in the ring, and his remarkable instincts in the ring.

 

So, while it doesn't necessarily translate in the available footage, the words of his colleagues do mean something, especially when they are almost universal. And yes, wrestlers do BS about everything, but I never get the sense that praise for Stevens is like that.

[JerryvonKramer]

During my holiday and on the plane, I watched a whole bunch of the old Legends of Wrestling shows. Last two I saw were the 1970s one and the Tag Teams one where the panel is: Nick Bockwinkel, Michael Hayes, JJ Dillon and Pat Patterson with Okerlund hosting. I'd say around a 30% of those two shows total revolved around discussion of Ray Stevens, as a worker, as a guy, as a tag worker ... as a character in real life he comes across as someone who is between Flair (up all night, wild party guy) and Curt Hennig (FUN guy).

 

There's quite a lot of random clips of Stevens from all over the place scattered in all that. They seem to have good footage of him teaming with Bock from both Florida and AWA reckon about mid-70s judging by Bock's hair. Again, he didn't look amazing in any of the clips, although he did do an Ole Anderson-style knee drop from the top rope in one of them. Bockwinkel and Patterson both say he was one of the all-time greats to work with and made them elevate their game.

 

Here's the thing I was thinking about when I was watching that and when I read Dylan's post: I don't think any of us as fans really understand where wrestlers are coming from with their assessments a lot of the time. I'll give you another example:

 

Dory Funk Jr.

 

We've all seen plenty of Dory. I've gone out of my way to watch NWA Champ Dory to see if there's a marked difference from the boring old fart we see in the 80s. There really isn't. We all hate Dory. Yet, I've never ever ever heard any guy who stepped into the ring with him say a bad word about him as a worker. Dory is frequently cited by wrestlers of that generation as a GOAT. JJ Dillon picked him out as the greatest wrestler he'd ever had a match with. Workers from the 70s think Brisco vs. Dory is the best match of all time.

 

There's something they are getting that most hardcore fans watching the footage are not getting.

 

I'm not saying for certain that Ray Stevens was never any better than what we've seen, I'm just saying that I wouldn't be all that surprised if even peak Stevens wasn't all that.

 

I think it comes down to this: fans and wrestlers look for different things in workers.* I think this also works the other way too: look at Luger. You'll never hear any wrestler give Luger any credit for anything because he was hard to work with. You'll never hear anyone knock Dory or -- let's say Ted DiBiase or even a guy like Jake Roberts -- because they were all easy to work with.

 

*NB. I do also think that there was a tendency with "smart" fans back in the day to inherit reps from wrestlers' opinions without questioning them. All the guys say this guy is GOAT level, so he's GOAT level. This also happened between wrestlers. For example, Bock freely admitted that he'd never even seen Patterson and Stevens work as a team, only ever heard about them. The same was true the other way around: Patterson hadn't seen Bock with Stevens.

 

Also, it's easy to see how massive mythical reps can build in that way. Intuitions come first, reasoning follows. JJ Dillon has built up Stevens as this great worker in his head, so he goes into a match with him with that already in mind. He has the match and Stevens is easy to work with: so all the things he heard about him are true. Classic confirmation bias.

[Guest TheGreatPuma]

A few days ago I read Ray Stevens' biography as it was posted on a classic WON last week. I remember back when I was heavily into tape trades he was the second biggest letdown ever once I got to see the footage. After reading for years and years and years about this "legendary superworker" all the stuff that I found of him on tape was not very good. I just assumed his best stuff was never taped. That being said that was a decade ago and I'm sure a lot more footage has surfaced. Is there any must watch Stevens matches that I should track down?

 

In case anyone is wondering the biggest letdown for me was El Solitario. I was always told by pretty much everybody that he was the best worker in Mexico for decades but he is actually terrible in most of the dozen or so available matches with him and is only good in one of them.

I have a list kicking around of Stevens footage that I can PM you if I can find it. I did one for Barnett some time ago as he was looking for a comp. I didn't end up making it, though.

 

The one thing about Stevens that has been universal in wrestler commentaries about him was that he was a complete "night off", and one of the easiest guys to work with, ever. Another thing that comes up constantly is his impeccable timing in the ring, and his remarkable instincts in the ring.

 

So, while it doesn't necessarily translate in the available footage, the words of his colleagues do mean something, especially when they are almost universal. And yes, wrestlers do BS about everything, but I never get the sense that praise for Stevens is like that.

 

In the 9/13/99 Benoit vs Bret Hart matchup on Nitro after an excellent Benot brawling comeback after a Bret Hart beatdown Heenan says something along the lines that he always thought Stevens was the best ever but that Benoit might be just a step ahead. It always made me interested in checking out Steven's work.

[jpchicago23]

So a former WWE developmental guy, forget his name at the moment, just murdered his girlfriend here in Tampa. Just caught it on the local news during lunch

[BrickHithouse]

Here's a Facebook post Porter allegedly made while still in developmental:

 

Guys, I don’t know how much longer I can handle this. Every day is a constant struggle to keep my sanity. I love wrestling and it’s all I ever wanted to do. Already going crazy since I’ve been for like ten months now, but it gets worse. Every day a trainer goes out of his way to rib or disrespect me in front of the boys because I’ve been out so long. I can’t clear myself. I wanna wrestle more than anything, but I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s so f–king hard. I just feel it just building inside of me and I don’t know how much longer I can contain it. I have daydreams of just f–king everyone up on some real s–t. I’m not a kid. I’m a f–king man. But what do you do when the people in charge of helping you get to the main roster are the ones making your life the hardest. I’ve been drinking almost every day. It’s to the point to where I keep Vodka and Gin in my trunk. Help me!

[mookeighana]

I wrote a little piece on PPV modeling with a few fun charts trying to answer the question, "Question: Is it possible to estimate the number of buys that Wrestlemania would have if it only cost $15?": http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/

 

 

I guess about 2.7 million

 

[KrisZ]

--On 8/5, ESPN Classic is going to be airing a Global Wrestling (Texas promotion from the early 90s) marathon. They are going to start airing old Global shows regularly on the station

[Bix]

--On 8/5, ESPN Classic is going to be airing a Global Wrestling (Texas promotion from the early 90s) marathon. They are going to start airing old Global shows regularly on the station

[anarchistxx]

Interesting, will that be airing on ESPN classic in the UK? Are the ESPN channels even going to continue to be on Sky, now that BT Sports have taken their EPL rights? I heard they were shutting down all the channels over here. ESPN classic would be a loss for me, got loads of great football off there over the years, World Cup and European Cup finals shown in their entirety etc.

 

I imagine JVK knows something about this?

[JerryvonKramer]

I actually looked into it a while back after Sky bought O2 (who I have my broadband with) -- thought it would be a good time to go with the superfast option and a big plus with BTInfinity is the new sports channel. Still haven't got round to switching.

 

My understanding is that they've essentially bought the channel itself over here, so it will still be called ESPN but run entirely by BT. It's pretty strange to be honest, but I guess this comes from Virgin getting involved in providing TV and Sky getting involved in Telecoms. Those two industries are merging.

 

Bit annoying for me because I like to keep things separate (phone with BT, TV with Sky, mobile and broadband with O2), but increasingly they want to make you take the bundle and be the one-stop shop for all services.

 

As for what they'll show on this ESPN channel, I suspect it will be marketed around the 38 EPL games they've got and American sports which is a big growth area here. However, the BBC -- of all stations -- have picked up some NFL coverage so things are getting more competitive.

 

Honestly, though, what I really want is for a return of the old James Richardson Football Italia show. In fact, if a station could just pick up James Richardson and have him front all their coverage, I'd be happy. Have serious man-love for AC Jimbo.

[anarchistxx]

There will definitely be two channels called BT Sport 1 and BT Sport 2, so they won't just be carrying on under the ESPN brand.

 

I wasn't aware BBC had acquired some NFL rights. Hardly big business over here though, Channel 5 used to air it at 1AM on weeknights to recall.

 

Honestly, though, what I really want is for a return of the old James Richardson Football Italia show. In fact, if a station could just pick up James Richardson and have him front all their coverage, I'd be happy. Have serious man-love for AC Jimbo.

Wasn't he presenting Italian football for Setanta or Premier Sports recently? Football Italia was an amazing program back in the day, I remember watching it all the time as a kid on Saturday mornings, even then I thought it was cool as fuck. Good article about it here if you haven't read it http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/20...l-4-italian-job .

 

I'm not entirely sure it would work bringing the program back. Totally different time now, and Italian football has lost its identity, its glamor and even its legitimacy with the constant match fixing scandals. Also there aren't the big stars that there were in the 90s to keep it so engrossing, most Italian clubs are financially crippled and the top players these days go to Spain, Germany, England and recently Monaco/PSG.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's true. Actually, Germany has probably now replaced Italy as the third big league in Europe, which is a real shame given how there was a time when it was definitely number 1.

 

Goaallllllllll AAAAZZZiiiiooo

 

We should stop before Will's head explodes. He hates me talking football, I mean soccer.

[Bix]

Interesting, will that be airing on ESPN classic in the UK? Are the ESPN channels even going to continue to be on Sky, now that BT Sports have taken their EPL rights? I heard they were shutting down all the channels over here. ESPN classic would be a loss for me, got loads of great football off there over the years, World Cup and European Cup finals shown in their entirety etc.

 

I imagine JVK knows something about this?

No, if something is airing on one country's version of ESPN Classic, never assume it's airing on another country's ESPN Classic. The American, Canadian, and British channels have all aired different wrestling shows.

[anarchistxx]

Shame. Don't think I've ever seen any wrestling on ESPN classic here unfortunately. The only 'classic' wrestling we got over here is WWE Vintage showing replays of The Miz vs Dolph Ziggler from 2010...

[JerryvonKramer]

Also, on a side note, NFL has been steadily growing in this country for the past decade. Made a few strides in the past couple of years. I mean, sure, most people still don't give a shit, but I think the last Super Bowl was much bigger news than, let's say, one 10 years ago.

 

I think this is a consequence of the world getting smaller because of the internet and people are less parochial than they used to be. I have wondered if it might lead to a situation where the US stop taking our shows and remaking them in their own image as more and more people see the original product because of internet buzz. For example, what if The Office had come out now rather than in 2001. Would a bigger base of Americans have seen it? This is something we will see play out in our lifetimes.

[Bix]

Shame. Don't think I've ever seen any wrestling on ESPN classic here unfortunately. The only 'classic' wrestling we got over here is WWE Vintage showing replays of The Miz vs Dolph Ziggler from 2010...

Sid Waddell's Wrestling Show, it had old ITV/World of Sport matches: http://www.espnclassic.com/gb/ecuk/sports-...onal-wrestling/

[JerryvonKramer]

I've seen them showing World of Sport on another channel. Men & Movies, I believe.