Who is the best booker ever?

[JerryvonKramer]

As may well have been predicted, the worst booker thread has been dominated by discussion of Russo and WCW in its dying years.

 

Time to flip the question then. I think this is difficult, because very few bookers are entirely consistent. Vince, Dusty Rhodes, Gabe Sapolsky, Baba, Paul E., Cornette, Lawler, Eddie Graham, Jarrett, Bill Watts and so on ... for every massive high there is usually a correspondingly awful low or various levels of what-the-fuckery. Guys get burnt out, guys fail to move with the times, guys book against their instincts, guys with 20-year track records make terrible mistakes and go broke.

 

Are we looking just for the most number of highest highs or are we looking at someone who has the highest average level of quality and has been the most consistent. Even Russo had a hot streak.

 

I mean it seems like the default answer should just be "Vince and Pat Patterson", but there are lots and lots of options. What about guys like George Scott? Ernie Ladd? Bill Dundee?

 

NB. We are talking purely about booking here, not necessarily promoting which is a slightly different ball game.

[El-P]

Jerry Jarrett I guess fits the bill.

Giant Baba was at one time a great booker.

Riki Choshu was at one time a great booker making NJ a money printing machine.

Gary Hart in Texas I would guess is pretty damn impressive.

 

Paul Heyman and Jim Cornette I don't see how they fit the "great booker" moniker. Neither have booked a successful promotion. Both are great promos, great managers, have some great creative ideas, but great bookers ? I don't see the argument.

 

Gabe who ?

[Loss]

I'm not sure we can definitively answer this question. Rather than trying to pin down the single person who is the best booker, how about if we just discuss who we think are the best bookers without having to pick just one? You can say good and bad things about every person listed, and I'd rather have a more nuanced discussion. "Who is the best booker ever?" is almost impossible to answer. "Who are the best bookers ever?" is much easier.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm not sure we can definitively answer this question. Rather than trying to pin down the single person who is the best booker, how about if we just discuss who we think are the best bookers without having to pick just one? You can say good and bad things about every person listed, and I'd rather have a more nuanced discussion. "Who is the best booker ever?" is almost impossible to answer. "Who are the best bookers ever?" is much easier.

Yeah, let's do that then. I'm mainly wondering if Vince isn't just the default answer.

 

The question of whether Heyman is or not is surely up for debate.

[Ricky Jackson]

I kind of want to argue that Vince Sr was a better booker than Vince Jr (not promoter, although Sr has to be top 5 in that category) based on being able to come up with enough hot angles, stars, and match-ups to draw consistently well for around 30 years, with only a few cold periods (the main one in the late-60s due in large part to them losing TV in NYC), within the confines of the northeast. I can't pull a college-level thesis argument on the subject off the top of my head, but I think this isn't an outrageous statement to make.

[Loss]

Well, the reason I hesitate in saying Vince is not because I think he was a bad booker, but because it's hard to say what exactly he booked. He's the best promoter of all time for sure, but it seems like most WWF stuff, even in the 80s, was fairly collaborative. Do you call Vince the booker during the 80s, or do you call Patterson the booker in the 80s?

 

For Heyman, he didn't have enough success to be in the conversation. Pretty much everyone who booked a territory prior to the 80s - and some who booked during the 80s - have a stronger case. He's a creative guy. He's great at manipulating emotions and making wrestlers seem better than they really are. But he's never been the driving creative force behind a big money show.

 

I think we could look at every booker we can think of -- good and bad -- and list their best and worst qualities. Somewhere in there, through addition and subtraction, you come up with what would be the ideal booker. But they all have flaws and failures, which is unavoidable. There is always going to be a little trying of new things, and if you look at Vince's success rate of all the things he's attempted, he probably has the worst batting average of just about anyone ever. But rating him like that isn't fair.

 

So yeah, all of that is why I like the idea of keeping this subjective and just talking about the good and bad in bookers instead of trying to answer a specific question.

[Cox]

I think the best way to describe Heyman and Cornette would be critically acclaimed. For those that follow the show Community, Paul Heyman might be the Dan Harmon of wrestling bookers.

[Matt D]

I tend to agree with Bill Dundee.

[JerryvonKramer]

I have a question about Baba, watching the All Japan set, the booking was pretty alien to me, with so many rematches in a short space of time. And on TV too not even house shows.

 

Like the same tag match 4 times inside a month or two. Clearly, Japan has its own booking logic, but what is it? In the US that would be considered hotshotting, so how come the same rules don't apply?

[cm funk]

How are we defining a "successful promotion"? Because nobody can convince me that ECW wasn't a successful promotion for a stretch. At their peak they were regularly drawing anywhere from 1200-3000+ to their shows, pretty damn good #'s for what was essentially a regional promotion with an underground national following in the 1990's. PPV shows would draw 4000-6000.

 

And if we're separating promoting from booking, you could say Heyman was a successful booker who eventually overextended and burned out as a promoter. But to say ECW wasn't successful from say 94-99 is BS.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I tend to agree with Bill Dundee.

Me too. About everything.

 

[jdw]

Riki Choshu from 1989-97ish was quite good. He wasn't an all consuming booker who did everything, but was smart enough to surround himself with smart people and let them do their own thing as well. They also seemed to learn from him. He dealt with egos, suppressed his own very well (which just a few years earlier had been knocked), and adjusted from mistakes. In a sense, what I would want out of a wrestling-booker if I were an Owner.

 

John

[KrisZ]

Plus New Japan did the best business in the world at that time which is the most important factor in booking. Making money.

[Johnny Guitar]

Riki Choshu from 1989-97ish was quite good. He wasn't an all consuming booker who did everything, but was smart enough to surround himself with smart people and let them do their own thing as well. They also seemed to learn from him. He dealt with egos, suppressed his own very well (which just a few years earlier had been knocked), and adjusted from mistakes. In a sense, what I would want out of a wrestling-booker if I were an Owner.

 

John

 

Plus New Japan did the best business in the world at that time which is the most important factor in booking. Making money.

The fact that New Japan was the most succesful wrestling company in history, before the attitude era, and gets overlooked makes me sad.

[jdw]

I'm not sold New Japan was the most successful company/promotion in wrestling *history* pre-Attitude.

 

They were, as Kriz says, possibly the most successful promotion in the world at the time in the years just prior to Attitude. I don't think it's overlooked: it was talked about at the time (think my King of Sports piece in the Torch ran with the theme), and some of us have talked about if a number of times since. Kind of thought it was the obvious thing to mention in putting over Choshu, so wanted to hit briefly what his strengths were.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Was hoping jdw might be able to shed some light on this:

 

I have a question about Baba, watching the All Japan set, the booking was pretty alien to me, with so many rematches in a short space of time. And on TV too not even house shows.

 

Like the same tag match 4 times inside a month or two. Clearly, Japan has its own booking logic, but what is it? In the US that would be considered hotshotting, so how come the same rules don't apply?

[Jingus]

What time period are you talking about? I assume this is either late 70s or early 80s, they didn't do repeat matches so often in the 90s. The short version is that Baba was just following the old territorial tradition of running the same matches in a bunch of different towns. Of course in American territories those matches mostly didn't make television, and I assume these did, so I dunno what was going on there.

[JerryvonKramer]

This is for all of the 80s, and that's the thing I don't get. Like the exact same match run the very next night and both on TV with commentary.

 

Look at this:

 

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (12/5/87) - Match 1, guessing as part of the tag league

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (12/11/87)

Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Tiger Mask (1/23/88)

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Hiroshi Wajima (1/24/88)

Genichiro Tenryu & Samson Fuyuki vs. Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa (2/20/88)

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & John Tenta (2/29/88)

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (3/5/88)

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Mask (3/9/88)

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (3/9/88) - Match 1

Jumbo Tsuruta, Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Ashura Hara Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki (3/11/88)

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (3/27/88) - Match 2

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Bruiser Brody (3/27/88)

Jumbo Tsuruta & Hiroshi Wajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara (4/21/88)

Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara (6/4/88) - Match 2

Tiger Mask & Isao Takagi vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada (7/16/88)

Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki vs. Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano (7/19/88)

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (7/27/88) - Match 3

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (8/29/88) - Match 3

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (8/30/88) - Match 4

Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki vs. Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano (9/15/88)

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (9/15/88) - Match 5

 

That's five iterations of the same match in a 10-month spell, with the last three coming within 17 days of each other.

 

And three versions of Tenryu vs. Hansen in the same period.

 

And these are the ones that made the set, don't know if there were further rematches that were left on the cutting-room floor. Justs seems a bit strange to me.

 

Almost like running all your house shows on TV.

[goodhelmet]

NOt disagreeing with you Jerry but it would probably be better to compare TV espisodes from 1988 since alot of these matches popped up on classics or commercial discs later on.

[JerryvonKramer]

I've just had a good look and the TV from 1988 does seem a bit less odd when you look at it: http://do.ioffer.com/i/all-japan-pro-wrest...d-set-506097737

 

The two matches from 8/29 and 8/30 were both from "Bruiser Brody Memorial Night" which aired in two parts over two weeks (9/4 and 9/11).

 

I think Tenryu and Hara lost the titles in the second match so the rematch for the titles came on 9/15 (aired 10/30).

 

Then the Tag League that year was for the titles which I'm guessing were vacated after Hara left.

 

Buy yeah, the booking makes a lot more sense when you look at when stuff aired

 

Was struck looking at that by how many guys who passed through AJPW who didn't make the set. Buddy Landel for example had a few matches in 88, but didn't make the set.

[Johnny Guitar]

I'm not sold New Japan was the most successful company/promotion in wrestling *history* pre-Attitude.

 

They were, as Kriz says, possibly the most successful promotion in the world at the time in the years just prior to Attitude. I don't think it's overlooked: it was talked about at the time (think my King of Sports piece in the Torch ran with the theme), and some of us have talked about if a number of times since. Kind of thought it was the obvious thing to mention in putting over Choshu, so wanted to hit briefly what his strengths were.

 

John

I don't think its overlooked here or places like DVDR, and "history" might be overstating it. But i've definatley encountered people online over the years that were adament that nobody apart from Vince and WCW in the 90's has ever had any success.

 

Yes. It was wrong to try and argue with those people.

[cm funk]

Wouldn't EMLL/CMLL be the hands down best answer?

[jdw]

Almost like running all your house shows on TV.

AJPW ran 8 "series" a year, with breaks between. They would have 4-6 "tapings" per series... maybe more if I went and counted, but six is close to the high end. The "tapings" we a mix between early in the series cards / matches that built to later bigger shows / matches, and then those bigger cards / matches. These were all House Shows. So what aired on TV were House Show matches. They weren't squash matches.

 

So in a sense, think of the WWF in 1986 if they didn't air tv taping squash matches on Superstars and Challenge, and instead aired house show matches? At the end of 1985 through the middle of 1986, how match Savage matches would we see where he was facing Title and how many facing Hogan? A ton.

 

Now Vince got around that by pretending that the only matches that Really Took Place for Savage in 1986 were those that appeared on TV. So if you're in New York, these ones too place (ignoring the squash matches):

 

12/27/85 Nassau Coliseum: Randy Savage defeated Danny Spivey

12/30/85 MSG: Randy Savage COR World Champion Hulk Hogan at 9:55

01/04/86 SNME: Randy Savage pinned George Steele at 4:06 (taped 12/19/85)

01/27/86 MSG: Randy Savage COR World Champion Hulk Hogan at 8:33

02/03/86 PTW: Randy Savage pinned Scott McGhee at 6:18 (taped 01/18/86 Cap Center)

02/17/86 MSG: World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Randy Savage in a lumberjack match at 7:36

02/26/86 PTW: Randy Savage pinned IC Champion Tito Santana to win the title at 10:29 (taped 02/08/86 Boston)

03/16/86 MSG: Tito Santana dq IC Champion Randy Savage

04/07/86 Wrestlemania: IC Champion Randy Savage pinned George Steele at 7:08

04/22/86 MSG: IC Champion Randy Savage pinned Tito Santana in a No DQ match at 18:52

05/08/86 Meadowlands: Santana & Tonga defeated IC Champion Savage & Orton

05/19/86 MSG: Tito Santana NC IC Champion Randy Savage at 9:59

06/14/86 MSG: IC Champion Savage & Adonis COR Bruno Sammartino & Tito Santana at 9:40

07/12/86 MSG Sammartino & Santana defeated IC Champion Savage & Adonis in a steel cage match at 9:51

07/17/86 Meadowlands: The Junkyard Dog COR IC Champion Randy Savage

 

That a little less than seven months (12/27/85 - 07/17/86 in "TV" and "New York Area" time). And you'd get:

 

3 matches against Hogan

4 singles matches against Tito

2 tag matches against Tito and Bruno

1 other tag matches with Tito

2 singles matches against Steele

1 singles match each with Spivey, McGhee and JYD

 

Remember: in Japan, Jumbo and Tenryu and Choshu were on TV all the time working non-squash matches. Here are Jumbo's TV matches from the same period:

 

01/02/86 Jumbo & Tenryu v The Russians

01/11/86 Jumbo & Fuyuki v Windham & Rotundo

01/14/86 Jumbo & Ishikawa v Yatsu & Teranishi

01/25/86 Jumbo & Ishikawa v Choshu & Hamaguchi

01/28/86 NWA Int'l Tag: Jumbo & Tenryu v Choshu & Yatsu

02/05/86 NWA Int'l Tag: Jumbo & Tenryu v Choshu & Yatsu

02/15/86 Jumbo & Tenryu & Ishikawa v Kabuki & Hara & Tsurumi

02/22/86 Jumbo & Ishikawa v Choshu & Yatsu

03/01/86 Jumbo v Tiger Jeet Singh

03/04/86 NWA Int'l Tag: Choshu & Yatsu vs Jumbo & Tenryu

03/13/86 Jumbo v Animal Hamaguchi

03/10/86 NWA Int'l: Jumbo v Gordy

03/29/86 NWA Int'l/AWA/PWF: Jumbo v Hansen

03/31/86 Tsuruta & Baba v Kimura & Tsurumi

04/19/86 NWA Int'l/AWA: Jumbo v Hansen

04/26/86 Jumbo & Ishikawa & Tiger Mask v SS Machine & Takano & Saito

05/02/86 Jumbo v Super Strong Machine

05/10/86 Jumbo vs Tiger Mask vs Hara & Tsurumi

05/16/86 Jumbo & Fuchi v Kimura & Hara

05/24/86 NWA Int'l: Jumbo v Race

05/30/86 Jumbo & Tenryu v SS Machine & Takano

05/31/86 Jumbo & Tenryu v Yatsu & Hamaguchi

06/05/86 Jumbo & Tenryu & Tiger Mask v Choshu & Yatsu & Kobayashi

06/07/86 Jumbo & Tenryu v The Road Warriors

06/12/86 Jumbo v Tiger Jeet Singh

07/04/86 Jumbo & Ishikawa v Hansen & Dibiase

07/05/86 Jumbo & Tiger Mask v Yatsu & Teranishi

07/10/86 Jumbo & Tenryu v SS Machine & Khan

 

The dates are almost all match dates... there may be a few where Dan didn't get the match date and went with TV. I left off the Tag League from the year before because it would have finished before the 12/85 Hogan-Savage in MSG.

 

Anyway, that batch of Jumbo matches is fairly close to what New York fans saw of Savage. Not as many matches, but then again the WWF didn't put on 50-52 weeks of non-squash matches back then (like they do now). All Japan was a wrestling promotion rather than a Sports Entertainment one, so they weren't going to have Jumbo's "appearance" of the week be on Pipers Pit. Some matches got run hard. Jumbo & Tenryu vs Choshu & Yatsu was an obvious match through 1985, yet Baba set it aside: after an early match up that actually set up a bigger Choshu & Saito vs Jumbo & Tenryu, they didn't meet again until the 1985 Tag League. That "heated" things up, then they went full tilt in January with match to set up the Tag Title matches. They cooled it after the rush of tag title matches early in the year, then came back to it later in the year: another tag title match, the Tag League match... and Choshu's departure forcing two more matches in 1/87 and 2/87 to get the belt off of Choshu & Yatsu. So yeah... a lot of matches, but the real issue / feud between the two didn't get rolled out until a year after Choshu & Yatsu jumped to All Japan.

 

This is a bit similar to Hansen vs Jumbo. There are a lot of singles between them in 1986. Hansen jumped to All Japan in 1982. Baba avoided a singles feud between the two in 1982... 1983... 1984... 1985. There was at least one singles match between the two prior to 1986, but it was a bit of a throwaway on singles night during one of the tag leagues. In 1986, Baba went full tilt with it.

 

It's one of those things that doesn't make sense when first look at Japan in the 70s and 80s... then when you see it enough, it's just one of those things.

 

A bit like the MX vs R'n'R Express in Mid South and then JCP. Tons of matches.

[jdw]

I'm not sold New Japan was the most successful company/promotion in wrestling *history* pre-Attitude.

 

They were, as Kriz says, possibly the most successful promotion in the world at the time in the years just prior to Attitude. I don't think it's overlooked: it was talked about at the time (think my King of Sports piece in the Torch ran with the theme), and some of us have talked about if a number of times since. Kind of thought it was the obvious thing to mention in putting over Choshu, so wanted to hit briefly what his strengths were.

 

John

I don't think its overlooked here or places like DVDR, and "history" might be overstating it. But i've definatley encountered people online over the years that were adament that nobody apart from Vince and WCW in the 90's has ever had any success.

 

Yes. It was wrong to try and argue with those people.

 

Yep... I'd agree it's pointless. Lots of promoters have had success in addition to Vince and 90s WCW. If they don't know it, it's a waste to argue with them.

[Loss]

It's never a waste of time to argue with anyone!

 

Except Bryan Alvarez.