Longevity

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not even saying the 80's were unquestionably better. Just that I don't think it's clear the 90's were. And I would much rather watch 80's wrestling at this point, largely because 90's wrestling is something that has been horribly overexposed by comparison.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'll have to dig out the thread about what decade people prefer. Also, such a small, small sampling of posters in that thread. Like 8 people were in the discussion.

Talking about this one: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=18072

 

?

 

That reminds me, I need to do the sticky post I promised I would.

[rzombie1988]

CMLL had two oustanding years in the 90s -- 1990 and 1997. It also had good years in '91, '92 and '96. We know that it had an excellent year in '89, which is the only semi-complete year we have from the 80s, but it's safe to assume from the '83-88 footage we have along with wrestling magazines and other anecdotal evidence that it was better for a longer and more sustained period than the 90s.

 

A lot of promotions in the 90s peaked for two or three years and then nose dived. AJW may have had better wrestling from '92-94 than the decade prior but it fell off the cliff in a way that 80s AJW never really did despite being bookended by post-boom periods (post-Beauty Pair to open the decade and post-Crush Girls to finish.) All of the Japanese promotions went south in the 90s around the time when Japan really began to feel the crunch of the bubble bursting. The same argument applies for the territories in the States by the end of the 80s, but if wrestling hadn't been reasonably robust by the end of that decade then the so-called 90s peak never would have occurred.

 

I'd also argue that there's a lot of 90s wrestling that hasn't aged as well as 80s wrestling. A lot of it looks dated.

AJW decreased but the GAEA years were actually really good. The late 90's AJW era is some of my favorite stuff. Toyota and Kyoko still had some good ones, Nanae and Momoe were a ton of fun and LCO/Ito finally came into their own, plus Maekawa and Watanabe. It wasn't peak AJW but it was a great mix of vets, younger girls and people from other companies making it good.

[rzombie1988]

I don't see this. Virtually every promotion was better from an in-ring standpoint in the 90s than in the 80s. All Japan was better. WWF was way better. New Japan was probably better. AJW was better. CMLL was most likely better, but there are footage availability issues. 90s WCW and 80s JCP are close to equal. About the only promotion that was clearly better in the 80s was Memphis. Granted, you have promotions like Mid-South that were no longer extant in the 90s, but I don't think that's nearly enough to tip the scales in favor of the 80s.

AJW being better is arguable, though I haven't watched much Joshi in years and am in no position to make a detailed argument myself. 80's JCP is better than 90's WCW and I'm a guy who grew up on 90's WCW. I actually don't even think it's all that close. We don't know about Lucha, but we do know there is plenty of great Lucha from the 80's. Memphis was clearly better in the 80's. Portland was clearly better in the 80's by a massive margin (though you could argue that Portland was better in the 70's and I'd listen to it). Mid-South you mention and is clearly a huge plus for the 80's. There was no AWA in the 90's really so the AWA was clearly better. What we have I would argue Puerto Rico was better in the 80's. Texas wrestling was better in the 80's based on what I've seen. Then there are the myriad of territories that didn't exist in the 90's. I mean if you take indy wrestling from the 90's, ECW, SMW and the USWA do you think it's even close to the equal of 80's territorial wrestling? As a guy who worked on the SMW and ECW Sets, I would say "no fucking way in hell" and I'm about as big a fan of those two promotions as you'll find online.

 

80's wrestling was better in the States in my view. We don't know about Mexico. European wrestling was best in the 70's, but definitely better in the 80's than in the 90's. Japan is arguable, though unlike with the States there were more promotions of note in the 90's so you could give it the edge on that and I wouldn't argue.

 

In any event "virtually every promotion was better in the 90's" is not something I am buying.

 

AJW definitely was better and I don't think there is any question to it. As far as complete cards, once you take away the rookie and midget match, there was little crap on the card. They lost big people every year from 96 on and weren't the AJW of old, but it just gave room for the younger girls to shine and the quality is there.

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, I was watching a Flair/Garvin houseshow match from '85 last night. I don't watch a lot of Flair these days but sometimes you've got to stop and admire how he put it all together as a performer. I also watched parts of the '86 Superstation special and when they did the crowd montage to Dire Straits it really drove home the cross section of fans they had back then. These days the crowds all seem to be twenty-somethings. At least on TV, dunno about houseshows. Finally, were Willie Nelson and Dusty Rhodes really friends?

[KrisZ]

They still are great friends

[ohtani's jacket]

That's cool.