When was their prime?

[MikeCampbell]

All the recent Bret Hart talk has me thinking about exactly *when* various workers entered their primes. Like I said in the Bret thread, I thought that Will giving Bret all four years of '94-97 was generous of him, especially with his extended absence in '96. But the more I think about it, between the classic he had with Austin, and his tweaking the UT formula to suit his needs and produce a grossly under appreciated match, I can see making a case for including that year for him.

 

So here's a few other workers that I'm curious about when exactly their primes would be considered.

 

Sergeant Slaughter

 

Jun Akiyama (I would guess the consensus is '96, but it's absurd to me that he hit his prime four years after his debut and has been going for over 20 years now)

 

Shinjiro Ohtani (see above)

 

Terry Gordy

 

Nikita Koloff

 

Rick Martel

[King Solomon]

All the recent Bret Hart talk has me thinking about exactly *when* various workers entered their primes. Like I said in the Bret thread, I thought that Will giving Bret all four years of '94-97 was generous of him, especially with his extended absence in '96. But the more I think about it, between the classic he had with Austin, and his tweaking the UT formula to suit his needs and produce a grossly under appreciated match, I can see making a case for including that year for him.

 

So here's a few other workers that I'm curious about when exactly their primes would be considered.

 

Sergeant Slaughter

 

Jun Akiyama (I would guess the consensus is '96, but it's absurd to me that he hit his prime four years after his debut and has been going for over 20 years now)

 

Shinjiro Ohtani (see above)

 

Terry Gordy

 

Nikita Koloff

 

Rick Martel

 

Sgt. Slaughter-1980-mid 1985. He started putting on some weight around summer of 85 and was noticeably heavier by the Supercalsh 85 show. It didn't help that they booked him against Zybsko and Zukhoff during this time. He went from being a hot babyface in WWF and even stayed hot initally after entering the AWA to cooling off to the point where he became a very annoying patriot type babyface. His promos at this time also foicused too much on his GI Joe sthick and getting himself over rather than getting his program over. I have always thought that Slaughter was a much better heel than babyface due to his incredible ability to bump and also his Drill Seargent gimmick was more suited for a heel than a baby. There were only so many foreign heels to go around so Sarge's gimmick depended on him facing off against foreign mencaes, when you didnt have these guys at your disposal then it took something away from his gimmick. Guys like Hacksaw, Hogan, Dusty and T.A. were patriotic but that was integrated into their charachter instead of being their whole persona. When Sarge was in the AWA his patriotism became annoying rather than galvanizing. His work suffered in late 85-early 86 until he left the AWA in May of 86. He was out of shape and lazy during this time. I think he became his own biggest fan during this time. I just wish he coulda worked something out with Vince and stayed in the WWF and then turn heel in early 86 in time to face Hogan at Mania 2.

 

Nikita Koloff-1985-Summer of 87. From his NWA World tag title reign until he lost the U.S. tiotle to Luger, Nikita had great momentum. While he was never a great in ring worker he still made what he did count. He also had incredible intensity and an awesome physique. He got over like a million bucks leading up to the initial Bash in 85 evidenced by the 27,000 attendance figure for that show. He had very good matches with Flair and T.A. and was JCP's scariest heel during 85 and 86. Good power moves and of course the sickle. His russian accent wasn't the best but it didn't matter the fans suspended disbelief and saw this guy as a huge threat. Along with Ivan had a good but not great program with the Roadies but is still cool seeing these two power teams feuding with each other. Even after the face turn Nikita had a very good Starrcade match with Flair and went on to win the Crockett Cup with Dusty. I bought into Nikita as a main eventer all the way up until his U.S. title loss to Luger at bash 87. Luger seemed like the bully in this match and made Nikita seem normal. I have no problem with this in order to garner sympathy for Nikita and have him regain the title at Starrcade 87 but instead Nikita gradually declined in 87 and then fell off a cliff in 88.

[Dylan Waco]

I basically agree with Solomon on Sarge. A lot of Sarge's trailing off in terms of output was related to the book, but as a worker I think 80-mid-85 is pretty close to dead on. As a draw/star it's a bit tougher, but that same time frame works just as well as anything even though I think 83 and 84 were his really "through the roof" years in that respect.

 

I haven't thought enough about Nikita in years and Akiyama is really a tough one because you could argue that he's pretty great now (the best guy in Japan even maybe), but he's not hitting those highs because the era has changed and he's not working with some of the best of all time every night (quite the opposite actually). With Akiyama a "safe" prime feels like 96-00, but jdw, Ditch or someone else may disagree and I wouldn't argue against them.

 

Gordy is really tricky to in the sense that you could almost argue two primes for him. Someone else can tackle this in more detail.

 

To me I think Ohtani's prime is 96, maybe 95-97, but that seems really generous. I still like Ohtani today, but his absolutely apex year always struck me as one of those years that was vastly better than any other year he had in the ring. I have seen the same thing argued about someone like Patera, but with Patera the dearth of 70's footage makes than an assumption. To me Doug Somers is a better example because he's someone who was good before and after his prime, but from early 86-late 87 he was outstanding and another level. Of course part of that is that he got the chances.

 

I honestly think I'd put Martel's prime from 80-85 maybe even through 86. Martel was a great opponent for Buddy in Portland in 80 where he was hugely over and he was equally outstanding in the AWA. It's possibly he was great even before this and we are shorting him but we don't have the footage. I could see an argument that his prime was more like 83-85, but it feels really wrong not to count those Buddy matches as "prime" era Martel.

[JerryvonKramer]

Nikita in 88 is a contender for my all-time least favourite wrestler.

[Loss]

Nikita was pretty bad by that point, which made Dick Murdoch getting the excellent match out of him in January all the more impressive.

 

Nikita had his moments, but was not a consistently good wrestler at any point. He was easily behind the Road Warriors as a worker, and Luger surpassed him by mid-1987.

[JerryvonKramer]

From what I've seen, Nikita has a moment when he gets really quite good, arguably better than either of the Road Warriors ver were, coinciding with his initial face turn after Magnum's injury which is late 86 until about May or June time in 87. He is, I would say, actively good in the period.

 

But the decline is rapid after that and by the time he's got hair and dropped 40lbs he's horrible.

 

I'd argue that in the very brief hot streak period though that he was better than Luger was in 87 and even 88. I'd probably say he was better than Sting in that timeframe too, it's just that like Solomon said he jumps off a fucking cliff not long after that and it's difficult to remember that he was pretty decent at one point.

 

Prior to that in 85 and early 86 when he's still the monster heel tagging with Ivan, he's not polished enough. So Nikita's peak is about a 5 month period from late 86 to mid-87.

[JerryvonKramer]

Here are some guys I want to know about:

 

Yatsu - a guy I really loved on the All Japan set who by all accounts had lost it by 1990. When would people say was his peak? I still haven't seen the New Japan stuff but have the 80s set for that mythical rainy day that never comes.

 

Ted DiBiase - yes, yes, I know, but I'm going to claim that I don't go on about Ted as much as Dylan goes on about Patera. I also bring it up because I think you could make separate arguments for 82-3, 85 and 88. Or a general argument for 82-88, a very generous reading might extend that to 91 -- as far as I can see he is the same worker in 91 as he was in 88.

 

Greg Valentine - was it in the 70s? Or was it 82ish till the IC run?

 

Jake Roberts - someone I don't see discussed too much these days. Looking at his career, hard to think of a definitive peak run for him. He was real young in Mid-South right? That can't be his "peak" surely. I'm mostly disappointed by a lot of his WWF matches -- they all follow a pattern: the feuds are great and well built, and the promos out of this world, but the matches don't hold up. This is certainly true of the DiBiase feud from 90 and the Savage one from 91.

 

Haku / Meng - someone with several distinct phases in his career, where would people put him at his prime?

 

HHH - it's been too long since someone mentioned him.

 

Bobby Eaton - this one I'm interested to see responses too, because arguably his peak ran from 83 until 93. Anyone got a counter argument to that?

[ohtani's jacket]

Ohtani's peak was from '96 to '98. Years ago I would have narrowed it down to '96, but I think if there were more complete matches available from '97 and '98 we'd find that the drop off from '96 wasn't that big. The February '98 Liger/Ohtani match looks really great, for example.

[khawk20]

Here are some guys I want to know about:

 

Haku / Meng - someone with several distinct phases in his career, where would people put him at his prime?

Haku as King Tonga from 84-86, turning finally to Haku in the WWF, *might* go as his prime in my eyes. Worked at the top of the card in Montreal, was a top challenger in the AWA for Martel and was an overall big player there. So, maybe 84 through his time as the King? In terms of his "Prime" as a wrestler, maybe. You almost have to look at his time as Meng as a completely separate entity.

[Dylan Waco]

Greg's prime may very well have been in the 70's. Based on what we have available I would say you could argue 79-85 as his prime, though I would want to look more closely at what is available.

[Busterira]

Nikitas wife was dying in 1988 and he has made no secrets about his steroid use and has freely admitted he had basically stopped using them around this time. While I loved him coming out with Dusty after Magnum's accident. I think in the end it hurt his career. I just thought he was better as a monster heel. But that was a great moment thou.

 

 

 

 

Never really thought very highly of Nikita as a wrestler. He did have some good moments from 85-87 in JCP.

 

I cant really be objective about Terry Gordy. I am probably the biggest Terry Gordy fan on the board other then Rob Naylor. He would be in my top 10 favorite wrestlers of all time. I thought he was amazing. The guy for the size he was would bounce around the ring like a human rubber ball. He was also among the best brawlers of all time. Like Dylan said, his career would probably have to be divided into 2 sections.

 

1980-1986-The JYD blinding angle, four flat tires, the great short lived team with Jimmy Snuka, Von Erich feud, his battle against Killer Khan and being the first UWF champ when the UWF was on fire in 1986.

 

The second would be 88-92 while he was mostly working in All Japan where him and Dr Death were tearing it up. Its hard to believe he was only 30 years old when he had that overdose.

[El-P]

Yatsu - a guy I really loved on the All Japan set who by all accounts had lost it by 1990. When would people say was his peak? I still haven't seen the New Japan stuff but have the 80s set for that mythical rainy day that never comes.

Yastu had already dropped dramatically by 1989. I don't remember the exact year it happened but it was pretty sudden. Wasn't his prime 84/86 or so ?

 

Jake Roberts - someone I don't see discussed too much these days. Looking at his career, hard to think of a definitive peak run for him. He was real young in Mid-South right? That can't be his "peak" surely. I'm mostly disappointed by a lot of his WWF matches -- they all follow a pattern: the feuds are great and well built, and the promos out of this world, but the matches don't hold up. This is certainly true of the DiBiase feud from 90 and the Savage one from 91.

Yes, Jake's prime is MidSouth to me. He never put it together better than during his stint there. Everywhere else like you said, the promos and angles were strong, but the work in the ring didn't follow. Jake was great at doing the little things, but more than often he was doing *only* the only things, which makes it frustrating for me. In MidSouth he was still game in the ring, depsite always being limited.

 

HHH - it's been too long since someone mentioned him.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley 96/97. I know people are going to call me crazy on that one, but I thought he was a perfectly good midcard/upper midcard worker at this point, not trying to overdo or overthink his work, not trying to aim at so-called "classics" that failed 99% of the time.

 

Bobby Eaton - this one I'm interested to see responses too, because arguably his peak ran from 83 until 93. Anyone got a counter argument to that?

Stop it in 92 at best. After that Eaton was barely an afterthought in the company and wasn't given any opportunity to deliver big time. The Dangerous Alliance was Eaton's last big run, although he was clearly the jobber of the team. But yeah, 83/92 seems reasonnable. Not to say he wasn't still damn good post prime.

[El-P]

1980-1986-The JYD blinding angle, four flat tires, the great short lived team with Jimmy Snuka, Von Erich feud, his battle against Killer Khan and being the first UWF champ when the UWF was on fire in 1986.

 

The second would be 88-92 while he was mostly working in All Japan where him and Dr Death were tearing it up. Its hard to believe he was only 30 years old when he had that overdose.

Agreed. I'm most familiar with his MidSouth and AJ work (and his cup of coffee in WCW), and damn was he amazing to watch. The biggest waste of pure talent ever to fuck up his brain so young like that.

[tomk]

Nikita is a guy who could put a singles match together and work hot tag effectively around 92.

[JerryvonKramer]

I said recently that I think Mike Rotunda's peak is the IRS character. Not only did he do his best promos at this time (awful one-liners aside), but also his work in the ring -- in my view -- benefitted from the WWF style. I've seen quite a bit of Varisty Club era Rotunda recently from 87 and 88 and he sucks. Why? Because his matwork is so bloody boring and he doesn't nothing to make it more interesting. He's happy to sit in a chinlock or an armbar for 6 minutes at a time. In the WWF, he just wasn't allowed to do that because of the booking style, so we get a different way of working from him. Yes, he'll still do an abdominal stretch or a chinlock, but he's only allowed to sit in it for 2 or 3 minutes maximum.

 

By 95/6 and his second WCW run as Michael Wallstreet, he's past it.

 

Would people agree with this assessment or not?

[Loss]

Rotunda is an odd wrestler in that I don't think he ever quite put the pieces together, but the pieces were there for him to be a very good wrestler. I can't recall ever not being bored to tears by an IRS singles match, even though the flying clothesline might have been the best wrestling move in the WWF when he worked there. I do like things from his NWA run, mostly in 1989. He had really good TV matches with Flair, Arn and Pillman, a super-stiff one with Rick Steiner between Starrcade and Chi-Town, and I really thought he rose to the occasion to drop the TV title to Sting in a very good match. He's not someone I think about enough to really focus on all that much, but I think he was on the right track in '89. His style was well-suited for the TV title, and he would have been better in that role then than he was in 1988.

 

I think I just said everything I could possibly ever say about the guy.

[Matt D]

Rotunda's late 92-93 is better than his 91-early 92, I'll say that having watched a lot of stuff recently. I've not yet seen his singles run into 94 or his tag stuff with Bam Bam or Tatanka or whoever, but I was actively surprised by how much I enjoyed him in late 92.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I'm a big fan of Varsity Club-era Rotundo. Yeah, not the most dynamic of wrestlers, but I generally enjoyed what he brought to the table. I thought he was very good at walking that line between accomplished wrestler who's a threat to anyone on the roster, and guy who was hanging onto his belt through pure luck. Always looked smooth in the ring, had some nice high spots, and one fo the better clotheslines in wrestling. Not just the jumping version- even from a standing position it really looked like he was creaming guys with that thing. Perfect TV title-level guy, or guy to have in a tag team or faction. I was quite impressed with IRS (relative to expectations) when I rewatched early 90s WWF stuff. Boring as fuck in singles matches, but I thought he brought the most to the Money, Inc matches I saw. Still weird to me that they renewed his singles push as late as 95, though.

[El-P]

I'm all about Varsity Club Rotundo too. Really good, solid worker either in tags or single, and the gimmick for perfect for him. He was never the same afterward (I do think he had some injury at some point too).

[goodhelmet]

Jerry, start an IRS threading the Microscope so I can shit on him there instead of here.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's a shame that Mike Rotunda killed this thread stone cold dead.

 

I'm resurrecting it.

 

Booker T

 

Sting

 

Kurt Angle

 

Hulk Hogan

 

Steve Austin

 

Bart Gunn

[King Solomon]

I would say with Hogan his prime would be from early 1982 when he got real comfortable as the top babyface in Verne Gagne's promotion up until Mania 6 or so when him and Warrior put on an emotional main event in what was supposed to be a passing of the torch and his subsequent match with Hansen in Japan. Hogan's work in the AWA was pretty solid as he was a less formulaic version of what he would become in the WWF. He had good matches with Blackwell, Patera, Shultz and Saito not to mention his legendary feud with Nick Bockwinkel. For all the talk that Hogan was not a Gagne type of wrestler to me Hogan was just an updated version of the Crusher in the sense that he had the brawling babyface type character down plus he was a better worker with better moves than the Crusher. Remember that the Crusher was a former AWA Champ so I don't think that Verne was adverse to Hogan being the Champ but rather I thikn it was a money issue over Merch and Japan bookings. Mad Dog Vachon was also a former champ so I never bought the whole Hogan was not Verne's type of Champion argument. His work in Japan was also good as he worked a solid big man style minus the Babyface type of hero spots that he worked in the AWA/WWF. When Hogan entered the WWF he was fresh to the fans there and he had some good matches with Masked Superstar, Greg Valentine, Paul Orndorff and a real good rematch with the Iron Sheik at the spectrum. He also had a real bloodbath with Dr. D at the Met Center in Bloomington. His formula was less rampant in the early going of his reign and really he would go away from that when facing a hot opponent such as Savage in late 85-early 86. He also had a good three match series against Muraco at MSG in spring of 85 leading to a cage match blow off. His matches with Studd and Beefcake sucked from a working standpoint as I saw those live. His matches against Piper were entertaining and were for sure non formulaic. His second series against Orndorff was hot as hell and the matches had unreal intensity if not being mat classics. I also enjoyed Hogan's matches against Kamala. His matches against Andre served the purpose that was needed and Andre had a real bad ass aura to him even tho by this time he was a shadow of what he once was. His year off of having the title was a good refresher period for him when he battled Bossman and teamed with Savage as the Megapowers. Of course the eventual heel turn of Savage led to Hogan having a hot main event at Mania 5 against his former partner and gave Hogan another year with the belt. Don't know too much about his 89 title defenses but the angle with the Warror and their subsequent match at Mania 6 got this 16 year old hardcore NWA fan glued to the tv set. His match with Hansen was real good IMHO. I didn't care at all for the Slaughter angle or matches as it just didn't interest me at this point plus I thought that Hogan was becoming tired by this point.

[Loss]

Jerry, could you elaborate on why you picked those wrestlers? I'm not sure every wrestler even has a prime. Someone like Booker T who has been good at times on and off, but who no one really considers one of the greats, is hard to pin down because he doesn't even really have a peak.

[Hollinger.]

Everyone absolutely has a prime. It may not have been great, but there will always be some time & place where a given worker was doing his best work.

[Loss]

In the case of Booker, he had some good matches in 1998, then a dry spell. Then some good matches in 2001-2002, then a dry spell. Then some good matches in 2005-2006, then a dry spell. I'm not sure what wins out.