Ted DiBiase

[The Man in Blak]

As an aside, I really have no time for Christgau. Why? This was his review of Liquid Swords

 

Liquid Swords [Geffen, 1995]

gangsta as mystery, religious and literary ("Shadowboxin'," "Killah Hills 10304") **

 

Great insight Rob.

 

If there's any capacity for self-awareness in you at all, you should probably keep this sort of comment in mind before you casually dismiss an entire tradition of wrestling.

[JerryvonKramer]

It is precisely because I am self-aware that I will not be ranking any lucha or shoot guys. I am to them what our friend Christague is to rap, a philistine who will never get it no matter how many albums he listens to.

 

So, yes, self-awareness.

[Matt D]

I'm sure you could get into both, but probably not while the pressure of GWE is hanging over your head. My watching habits will be different after April.

[JerryvonKramer]

Perhaps, but the point is there's virtually nothing casual about the dismissal.

 

I mean we even broke down Azteca vs Dandy minute by minute so I could explain everything that I don't like about the match. Hardly casual.

[Dylan Waco]

At work. Will write about Windham and Ted later, but would note that my reasons for not voting for Ted aren't that different than Parv's reasons for not voting shoot style.

[Childs]

It is precisely because I am self-aware that I will not be ranking any lucha or shoot guys. I am to them what our friend Christague is to rap, a philistine who will never get it no matter how many albums he listens to.

 

So, yes, self-awareness.

Christgau has liked plenty of rap albums including the first Wu Tang record. He's made an honest effort to engage with rap for 30-plus years. I often disagree with him and he's curtly dismissed plenty of albums I love, but I wouldn't call the man a philistine.

[JerryvonKramer]

I've liked plenty of Lucha matches too. I'm still a Lucha philistine.

 

Christague is a lot better on other stuff. I've got his big reference book somewhere.

 

I have a lot of books like that on music and film. Over the years, I've found Christague is generally unhelpful.

 

His longer essays are good.

[JerryvonKramer]

Incidentally, this one strikes me as pertinent to recent discussions: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/critics-76.php

[Loss]

I hate even saying this here since it has nothing to do with DiBiase, but I'm not sure where else to say it. On the subject of shoot style, I think too much emphasis is placed on it being a "style". Is it really *that* different than something like Antonio Inoki vs Billy Robinson from 1975? I feel like if it wasn't wrestled in rounds and pinfalls were counted, it wouldn't be seen as its own thing so much.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's considered a style because it was a breakaway movement (although it should be noted that when they first broke away the plan was to be New Japan Mach 2.) You won't find it all that dissimilar to earlier influences like Inoki and Robinson (particularly since Robinson was from the same background as Gotch), but I don't think Billy or Inoki shared the same philosophy or goals as the shoot boys.

 

Windham has a lot of awesome stuff in the 90s that surely bolsters his case. Who cares if it was on TV? TV was a massive part of WCW's output. And who are all these people bringing their A game on late 80s-early 90s PPVs? That didn't happen. The "Best of Ted Dibiase in Mid South" on the DVDVR sets vs. WCW PPV matches argument is not the level of scrutiny demanded in the Blackwell/Andre threads.

 

Jimmy, the DiBiase/Magnum matches are cool. I don't think they'll shoot Ted up your list or anything like that, but they're great stuff. I wonder what the musical equivalent of Ted is -- maybe the John Cougar Mellencamp to Terry Funk's Springsteen or something like that.

[JerryvonKramer]

Ha ha ha Mellancamp is so harsh as a comparison! At least give him someone like, I dunno, CCR or Allman Brothers Band seem fairer to me. In such a comparison, Terry Funk would be the Rolling Stones.

 

That reminds me, let me see about getting the Magnum matches online.

[ohtani's jacket]

It just struck me that the Phil Ochs to Funk's Dylan might be a better comparison.

 

Here's one of the Magnum matches:

 

[JerryvonKramer]

I had considered Donovan also. But I'm such a Dylan mark that I don't consider Ochs or Donavan even to be on the same planet. Hence Stones, CCR etc.

[Childs]

CCR was as good as anybody for two years and that was it. That's not Dibiase.

[Matt D]

What happened to Barry Windham?

[Dylan Waco]

Phil Ochs is better than Dylan and I was named after Dylan

[JerryvonKramer]

Polite request to end music discussion at this point.

 

Jimmy, Ted-Magnum should be online soon.

[Dylan Waco]

Polite request to end music discussion at this point.

 

Jimmy, Ted-Magnum should be online soon.

You are right, but perhaps you should temper the tendency to make analogies that go beyond wrestling. I understand it can be effective in making a point but I think it's easy for everyone to slip out of wrestling talk entirely when that happens. At the very least let's all try to be careful to keep wrestling at the center of our posts and not on the periphery.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

^ Jimmy, that's the Tulsa match

[JerryvonKramer]

 

What on earth is Vince wearing here?

 

Also, I am sure the guy kissing Heenan's feet is someone in the business. Does anyone recognise him?

[Jimmy Redman]

^ Jimmy, that's the Tulsa match

Are you sure? Looks like the OKC match to me...

[PhilTLL]

It is. The Tulsa match has orange mats. Here you go:

 

[Jimmy Redman]

Ahh ok. The same match is on YT labelled as the OKC match, that's why I'm confused.

[JerryvonKramer]

Whoops, my mixup. Even mention the orange mats in my review.

[Badlittlekitten]

I think I also reject the terms of the slightly snooty analogy.

 

It's less insisting that Mario's down the street has the best pizza in the world, and much more in line with sticking to the idea that the greatest bands are The Bealtes, Led Zeppelin and the Stones as opposed to some post-rock indie metal band no one has ever heard of.

 

In this analogy, fans of certain niches -- let us say shootstyle -- are much more akin to the fans who swear that, I dunno, Yes's Close to the Edge and Can's Ege Bamyasi are the best albums of 1972 as opposed to Ziggy Stardust or Exile of Main Street which are "overrated".

 

I say, after considering both, nah, prog sucks, it's still Ziggy, then Exile.

 

Or maybe there's someone who says it's Miles Davis's On the Corner.

 

And I say, after struggling for a month to get into discordant trumpets and whatnot, nah, fuck that jazz sucks too. It's still Ziggy.

 

Much closer to what it is, I think. Call that myopic, but I don't think it's fair to say that the sampling range is narrow.

 

Ziggy is a no-brainer, it doesn't stop being one just because jazz or prog exist.

 

I love you Parv, I really do, but I want to fucking burn this post and I'd risk taking down the whole forum with it.

 

As you were . .