Build a show

[Loss]

This has been done in the past, but thought it might be fun to revisit.

 

Construct the ultimate wrestling card, based on matches that have actually occurred that you've seen in the past. Guidelines would be as follows:

 

(1) No wrestler can appear more than once.

(2) No title can be defended more than once.

(3) Show can not exceed 3-3 1/2 hours in length.

 

Put them in the order they would go on the card with explanation of why you put specific matches in specific spots, and keep things in mind like putting heels over too much, repeating exact finishes and also not creating such a great opener that the rest of the show pales by comparison. Ultimately, the main event should feel like the climax, and there should be "break" matches that aren't bad, but do give the audience a chance to breath.

 

I'll post mine shortly.

[gordi]

I found my original answer to this challenge on the old NMB. I'm surprised how little I'd want to change it up. here's this week's version.

 

1 - TAKA Michinoku, Sho Funaki, Dick Togo, Shiryu & Men's Teioh vs. Gran Naniwa, Super Delfin, Tiger Mask IV, Masato Yakushiji & Gran Hamada (M-Pro 10/10/96)

 

I want a fast, fun, and exciting opener to fire the crowd up. It's a half hour plus, but it's never felt long to me watching it on tape. I can't imagine how quickly that time would fly by seeing it live. I also can't imagine any crowd not 'getting it up' for this match.

 

2 - Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa (BattlARTS 8/29/99)

 

I think you'd need to follow that up with a sharply contrasting match, but one that can grab the crowd's attention when they're already buzzing from the opener. The M-Pro emphasizes speed and spots, the BattlARTS stiffness and violence. I think it's settle the crowd in without either killing the heat or burning them out.

 

3 - Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart (WWF 11/11/87)

 

And we switch things up with a shorter, simpler, story-based match to slow things down a touch without losing the audience. Bret and Randy's star power would keep the crowd well involved, I'm sure.

 

4 - Bryan Danielson & Low Ki vs. Jushin Liger & Samoa Joe (ROH 11/6/2004)

 

Why? It's here because I want to see these four guys on the card. It's here because it's a fun match with some nice heel vs. face stuff and it'll keep the crowd entertained while still not overshadowing the pre-intermission main event.

 

5 - Akira Hokuto & Shinobu Kandori vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano (AJW 3/27/94)

 

The last match before intermission, to send everyone out into the lobby buzzing from the great story -- of the unwilling partners progressing from mutual hatred to mutual respect -- and the sick, stiff, high-risk action.

 

** INTERMISSION **

 

6 - Jr. Heavyweight Championship Match: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (NJPW 8/5/82)

 

Not "The Greatest Match of the 1980s" one, this is a 15-minute sprint that'll grab everyone's attention and wake them up after the beer, snacks, and soda.

 

7 - World Heavyweight Title Match: Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Jack Brisco - 2/3 falls ( AJPW 8/28/76)

 

Now that everyone's awake, let's treat them to a well-paced, perfectly developed 70s-style title match, featuring the greatest selling in wrestling history as Jumbo contests most of the third fall from his knees.

 

8 - Eddie vs. Benoit - (WCW Nitro 10/16/1995)

 

Just a short and exciting TV-style match as a palate cleanser between the two epic AJPW matches.

 

9 - World Tag Team Titles Match: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 6/9/95)

 

When this is your main event, it doesn't really matter what's gone before. Nothing could possibly burn a crowd out enough that they wouldn't get into this. It is perhaps the best story ever told in a wrestling ring, and the one match in history that I would most dearly have loved to have seen live.

[jdw]

I think something different rather than the standard "all-time". When that happens, you get a "card" filled with a bunch of matches that don't fit together at all.

 

Perhaps a 1996 card that tries to be somewhat similar to the 1995 Weekly Pro Wrestling card where each promotion sends their "best match". Not always their best in terms of quality, but what they think would also play to the crowd.

 

Toss out the small fry promotions. Have All Japan and New Japan "force" that they be given two matches.

 

Perhaps these as starting blocks:

 

08/02/96 NJPW: Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto (17:14)

12/06/96 AJPW: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (31:37)

01/04/96 NJPW: Antonio Inoki vs. Big Van Vader (14:16)

09/05/96 AJPW: Triple Crown: Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (26:07)

 

New Japan, being New Japan, gets to force themselves to have the closing spot. Rather than exactly trying to roll out their "best match", they go with one of those Spectacles that they hope will play in the Dome - old man Choshu against their IWGP champ Hash. They actually would have a Dome match on 01/04/97 playing off this, trying to repeat it, and it was sort of passable. The one from August would play even better in the Dome given the structure and it being semi-fresh - they hadn't run the match-up since mid-1994.

 

To counter this, All Japan announces their first match will be their young gun Kobashi defending the TC against their own legend Hansen. It would be nice if they shortened it to more of a sprint. But this is a decent match, and they do work it in a theatrical way for a big crowd. One suspects that Stan and Kenta will be even more fired up with those New Japan bastards following.

 

For their second match, rather then send in Mutoh, Chono, or any of the young guns, Inoki forces New Japan to humor him and gets onto the card. He wants to wrestle one of his old favorite opponents - Vader fresh off his run with WCW. Vader gets all fired up and kicks the living shit out of Inoki.

 

Facing the Legends angle of New Japan, the Babas say "Fuck it... we're just going to have to rollout our best match. Round up the Usual Suspects~!"

 

Choshu-Hash can actually follow that match, and they have a payoff the fans love. But it's clear to everyone that Kings Road has again put on the best match on one of these multi-promotional cards.

 

 

 

What else...

 

09/11/96 UWFi: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu (19:30)

 

UWFi and WAR see the early announcement of the Choshu-Hash and Kobashi-Hansen matches, and realize they're fucked. UWFi doesn't have anyone they can run against Takada with that star power since Vader and Albright are gone, and a potential Takada-Tamura rivalry if gone since Tamura jumped to UWFi.

 

Takada contacts New Japan to see if he can get his old rival Koshinaka (03/01/96) to work a match, but Choshu tells him to fuck off.

 

Tenryu calls Choshu and leaves a message with Masa Saitoh to see if he could run the first ever Tenryu-Mutoh match (10/11/96) on the Dome. Riki and Masa worry that goofy Mutoh, if told to have a bad match with Tenryu, might not remember and actually go out there and have a good one showing up Choshu-Hash given their earlier placement on the card. Riki ignores the call, and when asked by Tenryu at the Dome why Riki never returned the phone call, Riki and Masa blame it on Sakaguchi:

 

Masa: "I gave the message to Sak to pass on to Riki."

 

Riki: "He never told me about it."

 

Tenryu: "Really?"

 

Riki: "He's fucking up like that all the time."

 

Saitoh: "He never liked you anyway, brother. He hated it when we got Inoki to job to you."

 

Tenryu: "Really? Cocksucker."

 

 

Anyway... Takada and Tenryu happen to run into each other at a Soapland and agree that they run their first singles match against each other.

 

 

08/01/96 FMW: Wing Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka (14:51)

 

Onita has retired. Hayabusa has bombed as their new top star. Choshu has dimissed FMW as garbage wrestling. FMW decided to send Tanaka and Kanemura to the Dome to prove Terry Funk's claim that they're better than Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi.

 

08/24/96 Rings: Volk Han vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka

 

Rings is a bit fucked because Maeda is banged up. They also don't want to give away Volk vs. Tamura for free. So they send Volk vs. Koshaka, and hope that the change of pace is appreciated.

 

09/07/96 Pancrase: KOP: Bas Rutten vs. Masaharu Funaki (17:05)

 

Funaki decides that since Suzuki was on the Dome show the year before, so this time he'd get to. Then he starts wondering how best to put over Pancration... hmmm... well... maybe I can let Bas kick my ass?

 

03/31/96 AJW: Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue (21:19)

 

Toyota-Kyoko headlined two of the company's biggest shows. I sorta... kinda... guess? I draw a blank on an alternative.

 

So that's a starting point. Not sure what JWP would send. Perhaps a death match with Kansai vs. Oz? That might play as something different coming from joshi infront of a big, "mainstream" Dome crowd.

 

We still have the "WAR" match, since Tenryu is in the "UWFi" match. Perhaps Tenryu let's Yoshihiro Asai have the match and tells him to put on something cool. He puts calls up Keiichi Yamada and Masanori Murakawa to see what they could come up with. Perhaps:

 

04/29/96 "MPro": IWGP Jr: Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke

08/04/96 "WAR": Ultimo Dragon vs. Shinjiro Ohtani

 

It would be hard for Murakawa to resist Yamada's offer to let him win the IWGP Jr. Title, probably the only title that's going to change hands on the card (Yamada knows Baba-style booking, and knows there's no chance in hell that Hansen is going over Kobashi). And Yamada can sell Asai that Dragon will then get to beat Sasuke for the title on a WAR show. Murakawa and Asai ask if Yamada will get in trouble with Choshu for puting himself and Ohtani into two interpromotional matches while his boss isn't letting any of the heavies work interpromotional match. Yamada chills them out - "Riki lets me do what I want. As long as I don't embarass the company, he's cool with it. He's a great boss."

 

Okay... I haven't got a clue of which semi-big promotions I'm missing here. Honestly, MPro wasn't a semi-major promotion. But everyone has enjoyed them at prior Dome shows (11/94 AJW and 4/95 Weekly Pro) that puroresu fans were clamoring for a MPro match on the card.

 

I had thought of having Murakawa run this match:

 

Dick Togo, Mens Teoh, Shiryu, Taka Michinoku, & Shoichi Funaki beat Gran Hamada, Super Delfin, Gran Naniwa, Tiger Mask IV, & Masato Yakushiji (32:07)

 

And go over the "alotted time" of "18 minutes" to piss off the promoters.

 

But getting the IWGP Jr. Title would be too much of an ego fuck for him.

 

Anyway...

 

The attempt isn't to put on the Greatest Card Ever. Instead, it's more to come up with a "stars aligned in an alternate universe" card for 1996 Japan. I think most everyone of those matches turned out to be either entertaining, or better than one expected, or in the case of Liger-Sasuke a "perfectly acceptable juniors dome match."

 

 

John

[gordi]

Dang, jdw, that's a fantastically imaginative approach to this... I really enjoyed reading that and visualising how it might all come together. Which match would you put on first? Which would be your pre-intemission main event?

 

I wonder about how the crowd would respond to Choshu vs. Hash after the AJPW tag? Maybe the old heavyweights would be forced to take it up another notch. I imagine much stiff striking and many hard lariats.

[Loss]

I'm still trying to figure out my dream show. I know 4 of the matches I want to use, but I'm trying to keep the show from going 8 hours when all is said and done.

 

I'm now thinking of the ideal interpromotional card for the WWF and WCW when both were peaking in popularity -- 1998-ish, say -- and what matches I'd put on there and how long they'd go though.

[jdw]

Dang, jdw, that's a fantastically imaginative approach to this... I really enjoyed reading that and visualising how it might all come together. Which match would you put on first? Which would be your pre-intemission main event?

The JWP ladies opened the year before, so I think I would do it again.

 

So as to not put the JWP and AJW matches back-to-back, I think the rest of the promotions would conspire to put the Pancrase match on #2 as the crowd is still showing up.

 

Riki: "Fuck those shooter assholes."

 

 

Then comeback with AJW.

 

Then they puro-style guys conspire to fuck over Maeda by forcing the RINGS match to follow whatever AJW sends.

 

Riki: "I hate that cocksucker Maeda. Fuck him too."

 

Then Riki decides to screw with FMW by forcing two not so well known FMW guys to follow the juniors matches. In the "rankings" of the promotions, MPro would go on before WAR... but since the "MPro match" is for the IWGP Title, Yamada flip-flops them. So WAR-MPro-FMW.

 

And then you take intermission where all the fans can mingle and talk about how that FMW match didn't really match up to what was on before.

 

After intermission are the five "main events". Takada and Tenryu want to go on first because their whole point is to give a "new" match with a Legend before the rest of the matches come on. Then Kobashi-Hansen, since they're slower build will get the crowd into it eventually. Then Inoki-Vader, the AJPW tag, and Riki-Hash.

 

1. JWP Match

2. 09/07/96 Pancrase: KOP: Bas Rutten vs. Masaharu Funaki (17:05)

3. 03/31/96 AJW: Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue (21:19) (or some other AJW match)

4. 08/24/96 Rings: Volk Han vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka

5. 08/04/96 "WAR": Ultimo Dragon vs. Shinjiro Ohtani

6. 04/29/96 "MPro": IWGP Jr: Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke

7. 08/01/96 FMW: Wing Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka (14:51)

 

Yep... that should fuck FMW in the ass.

 

Intermission

 

8. 09/11/96 UWFi: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu (19:30)

9. 09/05/96 AJPW: Triple Crown: Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (26:07)

10. 01/04/96 NJPW: Antonio Inoki vs. Big Van Vader (14:16)

11. 12/06/96 AJPW: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (31:37)

12. 08/02/96 NJPW: Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto (17:14)

 

 

I wonder about how the crowd would respond to Choshu vs. Hash after the AJPW tag? Maybe the old heavyweights would be forced to take it up another notch. I imagine much stiff striking and many hard lariats.

I think the crowd would be into it fine. The problem with the Hash-Chono the year before is that they worked far too long farting around on the mat.

 

This is a big match in a big setting... Riki will be fired up, and Hash will be told to kick the fuck out of Riki before it's time to turn the tables.

 

If I can figure out the JWP and AJW matches, that's kind of a pertty cool card. Lots of variety in it. The top four singles matches are all more along the lines of "spectacles" rather than "great matches". I think they'd play well here. The tag match would work anywhere with that storyline.

 

 

John

[Al]

Mine would be WWE heavy, so I am running with it and doing an all-Wrestlemania theme.

 

Opener: Tom Zenk/Rick Martel vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton

 

Good, well-paced opener to get the crowd going.

 

Curt Hennig vs. Owen Hart (Blue Blazer)

 

Another quick, five minute match between two good workers.

 

The Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts

 

You need to get the Undertaker in here somewhere and this is a match that had a semi-important story behind it and features the heel getting his comeuppance.

 

Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart (Submission Match)

 

The first "epic" match of the night.

 

Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis

 

Following the longer match, a shorter match to pop the crowd.

 

Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels (Ladder Match/IC Title)

 

Wrestlemania has featured five different ladder matches. Only this one featured any real memorable storyline behind it. Whether or not it holds up or deserves five stars is immaterial. It is an exciting match.

 

Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus (Womens Title)

 

Following the longer, intense ladder match you have a shorter match and probably the best women's match to occur at Wrestlemania.

 

Cactus Jack/Terry Funk vs. The New Age Outlaws (Dumpster Match/Tag Titles)

 

This match appeals to the hardcore element, while not so violent to turn off the crowd.

 

The Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage (Retirement Match)

 

The post-match angle is probably the most emotional angle WWE ever ran.

 

Gimmick Battle Royal

 

A short three-minute match to provide one last break before the main event. A little comedy and harmless fun.

 

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (Wrestlemania III)

 

Ultimately the idea is to draw, and whether it was 78,000 or 93,000 it was a HUGE crowd. Also, the crowd will have sat through three twenty minute matches at this point, and this one allows the fans a shorter match.

 

All together I have two hours of bell-to-bell action. Three four star matches, and most of WWE's most popular stars. If the exclusion of the Rock is troubling, a solution might be to run Rock/Hogan and add Andre/Studd from Wrestlemania I. Some matches are not classics by any means, but I think if you ran nothing but ***** star matches for three hours you would exhaust your crowd (and also lose money from the live crowd via concessions).

[JHawk]

This is hard. I think I've changed my answers to this about six times. But anyway:

 

 

1. Light Heavyweight Title (2 out of 3 falls hold vs. hold match): The Lightning Kid vs. Jerry Lynn (summer 1991)

 

A much-forgotten about match that I absolutely love and wish I could find on DVD. Kid and Lynn are still relative unknowns but absolutely awesome here. A hot opener to rile up the crowd.

 

2. Intercontinental Title: Kane vs. Albert (SmackDown 2001)

 

Something to cool the crowd off a bit to prepare for the later matches, and one of the better big man vs. big man matches I've ever seen.

 

3. Extreme Rules Match: Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Edge & Mick Foley (6/11/2006)

 

An awesome bloody brawl to satisfy the hardcore marks. Garbagy matches need to go earlier into shows, and this is the perfect example of that.

 

4. Chad Collyer vs. Matt Stryker (1/11/2003)

 

The opposite of the previous match, as it's a technical masterpiece designed to satisfy the workrate marks.

 

5. World Tag Team Title: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Lex Luger & Barry Windham (3/27/1988)

 

Using this one mostly because it's been so long since I've seen the 4/20/88 match that I remember the angle and little else. This match is fantastic, and certainly a tremendous way to begin bringing the crowd to a crescendo.

 

6. Women's Title: Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano (8/29/1994)

 

Another match that's fantastic but gets little to no love. And the women's match is always a good precursor to your main event.

 

7. World Heavyweight Title (two out of three falls): Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat

 

My all-time favorite match to this day, and the epic match to end an awesome supercard. Combines most of the styles shown earlier in the evening and quite honestly, the only main event I can see being on the supercard of all supercards.

[Stuttsy]

3. Extreme Rules Match: Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Edge & Mick Foley (6/11/2006)

 

An awesome bloody brawl to satisfy the hardcore marks. Garbagy matches need to go earlier into shows, and this is the perfect example of that.

 

4. Chad Collyer vs. Matt Stryker (1/11/2003)

 

The opposite of the previous match, as it's a technical masterpiece designed to satisfy the workrate marks.

I totally get what you're going for, but I might suggest switching the order. I can't imagine a crowd in the world that would be with Collyer and Stryker (both of whom I like) after watching Funk & Foley fall into barbed wire and girls get speared and all that.

[goodhelmet]

JHawk, I think Loss has a copy of the Global match.