Comments that don't warrant a thread

[jdw]

Today is the golden age of internet wrestling collecting. There is so much available, and so easily available because of the changes in media (dvd and downloads), that it's pretty ridiculous.

 

Of internet wrestling "conversation", "writing" and "discussion"?

 

It's hard pressed to say that. I don't think it's because of the writers. I think it's the current product versus the product of the late 90s or even early 00s. Not that the product was better or worse then versus now, but there was more of it, and it was a bit less stagnant. WWF & WCW compared to now just the WWE, which has evolved a lot less in the past four years than the WWF passed through from say 1998-2001. I wasn't a fan of ECW any more than I'm a fan of TNA, but the ECW conversation was more interesting because of the massively divergent opinions on it. Japan in the late 90s was declining, but that itself made for interesting discussion of a number of promotions. It's dead now. Perhaps the indy world has better conversation now, but the DVDVR guys and others were starting to write a lot about a variety of indy feds and wrestlers in the late 90s and early 00s.

 

Not saying that period to tie myself to it. I'd shot my wad in 1996-97... probably through Carny 98, and was washed up by most of 1998-2002. But for reading, the second half of 1998 through 2002 was the period that was the most interesting, creative and challenging for me. Plus reporting online came of age in that period as Keller and Meltzer came online, and the "drop a dime" crowd of Scherer and Ryder slowly got exposed as shills. Is online reporting better or more interesting now than it was in the WCW Russo Era and the Death of WCW period?

 

I suspect people's golden ages tie into when they got the most out of something. If it's collecting and watching matches, it flat out is now. If it's discussion... depends on the person.

 

John

[Kronos]

I am probably just feeling a false nostalgia for a period I missed. Watching wrestling and discussing it seemed so exciting back then, from what I can tell. I can easily see all that stuff now -- well, damned Worldwide 2000 seems invisible -- but it's not the same as when I had no idea what would happen next. It's new to me, but I have heard so much about it when I finally get around to watching that it takes some of the shine away. Not much of the shine. . .

 

And you guys were discussing it then, in a much more underground kind of way. Tape trading meant you had to know someone who knew someone. Now, you just sign up on a trading forum and keep your nose clean, and you're in. Or join PWT. Or XWN. And get all the free footage you can eat, if you don't mind avi

 

How can you say there was more product then? Do you mean it would be like TNA having as many shows as Vince has, as well as ROH being on a more mainstream channel? Because we have a hell of a lot of wrestling right now on TV alone -- 6 hrs from Vince, 2 from TNA, 1 from ROH every week (although I am done watching ROH tv ZZZZZZZZZZZZ). And of course, that doesn't count PPV.

[jdw]

How can you say there was more product then? Do you mean it would be like TNA having as many shows as Vince has, as well as ROH being on a more mainstream channel? Because we have a hell of a lot of wrestling right now on TV alone -- 6 hrs from Vince, 2 from TNA, 1 from ROH every week (although I am done watching ROH tv ZZZZZZZZZZZZ). And of course, that doesn't count PPV.

As far as product that mattered?

 

Raw + Smackdown + Nitro + Thunder + ECW + WWF PPV + WCW PPV + ECW PPV

 

That's just in the US, and it's not counting things like WCW SN (which had its fans) and WCW Heat (dittos).

 

Is there as much quantity now? Maybe, though when you can point to WCW not exisiting the reality is that nothing has replaced it. TNA is more the successor to ECW as a second rate promotion that barely matter. The difference - ECW was wildly more interesting as a second rate promotion from a conversational standpoint. Opinion on it was wildly split, so keeping up with it was sort of important if you wanted to be able to talk about the promotion. How many people who think lightly of TNA put in the time? With ECW, you'd put in the time. Hell, WCW went off the cliff... and we still watched it so we could bitch, moan and analyze just how they were going off the cliff. I'm sure there still are some who do that with TNA, but after 5 years of being a clusterfuck, I tend to think that most like that have wandered off to something else.

 

There also was current Japanese stuff that was getting pretty fair discussion. Obviously there still is discussion on things in Japan, and people like Stuart built up cottage industries on declining/dying promotions. But discussions now about Misawa not being able to find the Next Generation are *ten year old* discussions. It's something that goes back to All Japan when folks could see a generation of one (Akiyama), and even by 1999 were starting to have doubts that he had it in him to succeed the Four Corners. The storyline of New Japan this decade was largely already written during the 1999-2002 period. The story of All Japan was largely written by 2002 with Mutoh's permanent jump, and what hadn't been done since Misawa & Co. left. Joshi? Dead.

 

It's not that there isn't *any* good conversation on puroresu now. But the big themes of where the business is headed, and who if anyone from generations after Four Corners and the Three Musketeers can lead the business back... is there any truly deep analysis of that in 2009 that isn't largely a rehash of things that were obvious back in the early 00s? :/

 

You could say the same about the US business. No doubt there's lots of good discussion on workers and matches. But as far as the direction of the WWE, TNA, ROH, the entire US business... anything big that isn't a continuation or derivative of where this business has been heading since it's peak and the collapse of WCW and ECW?

 

I think that's why 1998-2002 was interesting to me from a reading standpoint. Even as WCW was going in the tank, people were analyzing how a healthier company could come out of it. And in hindsight, some of that was pretty solid and could have worked with the right people running it. Same with "ways to improve the WWE in a Trip-McMahon dominated promotion". Been done. :/

 

Like I say, I think there's lots of good conversation out there. But it's at the point of say a lot sabermetric areas. Saying the BB's and OBP put runs on the board in the 80s was cutting edge, as were discussions on it. Saying it now... it's 25+ year old baseball knowledge. It's painful to read discussions on it now. Or discussions on bunting where it's down to the differance of 100th's of a run in value. Where there are good saber baseball discussions are on things like fielding where the entire field of researchers are still working on getting a better understand of it.

 

Do we have that in wrestling? Understanding why the WWF and WCW were taking off in the 90s, and the different revenue streams they were tapping into, and the fan base they were drawing in, and the talent base that was working or not working, and the creative decisions that spurred growth... that was all cutting edge. We'd never had two national promotions in this country on that scale. Then as first one collapsed and then the other fell strongly, looking at the flip side of the coin. Now?

 

Sorry if I rambling.

 

John

[Kronos]

No worries about rambling. It's one of the things I like about this forum.

 

It's a good point about TNA -- amongst the dedicated rasslin fans in forums I frequent like wrestlingclassics, DVDVR, and here -- there's not a lot of substantive discussion going on. No one seems to be watching much. I started a spoiler thread on Lockdown on wrestlingclassics, and I was just about the only one posting during the live show. Compare that to Mania, where we had quite a few live "bloggers" on the same forum. I am constantly seeing comments like "I haven't watched TNA in a year" and such. So you may be well correct there. People have lost interest. You can't very well discuss the future of this angle or that angle if they're going to be changing it tomorrow. Here's an example: On Impact this week will be a ladder match for #1 women's contender between Sojo Bolt and taylor Wilde. Taylor is believable, but Bolt is out of the blue. And why a ladder match? There's no reason for it.

 

Maybe in 2000, people tuned in to WCW to see the train wreck. I know I feel that way when I watch Nitro eps. But TNA is not that compelling. It's just annoying. I continue to watch it because I like some of the characters and even some of the angles, but many people don't watch it. So what's to discuss?

 

I personally find the discussions of classic wrestling to be the most compelling. Things like the 80's sets -- I am really hoping to get in on NJPW and Texas since I missed Memphis and Watts. That's fascinating and substantive. I remember reading page after page of analysis of the WWF set on TOA -- it was page-turning, stay up until 3am reading. You are absolutely correct that the current products don't generate that kind of discussion; compare to the DVDVR from 1996 I originally referenced, where Phil and Dean and co (were you in that group, John?) were discussing ECW and Nitro matches at length. Maybe it's because it's all new to me, but that older stuff is just more fascinating to discuss. . .

[Dylan Waco]

As someone who has been around the IWC for a long ass time and started tape trading/collecting in 94, I think what has happened in a lot of cases is that the well has run dry. I agree with John about the product being smaller, and the death of puro really hurt a lot of discussions as their were a lot of smarks that were really connected to that scene, but really I think the two things that have killed off a lot of the high quality discussion have been:

 

1) WWE having a virtual monopoly on U.S. wrestling

 

2) All of the interesting topics have been done to death.

 

The IWC has been around for fifteen years now, and it has been rather large for at least 12 years. All of the "greatest..." style threads have been done. Historical issues have been largely hashed out. Many of the old forums and venues for discussion have dried up, disappeared or quieted dramatically as a result.

 

It's not surprising that the best discussions of the last few years have been revival campaigns focused on older territories or wrestlers - or grandiose projects/lists that allowed people to set up revisionist movements on behalf of various workers and matches.

 

There are obviously pockets here and there of good discussion on all sorts of things, but they are much,much smaller than they used to be. For the most part we are talking about the same posters, jumping from board to board.

[Kronos]

BTW, John, I just logged in to TOA for the first time in almost a year. I realized it was your thread about the 80's set that I was referencing. Nice work. Will you activate my acct under codegreen817? I think my old account probably got purged. . .

 

Dylan, it makes me sad that some people feel all the discussions have been done, because it's still so new and fresh to me. Oh, well, nothing to be done for it, I guess. You could always have threads comparing DG and MichPro -- oh, wait. . .

[jdw]

There are obviously pockets here and there of good discussion on all sorts of things, but they are much,much smaller than they used to be. For the most part we are talking about the same posters, jumping from board to board.

Might not be right to get that narrow. Perhaps someone like Mike Campbell and some of the other posters hit more active boards relating to "current" wrestling. I'm sure the folks here that post on/read the Torch or Fig-4 can give an idea of how active they are.

 

On the other hand, the Torch boards were fairly active in their early days. I'm not sure if WCW was dead year, or ECW. Then again, a lot of the conversation in the Mitchell forum was about things other than current WWF product.

 

Digression... but I'm willing to bet there are very active boards talking about current wrestling by mega fans of current wrestling. Are they as active as say the 1998-2002 range, or are they hitting any fresh major theme topics that weren't there in that period? That's probably best for folks who were both heavily active in 1998-2002 and now to answer, especially ones who were active lovers of both eras.

 

Schnider still writes a lot about current wrestling, and has been around through pretty much all the phases of online wrestling discussion. Bix is another one, though I don't see a lot of his stuff about current stuff, instead mostly run into him about older wrestling.

 

 

John

[Kronos]

As long as I am rambling. . .I am currently watching Championship Wrestling from Oct 1982. Dear Lord, this stuff is dull. World Class blows it out of the water, and so does Mid-Atlantic (I haven't seen much Memphis, Mid-south, or Georgia from the era -- but the Georgia 1979 comp I have is so much more engaging). Curt Henning/Barry Hart vs Fuji/Saito is happening right now and is quite good, actually -- but the crowd is bored. They're chanting "We want Backlund" and "We want Snuka" -- but of course because this is TV, Bob's nowhere to be found. Broken-down Billy Graham is just shameful, but he gets 1 min squashes so he doesn't have time to look too bad. Rogers Corner? Let's just say it was a good thing they got Piper not long after this. . .

[sek69]

I've said it before, I'm sure, but one of the things I was shocked to discover via WWE 24/7 was how awful early 80s WWF tv is. Not so much match quality, but more so how almost every promotion at the time was just killing them in terms of production. WWF tv just looked like a low rent, cheap-ass cable access type show compared to other territories at the time.

[jdw]

BTW, John, I just logged in to TOA for the first time in almost a year. I realized it was your thread about the 80's set that I was referencing. Nice work. Will you activate my acct under codegreen817? I think my old account probably got purged. . .

It's activated now.

 

 

Dylan, it makes me sad that some people feel all the discussions have been done, because it's still so new and fresh to me. Oh, well, nothing to be done for it, I guess. You could always have threads comparing DG and MichPro -- oh, wait. . .

I'm not sure if what Dylan and I are saying it's done and dead. It's 100% certain that there is good conversation out there by people who have a passion for the business. There always has been a bleeding away of fans online and new blood coming in with the passion.

 

I've been washed up online for a decade, and my passion for wrestling in general is really ebbed. But it doesn't mean that I can't pop in some wrestling and still have a load of fun watching it, or get inspired to ramble a bit. Or run into something like the WWF project over on SC and enjoy the hell out of it. Looks like the DVDVR is coming up on the New Japan set on the horizon, and that's really one I'll enjoy watching. Down the road is Joshi, and there probably isn't a single set I look forward to more than that one to see a strong collection of Jaguar, Chigusa, Devil, Lioness, etc. I'm like largely avoiding all the stuff I haven't seen of that (which is the vast majority of it) so that it will be super fresh.

 

And on and on.

 

My regular comment back in the mid-90s was that if you don't like a certain promotion, look around a bit. There were so many promotions and wrestlers that somewhere you'd find something you'd like. Probably several things.

 

There seemed to be more promotions of note than, but it was a bit harder to get stuff. There are fewer promotions now, but there's what... 30 years of wrestling material floating around now? Material that's getting better and better organized, and is getting suplimented all the time by new "finds" or "releases".

 

If one can't find some wrestling material to watch, be it present or past if they're burned out of the present, then they're not trying hard enough.

 

Or don't have a lot of time. Or need something "current" to truly connect with and keep the passion buring.

 

I understand the last two. Time is hard. And I think all of us would like something current & new to keep us fired up.

 

I just finished reading the books of Ross Thomas. It's a little over 20 novels, with a couple of series but mostly stand alone. I had a blast reading them. But also when I got down to the last 2-3 of them, it also was hitting me that there would be no more: he died in 1994.

 

In contrast, I also finished reading all of Michael Connley's books last year. He's got to be pretty close to 20 at this point as well. When I got to the end, he actually was just coming out with his newest book that brought together two of his popular characters for the first time. He has two more novels coming out this year in a bit of a spurt of creativity. They're readable cop books, and there's a bit of a pull to see where Connely takes Bosch as he's closing in on 60.

 

You'd like that pull in wrestling, or anything such as following your favorite sports teams after the players who drew you in got old and retired or left.

 

One of the nice things about wrestling, though, is that like books there is a massive wealth of things up on the shelf or at the "store" to watch that while not published this year, are still first times for you.

 

That's pretty cool. There's a Nick vs Jumbo match from Hawaii that I haven't seen and was just pointed out to me. Just need to go to the "store" and grab it.

 

John

[Kronos]

Digression... but I'm willing to bet there are very active boards talking about current wrestling by mega fans of current wrestling. Are they as active as say the 1998-2002 range, or are they hitting any fresh major theme topics that weren't there in that period? That's probably best for folks who were both heavily active in 1998-2002 and now to answer, especially ones who were active lovers of both eras.

A bit of quick fishing:

 

Wrestlecrap has a very active forum, and these people seem to be fans of the current product. Substantive discussion? That's another question. Some current forum topics that have at least 2 pages:

 

Do you get Gay Vibes from the Legacy (3)

Times when Triple H bugged you the most (7 pages -- most of the answers are one sentence)

Lockdown 2009 (33 pages, many 1 line responses)

Wrestlingforums.com is massively active, and it has a lot of recent topics about the current industry [far more than DVDVR]; a lot of the topics are also of the all-time list theme. One interesting topic is "What is the IWC?" by a guy who didn't understand the acronym. One response:

 

To put it simply, the IWC is a community of people who know nothing at all about the wrestling industry, but who think they know everything. (I include myself in that statement)

 

I know this post makes me sound like a snob. I think I have just been spoiled because when I got into the IWC in late 2007, I almost accidentally moved from the ROH forums (which got real old real fast) to places like this. I don't write a lot, but I sure read the crap out of these forums that have the same guys -- PWO, DVDVR, TOA, etc.

[sek69]

I think the big thing about wrestling discussion is a lot of the "old timers" got burned out and left, and the ones that stayed ended up being annoyed by the new generation that combines not knowing anything with a sometimes profound lack of writing/reading comprehension/social skills. I guess it's the gap between people who came of age on usenet and the early days of the web vs people who started on AOL chatrooms and only speak in "leet". There's nothing that can make you punch a baby in frustration more than talking to someone who types like both their hands are broken and aren't aware that anything happened before 2002.

 

 

Honestly, where is there for good discussion nowadays? WCMB and KM are largely dead, and DVDVR has some intelligent posters who largely get lost in an ocean of fetishists. The only places where you can find intelligent discussion are at smaller under-the-radar places where wrestling is more of a side dish than the main topic like S&W and CKC (where I lost my posting rights for some reason). I went to the official NWA homepage once and saw they had a board there, it seemed okay at first until I realized anyone even loosely affiliated with the company was posting in kayfabe. People were trying to have serious conversations and you had the NWA-Outer Bumfuck promoter running in like he was in some kind of e-fed that no one else was a part of.

 

 

Personally I think a lot of it just comes down to people who were around in that mythical 98-02 era just not being into the current stuff as well as there not being any new topics to discuss when it comes to the old stuff. I think it kind of mirrors the wrestling audience in general. Back then Raw and Nitro were pulling in a combined 7 million a week, and now a number half that size for next week's Raw would send WWE over the moon. There's always been a ebb and flow of people discussing things online, but I don't think we're seeing new faces as the rate we used to anymore - nor have we for a long time.

[Indikator]

Is the Nakajima vs KENTA thread on DVDVR any good? That might be an interesting topic regarding puroresu.

 

And re: boards & opinions:

I remember when I started working for a wrestling homepage in 2001 there were like 20 different (German) homepages, most of them were nothing special, a couple of guys did the whole workload. The influx of newsreporters (aka translators), reviewers and people who wrote show reports was seemingly neverending. Reports are important as the younger fans can't read English sites, so there was and is always demand for reports, be it translated stuff like the great TNA reports that the TSM founder did or self-written stuff. Of course I might be a little deluded, but that might also be because of the fact that nowadays the two biggest sites we have are that much bigger (databases, biographies etc / let me copy what is on our site: 58.688 Shows - 2.054 Championships - 7.870 Wrestler Bios - 3.333 Teams - 707 Stables) that we just need a shitload of people just maintaining it. Anyways, we even started doing live coverage for TV and PPV. I did live coverage for almost three years, getting up at 3AM 1-3 times a week. It's pretty insane that we are still doing it. But it got harder and harder getting people to do live coverage for our (and other sites). Then the reports for Smackdown and Raw got shorter and shorter. When I did them I did play by play, every single damn move. Now most times its a sentence a minute (minus spot descriptions). And its getting harder and harder to maintain our prior niveau. So I'd definately say that interest is down. Interestingly we were able to recruit the most competent guys when the wrestling business flourished, so the quality of fans you have is pretty much bound to the quality of the wrestling business.

 

Will that change? Yes, hopefully soon. It's going to be really interesting when the next boom period is hitting the IWC. And if not, there still might be a couple of Wrestlelicious fans who will stumble on the youtube/Veoh AJW accounts. And they will give us new viewpoints on the 60 minute draw between Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue. I am looking forward to it.

[Kronos]

I've said it before, I'm sure, but one of the things I was shocked to discover via WWE 24/7 was how awful early 80s WWF tv is. Not so much match quality, but more so how almost every promotion at the time was just killing them in terms of production. WWF tv just looked like a low rent, cheap-ass cable access type show compared to other territories at the time.

 

It really had no production value at all -- aside from the crowds and the slightly better announcing, it could have almost been any indy show today. Also, the episodes began with almost identical intro scripts from Vince -- I had to doublecheck to make sure I hadn't simply been given two of the same episode on my disc when the second show began. The interview segments with Buddy Rogers were absolutely horrible; I know that guy's kind of a big deal (hehe, Anchorman), but he was awful and had no business doing a five minute interview "show".

 

That said, the action did get a lot better from that first episode I was watching when I typed last night. I watched three consecutive episodes -- about two hours in all. Curt Hennig had the singles match I mentioned. He also wrestled in a tag with Eddie Gilbert against Jose Estrada/someone-I-can't-recall. Their ringwork was excellent, considering it was a 5-minute match. Gilbert was pulling some what I am guessing for the time period were crazy flying headscissors and fast action. Hennig looked really good, too, and the heels didn't look at all squashed. The crowds picked up in the later episodes, too, getting into the matches. Don Muraco looked decent, and Rocky Johnson was fun.

 

The biggest discovery for me was Fuji/Saito. Fuji was wicked fun with his expressions, and his ringwork was well above most of the jobbers and dullards on the show. He and Saito made a credible and entertaining heel team, and I look forward to seeing more of them on subsequent episodes. (I have about six more consecutive ones finishing off 1982 before my collection jumps to January 84.) The other surprise to me was the Strongbow brothers. I only watched one match they had with the Japanese pair for the tag belts F & S held. Julius would do this little Indian dance everytime something cool happened, and it really got the crowds going. Those guys were fun to watch, too.

 

All in all, as I said before, these eps compare to World Class in '82-83 for sheer fun, even if some of the WWF's action turned out to be quite good. Fritz seems to have taken Sports Entertainment to another level for the era without insulting the old-school fans, and Vince wasn't there yet. But I am still going to try to watch it more.

[Kronos]

Honestly, where is there for good discussion nowadays? WCMB and KM are largely dead, and DVDVR has some intelligent posters who largely get lost in an ocean of fetishists. The only places where you can find intelligent discussion are at smaller under-the-radar places where wrestling is more of a side dish than the main topic like S&W and CKC (where I lost my posting rights for some reason).

Kayfabe Memories is a massive site, but there's not a lot of posting going on outside of statistics, show reports, quick trivia questions, etc. It's too bad because there seems to be a real wealth of knowledge there. Wrestlingclassics is almost incidentally about wrestling these days. It's a lot of fun, and I post there regularly, but it's a running joke that the "OT" threads outnumber the wrestling ones. What are S&W or CKC -- not familiar with those sites?

 

Talk some more about this "ocean of fetishists". How do you mean? Do you mean people who worship Indy puro, that sort of thing?

 

there still might be a couple of Wrestlelicious fans who will stumble on the youtube/Veoh AJW accounts. And they will give us new viewpoints on the 60 minute draw between Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue. I am looking forward to it.

I know that as a women's wrestling fan, when I saw my first Toyota/Hokuto match, I went ballistic. I couldn't believe that it could be so intense, so fast, and so wonderful. Not sure if being a Wrestlicious fan might bring in those people. But I started following the chicks as a Mickie James fan (I still love her), discovered SHIMMER from looking up Roxxi Laveaux on wiki, and found joshi after that. So it's possible. . .

[ZThomas]

I've been watching WWF Challenge alot over ther past two weeks & I'm up to the 13th episode, Dino Bravo has had so nice squash matches so far. I read they they wanted to go with him vs Hogan to Main Event a card in Montreal untill they realized Bravo would get more cheers than Hogan. He left the WWF a came back later & I guess this lead to his eventually going to the doghouse a litter later in his WWF run.

 

I'm digging Butch Reed too, with Slick by his side, It seems they fix great together more than another other guy Slick managed. I guess after JYD left, they probably thought by had no more use for Reed.

 

Orndorff was the top heel at this time before Andre turned heel, I dont see why they didnt go with Hogan Orndorff at WMIII. that probably wouldve been Hogan best Mania Match, Match wise because Ornorff was a great wrestler.

 

Jake seemed so fresh for the WWF at that time because he was a heel, by he way so articulate on the mike he had people listen to his every word on the Snake Pit. He hasnt had match yet on Challenge by he has been on every show. At that time the only way for him to stay heel was if he attacked Hogan. He gave vibes like he wanted to face Hogan do the line but I guess you cant blame Hogan for feeling threatend by jake because he had the crowd in his hands.

 

I've also liked Kamala & Sika in singles squashes with King Curtis as there mouth piece, Its too bad that alot of the guys on the rosters only purpose was to job for Hogan eventually & alot of guys that I've seem on the show should've worked at some point on a big House Show or Big Event or angle you can tell Hogan felt threatened by.

[S.L.L.]

Is the Nakajima vs KENTA thread on DVDVR any good? That might be an interesting topic regarding puroresu.

According to Bix, I posted one of the greatest things ever written on the internet about wrestling in that thread, so it can't be all bad.

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5438353

[Indikator]

Regarding the "Reality is Unrealistic" issue I can recommend you all to watch more 50s and Inoki era NJPW. Its a stark contrast to the Funks/AJPW tight storytelling style. I was rather dumbfounded when I first saw some of those matches, they seemed disjointed, I was really irritated at times. Then I noticed that match quality is NOT like a test where you start with 100% and for every logic error you get points deducted. Stuff like Inoki vs Hogan with a million stand ups where pretty much the whole match story was always resetted, Europeans not giving a rats ass about how to sell ongoing limbwork (like "first you shake it off, then you limb around, then you clutch your leg in agony, then you almost tap, then you tap") and 1950s tackle weirdness broadened my horizon

[Kronos]

I've been watching WWF Challenge alot over ther past two weeks & I'm up to the 13th episode

Are you watching these off wwe.com? I think it's great that they're on there (reminds me, my annual sub is up in May ). I've been wanting to watch these since seeing Survivor Series 1987 for the first time recently. I already knew I liked Mania III, and I fell in love with SS -- the whole show (bar maybe the Hogan/Andre confrontation in the end) is beyond fun. It just makes me think that 1987 may have been a good year if it was bookended by such greatness. Perhaps an apex of the cartoon 80's era that started 3 years before? And then I realize that there's dozens of episodes of Challenge from the period available in my subscription, and I know I have to watch them and see if I am right.

[Kronos]

Regarding the "Reality is Unrealistic" issue I can recommend you all to watch more 50s and Inoki era NJPW. Its a stark contrast to the Funks/AJPW tight storytelling style. I was rather dumbfounded when I first saw some of those matches, they seemed disjointed, I was really irritated at times. Then I noticed that match quality is NOT like a test where you start with 100% and for every logic error you get points deducted. Stuff like Inoki vs Hogan with a million stand ups where pretty much the whole match story was always resetted, Europeans not giving a rats ass about how to sell ongoing limbwork (like "first you shake it off, then you limb around, then you clutch your leg in agony, then you almost tap, then you tap") and 1950s tackle weirdness broadened my horizon

 

Are you saying that the more realistic-style wrestling of the 50's, for example, comes across to us as fake because they don't follow patterns we are used to from more "skilled" workers like Funk/Baba/Backlund? That may be true from the 1960's stuff I have seen.

[Indikator]

Yes, they often didn't have a storytelling aproach.

 

The European heavyweights resisted storytelling quite long, too.

[Robert S]

And re: boards & opinions:

I remember when I started working for a wrestling homepage in 2001 there were like 20 different (German) homepages, most of them were nothing special, a couple of guys did the whole workload. The influx of newsreporters (aka translators), reviewers and people who wrote show reports was seemingly neverending. Reports are important as the younger fans can't read English sites, so there was and is always demand for reports, be it translated stuff like the great TNA reports that the TSM founder did or self-written stuff. Of course I might be a little deluded, but that might also be because of the fact that nowadays the two biggest sites we have are that much bigger (databases, biographies etc / let me copy what is on our site: 58.688 Shows - 2.054 Championships - 7.870 Wrestler Bios - 3.333 Teams - 707 Stables) that we just need a shitload of people just maintaining it. Anyways, we even started doing live coverage for TV and PPV. I did live coverage for almost three years, getting up at 3AM 1-3 times a week. It's pretty insane that we are still doing it. But it got harder and harder getting people to do live coverage for our (and other sites). Then the reports for Smackdown and Raw got shorter and shorter. When I did them I did play by play, every single damn move. Now most times its a sentence a minute (minus spot descriptions). And its getting harder and harder to maintain our prior niveau. So I'd definately say that interest is down. Interestingly we were able to recruit the most competent guys when the wrestling business flourished, so the quality of fans you have is pretty much bound to the quality of the wrestling business.

You have to consider the special conditions of wrestling business in Germany (or german speaking countries) to get a more clear picture of the high influx of competent "newsreporters" or whatever during the beginning of the decade: The boom period for wrestling (I am talking about US wrestling not regional stuff like CWA in Hannover, Bremen and Vienna) in Germany began about 92 and ended somewhere about 97. The people who became fans during this period (as early or mid teens) by the time of 2001 had reached about the age of twenty which meant that the fans who survived during the "dry" times had reached some level of education (writing skills, English etc.) and on the other hand often still had enough free time to work on projects like wrestling homepages (because they were going to college, were doing civilian service, etc.). Over the last decade these people grew older, began working and probably started a family which meant much less free time.

[ZThomas]

Regarding the "Reality is Unrealistic" issue I can recommend you all to watch more 50s and Inoki era NJPW. Its a stark contrast to the Funks/AJPW tight storytelling style. I was rather dumbfounded when I first saw some of those matches, they seemed disjointed, I was really irritated at times. Then I noticed that match quality is NOT like a test where you start with 100% and for every logic error you get points deducted. Stuff like Inoki vs Hogan with a million stand ups where pretty much the whole match story was always resetted, Europeans not giving a rats ass about how to sell ongoing limbwork (like "first you shake it off, then you limb around, then you clutch your leg in agony, then you almost tap, then you tap") and 1950s tackle weirdness broadened my horizon

 

Are you saying that the more realistic-style wrestling of the 50's, for example, comes across to us as fake because they don't follow patterns we are used to from more "skilled" workers like Funk/Baba/Backlund? That may be true from the 1960's stuff I have seen.

 

When I hear topics like this come up I think of what Raven said about how he didnt see the since in Puro with guys stiffing each other, & kicking out of head drops.

I remember watching the first Respect is Earned with this 56 year old wrestling fans who has never watched independent wrestling. He grew up on NWA Mid-Atlantic & later watched AWA,WCW & WWF/WWE as cable grew.

 

he saw the briscoes match & he saw the main event with Kenta & Nigel vs Danielson & Morishima, when he saw Danielson kick out of the top ropeFalcon Arrow & he thought ROH was Hollywood because he couldn't believe someone could kickout of a move like that.

 

I love japanese wrestling but sometimes its hard for me to get in to Dragon Gate because I see people kickout of Finisher after finisher way to often.

I get that feeling watching both Kentas.

 

alot of times when your watch that styles with a causal fan I think the WWF style becomes more believable.

 

To me there is a difference from working a Terry Funk style like ECW did with stiff punches & strikes & slams ect & The ROH style were it was more about crazier spots & kicking out of finishes like the Briscoes & Steen & Generico were famous for.

 

Other than working with KENTA Danielson was never really guilty of that style.

 

I remember watching two SHIMMER shows for first time vol. 17 & 18 thinking how much better overall wrestling they had on these two shows than what I was watching in ROH at the time.

[Indikator]

he thought ROH was Hollywood because he couldn't believe someone could kickout of a move like that.

The funny thing is that the exact same thing could be said about "his" wrestling, too. It's all perspective. Maybe he could say realistic wrestling is a 1.0 on a scale. AWA / ICW Poffo might be 1.5 , a good southern brawl with scientific elements is 2.0 , Memphis / WWWF / NWA is 3.0 , WWF is 4.0 , WWE is 5.0, CZW is 10.0 and TNA is still shitty

 

@ Robert: Guck doch wie es gerade überall darbt, und zwar überall. Da kommt kaum was nach, es ist beinahe erschreckend. Bedenke das Durchschnittsalter bei Frights, da waren die eigentlich immer ziemlich jung (15-18) . Damals hat Martini regelmäßig neue Opfer bekommen, so ein Überangebot gab es. Heute wäre das undenkbar. Das Durchschnittsalter ist echt gestiegen, das stimmt. Aber die 16 jährigen fähigen Leute sind nicht mehr da. Wer war früher eigentlich über 20, da fallen mir nicht viele ein. Bist du eigentlich noch in MS involviert?

 

Sorry guys, but it wouldn't interest you anyway ^^

[Loss]

There is a guest editorial about Steamboat on the Torch website now called "Keep Dragon Him Out".

 

I am normally a fan of bad puns, but come on.