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Wrestling mysteries that will never be solved


Bix

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Here's one the came to mind, whaddya got?

 

Hulk Hogan's embarrassing medical condition: In 1991, Hulk Hogan was scheduled to be a witness against Dr. George Zahorian. Jerry McDevitt, acting as Hogan's lawyer, tried to get him excused, as McDevitt was legitimately treating him for a medical condition that would be more embarrassing to Hogan as a public figure than Hogan's testimony would be valuable to the prosecution. The judge agreed, and 16 years later, nobody's ever leaked it.

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According to Baby Doll, they were going to week-by-week reveal the image of Dusty in bed with a black woman.

Wow. THAT is blackmail worthy? What, was Watts booking at the time?

 

In a promotion based largely in the South? That could still turn a guy heel down there, so yeah, it's blackmail worthy.
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  • 2 years later...

In lieu of starting a new thread, I dug up this old one:

 

Nobody ever found out more about Jim Crockett filing opposition to WWE's use of the "Ric Flair" trademark, right? It led to WWE having to call him "Rick Flair" for at least a few weeks in early Spring '06 before it was resolved.

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What was the original end-game of Jumbo vs Misawa? Was there one

 

Jumbo won in the title match on 4/18/91. Misawa made Jumbo tap in the tag title match on 9/4/91. They had a draw at CC '92. Jumbo/Taue retained over Misawa/Kobashi on 6/5/92. Then Jumbo's hepatitis caught up with him, forcing him to miss the July tour, and following that Misawa got his big title win. Was Misawa's win done because Jumbo was no longer reliable as the native ace? And regardless of that, when was Misawa finally going to get a decisive singles win? Or was there no real plan, with the feud going too long like Misawa vs Kawada?

 

Was there more to the Kawada/NOAH fallout than was said?

 

NOAH desperately could have used Kawada to stay hot following the 7/18/05 Tokyo Dome show, but Kawada was shown the door after an unscheduled promo during valuable NTV airtime. Okay, it wasn't good of Kawada to do that, but was that enough for NOAH to shoot itself in the foot over? They went in the tank really hard even before Kobashi's cancer and really could have used Kawada.

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What was the original end-game of Jumbo vs Misawa? Was there one

 

Jumbo won in the title match on 4/18/91. Misawa made Jumbo tap in the tag title match on 9/4/91. They had a draw at CC '92. Jumbo/Taue retained over Misawa/Kobashi on 6/5/92. Then Jumbo's hepatitis caught up with him, forcing him to miss the July tour, and following that Misawa got his big title win. Was Misawa's win done because Jumbo was no longer reliable as the native ace? And regardless of that, when was Misawa finally going to get a decisive singles win? Or was there no real plan, with the feud going too long like Misawa vs Kawada?

Doubt they had an "endgame" yet in mind.

 

My recollection is that they didn't know Jumbo had the hep when he missed time in mid-1992. He came back and they continued to push him: he and Taue retained the World Tag Titles in October, they were booked for the Tag League, and the final night in Budokan was to be main evented by Misawa & Kawada vs Jumbo & Taue. It was a surprise when Jumbo didn't work the tag league, and not announced until right before the league started. None of that is the type of stuff you do when you know someone has serious hep.

 

Their original plan when Misawa won that belts was almost certainly that Jumbo was going to win the belts back the first time that he challenged for them. That's what almost always happened to the dynastic native champs with the top belt in promotions Baba was in:

 

06/25/68 Bobo beat Baba for the Int'l Title

06/27/68 Baba beat Bobo to regain

 

12/03/70 Kiniski beat Baba for the Int'l Title

12/19/70 Baba beat Kiniski to regain

 

06/01/78 Kamata beat Baba for the PWF Title

02/10/79 Baba beat Abby to regain

 

07/31/86 Hansen beat Jumbo for the Int'l Title

09/03/86 Hansen DCOR Jumbo to retain

10/21/86 Jumbo beat Hansen to regain

 

03/27/88 Brody beat Jumbo for the Int'l Title

04/19/88 Jumbo beat Brody to regain

 

06/05/89 Tenryu beat Jumbo for the TC

10/11/89 Jumbo beat Tenryu to regain

 

06/05/90 Gordy beat Jumbo for the TC

01/19/91 Jumbo beat Hansen to regain

 

07/28/94 Williams beat Misawa for the TC

05/26/95 Misawa beat Hansen to regain

 

05/24/96 Taue beat Misawa for the TC

01/20/97 Misawa beat Kobashi to regain

 

05/01/98 Kawada beat Misawa for the TC

10/31/98 Misawa beat Kobashi to regain

 

01/22/99 Kawada beat Misawa for the TC

05/02/99 Misawa beat Vader to regain

 

One exception, a DCOR with them stretching things out for another series back in a year where their booking was a little different (five title matches from 3/29/86 to 10/21/86 between Jumbo and Stan as they final got around to a singles feud after so many years).

 

You lose it, and you get it back the next time you challenge. If the title is going to be on someone else's waist for a while, you hold off on booking the Man back into title matches. If you want several people to have a taste (Williams --> Kawada --> Hasen or Taue --> Kobashi), you again hold off on putting him into title matches.

 

Look at Misawa's win in 1992 as similar to Kawada's in 1994. A top gaijin was the one who got to beat the Ace, then the #2 beat the gaijin. The belt went back to the Ace when the Ace challenged next.

 

Back at the time, it looked like Jumbo was getting it back at the first Budokan, in the match that Taue got thrown into instead. Jumbo would have been just shy of 42 at the time. Before he got sick, it hadn't looked like he was slowing down. Frankly he was the best worker in the promotion in 1991, and one would have to look week-by-week in 1992 to try to get a sense of when the health hit that started to drag him down. They hoped some time off would get him well. Didn't.

 

When beyond 1993 would Jumbo have put Misawa over as the new Ace? Really hard to tell. Baba was the ace in All Japan until 1982/1983, sort of clearly by the time Jumbo won the Int'l belt for the first time and followed it with the AWA Title. Before that's a little fuzzy as they were in a bit of a transition period. Baba was 45 when Jumbo won the Int'l title for the first time. Jumbo was in much better physical shape at 40 (1991) than Baba had been at 40 (1978), so it's hard to think that when Baba was pondering what he needed to do in early 1992 that he thought Jumbo was close to the end and it was time to make Misawa the man.

 

Most likely, we'd have something like 6/89 where Misawa beat Jumbo for the TC at some point, only to have Jumbo fire back up to get the belts back and have some doubt over who was the top dog. All Japan was really slow in developing that stuff. Look at how long it took Kawada to win the Triple Cown from Misawa after 10/92: five and a half years. Kobashi *never* won the Triple Crown from Misawa, though it's clear by the end that Misawa was planning on having it happen (just as he would in NOAH, but Kobashi's injuries kept it from happening until 2003).

 

John

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Was there more to the Kawada/NOAH fallout than was said?

 

NOAH desperately could have used Kawada to stay hot following the 7/18/05 Tokyo Dome show, but Kawada was shown the door after an unscheduled promo during valuable NTV airtime. Okay, it wasn't good of Kawada to do that, but was that enough for NOAH to shoot itself in the foot over? They went in the tank really hard even before Kobashi's cancer and really could have used Kawada.

Thought the plan always was just to use him one time, and nothing more. They liked to put on special added drawing matches on their domes, and that's what Misawa-Kawada was, along with Kobashi-Sasaki and Tenryu-Ogawa from that card and Takayama & Suzuki vs Rikio & Morishima and Misawa & Ogawa vs Mutoh & Kea was from the prior year.

 

There seems to be a pretty clear mutal dislike between the folks running NOAH and Kawada, and that it's been there from the start. They've been willing to put over freelancers like Takayama and Sasaki for the belt, and have Suzuki challenge for it. That show seemed like the point to put over either Sasaki or Kawada to set them up for a match with Rikio (and frankly win the belt) later in the year. But the company had other idea, and wouldn't get back to Sasaki with the belt for several years (after he'd already gone to All Japan).

 

If there wasn't heat, I tend to think it would have been a good time to run with Kawada as something to fill time and relatively fresh for the younger wrestlers to challenge (hell, Akiyama had never had a title match with Kawada in All Japan). Kawada was also fresh off the long reign with the TC.

 

Hey... I don't book this shit, and no one asked me. ;)

 

 

John

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According to Baby Doll, they were going to week-by-week reveal the image of Dusty in bed with a black woman.

Wow. THAT is blackmail worthy? What, was Watts booking at the time?

 

In a promotion based largely in the South? That could still turn a guy heel down there, so yeah, it's blackmail worthy.

 

It was established that Dusty had a wife and kids as well in NWA storylines

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Did it ever come out why exactly Kawada and Misawa had their fall out? I seem to remember in the Misawa death fallout someone (Dave? maybe Ditch) mentioning that it was Misawa who soured on Kawada and not the other way around. Or maybe not, I'm really not clear on the whole situation and it's hard to find any info on it.

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NOAH desperately could have used Kawada to stay hot following the 7/18/05 Tokyo Dome show, but Kawada was shown the door after an unscheduled promo during valuable NTV airtime. Okay, it wasn't good of Kawada to do that, but was that enough for NOAH to shoot itself in the foot over? They went in the tank really hard even before Kobashi's cancer and really could have used Kawada.

Actually I think it would have been a mistake to bring him back straight away. They sold out Budokan in September, November, January and March without him. In the short term they didn't need him. Obviously they waited way too long to bring him back, but they didn't really need him until Kobashi got cancer.

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By the time it got to early 2007 and they headlined a Budokan show with the ROH title, it was beyond ridiculous. They could have brought Kawada back for the Takayama return tag, in place of the working-hurt Sasaki. That would have meant bringing in TWO big names to replace Kobashi, which would have been a big boost.

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Actually I think it would have been a mistake to bring him back straight away. They sold out Budokan in September, November, January and March without him. In the short term they didn't need him. Obviously they waited way too long to bring him back, but they didn't really need him until Kobashi got cancer.

09/05: Rikio vs Misawa with Kobashi & Taue vs Akiyama & Tenryu

11/05: Misawa vs Tenryu with Kobashi-Sasaki tag in support... and Taue winning the GHC from Rikio

01/06: Akiyama over Taue for GHC with Kobashi-Akebono tag

03/06: Akiyama vs Suzuki

 

I tend to think that things weren't going well by October 2005 if they felt the need to eject out of Rikio and go back to the Old Boys. Rikio drew on 9/05 thanks to the opponent and an interesting tag in support. Taue-Rikio didn't draw, and instead the under card did. Very hard to imagine that the Akiyama-Taue drew, and even with Akebono one wonders if the number was a work. Dittos the Akiyama-Suzuki.

 

But it also goes to my earlier point. If it was Misawa (opposite Rikio), Tenryu (opposite Misawa), Akebono (opposite Kobashi) and Suzuki (opposite Jun) that drew those crowds as something relatively fresh in NOAH, I don't see why you couldn't roll all of that into a *single* wrestler and storyline. Obviously Misawa wanted to put over Rikio personally and hope it gave him the rub. Hence looking strong at the Dome then jobbing to Rikio. Just didn't work out, similar to most of Misawa's attempts to create successors.

 

John

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  • 1 month later...

Here's a good one, maybe. Was there anything more to story of Victor Quiñones' death? The WON reported it was suspected that somas and alcohol were the culprit. (I don't recall if toxicology was ever reported) But Dave mentioned, somewhat cyptically, a "side import/export" deal with Columbia. And this new business venture was finacially supporting the fed. And it was even pointed out that one of the Columbian guys was at Victor's house when he died. What this "side import/export" was, wasn't really explained. One would think if it was kosher, Dave would plainly say what it was.

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