The interesting Dave Meltzer posts thread

[jdw]

Dave is being conservative here. The costs of Hogan are more than just what Hogan is making (and expensing). Eric isn't doing this for free. You're going to have the usual host of Hogan Hangers On, such as Hart and Sully and eventually the likes of Beefcake and whatnot. Looks like they may bring in Flair, who isn't going to come in cheap as he knows he's risking pissing off Vince.

 

The entire cost structure of TNA is going up-up-up while this "plan" is taking place, and we here rumors that bigger things are coming. The people they're dealing with in the plan don't give a shit about the promotion, but are little more than vampires looking to suck cash out of what they see as easy to rip off money marks.

 

If TNA is lucky, one of two things happens:

 

* their revenue skyrockets to cover all this; or

 

* the can easily eject themselves from things if it fails

 

If the first doesn't happen, and they're locked into some expensive deals they can't walk away from, it could be brutal.

 

John

[Ditch]

TNA needs to be analyzed like a sports franchise rather than a business. The Carters lost money for years, they're willing to lose more just to have fun with rasslin'. It's like if the Dallas Mavericks lose money for a couple years; Mark Cuban won't shut them down over it. Granted, Cuban could sell them a lot easier than the Carters could sell TNA, but the point is that unlike the vast majority of promotions the owner has a fortune separate from wrestling.

 

The Carters are willing to pay Hulk Hogan just so they can say they have Hulk Hogan. It's that simple.

 

 

 

(now as long as nobody brings up Megane Super...)

[Cox]

I think the difference is, if a sports team owner gets tired of losing money, they can eventually sell. Who is TNA going to sell to when they get tired of losing money? Nobody wants to touch pro wrestling, as the perception is that the only person who can do pro wrestling is Vince McMahon. There is also a certain prestige that goes with being the owner of a sports team, whereas there is nothing of the sort with owning a pro wrestling promotion; if anything, it's heavily stigmatized. Even with Hulk Hogan, the Carters aren't going to get any sort of positive publicity for owning TNA. It's a make or break move to try to either turn a profit out of this thing or get out of the wrestling business. Unfortunately for them, the only person who might have any interest in buying them when this is all said and done is Vince (and ask the ECW creditors and Turner how much he was willing to pay for a dead wrestling promotion).

[Ditch]

It's a make or break move to try to either turn a profit out of this thing or get out of the wrestling business.

And that's based on what, exactly? Could have been said about a number of TNA gambles that didn't work. Nothing's come out to suggest that the Carters are desperate.

[Bob Morris]

I agree that nothing suggests the Carters are desperate to get out of the wrestling business. If they were, they would have done so a long time ago.

 

The Carters are essentially the equivalent of Ted Turner in that, despite their promotion mostly losing money, they aren't willing to pull the plug for whatever the reason may be. The only way I can see the plug truly getting pulled on TNA, aside from massive losses that put Panda Energy itself on shaky ground, is if the Carters lose the final say in the future of TNA, as was the case with Turner and WCW.

[Eduardo]

I am very amused by Dave using his sons Halloween party to analyse the popularity of pro wrestling every year. He even proclaimed "Unbelievable" at how he couldn't believe any kid dressed up as a pro wrestler this year.

[kjh]

TNA will remain in business in some form as long as Spike TV continues to want their programming. Spike TV seems to be behind TNA more than ever, so until that changes TNA is completely safe. Of course, if bringing in Hogan doesn't significantly improve ratings that could eventually change.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I am very amused by Dave using his sons Halloween party to analyse the popularity of pro wrestling every year. He even proclaimed "Unbelievable" at how he couldn't believe any kid dressed up as a pro wrestler this year.

I was surprised to hear him say he was shocked no kid was dressed as Mistico, I know he lives in Southern Cali, but were kids there really dressing up as Mistico? I was waiting for him to get giddy saying kids were dressed as Kimbo Slice and Randy Couture, but alas....

[kjh]

Phil Schneider vs. Dave Meltzer on the Murdoch Myth:

Dave has a default Dick Murdoch talking point, where he says something along the lines of "He was great when motivated, but would stink up the joint if he wasn't." While preparing the DVDVR 80's project sets for Mid-South and New Japan I watched pretty much every available Murdoch match from both promotions, and I didn't see a single match which would fit that description. There were some matches that were objectively poor, or matches I didn't care for (I wasn't a huge North/South fan in New Japan), but no matches where Murdoch was visibly dogging it.

 

Now if I make some pronouncement on Segunda Caida or DVDVR it doesn't really matter, but I imagine one of the reasons that Murdoch isn't in the Hall of Fame is Meltzer dropping that line on him. So where are these matches? Where is the legendary lazy Dick Murdoch?

You couldn't afford to be lazy on New Japan TV or Mid South TV matches.

 

I'd guess a good half of the house show matches I saw of Murdoch in the U.S. and Japan he did nothing in, to the point the opponent would give up even trying to have a match. But when he was motivated, he was one of the best of his era.

 

Once in Japan at a house show, he sat in a move for minutes, got up, yelled, "Miller Time," (which probably five people in the audience undersood although everyone heard because there was zero crowd reaction by that point) and went to the brainbuster finish.

 

You can't look back at tapes and judge how consistent guys were because less than 10% of people's matches in those days were before TV cameras (most companies did one hour of TV per week, and much of the talent didn't appear on every TV show).

The Mid-South matches I watched included a ton of Joel Watts HH footage, and the New Japan matches included a fair number of Classics matches which didn't air on TV originally. What house show matches have you seen, when was Murdoch working in California?

I saw Murdoch all over the world in the 80s in a bunch of territories and also socialized with him many times in Japan. The Amarillo promotion ran several shows in California in the late 70s with Murdoch vs. Mulligan as the top program.

 

You do know that the Joel Watts handheld tapes were done for TV, just taped at the arenas. They weren't hand held footage just for their enjoyment or for the idea that 30 years later they may be worth something. If the matches were stinkers, do you think Bill Watts is going to put a 20:00 stinker on his television show or that they were going to save the tape?

There were plenty of lazy and shitty performances on New Japan TV and Mid-South TV, just none of them by Murdoch. Some of your Inoki main events against lower ranked guys you almost think Inoki is going to fall asleep in the middle of the match. What you seem to be saying is that Murdoch is a guy was consistently hard working every time there was a camera, but as soon as it turned off he was shitty and lazy. My buddy Dean Rassmussen saw a ton of Mid-Atlantic Murdoch house shows and always has great things to say about them, but memories are subjective. Which is why I was hoping someone could point me to something I could watch.

 

On the flip side here is a HH match from 1982 with Murdoch v. Sakaguchi, no TV cameras here but Murdoch is working a simple solid fun match at a nice pace, and Sakaguchi was kind of a stiff

 

http://home.intercity.or.jp/users/saigou/a...akaguti_mar.asf

Here is another no TV HH match

 

Dick Murdoch v. Wild Samoan 6/20/86

 

http://home.intercity.or.jp/users/saigou/w...doch_samoan.wmv

 

Now this is a match where not much happens. About six minutes, mostly headlocks, armbars and a small package. Watch the match though, Murdoch is doing all of the work. The Samoan puts on a headlock, and Murdoch constantly shifts his weight, twists, attempts to roll him up. Same thing when Murdoch works the arm bar. No bumps or big moves, but no one could call this a lazy performance.

[Guest Iron Chad]

This reeks of Dave's "Jumbo was lazy" mantra. Same shit about Murdoch only working when the cameras were on. Prepare to bang your head against the wall in frustration. Await Dave to invoke the names of Brody and Mick Foley to support his point that Murdoch was lazy. "Dick wouldn't let me get any offense in. [even though I had nothing besides an elbowdrop]" - Mick

[WrestlingPower]

Re: the Halloween party, Dave lives in NORTHERN California so I found it especially odd that he would even think anyone there would dress as Mistico

 

Re: Murdoch, my guess is his "half the times I saw him" talking point is exaggerated. Like you said, it's subjective so I'm sure there were a few times he saw Murdoch that put that idea in his head & everytime after that he looked for something that reminded him of that point.

[jdw]

It would be interesting if there were match reports by Dave of house shows in the WON back in the 80s of Dick being lazy.

 

I recall how that went with Jumbo - there were none despite Dave seeing lots of Jumbo's match while in Japan. The one match he ended up trying to point to ended up being a problem.

 

John

[WrestlingPower]

Listening to the latest Observer radio, apparently star power & "aura" is something that should be factored into star rating a match now. He talked about how the Danielson match on the DGUSA PPV was probably the best match he'd seen all year except that neither had the star power or aura of Michaels & UT. It was either a better match or it wasn't. Does this now diminish the Dragon Gate 6-man or Kobashi/Joe which won the award in the past from being compared favorably against the WWE matches of those years?

[Grimmas]

Listening to the latest Observer radio, apparently star power & "aura" is something that should be factored into star rating a match now. He talked about how the Danielson match on the DGUSA PPV was probably the best match he'd seen all year except that neither had the star power or aura of Michaels & UT. It was either a better match or it wasn't. Does this now diminish the Dragon Gate 6-man or Kobashi/Joe which won the award in the past from being compared favorably against the WWE matches of those years?

Of course star power and aura should be inlcuding in discussing how good a match is. If Cena and Taker do the exact same match as Abyss and Joey Ryan, which match is better. Even if it is move for move the same, Cena and Taker just would make the match cooler to watch. Just like having an insane crowd makes a match better than having a shitty crowd.

 

If that wasn't counted, then Rock-Hogan from WM18 would not be remembered at all.

[S.L.L.]

Listening to the latest Observer radio, apparently star power & "aura" is something that should be factored into star rating a match now. He talked about how the Danielson match on the DGUSA PPV was probably the best match he'd seen all year except that neither had the star power or aura of Michaels & UT. It was either a better match or it wasn't. Does this now diminish the Dragon Gate 6-man or Kobashi/Joe which won the award in the past from being compared favorably against the WWE matches of those years?

Of course star power and aura should be inlcuding in discussing how good a match is. If Cena and Taker do the exact same match as Abyss and Joey Ryan, which match is better. Even if it is move for move the same, Cena and Taker just would make the match cooler to watch. Just like having an insane crowd makes a match better than having a shitty crowd.

 

If that wasn't counted, then Rock-Hogan from WM18 would not be remembered at all.

 

Absolutely. That said, those are things that have to come forward in the match itself.

 

I was largely underwhelmed by the aura of Michaels/Taker. More interested in the great aura that Big Show was giving off in the three-way. Thought all three of the legends that Jericho fought had great auras that were more gripping than Michaels and Taker. I realize that is a minority opinion, though. I can see rating Michaels/Taker highly because of aura.

 

Still, not something arbitrary. You can point to ways that a guy's aura is coming across in a match. If he's just saying "Michaels and Taker are famous, therefore their match is better", that's pretty lame.

 

You know, Hogan vs. Andre from Mania III had more star power than any match ever at that point and plenty of aura, and Dave hated that. Is star power and aura something that only started mattering recently?

[KrisZ]

Dave really railed on Murdoch's performances working for JCP in 87-88 in the WON's but a lot of that stuff was based on the reports that was sent in to him which he never saw personally.

[jdw]

He went to pretty much all of the JCP/Turner shows that hit the Bay, along with some in Fresno and I think a few in Vegas and/or LA. He also road tripped on occassion for big shows such as Starcade, and the Crockett Cup, though those of course had cameras going. How many of those had Dick... who knows. Worthy looking up.

 

John

[Bix]

Because I'm bored:

 

WWF @ Sacramento, CA - April 29, 1984

Andre the Giant, Jimmy Snuka, & WWF IC Champion Tito Santana defeated Big John Studd, WWF Tag Team Champions Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch

 

WWF @ Oakland, CA - Coliseum - April 30, 1984

Andre the Giant won a $50,000 18-man battle royal by last eliminating Adrian Adonis; other participants included: Sgt. Slaughter, Dick Murdoch, Big John Studd, Jimmy Snuka, Pat Patterson, WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan, Salvatore Bellomo, Paul Orndorff, Tiger Chung Lee, Alexis Smirnoff, the Iron Sheik, Tito Santana, Mil Mascaras, the Hangman, Victor Rivera, and one other name; order of elimination: Bellomo by Patterson; Slaughter eliminated himself by jumping over the top to follow the Iron Sheik to the floor; Rivera elimiated; Snuka eliminated; Santana by Orndorff; Orndorff by Andre; Mascaras by Andre; Sheik by Hogan; Studd by Hogan via a punch as Studd was on the apron; Hogan by Studd, Adonis, & Lee, with Studd on the floor; after the elimination, Hogan won a brawl with Studd on the floor and in the ring; Lee by Patterson; Patterson by Adonis via blow to the back as Patterson attempted to eliminate Smirnoff; Smirnoff by Andre via an atomic drop; Murdoch by Andre via a throw as Murdoch was on his back; Adonis by Andre via a throw into the corner, with Andois flipping out of the ring (Andre the Giant VHS, Andre the Giant DVD)

WWF IC Champion Tito Santana & Jimmy Snuka defeated Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch

 

WWF @ San Jose, CA - September 20, 1984

WWF Tag Team Champion Dick Murdoch defeated Mad Dog Vachon

 

WWF @ Oakland, CA - Coliseum - October 16, 1984

The Wild Samoans defeated WWF Tag Team Champions Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch via count-out

 

WWF @ Sacramento, CA - July 1, 1984

WWF Tag Team Champions Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis defeated Tony Garea & B. Brian Blair

 

JCP @ Stockton, CA - August 10, 1987 (1,500)

Steve Williams & Terry Gordy defeated Eddie Gilbert & Dick Murdoch in a bunkhouse match when Williams pinned Gilbert after hitting him with his own cowboy boot at 11:00

 

JCP @ Oakland, CA - Kaiser Convention Center - August 6, 1988 (6,000)

Dick Murdoch fought Ron Garvin to a 20-minute time-limit draw

 

NWA @ Oakland, CA - Kaiser Convention Center - January 14, 1989

Dick Murdoch defeated Ray Candy

 

NWA @ Stockton, CA - Civic Auditorium - June 2, 1989

Dick Murdoch defeated Bill Irwin

 

NWA @ Fresno, CA - Selland Arena - June 3, 1989

Dick Murdoch defeated Bill Irwin

[jdw]

84 is a bit of a problem because of his move to Texas. One would need to check on when he moved there, and when he moved back.

 

John

[Bix]

No '84, just these:

 

WWF @ Dallas, TX - State Fair Arena - January 17, 1985 (1,700)

Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch defeated Jack & Jerry Brisco

 

WWF @ Houston, TX - Astro Arena - January 18, 1985 (1,500)

Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch defeated Jack & Jerry Brisco

 

WWF @ Dallas, TX - February 14, 1985 (1,900)

WWF Tag Team Champion Barry Windham defeated Dick Murdoch

 

WWF @ Houston, TX - Summit - February 15, 1985 (1,400)

WWF Tag Team Champion Barry Windham vs. Dick Murdoch

[Log]

I am very amused by Dave using his sons Halloween party to analyse the popularity of pro wrestling every year. He even proclaimed "Unbelievable" at how he couldn't believe any kid dressed up as a pro wrestler this year.

I was surprised to hear him say he was shocked no kid was dressed as Mistico, I know he lives in Southern Cali, but were kids there really dressing up as Mistico? I was waiting for him to get giddy saying kids were dressed as Kimbo Slice and Randy Couture, but alas....

 

Surprisingly, I saw a John Cena at the Monsters of Folk concert here in Louisville this Halloween. I also saw 2 Hulk Hogans at a bar later that night. One Hogan was a girl.

[Log]

WWF @ Oakland, CA - Coliseum - April 30, 1984

 

WWF IC Champion Tito Santana & Jimmy Snuka defeated Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch

Wow. I'd really like to see that match.

 

Also, on Murdoch, his brainbuster should've totally been called "Miller Time".

[Eduardo]

I am very amused by Dave using his sons Halloween party to analyse the popularity of pro wrestling every year. He even proclaimed "Unbelievable" at how he couldn't believe any kid dressed up as a pro wrestler this year.

I was surprised to hear him say he was shocked no kid was dressed as Mistico, I know he lives in Southern Cali, but were kids there really dressing up as Mistico? I was waiting for him to get giddy saying kids were dressed as Kimbo Slice and Randy Couture, but alas....

 

Surprisingly, I saw a John Cena at the Monsters of Folk concert here in Louisville this Halloween. I also saw 2 Hulk Hogans at a bar later that night. One Hogan was a girl.

 

Ha, cool.

 

At a bar I went to on Halloween, a guy showed up dressed up as Ultimo Dragon which cracked me up way too much.

[kjh]

I'm not sure how important Murdoch being lazy at house shows when he's 41+ really is. Most wrestlers start slowing down when they reach that age. Or how important him being lazy in the WWF is, when the vast majority working WWF undercards were too. If Dave could demonstrate that this was a trait throughout his career, then that would be more worrying. However, I'm getting vibes of how Eddy Guerrero stunk up the joint with Rey Mysterio at a house show in 2005, while praising Chris Benoit for his superior cardiovascular conditioning.

[Bix]

As far as handhelds go, there's a Murdoch/Adonis vs Briscos from Pittsburgh (Graham's saite says it's Muraco instead of Adonis but I'm pretty sure that's wrong). It's been a long time since I watched it, but I don't remember Murdoch being noticeably lazy. It wasn't close to being as good as the MSG match, more because it was too short. IIRC, it was about the same quality as the televised house show match from Philly, which was also too short. I could dig it up and watch it again.