Parties

Sting has a good case as a draw. Really good, given that he's been a main eventer for almost his entire career. In looking at the Gordy List for the first time in a while, I was surprised that Sting has good answers to a lot of the questions re: status/popularity. But in the other big factors (athleticism, match quality, historical significance, crossover appeal, innovation, influence, all of which I rate higher than main eventing), he's sorely lacking. You could argue that a twenty-five year career is the same thing as “longevity”, but he only had about 4-6 nonconsecutive years as a badass, with a ton of mediocrity before/during/after. So did Sgt. Slaughter. Sting was a bigger draw on a national/global level than Sarge, but in terms of talent, was he in any year of his career even a top 100 worker? At any given moment in his WCW run, there were at least 20 dudes in the company more talented than him. His best matches are with 1988 Ric Flair, 1992 Mick Foley, and 1992/1993 Vader, and of those only the Vader matches are truly great. Look at who he was up against in the US category alone. I'd pick JYD, Lesnar, Koloff, Murdoch, the R&Rs, and Slaughter before I picked Sting. There are people in the HOF who have a worse case than Sting. Ultimo Dragon, Jericho, Chono, Kensuke Sasaki. The guys who we always point to as flaws. They each got in for different reasons: Meltzer loves Jericho and thinks his '07-08 run to be brilliant, credits Ultimo for inventing things he didn't invent, deems Sasaki the last “epic” Japanese worker of the old guard, etc. None of them being in makes Sting's case any stronger. Meltzer has no such talking point for Sting. The talking point for Sting seems to be “Starrcade '97”. Was he was a great wrestler? Did he make an indispensible contribution? I'd say no. At times a great draw, with a lot of charisma. Currently having his biggest moment since '97. But he's just not a good enough worker.

Segunda Caida has written a lot about the awesome WAR shows that Tenta was on, and while this doesn't seem to be online, it seems like the best match Tenta was in, if not his career performance:

He's not even the guy who looks most like a wrestler among the dealership's salespeople. My money's on Tim "The Chisler" Thornton, especially if managed by the bizarrely coiffed "Leasing" Gary Lewis.

“Let's open on Cena and Hunter cutting bad promos for twelve minutes.” Gold/Stardust have been quiet All-Stars this year. JBL praising Aja Kong and burying the mid-90s of the division was something. Ambrose kisses Bray. Wyatt cuts a weeping promo in the middle of the match where Bray confesses he's in love with Dean, or that they're at least BFFs who could have ruled the world. Hunter's streak of falling asleep during his own battle cry promos (and those of other people) continues. Calling opponents “bitches” (Reigns' promo) and that Nikki-AJ match: the Attitude era is back, nerds! Rollins has had the briefcase four months, but it feels like a year. Bold choice from Rowan to take a Bright Eyes instrumental as his music. Fitting that this show end with Hunter and Steph stumbling around and screaming. They pulled the ripcord to get themselves off TV.

I wrote a TL;DR post about the booking, but who cares. There needs to be a five-year ban on heel GMs in wrestling. You can go segment-by-segment and find a hundred lame choices. But the roster is really good right now. In stupid, directionless midcard matches churned to fill TV time, there was a lot of quality wrestling on this show. Ziggler's loss was more smark trolling, but Harper as IC champ is great. Cesaro-Ryback never should have been booked, but was very solid and improved the longer they went. Slater-Rusev was a great squash. Sheamus-Show made zero sense, but was really good! Has Sheamus had a bad match since he returned at the Rumble? The Bellas was a senseless waste of time, but a brief senseless waste of time, in the tradition of Stephen Hawking's A Brief Senseless Waste of Time. Ditto Kidd-Rose. The eight-man tag was arbitrary, but in a bubble it was a ton of fun from nine talented dudes. Overrated Steph verbiage and HHH falling asleep during his own promo led to a fun go-home brawl. The scripted stuff is unwatchable - and worse than usual last night - but if you edited out the hour+ of bad promos and clipped it to the 50-60 minutes of action viewed on mute, you'd think RAW was the UWF Power Hour in '86. The current champions are Brock Lesnar, Luke Harper, Rusev, and Gold/Stardust. What does Jim Ross think of a company headlined by Dustin Rhodes and a bunch of hosses with amateur backgrounds?

I believe it was that Lacey is a teacher in Beijing, or has some other job over there? Meltzer wrote that the 10,500 attendance makes it probably the biggest indie show outside of Japan in years. Busick and Thatcher working a crowd that big is amazing. I know that Dragon Gate's cracked 10,000 for at least one show. And to put "indie" in perspective: the biggest crowd in TNA history was just over 11,000 in the San Antonio Alamodome for Lockdown 2013. If tickets were really $30-200 apiece, it'll be interesting to see how much money they net from this tour. I have no idea what the expenses were (several flights to China notwithstanding), or how much of the gate the company takes home, but it seems like even if they got hosed it was still worth their while.

That 5-on-5 is the first match that makes me really miss Bryan. He could have been the glue that makes it great. But not a bad set of teams, if a little heavy on lumbering heavyweights. Feels like Cesaro misspoke his way out of a main event. And, as always: fuck Kane.

Does the 94/95 budget account for the Charles Austin payout? From Bill Apter's column in the Jan '96 PWI: "Remember Chuck Austin, the preliminary wrestler who sued the WWF after having his neck broken by Marty Jannetty's "Rocker Drop." He has agreed to settle out of court and will receive approximately $10-million. That is more than $15-million shy of what a jury had originally awarded him." So if he didn't get a dime from them until early '96, then no. The WWF lawyers (pre-McDevitt at that) tied the deal up in court for a couple years until Austin caved. Plus I would assume they paid him the money over several years rather than anything close to a lump sum. Even at 1M per year, they'd have been paying him almost $20,000 every week until 2006. In the original $27 million settlement that WWF appealed, Jannetty himself was required to pay $1.3 mil. But I don't know if he ended up having to pay anything, or if worked for peanuts for the rest of his WWF time, etc. When that original $27 mil ruling came down, Meltzer wrote about it as a deal that could severely hurt the company. Not "out of business" bad, but maybe "USWA Northeast" bad.

So at what point in its history was WWE closest to going bankrupt and/or out of business? According to WWE itself, the worst years financially were 94/95 going into '96. 1994 - 1995 : $87,352,000 : -$4,431,000 1995 - 1996 : $85,815,000 : $3,319,000 1996 - 1997 : $81,863,000 : $6,505,000 They're at least kind of turning it around by the end of '96: the young guys are getting hot, they're trimming their budget, things are on the rise even if it took until Mike Tyson to start making big money. But at the end of '95, WWE had a terrible roster and perhaps the smallest they've ever had: 38 guys. If they'd closed then, you never would have had the Rock debut, no Austin 3:16, no Iron Man match, no Hall and Nash jumping as the Outsiders, no DX in '97, no Bret comeback from hiatus and heel turn, no partnership with ECW. If WWE can't hang on in '96, it isn't just “Does WCW screw up the Attitude Era?” - it's do any of the big WWE players of the era even have careers? Look at the two rosters at the end of '97: http://www.solie.org/wwf97.txt http://www.solie.org/wcw97.txt WWF is such a younger, smaller group at that time. WCW's roster is 50% bigger, much older, and top heavy with international stars and long established WWF guys. While Bischoff always brags about having a blank check from Turner, it seems unrealistic that he would have taken more than 20-25 guys from WWF. To do so he would have likely had to fire some of his least essential players (Jim Powers, Darsow, Bobby Blaze, etc.). The Rock either never becomes a movie star, or goes about it in a very different manner. Maybe just outright quits the business and pursues acting earlier, becoming the sidekick in Steven Seagal movies. Maybe Heyman takes him and he gets a Shane Douglas-type push off his mic skills. Had he even been signed by WCW in 96/97/98, he'd have been Buff Bagwell: young good looking guy who the old guard would've embarrassed with bad booking. I see Austin coming back to ECW before he'd go back to WCW, which would have been interesting. Ditto Lawler and Jim Ross. A rated R version of Austin as the ace of ECW going in '97 is strange to picture, but could have had real upside for Heyman's prospects in getting on TV. Austin wouldn't have been as big, but he'd have been something positive for whoever took him. If Hall and Nash are never "the Outsiders", but rather just some guys scooped up in a sea of scooped up guys, is there even an NWO? Or is it nearly as successful? Bischoff could have gotten the whole gimmick out of his system doing a variation on that New Japan vs. WCW Starrcade, using actual Japanese guys in his rip off of their angle. Assuming WWE goes out of business after Hall and Nash jump, then I'd say the whole Kliq goes to WCW and are well protected. HHH basically gets Scott Steiner's push. If WWE closed in early '96, I could even see a scenario in which Michaels is the third man in the NWO, leaving Hogan out to dry and looking old. It's impossible to say how Hogan's relationship to Bischoff would have changed had all of WWE's biggest stars been hired at once. Bischoff was always loyal to him, but it would have been such a different scenario that I could easily see Hogan becoming a Ric Flair situation in which the guys in power portray him as the old, delusional has-been who's mocked for being behind the times even though the crowd still loves him. Though as others have said here, Hogan was promised the moon and stars in his contracts, so if he still had his full creative control and all the idiocy that entailed, he may have found a way to bury anyone and everyone. Vince sits on the money he has and becomes an event promoter, doing concerts and PPV stuff. Ironically, one place he could have had the kind of pull he wanted would be as a figurehead of UFC during it's post-McCain lull. In '98 I could certainly see him attracted to a spectacle that was toning down its bloodsport and trying to go legit. Built around pro wres style guys like Abbott, Frye, Couture and the Shamrocks. You could even imagine Vince acquiring investors to help him purchase the company a year or two before Zuffa does, thereby fulfilling Shane's then-aspirations to buy and run the UFC.

The show had some good matches/workers. They had Finlay being Finlay for a while. Matt Hardy and Mark Henry had a good feud. And Christian vs. Swagger 2/10/09 is so good that Phil in his review asked if it was the best match ever produced under the name ECW. Lashley beating Balls Mahoney and three other dudes is the kind of thing that Heyman would have done (and did do) in the mid-90s. I would guess it was his idea. He's always about the next big thing, always willing to beat "his" guys to build new stars. Rhino, Awesome, Credible... they beat everyone. He's gotten great mileage out of guys who were over the hill (the Funks, Bigelow, Dusty, Tommy Rich), but those were huge stars worth preserving.

After hearing Batista's story about being fined $100,000 for bleeding, I'm guessing people aren't anxious to do it and ask for forgiveness later. I wonder if this isn't just Hunter saying to Batista, “Hey, tell people we fined you some large amount of money.” A la Watts fining people publicly and then privately bonusing them the money back. So much to like about that 10-man Survivor Series tag. Andre in his gray suit phase. Hogan leading a team of recently released criminals and former foes in Patera, Orndorff and Muraco. It all seems fueled largely on cocaine and 'roids, but everyone got huge reactions. It's as close as WWE ever got to doing a mid-80s New Japan 5-on-5 team elimination match and literally all ten guys are really good in it. Bam Bam is so fun to watch, as is seeing what One Man Gang, Orndorff, and Reed were doing in '87 just after UWF folded. Orndorff's a house on fire in this, as if trying to visibly outwork Hogan, and even Hogan takes up his game a few extra toots.

You have to accept blind refs in wrestling. But to utilize one moments after Tupac's hologram hypnotizes Ambrose feels a bit limp, non?

Could have had Dean beat Seth clean and do the exact same finish. Ambrose wins, lights go out as he's celebrating, Bray lays him out post-match. If Dean wins, you get three guys over: Seth retains his briefcase while moving on to a different feud, Bray's back on top having just laid out a fresh and newly minted rival, and Ambrose is fully established as a singles main eventer while still looking for revenge upon Wyatt. You don't get over by beating losers, and at show's end, all three guys looked like losers. I get that HHH seems to view Rollins as his successor and closest modern parallel, but this just felt like cosplaying some alternate universe in which Hunter beat Austin in the finals of the '96 King of the Ring, or a comparable pivotal moment where he thinks if only he'd kicked out of a Stunner he'd somehow have ended up getting Austin's push and success. To say nothing of that lights out "bah gawd that must be Kane!” style of bullshitting a cage match finish being over fifteen years old and incredibly stale. Or how lame it is for a ref to count a pin after a fucking ghost pops out of a lantern. Only saw the last match: mixed bag until the finish. Cool table dive, but Kane lumbering to the ring to do something dumb has become wrestling's weekly low point. There is no pro wrestler I dislike more than that dude. It isn't even his fault. Perfectly solid at midcard comedy, especially for a libertarian.

Biggest surprise of the thread so far: Chris Masters is only 31. Younger than Barrett, Cesaro, Axel, Bryan, Sandow, Ziggler, Rowan, Swagger, Gabriel, Kofi, Harper, Ryback, Sheamus, Sin Cara, and Tyson. He's six years younger than Titus, who started training in FCW when he was 31. Last year would have been a time to bring him back, after he had that wild story of saving his mom from her burning home by tearing apart a tree and using it to smash windows. That's the kind of thing Hogan's made a GOAT career out of pretending to have done. It's been said that Cena and Orton are both fans of his (to the point that he was rehired in 2009 at Orton's recommendation), but I got the impression from the way he was used on TV that HHH and Vince actively disliked him given the way he was always ridiculed in promos, so maybe he broke even there. Pointing a gun at his own head while drunk and posting pics of it on Twitter probably wasn't a great career move either.

I cannot believe that Alex Wright vs. Sabu is nearly twenty years old, and that I remembered that much of it in detail. First Sabu match I saw after reading about him in the Wrestling Chatterbox as a tiny, tiny Parties, too young to be reading a Makropoulos joint. I'm surprised at how bad Mongo was on color. I expected him to be goofy. I expected him to know nothing about wrestling. But I could not have expected him to go entire singles matches referring to the respective competitors as “This Guy” and “That Guy”. His enthusiasm makes his complete lack of preparation all the more remarkable. He's so amped that I can't call him the worst announcer ever, but he's one of the strangest, and unique in his childlike interpretation of language.

Reposted from Wrestling KO: EVOLVE 35 was a very good show: one of the better ones I've been to from a perspective of every match of the main card being solid, and some of them being great. Preshow was pretty bad, save Jesus De Leon showing some fire as a profane, arrogant heel. Gulak showed more against Gargano than Busick did with Sabre Jr., but both matches are worth nominating. Gulak was given more and looked more competitive in a back-and-forth match, while Busick was viciously abused by Sabre until mounting a comeback. Thatcher looked completely awesome: his size and presence puts him above someone like Gulak, who for all his strengths looked more in his element at the merch stand in his Sonic the Hedgehog shirt than he did in the ring. Thatcher's opponent Tracy Williams showed a lot of promise as well. First I'd seen of Sabre Jr. I was impressed with his Euro stuff of brutal submissions where he looked to be breaking arms and fingers, less impressed with the Danielson-lite attempts at power moves and flying around. After his match Busick challenged Thatcher, so looks like they'll be doing that one in EVOLVE too. Galloway-Roderick Strong was really good, and not just because of Galloway. Definitely felt the most like an ROH match on the show, but Galloway comes off like a true star compared to everyone else. And after 10 years, I'm surprised to say that it kind of seems like old Rod Strong has become a good worker. He has a very believable smug heel thing going on, where he worked the whole match like a sleazy brat trying to steal a win, and it totally worked. The tag title three-way was a lot of fun live, but it's the kind of match that would probably just end up looking like a clusterfuck of moves on tape. Fox hit some crazy dives. Rich Swann and Tony Nese were totally unimpressive: Swann in particular is very corny out there, winged tights and all, getting "Kevin Hart!" hollers from the crowd. But all the interference shenanigans, along with the crowd loving Moose, made it feel in person like a really good, reckless ECW shmozz. Highlight of the match was the move Caleb Conley hit on Fox at the end: one of the stiffest, nastiest spots I've ever seen in person. Ricochet-Uhaa was decent, but for such a hyped match it seemed the story they were going for was badly told. They were trying a very MMA idea, where these two guys are good friends having a lighthearted bro rivalry to find out who's the best. But this lead to both of them just goofing around during what's supposed to be a title match, and never doing anything with any fire that would indicate actually trying to hurt an opponent. Hate-free wrestling isn't an entirely void concept, but neither dude was charismatic enough to pull it off, and the match they worked (indietastic "top this" stuff) is wrong for the story, which requires people who are more technically sound on the mat, and able to slow things down while building the tension. In other words, you needed Solar and Negro Navarro, or Steve Grey and Clive Myers. But Uhaa looks a million dollars live and you can totally understand why he's being pushed. I'll wait until the tape's out to nominate anything, but Gargano-Gulak, Thatcher-Williams, Galloway-Strong, Busick-Sabre, and maybe even the elimination tag match are all well worth watching.

Another needless Cesaro loss, but I liked that he argued with the ref and cut a mini-promo at the pre-show booth. Felt spontaneous and Flair put him over. Miz's talents are his stalling, selling, and goofy faces, which caused Ziggler to slow down and get the most out of the superkick, Zig Zag, etc. Ziggler hurt his knee toward the end. The IC title, while still an afterthought, has probably meant more this year than it has since Orton held it in '03 (or Hardy in '06). That hair gimmick in Paige-AJ: yeesh. AJ looked pretty bad, but I'm a broken record on disliking her. Paige looked great. How good is Lana right now? Such an awesome promo: “Shaht tahp.”, “golden fantasy land”, “cold hard fist of reality”, “You eh say”. The false opening too: “He cheat!” Were it not for Bo and Paige, she'd be the rookie of the year, and even then she might be adding more to the show nowadays than either of them. Rusev sells so well for a big guy, and what a finish. Swagger stays strong in refusing to give up, while Rusev is in such pain applying his own finisher that he looks like he's crying. Loved Ambrose's big lariat. Not the best finish, and the match didn't touch the best Shield stuff this year. I dug that Goldust was the one who stood up to Kane. Lumberjack gimmick worked, fulfilling the now-monthly “midcarder payday” spot. Wyatt and Jericho were both a lot of fun live at MSG a couple months ago, but this was flat. Wyatt needs a (figurative) shot in the arm. Brie-Steph shouldn't have had a by-the-numbers match. Well rehearsed and well executed, but it made no sense for the story they've been telling. This should have been a chaotic circus brawl, the problem being they'd just had one with Ambrose/Rollins. Plus Brie probably can't safely work garbage spots. Heel turn was telegraphed from a mile away, but looked good. Another segment where Hunter and Steph script themselves as the cheat code geniuses of the universe: “the greatest power couple in the world.” Cole's sports coat “in tribute to someone in the company” gets five stars and may have been the highlight of the show to this point. No idea what people are talking about re: the Reigns-Orton match. Reigns was fine and Orton was great carrying him to what to this point was match of the night. Cool story of him working a methodical match at his preferred pace, then losing once things sped up into the rampaging knockout mode of Reigns. He looked awesome in the RKO counter, big nearfalls, all smartly laid out. I first noticed it at MSG when he had a really good match with Jericho, but Orton's been on all year. Too much smark gunk here re: Reigns and the usual Bryan obsessives who want him and no one else. Cut to four months from now when dweebs start bashing Lesnar and the company for burying prospects and “not creating new stars.” Bryan's badly hurt. They can't plan anything around him right now, even if they wanted to, and his readiness for the Rumble or even Mania (let alone a match with Lesnar) is still in greater question than some choose to believe. Who does Brock work with the next several months? You could turn Cesaro, Wyatt, or Orton, but not all of them. Guys like Jericho and RVD would seem ridiculous against Brock right now. It would be a good time for a babyface Batista to show up, but that's not happening. You could strap a rocket to Big E, Sheamus, Swagger, or Ryback if you just need a titan-sized dude to get destroyed one month, but that doesn't seem to be how they're booking right now. Orton face turn seems like it starts tomorrow night.

June 9, 1995 in Tokyo, Japan Budokan Hall drawing 16,300 ($1,000,000) Masao & Mighty Inoue beat Maunukea Mossman & Mitsuo Momota (8:56) when Masao pinned ???. Satoru Asako pinned Mike Anthony (6:58). Kentaro Shiga, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, & Yoshinori Ogawa beat Tamon Honda, Takao Omori, & Jun Akiyama (10:26) when Kikuchi pinned Omori. Johnny Ace & The Patriot beat Doug Furnas & Bobby Duncum, Jr. (9:59) when Ace pinned Furnas. Abdullah the Butcher, Giant Baba, & Rusher Kimura beat Ryukaku Izumida, Haruka Eigan, & Masa Fuchi (13:43) when Abdullah pinned Fuchi. PWF Junior Heavyweight Champ Dan Kroffat pinned Rob Van Dam (17:10). Stan Hansen pinned Giant Kimala II (5:09). Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue beat Mitsu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi (42:37) to win the All Japan World Tag Title when Kawada pinned Misawa. Giant Kimala II was Ben Peacock, better known as the Botswana Beast on southern indies and Uganda in ECW. The Kroffat-Van Dam match gets praise online for who was in it: I just watched it for the first time in years and found it a flawed spectacle in hindsight, knowing who Van Dam became. But yes, the main event is the main event.

On the “sideline reporter” tip: a few years ago, Orton won some match on RAW, and they had one of the backstage interviewers (Striker?) come down to the ring and immediately interview Orton, who cut a really good, unique promo while catching his breath after the match. Same deal with that Main Event match Kofi won against Cesaro where he cut the promo immediately afterwards, talking about how his son had just been born a few days/weeks earlier, and that this was the start of big things for him. Every time they do it, it's great. Partially because of the novelty, so who knows if it would get old. But judging from MMA and Crockett TV, seems like a lot of guys understandably cut great post-match promos when their adrenaline is high. Having squashes is a good thing, but from a kayfabe perspective it wouldn't make sense for a company to keep bringing back a constant loser week after week. If a minor leaguer was called up to the Yankees and ended up with a .160 batting average, they wouldn't keep him around just because he makes everyone else look good in comparison. It's a delicate balance in that your jobbers should either be a rotating cast of indie guys, or a Kobashi story where someone is super talented and massively over, but it takes them several months to get their first win, leading to a nuclear reaction when they start beating opponents. Ideally some of each. Amusing to imagine message boards of the 1980s filled with screeds against bookers who fail to recognize the main event potential of Rocky King and Pez Whatley. While I agree that pro wres judges have worked exactly once (Wrestlewar '89), I was just this morning thinking about how great time limit draws and the notion of “TV time remaining” would be in modern WWE. Not only is it fun, but it seems like an obvious aid to their booking, where you'd have good reason to rematch all these pairings they run into the ground, and less predictable TV than having every show coincidentally end by 11:05, with just enough time for other spontaneous segments. And you can liven up the midcard with short “Beat the Champ” time limit title defenses. Plus it's a justifiable reason to get the Network: “We're completely out of time, but you can see the conclusion of this main event/closing segment melee live right now on the Network!” Or the next night on Main Event. Granted, USA might initially hate them doing this, but I think you'd raise ratings and turn up the heat by adding the notion that this stuff doesn't stop and start in perfectly clocked, scripted increments. Re: the idea that it's “no longer a wrestling show, but a show about running a wrestling promotion”, the same could be said for Memphis and other territories in their prime, where promoters, announcers, and governing bodies played regular roles, and the matchmaking/booking was heavily incorporated into storylines. The difference is that they did it very well, played it completely straight, and usually knew when enough was enough of Eddie Marlin, Jerry Jarrett, Verne, Watts, Fritz, etc. Rarely did the promoter book themselves as smarter/tougher than any of the talent, which is obviously the case in WWE and TNA. I think it was even acknowledged that Baba and Inoki were bookers/owners during their primes, or at least such common knowledge that they were viewed by fans the way one views player-coaches.

On the "never again seen" tip, the show with (what I think was a 60 minute draw between) Murdoch vs. Flair that Joel Watts called the greatest match he'd ever seen, only to destroy the tape by leaving it in his car parked in the sun. Going to one of the first New Japan dome shows on 1/4 would be cool: '93, '94, and '96 were all intriguing. Memphis wasn't much for supercards, but there was an insane run where Lawler and Dutch had three of the best matches ever within the span of a week, and there are likely fans who saw two or even all three of these within seven days: Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (No DQ) (3/22/82) Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Loser Leaves Town) (3/27/82) Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Barbed Wire Match) (3/29/82) Any of the four top ranked UWF cards from the 80s set would be incredible for match quality and atmosphere: NUMBER ONE: 7/24/89 UWF #6 Masakatsu Funaki vs Tatsuo Nakano (7/24/89 UWF) #11 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Kazuo Yamazaki (7/24/89 UWF) NUMBER TWO: 9/11/85 UWF #9 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Super Tiger (9/11/85 UWF) #15 Kazuo Yamazaki vs Nobuhiko Takada (9/11/85 UWF) NUMBER THREE: 12/5/84 UWF #2 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Super Tiger (12/5/84 UWF) #28 Kazuo Yamazaki vs Nobuhiko Takada (12/5/84 UWF) #56 Pete Roberts/Akira Maeda vs Keith Hayward/Osamu Kido (12/5/84 UWF) #59 Masami Soronaka vs Scott McGhee (12/5/84 UWF) NUMBER FOUR: 5/21/89 UWF #22 Akira Maeda vs Kazuo Yamazaki (5/21/89 UWF) #24 Bob Backlund vs Masakatsu Funaki (5/21/89 UWF) #54 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Yoji Anjoh (5/21/89 UWF) These two from the NJ set in 1989 have to be in the conversation for greatest single cards ever. These are the kind of thing Meltzer probably attended constantly and now has little to say about beyond, "It was frickin' great." Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Vader (4/24/89) Shinya Hashimoto vs. Victor Zangiev (4/24/89) Shinya Hashimoto vs. Vader (4/24/89) Jushin Liger vs. Naoki Sano (7/13/89) Big Van Vader vs. Salman Hashimikov (7/13/89) Riki Choshu & Takayuki Iizuka vs. Super Strong Machine & George Takano (7/13/89) Two amazing shows from the Mid-South set: The Fabulous Ones vs. Chavo & Hector Guerrero (12/27/85) Ted Dibiase vs. Dick Murdoch (12/27/85) Buzz Sawyer vs. Jim Duggan (Dog Collar Match) (12/27/85) Koko B. Ware vs. Eddie Gilbert (2/28/86) Ted DiBiase, Dr. Death, Terry Taylor & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Dick Murdoch, Buzz Sawyer & The Masked Superstars (2/28/86) Chavo & Hector Guerrero vs. The Fabulous Ones (Texas Tornado Cage Match) (2/28/86) Dick Slater vs. Jake Roberts (No DQ, Dark Journey In A Cage) (2/28/86) Otherwise, this would be awesome. Andre-Hogan in 1980 is fourth from the top: Superdome Extravaganza 8/80 August 2, 1980 in New Orleans, LA The Superdome drawing 31,000 ($183,000) Terry Latham beat Tommy Wright (9:15). Terry Orndorff & Mike Miller beat Johnny Mantell & Ron Cheatham (12:00). King Cobra beat Frank Dusek (10:15). The Assassin beat Steven Little Bear (12:00). Ray Candy beat Killer Khan (9:47). The Grappler beat Wahoo McDaniel (11:00) via DQ. Paul Orndorff beat Ken Mantell (14:00). Andre the Giant DCO Hulk Hogan (13:00). Mid-South North American Champ Ted DiBiase beat Mr. Wrestling II (14:00). Dusty Rhodes & Buck Robley beat Buddy Roberts & Terry Gordy (5:00) in a "double bullrope" match. Junkyard Dog beat Michael Hayes (11:20) in a "steel cage dog collar" match.

People talk about history's worst booking to a somewhat exhausted degree. The truly bad ones have been discussed at length, whereas the best stuff probably doesn't get enough credit. Some bright spots that immediately came to mind: “They put the flag on the Cowboy.” Freebirds blinding JYD to build to the Superdome. The episode of Mid-South built around who would get the Flair title match that led to the Dibiase-Murdoch double turn. The bizarre but totally logical series of events leading to Duggan-Dibiase in a No DQ, Loser Leaves Town, Coal Miner's Glove on a Poll, Tuxedo, Cage Match. That one RAW that Watts booked where at the end of the show, Michaels, Undertaker, and Diesel all got completely massacred out of nowhere by Davey Boy, Mabel, Yokozuna and Dean Douglas, and the crowd was stunned by this moment that was totally shocking and was supposed to serve as a catalyst for like 3-4 new storylines. Really this entire thread could just be Watts stuff. The episode of Memphis TV where Flair loses to Lawler in a short match, completely loses his shit in a promo, demands a rematch later in the show, they go out and have a longer, even better match in which Flair works a really stiff, cheating style. The Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. One that I've been thinking a lot about lately when watching Dean Ambrose is the Fargo Brothers gimmick where Roughhouse Fargo was only released from his mental institution on holidays, so that fans would have to buy tickets to the big holiday shows to see him. Just a fun, genius idea that should have been copied a million times over by now. Book Jimmy Jacobs twice a year as Dean's cousin Cujo Ambrose or some such. Lawler gets a title shot at Nick Bockwinkel, but has to pay $500 for every punch he throws in the match. The Hijo del Santo heel turn, even though it probably didn't work that well as an actual turn that got fans to dislike the guy. Such was the era. As crash soap opera TV goes, the Stephanie-HHH-Angle love triangle in the summer of 2000 was a good Chris Kreski idea that got over well. The then widely-dismissed and forgotten alumni of NXT, largely an afterthought to that point, surround the ring to mug Cena and choke out Justin Roberts. The eliminations in the two big New Japan five-on-five tags against the UWF in '86 and Choshu's Army in '88. Truly smart booking in which you come away thinking that the workers aren't just great athletes, but also genuinely clever tacticians utilizing the rules of the game. From the perspective of great matches alone, UWF vs. NJ is the greatest feud of all time.

At the risk of a game that smells dangerously close to fantasy booking, here's a way of trying to gauge what people would actually do differently if they were in HHH's shoes as head of Talent. Rules: place each of the 68 workers that constitute the main roster into one of four categories. Ideally in order of importance. As in: If you think they should be building to Cesaro as World champ, put him first or close to it on your Elevate list. I have included anyone currently inactive due to injury. (I'm not counting the Rock even if Wikipedia does, as he's too much of an unknown/anomaly right now.) You must place all 68 into one option or another, without omissions or exceeding the max out number of 20 per category: Elevate: Minimum 10, Maximum 20. Who would you actually try to raise to a level higher than they are at now, via their wins, mic time, promotion, et cetera? Even if they're in some cases folks who are already doing well and is at or near the top of the card, these are the people you think the promotion should be built around going forward. Hold Steady: Minimum 10, Maximum 20. Who should stay where they currently are, regardless of where they are? This goes for everyone from Cena to Rosa Mendes. Who would you keep in their current status quo placement on the card? Demote: Minimum 10, Maximum 20. Who would you keep on the roster, but who should be moved down from where they currently are, either because they should be fazed out over time, they're currently overpushed, or because it's time for others to have the chance? Release: Minimum 10, Maximum 20. As a budget measure and/or to simply shake things up, you're tasked with cutting 10-20 current workers on the roster. Who should be canned, either because they'd be better off elsewhere, are past their prime, not connecting with fans, or are simply so untalented that you don't want to watch their stuff anymore? On top of that, you have the option to sign/recruit: From NXT (Maximum 5): Who's ready for star time? For the sake of this I will include any of the announcers/personalities as well, if they're a priority for you. The five people from NXT at large who you would call up as replacements for your releases. From Elsewhere (Maximum 5): Who from outside of WWE should be signed? This can be anyone from TNA, the American indie scene, Mexico, Japan, Europe, Canada, you name it, any living worker or non-working talent currently in the business: five more new names to replace some of the folks you've been required to release. Your current main roster (68): Adam Rose, Alberto del Rio, AJ Lee, Alicia Fox, Bad News Barrett, Big E, The Big Show, Bo Dallas, Bray Wyatt, Brie Bella, Brock Lesnar, Cameron, Cesaro, Chris Jericho, Christian, Curtis Axel, Damien Sandow, Daniel Bryan, Darren Young, David Otunga, Dean Ambrose, Diego, Dolph Ziggler, Emma, Erick Rowan, Eva Marie, Fandango, Fernando, Goldust, The Great Khali, Heath Slater, HHH, Hornswaggle, Jack Swagger, Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, John Cena, Justin Gabriel, Kane, Kofi Kingston, Layla, Luke Harper, Mark Henry, The Miz, Naomi, Natalya, Nikki Bella, Paige, R-Truth, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Rob Van Dam, Roman Reigns, Rosa Mendes, Rusev, Ryback, Seth Rollins, Sheamus, Sin Cara, Stardust, Summer Rae, Tamina Snuka, Titus O'Neil, El Torito, Tyson Kidd, Undertaker, Xavier Woods, Zack Ryder. I've got my own ideas for who should go where, but I'm curious to see how closely people here agree on what should be done with whom, and how easy or difficult people find it to be to actually utilize or terminate each worker, restructuring the top, middle, and bottom of the card. And of course the real idea here is to debate the merit of our choices (“No way would I release Justin Gabriel”, “Why would you push The Miz,” etc. To give an example, my set would look something like: Elevate (20), in order of priority: Dean Ambrose, Cesaro, Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Roman Reigns, Bad News Barrett, Bo Dallas, Dolph Ziggler, Big E, Rusev, Stardust, Mark Henry, Damien Sandow, Titus O'Neil, Tyson Kidd, Paige, Alicia Fox, Summer Rae. Hold Steady (20), in order of priority: Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, Sheamus, Ryback, Alberto del Rio, Christian, Rey Mysterio, Erick Rowan, Goldust, Jack Swagger, Xavier Woods, Brie Bella, Nikki Bella, Natalya, Zack Ryder, Layla, Emma, Justin Gabriel. Demote (14), in order of current status: Undertaker, HHH, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, The Miz, AJ Lee, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Curtis Axel, Heath Slater, Fandango, Diego, Fernando, El Torito. Release (14), in order of current status: Kane, Rob Van Dam, Adam Rose, Sin Cara, R-Truth, Cameron, Naomi, Darren Young, The Great Khali, Eva Marie, Rosa Mendes, Tamina Snuka, David Otunga, Hornswaggle. Call Up from NXT (5), in order of priority: Solomon Crowe, Sami Zayn, KENTA, Sasha Banks, William Regal. Sign from Elsewhere (5), in order of priority: Timothy Thatcher, Hechicero, Drew Gulak, Tomohiro Ishii, Negro Casas. Comprende?

Wow. A million billion stars to anyone who can remember any of the suggestions people offered him, esp. any he actually adopted.

I think in the spirit of the "New" teams question, neither of the two guys should be an original member of the team. Ole and Arn as the “new Andersons” post Gene, the second Midnight Express, second Sheepherders, three different iterations of the Hollywood Blonds, various Blond Bombers, Jackie and Bobby Fulton as the new Fantastics, and Pritchard and Del Ray as the new Heavenly Bodies would otherwise all be considered. For teams where neither guy was an original member, you have Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew II, managed by Ole. Bad name, didn't get over as their gimmick. The most successful instances I can recall of giving someone your gimmick were the team of Mr. Wrestling I/II and Jackie Fargo handing his off to two new young guys to create the Fabulous Ones.

Someone teach Cole how to tie his tie. That limp knot gets an F. Same people loathing this show/calling it unwatchable will be the same people who watch Summerslam next month, and RAW tomorrow night. And would have been in the same hysterics during every era in company history, especially the successful ones. Those in disbelief over the nature of "B" PPVs know that this has been the way of WWE PPVs for at least the last 5-7 years. These aren't built to blow off feuds or blow your mind. That's Wrestlemania. They're built to be passable and move things forward to the next week of TV. Jericho-Wyatt will have at least one more PPV match, probably two. Usos-Wyatts isn't done either. Rollins-Ambrose may have been to cover an injury, but even if it wasn't (and I don't think it was), it was fine. If you hate it, join the millions of fans who've stopped watching. If you can tolerate it, find the small joys. And if the small joy is bitching about it, then more power to you, as long as you're self-aware. But the days of Jim Ross screaming "Stone Cold! Stone Cold!" at the end of some climactic PPV moment aren't what you'll be getting for your $10 a month on Battleground 2014. You get that with Mania and about two other shows a year. It's a company that can creatively sustain about four PPVs a year, while financially required to put on twelve. Welcome to capitalism, or as I like to call it: Battleground 2014. First show where the Network felt like something I could take or leave. Since Feb it's been an asset to caring about the company and following along week to week. They have a hurdle in getting people to buy the thing, but easy access to live PPVs, NXT and all the TV has made me much more of a fan. I'm on their site several times a week after having gone to it maybe five times ever previously. Just attended my first ever house show, first live WWE event in years. I'm even perusing the merch just to make sure it's all still too embarrassing to wear in public. This wasn't a terrible show, but a boring one. Only good thing on the preshow was the Ambrose/Rollins hype video. Two bad matches and really bad commentary from all sides. Tag Title near falls and double suplex were all fantastic. Harper's face after the third powerbomb was great, and they all seemed to be feeding off the crowd. Surprised by the Uso win as they now wrap up a fifth month as champs. Wyatts actually needed the win to maintain credibility here, but this was quite a match and I would hope that both teams come away better off for it. This is the kind of thing that gets Harper a job for life and makes him the Kane/Big Show of the year 2022, rather than anything that makes or breaks anyone. More bad commentary during the women's match. AJ's okay by Diva standards, but she's bush league compared to the incoming NXT gang. Story sucked, match sucked, bad botched finish, wrong time for Paige to go heel, wrong time for AJ to go face, wrong time for her to be champ. Get Sasha Banks, Charlotte and heel Summer Rae on RAW immediately. Serious Kane is a terrible actor, Comedy Kane a decent one. Demon Kane is the worst character in the company, and having him quote Love Story to Orton was really something. Based on the MSG house show and Monday's RAW, Rusev-Swagger is the hottest feud in the company. Maybe second hottest after Ambrose-Rollins, but this was still such a bigger deal than anyone would have predicted. Lana is awesome. "War mongoling" was great, as was that entire promo. People complaining about the use of the phrase "current events" would have been the same rubes screaming for the Freebirds' blood when they put the flag on the Cowboy. I love that I can actually kind of agree with the points that the heels are making and still mark out for the jingoistic USA chants and excitement around Swagger, who I've always liked. Match was solid, and I liked the finish even if Swagger looked a bit oafish being KO'ed by the post. They're trying to get another month out of it, perhaps with a new stip. Thought Rollins/Ambrose was OK, esp. in the vein of this show being a Clash of the Champions ad for Summerslam. Decent pull apart, both guys got how to do it even if the setup could have been more creative. Bray's black eye was impressive. Weird match that never came together, but like so many things here it felt like the beginning of a feud rather than the end of one. I've been enjoying Jericho more than usual lately after his very good house show match in MSG with Orton, and there was little wrong or right with this one. Longterm Wyatt wins the feud. This was Chapter 1, and a predictable Chapter 1 at that. I liked the beatdown in the parking lot, but there seemed a glaring kayfabe misfire: if you're the MITB briefcase holder, why are you leaving before the main event, where in theory you'd have the opportunity to pick off the emerging champion with more ease than ever? HHH understands Attitude era Crash TV and how to do it well. Whether he chooses to do it well with Ambrose by giving him an Austin-level push is another story. Weird that the Dust Brothers weren't in the battle royal. Odd how bad some guys (Khali, Sin Cara, Slater) looked in their entrances. Liked that they had Barrett do a promo to keep him in the picture. But this sucked: total contrast from the really fun Mania's battle royal midcard spotlight. I do like that Ryback has become the exact middle of the road at the line of "lower tier" and "upper tier" guys. If you're higher on the food chain than Ryback, you're doing well. If you're lower, you're doing bad. And by being the line, Ryback'll probably have a job for the next 10 years. I would say Kofi used to hold this spot, but that he's actually below Ryback these days in terms of push. I did like that between Miz, Bo, Cesaro, Sheamus, and even Dolph, there felt like five guys who had a real chance of winning. Didn't like the cooperative Kofi-Cesaro spots. And I've come to hate the dumb, overused finish where a heel hides for the entirety of the match and then sneaks in to win, especially the equally overused part of the finish where they make you think the guy who everyone wants to win (Ziggler) might pull it off. So lame. They're accidentally showing useless-assed Miz lying on the ground in their cutaways to the belt. It's too far-fetched in the bad, over-suspension of disbelief way for no ref outside to tell him to get in the ring, but I do like that they at least did the bit where JBL said that he'd seen him there the whole time but intentionally didn't say anything because he liked Miz's strategy. Should lead to a Ziggler feud (but won't), and I wonder if you'd have heard the crowd shitting all over it they hadn't cranked Miz's music up to 11 and had the announcers screaming over it to boot. Surprising number of slow spots/botches in the four-way. Crowd was dead for a lot of the match, though I'm sure one "This is Awesome" chant will erase that for many. The whole point of a match like that is to keep it action-packed with guys, but it seemed the gimmick actually slowed everyone down as they had to stumble around each other. I'm not someone who cares about physiques at all, but I agree that Reigns doesn't look like a power guy, in stature or move set. Didn't give a shit at all about the finish as it was clear Cena was winning, but it would have been good to see at least a tease of Brock's arrival to pay off the bad show and give people a reason to watch RAW.