JerryvonKramer

How did Bearcat draw in Florida, do we know?

Devon ... GET THE TABLES! *moments later* WASSSSSUUPPPPPP!!!!

Some of the differences in how Flair worked with each of them was down to environment though. If you watch Flair during that 92 run, he worked much more chickenshit than he did in NWA/WCW, because WWF almost booked him like the Honky Tonk Man. He was an uber-weak champion against practically everyone apart from Savage. Brody would have worked Flair 83-4 sort of time and possibly even during one of his babyface runs, when he would have worked stronger. Also, if memory serves the Brody-Flair matches mostly took place in St. Louis where they would have put on a more no-nonsense match anywhere to suit the tastes of that Muchnick-trained crowd. Not completely trying to invalidate your point, but I do think you have to look at the environment as well as the opponent.

Wow, he put Ivan over huge there.

I don't know if wrestling is different because it is less generically diverse, but ... well if someone has decided that rap is crap, I'm not going to try to sell them on Liquid Swords, even if I think it's one of the best albums of the 90s. It's just a non-starter. But somehow it seems different with this, but I can't put my finger on why or how.

Not sure where to bring this up, but it's clear some people don't like PWG style. To what extent are people factoring in styles that they really don't like? I was thinking about this before. If I was doing top 100 music artists or albums, I would totally no-sell jazz because it really isn't my thing. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to more, because I just don't like it. Not sure what to do with that.

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean. Hansen comes out, does his cowboy salute and then does a "jump-start" often when the other guy has his jacket still on, and often altogether skipping the shine. Vader does a similar thing. I thought this is what you were describing but maybe not.

Don't wish to be contrarian but isn't this how 99% of Stan Hansen matches start?

Incidentally those Bruno houses are generally brought up as a knock against Bruno that he wasn't a draw outside of the North East (eg by people like Matysik)

Did Don Owen run Seattle?

Actually I think "Top 100" is technically singular so "is" would be correct. The Top 100 is a singular item that refers to a collective ... as in "What is your team?" If still anxious could go for this as a work around: "Who is in Your Top 100 Right Now"?

I also think we can afford to be strategic in viewing and to take necessary sample sizes. I don't expect anyone else to watch 10 hours of Jack Brisco matches just to get a measure of the guy, maybe others can just watch the highlights I recommend. Sure, it's not a complete view but none of us have unlimited time. In a sense, I'm going long on the 70s guys so that a lot of others don't have to sit through it all. For example, last night I just mentioned in passing to watch the Dory Jr vs. Mike Graham match from 81 Florida again and he gave it another look and gave his take. Likewise, I'm not going to watch every single WoS match out there, but probably just OJ's edited highlights. I'll watch Loss's edited highlights for Joshi and so on. I'm not watching every 90s AJ match with Grimmas for the podcast, just the cream. I know that Low Ki is probably not making my top 100 after watching 7 pimped matches of his -- I will probably watch another 7 just to give him a fair shake. But that viewing has opened the door to guys like AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan who I do give a shot to, and who I will watch more of. Again, not EVERYTHING but I'll watch enough to make a call. We all have areas we specialise in more than others, and can help to provide "highlights" for others. I realize it's not perfect, but that's as good as we can get.

One thing I really don't like is the idea of guys going into matches looking to put on MOTYCs or ****+ matches. This aspect of ROH commentary has been extremely jarring to me and I've never been against anything so much in my life. I just hate that, so ass backwards. Wrestling that panders to the critics for god's sake! Entirely different too from the horsemen wanting to steal the show or whatever. Can't think of anything less authentic than that. If guys who worked ROH are going to make my list it'll be despite the environment, which is my least favourite ever in all the wrestling I've ever watched from anywhere, including modern WWE and TNA.

It's not an Ivan vs Murdoch thing. Kolof's just one example of a handful of guys who were in real demand everywhere. All I've said is that up through 79, Murdoch doesn't look like one of them. He looks more of a regional player, for whatever reason. Keep going, I won't say anymore.

The only area where I can see it really hurting him is in those NWA title shots, just two for the whole 70s.

Kris when we interviewed him, he said it took a long time for promoters to really start trusting him again ... So while he had bookings he didn't have a decent run till probably that. 77 Florida run.

Also without looking at the figures, I'd predict that the Russians tag title run curb stomps whatever Murdoch-Adonis did in terms of main events and carrying B-shows etc. And that run is pretty secondary to Ivan's case.

If Ivan's case was just New York you might have an argument but he main evented in the Mid-West, Florida, Carolinas and Georgia too not to mention Montreal and Quebec. You can always make the argument with heels that it was the other guy drawing, but Ivan was in demand everywhere and even after being black balled for a year or so. From the evidence presented so far, Murdoch wasn't.

Three reasons really Jmare: 1. I've researched him quite a bit, so can bring stuff up without looking it up too much. 2. He's a very good measuring stick for what a national star with name value looked like -- i.e. in-demand in all the major markets (New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Florida, Carolinas, etc.). He makes a good basis of comparison for a guy who was around at the same sort of time. 3. What brought a lot of this on was the guys on the podcast, and also Joe Lanza on some VoW shows, casually putting Ivan and Murdoch in the same sentence as being in some way comparable, when I don't think that's the case if you look into it.

I'm only commenting on the stuff Will was looking at from the 70s. When he talks about the 80s, I'll comment on the 80s. I think if you're going to go in as a regional player, you better be a really exceptional one and have one something amazing -- whether it be main event for 30 years there and still draw like Lawler or a JYD run or something like that. Rather than, y'know, main event a territory that went out of business. It's perfectly possible that Murdoch's 80s stuff is stronger than his 70s stuff, I'm just giving my analysis of what Will has said. I also don't really care if lots of big names didn't go to New York or the reasons behind why Murdoch didn't work there, but if you look at who is in the HoF from this timeframe, a lot of the guys who were big names did have runs in New York. It's a good barometer of being thought of a decent-sized star in the business. Bill Watts went up there. Hansen went up there. Ladd went up there. Patera did Ivan did. Kowolski did. Blassie did. The Sheik did. Tolos did. Brody. Valentine. Don Leo Jonathan. Slaughter. The NWA champions occassionally went up there. Some of the big stars who didn't like Verne or The Crusher or Dick the Bruiser were essentially stars in their own big cities in the mid-west. But it doesn't look like Murdoch was in much demand in Chicago either -- unlike, for example, Ivan. So not in demand in New York. Not in demand in Chicago. And seemingly not in demand in Atlanta. It's starting to make St. Louis do an awful lot of work.

I happen to think that Ivan probably has a stronger case than DiBiase. Seems like Ted mainly went in as a super worker rather than as a draw or anything else, but I think on the face of it -- St. Louis, GCW, Mid-South runs, regular Japan tours in which he was Hansen's partner, and "mainstream success" in major feuds with Hogan and Savage in WWF -- PLUS "superworker" made him feel like a Fiat without putting too much thought into it. I certainly think that without the WWF run, Ted's case looks weaker. I'm not here to make a HoF case for Ted though, just to put Murdoch's one to scrutiny. Up to 1979, he spent an awful lot of time main eventing in Amarillo at a time when the business was down there, and I don't know if I give that much credit for a HoF case. I don't really know what to make of the stuff in Tri-States. I have no context for McGurik's territory, or how business was during that time. He's hurt by these things for me: - failure to break into AWA main event scene - no call from New York to challenge Bruno / Pedro / Backlund - no run in GCW to get on the Superstation All of it points to him being quite a regional player rather than a national star, who got title shots and runs in Japan owing to his close connection with the Funks. Obviously, it's to his credit that he was able to leverage that to become a significent star in Japan, but there's not a lot about what we've seen on the US side so far that screams "national star" in the same way that, for example, Ivan Koloff's or Ernie Ladd's resume from the same period does.

Low Ki vs. American Dragon (02/24/01) This is from ECWA ... get this Titans of Wrestling fans, the event is called "Super 8". Dragon is in red karate bottoms, Ki is in a black and white number. Flair chops back and forth to start. Ki ends up getting a boot to the face. Dragon planchas out after him. I want to pause here to criticise this opening 2-3 minutes. To quote Tony Atlas from the Legends of Wrestling credits "too much, too soon". More reverse knife edges back and forth. Ki modifies the Muta springboard elbow into a kick. Dragon takes over. Ki has his leg stuck on the middle rope and Dragon kicks at it. Focuses on this leg now. Some stiff blows to Ki's head, who comes back with a slap back. Shinbreaker by Dragon. Back down to the mat to work this leg some more. Not really a lot of struggle from Ki during this stuff. More chops back and forth. I'd like to pause here. The transition from the Dragon's legwork to those chops was awful. The ref just broke it up and they went right back to chopping. This is the definition of "no flow" to me. Ki seems to have forgotten about selling his leg during this. Dragon goes back to the leg. Ki tries to kick his way out of it, but Dragon stays on it. Chops from Ki to break this. In fairness, Ki does now sell the leg as he retreats to the turnbuckle. Dragon goes flying over the top rope. Ki despite his injured leg gets on the top rope now and goes for a backwards somersault dive thing to the outside. We seem to lose audio here, then it comes back. Dragon kicks Ki in the back and applies a chinlock. Ki kicks out. Dragon tries a full nelson (??) and Ki elbows him down. Ki Crusher out of nowhere gets two. Back to the Flair chops. Ki goes for the Muta elbow but Dragon catches him and goes into a dragon suplex. We lose sound again. Slugfest with kicks involved now and it results in a two count for Dragon. He now takes his elbow pad off, but runs into a Ki Crusher and some sort of submission move which wins it for Low Ki. I didn't think much of this at all. It is about a 11 or 12 minute match. It has some sound basic psychology from Dragon in focusing on the leg for a portion, but that is rather quickly forgotten about. The chop exchanges were lacking in real drama for me, again we get the stiffness but I don't feel they've earned the impact of the chops. It's like watching a paraody of Steamboat-Flair, without any of the things that made the chop exchanges in Steamboat-Flair actually mean something. I thought Dragon was a lot better than Ki in this match since he seemed like he wanted to tell a story, whereas Ki seemed like he wanted to get some of his shit in. I was watching him during the trophy celebration and he completely forgets about the leg once again. I saw someone in the youtube comments write that "the psychology is flawless" in this match. What match was he watching? The transitions were sudden and disjointed. Not a great deal of flow to things. I've talked about my problem with the strike exchanges. Very disappointing. Close to writing Low Ki off at this point. Can't think of any real reason to check this out other than curiosity as to what Bryan was upto in 2001. **1/2 Low Ki vs. AJ Styles (04/27/02) This is from ROH. This is apparently Styles's ROH debut. Head scissors to start by Styles. I'm trying to block out the commentators becuase they are already doing my frigging tree in, shut the fuck up already. Kicks back and forth now. It's a bit like watching Mortal Kombat where both people are hammering on the "high kick" button. Ki takes it down to the mat and applies a front facelock. Fireman carry takeover by Styles. The commentators put over Low Ki as a "thinking man's wrestler" -- again, I don't know what wrestler they are watching ... or perhaps their barometer for "thinking man" is different from mine, but I've not seen much evidence of that at all thus far. Some struggle now as both guys battle to get on top in the mat game. Back up to a vertical base and a big chop from Ki. Reverse knife edge again. Double leg takedown by Styles. Kick by Ki to Styles's forehead which seemed to knock him for six. Follows up with a couple more kicks. Frankensteiner thing by Styles to come back and a lariat for two. Suplex attempt by Styles but Ki slips down, so he gives him a neckbreaker instead -- that was neat. Big slap by Styles but he runs into a kick by Ki. Backbreaker. Pin attempt gets to for Ki. Big chop by Ki. Styles comes back with a knee and dumps Ki out of the ring. Styles follows him out with a couple of savate kicks. Back in for two. Vertical suplex. Some exchange on commentary now about how "Low Ki" means "beelzebub" and Styles is a Christian. "What were the bookers thinking?!" We're told that appearently the bookers are Jewish and didn't consider the implications of that. I'm going to come right out and say that I couldn't hate this shit more if I tried. Just the worst. Shit. Anyway, I'll go back to trying to block them out. Couple more big kicks by Low Ki now sends Styles packing. Ki tries to execute the Ki crusher from outside, but instead does a submission move in the ropes. Back in for two. Ki goes for the Ki Crusher now but Styles counters with a DDT on the fly. Syles. Sequence of counters and things now culminates in a reverse backflip by Styles for two. Powerbomb by Ki bridged into a pin attempt. That looked quite cool. Commentators are pimping this as a Match of the Year candidate already. 2002 must have been an awful year. Ki kicks Styles in the chest now and gives several more stiff kicks to the head and body. This is a pretty brutal beatdown by Ki. Styles is out of it. Tiger suplex by Ki gets two. Styles gets a desperation lariat in. Back suplex by Styles into a bridge. They struggle over a suplex and Ki hits a falcon arrow. Big chops back and forth and a Muta elbow by Low Ki now. Ki is breathing hard and needs to put Styles away. He goes to the top and does a twisty thing which misses. Styles comes back with an awesome modified DDT which looks like it might have given Low Ki concussion. Styles goes to the top with a twisting senton but misses. We could have done without senton attempt. He'd just given him a DDT from hell, why the senton? I guess structurally it's quite neat as Ki had just missed one too. Stiff shots back and forth now and I have to say NOW -- at this point -- they've earnt this. It's heated and seems personal. Ki hits a "back brain kick" and Styles is down. Ki goes for that Ki Crusher again but Styles blocks it goes for a Styles splash but Ki reverses into a small package for a flash pin out of nowhere. Styles seems to kick out right at three but it's too late. This might have been the best Low Ki match I've seen so far, it built really well and those final strike exchanges were heated. But once again, I much, much preferred Ki's opponent to Ki himself. Styles seems like a worker I could really get into -- he has great offense and I love those suplex variations. Ki ... not so much, the kicks in the middle portion of this match were brutal and really stiff, but he seems oddly limited in what he can do. If he's not going for a kick, it's either a reverse knife edge, a Ki Crusher or falcon arrow or else doing something off the top -- something about that particular offensive arsenal creates disjointed moments in these matches. It seemed like the story they were going for was that Ki was trying to do everything he could to put Styles away but he wasn't staying down. But Ki failed to register any real frustration other than that one moment when he was blowing hard. For what they were going for, I do wonder if a time limit draw rather than a flash pin might have been a better finish. Styles didn't need to get pinned here -- although I guess he could have argued that he kicked out before three which might set up a rematch. It's a struggle for me to watch some of these ROH matches because I despise the setting and commentary, but this was a pretty good showing from Styles. It's also bought Low Ki another few matches before I write him off. **** Low Ki vs. American Dragon (03/30/02) This is ROH and the "round robin challenge". Ken Shamrock walks out before the match to shake hands with both guys. He wants to referee this match. Shamrock is sporting some mean Elvis sideburns here. Dragon goes to the mat early. Ki gets on top and applies a body scissors. Ki headbutts Dragon in the back of the head. They talk about how Dragon is 0 and 2 so far in ROH and Ki is unbeaten. Dragon gets behind Ki and goes for a chinlock and a body scissors. Ki back on top with strikes to the head. Dragon goes into a headlock. He pulls on Ki's nose and then punches on the side of Ki's head back and forth. The commentators tell us that the "kids today don't know how to use headlocks" and talk about how Aerican Dragon has studied hours of tape from the 1970s to learn how to use a headlock effectively. Interesting: I wonder how much Dory Jr, Billy Robinson and Bob Backlund, Daniel Bryan was watching in 2002. Ki slips into a front facelock and snaps on it. I have to say, the matwork has been exceptional in this match so far. Kick by Ki but Dragon blocks it. Some more mat-based stuff now. Dragon eventually deadlifts Ki and sort of power bombs him to break a body scissors. Arm wrench by Ki. American Dragon grabs the ankle but Ki bridges out. Texas cloverleaf by Dragon into a surfboard-y thing. Dragon stays on this leg. Ki kicks his back as the ROH commentators go on about how this is "how pro wrestling is meant to be" and invoke Ancient Greece. Kicks to he head now by Ki and Dragon bails, his eye is cut. Dragon back in and a big belly-to-back suplex. Snapmare. Big kick and some massive chops. Nice offensive stretch this from Dragon. Ki comes back with a kick to the face. Big reverse knife edge. Snapmare. Massive kick to the back. Another snapmare. Kneedrop. Cover gets about 2. One of the better offensive stretches from Ki that I've seen. HUGE kick to Dragon's back, sounds like he broke his spine. Cover gets two. Cobra clutch and a body scissors too. In this position both guys bundle out of the ring but Ki keeps that cobra clutch on. There's no countout apparently. Back in. Cover gets two for Ki. Double stomp. Ki stands on Dragon and he tries to bridge up with Ki still on top and Ki stomps again, nasty. Ki tries to go for the Ki Crusher but Drago evades and hits a Dragon suplex into a bridge for two. Good counter and good action. Belly-to-back underhook suplex by Dragon. He goes to the top and hits the Harley Race headbutt. That took a lot ouf of him too, and Ki covers for two. "Tidal wave" by Ki. Dragon suplex by Ki for two. "Cattle mutilation" now by Ki, Drago comes back with a reverse DDT sort of thing into a body scissors and arm wrench. Big Flair chops back and forth now and Dragon decides he'd prefer to go into stiff elbows. Ki goes for a dropkick. Dragon goes for a suplex but can't get it, reversed into a brainbuster by Ki. Cover gets two. Ki hits the Ki Crusher and Dragon kicks out. Commentator says that he's never seen anyone kick out of that ... I have, quite a lot. Phoneix splash by Ki and Dragon gets his legs up. Dragon suplex by Dragon gets two. Massive super belly-to-back suplex by Dragon. Ki is out. 1, 2, NO! And again. Dragon puts him back on the top turnbuckle. Ki is groggy but comes back with strikes still on top. Ki Crusher from the top! That gets a "holy shit!" chant. Took a lot out of Ki too. Both guys down. Dragon rolls to the outside. Ki can scarcely crawl across to him, but does and rolls him in. Cover gets two but Dragon gets a foot to the rope. Kick by Ki. Massive Flair chops. Goes for the Muta elbow but Dragon catchs him and does a suplex of some sort into a bridge. Cattle mutilation by Dragon now. Excellent bridge. Ki struggles to get to the rope. Cattle mutilation again for the second time. Ki is fading. Dragon jumps up and down, he wants that submission! Shamrock checks the arm of Ki ... it drops three times. Wow, he passed out. Well, wow, that was absolutely great. Terrific match. The early matwork was outstanding and it kept going until about the 20-minute mark. Then they started ramping up the big bombs. Really excellent match, and strangely Ki did none of the things that have really bugged me about him so far. Dragon was outstanding here. Great performances from both guys. This was surely a strong MOTYC for 2002. ****3/4

I give him good credit for the stuff in Florida in 71, some of the St. Louis stuff, and the Mid-Atlantic run in 78, but I'll be honest, it doesn't look that Hall-of-Fame-y. Depends on how much weight you put on him main eventing in West Texas.

The missing piece for me of the Murdoch case is still the evidence of him going into territories and working the top names like I showed Ivan doing. It has been demonstrated now that he had plenty of shots at the NWA title (40+) and plenty of matches (i.e. losing efforts) against Baba and Inoki, but what are the killer Murdoch feuds that helped carry promotions? Like for Ivan you'd point to his stuff with Bruno in WWF, then his stuff against Mil Mascaras in IWA 1975, his stuff with Dick the Bruiser in WWA circa 1977, his runs tagging with Ole Anderson in GCW and tagging with Pat Patterson in Florida, and his feuds with people like Paul Jones, Dusty and Steamboat in Mid-Atlantic. Beyond his Mid-South 85-6 material, what are Murdoch's?

In that case, I'll take the "terrible person" part back, it was the least important part of it anyway.