ohtani's jacket

Welcome to the board, TobyNotJason. I think that feeling of "sameness" was a problem for all of the major promotions by the end of the 90s, largely because they'd ran the same match-ups for so long and the only way to keep them fresh was to keep adding spots and trying to make the matches more and more epic. The biggest problem, as far as I can see, is that there wasn't an entirely new generation of workers to push like there was with Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Taue, Muto/Chono/Hashimoto, Hokuto/Toyota/Kyoko/Yamada, and indeed Ohtani/Kanemoto/Samurai. There were some decent rookies, but not in the same numbers as previous generations, and I'd argue that the reason for that was that after the major feds lost prime time TV coverage there was a major drop-off in exposure. This combined with the declining population, the sudden rise in popularity of football as an alternative to baseball, and the young generation rejecting the ethos upon which dojo training was based led to a decline in the numbers interested in becoming a professional wrestler which reduced the overall talent pool from which to draw from. The only alternative to the same yearly match-ups was to co-promote, but after a while they milked that cow dry. As far as juniors perception goes, I have never met a hardcore Japanese fan who believed that Liger was as big a deal in Japan as he was in the States, though this may be a false perception that he was a bigger deal in America than he really was. It's also contradicted by the type of crowd responses Liger typically drew. The only conclusion I could really draw was that hardcore Japanese fans were a bit funny about juniors. I seem to remember there being some interest in '98-99 juniors. I think it's important to remember that it was something that happened "live" for most of us, as opposed to getting a backlog of tapes from years prior. I remember following puroresu news at the time through Arnold and Quebrada and 1Wrestling and reading Herb Kunze every week. I also remember downloading '99 juniors matches on whatever that prehistoric downloading program we used to use was called. There was a bit of a shift around that time in that some of the older fans stopped watching and the newer fans were interested in the name shows. Tapes were so expensive that you either bought the most highly recommended shows or you got custom tapes made. I never bought weekly TV, ever. I rented it from a Japanese video store and dubbed it for Stuart when he was first kind of starting out, but in the main I think people of my ilk were still buying the major stuff. And as noted above, the juniors got stupid in 2000. I remember being in Arnold's chat for the J Cup that year and it fell so flat. I feel there were storylines during the peak years. Liger's booking was praised a lot during that era. Going back and watching some of the '98 stuff Loss asked about, Ohtani still felt fresh to me even if realistically I can't have seen his schtick going past the '96-98 mark without getting old. There was a whole faction feud in '97 between Liger and Samurai vs. Ohtani and Kanemoto and other examples of quality booking either in the title match scene or the tournaments they staged. Liger was probably a bit too giving in terms of the jobs he did instead of being the top guy like in the old territories, but it wasn't quite as slight as I feel is being made out. You couldn't follow it commercial tape to commercial tape like the All Japan stuff I suppose, but it wasn't substanceless. It did get kind of boring I suppose, which may have been why Toryumon and BattlARTs were the big things at places like DVDVR, but those "fads," so to speak, didn't last more than a year themselves.

Harley Race/Hercules vs. The British Bulldogs, WWF 1/26/88 Harley vs. the Bulldogs again, this time in the WWF. Harley had visibly declined here but still did some fun stuff with Dynamite Kid. This may not be a commonly shared opinion here, but take the Dynamite Kid from the '83 WoS match against Marty Jones and the Race from the '82 Texas stuff and the Flair matches and I reckon you'd have a hell of a match. After praising a lot of the WWF booking and angles in the Dibiase and Boss Man threads, I have to say that this Matilda angle they had going between the Bulldogs and the Islanders was pretty stupid. Monsoon sold it pretty straight by telling us that Matilda was on the mend and that she was starting to eat more and had gained a few pounds, but Heenan coming to ringside with an empty collar and leash was a pretty weak taunt. Why would two jacked up English men care about a dog when they'd be more likely to get wasted and play awful tricks on it? The match was kind of slow, but not too bad. The angle was a dud.

So, as an offshoot of Harley in Texas I've really been digging Flair in Texas lately. I haven't been able to see his more famous stuff with Kerry since I think the WWE has released it on DVD and therefore it tends to get yanked, but I've dug the stuff with David and Kevin. I especially like how Kevin's barefoot style, obsession with the head scissors and reckless attacking style make him seem like some kind of 1998 Sakuraba PRIDE opponent. One thing I get but don't really get is why the Von Erich kids get so psychopathic in the post match beat downs. I don't think I've ever seen faces behave like that. Oftentimes it's hard to justify what Harley or Flair did wrong to get laid out so badly. Can anybody more familiar with Texas explain this to me?

The commentators loved cracking jokes about Frankie. In one of the matches I watched, Lord Alfred Hayes got all dirty about mating season.

Wha? Like, Freebird Buddy Roberts?!?! I feel like I'm finding out there's no Santa Claus all over again. Yeah, he was born and raised in Vancouver.

I don't like Kroffat, I was just throwing the name out there.

I'll toss out some names: Dan Kroffat, Buddy Robberts, John Tenta, Moose Morowski, Billy Two Rivers, Don Jardine, Leo Burke.

I watched the Hansen/Colon feud one match per night for the past few nights and it really should be required viewing for all PWO members. The cage match is an insane spectacle. Hansen gives one of the best cage match performances I can remember seeing, which for a guy his size is really impressive. This was my first time to watch Colon properly and he was much smaller than I would have imagined. He bounced around like a skinny bean pole at times and the size difference was fascinating to watch. EDIT: I watched the bull rope match again this morning and it really is an incredible match. Hansen's selling is amazing. My favourite part is when he collapses into Colon's arm like a child hugging his parent. I thought they kind of exhausted their spots by the end and the finish was less heated to me than the round of cut-off spots earlier, but it was a clever idea with the back body drop.

I think it's only me who rabbits on about him being among the greatest of all-time. I'm glad more people were exposed to him on this yearbook. He'll feature heavily on the Lucha 80s set and ought to be on the '91 yearbook as well, where hopefully the greatness of Los Infernales will shine through.

I've noticed people commenting on the length of the falls in some of these lucha matches, especially the first and second caidas. These shorter falls are usually completely intentional in lucha libre and not indicative of any fault in the work. It's perfectly normal for one worker to dominate the opening fall and most of the second and for the other worker to make a brief comeback to take the second fall. This is because the control segments usually overlap falls. The momentum gained by the worker in winning the second fall will carry over into the third and thus you end up having a relatively even match heading into the back and forth finishes that typify a lucha match. If Morgan was dominating Faraon in the first fall and Faraon suddenly made a comeback it would signal to me that they were doing something a little different like having Faraon go over in straight falls. When you watch lucha, there's always a "beat" where you know the fall will end. Occasionally, they go beyond this beat and keep wrestling. It doesn't happen very often, but it's one of the tricks they have to play with the rhythm and structure of the three fall format, the same as a long opening fall and a rapid fire segunda caida. I also think people have been putting too much stock in the rudo/technico distinction in these wager matches. A wager match usually occurs because a rudo has done a series of objectionable things to a technico over the course of several weeks (sometimes months, sometimes even years.) For space reasons or because sometimes the matches aren't that great, most of the build-up to these matches has been omitted from the yearbooks. Wager matches are usually a chance for the technico to get revenge. They're not supposed to comply with any rules or moral code. I believe the Spanish expression is to fight fire with fire. So, they're not being rudoish as such, but rather fired up babyfaces as you sometimes see in the States. Lastly, Pirata Morgan was probably one of the best workers in the world at this point. At least he was in 1989.

Perhaps Will can introduce a politically correct filter to PWO. Something like gaikoku no senshu. Considering how everyone misuses words like puroresu and joshi at least they get the usage of gaijin right.

My daughter was sick and I've been busy at work, so sorry for the delay... I finished off my Boss Man viewing with matches against Duggan, Hercules, Patera and Razor Ramon. Only the 1990 Royal Rumble match against Duggan was anything of note, though the first Hercules match was pretty decent for its length. The Duggan match was shocking good for a Duggan match, though it had its weaknesses. Now onto the comparison: When Matt first dropped the idea that Boss Man was better in the WWF than Dibiase my gut reaction was that Dibiase was the better pure worker and that the only way Boss Man could have been better was if he'd done more with less or put together generic match structures or some other backhanded compliment like that, but the more I watched the more I swayed in Boss Man's favour. I have quite a few caveats, however: * Neither man had a tremendously high number of good matches. That's good matches by my definition, which others have said is stricter than most people, but personally I don't consider "good for what it was" or "smart work" to be enough when judging matches. The fact there weren't a tremendous amount of good matches from either men isn't a surprise since it was the same conclusion I came to with Tito Santana and is indicative of WWF wrestling more than anything else. Overall, I thought both men were equal when it came to high-end matches, memorable angles and feuds, as well as promo ability. * Boss Man had the advantage of having strong heel and face runs. It's to his credit that he was an even better face than he was a heel, but Dibiase didn't have the opportunity to show off the same range of skills. * From my point of view, a good big man is more interesting than a good hand. That's just a personal bias. * Dibiase was always saddled with a body guard or manager. I got really sick of seeing the same spots with Virgil and Sherri. Boss Man had a bit of schtick with Slick during his initial heel run, but his original gimmick with the cuffs and nightstick was often so surprising in its brutality that Slick was quickly forgotten and of course as a face he went it alone. * Dibiase vs. Savage is *probably* a higher high point than anything Boss Man did. I say "probably" because I didn't want to revisit those Boss Man/Hogan matches, which did very little for me when I watched every single one of them during my recent Hogan phase. What swayed me in Boss Man's favour was the fact that despite the limitations of the WWF format, I thought he gave better performances than Dibiase. Early on in his run, I felt he tried harder to adapt to each match situation, whether it was against a jobber, a JTTS, a mid card worker, a tag match or his program against Hogan. You got the feeling that he tried to make each match unique or as memorable as possible given the various constraints. Dibiase was more about getting his gimmick over, which was okay but there was a lot of repeated pre-match mic work, stooging, bumping and selling and schtick. Boss Man tended to sell in a more realistic way than Dibiase, though again he had the advantage of working face, and there wasn't the same problems with the lack of a middle to his matches. Dibiase had the better execution and sometimes Boss Man looked a bit ungainly, but Boss Man wrestled "in character" better both as a heel and face. It helped that he was a big man with big man offence and the odd surprise move, but Dibiase didn't bust out his offence enough despite having a sweet moveset. On the other hand, slow Boss Man matches with too much selling tended to be worse than bad Dibiase matches with too much stooging, nevertheless I would still take Boss Man over Dibiase at this point for general output.

Jerry, I think you should concede the point that the WWF story lines were spread out over multiple cards and not stacked on one show to the next. Even their PPVs were not that well built to during this era. They tended to focus on 3 main story lines while continuing to push various gimmicks on the undercard. The houseshows weren't only about Hogan, however. When I watch WWF house shows I see workers who were over and matches where the audience aren't off in droves taking some kind of break. Loss has mentioned how protected both Boss Man and Dibiase have been on the yearbooks and they're not the only ones. I started watching wrestling post-Wrestlemania IV and there were numerous angles and gimmicks relayed to us via Superstars. The WWF was not special in this respect, their gimmicks simply tendered to be more colorful. I think I would argue presentation over depth.

I'm getting there. I will wrap up Boss Man tomorrow, watch a bit more Dibiase and formulate my opinions all before lunch.

The British Bulldogs vs. Harley Race & Jesse Barr, 12/12/85 The only reason I watched this was to see Harley Race work with Dynamite Kid and I wasn't disappointed. It struck me as a potentially good match-up and it was every bit as physical as I'd hoped. I dig the Bulldogs during this time frame. They're almost Steiners-esque in terms of the offence they bring. Of course, they blow shit off and their selling is crap, but there's a time and a place for everything and that includes appreciating some pure offence.

Big Boss Man/Virgil vs. The Beverly Brothers, 2/18/92 I guess it was an ongoing joke between Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes to not know what the grudge was between the workers on a WWF grudge match tape. This was a perfectly useless bit of WWF tag wrestling. Sometimes I wonder why I bother watching these matches when the front office cared so little about having good matches and sometimes I wonder why the workers didn't try harder to have a smart 8-9 min match. Big Boss Man/Virgil vs. Money Inc, 10/22/91 I believe this may be the original Money Inc match. Historians should note that Money Inc very nearly broke up at the outset, but that Dibiase's money was able to sooth everything over. This had a FIP segment with Virgil, but it was pretty weak. Big Boss Man vs. Shawn Michaels, 10/13/92 Big Boss Man vs. Skinner, 7/20/92 Big Boss Man vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, Royal Rumble '93 Big Boss Man vs. Kato, 12/3/91 Big Boss Man vs. Papa Shango, 9/22/92 Big Boss Man vs. The Warlord, 11/11/91 and 2/17/92 These at least show Boss Man trying to do something with the amount of time he was given, but a cool spot here and there doesn't make for a match. In a lot of cases, the matches exist simply to fill in time before Nailz is rolled out. I have a hard time holding it against the workers that they couldn't produce anything compelling in such rubbish circumstances, but the better guys like Michaels and Skinners at least tried. I can't really give points for any of that, though, so through no fault of his own these have to go down as disappointing matches for the Boss Man.

Maybe, but Phil's only reviewed four matches from the period we're talking about and only one of them was a PPV match.

Regal's work on the big shows was often disappointing. He was generally better at the TV tapings, but even then the reason the Larry Z match blew my socks off during the Smarkschoice Poll was because it was a legitimately great Regal match.

Ted Dibiase vs. The Ultimate Warrior, The Main Event 11/23/90 This was brought up as a positive for Dibiase during the 1990 Yearbook. It's a decent TV match that's overshadowed by an awesome run-in from "The Macho King" Randy Savage. I would have dearly loved for Savage to have actually leapt over all those WWF officials. That would've been the spot that I would always remember Randy Savage for. The biggest thing the match had going for it was that it actually had a middle. It's a good thing too because it didn't have much of a finish, which made me wonder whether it had a middle because Dibiase knew Virgil was going to take Warrior's finish and there was going to be a run-in. Whatever the reason, Ted's offence was a lot more focused here. Warrior did some sunset flip attempts and a suplex oddly enough. His best matches always seem to be the ones where he tries different moves. I guess it impresses people. You can't say Vince didn't try to get him over either. He went to town at the end with his description of Warrior holding the living embodiment of the WWF to his chest.

Harley Race vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, AJPW 1/20/78 It's difficult to know how good this was with over half missing, but the action that's shown is pretty solid. Nothing remarkable, but they seemed to keep things moving despite the demands of working 60 minutes. Looks like there was a fair amount of boring matwork too, but you can almost forgive them for it with a time limit draw.

Cheers, I will re-watch it after I've gone through the other Boss Man stuff. Does anybody know why these guys were booked against each other when Boss Man had turned face during the Dibiase/Roberts feud?

Big Boss Man vs. Koko B Ware, MSG 10/24/88 and Los Angeles 10/16/88 The MSG match was a neat big man/little match that I was just getting into when Boss Man won with his sidewalk slam. Instead of those couple of extra minutes that would've made it memorable, the time was devoted to Boss Man cuffing Koko to the ring rope and abusing him the nightstick. Didn't they do that finish at SummerSlam? The LA match can't recapture the magic and Boss Man/Koko becomes a lost cause. Big Boss Man vs. Sam Houston, Boston 7/9/88 and Philly 7/23/88 These are matches I would point to to show Boss Man as a worker. They're competitive squashes that had no real reason to be as good as they were other than the fact that Boss Man was new to the company (and didn't know better?) and was trying to get over. The best thing about Boss Man in the WWF is that he would continually bust out offence you hadn't seen from him before even well into his face run. So many of the other guys had their set in stone movesets, but Boss Man was always pulling out a surprise. I loved the finish to the Philly match where Boss Man catches Houston coming off the top rope and turns it into a powerslam. Unfortunately, I can't find a Dibiase/Houston match to compare.

It's his dad.

Big Boss Man vs. Jake Roberts, Tokyo 4/13/90 On one hand, this may be one of both men's career best matches in the WWF. On the other hand, I may be overrating it because it took place in a different setting. I was all ready to log on here and proclaim how matches like this prove that the WWF style inhibited workers from having great matches and this was a glimpse of what these two might have been capable of if they'd worked for Turner at the time, but thinking about it some more, the character work wasn't that great, it took place outside of WWF storylines and there wasn't the same high spots you get from a typical WWF narrative, so I'd like somebody else to take a look at it and tell me if it was any good. Demolition vs. The Twin Towers, Boston 6/3/89 This was the Boston return match after the Twin Towers nearly walked away with the tag belts the last time they were in town. They couldn't quite recapture the magic of the April match, but this was still a good match. Smash played FIP this time and it was perfectly decent. Garvin was the ref here as with all guest refs he made a pain in the ass of himself, but overall the Twin Towers/Demolition dynamic worked well again.

For those of you who don't speak Bret Hart, that means "if he'd wrestled me, he would've had a great match."