Ditch

Didn't stop Andy Kaufman...

He definitely can.

There was a Hogan & Bret Hart vs Fujinami & Maeda match in early '84. edit: AJ 2/28/84 had Bockwinkel, Steamboat & Super Destroyer 2 against Tenryu, Hara & Fuchi. I assume that wasn't taped.

http://www.100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/p...her/match90.htm 1. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (6-7) Tokyo 2. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera (3-9) Philadelphia 3. Dick Togo & Mens Teioh & Shiryu (Kaz Hayashi) & Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki vs. Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Tiger Mask & Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji (10-10) Tokyo 4. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (5-23) Sapporo 5. Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels 3-31 Anaheim 6. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 7-7 Daytona Beach 7. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin 11-17 New York 8. Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel (Kevin Nash) 4-28 Omaha 9. Ultimo Dragon vs. Shinjiro Otani (8-4) Tokyo 10. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis (12-13-95) Tokyo 11. Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind (9-22) Philadelphia 12. Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki (9-7) Tokyo 13. Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada (10-18) Tokyo 14. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon (11-24) Norfolk 15. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko (10-27) Las Vegas 16. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (9-5) Tokyo 17. Don Frye vs. Amoury Bitetti (5-17) Detroit 18. Antonio Inoki vs. Vader (1-4) Tokyo 19. Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda vs. Mariko Yoshida & Kaoru Ito (8-6) Hakata 20. Sabu vs Rob Van Dam (4-20) Philadelphia 21. Rey Misterio Jr. & Ultimo Dragon vs. Psicosis & Heavy Metal (6-1) Los Angeles

Wait, what?

Which links to:

This was their first match as a team. The night before Kawada beat Kikuchi in a singles match, which was his first after leaving Misawa's stable.

Angle was caught de-facto driving drunk. And let's not forget the circumstances behind TNA hiring him. Ian Rotten is a despicable human behind that nobody should give money to. Just how many steps removed is TNA when it comes to enabling/encouraging incredibly self-destructive behavior?

Not sure how I forgot about... Ikeda vs Otsuka, Battlarts 11/5. There's a good chance this is my favorite '90s Battlarts singles match. Good technique, plenty of bombs, plenty of brutality, 'big' feel, it should definitely be in.

That reminds me of something. I always got the sense like promotions had a harder time selling out Sumo Hall and Nippon Budokan in the '80s than they did in the '90s, despite having much better TV slots. Why?

I am not going to dispute the badness that was Power Warrior in the '94 G-1. Maybe you're right and he would have gotten over faster as himself.

-It was the GOAL to make Sasaki into a star; the fact that he wasn't actually a singles draw isn't something Animal would go into. -It did, in fact, significantly increase Sasaki's stature and make him stand out, so it wasn't a total bust!

Don't forget him beating babyface Austin clean- the first time that happened- just before Austin was going to headline Mania.

The context was wanting to get Sasaki over.

I guess it depends on what we're talking about. The general public is more aware of something called "Tiger Mask" than [insert legendary wrestler]. But in the context of pro wrestlers being 'over', which is what people are responding to here? That seems doubtful. I doubt huge numbers of the general public are in love with the Tiger Mask *wrestling gimmick*.

RW Animal on the Hellraisers (Hawk & Sasaki) team: "They needed singles wrestlers, and Jumbo Tsuruta just died..." There's so much wrong with that I don't know where to begin. Jumbo's career essentially ended within the year before then, but... yeah. Smart guy overall though.

The Vader gimmick was originally from a manga character.

Well Andre was what, 7'5", maybe more, so sure he was 700 pounds. That's why Hogan ripped and/or broke every muscle/bone in his torso doing the slam.

It just occurred to me: the thing that made WWF and WrestleMania so huge was linking it to pop culture. Granted, just referencing pop culture isn't the same, but when so much of the focus is on appealing to teens and young adults even just references can have mileage. Just look at the response to friggin' Bob Barker!

Two points: -Smarks are much more voiciferous about mildly bad stuff than mildly good stuff -Smarks will still usually watch whatever wrestling is on TV. See: the number of threads online where everyone agrees TNA is awful, and has been for years, and the same people keep returning to the thread to complain I'm sure there's a psychology lesson in there somewhere. For me, as soon as I got out of college and no longer had people to watch WWE with, my wrestling TV viewing fell off a cliff.

Didn't HHH mean that beating Taker would mean more than another title win?

The person that the public knows after Inoki is STAN HANSEN so this is all moot.

There has to be a Bix article or Pro Wrestling Mostly thread in this somehow...

To say nothing of... -Tiger Masks 2, 3 and 4 were never significant draws, and in fact both Misawa and Kanemoto were far more important shortly after unmasking. So, the Tiger Mask gimmick is famous, but not particularly 'over' -If we're only talking about Sayama, well, to say he's the 2nd most over Japanese wrestler would be silly

On DLJ: Keep in mind that the bigger the body, the faster it ages. I think he looked good in those AJ matches and that's well after the peak for someone his size. Apparently not:http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=54186