Matt D

I suppose it's telling he's published books on his Obits and not a compilation of his star ratings.

My point stands that here, at least we can have a conversation about it. It may not be a pleasant conversation, nor is it one anyone wants to see between the two of us right now, but we can have it.

I know sometimes it's frustrating to people who are sick of hearing about it but it keeps coming up for a reason. When people venture elsewhere, almost anywhere, they see it. It's a huge disconnect to so many of the conversations we've had here over a span of years and it's the majority, the wide majority, and furthermore, if you try to explain things to them, they think you have to be kidding. One narrative of this place (and i joked that it was a WON watchdog group when I first really started posting here six or seven years ago) is that in the historiography of modern wrestling, execution of moves, bumping, and workrate in general have been overvalued to the detriment of character portrayal, selling, crowd manipulation, and a thousand little tricks. Basically "hard skills" instead of "soft skills." It keeps coming back to the forefront because that value skewing shows up again and again elsewhere. It's ingrained to the point that it's impossible to ignore if you talk about wrestling anywhere else (and even if you watch a lot of wrestling in 2017) since it's become so metatextual on some ways. Between turnaround, the change to the WWE house style, and the rise of social media, it's probably going to get worse, not better, and we'll still be talking about it in 7 more years.

To be fair, one difference is that it's leading to a couple of good matches, no?

You seem to be the outlier on Reigns/Cena. I won't be able to see it for a few days at least and really, given my time constraints right now, wasn't going to watch it at all given the feedback. Care to go into more detail? As someone who also enjoyed Reigns/Cena, I gotta tell you that I'm generally fan of the WWE "Big Match John" formula. As such, I really enjoyed the AJ Styles match at the start of the year. If you didn't enjoy that, this will probably not be for you. It's on the lower end of his big matches but I thought what was there worked really well. I enjoyed how it progressed and the spots they were able to get in and I thought it paced itself quite well. I seem to be in the minority so there you go. "Big Match John" feels like a different creature after the Owens feud (after the Bryan match?).

You seem to be the outlier on Reigns/Cena. I won't be able to see it for a few days at least and really, given my time constraints right now, wasn't going to watch it at all given the feedback. Care to go into more detail?

Second best news I had all day! Glad to hear it.

Even blonde, bloated, late WWF Bravo?

I'm still iffy on this. For instance, I'll do serious work at some point to prove that John Studd is hugely underrated as a stooging, heat-seeking heel due to the critical over emphasis on workrate and execution (two areas where he doesn't excel). That doesn't mean he's one of my favorites. It just means that I think he should be ranked as middle of the pack overall (and very good at certain elements) instead of one of the worst ever. This, on the other hand, seems more like personal favorites where you look past their flaws for various reasons. I could say Sandow because I watched him coming up in MA indies and was hugely entertained by him back in 2000 or so. I think more accurate would be 2010s Rey Bucanero, who I gained a personal connection for when I was watching a lot of 2006 CMLL to really figure out week to week lucha, and then later went back and watched a lot of the earlier GdI tags. He's obviously lost a step but I still enjoy it when he tries to go in a big singles match or when he's paired with interesting opponents. He's got a lot of personality in the ring without some of the failings of Ultimo Guerrero (Structurally, though he makes up for it in presence) or Mr. Niebla (TOO much clowning and too much booze). He worked up to Hechicero's level this year, for instance, but he's better as a role player in a trios match.

While, yes, I absolutely hope that he genuinely and earnestly improves his quality of life and overall health through this, I'm pretty certain he's going to find some way to monetize the entire thing and work a bunch of people instead. Wooooo?

On to Disc 2: Hogan vs Earthquake: Did you hear that crowd when Quake came out and they realized it was the main event. That's probably my single biggest takeaway on this taping, just how into everything this crowd was. It's so refreshing and earnest. Ah well. I liked this a lot. Great layout. It's funny that Hogan's not afraid to belabor his inability to get Quake down with one shot but Roma or the Rockers weren't. Perfect layout, really. It's interesting how active Jimmy Hart was here. This is his biggest angle in his entire WWF run and he well knew it. Dibiase vs Bossman: I know they had some other matches after the turn that probably made tape but I don't remember any. This started just like the Hogan match with a heel beat down ambush. I wonder just how many of these dark show matches started like that. Dibiase had a lot of interesting stuff when he was in control, little headbutts and elbows to the top of the skull and the fist drops, of course, and a killer clothesline, just a lot of varied and mean looking offense. He looked really good here all around. That post-match sure doesn't come off well in 2017 does it? Warrior/Tornado vs Rude/Hennig: Easily the most purely entertaining thing on the set so far. Warrior was such a nut. I love him in a tag setting because he's so unpredictable. Even his own partner doesn't know what he'd do for the most part. Pre-match, he seems to be giving Kerry the claw, for instance. He's the best guy on the apron because he just climbs the ropes and waves his arms around like a lunatic and he's the most believable guy in the world to come in and screw his own partner by distracting the ref. Total joy to see Rude and Hennig as a team. They worked together so well with Rude stooging and Hennig bumping to insane degrees. I don't love his WWF run for a lot of reasons but bumping for Kerry and Warrior is pretty much the ideal. Because this was more of a house show style match, he was going even more extreme. Against other opponents it wouldn't have worked but here, given the cartoony element, it was like a Saturday Morning Slam match or something. Best part of the match? I might have read too much of this, but I don't think I did. So at one point, Hennig's got a standing toehold on Kerry (he spun with it once to pull him back to his corner, but after that he just hung on to it). They'd just swarmed the leg during a Warrior ref distraction/cut off. So Heenan gives them a signal from the outside, Hennig reaches over and grabs Rude's hand, the ref starts to notice, Heenan yell's "BREAK!" and they heels let go before the ref sees it. That in itself would have all been great, but then Hennig shouts "I'M GOING TO BREAK HIS LEG!" to cover, to the ref, why Heenan shouted that. Is that the best thing or what?

YouTube exclusive jobber matches.

There's actually some stuff in here I didn't know: https://prowrestlingradio.com/bobby-heenan-interview-transcript-2003/

Demos vs Harts from 88 (not 90) is better than that.

I feel like he talked about that in one of his books and how odd it was that people weren't trying to kill him.

Well I know for sure Heenan never mocked Warrior in any way, nor took any part in a DVD that solely meant to shame someone for cash, nor attacked the guy in his own interviews: Are we saying that group bullying and public shaming is okay? Sounds to me like Heenan doesn't deserve the right to speak either. This is what happens when you start trying to take down people you don't agree with. Eventually, the arrow will turn to you and it will be your turn to get taken down. Free speech has consequences. Actions have consequences. The consequences of Warrior being unprofessional to Heenan lead to him being mocked. Heenan's consequence for the mocking was that Warrior had bad things to say about him even when no one else did. The consequence of you pulling this particular shit in the Bobby Heenan RIP thread of all places is that I am going into my settings and putting you on my ignore list and that I am suggesting every single other person on this board does the same (up by your name, then Manage Ignore Pref). So you've got the right to speak. I've got the right not to listen. So does everyone else.

I caught these last night so my memory may not be great. Rockers vs Powers of Pain: To me, this was the Jannetty show. He was exceptional here up and down. I loved his little attempt to cheapshot Warlord (he got caught but it made sense that he'd take any edge) and the powerbomb he ate was massive for 1990. Then he played just a great FIP, bouncing around for the PoP, especially with the biggest back body drops you'd see, selling big, fighting back valiantly and believably (including the biting). In general, this didn't have quite as much to it as the MSG match, but it was still very good. I could have done without the double clotheslines clearly knocking down the PoP in the shine. I liked the superkick and the trip spot and the assisted sunset flip, but save the clear knockdowns for the comeback with the size differential. If they had done that, it would have meant more later. The post match was fun just to see Hogan and the Rockers exist on the same plane. Colossal Connection vs Demolition: I was really looking forward to this and was hesitant to watch yesterday because of it. I figured I would because Heenan was out there though, with his shit eating grin and Andre's belt before the match. It was nice to have yet another Heenan-at-ringside match I hadn't seen before. I love the MSG match between these two teams and this had plenty of great stuff if you look at it as pieces and not the whole (because there seems to be a real limit on these Superstars taping dark matches). Even babyface Demos rarely did the blind switches to stooge the heels but here it made a lot of sense due to the size differential and Andre being on the outside (with the Twin Towers they had to do a lot more tags to keep control; here they could stooge Haku and let Andre react). Ax seemed to be really enjoying it. You can tell instantly the difference between him and Smash in the intensity of the clubbering, but I thought Smash did a great job of reacting to Andre. I love how 89-90 Andre could just get a hand in there and his opponent would go flying. He was the most vulnerable, most dangerous monster. Smash was excellent at getting that over. Ax's attempts at choking him to contain him worked well, especially with Andre taking over at the first opportunity; he was so big with such a reach that you had to do everything just to survive. The finish was fine. I'm not even sure if this was a title match or non-title and there was always a streak of wildness to Demolition. It let them make the crowd happy and pose with the belts after the fact and ensured that there'd be another match later. Savage vs Warrior: My initial temptation is to gush about Sherri again. She is one of the best ever of being constantly active, just a blur of motion, reacting to each and every thing, yet still being able to make it all about Savage. It's never about her. It's always about what Randy did or was about to do or what happened to him. The more she did, the more it was about him. That's hugely impressive. Obviously, a year after this, she'd be taking almost all the bumps for him too, given his injury. Here, though, this was a fully developed Warrior, the crowd electric for him, just a big, energetic, lug down to the no selling at the end. It was a hell of an act. I hadn't realize he was popping up from the elbow drop so early. Weirdly, the complete invincibility against the knee to the back was more jarring because that's much more of a cheapshot and an equalizer. They probably should have went home immediately after the elbow drop because what else was going to work at that point? Still, this was fun and was a very different dynamic than a year earlier or a year later.

Heenan suffered an injury a couple of a years ago (I think it's when he fell when he was in Vegas for Tenay's kid's wedding). Right around that time, some enterprising internet troll was basically spending months of his time portraying Heenan's wife believably on Twitter. This was all a long game to set up a plausibly believable Heenan account, which, I suppose, as such things go, was pretty clever and eventually fooled a lot of people in the business until it was debunked. One thing the fake account did was sort of send out a call for get well letters using the personal mailing address that was found elsewhere on the internet and that other people previously had success getting autographs with. I'm pretty certain that, if we're not counting wedding thank you notes back in 09, this is the only actual letter I've mailed to anyone in the entire world in the last ten years. I sent a one pager just telling him what he (and Monsoon) meant to my childhood, my nostalgia, and how listening to him shaped my sense of humor and even how I used his example in my professional life (and I'm a bureaucrat). I finished it talking about how I'd discovered his pairing with Bockwinkel and even how I had recently watched the unearthed Bockwinkel vs Morton match which was one of the very few where Heenan went to Houston with Bock. Once the account got debunked, I felt like quite the mark, but looking back now, the letter was never sent back RTS. I never received a response, but I didn't ask for one either. I'm fairly certain it reached it's destination. Even though I felt sort of foolish at the time, now I'm very glad I had the opportunity to send it.

Binge watching the minis tournament in 2020?

Been looking forward to that for a while.

Three more. Hillbilly Jim/King Duggan vs Andre the Giant/Haku: This is almost proof positive to what I said. Hillbilly Jim is pretty damn big and he plays along and Andre looks legendary. It's not like he's some great talent or anything, just a passable big man wrestler who had come off a debilitating injury, but he had that one important quality: he wasn't 1989 John Studd. I really dig the Colossal Connection (their match vs Demos later on is what i'm looking forward to the most on this whole set since I love their MSG match). Haku got to play a more stoogy/technical wrestler, the 'small guy' of the team. Here, he was great, hitting a mule kick as a transition and pulling pants down as a cut off. The spot where they slam Andre into Haku and he FALLS on him seemed new to me. I'm sure they did it before but I got a kick out of it. I don't know if Andre just felt better as the year went on or if he was happy to be teaming with Haku or what, but this worked so much better. Andre shouting repeatedly for Haku to kick Jim only to eat the boot himself was a perfectly fine finish.I liked Jim saluting both King Duggan and the flag to start and then handing Duggan his crown at the end after he forgot it on the way out. This was definitely fun. Brian Adams vs Barry Horowitz: This was actually a pretty good match. It was pretty obvious Horowitz was calling things but Adams looked good, mixed the power moves with playing to the crowd. Adams' look was terrible, absolutely terrible, and the fans want nothing to do with him until Barry starts the match by dodging two lock ups like a dick. The moment Adams blocks the third attempt and gets his hands on Horowitz, the fans are won over almost instantly. What I liked the most about this was how Horowitz was able to call a match where he didn't get steamrolled but where Adams got to get in a lot of his stuff, mainly through selling his own back every time he cut Adams off. Way better than the Owen match (and hey, there was even a gut wrench and Adams' tombstone). Earthquake Evans vs Paul Roma: The Adams tryout was a surprise. I didn't know it was on here. I knew the Quake one was and that he came out looking like Super Skinner and with Slick. It's pretty obvious Roma was calling part of this and how horrible a mistake that was. The first few minutes of this was TERRIBLE. Maybe, maybe Quake was trying to show that he could bump but there's no situation ever that he should be letting Roma reverse a whip on him and there's no reality in existence where Roma should be ARMDRAGGING him. Holy hell. Quake just wasn't there yet, almost botching the big catch off the cross body in a way that he wouldn't against a bigger guy like Bossman two years later. After that it settled down and got a lot better with some things, like Roma's dropkicks to finally get him down towards the end really quite good, but it's hard to look past the opening of the match (for one thing, why does it matter that Roma worked so hard to get him down when he was all but manhandling him at the start of the match). That Quake only won because Roma slipped on a banana peel was pretty goofy too.

Yeah, look, honestly? Even if he wins against Brock, they'll fuck it up later anyway.

We roll forward: Powers of Pain (with Tito) vs Demolition (with Fuji): So this was the PoP's first weekend in. They'd had a few house shows subbing for Strike Force before this. That's why Tito's there. He's a non-factor in the match. Look, you guys know me. I know you. You know I'm earnest and consistent to a fault. You went on the Owen journey with me in the last post. Come with me now. What Eadie did here was spot on. Look, I've seen every single Demolition match on tape. I know how much he gave in 87 and 88. He'd play sort of a mini-Hansen in a more cerebral way. He'd eat smaller guys up unless they worked their ass off to stop him. He was the panacea to the WWF's heel in peril formula. When it was earned. It made the matches better. It always served the match and it made the babyfaces be constantly on when it was their turn to be on. The ONE time he breaks this is AFTER this match. It's Summerslam when he wrestles the Hart Foundation and Bret takes the hot tag and he BEGS off. By doing so, all of that built up goodwill and credibility is bestowed upon newly babyface Bret and the Hart Foundation as a unit. Here though, he's outright stalling to begin. They get cleared out of the ring and then he stalls. When he finally does something it's a shoulder tackle and he spends the next minute walking around selling his shoulder. He didn't do this against any other opponent in the last year. You might not care but the fans in that crowd absolutely did. Babyfaces outfinessed them, double-teamed them, outquicked them, but they never met them halfway because it was never warranted (though OTHER things were, things that served the match more, no matter what roided up Dynamite Kid might have wanted). Look at how the fans reacted. They didn't go nuts for the Powers of Pain because they thought they were the Road Warriors. They went nuts for them because Eadie (and yes, later, Darsow taking that big boot) was stalling, stooging, selling, bumping, and begging off. Then they run, which they haven't done at any other point. The Powers are instantly over. Demos live to fight another day, which makes a lot of senses as the two teams wouldn't really be married again for months. They give the rub, then they delay the gratification (and yes, you can say that in Jake's voice if you want). This is the stuff that matters. It's everything. Andre vs Studd: This match was put on the set to give me credibility, I think. I like late era Andre a lot. I secretly think pre-86 Studd MAY be a secret great stooging heel. This was terrible. This was really really bad. Andre looked miserable. Studd could barely do anything. Andre hated working with Studd (maybe?). The key to late era Andre is his presence, is how much he could get out of every little movement, but in order to do so, he needed a smaller guy who would work with him and make it matter (even a larger than life guy could). 89 Studd was the worst possible guy for that. I don't even think it left the crowd happy. All we got was the possibility that Studd MIGHT have slammed Andre and a Heenan that ran away. Andre still gets points for being gleeful in his choking even despite it all. Savage vs Warrior: It's amazing how far Warrior came in a couple of years. This is the same card as Andre vs Studd and it's okay that in the midst of the taping including Megaman (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. ? - What the heck is Megaman? Oh! It's Magee. Ok. they got that because this match was pretty good and satisfying, actually. They also got Bossman vs Hogan in a cage, so there you go. Sherri was awesome on the outside trying to cut the crowd off from cheering from Warrior. Warrior was super over. This was paint by numbers but it was Savage after he got Sherri but before he became a cartoony King and Warrior during the period he didn't have the IC belt. Rude comes out to distract with the belt and Warrior is pure Warrior for that. First he ignores him in the most hilarious way. Just as if he can't see him at all. He's got this weird sense of justice in how he wrestles. Hogan'll eye rake you because he's a dick. Warrior will eyerake you to because you eyeraked him first. He's like a Steve Ditko character. This ended about as well as it could have. Savage gets some of his Mania heat back. Sherri's established as a presence. Rude gets more heat. Warrior looks like a monster and gets to pose with his belt after the fact. The fans are happy. Dusty vs Dibiase: This is the most historic thing on the set so far, the match where Dusty jobs to prove to the boys in the back that he'd do business, even after the last few years. Dusty's just electric here. He seemed so happy to be in front of this crowd. Dibiase feeds for him and he stands out once, right before the comeback when he shouts to the crowd to really drive home and set it up, but in general this was the Dusty show. From giving the money to the crowd to coming back and getting revenge at the end, he just had them. He got them chanting Dusty and whoofing along with him early. He seemed almost touched by how willing they were to chant, but then it's Dusty so who the hell knows. He was the king of illusion and his court was wherever there was a ring. Even WWF territory.

I think the fact that he's been so well protected hurts the argument to a degree. That's not crazy talk. It's history. Everyone post-Lesnar gets depushed at some point to remind them that the WWE is bigger than them, to remind the WWE UNIVERSE that the WWE is bigger than them, to see how they handle it, to see if they're resilient enough to get back over, etc. This is a pattern that's happened repeatedly over the last ten years with almost everyone who's been brought up. Any sort of interpersonal issue only exacerbates it (again, see Rusev and the social media stuff WWE hated out of Lana). At some point, history tells us that Braun will get depushed at least for a while. People who ignore the patterns on this stuff are willfully ignorant. There's always a chance that they'll buck the trend here, but it's a much smaller chance than them doing what they do every single time.