Matt D

Well this sure looks great.

I think everyone has raised good and valid points and backed then up well and I'm not going to disagree with them so much explain that it is more of a personal feeling. To the very last point, it's not about great matches to me. I know I stand out on that. It is about gauging how well someone understands the art of professional wrestling and then how well that person can execute that understanding. Contextual information matters especially as a tool to understand a wrestler's body of work. Subtextual information matters as well. We are criticizing art here after all. We have imperfect information, yes, but we do our best. I completely understand if someone feels differently or if someone feels the same but that it doesn't matter in this case. More later if people want it.

The Nick Bockwinkel Championship is way better than the John Cena Championship.

Wrestling is way closer to Jazz than Basketball.

Close listening to announcers is the wave of the future. Also a sign that we're picking apart almost everything there is to pick apart in wrestling.

And then there's the idea of being a road agent too. AND the idea of some guys promoting let's say one town in a territory.

I kind of want to do a close listen on Gorilla/Jesse, because you think, by their nature, they'd almost cancel each other out. It's Vince I find sort of embarrassing with Jesse, because when Ventura would point something out, Vince would squirm and go "Well, I don't know about that..."

I'm still wrapping my head around the idea of a booker as someone who actually "books talent," which I realize is a personal failing on my fault for not making that connection for so long. I always used to see a booker bringing in talent as cronyism and there's something to that, but mostly, it's the other way around. During the territory days, the talent that a booker could book through personal connections to supplement who the promoter might be able to book through professional connections was probably more important than the actual storylines he used.

It's more about what you can learn about him as a complete performer from watching his late era work than the late era work in and of itself. I need to see the 04 stuff with Lawler too.

He trained Murdoch and Ox Baker? And Eddie Sharkey, apparently, which creates a weird sort of family tree.

I'm tossing Bob Geigel's name out there just to hear what people think.

Satanico should get in as a wrestler, a trainer, and a guy in awesome satanic skits.

So you feel like Ross and Tony worked well with each other and didn't just get out of each other's way?

It's kind of striking that the WWE tribute to Verne is buried in the midst of about twelve Tough Enough entry videos.

I'm still with the people who think that Lana will reveal this to be a ruse after the I Quit match, but I think the ultimate direction for her is a sort of Ninotchka gimmick where a babyface shows her the wonders of America and despite herself she starts to give in. I just don't know what babyface they have that could possibly pull that off. Sami Zayn eventually. Or MAYBE Ambrose playing James Dean.

If the matches are still great I personally won't care. It's his body and it's his decision to do with it what he pleases. However, I too am high on inability to adapt, and if Bryan is delivering lesser work because of an unwillingness to adapt, for any reason, then that is definitely something that should be held against him. He had a terrible match with Barrett at Extreme Rules. I'd mark it a 0.* *This may be a joke.

Ross is really sort of terrible when it comes to his partners. The big difference between Tony and Jesse is that he can ignore Tony and he can't ignore Jesse nearly as easily. Jesse keeps him honest in a way Tony never could and keeps him from just babbling on about college football. On the other hand, when he ignores Jesse it becomes way more noticeable than when he ignores Tony (which I hadn't realized until I really made a close listen). Him ignoring Jesse takes away from the match. Him ignoring Tony just lets both of them do their thing. In Tony's case, the thing was color that let him shine, because he'd try to impose logic on the match. Sometimes he'd overreach but ultimately, it would be in a likable way. It's only painful when he mentions Ross by name and Ross just ignores him. At the Clash, during the main event, I don't think Ross was prepared for Jesse, so he had to engage him, realizing that he'd look bad otherwise. At SuperBrawl, he didn't open himself up to Jesse's lines as much so he could disregard him more. Ross was nothing if not an expert at preparation.

Verne was the actual trainer for guys like Iron Sheik, Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair. Inoki I'm less sure on because NJ Dojo had a lot of trainers, but he's credited as being the trainer of, for example, The Three Musketeers (Chono, Mutah, Hashimoto) as well as Tatsumi Fujinami. I get that (though as you listed in the other thread, he had Brad and Billy there training them a lot of the time too). It's that he's the exception not the rule when it came to training guys himself. You don't see Vince, Sr, or Don Owen doing that. Not even Bill Watts.

It's an iffy statistic because most promoters didn't train people themselves, no? Unless it's more general when it came to "developing talent and characters in their territory." At that point, I guess maybe it depends on how much credit you give to Jarrett/Lawler pairing for Hogan and the RnRs, etc (and even then only one gets in as a wrestler).

Verne is fresh on my mind for Norton painting him in a poor light on Cabana's podcast last week. That's sort of the last taste in my mouth, you know. I'm looking forward to the bio, however, and wish we had dozens more of those old matches. I think my favorite was the Don Leo Jonathan one just for the size difference and the way that Verne went at the challenge of the larger opponent.

Because he's working stupid when he's theoretically good enough not to. Understanding pro wrestling well enough to adapt is a thing for me.

Today's with Keller. Somewhere right after the 20 minute mark.

Austin, on his podcast, saying that Bryan was a moron for not working more like Jerry Lawler, basically, was pretty striking.

I'm actually severely holding Bryan's 2015 against him at this point.

I do sort of want to make a thread about the purpose of heels in WWE, historically and today. I think there may be something to what Parv says about heating a heal up solely to feed him to Cena, and then cycling him down, to build him up to be fed to another babyface the next year, etc. To be the exceptions to that rule are few and far between, the main one being Hunter. I just don't have time right now to really play with it.