OK, just finished the first episode of the 1980s Wrestling Party. Joining me were Johnny Sorrow, Dave Mother Fucking Musgrave and JVK's BFF Chad. We burned through the first 7 matches of Disc 2 of the AWA. As we do future shows we plan on having a different panel each time. Still working out the kinks but I think the time flew by watching the matches with other wrestling fans. Give it a listen and feel free to join in on the next episode which i will announce shortly.

 

 

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...6382&cmd=tc

Pissed I missed this, but child's science project had to take precedence. Can't wait to give it a listen.

I planned to call in, but I have a nasty cold and lost my voice. I probably sound better with no voice, anyway.....

I felt bad for Will for having faith in his committee during the Adonis vs Hogan match. (Granted, on my draft list that comes in at 138 for me).

Hah, I had watched that match and voted no the first go around. I don't feel that bad

I do love that it really is sort of a Wrestling Podcast All Star Team

Its firmly at the bottom of my list as we speak.

 

This format does make the matches go by and with it being AWA (commentary sucks) the only real thing you miss is a little bit of ambience from the crowd. That riot at the end of the taped fist match is amazing.

Looking at my list, it might slip down a few spots, but just a few. I don't know how much thought I'm going to put into spot #142, you know? I kind of like Kent relative to a lot of the other guys on there. The one match on the set with the worst commentary is the Marshall overlay on the 83 Hogan/Bock match. My god.

The one match on the set with the worst commentary is the Marshall overlay on the 83 Hogan/Bock match. My god.

It is possibly the worst AWA commentated match ever.

The Mad Dog + Hogan joke was pretty great. That was probably my favorite exasperated Kent announced match so you guys missed out there. He went as nuts about the eye rake as you guys did. Also, the thing re: Tenta isn't necessarily that his stuff is different than we remember when we were younger but that we've all changed as watchers since then. We value different things as a community than we once did. That's just my theory.

Pissed I missed this, but child's science project had to take precedence. Can't wait to give it a listen.

Childs has a science project?

 

Looking forward to listening to this soon.

The one match on the set with the worst commentary is the Marshall overlay on the 83 Hogan/Bock match. My god.

It is possibly the worst AWA commentated match ever.

 

I reckon worst commentated match ever, period.

 

I think Hogan vs. Adonis might be my eventual 150. Really disliked that match.

 

Look forward to listening to this later.

It would be interesting for folks to see that match with the original commentary (IIRC Rod Trongard did it live) to see if it changed their opinion/ranking of the match itself. While I'm confident that the posters here are adept at fighting through bad commentary and properly reviewing a match, seeing that one with the live commentary would certainly add to the experience when viewing it.

"Come on hippy!"

 

Johnny gets no respect. Love but no respect.

Who was the dude that called East/West vs High Flyers? Screaming "I'm running out of wind!" at somebody off mic 20 minutes in was glorious.

You guys did not appreciate that Test of Strength nearly enough, though the Barnett reference was hilarious. Ok you guys are turning the corner on it, at least. Look at the DVDVR note. It's all we wanted to talk about.

I loved the test of strength with being able to see the muscles flexing and struggle.

 

EDIT: However, you can't deny prime joke opportunity for Johnny, Dave, and Will with what was going on.

I'll give you guys credit. It has got to be tough to not have dead air while watching the matches.

So has Chad followed up on the Jack Benny issue.

 

There are episodes on netflix streaming. They've aged pretty amazingly. I forced the 10 year old to watch them a few weeks ago.

Man I really want to hear this now.

 

Adonis v. Hogan is sort of the anti-Blackwell v. Hansen in that I liked it a lot more on first watch than when I rewatched the completed set (I also watched it REALLY early in the nominations process). It won't be last on my ballot, but it will probably be bottom ten

With all of the talk of a lack of consensus, I was amazed at the consensus we had with this batch of matches. Who is up for doing a show on Friday night?

Johnny fucking up the Color Commentary replay was great.

 

To be fair, my ratings when i went through back in July or whenever were

 

1. Ken Patera, Jesse Ventura & Bobby Heenan vs. Hulk Hogan & High Flyers (3/13/83)

2. Crusher Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Kaissey vs. Baron Von Raschke & Mad Dog Vachon (Taped Fist Match) (3/13/83)

3. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Rick Martel (3/13/83)

4. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan (4/24/83)

5. Ken Patera & Jesse Ventura vs. Hulk Hogan & Mad Dog Vachon (1/16/83)

6. Crusher Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Kaissey vs. Verne Gagne & Mad Dog Vachon (4/24/83)

7. Adrian Adonis vs. Hulk Hogan (10/17/82)

 

which give or take SOME shifting I'm not far off a lot of you guys. It makes sense to me that I pushed Martel a little higher and the Verne match a little lower.

 

So it might just be these matches.

The Martel match may require a rewatch. You are just coming down off the awesomeness of the two matches preceeding and the riot so it took some getting used to the technical wrestling going on.

 

Jack Benny I think is in the Milton Berle zone for me. Someone I have heard of but couldn't really tell you what he did (radio, TV host, movies?) and haven't seen anything he has done.

I'm listening to this now and it's good fun. I've laughed out loud 4 times already and I'm only 36 minutes in. Musgrave is very funny -- if Wrestling Culture didn't have Dylan on it talking about Ken Patera for 30-minutes at a time, would it just be Dave making one-liners? Ha ha.

 

My wife is away all weekend from tomorrow night, and even it's it's 3am here Friday, I don't sleep. If it's possible to Skype in, I'd be up for it.

 

Mental image of Johnny dressed as Ventura in tie-dyes from 82 is funny.

 

I also love Will's amazingly laid-back style.

 

Tentative start for Chad here, I think it's because he's used to getting 10-20 minutes to analyse matches and now he's having to do it on the fly with Musgrave making jokes about people in the crowd to contend with.

 

I am standing over a stove cooking a beef stew and looking forward to the rest. This sounds ridiculous but watching beef and onions cook while Will describes 30-year old matches in his Texan drawl feels therapeutic.

On the assumption that the match order is correct (and i never doubted it. Can we get Kevin to confirm?), it makes sense to me that the crowd would be sort of dead for the Martel match.

 

I'd be burnt out too.

 

To me, it was a great early use of the King of the Hill (in Bock was so flustered by Martel's barrage that he HAD to toss him out), the crazy test of strength of doom, and the ending was fun since Martel didn't seem to know how to put him away so Bock just held on til he made a mistake.

 

That said, Bockwinkel and Martel have 3 matches together that are better yet to come on the set, including my working #4, #5, and #16, while this one doesn't make my working top 50.

 

The Six Man is my working #24 and the (so-called) Taped Fist match is my working #41.

 

In case anyone cares.