Dudley Eastbank

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

On the hard camera front - basically, on a four-sided ring, if you use one side of the ring for hard camera, then the opposite side is effectively the "backdrop"; if you think of it as watching a play in a theatre, then the side opposite hard camera is the curtain, the other two sides are stage left and stage right, hard cam is the audience. If you're working for television, you're working towards hard camera, and any rope-running spots will be executed from stage left to stage right. If you run the ropes, you're running from side-to-side on the viewers' TV screen. 

Aesthetically, that's far preferable, and more immediately psychologically appealing from a viewer's perspective than a six-sided ring forcing you to work diagonally across the ring.  And that's just one example - there's a lot of camerawork that is stymied by a six-sided ring.

I was taught to think of the ring as having an invisible Union Jack painted upon it - as a referee, I occupy the blue spaces, while the wrestlers work in the red. It's a logical layout that just doesn't lend itself as well to a six-sided ring, for workers or viewers. That may be because we're just so familiar with a four-sided ring, but I believe there are technical, aesthetic, and psychological reasons why four sides are better.

 

Again, I agree that it pales in comparison to good booking and good presentation. I'd support a wrestling company with an octagonal ring, or no ring at all, if they produced compelling television and characters and stories that I cared about. But I don't buy that it doesn't matter because it's "just" aesthetics - aesthetics can make or break a wrestling company.

Really interesting insight there. 

On 29 June 2017 at 3:04 PM, Dearsod said:

Superbrawl 1992 what a great event, JR and Jesse on commentary are fantastic. Rude Vs Steamboat and Pillman vs Liger were fantastic

Absolutely, it's a tremendous show.  The real forgotten classic on the show is the Windham & Rhodes vs Austin & Zbyszko match.  It's not a match you hear talked about much but I think it's brilliant.

Did he not go off to become a chef?  Looks like he's good at that.

The Junior-heavyweight weight limit has always been a curious thing.  205lbs is a big guy by most standards.  It's nearly 15 stone in old British currency.  I think of myself and I'm 6 foot 2 with a decent build.  I would look pretty big next to a fair number of guys on the main roster but I'd legitimately just about squeeze into the 205 squad.  Legitimately though, quite a lot of heavyweights past and present would be pretty close to meeting that limit too.  

I thought that although he was born in Memphis, he was brought up from toddler age by his adopted parents in Minnesota.  I'm sure I've seen matches of his from the 70s or early 80s where he's billed as from Minnesota too.  I've certainly heard announcers talking about him growing up in Minnesota, where his dad was a doctor.  I'm guessing it was when he became Crockett's top guy and moved there permanently that he started being announced as from Charlotte.  I've never known his true birth place acknowledged professionally.

No, neither do I.  It may be because a good bit of the wrestling I've seen in my life has been from really poor quality VHS, but standard definition is quite acceptable.

 

He was made to come back early according to an interview he did with PS. Spun it that he wasn't ready to come back but "his agent" had agreed with Vince that he was good to go.

I read that as well, which explains the suspension angle (which was great). For me the main issues with booking were leading up to and after Summerslam. The WWE even called an event "It's time" and he wasnt even on the card (unsure if he was injured at the time). Ive always felt that Sid got Vader's run with the title for what ever reason.

Bruce Prichard goes into this in some depth in the Vader edition of his podcast. Essentially, Shawn and Vader were originally going to wrestle three times. The SummerSlam match was going to be a bit screwy (which happened), a match at Survivor Series would have seen Vader win the title then Shawn would triumph over the monster in his hometown at the Royal Rumble. A mixture of things, some his fault, some less so, ended up costing Vader the run and Sid got the spot.

I have a vague memory from the time about this but I might be wrong. I think it was just a case of RAW being from Minnesota that week and Ventura being there for social reasons and agreeing to accompany Brock to the ring for his dark match because of Brock's Minnesota links. I don't think there was any plans beyond that, just 'he's here, let's do something'. I don't think Ventura appeared on camera at that Raw either.

I feel like I'm very much in the minority in not finding Conrad Thompson all that annoying. I quite like the guy actually.

Thought Schiavone's podcast this week on the first Clash of the Champions was the best thus far. Can't decide if its him getting into his stride a bit more, better material to work with (he seemed to remember much more), or a combination of both.

I think Schiavone's fondest memories are from the Crockett era, so that will definitely help. I've loved listening to him so far. I think it's a combination of the nostalgia of hearing that voice again, the stories he's telling and the fact he's genuinely very funny.

 

 

 

 

Looking to watch some more Arn Anderson stuff, is there anything on the network from when he was belting?

 

I'd go with Anderson and Larry Zbyszko vs Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes at Clash of the Champions 17 from November 91. Everyone is awesome in that match.

 

You fell for a trick question - you silly mark!

 

Arn Anderson was always belting. There is no "non belting period" to watch. Just type "Arn Anderson" into the search function and providing he's not in there with utter shit, it'll be a great match!

A very good point, silly mark I indeed am. Arn was always one of my favourites actually from when I first saw him, back on ITV in about 1990.

 

Not sure I should admit to this in fact, but I hoped as a child that I might one day have as awesomely hairy a chest as his!

Looking to watch some more Arn Anderson stuff, is there anything on the network from when he was belting?

I'd go with Anderson and Larry Zbyszko vs Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes at Clash of the Champions 17 from November 91. Everyone is awesome in that match.

Pre WrestleMania 18 or so, most Manias were like this. They were basically putting on the biggest show of the year with stars of the period and aiming to make these stars bigger by triumphing on that stage (in this case Bret, Owen and Shawn all came out with real momentum). In the 90s, 'legends' were never marketed as such a big deal. Generally they had their age emphasised like Jake Roberts or Bob Backlund and were never placed above current stars.

I'm very much out of the loop regarding TNA. Who is/was Chris Regal? Is/was he anything to do with TNA itself?

I watched Clash of the Champions 24 from August 1993 yesterday. It's remembered best for the show where The Shockmaster fell through a wall but the best thing on the show is Paul Orndorff. He was so good throughout 1993, having really excellent matches and generating awesome heel heat. His match with Ricky Steamboat on this show is a real under-the-radar gem, a really simple, basic match with a wonderful demonstration of how to do escalating near falls without going overboard.

 

I had also forgotten how bad The Equalizer was. His interactions with Road Warrior Hawk were just absolutely awful.

 

In Bret's book he says something about Taker being his last opponent in the WWF, what's he on about? Or have I missed something

You might be thinking of him referring to Taker as his last great match in WWF, either SummerSlam or One Night Only.

Certainty Undertaker would have been his last singles programme which went round house-shows etc. The Michaels match was a one-off. Perhaps that's what he meant.

It's amazing to think that Big Show is barely a year younger than Andre was when he died.

I seem to recall that both Andre and Big Show initially suffered from the same condition which caused continual growth of certain parts of the body throughout adulthood, including hands, feet and skull. This explains why Andre had such a unique look. I think this also was partly the cause of the back pain which robbed him of his mobility from the mid 80s onwards. I believe Big Show had an operation in the late 90s to correct this, which meant that other than the physical strain caused by being huge, his condition would not worsen as it did with Andre.

He had a really good match with Randy Savage on one of the Coliseum Videos too. I want to say it was either Greatest Hits or Mega Matches.

£6 to see the Michinoku Pro 6-man? Bargain!

 

Odd booking for All-Star though.

Anybody know the story behind how/why this happened.

I remember seeing photographs of this in PowerSlam at the time. It's funny that All-Star were ahead of the curve, getting these guys the year before either ECW or WWF.

Is there any footage from any of these matches around? It's the sort of thing someone might think to sneak a camcorder into.

Well, The strange thing is I'd not been following ROH for quite a while but after downloading a few of those shows I went to their website, registered and watched their TV show legit and feel like following their product again. It may have been dodgy but they might well end up making some money out of me over it all.

Marty Jannetty, Papa Shango and Typhoon, straight from a 1993 Raw episode.

 

Considering the life he's lived (or even disregarding it) Marty Jannetty looks amazingly good for his age (he's 56 I believe).

I watched Clash of the Champions 23 from June 1993 last night. WCW gets a lot of stick over 93, with the Cactus Jack amnesia angle and the midget and exploding boat video but in the ring it was a really good promotion.

 

This show was a good quick watch at around 90 mins and three of the five matches were really good, the other two weren't really bad either just short and inconsequential.

 

The highlight was the main event of Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs The Hollywood Blondes. This was Ric Flair's return after two years away. The fans were going mad for him and Ric's energy was just amazing. Pillman and Austin were brilliant too. Aside from some excellent wrestling, I especially enjoyed Austin's pot-bellied duck walk Arn Anderson impression. I'd say this match was Austin's career highlight pre Stone Cold. How Eric Bischoff could have watched his performance here and not seen potential is beyond me.

Haven't a clue how to do this Rumble that doesn't involve an hour and a half watching and the same amount writing,

Think of the hour and a half watching as a Christmas treat. It's brilliant.

Going back a few posts to wrestlers old before their time, Buzz Sawyer wins that easily. He was only in something like his early 20s when he did The Last Battle of Atlanta. He looked 50.

This is absolutely right. When I first saw WCW on ITV in late 89 or early 90, aged about 7, I distinctly remember thinking that Buzz as well as Ole and Arn Anderson were like wrestling grandads.

 

Oddly, Big Daddy actually looked quite like my grandad in the 80s but my grandad was in his mid 70s at the time whereas big Shirley would have been in his mid 50s. Or, to look at it another way, around the age Undertaker and Bill Goldberg are today.

I definitely agree that Slaughter was good and the more I've seen of him, the higher my opinion has become. My first exposure to him was in 91 though and at that time he looked old (older than he really was too) and had a fair tummy on him. He really didn't look right as a world champion. As it was presented though, he won it only because of Macho Man's interference and transitioned the belt to Hogan quite rapidly. Never was he presented as a truly deserving champion.

 

All that said, even at that time, I liked his wrestling. It was always a bit weird reading magazines and finding how poorly regarded he seemed to be at the time. The Warrior match is fine (Royal Rumble 91 remains one of my favourite shows to this day), the Hogan match from Mania is quite good I think and the tag match from SummerSlam is as good as a match with The Ultimate Warrior and The Iron Sheik in 1991 was ever likely to be. He always seemed to put in the effort and over-the-turnbuckle bump still looks awesome today as well.