From: hekunze@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Re: Redefining the business (was Re: Weekend Syndies WHIFF and WCW)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:52:47 GMT

In article <3569@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, prpst2+@pitt.edu (Paul R Perdeus) writes:
> In article <BrsqJn.C09@watdragon.waterloo.edu> hekunze@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze) writes:
> >  Read the above paragraph again.  The fans watching that match, or either
> >  of the Steiners vs. Gordy & Williams matches, haven't been educated to 
> >  respect those moves and this style of wrestling.  It wasn't boring at
> >  all IMO.  The crowd noise or lack thereof has only a minor impact on
> >  my feeling about a match - it can maybe add or detract a 1/4* from
> 
> How can you compare the match between Brad A. and Liger to the Steiners
> Vs. Gordy/Williams? It's like night and day.  The Steiner matches were
> brutal and very exciting.  The crowd went nuts for both of these matches
> if my memory serves me correctly.  

  There wasn't that much heat in the Steiners vs. Gordy & Williams match
  at Beach Blast.  One might argue that the crowd was burned out after
  Rude vs. Steamboat and Sting vs. Cactus Jack.  The crowd only popped
  when the Steiners got a few trademark moves in; the crowd has been
  conditioned to believe that these moves are awesome.  But, the actual
  mat wrestling segments of the match (i.e. the majority of the match) 
  got practically no heat.  The half and full Boston crabs and assorted
  leglocks that Gordy & Williams used would have built heat in Japan
  like crazy.  

  The Clash match had a better chance of drawing heat because it was
  an unexpected bonus match for the live crowd.  Again, though, the
  heat wasn't on the mat moves in the match.  There was heat again
  for the Steiners' moves, sure.  But the referee got more heat than
  Gordy's & Williams'  moves did.

  With Riger & Armstrong, their "patented" (meaning "heat-drawing in 
  North America") moves that don't involve leaping off the top rope
  are few.  There was less in heat for the match because of this and
  maybe because the crowd is substantially smaller in Centre Stage.
  
  Watts has a lot of work to do to get these mat wrestling moves 
  over.  The fans have to be (re-)educated on submission moves and
  such, too. 

> I can see why you don't let the crowd
> affect you, since you are so into japanese everything.  The crowds over
> there are IMO (and with no disrespect intended) strange.  They go nuts
> when nothing is happening and are dead silent when the big moves are
> going on.  (I do not mean to generalize so much, but the few japanese
> matches I have seen have been like this.  I do NOT claim to be an
> authority on this subject.) 

  True, sometimes.  The first time I saw a match where the "Fujiwara
  arm-bar" was applied, I was absolutely amazed at the crowd reaction.
  This move has one guy lying on his stomach on the mat while the other
  guy applies an arm-bar and lies across his opponent's shoulder with
  his torso to give him "leverage".  We see things that resemble this
  move in many matches here.  When the Fujiwara arm-bar was applied
  in this Japanese match (applied by Fujiwara himself, interestingly
  enough), the crowd went nuts.  I was watching this with Gary Will
  and we joked "oh no, he's got an arm-bar!"  (We caught the name
  from the announcers and I picked it up in other matches after that).
  His opponent sold the arm-bar like it was killing him and gave up.
  A submission from an arm-bar!  I still remember the announcer
  screaming "Give up!  Give up!" after the submission.  (Turns out
  Fujiwara worked with Akira Maeda in UWF II and was well-respected
  as a shooter.  These moves gor over in the shooting organizations
  and now can be applied with lots of crowd heat in the pro-style
  matches).  The crowd acts similarly to other "submission" moves
  that we would consider rest-holds over here.  So, sometimes while
  we think nothing is happening in the ring, they think they may
  see a submission.  It helps that most matches have no guaranteed
  winners.  Jumbo Tsuruta may rarely job, but for the most part
  anything is possible.

> I guess that's why you and I disagree on
> Hogan/Warrior types and their respective matches.  I think the Hogan vs.
> Warrior matches was one of the best of all time and it probably wouldn't
> make your top 500.  The reason I think that way is partly due to the
> excitement of the crowd.  They were so into it, it was incredible.  Oh
> well, to each his own I suppose.  Again, no flaming here, just putting
> my 2 cents in.  I'm sure we'll speak again Herb....   

  Heat can only take a match so far, IMO.  

  I'm not sure I would rank Hogan vs. Warrior in a "top n matches" list,
  where n can be an arbitrarily large integer.

                                                                Herb... 
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