Was wondering if you could plug our podcast this week - I managed to
land an interview with the editor of PWI magazine on the PWI 500. I
don't know how many of these he's done so far but a lot of ground was
covered in this one which went an hour and a half --
This week on the Nose Bleed Seats Podcast we feature a rare national
guest, the editor in chief of Pro Wrestling Illustrated Frank Krewda.
We discuss the PWI 500, its history, requirements, misconceptions,
possible #1 candidates, the infamous $50 bribe question, but also look
at how social media has influenced the business, who past the big
three promotions are #4-#10 in the country and much much more. Hosted
by the Mad Conservative and MOAV5706. Listen online or download to
your MP3 player or PC!
http://thenbs.podomatic.com/entry/2012-05-16T17_46_35-07_00
( homepage - http://centralillinoisprowrestling.com )
Sounds interesting!
"Miz... not a superb worker... theres probably hundreds of guys better than him. But sorry he's #1" Lol. Like he says, the PWI 500 list is not a insider list of the best wrestlers. Its a kayfabe magazine looking at pro wrestling as a sport. So they judge wins and losses and titles.
ReplyDeleteYou know, like WWE used to do.
The PWI 500 is such a wacky thing.
I think it is sort of outlived it's usefulness, as now we have the internet and people make their own lists and videos, etc. There is just so much stuff out there to look at, but in the early 1990s till the mid to late 1990s when there was very few collections of data like that, it was a pretty cool thing to get and debate among wrestling fans.
ReplyDeleteI just remember the one weird year when they went with Dean Malenko as #1. That seemed to be the first year they were really trying to appeal to the insider fans.
The almanac of facts was even better back in the day though, those just blew my mind. A place to find all PPV results ever, in one book, with match times? Get out of here.
The first almanac edition was so badass its the only one i still own...the calender in it wasn't the last year of wrestling highlights....it went all the way back to the 1800's and chronicled things that i never knew existed, like the origins of the first "world" title, Joe Stecher, Gotch, just amazing things. And almost every single notable event that happened in wrestling up to that point. If you can locate one, pay the price...it's worth it.
ReplyDeleteYup, I still have the first three myself. That first one was a huge eye-opener for a lot of fans, I think.
ReplyDeleteBack in my markish days, I kept a spreadsheet of all the wins and losses for WWF and WCW including houseshows during the mid/late 90s so I can confirm that it came to no surprise to see Malenko ranked #1 in 97 as he was the workhorse of the year and had the best overall win/loss record up until the summer of '97 (which is PWI 500 stopgap for the full year).
ReplyDeleteBut after Malenko lost the US title, I guess he pissed someone off because he went on quite a losing streak after.
I miss the old PWI, back when Eddie Ellner was there.
ReplyDeleteOh, and one thing about the PWI 500...they always showed a list of workers who had a different name than the previous year's list (or retired, or died...). Well, combining that with the fact they showed each worker's previous year's rank with the profile, they'd break kayfabe all the time, just real subtle. For instance, they basically admitted Kane was the Fake Diesel.
I still have the first one too, though it's falling apart. There's a pretty sweet article in the back about Mexican and Japanese wrestling. First time I ever heard of promotions like New Japan and CMLL.
ReplyDeleteAHHH...Eddie Ellner....I lived for the issues he put out of PWI that were totally heel magazines. It was the antithesis of PWI, every article praised the heels and bashed the faces. I wonder what happened to him? I remember in the magazine they just explained his being gone as they found his office and home empty one day and he was never heard from again. Anyone know the deal on that?
ReplyDeleteHe's a yoga instructor now. Seriously.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.layogamagazine.com/issue43/departments/eddie_ellner.htm
Also, Kostya Kennedy from Sports Illustrated was also a PWI writer around the same time.
Man, I miss the PWI days. Remember their "Interpromotional" hypothetical tournaments with "Dream Matches" between WWF & WCW guys? And how they'd pretend that they fed all this information into a computer that told them results, even showing them awesome graphics of the matches? TOTAL bullshit, but I thought it was fun nonsense.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great regret of mine that I NEVER picked these mags up- my friend collected them, and I just read them at his place. I'm sure they're fun to look back on- I'd actually see a lot of guys before they'd become famous, like Christian Cage & Sexton "Edge" Hardcastle.
I love it! haha. Sounds exactly like something I might do.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken, right around that time Bischoff promised Malenko that he would be in charge of booking the Cruiserweight division (ala Jushin Liger being in charge of booking the New Japan Junior Heavyweight division); Supposedly, when Malenko asked Bischoff when is he going to keep his word and let him (Dean) book it, Bischoff blew a gasket and said to him that Malenko and the like are all great workers but none of them put asses in seats. Apparently that's when Malenko's sudden burial began.
ReplyDeleteWCW was always great at boosting morale, as you can tell.
Right around that same time, Kevin Sullivan (the head booker, mind you) asked Chris Jericho "Why do you care so much about your match? No one else does. Just do a quick routine match and get it over with. Besides, this company's the Titanic heading towards the iceberg anyway."
Well, Sullivan was right about the last part, but what a piss-poor attitude to have when your job is to book talent to the best of their ability.