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Tell-tale signs that a guy is past his prime


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In football ("soccer"), you can usually tell when a player is getting on a bit because he loses a yard of pace and takes fewer risks. If he's a defender he'll rely on his positional play more. And in the worst case scenarios, for example this happened with Gary Neville last season, they get cruelly exposed when they can't keep up anymore. Footballers become generally less mobile after they are 30. You get the odd one or two like Ryan Giggs or Paolo Maldini who are still good in their late 30s, but this is rare.

 

Recently, a few people have mentioned that Money Inc. were two guys past their prime. Mike Rotunda was 35 in 1993, DiBiase was 39.

 

This thread is not about them, but they are my two case examples. Because here's the thing:

 

I can't really tell the difference between either of those two in 1993 compared with them 5 years earlier. I mean Rotunda in 88 seems exactly the same to me in 93, even more so with DiBiase - him in 88 and him in 93 are pretty much identical to my layman eyes. Both of them looked and worked exactly the same. Or am I wrong?

 

In football ("soccer"), 5 years is a very long time. 5 years ago Andrei Schevchenko was one of the best strikers in Europe, now you'd have to double check who he's playing for, or if he's even still playing at all. This is because he he 29/30 and suddenly just wasn't the same player anymore. But in wrestling, I don't see the same steep drop off when guys reach the other side of 30.

 

I'm watching the All Japan set and by the criteria laid out in the Money inc. example, Terry Funk and Harley Race were past their prime in 1982. I don't think I can tell that by watching them work. For me, Ric Flair didn't start showing signs of his age until he was 46 in 1995! And that is more because his body had started to LOOK old than anything he actually did in the ring.

 

So what are the tell-tale signs? What sort of things do people who are "past their prime" do to cut corners? These things are not obvious to me.

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Watch Rotunda work in 1989 in the Varsisty Club and watch him work in 1993. Two different beasts. I think Rotundo may have been injured in the early 90's, some back issues.

DiBiase probably peaked in the mid-80's, one can argue he was pas his prime already when he got to WWF.

 

Flair in 95 was way past his prime to me. I'd say at best late 1992 was the ending months of Flair's prime, I guess some would say it was over after 1989 (which may have been his peak).

 

It's not an issue of age really. You can be in your prime during a long time or a short time frame, depending of injuries, will to work, physical condition.

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I'd go even earlier for Flair and say dropping the belt to Sting at the Great American Bash was the end of the "Flair era", so to speak. He had a fruitful career after that, but he was never The Man again.

But was there anything actually in the ring that he did differently?

 

I should have said "prime" not "peak". Can you change the thread title to "prime" please Loss? I think it's a slightly different thing. Peak = high point of career, prime = athletic peak / ability to go in the ring.

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What else is there to say/ponder?

Well like I said in football -- and I'm sure in pretty much any "real" sport -- there are things that show a guys age. Even in snooker (US folks know snooker right? bit like pool only harder and bigger), there comes a point where hand-eye coordination is not what it was.

 

In wrestling, there are few signs that I can see beyond the way a guy LOOKS. I mean eventually they'll not be able to take bumps like they once could, but more often than not that's because of a specific injury. Hell I mean, Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 25 looked crisp and pretty darn good at the age of 56. On the Mid-South set, at the age of 45, Bill Watts can just about manage a few punches.

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I'm still not sure I understand what type of elaboration could be done based on this topic.

 

Wrestlers are past their prime when they stop working and looking the way they did in their prime.

 

You mentioned Flair. He could no longer do the turnbuckle flip or the bridge up from the side headlock/headscissors/flip over sequence. And for some reason, he cut out a lot of things that set up the figure four that weren't really difficult to execute, like the kneecrusher from the belly-to-back suplex position or laying his opponent's leg on the bottom rope and dropping his weight on it.

 

Wrestlers get older, they can do less than they once could. They're also judged more on output than skillset, for the most part. The great matches go away or become less frequent, the prime is over. I don't understand if you're (a) denying that takes place or (B) agreeing that it takes place but saying it doesn't really matter.

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Something about the Varsity Club energized Rotunda. Pre Varsity Club he is a capable but boring work guy. But once he became Captain Mike he developed a ton of personality and charisma. Then they changed the gimmick and it went away. Hell during the brief Varsity Club reunion in 99 he seemed like the old Mike Rotunda personality wise.

 

He was fine as IRS, especially during the period he teamed with Dibiase. But it was a long way from the Varsity Club.

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To me the sign that a worker is past his prime would be basically :

 

_not working regularly at the level he used to

 

_showing age and injuries by working slower, bumping less and scrapping classic moves that were always a big part of the repertoire

_not delivering the same quality of matches on a regular basis

_getting sloppy on occasion; getting lazy and working by the numbers matches where in his prime would have went the extra-mile

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This strikes me as an odd topic in 2011 when the last several years have been dominated by old men. Seriously if you look at the last few years I think the creme of the crop has largely been represented by old guys who have either a. adapted their styles or b. are multi-dimensional acts who don't have to rely on the same thing every match and thus can "shelve" things that physically they can no longer do. Physical prime is easy to identify. For example Rotundo - who in my view is one of the most boring wrestlers of all time by the way - was much pudgier as IRS than he was just a couple of years before. So obviously physically he was not in prime condition. Were his working years past his peak? I don't know because "peak" Rotundo is hard to identify.

 

As an anomaly who represents how strange wrestling is in a discussion like this look at Buddy Rose. Buddy never had a athlete's body type but there is no question he was a great worker. Most fans of Rose would probably identify his peak work as being 78-84, but the reality is when he showed up in the AWA in 86 he was just as good, pulling from the same bag of tricks. He still moved around with speed and grace, he still bumped huge, he still had great spots. Did he rely more on schtick? Possibly but my guess is it had more to do with what was being asked of him than the fact that he had put on some pounds. Peak Buddy was probably 78-86, not 78-84. But "prime" Buddy in the physical sense? Lord knows. In the athletic sense? Even there it is tough tell because of the elements of timing, schtick, et go into putting together great matches.

 

I think Black Terry was the best wrestler in the World in 2010. Dick Togo was the best guy in Japan. Rey was the best guy in the U.S. All of those guys are past their physical and athletic primes. All of those guys have changed how they work. All of those guys are - at least arguably - BETTER than they were when they were in better physical condition, younger, et.

 

Wrestling just doesn't work the way real sports do

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This strikes me as an odd topic in 2011 when the last several years have been dominated by old men. Seriously if you look at the last few years I think the creme of the crop has largely been represented by old guys who have either a. adapted their styles or b. are multi-dimensional acts who don't have to rely on the same thing every match and thus can "shelve" things that physically they can no longer do.

Who are you refering to ?

 

I hope I won't hear some "being past your prime is a dated opinion" stuff.

 

Physical prime is easy to identify. For example Rotundo - who in my view is one of the most boring wrestlers of all time by the way - was much pudgier as IRS than he was just a couple of years before. So obviously physically he was not in prime condition. Were his working years past his peak? I don't know because "peak" Rotundo is hard to identify.

It's pretty easy actually. 88-89, Varsity Club years. And man was he not boring then, he was fucking good.

 

Most boring wrestler of all time refers to a guy like Randy Orton and his endless series of clones.

 

Wrestling just doesn't work the way real sports do

I don't think it's what I said. Terry Gordy was in much better physical shape in the mid'90's than he was ever before. But, as a worker, he was shot. Ok, it's probably not the best exemple since his brain was litteraly shot then. Let's say for instance Dick Togo, whose prime as a worker was when he was fat. In the 00's Dick Togo was in much better shape physically, but he was past his prime as a worker. Bull Nakano's prime was during the fat years. By 1995, Bull had slimmed down, but she was past her prime.

So yeah, physical appearance has really nothing to do with it. Internal physical shape does though, as injuries have much to do usually with ending a guy's prime.

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Dylan, I thought was a good post. Obviously, you know I'm a guy who essentially acts like wrestling finished in 2003/4, so I kinda come from things out of sync with whatever is going on now.

 

I brought this up because both in the PG-13 thread and in the recent abortion of a thread I made (Money Inc. vs. Beer Money Inc.), various people, including off the top of my head people who rate DiBiase like goodhelmet, said that Money Inc were of no interest to them at all and they couldn't care less if they saw another match of theirs BECAUSE both guys were past their prime.

 

Like I said, I see no real difference between Ted then and Ted in '88, or even Ted in '85. But clearly there was something behind the comment, and clearly something Will and others are looking for there that I am not seeing.

 

Not just with the DiBiase example, with anyone really. What's the difference between Backlund in '83 and Backlund in '94? I'm not talking about example where a guy is CLEARLY semi-retired or old. Bockwinkel vs. Dory Funk Jr. at Slamboree '93 for example, where you've got two guys in the 50s. I'm talking about around the 38-45 mark.

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I wasn't responding to you specifically Jerome, but rather the question as a whole.

 

I have no clue what the "being past your prime is a dated opinion" snark comment was even in regard to. My point is that physical primes do not always coincide with wrestlers peaks. Nor do athletic primes. The issue here is that wrestlers use such a big set of tools that when they do lose a step in one sense they can adapt and change to utilize other tricks and sometimes there is no discernable drop in quality.

 

One of the guys I'm referring to in the first comment is Dick Togo. I love him. Probably one of my ten favorite wrestlers ever. I'm about to go through all the MinPro in the next few months so this may change, but right now I can't recall him ever having a run as impressive as he had last year. Last year he had three lengthy singles matches that were blow away great matches. All worked differently. None against an opponent that anyone would identify as being out of this World great. I love the best MPro six-man's and think he was great in them but I'm not sure I ever saw him as a transcendent as he was in those matches all of which were different in style and all of which were worked much differently than what MPro Dick was doing during his younger, more spry (and yes more fat), years.

 

Other "old men" that have been great in the last few years include Negro Navarro, Black Terry, Negro Casas, Rey (not super old, but physically much older than his age), Finlay, Regal, LA Park and several others. Not all of those guys could point to their most recent runs as their clear peaks. But all of them adapted, still put on great matches using their current tools and to the extent that they are "post-peak" it is mostly semantics as they were still really great. None of these guys is in their "prime" though or at least not in the sense that the term is most commonly used when referring to other sports. Which is really my point. Wrestling cannot be compared to soccer.

 

Oh and as boring as I find Orton at times I have NEVER found him as boring as I found babyface Rotundo or IRS Rotundo.

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Dylan, I thought was a good post. Obviously, you know I'm a guy who essentially acts like wrestling finished in 2003/4, so I kinda come from things out of sync with whatever is going on now.

 

I brought this up because both in the PG-13 thread and in the recent abortion of a thread I made (Money Inc. vs. Beer Money Inc.), various people, including off the top of my head people who rate DiBiase like goodhelmet, said that Money Inc were of no interest to them at all and they couldn't care less if they saw another match of theirs BECAUSE both guys were past their prime.

 

Like I said, I see no real difference between Ted then and Ted in '88, or even Ted in '85. But clearly there was something behind the comment, and clearly something Will and others are looking for there that I am not seeing.

 

Not just with the DiBiase example, with anyone really. What's the difference between Backlund in '83 and Backlund in '94? I'm not talking about example where a guy is CLEARLY semi-retired or old. Bockwinkel vs. Dory Funk Jr. at Slamboree '93 for example, where you've got two guys in the 50s. I'm talking about around the 38-45 mark.

I'll let Will handle the difference between Ted in 85 and Ted in 93 because he's a Dibiase guy and I'm not (not to say I don't like Ted, I'm just not the fan of him Will is).

 

The difference between Backlund in 83 and 94 however is pretty massive. Backlund wrestling as ace, clean cut babyface v. Backlund wrestling as underdog, undercard face and then as crazy old man heel...really there aren't that many similarities. Obviously some of the ring movements are the same and there are spots that are Backlund spots no matter what. But there are more differences than similarities to me.

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The difference between football and wrestling is that, in wrestling, athletic prime is one thing and "product of work" (?) prime would be another.

 

Flair's athletic prime was in the mid 1980s, rather than 1989, but he was working with Steamboat and Terry and that more than made up the difference.

 

Would anyone say Hansen was in his athletic prime in 1993?

 

On a week-by-week basis Jumbo's peak of production would be the Misawa feud (until his illness). It goes without saying he was a better athlete when he was younger.

 

Rey's athletic peak was, what, 1994? 1993-97 as a period. But... if someone wanted to say he was a better all-around worker during his WWE run I wouldn't necessarilly argue against them.

 

Hell, Misawa's athletic prime was in the mid-1980s. His knees were already bad by the time he worked with Jumbo.

 

etc/etc

 

Often, people's prime is a product of their environment and/or their position, character, whatever. 1993 All Japan was perfect for Hansen to have his comeback. And he was working with three of the best wrestlers of all time as they were hitting their stride. The Kobashi match in particular is just perfect casting for that time and place with what both did best. But was he a better individual wrestler years earlier in the sense of what and how much he could do on any given night? Probably.

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I think recent Rey is a great example of a guy who realized that he couldn't work as spectacular as he had in the past, so he adapted and started working smarter. He still does some impressive spots, but not nearly as quick and high as they were in his younger days. He's like Jordan after his first retirement. He couldn't dunk from the free-throw line anymore, but he developed a hell of a jumper.

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To me the sign that a worker is past his prime would be basically :

 

_not working regularly at the level he used to

 

_showing age and injuries by working slower, bumping less and scrapping classic moves that were always a big part of the repertoire

_not delivering the same quality of matches on a regular basis

_getting sloppy on occasion; getting lazy and working by the numbers matches where in his prime would have went the extra-mile

This.

 

I'm recalling the first time I saw the '83 Tag League match between Jumbo/Tenryu and Brody/Hansen. I was shocked at the distance Tenryu got on his back elbow.

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I think the topic framed by the athletic peak is bad for discussion and ultimately meaningless. Jerry Lawler is way past his prime yet is still having good matches at 60. Since wrestling is performance, it would probably be better to compare the wrestlers to other performers like dancers or singers.

 

As for Dibiase, in 1985, he was one of the best brawlers in the world. In 1993, he was stuck in a tag team that didn't brawl, didn't bleed, and was stuck in a boring tag team gimmick. He'll, would you even say that Money Inc. Was really evil? Or just annoying?

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Past your prime happens pretty much exactly when people stop believing that you can kick someone's ass in the ring. The moment as a fan where you think this guy looks too old to be in there, they are past their prime.

 

This will obviously happen at different ages for different men and women, as aging takes everyone differently. But there really is a fine line between grizzled veteran and old guy holding on too long.

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In football ("soccer"), you can usually tell when a player is getting on a bit because he loses a yard of pace and takes fewer risks. If he's a defender he'll rely on his positional play more. And in the worst case scenarios, for example this happened with Gary Neville last season, they get cruelly exposed when they can't keep up anymore.

Gary looked washed up earlier than this season. The pace was gone several years back, and that's when he started taking less risks busting down the right wing and played much more carefully. There was talent around him that covered for it. This year simply indicated that he was beyond washed up: he was unplayable.

 

Scholes is a better example of what you're talking about. He looked "great" early in the season in the deep holding spot, but it didn't take long for coaches to figure it out. They started press him more, give him less time on the ball to make his nice passes. In addition, since holding has defensive responsibilities and Paul never really was a strong defensive player who has only gotten slower, teams attacked into his area more. Overload on the centerbacks, a few too many times you'd see Paul trailing behind the play as he didn't have the speed to get back.

 

It was jarring to watch, as he looked *terrific* in the Charity Shield against the Blues. Sure, it's an "exhibition" on some level. But both the Blues and ManU wanted to make a statement against what looked to be (and ended up being) their top rival from the Premiership in the coming season. Chelsea let Paul have all sorts of time on the ball, and he was knocking the ball all of the pitch with some bautiful long passes. That stopped as the season went on.

 

Typical Sir Alex: he noticed Paul was slipping and that especially the defensive liability was a problem. Even when Scholes was back from injury, the amount of playing time he got was drastically reduced. Ironically it was reduced to the point that Giggsy took over part of the role that Scholes was going to fill this year, moving off the wing, playing deeper with Carrick centrally. The "favored" midfield late in the year was a pair out of Park/Valencia/Nani on the wings with Giggs and Carrick central and deeper. Park and Valencia were the pair favored against teams with wingbacks that were very offensively minded (Cole or an Alves type), while Nani would get starts against less attacking teams and rotating with the other two based on how congested the fixture list was (i.e. resting folks).

 

 

Footballers become generally less mobile after they are 30. You get the odd one or two like Ryan Giggs or Paolo Maldini who are still good in their late 30s, but this is rare.

Maldini was a player who really changed in the 00's, which helped hide the fact that he was clearly past his mid-90s prime. Milan often moved him into the left centerback position. When he played left wingback, he was far less adventurous going down the wing than he had been in the 90s... or like the insane athletic Cafu was over on Milan's right back role in the 00's.

 

Giggsy is comfortably past his peak, but has adjusted his game well. Watched a few 90s ManU games in the past few week, and am reminded just how insanely pacey (for the era) he was. He's obviously gotten smarter on the pitch over the years than he was in the 90s. I do wonder if teams will learn from how Barca just made him a moot player in Wembley, or if that simply is Barca and there's no other team that can quite make Giggsy disapear like that. Still, I don't expect him next year to play at the level he did in the second half of this season when he was quite inspired for much of it.

 

The most interesting example of "washed up" in recent years was Thierry Henry. Very much still quality contributor on Barca's 2009 treble team, completely washed up the next season at the a 32. It wasn't just an injury or not fitting in with Barca anymore: he fell so far that no major team wanted to take a flyer on him, and instead he ended up in the land of washed up Euro Stars a/k/a MLS.

 

John

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Henry is a great example yeah.

 

I think the lesson to draw from both Giggs and Maldini is that they both adapted their game. Maldini moved inside to become a (classy) centre-back and Giggs went from being a flying winger to an incredible playmaker who can come from deep, wide or in the centre. In some ways, Giggs in the past 2 years has been a better -- or at least a more intelligent -- player than he was in, say, 1993.

 

When Maldini played leftback late on though, he could still but in the miles. Watch the first half of the 2005 Champions League final against Liverpool when he actually scored. He was up and down that game. I don't think he could have done that 2 years later at 38 though.

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Henry is a great example yeah.

Despite playing for the Gunners, he as a favorite of mine since he plays forward in a way I like: lots of movement, and very giving to teammates rather than just a ball hog. I'm more a Roberto Baggio / Dennis Bergkamp fanboy than a Ronaldo / Ronaldo fan. :) So when Henry seemed to lose it in Barca, I thought it was an injury or the improvement of Pedro that was the cause. Instead, no one wanted him other than the MLS looking for a "name". Real strange. If it were the 80s, we'd say it was due to coke. :P

 

 

I think the lesson to draw from both Giggs and Maldini is that they both adapted their game. Maldini moved inside to become a (classy) centre-back and Giggs went from being a flying winger to an incredible playmaker who can come from deep, wide or in the centre. In some ways, Giggs in the past 2 years has been a better -- or at least a more intelligent -- player than he was in, say, 1993.

I'd say this is true for 2008/2009 and the second half of this season. In 2009/2010 there were times when it looked like he was hitting the wall, and then early in this season it looked like the wall had been hit. Then... it just clicked back in. Long injury to Valencia, that combo of Park going to the Asia Championship then getting hurt when coming back, and some of those typical Nani injuries seemed to inspire him to pick up his game. There was one game, I wish I could remember it, where he came in as a sub in the second half in a game where we were flat and seemed certain to lose. He had a near reckless attitude of "refuse to lose", was all over the damn place, turned the game around, and then looked to inspire everyone else to get off their arses and pick up their play. My dad called me later in the day and couldn't stop raving about him. :) And after that up to the final, Giggs was pretty damn strong.

 

I think if there's any negative now relative to the mid-90s is that he can't sustain it as long now as he use to: both in terms of a game where he now needs to pick his spots more, and in terms of a season where he (i) takes a lot of little knocks, (ii) takes a while to find his form, and (iii) will go out of form a little sooner than when young. That is just part of getting older. My guess is that his overall peak might have been, when healthy, in the early/middle of the 00's. He was smarter than in the 90s and better able to positionally move across the pitch than when he'd been just a pure left winger as kid. In turn, his health and conditioning were better than they are now. He was probably a bit ahead of the rest of the team in terms of where Sir Alex wanted it to go as he transitioned from the style of the 1999 team to that of the 2008 team. Becks, even at his peak, wouldn't have fit in well with the 2008 team because he was so positionally (and frankly defensively as well) limited. 2001-2003 Giggs would have fit perfectly in with Rooney/Tevaz/Ronaldo... we know this because 2007/2008 & 2008/2009 Giggsy fit in perfectly with them despite being half a decade older. :)

 

 

When Maldini played leftback late on though, he could still but in the miles. Watch the first half of the 2005 Champions League final against Liverpool when he actually scored. He was up and down that game. I don't think he could have done that 2 years later at 38 though.

I think part of the problem in 2005 is that he had issues sustaining those runs up and down like he had in the 90s. Cafu was pretty much Alves before Alves, and could do that damn near until his last season with Milan, and he was about as old as Maldini. I think Maldini the heart was there, but eventually it got to him. The goal in the CL Final was a minute in off a set piece and semi-flukey at that, not off run down the wing. :)

 

John

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