The More You Know: John Laurinaitis

[Peoples_Champ]

Little known fact about our buddy Johnny Ace. Turns out David Meltzer gave him two (!) 5-star match awards and a match of the year award.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Laurinaitis#Championships_and_accomplishments

To put in context, John Laurinaitis has as many 5-star matches and match of the year awards, according to Meltzer, as Bret Hart.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

Video of the match here, http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/z0OnSLNW2JA/

 

[MrMojoRisin]

I hope you're not trying to suggest that Ace was as good a wrestler as Hart was?

Put this in a little context. Meltzer was a Misawa mark (24 of his 64 5 star matches have been Misawa matches). Misawa was in both those 5 star tags, which I think had a lot more to do with the match quality than anything Johnny Ace contributed.

Meltzer is also a mark for anything in Japan, and will always rate a match from Japan higher than one from North America. I'd even argue that him giving a North American match 5 stars is a bigger accomplishment, since he so rarely does in comparison.

Ace was a good hand. He worked well in tags, but he wasn't anything special on his own. He was also protected in APJW because he was Motoko Baba's boy during his time there... not coincidentally the time he had his greatest in ring success.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

lol the Laurinatis/Hart analogy was a little bit tounge-in-cheek, but the astonishing thing, for me anyways, was that Johnny Ace was actually a pretty good wrestler. Watching the above clip, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the match, he sold the moves pretty well.

For someone that considers himself a smark, I know very little about Japanese wrestling.

 

[GameOver]

That doesn't mean he's not boring as hell now lol
and that voice is Soooooooooooo irrritating., get a throat reconstruction or a lozenger for god sakes

 

[Steve001]

I feel compelled to mention, just how ironic it is that Johnny Ace failed his one and only WWF tryout match in 1998 and now he's in a position to hire and fire talent! (and has been since 2004).

Also, MrMojoRisin is 100% spot on.

 

[thesubverse]

Meltzer doesn't know a goddamn thing about anything in wrestling that draws fans, interest, or money.

 

[Minnesota Connection]

Reading this made me think to myself, do I really know who this guy is?

Not recognizing him or really being on a computer since August has pretty much made me blank to the subject. SO....

Already knew he was Johnny Ace, but I did not know his older brother was one of the Road Warriors... ALSO, I did not know, his nephew is a starting linebacker for the St. Louis Rams. While Rams football has sucked for a decade now, James Laurinaitis is actually a beast on the field.

 

[akrassikauda]

Johnny Ace was a solid worker and he's been in and around the business for a long time now. Has he made the right decisions as head of talent relations hell no neither did JR, but for the love of wrestling get him off of tv. Shelton Benjamin and Mike Adamle have more on screen charisma than this guy.

 

[DeathClutch]

Ironically his matches happened in Japan with 3 other guys, Brets matches were him and one other guy. I've never seen Johnny Ace wrestle to my knowledge so I can't pass judgement on the guy but judging by the fact he never had a solid singles run in either WCW/WWE i doubt he was in Bret's league in terms of wrestling.

 

[boozinjedi]

Reading this made me think to myself, do I really know who this guy is?

Not recognizing him or really being on a computer since August has pretty much made me blank to the subject. SO....

Already knew he was Johnny Ace, but I did not know his older brother was one of the Road Warriors... ALSO, I did not know, his nephew is a starting linebacker for the St. Louis Rams. While Rams football has sucked for a decade now, James Laurinaitis is actually a beast on the field.

I always knew he was brother to Animal,just wasn't sure who was the older one.
As for James..it really isn't that much of a secret about who he is,while at Ohio St. he did a photoshoot with his dad BOTH in L.O.D. get-up,needless to say his teammates razzed him on it,There was some actual talk during the NFL lockout on whther or not he'd hop in the ring if the lockout dragged out.
I think he still might consider it after his football days.