Dean Rasmussen, Our Greatest Wrestling Writer, is Gone

Dean Rasmussen, a man whose wrestling writing was so perfect that literally any wrestling writer presently worth reading liberally stole from him, has passed. Without DEAN's passionate, insightful, real, hilarious, and bracing writing, I doubt that I would be writing about pro wrestling today. I discovered the Death Valley Driver Video Review while in college, when they released either the 2nd or 3rd 500. The DVDVR was my exposure to a deeper wrestling fandom, and it took my fandom to heights that have left my family and loved ones reeling in shame ever since. I've made too many sweet, patient, beautiful women in my life sit through pro wrestling matches in languages none of us spoke, and DVDVR is largely responsible for that deviance. 

I loved watching wrestling with my friends at school, but I was looking for something different from pro wrestling than they were. When I discovered the writing of DEAN, Phil, and Tom, it opened my eyes to the ways I had been trying to view wrestling but had been unable to express. My school friends didn't talk about punches, didn't talk about cool fat guys, didn't talk about the joy of seeing someone try to unsuccessfully shove away from a side headlock. The DVDVR Playboys did, and the more I read them, the more I knew I was home. These strangers watched wrestling the way I watched wrestling, and knew wrestling beyond what I had ever seen. Their opinions didn't always stick to canon, but the way they backed up those opinions showed that these men - if bullshit artists - knew exactly what they wanted from wrestling and could explain why they wanted it. Over the next decade, I would become friends with them, host loud radio shows with them, continue to enjoy their work, and be endlessly proud that they enjoyed mine. 

I'm never going to be as funny as Tom, and I'm never going to have the gifts of metaphor and memory like Phil, and I - surely none of us - will not ever be DEAN. Dean Rasmussen is the person who made me think that I could be good at writing about pro wrestling. Before reading his work, it was something that I had never even considered. I loved to write. I had a column in my high school newspaper (it was literally called Eric's World, a name that was not chosen by me), but outside of creative writing courses I had no kind of forum to do any actual writing that anyone would ever see. In college, on the internet, I found the community that would change my wrestling fandom forever and guarantee that it was not going to be just an unfortunate yet passing phase in my life. The passion and accessibility in DEAN's writing was so strong that it made me not just think I could write about wrestling, it made me want to write about wrestling. There was an easiness and everyman charm that was always present in his work, and he made it all look like so much fun. Too much fun. I've written about pro wrestling ever since I discovered DVDVR, ever since DEAN made me realize it was a thing that could be done. I became real friends with these people, which lead to Phil eventually asking me to be a part of Segunda Caida, and I haven't left this bed since. 

I'm a busy man. I am not independently wealthy. I don't know anyone who is. Every person I know has to work to fund the things they actually enjoy doing, because most of the people I know are not working the dream jobs we'd be working if we did not need money. I have a responsible career and write about wrestling as much as I can in my free time. I write about pro wrestling literally every day of my life, and that's a future I never expected. I read Dean Rasmussen's work in a college computer lab, talking about Dick Murdoch punching somebody in the face, and realized that a Million Billion stars was possible. But I wouldn't be writing about pro wrestling every day of my life if I didn't love doing so. I chase what I love. I am unafraid to fall in love. Because of Dean Rasmussen, I fell in love with writing about wrestling. 

DEAN mastered a longform craft effortlessly, but one of my favorite reviews of his was a succinct statement, on Akira Taue vs. Tommy Dreamer. To paraphrase: "This was the best Tommy Dreamer match and the worst Taue match." Let's watch that match, and remember the greatest. 

 

Akira Taue vs. Tommy Dreamer AJPW 1/19/95

ER: This was the month Tommy Dreamer spent in All Japan, which I bet was one of the greatest months of his life. Show me what a 20 minute Dreamer/Johnny Smith vs. Fantastics match looks like; tell me a man went to Kasugai with a camcorder to capture Dreamer/Stan Hansen vs. Abby/Kimala II. I don't know what other Dreamer All Japan footage exists, but TV cameras did capture Taue/Dreamer, and it is a weird/bad/cool match. It's a bizarre singles match that feels like something you'd only see if you were the kind of loser who would make ECW characters into Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 CAWs, and, heh, who among us could be that much of a loser.

Tommy Dreamer wears the exact same trunks as Taue and just what the fuck is he doing. Tommy Dreamer over here just bringing his emerald and silver raincoat on his winter months tour of Japan. I hope he works nothing but Baba spots in this match. 

Instead, Tommy Dreamer throws two ugly dropkicks. Taue sells one of them generously, and the other one appropriately. Tommy Dreamer throws the worst strike of the match after. It's bad enough to be the worst strike of a lot of people's matches. 

Tommy Dreamer is a stupid man and he is stupid enough to think he could hold Akira Taue in an abdominal stretch. Because of this miscalculation, Taue quickly throws him over and across his body, tosses him neck first onto the top rope, and proceeds to show how a man applies an abdominal stretch. Taue presses Dreamer's ear into his own thigh and looks like he is shouting directly down into his ear, like an older brother who is too old to be picking on his kid brother.  

Any time Tommy Dreamer leaves his feet it feels like he is looking directly into the eyes of God and mocking Him for His creations. His top rope splash might be the evidence we need to prove the absence of God. 

Akira Taue has one of the coolest powerslams ever, taking Dreamer up high and controlling the landing in a way that made him look strong in a way Dreamer couldn't have expected. Taue's standing lariat after only shows how easily Taue can shove Dreamer to the mat with one arm, and his chokeslam is literally the best chokeslam a man can throw. 

Dreamer looked worse than expected. Taue looked better than expected, and I always expect Taue to look great. DEAN was correct. Taue was slumming it. Taue had better things he could have been doing, just like I had better things I could have been doing, instead of catching up on Death Valley Driver issues in a computer lab during class. We don't know how we got here, and we don't know when we'll leave. We got the passing ships of Akira Taue and Tommy Dreamer, and some guy in Virginia wrote one sentence about it, and 25+ years later some other guy wrote about that guy writing about those ships. That's how this works.