Resident Evil

Batista and Taker was almost flawless. Where are the long stretches of crap? Michaels and Cena wasn't perfect but I can't find anything noticably wrong with Taker vs Batista.

A lot of that match was Michaels too. Nobody dances alone in wrestling so it's not a one man show. No match is ever a one man show and it's disrespectful to say that. In fact, a lot of what I liked about that match was due to Michaels as well as Cena. Cena was both good and bad in there. Taker vs Batista was awesome. The Taker is one of the better wrestlers going right now and Batista came ready to play.

Yeah, I remember when the rules of the net were that All Japan ruled everything and there never was a lucha libre or North American match that even came remotely close to that. Now thoughts have changed. We have people praising wrestlers with obvious weaknesses in their games and matches that wouldn't be thought of as great before. And I'm happy about this. I used to get a lot of heat for my wrestling opinions. But All Japan still rules. It's just great wrestling but it's okay if you don't like it as well. My best All Japan matches are different than somebody else's. Give me Kobashi vs Williams from 93 or 94 or Kobashi vs Hanson from 94 as a match with better storytelling, excitement and drama than the 6/95 tag or Misawa vs Kawada from 6/94. If I remember correctly, I have one of the Kawada vs Williams matches as being way better than the one that's mostly talked about. But people still get mad at opinions and that dissapoints me. I see people who are contrarian somewhat but yet won't open up to ever being wrong and are condecending to other posters. You would think that they would know better. Look at the Cena debate for example. I'm kind of going off here but I remember one well known IWC poster who used to have one viewpoint, looked down at others and was closet minded. Eventually, he opened up and even improved his personality dramatically. I wish more people could learn from him. Now Loss is a good example of a quality poster. More people should learn from him.

If you are with WP, I can already name one? What does that mean Tim? See Lawler being awesome does need explanation. I watch the matches and see nothing truly awesome, nothing that is truly special on an overall basis. That explanation of Lawler's work is just like me picking any wrestler and saying watch the matches and explain otherwise. Lawler's overall work just seems so fake to me. I just watched him against Bret the other week in yet another attempt to understand the appeal of Lawler and Lawler's body language came off as so contrived and overacted. It was like he was saying "This is fake and I'm in on the joke. You guys are losers for believing in this stuff". Supposedly, there are 2 groups of fans with Lawler. Ones that like him and the others who think like me.

Benoit and Eddie duking it out. Basserb throwing down punches on a downed opponent. That's how you brawl. Put effort into it. Make it look intimidating.

Off the top of my head, from that era: Jerry Lawler NOOOO, the guy never looked like he was putting any effort in his punches. A little repeated sideways punch from a non intimidating wrestler doesn't cut it as being a better brawler than Brody. Bill Dundee Have to see more but he's not nearly as intimidating brawling so no. Stan Hansen Yes Ted DiBiase No From that era, Andre was a better brawler. From this era, Benoit's a better brawler. Austin in some ways is but in some ways isn't.

You might be able to find 50 brawlers that you think smoke Brody but man, you can't find 50 wrestlers that give off a more believable and convincing aura that they can screw you up like Brody can. X and Y's brawling may look great but I don't think they're going to destroy me in the ring like Brody could.

JBL's hit and miss for people. Some people think he sucks and some really like him so I don't think it's fair to say Keith is holding a grudge. He just doesn't like his wrestling. Personally, I can see why people like and don't like JBL's wrestling. I would say he can be good and is certainly capable of being in a great match but he's also inconsistant and has visible weaknesses in the ring.

I always thought the atmosphere in the WWF hurt Vader as well. He was just more at home in the atmosphere of the WCW. wp -- has to put "the" in front of WCW now

You can't just say that punch was just the heel getting his final comeuppance. There are other results that come from it. Ranting here. Although I don't think that Michaels is the best heel ever and in some ways was a detriment to the business during his heel run I do think that for certain portions of the audience he was as good as you can get as a heel. He is my personal best heel ever. In saying this, I don't think that for me (definitely not for me) and those portions of the audience that they really enjoyed seeing Tyson destroy Michaels. Like in the sense of, "Yeah, Michaels finally got what was coming to him. Thank you so much Tyson." The idea of people who hate each other in one world but will team up if forced to so they can defend against an outside force is a well documented one. It's because of the attachment that grows between them. The same concept of thinking applies here. Even with the fans who despise Michaels -- their is still an attachment there. There is respect and that underlying feeling of positive emotion for him especially if the viewer has seen him throughout the years. He is part of their world. Outsiders are not welcome and that's what Tyson is. And than we have all the people who were fans of Michaels as well. I don't see how on any level this is the good feeling of the heel getting his final comeuppance which I guess what was supposed to happen(maybe Vince just hates wrestling sometimes)????. I mostly only see a sinking feeling in people's stomachs when they see this. Bad business as well compared to what could've been. I'm ranting.

I don't think most wrestling fans really give a second thought to how wrestlers are perceived as legitimate combatants. If it were really a factor, we'd see a big spike in heavyweight boxing and drop in WWE after Wrestlemania XIV. Obviously that did not happen, as WWE enjoyed their greatest business boom following that show. Wrestling has a long history of involving other athletes/celebrities on their shows. Muhammad Ali, Andy Kaufmann, "Refrigerator" Perry, Lawrence Taylor, etc. It does not hurt business because wrestling fans largely know it is staged entertainment. (The difference between "smart" and casual fans is that the casual fans is unaware of the hows and whys of working a match). Boxing would not see a surge from wrestling fas because it doesn't have that excitement factor for a lot of people. Wrestling fans are fans for a reason. They have already chosen wrestling (or maybe they like both) They like what they see and they're not going to abandon it. As you say, most fans know not everything's on the level but they're still there. Everyone knows about boxing already and have probably watched it at least once in their lives. If they didn't choose boxing than -- they're not going to choose boxing now even if boxing's champ embarases their world champ. Reality or not, it hurts when you see someone come from an outside world and destroy someone in your world. Even in complete fiction. What would happen if Vegeta or Samurai Jack for example got annihilated by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? etc.... Back to reality again -- what would happen if Wayne Gretzky got his butt handed to him in hockey by Larry Bird? Not the exact same situation but I think I'm getting my point across here. Your world takes a beating and it's harder to get behind that world if that happens. Now let's say for example instead of Michaels going down to Tyson, Michaels eliminated him (or we could have Austin eliminate him which I think would've been great) by taking him out in a staged skirmish or whatever. Even if your world is not 100% real, that is going to make you feel good about your watching. The charactors in your world are now stronger, more believable and easy to get behind. So yes, I would say over the long run that Lawrence Taylor, Chuck Norrus and Tyson hurt business IN COMPARISON to what could've happened/been achieved with business if they helped make the wrestling business look stronger.

Because people always thought back than that wrestling was so fake and any boxer can annihilate a wrestler in a real fight. Wrestling just furthers that perception here by having their champion last seconds with boxing's biggest name on their biggest PPV of the year. That's certainly going to make all the wrestling fans happy. That's certainly going to help wrestling in the public eye. The WWF themselves is telling us to go watch boxing instead because we are a complete joke. They don't even try to make one of their top stars credible. It's a slap in the face to all the fans out there.

This is the one time where I really liked what Michaels did even if it wasn't professional. Tyson (and I know it's not his fault here) KOing Michaels was just embarassing and a detriment to wrestling.

Just so you know, Savage vs Crush was cut short. It was supposed to go longer.

Nash is injury prone. I don't think the guys too flexible and I believe he even had multiple problems (perhaps several surgeries) with his knees before he even got into wrestling.

Benoit was hurt some already but he apparantly got hurt bad during TLC III when he took the bump on the table though I don't think he felt it to after the match was over. That's all it takes. Just 1 bad movement. 1 wrong moment. Stuff happens. One day a bump won't bother you in the least. The next day you take the exact same bump and you find your career over. Lyger's seemingly been lucky with his neck but even in saying that do we really know how hurt he actually is?

I don't recall buy this one. Kobashi isn't especially flexible, and never really was. I had the pleasure of watching Benoit run laps around a Japanese arena in 1995 hours before a card, and his flexibility was terrible relative to what it had been because he was juiced so out of his mind. Mini-Hawk was the comment that the person I was sitting next to made, and he'd been watching Benoit's career longer than just about anyone. Shawn was more flexible than Hawk. Shawn went on the shelve, and Hawk never really did until he dropped dead. Animal has a similar "neck strength" to Hawk, and probably was the more flexible of the two (Hawk was really overly stiff in movement). Animal is the one that went on the shelf for years with the back. Benoit went on the shelf with the neck. Edge went on the shelf with the neck. Angle went on the shelf with the neck. Liger hasn't. Why? You've got a variety of body sizes and types there, along with differences in flexibility. Throw in Arn and Malenko as well. Liger's been maimed a lot in his career, but it's hard to figure out why the neck hasn't gone. More than that, it's not like many Japanese wrestlers have gone out to the neck surgeries that we have here in the US. Even among guys working a more impact style, and not exactly being very flexible. John Well obviously, some people are going to get lucky and others aren't. That's just the way the ball game works. Benoit was always very flexible though roids or no roids. He still is to this day which is pretty amazing. Oh yeah, why was it a pleasure to see Benoit do laps around the building? I'm curious on that. In Kobashi's case he is more flexible than your average big name wrestler. And he's got a super human neck that is not stiff. Even the sides of the neck(which almost nobody works on) are extremely strong. But in flexibility's defence we can look at the cases of Manami Toyota and RVD. I take Benoit as a good example too because he went through a lot as well. Toyota should be crippled beyond belief. She was working the crazy AJW schedule and wrestling a style that would've put others in a wheelchair. However, she isn't. She is also the most flexible wrestler that I've ever seen. You get injured more when you're not flexible. That includes people who aren't wrestlers as well. It's just the way it is all other factors being equal. The Japanese train their trainees that way for flexibility and I think that's a big reason why they get away with doing what they do. Can we really say for example that John Cena could take the damage that Misawa did if he was on a similar schedule? Could Mick Foley as insane as he was takes Misawa's head bumps? No, I don't think so and the reason is that they're not as flexible. But in saying all this, one other thing we have to consider is that the body can adapt. I believe this is very signifigant when we're talking this stuff and it's something we've forgotten to talk about so far.

I've said this before. The Japanese wrestlers are flexible. Flexibility is a factor in being able to take punishment. Even look at Benoit who had surgery but lasted longer than he should've before going for surgery. That neck was both strong and flexible.

I remember there being a large difference between the 2 Garvin vs Henning matches with one being good and the other near -- pardon the pun -- perfection. I think it was the Coliseum match as it was just so beautifully worked and the type of match I haven't seen in a long time. The type of match I really miss. One of the best matches on the set there.

I assume the original question is not talking about business so much as it is personal taste? For me, my worst wrestling promotion in history is the WWF Attitude era in the late 90s. By far, and it's not even close. I hated that era. In every single way possible. I could write an essay about this but I hate it so much I can't stand wasting that much time on it. WWF Attitude Get it?