Jingus

Nah, that's just bumping and feeding, and doing so quickly. I've always associated "pinball" bumping with the Shawn Michaels style, where the guy acts like his body is made of flubber and he takes a bunch of big, showy, bouncy bumps. Like, how Rock always oversold for the Stunner, looking as if he were bumping on a trampoline.

I would suggest the Piper/Valentine dog collar match as an acceptably-distant second for Tully/Magnum, until I looked it up and found that it was a non-title match despite Greg being the US champ at the time. It wasn't.

Cornette described his tenure succinctly in one of his shoots: "Jim Crockett knew wasn't a real booker, he was a Maintenance Booker. He could keep the boat floating (provided it didn't have any holes in it) until someone came along to paddle." Yeah, why does that never get mentioned? The standard line on Herd is that he was a completely inexperienced outsider who had absolutely zero knowledge of wrestling, which is simply not factually true.

I wanted to say Misawa/Kawada, but then realized all the hate is on Kawada's side. Misawa was usually the stoic sportsman, rarely ever showing much emotion. Bret/Shawn is too easy, right? We can probably disqualify anything where the guys really hated each other. And of all damn things, you know what comes to mind? Tommy Dreamer and Brian Lee. Neither of those guys were exactly the greatest wrestlers nor most emotive performers in the world, but somehow you put them in the ring together and then suddenly the brutality goes off the charts. That felt less like the "wander through the crowd while grabbing wacky weapons from the fans" typical ECW crap and more like genuine bloodthirst. Along the same lines, the Rikishi/Val Venis minifeud from 2000 was way better and filled with more hatred than it had any right to be.

I voted Flair pretty easily. Bigger list of great matches: check. Better average quality of his day-to-day spot show matches with random opponents: check. Better carrier of total worthless jabronis: check. More versatile in terms of different stuff he was willing to do: check. Better at going to different places and (slightly) varying his style: check. More willing to stooge and look weak for his opponent: check. Better longterm draw: check. Better talker: CHECKASAURUS REX, and this is very important and hasn't been mentioned enough and the Bret supporters have absolutely no defense against it. I don't think any of that is really debated, so what's left for Bret here? Well, his offense looked like it hurt more. If you showed a random non-fan some matches from both and then asked which one you'd rather face in a barfight, I'd say more guys would think they could beat up Flair than Bret. But even that's debatable as a talking point, considering the whole NWA-touring-champ mindset and everything. Bret can sometimes be just as bad at Getting His Shit In as Flair ever is. Remember, the phrase Five Movez Of Doom~! was originally invented to disparage Bret Hart. He had his signature bumps, too; the inevitable sprint-chestfirst-into-the-turnbuckle-pad spot, and so on. It's funny that both of these guys complain about the other one being too repetitive, when it's a sin they both commit. And really, except for those rare "what worked in one match doesn't work in a later match" moments which he only seemed to do on big shows, what exact Storytelling did Bret really bring to the table? He basically had one story: "I keep using these same moves, because they usually make me win". He would only occasionally deviate from that, which is why those matches with Austin are so highly regarded: not only were they flawlessly executed, but Bret finally broke out of his damned formula and tried something different. The only variation in his typical matches seemed to be the size of his opponent; he'd work differently against Waltman than he would with Yoko, but that's more like standard competence as opposed to a real GOAT quality. And Flair simply had a better work ethic than Bret did. I never, ever, not one time thought that Flair just didn't give a shit and was phoning it in. He'd take the same bumps in a house show match from 2000-era WCW as he would in his PPV bouts. Bret sure as hell can't claim that, he's infamous for dogging it on the smaller shows. And more importantly, Bret just often looked like he didn't want to be there. He looked like he didn't care, no expression on his stone face, just going through the motions in a joyless and listless fashion. When Bret wasn't happy, he telegraphed that fact to the entire arena. Flair just sucked it up and went out and performed at the same high-energy level, regardless of whether he was facing Savage at Wrestlemania or Vampiro on Thunder.

Ditto. Pretty much the only time I ever watch wrestling anymore is in connection to a bunch of younger smarks at another board, educating them on some of the great older stuff and occasionally catching a current show for podcast/review purposes. But it's really nice to have the unfathomably gigantic archive of wrestling matches on Youtube, including plenty of old "Holy Grail" inaccessible footage. Any time I want to watch any random match, there's a good 50/50 chance that it's on that website somewhere.

Sid's only better in a MST3K train-wreck sort of fashion. Let's not denigrate Brody's promos, he was a perfectly good talker. Certainly he was better on the mike than in the ring.

I dunno if Bagwell has any fans left now. Some folks will still defend his old Marcus Alexander tag work, but once he became Buff The Stuff he produced go-away heat from most people. Dory was a hell of a lot better at selling than he was on offense. He was fine as a sympathetic babyface taking a beating and making short comebacks from underneath, but not so much when he had to be in control. I haven't seen much of his touring-champion work, so I can't really judge how he was at that.

The problem with Awesome was that he just didn't have any chemistry with most workers. He pretty much did the Awesome Show, and left it up to his opponent to either fit in with that or not. I remember he had a pretty lame match with Scorpio one time, which is something you'd think is practically impossible for any competent wrestler. When he was in there with the right guy, Awesome lived up to his name; when not, his matches could be excruciating. If I had to name an ECW guy, I'd say Tajiri. We all got so used to his consistent level of quality that we kinda tended to take him for granted. Even doing three-minute specials with shitty cruiserweights on Smackdown, he always delivered the goods.

AJPW simply didn't do that kind of thing. Don't be too reductive. That fucking terrible Bret Hart vs Tiger Mask II match was as close to Wigan-style counterwrestling as Misawa was ever gonna get. It just wasn't one of his strengths. Nobody's perfect. Misawa was not a great technical wrestler, he essentially left all that behind to build his own style.

...if I bitch about Gorilla'smarks stubbornness in those incidents where he actively disagrees with the referee's decision. then do I enter smark territory? (Note to the new guys: I used to be an announcer in a very small but legitimate company called USWO. I would have been a wrestler, if I hadn't been born with a mild case of cerebral palsy that made me way too clumsy to run any real spots. But my weird little career is a much longer story, and I'm all too human and can't avoid telling stories like the time Bobby Eaton forgot his own spot that he called;)

...what? The weird thing is, I actually spend more time talking about wrestling on here than I do watching wrestling. I turned on Raw last week for the first time in months. I enjoyed most of what I saw, I thought the Santa car angle was hilarious. But it didn't make me want to tune in nest week. Why the hell do I keep picking at this wrestling itch, when there should be nothing left to scratch?

... You just described the inside of my brain. Did anyone order a Jingus clone? Stan Brahkhage wrote the textbook for my most recent film class. Now I'm trying to think up some thesis to link the legendary 4-way elimination match in ECW where Douglas won the TV belt and how it could be compared to Reazione a catena. That's not even a joke, you could get some interesting (if very windy) symbolic points made with such a comparison.

Geez dude, that's an awful lot of self-deprecation. Relax, we're all just working stiffs, talking about tumblers who wear underwear outside and pretend to fight. No need for the "I respect the business!" or "I bow to your clearly superior knowledge!" self-flagellation. It brings back memories of Chris Coey's swarm of simpering fanboys, all afraid to offend the wise old master, which is never an atmosphere conducive to useful discourse.

Talking about the end of the streak either seems to devolve into fantasy booking, or a blanket statement that they shouldn't have tried the streak in the first place. As usual, Heenan takes the populist view on the subject which makes the most dollars and sense. Here's a question: exactly how over was Goldberg in late '98, the last couple months before his title loss? Is there any truth at all to Nash & Co.'s claims that Goldberg's merchandise was selling poorly or that TV viewers changed the channel when Goldberg appeared?

I remember some folks saying that Khali was fine because he played the role of a monster well. For a while there, there was a "he knows his place!" backlash against the usual smark outcry about how much Khali sucked. Maybe I'm conflating opinions on here with some on WKO or something like that, and if so, I'm sorry; I've posted on so many different boards for so long that my memory is little more than an outline of actual history. But yeah, I have totally seen guys defend Khali in a "he works with what he has, and you're not allowed to question the formula!" fashion.

Cesaro and Sandow are a couple of really neat additions to the WWE, cool old-school throwbacks. Aside from them: let's say Stan Hansen, Terry Funk, and Sakura Hirota. I hope I don't have to explain them... sadly probably except for Hirota, just cuz I find her hilarious and she's also way better at being an actual wrestler than most comedy workers ever have to be.

I've just never liked Abby, at all. A big fat bag of lard who poorly pretends to be "hardcore" by "stabbing" people in the forehead? Right in the exact spot where we all know wrestlers like to blade? C'mon. The fact that he's ridiculously selfish about doing jobs even by old-school standards certainly doesn't help. He never once exuded any sort of menace or intensity to me, he was just a dude who was obsessed with bleeding and making others bleed, and in a slow and pokey manner at that. Hell, in the past twenty years, he usually never even gets in the ring because he's physically inable to. When you can't even perform at the level of 1990-era Andre, that's fucking inexcusable and you should retire already.

Looking at my old VHS collection, I wonder: "why the hell do I have so many Best Of This Guy tapes and so few full shows?".

Since I used to be in-real-life friends with Chuck, that pretty much disqualifies me from having an unbiased opinion. But I myself do find most of his shtick to be hilarious.

I feel exactly the opposite. Brody, whatever his other faults, always felt to me like he did a good job of selling that he was in a fight rather than a cooperative performance. But Abby? From the first time I saw him until today, I never understood his supposed appeal. An obese man who pretends to poke you in the forehead with a tongue depressor? Seriously? Never jobbed, rarely sold, rarely bumped, and usually did a horrible job of attempting to blade inconspicuously. Every single second I watched him, I was well aware that I was seeing a guy in a consciously-crafted performance. Back in 2007 they sure did. That's absolutely true. I'm not a blind Brody mark; I just think some of the points in here are rather overstated. Dunno, they weren't on the tape. I eventually got bored and popped in an old IWA Ted Petty Tournament instead.

No and none at all. Why? Serious question, not trolling. In most artistic or performance media, the viewpoints of those inside the business tend to be put on a pedestal above those of the average fan. The biggest awards show in the world is the Oscars, which is entirely voted upon by movie industry insiders. Why's wrestling different?

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

Hell, forget his WWF run and look at the cringe-inducing bullshit he did in WCW. Duggan could go worst-for-worst with Brody in terms of not selling or bumping or making other guys generally look like shit. Remember the infamous Berlyn match, where at times an exasperated Wright actually resorts to shooting on Duggan in an attempt to get his shit in. Or the bizarrely uncooperative PPV match he had with Craig Pittman in 1995, which made Duggan look like the world's shittiest MMA fighter. His bad matches in that time period were worse than even the worst bullshit I've ever seen Brody do. Different topic: we've occasionally had the "wrestlers have different standards than fans" discussion on here recently. My question is, should wrestlers' opinions of other wrestlers hold some weight, and how much? Because a whole bunch of those guys listed have gone on the record as honestly believing that Brody was one of the greatest they've ever seen. This includes guys who wrestled Brody many times, too. What would you say those guys are seeing in Frank Goodish's performances that we're not?

I'm visiting my parents for the holidays, and for purposes of this discussion I dug out some old RFVideo compilation tapes. After a couple of hours of Brody matches, I feel more prepared to address some stuff here. Yeah, Brody didn't bump much. But considering how bad he was at it, did you really want him to do it more often? Brody seemed incapable of taking standard flat-back bumps. When he fell, it really looked like the guy had just fallen down. He sometimes did it more Flair-style, coming down on his side rather than his back. It's like, oh, like Kane's seeming inability to take a clean face-first bump. And for what it's worth, in a match against Kamala, Brody took way more bumps than his opponent did. Also: how can you guys claim with a straight face that Brody not bumping much is bad, and then turn around in the same post and praise Abdullah who bumps MUCH less? As for selling: that bleeds into an overall argument, which is that Brody simply tended to take too much of his matches and guzzle his opponents. (Although when Mark Henry or Great Khali do the same thing, it's been defended on this board as "playing their role" as a big scary monster. Why not the same for Bruiser?) That's very true, and it can be quite frustrating to watch him brush off the Tenryus of the world as if they didn't have a chance. When Brody felt like selling, which was admittedly only half the time, he did just fine. He did the sort of drunken-stumble-backwards stuff that guys like Sandman frequently do; it's not exactly Ricky Steamboating out to the cheap seats, but it's still selling and still gets the point across that the other guy must be knocking the shit out of him. Finally, and more importantly: where in the blue hell did this talking point about Brody's shitty-looking offense come from? Because I'm not seeing it, at all, not one bit. His punches look average, and his kicks look downright vicious at times. That windmilling-overhand-chop thing he does just needed to get somewhere within the general vicinity of the guy's head, it didn't need Tajiri-like accuracy to be plausible. And sometimes he does some surprisingly cool shit, like after backbreaking Terry Funk once he held onto him and just kept Funk there, suspended in mid-air like he was a small child. It's especially disingenuous considering the standards of the time. "Everything Brody did, Hansen did better" is true, but it's hardly a grievous insult to say that someone isn't as good as one of the greatest wrestlers in all world history. More importantly: Brody's offense looked like fucking Kawada's compared to many of the guys he regularly shared the ring with. Snuka's and Dory's strikes consistently looked worse than Brody's. And let's not forget friggin' Giant Baba, one of Brody's biggest feuds, who had offense so ludicrously awful-looking that it was often an active detriment to his matches. (And I like Baba, but it astounds me how many times I've seen people feebly try to claim that his strikes didn't look like cold diarrhea.)