Jingus

Gypsy Joe. I don't know exactly when he last wrestled, but at least five years ago he was still at it. Nobody's sure exactly when Gypsy debuted or precisely how old he is (Joe himself either doesn't remember or kayfabes it), but the consensus is he's been working at least since the mid-50s at the latest.

And those magazine shows always suck! They hang around being redundant for a few years, drawing minuscule ratings, and are always cancelled. What's the point? Every fan who was hardcore enough to catch Jakked at midnight is someone who damn well certainly watched Raw and Smackdown already. Why bother spending more than half the show on recapping old crap that the C-shows' target audience has already seen?

Him being slowly pulled into the casket and clawing at the canvas in a futile attempt to stop it (once again, like a girl in a horror movie) at Rumble '98 was another awesome "oh shit, Taker's gonna kill me!" moment from Shawn. He's really good at those. In fact, those moments are so good that Taker unwisely tried to do one with HHH at the last Mania, with that part where he stepped on the sledgehammer just as Trips reached for it. Shawn would have sold that moment like a motherfucker. Hunter barely even tried to act like he cared at all.

In Savage/Steamboat it made sense; Steamboat usually won his matches with roll-ups, and it was the perfect climax to that amazing series of pins and reversals (which has sadly been ripped off by every junior since then, with infinitely less effect). But in general, especially nowadays, you're right. They're a cheap way to have someone win without actually putting anyone over. I remember getting absolutely enraged one time at an episode of Impact where literally every single pinfall was some form of roll-up, and it made everything feel so pointless. And from personal experience, I couldn't begin to count the number of times that a veteran was booked to lose to a young guy, and basically called the match to that it was almost a squash until he suddenly got rolled up at the end. Then they could say "Well, I put the kid over, didn't I?" despite having made the winner look like garbage. I wonder why Vince never just told Bret to come up with a non-submission finisher and establish it? Wouldn't have been hard, wouldn't have taken long. Kinda weird to be all the way into the 90s and still have a champion whose main event finish is a roll-up. Yeah. Worked like a charm for Umaga's first loss to Cena, setting them up for that epic Rumble rematch. Flair's title wins tended to involve non-finishers, too. Was there ever a less-protected hold than his figure-four leglock? He hardly ever beat anybody important with that move.

I think they just didn't recognize Sid's music, because they reacted to him in the ring a lot louder than they reacted to his theme hitting (not the same hero worship Vader got, but not embarrassing). Vader's music is much more instantly recognizable. And I wouldn't call him "skinny" at all, he's still pretty big, he just looked like he got off the gas. He only looks small compared to how ridiculously jacked-up he used to be.

Especially since those after-show dark matches are usually involving the biggest stars in the company. I've never understood why they didn't tape those for some purpose, even if the matches themselves were house-showy and not exactly filled with hard work. What if they took the production equipment with them to just one house show a week and basically did a Coliseum Home Video taping? As long as the matches don't contradict any current storylines, they could even stick a few of them in the can and wait a few weeks before airing them.

No, but you do and so you understand my meaning.

I've never understood why the WWE doesn't use old veterans like this more often. Obviously they wouldn't be stuck into the main events, but what's wrong with doing more like the Hacksaw Duggan/Super Crazy team from a few years back? Yeah, I know they're youth-obsessed and everything, but apparently not so youth-obsessed that they can't have fiftysomething Vader and Sid on Raw, or fortysomething Triple H in big matches on a regular basis. (For that matter, why does Ring of Honor never book more veterans? I think the only one they've got working there now is Corino. Those are some kids who could REALLY use some advice and constructive criticism from the vets.) Also, Sid's resemblance to Michael Rooker is getting more and uncanny with every year that goes by. Eudy: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Yeah. It's more and more common for the crowd to be dead for near-fall attempt nowadays, and why shouldn't they be? Even the six-year-olds in the audience know that the fight won't end until Voltron goes ahead and Forms Blazing Sword, because anything less never gets the job done.

It was mentioned, but it wasn't the primary focus of the buildup. They were focusing more on hijinx like when Shawn ambushed Taker from under a casket, or when Shawn did that goofy promo in the graveyard, that sort of thing. Actually, that Rumble match might have been the single greatest performance of Sid's life. Shawn was off that night, something was wrong with him. Don't know exactly what, but it was clear that he wasn't even trying half the shit that the ShowStoppa usually did on PPV. It was so obvious that he wasn't 100% that they actually made it part of the storyline, saying he had the flu or something. So we get the very strange visual of a rather lethargic Shawn Michaels being carried by a working-his-ass-off Sycho Sid, and it's just the weirdest thing ever.

You know what I mean. When did this match go from "one great AJPW main event... among many" to "THE great AJPW main event"? Why is it so strongly pimped above so many others, when it didn't generate that reaction back when it first happened? Who first started championing it as a GOAT, and where and when?

Are they cancelling Superstars or NXT? How many different C-shows can one company have?

It's not even really my favorite Misawa singles match, mostly cuz I like Kobashi more than Kawada. The part of 1/20/97 where an out-of-gas Kobashi is on his knees, trying and failing to throw these half-assed lariats that aren't even fazing Misawa, that bit haunts me more than anything that happened in 6/3/94. Although I like the definitive murder-death-kill finish of 94 better; I'm still not quite onboard with the "I will drop you on your head a hundred times, you'll always kick out, then I'll elbow you and pin you" weird AJPW psychology of finishers. Kinda reminds me of those ROH matches where they'll do a buncha big spots and stiff strikes and headdrops and then the finisher will be a freakin' roll-up. To steal a Cornette-ism, you're following a shooting with a stabbing. EDIT: and reading through the first couple pages, it seems like we never did get around to unearthing exactly how and when this one match became hailed the GOAT. DOUBLE EDIT: does anyone else occasionally look at that acronym "GOAT", suppress either a giggle or a sigh, and wish those initials spelled out something else? Best Of All Time wouldn't be any better either.

I never once said it was pointless, Will. Anyone who thought I did is inferring things I never posted, nor would have ever posted because that's not what I believe. Just because you'll never know the definitive answer to a question doesn't mean that the question shouldn't be asked. What, 6/3/94? Haven't seen it in forever. Probably need to catch it again sometime, probably immediately after rewatching 6/8/90 to put it in the proper historical perspective. (Though I've seen it claimed that the match's psychology reaches all the way back to Choshu's invasion; however, nobody ever specifies exactly how. If anyone has the info, please dish.) But I don't think it's the greatest match ever; hell, it's not even my favorite match involving these two wrestlers, I think 6/9/95 smokes it like a Jamaican.

I never said it was pointless to debate and discuss. Quite the opposite, it's hella fun to do that shit. Just also saying that there can never be any true conclusion or closure to the debate because of the nature of the subject. It's like trimming a bonsai tree: you can keep doing it forever, and it'll always be changing and never be truly complete, but that doesn't make the activity inherently worthless. It even kinda links into some existentialist philosophy; I'm woefully under-read in this department, but some of it can be boiled down to the paraphrase "if nothing that we do really matters, then the only thing that matters is what we choose to do".

The only part of Shawn's melodrama that bugs me is when he does the "man, I'm so exhausted" overselling too early in the match. Aside from that, none of his acting or facials ever bothered me. Maybe too many years at indy shows and working in student theater just ruined me when it comes to what I expect from an actor; as long as someone isn't Kristen-Stewart-in-Twilight horrifyingly bad, I typically don't mind. (Plus: I've got aspergers, and my ability to read emotions on a person's face is somewhat below average, which probably makes a big difference.) I actually liked the "I love you" line, found it to be fairly powerful in context while watching the match live. So clearly we're talking about rather massive differences in personal taste. As to him working light: I've seen tons of guys work lighter. Giant Baba, half the old WWWF roster, various others. Shawn's moves are fast and crisp enough (whenever he's not being slowed by having to bend his gimpy knees past a 45 degree angle, anyway), and that's really all I need in order to maintain a suspension of disbelief.

For those saying he was actively bad post-comeback: why? Aside from inevitably being a step or two slower than he was in his prime, what is dramatically different or worse with Shawn of 02-10 compared to Shawn of 94-97? (Aside from his awful inverted atomic drop, anyway; he could never bend his knees enough to properly do it, and even an HBK mark like me noticed that move always looked like shit.)

So bringing up a subject for discussion which has been discussed before (and doing so in a thread where no other discussion was happening anyway, since the previous page was all HBK talk which has now moved to its own thread) is bad, but calling someone a fucking moron is just fine? Gotcha. I'll never mention it again!

Classy! We filled up over a page talking about this, in less than three hours, on a board which rarely sees that much concentrated activity. So exactly how much discussion were we killing? The original point of this thread was left behind way back on page two. Then it turned into a Shawn Michaels discussion, but you yourself opened up a new thread to handle that. And then you started the name-calling. What exactly have I derailed here?

Which in itself leads to another plot hole, if we accept that guys are already turning before they even make contact: why the hell do most (non-double) missed dropkick spots end with the guy not turning and landing on his back?

Hey, personal insults! Haven't gotten that in a long while from you. And once again, a fundamentally childish response: in this case, putting your fingers in your ears and loudly demanding that you can't hear the person who is saying something that you dislike. But yeah, I'll can it, if only to stop your whining about it.

You are entirely missing every single point I'm trying to make. I'm talking about the inherent subjectivity of our own mental processes, which is thoroughly proven by neuroscience; and you're basically doing that 3-year-old thing where you keep asking "why?" in response to every answer, until the adult runs away screaming.

Horseshit. In this case, you're actively refusing the proof of "go and look for yourself, it's right there, ya lazy bastard".

That's a horrible example, because you can go there and observe for yourself and receive an indisputable answer. Not remotely the same thing as what we're talking about here. What we're arguing is more akin to proving that mustard tastes better than ketchup.

No, it's not bullshit at all. Can you prove an opinion right, either? How? Every single form of proof offered so far basically boils down to something which is still judged in a subjective manner, somewhere down the line. I can dislike or disagree with someone's opinions, sure. Often and strongly. But the very definition of "opinion" means "not a fact".