Mad Dog

Don't get me wrong. Mutoh sucked hard after that reign until he shaved his head. I just have a certain fondness for that reign for whatever reason. Speaking of Flair, I loved the Mutoh/Flair G-1 Climax match.

I personally liked Mutoh's 95 run the most with the IWGP belt.

I think it's ironic that in this particular argument, Cena is being regarded as a bad worker and HHH is being regarded as a good worker. I tend to think that Cena is a good worker and HHH is a mediocre worker. I mean, how many good to great matches with a huge variety of workers does Cena need to have before he gets a little tiny bit of credit.

I only disliked the Spear as a finisher because I felt the Downward Spiral and Implant DDT were better finishers that he could've used.

I like Edge quite a bit. He's just not a Hall of Fame guy. There are guys like Sting that aren't in that have more historical significance than Edge ever will.

50% at least. Those events were weeks apart and Punk was severely in the doghouse for that. I reread and I might have been wrong about him getting fired. He did get taken off tv after that which is probably why I thought he got fired.

Hart antagonized him outside of I think it's called the Whitetrash Cafe and Punk attacked him. Sabu broke it up. Hart was fired immediately and Punk was essentially depushed and gone in a week or two. Now, there's a lot of conflicting info because Hart people and Punk people have been spinning from day 1. But that's about the most neutral version.

It was a very public brawl and TNA was trying to maintain a good reputation in the community at the time.

Hogan really had a great decade when you think about it. He had the matches with Bockwinkel in the AWA. 1986 was a really strong year as he had the Orndorff feud and there was a really great series of matches with Randy Savage. He also had a good match with King Kong Bundy, a good series with an over the hill Harley Race, Don Muraco, Bob Orton Jr., the Twin Towers and he finished the decade off with the WM5 match with Randy Savage. For a guy that gets shit on for being a bad wrestler, he really had a good run in 1986 and he really put on a lot of good matches throughout the decade.

His dog collar match with Greg Valentine was pretty good. I think the problem with a case for Piper is he was a fairly limited worker and he wasn't as smart at building matches as Hogan was. I don't think he was particularly good at selling for a heel, he was a good promo and he was in some good matches but those matches never seemed to live up to the actual matches. I've seen some of his Hogan matches and Hogan was clearly the better worker in their matches. I like Piper, I just think there are literally dozens upon dozens of guys who were better in the ring during the 1980s.

I'm just going to throw Terry Gordy and Bob Orton Jr. out there since neither really got mentioned yet. Gordy had a great decade in Mid-South and the UWF. His Texas stuff was also top notch. Orton kind of fell off the map once he got to the WWF but he was really good before then. Also, Jimmy Garvin was probably one of the top acts of the 1980s. My top 10: Hulk Hogan Ric Flair Randy Savage Ricky Steamboat Nick Bockwinkel Jerry Lawler Ted Dibiase Terry Gordy Tully Blanchard Ricky Morton

I remember liking one Destroyer match and not liking the other one. I don't think I've seen the Jumbo match but I probably have it on some random DVD I haven't got to yet.

Yikes. Mil had really good matches with Jumbo and The Destroyer. There also was praise for all four of his matches that made the DVDVR 80s AJPW set from a pretty wide variety of the people who dropped comments in the threads. John I think the Graham match is better than the Mask 10 match with the Destroyer.

I've been toying with the idea of delving into ECW Hardcore TV next year. My biggest problem with this... Joey Styles. Is it just me or does he kind of come across like a smarmy douche? I remember liking him back in the 90s but he just annoys the piss out of me now. Sometimes I really wish I could just reach through the screen and smack the smug expression off his face.

The Pat Patterson matches were good for Slaughter. There's some Japan work that's good. I remember liking his matches with Backlund quite a bit. There was a brawl with Nord the Barbarian on AWA Television that I enjoyed a lot. His battle with Nemesis Enforcer showed his true workrate capabilities, even if the Enforcer turned out to be a bitch after taking out all those other Joes beforehand.

There was a Jesse vs. Tito Santana match for the IC title that was pretty decent. I don't remember the Hogan match but I don't think Jesse was the kind of worker that Hogan could drag something watchable out of. I haven't seen a ton of East-West Connection but if they were in good matches it was because Adonis was doing the bulk of the work. Graham on the other hand. I liked the Dusty Rhodes matches a lot and there was a really good Mil Mascaras match for the WWWF Title. Oddly, that was the best Mascaras match I've seen too.

I've seen good Billy Graham matches. I've seen one decent Ventura match.

I mentioned him page one. There's the concession stand brawl with the Moondogs. You can find that on YouTube.

I mentioned it in another thread. Jeff Jarrett vs. Raven on Impact in May of 2006. Raven was having all those problems and completely useless in the ring by this point. He and Jarrett went out and had this great garbage arena brawl that was just amazing because Raven could barely walk and couldn't bump. I'll second the Rikishi/HHH match.

Oh, I know. Benoit was my favorite wrestler for a long time. I haven't watched a Benoit match since it happened and I really doubt I ever will. I'll throw Dustin Rhodes out there. He had a really great run in the WWE in 2002. The Smackdown Six got all of the hype but I think BookDust was the best tag team in the company and it was all because of him.

I'll take your word for it. I don't think I'll ever be able to stomach watching Benoit again.

I think Juvy works for 98. I mean he had at least 3 great matches with Billy Kidman that I can remember. What about Jericho for 98. That was his breakout heel year and his feud with Dean Malenko was the hottest thing going that year. Plus, he really figured out how to be more than a spot guy.

I just remember watching that Booker T best of 7 series and feeling really sad at how both guys were just shells of what they used to be. I kind of feel like Benoit's peak ended the second he lost the World Title to Orton.

John Cena Eddie Guerrero AJ Styles Rey Mysterio Christian Bryan Danielson Brock Lesnar Chris Jericho Umaga Jay Lethal He won't get mentioned by anyone else. But I want to throw James Storm out there as someone who deserves a little love for the decade. He went from being considered the weak line in America's Most Wanted to being a top flight heel and really proved people's assumptions of him to be incorrect. I'll throw Jeff Jarrett out there as well. I don't think you'll find anyone that's had the kind of consistency that Jeff Jarrett had throughout the decade. His 2004-2006 run especially. He had good matches with Monty Brown, Jeff Hardy, Kevin Nash, DDP, Raven, Jay Lethal, Christian, Sting, Samoa Joe, Ron Killings and AJ Styles. It should also be noted, he had a great match with Raven in 2006 when Raven wasn't even capable of being luggage anymore. Chris Benoit. I love Benoit, but he was getting really bad the last couple of years before his death. I remember tuning in and thinking he was really losing a step and his matches were just getting bad and repetitive at that point. Plus, Eddie kind of overshadowed him. John Cena. I think he would be my no. 1 pick for the decade. Great matches with Umaga, JBL, Angle, Jericho, Edge, Orton, Batista, HHH and a ton of other guys. Always delivers on the big show, great brawler, knows his role and to me is the natural evolution of the Sting archetype from the early 90s. I think he's kind of the icon of the 00s as much as guys like HHH like to think they are.

Both of these guys worked in the US before 1995. John I had my doubt about those two. Where did they show up before 95 ? I don't think it was in ECW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5VwGqwTlXE