Timbo Slice

Funk, Steamboat, Savage. The more I watch the GAB '89 match, the more I might think it's Funk's best match ever and I'd put it right there with the Steamboat matches for Flair. Completely different styles, but Flair was an absolute machine in that feud with Funk. The Savage feud was incredible for its intensity and it was obvious that both Flair and Savage wanted to do something special. Might be the most personal WWF/E feud ever.

I would actually go with 1/20/97 because I think it is the peak of those two styles, with the 10/21 match being more on the downslope. I think the Gringos Locos/Santo and Octagon When Worlds Collide tag match should be included as a straight introduction to lucha, as I think that does the best with rude/tecnico roles and contains two of the greatest workers ever on top of that. If you were looking to separate it a bit more on the indy side, maybe throw in joe/Necro for a garbage indy match? Also, I think you can throw the Lyger/Ohtani 2/97 match in there for juniors if you want.

I was thinking about guys who aren't high up on the card (right now) that would be in that timeframe. A guy like Antonio Cesaro could be Swiss Billy Robinson in a heartbeat. Bray Wyatt would have carved up Florida with Kevin Sullivan. I could see a Big E. Langston in a similar spot he's used now and have it be even more effective in the NWA or Memphis. Damien Sandow in the Bible Belt would be a license to print money as an aristocrat from New York or California (where he's being billed from now). In fact, NXT being run basically like a territory makes it seem like there's a lot of guys who would at least get a shot in the 80s, as they're really pushing some interesting gimmicks rooted in what was going on in the 80's.

Quickly on the BR thing: BR's reputation is warranted on general principle of overall journalistic integrity, but their wrestling and MMA coverage is pretty damn great mainly because they haven't been handcuffed into the same type of rules that most of their other sports writers have had to follow for the most part. I'm not sure if that's by design or it's because Snowden, Bix, et al decided that it was how they were going to write regardless, but it's still good stuff more often than not. BR might have a lot of crap, but their wrestling and MMA coverage is not in that realm. I'm definitely a fan of someone deciding to be the entity that tries and proves that something thought to be bad can actually be good, so good work, fellas. Perfect example: Bix and Snowden write for supposed horrible website BR, yet Shoemaker writes for supposed not as horrible website Grantland. I'm pretty sure nobody on this board is seeking out Shoemaker's stuff. Now, deciding to have The Shield lose on a go home show heading into a PPV because you have to let Team Hell No and Orton have their moment so that the Shield can retain across the board is WWE Booking 101 and pretty fucking ridiculous. Although if they parlay Bryan's overconfidence that he was the one that beat The Shield into him costing Orton and him the titles Sunday, I guess that's not the worst booking decision in the world. Also, they've lost by DQ a few times, so it's not like it's a HUGE deal, but if the booking decision ends up resulting in a Daniel Bryan mega-push that actually has victories attached to it, it's still good for business.

I'll close this up with the Driven match. Incredible stuff from those guys, who were natural foils. Next: Brock Lesnar. My pick will be vs. Eddy at NWO 2004.

One of my favorite wrestlers ever for always trying to do something different in a match that didn't take away from the regular things that made him great. Extremely versatile. Great punches. The Flair matches sold me on him and then the Zbysyko series made me a fan for life. It was all gravy after that. Still think he's the most underutilized wrestler in history: He did things better than most top-run heels and was able to get not just himself but his opponents and the match over as well. And he was most underutilized as a face, where his fiery antics were about as good as it got and we only saw it rarely. And keep the reviews coming. The more the merrier.

I had this in my old iTunes library of wrestling matches and saw it was a part of the set, which I'm stoked to see. Looking forward to picking up the yearbook sets, especially with 96 being one of my favorite wrestling years. I scurried to the DVDVR Best of the 90s poll to see where this placed and saw it only got one third place vote and ended up near 100 overall. I know people loved the Vader '94 match because it was Vader working the UWFi style, but holy FUCK this match is fantastic and it might even be better than that match. Tenryu doing everything he could to make this into a pro wrestling match because he doesn't want to go at Takada in his style, and Takada showing fire because he'd be damned if Tenryu was going to come into his fed and not work shoot style was incredible. The fact that they worked the pinfalls into the finishing stretch made this work really well as a spectacle that you wouldn't really see that often in UWF-i and made it stand out. This was a flat out war.

John Cena was not a "Main Eventer" until he rose up the card and became one, where he has stayed on top for the majority of his career. So when people think about John Cena, he tends to get classified as a "main eventer." Whereas somebody like a Brad Armstrong or a Tito Santana or what have you spent the majority of his time working around the middle of the card in his career, and is therefore thought of as a "mid carder." There were times where he was a main eventer and there were times where he curtain jerked, but mainly, you would see him as someone who was in or around the "mid card" level. The arguments against someone having a short run or maybe a scant shot at a main event slot every now and then does not classify someone as a main eventer. Ken Patera, as Dylan pointed out, spent very little time in the entirety of his career in the middle of the card, working more semi-final and main event matches than anything else. But he is remembered fondly as a mid-carder due to that being his most "high-profile" time in his career. That's just simple logic. That doesn't take into account any subset of how workers are classified. If you REALLY wanted to break it down into the different subsets as people are so quick to do, then you need a breakdown of things like card placement, number of matches, etc. I actually tried to do this with Dylan one time and we both came to the conclusion that such an amount of research would be something that would not only be time consuming, but would be incredibly hard to ascertain due to the fluid nature of how workers are defined. I don't necessarily think it's as problematic as John and the like believe, because the only thing needed is a cohesive understanding of roles and for people to stick with it. The problem instead is people trying to pinpoint the specifics to a point where it muddles the waters. Some things just need to be simple.

Brad Armstrong is a better definition of a midcarder than someone like Tito.

Jumbo and the stun gun? Or is that just inferred? The Florida Brothers are weak against guys that can create their own invisible doors.

I think that in all the big matches Tanahashi has had this year, he's clearly been the second best guy in the match. He's been someone who basically plays the part he's always played in big matches and lets the other guy shine, and then he finds a hole, fills it with his stuff and they head to a finish. I will say this, though: The role of an Ace in a promotion is to make the opponents he faces in main events look good, and Tanahashi does that more often than not. Both the Okada matches have been good and both the Suzuki matches have been good, but the work in the match shines more on Tanahashi's opponent due to this being a lot of what Tanahashi has done before in other big matches.

Funnily enough, considering where they were going with the Lesnar/Goldberg program, it was a GIVEN he won the belt that night. ESPECIALLY in the Latino-heavy Cow Palace crowd. Foley winning was more of a "FINALLY!" moment for me considering he had just taken the HIAC dive six months earlier.

The point it looks like he's making is that Eddy was someone who people saw as being a title contender I guess...well, maybe "naturally" isn't the best word. But I guess considering what Eddy had done up until his title win that he was seen as someone who could hang with the top guys. Which makes no sense because although Foley wasn't booked like it as times, I don't think anybody was really "surprised" that he won the title considering he had been amongst the top guys for about the same amount of time prior.

Earlier in the thread, the talking point about how Vader matches were pretty by the numbers and what not got me thinking about what other matches Vader could possibly have with people that weren't your typical monster vs. babyface with hot comebacks and it's tough to see him having any other type of match, regardless of style or promotion. Blackwell might have been a nuttier bumper, but Vader was a GREAT seller. He was a big fat dude, but was only about 6'3", meaning that taller guys (think Sting, Dustin, etc.) could stand toe-to-toe to him and look like they're legitimately making things difficult for someone who outweighs him by about 200 lbs. And once Vader went down, the crowd bought it as something immense that he was taken off his feet. Interestingly enough, nobody props up Cactus next to Vader for his best opponent, and while the Sting matches are truly great, his match with Jack at Havoc '93 might be one of the craziest brawls I've ever seen, and Vader selling all the nutty stuff that Jack tries to throw at him is something to watch. Blackwell was so unique that you had the ability to put him in different spots and let his versatility show, but with someone like Vader, you really couldn't put him in any other spot than "monster heel". That being said, he was so impressive as a heel that if he had ever turned face, I have little doubt that he would have been successful, but he was best working as a heel cutting people off with his power and being a bully. Blackwell works as an overweight wrestler with a more complete overall wrestling package, but Vader's overall package, while lacking the strengths that Blackwell has over him in versatility, bumping or what have you, is probably the best super heavyweight heel ever due to his presence and his ability to make a seemingly tired traditional wrestling matchup and make things interesting no matter who he faced. I'm glad Blackwell is being seen as a top flight wrestler, but Vader still has the advantage over him in the long haul. Keeping on the comparisons, I'm really surprised this one hasn't been brought up yet: Vader or Aja Kong?

The problem with Bock will always be a lack of footage compared to Flair, and along with Flair peaking as Bock was on his career decline (although his "decline" is also fucking incredible for a guy hitting his stride in his late 40s and early 50s in the AWA) at the same time that JCP was getting regular television with him as the focal point, Flair's greatness was more on display. But Nick fucking Bockwinkle is a GREAT wrestler. I can't wait to see the AWA stuff with him.

Mike Love vs. Mick Jagger would have sold out Wembley. Or the Coliseum. Maybe both.

Yeah, it was obviously a bad business decision and the booking was horrible, but let's not pretend that it's a company killing decision. It's just that now Brock is nothing more than another face in the crowd when before the Cena match, he at least had something going for him. It's just a waste of time and money to an extent.

Or, you know, Lesnar is making Vince think about it considering they had Cena go over Lesnar in his first match back, which probably is making Brock rethink the whole WWE thing in the first place. Lesnar's not dumb: He sees the writing on the wall with what a HHH feud would mean and now he's thinking that coming back at least as a special UFC attraction could be worth just as much money. Vince might be doing a jig, but he's not nearly making as much money doing that jig as he could have.

The Heyman as Brock talking piece point is such bullshit. Brock can build up his own matches. There's no reason why he shouldn't be talking for himself. It's not like he needs any help selling something with him being a part of it. The contract signing setup might have been bullshit, but Brock made the most out of it, I think. It was a good segment. Best on the show by far.

Of course Dave is going to stick to his guns. Any reporter would until he's told otherwise. They'll talk shit about the reporting but the fact is that Dave went with what he was told and didn't check with a second source. You know...like any one who ever took a journalism class could tell you. Although if this is an elaborate scheme to make Dave look bad, I don't think I could ever underestimate the pettiness of the WWE brass ever again.

Surprised it took over 2 pages for Takada to be brought up. I can't think of someone who was more de-motivated in so many big matches. Same with Mutoh. Although there might be a difference between de-motivated and lazy.

I'm still waiting for the promoter who threatens to the fine the wrestler $20 and the two hot dogs he will receive at the end of the night.

Villano III/Atlantis Mascara Contra Mascara is a great stand alone match that got my start in lucha, basically. I could see someone watching that and really enjoying it if they weren't big lucha fans.

Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal.

Pretty incredible stuff here.