Timbo Slice

I can't remember which Ito match I watched of hers, but I remember enjoying it to an extent. I don't know if it was better than even the 3/26/95 title win, but it was still really good stuff.

Got to work with Grantland's Ben Lindbergh this summer with the Sonoma Stompers and he and Baseball Prospectus' Sam Miller are writing a book about their experiences running the baseball operations department. Lowe, Barnwell, Rembert, Jonah, the NBA Shootaround crew...they'll have their contracts honored but nobody's staying for long, I'd assume. Editorial at ESPN is gonna be nothing like what they had at Grantland. And who knows if they'll all just follow Bill to his venture. What's really interesting is a ton of those guys now have some name power to the point where they can be significant contributors, but we shall see. This is truly sad, though. Few websites out there really go after content like they did.

Wait, really? Not seeing it at all. Not even sure if he's Top 250-500 material.

I guess this is where I'll make my argument for Brock as a HOFer while also trying not to troll Dylan out to have his counterpoints, although I understand the reason why he leans that way on Lesnar. I'm going to do this based on the HOF criteria, which is in-ring work, drawing power, and historical significance. So here goes: -In-ring work aspect I don't think needs to be argued, as previously stated, from a quality standpoint. Quantity of quality is a limiting factor, but I think a lot of what is being put on Brock has to do with him up and leaving for eight years before coming back. As a wrestler, only has six years under his belt really (7-8 if you want to talk OVW), but I think he's in the conversation along with guys like Akiyama as being very good from the very start. That being said, he has his company's matches of the year for each of the last three years, and the match he got out of Taker last night is a downright miracle in some aspects. His quality can not be denied, and when talking about guys like Tamura or Han, even though stylistically they are different and the atmosphere as to how they got to that particular number of matches might be different, on a purely comparable match-by-match basis, he's got more than enough. -The drawing power is a hang-up that was what made me do this in the first place, with Dylan's argument about what he's getting paid being a detriment to the company. I agree with him there, but in reality, that's hamstringing Brock for doing things his way. He wanted limited dates, he got limited dates. He wanted a comparable or even better than salary than his UFC contract, he got that, too. It is a classic overreaction for a talent based around a promoter's desire to dig into the past because he doesn't take the time to create new stars or take advantage of guys who could be stars like he once did. When he was at the top of the card during the first parts of his career, he was definitely a sizable draw, but he wasn't a slam dunk as a draw, either. Now, this is where the MMA argument truly splits and I'm still having a hard time trying to decipher it, to be honest, although I feel like it should be a similar argument to his in-ring work. He's been presented as a main attraction and as a draw, but at the same time, asking him to live up to the money he's making is completely undercutting him. That's not even on Brock. It's Vince paying that much for a limited attraction guy in the first place. His post-MMA drawing power might not be as considerable as it was in the UFC, but he's still been someone they've weighed on plenty for and he's come through way more often than he has. Buy rates when he was near or at the top of the cards was good, and he did pop the non-Network cards well. I think more than perhaps anyone on the ballot, he's a product of his drawing environment and can be an easy scapegoat for the down times. I don't even look at his UFC drawing power because I'm not gonna be one of those guys to consider it, but his UFC background has transferred some to his WWE drawing capabilities, booking be damned. Since beating Taker, I'd say the booking has been much better to show his ability to draw, but it's not outwardly apparent to the point where it's a lock to say he's a top-flight draw. Bottom line, though, looking at him as direct return on his investment in a company that STILL doesn't know what to do with its Network revenue 18 months after the fact is a tough knock on him. -The historical significance part is the one part that I'm fairly confident is what pushes me over the top on him, as there's probably nobody currently going right now outside of established guys like Cena and Taker where it's obvious that he's going to be someone looked back at fondly. However, his significance is almost directly tied to the state of the business at the time, where he came in when the company was at a lull, popped it for a year before Trips killed his momentum dead, and only got going again after what ended up being one of the more gutsier booking decisions in a long time with him going over Cena. I think he'll end up looking better as the years go on, but I don't think it's as cloudy now as people make it out to be. His significance currently can't be questioned, and only the decision-makers stop it from being more obvious than it already is. That's a lot like my ROI drawing argument, but I don't think you can put on Brock what Vince, Dunn and Co. are too stupid to figure out sometimes. I will say this: He's not a guy I would put #1 on a ballot of 10 guys right now, but he's someone I feel confident casting a vote for, and someone who ends up looking a lot better than so many of the other modern/Japanese candidates that are being talked about. I understand many want to look at longevity (which is the only argument I'd hear for Sting, even though it's now obvious that basically his entire career was spent as a secondary draw) but one can be significant in a short period of time. I was more qualitative here than quantitative (mainly for time and tl;dr sake) but the idea here is to say that he's definitely a viable candidate, albeit not a slam dunk.

Saku and Yano is the best tag team in NJPW and they should run it more often. Won't make the list, but he's intriguing.

My point is that people use that more as a crutch to the argument they'd rather get across, which takes away from the match itself in a lot of ways.

It's like Parv has been listening to Grimmas' and mine's conversations over the past couple days or so. Arn is tops for me. Agree on Smothers, Eaton, Kawada, Windham, but DUSTIN right now might be my #2. Gotta think it over.

That's a good one. Forgot the Panther/Virus match, which is what all mat workers should watch if they want to work the mat well.

The Fujiwara/Mochi match Dylan mentioned was crazy. Need to go back and rematch. Hash/Zangiev was first to pop to mind, then Kid/Owen from KOR, then Arn/Tully vs. Lex/Barry.

Monster Ripper in the Mid 80's was something else. Played her role well. Banks is the best going right now but she needs a decade of Eddy-type stuff to be considered as highly for this list as she is in general right now. She might be the craziest Lou Thesz winner of all time, though. Like the Bernie Sanders of the WON Award voting process.

This is actually something I think about a lot with Kandori/Hokuto, because there's so much inference from the previous injuries that Hokuto has had that a lot of people just assumed that was the story (although I think it might have been confirmed later on about the specific moves Hokuto sold big stemming from past injuries), but I wonder just how much is what we infer as opposed to what was actually presented. That can also be the difference between really getting into a match or not, I feel.

The great divide in wrestling psychology is workers trying to tell a story by doing moves because they're the ones organically popping the crowd and pandering to the fans. Main reason people aren't big fans of 2.999 wrestling is because the majority of it is pandering to the fans desire to see big moves, which is a lot of what the modern style is based on. For a long time, the onus was on the fans to react to what was being done in the ring as opposed to the guys in the ring reacting to the fans (although there are definitely exceptions). There's a lot of balance in the two ideas because they're not mutually exclusive, but at the same time, it's a train of thought that is what makes people don't like NXT or PWG and so on.

Yeah, the difference Loss is talking about is a truly huge fundamental issue in deciding what's "smart" wrestling. Do you work within you and your opponent or work to pop the crowd? I think that's actually what's going to separate a lot of lists here.

I think they're very similar. Aja's got more "standout" work, but Dynamite's style was probably a bit better to take in than Aja's, who was based a lot more around looking like a monster instead of running people over like Dynamite did. I'm an unabashed Aja mark, too. The more I think about her, the more I want her higher up on the list for me. She's one of the most underrated workers ever.

PORKY VERSUS TAMURA?????? ABDULLAH VERSUS TAMURA?????

Kobashi's last. Understandably, Kobashi is more expressive, hence, more relatable, hence, more accessible, hence, more "likable." Doesn't make him better than the other three, though.

Zayn's coming back during the Royal Rumble as a surprise to take out Owens and set up a possible WM program. He's due back in January and it fits perfectly with the timeline.

Man, Edge really held that much water with voters? That's insane to me.

That killed me. I can only imagine Vince back there yelling into the ref's headset: "TELL THAT SON OF A BITCH TO GET HIM UP FOR ANOTHER F-5! YEAH! AND TELL HIM TO REALLY NAIL HIM WITH IT, YEAH!"

That elimination tag was fucking outstanding when I first saw it. Rave is absolutely top notch in it.

Scenic City Invitational.

There was. First Slamboree ever in 1994. Inducted a ton of guys to get them a PPV payday and did some hilarious interviews throughout the show.

That's a big-time Kawada carry job. Kobashi might as well had been lead around by the nose in the match. Plus, that finish "killed the territory" after Kawada's huge win a month earlier.No way was that a carry job. Kawada was awesome on offense, sure, but Kobashi gave him the perfect underdog foil to work with. In particular, what really puts the much over the top for me is how Kobashi gives the best glassy eyed concussion selling I've ever seen for Kawada's kicks throughout the match. Not really sure we could call Kobashi an underdog at this point. They were 1-1-2 since Kobashi won the Triple Crown for the first time, and Kobashi's win came in their last singles match in an oddly quick manner. People reading the booking tea leaves *raises hands* didn't think Kawada was dropping the belt. But from the booking of the promotion, they had already moved Kobashi up to being Kawada's peer, with Taue in roughly the same ballpark though more forgotten than the other two. That's one of the problems with Kobashi's work in 1997 and 1998: he was still working like it was 1993 and he was an underdog, even "crying" when Jun kicked out of the moonsault. Once again, it was Kawada being the conduit to booking so that Kobashi didn't outright beat Misawa for the title. Like John said, Kobashi was truly equal with Kawada at that point, and Baba saw it as an opportunity to make Kobashi a true #2 behind Misawa. Only when he finally beat him for the GHC title in March 03 did he finally realize how to fight like the guy on top. Hell, even in the "make Jun a star" matches in NOAH he still couldn't help but play the underdog while Jun played the fiery guy who wanted to be ace. If Kobashi had done that during his runs in 1997 and 1998, it would be a bit different.

It was pretty blah. There's some matches with some nice power spots against guys like Henry, but not his best stuff. He also worked on a broken ankle for a couple months.

No lie, gonna hit up Naylor for broadcasting advice because the way he does them makes me happy he's behind a microphone. Truly loves what he does and you can hear it. Awesome episode so far, haven't even gotten into the meat of NXT/ROH/PWG yet. EVOLVE stuff has been cool to listen to, though, and Rob really should open up that rookie symposium!!!