Timbo Slice

They're a sneaky contender for the Bottom 5 of my list. Played the heel act well, good chemistry, good bumpers, bought it all. Mid-2000's SD gets overlooked a lot but they were a pretty dang good team.

He looked terrific with his punches in the Balor ladder match. Steen's on my short list for WOTY right now, but he won't make my list in the end, sadly. That being said, in 10 years, we might have something here.

I've watched more Tenta recently because of Steven and he's always been a favorite of mine. I legitimately think the Hogan SummerSlam match is a Top 3 or Top 5 Hogan match ever. Really talented, underrated wrestler saddled with cheap gimmicks. Consideration isn't bad at all here. I think he's got a good shot at sneaking in at 100 or 99.

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.

Fuck!!! How did I overlook these guys? And ESPECIALLY after the Larry Z pod Steven and I did. I really want to put them on here simply because they carried Kazmaier to something at least serviceable and have perhaps the single greatest Southern tag match of all time, but I don't know if I'm gonna have room.

The Blackjack Mulligan story about wanting to punch out Lex Luger but leaving because he feared he'd actually kill him is the GOAT story Flair's ever told. #2 is always him telling the Hunter story about him introducing himself to Race and Race saying Kowalski's "work was the shits."

Basically.

Joe's a local to the Tampa/Orlando area with a great side business going so it fit better with him than AJ. I find it really funny that it's now AJ Styles and not Sting who is now the biggest name going who has never wrestled for WWE.

The fans I've talked to since last night are all wondering if after now that NXT has shown they can draw a house and have a show that was better received by the fans from top to bottom in the same-sized arena that the NXT "invasion" or what have you will actually begin to build towards WrestleMania. Hilarious. I think a Sheamus cash-in is gonna happen tonight just to get the big belt off him and shake things up for the US Title. Brock/Taker doesn't need to be set up this far away from Mania: It's gonna draw a boatload by itself anyways. I figure it'll happen at SS or something where they need the buys. Hope they don't pull a NOC thing and hotshot it like they did the Brock/Cena rematch, but who knows at this point. Last night wasn't a "Writing on the wall" moment for Vince. Not at all. If anything, it's just gonna make him a cornered stray in an alley ready to fight back against the critics. Which means weirder stuff is gonna happen that will be passed off as "exciting." Plus, now that Cena has nuked the plans of the actual Divas revolution happening, that should really spell out what happens for the NXT guys coming up. Not holding my breath for a damn thing.

While I said it was the best women's match in WWE history, I compared it on a yearly level with all the matches I've seen and while the setting for Bayley/Sasha helped a great deal, sometimes great matches are great because of setting and other times they're great because of work. You're looking at the wrong sample size. It's not about the sample of how many great women's matches there were this year. It was a matter of how many great matches there were period. Strictly comparing it to the other women's matches undercuts what they were trying to do. You can't compare it on a spot for spot basis vs. men because they didn't tell that story. It's not about the fact that women did it. It's about the fact that the story itself was done the way it was. I understand what you're trying to do, but the reason the match was great WAS because it was the story of Sasha and Bailey. They told it, they made it great. It's inherent in the match and really can't be duplicated.

Points, points, and more points. But not Parv Points. Opener was great. Liger was incredibly amped and they worked a nice match around the signature spots as Will said. Liger mocking Breeze is #1 and the best. Tag match was really well done, thought that tossing neck breaker should have gotten a save, but other than that, it was great. Still think it should have been Enzo & Cass here, but Vaudevillains are so great it's hard to be mad. Crews had a good debut, but the layout wasn't great at all. I feel like he was told to tone it down a bit and only show flashes, because if he gets in there with someone who can go, I feel like it would have been much better off. Still was a good match, though, and there were plenty of impressive spots, including the finish. I'm on the short list liking Corbin/Joe. They worked a slugfest and although Corbin's offense isn't great, they had some really awesome moments, and I did like the strike exchange at the end. Wonder what Joe does now going forward, as he doesn't have much to do in NXT unless they put him with Balor, which would be a bit odd. Women's title match was the best women's match in WWE history. I know people will complain about the hand work getting blown off, but it's a nitpicky thing to say the very least. Banks is top flight and Bayley is too. Banks feels like no worse than a Top 10 worker in the world right now, and I'll hear arguments all the way up to #1. No grading curve here. It's a Top 5 match of the year and I might even have it Top 3. That finish was the finish of the year, and I heard at first it was a Victory Star Drop, but the fucking '97 BOSJ reverse rana into the Bayley-to-Belly works too. Really liked the ladder match because Owens made sure it was different and smartly worked, letting Balor have all his big moments. In a lot of ways, it's my favorite Owens performance of the year and makes me think all those times he won "Best Brawler" wasn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. Gedo being backstage at NXT isn't THAT big of a deal considering Tiger Hattori has been the main NJPW US ambassador for three decades and he's present at the ROH shows all the time. If anything, he's probably going back to the boys and saying what NXT has is something worth exploring, along with reporting to Nak and Okada that maybe, just maybe, it's worth a chance for them to look NXT's way at some point. If the Okada speaking English stuff holds up and he can actually cut a promo, I would not be surprised to see him jump ship within a year considering he's been on WWE's radar for nearly two years, especially if they don't finally put him over Tanahashi at the Dome. Show of the year, without a doubt. Everything was presented well and was paid off, and even with so many guys getting the call to the main roster, it seems like NXT isn't gonna lose much steam, especially if they re-tool with some of the names bandied about on a full-time basis. It's crazy to think they're running those tours in the UK, but it's gonna draw big there with Balor on top, and they can always fly Neville out, too. Just a tremendous show, and SummerSlam won't touch this.

I think I might pull a Will and put him and Han back-to-back. He has an argument for the best worker of a style ever, and those two U-STYLE matches are fucking awesome. Not to the peak of the Han stuff, but damn close. It's hard to figure out where he'll land, though, as he'll be on the list, but I could see him in the 25-75 range, really. It depends on how many of that "must-have guys" come before him, but with him being the best of his style or one of the best, I have to weigh that into consideration.

That Hotta/Aja match is an all-time favorite of mine. I'm not sure it's Aja's best match, but it might be her most entertaining match. Absolutely insane. Glad to see it made the list.

He's definitely become a better worker over the last couple years by finding some personality outside of him doing MMA stuff, and I really like him in PWG, too. I think right now he's a good worker, not great, who has a chance to become great. The KUSHIDA match really is a top-flight match though, and a lower-tier MOTYC. 2026 might see him closer to consideration.

1992 Rick Rude had an argument for one of the best workers in the world. He was that good. Like Jerome said: High-end peak, but pretty short with that peak. He's an interesting choice and someone I'm not writing off completely, but off the top of my head, he's not a Top 100 guy for me.

He's had some really effective times over his career where he shined, but overall, I don't think it was a great career. The AJPW/NJPW stuff was fine in 2000-2001, but what Joe said about him against AJPW a few years back as keeper of the Backdrop Hold spiking young punks on Jumbo's old turf might have been his best work. I did like the Akiyama stuff, and he does have the Taue match under his belt (along with the underrated '01 match he had with Kaz Fujita) but I don't think it's Top 100 material.

Yeah, that's baffling to me. He was pretty hot the early part of the year, drew a great gate with AJ at Sumo...him being a flop of this tournament is just mind boggling.

I rewatched this earlier this year because someone brought up joshi tag wrestling for the GWE project and both teams had to be considered simply because of this series. On first watch, it was one of the greatest tag matches I've ever seen from strictly a work standpoint. The biggest point that's always brought up is how it's the first time either of these two teams met in the ring and how this, and not the Aja/Bull match ended the show because it was the first interpromotional match between AJW and JWP. So right away, the aura of the match is a big deal and everyone's wondering how the two teams will match up. Once things get going, you realize right away that JWP is on a similar level to AJW, which is a major plot point for the match and sticking point with me (like other interpromotional feuds that actually worked, letting the "invading" team look good makes the feuds better). Kansai is immediately the biggest and best part of the match for me. The way she throws her weight around in the match and rag dolls Toyota is some of her finest work, and while I have come to loathe Toyota as a singles wrestler, her work as a face in peril and her selling overall is top notch here. The second fall with Yamada just going in on Kansai was my favorite part of storytelling in the match, even more than Ozaki's antics, which were spectacular. Her getting the pin on Kansai is an absolutely huge moment in the match because of how Kansai had looked so far, evening things out for the third fall to come, which was just an all-out war. It reminded me a lot of the 5/21/94 HDA vs. Kobashi/Misawa match because of how they built this really long stretch of near falls, and even the decisive pin being a bit inconclusive added to the allure of the interpromotional setting. I know there are some that rate the DreamSlam II match higher because of the the structure (I actually have it behind the St. Final tag, which was a tremendous sprint and showed just how Toyota had owned the style at the time considering where she'd go from there), but there was truly magic behind this match that is hard to quantify. I'm with Pete in my love for the Queendom tag, but I constantly go back and forth between the two for my favorite joshi tag of all time. If you're a Toyota fan, this is an easy pick over Hokuto, but I'm such a huge Hokuto/Aja/Kandori mark that it's hard for me to put that match behind this. All in all, a spectacular match and an easy Top 10 tag match ever, maybe even Top 5.

I get where the 5-6 months came from because they only started calling themselves the Blondes months after they started teaming.

HOLY SHIT THE SLEAZE ROUND.

Hash, Lesnar, Inoki even. Onita for sure. Hokuto and Chigusa are totally a part of this. Atlantis for lucha. Even though he stunk, Takada did do well in big match settings. Cena is up there.

This is an awesome, awesome bit with Woody Paige talking about a time he hung out with Piper after a match one night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1LADs_ZIVA&feature=youtu.be

Not on YouTube, but here's the DailyMotion video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hid3c

The biggest thing for me is that everything is micromanaged. Too much. The best parts about wrestling at its peak was that everything was managed, but loosely. Generalized, even. Here, everything is so high-strung and calculated that it screams overly scripted, even to many people who aren't hip to the business, so to speak. It's the new corporate mentality, which has been prevalent at other sports institutions, most notably ESPN. Brand over stars. The problem is that stars improve the brand. The brand doesn't make stars. The one time it worked was with Hogan. Everything else was by chance or by being forced into the situation. Unless they break that down and let people stand out without having to have a rigid structure in place, it's going to slowly erode.

Steven, I'd add the other 8/22/85 match between Chig and Devil on that list, too. The main was more dynamic, but Chig and Devil showed just how advanced the women were by incorporating all the other major styles at the time into one match. Absolutely sensational stuff.