Timbo Slice

Sure, but what's to stop him from making a phone call to try and make it happen? I'm not saying Paul is being 100% truthful (although the fact he said it right away makes me think it couldn't have been complete bullshit either), but he reached out to AAA, he reached out to FMW, he reached out to Michinoku Pro, a phone call or two to see if it could happen makes sense, at least.

Hayabusa and Shinzaki were semi-regularly working AJPW after the '97 RWTL, meaning that there was an in there for Heyman if he wanted it. I'm guessing the injury put the end to those talks, though.

Misawa/Kawada was the first one I thought of. Then Flair/Funk. Sting/Vader. Hogan/Savage.

Makes sense that he asked for that to happen and got Shinzaki and Hayabusa, though.

Heyman just said he almost got Misawa/Kobashi for Heatwave '98, getting Hayabusa/Shinzaki instead. Holy crap.

Hansen, Funk, Flair, Lawler, Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Tenryu, Fujiwara, Bockwinkel, Savage, Lyger, Rey off the top of my head. I'd say my Top 5 being some combination of Hansen, Funk, Flair, Lawler and Jumbo is pretty set in stone.

Yeah, the fact that Eddie/Brock isn't on that list is the one travesty off the top of my head.

Could Shelton Benjamin work?

I'll never get the idea that because the fans loved in the arena that we should, too. The idea that the crowd can give a match atmosphere and excitement means that it was a great match should be like anything else anyone criticizes in a match. A lot of stuff I'm reading about modern New Japan is that it's been considered great because there's so many heated exchanges and great crowds, and that's been the basis for people saying it's been so great. Atmosphere adds to a match and it can subtract from a match just as much. My motivation is pretty simple: Tell a good story in the ring. If it's with highspots? Great. If it's with face/heel dynamics? Great. If it's with a payoff of a long storyline? Great. Is it because the stakes are high? Great. All those stories can be told well. They are far from being similar match archetypes.

I would put them in consideration. I'm watching them against Scorp and Bagwell from HH and they do some really great work. Plus those two street fights with Catcus and either Sullivan or Payne were just too great. I think I see them maybe at the bottom of my list.

I've only seen a couple Rogers matches and haven't really dived into the Chicago stuff as much, but he's going to garner some consideration. He really was ahead of his time in a lot of ways and I feel like he's someone that could have hung with anyone in the ring in any era up through the 80's. Just a fantastic worker.

He's overrated, but that doesn't mean he's not a good wrestler or a good worker. Great base, good on the mat, has the Ciclope reveal against Jericho at Slamboree '98 that's one of my favorite WCW moments ever, but I don't think he's gonna make my list, as much as I enjoy his stuff.

I'm thinking my top female workers will feature Jaguar, Aja and Hokuto in some order. While the length of time of her best work is short, the sheer volume within that time is something else. Arguably the best woman's match ever, arguably a Top 5 women's tag match ever (Although as time goes on, I have the Queendom tag at #2 behind only the Dream Rush tag), great work in the '93 Grand Prix, great work in the '92 TLTB...for a good three year span, and especially in 1993, she might have been the best wrestler on the planet and she worked hurt for a good amount of time. She also was the antithesis of the style that Toyota championed, which makes her even better in my book. Knew how to tell a story better than any other wrestler at the time, maybe save Stan Hansen, who had major feathers in his cap with Kawada and Kobashi in 1993. My gut says Top 50, but I won't be surprised if she gets into the Top 25.

1. Bobby Eaton Best right hand ever. Best swinging neckbreaker ever. Great bumper. Could watch him all day. 2. Rick Rude Good lord, Rude in 1992 was fantastic in basically every way. 3. Vader Can't wait to rewatch the strap match with Sting as I go through the pre-Hogan WCW PPVs. 4. Rusev The calls for him being the Most Improved Wrestler this year are undercutting that he never really sucked. Now that he's getting a chance to shine, he's been terrific. 5. Bull Dempsey Dude busted out the Face Eraser AND the Vader Attack this past week and does a great fat guy flying headbutt. One of the few shining spots on NXT.

Come for the Johnny Sorrow, stay for the pop Johnny and Steven have when I mention a certain masked wrestler doing a headbutt.

Oh man. I know Jarrett's been wanting JR to jump onboard, but JR calling a Japanese match nowadays really seems like it wouldn't fit. Interested to see who they come up with for that.

Yessssssss. Can't wait to hear this.

Not including women wrestlers when a vast majority of them influenced their male counterparts in something like this is really odd to me. Almost screams exclusion. Just because there hasn't been any female wrestling that has touched what the Japanese women were doing over 20 years ago in recent times doesn't mean they shouldn't be included.

Erik Watts is terrible. Bagwell was at least a part of a few decent matches. Watts never was.

They cheated it, but only by about 1:30. Using the WWE Network clock, it goes about 28:30 or so. Crowd was definitely drained, but the way Gordy and Doc worked, it wasn't going to be as exciting. Yes, they made the Steiners work way differently than they were used to, and it made them better because of it, but at the same time, there wasn't much excitement behind this match at all. Too methodical. They cut this in half for the Clash match and it was fine, albeit not exactly memorable, either. There was a lot of talk amongst tape traders and the dirt sheets about this being a dream pairing, right? Because it was the top gaijin team from NJPW facing off against the top gaijin team from AJPW?

I actually went back through the entire Luger series and even with the two great Windham matches and the Steamboat series, I'm not sure there's a better representation of what Flair was than those matches with Luger. All of them were just terrific matches and Flair's heeling was some of the best I've ever seen.

So IS there any footage from San Francisco out there? Just in general, I mean. It seems like a holy grail of sorts. One of the first teams that popped in my head during this project that I really wanted to dive in on considering how much I loved Bock in his AWA stuff.

Thought it was an up-and-down show at best. Opener was too spotty for me and I wasn't the biggest fan of Ziggler being able to kick out of so much. Meanwhile, Ziggler hits the Zig Zag and Cesaro's still laying there selling it for a couple minutes afterwards. Bellas match was fine, but it wasn't really a great match either. It might have been great for them, but there was a lot of disjointed stuff in the match. Did like some of the offense, but they don't know how to transition well from one spot to the next. It doesn't look natural. Tag titles match, too. Cody looked lost at points and Dustin had to take over down the stretch to make it watchable. For all the crap people give the Young Bucks and indy guys about superkicks, the Usos going superkick crazy makes me laugh sometimes. WAY too much overkill for Cena/Orton. Understand they wanted to build it as an epic, but if it's so epic, why put it after the first hour on the show? Fans are smart to know it's not as big as you're making it out to be. Match had some neat stuff to it, but after weeks of seeing Orton kill folks with the RKO, Cena kicking out of two good counters seemed silly. End seemed unnecessary. Rusev/Show was great. Rusev has turned into one of the best all-around guys the company has right now. Show knew exactly how to make him look good and Rusev took advantage of his times to shine. If they have him and Ryback go at it, I'm gonna be stoked, too. AJ/Paige I fast-fowarded through. Not enough interest there. NXT girls are putting on more entertaining matches in a lot of ways. Need to get Del Ray to work on the road, too, it seems. Main event was pretty blah in a lot of ways. Understood why the crowd was into it, but in the end, it meant nothing. Ambrose getting over organically pisses off the WWE brass who don't see money signs with him, but he'll be worth something to them soon enough. Fuck that ending. Not even remotely good. I just finished watching 1990 WCW and I don't need to see the cheap parlor tricks like it's the fucking Black Scorpion. Also makes a lunatic like Ambrose look that much dumber, which is hilarious considering he's supposed to be fearless and he sells a fucking hologram more than the offense from Rollins. I'm not shitting completely on the PPV but WWE feeling its way through its month-to-month shit while trying to find definitive endpoints makes it tough to sit through. They're overthinking so much when simple things like what Rusev is doing works that much better, and an actual feud like Rollins and Ambrose gets blown off like that when a feud that's not nearly as hot in Cena and Orton gets the 25-minute epic treatment with a definitive finish because you gotta feed Cena to Lesnar one more time and the fans don't care nearly as much because it's the 121st time they've squared off on TV. The disconnect grows, and it's going well beyond what Vince and Dunn think compared to what Trips thinks. I'd even think blowing up all the storylines and having an NXT invasion could be in the cards considering how stale things have gotten.

The reason why any invasion angle works is because they guys coming in are considered threats. If you don't, then you get the invasion angle we got.

I always just circle back to "Why did they do that spot at that time?" Is it because it's a good spot? Is it because they wanted to build towards something else? It's pretty easy to tell whether they're throwing spots out there just because or whether they're doing it to build a story. The reason why the MPro stuff still holds up is because of the way they built the spots throughout the match. They started slow, paired off, and then by the end, it's just balls to the wall and they're throwing everything they can out there. There's a rhythm to it. The reason why a lot of matches nowadays don't have that same aesthetic is because a lot of the big move spotfests today are done to pop the crowd more than they're telling a story. There's a disconnect between why the move is done and why it should be done in the first place. Hell, I just watched the Generico/London vs. Young Bucks at DDT4 from 2010 and there were plenty of spots, but there was a pretty decent story attached, too, which you wouldn't expect from those guys. It all comes back to meaning. If you're gonna throw out a bunch of big spots and you can make them work in the context of the match, more power to you. But if you're doing it just because you want to get it in, it shows and it can make the match a lot less interesting.