Graham Crackers

One of my favorite wrestlers ever and I wouldn't hesitate to call him the best monster as well as the best fat guy in wrestling history though in the last few years I've found that the distance between him and other contenders for those titles isn't as far as I originally thought. He's also a wrestler who I feel like I've seen so much of that I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how I feel about the individual chapters of his career. -In the AWA he showed a lot of raw potential. The Hansen match was in my top 20 and while that's mainly a testament to Hansen's skill he brings some impressive athleticism. I'd actually like to have seen him as a babyface a few more times in his career. -He was already pretty awesome in late 80s NJPW. I dug the big Inoki singles match from 88, the Hashimoto tournament match and the sprinty Choshu brawl. The Mutoh match from 91 is great but I need to see more of his early 90s work because I remember being really put off by how much he and Bigelow let the Steiners toss them around. -I fucking loved the matches against Otto Wanz in the CWA but I'm a sucker for superheavyweight slugfests. -WCW Vader is my favorite Vader. I specifically like the Sting, Dustin, and Traylor matches. The Ron Simmons title change is something I have watched a dozen times. Outside of Race interfering a few too many times he was a pretty well booked until Hogan came along. Still, the first Hogan match is pretty great. -I really dislike Vader doing shoot style. I liked it when I was first getting introduced to the style but now when I watch those matches the big moves and especially the choke slams look too cooperative. -He was completely misused in WWF and the HBK match sucks but the Final Four match and the No Holds Barred match against Ken Shamrock are some of the best WWF matches of the 90s. -I feel like he was occasionally a little too generous with his offense in AJPW but the first Misawa singles match is on par with the Vader vs Sting series. I really dislike the Kobashi matches. He was a bit broken down in NOAH but never looked too bad either. People always talk about how disappointing the Vader vs Taue match from AJPW is but I really like the NOAH iteration of that matchup. The Scorpio tag team had a few fun matches even if they never had a MOTYC.

I have a friend who watches wrestling who doesn't like matches that are too stiff but we rarely talk about wrestling because what he likes in wrestling and what I like in wrestling are completely at odds. He also dislikes blading. This post is going to be my defense of stiff striking in wrestling but this thread also reminds me of something I've been thinking about for the last few years and that's why violence is such an important part of wrestling. Before I go any further I will admit that I am a bit of a mark for violence, blood, and stiff strikes in wrestling. I've said before that the demented tragedy of pro wrestling is part of it's appeal for me and the violence is essential to that but I think this goes beyond my personal interest in wrestling. On some level I understand why my friend thinks wrestlers are stupid for really hitting each other. I mean, it is pretty stupid but while I understand what he's saying in theory I don't think it works in practice. I don't think stiffness is essential but not everyone can throw a great worked punch. I like good worked strikes but if a wrestler can't make a worked strike look believable and finds themselves in a position where they are expected to be throwing strikes I would prefer that they throw some stiff shots instead of punches that miss by a foot. Despite the fact that not many wrestlers are capable of creating the illusion of violence most wrestlers at some point in their career will be put in a position where they have to create an aura of violence and they may find that stiffness and blood may be the only way to accomplish that. Violence is essential to wrestling's public perception as well as it's relationship to other sports. Clean, respectful babyface vs babyface contests are often sold by promoters and announcers as an idealized form of the sport while on the opposite end of the spectrum it's not unusual for an announcer to say "it's a shame that it had to come to this" during a violent grudge match. The conflict of sport and technique going up against violence and hatred is one of the essential narratives in pro wrestling. It's why Mexican crowds throw money into the ring after a classic title match and it's why arenas sell out for the most hate filled mask vs mask matches and I'm not sure you can have one without the other. The violence of a brutal cage match seems more striking when "scientific" matches exists and the handshake between two big stars after a clash of the titans style babyface vs babyface match is more special because they didn't try to kill each other. It also makes the rules of a regular match more important when things get out of hand in a no DQ match (I'm specifically thinking of how Lance Russel puts over the importance of referees in the aftermath of the Funk vs Lawler empty arena match). That same conflict has roots in real sports. A couple of years ago I read a book called The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America. It's a history of boxing in the 19th century but much of it's focus is on the public's perceptions of boxing throughout that time and particularly the conflict between those who expressed moral outrage against the violence of boxing and the working class immigrant fan base of the sport. John L Sullivan may have made boxing more palatable to certain audiences by engaging in gloved sparring but the violence was and still is just as essential to the appeal of boxing as the admiration of technique. I will avoid rambling about that book as this post is long enough but reading that book and paying attention to the old business of boxing has helped my understanding of how wrestling is booked and why crowds react to certain things as there are a surprising number of parallels. Anyway, as long as creating an aura of violence is essential to storytelling in wrestling there will be wrestlers who work stiff because it's the easiest and most effective way to do that.

Other people seemed higher on this one than me but I thought it was kind of disappointing and makes a a pretty poor representation of both guys and the AWA set. It was somewhere on the bottom half of my ballot. It's also maybe the second or third best match on this show. Both wrestlers had many much better matches in 86 with other opponents.

That was Larry Holmes attacking Trevor Berbick. It still gets replayed on Sports highlight top-tens pretty often. In case anybody hasn't seen this:

It's weird, with all of the death in my beloved pro wrestling I'm not often phased by it. I mean, it's messed up but I'm kind of numb to it at this point. Still, I'm not used to wrestlers dying and being the exact same age as me. I know Ric has been in rough shape lately (blood clot in his leg) and now I'm even more worried about him. This sucks.

The use of the word sombrero is a bit more complicated than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero

He's a guy that can always suck me into a match and I can't help but pay attention to everything he does. If not for Lawler he's be the Memphis set MVP and he's looked amazing in his appearances on the other DVDVR 80s sets, even if they weren't as frequent. I loved him in 89 USWA and his tag with Lawler was number 11 on my AWA ballot. I watched the Mid South set just a few years ago and while I didn't have the chance to participate in the initial voting I did make a list of my favorite matches just for fun and he had 3 matches in my top 20, 2 of which were in top 10. One of those matches (though not the best of those 3) was his tag with Terry Daniels against the Dirty White Boys which is a good match to illustrate just how great Dundee is. The DWB are far from bad but he brings them to a whole other level and you barely even get the chance to notice how bad Terry Daniels is. He is constantly doing something interesting in that match, even on on the apron.

You seem to be asking for more American recommendations but have you seen his match against Jim Breaks from 2/12/72? I haven't seen a ton of WOS but this is one of the better 70s matches I've seen and I'd call it way better than decent. Obviously it's a great Breaks performance but Street's character adds a lot to the match and his forearms didn't look bad to me in that one.

I can't find a clip of it online but Iron Sheik has definitely told this story before. it may have even been in WWE's History of AWA documentary.

If this was DVDVR I would like this. There wasn't much about the actual build of WM23 that had me excited about the show but the overall in ring quality of WWE during the months going into that show were so high that I was just kind if excited about the product overall. It ended up being my favorite Wrestlemania. I've only sporadically been following current wrestling lately and from what I've seen WWE isn't at that level at the moment. In the last few years they have delivered some great big matches that may be at the same level or greater than high end 2007 WWE (Cena vs Brock, Cena vs Punk, Punk vs Bryan, Henry vs Bryan, Punk vs Henry, Shield TLC) but week in and week out they are nowhere near the quality level they had from 2006-2008. On paper none of the matches on this card have the potential of those other recent great matches. It looks like I'm streaming it this year so we'll see if I'm wrong. I would really like to be wrong about this.

Ever since the Brock promo before the Cena match where he claims Cena will piss in fear discussion of Brock and piss have become a minor meme:

I just imagined Angle vs Brody and while it would probably be an awful match, something about the mental image of Brody not being willing to get suplexed by someone Angle's height made me laugh.

It strikes me odd that someone who so often argues that micwork should be factored into our analysis of a wrestler's work wouldn't value a wrestler's ability to play a character. I'm not going to argue with you about Kamala because I already know your post-colonial guilt prevents you from being able to accept a savage gimmick but do you really think a wrestler being good in their role is just a line?

Are you thinking of Hash vs Tenryu from NJPW 8/8/93? 1993 MOTY, maybe even a MOTDC.

I'll third this match. Terrific opening match. And now, for something completely different, Astushi Onita. I won't be very original and go toward the 5/5/93 Terry Funk Kawasaki Stadium match. I'm torn between the Funk match and that wild tag with Goto vs Kurisu and Dragon Master. The Funk match is a simple spectacle that's made special by big personalities but the tag is an insanely fun brawl. I've probably watched the tag a dozen times and it's something I often bust out when hanging out with friends who want to watch wrestling. What's the best Tarzan Goto match?

The Simpsons taught me it was legal. "There's a lot of flag burners Who have got too much freedom I wanna make it legal for policemen To beat 'em 'cause there's limits to our liberty At least I hope and pray that there are 'Cause those liberal freaks go too far"

Gypsy Joe had his retirement match two years ago at the age of 77. Can't think of anybody older.

Punk's G2S was protected for a long long time. I can't remember anyone taking more than one in a match other than Cena. I could be wrong though.

I only just learned that AWA won the Observer award for Worst Promotion of the year for 1986. 88 and 89? Sure, I could see that but '86 AWA was awesome. Bockwinkel vs Hennig, Rose & Somers vs Rockers, and Hansen wreaking havoc for the first chunk of the year and having cool matches with Hennig and Blackwell. 1986 was a pretty awesome year for wrestling from everything I've seen but there has to be a better candidate for Worst Promotion in 1986 than AWA.

Harley Race is someone who I'm not a fan of but has definitely had matches and performances I've really liked so he isn't completely worthless. In terms of 70s Race, I liked the Lawler match but I don't remember anything else that stood out. I know I've watched most of the 70s Race on ditch's site but none of those matches ring a bell looking at the list now. I didn't like him on the AJPW set. The Baba matches from 1980 were fun but neither made the top half of my ballot and his other matches were much lower than that. I just found him boring and I could really see the MOVES complaints when watching him there, especially against Jumbo. Meanwhile I loved the Kevin Von Erich match from the Texas set but I wasn't wild about the Iceman King Parsons match. The Rick Martel match from the AWA set was fun but didn't blow me away either. Maybe my opinion will change with the Territories and Crockett sets but I've seen a few too many listless Race matches to think that I'll ever view him as a GOAT level worker or on a top ten American wrestlers list.

I'd rather listen to Power, Corruption, & Lies than any Dylan or Beatles album. My favorite genres are funk, jazz, hardcore punk, hip-hop, blues, and soul. P. Funk is my favorite band of all time. My other GOAT candidates are Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Bad Brains, Howlin Wolf, Fugazi, Minutemen, Fela Kuti, Talking Heads, Wu Tang, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Sam Cooke. Grew up listening to Dylan and the Beatles when my mom played them but I pretty much never want to listen them anymore.

Dylan was arguably consistent from 63-69. Prince was consistent from 80-88.

Sounds like you're reading my mind.

GAB 89 and those 94 WCW shows are good calls. Wrestlemania 23 may be the best Wrestlemania. The 4/24/89 Dome show is pretty fucking sweet. I'm also very fond of Superbrawl III and GAB 92.

Misawa and Hashimoto did work against each other in a few tags in 2001 and I really enjoyed them when I watched them awhile back. I think a singles match could have worked.