World's Worst Man

Sort of off-topic, but my god, when did the smark "community" get so pretentious and shitty? That thread makes me ashamed to even be around the discussion.

TNA PPVs are definitely better than WWE PPVs. WWE TV kills TNA TV though. I'd say it's a wash, maybe a slight advantage to TNA.

My problem with Suzuki vs. Kobashi was that the work was incredibly "fractured". The match had no flow, and there were way too many "uncomfortable pauses" as I like to call them. Suzuki was still terrible at that point, as he didn't know what to do to fill time between his schtick/submissions, and it was something you would see in pretty much every match involving him. That's something I tend to care about, so it really put a damper on the match. Still good, but I probably wouldn't even call it better than the disappointing Sasaki-Kawada match from that month. Kind of disappointed that Kanemaru/Akiyama vs. Hashi/Kobashi didn't get put on. It was my #2 or #3 match of 2005, and it was a match that would appeal to pretty much everyone. The story telling was off the charts, and the wrestling was great as well.

Who thinks the lame, spotty opener matches are any good to begin with though? Guys like Joe and Danielson are different because their matches are looked at as really good by wrestling critics in general, and I don't think that was the case with ECW's stuff. In 10 years, I think the critics will still think their matches were good. Whether the general "smark community" does or not is another story though. Depends what's "in" in 10 years.

I think 1994 had more super high-end stuff than 1993, but 1993 had a larger depth of really good and better matches. Which would lend credence to the 1 hour -> 30 minute TV theory.

Gotta keep that "talent" away from the Japanese promotions. Just in case WWE decides to run a 10,000 drawing show at the Tokyo Dome.

She's still awful looking now, you just need a somewhat closeup of her face to see it. First Melina and now her, it's mind-boggling how these incredibly ugly girls are getting signed by a company like the WWE. Considering how they view women and all.

Damn, I just saw the Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees match from the Bret Hart DVD. Why was this match not on the DVDVR WWF DVDs? It would have been my #2 match. Just great heat segments on the Bees, great crafty heeling by the Foundation and really fast-paced, crisp work.

Naoya Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto (10/11/99) A tale of 2 halves. The first 6-7 minutes of this was looking like it was going to be a MOTYC and one of the greatest (not best, but greatest) matches I've ever seen. Incredibly intense, an incredible struggle, incredible timing that had the crowd going absolutely insane. And then came the second half. Ogawa basically dominated the last 6-7 minutes. Hashimoto didn't get in any offense at all. He was utterly destroyed until the infamous "Inoki stoppage", where Inoki jumped in the ring and had the match stopped. Not only did this incredibly stupid booking ruin the match, but it also extended the angle another 6 months, and Hashimoto STILL didn't get his big blow-off win. Here you have your top star and draw in Hashimoto, and they do this incredible angle involving him and Ogawa, stemming from their 1997 matches. And what happens? Hashimoto is dominated in both matches, later doesn't even win the blowoff, and ends up in Zero-One. It killed Hashimoto's credibility and he ended up never coming back from the supposed "temporary" Zero-One. I believe all of this was what started New Japan's downfall, even though it's more popular to think it started later on when they started relying more heavily on the "worked shoots" stuff, while sending their wrestlers to get killed in shoots.

It was definitely Foley.

Did anyone ever notice that Manami Toyota looks like a dead female ringer for Kazushi Sakuraba? They seriously look like they could be twins. Ok, I'm done.

Vertical drop is a direct translation of the Japanese words. "Suichoku rakka" literally means vertical drop, and it means what it means, moves where the wrestler is dropped vertically on their heads. So a brainbuster or high angle german suplex. Avalanche style is a translation of "nadare shiki", which is a move done off the top rope. So a superplex or similar.

^ That's how some matches are better than the sum of the parts of the workers involved. It's also why I'm wary of giving guys credit for "neat story-telling sequences" when it's hard to know exactly who came up with what, or if that stuff was even called on the fly or planned in advance. But anyway, the fact that UT vs. Angle was heavily pre-planned doesn't take away from the match quality in my eyes. It just wasn't a match that proved UT or Angle are particular good in the ring.

If it's played up that the arm work is important, then it's likely intended. If it's casual arm work with no fervor, it's likely to be coincidental. And who knows, maybe intention isn't the main thing to look at. Maybe it's simply doing a good job of telling the story. If Angle and Holly just casually work the arm sequences, with no level of desperation or intensity, it doesn't really matter if they intended to play off the past history. If they did intend it that way, they did a crummy job of getting it across, so it's not a positive anyway. If the arm work was intense and fervored, then it's a positive, and fairly likely that they wanted it to have that meaning. Of course, regardless of all that, it's still true that some people come to obscure and arbitrary conclusions about certain wrestling matches. One can find meaning in anything if they're actively looking for it. That doesn't mean it's really there though. And while people can come to those conclusions if they want, I'll come to the conclusion that their opinion isn't supportable.

Samoa Joe vs. Chris Daniels (8/20/05) Here's an example of a damn good match with a dead crowd. And it didn't matter one bit. Simply paying attention to what was going on in the ring made it clear that they were doing good things in there, rather than letting the crowd dictate what was or wasn't good. The heat segments were great (good comeback teases and focused work), the story was easily understandable (Daniels going after Joe's ribs), and it had a really nifty finish (rear naked choke in the ropes, with Daniels hanging in the air). Real good main event to an otherwise horrible show.

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.p...showtopic=12020 There's the original thread so people know what I'm yammering on about.

I liked this thread over at DVDVR, mostly because I've been saying it for a while now, so I figured I'd bring that discussion here. I guess the gist is whether one watches wrestling and interprets every fine detail, giving a match credit accordingly, or if one watches the match and only gives credit for clear, intentional story-telling. I personally prefer the latter, because realistically, one could interpret every meaningless, random, filler spot or transition as some fine, intricate story, even though there's almost no chance that the wrestlers intended it to have such a meaning. The end result might be that literally almost any match could be claimed as a great piece of work, just based on obscure, dubious interpretations.

http://www.pwhf.org/ says hi

We could ask him. It's not like TSM is exactly bringing it with regards to intelligent wrestling discussion.

Saw this at DVDVR. "(About Jesse) You're missing possibly Jesse's greatest line ever at WM6: Gorilla (As Hogan applies a front facelock on UW): What a punishing hold that is. Jesse: Certainly. Ask Richard Belzer." Reason #10241 why Jessie Ventura rules.

Just "good" matches? He's had a few good singles matches with Aries and Shelley. He was also in some really good/excellent tag matches with Cabana against the Briscoes. Punk isn't a godly worker, but he's a fair bit better than a huge chunk of the WWE roster, including the guys who are burying him. I don't think this story is much of a surprise though. I think even if guys like Samoa Joe or Bryan Danielson were signed to developmental deals, you'd have the same old WWE boys claiming they can't work.

I will most likely pirate disc 1 for the Bockwinkel/Inoki/DiBiase matches, but other than that...no.

Most entertaining match review ever. Seriously.

Tenay is a color guy, not a PBP guy. That's why he's pretty awful as TNA's PBP guy when he was pretty good in WCW.