Loss

What can I say, I really liked the Flair/Steamboat match from Spring Stampede '94. It's not at the level of their earlier matches, but it's still an excellent match. You can tell how wrestling had changed watching the match, though, in the sense that their matwork really didn't get much heat and it was only the big spots that drew a big reaction from the crowd. I'm looking forward to watching the WCW SN match now, which I recall being better than Stampede. I was all prepared to make the argument that Austin had surpassed Flair by 1994, but now I'm not so sure.

Wow, Austin vs Steamboat at Bash at the Beach '94 is really awesome, and I've never heard all that much praise for it. I guess I was never interested in seeing it because for whatever reason, Austin himself is not really a fan of the match. But it was awesome, with lots of great finisher teases and I loved the stuff with Austin intentionally trying to get himself DQ'd multiple times toward the end and it never quite working. Austin's chinlock on Steamboat between his ankles was also pretty awesome, so was Steamboat doing the stun gun.

Added Ricky Steamboat vs Bobby Eaton from 6/4/94 Worldwide. Nice match with Eaton keeping Steamboat on the mat and working over his leg.

Their next match on 06/26/88 was even better. You can really track the improvement in Vader. He was good in the first match, but was really starting to come into his own in the second match. Whereas the first match was mostly Fujinami carrying Vader and making him look great, this was more a mutual effort with Vader starting to look like a ring general. Another excellent match.

Added Vader vs Tatsumi Fujinami from 04/27/88. A match built around Fujinami trying to find ways to slay the monster and finally outsmarting him to get a countout win. Love his kicks to Vader's leg, and Vader using a simple move like a reverse chinlock looks like a game ender because he's so freakishly huge. This may have been Vader's first really excellent match.

Bret Clarke was awesome.

I'd rather see them move Christian into Edge's spot and keep the tag thing going, but I know that ain't happening.

When WWE wants to cut costs, they always look at the roster as one of the first places, when really, their bigger expenses seem to be in the executive salaries on the corporate side.

I have never seen a Chikara match.

Lots of that going around lately. In a possibly related note, Undertaker sure does take tons of time off. I don't think he's wrestled more than three months without being sidelined in years.

Wow. I still like the Jericho/Rock matches, and I say this still needing to rewatch No Mercy, but I think I overrated them a tad in hindsight. Don't get me wrong, they had a great standard match. But they repeated spots and entire sequences in rematches. It really feels like a high end Johnny B. Badd/Diamond Dallas Page feud with Jericho doing the People's elbow and all the attempted big moves on the announce table replacing Badd impressing Kimberly enough to get her to hold up the 10 sign at ringside. I liked the Badd/DDP feud, but it's not a classic. Jericho/Rock has lost a little something for me on rewatch, although I suspect No Mercy will still hold up really well, and be the best of their series. Also, side note cracking up that Stephanie made sure she always wore her highest heels when standing next to Jericho to emphasize that she is taller than him, which I can't see Vince letting any other valets get away with.

I know Simmons has had drug issues on and off for years. Am I wrong, or have I read something about him having a major drug problem during that time also?

I should also add that the Disney tapings were such a turnoff to people at the time. It's odd that all these years later, Eric still thinks recording at Disney was a good idea and was part of how WCW turned the corner.

The reasoning for banning moves off the top was because Watts didn't feel like the top rope manuevers were as over as they should have been, so he thought by banning them, they would more over as outlaw moves. I think he was actually trying to protect top rope moves in the same way that Memphis protected the piledriver. I don't really agree with it, but I can see the logic. Which is funny, considering that the Simmons title win and Jake debut was in Baltimore. Agreed. WCW in '93 had Sting/Vader, Austin and Pillman, Barry Windham on fire, Regal coming in, and lots of excellent free TV matches. That said, it was a step down from '92, so that's probably why there was the disappointment there was.

I haven't seen it.

"Plaintiff alleges that WWF programming combines character-driven story lines with skillful wrestling while WCW has no reputation for creativity." Ha! Also, interesting that "Diesel is visibly different from the characters previously portrayed by Nash at WCW" was only said about Nash, and not Hall.

The TLC 4 match is pretty much just a collection of spots, and I agree it's not a great match, but it is a fun one. I do think that Kane having to fight six guys by himself coupled with the awesome Kane/Jericho match the previous week was a great way to build up a new challenger, which was killed immediately after this match was over with the debut of Katie Vick. Jericho/Christian surprised me mainly because it was so well-paced. I thought of all the ladder matches I've seen, it probably had the best pre-ladder brought into the ring section. It didn't feel like a spotfest at all because the wrestling style didn't dramatically change when they brought the ladder into the match, whereas even with Shawn/Razor, I didn't think the early wrestling they were doing before going outside to get the ladder was all that good. KB8: I really thought the Jericho/Michaels ladder match was strong, probably the best of the WWE ladder matches in terms of suspense and build. I do agree with those who have said Michaels has some major issues at times in the match, but Jericho was really on, and gave one of his better performances. I also think it was aided by the accidental blood in Jericho's mouth, because that feud was heated enough that the blowoff really felt like it needed blood, but WWE had a no blood policy. The finish of the headbutt to Shawn's eye was also brilliant.

I agree, it sounds like Batista to me as well. I wouldn't be surprised if it is true, so it's plausible even if it's just a rumor. Batista telling someone about it and it leaking would also be pretty consistent with what we have read about him in the past.

If that's true, there goes my whole defense of WWE for employing her and giving her purpose.

I've been watching Will's Jericho comp, and I have to say that watching a "Best of" set for Jericho makes him look really great. I know "best of" can skew things, but Jericho looks just as good as a Barry Windham type after watching a collection of his best matches. I think the knock on Jericho has always been that he can be inconsistent, but I hope people can agree that he is a guy who when he is completely on is really great. The 2001-2003 heel run honestly looks pretty spectacular, which surprised me, I think because guys like Benoit, Guerrero, and Angle were the ones getting the majority of praise at the time (and I personally don't think Angle has ever been in Jericho's league, but I doubt many people agree with me on that). What makes the Jericho heel run so good is that he has really good matches against so many different types of opponents, and even when the matches aren't all that good, Jericho is putting on a good performance. The 2002-2003 matches with Hogan, Flair, Nash, and Michaels are not great matches, but they are all far better than anything any of those guys were doing with anything else at that point in time. Rock/Hogan from Mania smokes the Jericho/Hogan match from Smackdown, but that's a match that had the benefit of more time, more hype, Pat Patterson booking, etc., and the gap isn't as big as you'd think. The Flair match from Summerslam has a really game Jericho working with a really unmotivated Flair. The Nash match is a really strong carry job (seriously, Nash does nothing), and the Michaels match, while I think it was surpassed by the 2008 feud, did convince Shawn that he could come back full time. The Jericho/Christian team had some very good matches with Booker T and Goldust, and the match where Jericho dropped the IC title to Kane is by far the best Kane match I've ever seen. I also think Jericho was pretty clearly RVD's best opponent in WWE. Even in 2004 when he wasn't being all that pushed and was mainly fodder for Evolution in six-man tags, he looks really good. There's an Edge match on RAW right around the time that they started teasing Edge's heel turn that is excellent and worth seeing also. It's also interesting to point out that Jericho is in some ways the anti-Regal. Where Regal makes other guys confine to his style (which I think is a good thing, I love Regal), Jericho tends to work the style of the guy he's facing. You see a different Jericho wrestling Benoit and Eddy than you do wrestling Hogan, Flair, or Nash, and then another side against RVD, Edge, and Christian. So I would definitely recommend picking up the Jericho set. I would also say there's a huge improvement in WWE Jericho over pre-WWE Jericho. Looking back, even the majority of his WCW matches were really sloppy and haven't held up very well. The improvements he has made in WWE are pretty apparent, especially when watching the progression of a guy facing X-Pac at Unforgiven '99 and being out of position for several spots and killing the crowd every time they're starting to get interested, which is visibly frustrating X-Pac, to a guy carrying many guys to their best stuff. Probably also a good time to talk about his 2009. I'd still say no one is better than Rey in WWE, but Jericho has had more good output this year with more opponents. This thread was actually partially prompted by the newest WON where Dave calls Jericho the best all around performer in the company.

I went through my other list and took off everything unless I was pretty sure re-watching the match wouldn't change my opinion on it. So this is what is left. There were so many that I either know I overrated, know I underrated, or can't really remember. There were some that I remember well, but since I'm ranking by year, I'm not sure I still agree with the order, so I took them off. It'll be fun to watch some of this again, along with stuff I never got around to seeing. And I know people are sort of down on star ratings at the moment, but I do still think they're really good shorthand for how much you like a match.

I tend to think they had Paul Heyman and thought he would be better in that role than Lawler, but needed a way to get him in that spot, so that's why they got rid of Stacey -- so Lawler would quit and Heyman could fill the spot.

Before anyone mentions the Matt Hardy firing in 2005, I would actually defend WWE in that one. It was probably an overboard reaction to fire him, but Matt going public on his blog was childish. That said, I'm curious who made the final call on that. I'm not saying Vince wouldn't support firing Matt, but it would surprise me if Matt Hardy blogging mean things about Edge and Lita was high enough on his radar to warrant his attention.

I would agree with that for the most part, except there were less cases of things like this happening when Jim Ross was in the same position. Jim Ross also largely recruited or signed guys who were able to contribute and got over. Sure, there were decisions Vince made that JR was stuck having to enforce like the Lawler/Stacey firing, but those things were fewer and farther between than they have been under Laurinitis. WWE looked for the same type of men and women for the main roster back then that they do now, yet there were less people who bombed and more people who succeeded that got through during Ross's time in that spot. I'm interested in knowing if WWE would have been interested in people like Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, Misterio, etc. without Jim Ross in that role. Maybe they would have, maybe they wouldn't have I don't know. I think Rey got in based on Benoit and Jericho going to bat for him, so maybe not Rey, but after the Kevin Sullivan/Vince Russo thing in early 2000, those guys could have easily ended up in ECW or Japan if John Laurinitis was heading talent relations. I 100% agree that WWE should have used Booker's group as a developmental territory, especially because WWE wrestlers who lived in Texas were willing to come in and help out on off days, and Booker had connections and a nice facility that he had funded.