Loss

Definitely an incredible match that I think you summed up well. I agree that the high point of this was that every move was a struggle and was earned. A simple move like a vertical suplex means a lot more when you know what it took for one to get the other to that point. Almost seems like something that would go without saying, but it's an honest-to-God *pro wrestling* match, where one thing leads to another pretty much the entire time. One of probably the top five matches of the 80s, if not even the best match of the 80s.

1994 has that legendary casket match with Yoko and Taker, but I really enjoy the Bret/Owen v Quebecers and the Rumble match from that show.

Fun list! There's still quite a bit I want to see from your list, but there's lots of good recommendations here. Jaguar/Galactica better than Nagayo/Masami? That must be an incredible match!

I think I'm going to do threads on all the WCW figureheads in the next few days.

Ha! Will and I have both tried changing that and have had no luck. Maybe we'll just call it a nod to the way things were. It's a shame you had to go crazy and close every topic in there and ban us all from posting new stuff. Insane mod.

Man, I want to see your 500 Matches Better Than Bret v Owen at WM X. I'm not saying you can't come up with it, but I know I couldn't. I might troll you and start a "Goodhelmet's 500 Matches Better Than Bret Hart v Owen Hart at Wrestlemania X" thread and make you list them all. It's not the greatest match I've ever seen, but it would probably still be in my top 200 or 300.

The match happened in '93 now?

Feedback is good. Anything that you'd like to see implemented that isn't, please say so and maybe we can work on it.

Who in WWE is it that always thinks that wrestlers that openly complain as part of their characters that they're on [insert show that isn't RAW here] is somehow a good thing? That's just weird.

I figure this can be the all-purpose thread and it's a good way to get this folder going. Here's some stuff I wrote a while back, slightly edited and updated. What's your take on Vince Russo's booking? I personally think it's been almost entirely shit and has done a lot of irreparable long-term damage to pro wrestling. Russo Argument #1: "He helped the WWF beat WCW and they had their most success ever under him." I would disagree. While he was one of many contributing voices at the time, he was fortunate enough to be writing in a time when both Steve Austin and The Rock became red-hot stars, and they were destined for superstardom with or without Vince Russo's booking. Wrestling is a character-driven business. WCW's ratings and downfall had little to do with the resurgence of the WWF. While the fad audience the NWO drew did find a new toy in the Attitude era, WCW was still competitive for most of 1998 before shooting themselves in the foot with countless bad booking decisions in 1999. Russo was a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Also, comparing the WWF in 1998-1999 to WCW in 1999-2000 shows that there were more factors at work in the WWF's success than Vince Russo. The fact that they were able to stay successful for another two years after he left shows that they were capable of succeeding without him. Russo Argument #2: "He finds something for everyone on the show to do." This is one of the strongest pro-Russo arguments, that he gives angles to people in the midcard. I don't know that "finding something" for everyone equates to "finding something good" for everyone. Russo is known to do so many turns and swerves and big angles within a typical two-hour show (or one-hour show for TNA) that it's hard to remember everything at the end. He also doesn't seem to think wins and losses matter all that much, an attitude that has carried over to today's fanbase and made it very hard by extension for WWE to push new guys on top. He created a major "top this" mentality that had him constantly trying to put out a new segment more creative than his last segment, and as a result, you'd see someone like Rick Steiner turn 2-3 times in one PPV, as he did in 2000. He also didn't really play to the strengths of the wrestlers he was trying to push. Chris Benoit in late 1999 is the best example of this, because Benoit was a serious wrestler and he's pushing him amongst top guys in a setting that makes Benoit look like a fish out of water. He wasn't able to adapt to his talent, but rather he expected his talent to adapt to him. There's also the countless forgettable angles and logical plot holes that accompanied all of his busy-body midcard angles. Remember Beaver Cleavage "breaking character" in the middle of RAW? Or Hawk attempting to commit suicide by jumping off of the Titantron? Russo Argument #3: "He wasn't given a fair chance in WCW." Russo was given free reign in October of 1999, but complained that Standards & Practices were killing him because they wouldn't let Roddy Piper make jokes about overweight women. It's not like those jokes were going to affect the ratings anyway, but whatever. They were squarely in his corner and truly believed he had the goods to turn WCW around until they started noticing more and more problems in his booking. He was booking to settle vendettas as much as anything. He did countless segments bashing Austin for refusing to work a program with Jeff Jarrett. He debuted the Oklahoma character, which made fun of Jim Ross's Bells Palsy condition. He had Kevin Nash dress up like Vince McMahon in the worst parody of all time. He was settling scores. The buyrate came in for Starrcade '99, and it was the lowest of the year, and that's when Bill Busch knew he had to take action. Granted, he replaced Russo with an even worse group of has-been bookers who didn't have the right view, either, but it was obvious at this point Russo wasn't the guy. Problems started again the second time around when he put the World title on both David Arquette and himself, and again used on-air time to air his grievances against Hulk Hogan. The ratings still weren't improving, the buyrates still weren't improving and the product was abysmal. Russo Argument #4: "The average fan doesn't want to sit through a match longer than three minutes." The beautiful thing about pro wrestling is that the promoters and bookers can create their own average fan. Russo was notorious for pandering to the lowest common denominator, getting people to watch wrestling as a Springer-esque freak show. The whole idea behind Crash TV was that the show would be so bad that you couldn't turn away because there was a perverse pleasure in watching it. That's a bit of hard pill to swallow on someone who grew up on Memphis and NWA, where they were unbelievably proud of presenting a wrestling show and had no shame. Part of that was admittedly company mentality, as WWE has always been embarrassed by what it is, but Russo embellished the point of view far more than anyone else ever has. It's a total self-fulfilling prophecy. When you book a wrestling show that encourages intensity, athleticism, storyline continuity and payoffs, those are the sorts of things the audience is going to like, because that's the sort of audience you're going to draw. Now is a good time to mention that a researcher did a survey of the wrestling audience for WCW in 1999 of a huge cross-section of fans asking what they wanted from the product. The most popular answers were that they wanted less skits, less NWO, more wrestling and storylines that made sense. Russo went in the exact opposite direction, giving them more skits, more NWO, less wrestling and illogical storylines. The average WWF fan and average WCW fan were in some ways two different beasts, as previous surveys of WCW's audience had also indicated that they were mostly devoted sports fans. Russo tried to beat McMahon at his own game -- sports entertainment -- and Vince McMahon can NOT be outdone there. Russo Argument #5: "He gave women a fair share in a male-dominated industry." Sable was indeed a bigger ratings draw than Steve Austin in the first half of 1999, but Russo has often tricked himself into thinking that he used women as anything but eye candy. Hell, WWE doesn't have the most sterling reputation in terms of treating women with respect, but they have at least tried to make people like Stephanie McMahon and Trish Stratus actual wrestling characters who happen to be women. Even Sable was never really a character, and she was easily the most successful woman during his tenure. Women have truly never gotten their fair share in a male-dominated industry, and I won't argue that point, but I will argue that they fared any better under Russo than anyone else. Did I miss anything here? I realize some of these things have been said so many time by so many people that they're pretty cliche at this point, but that doesn't make the statements any less true.

What?

I think with Meltzer, he thinks that anything that isn't talking about pro wrestling television or pro wrestling business is a waste of time, and that was probably what his reaction came down to. Or maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

The Rumble will have to save the show. With the PPV being in San Antonio and HHH just falling out of the picture, I could see certain people pushing for Michaels to get the win and go into WM to face Cena. Undertaker is the other favorite. Yes, this is 2007. Cena/Umaga should be really good. I really enjoyed the NYR match a lot. I can also see Finlay making a long showing in the Rumble just because they might want a road agent in there to call eliminations. Batista/Kennedy should be inoffensive if kept really short, but it'll probably go longer than it should since it's a title match. I like Lashley with the right opponent, but Test isn't the guy for that spot. I haven't watched ECW in a while. Is Test a babyface now? Is he being pushed as a worthy contender or is it more of a Lesnar/Holly at Royal Rumble '04-style buildup? Depending on what kind of shape Joey Mercury is in, MNM/Hardyz should be good. Jeff Hardy has been looking good by Jeff Hardy standards since returning, and Matt and Mercury are both really good. If you want to know how good Joey Mercury is, all you have to do is compare MNM matches to Johnny Nitro singles matches.

WWE is releasing a Four Horsemen DVD later this year. What do you think has to be included on something like this? Strangely enough, when they've shown clips of Bash '87 on Confidential in the past, it's letterboxed and looks to be about 4th generation, and in awful shape. The first War Games seems like a gimme, but their copy may be in horrible shape, which is funny considering that Bash '87 is probably the easiest old Crockett commercial release to find in great VQ. Anyway, I do think they should stop with the Windham version of the Horsemen, but I have a feeling they'll focus on the Roma/Benoit versions more than they deserve, especially the Benoit version because it coincided more with Bischoff and the NWO as far as the time frame. I'm sure the documentary will have Jim Ross, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and maybe Tully Blanchard providing comments. Windham is an outside possibility, and Luger and JJ are definite nos. It'll actually be interesting to see how they cover both guys considering how much they're disliked within the company. Let's discuss.

That's definitely amusing. Where did the whole AJ-is-a-homophobe thing start anyway? I remember him calling Michael Moore a fag once, but that's all I can recall.

Yes, and very soon. Some of the skins were taken away for now because they still have the New Millenium Blues logo at the top of the page. Once we can get rid of that, I'll add other skins back as options. I'll try to get that done by the end of this week.

Wasn't the World Class shown when Mick was there a year old by the time they showed it? I remember watching the Embry v Devastation Inc stuff, but I thought it aired on ESPN in the summer of 1990.

Ok, here are all the big changes: (1) The NMB wrestling folder is still accessible, but is read-only. We wanted to start fresh, but we also didn't want to delete everything because there's some good stuff there. So you can still see and easily search the folder, but any replies or new topics will be posted in the appropriate folder. If a situation comes up where it would be appropriate to move an old NMB thread to an active folder because it's relevant again, just make the request and we'll probably do it. Match Reviews and MMA are carried over from the old NMB board. (2) We've added and taken away several folders. You'll notice that there are no non-wrestling folders here. That's by design. Sometimes, finding out too much about the people we talk wrestling with isn't necessarily a good thing, and we think there would be less chance of things like flame wars and petty crap taking over the board if there's nowhere designated for that sort of thing. (3) There are currently no mods. Goodhelmet and I are admins, and will add mods at a later time if traffic picks up and we deem it necessary. For now, we're going to just handle everything ourselves because we don't know how busy the board is going to be. (4) We have a blogs feature. I want this to be a big feature that brings people here and encourage everyone to use it. Obviously, considering that this board is called Pro Wrestling Only, blogging about your personal life, politics, music or whatever else doesn't really fit in, so we do politely request that if you're going to be making a blog, that it's wrestling or MMA related. Still, if you've ever thought about starting a wrestling website or writing a column, but didn't want to go through the trouble of setting it up, this is probably ideal for you.

If you'd like access to either the Downloads or Trading folders, kindly state which folders you'd like access to and I'll PM you the password(s) you need. Thanks.

The site will continue to re-direct, but if you'd like to view it without that annoying blue bar at the bottom of the page, update your bookmarks to http://www.prowrestlingonly.com. Yes, I don't care for the tag line at the top either. That will be changed. I'll make a post later this morning explaining all the changes and answering any questions.

The board may be down at times tonight, as we're doing the switchover. Everything should be working well tomorrow hopefully. Keep your fingers crossed.

Midnight Express v Bobby & Jackie Fulton - NWA World Championship Wrestling 12/23/89 The Midnights are heels again, but you wouldn't know it from this crowd. Cornette, to his credit, does everything he can to try to turn the fans against them, but none of it quite works in the big picture, even if it does at times on a smaller scale. The Midnights start off strong on the Fultons, but they quickly fight back and clear the ring, which enrages Cornette at ringside to a point where he wants to come in and _box_ both of them, but Eaton and Lane talk him out of it. The Midnights were great for stuff like this. No one can sell a punch like Bobby Eaton, as both Fultons' punches leave Bobby staggering, and they finally calm things down and work over Eaton's arm. Of course, no one can throw a punch like Bobby Eaton either, as we'd later find out. The crowd is still booing, and Cornette is yelling at them all and calling them rednecks, but to no avail. The use of blind tags here is really fun, with the faces doing lots of that and catching both Eaton and Lane off guard several times. Lane gets in some great kicks in terms of variety, and Bobby acts as the face in peril, with Eaton getting in two great backbreakers and Cornette sneaking in a tennis racket shot behind the ref. They cut off the hot tag, but Bobby Fulton rallies back with an octopus~!, but gets clotheslined behind the ref's back. Fulton fights back more with a facebuster and a hot tag, and man, can Jackie Fulton throw a great dropkick and even a leg lariat! All four end up in the ring soon enough before Jackie falls victim to a double guzzle. This match was incredibly fun, and they did all of this in 8 minutes!

Sting v Lex Luger - NWA World Championship Wrestling 12/23/89 Fun match. 1989 Luger did have a lot going for him, and you could actually put together a series of his matches from that year against widely different opponents where Luger brings something different pretty much every time out. Other matches, like Luger/Murdoch, see him bring a surprising amount of offense, but here, Luger is all about the heeling and playing to the crowd. Luger uses basically no big offense at all in this match, but he plays the crowd so well by yelling at them, begging off from his opponent and sneaking in cheating tactics when he can that the match still works quite well for other reasons. In this match, he also apparently decided he wanted to be Terry Funk and decides to do Terry's trademark drunken selling, which is highly entertaining. They work some good nearfalls toward the end with Sting coming back strong after Luger is in control, but Luger ends up holding up a chair when Sting tries the Stinger splash, which both draws a DQ and prompts a big brawl with all the top stars in the promotion running in. While Lex was never truly a great worker, even if he was good for a spell, he does an admirable job playing to Sting's strengths here by giving him plenty of openings and making him look really good. It's easy to see why they were the hottest young stars in the company at this time.

Rick & Scott Steiner v Cactus Jack & Rick Fargo - NWA World Championship Wrestling 12/16/89 This is Mick Foley's national television debut! The storyline was that he'd have a different partner every week, usually a jobber, who would be on the losing end of the deciding fall, and he would snap and destroy his partner after the match. That's what happens here, at least after they get going and Rick decides to stiff the fuck out of Jack early on for no real reason. It's interesting to see Scott doing a middle rope Angle slam, in 1989, which Jim Ross refers to as a Wolverine slam, interestingly enough. Mick sums this up better than I can in Have A Nice Day, but it's not really obvious from watching that he's hyperventilating, even though he said he was.