Loss

I like that idea. I think HTQ tried it, but no one responded.

Well, the board was fairly hoppin' at one point a long time ago, and I've been trying to revitalize it recently. I guess it's working, if you and jdw are posting here now.

This would be much appreciated and great! Especially since Bob's site appears to be down at the moment for some reason, or at least it was last night. I also haven't heard from him in a little while.

This is from the second half of Barnett's AAA Vol. 14. Unfortunately, Bob does not have dates listed on his website for these matches. I'd like to track them down myself.

Atlantis - The line on Atlantis among long-time lucha fans seems to be that he's an above-average wrestler who has the benefit of working with lots of talented guys and as a result has a long list of great matches that is a bit deceiving. I don't know if that's true, as I really enjoy Atlantis as a worker. He's not as skilled on the mat as Blue Panther and doesn't have a banner 1-2 years where he was consistently among the best in the world like El Dandy, but he's probably on the next tier beneath Santo and Casas of luchadores who have had lots of great matches spread out over a long period of time, and he seems capable of working with just about anyone. Not as charismatic as many of his peers as a technico, but really seems to turn up the volume as a rudo. Anyone who doubts his charisma should watch his match with El Faraon in March of '85 and see him put on a heel performance for the ages. One of my favorites.

Dump Matsumoto - I can understand someone not liking her, because most of her matches tend to throw the rules completely out the window, are filled with outside interference, have lots of hair cutting and scissor usage and she doesn't really have any offense. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea. That said, I love her, just because 20 years later, I watch her matches and she still scares me. It's hard to watch a Dump match and NOT be on the edge of your seat the entire time. Dump Matsumoto isn't just a great heel. She's a great villain. You could put her in the middle of some Japanese horror flick and she'd fit in perfectly. Every Dump match I've seen is an epic struggle between the schoolyard bullies and the normal girls that were just trying to survive. It was a dynamic made even more awesome by the fact that the Crush Girls, specifically Chigusa Nagayo, were a pop culture phenomenon in Japan at the time, and the heat for all of these matches from the time period is more insane than anything I've ever seen for any era of pro wrestling anywhere ever. Everyone should watch this stuff and at least form an opinion on the era. In addition to the more theatrical style of Dump Matsumoto, you had Chigusa Nagayo, Lioness Asuka, Devil Masami and Jaguar Yokota, among others, wrestling a style 20 years ahead of its time blending big highspots with MMA-style matwork and high-suspense near falls. 90s Joshi is great in its own right and gets more attention, but I think the 80s stuff is better.

I think the idea is that beating Misawa means more than beating Marufuji, and also that Misawa can take the loss much easier than Marufuji at this stage. Plus, Misawa and Morishima had a match in March that was supposedly pretty great that I haven't had a chance to watch yet.

I think Marufuji/KENTA drawing as poorly as it did probably made them give up on the idea they had of putting smaller guys on top. I'm certain this is just a way to get the belt on Morishima.

In the hopes of actually getting excited about watching wrestling again, I popped in a little 1994 AAA. I think it did the trick. Fuerza Guerrera, Psicosis & Fobia v Rey Misterio Jr, Heavy Metal & Puma This match is all about roles. I like this for a lot of reasons, but the role playing of everyone involved is probably the main reason I like this so much. Fuerza is all schtick here, but he's so great at it, and he's capable of keeping up with anyone. I've heard Mexican Arn Anderson being thrown on him as a label in the past, but I really think Mexican Dick Murdoch is more applicable. One of my favorite things about Murdoch has always been the ability to create interest in really standard spots. Something simple that is often a pretty basic or pedestrian in a wrestling match ends up getting a comic twist added and becomes a highlight of the match. There's lots of that going on with Fuerza. He's definitely the most charismatic member of his team for starters, and Psicosis and Fobia play the match up like they're wrestling for his acceptance, but he's a bit of a bumbling idiot himself, so you can imagine what happens from there. Again, this match is all about roles. Fuerza is in the ring for a pretty considerable amount of time, but he doesn't really take any major bumps. Psicosis is the bump machine for the team and his teammates don't really step on his toes. You see this a lot with the technicos too. Rey will be on the apron for long stretches at a time, and then he's tagged in and gets major heat for doing a big highspot because no one else is really flying all that much. If Psicosis is the superstar bumper for the rudos, then Rey is the superstar flyer for the technicos. I'm really only mentioning those three because everyone else just follows their lead and they are by far the best workers in this match. Nice slow pacing that builds to two hot finishes with the rudos winning two straight. It's a strange bit of booking that works, because this match puts out tons of effort to protect Rey and his aura, but his team loses two straight falls. This match also goes to great lengths to get the rudos over as major stooges, but they still get results. Obviously, many combinations of wrestlers in this match would have many more matches in the months to come so they didn't give it all away, but this is a really strong TV match that I think provides plenty of good examples of how to get the big picture over in a way where the results aren't quite the only thing that matter. If there's a downfall, it could be that the winners don't get quite as much glory as they should, but the idea was that they were lucky, and they communicated that very well. Octagon, El Hijo del Santo & Latin Lover v Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada & La Parka I have no idea what to think of this match. Lots of awkward standing around and stupid shit mixed in with great wrestling. I liked this more for Jerry Estrada's psychotic behavior than I did the match itself. You see some pretty great exchanges between Santo and Panther at times, but it's a bit of an afterthought because Estrada is running around maniacally at ringside, attacking his teammates, refusing to start the match and doing other things that seem to have him in his own universe away from everything else going on. Who knows? Enjoyable for weird reasons, but hardly anything good. More to come ...

Even if the match is great, there's nothing about it that makes me absolutely have to see it as it happens. That's the trouble with selling PPVs on workrate -- no urgency to see the match immediately.

Right. I don't think he ever actually said that would be the case. I think there was also talk of having Undertaker/Kane go last on that show, but he never said that absolutely would be happening either.

Bob Backlund is someone I really like and always have. I can understand some of the criticisms against him, but some things seem overblown. For someone who New Yorkers hated, he sure was over before the live crowds and sold out a ton of MSG shows. Some do consider him a bit goofy, which I can understand, but I always thought there was a psychotic undertone to it that bubbled over occasionally when he had a bloody match with a Ken Patera or Sgt. Slaughter type that fit the character well. There's still worlds of Backlund I haven't seen (the hour draws with Inoki and Muraco are the first to come to mind), but there's plenty I have seen that I've liked. I also enjoy the Hogan matches, and while some aren't crazy about it, I think the WON MOTY against Patera was actually an outstanding match. I don't see the case for anyone other than Bob Backlund as the best wrestler of the world in 1980, considering the matches against Hogan, Patera, Hansen, etc. All said, I can understand a lot of people not liking him. If the whole goofy act bothers you and you aren't a fan of his signature spots, I can see not liking Bob Backlund.

Interesting booking there with Murdoch and Jumbo trading wins. I know there was a Jumbo/Murdoch match that no one has been able to track down yet. Was that before or after this match? And what was the finish for that? I can see this taking place at the tail end of a feud with Jumbo going over, but can't really see it at the beginning since Jumbo got his heat back and there's no reason to continue the feud. Unless this wasn't really intended to be booked into any type of big picture.

I agree. PWInsider is a propaganda website for Paul Heyman most of the time, and Keller has a tendency to re-word stories that other people break.

Was Heyman even under contract though? Wasn't there a time when he wasn't?

In a bizarre way, I want him to go to TNA so he can be locked in a boiler room with a bottle of whiskey, Jim Cornette and Vince Russo.

I'm taking this as a shoot. My question at this point isn't why they keep sending him home. It's why they keep asking him back. And also why he keeps accepting.

Dusty Rhodes - I've grown to really enjoy Dusty Rhodes. I was a fan of him as a kid, and then grew out of him for a while because of the new wrestling I was discovering being pretty much the opposite of what Dusty did well. But, at this point, I'd rather watch a Dusty Rhodes match than, say, a match from any period of Koji Kanemoto's career, just to use a random example. A lot of Dusty's success depended admittedly on how the heel fed him comebacks and how they approached him. Like Hogan, someone willing to bump who had some cool ideas could have a good match with him. Dusty in New Japan is really fun, because they put over the elbow as a killer in his matches with Backlund and even more so Inoki, and the Backlund/Dusty match is very non-typical Dusty and something everyone should see. I recently watched Tully/Dusty from 6/6/87 NWA (the match where JJ stole the money) and thought it was pretty good as well. Dusty/Tully generally succeeded in getting the job done. Dusty/Flair is a little more of a mixed bag, as I don't think they ever had a match that was better than decent to good, but I still enjoy watching because of the crowd heat and the chemistry their characters had. People seem to be coming around on Dusty and I'm glad to see it. He accomplished a lot without always putting out a lot. As for his booking, he has had lots of great ideas and great years, and lots of unsuccessful runs as well. There are things he has put together that I have really enjoyed (Four Horsemen, Dangerous Alliance, War Games, etc) and there are some things that have been a little ridiculous (Midnight Rider, Johnny B. Badd obsession, etc), but overall, I'd say Dusty had more positives as a booker than negatives. The big problem was that he liked strong heels to a point where the babyfaces didn't always get their moment, and there were too many screwy finishes. I've been watching quite a bit of 1987 NWA lately, and he's really great at creating this massive celebration anytime there's a title change. It's a huge deal, probably because it didn't happen every week. He gets a bad rap, and a lot of it is deserved, but a lot of it is also overstated, as Dusty did some really terrific things while booking. Wow, that ended up longer than expected. I'll do the rest later.

Here we go again. Hopefully, this will get more talk than the last batch did. Some of these names have been done before, but it's been a while, a lot of us have watched a lot more, and it'll be interesting to talk about them again. Here we go: Dusty Rhodes Bob Backlund Dump Matsumoto Atlantis Jim Breaks Sgt. Slaughter Adrian Adonis CM Punk Roddy Piper Randy Savage

My one request about downloads is that if you're going to do them, make a separate thread about each download with an explanation of why you're sharing that match, or at least make a theme to your post. Just posting as many random links of random matches as one can find is something I'd like to discourage, but I like the idea of saying, as an example, "Here's two Flair/Steamboat matches. Some people argue over which is better. I like the second one myself, but I've posted both so you can draw your own conclusions. Tell me what you think." That way, they at least have a purpose.

That was only because of Invision Free Terms of Service. Downloading is permissible now. I'm unpinning this.

I think they somehow have convinced themselves that they are where WCW was in 1995 when Nitro started, and that they need to use the same tactics to get ahead WCW used then, meaning bashing WWE on the air and trying to embarrass them to get themselves publicity. TNA most likely believes they're one great angle away from being able to compete.

Well, people are talking about it, so I guess that makes it a success by Vince Russo standards. Doesn't matter what they're saying, of course.

Batista is really exposed now that he is away from HHH and Flair.

Five years or more. WWE is down to their core audience now, and they get more than that. Nothing they do seems to make business go dramatically up or down, with Wrestlemania drawing big every year and everything else doing pretty much exactly the same business, regardless of who's on top and what the storylines are. Weird as it is to say, there's not really anything WWE could do to kill business or increase it right now. It's just going to take a star coming along and catching on big, and anything short of that isn't going to matter.