Loss

Oh, and Meltzer's recaps I don't think completely do justice to a lot of the matches. I'll try to give my views on the full show sometime tomorrow. In short, no MOTYCs on the show, but even the matches you'd expect to be bad were good, or at the very least were so well laid out that they got a lot of milage anyway. And again, their choices of who to put over all night, save probably the opening match, were all right on the money.

I also dug that they didn't something shitty like having Austin or Hogan showing up and beating up midcarders. This is the first year in a long time that they haven't had legends beat up a bunch of lower card guys in some part of the show, which is great, considering that I hate it when they do that.

I watched the show and I will say this -- this is the most ballsy booking WWE has done (Rey winning the belt, Cena retaining, putting heels over almost all night) in a long, long time. I need to let some more time pass before I comment in more detail on the show, but I honestly think the right person went over in every match.

Are transcripts available?

Let's start off with a little chaos. From Meltzer:

Eddy Guerrero & Art Barr v El Hijo del Santo & Octagon - AAA 11/05/93 Wow. Unbelievable, blowaway match. I'd put this way ahead of the WWC match, which I love as well, but this is completely balls-out and heated, and the pace they manage to maintain for 45 minutes is incredible. It's been said that the WWC match would work in any environment because it could also be watched as a great American or Japanese tag, but I think that rings even more true for this match. How great is it? I'll say this. Lots of great matches happened in '93, many of which I need to see again. But I think this is better than the Misawa/Kobashi v Kawada/Taue Real World Tag League final just under a month later. Everyone should see this. Beautiful.

Yeah, I meant to say that Sherri has not aged one bit.

Great! Look forward to it.

Just wanted to see what you guys thought of it. Nice for a feel good show and all, but one of those times where I almost wish I wasn't aware of the underbelly that permeates WWE, and all of wrestling for that matter, because the Bret Hart and Eddy Guerrero inductions, while handled well, were a little strange. I take it either Shawn Michaels was asked not to show up at the ceremony or voluntarily decided against it. HHH, Flair and Hogan all looked ... less than thrilled to be applauding him, but they did it, and I guess that's what's important.

Okay, there was a lot of interest in this set when it first came out with a lot of people saying they looked forwarding to watching/talking about them. So why did I end up mostly talking to myself in this thread? Kinda disappointing.

I'm still waiting on my idea with every blacklisted guy in wrestling who's burned a bridge, is a known piece of scum or drug addict, etc. to congregate in one company with Vince Russo, David McLane and Rob Black booking it, after drinking a bottle of whiskey each. WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN? WHEN?

Wow, was Flair billed as "Ric Flair", with that spelling, even in 1972 when he debuted? That's really going back pretty far. And I wonder what the legal issue is - if Crockett is wanting royalties for all the money made off of the name Ric Flair by WWE. This could be big, or it may get taken care of fairly easily.

Watched the Classic Lucha 01/27/84 disc just released by Alfredo, and there are three very great, very different matches on the DVD, two of which I'd consider MOTYCs. First match is Ringo Mendoza, Hombre Bala & Gran Cochisse v El Supremo, Enfermo Jr & Talisman. I can think of at least a half dozen comparisons I could make to other matches here, but the first one I want to make is the Can-Ams/Footloose match from AJPW on 6/5/89. The reason I make that comparison is that I think both matches have so many great aspects that pretty much anyone will be able to find something they like from it. Extremely accessible. Daredevil spots that look great in 2006 that were out of this world in 1984. Really great build, with one of the technicos (unfortunately, I couldn't quite figure out who was who on each team) debating his conscience on whether or not he should punch out his rivals to spare his partner and teasing throughout the match what he would do. And everyone who thinks there are no faces in peril in lucha libre should really take a look at this match, because there's definitely one here, and he's covered in blood and repeatedly struggles to make the hot tag. Really Portland-esque, with all the wild bumping, pier-six brawls here and there, and the long match taking place in the intimate atmosphere. Fantastic match. I've seen enough from '84 worldwide to safely say that this is a top five match for the year without question. Next up was Tony Salazar, Halcon Ortiz & Cien Caras v El Satanico, Colosso Colosetti & Herodes in another great match that isn't as blowaway as the matches it's sandwiched between, but it's that way by design. More of a blueprint for the Michinoku Pro matches of 1996-1997 than anything in terms of comedy, selling and match layout. Finally, there's Manuel Cota v Americo Rocca and I had no idea what to expect since I'd heard nothing really about either guy. 70s AJPW finds its way to Mexico and a brilliant match ensues. Lots of great matwork throughout the entirety of the match, mixed in with some great high-flying stuff toward the end. Billy Robinson would be proud of this one. Cota is really a prototype of Bryan Danielson; they're almost the exact same. Rocca reminds me of a better Tito Santana, at least in this match, mixing in servicable selling and comebacks with some really spirited matwork. Great stuff! I love the variety presented in one show.

They thought Warrior was the successor to Hogan. Understandable why they made the choice they did at the time. The whole reason Andre and Haku won the tag titles from Demolition before WM VI was that Andre was about to retire, and Vince felt he should get a belt before finishing up.

Just WCW being WCW. Nash thought it would be funny if he showed up without explanation.

Rude quit the WWF in protest I believe, although it's possible he had other motivations for doing so as well. Him showing up on RAW and Nitro at the same night -- clean shaven on one show with a beard on the other -- was a big deal at the time.

>>8/14/05 Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (TNA Sacrifice) Very good match. Lots of fun, with good pacing and selling and some terrific nearfalls. My only real problem with it was that Joe and Styles wrestled the match like they're the exact same size, but other than that, I think this is the best match I've ever seen from TNA. Hints of a big man/little man match happened early on, but it fell dead immediately when AJ bodyslammed Joe without much of a challenge. The pop that got showed how much the crowd would have taken to that sort of David/Goliath story. Again, good match, but my problems with this match were the same as my problems with Bull/Hokuto in January of '91. >>11/5/05 Bryan Danielson vs. Roderick Strong (ROH) I don't know if Roderick Strong is getting carried and I'm getting the wool pulled over my eyes or if he really is that great, but if I chose my five favorite ROH matches from this set, he'd probably be in three of them. The Punk match gets better every time I watch it, the Gibson match I'll get to in a minute and then we have this match. I'd like to see a little more ROH (something I never thought I'd say after watching way too much of it on these sets ) from around this time because I'm unsure how far Danielson is into his heel run, but this is something that does a lot to get over both guys, and the only time that going as long as they did didn't really bother me. My normal complaint with great ROH matches is that they can't seem to master them in 15-20 minutes, but this match did a lot with the time it was given, and Strong was elevated from this quite a bit I'd imagine. >>12/3/05 Steel Cage Warfare (ROH) I don't get it. Confused me to no end, and I have no idea what they were even attempting to do. Why is this on here? And why does it last six hours? >>4/24/05 Ishikawa vs. Ikeda (Ikeda Produce) Great match! One of my favorites on the set. Part of that may be that it was unique and that made it stand out, but this was really gritty and seemed more like a bar fight with rules that are mostly adhered to than it did a wrestling match. I normally don't like a lot of matches like this because there's little selling and it's all about the offense, but this is a match that would be great in just about any environment or context. >>8/19/05 Chris Hero vs. Arik Cannon (IWA MS) Embarrassingly bad match. Seriously, why? >>9/11/05 Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka (Big Mouth Loud) Even better than the previous Ishikawa match! BML rocks, and I need to see more. >>10/2/05 Gibson vs. Strong (ROH) My favorite Strong match on the set, just because he finally goes over instead of playing bitch like he does on the rest of the DVDs. Strong strangely reminds me of Ron Garvin, both with the great chops and the fact that he makes a great challenger fighting from underneath, but really wouldn't work any higher than that. >>10/2/05 Samoa Joe/Low Ki vs. Kenta Kobashi/Homicide (ROH) Another great match, although putting Ki and Homicide on opposite teams was annoying, regardless of the half-assed reasons for doing so, especially when just six weeks before this, partners Joe and Ki were trying to kill each other. That really put a damper on the whole match, but the Joe/Kobashi interaction still rocked, and all four worked really hard. Booking was just too weird for me. >>10/14/05 El Hijo Del Perro Aguayo/Mr. Aguila/Hallowen/Damian 666 vs. Pierroth/Apolo Dantes/Mascara 2000/Universo 2000 (CMLL) Good match with lots of energy and heat, but sort of hard to follow. I didn't really understand what I was watching.

Because Vince loves Andre and probably wanted to find a way to increase his posthumous legend even more than he already has. There is no truth in wrestling, only perception, and that's all it's about.

Right. Hogan held the title from 1/23/84-2/5/88, when it was vacated in the twin Hebners angle. WM III was on 3/29/87, at the height of Hogan's title run. The twin ref angle set up Hogan/Andre in the title tournament quarterfinals of Wrestlemania IV.

Right, the WM III match *was* a title defense by Hogan. Did you just make a typo?

Did you mean title "changes"?

Problem isn't the skits and outside the ring stuff, the problem is that they book it as an attraction in and of itself.

Yeah, the name was spelled incorrectly on the original match list. >>9/18/05 Suwa vs. KENTA (NOAH) If this match alone is any indication of any type of consistency, SUWA may be the best wrestler in the world. I was pretty blown away by his great heel stuff here, finding ways to constantly break every rule in the book just out of the sight of the referee. The problem is, and maybe I've gotten a bad sampling, but I can't get into KENTA at all. He always has the same facial expression and never seems to change. He's a guy who wrestles LONG matches for juniors (30+ minutes is insane for that division), which from what I can tell often involve lots of time killing for the first half to two-thirds of the match, followed by lots of kicking in the final stretch with some good nearfalls. SUWA was amazing here, but KENTA, on this set, always seems a little bored. >>10/1/05 Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi (ROH) Great match! Not a "one-sided squash", as some have called it, by any stretch, considering that both are dominating for a lengthy amount of time throughout this match. Atmosphere carries this match a long way, but that does count for something. One of the best matches of the year, but I don't think it was Kobashi's best match of 2005. This match told me two things -- the first is that Kobashi has an incredible work ethic. He could get away with doing so much less than he does, but he still works very hard every time out. He wanted to have a competitve match here, and he did. The other is that Joe should really be the top gaijin in NOAH, and why he isn't I'll never know. >>1/8/05 Kobashi vs. Suzuki (NOAH) Having not finished the discs yet, this is currently my MOTY for 2005. Loved it a lot more than goodhelmet did a little while back. The basic style of the match really worked for me. Watching Kobashi in 2005, there are definitely differences between him now and ten years ago -- he favors his knees for obvious reasons and he doesn't take nearly the amount of bumps he once did. However, he really knows how to make the most of what he does have, and it shows here. Again, I don't like to make full judgments based on small samplings, but based on this match, Suzuki >>>>> KENTA. Some of this stuff would seem far too pedestrian if it weren't for his hairstyle, which was apparently cut by Brutus Beefcake on a 1988 episode of WWF Superstars, and the constant smirk on his face, which makes him seem a little maniacal, almost like he enjoys pain and wants Kobashi to bring his best. It's the second time I've mentioned the guy, so I wish I wouldn't have mentioned his name talking about Styles/Rave before -- Suzuki is A LOT like Buzz Sawyer here. Kobashi taking the side headlock to the arena floor and posing in it in front of the cameras is priceless. Reminded me very much of a random match you'd stumble upon from AJ Classics, circa 1982 or 1983. >>2/12/05 CM Punk vs Bryan Danielson (FIP) Honestly, I was dreading watching this, because both guys have been overexposed on this set, and I'm sick of them at the moment, but to their credit, they had a really good match and brought me back to their side. I still think every Punk match on this set has been about 10 minutes too long, but I like the FIP environment and think it's conducive to good matches. Danielson is far more animated than he typically is in ROH, but he's still very much the same guy. I like Punk far better as a heel than I did as the hometown babyface challenging Samoa Joe in June of '04. I think Punk will do just fine in WWE if he can learn to fit the same schtick in a smaller time frame -- when he can start having good matches at 15 minutes or less, he will probably have what he needs to have good matches in WWE. >>5/8/05 KENTA & Marufuji vs. Hidaka & Fujita (NOAH) Again, with KENTA matches, the final few minutes are great, but the road there is so boring. He reminds of Shinjiro Otani in that regard, as even when he was having a blockbuster 1996, the one thing that bugged me about many of his matches was that the first half of them involved him doing so much aimless matwork. And aimless would be the word I'd best use to describe the first, oh, 85 minutes of this match or so, although things got really great toward the end. >>5/14/05 Perro Aguayo Jr. vs. Mistico (CMLL) Always good to see more CMLL, although I wish the matches featured didn't all involve Mistico so there would be a wider variety (I know there's more on Disc 5 that doesn't involve Mistico). I prefer the Averno match for intangible reasons, but this is every bit as great, and it's not hard to see why Perro was on such a hot streak last year. Something I want to revisit after watching all the TV around this time, because a lot of the stuff, like attempting to pin Mistico with his mask off, didn't make sense to me because I didn't understand the motivation for doing so. Enjoyed the hell out of it, but I don't think I went in with enough knowledge to fully appreciate it for what it is.

Viscera did have a three-week spell or so where he was drawing the highest quarter hours of anyone on either show. But obviously, something like that is going to fizzle out pretty quickly. I had no idea he wasn't in the company anymore.

Thanks! I try to keep it ongoing and edit it constantly. When I've seen everything once that I have a desire to see, I plan on revisiting some stuff and seeing how watching more wrestling has changed my opinions. Almost all of these are first time viewing responses. Things may get better or worse with repeated viewings.