Loss

No. Not even close.

In the same vein of the thread yesterday, and with the ECW PPV coming up, I thought it may be a good idea to revisit what's largely considered ECW's best year. Now, I was never a huge fan of the company, although this is the time period I can most tolerate for the company. The shining moments were Mick Foley's promos. I am not a fan of the Guerrero/Malenko I've seen (I've only seen the 2/3 falls match) nor of the Rey/Psicosis match, but there may be some things I've overlooked. I will say that the approach they had to wrestling in the 1995 climate was brilliant, but it doesn't really look all that impressive a decade later. So, this would be a good opportunity for those who were huge ECW fans to talk about your favorite matches and angles of the year, and share any memories you have.

Yes, and that still rings true, in that it gets my nod as best Undertaker match ever. I can also see why some would choose the match with Lesnar though, and they're both very close. The Austin match is a distant #3, but it's definitely #3 for me.

I'd probably say Undertaker's three best matches are with Austin (Summerslam '98), Bret (One Night Only) and Lesnar (No Mercy '02). The Bret and Lesnar matches are about on the same plane, with the Bret match featuring really smart wrestling and the Lesnar match featuring some of the most violent-looking spots ever displayed in a WWE ring. Off topic, sort of -- as pushed as the Undertaker is, I really think they missed the boat on him with his comeback in 2000. 'Taker has shown throughout his career that he'll step up to the challenge and become game to be carried when he's surrounded by workers that are determined to have good matches. It baffles me that to this day, Taker has never faced Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho in singles matches. 'Taker and Benoit I think would have especially had awesome chemistry, especially in 2002 when both were near the top of the card on Smackdown and 'Taker started incorporating more submission stuff into his moveset. I think they had a chance to make him Stan Hansen for WWE -- the old, tough veteran who sees his star falling, but isn't going down without a fight. He should have been the guy that all the up and comers had to go through to achieve anything, and they could have done dozens of big matches with him in the veteran role. Yeah, they had him as the company vet anyway, but he was never trying to prove anything. They briefly got it right in 2003, and his character was as great as it's ever been at that point, but then they threw it all away by putting Vince over him at SurSer and going back to the dead man gimmick. There was a time to do that, but I think toward the end of his full-time run, Taker was showing a little more life, and they should have saved the dead man return for when it was really needed to keep him relevant. Now, he's barely around, only his entrance music is over, and he's a footnote on the big picture.

Again, I expect Batista to drop the title to HHH and HHH to go to Smackdown, thus making a champ on each brand again, only having the two champs switch brands. Orton, Christian and Jericho will stick around on RAW and feud with Cena on top while HHH goes to Smackdown and feuds with Misterio and finally gets his PPV win back over Benoit. The only thing I'm not sure what I predict is how Edge's MITB stip will factor into all of this.

I'm calling it -- HHH wins the title at Vengeance, jumps to Smackdown and buries Rey Misterio.

I don't know if it would be my choice for best Steiners match. I have seen several of their NJ tags as well as the match vs. the Harts from Wrestlefest 1994. as for their best match in WCW? Maybe but I don't think I have seen enough footage to honestly give that opinion. I might do a compare and contrast on those matches soon, because while the Harts match has its moments, I don't think it's anywhere near as good as the Nasties match.

If you watch that match and don't like it, you are a wrestling terrorist.

PPV must-sees: Midnight Express v Rock & Roll Express - Wrestle War '90 * For my money, this is the best of all the MX/RRX matches the more I watch it. They go over 20 minutes and the work at the beginning is just as great as the face in peril stuff and the build to the finish. I absolutely love the Cornette/ref stuff in this match. Ric Flair v Lex Luger - Wrestle War '90 * I think this is actually the last fantastic performance of Flair's career. Luger was game to be carried during this time period, and it says a lot for a match when a fight can break out in the stands 30 minutes in and no one in the crowd even bothers to pay attention to it. Luger looks invincible and Sting motivating him at ringside, along with Luger's transformation from heel to face, is masterfully done. Just a few short weeks earlier, they would have gotten a dramatically opposite reaction. Midnight Express v Brian Pillman & Tom Zenk - Capital Combat '90 * They constructed the entire match around the idea of the MX being in total despair and unable to form a game plan because they didn't have access to their manager, who was locked in a cage per pre-match stipulations. I love the opening sequence with Cornette trying to run and the ref CLOTHESLINING him so they can put him in the cage. Incredibly fun match, with loads of great teamwork from the heels, and Brian feeling it as well. Ric Flair v Lex Luger - Capital Combat '90 * This gets overlooked a lot of the time, which is unfortunate, because I think it very well may be the last time Flair ever hit **** on PPV. Love the in-match storyline built around Luger's knee and the great transition spot when he further injures the knee off of a superplex. Flair's bladejob is a sight to be seen, as is his maniacal post-match promo. Midnight Express v Southern Boys - Great American Bash '90 * One of the best matches the company ever did that is better seen than explained. Context is even better if you understand just how much Smothers and Armstrong were relative nobodies. The karate stuff mid-match ROCKS, and the crowd eats up everything they do with a spoon. Rick & Scott Steiner v Nasty Boys - Halloween Havoc '90 * This very well may each team's best match ever. Scott as FIP is great, and the Nasties are awesome brawlers and cheating heels here. The Steiners get in all their big moves, but they do a far better job pacing them than normal. The match with Sting & Luger at SuperBrawl *wishes* it could be this good. Doom v Barry Windham & Arn Anderson - Starrcade '90 * For a brawl under 10-minutes, this is amazing, and this was sort of the beginning of Barry Windham's return to greatness after a brief slump. Tons of blood and hate, with Simmons and Reed showing just how capable they could be in the right situation. What I listed here is just the really high-end stuff. That doesn't include the ***+ matches on PPV, doesn't include the good TV stuff, and I'm sure Friedlander has some high-quality handheld stuff from 1990 as well.

I thought I might try creating new topics to generate discussion by just picking a year and promotion at random and we can discuss our favorite memories of the year, the best matches we've seen from the year and that sort of thing. So, this is a place for wrestling, nostalgia and match recommendations, actually. The year started off with some changes being made in the hierarchy. Turner execs wanted the NWA to start drawing money, and they wanted immediate results, and the feeling was that they needed a new booker that wasn't Ric Flair, so Flair was axed in favor of Ole Anderson. 1989 was riddled in politics, but it didn't actually catch up to the product until 1990, as you had several people making plays for power and some of them succeeding and some of them failing. The plan all along was for the Horsemen to turn on Sting, leading to Sting winning the belt from Flair at Wrestle War '90. Sting was very hot at the time, but would injure his knee climbing the cage at the Clash just 19 days before he was to win the title, and when he came back from his injury five months later, he had lost a lot of his momentum, and his title run bombed. Ole was fired by year's end and the way was being paved for Dusty Rhodes to come back into the promotion as the head booker. The wrestling was typically very good for most of the year, but the booking was highly questionable. Thunderbolt Patterson wanted a job in the company and threatened to have the NAACP picket CNN Center unless they put him in a television role, so Turner execs basically forced WCW to hire him and use him. The angle they did was pretty tasteless, with Flair and Ole Anderson destroying a series of black jobbers with Patterson being their spokesperson until Junkyard Dog finally came to the rescue, giving Flair one of the worst matches of his career at the June Clash. Speaking of Flair, 1990 was also a year that they felt the Flair era needed to end completely, and they started moving away from him after dropping the belt to Sting, putting him in the midcard to feud with fellow heels Doom and Teddy Long. Flair stepping aside in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad, but fans were accustomed to long, good title matches that Sting just wasn't capable of delivering. Lex Luger also started off the year as the hottest heel they had and was turned babyface to make up for Sting's absence. There was a big controversy over whether Flair should drop the title to Luger, which played a part in him getting removed as head booker, as Flair still felt he should wait for Sting since he had promised him he would. When Herd tried to force his hand and have him drop the belt to Lex on a house show, Flair required a request in writing 48 hours in advance, which his contract stated he would always receive. He didn't receive that request, and thus, Herd had no ground to stand on. The two were heavily at odds by this time. Luger apparently was very upset about this, but just a few months earlier, he made it very clear that he wanted no part of the belt because he didn't want to be a scapegoat for the low attendance figures at the time. Flair and Herd were also at odds over a match at a TV taping in February of 1990 on an episode of Saturday Night on TBS that was heavily influenced by D.ave M.eltzer's suggestions to the booking committee at the time. Flair went against Brian Pillman and wanted to put him over, but was told he would be going over clean, and it took Kevin Sullivan going to him and calming him down face-to-face before the match before Flair finally agreed to get the win. From Flair's point of view, he wanted to elevate Pillman. From Herd's point of view, he was getting sick of Ric's outbursts and thought he was too old to be the centerpiece of the company at that point, and Flair was getting blamed for them not drawing. Lots of good matches that year, both on TV and on PPV, and I'll let the rest of you cover that. Lots of memorable booking as well, so plenty to discuss. I'll pick another random year and promotion tomorrow.

Who are the 15 featured stars? I'm also especially interested in seeing the Flair retrospective. I may pick this up this afternoon myself.

I would have put the following: v Randy Orton (Wrestlemania XXI) v Kurt Angle (Smackdown Fall '03) v Jeff Hardy (Ladder match from RAW) v Rob Van Dam (Any match, really) v Bret Hart (One Night Only) The rematch where Hogan won the belt back from Taker at This Tuesday In Texas is surprisingly decent, and is much better than the SurSer match. It also baffles me that there are no Austin matches on this set, considering they had a neverending rivalry. I guess the problem they face is that they don't want a bunch of matches of Taker losing.