Loss

May you also have people who know how to get over it surrounding you, Matt.

I went ahead and closed this off since at this point, there were no ties, and some were getting to a point where there might have been had even one more person voted. Ultimate Warrior (11 votes) defeated Bam Bam Bigelow (4 votes) -- Warrior will face loser of Steve Austin v Mr Perfect match Chris Jericho (13 votes) defeated Taka Michinoku (0 votes) -- Jericho will face loser of Kurt Angle v Rob Van Dam match Demolition Smash (8 votes) defeated Randy Orton (7 votes) -- Smash will face loser of Razor Ramon v Ric Flair match Bob Backlund (9 votes) defeated Jeff Jarrett (6 votes) -- Backlund will face loser of Owen Hart v Randy Savage match Marty Jannetty (10 votes) defeated IRS/Mike Rotunda (5 votes) -- Jannetty will face loser of Diesel v Edge match Rey Misterio Jr (9 votes) defeated Rick Rude (6 votes) -- Misterio will face loser of Chris Benoit v Christian match Sid (11 votes) defeated Tully Blanchard (5 votes) -- Sid will face loser of Hulk Hogan v Undertaker match Sgt Slaughter (15 votes) defeated Val Venis (1 vote) -- Slaughter will face loser of Bad News Brown v Yokozuna match Big Show (8 votes) defeated Arn Anderson (7 votes) -- Show will face loser of 1-2-3 Kid v Shawn Michaels match Booker T (10 votes) defeated Chavo Guerrero Jr (5 votes) -- Booker will face loser of The Rock v Ted DiBiase match Tito Santana (14 votes) defeated Terry Funk (1 vote) -- Santana will face loser of HHH v Paul Orndorff match Greg Valentine (12 votes) defeated Demolition Ax (3 votes) -- Valentine will face loser of Honky Tonk Man v Eddy Guerrero match Jake Roberts (12 votes) defeated Goldust (3 votes) -- Roberts will face loser of Mick Foley v John Bradshaw Layfield match Kane (13 votes) defeated Jeff Hardy (1 vote) -- Kane will face loser of Rick Martel v Taijiri match Ricky Steamboat (7 votes) defeated Matt Hardy (6 votes) -- Steamboat will face loser of Davey Boy Smith v Roddy Piper match Dynamite Kid (8 votes) defeated Andre the Giant (6 votes) -- Dynamite will face loser of Bret Hart v Brock Lesnar match

The following wrestlers have been officially eliminated from the tournament. We at NMB wish to extend our deepest sympathies to the families of the eliminated wrestlers, and will be starting a scholarship fund in their honor. Should anyone have any memories of any permanently eliminated wrestlers which they would like to share, they may do so here. Yes, it may hurt, but your NMB brethrens will remain by your side. I will continue to add to the deceased list as we continue to find eliminated wrestlers among the carnage. Services will be held whenever those who are voting in the tournament are online. All eliminated wrestlers have requested to be cremated. *bong* Bam Bam Bigelow -- NMB mourns for your lost soul, and we will do our part to make sure that in this tournament, Clique members who held you down will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. May you never have to job to a non-wrestler in heaven. *bong* Taka Michinoku -- May you be recognized as the talent you are, and may your soul find closure in the fact that Jerry Lawler, who laughed at you falling out of the ring at the 2000 Royal Rumble, didn't even qualify for the tournament *bong* Randy Orton -- May you crap in the gym bags of the angels above. Heaven needed an overpushed metrosexual. *bong* Jeff Jarrett -- May you hold this tournament up for money, jump to the competing tournament immediately and when that tournament ceases to be, start a new tournament at a new board, a board where you are always the champion of the world. *bong* IRS/Mike Rotunda -- May the afterlife consist entirely of people who know how to spell your last name. *bong* Rick Rude -- May you torment our souls for all eternity at double eliminating you in this tournament without you getting a single victory. May you stand in the shadows as the Ultimate Warrior ultimately gets credit for your work, and may the truly enlightened accept that as it is. *bong* Tully Blanchard -- May you find a wrestling company in your next life that doesn't test for cocaine, and may your soul be reincarnated in the upcoming tag team tournament. *bong* Val Venis -- May you be considered a role model by well-endowed, right-winged extremists for the rest of time (you already have Anne Coulter) and may you find someone, somewhere to acknowledge your talent. *bong* Arn Anderson -- May you be at peace with the injustices committed in this tournament, and may you allow Ric Flair to proudly carry your torch as far as he can. *bong* Chavo Guerrero Jr -- May you someday be recognized as one of the best wrestlers in your company, and may you eventually escape the shadows of your family and your opponents. You can finally be reunited with Pepe. *bong* Terry Funk -- You'll never die. Who do you think you're fooling? *bong* Ax of Demolition -- May your entrance music live on in the annals of WWF history, and may your partner represent the tag team well. *bong* Goldust -- May you find a spiritual home that allows you to have breast implants, and that will also allow you to take your gimmick with you should you decide to find a new spiritual home. *bong* Jeff Hardy -- May you be found on the floor of an all-night rave, covered in your own vomit, chewing on a glowstick. May you also be kept far away from girls at all times. Girls are icky! *bong* Matt Hardy -- May you be given something better to do in the afterlife than watch after your vomit-covered, glowstick-chewing brother; perhaps you could haunt the new home purchased by Edge and Lita. *bong* Andre the Giant -- May you be remembered for what you once were, and not what you became, and may your legacy forever be preserved.

Chris Benoit v Chris Jericho - WWF Smackdown 05/04/00 Note to anyone who says Chris Benoit has no charisma -- watch this match! It's one of Benoit's more animated performances, as he argues with the ref, gives an incredibly surly look to the crowd when they start chanting "Benoit sucks!" and does all sorts of trash talking. Jericho is just as great a babyface ... in some ways. While I think the finish was intended as a payback spot, since they played the clip from Backlash of Jericho getting DQ'd for hitting Benoit with a belt, it didn't completely come off that way, as you saw the babyface cheat without being provoked and win the match. That's really my only complaint here, aside from the fact that these two have been wrestling each other on and off for ten years and we have yet to see that 30-minute match from them with the world title on the line that we've been waiting for all this time, and we probably never will. You'd never know it by watching these guys in 2000, though, as both were very over with the live crowds, especially Jericho, and both look destined for superstardom. The match feels a little rushed because of the time constraints, but they do everything they can with the few minutes they have. A nose-to-nose staredown, resulting in a shoving match, resulting in dual slaps, resulting in a takedown and back and forth brawl that spills outside the ring starts the match before they come back in and manage to get in some cool spots, most notably is Benoit blocking the quebrada attempt by catching him off the middle rope in the rolling Germans, and even bridging into a pinfall afterward! It's rare he does that in Titan. His nose is also bleeding a gusher, as Cole explains that it was broken at Backlash when Jericho hit him with the belt. The blood fits the aggression nicely, as Jericho wins a slugfest by kneeing Benoit in the face repeatedly, which looks pretty painful, and finally drops Benoit with a facebuster. They exchange some *hard* chops back and forth, and we'd eventually see at least one good working sequence, with Benoit reversing an Irish whip into an attempted airplane spin, which Jericho cradled out of. This match pretty much symbolizes their time in WWE perfectly, as they do the best with what they have, but need more push from McMahon to really do everything of which they're capable.

If The Rock signed with TNA, WWE would immediately have a competitor as long as they could get the word out, and it would probably start a mass exodus of talent. Not that I think TNA deserves to be the company that eventually comes along and provides competition to WWE, but Rock showing up in another promotion would completely change the face of wrestling. It may not happen immediately, but as a lot of frustrated WWE guys' contracts expired, we'd be seeing them head that way.

HHH v Chris Jericho - WWF RAW 04/17/00 The match is more of a vehicle to drive the angle where it wants to go than anything, but I guess it is still a match. Nice start with Jericho catching HHH off the ropes with a forearm and taking it to him quite aggressively. In fact, the offense and false finishes are the strongest part of this match -- Jericho's armdrag off the top rope is a thing of beauty and HHH countering a vertical suplex into a stun gun variation on the ropes is pretty cool as well. They do a nice job structuring the match within the eight minutes or so they have to work with, and they manage to do the match in four parts in that short period of time -- Jericho cleans house, HHH bails and counters a vertical suplex to come back, HHH works over Jericho but goes up top and Jericho catches him and then working to the finish from there after a couple of good nearfalls. Those are spots, though, and where this match lacked was the transitions. HHH drops Jericho's neck on the ropes to put him in control, but Jericho still tries to comeback after that, only for HHH to duck out of the way of his moves, when he may have been better off staying down and selling. There's also the problem of the overuse of the steel steps outside the ring. The beginning and ending stages are the best parts of the match, with the middle being far too weak in contrast, as Jericho's comeback rallies the crowd and they pop huge for his nearfall off of the missile dropkick. HHH in control takes the pace the crowd is into and slows it down a little, but that's benefitted by this being a short match, and that can also be written off as HHH trying to wear down Y2J. This was what should have been the start of Jericho's upper card push, but we all know what happened from here. Reversing the decision and putting the belt back on Hunter didn't hurt anyone involved at all, and his mic work after the commercial break where he bullies Earl Hebner is great, but HHH couldn't get his heat back soon enough -- I think everyone expected that, but I don't think they expected it to happen at the end of the very same show! Knowing the path Jericho has taken in the five years since this happens makes it all the more depressing, because the crowd really took to him as a top guy naturally.

From Scherer: Good news I suppose, although the idea of Rock being a free agent and possibly signing with a competitor would have been a great thing for wrestling in the long run.

My personal favorite is probably Bobby Eaton against Jim Cornette and Jimmy Hart in Memphis. They defeat Eaton and win some huge purse, which Lawler intercepts, throwing all the money out into the crowd. I also like the '95 J-Cup when Damian and ... someone ... where they're doing a parody of All Japan main events.

I'm overstating a few things trying to make a point. I know you don't classify wrestlers like that, but I was pointing out that going that route made it seem like that's what you were saying. We're obviously going to disagree on this, and for whatever reason, it seems like it's getting uncomfortably tense, so I'm pulling out. If anyone is interested in furthering the discussion, feel free to start a topic in the wrestling folder.

I guess in your eyes, every wrestler is either as good as Kawada or as horrible at Gene Snitsky, because despite me saying time and time again that Matt Hardy wasn't great, you keep wanting me to give you proof that he was great. I seceded that point long, long ago, and have said it in every post I've made. I don't know if Matt Hardy has ever had a **** match. In fact, I'm pretty comfortable saying he hasn't, at least not in the WWF. I'm also pretty comfortable saying that Steamboat never did either, and that if you looked at the number of decent-good matches, Hardy is going to have more of them than Steamboat. There is ZERO case for Steamboat outside of one match, and it's a match that's very overrated. So I'm not going to give you a list of Matt Hardy matches worth seeing, because the reasons I voted for Hardy had nothing to do with him being a great worker, and everything to do with him making the most of every bad situation put in front of him, and using every opportunity he got along the way to make everyone else look good. I rank him above Steamboat because I can't say Steamboat ever had a great match in the WWF, aside from maybe the one with Bret on the house show, and because Steamboat's multiple runs in the company were comparably shorter, and because when he was put in the same situation being given little to work with in '91 and not really making anything of it, I gave the nod to Hardy. And yes, both of those matches had slaps to the face, brawling outside the ring, and tons of other things Savage/Steamboat didn't have. Of course the best way to hurt Savage would be to take his title, but that's kinda wussy in the long run, and typically, great babyfaces are ones who start out getting revenge for all the wrongs done to them, only to make a crucial mistake and come back for the finish. Steamboat looked like he was wrestling his best friend until Savage grabbed the ring bell.

Yes, he is, because he says Vince doesn't sell. That's a good one.

I just read all three installments of this, and this is quite amazing. Thanks for sharing it with us, and making for such a fantastic read. I wish stories like this didn't make me feel so dirty about watching wrestling though. I guess we all have to find a way to separate things. I do hope Tammy Sytch continues on the path to recovery that she's been on lately. Congratulations to her on the weight loss, although I think she might be happier outside of wrestling, even though it's been implied that she wanted to get back into it after regaining her confidence lately since she's getting back in shape.

I am too which is where we disagree. You give more credit to the Brainbusters and Matt HArdy than I think they deserve. I give more credit to STeamboat and Show than you think they deserve. My argument has not swayed you and after that list of fueds, your argument def. has not swayed my opinion one iota. You are really humoring yourself if you think you swayed me. I'd vote for Arn over Show, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. You take me understanding your logic for you swaying me, which isn't the case in the least. Name another. In fact, point it out for half of them, if you're going to say half. Owen/Davey Boy and Rock/Jericho had more hate, and they were tag team partners! And yes, the match had way too much wrestling after being built up as a blood feud. Fully Loaded and Wrestlemania X-8 would get the nod from me.

I never argued that Steamboat's peak is worse than Hardy's peak, but I'm not comparing peaks, I'm comparing the overall run. I'd think you'd understand that, since it's why you voted Show over Arn. A feud is about more than matches. A feud can be well-booked, however, and not translate to the ring. Some of the above feuds were poorly built, but featured great matches. Some of them were extremely well built and had great matches. I never argued against that point. I did argue the reverse, though, which is that I've never seen a bunch of Katie Vick-level bad booking lead to a great match. The only one that even comes close to that level on this list is Jericho cleaning up dog crap. But HHH and Jericho had better matches with each other than Savage and Steamboat did. It's hard to have a great feud without the booking on one's side, no doubt, but how can it be considered a plus for Steamboat that he was booked to be sidelined with a throat injury when he had nothing to do with that decision? He played his role well, and the booking of the feud was exactly what it needed to be ... until they got in the ring at Wrestlemania III and proceeded to wrestle a friendly scientific match. The only thing that was missing was a handshake. Unsatisfying conclusions are bad booking. We're not rating bookers, though. And if you want to compare mic skills, I'm afraid Hardy is going to triumph in that category, and he's not even great on the mic.

Well, no shit. One happened 20 years ago. One happened 5 years ago. And more people talk about Savage/Steamboat in 1987 than the X-Pac/Road Dogg feud of 2000. Time has nothing to do with it. Probably. But until someone comes out and lists them all, I'm going to stick with Matt, who I've seen first hand, instead of relying on hearsay. Falsely at that. None of those feuds were crap. A crap feud is a series of bad matches. None of those matches did that. Noted. They had a negative impact, but did Steamboat/Roberts mean anything in the long haul? Anything at all? I watched it at the same time you did and came to the same conclusions then that I do now. Last I watched it was probably last month. I had a review posted in the same thread yours was in.

A feud is a series of matches where each guy doesn't like each other and they fight back and forth off of that over PPVs. The best feud is the one with the best matches, not necessarily the one with the best booking. We're looking at stuff in the hands of the workers. When people talk about Misawa/Kawada being a great feud, they're not talking about it being great because Kawada jumped Misawa in a parking lot and vowed revenge on him. Ditto for Flair/Steamboat, which is seen as a better feud than Flair/Funk, despite Flair/Funk having worse matches and better booking. From the feuds, I mentioned, the following matches are better than Savage/Steamboat: Bret Hart v Steve Austin - Survivor Series '96 Bret Hart v Steve Austin - Wrestlemania XIII Bret Hart v Owen Hart - Wrestlemania X Bret Hart v Owen Hart - 07/09/94 Ironman Bret Hart v Owen Hart - Summerslam '94 Shawn Michaels v Mankind - Mind Games Shawn Michaels v Undertaker - Ground Zero Shawn Michaels v Undertaker - Badd Blood The Rock v Chris Jericho - No Mercy 2001 The Rock v Chris Jericho - Vengeance 2001 Hulk Hogan v Randy Savage - Wrestlemania V Eddy Guerrero v JBL - Judgment Day 2004 Rey Misterio v Chavo Guerrero - No Way Out 2004 Rey Misterio v Chavo Guerrero - Great American Bash 2004 Rock v HHH - Judgment Day 2000 HHH v Chris Jericho - Fully Loaded 2000 HHH v Chris Jericho - Wrestlemania XVIII The Rock v Steve Austin - Backlash 1999 The Rock v Steve Austin - Wrestlemania X-7 HHH v Cactus Jack - No Way Out 2000 Shawn Michaels v Razor Ramon - Wrestlemania X Shawn Michaels v Razor Ramon - Summerslam 1995 Shawn Michaels v Marty Jannetty - WWF RAW 07/19/93 Randy Savage v Ted DiBiase - any singles match they had Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs - WWF SNME 05/87 Rockers v Brainbusters - WWF SNME 03/89 Bret Hart v Curt Hennig - Summerslam 1991 Bret Hart v Curt Hennig - King of the Ring 1993 Owen Hart v Davey Boy Smith - RAW 03/03/97 Shawn Michaels v Chris Jericho - Wrestlemania XIX Bret Hart v Davey Boy Smith - Summerslam 1992 Bret Hart v Davey Boy Smith - In Your House V Steve Austin v Dude Love - Over The Edge 1998 Steve Austin & HHH v Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho - RAW 05/21/01 Steve Austin v Chris Benoit - RAW 05/28/01 Steve Austin v Chris Benoit - Smackdown 05/31/01 The Rock v Chris Benoit - Fully Loaded 2000 That's 37 matches, right there. I'm not even a huge fan of all the matches mentioned, but I'd call them all better matches than Savage/Steamboat. If I thought about it enough, I could probably come up with 100 better matches than Savage/Steamboat, in the WWF alone, from 1985-2005 alone. And I'll take that challenge over time. I'll respond to the rest of what you said in another post.

This one is baffling me the most, because I can't even remember IRS having a good match at any point. Why do you all hate Marty Jannetty?

Keep looking. I haven't found it either. JBL has his, but I wouldn't vote JBL over Matt Hardy either. That's something to consider when voting, but it's not good enough criteria on its own. I'd say Bret Hart had better feuds with Austin and Owen, Shawn had better feuds with Foley and Taker, Rock and Jericho had a better feud, Hogan and Savage had a better feud, Savage and Flair had a better feud, Eddy and JBL had a better feud, Rey and Chavo have had a better feud, Rock and HHH had a better feud, HHH and Jericho had a better feud, Rock and Austin had a better feud, HHH and Austin had a better feud, HHH and Foley had a better feud, Shawn and Razor had a better feud, Shawn and Jannetty had a better feud, Savage and DiBiase had a better feud, the Harts and the Bulldogs had a better feud, the Rockers and Arn and Tully had a better feud, Bret and Hennig had a better feud, Owen and Bulldog had a better match, Michaels and Jericho had a better feud, Bret and Davey Boy had a better feud, Austin and Foley had a better feud, Austin and Benoit had a better feud and Rock and Benoit had a better feud. After that, yeah, it's somewhere in there. It's been almost completely forgotten. More people talk about the TLC matches to this day than the Savage/Roberts feud. Steamboat had *one* great match, and that's debatable even. One. Matt Hardy was never mediocre. He was never great, but he was never mediocre. I don't know where you got that from. Steamboat didn't have a great *two years* in the company, because the only thing he has going for him is the Savage feud. That's it. And it's trumped by every feud I mentioned above. Steamboat's "run" wasn't good. Steamboat's one match was. Two years in the company and people can only point to one match that's overwhelmingly memorable. Say what you will about the TLC matches, I know I have, but they are had far more impact than the Steamboat/Jake feud. Consistently great is what wins out most of all. That's why I want to see Austin or Bret bag this thing in the end. But, I still would rather see three dozen *** matches than one **** one. As for Savage/Steamboat, there's no hatred, the match is too fast for anything to be sold over the long haul, the crowd doesn't pop for most of the false finishes and it's overbooked with a ref bump and outside interference.

Steamboat had a good run from 1985-1987 ... and left. He then came back in 1991 ... and left. Matt Hardy had a consistent run from 1997 to 2004, working his way up through the ranks as a jobber, then being the glue holding his tag team with Jeff together, and working with Edge & Christian to re-establish the division as something people cared about again. The Hardyz were a huge teenage girls draw, as was made evident by the fact that their merchandise sold so well among that group. He took everything handed to him and made all of it work. He didn't have the push Steamboat had, and he didn't have near the skill, but the guy was willing to take a background role to get over those around him, which counts for a lot in my book. 2003 was his best year. He had several really strong, if short, singles matches against Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero and Edge between 2000 and 2001, but 2003 is when he pulled it all together, and in addition to using his own exposure to get Shannon Moore over, he had more good matches with Benoit, some good stuff with Kidman and a couple of good matches with Rey. The title change to Rey was put in the main event slot and surprised everyone, as it was a cruiserweight title match that drew one of the biggest ratings of the year (it may have actually been the highest rating they had in all of 2003, I need to verify that). He reinvented himself and got over as a singles star after being perceived as the weak link of his tag team with his brother, and it worked. Steamboat had the Savage feud. What else? Muraco? Was anything really good or memorable about that feud? Roberts? When did they have a good match, and who really talks about the feud now? They still talk about the Savage match at Wrestlemania III, which I've made my opinions clear on, but the truth is that the WWF was never suited to Steamboat, and he had his best career success elsewhere. Hardy was a better fit for the company and the time period than Steamboat was in his, and Steamboat took a hike when things didn't go like he wanted them to go, while Hardy stuck around and made the most of the situation around him. It's not even close if you're looking at their overall careers, but Matt Hardy did more with less in the WWF than just about anyone ever has. You can at least argue that RVD and Jericho have flirted with main events, but Matt Hardy has been expected to stay in someone's shadow at all times, and despite that, he still carved out a respectable career with the company. Steamboat's second run was a joke because Vince was being petty, and he never got the chance to do very much, so he quit. I don't fault him for that at all, but in this company in this time period, the edge goes to Matt.

Chris Jericho & Christian v Trish Stratus & Lita - BATTLE OF THE SEXES~! Armageddon 2003 I actually remember this being the best match on the show, oddly enough, but the booking is pretty much the type of thing that buries everyone involved. I'd love to see you slam it.

I missed it too, but did you tape it? I'm curious, because DVDVR seems to be split down the middle on which was the best match of the week -- Michaels/Benjamin or Rey/Chavo?

I didn't. My voting is based on consistency. Obviously, everyone is using their own method.

That's because Matt Hardy is a better worker than the Big Show. If it was Steamboat/Show, I'd vote Steamboat. Matt Hardy doesn't have five actively bad years working against him. And if it was Hardy/Arn, I'd vote Hardy, because I do think 5-6 good years counts for more than one great one. If Show had been decent since debuting in the company, I'd agree with you, but I'm not going to vote for him over Arn Anderson when I've seen nearly a dozen good-great matches with the Harts, Rockers and Demolition in the course of a 12-month period, especially not when what's probably Show's best singles match is one I haven't seen yet.

He never had a singles match in the company to my knowledge. It's hard to criticize him for something he was never in a position to do. I agree that Show has developed into a decent worker, but that's happened in the past year. Who do you prefer -- the guy with five bad years and one good one or the guy with one really strong year?

You haven't seen the Rockers matches, have you?