Loss

Sting has been in a lot of bad angles, and yes, he's not good unless he's in a good storyline or has a good opponent. I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

The negatives don't really outshine, but the negatives are certainly there. Sting was a victim of a company that had no idea what to do with him, but when he was put with a good worker, he usually did okay. I've never heard anyone argue him as great. It's the booking being criticized here actually, not the wrestling.

If the brand extension wasn't in place, doing Heat/RAW/Smackdown/Velocity would work very well in WWE. I always liked it when this was done, and it would be a great way to generate interest in B-shows if the right guys were used.

HHH considers HIAC his match. That's probably when Batista will drop the title, and by that time, HHH will do his part to make sure he's not over.

*edited*

Check this out. Christian's rap last night on the PPV.

Bret Hart v Diesel - WWF Royal Rumble 1995 There are many examples out there of Bret carrying slugs to something good, but this is only barely good, and the layout is questionable. It's interesting to note the difference in the way guys like Flair and Shawn carry bigger guys to good matches -- they do it by bumping like pinballs, having their opponents shake off some of their own offense and by showing fear. Bret's approach is drastically different, which has its good points. Instead of bumping and running to create an artificial fast pace, Bret controls the offense and dominates the majority of the match. He's the one with the better offense, after all, and he builds anticipation to his opponent's comeback. Here, however, he is almost too dominant, and is wrestling on a wavelength so far above Diesel that it's obvious Big Kev can't hang. It wouldn't be right to call that a total weakness, though, as watching Bret obliterate his larger rival is fun, and the stuff he does to keep the match moving in the right direction works very well. Tying Diesel's feet together around the ringpost, catching a hellacious tope suicida to the floor and repeatedly going for the figure four leglock do the job, and keep the match fun to watch in the meantime. The problem is that when Bret starts winning slugfests and going toe-to-toe with someone so much larger than him, it makes the size difference look unimportant, and I really don't think that's what Bret was going for. He cuts off most of Nash's comebacks before they even begin, and has no problem doing whatever he has to do to keep Nash down. The overbooking was going to be a problem regardless, but the way the overbooking happened did manage to protect Nash if nothing else, since he was the one who first had the match won when Shawn interfered and worked over his leg. Bret works as the subtle heel here, even using a chair at one point and making Nash sympathetic, which is no small accomplishment. The problems start when the announcers point out that Bret isn't wise to enter a slugfest with Diesel, and he wins the slugfest thereafter anyway. The problems continue when Owen runs in and exposes the top turnbuckle, and instead of giving Diesel that one spot of retribution, Bret is the one who runs Diesel's head into the metal buckle, and at that point, the match sort of falls apart, even though it was already ass-backwards. Nash's selling actually isn't half-bad, because he does his part to make Bret's stuff look convincing. He does occasionally switch legs when he's selling, and he goes into the problem of performing moves normally and then selling hard afterwards at times, but overall, he gets the point across that Bret is kicking his ass and he needs to figure out a way to come back. Diesel saving Bret after the match and the two hugging makes him out to be the nicer guy at least, but the reason he got over the year prior in the first place was that he had a raw killer instinct, and immediately after winning the title, he was kissing babies. They'd later do the same thing to Shawn Michaels, and it would limit his ability to get over as well. If the WWF was the type of company to book based on hierarchy, I'd have much less problem with this match. We did get a Bret/Diesel rematch, but not for 10 months, and by that time, Diesel was a lame duck champion. Bret dominating Diesel, considering that he's the better wrestler with more experience, in that environment, sold that way, would make Diesel a better champion and a tougher guy who grew into the role just for surviving Bret's onslaught. As it stands, there was nothing learned, taken or changed from this, so all you're left with in the end is a Bret Hart who's doing everything he can to not let a match get boring, wrestling an opponent who needs all the help he can get to even be passable.

I have no problem with Luger dominating early because of the size difference. My problem is that if he's going to dominate early, he should be blocking Flair's moves before they connect instead of laying them in and having Luger shrug them off. They do a better job of this at Wrestle War '90, with Luger countering some of Flair's stuff in the early stages. He still does some no-selling, but not nearly as much. No-selling a chop is one thing, but no-selling a vertical suplex and an Irish whip into the guardrail, the latter of which wasn't even building to a comeback, is a problem.

Razor Ramon v Jeff Jarrett - WWF Royal Rumble 1995 It's been a while since I've been so surprised at the quality of a match. I didn't remember Jeff Jarrett being much of a worker in the mid-90s, but all the footage I've watched recently, putting him against guys like Morton, Benoit and now Razor Ramon, has had him playing an excellent heel and wrestling a very smart style. He doesn't really expand past the most basic of moves, but what he does he does very well. Check out his dropkicks in this match, and even more, check out the great build to the figure four leglock. The one black mark he has is that he likes to stall a little too much, and if he tightened up his working style, just a little, eliminating about half the stalling but keeping some in for heat, it would make a world of difference, because in terms of playing the crowd, he's terrific. Seeing his working style as a heel makes me want to suggest that he watch some Randy Savage matches, because they basically approach their opponents in the same fashion (stall early to big heel heat, get small victories and celebrate them, dominate middle portion convincingly). The difference was that Savage wrestled a faster pace and did more going than showing. The booking of this match did wonders to establish Jarrett as a world-beater, actually. Fresh heels getting clean pinfalls over top babyfaces is a rarity in any era of WWE, especially in this time period. Razor, to his credit, sells for Jeff brilliantly, getting outwrestled early, injuring his leg in the middle and falling victim to a perfectly clean pinfall at the end. I could have done without the restart in the middle, because the momentum was halted. They were in a nice groove early on, with Jarrett getting the best of Razor in nearly every sequence and bragging about it, setting up some good payback spots where he'd ground Jarrett and get in some fun revenge spots. Jarrett catches him with three beautiful dropkicks early on, and when Jeff starts in on the build to the figure four, we get the best work of the match. After Razor is thrown out of the ring and returns, hobbling along on one leg, Jarrett taunts him, daring him to punch him and then just barely ducking out of the way. He lays Razor's foot on the bottom rope and drops all his weight on it twice, only to get kicked over the top rope the third time he tries it. There are many hope spots that are more interesting than a typical chinlock -- he uses a sleeper instead, which makes it much easier for Ramon to communicate through his body language that he's in trouble. After dropping elbows on Razor's leg, dropping him in a belly-to-back suplex position shin first and doing all the rest of Flair's typical leg work, Jarrett applies the figure four. The heat is great, and Razor's selling is pretty good too, but the weakest part of this is how the move is countered. Razor just slaps his way out of it. He makes his comeback with punches, and they both sneak in some really hot nearfalls down the final stretch. Finally, the Razor's Edge is attempted, but his leg gives out, giving Jeff Jarrett the opportunity to do an inside cradle and secure the win (and his first Intercontinental championship). If this match was missing anything, it was aggression. Jarrett did a great job of showing it in the ring, as he was relentless on Razor's leg, but the mid-match promo didn't do him any favors. It's a shame that Jarrett's WWF legacy is considered that of the guy who couldn't get over, and the guy who stole the Honky Tonk Man's entire gimmick, because he deserved better in spite of all of that. This is the best match Scott Hall ever had with an opponent not named Shawn Michaels. ***1/4

Jim Ross, in the same era Tim noted, is my favorite announcer of all time. He was invaluable to WCW in times when they weren't exactly putting out the best product, just because he could making anything seem credible. He also played a large part in getting all of the feuds over in Mid South, and he had such a great vision of wrestling that parlayed itself into his announcing. There have been lots of good color commentators, but my favorite is probably either Jesse Ventura in the WWF or Michael Hayes in Mid South. Hayes was especially great, but he doesn't often get his due now because so many people haven't seen that stuff. He and Jim Ross played brilliantly off each other, and I think it would be worth trying to have him replace Lawler on RAW and make a go of it.

No. The parking lot brawl was on Nitro.

I have those matches on a comp. I don't own the rest of the show.

Raven mentions this in his Secrets of the Ring interview. There is the basic match structure of Putting on the shine (Babyface strong in the beginning), heel control, comeback, finishing sequence. If you are presed for time, Raven feels that the first portion is the leas important and should be the portion that is cut first. In this match, it worked, but like most short TV matches, it had the potential to be better than it was. Sting/Luger v Arn/Pillman, in 1995, given 15 minutes, probably could have hit *** or better. This is a strange match to watch, because for the short time it goes, Luger outworks Pillman. But I guess that wrestling is a marathon, not a sprint, and that's why Pillman is superior to Lex overall. What were some of the angles that you liked from this time period? They teased a Flair/Eddy feud, but never really delivered. Flair was scheduled to face him twice on TV, and refused to get in the ring with him, both times, feeling that Eddy was "beneath" him and he had better things to do. Pillman would take his place, and Eddy would beat him. I'll be getting to at least one of those matches eventually. When they finally met, Flair won the match, but it was extremely hard-fought and competitive, and Eddy came out looking very good, but I don't think they ever milked this feud for all it was worth. They were given just as much time on the 05/20/96 Nitro as they were at Hog Wild '96, and the Nitro match is much, much better. They actually conducted an audience survey around the first half of '96 to see who their most likeable wrestler was, expecting Hogan or Sting to be the most common response. Eddy actually was more likeable than both Hogan and Sting, according to the survey results. There was also the Benoit/Guerrero series, as they were wrestling almost every week during this time and totally carrying whatever B-show they ended up wrestling on. Flair/Savage started the house show resurgence before the NWO came in, and it was done well, with Liz turning on Savage in the big match at Superbrawl. Because the audience wasn't numb to shocking turns by that time, it was a huge swerve at the time, and they had Flair and Liz going around town spending Savage's money and throwing it into the crowd and stuff. The DDP/Johnny B. Badd feud was surprisingly good. I did a write-up of it that I put in this folder. You should find it. Brian Pillman started his "loose cannon" gimmick around this time and you never knew what he was going to say or do. Arn Anderson had to slap him in the face during an interview once to calm him down, and it rocked. There was also Luger's split personality disorder, where he'd heel it up when Sting wasn't around and play a total babyface whenever Sting was looking. Sting was constantly skeptical, but he always gave Luger the benefit of the doubt. There was a hilarious moment in one of their matches when they were walking to the ring once when Luger was making disgusting faces at fans and trying not to touch them. Sting turned around and Luger immediately started high-fiving and smiling, acting like he loved the fans. He'd sneak in cheating tactics to win their tag matches behind Sting's back, and he'd end up getting Sting into these horrible situations on a regular basis. The Regal/Finlay feud was also in effect around this time, and they had their parking lot brawl that you kinda had to see to believe, just because it was so brutal. I wish I had it on tape, but I don't. This describes almost every Randy Savage match in WCW. All of that work that I praised from WWF is missing in Ted Turner's macho Man. Savage seemed like a buffoon when he was constantly outsmarted by babyfaces. WCW didn't use him nearly as well as the WWF, and he was mostly washed up by the time he jumped ship anyway.

Jarrett wasn't embarrassing really. The gimmick was awful, but in the ring, he delivered more often than he didn't. When has HTM ever been able to say that?

OMG, the weddin' (it wasn't a wedding) with Sherri when Madusa destroyed them. That was on the same Clash of the Champions when Kevin Sullivan beat up an Elvis impersonator and Bobby Heenan dropped the f-bomb on live TV. Great times.

I've spent all morning going through all the old "What Are You Watching?" threads and splitting all the match reviews into individual topics in the new subfolder at the top of the page. That way, matches are less likely to get lost in the shuffle. If you want to review a match someone has already covered, in lieu of starting a new topic, you can just add your review to that match's already-existing topic. I think we should still do "What Are You Watching?" for stuff like shoot interviews, entire PPVs, etc, but any match reviews would go in the new folder. I think this should work much better. Thanks for contributing so much, even if it took me 3 hours to sort it all out.

This is easily the toughest match of the first-round picks so far, as far as making a choice. I really think whoever loses will still clean house in the loser's bracket, so it'll all work out. But yeah, this was the hardest decision.

Everyone seems to be forgetting Jeff Jarrett's run from 1994-1996, which is when the good stuff actually happened. I watched a match with Ramon from Royal Rumble '95 last night that I didn't expect to love so much, but I did. I'll review it later. He held the IC title long before Russo ever started booking. His second run was crap, and I agree with that, but the first time around, I really enjoyed his whole act.

Just so it's recorded, in case SK's LJ ever disappears, here's a copy/paste of Tim's response to SK's initial review of the match.

That's a common mistake. They had two matches, and the second one was the one voted MOTY. And it was MOTY. Observer MOTY for '93 was Doc/Kobashi from 08/31.

Jeff Jarrett People crap on him needlessly; he was an excellent worker who was almost always stuck with slugs. He didn't get over at the level a top guy requires, but he was a very good midcarder, and had a good schtick. JBL's peak is higher simply because of Eddy Guerrero and the fact that he wore the title and managed to get over as a main eventer, but Jarrett had a more consistent WWF career overall.

Mick Foley I'd go Backlund if this were all-time, but Foley was one of the key factors in the late 90s boom, and during this time period, he had better matches.