Loss

I *have* to request Undertaker v Yokozuna at Royal Rumble '94 next. I just have to.

Voting starts tomorrow. Here are the first round matches. Because of the high number of matches, the first round will be open for two days. Bret Hart v Bam Bam Bigelow Ultimate Warrior v Brock Lesnar Davey Boy Smith v Taka Michinoku Chris Jericho v Roddy Piper Demolition Smash v Rick Martel Yoshihiro Taijiri v Randy Orton Bob Backlund v Mick Foley Jeff Jarrett v John Bradshaw Layfield Marty Jannetty v Honky Tonk Man IRS/Mike Rotunda v Eddy Guerrero Paul Orndorff v Rey Misterio Jr Rick Rude v HHH The Rock v Sid Ted DiBiase v Tully Blanchard Val Venis v 1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac Shawn Michaels v Sgt. Slaughter Arn Anderson v Bad News Brown Yokozuna v Big Show Hulk Hogan v Booker T Undertaker v Chavo Guerrero Jr Chris Benoit v Tito Santana Terry Funk v Christian Demolition Axe v Diesel Greg Valentine v Edge Owen Hart v Goldust Randy Savage v Jake Roberts Razor Ramon v Jeff Hardy Ric Flair v Kane Ricky Steamboat v Kurt Angle Rob Van Dam v Matt Hardy Dynamite Kid v Mr. Perfect Steve Austin v Andre the Giant

I SWEAR all of these were totally coincidental. I put all the names in a hat and drew them out and this is how they all came out. Voting will start tomorrow morning and because of the number of matches, this will be a two-day affair. I'll post the first-round matches in a separate post, but here's the bracket. Winner bolded: Bret Hart Bam Bam Bigelow Ultimate Warrior Brock Lesnar Davey Boy Smith Taka Michinoku Chris Jericho Roddy Piper Demolition Smash Rick Martel Yoshihiro Taijiri Randy Orton Bob Backlund Mick Foley Jeff Jarrett John Bradshaw Layfield Marty Jannetty Honky Tonk Man Mike Rotunda Eddy Guerrero Paul Orndorff Rey Misterio Jr Rick Rude HHH The Rock Sid Ted DiBiase Tully Blanchard Val Venis 1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac Shawn Michaels Sgt Slaughter Arn Anderson Bad News Brown Yokozuna Big Show Hulk Hogan Booker T Undertaker Chavo Guerrero Jr Tito Santana Chris Benoit Terry Funk Christian Demolition Axe Diesel Greg Valentine Edge Owen Hart Goldust Randy Savage Jake Roberts Razor Ramon Jeff Hardy Ric Flair Kane Ricky Steamboat Kurt Angle Rob Van Dam Matt Hardy Dynamite Kid Mr. Perfect Steve Austin Andre the Giant Second round: Bret Hart Brock Lesnar Davey Boy Smith Roddy Piper Rick Martel Yoshihiro Taijiri Mick Foley John Bradshaw Layfield Honky Tonk Man Eddy Guerrero HHH Paul Orndorff The Rock Ted DiBiase 1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac Shawn Michaels Bad News Brown Yokozuna Hulk Hogan Undertaker Chris Benoit Christian Diesel Edge Owen Hart Randy Savage Razor Ramon Ric Flair Kurt Angle Rob Van Dam Mr. Perfect Steve Austin Third Round: Bret Hart Roddy Piper Rick Martel Mick Foley Eddy Guerrero HHH The Rock Shawn Michaels Hulk Hogan Yokozuna Chris Benoit Edge Randy Savage Ric Flair Kurt Angle Steve Austin

Not everyone who signed up voted, but hopefully everyone who signed up will step in and vote from here on. I'll do brackets in a few minutes and post the matches, and the first round of the tournament will take place tomorrow. *32* matches, so be prepared to do lots of voting. Yoshihiro Taijiri (13 votes) defeated Marc Mero (2 votes) Val Venis (10 votes) defeated Al Snow (5 votes) Irwin R. Schyster (14 votes) defeated Savio Vega (1 vote) Terry Funk (8 votes) edged out Rikishi (7 votes) The Brainbusters (14 votes) defeated The Killer Bees (1 vote) Bad News Brown (13 votes) defeated Adrian Adonis (2 votes) Greg Valentine (14 votes) defeated Don Muraco (1 vote) Honky Tonk Man (10 votes) defeated Jerry Lawler (5 votes) I should also note that I added Demolition to this list. I realized I miscalculated and we only had 62 participants, and they were the biggest WWF names left out, so they're in now. So, here are your participants in the tournament, in alphabetical order: 1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac Andre the Giant Arn Anderson Bad News Brown Bam Bam Bigelow Big Show Bret Hart Bob Backlund Booker T Brock Lesnar Chavo Guerrero Jr Chris Benoit Chris Jericho Christian Davey Boy Smith Demolition Axe Demolition Smash Diesel Dynamite Kid Eddy Guerrero Edge Goldust Greg Valentine HHH Honky Tonk Man Hulk Hogan Jake Roberts Jeff Hardy Jeff Jarrett John Bradshaw Layfield Kane Kurt Angle Marty Jannetty Matt Hardy Mick Foley Mike Rotunda Mr. Perfect Owen Hart Paul Orndorff Randy Orton Randy Savage Razor Ramon Rey Misterio Jr Ric Flair Rick Martel Rick Rude Ricky Steamboat Rob Van Dam The Rock Roddy Piper Sgt Slaughter Shawn Michaels Sid Steve Austin Taka Michinoku Ted DiBiase Terry Funk Tito Santana Tully Blanchard Ultimate Warrior Undertaker Val Venis Yokozuna Yoshihiro Taijiri

Sting & Lex Luger v Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman - WCW Monday Nitro 11/27/95 The storyline is so off-kilter at this point that it's impossible to work a face/heel Southern tag off of it, but they managed to do a very short one with virtually no suspense at all. Lex Luger is a heel because he turned on Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc, but he remains Sting's friend. There's not really an opening babyface housecleaning, which usually takes place, as they segue right into the cheating from Arn and Pillman, with Sting working face in peril. Luger proceeds to destroy both of them in some admittedly fun spots -- my favorite of which is Arn and Pillman trying a double clothesline while Pillman is still on the apron and Luger coming back and knocking them both down. They do enough to advance what's going on with Luger, as Sting has Arn in the scorpion deathlock, and Pillman is jumping off the top rope to attack Sting from behind, but Luger pushes him off. Strangely, he still goes crashing right into Sting as the announcers speculate what his intentions are. Luger eventually comes in to make the save without even getting the hot tag, and they have nary a moment to celebrate Sting's pinfall victory before Flair is out there wreaking havoc and destroying them both. This brings Hulk Hogan out to make the save, which the crowd boos heavily, as they're in Virginia. Flair coming in to get his shots in on everyone is more fun than the match itself. WCW was actually running some intriguing storylines on top at this point, if you factor Hulk Hogan out of the equation, but everything they were doing got shitcanned when the NWO angle finally started. Ric Flair v Randy Savage - WCW Monday Nitro 08/12/96 The one thing they definitely both do right is bring the intensity and hate, but I wish they could have channeled that into some type of match with some type of narrative. As it stands, it's all "my turn, your turn" with a few awkward spots mixed in with some decent leg work, which is no-sold when Savage makes his comeback anyway. The finish sees Hulk Hogan give a chairshot to Randy Savage from behind, leaving Flair to come in and pin him with his feet on the ropes. Flair never saw Hogan come in, and Hogan never touches him, so the announcers immediately speculate that Flair has joined the NWO. Every single top star in the company was a suspect at the time, which is what made the angle work so beautifully.

10+, I do believe. The interview conducted was six hours long.

Ric Flair v Hulk Hogan - 08/18/94 (WCW) This wasn't a dream match at quite the magnitude it would have been headlining Wrestlemania in 1992, but it's still special seeing Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan in the same ring, considering that they were both the top stars of their respective companies for a decade and for years before they finally met up, fans always wondered what would happen and who would win. They were the ultimate contrasts to each other in so many ways, and they had a long-running unspoken rivalry. Hulk Hogan showed up in the company two months prior and just a month previously had defeated Flair to win his first WCW World championship; it was the first high-profile singles match between the two. Longtime fans of Flair and the company were outraged, feeling they sold their history down the river in the name of making a buck, but wrestling is all about selling and making bucks. That said, Hogan's arrival didn't have a major impact on the company for about two years. Hulk Hogan was being portrayed as the same Hulk Hogan he always had been, but Ric Flair was being portrayed as something totally different. They gave him a face-painted WWF valet and turned him into an exaggerating buffoon, a title he manages to hold to this day. It was less like we were seeing Hogan v Flair and more like we were seeing Hogan against someone who walked like Flair, talked like Flair and even wrestled like Flair, but you'd swear the real one was either locked up in a basement somewhere to live on his own flesh or taking a big limo all over some big city, picking up beautiful women and living the high life of a world champion. That guy wasn't in this feud. That guy needed to be in this feud. It's what his fans demanded, not this other guy who is dumb enough to let this happen. Flair's home promotion wasn't interested in keeping those fans though, as they were hoping they could just trade them out for all of the old Hogan fans. Problem was, most of the Hulkamaniacs clung to him because he was cool, and Hulk Hogan in 1994 just wasn't cool anymore. Granted, he still was the same guy, but he was a 40-year old wrestling in some two-bit company coming out to some dumb song called "American Made". With Hulkamaniacs in the crowd conspicuously holding up pre-printed professional signs that merely say "Hogan WCW". And Jimmy Hart was his manager? Something was fishy. Earlier in the evening, they ran an angle to play off of the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal ongoing at the time where a masked man attacked Hogan from behind and injured his knee, so Hogan entered this match with a huge bandage on his knee, still selling the attack. To his credit, he did it quite well, and that's what makes this match pretty damned entertaining. You wish he wouldn't have dominated Flair as easily as he did considering that he's essentially without use of one of his limbs. So, he sells it, in that he doesn't forget that it's hurt and his facial expressions are great, but he doesn't sell it as in it making it anymore difficult to beat this small-time bad guy's ass. For that reason, Flair doesn't get the opportunity to do much here. Most of what he does is feed Hogan offense, which is typically what a babyface does early on anyway, but he did it far too long without getting anything in of his own. Hogan totally no-sells his chops, and when Flair does one of the most beautiful vertical suplexes ever seen by a man, Hulk is up and at 'em immediately, shaking his finger in Flair's face. The one good thing about this match is that a match where a huge babyface is selling a horrible knee injury is almost tailor-made for Ric Flair. He does what he can, when his opponent can be bothered to let him, and works toward putting in a figure four. Hogan, to his credit, sells the move like death for the time being, grabbing the referee by the shirt and screaming in pain. He also lets Flair totally undo the bandage on his knee, and the Hulk Up is one of the better Hulk Ups I've seen, because even when he shakes his head and blocks the three punches and does the big boot and legdrop, he continues to sell that knee. He's too injured to capitalize on the opening he's created, and for that reason, Flair absorbs the best of his offense and beats him to his feet to boot. Now, *this* is when we should have seen Flair totally move in for the kill, but Hogan will have none of it and after powering out of the first figure four simply by moving Flair's leg, he reverses this one into his own, which gives Sherri the chance to take a shoe to his leg. That puts him outside the ring and Hogan is counted out, which gives Flair the victory. Flair thinks he's won the title, because this new Flair is dumb enough to think championships can change hands on a countout. This match is hardly pure, but it still finds a way to be satisfying, and Hulk's totally consistent selling is what makes all this come together in the end, in spite of itself. ***1/4

Sting v Cactus Jack - Submit Or Surrender Match - WCW Power Hour 11/23/91 This is an "I Quit" match, basically, but they don't actually have to get on the microphone and say those words, so it's more of a submission match than anything. The rules, as stated by the ring announcer, are that the only way the match can end is if the wrestler submits, surrenders or is unable to respond to the ten-count. Cactus Jack is a creepy psycho, make no mistake about it. Mick Foley? He's harmless. He's a children's author who loves his wife and is a big fan of Kay Parker's work in the adult film industry, but Cactus Jack is mentally unstable and women and children (and most men) are terrified of him. He's facing Sting, the most noble hero WCW had at the time, so this is a perfect matchup in characters. Cactus comes out wearing a defaced Sting t-shirt and attacks Sting immediately, but misses a running clothesline and goes to the floor, taking a big bump right off the bat. They do some garbage brawling, literally, as they pelt each other with a rubber trash can. I wish they could have used metal, but hey, they sell it like it's a big deal, so I guess it is a big deal. Sting brings it into the ring and stuffs it on Jack's head, dropping an elbow and a top rope splash on him while he's wearing the can. There's all sorts of fun here, between that and Sting's count-along punches in the corner. This plays like the angel fighting the devil, as Sting comes to the ring and singles out a child that he lets hold the WCW US title for the duration of the match. That would come into play later when Cactus drags him in front of the child, stares at him, then drops his running elbow from the ring apron to the floor. When Cactus uses a chair, he has to fight the fan who was sitting in it to take it away. Not that the fans need it, but they're given all the ammo in the world to rally behind Sting and support his comebacks. At one point, Jack puts Sting in a chinlock and Sting's struggling to make it to his feet is *so* energetic and hopeful with him shaking and pumping his fists that you can't help but get behind the guy. Cactus takes some nasty bumps, not surprisingly, to get the match over, specifically the Nestea Plunge (falling straight back from the ring apron to the arena floor), which is what is ultimately his undoing. He doesn't go down without a fight though, throwing everything he has at Sting, be it the above-mentioned weapons, or the offense he has -- double-arm DDT, stun gun and some wild brawling. Sting is Sting, pulling out his always cool dropkicks and an awesome pescado to the floor. They're both limited in what they can do, but they play up their strengths as much as they possibly can, and in this environment, it certainly works. They'd top themselves later on PPV, and they'd both go on to have far better singles matches, but this is both of them doing everything they know in the hopes of having a good match, desire which is always fun to watch. ***1/2

Diamond Dallas Page v Chris Benoit - 02/22/98 (WCW) This is a good match, but it's obvious Benoit isn't working to his full potential. That has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the goal here is to get Page over, and Benoit wrestling without dumbing down his style, even a little, would have totally exposed his opponent. They're working so many parity sequences early on that they had to be effective to translate the story properly; it's often argued that wrestlers should get over the match first and themselves second, and that is what Benoit is doing here. The disadvantage is that Benoit isn't doing everything he could do, so the match isn't anywhere near the best matches he has had. The announcers allude to the fact that DDP purchased a Best of Chris Benoit tape to prepare for this match, which would lead me to believe this was meticulously planned out. The cobra sleeper is the centerpiece of this match, as it's the move Benoit uses to put sympathy on Page. It works in that regard, and keeps the match going somewhere, and Page's body language really puts over its effectiveness. It's interesting to note that the crowd boos pretty much everything, which means they were split down the middle, which means that at least in San Francisco, Benoit was every bit as over as upper-carder DDP. Page is the first one to get aggressive as they start out wrestling in a fairly friendly manner. Page wins a test of strength, but Benoit stays bridged and they fight over quick pins, which the audience loves. Benoit puts over the diamond cutter as a total match-ender by rolling outside when he almost eats the move, and even breaks the count so he can have more time. He comes back in and they're nose-to-nose, talking trash, until they're rolling around in a slugfest that wasn't really built up well, even if the crowd does get into it. I compare that to the build I saw to the dogfight between Benoit and Jarrett on the Nitro match I watched not long ago, and I think this pales by comparison. Benoit goes for the knee off the ropes, but he never really follows up on it, so that part of the match is pretty much abandoned. Page counters the cobra sleeper with a jawbreaker, but Benoit is still the first to his feet, and he corners Page and beats the everloving shit out of him. This only serves to anger Page, as he reverses the tide and does the same. One of the best parts of the match sees Benoit catch Page in a sleeper. DDP tries to belly-to-back suplex him out of it, but Benoit lands on his feet and immediately locks the hold in again. This match does have some good going for it -- the crowd is very into everything they're doing, the match plays nicely to Page's strengths, and the match accomplishes its goal of getting DDP over as a good wrestler. The wrestling, while basic, is far from bad or boring, and they keep things moving at a fun pace. The downfall to the match is that Benoit didn't get nearly as much as he gave, and this was merely the first step in DDP pushing him out of the Raven feud so he could have it for himself. I wish we all had Chris Benoit to make us look good when we needed it, although to Page's credit, he would put him over the following year. ***1/4

Chris Jericho v Juventud Guerrera - 02/22/98 (WCW) Mask v Title Jericho's infamous WCW character was in full swing here, wearing his hair in a strange style, ripping signs from fans that support him in half, and demanding to wrestle the match while wearing the cruiserweight title! The announcers are quick to point out that he has been wearing it while working out, eating lunch and sleeping, and he's also refused to take the belt off in some cases in the TV preceding this match. Jericho can't compete with the best workers of the division; he does pretty much everything well, but he's not the best at anything. So, he found his niche in this role, which made him the most compelling character the division ever had, and also clearly established him as the top heel, following in the footsteps of Dean Malenko, Ultimo Dragon and Eddy Guerrero. There's a cool payback spot when Jericho is dropped abdomen-first while wearing the belt, and he looks at the ref and says "Take this belt off of me!" Funny stuff. Jericho's comedy spots are gold all the way through the match, actually; at one point in the match, Juventud attacks him outside the ring and Jericho decides to lay there to save his title, occasionally looking up and seeing the camera and immediately closing his eyes again. Juvi decides to "revive" him with a well-timed elbow drop, which causes Jericho to let out a high-pitched shriek. His act was a riot. Comedy wasn't the only thing Jericho did well, however; he brings all sorts of great moves to the match and he plays a great heel. He drops a German suplex, a stun gun and a Michinoku driver (!), along with a great, extended vertical suplex. He channels his character into the direction the match takes instead of using it as a crutch to get heat, and gives Juvi all sorts of interesting things to work with -- he uses a backbreaker as a hope spot for Juvi, along with a really fun sequence outside the ring where he moves the steps and tries to use them as a springboard so he can splash Guerrera on the guardrail, but Juvi moves and Jericho goes sailing into the crowd. He gives Juvi lots of teases to build to his eventual comeback by cutting off the hope spots nicely; powerbombs and lariats establish his dominance. Juvi doesn't need Jericho's help to be interesting though, as we all know, as he more than does his share of work in the match, unloading on Jericho with tons of great highspots. He admittedly isn't as charismatic as Jericho, at least not in this match, so he does suffer from being a little overshadowed at times, but he pushes himself back in the spotlight when he does things Jericho can't do, like a springboard huracanrana to the outside, for example. Jericho's offense also wouldn't have been nearly as credible had Juventud not sold it as such. He knows when to stay back and when to move forward. He's nearly sloppy at times, but thinks on his feet well enough to cover for it. The crowd is very into all the nearfalls toward the end, which is a credit to both performers and how they set those falls up. We get a clean finish with the heel going over, which is always nice, and sadly, Guerrera has to unmask after losing the match. WCW, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to disrespect the lucha libre culture by having Juvi, and later Rey Misterio Jr and Psicosis, unmask, thinking it would make them more marketable. We know how true that is now, since Rey is one of the top merchandising cash cows in WWE, and he's wearing his mask again. If this match was missing anything, it was the feeling of danger. Jericho almost gave Juvi *too many* hope spots, and as a result, the match went back and forth more than it should have in the middle. Besides that, this match is actually a great performance from both, perhaps the best match each man had in his time in the company, at least in singles. I don't understand why this one hasn't been more heralded. ****

Steve Austin v Brian Pillman - 11/10/93 (WCW) It's the Battle of the Blondes! I put an exclamation point on that sentence, which would normally imply excitement over that, but I was a huge fan of the team at the time, and was actually disappointed over the breakup. Jesse Ventura echoed my sentiments nicely in this match, saying it broke his heart to see it happen and he wished they could just shake hands and forget about it all. That wasn't to be, as they immediately went into a brawl. Pillman chased manager Col. Rob Parker around the ring, which gave Austin an opening to sneak in a clothesline and toss Pillman back in the ring. He realizes he's in trouble so he offers a handshake, which is actually a total dickwad heel tactic considering that he's the one who sold his partner up the river. Pillman will have none of it and spits in his face! Wow. They brawl out to the elevated ramp that WCW used in the early 90s, where Austin attempts a piledriver, but it gets reversed. Pillman goes up top, with the intent of splashing Austin outside the ring, but misses, and Austin throws him off the ramp face-first into the guardrail. That's actually a hellacious bump that always looked good when he did it. Austin returns to the ring, which is where he keeps trying to keep this match, and Pillman is entering as well on the apron. Austin charges toward him, but Pillman stops him with a slingshot crossbody. They fight some more, and Austin catches him with a stun gun to take control. Pillman tries everything to come back, including gouging Austin's eyes, and chopping the hell out of Austin's chest, but Steve is relentless at this point. He applies a single leg crab, holding the ropes, which the ref almost catches twice and finally catches after looking up for the third time. Whenever Pillman is vertical, Austin is disadvantaged, as he Irish whips Brian to the corner and Pillman climbs to the middle rope and falls back with an elbow. He gets a two-count off of it and Austin tries to come back again by coming off the top rope, but he gets crotched. Pillman tries a superplex, but Austin reverses it in a *nice* spot. We then get an even better highspot with Austin trying to follow him down by jumping off the top rope to get him, but Pillman catching him with a dropkick mid-air. That move took great timing on the part of both guys, and they pulled it off flawlessly. Now, Pillman appears to finally have Austin where he wants him, where he can begin to exact revenge. Austin catches him off the ropes with an elbow, though, and he tries another piledriver, but this time, Pillman reverses it to a huracanrana for a very good nearfall. They both brought all of the offense they had to this one, and left absolutely nothing behind. Pillman tries to capitalize on his momentum by trying the slingshot crossbody again, but he gets caught with a powerslam for an even better nearfall. Austin misses a vegamatic after taking control, which Pillman counters with a DDT and now the audience is seriously into this, as Austin kicks out yet again. Pillman dusts off his flying crucifix, which sees Austin drop him on his back as a counter. He goes up top, but he misses a splash, which gives Pillman a chance to Oklahoma Roll him into the best false finish of the match. The finish is a little cheap, but with the post-match brawl, it also keeps the door open to rematches, rematches that would never happen. Breaking up the Blonds was a bad idea in the first place, and not even letting them have a long feud afterward was an even worse idea. They both floundered without each other. Pillman would never reach that level again. Austin's best days were thought to be behind him about a year later. There was no blood here, which is fine because it's TV, but a Starrcade gimmick match with both tapping an artery was certainly in order. The one glaring flaw the match had was that neither guy could sustain control for any amount of time. It got to be very "My turn, your turn" toward the end, so the only momentum they had was through the hot moves, which in this case worked, believe it or not. In fact, the layout of this match is much more like a WCW cruiserweight match of the late 90s than a WCW heavyweight match of the early 90s. Still, this plays like the first chapter in what's intended to be a long feud, and this wasn't intended to be a long feud obviously; it was intended to bury them both under the pretense of pushing Austin as a singles star. ***3/4

Ric Flair v Lex Luger - 09/13/90 (WCW) These two typically worked the same very good match every time out between 1988 and 1990. The problem was that if you'd seen one, you'd seen them all, at least if you were watching to see what Flair does. He had a clear formula that he created with Nikita Koloff and perfected with Luger, and it was a formula he used to carry the growing number of limited muscleheads to good matches in the late 1980s. This match is more abridged because it's on a live Clash and it's not the main event, which one might think would hurt it, but it doesn't at all. In fact, if anything, it helps it. That's not to say this is the best Flair/Luger match, because it isn't, but the reasons for that have nothing to do with the time. Flair is especially animated in this match, even more so than normal. He's laughing, smiling, yelling at fans, trash talking Luger, screaming at the ref and jumping toward the camera. I think he had a little bit too much champagne backstage, but it plays well, because the crowd is rabid all the way through and Flair is so vibrant. He doesn't just chop Luger; before he does it, he has to look directly into the camera and say, "Turner! Herd! This is for you! Whoooo!" It's a side of Ric Flair I actually wish we could have seen more often. He brawls a little more than he wrestles, which is a nice change of pace from their usual work, even if he's not quite as sound when he tries to do it. He keeps dragging Luger outside to torture him there; he Irish whips Luger into the guardrail at least three times. The part of the match that hurt it the most was all the early no-selling from Lex. Sure, it gets over Luger's determination, but so do a lot of other things they could have done without making Flair look weak. His chops are shrugged off; a nice vertical suplex is meaningless; the last Irish whip to the guardrail has no effect at all. Luger, however, can sell when he wants to sell, or when the match calls for it, because when he does it, he's surprisingly great at it. At times, he just seems to be waiting for a reason to be perilous, and that's actually when he's at his best, not when he's on offense. Flair comes up with different ways to set them up at least, but Luger does three press slams in the first five minutes of the match, and besides that, it's mostly clotheslines. Later in the match, he does spice things up with a superplex, but it would have meant more in the early stages. Sometimes, his clotheslines barely make contact, but Flair bumps big for them anyway to put them over. My favorite part of the match is when Flair gets clotheslined by Luger, and starts screaming like he dislocated his shoulder. The ref goes in to check on him, as does Luger, and he suckerpunches him, which transitions to him controlling the middle part of the match. I also like the way Flair attacks Luger's knee, he does all of his usual stuff, but at one point, he has Lex in the corner, so he can chop him, kick the knee, chop him, kick the knee, chop him, kick the knee. The key to what I said earlier is that Luger can sell *when he wants to sell* because after making his comeback, he essentially shrugs off everything Flair did to him. The DQ finish didn't really hurt the match so much, as pretty much everyone knew by this point that if Flair and Luger were facing each other, there would be no clear cut winner. Stan Hansen interferes and sets up their program for Halloween Havoc, and that post-match beatdown is as inspired as anything in the match. There's better Flair/Luger, there's more sound Flair/Luger, there's Flair/Luger given the right amount of time. The one reason I'd still recommend seeing this, however, would be to see Flair's outstanding theatrics.

Ricky Steamboat & Dustin Rhodes v Arn Anderson & Larry Zbyszko - 11/17/91 (WCW) The setup to this match was pretty cool, actually. Dustin Rhodes and tag team partner Barry Windham were arriving to Halloween Havoc just three weeks before this event when the Enforcers would attack Windham, and break his hand by smashing a car door on it. The problem was that Windham and Rhodes were picking up a lot of momentum as a tag team and were scheduled to challenge Anderson and Zbyszko for the tag titles at this event, Clash XVII. It was unknown all the way up until match time if Barry would be able to compete or not. He comes out in street clothes along with Dustin Rhodes, who is in wrestling gear, and explains that he had to have reconstructive surgery on his hand, but that Dustin and him didn't come alone. He wants to introduce his partner, who then comes out wearing a huge dragon costume, as Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone speculate that their partner will be a Japanese wrestler. Immediately, the heels start berating the announcers, who are at ringside, and get in a shouting match with them about how they were scheduled to face Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes in this match. Windham and Dustin help the mystery partner out of his costume and it's Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, which gets an enormous ovation from the starved-for-wrestling Southern crowd. The look of shock on Arn's face is priceless. Steamboat is in first for his team and fights out of the corner. Arn and Larry try to double team him, but he fights them off, and Dustin eventually joins him and they together clear the ring. Arn is doing everything he can to calm himself and his partner down, saying to Zbyszko, "He's just a man." Awesome! They return to the ring and Dustin is in this time, and he immediately goes to Zbyszko's arm, and the faces tag in and out quickly, showing a lot of good teamwork considering that they are teaming for the first time. Zbyszko isn't having luck, and his arm and shoulder are getting destroyed, so he tags out to Anderson, which gives Dustin a chance to strut his stuff. After looking strong against Arn for a few minutes, he tags in Steamboat, and we get one of the best staples of the Southern tag -- the blind tag. Arn gets one just before being sunset flipped, and Larry is able to catch an unsuspecting Steamboat from behind. They immediately start cheating, much to the chagrin of the crowd, as Zbyszko applies an abdominal stretch while Arn assists behind the ref's back for additional leverage. They take turns punishing Steamboat, and Steamboat gives his first tease of a comeback by dropping Arn face first to the mat. Arn has the wherewithal, however, to do a drop toehold to keep him from getting the tag, and brings in his partner. They work a bearhug and get some really good nearfalls off of it, believe it or not, and Steamboat tries to counter out of that with a bodyscissors, but Anderson reverses that into a Boston crab. There are two cool things about that spot. The first is seeing Zbyszko push on Arn's head to give him additional leverage yet again. The second is that Zbyszko actually walks him as close to his corner as he can while keeping him in the hold. Steamboat comes back, and tries for the hot tag yet aain, but Arn distracts the ref, so he misses it. Steamboat is still getting a second wind, though, as he atomic drops Arn into the corner, leading to Arn falling back and their heads cracking. Arn is the first to come to his feet, but he misses a move off the top rope, which keeps them fairly even. Arn actually saying to his partner, "We should both stop him" while he's struggling to make the tag is nice, because Larry comes in the ring, but it's too little too late, as Dustin has already made the tag and is fully rested and energetic. They build nicely to the finish from there, with yet another blind tag spelling the end of the match. The finish can only be classified as an upset because of the makeshit nature of the babyface team, as Steamboat pins an unsuspecting Larry with a flying bodypress. This is a great match, but I still had a few problems with it. Earlier in the match, before Zbyszko tags out to Anderson, he cheapshots Dustin on the apron, and Dustin comes in to distract the ref, but the heels don't take advantage of the opening, as Arn is working the bearhug cleanly. That appeared to be a small miscue, with the faces and heels on a different page. The second problem I had with the match was Arn Anderson going for whatever he's going for off the top rope. The way they're positioned, it looks like it's a double axehandle to his feet, which makes no sense. That was always the one move Arn did that annoyed me the most, and he did it in almost every match. There's also one thing that's a common problem in many Southern tags, and that's the babyface coming back just seconds after struggling to make that hot tag, when logically, they shouldn't be able to do that after taking such a beating, considering the hard time Steamboat was having getting to his corner just moments before. That said, the great work does overcome the flaws, and the end result is still a great match, even if it's not quite a benchmark of what could be accomplished in this era, with these workers or with the tag team formula. ****

Is it the match where Marty came out of the crowd incognito and won the title, or is it the match where Jannetty won and they used instant replay which lead to Michaels winning? The first match was on 05/17, the second match was on 07/19.

OMG, _*PLEASE*_ review Chamber of Horrors.

Bad News gets the nod by simply not embarrassing himself. Adrian Adonis from 1985-1987 was BAAAAAAAAAD. There's no case for him whatsoever. Bad News Brown may not have been great, but he was never as bad as Adonis in the latter stages of his career. Few have been.

Yoshihiro Taijiri v Psicosis - 08/20/00 (ECW) I have no problem saying it again ... Man, FUCK this crowd! Since when is it a sign of "respect" for a bunch of self-important fans to spend the duration of a match putting themselves over and finding ways to break kayfabe? Reactions like the ones here essentially make ECW a useless exercise overall, because the mutants refused to buy into anything the company was selling, they were dead set against suspending their disbelief, and their top priority seems to be coming up with creative chants, with swear words whenever possible, instead of letting the workers tell a story, reacting to it and *then* doing their pretentious applause, probably not even having a clue why they're clapping in the first place. This time, more than any other time I've seen this happen in ECW, it's a travesty, because this is a really nice little match, featuring the ever-awesome Psicosis and the one guy in ECW who was good enough to work on his level. It's pretty apparent than Psicosis is not comfortable with the way the crowd is reacting, and in an especially funny moment, he looks at them like the fucking idiots they are when they start chanting "lucha libre" and clapping their hands. This is NOT lucha libre. We've never seen anything close to the real lucha style in a WWF, WCW or ECW ring, no matter the participants. And Psicosis keeps doing everything right to try to turn the crowd against him and make them rally behind Taijiri, but nothing ever really works because that would mean the audience would have to suspend their disbelief, and they don't believe in that. Psi immediately goes for Taijiri's neck, which gets countered right away. They lock up again, and this time Psi tries a bow-and-arrow, and it too gets countered right away. They're doing a nice job establishing parity early on with these sorts of moves, and they go into some really nice, fast-paced matwork from here, with Psicosis changing strategies looking for something that will work by going after Taijiri's leg, but having that countered immediately as well. It's Psi's frustrated facial expressions that cinches this as meaningful and hints that this is going somewhere. He keeps trying the knee and has mixed results, but can't sustain any type of momentum, because Taijiri is just too multi-talented and fast to be neutralized. With every sequence, Psicosis comes a little bit closer to solving the mystery, but can't ever seem to put enough together to keep him where he wants him. He temporarily takes control after a face-first vertical suplex, but Taijiri eventually comes back from that as well, and Psicosis' selling of Taijiri's kicks is a sight to be seen. Taijiri is now firmly in control with his quick kicks, and Psicosis teases a comeback, but gets overzealous along the way, leaving him open to a somersault plancha while on the arena floor. A chairshot FINALLY turns the tide, giving Psicosis some semblance of offense for a little while, and he makes the most of it with cool stuff you don't see often, like a wheelbarrow suplex or a hands-free pescado over the guardrail! A few spots are blown, but they keep the pace going quickly enough that the problems are nicely covered. Outside of that, the only real problem I have with this match is the excessive low blows used to counter moves. It felt cheap, considering what they were trying to do, and I would have liked to have seen them stay a little more true. Outside of that, they did some nice work, and hopefully, one day, Psicosis will get his due in the US. ***1/4

Super Crazy v Yoshihiro Taijiri v Jerry Lynn - 11/07/99 (ECW) This is a little bit different than a WWE three-way, if only because it's contested under elimination rules, and therefore, the match is going to have two pinfalls. Unlike Van Dam/Bigelow, they actually wrestle a nice spotfest here, keep the flow going, keep the moves looking crisp and give us a nice variety of moves. It's a fun match -- not really a good match, but a fun one. It could have been better if Jerry Lynn could get a charisma transplant, as the other two are far easier to support, but Lynn is too busy doing "cradle" versions of every move to play to the crowd. He's easily the weakest participant in this match, and he's what keeps it from going to another level.

Rob Van Dam v Bam Bam Bigelow - 04/04/98 (ECW) Joey Styles does a nice job of catching me up on the storyline here, which is that RVD has largely been in a position to do dirty work for Sabu, and what's expected of him here is to soften up Bam Bam Bigelow so Sabu can get the win at the upcoming pay-per-view. I'm thinking this match is going to be really good early on, since they seem like the types who would click well, and often, they do -- Bam Bam's stiff, high impact style is a nice contrast to RVD's high flying, and there are hints of chemistry. The problems start when they're lost between big moves. Early on, Van Dam tries a huracanrana, but Bigelow reverses it into a powerbomb, which causes Rob to roll outside. I'd normally consider that a nice touch, but he only sells that for a short time, and the rest of the time, he's just chillin' with Fonzie and talking to the camera. He also does very little to sell the storyline of softening up Bam Bam but seeming reluctant about it deep down, which could have been communicated in several ways. This match is more of a spotfest than anything, with RVD's somersault plancha into the crowd being one for the ages. It's one of the most dangerous, yet graceful spots I've ever seen, and it gets an insane reaction from the mutants. My philosophy on spotfests has always been the same though, which is if you're going to do it, do it! There's so much stalling here that the match never quite establishes a rhythm, as they pretty much lay around between big moments. Bigelow has a nasty cut reopened above his eye, and I don't understand why he is the one being positioned as the underdog here, given the size difference of the two, the fact that he's the champion and the fact that Van Dam is more of a hired goon at this point than anything. Bigelow has also held the company's top title, and Rob hasn't come anywhere close to hitting that level. So the layout just doesn't feel right and when the ref bump happens, the problems just compound. There's not really a reason to do a ref bump in an ECW match anyway, since they don't do DQs. It's Sabu's cue to come out and assist his partner, but Bigelow makes his own save before getting hit with the Van Daminator for the win. Rob would hold the title until nearly the end of the company, but he'd always seem pigeonholed into a role where he was too over not to be on top. Sound familiar?

In spring of 1994, he was wrestling Tracy Smothers in ladder matches almost every night in SMW, and most of them made fancam, and all of them that I've seen are excellent matches that don't have as many stunts as even Shawn/Razor, but do a better job putting over the match and the gimmick. They're all $2500 matches, so there's a bag of money hanging up there. I'd say that's pretty believable. He also had a falls count anywhere match with Foley at the end of the year in SMW (I think it's a different one than the one on Foley's DVD) that I'm a fan of, that I'm sure I'll get to at some point or another. By and large, I'm not a huge fan of it, but his stuff against Lance Storm in 1997/98 was better than anything else going on in ECW at the time. Candido is more someone that had a lot of talent that could have eventually gotten great than someone who was already where he needed to be. He's supposed to have been on a roll this year in the indies, but I can't confirm or deny that.

It's not so much that Valentine had a great run as it is that he had a better one than Don freakin' Muraco after 1985. But, if we're looking at peak feuds, Valentine/Santana totally obliterates Muraco/Steamboat, which was shorter, didn't have matches that were as good and wasn't for a title. You gotta remember, this is a *WWF*list. Only 5-10 people we vote for are going to have a whole lot of good matches under their belt.

But what about Bad News Brown's work in the ring? Can you direct me to any matches that were worth watching for work value or historical value or even markout value? Probably not. I don't really have to. Adrian Adonis was John Heidenreich or Gene Snitsky-level embarrassing during this time though, so I'd probably vote for anyone else against him.

It does matter. Brian Pillman, for example, rocked in WCW and was horrible in the WWF. When this is over, there will be a WCW tournament.

Please remember that this is a WWF list. You mentioned ECW with Terry Funk and WCW with Mero, so I just wanted to remind you in case you forgot.

RIC FLAIR 1981 - v Jumbo Tsuruta (10/09, AJPW) 1982 - v Kerry Von Erich (08/15, WCCW) 1983 - v Jumbo Tsuruta (06/08, AJPW) 1984 - v Harley Race (05/22, AJPW) 1985 - v Kerry Von Erich (10/22, Hawaii) 1986 - v Barry Windham (02/14, Florida) 1987 - v Barry Windham (04/11, NWA) 1988 - v Lex Luger (07/10, NWA) 1989 - v Ricky Steamboat (03/18, NWA) 1990 - v Lex Luger (02/24, NWA) 1991 - v Hulk Hogan (11/30, WWF) 1992 - v Randy Savage (04/05, WWF) 1993 - v Vader (12/27, WCW) 1994 - v Ricky Steamboat (05/14, WCW) 1995 - v Randy Savage (06/18, WCW) 1996 - v Eddy Guerrero (05/20, WCW) 1997 - ------- 1998 - v Bret Hart (01/25, WCW) 1999 - v Chris Benoit (06/03, WCW) 2000 - v Jeff Jarrett (05/15, WCW) 2001 - v Sting (03/26, WCW) 2002 - v Chris Jericho (08/18, WWE) 2003 - v HHH (05/19, WWE) 2004 - v Chris Benoit (02/09, WWE) Proceed with *major* caution on the last half or so of this list. In fact, don't proceed at all.