Loss

Jerry Lawler Honky Tonk Man never did anything half as good as the Bret Hart feud of 1993. The Summerslam match with Doink leading into Lawler is an all-time favorite of mine, even if it sucks.

Greg Valentine Don Muraco did *nothing* of note in this era. Valentine was past his prime by this time as well, but he was still contributing here and there.

Bad News Brown Go back three more years and Adrian is an easy pick, but he was an embarrassment during this era. BNB was an influential character.

Brainbusters No one knows or cares where B. Brian Blair is today.

Rikishi Probably the only time he'll get voted over Terry Funk on anything ... ever. Has decent matches dating back to his jump from WCW in the early 90s and survived bad gimmick after bad gimmick before becoming one of the top babyfaces of the hottest year in the company. Funk is worlds better overall, but never stuck around long enough to make much difference. Both had main event runs in the company, so this was a hard decision.

IRS Solid midcarder in the early-mid 90s, was part of a WM match against Hogan, was part of a popular tag team at the beginning of the boom, worked as both face and heel, great gimmick for camp value.

Val Venis Al Snow was hyped up big on the indy circuit before coming into the company and was given lame gimmick after lame gimmick. In Val you have a solid worker stuck in a bad gimmick, but he at least is B-show royalty.

Taijiri He's made just the same impact on the upper card that Mero did (read: occasional flirtations with the top guys, but nothing substained) and he's a far better worker. He's also doubled Mero's tenure in the company by now.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the tag team who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

(Unfortunately, the poll option isn't going to work since we have no way to see who voted, so Coffey is going to end up getting his way.) Choose the wrestler who you think belongs more in a tournament of the greatest of the promotion from 1985 to 2005. Please do not factor their work in other companies into your decision. Voting will end Sunday at 12:00 CST. Please provide your answer with a mere name on the first line, and if you choose to elaborate, do so after making your pick. Thank you.

Nah, I doubt it will. Time is up; you guys can vote.

Chris Jericho v 2 Cold Scorpio v Shane Douglas v Pit Bull II - 07/13/96 (ECW) Often times, matches are called great when they're merely good, so that's nothing new, but since when do absolutely horrible matches get called great? I wanted to like this one, because I'm a big fan of at least two of the participants, but I couldn't help but be disappointed for a variety of reasons. The match is a four-corners match, which does admittedly work better in some ways than a fatal four-way, if only because the wrestlers don't have to lay outside the ring for an extended amount of time selling something that wasn't really all that high-impact in the first place. This match is also for the ECW TV title. The champion is Chris Jericho, and he's probably the second best worker in this match. Eliminating him first, when he's the one with the belt, makes very little sense, because the champ losing his title should be a major deal. He's good here in spots, but he's very inconsistent overall. It's cool to see him bust out moves you'd never see from him post-1999, like the Tiger Bomb or a standing top-rope huracanrana. He also keeps a consistent pace better than any of the other participants, and does far less stalling than anyone else involved. That said, he is sloppy in a few spots, particularly when he does a slingshot splash when there's not even anyone there to perform the move on. Joey Styles covered for it nicely on commentary by basically calling it like a fake-out on the part of 2 Cold Scorpio, but Jericho does at least have the wherewithal to keep going and get quickly back on track. He also does small things nicely, like roll out of the ring after a high-impact move, knowing that the move took enough out of him that if he doesn't get out of there, he's toast. It's in the details where Jericho succeeds. 2 Cold Scorpio is the best worker in the match, though, basically wrestling the same heel role he always did in ECW, but being the lesser of two evils when he's faced off against Shane Douglas. He does more than everyone else in the match to make his rivals look good, and he doesn't overstep his bounds because he knows the match isn't all about him. The problems come in when he stalls so much between moves. He's not really playing to the crowd so much as he is heckling them, and ECW fans are always too quick to heckle back. The best highspots of the match are almost all 2 Cold Scorpio highspots. However, I'm not really sure why he's here, and I'd feel the same way about Jericho if he wasn't the champ. The main issue is Shane Douglas and Pit Bull #2. In fact, Douglas meets him at the entrance with a chairshot before the match even gets started, which should theoretically place the odds against him from the start, and I think that's what they were going for. But when PB came to his senses, he didn't try to chase down Douglas or demand to be tagged into the match. He was so bothered, in fact, that he just got back on the apron and while he was bleeding, he waited calmly and patiently for his opportunity to get in the ring. Immediately after the initial chairshot, Jericho and Scorpio start in right away, with the audience's attention still focused elsewhere. I wish they would have waited just a little bit, because what they were doing was solid. There's some nice matwork that sees Jericho tie Scorpio in to a pretzel, basically, before Scorpio starts yanking hair like his life depends on it to get out of the hold. Douglas tags in from Scorpio, and he's incredibly hated as a heel. Jericho tries to capitalize on that by doing the count-along head rams into the top, middle and bottom turnbuckles, but the audience is too cool to care about something like that. Whatever, they totally don't get it. At this point, the match is basically a tag match, albeit not a very coherent one. Douglas, to his credit, stooges like a madman on the apron and when he's in the ring, and when Pit Bull is tagged in, Douglas wants no part of him and does everything in his power to get out of the ring. Scorpio immediately takes over and back bodydrops him over the top rope, and both legs hit the guardrail. I was hoping they'd play that up, but it would appear that the spot was accidental, because they didn't at all. Bull is vulnerable now though, which means Douglas has no problem coming in and taking a few cheapshots. The build to their altercation is the one part of this match that truly works, and even the mutants are anxious to see the final showdown when it happens. When Pit Bull shows even the slightest signs of life, Douglas tags out, and in this case he tags out to Jericho, breaking up the face/heel tag team thing officially. Jericho lays in some vicious Taijiri-like kicks to the head, but a well-timed elbow from Bull turns the tide. They're competitive now, but Jericho hopes to change that with a really nice German suplex. Sadly, he was out of position for it, and Bull immediately was in the ropes. More sloppy work. He goes for a huracanrana, but Bull counters it into a powerbomb and Scorpio tags in, immediately going up top. Jericho knocks him off the ropes and after the aforementioned standing top-rope huracanrana and tries to pin Scorp, but Douglas blind tags himself into the match so he can attempt the fall. With this being ECW, it would have been so easy to do payback spots here, but strangely, these guys were almost constantly wrestling within the rules. Jericho didn't get in a shot before going back; he just went back without fighting the decision, in much the same way Bull didn't seem to care about the chairshot Shane caught him with early on. We eventually end up with Douglas and Bull finally having their altercation, but it happens outside the ring. Jericho decides to break that up with a plancha to both, and Scorpio doesn't think that's a bad idea himself. Douglas and Pit Bull are now left to do their thing in the ring while Scorpio and Jericho brawl into the crowd, which the camera is unable to catch. It's awkward when they return though because Jericho walks off, realizes he has nothing to do and comes back to fight with Scorpio again. In a nice touch with both he and Scorpio refusing to tag, so this showdown is inescapable now. It would have been even better if Douglas wouldn't have been so half-assedly selling PB's weak punches. Jericho gets revenge for Shane's blind tag on him earlier, but it doesn't really play that way, because it ends up with the babyfaces looking incompetent for arguing over who gets to put him away. Jericho/Douglas is nice in theory, but poor in execution. Jericho works a spinning toehold a few times before finally cinching in a figure four, but Douglas doesn't really sell it as anything important. That's too bad, since Jericho is keeping it interesting by chopping him while he has the hold locked in. I wish he would have set it up a little more though, and I also wish Jericho would not have broken the hold voluntarily. Douglas sends Scorpio back in for the best spot of the match, which was Jericho going for a Lionsault and Scorpio dropkicking him mid-air. After some more awkwardness and a few tags, Jericho is disposed of after a tombstone and tumbleweed. Douglas begs Scorpio for an alliance against Pit Bull and offers a handshake, but 2 Cold blows him off by beating him up again, and then dropkicks Bull off the apron for effect. In a very strange moment, he goes for a pin, doesn't get it and no one does anything -- at all -- for close to a minute. It was very weird. We get a nice attempted spot with Scorpio going for a moonsault on a pair of stacked opponents, but they *both* move, which eventually leaves Scorpio susceptible to being eliminated. So now we finally have the match that should have just been the match all along. They don't really payoff the hype so well, as their brawl doesn't have any real intensity to speak of before going into angle overdrive. I'll cop to liking Douglas trying every single Southern heel cheating staple -- belt shot, chain, brass knucks -- with Bull kicking out of all of them, but I'll also admit that it's needless overkill and the point was already made. Francine turning is a fine swerve, but wouldn't it make more sense to delay the payoff of her getting her due instead of doing it immediately after she does the dirty deed? The whole match was just a mess that could never quite figure out what it wanted to be, what its pace was and where it was going. It ended up as nearly 45 minutes of filler before the big angle, which shows that Shane Douglas is not only long-winded on the mic, but in the ring as well.

Yeah, he mentioned both Wright and Bagwell.

In this one, he impersonates Dusty Rhodes, talks about how plans to reunite the Hollywood Blonds were squashed, talks about being told to make Bagwell look good for seven minutes and about how he wanted to be a Steve-o-maniac, but that Hogan told him it wouldn't happen. This isn't the one where he's impersonating Hogan. He's addressing his firing in WCW and how it went down, and how no one will stop him from reaching the level he deserves to reach now.

Yeah, he never signed longer than a 12-month contract during the Monday Night Wars, and they never even showed so much as a passing interest in him at the end of every year when his contract expired. In 1999, he actually quit WCW, and they made it clear publicly and privately that there was no interest in Randy Savage whatsoever. Rock wanted to do a program with him for Wrestlemania at one point and was even told absolutely not. I guess they don't think they can make money with him like they did Hogan, and they probably still resent him for jumping to WCW when he did, even though he got Vince's blessing to do it and wasn't being used anymore.

Interview - Steve Austin - 1995 (ECW) I think I enjoyed this more than anything I watched tonight, honestly. Steve Austin is so good at pretty much everything he does that it's easy to forget it sometimes, because we've been so overexposed to him over the past few years that we take him for granted. I do think the worked shoot tone isn't quite my tastes, as it's never a good idea to openly acknowledge that all of your ideas for feuds were turned down by management the last place you worked, but what makes this special is the delivery, the passion, the facial expressions, the editing. The constant zoom ins on his eyes are a thing of art and convey the point very well, and it's obvious he means what he says. It's hard to pick a favorite Austin interview because he's done so many great ones, but this is certainly close to the top.

Rey Misterio Jr v Psicosis - 09/16/95 (ECW) One more time ... 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. Psicosis is sure hard not to clap though, because he's so awesome at what he does. I don't think I ever truly realized how good he was in the ring until I've taken on so much footage in the past week. It's pretty awe-inspiring. He does a great job of establishing his heeldom by complaining to the ref and spitting at the crowd -- and it almost works, which considering this crowd is quite an accomplishment. Psi also takes an enormous bump right off the bat right into the crowd when Rey counters a hammerlock and uses his momentum against him. The next time he tries it, Psicosis sees it coming and is smart enough to just fall to the ground and cinch in the hold, which is a nice touch that Styles doesn't play up at all. Rey rallies up again, and they criss-cross, which leads to Psicosis catching Rey off guard and dropping an elbow in the center of his back, following that up with a powerbomb and an awesome split-legged splash into the corner. He tries again, and misses, which gives Rey all the opening he needs to start busting out the highspots, and the debut of the springboard huracanrana gets an enormous pop. They're able to slowly turn the crowd in their favor in some ways, but they're being fought the entire time and can only do so much. There are a couple of transitions that are out of sorts, but they cover for it well enough and keep going instead of retracing their steps, which is something that is normally a hallmark of the ECW style. Psicosis starts to go for Rey's knee, but that doesn't really end up going anywhere. It does at least set up a nice ironic payback, though, when Psicosis misses what was intended to be a flying knee to the face while Rey was against the turnbuckle. Rey moved, and now Psicosis' knee is the one that's hurting. Sadly, there was no follow up. They tease more than they deliver, but they still manage to deliver some fun stuff. That said, they've had far better matches in other places, and it also seemed like just when they were gaining some momentum, it was time to go home. Too bad.

Eddy Guerrero v Dean Malenko - 2/3 falls - 08/26/95 (ECW) 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. You have Eddy Guerrero playing the subtle heel in this match, which doesn't really fit in with the body of the feud, but he's the one using his boot laces as a weapon, running to the ropes for safety, poking Malenko in the eye and dominating the offense most of the time. Eddy just isn't Eddy here; in fact, I think this may be the most off I've ever seen him. It's very possible that he was overcome with the emotion of the moment and it distracted him; Hell, it distracted me and I didn't get sucked into that crap. It's totally unlike Guerrero to be flashy just to be flashy. His approach has typically been to build to his highspots in a logical way, so he's executing them because it makes sense to do them. Here, they're working all these mat-based sequences early on, but it's not really to establish anything or go anywhere. If anything, Dean Malenko is completely outworking Guerrero in this match. I love his bow and arrow into the pinfall attempt early on, and I love him dropkicking Eddy squarely in the ankle. I don't like Eddy no-selling that move, though. Regardless of my criticisms, however, Eddy going at 40% of his capability is better than many workers going all out. He still finds a way to fit in a top-rope superplex, a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, a great German suplex, a swinging DDT, a brainbuster, a frogsplash and a huracanrana. The problem isn't the highspots he's doing; it's the way that he's killing so much time between them all. There's way too much lying around between moves, and the internal logic of the match is all over the place, and I don't think they ever really stumble on anything that works. The match is often criticized for being slow, but slow can work if the selling is good. Slow can also work if the transitions are strong enough. Neither is really the case here. The third fall does see them turn up the volume, but this match wasn't lacking fucking sound, it was lacking fucking fury! The finish is a total copout, because it leaves the feud totally open, and both wrestlers leave ECW without anything really resolved. Back to the crowd. Eddy and Dean did seem genuinely touched by the moment, and I'm sure the mutants thought they were doing the right thing. However, workers don't go out there with the result of getting applause. They go out there with the goal of getting heat, and this crowd totally shit all over this match with all the clapping and "please don't go" chants while they're working the match, as they seemed more interested in making it known how totally aware they are that wrestling is fake than paying respect to two guys that supposedly changed the face of wrestling in ECW. They don't pop for nearfalls, they don't respond to Eddy's subtle cheating tactics and that in itself is the ultimate irony and I'll explain why. Our little "smark" subculture, or whatever you want to call it, is a novelty. I think some of us really know what we're talking about and some of us don't have a clue. I think those of us that are truly wise realize how little we actually know, and even if it doesn't always come across when I'm expressing my views, I do try to keep that in mind. I can talk critically about a match here, and I can talk about how great a spot is, or how great a wrestler's selling is, or how they needed to improve something, but I would never disrespect two guys trying to tell me a story by reminding them every step of the way that they aren't fooling anyone, especially when watching a match in person. ECW had its positive influences, no doubt, but one of the negative influences that carried over to the WWF and WCW was that fans were no longer content to focus on the ring. ECW created a breed of self-satisfying jackasses that talk on their cell phones during the matches; or wave because they see themselves on the Jumbotron; or hold up signs in some type of vain attempt to get their 15 seconds of fame; or think they're being respectful when they meet a wrestler if they call him by his real name. Remember when companies used to darken the arena, to a point where the only light was shining brightly on the match? Me neither. We should all remember that what we do is simply that -- what *we* do -- and if you want to show a wrestler how much you appreciate him, give him the reaction he's seeking. It'll make the point more than anything else you could possibly do. "I hope this match is making great television" -- Joey Styles

I agree with Some Guy. Watch it again. After catching it three more times, I'm convinced it's my favorite WWE match ever ... by a slim margin, but still my favorite nonetheless. Maybe when that Southern brawls comp comes to fruition, we can make sure you get a copy, because I think maybe it'll click if you see some of the early 80s stuff with Jerry Lawler as a contrast and see how they updated it for modern times. It's pretty amazing.