Loss

Is it 1982-1983 Memphis? 1984-1986 Mid South/UWF? 1985-1986 JCP? 1988 Continental? 1989 or 1992 WCW? 1997 WWF? There have been a lot of great periods for angle-driven TV wrestling with strong matches here and there.

Smackdown is as good as the best wrestling in history? Is that even possible when promos are scripted and matches are worked in such a limiting style?

I've always been semi-insulted that I've never had a parrot.

Oh, I don't think you're trying to stir something up. I was just thinking about the number and how our views have changed on how many is a lot through the years. That's all.

I'm having flashbacks to 2000s-era wrestling criticism when quite a few people were proud to have only given three or four matches in wrestling history five stars, and Smarkschoice actually had a thread pondering if a five star match had ever even occurred outside of AJW or AJPW. Keep in mind these were people who had watched a ton of stuff even by 2017 standards. 52 is a lot going by that I guess, when honestly I think people were overly critical to a point that quite a bit of good wrestling was dismissed, but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that excessive when you consider that more matches occur on most calendar days than that. For at least the last quarter century, we've probably had a good 10-15 matches per day on average making tape 300-350 days out of the year.

I'm thinking disruptive in an NWO sense, not disruptive in a Talking Smack sense, by the way. Something that challenges everything about the way wrestling is presented. Obviously, that wouldn't be another version of the NWO at this point in time, but it would have the same impact in changing wrestling.

Yes, that's the one.

Who is participating in PWO2K? Chad (soup23) and I are taking the wheel, but anyone who wants to join us, be it selectively or by watching everything that we watch, is more than welcome to do so. What exactly is PWO2K? It is a project to rewatch as much footage from promotions all over the world as possible that took place between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009, in chronological order. Each match has its own thread and as we watch each match, we'll both post our own thoughts and then go to the next match. At the end of each month's worth of footage, we will do a podcast summarizing our thoughts on the month we just watched and post a list of our match recommendations in four tiers: Tier 1 - All-time classics (****1/2+) Tier 2 - Great matches (***1/2+) Tier 3 - Good and solid matches (***+) Tier 4 - Worth watching for other reasons At the end of each year, we will curate our lists to produce a top 100 matches of the year, which we will post with fresh mini-reviews at Place To Be Nation. How does this differ from yearbooks? This differs from yearbooks in that there is no actual physical set. We have a match list and we are watching the matches on the list, but there's no actual set. We are also limiting our scope in some ways while expanding it in others. Our focus will ONLY be on matches, not promos or angles. We are also not limiting ourselves to a finite number of hours for each year. Our current estimate is that one year of footage will equal approximately three 1990s yearbooks. We are also diving deeper on the 2000s, making a good faith commitment to attempt to watch every title match, apuestas match, or special gimmick match from a major (or minor, in most cases) company. How do you determine what not to watch? If a match has no historical significance, has nothing at stake, has workers that ultimately didn't do much, has no reputation or is otherwise pretty meaningless in the big picture, we'll cut our losses and focus our time on the matches more likely to be a worthwhile viewing experience. Anytime something is left on the cutting room floor, oversights are made, which will almost definitely happen to us. We are open to going back to view anything if someone points it out to us and makes the case for why it's worth watching. What is your ultimate goal? To see where this takes us. Nothing more, nothing less. Obviously, there are certain wrestlers and matches we'd like to view again to see what we think, but there's no agenda beyond that. As long as it's fun, we'll keep doing it. How long do you expect this to take? A really long time. Probably a few years. It took me 4 1/2 years to get through all 1200 hours of 1990s footage. Admittedly, there were long breaks in viewing there that I don't anticipate this time around, but this is a lot more footage. I turned 37 less than a month ago. I expect to be well past my 40th birthday and still working on this project. Hopefully Chad is done with this before he turns 40. Is it possible to get the footage you're watching? Um, I, um, well, it's not that easy, because of issues with ... um, hey look, over there! ooklae in illagevae reengae oonsae

WHOA. I think this might be the best carryjob I've ever seen. This match was awesome. Benoit plays ragdoll for Sid, bumping like a madman while also delivering some great offense to chop him down to size and work over his knee. Benoit was on offense for 90% of this after being tossed around early on, but each time Sid teased a comeback, the place popped huge for him and Benoit did big exaggerated bumps for his kickouts and chokeslams and other brief comebacks. Sid tapped quick for Benoit's crossface -- a little too quick -- which brought this down some for me, especially after working over Sid's knee the whole time, which has nothing to do with the crossface. Obviously that was done for political reasons, since Benoit was quitting to go to the WWF and this was a last-ditch attempt to convince him to stick around, so they needed an out to reverse the decision. But the body of the match was fantastic, and you can bring up Sid's matches with Shawn or Bret all you want, but I've never seen a singles match with him anywhere near this good. ***3/4

I'm already in love with Toryumon. I really respect what they're aiming for so much. Yes, there are moments where their inexperience shows, but they have made a real commitment to building their fundamentals, keeping a strong face-heel structure and cultivating strong personalities. They haven't downplayed their great high-flying moves at all, but they've found ways to incorporate them in a way that's most effective instead of just rolling them out mindlessly. Michinoku Pro did this too, but Toryumon has borrowed far more from the American approach to pro wrestling than Michinoku Pro did, and this style is very much distinct from Pro. In fact, I'd say that if this match is any indication, Toryumon was probably the best-booked Southern style fed in the world at this time, and that includes OVW and Memphis Power Pro. The match itself starts with a wild brawl that spills all over the ringside area with an overzealous manager running around everywhere before finally settling back in the ring (Who do they think they are, the Midnight Express and Fantastics?) and working a great trios. You see potential from those involved in different ways, with CIMA looking like the most complete wrestler of the six and Dragon Kid as the best high flyer. Mochizuki looks like he's almost there, but not quite yet. The post-match angle was awesome too, with the manager immediately hitting the ring to help unmask Dragon Kid and commence a chaotic heel beatdown before a tuxedo-clad Ultimo Dragon makes the save, hitting everything in sight with a variation of kicks to clear the ring. Bring on the Toryumon! ****

A match with four legitimate all-time greats is a total shitshow. Not just disappointing, but a total shitshow. Is that a first? Most of that can be placed on the complete lack of rules or structure around this, with referees wearing wrestling gear and seconds interfering liberally and no tags in and out. I'm not opposed to all outside interference on the merits, but I do think there's a way to structure it and this was just a total mess with no rhyme or reason. I hope this is the worst thing we see from GAEA and an outlier instead of what we can expect from now on.

This is such a contrast from the Ballard Brothers-Westside Playaz match. This has more heat and is worked in a far more traditional way. I cracked up at the little girls screaming for Quackenbush like he's Ricky Morton or something. Starting with some quality stalling to grab the crowd and then marrying themselves to the tag formula without ever thinking of divorce produced a solid, heated match at the very least -- nothing to change your world, but definitely a better match than I expected with good structure and heat. Matches like this were a dying breed by 2000, which makes the few we get appreciated, even when they are unremarkable. ***

It's funny because they should build the video packages around the promos instead of the promos around the video packages, but whatever.

They talk like that at Kevin Dunn's request so that video packages are easier to edit, for the record. Those overwrought video packages that have the exact same look and feel they did in 1998 that are generally awful. Those.

I think it evolved from Russo-directed intonation where most sentences ended in "your ass", "straight to hell" or "down here".

To continue that point, I think I would be happy with anything that felt truly disruptive at this point. If it produces great matches, that's awesome, but that would be the most interesting thing to watch. There have always been ridiculous characters in wrestling, so I don't mean to say that everyone should be like Arn Anderson, nor do I think that was ever really the norm. But even the characters, much less the people playing them, seem far more preoccupied with stealing the show and making history than dominance, than winning and losing and than settling scores.

The Miz may be a character, but people in wrestling should be exaggerated versions of people you would know in real life, not "characters". That's what people mean when they say they want a return to 80s wrestling. They don't want to feel like they are watching serialized television, even if they are. People sound like they are reciting dialogue, not having real arguments or speaking genuinely from the heart. No one ever searches for the right words -- they just always happen to be there in perfectly eloquent fashion. It's too nice and neat.

There was a time when people would call matches "indy-ish" and didn't mean it as a compliment, and this match is kind of a reminder of why. The layout of a good match is there, as they do have the tag formula in place to support them, but the focus is so much on unnatural and contrived double team moves that they overdo themselves and do kind of a ridiculous match. The Ballards are worse offenders than LeGrande and Thompson, especially as heels (I think they are heels), but this just doesn't quite click. It's not a bad effort for green guys, but it still feels like a match with green guys.

I love 3 Count! Man, that act should have gone so much further than it did. WCW was just in no position to capitalize on an act getting hot at this point even if they had really taken off. Them against PG-13 is sort of a dream match for me, even if it does only go three minutes. I'd kill for these teams to have a longer match, but I'll take what I can get.

One of those oddball matches that could only be brought to you by WCW. Nothing special about the match, but a tribute to WCW's oddball WTF matchmaking skills.

Jindrak looks like a million bucks and is a great athlete, but doesn't have the charisma needed to be a top star at this point, sadly. Okay match, but Elix Skipper came across to me as the better investment of the two in terms of guys with star potential, although I could only imagine Vince McMahon's reaction the first time he saw Jindrak. The number of empty seats are sort of alarming, but I guess that's what happens when you actively teach fans not to care about most things.

I love when they put wrestlers out there like Trailer Park Trash and play them like they are the "heart and soul" of a wrestling promotion. So condescending to fans, even if the gimmick is about positive appropriation of a negative term. The match is pretty short, but Nick Dinsmore continues to impress every time he shows up in a match. The promos before the match were fine but not really noteworthy. I think Dinsmore sadly wasted his best years in developmental. I remember when everyone expected Russ McCullough to get a megapush in the WWF because he eventually become almost a spitting image of a younger Kevin Nash.

I thought wrestling was about the quest to figure out objectively which working style or promotion's fans have the thinnest collective skin and complaining when people value headdrops/Mark Henry/Dragon Gate/fighting spirit/trends/wrestlers who play their role well/narratives/Dave Meltzer's opinions (as applicable) too much. Have I been doing it wrong?

The first of many matches we'll see from AJ Styles as we go through this project. I agree that of the guys we've seen so far that are closely associated with this decade, he looks the best. This is probably not what people would expect to see from an AJ Styles match in 2000, as it's a lot of rib selling and he doesn't really hit any offensive moves until about halfway in when he starts slowly rallying a comeback. He does a great job slowly peppering in his offense and continuing to sell even while doing it. As soup mentioned, maybe there are some areas where he still looks like a little green, but they are minimal, and it's hard to watch this match and not see him as a future star, even if he is smaller than the other guys. Jesse Taylor is a good amount taller than him, and he looks pretty credible going against him. ***

I wouldn't call this commentary good, but it's very effective in getting Necro Butcher over as a dangerous madman. I didn't think this was really a good match but it was a good showcase for a unique guy, and I like how Necro smiled more the more punishment he took. I think it was a good decision to stop painting his face, because his facial expressions were very good. At the time, garbage cans and stop signs were pretty conventional weapons in the Big Two, and barbed wire was common in ECW, but the broken glass was pretty wild, so this went a step further than the norm to establish Necro as unusually dangerous. Glad I saw it. Biohazard looked like he could have been somebody with a little seasoning himself.