Loss

Absolutely.

I love Hashimoto, but I also see him as someone missing the GOAT match candidates that I think a guy needs in order to justify a top ten spot. Lots of really great matches. Really, really great. Lots of them. I can't think of any I'd hold up to just about any match ever. I'm not sure he's ever hit ****3/4-***** for me. I think I went that high on the Muto final at the '95 G-1 but have since watched and reconsidered that one. That's not enough to hurt him much at all, but it makes him more of a late teens-early 20s pick for me at best.

Why aren't his longish week-to-week TV matches in 2015-2016 notably good?

I think Shawn had all of those things and could easily justify giving him a 10 in that category. A lot of it was him being booked to have all of those things in such a calculated way that it's a turn-off, but that's another story.

Taue-Hase is a real struggle for me because I do think Hase is the better worker, but I don't think there's any justification for ranking him above Taue. Taue did more with his toolkit than Hase did with his more expansive toolkit, and I don't even mean that as a slight on Hase.

Shawn is probably higher than that for intangibles in my mind. He's not the greatest worker in WWE history, but he's probably the greatest WWE worker in history.

You totally no-sold me, haha.

I am purposely not thinking too much about my list yet, just because it will create too much misery. The day before the deadline, I'll spend an hour or two on it, not second guess myself, and just turn it in before I have time to change my mind.

Eddie did in my opinion eventually peak higher, but it took him years and years to figure out that intangibles piece. He was pretty bland until 1996-1997.

Here are the matches I'd recommend. There are more, but these all placed in my Top 100 for each year of the 90s, so I limited it to these for now. I bolded the best matches that I feel like the least people have seen. Hiroshi Hase vs Great Muta (NJPW 09/14/90) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Keiji Muto & Masa Chono (NJPW 11/01/90) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Rick & Scott Steiner (NJPW 03/21/91) Hiroshi Hase vs Jushin Liger (NJPW 05/06/91) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Rick & Scott Steiner (NJPW 05/31/91) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Keiji Muto & Masa Chono (NJPW 07/04/91) Hiroshi Hase & Keiji Muto vs Vader & Bam Bam Bigelow (NJPW 05/01/92) Hiroshi Hase vs Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW 06/26/92) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Riki Choshu & Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW 10/21/92) 10-man Tag, WAR vs NJ (NJPW 02/05/93) 10-man Elimination Tag, WAR vs NJ (NJPW 06/15/93) Hiroshi Hase vs Samson Fuyuki (WAR 06/17/93) Hiroshi Hase vs Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW 08/03/93) Hiroshi Hase vs Genichiro Tenryu (NJPW 09/23/93) Hiroshi Hase & Masa Chono vs Keiji Muto & Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW 11/05/93) Hiroshi Hase & Keiji Muto vs Rick & Scott Steiner (NJPW 01/04/94) Hiroshi Hase vs Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW 12/13/94) Hiroshi Hase & Keiji Muto vs Rick & Scott Steiner (NJPW 01/04/95) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (NJPW 03/07/95) Hiroshi Hase vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 08/26/97)

Hashimoto is like a stiffer version of Choshu. Hase to me continues more in the Fujinami tradition as a great all-around worker. Both are great, but I do think Hase is super underrated if anything. His match quality in the 1990s holds up to just about anyone outside of the All Japan 4. I'll definitely have him above Muto and Chono, and I don't think it's a huge gap between him and Hashimoto. I could see ranking them in either direction depending on what you value, but for 90s NJ heavies, I'd probably go: Hashimoto Hase Muto Chono Sasaki I think there's a huge gap between Hase and Muto, and I'm not entirely sure I'd rank Muto. Again, that's all just based on 1990-1999.

Funny, I would expect young people to have a more sophisticated understanding of relationships than previous generations, given their more sophisticated understanding of the fluidity of gender and sexuality. I'm not excusing Cena in that case as much as I am consciously choosing not to have an opinion on it. It's not my business first of all, but without knowing the inner dynamics of his marriage, forming a judgment like that is pretty shallow.

The glassy-eyed thing was one thing I loved about Barry Windham, especially because it played well when he was selling as a babyface. I'd love to hear you break down what you didn't like about that Windham-Dusty match, Jimmy. If you are talking about the one from Bash '88, I thought that was very good.

Vicki Guerrero demonstrated the vocal tenor of a great heel in a way that I think could mean something again. Occasionally, we still get some of that from Stephanie, but her voice is much deeper than it was when she was younger after all the sinus surgeries she had years back, so she can't really shriek anymore.

Well, Watts was also hired and told his primary goal was to cut costs. I suspect if he was hired and told his goal was to beat Vince, we would have seen something different than we got. Also, Pillman's contract was a big issue of contention because Watts told him he wouldn't be pushed unless he took a pay cut and Pillman said he'd be perfectly happy to be the highest paid curtain jerker in the history of wrestling.

I think it would be interesting to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan pull off Terry Funk.

Well, Hassan turned out to be a dead end when they took the heat seeking too far, and they had to drop the character. Wrestling is held to a different standard because traditionally, it has tried to trick the audience into thinking it's all real instead of just a television show. Oddly enough, reality shows are heavily worked and still keep big kayfabe, yet they have far more outrageous and offensive characters than wrestling does these days. The difference is that in the world of reality TV, they found a way to create heels where the heels themselves would get the heat instead of the heat going on the company for coming up with the idea.

I can't see Eva Marie's act transferring as well to the main roster. Am I wrong about that? I feel like she'd be met mostly with indifference. I'd love to see her form a "consulting agency" with Miz though, where they work together to mold hardcore darling types into WWE superstars. First project: Nakamura.

I saw the thread title and was about to express my surprise that you would espouse a supply-side opinion of Montreal. So I can put that back in the box. That said, it's something that I think may have been premature in 1997, but I'm starting to think it's correct. I still think it's possible for there to be genuinely hated heels, but I think these days, it's more important to have a roster of people that are treated and perceived as stars. I'm a wrestling traditionalist, but things like using the ropes for leverage or insulting local sports teams just don't generate hatred anymore. And even good performers who use actual heel tactics (think CM Punk in 2012) aren't really viscerally hated anymore. Paul Heyman is over as a babyface, even. I think the reaction that stuff gets in general now is more annoyance with the company that they feel the need to keep trying that stuff everyone knows isn't real anyway. I don't particularly like that, but I do think that's the reality. Perhaps someone smarter than us could develop a new way for heels to make it in 2016, but the only true heels in WWE are the people running the company for being at war with the fans, and anyone that fans perceive is receiving an unfair push at the expense of their favorites.

My prescription: Watch Chigusa Nagayo vs Dump Matsumoto from 8/22/85, take a relaxant and call me in the morning.

He was pretty angry at the end when he wanted some things he was promised addressed and WWE responded by leaking that he refused to do a job for Daniel Bryan. He was quick to say he would have happily put Bryan over ten times in a row but the relationship with WWE had soured, which was the real issue. I don't think any of it was bad enough that bridges were burned though.

Creative was part of the issue, although I think on its own, Batista would have been fine with that. But they weren't leveling with guys about payoffs at the time with the Network being new and they were also continuously adding dates to his schedule that were not what he initially agreed to do. I think on a personal level it also bugged him that he was treated as a scapegoat by fans when he was really just a victim of circumstance. He strikes me as one of the real life good guys who felt like WWE was taking him for a ride, rightfully so in some ways.

All the rest of those silly injury problems would be solved if everyone would just do DDP Yoga.

There are two (5/28/01 Raw and 5/31/01 Smackdown) other Austin-Benoit matches. It's the Smackdown match that gets the most love. The RAW match was building to something better, but didn't get as much time, although it's still very good. This match is more remembered for it being Austin's unofficial announcement that he was going to try actual wrestling again.

It's sadly a company where they see everything they do as religion. That was 15 years ago, so it's possible they would be more open to it now, but I haven't even seen someone like Dave make that connection, so I'm not sure WWE would.