Loss

I don't think this was Piper going into business for himself as much as it was Hogan's character groveling and trying to escape Piper's wrath, only for Piper to say, "Not so fast."

I edited the topic title as a tribute to Terry Funk's announcing.

Looking back on this after reading the WONs at the time, you can tell the heat between Flair and the NWO faction was really strong, as Hall and Nash had agreed to stop making jokes about Flair and Piper being old and kept doing it anyway.

I didn't worship Benoit in the first place, either. I thought he was a great worker but liked Jericho and Eddy better because they seemed like better all-around packages. Still, him making it to the top was a victory for the hardcore fan outlook on wrestling -- for those who seek purity or meritocracy in booking decisions -- that was perverted within a few years. It wasn't about Benoit so much and how to reconcile Benoit. It was about how to reconcile the way we watch wrestling and what we care about, when you saw that someone doing something we thought was great made him so crazy that he eventually snapped and murdered his family. There was a lot of reflection around here about how much we were contributing to the problem. Add that to the fallout that saw mark doctors get arrested, spouses and exes speak up and get demonized for it and a DEA raid of a Florida pharmacy that was providing drugs to almost a dozen wrestlers on the WWE roster (that we know of ... the story at the time was that all of the women breathed a sigh of relief because they were off the DEA radar). THAT was the part that had the greater impact on me as a fan -- it just felt like a huge house of lies that came tumbling down in a very short period of time. We always knew wrestling had a dark side, but it had never been given quite so much daylight. Benoit ignited it all, but it was much bigger than Benoit. I'm not sure how you would have reacted to being around the board at this time -- so many of us were so disillusioned and morally conflicted over watching and enjoying something that seemed to destroy the lives of everyone involved in it. For some people, it meant taking a break. For some people, it meant changing their value system. For some, it meant checking out. Some, probably most, did keep on trucking just like they always did, but it is something that had a disproportionate impact on those participating in this poll.

We booked a better finish on this board before the show -- a reunited Shield takes Brock down to give Reigns the title.

There's probably a parallel worth talking about in the struggle of local wrestling next to small towns across America losing a lot of their local charm and just becoming a repeating loop of McDonald's and Wal-Mart.

Who dropped the cinderblock on Steve Austin?

I'm starting a thread to see if there are enough recommendations we could link to to get a thread going for him in GWE. I have only seen a handful of matches, but he's been very good in all of them, and they've been spread out over a long period of time. I suppose he suffers from working mostly Southern indies when it's the Northeast that gets the most play. Still, he's probably worth talking about.

That context is important because the pedestal on which Benoit was placed absolutely affected the reaction to what he did in the final days of his life. A less-respected wrestler doing the same would have still been a massive news story because of the horrific nature of the crime, but it would not have initiated the larger conversation about the philosophy he embodied and the sacrifices he made -- at one time considered admirable -- to become successful, discussion of which made many of us question everything we thought we knew to be good and right about wrestling. The closest modern example would be Daniel Bryan, although if HOF voting stats are any indication, Bryan doesn't carry nearly the same level of respect among his peers that Benoit did. Yes, it seems foreign now, but there was not a wrestler in the world who was held in higher regard by both hardcore fans and those within wrestling as Chris Benoit at the time. As Dave said back in '07, only Undertaker was as respected, and even then, that was mostly limited to within WWE, where Benoit had it everywhere. Benoit's actions and death shattered a lot of illusions among those of us in hardcore fan circles, to the point that if we were to look at the biggest factors that would make the context of the 2006 Smarkschoice list different than the upcoming 2016 one, it would be the easy #1. And part of that respect was what he accomplished within the last few years of his career in WWE. I always felt like in general, Benoit was more over with WCW fans than he was WWE fans, but his title run in 2004 was a lifetime achievement award for simply being so good at his craft. He was never in the top spot again when he dropped the title, nor do I think he ever would have been again, but he was always treated with a certain respect because of who he was. Jericho has said Vince saw him as the no-nonsense gunslinger, the Clint Eastwood of the company. And yes, he did not fit Vince's typical views of what a WWE superstar is at all, but Vince obviously had tremendous faith in him. If you watched Benoit in 2000, the crowd reactions weren't particularly strong much of time, especially compared to other guys in similar spots like Eddy and Jericho, but he was still the most pushed of the three. His WWE run was seen as vindication from his longtime fans because it showed that a short, no-gimmick wrestler who wasn't a great promo could get over in a top spot if he was good enough in the ring. So it was a victory for that outlook on wrestling, a victory whose merits would eventually be ripped to shreds. I'd say our outlook on these things is a lot more sober now, and I don't think the same level of hero worship is there anymore, even for our favorite wrestlers. I think even casual fans are more aware of when they are being manipulated because more people see WWE as the sleazy company it is. Not all of that is on the Benoit tragedy, but a lot of it is.

Wishing you the best.

The headbutts were done shoulder-to-shoulder. They took the safe route.

In the case of the LHW championship, I'm not sure how much it meant to WCW at the time. Yes, Watts gutted the division, but Tony Schiavone talking about how it's good that there was now a title for "people like Brad Armstrong" who couldn't hang with the top stars was probably more detrimental. I don't entirely agree with it, but I see the idea behind it, if you think moves that once would have been "wow" moves mean zero because they are too commonplace and not put over properly.

I first noticed it in 2012 when they did an old school angle with Punk and Lawler played for heat with people just standing there like zombies at ringside either staring into space or texting.

Yes, in 1992 USWA. And yeah, I think they should consider local advertising. If they're going to put up Mid South and want to earnestly gauge interest in it, then they should advertise in sports bars that attract an older demographic in places like New Orleans and Tulsa, for example. I've always thought that they should have a field sales force that does these types of things, does special events at bars where if people show up an hour ahead of a pay-per-view and make a focus group, they'll give them some free merchandise for participating, and has a kiosk at house shows where people can sign up for the Network right then and there.

Also, when I hear absolutist stuff like that about anyone in wrestling, it makes me think people have no concept of how the real world works. It's possible that HHH was both a self-serving, insecure wrestler and a guy who has earnest intentions to make the NXT style the future of wrestling and wants the best outcome for those who have helped him launch it.

In an ideal world, she could get over on those aspects alone, but it requires careful booking. Charlotte didn't get it, so I don't expect Nia Jax to get it either.

The mentality behind the top rope rule was always to lift the ban several months later. Watts didn't think people were popping enough for moves off the top rope, so making it an outlaw thing would make it mean more. He also thought it was an easy way for heels to get heat -- by doing top-rope moves during a ref distraction. He was concurrently trying to make matwork matter again and was willing to sacrifice show quality in the short term to get holds over. He thought more about the artform of wrestling than anyone in any decision-making capacity in wrestling has since. He basically wanted everything to matter. That he was succeeded by Bischoff, who had no clue on stuff like that, is interesting. Bischoff was hugely successful, of course, but not with a model that was built to last.

What celebrity and what foreign star, I wonder? I'd love to see Asuka induct Bull Nakano or something. Hey, Fujinami went in last year, so it's not *that* farfetched.

Watts found his way toward the end of his run. You can't call a guy out of touch bringing in Benoit, Regal, Van Dam, Scorpio and Douglas while increasing pushes for Austin, Pillman, Foley, Dustin and Vader, especially in retrospect. The problem is that it took him a few months to realize that guys like Dick Slater and Terry Gordy weren't the same in 1992 that they were in 1986 or 1987, and that Ron Simmons was not JYD. By early '93, he was mixing the above-mentioned younger guys in with WCW mainstays like Sting, Windham and Steamboat with Flair on his way back in. I still think it would have worked with more time.

"Dewey, this is Kane. Kane, Dewey."

Harley isn't a perfect 10 in that category because he didn't create a generation of Harley Race copycats. That's what I'm referring to -- not their influence outside the ring, but the influence of their actual matches and working style in the ring. So training or drawing money would not be a factor. Other wrestlers copying a wrestler's most famous matches would be.

To answer your question, JvK, I'll use Dynamite Kid as an example. The longevity as a top flight worker isn't there and the high number of great matches isn't there, but he heavily influenced an entire generation of junior heavyweight work, which matters a lot to me. I seem to consider influential work more than just about anyone here when ranking wrestlers, but I do think wrestling is a medium where it's sometimes better to be different than good. If you usher in a new style, if others are able to improve upon it later, it shouldn't take away from what that wrestler started, even if the matches don't hold up as classics. Same for Sayama -- even if Hamada did the style better, Sayama was the one that popularized it and made it viable. He was able to make his in-ring work actually mean something beyond us just thinking it was good or bad. So I'd consider all of the 90s New Japan juniors matches an indirect part of Dynamite Kid's resume, in the same way I'd consider all WWE gimmick matches of the last 15 years an indirect part of Shawn's resume. In the same way I'd consider Stunning Steve, Shawn and HHH bleeding from their blond hair as an indirect part of Flair's resume. In the same way I'd consider the increased focus in athleticism and pace over selling an indirect part of Toyota's resume. In the same way I'd consider more small guys or Hispanic stars getting over an indirect part of Rey's resume. That someone did it better later is often irrelevant -- they never would have tried it in the first place had the first guys to do it on a big stage not made it something viable.

I really love that Debbie Combs vs Donna Day match and would highly recommend it. They were working to catcalls early and managed to flip it to build actual heat. They were also cutting a good pace and doing moves that weren't terribly common in 1983 Houston Wrestling like the rolling cradle and surfboard. Combs took an impressive bump outside at one point too, right on to Paul Boesch! Still, it's the way they structured this that makes it stand out above all else. A very good match and a nice accomplishment to win over a crowd like that.

He has also said racist and homophobic jokes are just a harmless part of locker room jock culture and don't mean anything. I'm not sure if there is anyone who makes a living off of wrestling who is willing to confront wrestling's dark underbelly as much as Dave, but it shows how strong the denial of that is throughout wrestling when even he -- perhaps the most truthful guy in it -- has trouble facing certain truths.

I suspect foul play.