Loss

Yeah, we'll get to those. I just want them to have a better understanding of the characters first. Like before Hokuto/Kandori, I'm hoping to guide them through previous matches that show Hokuto's injuries and how she evolved into the Dangerous Queen.

Story here is Sabu and RVD isolating Douglas to keep him away from Taz. Sabu attacks Douglas with a screwdriver and he eats the fall. He ends up looking pretty worse for wear when this is all done. Post-match, Taz does a Tazmissionplex and Joey Styles puts it over like death. Paul E. comes in and they make this look like some type of shoot even though it's so obviously an angle. They put a twist on it with Taz trying to attack Sabu again and RVD having to be restrained. RVD vs Taz as a big match is a much better direction but I don't think that was supposed to be the takeaway. This seemed to be some dumb attempt to turn Taz heel for intentionally injuring Sabu. Whatever.

This awful build continues. This is about the dozenth time Shane has cut one of these let's-recap-the-full-history promos with Taz standing there listening. I should also mention that Shane Douglas proposes Taz watch his back to ensure that he's in one piece come match time where there are no excuses over who the better man is, and we've already seen that teased and swerved once.

Right. Because I didn't think those same criticisms applied to the early matches. They applied to the late ones. He's not a heel in very many 80s matches. When I watch them, we'll see how they hold up.

I've also commented on Lawler-Dory, both Lawler-Funk matches in '81, Lawler-Blackwell and whatever else was in 1981. In years past, I've talked about the Lawler-Dundee matches in 1977, 1983 and 1985, which I loved. I've also talked about how I'm not a fan of his Savage match in '85 with the huge commercial break in the middle. I admittedly haven't reviewed those in the same way I have the 90s footage.

His point is that it keeps being mentioned that evaluating the post-peak is not an attempt to tear down Flair, but just an attempt to praise the guys who were great old guys, yet to this point, all the talk of how important it is to consider the post-peak in this thread and not the others. It's still early in the project, so hopefully that changes. I don't think Matt D, Dylan and Will are all arguing the exact same thing here, so I don't want to group you all together. But I've even criticized Lawler for post-peak things and I've been criticized for drawing conclusions about him based on watching footage from after the 80s. In the case of Dylan, I know you watch all the Funk footage and I don't expect Parv would have much of an issue admitting that he hasn't watched much wrestling from the past 15 years. I think his point is more that there aren't any posts about recent indy matches in the Funk, Valentine or Morton threads, nor has there been any critical talk that I've seen posted at PWO of how Terry Funk is doing these days. If that's coming (not just from you, from anyone), that's great news.

That's not fair. The guy you've said is your likely #1 made a big chunk of his case wrestling in front of smaller crowds. Does that mean that it matters less?

Kenta Kobashi is a very interesting wrestler to evaluate with that criteria.

It's a plus, but I don't subscribe to the idea that wrestlers have to be great when they get old in order to be talked about at that level. If a wrestler happens to get great when he's old, it's a feather in his cap because it's rare and unusual. If all other things were equal, I might use it as my tiebreaker too. I'm interested in looking at the whole of a wrestler's career, to the point that I think I was narrow-minded in the past in only focusing on the peak. But a made man is a made man - there's nothing an established GOAT contender can do to bring his case down in my eyes, no matter how sharp the decline. He can only enhance it with additional work. And Flair definitely has plenty of matches after the 1980s that are excellent and worth watching. But even if he didn't, I don't know that I'd see him all that differently. That doesn't only apply to Flair. There's little in wrestling I hate more than Kobashi chopfests late in his career, but that has absolutely no bearing on how I rank him. He made his case long before that started.

Tamura is an interesting comparison to Volk Han because he isn't as creative a worker and has a "young" period before he became great where he showed potential. But I think having that full career path makes him more interesting to discuss, and I think Tamura probably surpassed Han at a certain point. I'm just not sure when that was but that's my instinct. I wanted to compile some match recommendations for Tamura. He's a guy I'm considering for my top 15 or so. Tamura on the rise None of these are GREAT, but it's fun to track Tamura's improvement. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara (UWFI 05/10/91) Kiyoshi Tamura & Yuko Miyato vs Yoji Anjoh & Jim Boss (UWFI 11/07/91) Kiyoshi Tamura & Kazuo Yamazaki vs Gary Albright & Mark Silver (UWFI 07/12/92) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoji Anjoh (UWFI 08/28/92) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazuo Yamazaki (UWFI 10/23/92) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Nobuhiko Takada (UWFI 02/14/93) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Naoki Sano (UWFI 05/06/93) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Naoki Sano (UWFI 05/06/94) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Vader (UWFI 06/10/94) Tamura hits his zenith Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 09/25/96) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 01/22/97) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Bitsadze Tariel (RINGS 07/22/97) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 09/26/97) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Mikhail Ilioukhine (RINGS 01/21/98) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (RINGS 06/27/98) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoshihisa Yammamoto (RINGS 09/21/98) Other good Tamura matches Kiyoshi Tamura vs Nikolai Zouev (RINGS 06/21/97) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Akira Maeda (RINGS 03/28/97) Tamura I want to check out Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (U-STYLE 02/04/04) Kiyoshi Tamura vs Hiroyuki Ito (U-STYLE 08/18/04) I'll also be watching some of the less acclaimed or discussed matches from his career in the coming months. Reviews can be found in the Match Discussion Archive for all of this stuff.

I'd be interested in seeing some Hokuto from before 1990 and after 1997. I know she'll be on my list on the strength of 1993 but where she'll end up is something else entirely. I don't really have a good handle on her career trajectory overall, just her peak.

Rock paid a lot of money for that face.

I have to raise this about Dynamite. Is it possible people were so down on Tiger Mask that we threw the baby out with the bathwater? I liked Dynamite just fine in that 1980 juniors tag that kicked off the New Japan set, and I liked the Fujinami match too. I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's worth asking.

Yes, let's give credit to Andre for being great while broken down for his 1998-1990, while Ric Flair at the same age was having his WWF run with matches against guys like Savage and Bret Hart, and the excellent three match series against Tenryu in Japan. And let's ignore what came shortly thereafter in the Vader match, the '94 series with Hogan, the Regal and Steamboat '94 matches and the Savage feud. That seems to be purposely ignoring what's out there in order to make a convenient point. It has me heated because we've had this argument multiple times and you've gotten through to me on some things which I was rightly criticized for at the time and reconsidered and partially conceded. But you remain locked into your view despite the points I've made, and I find it frustrating because I don't know how to have a conversation with someone who refuses to listen to anything that challenges the way they look at things.

Lots of guys adapt and change their act and have good matches deep into their later years. Flair didn't. Why? He did. They weren't at the level of his 1980s matches, but to call his post-prime career a wash is purposely misleading.

Those guys all regressed as they got older. And I feel like we're pretending that Ric Flair suddenly turned 40 and became shit, which is not true at all. Getting old should make wrestlers worse. Of course it should. Wrestling has a physical component just as much as it does a mental one. If it didn't, Matt D could go have a great match right now. I think it's a credit to guys who can remain great as they get old, but I think it's ridiculous to criticize those who don't. It assumes that the only changes that come with age are physical. There are mental and emotional changes that can affect a wrestler as well.

I remember reading at the time that she was a good friend of Nash's and he wanted to bring her back, but I don't know the answer to where she had been, other than that she lost that PPV match to Akira Hokuto with her career on the line.

That is the most asinine thing I've ever heard. Are you saying Ric Flair would have been better if he understood wrestling as well as you do now when he was in his 40s and 50s?

It's a 60-minute draw.

It was reported at the time that Vince's financial issues were fixed before Bret left and that he even told him that before he left. Dave said the financial issues were legitimately there and were legitimately fixed quickly.

Interesting that the downturn in WCW quality coincides almost exactly with Terry Taylor taking on more of the booking duties while Sullivan's responsibilities were reduced.

Can we get some "young" (read: 1980s) Bull recommendations before she became The Woman?

I don't want to see Austin come back. Austin getting that win over Brock does nothing to help them build their future whatsoever, even if does create one huge Wrestlemania.

I feel like pulling out all the recent classic WONs that have shown the WWF outperforming WCW in every category in 1996-1997 except television ratings. Pay-per-view swung back and forth depending on what the top matches were, and the WWF was way ahead on house shows. Even during the time Michaels was supposedly this awful draw, the main issue was just that RAW ratings were lower than Nitro ratings. But on the road, he was doing pretty good. So it's not like if WCW continued to dominate the ratings, the WWF was going to go out of business. That is revisionist crap. They were fighting over the perception of who was number one more than anything.

There's that Magnum TA vs Ole Anderson match from the 12/30/85 WCWSN that people love. The DiBiase singles matches in Mid South which don't grab me but lots of people really love. The best of 7 series with Nikita. Matches with Flair. His career is incomplete but there are enough high end matches out there to peruse and decide what you think.