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That pretty much puts a cap on it, in my opinion. You are probably the truest Reigns fan that I know, and even you think that Okada was more important... "Who is better?" or "Who do you like more?" might have a different result. I wonder what two wrestlers would make for the most contentious "Who was more important?" argument. El Santo vs Thesz? Inoki vs Baba? Hogan vs Flair? Danielson vs Styles? Trish vs Charlotte? Shockmaster vs Catweasel?

I'd be a bit surprised if anyone here other than Kawada Smile picked The Big Dog. Count me among those who don't really think it's close. If you replaced Roman on top for his entire run I don't think WWE would be noticeably better or worse off, but it's difficult to imagine NJPW at it's present heights without Okada as the ace leading the way. Great job on that poster, by the way!

I finally got around to watching the IPWF show, and I was fully entertained. It was the enthusiasm on here that convinced me to go out of my way to find it, and I appreciate you all for that. As El-P said, there are just so many closely-observed little details that they get just right. The many tossed-out-there Canadian referenced cracked me up (as did the probably-unintentional gag of a Canadian territory where most of the wrestlers and crew have southern accents and nobody has a Canadian accent). Little things like "Katie bar the door" and the shout-out to "all the shut-ins" gave me a warm nostalgic glow. Rhino's deep-cut Southpaw Regional Wrestling reference just about blew my mind, as did Jazzy Fitbody's perfectly 1980s horribly-executed splash... but really it was all the little things that made it work for me. It wasn't exactly flawless, and I wouldn't want to watch that every week, but they could easily hook me in if they did that two or three times a year. I'm very glad I got to see that.

Indeed it would.

I read somewhere, someone joking that Dark Order, Nightmare Collective, and the Butcher the Blade & the Bunny all being dressed-in-black and goth-y was so that they would sell more t-shirts at Hot Topic. That actually makes perfect sense to me. Maybe one group is goth, one is emo, and one is vampire? Down the road, they can start feuding by calling each other poseurs.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xz8jff

Austin & Zbyszko vs Windham & Rhodes 2/29/92 is a very good southern-style tag that maybe deserves more love, if you'd like to put some WCW stuff on there.

Nice!

I'd maybe like to see some Rufus R Jones on there. It sounds like he was a pretty big star for them.

Apologies if this is already listed, but RoyLucier WrestlingTerritories is an absolute goldmine on YouTube. The same guy also seems to have a Dailymotion channel as well. Just loaded with great stuff.

Man, that KC wrestling documentary is just great. Interesting, informative, and utterly charming. I don't know if this would make anyone's 'best of' list but I enjoy this match quite a bit, largely because I knew Tim Flowers around this time. It's a good but unremarkable mid-80s 'folks that's all the time we have' show-ending brawl: The guy who posted that seems to have a few matches from the later days of Central States up YouTube, and I think there's a channel on Dailymotion called Lucier's or Lucien's Wrestling Archives that has some as well. Doesn't really answer BrainFollower's question, but it might be useful...

This is, I guess, more like "something very unusual in a pro wrestling context..." but I had to post this somewhere:

That sounds like it would, at the very least, be worth a try. Edit: for all the crap that we justifiably toss JR's way, I have to give him credit for that quick aside of "Abdullah?" when everyone was speculating about what might be in the giant box. That got a legit lol outa me.

I agree, but it's not just WWE booking. I think maybe it's comic book movies (which I also generally love) too. After watching the first episode of The Mandalorian, about half of the reviews I read seemed to be implying that the reviewer was disappointed that we didn't learn enough about the main character's background, that we didn't clearly know whether he was a good guy or a bad guy after one episode, that we didn't see his face or hear enough of his voice... That pissed me off. The mystery is clearly a feature, not a bug. Not everything needs to start with an origin story. Give us a compelling character in medias res once in a while, we can fill in the backstory later. I think it's perfectly OK to feel like, "Who are these people? What are they doing here?" once in a while. It can be satisfying to find out later, even if it does come at the cost of diminishing the initial impact of their appearance. The WWE style seems to be to build someone up before they appear, give them a big splashy introduction and a decent first program, then about 80 percent of the time just let them drift into obscurity and irrelevance. It might be refreshing for someone to get a low-key introduction that keeps building over time, instead. Almost everything I love the most about AEW is the stuff that they are doing differently from the past 15 or so years of atrocious WWE booking. Frankly, I am pleasantly surprised that I haven't seen more people online complaining about those very differences. It would make sense if people wanted more of what they have grown used to, but in general it seems that people get what AEW are going for, and appreciate it.

That's my favourite thing about this promotion. That ECW-era Paul Heyman style of trying to book to your wrestler's strengths, of listening to your fans and making adjustments, of trying to help everyone get over... it's so damn refreshing after years of "any time someone I like starts to get over, they have their legs cut out from under them" troll booking. I hope they never lose touch with that ideal. I hope they are still trying to get new people over with their crowd ten years down the road.

Darby Allin - Wasn't even on my radar a scant couple of months ago. Now he is absolute appointment viewing. There are a bunch of cliches that always come up when a smaller guy is fighting a bigger guy: "He's gotta use speed and quickness to overcome size and strength. You just can't keep him down. He's got a lot of heart..." and so on. You can clearly see those cliches turn into reality when Allin is wrestling. Plus, he's getting over without going over. Not the easiest thing to do. ? Mark - Almost certainly a temporary infatuation. ? Mark just captures all of the ridiculous things that bring back the happiest memories of 1980s studio wrestling.The baggy tights, the silly gesticulations, the absurd finisher... I'm more than happy to go online and skip through all of the other crap to watch this guy do his thing - which is something I don't even do for Bryan Danielson any more! Lance Archer - I think that Joe Doering still might be the best "big gaijin in a hoss fight" guy in Japan, but Archer is, in my opinion, by far the best "Goliath" in wrestling today. He's utterly terrifying when he's tossing smaller guys around recklessly, and then he makes the big comeback both believable and spectacular. I would LOVE to see Lance Archer fight Darby Allin! Luchasaurus - There's a rare and very particular kind of charisma that lets some wrestlers work as sympathetic and likable babyfaces even when they are clearly much bigger and stronger than the bad guys. Andre and Baba had it in spades. You could see it in action when Hogan worked against Piper or Orndorff in the early days of Hulkamania. Sting, Ultimate Warrior, Kenta Kobashi, The Rock... Braun and Rusev had it, but it was wasted on lousy booking. This guy has it, and he's working for people who seem to grasp how to turn wrestlers into stars. It may not happen, but the possibility definitely has me paying attention. Atsushi Maruyama - Currently working sub-ten-minute matches on AJPW undercards. He's really good. Works tight, bumps hard, balances spectacle and psychology well, makes the other guy look great... Something familiar about him. So, I go on Cagematch. Turns out, he's my old friend Tigers Mask! I knew... but I had forgotten... what a delightful surprise!

That was beautiful. I hope "Naughty Babysaurus" becomes Stunt's official nickname.

Well, that was one hell of a recommendation! Just an absolute bloody war, with a great ebb and flow dynamic that perfectly fit the gimmick. I appreciate how you all at segunda caida keep coming up with a handful of these absolutely under-the-radar awesome matches year after year. Excellent War Games match there.

That is true! I honestly wonder if it is intentional or not.

Indeed. It is KeVON NeaLON. And, as has been pointed out already, I believe, the "unable to say sorry" bit was ripped off from Happy Days. Jericho's sense of humour may not be the most original... but his comic timing and sense of how to work that stuff into a pro wrestling promo are magnifique. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26yzgd

It's a straight rip-off of an old Adam Sandler character:

The crowd was incredible. That main event match was the first time in a very long time that I have re-watched a match immediately after it ended. There was so much to love: White-hot start, they looked like they were really trying to hurt each other, The hand-based psychology where Darby was able to escape the paradigm shift because Mox couldn't lock his hands up, that insane coffin drop -> reversal into a submission -> reversal into a pinfall spot... that was a f'n GREAT match. @ El-P and SirEd (and TTK): doesn't it drive you nuts when people keep calling Jericho "les" Champion? (I keep thinking of him as "the mushrooms")

They will find you.

Oh, man. That is nasty. I am going to think that every time I think of this promotion from now on.

So I guess the three R's are for really really rascist?