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The October 1993 match with Misawa is disappointing and outright bad, though it's hard to put a finger on why it's outright bad. It kind of lays there, it doesn't click, the crowd doesn't give two shits about it after they already wrestled 3 times in the year, and... it just doesn't work. Hansen has matches like that from time to time. So do other guys. There are nights when the shit doesn't work. The following series, Hansen was off the charts in the Tag League. So shit happens sometimes.

Jun's had been escalating as well. Jun's work in 1996 after moving up to be Misawa's primary partner is quite a distance beyond his 1993 work. It went on from there to his Triple Crown matches in 1997 & 1998.

Who had "Less than 20 hours" in the pool? Jerome?

Not to pimp them as off the charts, but I think these raise above the "solid" level to being good: 04/12/80 Hulk Hogan vs Bob Backlund (Spectrum) 01/27/86 Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage (MSG) 02/17/86 Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage (MSG) 08/28/86 Hulk Hogan vs Paul Orndorff (CNE Stadium) 10/18/86 Hulk Hogan vs Paul Orndorff (Philly) 12/14/86 Hulk Hogan vs Paul Orndorff (Hartford - SNME) 06/14/87 Hulk Hogan vs Harley Race (MSG) 03/18/89 Hulk Hogan vs Big Bossman (MSG) 04/25/89 Hulk Hogan vs Big Bossman (Des Moines - SNME) 03/17/02 Hulk Hogan vs The Rock (Skydome) They're not collectively the greatest things since sliced bread, but they're enjoyable, entertaining, good matches if one doesn't hate Hogan. One could say that his opponent is at times putting on a show, or the better of the two workers. Might be the case in most of them. But Hogan isn't a bump on a log being carried in all of them. The closest is the Backlund match, but I'd have to say that Hogan is decent for a big guy a few years into his career.

El-P wrote: The original quote was closer to: "Tanaka is better than the All Japan boys." -Terry Funk Which got a big laugh out of the person Terry said it to, while I was polite enough to just smile.

I would agree that All Japan had a feel of self-conscious epic mode not later than some big matches in 1997. One could argue that it happened at times earlier than 1997. In the other direction, it was there later in 1998 & 1999. Some of us were critical of it at the time, though we used different terms in trying to express it. There's a fine line between what we viewed as self-conscious epics in the 00s and 10s and All Japan's growing "top this" and "escalation" and "bloat" in the second half of the 90s.

I will post a list of nominees not getting votes today. Then start with the lowest ranked wrestlers moving forward to number 1. Expect the final 3 to come out the last day of April. Love it! That was one of the most fun things about GWE 1.0: the slow reveal and building drama.

WOW! Well done, folks. Amazing number.

The Midnight Express & Jim Cornette They worked heel for almost all of their run, largely because (i) they were good at it, and (ii) their primary promotions did less flip-floppy turns than other promotions or later eras. But when working tweener like against Arn & Tully & JJ, they were really good. When working face later, they knew what they could do. If the territory era continued and they bounced around more vibrant areas, they easily could have had a big face turn somewhere backing up the local face in some fued... and of course screwing him over at the end if needed. They worked well up and down the card, and could be paired up with most anyone / any type of opponent. They would be high on my list of draft picks when looking for the concept of the equiv a great #3 starter who in his best season(s) might end up winning a Cy Young (see Smoltz, John) and in other seasons ended up being the default #1 or #2 starter. Barry Windham Someone mentioned him earlier. Another person who isn't high end Hogan level, but did a heck of a lot of things well at a variety of different levels in the promotion. Razor Ramon / Outsider-nWo Scott Hall Something of a promoter's/booker's nightmare because he was a pain in the rear. But a very effective character both as a face and a heel. Not a knock you off your socks worker, but effective and fine for his level. Probably had a higher ceiling than he reached... one of the few people of the era where it feels like Vince left something on the table. Shiro Koshinaka Mixed feeling on his in our circles when it comes to his work. But New Japan / Choshu used him in a lot of ways up and down the cards. If you told people in 1986 that someday he would main event a packed Sumo Hall for three straight nights in heavyweight matches, they would think you were on drugs. Yet he did it a decade later, the folks in the building dug the matches, he connected with those fans every bit as much as his opponents... it's pretty amazing not just thinking about it from 1986 context, but looking back at it from a 2016 viewpoint. Doesn't appear to have caused headaches in the 80s and 90s. Did what the promotion wanted. You have someone who was Jr. Champ and then later was reliable enough the Choshu chose him as the first singles match for Tenryu in the NJPW vs WAR feud. Then could slip down the cards into the mids until the next time he was needed. The value of guys like Choshu and Hash are obvious to see. The value of roster depth that includes guys like Kosh... less so. Randy Savage Victory mentioned him above. Strikes me as one of the obvious candidates for #1. Like Hall, a pain in the rear. But as a worker he could go, and certainly could work the crowd. Terrific "character", and great on the mic in the era before folks were doing 10-20 minute mic spots of doom. Terrific heel, and quite an excellent face in his prime... another one who probably had a lot more in the tank though lacked sustained good heels to test the notion. If he has a negative on this list it's similar to Flair: he's too good / too strong a character to be down in the midcards once he hit his prime. It's more a sign of they've got crap to work with him or are out of ideas than moving him down to work a good midcard feud.

If anyone wants to see what a * hatchet-job of a review looks like, this is it. What a terrible review (of a tremendous match). Also, fans of the insider terminology, that's called a payback spot. It's not a review of a match. Which is extremely clear from the "it lost me right around here" comment. My review of the full match was more concise in the prior post: The payback comment is cute, though.

I like Elliott stealing the old cheating gimmick. Anyway: 03/05/69 NWA Int'l Title: Giant Baba vs The Destroyer 11/26/92 WWWA Tag Titles: Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai 12/06/96 RWTL Final: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama

Well, there's also Hansen taking the double flying head attack, and instantly cutting Dos off, beating him up a bit and taking out to Brody. I love Stan. Thought he was at least trying in the infamous match with Steamer & Youngblood. But let's not claim he's the virgin mary in this match. He's well under the Brody Influence at times in it.

OJ, I'm sorry but this isn't the best post you've ever made. It's completely disinguous. You know as well as anyone that Flair worked spot title defenses in Japan where -- just like Harley Race, Terry Funk, Jack Brisco and Dory before him -- he did what was asked of him and worked longer technical matches. Some excellent ones too. He was over perfectly fine in that role (as much as any of the other NWA champs) and carried himself as the absolute epitome of the NWA champion -- through and through. Look up "NWA Champion" in a text book and you might just see a picture of Ric Flair in Japan about to defend the belt against Jumbo. Come on now. Dory was always going to be more over than him when he'd worked there 15+ years and worked numerous blood feuds against the likes of The Sheik, Abby, Bruiser Brody, Hansen and so on. God knows how many matches with Baba etc. To say Flair "didn't wash" with Japanese fans or that he didn't know how to work for them is ... basically ridiculous. It was the *title* more than Ric. He came on the heels of Thesz, Dory, Brisco, Terry and Race. Ric wouldn't be pointed to as the/a text book NWA champ in Japan. In the US territories? Sure, of course. In Japan, he was pedestrian given the NWA standards.

Emphasis added. That's a great point. He's not just a standard generic asshole heel. He actually believes his own bullshit as being right and proper. He's also really weaselly. After getting called out on the pricing, and initially refusing not to raise it to such a degree, he (or his company) stated they would sell it at a lower price than the original increase. They then didn't bother to actually to make that happen, and instead just laid low hoping no one would notice. * * * * * Someone asked how he made his money. He's basically been a con man. Gawker had a fun piece pulling out his past business practices from the indictment documents: http://gawker.com/martin-shkreli-was-bad-at-investing-and-worse-at-steali-1748566734 And he's creepy: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/264328/martin-shkreli-katie-ex-girlfriend-facebook-eat-out http://gawker.com/here-s-a-video-of-pharma-creep-martin-shkreli-flirting-1748338016 Classic heel.

The seizure stuff is pretty brutal. One wonders how long he's been suffering them, whether it's been long enough that he dissociated them from the concussions. That seems unlikely given he hid them from his doctors... which is just stupid insane if you've ever known anyone who suffered from them.

Maybe would have been better to start with their prior two matches from the years before. Basic story is that Tenryu had run the table with New Japan, including just pinning Inoki, which was on the extreme rate end of things natives did. Hash was the last line of defense to retain NJPW honor before Tenryu wandered off. He also was 0-2 against Tenryu at the time. So this isn't just the climax of a trilogy, but also of an 18 month old NJPW vs WAR (really Tenryu) feud.

Agreed. It's what Flair has gone through over the past decade-to-fifteen years. It's what Lawler or Fujiwara or Tenryu will go through over the next decade if they finish in the Top 5. Part of it will be another generation of fans coming along, some of who will stick to the new consensus while others find flaws. It's common in all criticism.

That explains things. So the second one hour draw in July 1978 wasn't something you guys watched?

They didn't go to a draw in 1980. One in Miami which is fun, and another later in the year in Japan that folks that folks don't tend to talk about a lot.

Post of the year candidate.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true. I'm pretty much in Jingus' boat. The example I tend to use over the years is Donnie Brasco, Book vs Movie. If you happened to be a crime reader in the 80s, you probably came across the book Donnie Brasco. It's an easy read and one of the early strong "cop undercover in the Mafia" books. In turn, the movie is an easy, accessible film. You got Depp, you got Pacino in the mob... easy movie. Well received, Oscar nominations. But... If you read the book, one of the overwhelming points that Pistone made was that he never forgot for a moment that he was a Cop, that these were Bad Guys he was dealing with, and when push came to shove, he was taking them down. He got across some of the funny wacky elements of the mob, including a lot of the basic jobber work they do to make money rather than the high end crime. But he got across over and over and over again that he wasn't tempted by the life, and that he was always thinking as a Cop. With Hollywood, reality isn't good enough. We need to have "Donnie" tempted by the life, and have a moral dilemma near the end, almost fall into the wrong decision, tension, etc. If you read the book, if you liked it, if you actually *got* that point that Pistone was making about *himself*, that big moment of temption late in the movie impacts what you think about the movie. Why? Because they're both "Pistone", and you kind of would like a movie where "Pistone" is the lead character (as opposed to a supporting cliched head coach) actually be True To Pistone. So I've always thought Brasco is a decently well made Hollywood Movie that either doesn't get Pistone or didn't give a shit enough about the real Pistone to portray him accurately. There are plenty of cops that were tempted, and plenty of cops that crossed the line with the mob. Black Mass deal (frankly poorly) with several. I'm not going to give major props to the movie Donnie Brasco for Hollywooding it up: if they don't give a shit enough about their main character, why should I. I think all sorts of movies, if no all movies, can be looked at in the same way... and in fact are: what *we* bring to the table as much as what the movie does.

Not.

The 07/27/78 match is boring? One of the most boring of all-time? I'd just as soon as watch Attack of the Clones again as watch the one-hour Jumbo-Flair draw. In contrast, I'd be happy to watch that Backlund-Inoki match again tonight.