pantherwagner

FWIW my point wasn't that Honky is one of the worst ever, just that at least in WWF he was worse than Beefcake. At least until the Divas era WWF was much better than WCW at keeping the embarrassingly bad off TV specials/PPVs.

I really haven't watched any 80s WWF house shows and it's really not even on the list of things I want to see but I know that Honky's pre-WWF career smokes Beefcake's. I think that the last two decades of Divas matches have redefined what a bad match is. A few months ago (when I got the network) I rewatched Sid vs Nightstaker and I saw for the first time that Steve Austin capture the flag scaffold match from WCW and they were pretty bad but for a long time there was something as bad or worse almost every week on National TV. Is there any good Memphis with pre-HTM Wayne Farris worth watching? Funny that you mention it as after I wrote my post I ended up seeing match lists for that 20 DVD set from a few years ago (the Maclin tapes) and the Blonde Bombers were featured all over a couple of the discs.

Revisiting both men's careers isn't something in my "to do" list but wasn't the Honky Tonk Man considerably worse than Beefcake?

I forgot this dude. Gronda is worse than Sicodelico, that's for sure. Is that the same who had a good serie with Fujinami in the 70's ? Yes... I forgot that, so I guess that disqualifies him. That means that the worst major league dojo trained Japanese wrestler ever has got to be a flip coin between The Hiroshi's: Wajima and Tanahashi. (Sorry, couldn't resist being a troll)

The EWF episodes from Eurosport... I forgot about those. Regal, Owen, Benoit, Iizuka, HERODES and random superworkers showed up, on the other hand you had Flesh Gordon, who was horrible, and gimmicks like TRAVESTI MAN. Yes, his name was THE TRANNY. He was a fat short dude wearing polka dots who actually was a tremendous bumper.

I saw him in Germany a couple of times being somewhat competent (that's more that can be said for most of the names on this thread!). I knew him from Germany before he was in WCW and I was surprised that he was so shitty. I thought he was a green dude who was going to end up learning. I was also 14 though.

Crusher Maedomari. Yep. Definitely. Even Shark had a few moments where she would look half competent. But Crusher has always been godawful. On every aspect. Yeah that one. I didn't even bother googling her name. I'm sure you enjoyed the match where Aja Kong and Kyoko Inoue treated them like shits (one of the stadium shows in maybe 1993). Worst luchador: El Sicodelico, hands down.

Worst woman from Japan: I was going to say Shark Tsuchida from FMW but her crony with the orange hair (can't remember her name) was even worse. The FMW women's division was atrocious except for the ex-AJW trainees anyway. Worst Japanese wrestler who went to proper major league dojo training: Ryuma Go?

RAJA LION. This guy makes Kurrgan look like he's got the grace and finesse of Rey Misterio Jr. If we are counting trained wrestlers who had long careers then I agree it's got to be Tiger Jeet Singh.

The hoover hand. So close yet so far.

Yes, that's a list of carny fucks that would do what they think Vince wants, which, actually, is the problem. Tony is the only one that has moved on with his life. The problem is not the lack of knowledgeable people in the company. Again, I redirect people to the WWE classics section of the website as proof that they already have the smart people there. The website is great. Look at the playlists. There's a Stan Hansen playlist, a "rare ladder matches" list that actually features rare ladder matches, Best of Muta and Sting together, a freaking Savio Vega playlist. Stuff from all eras to appease nerds like us. Cool features like "where are they now" (these would translate well to mini-original content features), the program with the archivist...

This is the first entire WWE PPV that I watch since the one where Lesnar killed Cena. Well, entire if you don't count skipping the women's matches and the Miz. I liked Ziggler vs Cesaro and I usually don't like Ziggler matches but I'm afraid that they have missed Cesaro's momentum and when they decide to prop him up (if they do so) it may be too late. Show/Rusev was great. At first I thought Rusev was a corny 80s gimmick being given to a limited guy but now it's a corny 80s gimmick being given to a guy that has grown a lot on it. It also doesn't hurt that he's been facing seasoned veterans. I hope he doesn't end up as fodder for Cena in half a year, that would be a waste. Maybe this would not be the greatest idea but they should also bring back Angle for limited dates to feud with/job to Rusev. Ambrose/Rollins was attitude era stuff, I can see why some people would love it and others would hate it. I'd have liked to see a finish but their options seem so limited that maybe the best long-term solution is not to blow off the feud. I'd not have done the 90s WCW/WWF hologram thing though. My expectations with WWE (and UFC) are not very high so if I get two matches/bouts that I like I'm happy.

That is the best thing I've ever seen. I saw the show from the vault so I didn't see this. Freaking awesome.

This is what the ad on the PPV showed: Rock vs HHH, Taker vs Shawn, Taker vs Kane, Hogan vs Sting, Piper vs Hogan, Austin vs McMahon, Rock vs Cena, Mankind vs Taker, Rock vs Austin, E&C vs Hardys I never expected anything else or something groundbreaking so at least I hope they make it a fun show. This really shows you what they think is their audience, though. It's interesting that they aren't yet making a bigger push to get over 40s. You'd think these are the people that wouldn't mind spending 10 bucks a month (didn't the AWA PPV's do susprisingly decent numbers a few years ago?). Maybe they think the technology gap is too large... I don't know.

This is the greatest lucha libre tag team that never was (well, that one or Dandy and Negro Casas)

This could be great but based on the clip I'm sure it will revolve around Austin, Rock, Hogan, HHH, Undertaker, Shawn, Cena, Flair and maybe two or three more. I expect that there will be plenty of overlap with the "Greatest Rivalries" DVD and the Wrestlemania Rewinds. It would be cool if they featured less remembered rivalries like DDP vs. Savage, Cactus Jack vs Vader, Funk vs Flair, Funk vs Lawler, Santana vs Valentine, Dusty vs Graham, but I wouldn't count on it. WWE.com has got a feature on Lawler vs Kaufman ... it would be interesting to see the WWE spin on that story ... but again I wouldn't count on it, as it's clear that the website flies well below Vince's radar. http://www.wwe.com/classics/classic-rivalries

His stance on that (what he has hinted at in his podcast) is that it was his fault and he had to learn "the WWE style".

I want to watch that Texas Red vs Tenryu Shimada match

I always thought Megumi Kudo and Hido was an odd couple (at least based on their wrestling personas). I also had a WTF moment when I first knew that Canek used to date Monster Ripper/Bertha Faye quite a while ago.

I am going to use this as an excuse to bring back one of the things that I wrote around a decade ago in smarkschoice. The top 100 reference is to the Best Wrestler Ever poll back in the day. Though I still haven't been able to watch a Benoit match without thinking "he killed his wife". I almost suceeded once (something during ECW TV) and right before the pinfall I thought ... not sure why, but until now I didn't think about him killing his wife. In pro wrestling (and other industries like music) unfortunately it's too easy to find top performers who are terrible human beings. --- Jerry Lawler allegedly sodomizing 12 years old girls is something that made me hate him for years and years and I couldn't even look at him without being sick. But there's a point where I realized... it's all pro wres, nobody's a saint. The father of one of my heroes in wrestling (and a fine wrestling legend by himself) was a rapist, my all time childhood idol is an asshole who gets a kick out of belittling people, and in my top 100 there's sexual weirdos who fucked young hairless boys at the arena showers, known drunks who put other people's life in danger several times, legit lunatics, coke fiends, alleged rapists, somebody who threw a hooker off a hotel window killing her, somebody who was drunk and ran over an old man also killing him, a guy who did porn with a "female" swedish bodybuilder, several guys who left their families to marry girls "in the biz" (and one of those guys started "dating" her when she was 16 or so), one of the pioneers in bringing coke to the lucha locker rooms and allegedly getting hooked many guys who would eventually become dangerous junkies and/or murderers, etc. VIVA PRO WRESTLING~

That's interesting. I always heard from Spanish historians and old hands that Quasimodo was a very decent worker but that may also refer to his pre-Quasimodo days. I will watch that match later. I remember watching as a child a re-run of a NO-DO (the Franco Dictatorship news footage that would air before movies at the cinema) with highlights of one of his matches but I thought I'd never see footage with him again.

Haven't watched it in ages but Cavernario Galindo was great at La Ultima Lucha. Mexican wrestling films are always corny but this one may be the exception. Movie is on youtube. Anyone with basic Spanish will enjoy it. Actually, the plot is easy to follow and you can know what's going on even if you don't speak the language.

Demon was almost universally considered to be the better worker. Demon was happy to remind you every time that he had a chance to do so, even a decade after Santo's death. For a 300 year old man Demon Sr. looked pretty good in his Arena Mexico retirement match.

Santo Sr., believe it or not, had the reputation among some of his peers and magazine writers of the time as being an average worker. Blue Demon and Black Shadow would publically and privately tell people that Santo was terrible. Other people would claim that Santo was very good. Many of the negative comments seem to be at least partly fueled by jealousy. Based on the available footage, which is mostly movie matches, Santo seems to be a very competent worker. Based on some people's comments you'd think he wrestled like Tinieblas.

Atlantis' Atlantida has been countered only vs Villano III and vs Ultimo Guerrero and once it's locked in it's not even a struggle - the match is over.