Phil Schneider

So you literally think that, aside from Savage/Steamboat, that there wasn't a single match from the WWF after 1984 which deserved to make a best-of list? Whoa. That's some pretty intense hatred. Here are the top 20 WWF matches of the 1980's, we got 119 ballots from people who watched 100 matches and ranked them, hard to argue against this being consensus. 1 Sgt Slaughter vs Iron Sheik (6/16/84 MSG) 2 Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage (3/29/87 Pontiac MI Wrestlemania 3) 3 Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch vs Brisco Brothers (12/28/84 MSG) 4 Bret Hart vs Randy Savage (11/11/87 Seattle WA aired SNME 11/28/87) 5 Bret Hart vs Mr Perfect (10/2/89 Wheeling WV) 6 Bob Backlund vs Adrian Adonis (1/18/82 MSG) 7 Greg Valentine vs Ron Garvin (9/30/89 MSG) 8 Glamour Girls vs Jumping Bomb Angels (11/24/87 MSG) 9 Ricky Steamboat vs Jake Roberts (8/9/86 Boston MA) 10 Sgt Slaughter vs Iron Sheik (5/21/84 MSG) 11 Ultimate Warrior vs Rick Rude (8/28/89 East Rutherford NJ Summerslam) 12 Brainbusters vs Hart Foundation (8/28/89 East Rutherford NJ Summerslam) 13 Barry Windham vs Dick Murdoch (2/16/85 Philadelphia PA) 14 Dynamite Kid vs Bret Hart (9/14/85 Landover MD) 15 British Bulldogs vs Hart Foundation (9/23/85 MSG) 16 Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat (7/27/86 Toronto Ontario) 17 Bret Hart vs Ted DiBiase (3/8/89 Odessa TX aired Prime Time 3/20/89) 18 Ricky Steamboat vs Bret Hart (3/8/86 Boston MA) 19 Ricky Steamboat vs Bob Orton Jr (7/20/85 Landover MD) 20 Hulk Hogan vs Big Bossman (3/18/89 MSG) Match 1 and 2 pretty clearly belong on any list of the best matches from the 1980's. After those two, I can't see anyone arguing for any of the other matches belonging on a top 100 list. I liked Adonis/Murdoch v. Briscos a bunch, but for 1980's tags? There are at least a dozen Rock and Roll Express matches which kill this, ignoring Japan, Mexico and every other team in American besides the Rock and Roll Express. Hell Dick Murdoch has at least 5 or 6 better matches on the Watts set alone. I had Hogan v. Bossman in a cage really high on my list, I really dug that match, but I doubt it cracks a top 20 list of 1980's cage matches, much less a list of matches in total. Seriously read that list over and tell us what belongs.

I think he means Watts pushing Barbarian as a main event guy against Simmons in WCW, which totally ruled BTW

I wonder if being a promoter's son is a huge issue. It seems a fair share of the worst second-generation wrestlers come from such families. Tully Blanchard? David Von Erich? Kevin Von Erich? Kerry Von Erich? Gino Hernandez? Eddie Guerrerro? Chavo Guerrerro? Hector Guerrerro? Mondo Guerrerro? Dory Funk Jr.? Terry Funk?

Your Carlito hate is weird, I am months behind on Smackdown and rarely watch RAW, but both his PPV match with Flair and post Crossgate SD match with Flair were very good.

"In terms of actual sleaze factor, you'd never hear the kind of stories about porn stars that you hear about wrestlers. Also, most of porn's big stars end up running their own companies and are comfortably well off, while most of wrestling's big stars end up offering handjobs for crack outside of state fairs." Find me a pro-wrestling defender who said something that stupid. You come off like Mike Sweetser.

This is coming from the guy who thiks all porn stars end up running their own buisnesses?

It isn't the sex that makes porn sleazy, not even really the degredation, I mean we have all been with girls who want you to degrade them, but it only gets sleazy if you suggest that you film the degradation and sell it. People who are saying things like "at least porn stars get paid well" seem to be missing the point

Not yet, but Marifuji sucks ass, so I wouldn't blame Misawa is said match sucked ass

Plus Misawa still fucking rules, watch the Bison Smith and Sano matches.

Nothing says shitty early 90's WWF like back to back Chris Walker v. Warlord and Sid v. Hercules matches. You could squeeze out the ringmats, inject the sweat into your arm and gain 15 pounds of muscle

I don't know who wrote it, maybe Tomk, but somebody once posted something to the effect of: "this guy's style is like a frat boy getting laid, switching positions every 2 minutes desperately trying to make the girl cum." That's the best analogy for MOVES heavy matches and workers I've ever read. "well that didn't pop the crowd too much, HOW BOUT THIS????" That was me describing Vince Russo and Bischoffs first Nitro, although it works fine with the Roderick Strong and Austin Aries match I saw at ROH this weekend too.

Resilience v No Remorse Corps: TKG: I dug this a bunch I'm always a fan of the spotfest as opener format. This was filled with guys who I actively don't like and for some reason they kept on matching up Romero and Cross which didn't help to hide either of their flaws. But the advantage of this type of quick multiperson spotfest was it got guys in and out quickly. Guys hit their spots and then get out of the way, guys who are tempted to work, everything is even, matches are forced to work man down and sell for the two on ones,etc. Davey Richards was perfectly fine in this and both Delirious and Erick Stevens delivered. Roderick Strong who is normally the best guy on his team looked really really off for large chunks of this. But even with the an off Strong and the pairing of Romero/Cross this was a format that meant none of that really hurt the match. Post match-Austin Aries does some babyface mic work and they need to get a real sound-man for these shows. PAS: Yeah Strong looked actively terrible here, which is kind of weird. He blew a missed clothesline by actually clotheslining the guy, which is actually kind of unique. I liked this way more then I thought I would considering how much I dislike most of the guys in it. Stevens especially looked really good, in a type of match that isn't really his thing. I think they should have shaved off a minute or two at the end, as they had a two count or two too many. Claudio Castagnoli v Matt Sydal TKG: This had some spectacular spots, Castagnoli takes the Chris Hamerick/Fuerza bump, and Sydal eats a giant swing better than I've ever seen anyone eat a giant swing as his face goes through multiple guy trying to hold down his lunch on a roller coaster variations. But this was disappointing. Both guys are guys who can work multiple speeds. Guys who can move from fast to slow to concentrated fast to medium, etc. Both guys can do and sell for nice mat work, both guys know how to do and sell for good brawling strike sections. Both are guys who can work face and heel and here instead they worked just super match up and those are completely forgettable outside the spots. Part of the format of starting show with fast 6 man spotfest is that you slowly move away from that opening speed. Second match at same speed as first means they start to run together. PAS: I had similar problems with this as Tom. This really could have used some face/heel structure, so it would be something besides just spot after spot. Still I guess for the post match angle to work, this needs to be worked as a scientific face v. face match. I would rather see Bret Hart as a face working Buzz Sawyer as a heel, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them exchanging gut wrench takedowns in their Georgia match. I guess intricate headscissors are the 2007 version of gut wrench takedowns. TKG: Post match Larry Sweeney does mic work to sign Sydal up for a contract and I really liked the almost parallelism of Austin Aries signing contract to Ring of Honor-this place that values and respects the wrestlers and the fans, while heel Sydal signs contract with Sweeney who represents lack of respect and sportsmanship. Larry Sweeney has never facially looked or sounded as much like Christopher Love. Naomichi Marifuji v BJ Whitmer- TKG: Lenny Leonard tells me all about the backstory of Marifuji and how he has held every title in NOAH including the "prestigious" GHC belt and he tells me Whitmer's backstory and then he announces "this will be a very even matchup". Really? They are going to run an even match-up between the guy they are putting over as a GHC title holder and the guy who is working a PPV loosing streak leading to joining an Adam Pierce stable.??? I guess working 50/50 opposite former GHC title holder is better than last PPV where Whitmer took 60 against current ROH title holder. Still this was shitty and the half that Whitmer was in control for was ugly and the half where Whitmer was eating stuff wasn't a ton better. This was worked really even and started fine but quickly went to shit. They did lots of bad looking strike exchanges which only reminded me of how much the last match could have used some strike exchanges. PAS: I didn't hate this as much as I hated either guys previous PPV match, but that is damning with pretty faint praise. Whitmer is a guy who is clearly someone who started tape trading about 1998, I bet I sold him a Schneider Comp at some point. He jumps between 1998 Big Japan bumps, and 1998 All Japan suplex exchanges. He doesn't do either particularly well, but his channeling of a 1998 Kobashi v. Akyama match is the shittier of the two. Marifuji was probably a ring boy at that point so he can run through a shitty approximation of one of those matches. Also Marifuhji has some goofy fucking offense, less like he is channelling Misawa and more like channeling Cheech and or Cloudy. There is a point where Whitmer crotches himself on the top rope, where he actually crotched himself before Marifuji made contact with the ropes. One of the problems with both PPV's so far has been that all the matches are too similar, they don't break up the high impact stuff with mat based matches or comedy matches. I guess your poorly executed Whitmer match is in the spot on the card where Colt Cabana v. Kikutaro used to go. Pelle Primau v. Brent Albright PAS: I like the idea of introducing someone new by having them brutal squash a jobber, it is basically how they introduced Steen and Generico on the last PPV, and it works well here too. Albright is a shitty guy to showcase, as he looks like Joey Fatone with an HGH belly, but this is a fine way to showcase him. TKG: Yeah this was fine. Primau eats stuff well and Albright hit his stuff well. They should have worked the Whitmer v Morishima match more like this. This was also helped by just being the only uneven match on the show thus far and just being paced differently from everything else on the show. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico PAS: I liked this better then the Briscoes match on the last PPV, as Kevin Steen is really good at working heel, and you do want to see him get his pasty face kicked in. The match meandered a bit in the beginning, as Generico worked face in peril, which he isn't very good at, and he wasn't a face. Still when they got kicking with their Briscoes finish it was something to see. Jay's Cactus clothesline was awesome, and the beel into the chairs was a great street fight execution of a signature spot. Jay should really stop using the press slam DVD as a set up move, but I liked this a bunch and it makes me want to see all of their garbage match rematches. TKG: Yeah this was the best thing on the show thus far. It had the face/heel dynamic that was missing from the last PPV tag match. Had less Marc insanity though. Being paced like everything else made it not stand out as much as it should have but it was fun crazy tag with nice hateful crowd brawling. Generico as faceish member of his tag team working heel in peril didn't work to well for me either but Generico looked pretty great in everything else he did. It really feels like he needs to go the Jimmy Jacobs route and move on in terms of gimmick. This type of match can feel like it has excessive near falls or goes, this didn't. Outside of the press slam DVD for two that set up the finisher, this really felt like it ended right where it should end. TKG: I liked both the backstage Sweeney and Adam Pearce promos, both a lot better than their promos from last PPV. PAS: Adam Pearce's Kevin Sullivan stuff doesn't work with his black button up shirt and blue jeans. He needs a robe or something. It doesn't work with a guy dressed like a middle manager at a sports bar. Takeshi Morishima v. Jimmy Rave PAS: I don't like the Morishima 3 minute squash, where opponent still gets all of his signature offense in, match formula at all. Still Rave takes crazy bumps on the clothesline and backdrop so this was better then the Whitmer match. Still it is a dumb formula. TKG: It should also be said that Rave's spear and other offense looks alot nastier than Whitmer's offense. Bad formula, but like the Albright squash, this still felt different enough to other matches that it was satisfying. Bryan Danielson v. Nigel McGuiness PAS: Man alive, this is how you end a PPV. These guys have a real formula worked out with each other, and it is really great to see how they adjust that formula in their different matches. I loved all of the opening matwork, all of the stuff with Nigel in the guard, and Danielson digging his knuckles into the temple was spectacular, I loved how they did the MMA spots, but made them pro-wrestlingy. I thought the selling in this match was actually pretty top shelf. Nigel often works restarts into his big matches, but here he kind of did mini-restarts throughout the match, toughing his way through moves he normally does easier. The fighting into the Tower of London was especially awesome. This match really felt like it was the stylistic offspring of all of those Regal v. Benoit matches, like this was the main event match those two never got to have with each other. Of course it is hard to watch both of these guys slam their heads into each other until they bleed without thinking about ghosts. Still great art is often tinged with tragedy, and this is the best piece of wrestling art this year. TKG: Yeah this was pretty spectacular. And this is what you watch ROH for. So I complained earlier about everything on this PPV being worked at same pace. Instead of starting with a hot multiperson spotfest opener, slowing down to a technical match, then doing a brawl followed by a comedy match, followed by your big hard hitting main event...they instead ran with lots of even stuff, worked all at the same breakneck level and a couple squashes. And I could see there being a market of people who were upset that TNA didn't just build around the X-division but that market isn't me. This is what I want to see and I imagine that people who enjoy the other stuff on the show should enjoy this too. There were parts of the main which were really Regal v Benoitish and parts which were really about All Japan cumulative selling. For a match to determine who gets to challenge for the title it really was worked like a title match. The previous two Nigel v Danielson matches were worked essentially with Danielson as the man and Nigel as challenger to the man. Danielson had the title then. Here Danielson doesn't have the title and its not quite that you feel like he's the guy challenging, but the dynamic is completely changed. Here he isn't guy fighting to protect and hold onto his title, instead he is guy who has to take the title shot away from Nigel. The match moves really nicely from mat section to hard hitting section to throw section to dives into brawling section to your post-back dropped on guard rail back selling stretch to final strikes finish. The match never really feels broken up as you don't have a sense that you are in one section as it just it all flows from one to the other as both guys sell the cumulative punishment as they try to win. Great main event and it feels like this PPV top to bottom is probably a much better advertisement for ROH than the last one. I think even if your only exposure to Morishima was from these PPVs, you'd leave this one excited about Morishima v Danielson. So not only a good advertisement for their other product but also good advertisement for next PPV.

88 match with Dundee?

I think he is easily a better worker then Steamboat, can work both babyface and heel really well while Steamboat was strictly a face, has arguably the best punches in wrestling history, and I would take a Dundee punch over a Steamboat chop. I think he is a more impressive flyer too, the top rope Dundee but drop is way nastier then the body press or chop. Plus it is the 80's heel workers (which Dundee was in his most famous stuff) didn't do lots of moves, that was babyface wrestling, still watching Dundee and Mantell work heel tag spots they are more varied and more interesting then Eaton and Condrey who are the gold standard for that stuff. Plus Dundee main evented for years despite being 5'2, all on charisma and skill, and he also didn't have the super roided physique of 80's Ricky Steamboat.

I'll leave this to Phil or Bix, but please tell me you're not going to dismiss Bill Dundee because of MOVES~!? I believe he is. Bill Dundee didn't do moonsaults like a good wrestler would. Phil would be better to reply here, because he was once trolled by Frank Jewett into counting suplexes while watching the '85 Lawler-Dundee LLT match. Being trolled by Frank Jewett is one thing, but being trolled by Jingus is something different. If someone who isn't a known idiot wants me to explain Bill Dundee, I will go ahead and do it.

I'm not gonna question this, because I lack the grounding in Dundee's work to do so...but if I may go off on a tangent, Phil, what are the really great Bill Dundee matches that don't have Lawler? I don't doubt they exist, but you never hear about them, and it's something I'd like to know about before ranking Dundee ahead of Eddie and Benoit. Of course, aside from work, Dundee was a bigger draw (at least than Benoit, and for longer than Eddie) and was a successful booker. I think he definitely belongs. I am currently watching boat loads of Watts, and there is a ton of awesome Dundee tags from that period. Dundee and Mantell feuded with the Fantastics and Dundee/Porkchops Cash v. Midnight Express may be one of my favorite MX matches ever.

Why isn't Bill Dundee in? Eddie and Benoit are in based on work, and Dundee was better for much longer then they were

These were all already on the 619 dvd, and anyone who's a big enough Mysterio fan to buy the new disc already owns that one. I'm sure the ECW matches are otherwise available too. I only counted six matches that haven't already been released on commercial video in some form. Why does the WWE do that? Instead of digging up obscure forgotten gems, they tend to put mostly the same collection of big matches on their DVDs over and over again. It's not like their tape library is too small for them to produce some unseen material that nobody except the couple dozen people who watched Thunder that one night have seen. I counted 14 that haven't been on previous DVD releases. The Psicosis ECW match was on one of the Pioneer sets back in the day. Not sure about the Juvi match, as it wouldn't shock me if it's the same match that was on another Pioneer set but (in classic WWE fashion) they fucked up the date. Anyway, I've never seen the Rey-JBL match that's listed, but am looking forward to after reading Phil Schneider's review at Segunda Caida. S.L.L wrote the review not me, it is a great match though

Here is Wayne v. Rex Sterling, not his best match, but you get a sense of what he can do http://youtube.com/watch?v=bBHrXPjODN8

Here is the review Tomk and I posted over at Segunda Caidia http://segundacaida.blogspot.com ROH Respect Is Earned PPV PAS: I have been to a ton of ROH shows over the years, and I would like the company to be successful enough to offer guys I like contracts so I don't have to see them in TNA. If PPV being successful gets Samoa Joe out of that shithole, I will kick in my $15. TKG: ROH (for better or worse) is completely built around your long tail theory where future of retail is built around "selling less of more"(www.thelongtail.com).ROH was built this way before every music/entertainment marketing seminar was built around talking point that "future of retail is having lots of niche products for sale, instead of one or two really successful across the board products" and myspace stuff ( newmusicstrategies.com/2007/03/16/the-20-things-you-must-know-about-music-online/). I don't think Gabe is a strategic marketing genius and think he's probably just lucked into the right thing at the right time. That said there are allot of indy promotions which are funded by DVD sales (promotions set up knowing that they draw more income from DVD/video sales than they do from attendance) Gabe comes across a lot savvier than those other promotions. Still as a viewer, it takes a while to get past the paradigm shift. I’m used to traditional model of wrestling fed that runs houseshows/TV in effort to entice you to go to the big supershow or buy the PPV. ROH is doing the opposite as they are running a PPV whose goal is to entice you to go to the houseshows or buy DVDs of their regular shows. It’s a complete flip as I’m used to “A” being advertisement for “B”, and not “B” acting as advertisement for “A”. There are things that an ROH show does very differently then WWE/WWF/ECW?WCW did because they have different goals. WWE will never mention that Angle once worked for them because selling DVDs of houseshows/TV.etc with Angle isn’t primary goal. ROH PPV is full of mentions of Low-Ki, Homicide, Samoa Joe, CM Punk,etc because their goal is to sell back catalogue. I’m not convinced that this PPV was particularly effective at selling their DVD back catalogue, but I think it’s important to remember that that is the goal. Takeshi Morsihima v BJ Whitmer: TKG: Whitmer makes an open challenge, Morishima answers and YIKES. Why is Whitmer getting this much in on the champ? Why is Whitmer doing KENTA's flying knee strike in an opener when KENTA is working the main event? I like your Vader v Hashi or Shiga type matches but this isn't one of those. You could have had Whitmer get a run of offense without Morishima having to leave his feet. Or at least built to Morishima leaving his feet. But no. Whitmer is easily able to take Morishima off his feet and gets two sets of two-count near falls on Morishima. Two sets of near falls on the champ before Morishima gets off a big offense run. Just fucking awful match where neither guy comes across looking like much of anything. Lenny Leonard is doing the "puts everyone down" line too. PAS: I have no idea why Leonard is stealing shitty Gabe commentary lines, "Puts em all down" isn't even "Daaangerrooous" which at least has some kitsch value. This wasn't good, Whitmer getting to run through all of his offense before Morishima takes over is a terrible way to build either guy. Whitmer doesn't look good, because he hits all of his shit and can't put Morishima down, and Morishima gets bumped all over the ring. This stunk PAS: I thought the RAW in ring segment was fine, does a nice job establishing all three guys, maybe watching all of this Mid-South lately biases me, but Morishima really could have used Skandor Akbar to do his mike work. Rocky Romero v Naomichi Marifuji: TKG: Holy fuck this is mind numbing. They do eight minutes of meaningless masturbatory circa 98 indy superstar exchanges (mirror missed stuff/face offs etc.) . I don't know if you can even call the first eight minutes masturabtory, as this was way too limp dicked to be called masturbation. They follow that up with about six minutes of Marafuji works Romero's leg, which is followed up by five minute finisher exchange section. There were large sections where it felt like they were walking through this, like I was watching a dress rehearsal practice run through. If the first two matches were my intro to ROH, I would say "fuck this shit" and never bother with it again. PAS: Some individual pieces of offense looked good, and I get the sense that if this was on New Japan TV in the 90's and we only got the last four minutes you might think it was good. Unfortunately we got it all, the meaningless leg work, the awful strike exchange, the parts of the match where one guy was standing around clearly waiting for the other guy to hit his move. There was this point of the match where Romero is on the apron and Marifuji is in the ring, Romero throws an overhand right, which Marifuji blocks, it was thrown so slow and so obviously to be blocked, that we rewound it to laugh three or four times, honestly funnier then anything on the Flavor Flav roast except for maybe Greg Giraldo. This match was pretty much everything that is bad about ROH. TKG: You could throw a rock at any NE indy and hit a match worked exactly the same. For a formula match this wasn't even well worked formula. This was followed by a backstage bit with Tank Tolland, Larry Sweeney, and Sarah Del Rey. I normally really like Larry Sweeney's wink-wink Andrew WK hipster homage to 80s mic work stuff...but for some reason here it came off less as homage and more like just second rate imitation. Tank Tolland's mic work was pretty strong. Briscoes v. Matt Sydal/Claudio Castongnoli PAS: This was your basic big match Briscoes tag with all that is good and bad about that match. This felt like it was missing some heel/face stuff which made the Murder City Machine Guns match. Both Sydal and Claudio are fun heels, and some shtick would have kept this from being just an exhibition of spots. Still it was a pretty great exhibition of spots, Sydal is just a total blast, bumping all over the ring and dying on everything the Briscoes do, he may be the most graceful bumper in wrestling. Still Sydal is great at playing both cocky heel and underdog babyface, here he was kind of playing random guy in a Dragon's Gate six-man. TKG: This took a while to get going but once Marc got nastily dropped to the outside it just all came together and we were off to the races. Really liked Marc's goofy kung fu section with Sydal and think those two could have a really fun singles. Castognoli's new hair makes him look like a Dick Tracy villain. Unfortunately he wasn't working like a Dick Tracy villain. He wasn't working like a Basil Wolverton face either. Again random guy in a Dragon Gate six man. The post match pull apart was pretty fun. I could live without ever seeing announcers on camera, and for some reason Prazac and Leonard were in matching suits that made them look like they were in The Hives. Actually neither really has the stage prescence to be convincing as Sweedish garage rockers. Does Almqvist force his roadies into matching suits? They looked like roadies for the Hives. PAS: I don't think I have seen Lenny Lenorard before, he really looks like Downs Syndrome Don West. The post match brawl was pretty great, and you have to give Deranged and Azreal props for just getting killed. Let's hope they keep them around as bumping Project 161 Adam Pearce disciples. Delirious v. Roderick Strong TKG: This was first match that had a real face/heel structure but it wasn't the type of face/heel structure that makes sense in an intro show. This was worked like your fired up underdog babyface gets his revenge match. So it is a face/heel match built on the angry underdog face really dominating the heel. Face comes in guns a blazing. You don't put the big revenge bunkhouse match on the first show, because the face dominating bunkhouse match doesn't really give the heel a chance to work heel. This went too long for that type of match as it moved from being a face gets revenge match into epic feud ending match. And I would have praised this highly if it had a good feud ending match finish. But instead it ended abruptly and then had the beat down and second face/heel everyone comes out in a row post match. PAS: I have seen a fair amount of Roderick Strong and I don't remember him doing this many backbreakers in one match. It seems like he wanted to really get his Messiah of the Backbreaker gimmick over on the PPV so he did all of his variations. Tom really nailed the match setups problems on the head, the crowd was deadish for this which hurt the fired up babyface stuff too. TKG: Adam Pierce's fake Raven mic work did a nice job putting over BJ Whitmer. Unfortunately the PPV had a BJ Whitmer match and no mic work was going to change that. Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima v. KENTA/Nigel McGuiness PAS: This PPV really need a great main event to save it, and this really did deliver. I have read people complain about Nigel just throwing lariats, but I am a Choshu fan, nothing wrong with simplifying what you do, if you do it well, and Nigel was killing people with lariats here, from all angles. Nigel's big match restarts are always fun, and I loved him coming back in with the taped up arm, and the jawbreaker with the bad arm was a great near fall. You kind of forget how good Danielson is, but he was amazing here. KENTA and McGuiness are two of his best opponents, and all of their interactions were great. The multiple reversal finish is a staple of indy wrestling, but Danielson may be the only guy who can really pull it off. The whole finish section with KENTA was completely awesome. The match wasn't perfect, for guys who trained together and work constantly KENTA and Morishima don't interact well, and the points where they were matched up were the weakest parts. TKG: Why isn't this being pimped more? This was really great and all about the pairings as Nigel pairs up well with both Morishima and Danielson and Danielson pairs up well with KENTA and Nigel. And the pairings deliver. This was also the one match where they really pulled off the face/heel dynamic. with Danielson working effectively as heel and Nigel's fighting back from arm stuff telegraphing "face". There was a section where Nigel lariated Danielson off top rope where Morishima just stood around twiddling his thumbs. Maan I'm beginning to think that the Double Takeshis stuff that I used to like so much was all Rikioh.

It is also pretty clear that Eddie was always a better candidate then Benoit. Comparable as workers, but Benoit was a midcarder everywhere he worked, and Eddie had the AAA run where he was an actual big draw in a hot promotion.

I really liked his PPV match with Flair, and thought he was fun in the most recent RAW tag, I don't watch RAW a ton, but I am not seeing the hate Loss. I would rather watch Carlito then Kennedy

Ultimo v. Sasuke is actually kind of an interesting comparison, breaking it down I think there work is comparable, solid second tier Japaneese juniors with spots of brilliance and relatively short periods as a top worker. Never as good as Liger or Sano, had days where they were as good as El Samurai Sasuke advantages -Actually main evented his moderately succesful Japaneese indy. Ultimo was a junior atraction in WAR, and was mostly working undercards in Toryumon. Sasuke was the man in MPRO, doesn't mean a ton, but it is in his favor -Political career, he is clearly a joke candidate, but he did win a congressional seat. I think it would closer to the prestige of a State Legislator then a Congressman, but I imagine he has more widespread fame in Japan among non wrestling fans then Ultimo, even as just the stupid embarrasment in the mask. Ultimo advantages -Had runs as interchangeble undercard junior in WCW and as interchangable trios piece in EMLL. Sasuke's runs in ECW and EMLL are much less impressive, although I don't think either his Mexico or US runs mean much. -Training, I think it is inarguable that the Toryuman guys mean more then Hayato Jr. Fujita and Rasse, still I can't see training a bunch of indy guys who have achieved Japaneese cult fame really meaning that much. So I think it comes down to whether you value joke political fame over training sideshow attractions. I could see going either way.