Dylan Waco

I would argue that Patera is at least someone you could make a case for. He'd probably be my number three after Buddy and Fujinami

Is it fair to say you see Buddy as the best worker of 80?

Zeb

Warrior is the ultimate Be A Star hero

The thread is a year old. Over time the focus of the discussion was shifted onto a lot of things, primarily how you rate/judge wrestlers and particularly how these judgments apply to Flair. But it started as a straight comparison thread. For evidence of that go back to page one. If you have something to add about Bret add it now.

I just watched Rowe v. Kongo. I have no clue how good it was, and there were things about the match that really irked me, but it definitely stood out a ton which is a huge plus. ROH is a show jam packed every week with matches that run together, featuring guys who all work the same, and often look the same. Well Rowe and Kongo both look really different, and watching them work this Ishii v. Shibata tribute match in a high stakes match really was refreshing. In isolation it's not bad or anything, but it's a lot more interesting if you suffer through ROH semi-regularly.

Really enjoyed this article as obscure and under appreciated wrestlers has become a real interest of mine in the last couple of years. I also appreciate you adding the links as there are a couple of matches there I haven't seen which could improve the standing of guys on my pending top 500 list of doom. If I were to do my own list and restrict it to seven keeping it within the parameters you laid out in your piece I would probably go with Tajiri (sort of my version of Gedo), Cyrus The Destroyer, KT Hamill, Vordell Walker, Timothy Thatcher, Mike Cruz and Shockercito.

I'm just happy you've trashed a match harder than Rheingans v. Martel now

That is Kurt Brown officiating our wedding.

I will be fair. I think HHH does lots of things well actually. Above average bleeder, good bumper, excellent at manipulating emotionally crippled drug addicts, pretty good at running the ropes. So that's four positives right there.

I'm catching up on the first half of this how which I had to miss because of circumstances beyond my control. Really enjoyable show, Vance is probably one of the easiest guys to talk to I've ever encountered.

I voted for Titan v. Casas, though the Rhodes v. Wyatts match is right there with it and on a different day I could have voted differently. Also I haven't watched the PTP's v. Uso's match yet but heard it was fun

I will do an HHH show but only if it formatted like the wrestlers better than HHH thread.

I would add that while I don't agree with a lot of the finished product, I think this was an excellent idea, well conducted, well put together, produced some surprises (including several I thought were pleasant) and yielded a result that I find to be more credible than the WON Award for MOTY for a variety of reasons

Direct TV is talking about dropping WWE ppvs, taking a shot at the company in the process.

Mike Mooneyham was reporting that Hogan was in Vegas also and he wasn't there.

Exactly. Still a lot cheaper than say NHL Network. I don't really know what people were expecting if they don't think a specialty channel of this nature was going to come with an X month commitment. Come on, grow up. Everyone was expecting it. It was reported long ago. Nice try though.

With 6 month commitment was just listed on the fine print

I would note that JR was fired for much less than this

Whoever thought that was a good idea should be burned alive

This DX bit is literally the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen WWE do.

Not available on Wii platform? They just shot ppv in the head.

You had goodwiill going in?

My local paper The Charleston Post and Courier has had a weekly column by Mike Mooneyham for decades. This past year they moved him from his LONG time spot on Sundays to Mondays, but he's still there and has been forever. I know Alex Marvez used to write one for a Miami paper, but god knows if that's still the case

Since this is for stuff that aired on t.v. and not when it was taped, by far the best t.v. match I've seen this week was Vordell Walker v. Sigmon from Traditional Championship Wrestling. Below is a link and my lengthy review. Vordell Walker v. Sigmon - TCW Iron Man Match 11/16 Even with a couple of slightly telegraphed spots, Sigmon throwing some really weak forearms at times, and a spot down the stretch that may have been a botch (I didn't think it was, but it could be seen one of two ways), I thought this was a great match, right up there with the best indie stuff of the year. Honestly the front end of this was pretty decent, but there were a couple of moments where Sigmon looked nervous to take a big spot, or sort of tipped his hand a second early on an exchange that would have otherwise been good. I sort of figured this would either peter out, or get badly exposed going this long, but instead this ended up being a rare indie match with long term selling, big spots that actually mattered, a really well developed heat section, lots of surprisingy and effective cut off spots, and a finish where a dopey face was actually punished with a loss for being a dopey face. On top of that I thought all the falls in this were actually quite good, and there every moment where it looked like this might get devolve into spot running, ended up resulting in a finish. Almost the whole match was worked with Vordell in peril after some rib work, including some big post bumps on the floor (to Sigmon's credit he took a crazy over head belly to belly bump on the concrete, and you could argue that at times he came up to quick after some offense, though I didn't think it was jarring). Some of the the hope spots in this were really well done, I especially liked Walker using the ropes to kick off Sigmon and keep him at a distance, and even then it wasn't enough of a flurry to win him any real points. Loved the way Sigmon stole the first fall, thought the flash pin for Walker on the second fall off the missed headbutt was great, the powerbomb theft finish in the third fall ruled, the knee strike finish in the third fall had a set up that might have been a little hokey but it was so well built to that I didn't care, and Sigmon's fifth fall victory coming after a top rope German that actually meant something (has that EVER happened in an indie match before) was awesome. Throughout all of this the selling of the big spots and the ribs from Walker was really good and consistent. I also loved the way Walker made his last gasp comeback, as even Sigmon falling down before he was hit with a lariat felt like less of a botch and more of a "I just got my bell rung/lucking out of avoiding another big blow" spot than anything else. Walker finally going to the leg late, including a nasty looking front side chop block, and an almost desperate figure four sequence to run out the clock leading to the loss really was a cool and surprising way to end this. There were indie matches in 2013 that had fewer flaws than this, but I don't think there were any this ambitious, that were this well developed, and managed to turn some of the worst aspects of modern indie wrestling into positives. This will be really high on my top several hundred match of the year list I hope to get around to soon enough.