Dylan Waco

Yep. That's it. That's what the whole thing boils down to. Hey how about that Flair in 83 with his ten good matches we can point to as good(assuming we are feeling charitable to Ric of course). What great evidence of a "run" and non-isolation that is required to even consider GOAT talk!

It has been presented as the reason he is a better candidate than Flair repeatedly. There is nowhere on the podcast I said that. On the podcast, you mentioned a time when you considered Flair the worst wrestler in the world, and created a contrast with all of the things Funk was doing around the same time. Earlier in the thread: Later in the same post: If I had the wrong takeaway from that, coupled with you preferring Funk to Flair in this conversation, so be it. You are the one who was talking about runs. I made reference to a run, not the year 94 in isolation. I made that as a comp to show why I think the nonsense about peak/runs/isolation is pretty obviously not something that is applied across the board. You still haven't answered why Funk's 94 shouldn't matter but his 86 should. You haven't answered why Flair with less output in 83 is included, but Flair in 90 with more output isn't. I have been very honest about my feelings about Flair post-prime and that includes my view that he was fucking horrible for a couple of years during his WWE run. I have never said "Flair was not as good as Funk because Funk was good/great/whatever in 94." Ever. No such thing exists. I do think it matters that Funk was able to have good matches as recently as 2011 and that the amount of bad Funk had in his old age is very, very small. I think it matters that he had good matches as a freelancer all over the place. I don't believe in pretending things don't exist so we can strive for "fairness" especially when that interest in "fairness" seems to only apply in that instance.

So what? Why on earth is it on the yearbooks if it isn't even worth discussing? And Ric Flair has a lot more matches on tape than Sangre Chicana. That's not fair to Chicana so it's not fair to disqualify him from HoF conversations. Since we can only go on the footage we have of Chicana, it seems wrong to look at all the footage of Flair. We should just hack it down to a couple of dozen matches so the comparison is more fair. Right? Not if that peak doesn't exist on tape or we only get glimpses. Better pair down that Flair output so we can get a fair comparison to Pat O'Conner. It's only fair. Unfortunately I am too at this point.

I'm not even sure how much it "hurts" Flair if we stick to the good points and ignore the bad points. I'm not sure it's entirely possible to do that, nor am I convinced it is somehow wrong to at least say "boy Flair sucked for a couple of years" when talking GOAT because All Time doesn't mean "whatever time period is best to help the guy I like most." I do think it would be wrong for that to sink the candidacy of someone with as much good shit as Flair.

It has been presented as the reason he is a better candidate than Flair repeatedly. There is nowhere on the podcast I said that. There is nowhere in this thread that I said that. I have never said "Terry Funk is a better candidate for GOAT than Ric Flair because Terry Funk had a good year in 1994." In fact I don't really disagree with Soup's appraisal of Funk in comparison to Flair in 94. Please make reference to the multiple times I or someone else has said this in this. Since it's been done repeatedly it should be remarkably easy to find.

It's not meant as a major insult or an insult at all. But being the best or near the best in different years means different things. Not all years are created equally. Not all careers are the same. We don't have as much footage from some years and guys as others. That's the point. I have no problem saying Flair was great in 83. But if you are talking about smaller samples, runs, isolation, et I don't see how you can make those criticisms regarding post-prime Funk and not apply them to allegedly "prime" Flair. You can't strive for an objective calculus and then when problems arise with say "well I don't like the result, so I don't think it should apply there." That's one of the very reasons I don't try and kill myself coming up with some objective standard in these things. It's not possible. The are tools you can use and things you can try and assess but there is no uniform standard and can't be. I actually think you can learn A LOT from smaller samples. Villano IV made tape less than ten times last year and Dolph Ziggler made tape seventy-five times or more if I had to guess (Exposer may actually knw the exact number). But I still think Villano IV was the better wrestler because his peak performances were better and in the particulars he brought more to his matches, with fewer flaws. I get that Flair's 83 is not a run by itself. But neither is Funk's 94 and you could easily argue that he has more meat their than he does in 85 or 86, let alone the nothing that is 88. So why do those years "count" but not 94? Funk had a really solid 93 too actually. Love the St. Clair match to the point where I think it's a great, great match. Love the ACW match with Sabu to the point where I think it's the best of their matches together. I like his FMW stuff from that year a good bit. The ECW stuff is largely forgettable, but he was the best guy in the promotion. It's not anything you build a case on, but I can't see any reason why you would leave it completely out of the discussion.

Ding, Ding, Ding!

Offhand counting other Funk matches I know of from 94, Funk has at least a ten match advantage. Night the Line Was Crossed is shit. Funk's the best guy in it BY FAR (I don't think many people would dispute that actually), but it's a bad match. When Worlds Collide tag is okay. My impression of that is that Eaton and Arn didn't want to be there and it showed. I like the Tully match from Slamboree a lot. It's not a great match, but it's fun. I think it destroys the Flair v. Brody match that included on Flair's good list. Funks v. PE aren't anything special and I don't really know who rates them. Love the Clash tag, love Wargames. Really love one of those Sabu v. Funk MTW matches. Enjoy all the Funk in WCW stuff a lot. Really like Funk in SMW too. That IWA match is a pure spectacle and kind of a mess, but Funk is really amazing in it as crazy old coot trying to kill people and possibly himself. Not sure I could either, but I have virtually no memory of the Race matches I have watched over the years so that doesn't tell me much. Man alive I think those are overrated matches. I think at best Flair is Jumbo's fifth best gajin opponent. I like his best matches v. Martel, Bock, Funk and Kerry better. It's possible if I went back and watched more 70's stuff more names would get tacked on. I like Flair v. Jumbo, but I really don't like it nearly as much as most people. I remember liking at least one or two Kabuki matches a lot on one of the 80's sets. I don't remember if I've seen Flair v. Kabuki or not. I do know Funk v. Sabu matches from 94 were among the best in Sabu's career. I'm certainly "not sure" there are better Sabu matches out there. I like the Gordy match, but didn't think it was out of this world. I liked the Kevin match a lot. I know I have seen Flair v. David but I don't remember when it was from and I know I didn't think much of it but then I'm not high on David. Need to see Windham and Valentine matches. 83 had a lot of stuff I liked from the AWA and some stuff I really like from NJPW and some stuff I really like from Portland and Final Conflict and that tremendously great 2/3 falls Von Erichs v. Freebirds match and of course Chicana v. MS-1. Flair v. Jumbo isn't in my top ten for that year. Possibly not even my top twenty. Now Wargames 94? My U.S. match of the year for that year and in my top ten for the year over all. Flair in 83 isn't a greatest of all time year. Even if I had the same view of Jumbo match you had I can't see any way someone could look at the output of Flair in 83 and say "holy shit this is one of the best years in wrestling history" or anything even close to that. There are many, many guys who have better years, particularly if we are looking at "runs" as you say you favor. Was he in the conversation for being the best in the world that year? Probably but how much of that is pure rep and how much of that is him benefiting from rep and the stronger 82 he had come off of? Besides we've already established that being in the discussion for best in the world isn't all that important...or I guess that only applies if you are in that discussion post-prime? More than that why does his 83 "matter" as a peak year but his 90 where we have more footage and probably at least as many good performances doesn't? But beyond that the point is not that Funk was better than Flair in this equation. I don't know that I would say that. The point is that their are obvious flaws in this "peak" equation, and talking about how things in isolation aren't that important and runs matter more doesn't always help the peak narrative. For footage reasons and other reasons it can often hurt it.

Read what you wrote. You didn't say "they firmly wrote the narrative for Observer readers" or "Dave firmly established Okada narrative as story of the year." You wrote that New Japan "firmly wrote the narrative of the year by the Spring of 2012 with the ascension of Okada." That was not the narrative of the wrestling year.

I like Ted v. Virgil and Ted v. Dustin a lot, but the idea of Bossman being better in the WWF really doesn't seem that odd to me.

Give me all of the really good Ric Flair matches in 1983. I've got...v. Gordy, v. Kevin Von Erich, v. Race, (not Starrcade which was a shit match), v. Jumbo and since I am feeling extremely generous v. Brody from St. Louis. I literally can't think of anything else. It is possible there are other matches and I am forgetting them so by all means mention them here. Now give me a list of any and all Flair matches you can think of from 83 that we have on tape and/or have seen. Here is Funk from 94 via Will's Set which I have watched beginning to end. Terry Funk vs. Shane Douglas (TV 1/18/94) Terry Funk vs. Pat Tanaka (TV 1/25/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu vs. Shane Douglas (ECW 2/5/94) Terry Funk vs. The Bullet (Texas Death Match) (SMW 2/13/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu (WWN 2/28/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu (MTW 4/9/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu (Texas Death Match) (MTW 4/15/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu (TV 4/19/94) Terry Funk vs. Chris Benoit (NWA 4/23/94) Terry Funk vs. The Sheik (FMW 5/5/94) Terry Funk & Arn Anderson vs. Sabu & Bobby Eaton (ECW 5/14/94) Terry Funk vs. Sabu (Texas Death Match) (5/15/94) Terry Funk vs. Tully Blanchard (Slamboree 5/22/94) Terry & Dory Funk vs. Public Enemy (ECW 6/24/94) Terry & Dory Funk vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong (SMW 7/1/94) Terry & Dory Funk vs. Scott & Steve Armstrong (SMW 7/3/94) Terry Funk vs. Brian Pillman (Pro 7/16/94) Terry & Dory Funk vs. Public Enemy (No Rope Barbed Wire Match) (ECW 7/16/94) Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck vs. Arn Anderson & Dustin Rhodes (BATB 7/17/94) Terry Funk, Dory Funk & Bruiser Bedlam vs. Bob Armstrong, Tracy Smothers, & Road Warrior Hawk (Coward waves the Flag) (SMW 8/5/94) Terry Funk vs. Cactus Jack (ECW 8/13/94) Terry Funk, Bunkhouse Buck & Arn Anderson vs. Brad, Brian & Scott Armstrong (WCWSN 8/20/94) Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck vs. Dusty & Dustin Rhodes (Clash 8/28/94) Terry Funk, Arn Anderson & Bunkhouse Buck vs. Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes & Sting (Main Event 9/11/94) Wargames (Fall Brawl 9/18/94) Terry Funk vs. Tito Santana (NWC 10/8/94) Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck vs. Nasty Boys & Dustin Rhodes (Handheld 10/16/94) Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck vs. Nasty Boys & Dustin Rhodes (Main Event 10/23/94) Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck vs. Nasty Boys (Havoc 10/23/94) Terry Funk & Hiroshi Ono vs. Shoji Nakamaki & Nobutaka Araya (Ring Surrounded by Fire Match) (IWA Japan 11/13/94) Are all of these matches great? No. Are all of these matches good? There are a couple I don't enjoy, but virtually everything on here is something I would rate. Is it possible that the best Flair match or couple of Flair matches are better than the best Funk match on here? Yes, though I like Wargames 94 more than any of those Flair matches at bare minimum and I think Funk is great in that match. Is this a minor sample for Funk? No way in hell. In fact it's more than we have from a lot of the years we believe to be his peak years. Is it Funk wrestling the same guy on the same stage over and over? No, it's Funk wrestling various people, in a variety of different matches, in promotions all over the place. It may also be worth noting that this is not all the Funk that exists from 94. Now if someone wants to argue that a lot of this Funk stuff sucked or wasn't any good that's fine. I don't agree at all and think it was a damn good run. But we can disagree on that. What we can't disagree on is that there is a lot of meat here. This isn't some guy past his prime working a few quality matches in isolation. Maybe I'm wrong on Flair in 83 and I'm forgetting some obvious stuff, but looking at this if the metric has to do with volume of performances we have available and can point to, Flair is straight up fucked in this comparison. But wait! Flair's 83 is in that prescribed time period where we have decided he was at his peak so those matches should count in GOAT discussion and we can call that a "good year" even if we don't have much else (if I'm wrong I'm wrong on that by the way). Funk's 94? Well it's after that prescribed period and sure the matches might not be in isolation and we may think some of it is really good and we may think it was as good or better a year than some of the years in Funk's "peak" and we may think there is clearly more meat here than Flair in 83 but....uh....um...fuck...uh....its not in that prescribed period?

I like Funk's run in 94 a lot period, whether it be SMW, WCW, ECW, random indies, FMW, et. In 93 he had some indy matches I love and a match with Tony St. Clair from Europe that blew me away when I watched it on Will's set. In 97 - when you could easily argue he was physically shot - I couldn't believe how good he was in the ECW stuff I watched, especially in non-t.v. matches where he easily could have done very little to nothing and people would have been happy to see him. Last night I watched Funk v. Windham from PR in 86. I love the match, though there are flaws with it that would drive some people crazy. I also really love the Martel match from the same tourney. I also really enjoy Terry's run in the WWF for what it is, though you could argue there are no great matches, just a string of good matches with Terry carrying shitty/green/old as dirt guys to entertaining and watchable matches. I am being told that 85-86 should count in his calculus because it's between 76-89. 90-97 apparently can't at all. Even 94 which we agree is a very good year for Funk (forgive me if "very good" is something you think is excessive) can't count. This despite the fact that you could argue that Funk's performances and output were better in 94, more varied in 94 and there was more meat in 94. It still can't count because it didn't take place during the right period. Those Funk v. Hogan matches (which I love to be fair), which are as formula driven and samey as any matches you'll ever see? Well they can count, but Funk having great matches with Sabu and Shane Douglas on house shows (one of which where he flipped to work heel because of setting and it was like a switch going off and completely seamless) in 97 can't because he was past his prime physically and it wasn't at the level of his 1989 work. Now it may be true that Funk in 94 won't make you think anymore of Funk - but it does make me think more of Funk because he was still going, still doing good shit, still working at a high level. More to the point if Funk had never worked WWF or PR in 85/86 would you think less of him? I very much doubt it. But somehow that counts in the calculus solely because of when it occurred? You will never convince me that is a sensible way to talk about wrestling, GOAT or otherwise. On the particulars of Flair he could have changed his style working in the big leagues or at least amended it to reflect new realities. He did that eventually and I thought the results were good. But it took him a long time. I'm not even saying he should have become American Onita in 1997, just that the "well what the hell was he supposed to do?" excuse doesn't carry a lot of weight with me (or truck...doesn't truck...that is the phrase right?). Hogan was the biggest babyface in the history of wrestling, when he got stale and people starting ripping his head off of their foam fingers he went heel and reinvented himself (which improved his in ring work too at that point if you want to keep the comparison tight). Surely you wouldn't argue that Flair adapting his work in mild ways to reflect his declining athletic skill set would be more difficult and/or radical than that? I think it's pretty clear that Bock is one of the best wrestlers of the 80's. I also don't even think it's open for debate that there were people who thought he was one of the best in the 80's years ago. It's something I have heard for years from a very select group of fans that grew up on the AWA and/or had actually watched AWA. The difference now isn't some sort of "veteran appreciation in reverse" gimmick being worked by message board posters. It's that people are actually getting to watch the matches. I don't want to speak for Matt D, but fuck it I'll speak for Matt D when I say that a guy like Bock is pretty his exact kind of wrestler. And I don't think that's because Bock was older then. Hell he sure doesn't look old in those matches. On Funk I always considered him as you know. In the SC poll I voted him second under Flair, but that was at a point when I was operating far more on rep than rewatching and thinking about the matches. That's not to say I wouldn't think about Flair for number one now if we were ever to do it again because I would. That's also not saying Funk was seen as the GOAT back then because of ECW, but you are moving the goal posts there. On this point the question was "were old guys getting significant praise over six yeas ago." And I think Flair, Funk and even Bock show that the answer is yes. See above. I also wouldn't use WON as a metric of meaning in this discussion. I don't think it's ever been heavy on pushing Lucha, certainly not since the height of AAA. Even now I don't see Dave or his readers giving old guys any sort of push. Casas/Panther getting any kind of showing in this years Awards was a near miracle. WON readers don't give a fuck about IWRG, Jerry Lawler indy matches and care a lot less about Finlay than people who are on boards like this or DVDVR. I'm not interested in an even playing field. I'm interested in trying to see who I think is better. There is no objective metric and I don't really understand why we have to pretend we can get to one. Even if we stick with peak alone it's not "fair." The peaks of Funk and Lawler are longer than the peak of Flair according to you. That's not a "level playing field." At his peak I don't think Flair was near the level of El Dandy, but Dandy's peak was shorter (so far as the footage tells us anyhow). I guess if we are being fair we should isolate Flair's best three consecutive years with Dandy's so we can level that playing field. There are a lot of people who thinks Funk's absolute peak were those six months in 89. Maybe we should scrap ever thing else for the purposes of the GOAT debate and look solely at the best six months of each guy in order to be fair and level the playing field. Then again that might not be fair either. We would need to make sure they wrestled the same number of matches. Even then you'd probably want to adjust for booking advantage, otherwise the playing field isn't even. Also might want to note who worked gimmick matches, how many studio matches there were, who the opposition was so we could make a straight comparison on the talent they were working with, et. Then we might get CLOSE to evening out that playing field. Maybe. But without knowing certain climate and environmental factors how could be sure? We would probably need to assess the pollen count in the Carolina's. Hey, Bock worked Denver, what effect does the high altitude have on the ability to work long? We can keep figuring and we might get close to even eventually. Or we could admit that an even playing field isn't possible because people have different careers. You have to do the best with what you've got. Where is the Flair footage from the 70's relative to the Funk or Lawler footage? That's not fair! We should probably toss that aside. Now they did basically go head-to-head with footage we can point to from 82-08 or so. But evidently head-to-head ONLY matters during prime years. Everything else is irrelevant or trivial. Sure there might be plenty of good stuff post-prime. Sure there may be years in a guys alleged "prime" where we have little footage (or at least little pimped footage), but hey it's in that arbitrary period where we are allowed to consider it in discussing ALL TIME performance, so we'll pretend that's not true or somehow doesn't matter. Sure there may be periods after a prime where a wrestler has better performances and more output than he did during periods in his prime, but that's just a quirk and we can't make exceptions in our objective assessment tool or the space time continuum might fracture. Sure there may be years after someone's prime when they manage to be one of the better guys in their country or on earth, but what can that really tell us about their prime and since prime is all that matters in a discussion about the greatest of ALL TIME, we have to be honest with ourselves and just admit those years didn't really happen. To you it's not important. I don't agree. At all. On any level. I don't care if it's convenient. I'm not trying to throw Flair in the trash and say he's not the GOAT. I'm merely arguing that post-prime isn't an irrelevancy in GOAT discussion. There is stuff post-prime that would help Flair's case. On Lawler I think he had more than five or six good matches in the WWE in the last couple of years so we just disagree. I also disagree with Loss about Lawler as a heel and think things like Arn v. Flair which he really likes and that Flair v. Luger match from the Clash in 90 which he really likes were really disappointing and/or very by the numbers matches that did little for me. I would rather talk about those things then pretend they don't exist. I think most of the people who pimp Lawler do go into the details. If you disagree please point to big time Lawler advocates known for arguing by assertion. We lived through an era of "Flair is still great" post-prime. If you don't remember it that's fine, but I do. There were people arguing Flair was one of the best wrestlers in the States during his Evolution period where he was horrendous to the point where I honestly think he may have been the worst wrestler on the planet. There were lots of people arguing that he could still go in the last couple of years of WCW. Do people look for past-prime Flair matches now? Well I've talked about the American Onita run many times and did so in real time so there is that. If someone wanted to go back and look at late WCW for Flair matches they love there is nothing stopping them. It's not my fault that the perception is that Flair sullied his legacy and a lot of people think Lawler managed to stay pretty good. All time isn't a synonym for 80's. If people want to talk about who was the best in the 80's of course you talk only about what occurred in the 80's. If people want to talk about who the best ever was (which is basically just code for "best guy we have enough footage of" to be fair but whatever), I don't think we should pretend "ever" or "all time" pertains to an arbitrary time period we assert as being the peak of their careers. I was asserting my opinion in a thread filled with them. I wasn't dragging in WON Awards for unknown reasons. I wasn't pointing to the WKO 100 and saying "here is what people with a similar view on wrestling to me think." I was saying that Lawler in 2011 was an arguable top ten guy. You can take that as hyperbole, shitty opinion, short sighted opinion, praise of Lawler, indictment of modern scene, et. What I would prefer you not do is say "well it happened after the year when his prime ended so regardless of whether it's bullshit or something I would agree with, it's completely worthless nonsense that doesn't matter." I don't see the idea of radical egalitarianism in wrestling comparisons to be particularly useful. Good work is good work is good work. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. More importantly if we are leveling, the idea that we would stop just at comparing peaks is completely insane to me. And yet if I were to say "well Flair had an advantage in the fact that as champ we got more recorded matches and he often got to work with really talented guys when he came into places instead of having to work guys like Da Crusher, Mad Dog Vachon and Brody nearly every night, so maybe for some of these years we should adjust things to give Jerry Blackwell a fair shake" people would think I was lobbying for a favorite. If we have to look at peak only in the interest of fairness, then we'd better get real serious about looking at other things in the interest of fairness. Otherwise it just comes across as bullshit to me. There is nowhere in this thread or any other discussion of GOATC's where I have ever said a good post-prime is required. There is nowhere in this thread where I have said that peak shouldn't be the most important part of the equation. But I reject the notion that something that adds to our understanding of a wrestler's career can have no bearing at all on GOAT discussion because it occurred outside of a prescribed time period. "All time" doesn't mean "some of the time, when we decide these guys were at their best." Where is the fun in creating artificial rule sets that eliminate massive portions of guys careers WHEN THEY WERE GOOD? If we are looking for the "fairest way" why do we stop with peak and not make radical adjustments for other things that clearly play a role in peoples careers? Yes everyone gets a peak and a lot wrestlers don't even live til they are fifty, but it doesn't mean those who were very good after their peaks and into their fifties weren't very good after their peaks and into their fifties. Honestly the difference of opinion is so massive here I don't think it can be bridged at all. I just don't get the argument on any level.

Observer readers make up what percentage of wrestling fans approximately?

Invader III v. Chicky Starr - Scaffold Match 86 or 9/88 ? Not sure of the date as KrisZ says Sept 88, but youtube says 86. Unless we are talking different matches though I don't think we are. Whatever the case may be this was a GREAT match. The best scaffold match I've ever seen and that includes the two really good ones from Memphis. What made this work is not only did they get over the danger of the gimmick (the scaffold was so fucking high it would have been impossible not to), they also worked in some surprises and enough violence to make it feel like the sort of feud that merited two guys climbing on a scaffold and trying to kill each other. Lots of big punches in this. Starr bleeds and I give him a ton of credit here for the way he was bumping. It's not that he took huge bumps, but he took a suplex on this thing that was shaky as hell and after Invader hit a dropkick he did this great scurrying collapse that made my heart skip a time or two as even knowing he lives, it looked like one wrong movement would have killed him. There were some other good weeble wobble moments up there and guys hanging off the side and barely surviving. The bit with Starr thinking he won and Invade sneaking up on him was good and the finish was satisfying. Really awesome stuff. Totally exceeded my expectations.

Devon is right about that third match. WAY better in context. I liked it a lot out of context. In context it's great and makes sense on a completely different level.

I cannot imagine anyone thinking Black Terry was average/middling if they had watched the matches that were pimped in 2010. Even people who have drastically different wrestling tastes than me and drastically different Lucha tastes than me thought those matches were great. I want to know what pimped matches you watched, but maybe this isn't the thread to have that discussion.

Barry Windham v. Terry Funk - 1986 I have watched this before many times and it is a match that will be divisive to say the least. There are four piledrivers on the floor in this match and none of them spell doom for anyone. Having said that, if you can get over that this is fun as fuck and a really awesome Funk performance. One thing I love about Terry is that he works different variations of "crazy old man" in different places. In Puerto Rico he totally plays up the crybaby, whiny, self important, chickenshit, pussy act. He literally can't even run the ropes without almost falling onto the floor onto his head. He can't execute a headbutt without almost killing himself. He goes for a neckbreaker and Windham stands him up and he falls right on his ass. So what does he do? Well he suckers Windham out to the floor and post the shit out of him of course! Then he proceeds to do every dirty thing he can thing of, including one of the most deliberate nut shots I've ever seen. When Barry takes over and gets the call back post shots and piledrivers it's probably egregious, but I can't help but smile and Funk's way of reacting to everything is perfect. Barry does this really great measured uppercut at one point while Funk is staggering around and it's just awesome. Both guys take some really massive bumps, Funk gets angry and throws chairs, and the cheating bullshit finish was classic. Capped off by a ridiculous Funk promo where he calls everyone in PR pigs, says he doesn't need to cheat and says he will make Rick Martel end up like his brother. God even I wanted to slap the shit out of him for that one. Carlos Colon v. Jos Leduc - Barbed Wire Match I liked this a good bit better than the Murdoch match. Whereas the Murdoch match was more of novelty, this was just extremely violent and was worked around the wire being exceptionally dangerous. Leduc got color first and did a good job throughout the match reacting every time he touched the ropes as if the wire was piercing the fuck out of him despite the fact that there were times where it clearly wasn't. Lots of nasty close ups and visuals here, including Colon with a mouth full of barbed wire. Later Colon is spitting up blood while tangling up in the ropes with Leduc hanging on him and it's really gross as shit but you've got to give these guys credit for selling the fuck out of the gimmick. Colon ended up winning with the figure-four, but the fill of violence you want out of a match like this was there. Good stuff. Abdullah The Butcher v. Dutch Mantell - ? It's impossible for me not to enjoy Abby matches like this on some level. Just a short fight with both guys bleeding and getting there licks in. Abby even slammed Dutch on a table at the jump which was surprising. Dutch made a comeback with his whip, but ended up getting back down when Chicky Starr slipped a coathanger in which Abby used as a weapon for the DQ. Entertaining sprint. Wendi Richter v. Monster Ripper - Cage Match ? This is a cage match built all around escapes. Almost Bret v. Owenesque in that regard, though this is more overtly violent, so to that end it feels more like your standard cage match. The cage is really short, which in a way makes it visually interesting, though in my mind I can envision it being the result of some arcane commission rule that only allows women to wrestle in cages the size of privacy fences. Richter was really sloppy at points in this, but she was super over and that helped the match a lot. I enjoyed some of Ripper's offense and they did work some good teases around escaping the cage, my favorite of which saw Ripper yanking and holding Richter up nastily by her hair. Finish with Richter running out of the door after ducking a clothesline was logical almost to a fault. This was worth watching, but I don't know if it was really any good.

This is how I feel about the praise for Jerry Lawler. It's like the music forum I'm on, where most people's end of year lists have a blend of new guys and old guys, of electronic, hip hop, jazz, soul, hyped records, indie rock, RnB, ambient, metal etc. Jessie Ware, VFTL, Actress, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Beach House, OF, Allo Darlin, Andy Stott, whatever has clicked. And then you'll have a few of the older guys who will all have Springsteen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Bill Fay, Van Halen as their top five, and inist the old guys are still putting out music better than anyone else. They are the Jerry Lawler's and Black Terry's and Terry Funk's. The same guys never list the latest Beach Boys or Paul McCartney though - they are Ric Flair and Hogan, good in their time but well past it now. -- I don't really want to get into this argument, as I've only seen a handful of the matches over the past few years, so I'll bow out before my argument gets destroyed and abused. Just wanted to agree with the analogy. Black Terry is a terrible argument. You can make the argument about Lawler if you want, but it requires an actual argument and not a run-in post. You freely admit you aren't going to do that so I guess I should treat this as a troll post. Still BT is a really terrible argument here because no one was touting Black Terry as a god among men until he got old/recently.

I just want to note that I think it is hilarious that people are still voting in this poll daily.

The argument is not that it's irrelevant in the sense that watching it is meaningless. It's that Greatest of All Time is the highest possible bar, and debating the GOAT is a very specific argument. You can appreciate things a wrestler did post-prime without factoring them into the thought process for GOAT discussions. But since we're talking about it, I'm relatively sure I haven't seen anything that Funk or Lawler has done in the 90s or 2000s that touches Flair/Vader at Starrcade '93, the Ironman with Bret, the Flair/Steamboat matches in '94, Arn at Fall Brawl, the marathon performance that the Royal Rumble, the Regal series or the Tenryu matches from SWS. They have probably had some stuff that's as good as Flair's best matches with Hogan and Savage. But if anything, by ignoring that stuff, I am selling Flair short, not inflating his case to stack the deck in his favor. I think Flair was a good wrestler through 94 (I don't think Flair v. Arn is even close to as good as a lot of post-94 Flair and Lawler, but that's neither here nor there). I can see no good reason not to include that stuff at bare minimum in a discussion of him as a GOATC. I have no clue why we are supposed to pretend that guys good performances aren't a factor in how we assess their careers in the context of GOAT discussion. It makes zero sense to me on any level. I just can't take that opinion seriously at all. The idea that we just say "well these matches might be good, hell they might be great, but they are after the arbitrary cutoff we have established for when they are allowed to count in a GOAT calculus" is a position that strikes me as far more bizarre and at odds with how I view wrestling than "Bret Hart is better than Ric Flair."

We don't have his peak and I want to watch what Tim is watching. Having said that the role of SMW Commissioner was made for Bob Armstrong. Loss and I have talked about this before but I don't think there has ever been anyone more suited for a role in wrestling than that. The way he would deliver on all the big angles and moments was absolutely perfect. And for a guy his age he still had some tools in the ring.

Hickerson as P.Y. and Tojo would have been the best tag team of all time in the 70's. My dad would likely still be talking about them now.

I was around when you first started posting online as you may recall. People definitely didn't want Hogan on top, but I seem to recall an unbelievably devotion to the notion of Ric Flair as the best ever to the point where people would argue that his work in the second half of the 90's was still outstanding and among the best in the world. In fact back then the Flair boosters were insistent that longevity was the key to accessing wrestlers and that isolating peak above longevity was a literally insane position. As long as I've known you you've been a peak guy. I use to be a Flair booster and a longevity guy. Now I don't think longevity is the most important thing in the world and that peak is more important. But I don't think having good matches post prime is literally irrelevant, nor can I treat that opinion seriously. The big difference now is that different old guys are being pimped because the landscape has changed. The idea that Bock gets special points in the rear view because of "veteran appreciation" is just bizarre - people may not have been praising Bock as much back then but he was always regarded as good and the Hennig matches are about the only 80's AWA matches anyone talked about with regularity up until the release of the AWA 80's sets. The idea that no one thought Terry Funk's post-prime was really good is just silly. I exist and on top of that the number of ECW marks on the net back then was unbelievable. There have always been some old guys that were seen with favor and some that weren't. The difference now is that there are people who think lots of the old guys are best in the world level in real time. I'm not holding it against Flair. I'm saying it's a plus for Funk and Lawler. It's not a negative for Flair unless you want to make it such by stressing output as the be all and end all. If you do that I see no way that you can say "some output matters and other output doesn't" unless you are just outright lobbying and trying to figure out the best argument for your preferred guy. We all do that to one extent or the other, but I prefer it not be that blatant. Loss has clarified his view and I'm not accusing him of that, but there was confusion. But yes I do think it is "important" enough to note that guys continued to be good after their prime. Frankly I can't think of a single reason why you would exclude that from a discussion. It does not mean you favor longevity over peak. It means you don't pretend huge chunks of people's careers that were good don't exit. And this is where we disagree. I think there is plenty Funk and Lawler did post-90 that is good enough to note in a GOAT conversation. I don't think Flair has as much and he certainly has much lower lows than the other two. Even if you want to ignore Flair's lows (which I don't really have a problem with), I think Funk and Lawler were both more interesting wrestlers, with better performances than Flair from 94 onward at the latest. I read Jerry's threads. I've written hundreds and thousands of words about both over the years. I have zero problem with someone disagreeing. But when some starts from the position of "eh, Lawler fan writing this, who gives a fuck" which is basically how I took your statement (and see no reason to take it otherwise frankly), then what's the point of engaging them at all? Why have a message board? Why not just allow my thoughts to be self contained if everyone is going to immediately start from the position of "X is fanboy for Y" without at least considering why that is the case? All of that is fine and dandy and you can think those opinions are stupid. But if you don't tell me why those opinions are stupid, I'm probably just going to assume you are a dumbass troll and nothing you ever say should be treated seriously. Anybody who wants to look can see things I've written or said about Lawler in 2011 or Funk in general with very little effort. As throwaway lines in this thread they don't mean much and I'm not going to break down in detail what I like about those respective things here because the general point isn't about them, it's about the viewpoint that ALL post-prime work is completely irrelevant in assessing someone's career as an all time great. I want to be clear about this with the understanding coming in that some people will think I'm being mean or an asshole or that I may hurt some people's feelings - I don't really think any sane person believes that. I think that's total bullshit or the position of insane people. If it wasn't why would we ever watch people's work past their prime? Why include it on the yearbooks? Why ever talk about how guys have adapted well as their bodies have broken down? Why bother to give our opinions on anything that doesn't occur within someone's prime as a wrestler if it is completely and totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and can add nothing at all to our understanding of a particular wrestler? This isn't even about GOAT at this point to me, it's about the idea that ONLY people's primes matter at all and everything else is trivial bonus material at worst. I don't respect that opinion. This isn't about longevity for longevity's sake. I have zero problem with someone saying that peak should matter the most, or even that peak should matter far more than anything else. But the idea that anything that occurs outside of someone's peak is "eh, whatever" material? I can't wrap my head around it as a concept at all.

The WM IV match really wasn't that good last time I saw it. I remember thinking the Wrestlefest match was the best of their matches, but maybe I'm imagining things.

I would note that I am a mark for guys with multiple finishes. I am a mark for guys who can work big or small depending on need, especially if they are big. I am a mark for guys that bump big. This is Windham. I also will say that when I think about a lot of the Windham I like it's in the 90's. I love the team with Garvin for the brief period they had. I love the Flair matches and honestly think in many ways he was Flair's best opponent. I love the Lex match. I love Barry v. Eddie Gilbert. I love Barry v. Bobby Jaggers. I love the Ron Bass match. I love the match from Clash I. But I also really love the Pillman feud, the Scorp match, the various awesome tag performances in the 90's, et.