Dylan Waco

The one thing I took away from it is that NJPW is comically overrated

I used to watch TNA solely for Don West. He is easily the best personality in the history of that promotion.

ROH was easily the worst promotion and tv show of the year.

I like Chris, but I hope that's not true because that data is virtually worthless in the case of the WWF

Rogers loves to comment on youtube. With Buddy I could see the argument that he's among the best at many things, but he is a guy where I don't see any real weaknesses. He can work a multitude of styles and different sorts of psych into his matches better than...well...anyone? Sucks that there isn't more readily available online,but there is a pretty good comp out there

Some people pretend Daniels/Kazarian is a great team and Aries has been great so there is that

Harley Race v. Crusher Blackwell - St. Louis 11/16/84 On paper this has a dream match quality to it, but it doesn't quite hit that level. This does feature some amusing Blackwell posturing, one of the better weeble/wobble Blackwell sell jobs I've seen and a Blackwell dropkick. Blackwell's selling when on the defensive is good and Harley doesn't look bad per se, but the energy in this feels off until Harley hits his suplex and comes up selling his back which results in a near fall that the crowd really buys into. Race does take a big flopping bump of his own when Blackwell makes his comeback and we get the great image of Blackwell laying slouched in he corner after the charge like a morbidly obese guy at sizzler going into diabetic shock. Blackwell his a one armed suplex and sets up for his splash but Race moves out of the way. Race ends up hitting a huge deep slam that looks absolutely awesome and gets a massive pop. Seriously this is one of the better slams I've ever seen in a wrestling match in terms of impact and the near fall off of it is incredible. Harley ends up going for a press, but Blackwell catches him and hits a sick falling powerslam before getting his legs all the way up on the top rope to steal the fall. This was slow evolving but the milking of the big moves was excellent and what they were able to do with so little in terms of time/spots in the ring was really impressive. This is better than some of the Blackwell matches on the AWA Set, though by no means would it be in his top tier.

Fitch is MMA fighter. I don't like Chikara, but I think when you consider what he has at his disposal Quackenbush is the best promoter in wrestling

I literally don't know what this means or what the point of it is

Presentation is something you constantly push in other discussions. Why are you ignoring it here? Why is it hard to understand that presentation matters? Yes Paul Orndorff would have had more job offers than Paul Jones in 1986 (of course I reject focus on 86 and I think Orndorff is a guy who has a real advantage over other WWF guys in this argument but whatever). But on the flipside Cornette and the Midnights had a meeting with Vince and chose not to go. Jerry Blackwell showed up at a tv taping and said "fuck this." The point isn't that the WWF didn't have a lot of talent. It's that the vast, vast, vast majority of their talent was expendable and could have been replaced with any number of other guys. You can not say the same for Crockett

I really need to rewatch Race. Maybe after PR and Bock

Casas v. Panther finishing reasonably high in feud of the year was my favorite result. Well that and TNA getting best weekly tv show AND worst promotion....

ROTY is an obsolete award that has no value in today's landscape. Virtually no one who gets votes is a true rookie.

This is an 80's tourney no? If not Wiskowski needs to be added to Portland and Billy Jack dropped. There is a fair amount of 80's Florida out there from what I hear but it's not well circulated. There is stuff like Windham v. Jaggers which I have and really like but I'm not sure it's ever been online and doubt very many people have ever seen it.

Yes.

If Choshu doesn't make a region he has to be a freelancer. I would argue for Fujiwara too. If we do Europe I guess Jim Breaks, Marty Jones, Johnny Saint and Mark Rocco (who I'm not even that high on) would be the best four. If Lucha is going to be one category I would go El Dandy, Satanico, La Fiera and Emilo Charles Jr. but it's really tough and I could see Sangre Chicana and others as well.

Ditching Southwest and keeping Central States would be insane. Hell Southwest was a bigger promotion than Continental and Portland too and at it's height was drawing well enough to compare with some of the other regional staples on the list. I will also say that if we are going purely on footage in particular territories in terms of voting no one from Florida, Georgia, Montreal, et has any business getting very far because there is so little of it. I think the guys should be voted on for their 80's careers, with relative regions being their "home team" for lack of better term but that's just me. I don't hate any of Kris's picks but it feels wrong leaving Choshu out and I have a hard time leaving Hayes out from WCCW just because I thought he was arguably the best guy on the Texas Set.

Bockwinkel v. Jake Milliman - 1984 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEoiKwIYsQ I'm 90 percent sure there is a slightly more competitive match from tv between these two. This was a steamrolling by Bock who was working very aggressive. Almost an offensive showcase from him as he goes from working standard holds, to a big time looking bodyslam, to finishing off with the figure-four. Fun squash, but this isn't the match of their's I wanted to watch.

What's a traditional response? I think Pillman was fifty times the face that he was a heel. He has heel matches you can point to that are very good (v. Douglas from Saturday Night, teaming with Windham, et), but his babyface run was on a completely different level to me. I've said this before but to my eyes at his best as a face (89-92) he was on the level of the all time great faces of his type. I'm thinking guys like Morton, Steamboat, Rey, et. WCW really fucked up with Pillman in my view. I'm not saying he was the type of guy you could build a promotion around but he was very good about mixing things up and I think he could have easily slid into a Rey like role. He was just as comfortable working Luger as he was Liger, could work compelling underdog feud v. Windham (seriously a great feud) or carry scrubs like Scotty Flamingo to very good matches and could be plugged into just about any tag team situation and make it work with a big time performance. His offense was flashy and exciting, but he wasn't a spot running guy and any time he went for something big or took a big bump it felt huge. I liked the Loose Cannon stuff at the time and The Blondes had their moment as an act. I could even see the argument that in theory he was better suited to be a heel. But in practice, in the ring, I think he was far better as a face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q7iUnGrFnk...C&index=104[/url] Ray Gonzalez and Carlito vs Thunder and Lightning Aniversario 2012 I thought this was a pretty decent little match, but it didn't blow me away. I really don't like Carlito at all and he was in for the bulk of this but he was pretty inoffensive and I like Thunder and Lightning as a team. Gonzalez was clearly the best guy in this but he was also in for the least amount of time. Honestly I liked the post match beatdown more than the match. [/url] Ray Gonzalez vs Davey Richards Aniversario 2012 This was the best Davey match I've seen from 2012 which seems like damning someone with feint praise, but Davey did work Finlay in August. Extremely fun match and I have to give Davey credit as he was surprisingly fun as the chickenshit heel. I still thought Gonzalez interactions with the crowd and selling carried the match, but this was well put together, had plenty of fun moments and went about the perfect length. Thought the finish was a bit flat, but this was still a good match.

Glad you enjoyed it John. "Nights Like These" is a great song. They have a lot of them. I'll shill "The War" here. Ben Nichols wrote it about his grandfather's experience in WWII. Live versions include Rick Steff on accordian which is shockingly great.

I forgive the HBK vote on the grounds that the Embry vote is awesome

WWC Cage Match is my new favorite match ever I think. I don't give a fuck what anyone says I really enjoy Colon as a worker. He's not flashy, he has huge flaws and he's limited, but he will bleed, run headfirst into skulls and steel and I actually think his figure-four act works. I'm 90% sure I've seen that Wargames match but I'll be watching it again. Thanks for the other links btw. No way in hell I'm gonna try and navigate through DEAN's thread, but I'll search for Ray v. Thunder too.

I've got nothing against Austin but I'm not sure how well his work ages. I'd rate Pillman safely ahead of him at this point and as much as I love Pillman top ten feels like a pretty substantial stretch in his case.

Rougeau Brothers v. Super Medicos - 1990 This was a perfectly okay tag match I guess, but the only thing that stands out is the fact that the crowd spends the entire match in a near righteous state throwing shit into the ring. At one point there is a kid front row that throws six or seven consecutive things in the ring in about a twenty second span. Rougeau's heel act seems really forced to me and always has, but you have to give them credit for risking death here. Leo Burke v. Invader #1 - Boxing Match 1990 I watched this on Dave's Leo Burke comp some time back and remembered liking it, but I absolutely loved it here. To be sure this is not for everyone, but I have always been a mark for this gimmick in the right setting. This is pretty much the perfect setting as Invader has fucking Hector Camacho and Robocop for seconds. Leo shows up and gets pelted with trash, meanwhile Invader's entrance includes some strange Robocop voiceover. At one point when Invader gets knocked down Robocop does this hilarious "get up" gesture from ringside that is to awesome for words. The match itself is really funny as the guy trained by Camacho doesn't even seem to use a real boxing stance, meanwhile Leo is working jabs from the jump. Loved the bit with Leo busting open Invader with headbutts and Invader going to drop toeholds to cut him down. Also thought Leo coming out from a round and spitting in Invader's face to gain an advantage was awesome. Lots of the blows looked pretty "eh" but the atmosphere was pretty great, I liked the way Burke sold everything and he really connected with one super nasty shot on Invader. Third fall with Leo going to wrestling and nasty knees to try and take advantage, only to get paid back and knocked the fuck out with a bare fisted heart punch is something that was really random, but I thought it was a great finish. This really has to be seen to be believed and even if you don't like it as much as me I can't imagine not enjoying it on some level. Carlos Colon v. Chicky Starr - Cage Match 8/3/86 Man the more I see these crowds the more wrong it seems to me that Colon is not in the WON HoF. Anyhow this was a fun little cage match, but even at less than nine minutes it was probably too long. Starr was a manager/wrestler and this was basically Colon beating his ass. There was one short heat segment off of a low blow that I thought was well done and I enjoyed the way they milked the violence, but the logical ending for this was during the awesome visual spot with both guys brawling while sitting on the cage and Colon nearly tumbling to the ground. Instead one of Starr's protege's runs out and throws in the towel after a piledriver. This is actually better than it sounds, but I'd hesitate to call it a good match.