Dylan Waco

I don't think Heenan's heart was in it without Gorilla with him in the booth

One difference between the handhelds is that they can be from anywhere, not just bigger shows in bigger markets. This will tell us who busts their ass night to night, but if Shawn looks like shit on them (and I have no clue whether he would or not) that doesn't really mean anything to those who argue that he is an all time great because he was on on the big shows when it mattered. I would note that there is a ton of good house show footage available online and the last several house shows I have gone to have include several good matches and a couple that I would have no problem calling great.

Kris has me jealous and Charleston was always a market that got random stuff you wouldn't think it would get (Florida, SMW, one of Prentice's post-OMW feds). I know Chattanooga got a shit load of tv in the 80's and even early 90's as well, but I really only caught it in snippets when I was on vacation.

Oh I think you could definitely learn something, but it was not an era with the demands of current tv where a guy like Sheamus is expected to have multiple good tv matches a week. It also was not an era where we have the taped MSG/Maple Leaf/Spectrum/Boston Garden shows like we do with the era before it.

The tv demands were FAR lighter during that era than they are now.

Bulldog match at Beware of Dog was disappointing. I know, I was there live Still think people should watch it, particularly if it's part of the alleged "career year" of Shawn.

I would shoot for both of the DBS matches, the Owen match and the Diesel match from Good Friends Better Enemies. Wait didn't you watch one of the DBS matches the other day?

If you want to make sweeping pronouncements about Shawn's career arc, you should probably watch his 1996 matches. Yeah I agree with this. I mean I think Shawn's best performances were 86-88 with a handful of exceptions later on. But I would encourage people who really want to get into the meat of this to watch the most pimped Shawn matches from his singles peak as well as some other stuff from that period.

This is probably an argument better served to take place once the AWA Set is in people's hands, but I would love to hear how something like MindGames is a better Shawn performance than the peak AWA Rockers tags.

If people can watch AWA Rockers matches and think "boy Shawn really had his hand held in that one" I will be pretty surprised. I'm far from a Shawn fan, but he's awfully good in that period. I also want to correct something Vic said. He said it was "sad" that Will gets to work on the WWF Set, but that's not really an accurate accounting of the situation. In fact Will collects the footage, puts the DVDS together, ships them out, et. He is one of three people (sometimes more) who watches matches when and if he is on a committee. Now if it's Vic's opinion that it's "sad" that Will is the person who is going to be issuing the sets there is a pretty simple solution - do the work and release your own WWF Set. You could put fifty Demolition matches on it if you thought they merited that match volume. If it's Vic's opinion that it is "sad" that Will is going to be shitting on Demolition matches and keeping them from making a set he's wrong - that's not how the process works.

I would be interested in the case for Mutoh over Shawn. I think Bad News Brown is kinda shitty. Marty I think was right there was Shawn and was a hell of a singles wrestler when put in the right position. But he was a drug addict who fucked up his own shit. Duggan's peak might have been better than Shawn's, but it was short. I could see an argument either way on DK, though I would lean toward Shawn. I will reserve judgment on Malenko til I see his supposedly strong WCW B show runs. For now I would argue in favor of Shawn as I don't think Malenko's cruiserweight ace stuff holds up very well. Reed, Jake, Owen I would rate ahead of Shawn. I'll go into details on some of this later if people actually care.

I think Larry Zbyszko was a dog shit announcer but he was a very good - at times great - promo.

Blood On The Sand would for sure be my top Michaels match. My top Michaels singles match is much tougher. My favorite is probably the match with Jarrett but I always thought that was Jarrett calling a TN style match in TN and Shawn following along with the athletic spots. I love Mindgames, but that fucking finish. Maybe the WM X Ladder Match?

Cubeta stumbled into some good shoots. I liked the Gene Ligon one, loved the Buddy Landell one (which is on youtube) and also loved the Jeff Walton series on LA wrestling.

Side question - if people were doing a Michaels top ten what would they have on it? I think I'd have at least three Rockers v. Rose/Somers matches. Maybe four.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the greatest things that happened to human civilization. Murderous tyrants in DC having a monopoly on a bomb they were willing to use to rain hell fire on kids was not a benefit to anyone. In wrestling related news, does anyone think this potential Chikara/TNA working relationship is going to end well for either? I'm not saying it won't and I think it could make TNA tv more interesting. But I am always sort of wary of stuff like this

Watch that match. Rapada is pretty not competent.

Just out of interest, how much European footage have you watched? Have you seen much Steve Grey, Clive Myers, Mike Jordan, Johnny Kidd? or how about the guys who there doesn't appear to be that much footage of such as Jon Cortez, Alan Sarjeant, Ken Joyce etc? I've seen more Euro footage than most (I would guess), but less than enough to be anything near an "expert." I like Johnny Kidd a lot, but really haven't seen that much of him. I've seen more Myers and Grey, but I was never as high on them as others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP1vTE88e44 Was talking about Ozark Mountain Wrestling the other day with Bix and by random happenstance I managed to stumble upon this Colorado Kid v. Bull Pain Coward Waves the Flag match from the promotion here. It's JIP but what's shown is a ton of fun despite Rapada who is awful. Pain bleeds a fucking gusher, does a really nice splash off the ropes, plus a diving clothesline spot on the floor, takes a bump off a stairwell (with the announcer making an outrageous claim that the bump was 20 plus feet), et.

This really doesn't tell anyone much of note, but we could get CWF and Watts tv on UHF here in Charleston in 86. No clue how or why with the Florida, but you could get it