Dylan Waco

Definitely a better promo. Also, let's pretend for a second that HHH was given Roma's spot in the horsemen. Do you think he'd be spoken of in the terms Roma is now? I just think this is one instance where you are pushing the argument too far. HHH might be average bordering on shit, but he's not THAT shit. Say what you want about HHH but he is a student of the game and he would have known that having a change to run with Arn in the horsemen was a big opportunity to learn. Roma didn't have even that level of awareness. He was just a gym monkey. What's absurd here is that you are saying that HHH is basically the same as a gym monkey. Is that really true? Can you objectively look at that and be happy with it? That is, unless you think Roma is more than just a gym monkey, which is a different conversation altogether. One I wouldn't be against having out. I think you should re-read what I wrote. I specifically noted that the key difference between Roma and HHH is that HHH was more than willing to play the carny game and Roma was either too stupid, unwilling or incapable of doing it. So in fact in my original post I was making a distinction between one guy who was a "student" of carny culture and one guy who just happened to be a guy living around it. If HHH had been inserted in Roma's spot as a Horseman he would have had the good sense, to loan Flair a few thousand or help Arn score ring rats. Had he not done that his level of talent would not have taken him much farther than Roma's level of talent did. As far as better promo goes, Roma on that Horseman DVD was cutting better heel promos than anything I've ever seen from HHH and I say that without a hint of irony

There are two things I find objectionable about this statement. The first is the claim that you "don't think" you should "be defending anything here." If you don't want to defend anything don't. If you feel you shouldn't have to defend an opinion, but feel compelled to do so for some reason what is the reason? The second problem I see is that those who think Henry is a good worker tend to write and talk far more about what they like about Henry as a performer than those who don't like him do. I actually don't even think that point is arguable. So even if "the burden of proof" argument is one I saw much value in (and it's really not for something like this), I hardly think those who enjoy the work of Henry are known for their unwillingness to go on record for why the found him to be a good worker. If anything Henry supporters like myself tend to be very long winded to a fault when making our points. For example, here is the write up I did of Henry for my buddy Tom Holzerman's a1w100 where I voted him number one: In the previous two years my vote for number one was not tough at all. In both 2009 and 2010 no wrestler in the U.S. combined volume of quality, with consistency and strength of big match performances as well as Rey Mysterio. In actuality no one was particularly close. However, 2011 was a different story. Rey got hurt and left the fold in August. On top of that CM Punk had put together a remarkable year up to that point, including an all-time great series with John Cena, a far better than it should have been series with Randy Orton, consistent TV performances and of course an excellent match with Rey himself. In a year with Rey on the shelf, Punk seemed like the heir apparent. But there was a sleeping giant that emerged from the pack. That giant was Mark Henry, a polarizing figure in many circles, but someone who seemed to enjoy near unanimous approval in 2011 on the strength of a career defining run. I myself have been a fan of Henry for some years and considered him one of the top workers in the States in both 06 and 08. Still there was something about last year that was different, as Henry was no longer just a player. As the year went on he started to feel like THE player. Henry started the year slowly as he was still a babyface on Raw, being used in radom settings as a sort of “gatekeeper” for guys trying to work their way into the upper tier or as a monster for little guys to bounce off of. He had some quality matches during this period, mostly notable a tag match from Superstars and a quality house show bout with Tyson Kidd that is available online. He was not setting the World on fire though and it would have been unimaginable to see him breaking out to have the most successful and entertaining year of his career. And then the unimaginable happened. Henry was drafted to Smackdown, turned heel, and in relatively quick order went on a tear. Starting in April and running through the end of the year there was no more consistent and interesting figure in wrestling than Mark Henry. Where Punk had extremely high highs, he also had extremely low (and frankly embarrassing) lows. Part of this was due to booking and circumstance and Punk remained a consistent performer in the ring. But Punk started to feel stale and it became a chore to sit through segments involve him that ultimately felt like a great performer being set up to fail. Even in matches Henry was simply more fun to watch. It was not just about “fun” though. Henry had very good to great matches with a multitude of wrestlers. His series with Sheamus, Big Show, Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan featured a multitude of high quality matches in a variety of different settings. In particular the matches all had a distinct feel and showcased different aspects of Henrys character (and talents). His matches with Sheamus and Big Show looked and felt like brutal clash of the titans affairs. His matches with Orton saw him work as a remarkably effective dominating heel, with decisive power. In some respects his most impressive performance was against Bryan in the cage where he was working as a wounded wild animal, evoking a legitimate sense of vulnerability, without losing the any of the sense of violence that made his character so compelling. His trash talking and domineering attitude in the ring made nearly every affair watchable to the point where seeing him matched up with The Great Khali actually made me excited wondering if and how Henry would be able to make it work (he did). He was remarkably adept at saving and building to the big spots at the right moments. The World’s Strongest Slam off the top of the cage was the finish of the year. Or was it the definite shrug off of the RKO and WSS the night he won the title? Or was it the superplex spot that “broke the ring” with Show? Or was it putting Sheamus through a barricade before beating a ten count? They were all so great it’s hard to pick. His parting of the red seas spot with the lumberjacks in his Smackdown match with Christian was one of the more entertaining spots of the year. His bout with Rey from April was one of the most underrated bouts of the year. He took the Big Show’s WMD better than anyone and would regularly surprise with other impressive bumps. There was just a lot of stuff in 2011 that Mark Henry did really, really well. In December I had a chance to see Henry and Punk live within a week’s time. Henry lapped Punk despite already feeling the effects of the injury that would cut his run short. At this point I really started to consider “is Henry the (U.S.) wrestler of the year over Punk?” Overall the Smackdown ratings trends and direction of their characters led me to conclude the answer to the question was “yes.” In the ring…? The best way I can explain my decision is by looking at the 2009 Academy Awards. Sean Penn ended up winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his lead role in the bio-epic Milk, edging out Mickey Rourke for his excellent work in The Wrestler. As a wrestling fan and a movie fan I felt that Rourke should have won for two reasons. Firstly it was a role that transcended the movie and told the viewer as much about the troubled career and past of Rourke as it did about “Randy The Ram.” It was a career peak that sprung up out of nowhere signaling the resurrection of a man who had seemed permanently damned to irrelevance. Secondly Penn had a tight template to work off of. He was to become Harvey Milk, a man who really did exist and about whom a lot is known. Rourke’s job was to create a new character, realistic enough to connect with viewers. He had to study the context of a business he knew little about, understand it and take scraps of his own life to mold an authentic representation of a man who embodied the reality of that World. CM Punk is Sean Penn. He’s had other dances and will have more. I cannot begrudge someone for voting him the best in ring performer of 2011. He was handed a role and played it well. Mark Henry emerged from nowhere, created a role, made himself relevant again and had a career year in the process. Maybe the Academy voted with their head when they picked Penn in 2009, but they should have voted with their heart. I voted with my heart. I voted for Mark Henry. Now I don't expect those who dislike or are indifferent to Henry to write anything of that length. But my point is that Henry fans tend to be Henry fans in the true sense of the term, not "well I like him cause he did a move that looked neat" or "I like him because he has cool entrance music" types. The idea that Henry fans don't go to bat for him with more than defensive posturing strikes me as the exact opposite of the truth. In fact what I often see happen, particularly before last year, were Henry fans labeled as contrarians or reductionist or trend followers for daring to like someone like Henry more than someone like Kurt Angle or Edge or Chris Jericho or whoever. Give me examples of this "snippy" attitude. I actually think you are one of the snippier posters on the board so I find this to be an odd complaint on the surface.

What's absurd about it? What does HHH do better than Roma aside from fuck/carry the bags of people in power? Also Bossman's poem was offensive and wonderful.

What on Earth are you talking about? Who here is criticizing you for not liking Henry? I generally think the purpose of boards like this is to take positions that you are a willing to defend. Otherwise why bother posting on a message board?

Goldberg This is a good comp because it's two guys with huge egos, who became stars during the same era, and had invincibility gimmicks where they squashed people on tv every week. To be fair I'm not sure that was supposed to be HHH's gimmick, but it was certainly a byproduct. Also not sure it was supposed to be Goldberg's gimmick but in a case where he was the exact opposite of HHH the fans were attracted to him which led to his monster push v. fans being repelled by him til they give in after unrelenting assault of him being shoved down their throats ala HHH. In any event he did about as many tv jobs as Goldberg during their relative peaks, both guys had poorly timed injuries that contributed to their peaks being cut off, both guys are probably remembered as much bigger stars than they really were, both guys had elaborate entrances that took forever, et. Goldberg was more protected in the sense that he was never really allowed to give terrible, rambling promos, or dictate the length of his own matches. Or at least he was never stupid enough to say "hey I bet I could have a really great match with Wrath if you gave us 35 minutes." I don't think there is any question that Goldberg was the better tv wrestler. If pressed you could probably point to more HHH matches that people raved about at the time, but Goldberg made squashes and competitive squashes fun. He was really good about busting out those one or two spots a match where you would think "what the fuck, how does he know how to do that?" I could watch a hundred Goldy v. Hugh Morris matches before I could watch all but a small handful of HHH tv matches. I am not a huge fan of the pedigree, but usually finisher would be an area where you would think HHH would be competitive. But Goldberg is one of the only guys in history that had a spear that looked great and the jackhammer was an awesome finish. Goldberg is a guy who everyone called limited but had really fun tv matches v. Hogan and Raven. Goldberg is a guy people say couldn't work in competitive matches, but the Regal match was pretty damn good and that DDP match was fucking great. Actually for superhero god king v. the most over ace crusher variation in wrestling matches, Goldberg v. DDP got it right the first time and had a tremendous match. HHH v. Orton have had tons of chances and while they've had good matches, they have never had anything at that level. Goldberg was actually better at getting across vulnerability than HHH and Goldberg is a guy who wasn’t supposed to be vulnerable to much anything. Post-prime HHH has been unbearable more often than not. Post-prime Goldberg was actually a good fit in the WWE and his work during that period was much better than HHH's work during the same period. I actually don't see any case at all for HHH here. Ray Traylor Oh seriously now, Bossman is easily better. I have already mentioned this, but Bossman/Garvin ten count finish, is better than any comparative HHH Last Man Standing style spot. Bossman is one of those guys who when you go back he ages better, and he was clearly good at the time. He’s got fun little tv matches and undercard ppv matches and tag team matches. When he was given chances to shine on the big stage, he was a good drawing opponent for Hogan who he had very good matches with (among the best in Hogan’s career). He had awesome slugfest brawls with Vader that were as convincing as you could get, something HHH’s brawls – even the good ones – really don’t get across. When he pops up as guy brawling around SMW buildings as special enforcer or in cop gear wrestling Kobashi he is charming as hell and you really wish he was a full timer. He had one of the best punches in wrestling. His angle about Big Show’s dad was far better and more memorable inappropriate comedy act than DX talking about how they were bisexual and/or wearing thongs. Kennel From Hell was a better match than Michaels/HHH Hell In A Cell, though the Michaels/HHH match may have had higher ratio of bitches. Bossman is one of those guys I think was pretty great, but want to go back and re-explore. He’s not really a guy I see as a top 100 all-time contender, but he wouldn’t look insane on such a list and I think he’s a guy who’s status could really go up with re-exploration. HHH holds up about as well as Sayama spin kicks. Scott Steiner This is an interesting one because for all of Steiner’s faults, he is a guy who in old age has been fairly entertaining with the EXCEPTION of his last WWE run which was horribly fucked to hell by HHH sandbagging and idiocy. If you want to say the low of Steiner falling over himself while his pink thong whale tail was exposing itself was lower than anything HHH has done I could see it. I mean Katie Vick was bad, but fucking the dead may be a step up from roidhead guy in Prince Arthur head gear wearing Victoria’s Secret underwear. Still this is easily Steiner. When I was a kid Steiner was one of my very favorite wrestlers. He is one of the guys who solidified my fandom and I’m not ashamed to say it was because of MOVEZ. See I like the moves when they mean something now, but back then I just liked to see guys get crushed with them. Hell I still like to see guys get crushed with them and I would much rather a guy be unprofessional dude head dropping Brian Knobbs, than unprofessional guy burying the entire roster and wasting tv time with boring as piss promos. Steiner at his most dynamic and explosive was one of the most fun guys ever, whereas HHH at his most dynamic and explosive was a good piece of luggage for Mick Foley. Hell even post-prime Steiner where his finish looked like dog shit is better. Certainly the promos are a fuckload more entertaining, but I would rather watch short, stiff tv brawls with General Rection than “Cerebral Assassin” clinics. Steiner is a rare guy who actually showed lots of fun stuff inTNA and his use of racism in wrestling was more entertaining than HHH’s. Even this year I would take his terrorizing of Indians over HHH and his husband arguing about whether or not to put down the family pet. Paul Roma I don’t care for Roma, but mechanically I don’t see how he was worse. Actually much like HHH, Roma was a guy who was okay enough as an undercard talent working other undercard talent. I liked the Young Stallions as a kid and Power and Glory were a fun team with a cool finish. Roma looked and played the cocky douche role pretty well, sort of a pre-Jersey Shore Situation. He was badly exposed when they tried to bring him in as a Horseman because he clearly wasn’t at that level. You just don’t have your utility fielder batting cleanup. Roma suffers here because he was a douche who didn’t have the right friends. If Roma had gotten in with Flair, Arn or even Bischoff – maybe carry Arn’s bags, or give Ric a 10k loan or something, forged a civil union with Garrett Bischoff, et. – it is easy to envision us having the same thread with his name in the place of HHH. Anyhow I have to rate HHH better, because his overpushed, clearly out of place, on air position was buttressed by really excellent behind the scenes brown nosing, fellating, et. Roma is really the better on air douche though. Mike Von Erich It’s late and I’m not sure I can think of a Toxic Shock joke involving HHH, Steph and tampons that even approaches being funny enough to make a comment on Mike worthwhile. So just imagine it here. Jeff Jarrett I have been talking to Loss some as he goes through the yearbooks and young Jarrett has been a real revelation for him. I have vague memories of Jarrett from that era and look forward to checking it out, but I don’t need to rely on that stuff to know that Jarrett is better than HHH. Jarrett is a guy who understands psychology and has a good enough delivery where even in overbooked, clusterfucks he usually contributes something that makes you remember he’s a good wrestler. Both guys have loyalty to people who have been horrible influences on the creative direction of the business and in both cases it is possible that sex plays a role. But I don’t get the feeling Jarrett was ever driving the bad ideas the way HHH was. Anyhow, Double J era was a lot better than Blue Blood era HHH and Michaels match was a great Jarrett style match where he led Shawn, something HHH could never do. WCW Jarrett was better than DX era HHH. As heel aces neither guy was believable. HHH had the better matches but was in a far better situation. Jarrett is better working with washed up vets as Greed match and Raven/Angle carry jobs show. He had good matches with Styles and Lethal that I liked better than any “HHH elevates undercard talent and cuts his balls off the next week” match which would be the best comparison. I thought he had a better year last year than HHH too actually. I will grant that Angle’s sloppy seconds is less impressive than Savage’s sloppy seconds. Booker T I am not as high on Booker T as many, but I can see no reason to rate HHH anywhere near his level. A good measure of how good a wrestler is relative to HHH is to see how horribly he sandbagged them, buried them, shit on them, undermined their push, et. Booker T was one of the more egregious victims of HHH’s justifiable insecurities. Now the most offensive thing about all of that to me was that Flair was used as a surrogate for the most racially charged material and it all felt flat compared to Flair’s “biographical” account of Rufus R Jones passing out with a bucket of fried chicken on the hood of his Cadilliac and missing a show as a result. Still one of the reasons Steiner is better than HHH is because he didn’t get Rick to call Samoa Joe a half breed, he did it himself. Anyhow Booker got the ultimate HHH kill shot, and still managed to recover. Really if you look at the scope of their careers it is very difficult to formulate a case for HHH that doesn’t come down to a deep commitment to WWE mythology and the reality is that HHH had a ton of advantages. Booker T is a guy who was good enough that he convinced people that the terrible Harlem Heat team was good and was competent enough to make people ignore the fact that Stevie Ray is one of the worst in ring performers in the history of wrestling. Conversely HHH was “saddled” with guys like Michaels, Waltman and the NAO who were far more over than he was. Booker T got his first singles push and got over huge working guys like Benoit, Martel and Finlay and coming across like he was on their level and a capable match. HHH got his first substantial run working opposite Foley and The Rock and really felt like the clear “worst” of the bunch. HHH went on to get elevated by getting a series of wins over those guys, being shoved down everyone’s throats and having the most insane push I’ve ever seen Vince give a heel. Booker T got elevated after a worked shoot with Jarrett/Hogan/Russo and when he was under the GI Bro gimmick. Amazingly Booker was more over than HHH even then. BookDust was funnier than DX skits. King Booker was better in every way than the King of Kings. Surprise Royal Rumble entrant Booker T more entertaining and worthwhile than “I’m here to kill Punk’s heat” returning hero HHH. I am a mark for guys with multiple credible finishers and Booker T had a bunch, whereas Trip has the pedigree and a shitty looking sledgehammer strike. Book has proven he can work pretty much any slot on the card in any setting and he will have a respectable match. HHH has proven he can get himself booked against guys where there is a fifty-fifty shot things might turn out well. Louie Spicolli For some reason Spicolli’s death affected me a lot at the time, presumably because he seemed really, really young even in comparison to all the other guys who were dropping dead. I remember being a pretty big fan of Rad Radford as a WWE enhancement talent with personality and some cool offense for the era. In ECW he really didn’t do a lot that stood out and he wasn’t in WCW long enough to mean much of anything. Having said that his gimmick of being bag carrier for Hall and Nash made for some amusing on air moments, whereas HHH real life playing of that role was not as amusing. I certainly liked him more than HHH. Ernest Miller I can think of a few plusses for Miller. Namely he had a better over worked entrance and despite less career stardom, he had far more successful movie career. A part of me has always wished the planned Mortal Combat/Street Fighter WCW subdivision had taken off, as I could see Miller v. Masked Klansman Tracy Smothers or Mr. Fuji-managed crane kick specialist Jamie Dundee being tremendous matches. Miller is one of those rare guys in wrestling who seemed to be good and suck simultaneously. I feel confident in saying HHH was the better in ring performer, but Miller is one of those historic anomalies that defy this is good/this sucks conventions. Mikey Whipwreck Mikey in a LANDSLIDE. I had remembered thinking post-WCW Mikey was not anywhere near as good as pre-WCW Mikey and that’s not really untrue, but post-WCW Mikey was better than HHH at the time and that was HHH’s recognized peak. Mikey as accidental ace was actually a lot more believable than HHH as dominating heel ace. HHH is a guy whose best matches were heavily gimmicked affairs, well Mikey is a guy who has had some great performances in heavily gimmicked affairs. Unlike HHH though the majority of Mikey’s best performances were in straight up matches v. guys like Douglas, Richards, Jerry Lynn, Candido, et. Mikey was a substantially better bumper than HHH and that’s the one area where HHH is clearly above average. Mikey’s reluctant backyarder gimmick was more compelling than any HHH gimmick. Mikey was a far better tag wrestler than HHH ever was. In an alternate universe I can imagine HHH being sent down to ECW after the current call, to work as Lance Wright’s personal assistant in ECW. I imagine HHH could have been carried to the best matches of his career v. Mikey and he would have worked well as the third best guy on his team in matches with Furnas/Lafon or Ulf Herman/Brakuss v. Mikey/Spike/Axl. Jerry Flynn I would really need to see more of it, but shootstyle era Jerry Flynn is more fun than any era HHH. It is actually possible that shootstyle Flynn had enough great matches where you could build a case for him over HHH on that alone though I’m not certain of it and have no clue how many matches he worked like that off hand. I do know that Flynn was just perfectly cast in WCW. Literally not sure anyone in the history of that promotion had a more believable, true to life gimmick, as aging white guy with hideous mullet who always dresses in his martial arts digs and claims to be karate specialist/runs “dojo” for children in between binge drinking but somehow can never win in a real fight is something I am pretty confident everyone has run across in their lives at least once. I don’t know a town in America that doesn’t have a Jerry Flynn and as a single representative of a very real archetype, he succeeds on a level HHH doesn’t. I mean yes there are competitive bodybuilders who run blood cleansing schemes to beat drug tests and fuck testosterone doped near-trannies in every town too, but the average person is not likely to run into them and if you do you find them sort of repellent. Flynn is a guy you know and probably find oddly charming despite the fact that he’s clearly a fraud or a has been or both. “You see these pants? Do you wanna be spinkicked by a guy wearing these pants?” is the only other attempt I can recall offhand at mass culture trying to capture the reality of the World’s Jerry Flynn’s, so he gets extra points for being an unexplored form in high art. Less importantly he was one of the most fun WCW jobber guys to watch and served a unique role in the jobber caste as he was a tall guy, working a martial arts gimmick so he was always allowed to look imposing and get shit in and it was usually pretty cool shit. There aren’t too many guys you would rather watch Golberg destroy than Flynn and there was something exciting about seeing him work anyone because he seemed like a guy who theoretically could get pushed even though it never happened. Mechanically Flynn was better, as a representative of Americana he was better, and it is even conceptually feasible that he had a few really great matches that are better than HHH’s best matches though that is pure speculation and I suspect someone will immediately call bullshit on that. Whatever, Flynn rules. British Kendo Nagasaki Honestly I have always avoided him like the plague because I was told he sucked. It would be wrong to say I've seen none of him, but I honestly can't remember watching more than a few minutes.

Pretty sure Will and I are in major disagreement over this, but I loved the Show v. Brock sprint series

Trying to remember what I would have called a MOTY 10 years ago. I definitely have shifted opinions some over the years, but I was never as high on the SD Six as others, was already souring on Angle, and hated Raw with the exception of Blondes v. Bookdust stuff. I did love Lesnar though. I'd really have to think about this more.

Back then, when snowflakes used to be thrown around for every match talked about, MOTYC meant an absolute judgment. To me a match could be MOTYC if the ratings was no less than ****1/4. I know this kind of thinking is a bit passé, but to me the term MOTYC still means a certain absolute quality. It's a same thing when I judge movies. If I don't have more than 2 or 3 movies that I can say are Movies-of-the-year candidates, it means that it's a pretty weak year. If I have zero and that the best movie I've seen is no better than *very good*, then it's a winner by default, but not really a MOTYC. Throw it a year back and it wouldn't be a MOTYC. Well, it's the same thing there. Well it's not really the same thing here because my top two matches are tremendous matches that I think are easily better than Punk v. Henry.

By the way Dylan, Richards vs Elgin is my # 1 so far for this year. Discuss. Actually I would like to hear what you liked about the match. I know you thought it was one of the better ROH matches in years and I'm curious why you rate it at the top of the heap now.

It's a running MOTY list. If I see a match I like a lot for one reason or another I plug it into the list. I write at least something about all of these matches at WKO for those who care enough and will drag them over. Would it be better to wait til the end of the year? Maybe, but I am obsessive and hate forgetting shit. Plus I see no harm in a thread where people discuss various matches that they liked an awful lot rather than pedantic points about whether or not a match was "effective" or "good."

I got two text matches immediately after the match, both declaring it the best WWE match of the year (which I think it clearly was). It has gotten high praise from multiple people.

Saying they 'don't exist' is simply shorthand for you saying you personally wouldn't rate them on the same level. They exist for me, although I'll admit it's a few years since I watched any Nitro. I haven't got a record of stuff I watched and loved, but in 1996 alone I remember a load of matches with Rey/Malenko, Rey/Ultimo, Benoit/Guerrero, Benoit/Regal, Finlay/Regal, a few Benoit/Anderson tags sometimes with Flair involved, Juventud was in some fun stuff. Now a lot of these are just fun sprints and pretty short from what I remember, but that doesn't make them any worse for it. They fall into the same category of Punk/Henry - enjoyable matches all the more pleasing for being on free television. Not match of the year contenders (although you could make a case for the July 8th Rey/Malenko match and the Benoit/Guerrero bouts as being lower end candidates). As for Raw in 1996, I'd put Austin/Vader, Bret/Goldust, Owen/Mero on a similar level from the disc or two I watched lately, I wouldn't be surprised if other gems showed up if I explored the year further. Just because you watched it all lately and changed your opinion on it doesn't mean I'd feel the same on a rewatch. We have widely differing tastes. Where and when did I say Raw was having 'weekly classics'? If anyone is using hyperbole here it's you. The whole point of the argument was that you were arguing Punk/Henry as a great match and I (among others) thought it was merely decent. And by that measuring stick, there are many 'decent' matches on Raw during this period. That's the argument. Your definition of 'good' may not correspond with everyone else's. Have you not considered that people may genuinely watch mid-late 90s TV matches and prefer them to the stuff you trot out as being good from the last few years? We all look for different things in our wrestling. I for one struggle to engage with modern WWE matches because the workers give me no reason to care. Charisma, character and uniqueness are thin on the ground. People like Ziggler, Swagger, Barrett, they're interchangeable. They might be competent workers putting together decent matches on paper but they struggle to put them over in the ring to a guy like myself. A singer with a great range and a nice voice might objectively sing 'Blowin In The Wind' better than Bob Dylan with his crackly whine, but their version will never hold a candle to the original because they can never match Dylan's feel and emotion that he was able to put into it. Which is probably why you prefer watching Jerry Lawler to Davey Richards; one can technically and athletically do a lot more but the other makes the limited stuff that he can do much more important. The workers from the 90s were more varied and distinctive than the workers today. They engage me more, so I enjoy their stuff far more than a bland, modern worker who ostensibly seems to be working a better structure, with better looking offense etc. That's just bullshit. I'm far from an AJPW fetishist - if anything, I prefer NJPW and AJW from that period. But the matches across those three promotions from 92-96 do absolutely slay anything going on today. And unless you're a WWE fanboy (like yourself) or someone who loves Davey Richards style ROH main events it's hard to argue. If those three feds were churning out quality matches week on week today the WWE product would look even worse. They get overrated by optimists because there really is nothing else to jump on these days, especially now it's become uncool to like spotfests and Davey Richards style main events. Dylan, you’re the wrestling fan equivalent of a music poptimist. Your usual obsessive music fan (obsessive wrestling fan) will like a few pop songs (WWE matches) a year, enjoying the production (layout) and the lyrics/personality of the pop star (story/selling/character work). They will argue that the particular pop song stands out from the crowd in terms of fun, replay value and is enjoyably catchy rather than annoyingly so, or has depth beyond that of the usual pop song. Often the producer and songwriters (backstage agents) get the credit. As big music fans they take a pride in listening to every genre (styles and promotions) and they pride themselves on their eclectic taste. The poptimist will go further. He/she will enjoy the majority of mainstream chart songs (WWE matches). While the general music fan will find most pop music empty of emotion, boring, derivative, repetitive and formulaic, the poptimist will insist that there are hidden depths to the songs. The general music fan will concede to enjoying the occasional big Beyonce single (the occasional well built, well constructed main event), but the poptimist will insist that even the album tracks (TV matches) are worthy of attention as more than filler, and in many cases outstrip the more popular mainstream song. I will easily concede that Dylan has seen a lot more wrestling than me; he has probably watched more matches some weeks than I’ve watched in five years. That doesn’t change the fact that he has specific tastes (that don’t mesh with mine). He’s probably the biggest WWE fan out of all the mega smarks (i.e. internet wrestling fans who watch Puro and old stuff). He’s also a huge Mark Henry fan. Given those two facts, it’s unsurprising that even a moderately impressive Mark Henry match on WWE TV gets the hyperbolic treatment from him. While Dylan is a great writer and extremely knowledgeable, he’s not someone I would ever take a match recommendation from since he seems so caught up in the styles/workers that he likes. And that’s fine, you likes what you likes and I like what I like. At this stage in my fandom, I like spotfests, hardcore brawls. Dare I say it, I like to watch someone with a massive moveset doing interesting counters and taking huge bumps from athletic offence. If possible it makes sense and builds suspense and isn't just my move your move. I’d much sooner watch the Young Bucks or the Briscoes or Necro Butcher than anyone on WWE television, because they’re exciting, have good, well defined characters, are extremely over and have matches with a lot of heat at a fast pace. I’d much sooner watch WCW cruisers than Jerry Lawler, it's a style that requires less of me. If that makes me a fan stuck in 2004 than so be it. And that doesn’t mean I like Davey Richards; I saw a couple of his matches at a friend’s and they were overlong and over the top. I think he has a good look, works an impressive/stiff style but needs to be reined in by the booking. I’m not really sure where I’m going with all this. It’s 4AM over here, so I’m beginning to ramble and the coffee is wearing off, so I’ll just leave it at this series of scrambled thoughts. Wrestling is subjective anyway – there is a Rock v Rikishi match from late 2000 that I would rate in the top ten in the history of the company, which probably seems far more absurd than calling Henry/Punk an early MOTY contender. Just remember that your opinions (i.e. saying that American TV matches from the mid 90s better than Punk/Henry categorically 'don't exist') are simply opinions and not facts. It's all down to personal taste. I'm not going to respond to all of this for a variety of reasons just wanted to note three quick things. I have gone out of my way to talk about how bad WWE has been in ring this year previously. Just sayin. Like everyone I am caught up in the styles/workers that I like. I just commit the horrid sin of publicly declaring who I do and don't like and why, something that often treated as trollish behavior no matter what tone it takes. Having said that, I don't feel like that I'm terribly narrow in terms of what I do and don't like. And for the record I rather like spotfests. I wasn't being hyperbolic about the match at all - it's a great match. If others don't agree that's fine, but don't work a "your opinions aren't facts" gimmick if you are going to turn around and claim that my actual opinion is hyperbole. It's not. Interestingly I was talking to someone who has been watching a lot of MNW weekly tv over the last couple of years last night. Offhand he could think of one Nitro match he thought was definitively better than Punk v. Henry - and he's not even a fan of modern WWE. Also I find it fucking hilarious that I am being called a potimist for two reasons. The first is that on other boards I am trolled for liking "obscure" Southern wrestlers and Lucha guys. The second is because aside from wrestling the only thing I'm nearly as obsessive about is indy music, particularly punk/hardcore (though not exclusively). Aside from my irrational love for Kelly Clarkson singles, there is probably no one on this board LESS interested in pop music than me.

I liked Hunico/Kidd. Good match. Since more than one person has talked it up I should probably watch AJ v.Storm

Yeah this was really the last major "fuck this company to eternal hell" moment for me too. West carried entire shows that were unwatchable and made shit segments amusing. He was literally the only good thing about multiple ppvs that year. I was regularly watching their shows just to hear West's commentary, which is something I hadn't done for that purpose...ever? Anyhow when he got moved out of the booth for that piece of shit Taz I wrote off the company for months. I still watch matches here or there, but West era was the last time I watched regularly

Johnny Viper would be way up the list. The first time I saw him on a show I thought he was a fan with a birth defect and a replica title

Pimping this Kengo Kimura & Takashi Ishikawa vs Shoji Nakamaki & Takashi Okano vs Kendo Nagasaki & Satoru Shiga (Shadow WX) vs Yoshihiro Tajiri & Yuichi Taniguchi vs Jado & Gedo - BJPW 6/3/97 Holy fuck this was all kinds of wonderful. Just a totally crazy clusterfuck but in the absolute best possible sense of that term. This has all kind of good shit. You've got old man Kendo Nagasaki holding court with a chair and falling over dudes, coming across like a dangerously senile Verne Gagne type let lose onto the World for the final time. Tajiri doing Asai's into the fourth row, kicking out of the entire offensive playbook of Jado and Gedo, taking multiple lunatic bumps onto the floor and getting into a slap fight with Kimura. Powder throwing and guys in suits getting waffled with chairs. Nakamaki and Ishikawa bleeding and exchanging barbed wire shots. Fans almost getting trampled. Nakamaki taking a spike piledriver on the floor and actually sellling it. Ishikawa and Kimura being awesome as fuck all match, taking control during the final stanza, crushing Okano with all there brutal looking shit and then winning in a completely decisive fashion yet still looking like guys who had survived a brush with death. Absolutely great freakshow match.

Who's the bigger carny Colt or Roland?

Bret/Owen NHB Remember thinking this was good, but clearly the worst of their matches other than maybe the one on Action Zone. Don't remember enough of the particulars though. Bret-Kid-Holly/Yoko-Owen-Hakushi Would like to see that. Sounds good on paper. Bret/Hakushi Not in love with this match or the ppv match. Good match but I don't think they had an interesting dynamic. I am a big fan of matches with decisive segment and also matches with build based around selling and cut off spots. That is why I love Rey so much. I don't think either of their big matches were that compelling in that regard. Razor-Savio/Yoko-Owen rematch I loved the "hanging chad" finish to the first match as a kid. Well I hated it, but it really made me want to see the rematch. I liked this match a good bit, not as much as Henry v. Punk though. Shawn-Diesel-UT/Yoko-Owen-DBS Don't remember it Bret/Lafitte Not as good as their ppv match,which was not as good as Punk v. Henry Shawn/Owen with injury angle Pretty good match, but I don't think it was a standout. I liked their ppv match in96 more than most

I didn't think anything looked weak in the match. If you don't think Henry's trash talking adds to his matches I don't know what to tell you. If you think a guy in a pirate suit applying a chinlock while sucking wind and looking confused is preferable I really don't know what to tell you. Henry is probably still hurting but I think he moves around smartly for a monster and he is usually good for a couple of very good, well built to bumps per match as he was here

No, it's exactly the opposite infact. My point is that Punk vs Henry is merely a very good match to me. Ad if a *very good match* can be considered MOTYC, then it means the standarts have dropped insanely. That there are more good matches on TV now than during the SNME days is only a product of the context, and doesn't change the standart. And I wonder how actually good are these *good matches*. If Punk vs Henry is a great match and MOTYC, then we disagree on what qualifies as an awesome match and MOTYC. Which means we probably disagree on the number of what people today consider *good* matches on TV too. And it's not even an issue of me thinking Punk vs Henry sucked, like I said I thought it was really good and enjoyed it a lot. But if that match is that much better than anything else on TV to be considered MOTYC, then I don't think I would enjoy much of what's on TV in 2012. This is a semantics game. I'm doing a running MOTY list, but there is no guarantee that Punk v. Henry will be my U.S. MOTY at the end of year. I don't even take the "there were more good matches on tv back then" claim seriously when it pops up because it's so obviously untrue it's not worth responding to. I can literally name hundreds and hundreds of good tv matches from the WWE in the last decade. We can argue about whether or not they have as many stand out great matches, but on average I see no argument for 90s or 80s WWF being better week to week. I literally think there is a stronger argument for the existence of unicorns I really wish people would use this thread to talk about their own MOTY picks as well, but that ship may have sailed.

Which ones.

I like Bret v. Lafitte, but as I noted when I watched it for the SC poll it's a match that really revolved around Lafitte's big spots and Bret bumping. Nothing wrong with that but the dead time in that match was REALLY dead time, with Lafitte sucking wind and just laying around with holds applied waiting to get to the next spot. I like the match a lot and don't want to slag it, but Lafitte is not Henry when it comes to keeping "dead time" entertaining. The Vader tag is a really awesome match that is even less consequential than Henry v. Punk. I actually thought Henry v. Punk was a great way of re-establishing Henry as a killer/monster type and while I generally don't like Punk as Ricky Morton type, that works v. Henry. I would have to watch all the matches back-to-back-to-back to into a ton more detail, but I obviously liked Punk v. Henry a lot and I know I'm not alone in that regard.

Why not? What matches were better? I mean we obviously look for different things in wrestling since you liked Elgin v. Richards and I thought it was unbelievably shitty beyond belief, but this thread isn't just about my MOTYs. Ideally I'd like other people to toss their's out there as well.

I'm begging you to name these litany of Nitro and Raw matches from 95-98 that were better than Punk v. Henry, because they don't exist. I doubt there are many people on the face of the Earth who have watched more wrestling than me in the last five years and that included a fuck load of Nitro. I was a huge WCW fan at the time and really, really wanted to find some off the charts great matches from the show. There were some good ones to be sure and even some that I think were pretty great. But I can't think of a single match from the history of that show I liked better than Punk v. Henry, and this is coming from a guy who was a MUCH bigger fan of WCW then than I am WWE now. I mean I fucking LOVE Mike Enos v. Chris Jericho - it's not close to as good a match. Rey v. Syxx was super fun - not in the same league. Eddy/Jarrett v. Horsemen tags ruled - not even close to as well developed a match as Punk v. Henry. Sting v. DDP from 99 was probably the U.S. MOTY that year in the big two major promotions and it wasn't as good as Punk v. Henry either. Point me to these matches so I can at least get a frame of reference. I want to know what matches I missed. I would ask for the Raw matches to, but I assume that was just hyperbole for effect as no one even pretends Raw was having weekly "classics" during that period (though to be fair they did have some good hidden gems).

This is where I really see how much our views on matches differ. I enjoyed the match quite a bit, I thought it was *good*, hell, as a TV match I thought it was very good despite a shit finish. But MOTYC, no way, that would mean the quality of wrestling dropped to depressing low levels in the last 10 years. Exactly this. As far as ten-minute TV matches go, does it really hold a candle to something like Benoit/Eddy 10/95? Granted, that was both much faster-paced, and Punk/Henry aren't even near the same ball-park as workers, but, as great as that Benoit/Eddy match is for a ten-minute Nitro match, no one would have called it a MOTYC in 1995. Like Jerome, I don't see MOTYC at all, but, doesn't it tell you how much these guys fail when they go for something bigger and more complex? I mean, Punk and Henry certainly weren't going for any kind of 'classic' (even by Raw standards), they were just trying to have a very good, little TV match (in the same way Benoit and Eddy were just trying to have a good TV match and put Benoit over strong in his debut), and they nailed it as best as anyone could expect from them. The window of time Jerome referenced was ten years. I have followed WWE closely over the last ten years and before then. In the last ten years Japan has shit the bed and become nearly unwatchable with a few notable exceptions. I have seen a lot of Lucha I have enjoyed from the period, but I am still fairly new there. I have watched lots of indy stuff during the period. Ten years ago people were still pretending Chris Daniels was good, raving that Angle was an all time great and signing off on every SD Six match as a MOTYC. I have no problem saying Henry/Punk would stand out from that period. Would it be the MOTY every year? Fuck no. MOTYC? In the sense that I use the term, yes. If 2002 seems like I'm being too much of a stickler you can work backward. The low point in U.S. wrestling from a match quality perspective is not now - it was clearly 98-00. A part of me wants to include 01 too even though WWE had lots of good stuff because of the death of the other companies, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that this mythological era when in ring quality destroyed all that exists now is just comical. I mean if you are an AJPW fetishist or a WrestlingClassics style "everything after 89 is shit!" type sure. But I honestly don't see how someone could watch the tv week to week and think "god damn what we need is a return to the golden age of WCW cruiserweights!" Ugh. On the particulars of Benoit v. Eddy I liked their matches and thought they were really awesome for what they were, but none of them ever stood out for me at the time. Benoit always fell flat to me because he was so emotionless and there was absolutely no reason to care about him at all. The exception of course is the Sullivan stuff which I'd rather not even think about. I prefer Henry/Punk without qualification. 95 is really a pretty terrible year to point to because it's maybe the ONLY year from the 90's in the States (besides 99, which is obvious low hanging fruit) where I think if you dropped off Henry/Punk in a time machine it would have been my MOTY in either of the major promotions (I guess DBS v. Bret, Razor v. Shawn and Jarrett would be the top contenders and I'd be willing to grant that they might be better,but I hardly think it's clear they are better).. Also don't understand "weren't trying to have a classic" talking point from someone who has crusaded against "self conscious epics" in the past. Just so I know, are you supposed to try to have good matches or not?