Dylan Waco

Yeah Sami is probably the best guy on the indies so far this year and he's working against Jesus Christ so that should be at minimum at incredibly great match. Of course it's the week AFTER my vacation to North Jersey. Fuck

Where does your intensive knowledge of sXe come from? Are there various points of view within the "sXe movement?" Yes. In fact some of us object to it being called a movement at all. But this is pretty much the norm with every ideological movement in recorded history. If one objects to all labels that is one thing but I don't see how those who call themselves straightedge are any different than someone who identifies them self as a Christian, libertarian, traditionalist, liberal, whatever.

Based on the footage that we have it looks like Windham was a good-to-great wrestler from 81-93

Responding khawk on Brunzell and Blackwell. The funny thing is that I think I would consider Blackwell a great tag wrestler and Brunzell merely a good one. That's not really a knock on Brunzell but he always struck me as a good hand that worked well in the tag context and great against the right opponent but wasn't off the chart. Blackwell was a really great tag wrestler both as a babyface and a heel. Just had a transcendent quality to him and could both sell - and give - an asskicking. I like Blackwell in singles, but think he was actually considerably better in tags.

So Cerebro and the Traumas are crap?

Hey Will, way back in post 1 I wrote:

Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand?

Another factor is that for years there weren't any real "wrestling schools" per se. You had to know one of the boys to get in and I get the feeling that most of the boys weren't exactly multiculturalists

Absolutely true. Message board wrestling culture is not the same as internet wrestling culture

I don't buy for even two seconds that the percentage of "smart fans" is smaller now, in fact I think that suggestion is borderline insane. When I go to live shows now there is always tons of chatter all around me from guys who "read something online" or about what wrestler is really hurt or who is leaving or whatever. The sports bar I go to is in a huge redneck area of town and many of the fans that go their are casual in the sense that they don't watch super religiously. Almost every one of them knew Punk was leaving and was talking about that being one of his last matches with the company on Sunday at the ppv. I get kids who come into my work all the time and purchase wrestling books and inevitably we end up talking about what they read on Rajah.com and who they think should be getting "pushed." The number of hardcore fans is probably about the same and will always stay the same, but the as net access has expanded dramatically it stands to reason that more fans than ever before are "smart" by the standards of what would have been considered "smart" ten or fifteen years ago. I would say of the consistent adult fanbase THE MAJORITY are "smart" in the sense that they occasionally go to news sites or are interested to some degree about the inner workings of the business. Children are a different story of course and sense the WWE markets more heavily in that direction than they have in years maybe I am off base about the overall percentage of "smart" fans. But nothing I experience in my daily life leads me to believe that the number is lower than it was in say 96-97

I'm not a huge Rocky Johnson fan but he should be on the set somewhere.

That's the consensus

Yeah I just got done watching every bit of SMW that could be scrounged up so I am happy to see this being discussed. The one thing that really stands out to me with SMW is that it was a "promo" territory. There were plenty of good matches and some really great angles, but when I think about SMW I primarily think about how many awesome talkers were there. Everyone from Ron Wright to Cornette to DWB to Bob Armstrong to Morton to New Jack. Just a loaded roster of guys that could talk really from the beginning of the run to the end. I would pretty easily rate Smothers as the best in ring talent in the history of the company with Morton second. After that I could see a case for several people. On the more surprising side I found that Cornette was actually quite good in the ring and the Gangstas were not just a great act (though they were a GREAT act and Jack was probably the best promo in wrestling from late 94 through when they left in 95), but were really competent in the ring too. In fact, I think a strong case could be made that the best match in company history was between the The Thugz and The Gangstas. Only the better Smothers v. Candido matches (which is the best program in company history - yes better than the Bodies and RnR's) are even on the same level.

Davis teamed with Scott when Scott was under the hood as Dixie Dynomite! and they were a decent little team but I'm not sure that means much. They probably weren't a top 20 SMW team.

Holy fuck, I can't believe I forgot Terry Funk. A Morton/Steamer level seller, a great bleeder, a fucking awesome asskicker on his comebacks. He's definitely way up there.

Valentine is a guy that almost seems tailor made for tag teams too. Really bruising style that lends itself to vicious control segments. I imagine if the footage existed we would be talking about him as an all time tag team guy for sure. Another guy I forgot (besides Condrey and Rogers who are fairly obvious picks) was Tom Pritchard. Really great in both versions of the Bodies. I liked Del Ray more at the time but looking back he was really the glue of the team. Underrated offensive wrestler and was really great at playing off of whatever opponent he was in there with. Real good as an asskicker and taking an asskicking too. Good babyface tag wrestler in Portland when he was young also. Also, I am not a fan of North/South. However if I was I would think Adrian Adonis would be as deserving as Murdoch, probably moreso. On top of North/South, he has East-West which is about as obvious a "one man" team as you will ever see - and they had plenty of good matches

Just wanted to note that even though I haven't gone back and watched much AJPW in years Kawada would be my front runner for number one as well. I would lean toward Kawada, Morton and Windham in that order but could be convinced otherwise.

Like Ron Garvin's punch?

With all the talk about tag team wrestling lately I thought this could be a cool topic. The obvious answers of course are Eaton, Arn, and Morton. Eaton and Arn because they were guys who made their bread and butter with a variety of partners and were obviously great and Morton because he was essentially the all time face in peril (in my view a role he was so good at that it shoots him into the discussion with the absolute top names in wrestling history). Setting those names aside I'd like to throw some other names on the dock for consideration. Barry Windham - I actually think he's in the discussion for best tag team wrestler ever. Was good with a variety of opponents, in a variety of settings, with a variety of team mates. As a face in peril he was excellent as his selling was always top notch and he had great stock bumps he could trot out to build heat. Really good at eating cut off spots as well. Also was a strong hot tag. His heel tag work was also really great as he was strong at putting together heel control segments, could work vicious, could stooge, et. I would argue if nothing else he may be the most versatile tag wrestler ever. Bill Dundee - Not thought of as a tag guy and maybe he really wasn't in some respects but he's awfully good in tag matches even to this day. All of the best Memphis guys are masters of timing and that is largely what tag matches are about so it's not surprising that he would be so great. Still it seems like EVERYTIME Dundee shows up in a tag match it is a match that I am either blown away by or super entertained by and he is usually the star of the match. Has the kind of spark that makes for great face shine spots, can sell his ass off and is really creative in how he sets up and builds to hot tags. He's one of the best wrestlers of all time period, but also one of the best tag wrestlers ever. Spike Dudley - I have a feeling some people will accuse me of trolling with this one, but I thought in 96-97 he was probably the best pure FIP in wrestling within a tag setting and his willingness to do crazy shit with his body made him an extremely dynamic offensive tag wrestler as well. Really creative off of double teams, took crazy bumps, sold his ass off, build his comebacks well, et. Really was great with a variety of partners and every team had a different dynamic with him being asked to play a different role and being succesful across the board. The way he works teaming with Balls against D-Von/Bubba (some very strong brawls in that feud btw) is different from the way he worked with Dreamer v. Smothers/Guido is different from the way he worked with Bubba v. Bad Crew is different than working with Bubba v. Guido/Smith is different from the way he worked with Mikey v. PG-13, et. Just a very adaptable wrestler in the context of tag wrestling which I think was really his strength. Tracy Smothers - Really a tremendous tag wrestler, arguably top five ever for the U.S. Was in three tag teams that I would safely put in the "Very Good-Great" category - Southern Boys/Young Pistols, The Thugz, and The FBI. All three teams were great for different reasons. Southern Boys were more of a traditional "80's" style babyface team with explosive offense, lights of armdraggy/rope running highspots/et. Smothers and Armstrong complimented each other well and when they turned heel they were able to work just as effectively despite some obvious stylistic adjustments. The Thugz were an interesting team because they worked a lot of "babyface doing heel work" spots. They were also a TREMENDOUS brawling tag team. They also were masters of structure with Smothers always playing FIP and playing it excellently as he was a real master of hope spot/cut off exchanges. FBI was a schticky team, heavily reliant on building heat through minimalistic antagonism. Having said that they had plenty of action packed matches where the schtick built to the big spots and hot moments in a totally unique way for ECW. Just a huge and varied body of work with multiple rock solid teams. Really a guy who's profile deserves to be bigger than it is. Dustin Rhodes - I thought he was a great tag wrestler during two distinct eras which is a real feather in his cap. Like Windham he is a rare big guy who was a super compelling FIP in large part because of having some really dramatic big bumps and excellent mannerisms. His role in WCW of being the young lion trying to hang with the big dogs really stood out in tag matches and led to some really great matches. Then he had a really solid run with Booker T a decade later where he was still often FIP, but also had become a master of milking the crowd for his "big pop" spots and putting together WWE style "runs" of offense that work on a level different that what was expected in WCW. Ricky Steamboat - This is almost self evident. Sometimes I think people forget how good the Youngblood team was based on what we have available. Then you look at what he was capable of doing in WCW with a variety of opponents and you have a pretty big body of work. To be honest Steamboat's style is almost tailor made for tag wrestling as he has the fiery offense and mannerisms to make a good hot tag and is one of the three or four best babyface selling machines of all time. So really he feels like a "duh" pick. Tully Blanchard - Between the Arn and Gino teams he has plenty of quality matches and moments as a tag wrestler and even though I always sort of felt cheated that he wasn't on his own more there is no denying that the guy was great in a tag setting. It is entirely possible that he was the better wrestler in the Brainbusters though I haven't watched a tag match with those two in the while. Still he was great at taking fiery babyface offense but also such a supreme douche that he could transition into a heel control segment in a nearly flawless fashion. This is not always easy as playing the goof and playing the asskicker does not come naturally to everyone. It came naturally to Tully. Marty Jannetty - Was great with Michaels in a true 80's team of equals. Seriously I'm not sure which one was better in that team and could buy arguments either way. Great offense for the time (Jannetty definitely was less dangerous with jobbers for what that is worth), great bumper, great selling, really strong timing, et. What pushes Jannetty over the top for me is the fact that he was also a really good makeshift tag partner later in his career and seemed to never really lose what made him dynamic and interesting even though he had obviously aged. Shame he and Kid didn't have a longer run as they were a team that could have rivaled the Rockers in my view, with Jannetty being a really strong veteran anchor at that point. Buddy Rose - Often worked in tag team matches in Portland where you really got a taste of things as he could really temper his big spots and schtick well to that setting without really feeling like you were missing any of the staples that made the match a "Buddy Rose" match. Then you've got the Rose/Somers team which is one of the great short lived teams in wrestling history. Absolute bump freak, who could control a match offensively well, was a master at schtick and working the crowd, and was maybe the best I've ever seen at changing gears to work in some big spots and keep things moving along. Was a great tag wrestler in Portland and a great one in the AWA. Shame he never got a chance anywhere else. Michael Hayes - One of the most underrated workers of all time. Hayes is a guy that is remembered (rightfully) as an all time heel and I think the Texas Set demonstrates quite well that he was great in tag matches working both chickenshit heel spots, eating babyface offense spots, pure schtick, and even balls to the wall ass kicking stuff. The AWA stuff with the Birds does NOTHING to change my view of that as he was just as good there, but with dance partners that were less familiar. To me the most interesting thing about Hayes is how good he was in face tag teams and settings. Watching stuff from his team with Steve Cox v. SST in late days AWA it is amazing how good he was at babyface apron work - literally among the best I've ever seen. He was a very strong FIP and a very strong hot tag too. Really a great all around tag wrestler. I'll leave others to discuss the merits of Misawa, Kawada and Taue all of whom I love but have little to say about at this point.

Blasphemy. Liger slapping people is the greatest thing in pro-wrestling. I should watch that instead. Resulting in pinfall victories? I'm not a huge fan of that finish, but it's not even my least favorite Liger finish. That would be reserved for the Thesz press thing he uses a lot nowadays which isn't always awful but is even more anti-climactic than a palm strike. Also Mitch Snow pinning people in the AWA with a hiptoss week after week was ri-fucking-diculous

DDP was awesome. Insanely over and very good in the ring. Had he started earlier and worked in a company with better heavyweights I really believe he would be regarded as one of the best in ring wrestlers of the decade.

I wouldn't call "watchable" and "unquestionably good" the same thing. To me in order for something to fit into that category it has to be something memorable. Something I saw, thought was good, and can recall with some knowledge of what I liked about it. That is not a high standard. There are hundreds of WWE matches in the last decade that would fit that definition. In the entire history of TNA there MIGHT be 40-50 almost all of which come from 05/06.

I'll let Will handle the difference between Ted in 85 and Ted in 93 because he's a Dibiase guy and I'm not (not to say I don't like Ted, I'm just not the fan of him Will is). The difference between Backlund in 83 and 94 however is pretty massive. Backlund wrestling as ace, clean cut babyface v. Backlund wrestling as underdog, undercard face and then as crazy old man heel...really there aren't that many similarities. Obviously some of the ring movements are the same and there are spots that are Backlund spots no matter what. But there are more differences than similarities to me.

I wasn't responding to you specifically Jerome, but rather the question as a whole. I have no clue what the "being past your prime is a dated opinion" snark comment was even in regard to. My point is that physical primes do not always coincide with wrestlers peaks. Nor do athletic primes. The issue here is that wrestlers use such a big set of tools that when they do lose a step in one sense they can adapt and change to utilize other tricks and sometimes there is no discernable drop in quality. One of the guys I'm referring to in the first comment is Dick Togo. I love him. Probably one of my ten favorite wrestlers ever. I'm about to go through all the MinPro in the next few months so this may change, but right now I can't recall him ever having a run as impressive as he had last year. Last year he had three lengthy singles matches that were blow away great matches. All worked differently. None against an opponent that anyone would identify as being out of this World great. I love the best MPro six-man's and think he was great in them but I'm not sure I ever saw him as a transcendent as he was in those matches all of which were different in style and all of which were worked much differently than what MPro Dick was doing during his younger, more spry (and yes more fat), years. Other "old men" that have been great in the last few years include Negro Navarro, Black Terry, Negro Casas, Rey (not super old, but physically much older than his age), Finlay, Regal, LA Park and several others. Not all of those guys could point to their most recent runs as their clear peaks. But all of them adapted, still put on great matches using their current tools and to the extent that they are "post-peak" it is mostly semantics as they were still really great. None of these guys is in their "prime" though or at least not in the sense that the term is most commonly used when referring to other sports. Which is really my point. Wrestling cannot be compared to soccer. Oh and as boring as I find Orton at times I have NEVER found him as boring as I found babyface Rotundo or IRS Rotundo.

Some would include Global in the discussion and those some would be wrong. I'll say flat out I like Global. Think it was better worked with better bookers. XPW's worst stuff rivals the worst stuff from TNA but there was always the possibility that you would get crazy Terry Funk, an insane Shane Douglas promo, et. Also I am fully confident that had they been around longer they would have had more quality matches than TNA has had in recent memory. Since 07 I would struggle to name ten TNA matches I feel were unquestionably good.