Dylan Waco

Who has ever argued that wrestling is all about the match?

Ken Patera was pretty great in 1980. He was underrated in the Sheiks team with Blackwell/Adnan as well actually.

If I walked around town and surveyed everyone over the age of ten I ran into, I think it highly unlikely that I would run into anyone who didn't at least know who the Beatles were.

I never agree with Bryan but this has been a talking point of mine for some time and he is dead on. That's why I think TNA is a net negative for the business. It lowers expectations and allows for the mediocre booking/writing in WWE to look like gold by comparison.

I don't think it's the brain damage that makes people wince while watching Benoit matches.

That sucks. My mom and dad teach in Ringold Ga which is also where my brother is a Senior in high school. Or should I say was. There schools don't exist anymore.

I thought every match was at least decent which was a nice plus. Orton v. Punk was a hair disappointing mainly because I thought Punk might go out with a big bang and instead this was merely a good match with a really convincing finish. Still I thought this was good. I figure without a punt Punk may not be totally done yet. Sheamus v. Kofi was decent and had a really great looking finish. Amusing to hear my best friends gf bitch about Kofi's awful punches. I thought the country whipping match was a lot of fun. Yes it was stupid to have JR apply a real ankle lock but it still made me chuckle. I thought the way the match was built made a lot more sense than the Cole Mania match. The only real complaint I had was that Lawler being a back drop to Cole/JR but I thought it was a really entertaining ten minutes over all. Rey v. Cody was a great match. Everything in it looked violent, nasty and impactful. There were some great camera angles in the match that made simple stuff look gritty. There were some moments where Rey appeared to be going for things and Cody just ran away but I thought that added to the match. All the big spots looked good and the mist spot was a cool and unexpected touch. Layla v. Michelle was good, stiff and about the perfect length. If anything it was a hair to short. Set up for the finish was good and the Kong post-match stuff - while not violent enough - was still cool to see Christian v. Del Rio was a good match that had kind of disappointed me up until the finishing run which was really great. Del Rio is a bump freak and proved it here. Christian's selling was good throughout. Clay getting creamed and bloodied was cool and oddly added to the match and Edge being their actually made sense and it in no way overshadowed Christian's moment. Tag title match was randomly thrown on, but Show took an insane bump and I never tired of Zeke's stiffness and feats of strength. Main Event was WAY better than expected. Triple threat cage match should be a disaster but this was really a pretty good match. I really loved the early spot with the skull crushing finale and Morrison sprinting over the top as it kept Miz finish strong and also got over the danger of this sort of match to a champ. Very much a WWE style main event but it was still good stuff. Truth's run-in was cool and I liked the finish a lot. Overall this was a really entertaining ppv

I would drag over my thoughts from DVDVR but there is an annoying filter that edited my thoughts on the Punk match. Main point - I thought it was a very entertaining show with every match being at least decent.

Hogan is not the best of all time. Vince is

I was at a pretty poorly promoted nostalgia show in South Carolina a couple of years ago that drew 750 on a rainy as fuck night.

California was a huge hotbed decades again but flamed out something fierce by the early 80's, with SF totally collapsing and LA turning to shit. But both did great business in their heyday. I forget what Blassie-Tolos drew at the Coliseum but I know it was the biggest gate in wrestling history at the time - or at least that's the popular myth.

The angle is hard to argue against given what it sparked and how iconic a moment it has become. But it was clearly sloppy as fuck in execution and the match isn't even close to a truly great match in my view.

Angle isn't an "Angle."

There is no Benoit match that resonates with me at all. He has GOOD matches and some great ones. But none that I regard as transcendent or must see matches in any way. He is one of very few "great" worker who I feel that way about. I've been more critical of Benoit for some time. Thought Benoit was really great his last couple of years in the WWE, but generally speaking I have held him in lower regard than others pretty much the whole time.

There are people on this board who are very high on Virgil v. Dibiase, myself included.

Sub-argument I would make is that Benoit is one of the most overrated matches of all time and always was. He has no definitive match at all. I know others agree with me on this. I would rate him below a lot of people. He's still a great in ring wrestler, but I am not sure he would make my top fifty at this point if we were restricting just to that.

Too Cold Scorpio had more than a good match with Benoit once.

This will no doubt come across as crass, but it will be interesting to see how this helps out his WON HoF candidacy. I think the guy has been terrible for the last few years, but I thought that was a really great retirement speech and I'm happy for him that he is getting out before something truly horrible could happen.

That is kind of my point. But my question would be: why is that such a bad thing? Would Rick Rude be as fondly remembered if he'd just been plain old Rick Rude? When they think of Rude, do people think of first, or do they think of the Iron Match match vs. Steamboat? I think it's a mistake to have GOAT-type arguments and restrict the criteria to in-the-ring alone. I mean for a start, does in-the-ring take crowd heat into account? Because for crowd heat during a match Hogan and Warrior smoke Dean Malenko, as do Rude and DiBiase. Why should the questions be restricted to: "did they have great matches?" and "did they draw?" For me, this is one of the classic problems with the so-called "smart" approach. I honestly believe that Ric Flair wouldn't be as highly rated as he is were it not for his persona, incredible mic-work and ability to get a reaction from the crowd. If he was just plain old Richard Flare during all those great matches, surely we'd think of him much more like a Backlund or a Dory Funk Jr. Who disagrees? Who agrees? There are separate GOAT arguments. Some focus on ring work alone. Others focus on "full spectrum." I don't think Dibiase is a serious contender using either criteria.

Yeah I can see how someone wouldn't dig the match even though I did. But to say that match didn't have crowd heat is just wrong. It's literally not arguable.

I think Dibiase has as much of a rep as he has BECAUSE of his character so I don't see what the point is. I mean, is Dibiase without the Million Dollar Man gimmick a WON HoF first class guy? I don't know, maybe to some people he would be. I wouldn't have put him in the first class period. But it seems to me that the MDM gimmick is what puts him over the top as a guy that was on the radar for that first class. Butch Reed was great in Mid-South too, and probably had as many good performances post Mid-South as Dibiase did in the ring if not more (Doom was underated, the "Natural" had a handful of good matches), but I don't think he would even come up in a discussion like this. Dibiase does. That is telling. Also I think Arn beats Dibiase across the board.

Soccer is weird in the States. I think there is a younger generation that pays a ton of attention to it now which really surprises me. I played for ten years, was a starting sweeper on multiple state champion teams. My dad and uncle coached state championship teams. All my brothers have played. We all watch it when it comes on, but none of us go out of our way to find it on tv, seek it out, et. We aren't really fans of any teams, or even players really. It's strange because it is my favorite sport to play AND watch, but also the one I am least invested in emotionally. I've got a ton of other friends who played for years and feel similarly.

Zhukov v martel is a good series. He also had good matches with sarge, young vader and others.

Me? There are plenty of wrestlers I think suck and not just obvious ones like Jeep Swenson or Tiger Jeet Singh. For example I think Mr. Electricity Steve Regal is dogshit and fuck the AWA for having him wrestle draws against Buck Zumhofe every god damned night. Another guy I hate is Lance Storm and not because "lol dvdvr" but because the guy is loosest wrestler I've ever seen and looked awful on all the ECW stuff I watched recently. There are plenty of others.

Actually Aja is a good call Bix and really should be the answer to this.