Dylan Waco

"There still just punches" seems to me like it could applied to almost anything else in wrestling. "It's still just matwork. It's still just head drops. It's still just near falls." et. Lawler/Dundee v. MX match was pretty easily a great match I thought. By pure chance I happened to find it on AWA disc the same day Phil reviewed it on SC. Here is what I wrote. JIP but I don't think anything is really missing. Lawler and Dundee hit an awesome duck down/apron lariat spot early and Lawler goes from that straight into the old "abandon the criss cross to chase the heel manager" bit which is a staple of the other Midnight Express. Condrey backs Lawler into the corner and decks him twice but it just pisses Jerry off and he drops Condrey. Dundee avoids the knee to the back coming off the ropes spot and we get the strut. I absolutely loved the sequence of stuff based on the turnbuckles, with Lawler saving Dundee, Rose trying to save Condrey and then a similar motif off of the leg press spot in the corner. Dundee is awesome cranking the headlock, while back dropping the other heel and then the heels take turn getting punched to shit. GREAT moment with Rose getting the upper hand and Dundee is still in the ring so he jabs Rose in the fucking face to cut his momentum before taking his spot on the apron leading to a Lawler fist drop and another bail to the floor spot from the Express. God Dundee creams Rose coming off the top and they do an amusing spot with Lawler and Dundee taking turns going for the cover as the ref counts half confused. Lawler lights up Rose with great punches, but Lawler takes a boot on the corner charge and then takes his awesome over the top backwards bump for Condrey's big right which is followed up by Rose slamming him on the floor. They start to work over Lawler's back. Lawler is really great positioning himself in the right way so that he can get off a hope spot but still be totally isolated in the heel corner. Nice bit of psych with Rose hitting his Vader Bomb splash to Lawler's back. Good cradle for another nice hope spot and Rose hits a darn good looking British Bulldog style powerslam for a near fall. Awesome awesome awesome spot with Lawler reaching backwards desperately when he gets shot into the ropes and JUST missing a tag to Dundee. Dundee ends up chasing around Dangerously and Lawler ducks down on a double clothesline attempt and then hits a double clothesline of his own for a near fall. Dundee comes in a house of fire throwing some sick blows, but Lawler hits the floor to chase after Paul E only for Dundee to get knocked out with a phone shot for the finish. This was a great match. I'm not sure I agree with Phil that this was better than the best of Midnight Rockers v. Rose/Somers matches but it's in the same neighborhood.

I think this proves my point and not yours. Tenryu at top 8 Japanese wrestler of all time is something I imagine would have always been a common theme going back to 89. That isn't really saying much. It's a totally unsurprising result by any measure and indicates the Steamboat/Vader leveling that Ditch mentioned. I.E. "one of the all time greats" but not really a contender for "greatest of all time." That people may have made arguments in favor of Tenryu over Jumbo (I literally don't remember) ultimately means nothing if it wasn't a large group of people and/or more closely reflected in the results. Bringing up Santo's placing is almost irrelevant as the poll was extremely slanted against Luchadores with people like myself voting for no Luchadores out of pure ignorance. The people who finished above Tenryu were not just obvious GOATCs, but also some of the "second stringers." Bret was a second stringer. Dynamite by this point arguably was. Race was. Vader and Steamboat certainly were. Austin was. Tenryu was lumped in exactly where you would expect him to be lumped in - with the guys who were a step down from the absolute pinnacle. That is how he had been regarded for years for the most part and it was reflected in the results. Finishing 21 in a GWE poll is not bad by any stretch, but I don't think being mixed in with the Vader's and Steamboats of the World is an indication that he was seen as a series GOATC at the time. As Ditch noted he got ONE top five vote in a poll with almost fifty voters. That's telling.

Finlay was pimped as the best in the World in 06 by the same group of people, at a comparable age, in an era in the States that was comparable to - if not superior to Japan when Tenryu was pimped as a top dog. I doubt very much that even the most hardcore fans would make the leap to say "Finlay was GOAT!" based upon that. Black Terry and Negro Navarro have been pimped as the best two wrestlers on Earth over the last two years at a comparable age to Tenryu, in a company that is being pimped by that same group of people as one of the better runs of Lucha in recent memory. I don't see anyone saying Navarro and Terry must be GOAT contenders because they are so awesome now, imagine what they were then. Now obviously Tenryu has a deeper well to dig from than Finlay does, but that's not the point (I can't speak to Navarro and Terry as I only recently starting following Lucha). The point is that old man being called top of the line is not an indication that people would call them GOAT or even GOAT candidates. In fact as I recall a lot of Tenryu talk at the time was centered around how Tenryu had "gotten better with age." There are people who have made the same point with Finlay though I don't know that that is a real talking point. I doubt Phil or DEAN were saying this but it was an opinion I saw expressed. I also have no recollection of people arguing for Tenryu over Jumbo during the GWE deal. I can't think of anyone who was touting Tenryu as GOAT or even a serious GOAT contender until fairly recently. Not saying it wasn't done, but that if it was it was done in a back handed way or indirectly or totally off my radar. It would not shock me if it was something that was considered in 89, but I really don't see any evidence of an organized block touting him the way there was for certain Joshi gals, the AJPW three, Jumbo, Flair, or even Dynamite in the old days. I also don't know of anyone who is really claiming that Tenryu is a "discovery" so much as a rediscovery. There is an attempt to popularize WAR I would say and that WILL be a discovery to many people but that is a separate matter. Tenryu is not Fujiwara who sort of came out of nowhere to enter into the discussion but I don't think anyone has or would argue that.

My point was poorly worded. My point is Tenryu was not a guy that batted around as a serious GOAT in online circles at any point I can recall until VERY recently. Jumbo certainly was. Misawa was. Kawada was. Flair obviously was. Liger was.

There may have been "Tenryu luv" but I think the bulk of it was pre-net. Not saying he hasn't had his fans over the years but I don't remember any contingent beating the drum from him as GOAT the way people have for Flair, Jumbo, Kawada, Misawa or even Liger.

Phil was probably going to plug this later and may have already but unless I missed it, over at Segunda Caida he has started a complete and accurate project for Lawler specifically to address the GOAT contender status of the King. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2011/03/c...ing-lawler.html

I think Tenryu's stock is already rising with a lot of folks and when Will's Tenryu set drops I think there is potential for it to explode. I would argue that you could ALREADY make a reasoned argument for Tenryu as the GOAT for most of the reasons you already listed. I don't think it's out of the question that Tenryu could be "the new Jumbo" as in the default GOAT for those who are willing to defy the Flair paradigm. Having said that I want to stress that I don't want to make this a self fulfilling prophecy and that is why the AJPW 80's set is going to be maybe the most interesting one yet, as Jumbo v. Tenryu (and to a lesser degree Funk, Hansen, Misawa, and Kawada) are all going to be analyzed with a fresh eye.

I was indifferent to Malenko in ECW really although I don't think he was a terribly interesting or dynamic mat worker there or in WCW for the most part.

I almost mentioned Stevens because he is catch all pick for a lot of those old timers. I know Heenan in particular always beat the drum for him. The big problem with Stevens is not just footage though - it's that of the matches that are out there we don't even really have anything that we can point to that shows flashes of his greatness. With a guy like Johnny Valentine who was widely touted in certain net circles a decade a go there wasn't much, but there was a taste for what made him so awesome in so many peoples eyes. Stevens looks *good* in some of the AWA stuff from his post-prime but there aren't really the flashes of greatness you would expect from a GOAT. Then again much of that is WAY past his physical prime.

Not to spam my own thread but John touched on this a page back or so when he mentioned guys like Steamer or Vader who are considered all timers but not GOAT candidates. What I find interesting about that is I wouldn't think it was odd to see either of those guys in someones top ten, or maybe even in someones top five. And yet thinking of them as THE BEST ever does feel like a big stretch. Kind of an odd thing to think about and I wonder how many guys are on that "next level" down.

Also on the KAFZ thing, I didn't mean to imply that the a1w folks were the primary Jumbo pimps. In fact most of the arguments there were originally centered around who was better between Misawa and Kawada. I think ultimately tOA was really the home of the Jumbo Boom, with a1w being sort of "neutral" board where the idea seemed to spread pretty quickly.

I actually think matwork HAS become more important to a certain segment of fans. I know I appreciate it now more than I did in the past. I can not pinpoint when or how it happened but I started to become a lot more interested in interesting grappling and matwork in the last few years than I ever had before.

Dan I know you have watched a shit load of Europe is there anyone from over there who you think would be pertinent to this discussion?

Co-worker with a copy of the 1988 Tag Leauge final night from a Japanese Video Store. Then being taken by him to it, setting up an account, and renting the tapes every week / two weeks. This was before I subbed to the WON. John That is a cool and (I would guess) unusual story. Agree that Jumbo's ascension came from a further along starting point than Fujiwara, though I still think it is a situation where certain people who were good at making a case, made a case. People watched the footage and said "I can buy that." That is a lot different than the suggestion that people are just going along to get along with a new "movement" or whatever. Lawler's ascension I think is trickier. Lawler always had his fans but Memphis was much more of a niche when I first popped up online than it is now. I remember arguing that Lawler, Dundee, Dutch, Budro, et were some of the better guys of the 80's back in 99. There were people who agreed with this, but there was no group pushing the notion that he was a top guy. When I did my own personal top 100 at a1w a decade ago I am pretty sure I had Dundee in my top forty and Lawler in my top twenty. This was the time of the Jumbo "boom" and I had him at 18 or so. A lot more attention was focused on the fact that Jumbo was "so low" rather than Lawler being that high. My point is that I think with Lawler there were always fans of the Memphis style that regarded him as an all timer, or near that level. The difference is they weren't organized (that's a terrible word here but I can't think of a better one) and Memphis was not a high priority in that era as most everyone seemed to focus their energy on NJPW Juniors, AJPW, Joshi and the stuff coming out of the Monday Night Wars. I suspect Lawler has benefited not just by the new footage, but also by the fact that people who enjoy his work are more vocal about it now, more focused in pushing it as top stuff, and also the fact that post-Monday Night War era certain fans became encouraged to go out and seek other stuff with Vince being the only game in town.

Who were you talking to you? I started posting on rspw and then 1bob board. Went from there to a1w, DVDVR, Classics, and tOA (where I was mostly a lurker). I really don't remember Jumbo being talked up as a GOAT in the early days of the net. I don't remember it EVER coming up at 1bob either and I stopped posting there sometime in 99 or 00 IIRC. I don't remember "Jumbo was the greatest ever" popping up until the Kawada Appreciation FanZone era of the old a1w board which I believe was in 00 sometime.

The Jumbo as GOAT candidate talk did not start until the 99-00 era IRRC. I know for a fact that was not a prevalent viewpoint when I first started posting online. In fact I know of no one who made this argument when I first started to get really into the newsletter/online thing in 95-96.

So how did you find AJPW? Also worth noting that there were some of us who were pimping Lawler, Dundee, Dutch, et. YEARS ago.

I think Jumbo is very comparable to Fujiwara in terms of how they were pimped online and how their stock rose as GOAT candidates as a result. Different people doing the pimping but the same general deal.

You're way snarkier than I am Dylan. I refrained myself from asking Dan if Sakuraba was a GOAT candidate due to his "work" (read : MMA fights) in PRIDE since he was a good "pure shoot-style" midcarder in UWF-i. Not trying to be snarky really. I actually think it's a legitimate question.

That's my point. Many of the same people who seem to be reflexively opposed to the notion of Lawler as a GOAT candidate and are skeptical about the motivations behind his "new found praise" wouldn't know dick all about the AJPW guys if it wasn't for "conensus-makers" like Meltzer. I have said this many times before, but it was jdw writing in the Torch that really got me into AJPW. Does that make me someone who was hopping onto a "movement" or a "trend?"

Random side question for Dan: If PRIDE was pro wrestling, how would you rate Fedor, Sakuraba, et in a GOAT pro wrestler discussion?

I have to ask, how did you find AJPW? How did you get into it? Did you randomly stumble upon it or was it pimped to you, you watched it and agreed with the praise it was getting? I find it interesting that the "movements"/"trends" folks never explain how it is that they came to develop their own canon of sacred cows - who more often than not turn out to be the usual suspects. Make no mistake. I think Kawada especially has a very strong case for GOAT. I would not argue with anyone who rated him or Misawa as the best ever. But I don't get why the motives of others are questioned. Kawada, Misawa, et. weren't always the unquestioned Gods of work either.

And the live crowd was bored and visibly annoyed for most of it because he wasn't there. Great promo that essentially went to waste and may have been counterproductive in some respects. If they aren't careful they are going to turn Rock

Also as far as GOAT with Joshi stars go I always thought Aja was the best candidate. I want to say I had her at 5 for the SC poll. She seems to have the best combo of peak/longevity and I think her peak holds up better than a lot of the others (I am kind of guessing here but when I watched the Nakano Cage Match it still held up as a hell of a spectacle if nothing else to take one random example).

How does Hokuto v. Kandori hold up? I have not seen in it ages