Dylan Waco

For Lucha illiterate's trying to learn these are good references so keep them coming. Random comments: I had no clue Hokuto/Hotta ever worked Mexico or that women's wrestling is something that ever really went on in Mexico. Also did not realize Furnas/Lafon worked there though it's not surprising. I wonder how there stuff from Mexico was? They were disappointing everywhere other than AJPW that I have seen. Also "wrestlers union!"

In some ways this is better than expected. For example there are 4 legitimately good matches in the top ten matches. Granted none of them would make my top fifty from last year (eh, number ten might), but in some ways I expected this to be worse, especially since the majority of the voters probably didn't watch IWRG handhelds or Superstars (not that them watching is likely to have made much of a difference but still). Also while the Beer Money v. MCMG match in the top ten wasn't even as good as the 50th best Superstars match from last year, it was probably a top five TNA match so if you are a fan of tokenism that is not as horrible as it could have been. Having said that the best in ring category really illustrates how massive the divide is between the average Observer award voter and a rather large segment of the internet wrestling universe: 1. DANIEL BRYAN (269)2,037 2. Davey Richards (197)1,835 3. Prince Devitt (158)1,525 4. Naomichi Marufuji (84)758 5. Shingo Takagi (10)515 6. Chris Hero (8)509 7. Kurt Angle (26)448 8. Yamato (4) 209 9. Chris Jericho (2)190 10. A.J. Styles (3)158 HONORABLE MENTION: Shinsuke Nakamura 125, Daisuke Sekimoto 115, Rey Mysterio 87 Of the guys in the top ten I only thought two of them had good years (Bryan and Hero both of whom have a chance of being in my top ten for WKO balloting here in another month or so). Two or three of the guys in the top five, would be in my bottom ten, if not bottom five (Marufuji, Devitt and Richards, with Maru maybe being my absolute WORST wrestler on Earth). you get the feeling that Jericho is effectively the "high" vote getter for the WWE as Bryan's totals probably had a lot to do with his indie tour - I don't even think Jericho was a top forty WWE wrestler last year, and I'm actually fairly mystified as to how anyone would have him in a top ten overall (seriously my little brothers are huge Jericho fans, and when we did our WWE rankings over the holidays, he finished 24 or one of their lists and 30 on the other. What did Jericho do that would merit being this high?). Furthermore there are two TNA wrestlers in the top ten - TNA had maybe five matches I would call good all year long (and I watched a good bit of TNA last year sadly). Styles and Angle were not in any of those matches. I generally like Styles and the and Angle v. Anderson matches were passable especially considering who was involved, but I don't know that either of those guys would make my top two hundred (actually I'm sure Angle wouldn't). The idea that they were both better than every WWE wrestler other than Bryan and Jericho of all people is utterly bizarre to me. I do think Nakamura had some pretty strong performances and Rey at least getting the token honorable mention is semi-surprising, but the gap between what the voters think is good wrestling and what I think is good wrestling is even bigger than I would have guessed.

Scary thought - for a while Flair was part owner of a financial management business and that was his "plan" for the post wrestling World originally.

I'm still miffed at why anyone would think Spike was not good, but as usual we will have to agree to disagree. Here is what I had to say about the 12/20/96 FanCam with D-Von v. Bubba: Jesus Bubba takes a scary bump on a belly to back. Bubba really was a freakishly good athlete at this point in his career hitting a hell of a drop kick early and just looking explosive in general. When this spills to the floor these guys really beat each other senseless including a nasty backhand from D-Von, same stiff slaps from Bubba, a bodyslam on the floor and a rail spot that almost tips the whole fucking thing down onto the front row. The chairshots in this were nasty as fuck too. This just got more and more intense and the spot with Bubba dropkicking the chair in D-Von's face as he lept off the ropes was sort of the pinnacle of that. They go on from there with slugfest spots, Bubba hitting a nasty powerbomb and then a Bubba cutter which D-Von appeared to kick out of even though it was the finish. Post match Bubba beats up Gertner. I'll say it flat out - this was a hell of a match. Just a bomb throwing sprint between two guys that looked like they were trying to kill each other with each blow. Again I'm not fan of D-Von, and Bubba was the better worker in the match, but D-Von more than held his own.

I'm not really a fan of D-Von but there were times in my ECW watching where he was shockingly good. Nowhere near as good as Bubba, let alone Spike, but he has a couple of good singles matches with Bubba - one of which is borderline great. Also he seemed to get more brawling out of New Jack than most people. Having said that Bubba/Spike is easily the best tag combination the Dudz ever had.

Don't you think the Valentine/Backlund draw from 79 is the best WWF match of all time?

Angle/Brock wasn't good at the time and holds up even worse now

WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING BIX?

My point was just that this is a perception issue. At the time every Hogan match seemed big to me and all my friends at school. It was the equivalent of Clash of The Champions sort of, in that the SNME matches weren't ppvs, but they felt like major events to us kids.

As a child watching at the time I thought ANY Hogan tv match was a "big" match.

If that is the Vader/Steamboat SN match it is an awesome, awesome match.

The guy who did the Confederate Crunch was Chris Hamrick. He was the "third wheel" in Hot Commodity and didn't work nearly as often as the other two despite being far better than either of them.

Is the author of the book Ray Kurzweil? Cause I doubt he could get him on. He MIGHT be able to get on an Anarcho-primitivist to debate technology at large, but that doesn't strike me as something Alvarez would be interested in doing.

I hope this isnt a shot at me, just saying. At least you give a reason here hence I dont have much of a problem. There is a difference between this and saying categorically someone isnt knowledge, something you havent retracted by the way. Im amazed and saddened that I have to point this out again. lol What? Fair enough Dylan, but dont ever complain about the prospect of being trolled again if you are going to act like this. Im actually amazed and saddened as I went out of my way to squash whatever this is. Clearly you dont as you have made no mention of doing the same nor taking back what started all this either. How childish can you be here, seriously Dylan. I want it to end now, dont know how many I have to ask. This forum isnt and shouldnt be about this pettiness so please just knock it on the head. You are the one who continues to troll. I'm laughing at your gimmick now. "amazed and saddened" was a pretty amusing line once. Twice is excessive. I'll ignore your nonsense from here on out and let you have the "last word" you crave so much so you don't totally destroy another thread.

He did. In 94 there was a period where Terry was on WCW, ECW and SMW shows within a ten day period IIRC - possibly less than that. I'm more or less curious at the Funk deal just to see what people were thinking of him at the time as he was sort of "the all time journeyman" at that point.

Thanks for pulling those over John. Focusing on 94 because I happened to agree with the Phil that that was Dustin's best year. 92 is a really great year and features some totally forgotten matches on top of the tag stuff/DA matches (thinking the Vader match from Saturday Night with the insane flip clothesline bump on the floor for example). But it is a year where Dustin is immersed in greatness and I can see someone making the argument that others were just "rubbing off on him." I like Jimmy Golden a lot, but watching the Studd Stable feud you get the sense that Dustin is coming into his own and is really a big time wrestler on his own. Focusing on the "we can argue if he should be higher" line and well I don't think there is really much of an argument against the notion that he should be higher. I can see an argument for Regal based on the matches with Larry, but realistically I think it would be a real stretch to rate him over Dustin that year. Arn is Arn and he really never had a bad year, but I don't think there is any reason to believe he had a better year than Dustin. Finlay wasn't even working in the States at that point and shouldn't be on the list if I am reading your criteria right here. I love Pillman, but I'm not even sure Pillman from 91-93 is better than Dustin from 91-93 and that is a much better version of Pillman than we had in 94. Sting and Razor strike me as pretty laughable picks, and I actually like both guys more than most and think they both had solid years, with some stand out moments (Razor's being obvious). Owen is an interesting case because of the Bret matches. Interesting enough that I can see him being on the docket as someone better than Dustin in 94 even if I'm not buying it. Austin is a laugh out loud level pick as he wasn't in the same league as Dustin in 94. I like 94 Flair more than most, but he didn't have a better year than Dustin. Trying to think of anything Waltman did that year to end up near that high. I know there was the Bret match, and the Action Zone tag may have been that year. Vader is someone who has a case. Bret is someone who has a strong case. I liked Shawn in 94 and still like 94 Shawn, but I personally wouldn't rate him on Dustin's level. Perhaps funny enough the one guy from WCW who I think has a strong case other than Vader is Steamboat and he's not even on the list (Flair series, series with Austin, Vader match on SN). I get your point about Dustin being regarded favorably by the hardcores and I also agree that some of the things you outlined as possible reasons for the drop make sense, but I also think what you are seeing here is an indication that the Dustin-Studd Stable feud was really being slept on at the time/being lost in all of the other things that were going on in the States at the time. For my money Dustin was at WORST the fourth best guy in the States in 94 (Bret, Vader, and possibly Steamboat are the only guys I would rate on, or above him) I'm curious, where was Terry Funk rated in 94?

I hope this isnt a shot at me, just saying. At least you give a reason here hence I dont have much of a problem. There is a difference between this and saying categorically someone isnt knowledge, something you havent retracted by the way. Im amazed and saddened that I have to point this out again. lol

To Edge's credit he was in that incredibly great match with Matt Hardy at Unforgiven 05 that is a serious candidate for best match in the history of the company. Having said that, that was a real "stars have aligned in all the right places" moment, and he has been terrible for at minimum the last two years.

At the risk of being trolled, that says a lot about Dave's tastes. I don't even think most fans of Edge would regard him as a consistent participant in "four star" matches. At least not more so than EVERY OTHER WRESTLER.

Probably the biggest two reversals for me have been Ron Garvin and Bob Backlund I used to think Ron Garvin was a boring act, probably because as a kid he just seemed like some dude that would randomly appear for a bit and then disappear into an act or another company or whatever. I wrote him off. Then a few years back I watched his match with Big Bubba from one of the big Crockett shows and absolutely loved it. Thought it was aberration at first, but then I saw the Valentine matches, re-watched the Flair matches, and then the holy grail were the Tully matches. He was also a great tag wrestler. Stiff, good on the mat, versatile, and fiery as a hell. One of the my favorites now. Backlund I'm not as high on as John or others who have been pimping him over the years. He can still really annoy me in a match at times, and there are a lot of guys I would rather watch before him. But it is impossible to argue that the guy "sucked," "couldn't work," et. For years I absolutely hated Backlund but watching a lot of his stuff for the SC WWE poll radically changed my view of him.

That whole episode is good. From memory Cena and maybe Edge helped Rey clear the ring at the end no? Also Rey was pretty good in 01 WCW.

RVD was working a Carrot Top prop comedy gimmick by the end. Alfonzo made him worse and worse. By the end he was terrible, though his run-in period while he was heeling the leg was fun.

I watched all of the shows recently and I actually loved the Network stuff more often than not. I thought Cyrus was a great promo and to me the whole thing felt like an extension of the WWF v. ECW feud 97/98. I agree that some of it was ridiculous, but I thought the characters were so strong and the crowd so responsive that I didn't mind at all. The show also had some of the best matches in the companies history as it was around for a big portion of Tajiri's run which was EASILY the best stretch anyone had in ECW. Really disagree with Jerome on Raven and Credible. Raven I think was pretty awful during the TNN period aside from his return of course which launched the show. Credible I thought was at his best in 97/98. I can't even begin to describe how shitty I a choice I thought he was for the belt at the time and nothing has changed. I also don't think he was nearly as good in the ring at that point and he was never really lighting the World on fire.

Even though it ultimately went nowhere, Gordy's first appearance in the ECW Arena was pretty awesome.

That's got to be what I am confusing it with.