Dylan Waco

Loss I'd like you to expand upon this. Here are my initial comments from that thread though devoid of context they mean read sort of funny. I'm reposting here primarily because if you read the thread, a lot of what was said was about trying to establish why Finlay was better than Michaels even in the areas where Michaels might automatically be assumed to be better. More to the point it was about establishing why it was that I see Finlay as a very complete wrestler that has a natural appeal for people who look for totally different things in wresting. I voted for Finlay. Comments: 1. Of course Michaels has more WWE style main event epics than Finlay. He's a guy that is at least partially responsible for the style and in fact certain facets of the style were created and implemented to promote Shawn's strengths as a worker and hide his weaknesses. He's been consistently booked as a main eventer and been given smoke and mirrors gimmicks in many of his most memorable matches (MindGames, GFBE, Ladder Matches, et...hell even Jarrett v. Shawn is arguable as it's a Memphis style match worked in TN and obviously led by Jarrett). Believe it or not I'm not saying this to knock Shawn. Just saying that shouldn't be surprising and that I think it is a criteria that will obviously skew in Shawn's favor no matter what one thinks of Finlay as a worker. 2. Rockers were a very good team, almost certainly the best team in WWE/F history. Rarely had bad matches and nearly every match of there's felt and fun and fresh and still does in context to what else was going on at the time. This is to say nothing of their pre-WWE work which is arguably even better. Rockers are not as good as RnR's or Fantastics, but I would not want to have to defend the argument that Strike Force was better, let alone Hart Foundation or Killer Bees. 3. I basically agree with tom's breakdown (besides mic work where I think he drastically underrated Shawn), and think there is no argument for Michaels being better when it comes to in ring mechanics, selling, et. Also worth noting that Shawn has always had low end offense for a guy known as workrate/spot wrestler (and he certainly was in his heyday) and age has made this worse and more noticeable as his base tends to be awful looking punches and chops - something Finlay obviously doesn't do. Interestingly enough I think Finlay is also pretty clearly a better "spot" wrestler in the sense that his big spots are more impressive, more surprising and more inventive (think ring apron crotching/beatdown spot, taking Germans on the floor, crazy tope v. Bradshaw). 4. Finlay has a plethra of good-to-great matches against a huge variety of opponents. I'm almost certainly a much bigger fan of pre-comeback Shawn than tom or most of his other critics and I'd be really surprised if Shawn's list was longer or more varied. Finlay is a guy that had good matches with the Boogeyman for example. Did Shawn ever carry anyone near that level? I don't think so and that is despite the fact that Shawn's character and style were way more conducive to "bump and run" style "carry jobs." 5. 06 Finlay is better than 96 Shawn or any other year from Shawn that I've seen. I actually don't even think this is terribly controversial. Finlay making Bobby Lashley look really good, having great matches with Hardy, Rey, Benoit, et. is more impressive to me than Shawn's handful of main event "epics" that dot an otherwise overrated year. 6. Even if I was going to grant that Shawn was better than Finlay pre-comeback (and I'm almost certain that I wouldn't), post-comeback Shawn has been most terrible, whereas post-comeback Finlay is the most consistent wrestler in the World. I don't even remember the last time I saw a bad Finlay match or if that has ever happened at all. And this is a guy who's worked programs with Boogeyman, Bobby Lashley and Ricky Ortiz in the last few years. Finlay's aforementioned matches with Benoit and Rey are some of the best WWE matches of the last decade and would rate with or above any of Shawn's "epics." Also worth noting that the often touted Shawn "carry job" of Flair at Mania was a performance significantly weaker than performance Finlay had the same night against Bradshaw. So yeah I went with Finlay without a second thought.

I'm not sure showing up for one or two big matches a year is really a plus if you think about it. Shawn's gimmick since at least 1996 has been "good worker." He's been heavily pushed as such by the company. Fans respond to that just like they respond to HHH being heavily pushed as the man, or Taker as a dead guy/"best striker in the WWE"/et. I don't see how pointing out that the guy got a massive push and the fans responded to is really a major feather in his cap as a worker and I certainly don't see it as a knock against Finlay.

I don't buy the "Shawn can't be discussed objectively" talking point. I mean I guess in a sense it's true if we are going with the "everything is subjective" line of reasoning, but it's pretty clear that's not the intention here. Shawn can and has been debated objectively for years it's just that some people refuse to believe that other people don't think think he's one of the greatest wrestlers ever. One of the most obvious examples of this was over at DVDVR during the March Madness tourney when Shawn came up against Finlay in the bracket. tomk and I both came up with relatively detailed arguments for why we thought Finlay was better and it was immediately dismissed as trolling/stupidity/being "unfair"/mean to Michaels. Michaels was a great tag worker. At his peak he was a very good-to-great gimmick match wrestler at a point when that style of wrestling was dominating the American main event scene. I think when he first came back he was solid enough, but by 04 he was getting noticeably worse and by the end of his run I think he was one of the worst guys in the company week in and week out. He was still good for one or two strong performances a year, but he had become a self parody of sorts and his weaknesses were so glaring that I honestly can't believe people thought he was a high level worker. The Michaels/Taker matches are both really good matches. I honestly don't remember anyone criticizing either match for having to many nearfalls after big moves, which is odd because in most instances that is a criticism I would be the first to offer up but I think it was done well enough in both bouts. In the WWF Michaels had more big matches than Dibiase for sure but I think we are kidding ourselves if we are pretending that Michaels didn't have huge advantages in that regard. I'm not sure Michaels had more great matches than Savage despite his advantages.

It was a great show. I can't imagine what peoples expectations must have been like coming in to think this show was bad. The match that we knew would suck sucked and it was put in an awful spot on the card, but other than that and Punk v. Rey being a great short match as opposed to a great long match, I thought everything on the show was better than could have been guessed coming in.

Floyd where are you running that best of 00's poll?

I don't know if I'll have a single North/South match in the top half of the ballot.

It's MUCH more top heavy on the back end. I'm not sure I'll have more than a handful of pre-86 matches in my top thirty.

That New Foundation v. Davey/Bret match is really good

Speaking entirely for myself but I will watch the entire Funk comp. It's going to take me a LONG time to be sure, but Funk is someone I never get bored with.

Terry is 37 discs. The wife and daughter are out of town this weekend, so I'm diving in head first.

I just picked up Ron Garvin, Tully Blanchard, Fantastics, Barry Windham and Terry Funk sets from Will. Got a Horowitz and Lawler set coming soon from Bix. Also bout the Savage set WWE produced last week. There is never enough!

Yeah it's the best Meltzer obit I've read in a long, long time.

Todd Martin is a guy who once PM'ed me on Classics about how we needed to start an "affirmative action" campaign to get Sting into the WON HoF. This would be bizarre under any circumstances but was made more bizarre by the fact that I was arguing against including Sting in the HoF at the exact same time Todd was reaching out to me as an ally for his weird crusade. Also keep in mind that I didn't have a vote for the HoF and I'm not sure Todd did at the time either. Point is that Todd seems to have a very strange way of viewing things even by the standards of wrestling "journalists."

The thing about WWE is why I agree with people like Jerome that the shows are overproduced and the mic work is shit compared to what it used to be (with a few notable exceptions) the average match is much better now and the sheer number of good matches they have a year is jarring. For example last year the WWE had three shows a week until April when they started with four shows a week. Of course they also had a ppv every month (maybe more?). As someone who watched a lot of WWE tv last year I think a low end estimate would place the number of "good" televised matches at about 3 a week. That means you wind up with over a 150 quality matches a year and that is a really conservative count (I think the number is closer to double that, but I'm a bigger fan of the WWE in ring product than a lot of people). The funny thing is this works both ways as far as keeping fan interest because on the one hand the liklihood of seeing something solid is higher than ever, but it also results in people "giving up" on following the shows closely if they miss a few heavily pimped matches and the great matches don't stand out nearly as much as they used too.

I go back and forth and have for years. Right now I'm as interested as ever as I really liked WWE last year, I'm finally following through on my promise to really start following Lucha, and I've pretty much been watching shit for various projects and polls non-stop for almost three years now. I've also got a shitload of stuff coming my way from Will and Bix over the next month or so. To be fair my daughter becoming a really big wrestling fan has probably aided and abetted a lot of this viewing as she likes to watch stuff with me, go to live shows, et. Low point of my watching was probably 01 as the death of ECW and WCW killed the interest of my main viewing partner, plus I was playing in two semi-series bands and living in a house that doubled as a cocaine/pot/acid depot. I have basically given up on Puro though.

As a fan the best thing about Jack is that it is impossible to remember him as a broken down shell of himself because he left the ring without looking back when he was still in strong health and still one of the best in the World. RIP

I've got to watch the extras on disc 15 but other than that I'm done. Will start rewatching stuff this week

Thanks Bix. Random sub-question - is there any place on the web that chronicles the gates/attendance figures for indy wrestling?

In this weeks Observer Dave mentions a Funk v. Lawler rematch worked around the Empty Arena angle. I remember seeing promos for this at one point but never heard about the match which apparently did great business for an indy. Does anyone have the gate and attendance figures for that show or any details on it?

Biased or not I'd be hard pressed to think of any reason to call Bret's book anything less than very good by the standards of pro wrestling books

To clarify I'm not surprised that Brody might have been more of a partier than history has told us up to this point, but Bass is the only person I've ever heard go on record with those claims.

I had no clue Brody had a rep as a partier.

Based on his book - which is well written and a great read - I'm not sure Bret was ever more troubled by Owen's death than he was by Montreal.

The best part was JR saying that smart marks all wish they lived his life. Because carrying Scott Norton's bags around an airport and having crohn's disease is what every man longs for...

Regulation would strengthen Vince dramatically. Not saying that in itself is an argument against it, but it would bury all the independents and make any upstarts totally impossible.