Dylan Waco

No one has an automatic nomination. That said anyone can be nominated. I understand the point you are trying to make, but I'm unsure why CZW would be the promotion to focus on here. Compare CZW to wrestling in Cornelia, Georgia for example. Wildside or Anarchy ran out of the Church, the majority of that time with a weekly t.v. presence, for over 15 years. Guys like Slim J, Tank, Adam Jacobs, Iceberg, Shaun Tempers, and Ace Rockwell had big runs there and went on to have very solid runs elsewhere. Some of those guys have had brilliant years both inside and outside of Cornelia. None of them is nominated. I'm not saying they are better or worse picks than Matt Tremont or Masada or Jeez or whoever, but my point is that there are a lot of guys who worked out of that hub who had good heat, played their roles well and were solid or better in the ring for years. But no one has nominated them presumably because no one is strongly considering them and/or no one remembers them at all. I don't think any of that is comparable to the 80's names mentioned. Those guys were national stars, who worked major shows. For better or worse their profile is bigger. It's not about when they worked, it's about where they worked and the shape of the wrestling world at the time they were stars.

Is Blk Jeez really thought of as a strong candidate for something like this even among CZW fans? I have friends who go to every CZW show, and work and/or have worked with the promotion over the years - Jeez is a name that never really comes up when CZW is discussed with them. What CZW guys haven't been nominated who you would consider? Does Gulak have a thread?

I'm probably one of the bigger critics of intergender wrestling around, but I thought the main event was brilliant. To me it didn't come across as Mil looking vulnerable against a weakling opponent, but rather an opponent having the absolute night of her life where everything was clicking perfectly, and still losing definitively to the most bad ass guy in the room. The match made you hope, and maybe even for flashes made you believe, but at no point did I think she was badder or better than Muertes.

I've watched this match 3 or 4 times now due to the fact that I like both these guys and actually respect the opinion of people I have heard say it was good and I just can't get it, what am I missing this match seems like any basic house show match and I hear low end MOTYC praise being heaped upon it. I can't be fully objective, because I was there and that effects the way I look at it, but I loved it live and on tape. That said a big part of what makes the match special to me is understanding the crowd dynamic where you effectively have a rudo cheering section (the side where it was taped) and a section that cheers for the "AWE heroes" at every show. Ciampa had to kind of change his approach early on because of that, and I think that explains the decision to turn up the heat both on the rudo fans, and with the big crowd popping spots on the floor. It's very rare for a match that is very much a modern indie match to feel as authentically energetic and snug as this came across to me. I thought it escalated very well, and really liked Chip's flurries and troll spots throughout. I also loved the finish, as Ciampa had worked on the arm early, and went back to it to finish the job. I love "basic house show matches" and would be more inclined to rate them higher than the average person. That said, I find that to be a really odd thing to say about this match. Almost nothing about the match comes across that way to me on tape, let alone in person.

Modern version of pre-turn Hogan is HHH. Yes he gets cheers Hogan didn't get, but HHH is also one of 2 or 3 guys in promotion featured as a true star. Other than that I think the similarities are fairly obvious. Excluding live reactions in certain cities, Reigns is closer to 98 Jericho or Eddie in that he was part of a fresh, hot act, got over huge, and was targeted for political assassination because the real big stars are only supposed to be old guy, part timers, and the guy running the company.

My thoughts on PWG are sort of in between WingedEagle and Case's. By far my biggest issue with them now is the emergence of a house style, rather than being a place where styles are blended in interesting ways (I think Evolve has filled the hole left their). That said some guys are really made for that setting, especially Mike Bailey who was having PWGish matches in Canada for years before he go their and has busted out as the best guy working that style on Earth (unless you count Dragon Lee and Kamaitachi). I haven't watched an entire PWG show uninterrupted in some time, but I think they are a promotion that is easy to love if you appreciate a certain aesthetic.

More songs about things that didn't actually happen.The version I saw had Vampiro as Hannibal Lector opening show, and 3 marks fleeced and presumably killed at the end. Maybe you saw a different version.

Legit loved the whole thing. Starting and ending the show with murders may be excessive, but I liked the carny vibe of the Cueto robbery of the marks. Both title matches were great for different reasons. Fenix v Cuerno because it was a well built spotfest, worked super stiff, which has a dramatic and surprising finish.....and the intergender main because of the brilliant set up for it, and strength of the overmatched plucky underdog character going against a literal cartoon monster. Not sure that works in any other setting, but in LU I was left mildly annoyed that I couldn't put it on an "official" MOTY ballot because of the tape date. It was that well done. Post-match angle with Pentagon was excellent as well. Even Striker only annoyed me twice. Great kickstart to the season

I was there live. HHH got a thunderous babyface pop. Live it was bigger than Brock's and Sasha's easily. Not as big as AJ and maybe not as big as Zayn either.

The point of the Rumble match was to get over the top star in the promotion, who the company has been built around for quite some time - HHH. That's why Brock and Reigns were made to look like chumps, idiots, et. It wasn't poor execution, the goal of the match was to make sure we understand that HHH is god on Earth. Having said that the Rumble was a very enjoyable experience live. Lots of stuff I really enjoyed, and real drama. It's a shame the company has no stars other than HHH, Cena and Brock, but that's been the case for quite some time.

I know it didn't play that way on t.v., but live he got the loudest pop I've ever heard in 30 years of going to live shows. No one cared that he was small.

Last nights show was very fun. Everyone check out Yehi v Riddle. Fred got more on the mat against Riddle than anyone so far and the match was worked perfectly. Was very impressed with The Bravados live. Really liked all of the tags, and they were all different. Excitred for today's show even with a lineup change I don't care for.

I think this is a great thread and thank Loss for it and I say that as someone who strongly disagrees with some of the things he wrote in his post. Since he brought it up, I will note that I'm on the opposite end of him and find matches infinitely more difficult to rank than wrestlers, and nearly impossible to due so by any objective criteria or standard. This year I did a top 50 Southern indie matches for the Cubed Circle Newsletter Yearbook, and also a top 10 MOTY ballot for Voices of Wrestling. The first was my idea, the second of course is something I've done for the last few years. With the top 50 I felt compelled to include several matches that weren't necessarily great, but they were on a big show and meant something big to a promotion in a storyline sense. While one could argue that this is central to wrestling, in the case of at least two matches on the list a lot of what made the match had little to do with the performance of the people wrestling. But the matches were solid enough, and so significant to the promotions, that I couldn't imagine leaving them off. In some ways this is analogous to the Hogan effect Loss talked about above but with matches I feel like I need to give those bouts some sort of representation over say an extremely well worked opening tag that had no impact on anything. I would not feel that way at all if I was judging workers. With the top 10 for VOW I ended up going with the matches that I thought were most memorable and defined the year the most to me. This meant a list that was almost entirely Southern indies and NXT women. But when I look back can I really say that I think AJ Styles v. Jimmy Rave or Slim J v. Fred Yehi was definitely better than something like Satomura v. Hojo or The Briscoes v. The Kingdom which both just missed the cut? God no. I have zero confidence in saying that, but I do have a lot of confidence in saying that I think Styles and Rave had better years than Jay Briscoes and Meiko Satomura, in large part because I have a much wider body of experience and evidence to draw from. One other thing that I will note is that as I have gone through this process one thing that has become clear to me is that I really value consistency. Early on the mantra of some was "if you can be great when you want to be then you are great" and I never bought that. At least not for he purposes of doing a ranking like this. To me a lot of the "peak v longevity" debate obscures he fact that what some of us really look for is a guy who we can count on to have an engaging performance every time out. This doesn't mean 100 fun performances are better than 5 other worldly ones, but if you are prone to laziness, phoning it in, or falling flat, I'm less likely to rate you (or rate you highly) no matter how strong your best work is.

On Breaks, I think he stands out so immediately as a guy who could get over anywhere that he sucks you in. I'm not sure how many Brit's I will have on my list, but I am sure that Breaks will place very high off of the 20 or so matches of his I've seen.

I need to go back and watch some 80s Joshi. Maybe I'll prioritize that more than anything else in the next six weeks as I'm close to feeling comfortable with most everyone else. I can't in good conscience leave Hokuto or Kong off my list. After that it gets really tough for me because when I have tried to go back and Joshi in recent years it has fallen flat. I do love Satomura though, and feel compelled to include here because she has kept the flame alive for a dying scene. Kansai, Nakano, and Kudo were all people I continued to think highly of even after my interest in Joshi had collapsed so I may include them as well. Feels wrong to leave Chigusa off but it's been forever since I watched her

If it's 80-89 I would lean heavily toward Hansen or Fujinami. I'm not prepared to say who I would pick, but I think they have the most complete and interesting resumes and oddly stand out for totally different reasons - Hansen because he made his act work everywhere against everyone, and Fujinami because he was so excellent at adapting to different roles, settings, styles. Lawler is hurt from the missing year of 1980, and Flair is hurt because there is so little Flair footage from that year relative to Hansen and Fujinami. If it's 81-90 I think Fujinami slides out of contention and Flair slides in as well as Lawler. Still not sure I'm entirely settled on who I would pick there - my heart says Lawler, my brain says Hansen, and my gut says Flair. Will have more to say about this in the coming months.

Is this 80-89 or 81-90. Because that effects my answer

Fancam of Chip Day v Ciampa. Keep in mind that it was shot from the "heel" fan side of ring (yes AWE has a rudo fan section, and while I know some might hate it, I thought it added a ton to this match and Rave v Gargano).

Have you watched any of the AWE footage from the show I attended (handheld and Raw footage, not best, but not terrible by standards of those things)? Would also be curious if you caught main event of this weeks CWF Mid-Atlantic show, Kalisto v. ADR from SD last week, or the main event fro this weeks NWA Smoky Mountain?

For the purposes of projects like this I always try to be objective. By objective I don't mean "find the one truth that governs all wrestling analysis, and apply that standard to all wrestlers," but rather "try to ascertain things that I value in wrestling, and do my best to rank the wrestlers based on how closely they conform to those values." Obviously that is imprecise for a variety of reasons, but I try. That said it's really tough for me to be objective in that sense with certain people. Chris Hamrick is probably the best example of this. Now make no mistake - I think Chris Hamrick is at minimum a very good wrestler. He's one of the craziest bumpers in wrestling history. He has a great command of psychology, very good timing, can throw a punch, works very well at multiple speeds, and is one of the most creative, interesting and varied offensive wrestlers of his era. He's got plenty of good matches, and good performances, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything out of him that I would categorize as less than a good effort. But none of that is the reason I felt compelled to nominate him. I nominated Hamrick because I am a huge fan of independent wrestling, particularly Southern independent wrestling, almost entirely because of him. When I was growing up indies would only come to my town a few times a year. It was usually a PWF show or some card using a similar roster. That generally meant Terry Austin, George South, The Italian Stallion, and a roster of others at about that level who would put on a very by the numbers show, with minimal effort. It wasn't bad really, but the shows were flat, and lacked anything that could really grab your attention. Except for Chris Hamrick. I saw Hamrick work a bunch of shows live as a kid/teenager and it was always the best thing on the card, and always completely amazing. More often than not he was in a tag match, but not always. If he was working heel you'd usually get him at his shit talking best, jawing with the locals, working great heel schtick...and then taking absolutely insane bumps that in some cases literally brought people out of their seats (I saw him take "his" bump through the ropes on a hardwood basketball floor once where he skidded out and took out a few rows of fans). You got all the staples that made Southern heel work effect PLUS the dynamism of a guy who was a great athlete and willing to put his body on the line. If he was a face you usually got great fire, good selling, and offense that was completely unlike anything you would see on these shows at the time. I remember marking out for Scott Steiner as a kid because of his crazy spots, but seeing Hamrick was even nuttier. Here was a redneck dude, with a mullet, doing jump out of the gym top rope legdrops and moonsaults. I never saw him live after he started doing the top rope piledriver as a finish, but it was completely in keeping with the vibe that I got watching Hamrick when I was younger. He was basically the Billy Black of the Carolinas and we loved him (or loved to hate him) for it. That said my all time favorite Hamrick performance was when I got to see him live several years back with my daughter who was probably six or seven at the time. Before his match no one was really coming up to his gimmick table because the show also had Buff Bagwell, The Rock N Roll Express, Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff their signing autographs. Emma and I went up to Hamrick and got a couple of signed 8X10's and a DVD. My daughter was definitely nervous talking to him just because he was a wrestler, and he asked her to cheer extra for him. About an hour later he had his match, and unsurprisingly it was the best on the show. We got crazy bumps, brutally stiff chops, some neat submissions (an underrated aspect of his game), and a couple of awesome highspots including a split legged moonsault to the floor. It got over more than anything on the show, and when he went back to his table afterwards people swarmed it. My daughter asked if she could run over and say hi to him, which I kind of discouraged her from doing figuring he'd want to make as much cash as he could, but she went anyway. Hamrick high-fived her, had her sit next to him for a bit, and introduced her to people as his number one fan in the building. So I think Hamrick is really, really good. Criminally underrated, was wasted in ECW, and had a team with Smothers that was awesome which everyone forgets and where the footage isn't widely circulated. He was ahead of his time in the right ways, while still understanding the importance of working, building heat, and staying logical. Is loved by people throughout the business as a worker, and had runs in places that are generally thought of very highly by those who have seen them in full. But even if those things weren't true about Chris Hamrick, he'd still have an outside shot at making my ballot. I can't be objective about the guy who made both myself and my daughter indie wrestling fans.

Nominating Chris Hamrick. Here are the reviews. Chris Hamrick v. Nick Nitro 3/31/12 Milestone Wrestling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1GWcLRzhs This is not without flaws as Nitro is pretty bad, but this was a pretty awesome "Greatest Hits" Chris Hamrick match. We get the Hamrick/Fuerza bump, the fake injury in match leading to ambush superkick heel turn, the nasty looking chops and punches, the crazy suplex/neckbreaker spots, the trolling of the crowd with dive and crowd brawling teases, the big crotch bump in the corner, et. He also does his reverse Boston Crab/stretch submission and transitions right into a camel clutch where he asks the ref to to ask Nitro to quit only to cover his mouth to keep him from answering which was pretty great. A couple of good cut off spots too. Finish felt pretty telegraphed but it was inevitable and the post-match with Hamrick crushing he poor kid with a diving piledriver from the second rope was awesome Chris Hamrick/Gunner/Team Ego v. Myric Moore/Mike McCloud/Derek Driver/Kid Kaos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aybzx0pV4Rs No one will like this as much as me, but I'm a big mark for multi-men matches like this. This one me over when a few of the heels took massive back body drop bumps. In fact the entire face shine was pretty great. Gunner didn't look like anything special here though he did almost kill someone with a suplex. Team Ego had some fun double teams. Fucking Chris Hamrick looked like god on earth here and it pisses me off to no end that he almost never makes tape. The guy comes in for a couple seconds and lights dudes up with punches and then ties them up in pretzels like its nothing. I would have preferred he work FIP but it ended up being one of the Team Ego guys. I expected this to collapse then, but the cut off the ring stuff and hope spots worked well and I ended up liking the second half of this a good bit too. Fun match. These are from EricR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3cn5zMZf80 Chris Hamrick is still as good as Chris Hamrick, btw. This is a match against Reid Flair (who has a nice right hand, but seems lost in between spots) and it's Hamrick being Hamrick. He throws awesome uppercuts, he makes fun of the crowd for being rubes, he set up a suicide (harhar) dive but just jumped to the floor and did an eyepoke, he took Flair's head off with a superkick, he made a bunch of people get out of their chairs to through Flair through them only to throw him back into the ring, and he looked fucking awesome. He's Chris Hamrick. He failed at suicide but succeeds at wrestling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y19dc4t2xs This one is just clips, but there are 7 minutes of clips so you get a good feel for how he looks. This is against some guy named Jeff Lewis Neal who looks like a cross between Mike Modest and Skip Sheffield, and wrestles like you would imagine a modern Renegade working. But Hamrick owns this. He fakes an injury that I totally suckered into. He went for a springboard and Lewis hit an RKO, and then Hamrick stiffened up as if he had serious neck damage. Hamrick is a guy who I buy having serious neck damage. The ref and Hamrick's manager help him to his feet and it takes like 2 minutes, and as Lewis gets the crowd to root Hamrick on, Hamrick blasts him with a superkick. I'm a sucker, I thought Hamrick was really hurt. His selling was great, and then afterwards him mocking people for having sympathy for him. I love Chris Hamrick.

Unrelated to recent discussion, but if you can't get into Lucha Coffey, why is Pentagon Jr. in your sig?

At various points over the last few years I have regularly watched ROH, TNA, WWE, CMLL, AAA, NWA SAW, Anarchy and probably some others on a weekly or near weekly basis. This year I've started off the year doing about the same, but with NWA Smoky Mountain and CWF Mid-Atlantic in the spots of SAW and Anarchy. That said that schedule rarely lasts for a whole year. As a kid the peak would have been when I was real little, probably in 86 or 87. I think it was around that time when Charleston got WWF, NWA, World Class, AWA, UWF, and Florida for a brief period.

Discuss Here.

PM me Jingus. If some of the guys in question are Certain TN indie workers we both like I'd be willing to watch and review the matches if I know who they are