Dylan Waco

Jacques/Ray Rougeau v. Frenchy Martin/Pierre Lefebure Heels go for the ambush, but the heroes cut them off and have them reeling right away. Man the Rougeau drop down/vaulting crossbody spot really is pretty cool. Fucking absurd criss cross spot with Frenchy running right through a dropkick. At this point the announcer claims this is just clips of a match that went a half hour - I have my doubts of this for a variety of reasons. Man Jacques's floatover and leaping press combo ruled, but he turns away from the action and gets drilled with a cheap shot to his leg. They are working over Jacques pretty nastily, including a moment where Frenchy seems to be deliberately grabbing his dick and yanking it. I have to give it to the heels as they are super expressive and look the part to the point where little shit like a smash on the apron comes across as really vicious. Minor cut here and Pierre misses a seated splash which leads to the Ray hot tag. Ray hit a pretty cool looking senton and then a nice floatover suplex for a near fall. Awesome sequence as Ray locks on the sleeper on Frenchy, but Pierre comes behind the ref and crushes Jacques with a nasty crotch drop on the top rope. Heels double team Ray, but Jacques comes to andhits the heels in the balls for a dq. I don't buy for a second that there is more than a couple of minutes missing off of this and what is here is really good stuff. Jacques/Ray Rougeau v. Pierre Lefebure/Sailor White Really cool opening as the Rougeau's come out hot and hit a neat sequence with a misdirection atomic drop, dropkick, leaping splash combo that looked really fluid and actually set up a cool near fall on Lefebure. White comes in and takes a great near fall off of a dropk down/crossbody combo and then another off of a sick looking Jacques double stomp, then Ray comes in and crushes White with a deep powerslam that actually got me out of my seat. White corners Jacques but ends up steamrolling Lefebure and then flailing around with some more big bumps. Really liked Sailor White's desperation in Ray's headlock as he is pulling hair, smashing his arm, complaining of a choke et. Sailor tags out, but Pierre eats a huge double dropkick almost immediately. Heels finally take over as Ray gets caught in the back coming off the ropes with a knee and White locks on a bearhug. Ray breaks out with a hip toss and goes for a sleeper but Lefebure breaks it up and ends up locking on his own bear hug, with Ray breaking free so Lefebure goes to an ab stretch. Jacques breaks it up, but Lefebure stays in control and the fans are throwing shit in the ring. Lefebure locks on a Boston Crab, which Jacques quickly breaks up and they do a nice rope running spot leading to a double knockdown with Jacques getting he hot tag. All hell breaks lose and the heels manager's walking stick ends up getting used as a weapon with the match getting tossed. Heel offense could have been better and the finish sucked, but this was a really fun match.

The Funk matches in the mid-00s were generally very good to great.

I think he's the only one who could offhand.

I was going to watch a lot of his stuff on YouTube for the GWE project and now I'm going to bump that up in the rotation. An all time great who is unfairly maligned at times for business mistakes he made in the waning days of his wrestling career. It's easy to look at that and see failure and forget about the fact that he had an international territory, a territory that was massive in geographic scope which by most accounts was a place wrestlers liked to work relative to many other places, and was a relevant player in pro wrestling for forty years which is an astoundingly long run if you really think about it. I'm not sure he was a better trainer than Diablo Velasco in terms of training top level stars, but that is the only person I'd rate above him in that regard. My dad's favorite wrestlers were the Funks and Ricky Romero, but Verne was the favorite of both my grandfather and great grandfather. In fact my Morfar worked with Verne at times on civic projects, and things related to amateur sports in the Twin Cities area. He was a Minnesota sports legend because of his stardom during the golden age of wrestling, at his peak not far off from Bronko Nagurski, which is amazing if you have ever been to Minnesota (particularly the smaller towns of the state). As late as 83 in the build to Super Sunday you could see how beloved he was by the people of the Twin Cities, as the attack on him by Blackwell and Adnan at the 3/13 St. Paul Civic Center show touched off a near riot in the building. I have criticized him before for things like trying to expand into Alaska when Vince had really turned up the heat in his home base, but at the end of the day he was desperate to stay in a business that he loved.

Yep, it's a great match. On top of everything you said I also thought there were a lot of little things in the match that were really good, like the angles both guys were using to apply and break holds, Yehi stretching his toes desperately to get to the ropes at one point while trapped in a relatively mild looking hold, the way Yehi fled to get away from the big moonsault early only to get hit with a move off the top anyhow, the chops and fighting on the floor being cut really short since that had costs Yehi in the previous match, Slim J not allowing any time to breathe in between the 2nd and 3rd fall and immediately trying to go straight for the win, et. I also loved the fact that there was real build to the big spots in each fall and over the course of the match. The moonsault to the floor was a nice spot, but not particularly impressive by modern standards, and yet it came across as a huge deal because of the previous teasing of it, how the match was paced, et. I knew the match was good because I was hearing from people after it happened that it was the best GA indie match in ten years. To me it lived up to that hype and I watch a ton of Georgia indie wrestling. This is in the mix for my MOTY at this point.

The end to the awesome Fred Yehi v. Slim J series is here. There best of five ended on a countout loss, so they brought back the match for the big Hardcore Hell show with a 2/3 Falls stip. It ended up being the best match of the series and one of my favorite matches this year.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on some or the longer studio/for tv matches

There were live threads here last year with more than 3 Batista matches reviewed. I think people should nominate anyone who they would even vaguely consider. Covers all bases and adds to discussion.

They killed every heel with a chance to hit the next level. Some not permanently, but Rusev is finished. On the plus side Reigns is getting over despite their efforts to kill him and is at minimum a very good wrestler at this point. I enjoyed the show as a whole despite some comically stupid booking decisions, the ridiculousness of the main event, and bad even by WWE standards commentary. In large part this is because I thought every match was at least decent, I loved heel Sheamus' post-match antics, I really enjoyed the tag title match with Cesaro look like 2/14 level Cesaro and the LMS being so good made me smile.

I prefer it to Koko/Dundee and Jarrett/Greene. A lot of that preference may be based on the atmosphere though which is something that is just incredible. In general I think a lot of PR matches benefit from the environment in which they occur.

You and I have pretty different tastes a lot of the time so I'm not terribly surprised you weren't into that bout. I thought it was tremendous the last time I watched which was a few months ago. And I've thought it was tremendous every time I watched it before that. Having said that the gimmick may not work for some no matter what, different strokes, et. Having said that I wouldn't let your thoughts on this match discourage you from watching more PR. Granted everyone who has been watching a bunch of the footage loves this match and would rate it really highly, but that is still relative. There are plenty of Invader and Colon matches at minimum that I imagine the majority of fans would really like if not love.

This is a bad week for me to try and compile a solid list, but I will give it a good go next week when finals are over and I'm in Chattanooga with the other wrestling brothers Hales'

I would note that Jumbo will appear in my top 100 for sure. There is not way I could leave him off in good conscience. The problem is that I'm also not sure I can rate a guy who I loathe watching that much in the absolute tip-top, tier. I guess a good way of looking at this is that ultimately the single most important trait a wrestler should have is to be engaging and instead of finding Jumbo engaging I find him repellent. I can't rate a guy I find repellent number one, top five, or top ten. Very likely I can't rate him top twenty either. Top thirty? I'd be hard pressed to let him fall farther than that. Too much that I think is great both in terms of matches and individual performances.

Parv asked for some recommendations so I'm going to link to a few. These aren't necessarily his best matches, but four matches that showcase him doing different things. v. Curtis Thompson Not a great match but a good example of Starr getting a solid match out of a complete slug in large part because he was so good at getting heat. Chicky Starr v. The Invader Almost a squash built around a cheap shot we didn't see, but this is Chicky at his absolute best building heat, against one of the best sellers in wrestling history. Chicky Starr v. Invader 3 The opposite of the previous match, with Chicky on the receiving end of a one sided ass beating, but being great in that role. v. Invader III - Scaffold Match The best Scaffold Match ever which is not at all damning this with feint praise. This would likely be at top five Puerto Rico match of the 80's, no worse than top ten. Chicky's best match.

I'll bump his thread when I get home.

Some YouTube links to Southern guys/matches we discussed Kyle Matthews v. KT Hamill, DSCW Jimmy Rave Approved (Rave, Hollis, Day, Posey) v. Tank, Kyle Matthews, Mr. Showtime and Jessico Blue, DSCW - Elimination Match Vordell Walker v. Sigmon, TCW - Iron Man Match (30 Minutes) Cyrus The Destroyer v. Torque, DSCW (I and II) Fred Yehi v. Slim J, Anarchy (Match 2 of best of 5) BJ Hancock v. Corey Hollis, ECWA Shaun Tempers v. Andrew Alexander, Empire - Dog Collar Match Gunner Miller v. Bane Lynch, Empire Crash Test Dummy v. Talon Williams, DSCW - Hardcore Match

I think his work as late 70's junior ace is outstanding and amazing considering the variety of opponents he was working against.

Fujinami has a late start, but based on what is available I think he was clearly better in the 70's than Jumbo.

Deranged tough guy redneck or that is always how he came across to me as a kid. Was every bit as good as Bobby Eaton in one of the best tag teams ever, but also had very good/great tag run with Randy Rose and Phil Hickerson. Would be interesting to compare him to someone like Tom Prichard who had a similar career in many ways.

Fucking great in Montreal, to the point where you wish we had a ton of the footage from there. I think he could have been a Rick Martel or Tito level/style face but I can't prove it. Not a fan of the team with his brother in the WWF which hurts him. Not a top 100 guy based on the footage that exists, but I'd think about him for a 200 and that is hardly a backhanded compliment.

Even if I thought the Fantastics were better than the Rock N Rolls I don't know that I could include Rogers. With Morton I know he could be a great singles wrestler because I saw it with my own eyes against a variety of opponents. With Rogers, he was really underwhelming on the ECW handhelds even when I wanted him to be good, and I have no memory of any other singles matches of note. He is also hurt a bit by the fact that I have come to see Fulton as a much better worker than I originally gave him credit for. Don't get me wrong, Rogers was clearly better, it's just that he no longer feels like he's carrying the team. All of that said the Fantastic had great offense, could brawl with the best of them, could cut a hell of a pace, and are probably a to five U.S. tag team of the taped footage era. So maybe I shouldn't dismiss him.

I'll write more about this concept soon, but he falls into the "want to vote for" category. That said I need justification for guys in that realm, which means I need some late stage FMW recs for him. I remember enjoying him their, but I havent' watched any of that in ages and don't know where to start. I did think he was awesome in Footloose to the point where I thought he was clearly better than Kawada, and one of the best few guys in AJPW in 88/89 which is saying something considering the talent in All Japan during that period.

In real time he was my favorite garbage promotion worker. I have no clue how he would play in hindsight, but I always found him to be almost a cross between the pageantry and showmanship of Onita, and the go-go, big spot style of Masato Tanaka. When I was going through the ECW fancams I found a couple of matches involving him which I really enjoyed their, but I have not watched any of his prime Japanese work in a long time. I get the impression from talking to Loss that the promotion WING may be something of a gold mine of fun stuff, but I'm not sure how much of that is conjecture. Still this feels like a guy who deserves a thread, and he is someone I will try to watch some stuff from over the course of the Summer.

Discuss Here.

Want to reevaluate his 07 and 08 stretch which I thought was outstanding at the time, but I haven't watched in quite a while. My impression the last time I watched his WWECW work was that he was basically doing what Christian was doing in 09, but in a fashion that was arguably more hard hitting and convincing (to be fair he was working guys like Finlay and Mark Henry during a lot of that as I recall). One thing that is worth thinking about with him is that he was really given two chances in meaningful feuds that I can recall - the Jeff feud which was not good but was also a terrible idea on paper, and the Edge feud which was the best thing Edge ever did, and in many respects made his career. I watched the Unforgiven 05 Cage Match last night again for the first time in some time and it still holds up as an amazing match, among the best in the history of the promotion. I realize that sounds insane but I absolutely believe it. I now want to go back and watch the Raw brawl which I remember being great and I seem to recall they had a very good sprint at Summerslam too. In any case I think Hardy was great last year, not quite tip top tier, but basically the next run down. Lots of good singles and tag performances against a pretty wide variety of opponents. I think he's one of the more consistent guy of the last fifteen years or so which should count for something.