Dylan Waco

This things may be true to some people BUT I would prefer the reasons people feel that way be articulated and discussed

I think there is far too much concern put in what outsiders think anyhow.

Alan, why didn't you forfeit your board at F4W the times rovert was banned there?

Flair, Jumbo, Rey, Tenryu, Kawada, Kobashi, Misawa, Liger, Buddy Rose, Dandy, Fujinami, Fujiwara, Satanico, Negro Casas, Lawler, Terry Funk, Bock, Hansen. I could be forgetting others Maybe Kong, but I need to go back and watch more Joshi

My thinking is the same as Grimmas. Steph/Brie had the best tv segments in wrestling all year until they brought in WWE Claire Lynch to kill it. I liked the Brock pre-tapes a ton

This is my rough draft ballot for the Class A Awards. I've got thoughts I'll add later and will answer any questions about anything here. I encourage others to post theirs. This year feels really wide open and there are several categories where I'm still unsure what I will do. There are probably fifteen-twenty matches I could see in my top three this year to take the most extreme example, and that "top three" is something I sort of threw together on a whim to fill slots I don't know what to do with. Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award (Wrestler of the Year) 1. Shinsuke Nakamura 2. Rush 3. Cavernario On the bubble: AJ Styles, Tomohiro Ishii, Rusev Most Outstanding Wrestler 1. Cavernario 2. Hechicero 3. Timothy Thatcher On the bubble: Tomohiro Ishii Best Box Office Draw 1. Atlantis 2. Ultimo Guerrero 3. Shinsuke Nakamura On the bubble: Rush Feud of the Year 1. Rush v. Negro Casas 2. Rusev v. Jack Swagger 3. Briscoes v. Matt Hardy On the bubble: Stephanie McMahon v. Brie Bella, Wyatts v. The Shield, Gunner v. James Storm Tag Team of the Year 1. The Briscoes 2. The Usos 3. Young Bucks On the bubble: The Hardys, Harper/Rowan, Dust Brothers, reDRagon, The Twin Towers Most Improved 1. Rusev 2. Caleb Konley 3. Eric Rowan On the bubble: Gunner, Biff Busick Best on Interviews 1. Stephanie McMahon 2. Paul Heyman 3. MVP On the bubble: Zeb Colter, Brock Lesnar, Jay Briscoe Most Charismatic 1. Negro Casas 2. Rush 3. Shinsuke Nakamura On the bubble: Cavernario, John Cena Best Technical Wrestler 1. Timothy Thatcher 2. Hechicero 3. Virus On the bubble: Drew Gulak, Zack Sabre Jr. Bruiser Brody Memorial Award (Best Brawler) 1. Rush 2. Kongo Kong 3. Pentagon Jr. On the bubble: Negro Casas, Mark Briscoe, Villano IV Best Flying Wrestler 1. Dragon Lee 2. Titan 3. Aerostar On the bubble: Australian Suicide Most Overrated 1. Kane 2. YujiroTakahashi 3. Randy Orton On the bubble: Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar Most Underrated 1. Tomoaki Honma 2. Sami Callihan 3. Titus O'Neil On the bubble: Cesaro, Shibata, Gunner Promotion of the Year 1. NJPW 2. CMLL 3. Evolve/WWNLive On the bubble: ROH, AAA Best Weekly Television Show 1. Ring of Honor 2. CMLL 3. NXT On the bubble: AAA, Anarchy Match of the Year 1. AJ Styles v. Minoru Suzuki - New Japan 8/1 2. Biff Busick v. Drew Gulak - CZW 4/27 3. Ultimo Guerrero v. Atlantis - CMLL 9/19 On the bubble: The Wyatts v. The Shield Elimination Chamber, Timothy Thatcher v. Zack Sabre Jr. 9/13 Evolve, Virus/Cachorro/Hechicero vs. Negro Casas/Cavernario/Dragon Lee CMLL 5/23, Hechicero vs. Cavernario CMLL 6/20, The Briscoes v. The Hardys OMEGA, Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori, AJPW 6/15, Tomoaki Honma vs. Katsuyori Shibata, NJPW 8/3, et., et., et. Rookie of the Year 1. Hechicero 2. Timothy Thatcher 3. Cachorro On the bubble: Dragon Lee, Australian Suicide Best Non-Wrestler 1. Stephanie McMahon 2. Zeb Colter 3. Lana On the bubble: Bruce Tharpe, Paul Heyman Best Television Announcer 1. ? 2. ?? 3. ??? Worst Television Announcer 1. Nick Nitrus 2. Taz 3. JBL On the bubble: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Mike Tenay Best Major Show 1. G1 Night Seven 2. CMLL Anniversary Show 3. G1 Night Four On the bubble: WWE Payback, Wrestlemania XXX, Elimination Chamber, NJPW 12/21/13 Korakuen Hall show

Storm is interesting to me because he's the only guy who's entire career (basically) has taken place in TNA who I consider worthy of thinking about for this project. While you could argue other guys in the promotion had better individual years (Joe in 06, Aries in 2012 I think), and more absolute top level singles bouts (Styles, Joe, maybe Aries), I think over the course of TNA's history Storm has been the both the best guy in the promotion and the most consistent. Yeah he kind of sucks now, but that's largely due to the gimmick they've given him, and this is the first time I can really remember thinking he looked poor in the ring. AMW was a great team in a shit promotion, with matches that stood out then and still hold up now. Beer Money is more fondly remembered, and while not as good, they were the best thing about TNA when they were around and Storm was the better guy in the team. As a singles he's been in some really good stuff, particularly the Harris Texas Death Match which some people think is the best TNA match of all time. Ultimately I doubt he makes my list, but he's had a sneaky good career despite the handicap of being in TNA

That match is a great Corino performance, but Rich is pretty much a warm body

Nominating James Storm with these three reviews v. Chris Harris Sacrifice 2007 (Texas Death Match) Legitimately great match that a lot of people rate as the best in TNA history. I'm not sure I'm in line with that, but for bloodbath brawls from the last fifteen years or so I can think of maybe two or three matches I'd rate above this and those were all in Mexico. What I really enjoyed about this is that it mattered to incorporate the best elements of the more modern stunt show/prop heavy brawls with the more traditional, "punch a motherfucker in the mouth" fights of old. The big spots in this were all pretty great, including some really crazy spots that got the match over as a true blood feud. Some might cringe at the chairshot against the post spot, but it looked to me like Harris was well protected and it was really put over as an epic spot. All the table spots were smart, made sense and added to the match, and the blade job of Storm was infuckingsane. Even little stuff like Storm running over with a forearm to cut Harris down after he beat a ten count, or Harris dropping the glass out of his hand after the kill shot with the bottle were really well done moments. I also have to give credit to Tenay who did a good job getting over little points, like the both guys refusing to even take a fall on the other guys finish. Probably the best singles match of either guys career, but this would be the best singles match of a lot of guys career. w/Chris Harris v. The Naturals Impact 4/29 Fun, wild match, with Chris Candido working a quasi-Ron Wright gimmick seconding The Naturals. The commercials hurt this a bit because we didn't get to see all of the transitions or the meat of the match, but the work was so good that I still feel comfortable calling this very good at worst. AMW are wildly underrated in general, but I was amazed at how good they worked here as faces. You could argue that The Naturals wild bumping really carried this match, but AMW had lots of good offense, and I thought when AMW was on the defensive they were really strong selling for the chickenshits. I actually marked out for the headscissors nearfall because it seems so out of character from what I expect of guys like Storm or Harris. The finish was probably a bit overbooked, but it's TNA and that kind of comes with the territory. w/Chris Harris . AJ Styles/Chris Daniels Slammiversary 2006 There was a weird bit in here with a Gail Kim run-in that was thwarted by an "Amazonian" woman who's name I forget. But up until that moment and even after that this was a great match. I had remembered really liking TNA tag wrestling from 05-07, but I can honestly say I wasn't expecting a match this good when I put this on. This was AMW as the heels, and the first portion of this was really awesome with them doing almost PG-13ish miscommunication spots, with AJ in particular being awesome flying around and making them look like assholes. Actually AJ was just great in this period, selling his ass off on the defensive, explosive as all hell off the hot tag, and timing things perfectly. I loved the eye of the storm teaser and hope spot, and also really liked Storm getting splatted off the top to the floor. To his credit Daniels was solid in this too, especially in the second half of the bout. Anyway, this was really good shit, with a fun combo finish after some good false finishes. I'd recommend this to anyone.

They have more great matches than the Hart Foundation and British Bulldogs put together

What hurts Malenko most for me, is that Little Guido was right there in ECW and would have been vastly better in the same role

Nominating Bobby Fulton by way of 80's projects, WTBBP, et.

I hate it, but I think the answer is probably Barry Windham. It's an odd thing for me to say, because at his absolute best I thought he was an outstanding worker, I'd rate him among the best tag team wrestlers of all time, and I could easily see him rating in my top thirty in ring performers of all time. Having said that, he was someone with the look, pedigree, versatility and skill set of a major star, and instead he peaked as an upper mid-carder and even in that role never truly realized his full potential as a star.

I think Nakamura is more adaptable than Tanahashi. I know they sometimes go with the story of Tanahashi trying to change/adapt his game to a particularly unique, violent, or dynamic performer, and some of those bouts are my favorite Tanahashi matches (the second Ishii match from last year, the Shibata match from this years G1 being the two standouts), but more often than not these bouts still feel like Tanahashi matches first and foremost. I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing - from a hardcore New Japan fans perspective they certainly aren't - but in all but a few cases they limit the appeal to me, and I'm not sure there is anything he does well enough on his own terms to ever make me really excited. When I say this people think I'm picking on him on unfairly because a lot of folks don't like Mike Bennett, but I think Bennett is one of the better guys in ROH and to me it's not surprising that Tanahashi couldn't have a good, stripped down match with Bennett in NY. Nakamura on the other hand had extremely different types of matches v. Sakuraba, Ibushi, Tanahashi, Ishii, Steen, Fale, Captain New Japan and others just in the last twelve months. I don't see that with Tanahashi.

Who else has watched fifteen minute Tito v. Billy clip from the AWA? I remember loving it from watching for the AWA project, but I have not seen it since that point and never hear people talk about it.

I basically agree with Bill, but I would note that I do think he is clearly charismatic even if that charisma doesn't personally connect for me. Also to Alans question, I understand why he asks it, but I'm wary of where that takes us. I love Rufus R. Jones, and most guys from my hometown will tell you he was the most over live act in the history of live events at County Hall, but even I would hesitate to call him a good worker let alone a great one.

Watched a bunch of what's available from him this week. I came away really feeling bad for the guy as he is very talented but the combination of an awkward look, wild overbooking, and coming around after Puerto Rico had peaked hurts him. I will say that I think he is good as both a face and a heel, though as a heel he feels more natural. Watching him carry a green Carlito you can tell he's got the skills to be great, but I've not seen a great match of his that is available in full. The closest thing was probably his match with Shane from 2008 that has a stupid finishing run or a tag with him and Invader v. Savio and Victor from 2000, but even there he was not even the best guy on his team. At the end of the day he's someone I could see rating if a few great matches emerge, but absent that I can't see it.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/28644-index-of-nominees-with-links-alphabetical-order/&do=findComment&comment=5624319

Rovert pretends Irish workers not named Sheamus are good, so it's a tactic he employs himself at least

Crazily underrated wrestler. I remember watching him on 90's syndicated WCW shows where he was a jobber and thinking he was really good and being wasted. Watching the Puerto Rico footage from the late 80's and early 90's he really stands out as a very good, and in some ways great, babyface. It's not easy to do anything memorable with half motivated Bobby Jaggers, Mr. Pogo and Kensuke Sasaki, but Santana managed to have good matches with all of them. Really good underneath seller, very good punches and maybe an all time great bleeder if you are into that thing which I admittedly am. Probably another guy who's best stuff is tags, but I don't consider that a major knock. He is one of the guys that I see as a number 100 contender, where I will likely plug in an underrated favorite

He is not anywhere near the level of Colon or Invader 1, but I do think he is comparable to TNT, albeit with a shorter career and no U.S. run to pad the stats a bit. The Chicky Starr feud is great, particularly the Scaffold Match which is the best of it's kind, and one of the better stipulation matches of the 80's period. I also really like his team with Invader 1 and generally thought he was a very good tag worker who was probably always better suited to that setting. I can't really see him making my list, but I do think the top handful of guys from every major territory at least deserve a thread where they can be discussed and considered.

Discuss Here

The buffalo crowd was awful all night aside from Orton angles

They certainly seem serious about Rollins as a top guy, but I can't stand him at this point. I watched the closing angle to tonights show and thought it was good, but it also depressed me because Rollins as a quasi-top face is reaching Evolution levels of "what else is on?" for me. I dont even care if the guy can work at this point, I don't want to watch him On the other hand I loved Rusev v. Sheamus

Nominating Invader 3 and Ricky Santana via 80's project.