Dylan Waco

Usos went for Samoan Drop on Dustin. Cody kicked the leg and Dustin hit his finish for the pin

Glad Rollins v. Ambrose is going on last at least. My guess is someone tipped off the brass, that they could have a Royal Rumble 2014 2.0 scenario on their hands if Orton v. Cena was on last

Cody is dog shit at this point. He has no clue how to work a heat segment. When Dustin was in the match was pretty good, though the psychology was bizarre

Not as choreographed as the "1-2-3-4" dance routine in the previous match

Bellas match was legitimately better than Cesaro v. Dolph. Easily

Dolph v. Cesaro was garbage. Absolute trash. Outdated RVD/Jerry Lynn tribute spots, a stupid finish to the first fall, a complete waste of the gimmick, poorly booked, several awkward/overly complicated spots, et. I appreciated that the armwork mattered and the work itself was fine for the most part, but the way they laid the match out was almost the exact opposite of anything I would have wanted to see for those two, in that setting, working that gimmick.

Not particularly well. But for memorable matches during his peak better than Shawn.

I would be more sympathetic to that argument if Bret Hart wasn't a peer who in my view produced more memorable matches. And I say this as someone who is much less high on Bret than his biggest fans are.

I hope Henry joins forces with Rusev

I would actually argue that there are at least four matches on the show that have a decent shot of being very good/great, and only one that I am almost positive will suck (The Bella's match), but like Devon they have made it so that there is no one on the roster I give a shit about at all. They ruined The Rhodes boys with the turn/gimmick. Happy go lucky Show is fucking awful. Heel Seth Rollins is change the channel material for me, and Ambrose as a comedy figure has made me not give two shits about him either. Ziggler is a joke and I've soured on him as a worker some. Sheamus I love as a worker, but desperately needs to be turned heel. Cesaro needs...something..anything. The less said about Cena and Orton the better. I'd say this is the least interested I've been in the WWE since Evolution's reign of terror

Lol we need Devon on the post show

Exactly. Needs to win it and rename it the Russian title

Surely they are building to Rusev v. Sheamus?

Stan Lane - Nomination via 80's set Tony Anthony - v. Tim Horner from SMW tv Horner does his trademark chain wrestling, to floatover arm drag spot. Anthony really takes a great Japanese arm drag. Anthony flees to the floor after a dropkick and Ron Wright massages his face! Horner does the roll back flip off the back body drop attempt and goes to a side headlock. DWB thinks he avoids a corner charge and ends up taking a face planting bump off of Horner's trademark right jab. Horner gets caught coming in and takes a nice face planting bump of his own getting good height in the process. Anthony goes to cocky heel tactics dropping dismissive knee drops and just standing on Horner's guts like a total piece of shit. Nice bulldog from DWB. Really sweet finish as Horner goes for a backslide but Anthony pulls him over and Horner immediately locks in a small package for the pin. Curtis was a little late on the cover and I wish this had gone about five minutes longer, but for a seven minute tv match this was pretty great. Ron Wright falling out of his wheelchair in shock was the icing on the cake. v. Tracy Smothers Chain Match This was really a brilliant gimmick match. I could see how people would argue that it went on a hair too long, but honestly the crowd stayed with them to the point where that feels like a total bullshit complaint. This had literally everything you would want from a chain match and then some. They bleed buckets, they do some really cute spots with the chain leading to big bumps, the tension of the four corners spots is great, the use of the chain as a weapon gives some great visuals, et. Loved the way DWB sold the chokejobs early as you could watch all the color pouring out of his face with the chain around his neck. Smothers was also great selling for DWB and his hopespots were really neat, using the chain as leverage, busting out a really believable and well timed monkey flip, and then the fucking awesome skin the cat out of the hanging comeback spot. The floatover finish was really well done too and got a great pop from the crowd. Really great match. Arguably the best SMW match of all time. Post match angle with DWB attacking him backstage was great too. w/Smothers v. The Gangstas Street Fight No chance of this sucking as battle of underclass stereotypes is pretty much guaranteed to work on some level and really you are not going to find better example of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan study subjects v. Senator James Webb study subjects than this. Racist rednecks v. black nationalist from the Ghetto - let's get er done. Thugz come out pissed off after a baiting New Jack promo and immediately get to it, with Tracy hitting dive shots to the floor with trashcans, leaping Confederate Flage shots, tossing New Jack into the tenth row, et. New Jack comes back by throwing an insane looking over hand that sends Tracy flying, then hurls him into a stack of chairs and just starts chucking shit at him. Jack tries to hit Tracy with a cinderblock but DWB blocks it at the last second. New Jack hits an insane leaping clothesline onto DWB on the floor. During all of this D-Lo is just tossing shit around. Tracy and Jack have color now and Smothers is really selling his ass off. Great punch exchange on the floor that starts with DWB and New Jack and escalates to all five guys. D-Lo gets tossed into the tenth row by Smothers. Mustapha tries to run away and Smothers darts after him and leaps on him sending him flying off camera. Back in the ring and there is more solid brawling and then Smothers gets dumped to the floor. D-Lo hurls a trashcan at head and then New Jack absolutely kills him with a leaping piledriver through a table. Holy fuck what a spot. Being economical men with their weaponry, D-Lo and Jack try and use the remnants of the table as a battering ram, but Tracy reverses and throws them both into it as DWB makes his comeback in the ring. D-Lo ends up accidentally frogsplashing Mustapha and Anthony pins him. Brawl continues post-match with New Jack and Smothers throwing each other into the crowd while men run over to protect their children from getting caught up in a race riot. They end up brawling onto a stage where D-Lo gets back body dropped. Thugz finally chase Gangstas to the back and Curtis raises their hands on the stage, while fans hold up the Stars N Bars. This is pro wrestling as hate crime which is pretty much the way it's supposed to be. Really a tremendous match, easily the best Gangstas match I've ever seen, and one of the best SMW matches I've ever seen as well.

To me it makes perfect sense that Joe would really love Michaels' work even if he isn't the biggest fan of Shawn in general, because I think Michaels is very similar to Tanahashi in a lot of ways as a worker. I have very strange feelings about Michaels myself, increasingly so as time goes on. On the one hand I love The Rockers to the point where they are probably one of my ten favorite teams of all time. On the other hand I think almost everything else in his career is overrated. Note that I don't think everything else in his career is bad. I think Shawn was very good, and at times really great from 92-97. But when I look at his resume from that time period - a period that is often called his peak - it looks remarkably thin to me. I just don't see how he has the depth of someone like Flair, Lawler, Misawa, Kobashi, Jumbo, Tenryu, Liger, et. and these are the sort of guys he is competing with for the absolute top tier. Even with the post comeback stuff I don't really see it, and that's even if I am granting a lot of credit to matches that I don't even think were good let alone great. I am interested in Jimmy's post because I want to see someone make the case and address this depth issue with Shawn, because even if I was in line with those who love his post-comeback work, I don't see how their is enough meat to put him with the all time elite guys.

I would not fault anyone for saying "fuck Invader, fuck Benoit, fuck Snuka, et." for something like this. I get why people would do it, and there is a part of me that trends in that direction. But then I start thinking about where you draw the line and it becomes a real problem. For example, I get the argument that Benoit's best stuff has already been viewed and judgments made. But I don't see how going out and watching Invader matches is any "worse" than rewatching tons of Benoit for the purposes of a WCW rewatch thread (I swear I'm not picking at El-P here - I literally don't see what the difference could possibly be). And I struggle with the idea of not considering Invader on "moral grounds" or whatever, while still considering Benoit. If anything I'm far less inclined to rate Benoit because I think murdering your own wife and child is worse than killing a co-worker EVEN IF the the murder was in cold blood. I also agree that there is something about the presentation of the Brody/Invader/Colon thing that has always rubbed me the wrong way. If you put a gun to my head and ask me what I think happened I would say "Invader brought a weapon along because he knew he was going to have a conversation with Brody that Brody might not like and was afraid of getting his ass kicked. They started talking, Brody did something threatening/Invader got scared and stabbed him to death." But I have no clue if that is what happened and really no one else does either. What I do know is that I generally don't trust the word of wrestlers on anything, so I struggle with the idea that I should trust their word on what happened in this instance. I also know that Invader was acquitted in a trial, I believe on the grounds of self defense. It may be "disgusting" for some people to hear that, but there is something fucked about people in the business/reporters talking about how "that's just how those people are," as if Puerto Rican people are incapable of making a correct judgment in such a case. None of this is to say that Brody "deserved to die" or anything like that, just that I wonder if this would be looked at the same way if the players involved were different/it happened in a different part of the world. Another case to consider as a comparison is Sasaki, where you have a trainee who was killed. We don't know all the details there, but I could EASILY see an argument made where that is "worse" than the Invader/Brody situation because you have a natural trust that is broken, someone who is completely defenseless, et. being taken advantage of and killed even if it was "an accident." Does he get disqualified? And this doesn't even get into stuff like Takada, Inoki, et. alleged involvement with the Yakuza, which would be considering morally repugnant in almost any "sports" context, but gets a pass in wrestling (for the most part). So...I don't blame El-P, funkdoc, or anyone for drawing a line, but I do wonder where that line gets drawn and how it is applied.

I am not going to lock this thread on account of someones personal meltdown. That said, I think there is utility to discussing the moral argument of voting for certain people and where/when you draw the line. I am not in a position to start that thread now, but I will do it later if no one else has done so.

Devon! Run the table (on Kobashi)!

New rule in this thread - if you behave like a five year old, your posts will be deleted. I realize some people don't have the mental capacity to reason at a level higher than that, so it's best they stay out of this thread all together.

Let me be clear. If someone wants to come into this thread and talk about how they won't vote for Invader I because of what he did I have no problem with that. I don't necessarily agree with that line of thinking, but I respect it and it is at least peripherally germane to this project. On the other hand people trolling the thread and the people contributing to it with "oh you guys have a new favorite murderer now?" is completely unproductive, irrelevant, and is not even peripherally connected to the project. As a rule of thumb I don't like to delete posts, so don't make me do it.

He was exonerated in court and given Brodys history it is entirely possible he acted in self defense. Even if he murdered Brody in cold blood, I wouldn't compare him to Benoit or Zumhoffe. In any event this is about his career as a worker, not his actions outside of the ring. If you want to discuss his crimes, France's national celebration(s) of murderous killers, the US militaries slaughter of innocents, et. Do it elsewhere.

What is the point of that post?

I thought that Sandow match was wildly overrated at the time .

Kind of feels like the Japanese Tommy Rich, in that if we had enough of his prime footage I suspect he'd be considered a lock, but operating with what we have it's harder to put him on that level. Still as with Rich I kind of feel compelled to rank him. I actually THINK Rich has the better resume of what's available but what I do like about Hamada is that the early stuff we have shows him looking great and ahead of his time, and then fifteen-twenty years later he was often one of my favorite two guys in any random M-Pro multi-man. I would like to see if anyone has a list or idea of must see Hamada singles matches, but he is absolutely someone I want to rate.

If someone else nominated Barry I would talk him up. I actually think I'd vote for Horowitz over Brad