Childs

I viscerally disliked this match. So much aimless garbage. And the crowd didn't even seem to care. I guess the ending was cool.

I'm unclear what happened in this case. I don't see anything that would've inspired a moderator to step in (well, until the insanity at the end). John didn't seem to cross any lines of reasonable behavior. In general, I'm not a fan of cutting off discussions. I mean, you're a fucking adult. If you don't want to get into a line-by-line battle that goes on for pages, walk away. If, as a reader, you're bored by said battles, skim over them. I don't see the big deal unless someone gets really vicious, which doesn't happen that often.

It's more a case of Choshu getting his win back from the Dome and then letting Tenryu move on to Hash. I don't think they felt Tenryu had to be undefeated to keep his heat.

Well, Benoit and Flair tried to create some action in the match proper. But there were too many shitty guys in there, and the booking was such a shit follow-up to the Horsemen parody. I mean, why build a whole show around burying Ric Flair? It just shows the void in perspective that developed over the course of '97.

I don't know; I thought this made for a great piece of wrestling theater. The crowd loved Shawn bumping around for Bulldog in the early part of the match. And I didn't mind all the interference spots, stacking the deck against the local hero. I get the questions about the missing Hart Foundation. But I could also see Davey wanting to go it alone as the gallant native. The bit where Davey's leg went out on the powerslam at ringside came off well. And I loved Shawn tossing Davey's knee brace to Diana before applying the figure four. The heat at the end, with Shawn baiting the crowd, was just insane. This reminds me of the NWO Horsemen skit because it seems more dickish in retrospect, given the lack of revenge on Shawn. But the dude delivered an awesome heel performance and created a super-intense ending to a fantastic show.

I think this was Undertaker's first great match. I can't remember another from the yearbooks. Dropping the pure dead man gimmick liberated Callous as a worker, because as he showed here, he's quite an excellent seller. I realy liked the stretch after Bret went chest-first into the exposed turnbuckle, with Taker going for the heart punches. Bret's focused leg attack really made the match down the stretch. I understand why they didn't want to do a clean finish; I'd just say the DQ felt abrupt after they had put in so much work.

This was an excellent match, and though I wouldn't say it's exactly comparable to the Sting matches, it did remind me of those and the Muto match from the G-1. Owen, at his best, was a great offensive wrestler, and his stuff looked particularly good with such a big guy eating and bumping for it. Vader gave a vintage performance as the vulnerable monster. Owen's bodyslam felt like a great payoff, especially the way the announcers set it up. And then the catch powerslam finish looked badass.

I hadn't watched this match in a long time, and I was a total lucha novice on last viewing. The match stands out as something that's really easy to appreciate if you don't know the style. As Loss said, they worked very aggressively with a classic pro wrestling build that would be immediately recognizable to an American fan. But I don't think I'd recommend this to a newbie as a good example of lucha. With only one fall, they worked an unusual rhythm, and they never really built to the violent crescendo you see in the best wager matches. This sounds like I'm shitting on the match, which isn't the case. It's great. It just struck me as something very "other" this time around.

I'm curious; just among people on this board, how many would subscribe to a WWE Channel? This is obviously as intense a group of wrestling fans as you'll find, but there are also a lot of folks inclined to seek the footage through other avenues.

Did you lure the other guy into the corner, take a few shots and then pounce?

Yeah, they meandered quite a bit, though if you want to watch an HBK bump-a-thon, this is a pretty good example. They did succeed in conveying that this feud had become too hot to be contained by a single, basic match. The announcers did a nice job of putting over the Taker dive as a big deal. As with a lot of stuff from '97 WWF, they managed to continue the momentum of a storyline without having an enduringly great match.

No way in hell it's 40 percent on Taft. And yes Matt, I imagine I would've had much more success interviewing people about Hogan than about John Kerry. Hey, we've taken a thread that began with a fairly ridiculous question and spun a unified (well, not quite) theory of celebrity encompassing Hulk Hogan, Molly Ringwald and President Taft. Hurray board.

Miniscule. Some of the most horrifying experiences of my life as a reporter have involved interviewing voters on election day. These are people who have taken the time to participate, so they're probably not the lowest common denominator. Yet the expanses of what they do not know are astonishing (and I'm no political nerd who thinks everyone should be able to name the secretary of the interior).

Is that really true, though? Taking head drops is a form of bumping, and that became a signature feature in All Japan, to a harmful degree. Kikuchi got over largely because of the way he bumped and ate offense. Tanahashi uses big bumps to help get his main-event matches over. I agree that Japan hasn't produced a lot of showy bumpers in the Flair/Henning/HBK sense. But I wouldn't go too far in saying it's not emphasized.

I enjoyed watching them work a more classic singles match, though Togo's attack on Sasuke's leg was pretty bland. I guess you could dock Sasuke for doing a handspring elbow off a busted knee, but honestly, that was his character in a nutshell. Togo's big finishing stretch looked great.

This wasn't a top-tier All-Japan match, but it is a feather in Kobashi's cap when I think about his place in GOAT discussions. He basically worked Hase's match and looked really good doing it, suggesting a versatility we didn't always see. Sometimes, I think I'm a little too hard on Kobashi because of his over-the-top moments. The list of wrestlers who hit the top level of performance as often as he did is extremely short.

Misawa did kind of work this like he knew he could weather the storm and put Jun away whenever he needed to. But I'm not sure that was wrong given their respective positions. Jun did a nice job laying in his offense and stringing together moves to make it seem as if his attack was escalating. I thought he could have gone back to Misawa's knee a few more times so the dropkick to set up his last rally would've carried a little more weight. Misawa was fine here, but he certainly didn't deliver the kind of layered selling that defined his best performances. The ending feel a little flat because the crowd hadn't invested invested in Akiyama's chances. So yeah, I agree with the "good, not special" consensus.

Yes, so much better than Mad USA!

I've found it fascinating to watch Hogan on the yearbooks, because as a babyface, he has come off as a huge creep, which basically fits my memories from the time. But as a heel, well, he made some pretty good points. I mean, what the fuck had Sting done to deserve a title shot? Why should Hogan let a little stooge like J.J. Dillon browbeat him? I kind of saw where he was coming from here, and yet he still came across as a douchey heel, which he was.

Hadn't seen this in a long time, but my reaction was similar to a lot of what's already been said here. It was a highly amusing segment that fit the NWO style of heeling perfectly. Nash, Waltman and Schiavone were all great in their roles. And yes, it feels more mean-spirited in retrospect because they didn't pay it off with the subsequent booking. But for a real-time viewer without the ability to see into the future, it didn't seem to cross any uncrossable lines.

I'm not sure I had seen this before, but it was an awesome installment in their series. I actually liked it a bit more than the April match, because it was tighter and had a cooler finish. I thought of Nintendo Logic's "ass kickingest matches" thread while watching, because this was pretty much the definition, with some of the sickest strike exchanges you'll ever see. Easily one of my favorite matches of the year.

Pretty much any Ishikawa vs. Ikeda -- 8/29/99, 4/24/05, 7/26/08 six-man, take your pick. The Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger stuff from the first UWF featured some great violence. Really, the whole New Japan vs. WAR feud. Just from recent lucha viewing, the Herodes vs. Tony Salazar match from 3/2/84 featured some awesome ass kicking.

Well, it's definitely true that when he's defending certain workers, he calls on the authority of other wrestlers he has spoken with. But as with many things Dave, he's not consistent about how he uses such arguments.

He's rated thousands of matches himself and has given HOF ballots to scores of non-wrestlers. So I don't think it's that. He seems to believe that you can't recreate context and/or that the quality of work can't transcend context. That perspective is rife with contradictions to the way he actually runs his HOF. But that's how I've understood his comments.

Yeah, we don't have a complete picture. I wish '60s NBA games were viewable en masse so I could have realistic mental images of Wilt, Russell, Oscar, Elgin, West, Petit, etc. I'm a huge pro basketball fan and it's always bugged me that, as much as I know about Wilt or Oscar, I don't really know them as players. I feel like with basketball, actually watching is more important than it is with baseball. So, getting back to Bellamy, it's possible to come up with a decent understanding of his career based on stats, awards voting and contemporary writings. I think we know enough to have a good argument about him as a HOF. But could the picture be richer? Absolutely, 100 times yes. Fortunately, we do have the footage to do some of that type of work with WON HOF candidates. And the fact that Dave, as a wrestling historian, doesn't see the value and fun in it is, at best, disappointing.