Childs

It's much easier to judge the performance of athletes we've barely seen than it is to judge the performance of wrestlers we've barely seen. Their statistics, relative to others from the same era, tell us a lot. As for the importance of historical knowledge to sportswriting, it's certainly a nice tool to have but not the be-all, end-all. I know guys without a deep grasp of history who do a great job covering teams.

I'm not sure anyone in NJ would have matched up with Flair better than Jumbo did in the early '80s. Jumbo did lots of theatrical stuff and was very experienced working the long title matches that Flair loved to do as touring champ. I wonder if the "flashier NJ" thing has been overblown, especially if we're talking heavyweights. I guess I buy that Choshu ushered in a faster, more direct style, but he impacted both promotions. I don't think the shootstyle influence would have been a positive for Flair. I'm not picking on your point Kris; I've just thought a lot about the differences between AJ and NJ over the last year. And if anything, All Japan seemed the more American of the two in the '80s.

Oh, I agree that Baba did not have a plan for him as he clearly did for Misawa. I just think that as he saw what Kawada could do, he gave him time for long matches on TV and paired him up with Tenryu semi-regularly, stuff that I hadn't seen him do for similar-sized wrestlers in the past. The decision to pair Hansen with Tenryu was a sign that Kawada wasn't considered ready, but his arc still seemed on the ascent, and I never took Hansen and Tenryu as a long-term pairing. Kawada did not seem headed for top billing in '89, but he also did not seem headed for Takashi Ishikawa territory. I think he could've ended up as a Yatsu to Tenryu's Jumbo.

I've recently watched Kawada's career unfold week by week in reviewing stuff for the '80s project. And it's absolutely true that he not only looked small but wrestled like a small guy, albeit a hard-hitting one. But Baba clearly saw his talent, pushing him into into positions that were unusual for guys of his stature and style. If Tenryu had stayed, I assume Kawada would have settled in for a long run as his No. 2. That's where he seemed to be headed in 1989.

Sounds like he should be OK, though.

I knew that if I followed the interwebs for long enough, I'd see Segunda Caida compared to the New Yorker.

I'm watching the Classics that cover the mid-'80s as I make nominations for the DVDVR All Japan set, and it's really striking how little Dibiase stood out. His offense was bland, and he did nothing to establish his character beyond "generic sidekick for Hansen." So that's exactly how the crowd treated him. I assume a hardcore All-Japan fan would have scoffed at the idea of Ted as the best male worker in the world during that time. I would actually use his Japanese run as evidence against his inherent star power.

The bigger answer is that it was common for top guys to be protected in Japan and not at all particular to New Japan. I'm reviewing All-Japan matches right now, and guys like Baba, Jumbo and Hansen hardly ever lost clean. Misawa rarely took a pin in the '90s and it was a big deal when he did. It's not like it was that different in the U.S. Hogan and Flair weren't exactly taking falls left and right in their heydays.

A lot of the show struck me not as bad but as flat. The 3-way was structured fine, but Rhodes and Dibiase just don't have much presence at this stage. It felt like Orton beating up a few goofy kids who acted up in class. MITB had too many guys and fewer memorable spots than in past years. Why did MVP or Kane need to be in there, for example? HHH-Sheamus exceeded my expectations until the end, which seemed too easy and featured an awful pedigree. Punk-Mysterio was great while it lasted, but I'll be pissed if that was the feud ender. I hope it's like the Rey-Eddy feud in '05, where the Mania match was just kindling. Others have covered the failings of Bret-Vince but Christ, they could have done something to make Vince seem sinister at least. Bret's speech about thwarting his bribery plan was so ham-handed and ill-timed. I kept waiting and waiting for the next phase of Vince's malevolent plan. Without it, Bret's victory felt so hollow. One of the worst Mania segments in recent memory. Jericho turned in a strong performance against Edge, but why do the most memorable spot after the match? Like Sheamus-HHH, it exceeded my low expectations but isn't something I'll remember. Cena-Batista was good but never achieved the clash-of-titans feel I was hoping for. I wanted to see resentment drive Batista to extreme actions. I wanted to see Cena sell a real beating and then do something memorable to overcome it. Instead, they just had a solid wrestling match with some nifty counters and spots. Maybe it's something I'll like better on rewatch. HBK-Taker was the one match that felt like a big deal. Great selling performance by Taker. I've seen people complain about all the finishers but come on, it's the two most (storyline) resilient guys of their generation in one of the most hyped main events ever. By the end, they really seemed like desperate old men willing to risk death so they could stay in the light a few moments longer. That's the kind of broadly melodramatic shit I want from Mania.

I watched the whole Eddy comp over time. But you're right. I don't buy Will's big comps and then watch them straight through. I just love knowing all the key stuff is there, so I can dive into a guy's career at whatever point I want on a given day. Today, I might feel like a disc or two of prime Funk in All-Japan. Next week, I might want to watch old man Terry on the indys. I don't want a superficial, eight-hour comp, because chances are, I've seen everything on it a bunch of times. But I'm not a huge fan of the "complete works" sets either. Will consistently strikes a better balance than any other comp maker.

Who: My best friends in elementary school got pretty excited about the first Wrestlemania and I was swept into the fad. My father always found it ridiculous but was a cool enough parent that he took me to live events and rented WWF videos from the grocery store. What: I started off watching WWF on Saturday mornings and staying up late for Saturday Night's Main Event. My father took me to the Civic Center for my first live show in 1985. The lady in front of us wanted to kill Savage after he beat up SD Jones. The crowd chanted "bullshit, bullshit" after a screwy finish kept the Bulldogs from beating Valentine/Beefcake for the titles. Andre seemed larger than life teaming with Windham and Rotundo against Bundy, Studd and somebody. I loved the whole experience. I tended to take my interests a little further than most of my peers so I started buying the Apter mags at the grocery. They fired my imagination regarding the wider wrestling world. Baltimore was actually a great place to grow up as a wrestling fan, because we got WWF, NWA and UWF on television and both Vince and Crockett hit the Civic Center monthly. My childhood favorites were Savage, Andre, Piper and anybody chasing Flair's belt, especially Windham. I gradually became a pro-NWA snob, though we always went somewhere to watch Wrestlemania on closed circuit. When: I became a fan in 1985, the year I turned nine. My interest faded when I reached high school but rekindled in college when the Monday night wars heated up. I never fell away completely after that, though I didn't become a hardcore, dvd-collecting fan until about five years ago. Where: Baltimore, which was perfect, for reasons already covered. Why: At first, wrestling was something that everyone liked, no different than Transformers or G.I. Joe. I got more deeply into it when I discovered Flair and the more serious, grueling matches of the NWA. The Flair-Windham match from Jan. '87 was transformative, because it was the first one to suck me in as an athletic contest rather than a spectacle. I got to see them live at the Crockett Cup a few months later, still maybe the best match I've watched in person. But I don't know why wrestling has always drawn me back. I tend to research the hell out of my interests, and wrestling fits that proclivity because there's always another company or era to discover. With so much available on tape, I can watch the stuff I only read about as a kid and sort of retroactively experience what it was like to be a fan in 1984 Dallas or 1988 Tokyo or 1995 Philadelphia. Etc. I think I came to hardcore, tape-watching fandom much later than most of you guys. I was aware of the Observer in the '90s but didn't subscribe until probably '05. I read Dave raving about Samoa Joe, which led me to order a few ROH dvds. I had never seen Japanese stuff, so Joe's style really did wow me. I had read about Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi over the years so I decided what the hell, I'd learn a little about those guys as well. That led me to DVDVR and other sites. Five years later, my shelves are cluttered with hundreds of discs, I spend time on sites like this every day and I will happily drive to Delaware to watch Negro Navarro in a banquet hall or to Queens to watch Santito in a dance club. Weird how life unfolds.

AP is calling it a bacterial infection in his intestinal track.

My review ... I've seen this match rated highly elsewhere, and I'm not quite sure why. Adonis did a good job of controlling with attacks on Fujinami's sore ribs and back (though not as good as Hogan and Murdoch in the recent tag match.) Fujinami teased a comeback but missed a dropkick and crashed hard. Adonis quickly followed with a Boston crab. Good sequence. Adonis then went for the elbow off the top. Fujinami countered with a superplex, failing to sell Adonis' bodywork in either the execution or the aftermath. He rolled him up for the pin a few seconds later. I have no problem with Fujinami winning on a quick counter, but why did that counter have to crap on the story of the match? That pushed it out of nomination territory for me.

It was a clipped 10 minutes with a bunch of meh matwork. What was better about it? I just rewatched it and yeah its about the same (alot of the same moves too), but I'd still rate it a bit higher, just seemed more exciting to me for some reason. Perhapes the crowd or commentary (They seemed more excited!). Maybe cause I watched it along time ago and hadn't seen so many Fujinami matches in a row, the matwork seemed more passable to me. Dunno if its clipped but I got the 18 minute version from the The Legend Tiger Mask 5-DVD set. Yeah, saw the full version now that I look at my notes. I thought the monkey flip sequence was cool, and the end run was exciting enough. But there was a lot of dead time, and I thought Hamada was more impressive in the '81 match.

It was a clipped 10 minutes with a bunch of meh matwork. What was better about it?

I think I have them: 9/11/80 4/3/80 2/8/80 4/23/81 5/9/80 The top three will probably all be on the top half of my ballot, but none will push for the upper reaches. Just too much great shit from 1986-89. I would agree with the good not great characterization, but as the promotion's leading heavyweight feud from 1980-81, it holds up well.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Inoki-Hansen. I was surprised how many people shat on it.

I liked that match, but it was really short.

I have always gotten the impression, from Meltzer and others, that Shane doesn't love wrestling down to his bones, that for him, it was just the massively successful family business that gave him a chance to play around with various corporate roles.

Let's take these one by one. 9/23/81 WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Solitario - Nominated but a few bits of sloppiness and a lack of fight from Solitario at the finish left us thinking it wasn't quite as special as some of the other Fujinami selections. You certainly can't argue that any era of Fujinami is underrepresented on the set. 1/1/82 WWF Junior Heavyweight Crown Decision Match: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid - I guess you feel that every one of their matches should make the set. This one didn't get much consideration from the panel as it was short and one segment hardly seemed connected to the next. You tell me what was special about it. I didn't see it. 7/23/82 Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid - I liked this one better, especially Bret Hart's work as a second for DK. But some bad no-selling, botched spots and their inability to follow up on body part work left us feeling this wasn't a must, especially with four other versions of the match-up already on. 10/26/82 WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi - Will and I liked this, but Phil didn't, and given that the 11/4/82 and 1/6/83 versions were already on, neither of us decided to fight for it. 2/7/83 WWF Jr. Title: Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger - Some nice displays of athleticism but pulled down by some egregious no-selling of big moves. Their 5/26/82 match was much crisper and we didn't like the match-up enough to go past that one. 6/2/83 WWF Junior Heavyweight Crown Decision Match: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi - This was fie but didn't seem to add anything to their top-notch outings from 11/4/82 and 1/6/83. 2/7/84 Kid/Smith/Cobra - I just don't get the love for this. You get a Davey/Cobra match with exactly one cool spot in it (Davey dead lift out of an arm lock), a weirdly paced Davey/DK match that just kind of ends out of nowhere and a Dynamite/Cobra match that starts hot but features lazy working of holds and an incredibly sloppy performance from Cobra. Yes, Dynamite wins the title, but where is the great work? 8/2/84 NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Match: The Cobra vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi - I know it made the Bowdren list, but this was all clipped up. Good highlights but hard to tell about the build or transitions. 9/19/85 Antonio Inoki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami - This bored the panel to tears. 8/7/86 IWGP Junior: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kazuo Yamazaki - This had a good finishing stretch, but the first half felt like a waste of time with a bunch of loose, pointless matwork. Too much great UWF invasion stuff for this to make it. 9/16/86 Antonio Inoki vs. Bruiser Brody - An hour of Brody? Really? Here was my review: They made it plain as day that they were going an hour, working with little urgency for the first 35-40 minutes. They basically took their normal match and stretched it over twice as long a period, which led to lots of lying around in holds. Broadway is a tough format but why do it if you're not going to take advantage of it to do something different? If you're asking me for a 60-minute commitment, I want the fucking Thrilla in Manilla, with great swings of emotion and uncertainty about the outcome throughout. The last 20 minutes were OK, with Brody allowing Inoki to look like his nominal superior. But I wouldn't want to watch this again, and I have no desire to inflict it on anyone else. 12/10/86 IWGP Junior: Shiro Koshinaka vs. Kazuo Yamazaki - Another Yamazaki match with a hot finish but a lot of drag in the body. Didn't hate it but again, it didn't stand out in such a well-represented period. 2/15/88 Top of the Super Junior League Match: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shiro Koshinaka - This was good. We just preferred their other three matches and thought they covered the rivalry sufficiently. 8/8/88 Antonio Inoki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami - This has been amply covered elsewhere. It's the one match I kind of regret leaving off as it was an epic between the company's two most enduring stars. That said, it fell short because they never quite paid off any of the intriguing ideas they raised. What is the defense for these selections? Are they better compared to the ones I have listed? Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Chavo Guerrero (5/9/80) - The August match you mentioned was in Shea Stadium on a WWF show and therefore, not eligible for this set. I thought this one was better anyway with better matwork and more of a relentless build from the early trading of holds to the hot finish. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kengo Kimura (9/25/80) - This was just an awesome showdown that built from solid mat stuff to unhinged violence. We all saw this as a slam dunk. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Tony Rocco (9/11/80) - Lots of nifty counters and a hot finish in this one. Why include the sixth best Dynamite/Tiger Mask match when you can instead introduce people to the excellent work of Tony Rocco? Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Steve Keirn (11/6/80) - Pretty much signature Fujinami here with your smooth trading of holds building to a fast, hot finish. Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada (11/6/81) - Again, why include your fifth best Dynamite match or third best Kobayashi match instead of a beautiful demonstration of wrestling from Gran Hamada? Tiger Mask vs. El Canek (12/8/81) - A lot of the disconnect seems to be that you'd rather see every version of the same three match-ups than watch Tiger Mask work a different kind of match against Canek. I really enjoyed watching Canek smack him around and heel it up. Tiger Mask vs. Steven Wright (4/1/82) - Steve Wright is super cool with his Euro mat stylings. Again, why exclude him in favor of match-ups that are already well covered? Hulk Hogan vs. Abdullah the Butcher (5/26/82) Hulk Hogan vs. Antonio Inoki (IWGP League Final) (6/2/83) Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan (12/9/82) Hulk Hogan vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (2/5/85) - Just to field these as a group, I think we saw a lot of value in watching the most famous American wrestler in history work excellent matches on a different stage. Hogan worked harder and showed a greater variety of offense in Japan, and his matches had great atmosphere. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/21/83) - Why is it stretching to love this match? Hardfought matwork, a dramatic ending and the hottest heavyweight rivalry in the world don't do it for you? Riki Choshu matches in '89 against Vader & Hashimikov, really? - Yes, really. This panel tended to like heavyweight slugfests in front of hot crowds. Sorry if that's not your thing.

Online writers are slowly being admitted to the baseball writers association but I mean sloooowly. The BBWA is ridiculously protective of its "authority." And once admitted, writers still have to wait 10 years before voting on HOF. The thing is, there are so many more more baseball writers (both at newspapers/magazines and online) that it's not an equivalent situation. In wrestling, you're leaving out a larger relative chunk of the intelligent electorate by ignoring online opinion makers.

Which inclusions are you puzzled about and which excluded matches bother you so? I'm not being hostile, just curious.