Childs

I agree that it fell flat as a spectacle, certainly in the arena. But I thought those two throws into the table looked violent as hell and fit with the tone of the match. I like that the table didn't break, because that's such a fucking cliche at this point.

I thought Charlotte did a good job of continually returning to the back. And Sasha did a good job of working as if she was damaged. Her offense came in bursts and I never got the sense she was just racing around with abandon. When she did the three suplexes, for example, she seemed to pay for the expenditure of energy. I don't know, nothing she did yanked me out of the narrative.

Caught up with the show a day late and man, the women's match was terrific. They achieved a ragged, violent feel that the vast majority of men on the roster could stand to learn from. And they did a bunch of creative stuff without resorting to stupid stunts. I wasn't a huge fan of the fight off the stretcher, because it didn't quite feel earned and misplaced some of the initial energy. But they more than made up for it. I can also see the argument that the finish felt abrupt. The live crowd obviously wasn't ready for it. But I'll take that over 10 minutes of 2.9 counts any day of the week. I went in assuming Elliott's praise for the match must be fucking nuts. As it turns out, he wasn't far off. Anybody who thought that was a lesser match than the Owens-Rollins crapfest is not a wrestling critic I need to listen to.

If you had locked the site forever after making that post, it would've been badass.

I've always been partial to '89. Jumbo-Tenryu leads banner year for All Japan Great all-around year for New Japan with rise of Liger Strong year for Maeda's talent-rich UWF Early FMW Strong year for lucha footage Epic Flair year Hogan-Savage doing big business in WWF The only real drawback is that the U.S. territories had entered full death rattle. Of the other years mentioned, I'd have trouble going with '85 or '92 because they weren't elite years in Japan. Actually, neither was 1997.

I think it's Eddy, though Rey is probably the best opponent for a number of guys. I've been watching BOLA over the last week, and I took a break from it to watch the Rey vs. Puma match from Lucha Underground. Fucking Rey is still a good bit better than any of the touted flyers in BOLA. That guy is amazing.

Case, I'm interested, would you agree there isn't a lot of attention to selling in Dragon Gate? Or would you say it's just a different style of selling that's hard to vibe with when you're parachuting into the product? I've dipped into Dragon Gate several times, most recently during GWE, when I watched a bunch of pimped Mochizuki matches. And though I agree flippyness isn't really the issue, I've always gotten stuck on what feels to me like a lack of selling.

Eh, I don't care about Joe. I don't care about their feud. A manufactured "heated" brawl doesn't interest me because Joe doesn't interest me. I think he's past his prime. With that said, I recognize there are at least a year of "epic dream matches" (yawn) for him on Smackdown that the dudebro "this is awesome!" fans will salivate over. I'm actually in favor of him being called up because there's nothing left for him in NXT IMO. Why do you keep going on about dudebros? There are posters on this board who would be eager to see Joe on one of the main brands who in no way fit that description. As for KENTA, I feel bad for his shitty luck, but honestly, he hasn't clicked in NXT even when healthy.

This is well said, and I agree that all too often, people reflexively cry "storytelling" instead of describing what the wrestlers actually do.

I don't think that came across. If that had been the case, the announcers should have talked about confusion and Cena and Ambrose should have sold it. It felt like they were all legitimately confused rather than telling a story of confusion. Also, Cena was lousy in that match.

But the announcers talked like Styles was eliminated. That added to the clusterfuck feel.

That made no sense. Just a terribly booked match.

Triple threats suck.

Trauma I-Canis Lupus was a beast of a match. I always worry that we've seen the last of the really great, gritty apuestas matches but man, these guys tapped into the spirit of the golden age. I'm sorry, those recent big Atlantis matches from Arena Mexico can't compare. This had the classic structure, but Canis Lupus, whom I don't think I'd ever seen, really put some teeth into his opening attack. And both guys sold the hell out of the accrued damage, which gave weight to every nearfall in the tercera. In a pretty good year for high-end matches, this was the completely unexpected pinnacle.

I went back and watched this and sad to say, I wasn't blown away by it. I dug the early stuff with Inoue going after Hash and Yasuda doing the sumo vs. amateur showdown against Honda. But I thought it lost steam as it went on, and the finish really fell flat. If you're going to have an angry Hash beat Inoue into a stoppage, great. Instead, the ref called the match with Yasuda lying on top of Inoue, and the crowd didn't seem to get it at all. Still thought it was a good match because Hash and Honda are awesome, but I wasn't feeling it as a MOTYC. Hash must have 100 better matches in his career, including every single tag from the WAR feud.

I agree you can reach a good understanding of what a wrestler could do without watching everything. If you see how a guy handles a decent range of situations (especially if, as Parv said, you understand the context), it becomes less important to watch him handle those situations over and over. But I'm not comfortable completely ignoring volume as a factor in comparing workers. If worker A and worker B are roughly similar in quality but worker B wrestled near his peak for three times as long, I'm going to favor worker B. I'm not sure you're even arguing against that. But for me, there is a limit to saying peak transcends volume.

I think the feeling is that others--Benoit, Eddy, etc.--have gotten in almost entirely on work and given that Bryan was on the same level or better, he should also be in that group. He was also enough of a star for it not to feel ludicrous. I'm not making that case myself, necessarily, but that's my reading of it.

I don't like the fact he puts people on the ballot or back on the ballot immediately after they die. That's often the worst time for a clear-eyed assessment of someone's legacy (says the man who just finished writing an obituary).

Perkins is right at the top of the list of guys I don't get. He puts me to sleep time after time, no matter what role he's playing. I turned off the show after the semis because I could not have given less of a fuck about the final match-up. CWC was a cool thing overall but peaked with Kendrick-Ibushi.

As great a run as AJ is on, this is wildly premature. You're talking eight months of work vs. more than four years. And I'd say your critiques of Bryan apply more to his work as a hot tag (granted, a role he played often) than to his high-end singles stuff. I'm not dismissing the idea that AJ could build a stronger WWE resume than Bryan. But he needs to endure. And when you look at the last 15 years, I still don't see it as a particularly close call. Bryan was so good against such a wide variety of opponents while AJ was stuck in fucking TNA. If we're talking skills vs. skills, I can see a case for them being very close. But on body of work? AJ has a ways to go. I hope he gets there, because that would be great for all of us.

Styles is unreal. Can't remember the last time I gave a shit about an Ambrose match but I'm all in on this one.

I don't know that I give a match extra points for being famous. I'm sure I have at times. What I care about a lot is how well it pays off whatever led up to it or how well it sets up whatever is coming next. In that sense, context is immensely important. I've enjoyed plenty of matches without really grasping their context. But those are rarely the richest viewing experiences.