Childs

Comfort yourself with the knowledge that Shawn was never the best in the world. Hingis at least reached the mountain top. I was thinking about Sampras. Maybe Bob Backlund? Dominant long-term champion who was dismissed as boring and now seems more forgotten than he should be. Although Sampras hasn't flipped out in his retirement years.

I rewatch boxing matches and old basketball games. If my original motivation in watching a game was merely to see who won, I'm less likely to revisit. But if I tuned in to watch a great athlete at his aesthetic peak, I'm more apt to view repeatedly. I think I rewatch basketball and boxing because I find them more aesthetically interesting than baseball, football, etc.

How much credit (or blame in some cases) does Baba get for the development of the in-ring style? Would he have been intimately involved in discussing the big matches with his top guys? Or did he just pick his players and let them run with it? Obviously, he gets some of the credit because he was the first ace of the promotion. But beyond that ...

I had been waiting for the Roku app to go live, but that doesn't seem imminent, so I'm going to sign up anyway. It just takes a little time for the critical mass of good reviews to move people.

Got it and looking forward to it.

It's really not helpful to tell people their discussion of a serious issue in wrestling culture is "trash." If you prefer other parts of the board, great. Enjoy those. But no need to interject yourself in a perfectly fair conversation and shit on it.

Interesting that this match did better in the voting than the one you really liked. I can't really remember either at this point.

Could someone do a pinned "must see" matches list? This thread is probably getting a little unwieldy for that purpose, and as more of us start to sign up for the service, might be helpful to have an evolving viewer's guide. Just a thought.

Stunned Taker is eating all those bumps. Man has pride.

I had to go back and watch this too. And I really don't think my description of what Takada did was off base. He hit Fujiwara with a knee out of the clinch. Fujiwara staggered along the ropes and into the corner. Takada attacked with a flurry of strikes, the force of which Fujiwara sold with his entire body. The crowd loved this, anticipating a potential knockout. Fujiwara then stood up for a second. Takada responded by taking his hand. leading him to the middle of the ring and dropping into the shitty leglock. The crowd died. Now, Fujiwara probably deserved some of the blame for that as well, whether they planned the finishing sequence beforehand or whether he just went along with it. But I've seen Takada do the same thing in too many matches--including earlier in this one--not to put a lot of the onus on him. Big picture, I was wrong to focus only on that one sequence. Takada delivered a fine performance, with that nasty receipt headbutt and his selling of Fujiwara's final reversal standing as highlights. He was often very good in 1990, with the June match against Maeda and the Oct. rematch against Fujiwara ranking among his best career performances. Just don't try to convince me his leglock was OK

All three matches drew unanimous support from the nominating crew, and they finished between 24 and 36 in the voting. So that wasn't the consensus view.

He probably would have been fine in All Japan. He still had the athleticism to work that style in '95. I don't know that he'd have gotten over as a huge star, but he could have fit in.

I've made an effort to watch some of the most pimped Thatcher matches from 2015, and I just don't see greatness in him. He's definitely good--sells well, works with intensity, snug on the mat. My problem is I don't find him very interesting when he's in control of a match. His offense seems blah. I watch him next to a guy like Sabre Jr., and Thatcher is a more polished package. But I'm more excited to watch Sabre Jr. because he's trying a bunch of interesting shit to see what sticks. I'm saying all this off a relatively small sample, but he hasn't popped for me the way I had hoped.

I like the Baba series better as well but he worked differently against Inoki than he did against any of the All Japan guys, so I was thinking in terms of range. The Andre match is both awesome and a glimpse of Hansen as Ricky Morton.

The 4/3/80 Inoki-Hansen did best in dvdvr voting FWTW.

Yeah it was '94 Carnival. I was going to suggest that or the 4/18/91 tag with him and Spivey against Gordy/Doc. Maybe the 2/28/93 Kawada match because it's been pimped so heavily on the board. And then maybe one of the Inoki matches from 1980-81. That would give one a pretty fair cross section of Hansen in Japan.

Yeah, in all seriousness, I wanted to read more of Matt's contrarian Hansen reviews.

But you're super-weird.

I find that non-fans often bring up Snuka, though he doesn't entirely fit the specified era.

That's a pretty fair assessment. His athleticism clearly excited crowds, even in places where other spectacular wrestlers worked. I found it puzzling, in going through the New Japan footage, why a guy like Hamada wasn't regarded as more of a groundbreaker. To my eye, he was as spectacular as Sayama and much cleaner. But I can't deny reality. Every once in awhile, Sayama would do something absolutely breathtaking. He hit a dropkick, on Bret Hart I think, that was maybe the greatest dropkick I've ever seen. For me, that doesn't wipe away all the stuff he did badly. But I can see why fans overlooked his flubs. And I love his UWF run, especially the Fujiwara stuff. If we had five years of that Sayama instead of just one, he'd have a case.

Wrestling was better when guys who looked like Hero were allowed to be stars. Really, does he look any worse than 1989 Barry Windham?

No, the backlash comes from the fact he was an obviously gifted guy who wrestled dull-as-shit matches a lot of the time. Need a nap? Watch the Steamboat feud.

Some backlash against Benoit the wrestler might be warranted in that he really wasn't the third best of all time as he ranked in the SC poll. But he was great and going through the yearbooks really confirmed that. Great offensive wrestler, and he brought an intensity to matches that made them feel like more than they might have been in other hands. I recall 1998 as his crown jewel in that respect. Amid all the NWO bullshit, he cranked out great work week after week against guys like Booker, Raven and DDP, none of whom seem likely to make a lot of top 100s. Throw him in with a Finlay or Regal, and he could produce a violent, detail-oriented gem. Match him with Liger and he'd give you an impressive spot fest. Shit, I even liked the Angle match Grimmas always pans the last time I watched it. It struck me as a story of two guys who genuinely believed they were the best athletes in the company pushing the tempo on each other. That kind of match isn't normally my cup of tea, but in context, they pulled it off. For a long time, I would've ranked Eddy over Benoit. But the yearbooks completely flipped my thinking. Eddy at his absolute best in WWE might have been better, because he brought so much charisma to his work. But there's no way he outworked Benoit most years.

Arn was really good at transitioning from little bits of comedy to kicking ass.

Not going to rate her.