smkelly

55 minutes worth of bumps, bruises, highspots, awesome selling, and risk taking. Best three way match ever. Danielson is showing signs of future best in the world worker here. AJ Styles, along with Danielson, Ki, and Punk really shined in the early 2000s because of matches like this. 1 of 2 XPW matches that deserve to be on a yearbook set. I've always thought this was an excellent match. These three had some awesome matches together. #2 XPW match. Please don't die indeed. TNA could use matches like these nowadays. Never seen: 6-7-02 Bryan Danielson vs. Low Ki JAPW 6-7-02 Steve Corino vs. Homicide JAPW 6-29-02 Jay Briscoe vs. Marc Briscoe NWA-Wildside 7-19-02 Nick Dinsmore vs. Doug Basham OVW (Last Man Standing) 8-3-02 Jeremy Lopez vs. Quiet Storm NWA-Wildside 8-24-02 Jay Briscoe vs. Marc Briscoe ROH 9-4-02 Chris Benoit vs. Doug Basham OVW 9-29-02 Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe EPIC 10-25-02 Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance APW (2 out of 3 falls) 11-2-02 Backseat Boys vs. Lost Boys NWA-Wildside 12-21-02 CM Punk vs. Chris Hero IWA–MS 12-27-02 Super Dragon vs. Jardi Frantz vs. Bobby Quance APW (Iron Man) 12-28-02 Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe vs. Low Ki vs. Steve Corino ROH

Title match on Raw. Probably the best one on one ladder match the WWF has ever done. How they didn't kill each other or themselves at that young of age doing that kind of match has also been beyond me. I halfway expected one of them to start crying just like a junior or senior boy might do after being dumped on top of their head. My favorite WWF tag match. The heat is ungodly, the workers bust their asses and quad in this match, and the entire atmosphere is reminiscent of an out of control ECW tag team match, which is a good thing. Benoit and Austin were the two top WWF workers so far of 2001. Painful suplexes through glass... Super long super four way. What was the consensus on these two workers back in 2001? I'm guessing awesome because they were working like Benoit vs. Smith from Stampede, i.e great. Never seen: 6-27-01 Nick Dinsmore vs. The Machine OVW (Career vs. Mask) 10-13-01 Steve Corino vs. Shinya Hashimoto NWA (NWA World Title) 11-30-01 Low Ki vs. Eddie Guerrero ICW

Best WWF hardcore-ish brawl I've ever seen. Everything about this match would make people faint nowadays if this were on Raw. I remember liking this a lot when I watched it about a month after it aired. Corino is really talented at getting fake beaten up but making it look like Bruce Lee was kicking him. To be fair though, Tajiri is a legit asskicker. Never seen but heard....: 10-29-00 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW

This is definitely at the opposite end of the normal Kawada/Misawa spectrum, but still, it is Misawa, Kawada, and pre-split All Japan. Brutal match. Felt like watching a snuff film there for a second. Some of Vader's best work ever here. And God damn, Misawa makes getting beat look fashionable. One of my favorite WCW tag matches ever. This match is insane. Insanely awesome that is. The final Triple Crown match between the two and a good one to boot. Taz is the champion for this three way but is the first to be eliminated, which still leaves us with Awesome & Tanaka to kill each other. I see the greatness of this match. Started the trend of WWF tag team workers and highspot junkies falling from unusual heights. Some dislike that trend but I always found the chaotic car wreck style entertaining. Probably one of the best ECW title matches I've ever seen. Both of these were awesome and on free television too. Never seen - etc: 3-17-99 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 4-10-99 Koji Kanemoto vs. Shinjiro Ohtani NJPW 5-31-99 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 6-3-99 Shinjiro Ohtani vs. El Samurai NJPW 6-27-99 Koji Kanemoto vs. Minoru Tanaka NJPW 7-1-99 El Samurai vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW

Pain. Lots of pain. Akiyama can throw big bombs like Misawa but he cannot weather incoming bombs yet is what I took from this...and that Akiyama wasn't "ready" to be the Ace he was supposed to become yet. This is also a half hour draw Misawa/Kawada carny match. And it's still Misawa vs. Kawada. Kawada finally gets his. Six years in the making. This match actually disappointed me by not being as good as some of the others. It is still awesome though. Probably the best Kobashi/Kawada singles match they had. #2 RINGS match. Needs no explanation. Pretty sure this is their debut against one another in the ECW setting. While it is not the best of their series, it is still awesome. Not as good as their January '97 match, but still on par with the other huge matches they had against one another. I've always wondered why the Hardy Boyz stopped working this way and continued the insane highspots after they had complained about injuries for years. Never seen: (but heard good stuff) 7-15-98 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW

This is the match I call the greatest of all-time. One of the best matches in Raw's history. Nearly as good as their ECW matches. This match, to me, is only behind their first ECW match and their last. Unarguably one of the best WWF matches of all-time. Half hour draw at the carny. Good match, but obviously nowhere near 6-94 or 6-97. Explode Misawa's head theory was tested sternly in this match. Man, explanations for All Japan are redundant. Taue's second best TC match with Misawa. Best barbed wire mess/match ever. The first RINGS match I ever watched. Also the best that I've ever seen. First Hell in a Cell and HBK got his ass kicked for a long time. Misawa kicks the dog shit out of Kobashi in all of their matches ever but Kobashi has never stopped coming back for more. Nine months after losing his title Kobashi shows he's not a little kid anymore. Mask vs. Title. Never seen these: (but have read good things about them) 2-16-97 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 5-25-97 Koji Kanemoto vs. Gran Naniwa NJPW 6-1-97 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 6-3-97 Shinjiro Ohtani vs. El Samurai NJPW 7-6-97 Jushin Liger vs. El Samurai NJPW 8-10-97 El Samurai vs. Shinjiro Ohtani NJPW 8-10-97 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 9-10-97 Jushin Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto NJPW 10-19-97 Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Otani NJPW

Where would an all promo compilation rank on your to-do list?

Eddie's steel cage promo is probably the best promo of the modern era by far. What would you call the best promo of all-time, then? Or broken down by decade. The Nexus debut? Yeah, that was awesome. It had that surrealness that wrestling needs sometimes.

Couldn't have been released at a better time, honestly. Punk had always been a favorite of mine, but that promo pushed him up the list like twenty spots.

A review I just read: Does that sum it up nicely too? I've been wanting to give Davey the benefit of the doubt on many occasions, but I'm finding it harder and harder to do so. It seems as though he purposely no-sells everything because he thinks that's what Kawada, Misawa, and Kobashi did.

Agreed. But it doesn't detract from Punk's awesome promo though.

Will, you beat me to it. That has got to be top ten material, for sure. Damn.

Steve Austin tweet:

Man. That was an awesome promo.

Proof positive that Benoit wasn't in his right mind during his final days. I have thought that myself. Or the scoopslam/powerslam thing Cole does. Read this on Caldwell's review of Raw, "Up next: Raw Roulette with Riley & Rey vs. Miz & Swagger. It should be a "one of these doesn't belong" match."

Hansen did face Flair in Georgia. McAdam either had a clipped version or a highlight version of it.

He could potentially sink Linda's next campaign Could he? When would the statute of limitations on any potential evidence tampering/obstruction of justice/whatever chargesw be up for the Eddy cleanup and whatever might've happened on the weekend of the Benoit murder/suicide? For latter he may not have done anything criminal, though. I bet he may very well know the details behind Dave Taylor and his wife showing up at the crime scene seconds after the bodies were found. I doubt those are the only skeletons in the closet, though.

Wait. That shit is true? I was kidding around.

Good point, and especially cause it was a good one, eh.

Then once again, you answer your own thread question in the very first post you make. It happens, but very rarely does it work. You have them brawl like Andre and Hansen did. Neither man lost any ground in their altercations. Andre laid in some good ones and Hansen held on to the end and delivered some of his own. And that's just from an image perspective. Why they don't do this anymore I don't know. EDIT: What is the argument for heel vs. heel and face vs. face matches being bad again? Personally I don't find a problem with it whatsoever. Bad guys do fight each other as much as they fight good guys in comic books, movies, and real life anyway.

Russo must have been watching a lot of Jerry Springer and/or Memphis at the time.

Is that the "Teddy Hart Incident"? EDIT: Nope. What's funny about that?

Kidman.

I've never seen, or at least, never recall seeing any of Vader's work in Germany. Was it subpar, or better than expected? Similarly, I recall somewhat, seeing Hansen's name at least once in Germany section going through Lynch's list a while back. Good topic Naylor. Hansen deserves more appreciation because he was physically handicapped but ended being one of the best workers ever anyway and because of it sometimes. I never really say it, but Hansen is one of favorites.