smkelly

While I don't remember the positioning I gave the match, here is what I wrote about it at DVDVR. (I was quoting a post by Will) Some might make the excuse for TM's sloppiness, but it is fundamentally unprofessional to have never practiced a maneuver but try it in a match anyway. It is risky, unprofessional, and not cool. Peeps could get hurt, man. Will is right though WP: "Most people who aren't blinded by fandom will admit the same thing" Let go man, let go.

Overrated or not, it's historic. Which I agree with, man. I'm not a part of the overrated community. Well, maybe a little

I'm a little surprised this match made the set. I thought most had it pegged as overrated, in similar respects to the Dyno vs. Tiger Mask series.

Where does Misawa fall in? Top ten? Oh, and thanks Loss for clearing up the southern tag thing. So that's the classic face in peril situation then?

EDIT

I don't about entire duration of the teams, as I look more at a match-to-match basis and not longevity. Misawa & Kobashi have the epics against Kawada & Taue and Doc & Ace. Misawa & Akiyama have the epics (Tag Finals 96 & 97 specifically) and a few assorted good/great matches. The line in the sand to me is the difference between Kobashi and Akiyama. Kobashi was the perfect complimant to Misawa's style in my opinion, whereas Akiyama wasn't that "seasoned" yet, so he naturally looked terribly inferior (kind of like Ogawa when he and Misawa faced a team with one of the other big three). At any rate, I'd put 12-6-96 right behind 6-9-95, and then it's chaos trying to remember placing. Point being, on 12-6, the team of Misawa & Akiyama were damn good, better than some incarnations of Misawa & Kobashi, but I simply cannot ignore who their opponents were either on that cold December night.

It was most certainly a good match. Honestly, it was one of my favorite matches from the set. I’m considerably late to the discussion, but I have some thoughts I’d like to share. But, I’ll start with a question first, what is a Southern Tag? I’ve seen the term used many times at DVDVR, here, and other places, but never had a clear understanding of what it entails. I suspect it is a style of tag wrestling in the south (primarily), which is obvious (by its name). Furthermore, there are other monikers to styles I don’t know/understand either, most notably, King’s Road. Would someone mind explaining that one as well for me? (I lied, I started with *two* questions) I haven’t read all twelve pages yet, but I will likely do that sometime down the road, but discussions like this always intrigue me. I am a list person, seemingly by nature, so I enjoy discussions that lead to potential list making. In terms of the actual discussion itself, I feel that holding separate, but equally important criteria in mind for inclusion into the GOAT annuals would be the key element to a successful poll/debate/whatever. Some may agree or disagree, but to me, wrestling ability and drawing ability are those criteria. As I said, some may agree, while others might say other abilities are more important, or things like longevity, title reigns (which I don’t take seriously anymore), etc. I break it down to those two criteria for many reasons, primarily to include wrestlers like Hogan, Austin, and The Rock into the equation. Granted, Austin was a great worker, but his top-shelf work simply cannot compete with Misawa’s or Kobashi’s, or even Flair’s (which could be debatable). The same applies to Hogan and The Rock. However, the drawing ability list would be relatively easy to complete, as numbers and gates are available. Nevertheless, the debate of who actually drew the shows/gates would come into play (with some obvious no-brainers though). Regarding working ability, the styles of Lucha, Joshi, and Shooto are not available to me. I have seen more footage of those styles than the normal and even slightly overzealous fan, but my level of experience pales in comparison to others. I would simply be lying if I claimed to have extensive knowledge, or even tried to rank them. Notwithstanding, my extensive viewing “expertise” lies with American and Japanese promotions. However, I do not veer too far from my comfortable perch enough to speak of the various territories in the United States with anything resembling logical thought. This to me, is one of the fundamental flaws of these discussions. Some people have a wide-range of viewing habits or experiences, while others only watch the WWF, or ROH, or whatever. Evidence of sheltered viewing is exhibited in the PWT GOAT polls. But it might boil down to bias as much as limited exposure to the various wrestling elements around the world and throughout the decades. Some people are simply unable to differentiate between “favorite” and “best ever”, which I doubt wouldn’t be as much a problem around these parts, but sometimes the two are so closely wound that it is the logical choice to make. For example, if John Doe’s favorite wrestler were Kenta Kobashi, he would have a good argument of citing his favorite wrestler as the greatest wrestler of all-time. I on the other hand, would not have as an easy time defending my favorite wrestler (Danielson) as the greatest wrestler of all-time. I have said this to people before, but everyone and everything has a #1 fan out there somewhere. Try to remember times when you’ve been near a radio/television and heard the most annoying song you’ve ever heard in your entire life (or similar situations with different stimulus). You might have been like, “This is the worst song of all-time.” But somewhere out there in the world, that #1 fan is screaming his or her head off in delight when they hear that same song that made you recoil. What is that old adage, “one man’s trash is another man’s delight”? While I’m not very good at it, mathematics can prove just about anything (or so I’m constantly reminded at college by math gurus). I’m willing to bet there is likely a mathematical formula that could create a list of the greatest wrestlers of all-time. For example: Amount of Years (longevity) times (or divide) Number of __ * matches (preferably 4*, which is debatable) times Drawing Ability (number of shows that was clearly headlined by so-and-so, which again, is debatable). Or something similar, as it depends on what criteria, and if you multiply, divide, or simply add the criteria. Random Example of Greatest of All-Time Formula ©: John Doe – 24 year career / 30 4* matches x 100 shows headlined = 80 points Versus Ric Flair – 30 year career / 100 4* matches x 1,000 shows headlined = 300 points A four-star match on a PPV card, like WrestleMania or Starrcade would be more significant than a four-star match from a house show caught on fan-cam (in my opinion at least), so maybe adding .05% (or more) to the total would be an adequate representation of the matches’ criteria. Similar methodology is exhibited in polling sometimes – if John Doe versus Ric Flair has more than five #1 votes, it gets additional bonus points. Furthermore, headlining would need to be clearly defined. This may not tickle your fancy, but it might prove worthwhile, at least, on a debate point-of-view. It might just create the apex list of the Greatest Wrestler of All-Time though. Without further ado, here is my (non-mathematical list) of all-time greats in wrestling (in no particular ordering). Hulk Hogan. Arguably, the greatest draw of all-time. I’m of the persuasion that without Hogan, wrestling wouldn’t be the way it is today, for better or worse. While Hogan is not known for his spectacular matches, he is nevertheless one of the true icons of professional wrestling. Once again, for better or worse. Ric Flair. Arguably, Flair is the greatest worker of all-time. He is the definition of World Champion, as he toured and defended one of the most prestigious championships ever made for professional wrestling around the globe for years. Flair did that while having epic matches with a wide-variety of upper echelon workers, as well with the workers that were easily forgotten after they had retired. Flair has enough great matches to fill a small-town phonebook. Kenta Kobashi. His All Japan run, especially 93-97, is likely never to be reproduced in terms of quality and greatness. His battles with injuries and disease are things of legend, man. Mitsuharu Misawa. “The Standard Bearer of Future Generations.” I believe he has the most 5* matches (WON) ever. Be it singles, tag, or six-man, Misawa did it all, and seemingly with ease. Toshiaki Kawada. Dangerous K is one of the All Japan Three Musketeers, and is sometimes overshadowed by his peers, Kobashi and Misawa, but man alive is Kawada great in his own rights. A league of their own describes Kawada’s ass kicking perfectly in contrast to Misawa’s finesse and Kobashi’s power. Chris Benoit. While his personal life is unforgivable and unforgettable, his in-ring work is nonetheless as humanly perfect as perfection goes. I believe Benoit to be the man responsible for breaking down the size-barrier in wrestling (seems to have been rebuilt though). Stan Hansen. One of the meanest hardest hitting bad asses to ever lace up a pair of boots, man. Hansen reminds me of those grizzled construction workers that wet their whistles every day in the bar. They’re the kind of person no one messes with and wants on their side when a fight breaks out. Oh yeah, he’s had some epic matches too! Steve Austin. Austin did the same thing Hogan did for wrestling, only in a different direction. Instead of taking vitamins and saying prayers, it was beer bashes and stunners for the entire family. Austin revitalized wrestling in the late 90s with the “Stone Cold” gimmick. He was great as “Stunning” Steve Austin too. Bret Hart. While some don’t hold him in the same light as I do, Bret to me is nevertheless one of the finest in-ring workers to compete in a WWF ring. Be it a straight-laced technical bout (SummerSlam ’92) or a dark alley street fight (WrestleMania 13), Bret was capable of going full-circle in nearly any style. Jushin Liger. “The Standard Bearer of Junior Heavyweights” ©. Liger pioneered the emergence of Junior wrestling in Japan, and his influence was spread world-wide. Liger, like Kobashi, has fought injuries and diseases like Lance Armstrong. No question, Liger deserves recognition for his career.

Kawada and Taue all the way, man. But, Kobashi and Misawa are a close second.

I also liked the Cena feuds with Umaga and Khali. I'd like to see the WWE bring back A-Train, as he has improved considerably since his WWE days, and the dude is huge. Tomko fits the WWE bill: big and covered with tats. I'd like to see Daniel Rodimer in the WWE too even though he hasn't been around for a couple of years now. The only money making performances for Cena is against Taker, Sting (if he comes in), The Rock, and probably Hogan (if he ever comes back). Cena has faced nearly all of the other big names the WWE has: Miz, Sheamus, Orton, Edge, etc. The problem I see with Taker/Cena is if they feuded around WrestleMania, everyone knews that Taker wins at WM, then Cena gets the next PPV victory by default, and they might take it all the way to SummerSlam where Cena would likely win. But if they feud, one of them has to be the heel (obviously). A few episodes of Raw ago, The Miz made fun of Cena, calling him corny. That is one of the reasons I haven't enjoyed seeing Cena as much. His act and gimmick as a One Man Army has gotten terribly stale. His one-liners are poop jokes, which is ghey, and he is seemingly unable to learn from previous mistakes. I mean, Cena pokes the proverbial bees hive every week, gets beaten down, makes a comeback, gets beaten down again...rinse and repeat. Basically, he is a stupid face that is always putting his neck on the chopping block. The bookers need to do something different with him, like maybe how they've pushed Austin and Orton as tweeners.

Man, Michael Cole needs some time off. He buried Natalya last night (Josh too). I don't think she is an ugly or fat woman. Do you guys think she is overweight? At any rate, the mocking of her was terrible. Oh, and The Rock's twenty-minute promo was awesome.

Maybe ask him about the 9-1-90 tag match in AJ. Specifically, if Kikuchi was injured or not.

I have an idea on the process. If these are legit concerns that the DVDVR crew has (people blindly voting, etc) than the requirements of voting should be that a poster has to comment on each match in the set. It would make for more discussion, and the likelihood of someone chiming in on 150 different topics and not actually watching the footage is probably extremely low, if not impossible. If the DVDVR forums had the organizational methods that this forum does, it would be an easy way to set it up, and for archiving reasons as well. What I mean by that is, since Phil makes topics for every match, each set/territory should have their own sub-forum. I’ve never run a message board before, but I can’t envision that task being that difficult (is it?). It is organized then, and I wouldn’t have to use the lame search function that is very temperamental. 8-8-88 comes to mind.

I originally agreed with this idea, but having spent more time contemplating it, it wouldn't really work. I mean, if you're the only person to vote for the match, and vote it ridiculously high (like #1) than the results will look funky (like in the Smarkschoice WCW poll). I guess it all boils down to how many points a #1 ranked match gets compared to ten people voting on something else with different votes. Some of the more recent polls done exhibit something that I have meant to question. I don't have the hard data in front of me, but on one poll (non-DVDVR) one match had like seven 1st place votes, but didn't end up #1 overall...a match that had like five #1 votes ended up winning it. How does DVDVR break down the numbers? Is it something like: 1st place vote = 50 points, but is multiplied if the same match gets more #1 votes? The AJPW poll didn't change that much IIRC from when Ditch led the second poll. I think with a promotion like AJ, especially in the 90s, the "usual suspects" isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I were to lead an AJ 90s poll, and had a ballot where the golden four (6-3-94, 6-9-95, 12-6-96, and 1-20-97) were at the bottom of the ballot…I can’t say I’d take that ballot very seriously. It’s like voting Rip Rogers vs. Terry Taylor in WCW #1. It just doesn’t compute, man. But I agree with the sentiments on WCW, to a degree. The thing that would likely end up happening is Benoit matches missing from the top twenty, which would be a slight injustice, because his WCW work was pretty solid for the time. It didn’t really affect the Smarkschoice poll all that much, but between here and there is a vastly different crowd of fans. Personally, I’d vote the Owen Tribute match likely higher than most, but that’s because I’ve loved the match since the day it aired.

I thought of Dustin Rhodes with his Black Reign gimmick. If it is Sting, that's kind of a weird setup video.

Rapid forearm trading that is overdone and never sold just completely kills it for me. Some matches I have watched lately that are like that: Shuji Kondo vs. Naomichi Marufuji (AJ 11/3/08) This match is insane. They work a heavyweight like style and absolutely kill each other with harder than normal strikes, and big bumps & bombs. I think this might be their first match together, but they were working as if they were Kobashi & Misawa. Kobashi fought Misawa throughout the 1990s in singles matches. If you watch each match (in order) you can see the evolution of their matches – what moves aren’t winning matches anymore, new strategies, etc. They had an entire decade to get to the point of, “Okay, this is getting a little silly,” whereas Kondo/Marufuji doesn’t have that luxury, but worked this match like 6-11-99 and without the selling or storytelling Misawa/Kobashi provided, which was considerably weaker than their mega 97-98 matches. Kondo/Marufuji just killed each other instead of building a reliable feud over a couple of years. My complaint here is how can they top this performance? I mean, the insanity is already in epic proportions, so they’ll have to increase their effort, which will likely be the end of one (if not both) of their careers, to top their last performance. The older I get, the more I care about the health of the men (and women) who entertain me. For first time viewers (fans who haven't seen stuff like this) this match would probably rock their worlds, but I have been watching puro since 2002 (maybe even 2001) and I am finding it harder and harder to truly enjoy, so I can't imagine someone who has been watching since the 80s or earlier. Hell, someone who started watching puro in the 70s must have felt the same way about the 1990s. Current puro (American Indies as well) is an example of the “can you top this” mentality that is plaguing all forms of wrestling. Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (NOAH 7/10/04) I used to rate this at 5*. It might still be that, but the bumps in this match are ridiculous, man. Kobashi was 37, but taking bumps a 20 year old Necro Butcher would take. Jun was 35 (I think) and takes some horrible bumps as well, but Kobashi, always being the showman, takes even harder bumps, like the exploder from the top-rope to the floor. What kills this match is the poor pacing. They do killer spots, but lack the timing and pacing to make them seem important to do in the first place. I don’t think they should have done them to begin with – it reminds me of that TNA cage match in 07 where Styles goes insane and does some kind of dangerous stunt off the cage to the floor, or Jack Evan’s double-backflips off cages. It is just setting the groundwork for bigger and more dangerous (and probably deadly) spots and bumps for the future generations to attempt to beat. It’s like the X-Games, motocross, skateboarding, etc. What was huge in the 90s is now a warm-up maneuver. There will come a time where something is so impossible that it cannot be broken or outdone, and I fear that glass ceiling will claim the lives of many athletes and professional wrestlers alike. I watched the Bloodsport ECW set last night, and Rocco Rock's promo stuck with me. He said he wouldn't be jumping off platforms to crash through two tables unless the fans made him do it. It made me feel bad as a fan. Just my two cents, man.

I'll end up buying this book, maybe more for curiousness than actual interest, but I'm mostly looking forward to Jericho's new book. Here is the product description: One wrestler is noticeably missing from the on/off stage battles…

Hmm. I thought Punk was like 6'5ish, but Wiki says 6'1. I could have sworn him and Edge came eye to eye.

That was...different. I have always found it interesting how people write, what they capitalize, etc. The subject context is contradictory to everything I have ever read from many American wrestlers who worked for Baba. He seemed to take care of his talent, paid them outrageous amounts of money for tours, and made them superstars in a foreign country. He did, however, suffer from the same mentality that all booker/wrestlers do, they job too infrequently. That brings up an interesting question, has a booker/wrestler ever not put himself over at the expense of his talent? Ones that fit the mold: Booker/Wrestlers Dusty Rhodes Eddie Gilbert Triple H Kevin Nash Hulk Hogan Ric Flair Antonio Inoki Promoters & Non-wrestlers Vince McMahon Vince Russo Eric Bischoff

I think it depends on the guy, really. I mean, Jericho, Benoit, Eddy, and Rey have all had World title reigns (even if they were botched). Danielson will likely hold a World title before he leaves, as Vince had wanted his services for quite a while before eventually signing him. Shawn and Bret held countless titles, and they are small compared to his normal model of wrestler. Savage was tiny compared to some of the other 80s stars like Hogan, obviously Andre, and Warrior.

You guys mentioned a lot of the "best" shameful things I can remember, but one of the things that has stuck with me were the fans on the Owen memorial show. When they first showed JR & King...just wow. Reasonable defenses probably exist for them, but still, yeah. Didn't Orton say Eddy was in Hell?

That concerns me a little bit.

I second that from everything I've ever heard about the man. 67.5% chance it is more delusional than Hulk Hogan stories.

I watched a lot of the TNN footage when it first aired and loved it. I really liked late 1999, as they were really blowing the WWF and WCW away at that point, in per entertainment value. I mean, the Awesome versus Tanaka feud was incredible. I watched the Rise and Fall of ECW last night. I never knew how badly TNN fucked ECW over. It seems as though TNN was the final pebble in the basket that finally drowned ECW. Vince seemed very humble and genuinely pleasant in the DVD. How far do you think his wanting to help ECW went? He seemed disappointed that ECW failed. I think they did this because of TNN. Heyman and the director (can't remember his name) said that TNN wouldn't allow many things that were classic ECW. You're right though, it did hurt the fans, but I think it hurt the promotion the most.

I thought I posted this in this thread, but apparently not? Another question comes to mind - are the WWE still handing out those threatening cease and desist letters?