FLIK

Heh, puropotsy has anyone ever mentioned that you sound almost exactly like Gabe Sapolsky? Kept thinking your voice sounded familiar and it finally dawned on me after listning to this ep. Re Jericho/Christian vs Booker T & Goldust, they had a more stuff together then I think you guys are remembering. Atleast 3 or 4 other tv matches with my fave being 12/2/2002 that stated out as Booker vs Jericho then gets turned into an impromptu tag. They were opposite a bunch of multi man matches and they had a boat load of singles stuff in 02-03 too. Re Greatest short lived tag team, the answer is Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki Their entire 92-93 run consit of 5 proper tags, the 3 vs Toyota/Yamada and the 2 vs Hotta/Takako, Thunderqueen and the LCO Deluxe vs JWP Captain Falls match from 11/93. For the entire rest of the 90's and probably including the 80's too you can only really add a handfull of random multi man matches. On into the last decade in GAEA/OZ Academy there's a few more of them teaming together again you could toss into the pile, some of which are damn good actually but I doubt anyone here besides me has seen. And that's about it, over the course of their 25 year careers I doubt there's more then 25 matches that have made tape of them teaming and that's including multi man tags. And on the subject, i'll also toss out some love for another of my fave short lived tag teams of Hayabusa & Daisuke Ikeda, they're another pair who doesn't have much available but what is is all high end awesome stuff. Sadly Hayabusa getting injured cut their title run short and they didn't pick up once he returned.

Heh, yeah that didn't happen until 92. 90 & 91 combined barely equal the amount of matches that made tape the following year

Shamrock, Vader, Mankind, shit Goldust, I dunno? For a short transitional lame duck title run i'm not buying that they couldn't find their own Ronnie Garvin. Shamrock fought Michaels in the main event of the DX ppv, they could have switched it thear. With the benefit of hindsight since Shawn was going to feud with and beat Taker anyways they could have made that work easily too. Have the Rumble casket match be whear Shawn got the title.

K, went and searched through the 09 HOF issue whear Dave runs down the entire list (for some reason he didn't do it in the 2010 issue) and no, the Matsunaga's really aren't in. .......my mind's legit blown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestling_Obs...er_Hall_of_Fame Ok, so i'm going through the wiki page of all the people in the Observer HOF and I can't find anyone from the Matsunaga family listed. WTF?????????? JDW or someone please tell me that either I missed it or whoever put the wiki page together forgot to include them, my brain can't possibly comprehend how the Matsunaga's (Takasi if no one else), the founders & promoters of AJW don't make the cut.

Yeah, you had to love this protest voter: 48 Ric Flair 48 Jushin Thunder Liger 48 Toshiaki Kawada 48 Jumbo Tsuruta Joined by one voter on these two: 47 Mitsuharu Misawa 47 Kenta Kobashi John Heh, i'd be that voter re Kawada, Jumbo, Misawa & Kobashi. I had Flair #24, Liger #29 on my ballot. Almost 6 years later my list would be a LOT diffrent (as i'm sure everyone's would) but not entirely sure if i'd have either of those two any higher. Kobashi would make my list for sure now though not in the top 50, Misawa MAYBE but no guarantee. Jumbo & Kawada I still wouldn't give a second thought to. Like both but not near to that level, just never been a big 90's All Japan fan.

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The directly part is what I don't get. I've never heard anyone refute Bret's claim that he brought up the idea of droping it to someone else, whether he really would have is irrelevant since Vince seemed hell bent on "Bret MUST lose to Shawn and it MUST be at Survivor Series" with no room for compromise That's kind of underselling things actually. They don't go into great detail but Shawn flat out says HHH was the one who came up with the idea. Paraphrasing, the conversation went something along the lines of Vince telling them "Bret wants to do a DQ or something" and HHH responding "Fuck that if he won't do business we'll do business for him" and then Vince & Shawn being kind of taken back by the idea for a second before coming around and Vince agreeing. Really of everyone involved Shawn sounds like the guy who needed the most convinving to go through with it though that was mainly because he was worried about the aftermath and the heat he'd get. Yeah that part was new to me as well. Also that Bret thinks Hebner may not have known about things until right before the match was going to start.

Just watched last night. Given all the HHH/Punk talk of late I found it amusing Bret & Shawn talked at length about WWE favoring big men and how hard it was to overcome that with their workrate. Shawn especially mentioning that until he got to the WWF his size was never an issue anywhear else he went and if it was it was seen as a positive with the bigger guys thinking that made it easier to get heat beating him up. Biggest thing I took away overall was that the Shawn's "i'll never put you over" line to Bret was the defining point of no return in their feud. For as much as they hated each other, had Shawn not said those few words 1st Bret would have had no problem putting him over in Montreal and the whole screw job mess would have never happened. Bret even went as far as to say that if Shawn would have changed his mind and put him over at Survivor Series he would have lost the belt the next night to him on RAW. Million dollar unanswered question i've still got that I don't think i've ever heard a good explanation for was if Bret was willing to drop it to literally anyone else on the whole roster on any other day leading up to SS why the hell didn't Vince just take him up on that offer???

Not so much that being a great worker is the number one criteria. The way he phrased it is more that having the respect of your peers as a good worker is the number one criteria Heh, so am I the only one that read it as Dave simply saying you have to meet one of those criteria with NO emphasis on any of them being more important then the other? On the same show that Edge talk happened he went on a lengthy explanation of how Stu Hart is in entirely because he falls under the "important positive historical figure" catagory for example Re the "respect of your peers" part, Dave's most often brought that up using the example of Dick Murdoch getting the most support from wrestlers who worked with him as opposed to "historians" and others who don't vote him as highly and he's usally specified that that's because his peers thought he was a talented in ring worker. Hmmm, I think your Smackdown 6 may be diffrent then everyone's

Yes but it's not like he was being carried and didn't do his part. He was having good stuff that whole year. It was mostly with those same guys but still, not a short run.

Well, there's the whole "Smackdown 6 era" Blanking on dates but years later I recall strong matches vs Orton, Michaels, Jericho, Rey, Benoit, etc... I know i've seen atleast 1 good match vs Cena that was non gimmick Really liked Undertaker match from Mania To me it's an apples & oranges type thing. Leaving quality out of the equation since my point wasn't really about who had the better wrestling. New Japan in the 1980's had 1 weekly tv, WWF for most of the 00's has had at minimum 4 + 1 to 2 ppvs a month + the ocasional extra TV special. I just looked at the NJPW set results (or atleast the top 50 or so) and you lagely start seeing the same group of guys over and over again after a while with a few exceptions mixed in, I don't think that would be the case for WWF. Just based on sheer volume I don't think you could exspect Edge or any other wrestler to dominate the top of a WWE list this decade the same way a Fujiwara or Fujinami or Inoki or Choshu did in the 80's.

Heh, i'll for sure back up Devil, Chiggy & Jaguar as great picks. They have all the credentials anyone could want, extremely talented wrestlers with a laundry list of great matches you can toss a bag of snowflakes at against many diffrent opponents. To add to that, I think Lioness also belongs up thear, much like you & Takada I strongly disagree with a lot of the backlash Lioness has gotten over the years. Dump for sure I think deserves a mention, kind of weird to not bring up someone who's a legit contender for greatest heel of all time. Not as versitile as others but when you're the absolute best at what you do you don't really need to be. She also had that uniqueness whear I always felt I was watching something special when she wrestled and not to say all her matches were great or even good but i've almost never seen her in a match I wasn't entertained by. Never walked away from a Dump match saying "boy that stunk what a waste of my time" Dark horse I think will benefit a lot from a DVDVR set Yukari Omori - There were only 7 ppl that got to hold the 3WA title in the 80's. Your usual suspects we all think of when we think of 80's AJW, Chigusa, Lioness, Devil, Jaguar. There's Jackie Sato who's really more of a 70's star who carried over long enough to pass the torch to Jaguar and was retired by 81. There's La Galactica who only got it for a month to further the feud with Jaguar. And there's Omori who had it for over a year. Omori's someone who was a big star of the time and great wrestler but for whatever reason has been forgotten about and needs a serious re-visit/re-discovery. Even I haven't seen a ton yet but i've watched enough to stand by that statement. On that note i'll also shout out Yumi Ogura & Jumbo Hori as lost super workers of the 80's. Maybe not to the lvl they should be in discussion for greatest wrestlers in the entire world for the whole decade but certainly if you're talking joshi only they're top 20 or so picks.

For some reason Alvarez is convinced Jericho & Edge have virtually identical careers so that's how the subject came up. Just to touch on a few other points Meltzer actually said he thought at his peak Murdoch was better but Edge was more consistent and a bigger star so that's what put him over the top in his eyes using the "well if Murdoch is the measuring stick" line of thinking. Thinking about it, in a sort of similar way Edge might be a good choice to use as the gatekeeper for this generation. The guy who has more then enough qualifications to stand on his own as a worthy candidate but isn't a slam dunk the way others are. Someone you can point to if you wanna use the "if they're better then him they're in, if not then no" argument. Unfair comparison I think. There's a ton more WWE footage available in the 00's then there is 80's New Japan and there's a larger pool of wrestlers with consistent quality work so the competition would be spread out more and a lot harder. Narrowing things down, I don't think there's many years whear Edge was active for most of it that he wouldn't be in several of the top matches that year. True, I actually think Edge would benefit a lot from ppl taking time to revisit his career in the future instead of rushing to judgement now. At present he has this rep in some ppl's eyes as "only good in gimmick matches" which 1) so what? To me I enjoy gimmick matches a lot so that's a + and I view those types of things as a diffrent way to work not an easier way. I've seen more then enough shitty hardcore matches to know that just cause you add a few weapons or big bumps does not = quality on it's own. and 2) him only being a good gimmick worker is false anyways. He's had a more then enough good to great normal matches to back that up if people took a closer look I feel. Really a more accurate statement to make is that his most famous matches are all gimmick matches but in that sense he's a victim of being a main eventer in the age of theme ppvs whear all the top guys are forced to work a large # of high profile ladder/cage/table/hardcore matches each year. Most of his quality non gimmick stuff is on week to week tv or lesser ppvs that are easier to forget over time.

....you're talking about a match other then the Stairway to Hell match from PPV RIGHT?????

Are you sure he didnt mean Eddy and not Edge? Just listened to the show a few hrs ago, Dave was actually talking about Jericho when he made that statement, in refrence to Jericho's most recent run before he left again, specifically the Shawn feud

Heh, i'm surprised people are shocked by this. "Edge Sux" is a pretty minority opinion which is fine, to each his own but most people do really like the guy and yeah, I forget the exact amount but he's pretty up thear on the list of guys Meltzer's given the most 4*+ ratings to.

Are there really people out thear saying diffrent? I don't recall ever seeing the "Sabu would fuck up on purpose" talking point being used to prove that he didn't fuck up legit a good deal too.

Oh, and if you guys ever want to see a rare disapointing Terry Funk match, watch the FMW 3 way w Bubba Ray & Sandman in late 97. So bad that I consider it an embarasment for everyone involved and ECW as a whole, really the whole tour was as the ECW guys largely stunk up the joint in all their matches. Funk/Dreamer vs Dudleys vs Mike Awesome/Hido was crap too, Dudleys vs Jado/Gedo was one of the worst matches ever, etc...

Yeah, he wasn't being used after the Hart fight but he was still under contract to them then a month or so later TNA pulled all their guys from ROH over the RF deal and he quit to go with ROH.

On that note, it sucks that WWE gives fuck all about story consistency now. I saw a lot of ppl saying it made no sense for JR to walk out and all I could think was, well, HHH did break his arm once and beat him up & publicly humiliate him on several other ocasions, it's stupider that he would support HHH. Course in a world whear what happens a few months ago barely mean anything, something like that is long since forgotten.

Listened to most of the Terry Funk ep, have you gus seen his WWC title tournament stuff from 86? He wrestles Barry Windham, Rick Martell and Carlos Colon, it's amazing to watch as he puts on a totall 1 man show in all 3 matches. Colon stinks so you exspect Terry to have to carry the load thear but he completely blows Martell & Windham away in their matches too, outshining & outworking both.

If she hadn't retired in May Chigusa would have a case Of what's available on tape she's in most of your really high end joshi matches that year. vs Lioness 1/29 i'd put up against Flair's best in 89, maybe the best singles those 2 had together. vs Hokuto 3/19 and w Lioness vs Hokuto & Suzuka 4/27 are up thear in that same lvl w Lioness vs Mika Komatsu & Yumi Ogura 3/4 is a match I personally haven't seen but i've heard great things about Lot of other matches besides those in the good catagory

In that wacky Teddy Hart interview he did a month or so back he goes into a lot of detail about it. The gist is he said he had a bad attitude/was immature at the time so he kind of took the blame for the issues starting. Said he respected Punk for being the only guy who didn't like him who had the balls to actually slap him like he said he would. Also said sometime back they buried the hatchet and are buds now, also confirmed that he did indeed buy CM Punk a spiffy track suit as a peace offering.

Was this one of those deals whear this was taped before they actually knew this was Warrior's last night in? Everything about this is just bizare, especally if the answer to the above question is no. Given the circumstances I actually don't think they buried him nearly that bad. Even Vince on commentary kinda took the high road. Weird in every way