JerryvonKramer

I am because it's like, I dunno, talking to someone making a Neil Young vs. Bob Dylan comparison and posting a list of Highway 61 Revisted, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Blood on the Tracks, etc. etc., them saying "yeah, Dylan did have great albums, sure, but ... I love Zuma, lol". It's not really up to par with the level of discussion and analysis that I've come to expect of this board.

Also, Bock outside of AWA has not been great from what I've seen. Flair has had matches in the top 10 of every DVDR set he's been on, and JCP set has yet to drop. It's NOT a quantity argument, it's a quality argument. What would people point to for Bock outside of AWA? Loss has posted the list of great Flair outside-of-Crockett a number of times. No one ever cares to actually watch them or comment on them specifically.

So much of what Flair does is just taken for granted. Character work? You have to put Flair at GOAT-level for that. I would have him comfortably above Bock for character work, and Bock is at least an 18/20. Work rate? Again Flair is GOAT level, Bock about a 17/20. I listed 13 Flair matches which have between them a staggering level of variety, from sprint brawls to technical broadways to cage matches. In two of them he was working with an injury. And this is just from my picks of his top 13 matches -- it doesn't feature him in any number of other contexts against any number of other opponents. I am not wanting to run Bock down. I will be a very high voter on Bock. I just really do want to drill down into how people feel they are in a position to put Bock over Flair and their reasons. People really feel like they are dismissive of discussing PARTIUCLAR matches when it comes to Flair. Loss and I will bring up lists, and they are dealt with in one or two lines. You can see why I might start to wonder "have these people watched any of this stuff in the past two or three years?" Bock has a recency bias going for him, but the great moments of Flair are so often dealt with lightly and vaguely. There's a REAL reluctance to get down to specifics, which is what we also saw in the Bret thread.

Scicluna was a challenger to Bruno's title in the 1960s. And was a headline act. From reading around, and I've read around a lot about these two, Scicluna seems like he chose to homestead in New York to be with his family, even though it meant a long slide down the card for him. He could have stayed on the road in the 60s, and 70s, and would have likely been a bigger star if he had. See also, Johnny Rodz, who made similar career choices. Denucci was a big star in Jim Barnett's WCW (Australia), and a draw in Buffallo where he once held the NWF World Title. He was also something of a star in secondary WWF markets, especially Bruno towns -- he was sort of like Bruno's Brutus Beefcake. Denucci seemed to travel a bit more than Scicluna, and would work St. Louis and some shows in Canada and elsewhere on occassion. He was a big man and an old-school babyface, who -- from what we've seen -- was always over, despite not being the greatest worker to ever lace them up. I have a fascination with these two guys, which may only be shared with one other person in the world (the starter of this thread).

Ridiculously unfair post.

Flair vs. Hogan maybe?

Only ten minutes in, but El Boricua is awesome!

Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk vs. Harley Race and Ted DiBiase (4/8/82) The fact that our friend uploaded this on my birthday was just too much!! Ted from this tour is pretty rare. For some reason Lou Thesz is ref here. This is a really really fun match, basically a 10-minute bomb throwing contest. Features one ridiculous comedy spot where Terry ties to headbutt Harley and knocks himself out. Terry also takes a brainbuster on the floor outside. Harley and Ted really bust out the offense here, first unloading a pile of suplexes and things on Dory, then on Terry. The finishing stretch features some of the biggest hamstring snaps (by Ted on Terry) that I've ever seen. Finish was pretty well worked too, built around Ted's figure-four (on both Funks) which was eventually reversed into an inside cradle for the three count. Nice clean finish. This is a really good match that I'd recommend to anyone wanting to get a quick look at these four in 1982 without spending hours going about it. I loved it. ***1/2

Any chance that you could list these out? I'm just curious? From the top 100 that I did recently I have this: 88. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Wahoo McDaniel (8/28/83) 81. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig (12/25/86) 58. Billy Robinson vs. Nick Bockwinkel (12/11/80) 23. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig (11/21/86) One five-star match, three I have at **** 3/4. Do you have any other Bock matches high that I missed? To me these are the highest of Bock's highs. For Flair I have this: 90. Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (11/15/89) 83. Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger (2/25/90) 71. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs Lex Luger, Barry Windham & Sting (04/03/88) 68. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (07/05/86) 64. Anderson, Flair, Blanchard, Luger and Dillon vs. Nikita Koloff, Dusty Rhodes, The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering (7/4/87) 45. Ron Garvin vs. Ric Flair (12/28/85) 42. Ron Garvin vs. Ric Flair (9/26/87) 37. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (5/7/89) 29. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ric Flair (6/8/83) 27. Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (7/23/89) 19. Sting, Brian Pillman, Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair, Larry Zbyszko, Barry Windham & Sid Vicious (2/24/91) 10. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (2/20/89) 1. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (4/2/89) To me these are the highest of Flair's highs. I do actually want to press statements like this because if there are a whole bevvy of five-star Bock matches I've missed, I'd like to see them.

Don't agree with this for all sorts of reasons. Because it seems to me that Bock did genuinely hit a peak in the 80s, and changed his style of working. It's not like there is zero 70s Bock on tape. We have as much if not more as we have of a guy like Jack Brisco, enough to see what he was like, enough to see him in a range of different situations. More 70s AWA was preserved, and he crops up in Japan and random places like Hawaii too. I've seen enough to know that 70s Bock doesn't look as good as 80s Bock. Maybe others could dive into 70s Bock too to make their own call.

I'm very high on Bock and have also seen plenty of average or mediocre Bock matches that were not on DVDR sets. There is more Bock on tape than there is for a lot of guys. But Loss's point about selection bias is true and real. As in more people would have seen more Flair and just AWA set picks for Bock. Flair is the beast of the 80s sets though already and Crockett hasn't even dropped, so there is that.

I would like to know about the Bock that didn't make the AWA set. Just out of interest. He is kinda boring in Japan sometimes, and from my sampling of 1970s stuff, worked a slower style to match the era.

These guys have had less attention than other high-end GWE guys.

Bumping for discussion.

On any other message board in the entire world, this would be a slam dunk and a foregone conclusion. Not so on PWO. Discuss.

Can see the eyes rolling already, but I think this does actually warrant a thread.

Come on Wales.

Dylan's point about catergorisation is true. It's baffling, especially historical candidates.

This does sound fun!

I do understand what you are getting at, but I think it's really underselling his selling abilities. You have to stop the raging bull in the first place, but once you do, he will give back. But this is down to character, what I was getting at earlier. Hansen was "The Lariat", a big fearsome, charging man. Bock was a wily, well-groomed, self-styled intellectual heel champ with Bobby Heenan in his corner. Bock seemed to have a gameplan because his character was a strategist. A chessmaster. I guess what I'm saying is, if you hold this idea of "proactive intent" as a key criteria, then probably your top 10 should be filled with wily, intellectual heels. Because those are the types of guys who are going to be able to fulfill it. Bret Hart too.

I think this would be so much more interesting if it was "who was the coolest looking bad ass?" I always imagine Kawada's apartment to be something like Detective Harvey Bullock's out of Batman. He's always slightly unkempt, unshaven, possibly hungover. Maybe none of that is true, but in my mind, that's how I imagine Kawada as a character. Misawa and Kobashi are both clean cut good kids, Kawada is out the back smoking a joint, or eating a donut, or whatever. Just the vibe he gives off. Tenryu also gives off a vibe. His face is so ... contemptuous of everything. He's is such an ass kicker. So "who gives off the coolest vibes" is more interesting to me than "who was the better wrestler?" or "who had the best career?"

Matt is writing as if every single Hansen match is a sprint brawl, but that isn't quite true. It is true that he goes to the "jump-start" a lot and cuts off the shine to accelerate the match, but Hansen could do some matwork and sell holds etc. too. Watch him vs. Inoki, vs. Funk, vs. Vader, vs. Kawada -- say, as a random cross section of guys, and they are worked differently. If you want to see a real "tool" as you say, watch Hansen vs. Backlund and marvel at how Bobby B turns Hansen into just another challenger to no-sell for.

I don't really understand how that reply came from those posts.

Every single wrestler I've ever seen has go to spots they do in every match because they know it works. Every one. Even Bock. Watch enough of any given guy and you could probably predict half of what they do. You could at least call most of their spots. There are no exceptions to this that I've seen. None.

What does this even mean? Bock has his fair share of banana peel finishes, stuff that is organic etc. etc. I don't get where this "intent" idea comes from. Bock was probably calling his shit on the fly as much as Flair in 99% of cases. Those guys didn't plan anything. If you want "intent" Savage laying out stuff move for move or modern day Cena matches with road agents laying out every spot are surely closer. How much of the idea of Bock being "smart" comes from the fact he uses big words and looks calculated? I'm not being facetious, I mean that. And I'm probably going to be the second highest Bock voter.