JerryvonKramer

I'm just waiting for the Dr. Reverend Victator face turn.

So we're still talking about Demolition? Didn't we agree to disagree on this?

Nasties vs. Road Warrior Hawk and Sting from Starrcade '93 is quite overlooked, and it's despite going in as champs the Nasties are clearly the underdogs. Nasties vs. Maxx Payne and Cactus Jack from the very next PPV (Superbrawl IV) and, in face, the rematch from Spring Stampede '94 are also, I'd argue, "high end". That was probably the best spell of the Nasty Boys's career. I don't really like them at all, but those three matches are very good. EDIT: I just went and looked up my little review of Starrcade '93 (see website), to see what I said about that Hawk/ Sting vs. Nasties match, here you go:

Dylan, how come the fact that it was difficult to point to great Hart Foundation or Bulldogs matches counted against them, despite the fact that they never had any bad matches, but for Smothers and Guido allowances are made for where and who they wrestled? It seems like a double standard.

Can someone explain to me some fundamentals about the crowd on the All Japan 80s set? For example, during Steamboat and Chavo vs. Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras, they seem to laugh whenever Caras does that little bow. Sometimes they are deathly quiet, other times as hot as any times I've ever heard. But here's the main thing: they don't seem to boo anyone. I mean in the Baba vs. Hansen matches, it's pretty clear to me that Hansen is the heel, but they still cheer him. What's the deal with this? From crowd reactions alone, almost every match on the set I've seen so far could be considered face vs. face except those involving Brody.

Loss it's the one from Boston in November. Hold on I'll actually find it for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ovsruhim1o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kJL10KjTGY Later on, I'm going to watch some the PG-13 matches that have been linked. And some of the Demolition matches. It's only fair.

I don't want to seem like I'm U-turning on the Demos for convenience here, I'm not their biggest fan, but I agree that the matches against the HF were very good. I think you could make a good argument for Hart Foundation having the best match at Summerslam for three years in a row from 88 to 90. (Although I am a big fan for Rude vs. Warrior too) Oh and The Rockers & Tito Santana vs. The Rougeaus & Rick Martel at Summerslam '89 is a great match.

(@ Dylan) Well I can't name any bone-fide classics because I don't think they exist. But my point was that pretty much ANY combination of those teams is going to give you at the very least a solid match. And with a lot of WWF cards, that ***1/2 tag match is probably going to be the best match of the night, or second best. If you held a gun to my head to name a few I'd go: Dreamteam vs. British Bulldogs from '86 (Wrestlemania II) Hart Foundation vs. The Brainbusters from '89 (Summerslam) The Rockers vs. The Brainbusters from '89 (the SNME match + the MSG one) While not CLASSICS, they are close in my mind. @Loss, I don't disagree with any of that at all, the Southern teams main evented and the WWF ones didn't and were more or less ghettoised, although I'd argue, regardless of that, the Tag Titles were treated as a big deal, much more of a big deal than the WCW Cruiserweight title. The tag division was strong in WWF, and even if they never produced any truly classic matches, everything they did was at least good. The point I keep coming back to is: if the teams I've named there are not places 4-10 in the top ten, who are? I think Dylan is answering that as we speak. EDIT: I'll also mention both Hart Foundation vs. Bulldogs from '86 and Hart Foundation vs. Rockers from '90. I'd say both of those matches were "very good".

Dylan, would it be fair to say that, where 80s wrestling is concerned, you are either strongly pro-Southern or strongly anti-WWF? Have you ever heard that phrase that "familiarity breeds contempt"? Is that what is happening here? I just wonder if there's something else behind this refusal to give the WWF teams their due. I sometimes get the impression that if The Hart Foundation -- exactly the same act, exactly the same matches -- had their body of work in, say, SMW, you'd be rating them very highly here. While I can't point to any CLASSICS, pick any combination of Hart Foundation, the Fabulous Rougeaus, the British Bulldogs, The Islanders, The Rockers, Strike Force, The Dream Team, and, even the Killer Bees (and yes I suppose Demolition too) from about 1986 till 1989 and you're looking at minimum of *** I'd argue closer to **** when the Brainbusters were in town. I think the WWF tag division of that era is being very severely underrated in this thread. If we can all agree that the top four US teams are: (no order) The Midnight Express The Rock n Roll Express The Fabulous Freebirds Arn and Tully Who comes then? I was willing to drop the case against RnR, because it's not winnable, they have too much good stuff. But I'd happily fight for The Steiners, Hart Foundation, The Rockers or The Bulldogs over The Fantastics. If those teams aren't in your top 10, then who is? PG-13, clearly. But who else?

Actually, guys, you've convinced me I'm onto a loser here, or as we'd say in British sports "a hiding to nothing". I regretted making the last post almost as soon as I'd pressed the button, hence the very weak P.S. disclaimer, because even though I stand by SOME of my criticisms of RnR -- I'm not buying Morton as anything better than "above average" on the mic -- it is very very difficult to make a case for HF against them that stands up based on any objective criteria (matches, drawing, success, memorable angles, etc.). I was playing devil's advocate to an extent. I do still think that the Hart Foundation as a basic unit are more interesting than the RnRs, but it's difficult to point to anything beyond that. The evidence is against them. The only part of my argument that I think still warrants some attention is: why the decline to the indies and lower-card in the 90s? Plenty of guys working then were past their prime and near the top of the card, so what made RnR different? I guess what I'd like to draw out is: who the top 10 tag teams, from 1 to 10, would actually be in each of your views. I'm trying to draw out the reasons for why the southern teams of the 80s are generally very highly regarded and the WWF teams of the same era are not.

Well as you know I'm not "a matches guy". What does that mean? It means that I don't judge guys based on the number of great matches they had, but on the general performance against any opposition. Anyway, what this comes down to for me is the fact that RnR stick so rigidly to the face-in-peril structure that, well, let's face it, they seem kind of wimpy. 80% of every match is Morton playing a rag doll. While that's great selling and good structure yada, yada, yada, how am I meant to believe that team are a credible threat? Their offence is hardly amazing: I'm not really a fan of the double monkey flips or double atomic drop spots. Morton does a great arm drag and a great dropkick though. Let me ask all of you who think the RnR are the greatest of all time this: why is it that in both WWF and WCW in the 90s they were treated as jobbers and B-show fodder? Why? I'm not saying it's because they were bad at what they did, or that it was just, but what were the reasons? Why were they working Smokey Mountain rather than WCW? I like The Hart Foundation because there are two guys with defined roles: the technician and the powerhouse (For the same reason I like DiBiase and Williams as a combo). As well as two different personalities, the cool but ruthless Hitman and the slightly insane Anvil. And that makes them as a basic unit dynamic and interesting for me. The characters of Morton and Gibson outside of the ring are of limited interest to me: they aren't particularly charismatic, nether of them are great talkers, they had the girls screaming but I don't understand that because I always thought they were not very good looking (Gibson's eye!). Inside the ring, like I said, it's Ricky Morton getting his ass kicked 80% of the time. There's only so much admiration of selling I have, I want to actually see a match -- that is, a contest -- as well y'know? Otherwise the match is just as good as the opponents' offence and Morton's selling of that offence. The biggest thing you can say about them as a bonda-fide face team is that they had the "Rocky Balboa" factor, that is, the will to win against all odds, and never to give up. I can understand that. The Hart Foundation just as a package are much more interesting to me. This is where I'm going to differ from a lot of people here, because it simply does not matter to me if RnR have had dozens of ***** matches and the best match HF ever had was that one I mentioned against Arn and Tully (Summerslam '89), because I'm looking at everything, not just the matches. PS. Don't get me wrong here, I am not disputing RnR as a shoo-in Top 10 team, but I am questioning why certain other teams are getting short shrift.

Just want to chime in on this, that it is rare to find GREAT commentary on a great match. You'll always find the absolutely amazing memorable commentary on a nothing PPV match. When I was going through all those long early 90s WCW PPV cards, the time for Ventura to come alive is not during Rick Rude vs. Steamboat Ironman, it's during an awful Erik Watts match or some random midcard match like Dustin Rhodes vs. Tex Slazinger. That's the time where the truly GREAT commentary shines. You don't get that anymore. You got it whenever Ventura was doing color (with Vince, Monsoon, JR or Schiavone), you got it to a lesser degree with Heenan in WWF. But since about 1995, they always always use those sorts of matches to talk about upcoming matches or shill future shows. Always. But it was exactly in those sorts of matches where Ventura or Heenan would be giving you absolute gold. Ventura bugging the shit out of Tony Schiavone by claiming that he beats up his own kids or berating Monsoon for eating too many hotdogs, or arguing with Vince about some very minor incident involving the ref. Great commentary comes during mediocre matches. A great match is a great match and it's rare that the commentary will actually enhance that. Although there are exceptions - 92 Rumble being one where it wouldn't be the same match without Heenan. Those cases are extremely rare though.

We kinda did that to death, here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=13068 I'm not going to write a big long essay here. I want the following things from most matches with one or two exceptions: 1. Discernible personalities and attitudes that get a response from the crowd. Rick Rude cutting his standard in-ring promo; Mr. Perfect coming to the ring arrogant as hell and throwing out his gum in a flamboyant way. That sort of thing. Modern-day WWE struggles to do this, because it all seems so manufactured and in-genuine -- you can tell they are acting. Can't watch Randy Orton's snake thing without turning the TV over. 2. Actual wrestling moves. This might be frowned on, but I don't care: I just LOVE seeing a well-executed vertical suplex. I fucking love it. I love the moment in a match when a heel is working over the face and decides to step it up from strikes and punches to suplexes and piledrivers. When it FEELS like he's busting out the real artillery to put this guy away. 3. Structure that elicits an emotional response. Doesn't have to be 100% logical, because what real fight is "logical"? But it has to elicit an emotional response. So to continue the story above, the heel is on top of the match and he's bringing his A-game now: suplexes, piledrivers, big impact moves, goes for the cover 1! 2! NO! Another suplex, maybe a powerslam, 1! 2! NO! Heel is getting frustrated now, restorts to punches, face blocks it, gets a little hope spot in, etc. That's the bread and butter really, I will never dispute that. BUTTTTTTTTTT for me, a match needs to have 2., that is "actual wrestling moves" other than punches and kicks for me to get into it. Structure alone is not enough for me. The build and solid matwork are both essential components to a good match, but you NEED the suplexes and the piledrivers and the swinging neckbreakers and shoulderbreakers and powerslams too. I don't want to see just punches and kicks, or just submission holds, I want to see high impact. Take a match like Nick Bockwinkel vs. Billy Robinson, if they hadn't have pulled out the big moves in the last quarter, then it wouldn't be anywhere near as good. The only exception to this is in an all-out blood feud brawl. Then you can substitute all of the above for brutality, hatred and blood. 4. Good selling. Pretty self-explanatory really, but no-selling is something that can really hurt a match. Selling has to be consistent too, if someone has just had their left leg worked over for the past 15 minutes, it's still going to be hurting 10 minutes later. I don't get annoyed, as some people do, if someone has been working a leg and then they switch to working the back or something else -- one of the most common criticisms leveled at Flair* -- but I do get annoyed if someone suddenly forgets about an injured body part. * The reason I'm not so fussed about this is because it's not NECESSARILY the case that someone in a real contest would consistently work over the same body part, they might just want to hurt their opponent in whatever way they can. But it IS necessarily the case that someone with a hurt leg has a hurt leg. That's my reasoning on that. Finally, highly desirable but not essential: 5. Good commentary. The best commentary consistently puts the match or the workers over and then fills in the quieter moments in the match with entertaining banter, or funny observations. So many times I've watched a match and Jesse Ventura will take it from enjoyable to highly enjoyable. Hell, there are even matches on the All Japan set where the commentator has made it more enjoyable for me and I can't understand a word he's saying. Everyone talks about Monsoon and Heenan, but I think my favourite team is Vince and Jesse though. Vince was just such a fucking psycho on commentary and so absurdly pro-face that it was easy for Jesse to make convincing arguments and point out all the little hypocrisies of the face morality. I've also got a lot of time Tony Schiavone pre-1995, especially when paired with Jesse. Bill Watts is great on the Mid-South set, prefer JR in his NWA/ WCW days. 6. Engaging wider context, be it an angle, a tournament or whatever. See the thread I linked for further thoughts on that from me. In a way I think "context" is as important as the match. Stone Cold Steve Austin without the persona, charisma, mic work and so on is just Terry Taylor, right? ------------------- That's it then. I'm probably more easily pleased than most people here, but at the same time I'm probably more critical of punchy kicky wrestlers because I NEED AND CRAVE the suplexes.

This is completely random, but you know who I thought had an awesome finisher? Power and Glory. That's Hercules and Paul Roma. Just a superplex from Herc followed by a splash from the top rope by Roma, but it looked cool.

In a bit of a rush, so can't write in full, but Loss: Hart Foundation vs. the Brainbusters from Summerslam '89?

I honestly think we should put this whole Demos thing behind us now. As Monsoon would say, we've got to the point where the irresistable force has met with the immovable object. The only things we can safely conclude now are: 1. that Dylan, Dr. Reverend Victator, Matt D and SLL all rate Demolition. 2. that myself, El-P, Jingus and Will do not. 3. Dr. Reverend has an aggressive and confrontational debating style. It was a nice 4 vs. 4 while it lasted, but I think now the match is over after the ref declared a no contest. I mean we've been over it forwards and backwards, all the points are covered and everyone has stuck to their guns. To be honest, I'm more interested in what people make of The Hart Foundation, The Steiners and The Bulldogs -- traditionally I'd have thought "Top 5" sort of teams, but the prevailing wisdom seems to be saying no. Why? Who are better than those teams? The 90s attitude era teams such as the Dudleys, E&C and the Hardy Boys have been given pretty short shrift. I can only imagine people are thinking of the great southern tagteams of the 80s. I'll be honest and I KNOW I will take a lot of shit for this but: I'd take all three of those teams (Steiners, Bulldogs, HF) over the Rock 'n' Roll Express. I'd take Arn and Tully and MX over those teams, but not the Rock 'n' Rollers and certainly not the Fantastics. Someone needs to explain the appeal of the Rock 'n' Roll Express to me, because from where I'm sitting it's just Ricky Morton bumping his ass off for 20 minutes, before a hot tag and a finish. Sure, Morton was amazing at selling, but aren't you watching the match more for the heel team's offence? I need it explained. Why would you rate R'n'R over any of those teams?

No, it's not like that because the black and face pain only tell half the story. It's more like "Oh these guys in black and face paint with average and slightly flabby looking upper bodies who do fake looking double-team spots and double axehandle look ridiculous, not like these guys in black and face paint with the big fuck off ripped upper bodies and violent offence that looks like it is legit going to decapitate jobbers. "We are bad ass and we could kill you" "We are, which ever way you look at it, a middle-aged man and a slightly younger man looking essentially like some sort of pathetic BDSM clown act."

SLL covered the B-movie comment and why I don't think that fits, but three other things: 1. I agree that the basics have been forgotten by many, but I don't know that we would agree about where that problem manifests itself. To me modern WWE is extremely sound fundamentally. But it's not JUST that. It's that the average WWE match now is better than the average WWF match ever was in the past by a massive margin. Conversely the storylines/angles are infinitely worse now and the market has been so oversatured that it is rare to find a match that really transcends anymore even when the in ring work itself is as good or better than anything from a previous era. In other words I don't think the problem is what goes on between the bells, but rather what goes on before and after and how that effects the way we look at what happens once the bell rings. 2. You never said what you are looking for. You said you want to be emotionally engaged, but what does that mean? To me wrestling is essentially all about fundamentals because the fundamentals are the bedrock on which psychology is built. If you don't have psych you probably aren't going to have a good match. There has been an accusation for years now that some of us are overly obsessed with "role playing" and "structure" and things of that ilk but really that's just because those are the things that some of us thing good wrestling is built on. I think the innovation fetishist are really the group that has decided on expecting less as they seem to dismiss any and everything that is not fresh, offensive explosive, or something of that ilk. Interestingly enough PG-13 was both fundamentally excellent AND innovative so they bridge the gap here. Another reason they are great. 3. I hate the "box ticking exercise" type comments because they always seem to pop up when someone has the gaul to actually defend an opinion. Amazingly there are some people on wrestling message boards who are averse to the actual discussion of wrestling and just want these forums to be a place where received wisdom from the wrestling gods is transmitted and celebrated by a bunch of nodding heads and "yeps." When someone dares offer up a opinion that is not seen as suitably uniform they are accused of being contrarian, trying to be cool(?), et. When they are challenged they provide examples of things they liked from wrestlers and matches and then get accused of "watching matches through a microscope," "ticking boxes," et. It's a lose-lose. Not saying this is what you are trying to do here Jerry (in fact I don't think it is), but it's something I've seen come up time and time over the years. I'll take these: 1. I'll have to take your word for that. I'm going mainly on hearsay. In shoots, the oldtimers always rip on the current product for its lack of basic psychology and basics; a common criticism is that they do too much. The only match I've watched on Raw in the past 3 years was a random Ziggler match and he seemed to be going about 200 miles per hour. I thought he was pretty intense to be honest. 2. I am not saying the fundamentals are not important, of course they are. My argument was simply that if "playing a role" and maintaining structure are the only criteria then a lot of guys are going to be considered "great" by that criteria. That doesn't mean that the match is going to engage me emotionally. Let's move away from the Demos. I'll give you an example: I could go on youtube now and look up 5 or 6 matches from Col. Mustafa's JTTS run in 1992. All of those matches were pretty much the same, same length, same spots, same result (Sheik jobs) The structure of that standard TV Mustafa job match is perfectly coherent. The face comes out to a pop, gets in some early offense, Mustafa does something to turn the tide, gutwrench suplex, pin attempt, kick out, face comeback, finisher, 1, 2, 3. Done. At the same time, Mustafa is playing his role perfectly well. So why don't any of these matches rise above mediocrity? As I've argued many times: you need so much more. Angles, intensity, charisma, the illusion that the contest means something, the illusion that the competitors want to kill each other, the crowd being into it, and so on and so forth. You can argue that all of those things are ultimately the result of "fundamentals", but I'm not convinced they are. How else do "bad" wrestlers get over? And why wasn't Terry Taylor a massive star? If I had to make an analogy to the world of literary criticism and theory, the approach you are advocating is "structuralist": ostensibly it's a commitment to uncovering the underlying structures of things and studying their effects, but it's also more than that, it's a bottom-line belief statement that all things are simply the product of these structural effects. I can't help but feel that misses something essential about why we all love wrestling, in the same way it misses something essential about why people love great works of literature. I suspect if I was forced to find the thing that I'm "looking for", it's probably some degree of verisimilitude in the performances, i.e. I want to believe the thing I'm seeing in front of me is real (or at least suspend my disbelief) and, failing that, I want to be entertained. From either perspective, Ax and Smash beating down someone with double-team forearm smashes isn't doing it. It's obviously not "real" and it's not really entertaining. My ideal approach to rating matches and workers would take into account not only fundamentals and the appreciation of structure, but also some of the experience of watching it, let's call that for brevity's sake "content". When you compare Demolition to, say, Eaton and Condrey, on the fundamentals they probably aren't a million miles apart, but on the intangibles it's almost no comparison. If you read a match structurally, Condrey doing a dick heel spot is reduced to just one spot in the overall structure of a match. If you take into account the content as well, Condrey's dick heel spot becomes something else: something that made you laugh or something that made the crowd hot, or whatever. A purely structural reading of one match looks like this: this spot, that spot, another spot, that spot again, this spot, finish Want to see another one: spot, spot, spot, spot, spot, finish Match A was good because they did all those spots and did the finish just like they were supposed to. Match B was also good because they did all those spots and did the finish, just like they were supposed to. You take it experientially and maybe match A was something that had you on the edge of your seat and match B sent you to sleep. They were both perfect fundamentally and structurally, everyone played their roles well, but the point is match A was awesome and match B sucked. Why? Because the crowd was hot for match A, the performers had a ton of charisma, they were believable and, shit, there were a lot of cool suplexes! Also, the commentary was awesome. Why did Match B suck? Well, despite the fact that everyone did their job, and even tough the seemed crowd really into it, it was pretty boring. For most of the time it was two men doing this fake looking double-team forearm spot. Also, Superstar Billy Graham was on commentary and he said "brother" at least 32 times. 3. I wasn't trying to do that, and in fact, it seems like the reverse situation: it's pretty much me who has been accused of being contrarian, because my view is in the minority here. Most of this is me trying to defend my dislike of Demolition. Only El-P has been on "my side" of that debate as far as I can see. The only reason I mentioned "box ticking" is because I was trying to articulate the above: you've got to take in more than structure or wrestling becomes a cold, rather joyless academic exercise of spotting the spots and joining the dots in between them. I've seen what this sort of thing can lead to in the study of literature -- why not check out Roman Jakobsen's structural readings of Shakespeare's sonnets next time you're in a library? Want to see? Here he is discussing Sonnet 129, I've included the poem for reference. I Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, II Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; III Mad in pursuit and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. IV All this the world knows, yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. Stunning insights I'm sure you'll agree. Now I've read many of your comments on the 80s sets over on DVDR and I don't for a second think that anyone actually treats matches in this coldly (and pointlessly) analytical way, but it is the logical conclusion of what you are arguing for. My point is, if you were to ask someone "Well why do you like Sonnet 129?" and their answer was "well, the first rhyme juxtaposes two nouns ..." you'd probably wonder what planet they were from. Even though they are describing the "fundamentals" of what Shakespeare has done. I think poetry, and by exactly the same token, wrestling, are much more than that.

Guys this was really great. I'll subscribe for sure. I liked the discussion of territory buy-outs and the Savage stuff.

I'm happy to retract the fat comment. It was used more for rhetorical force than anything else. I guess the comparison has always been to Powers of Pain or The Road Warriors, and they were kinda booked as a powerhouse team comparable with either of them, but they weren't were they. Guys of that body type -- I'm thinking Harley Race, Lawler, Dustin Rhodes, Windham, Duggan, Greg Valentine, Arn even -- were seldom booked in the way Demolition were, as power wrestlers. Only exception I can think of is Jim Neidhart. I'll accept they aren't outrageously flabby or anything, but compared with The Steiners, Road Warriors, Powers of Pain and the Bulldogs, they are more towards "fat" than "powerhouse". Happy to drop the claim though, my argument doesn't need it.

They always seemed a bit chubby to me.

Hell, how many guys got more than one big run against Backlund? Don Muraco...anyone else? I wonder how many guys got multiple runs against Sammartino. 13 non-consecutive years on top...feels like you'd have to go back to someone eventually, but I don't actually know off-hand. Might have to look at Cawthon's site when I get some time. DiBiase did get a second go against Hogan during the whole Zeus feud. And again at the "Survivor" Survivor Series battle (and again at Wrestlemania IX). He was always a good go-to guy for a match or mini-feud against Hogan because the characters are such natural enemies. And I'm sure they were gearing up for another push for him in 91 with Sherri, but two things happened: first of all, Ric Flair came to town and secondly, he found himself as a tag champ when the hastily thrown together team of himself and IRS after Road Warrior Hawk failed a drug test. If Flair hadn't turned up, I'm fairly sure Ted would have had one more run on top of the card, because he had good chemistry with the top faces of that time (Savage, Bret and also with Piper). I'm not saying it definitely would have happened, but if you look at the skits and stuff from around that time, they were definitely gearing up for a push of some sort for him.

You're not going to like this, but I really don't like chocolate ice cream. I love chocolate, I love ice cream, but I don't like chocolate flavoured stuff (ice cream, mousse, yoghurt, whatever), always tastes too bitter for me. There's definitely a difference between the taste of chocolate and the taste of chocolate ice cream. Also, I think the Demolition gimmick is lame as hell. Not just now, I thought it when I was hate. Like I said, I never like stuff that is meant to be cool and conversely like stuff we're meant to think isn't. I thought IRS was cool when I was a kid, I even had a metal briefcase in homage. Maybe I'm just a contrarian. But even objectively speaking: what is awesome about two fat guys in Kiss makeup and leather? Maybe we've got to chalk this up to personal taste. Demolition seem to be one of those teams who really divide opinions. In a way, Demolition shouldn't be the team we're focusing on because this argument has been rehearsed many times -- there have been some pretty contraversial views in this thread, especially those questioning the teams you'd expect to see topping more "Best Tag Ever" lists (Steiners, Bulldogs, Hart Foundation, etc.) Will and Rob also made some derisory comments about some teams I'd like to explore a bit more when I have the time.

Before I say anything, I'll say this: I will go and revisit some Demos matches keeping what you've said here in mind. Interesting you describe them mainly working heel. But you see, for me, the reasons you've given there are tantamount to saying: film X is good because it adhreres to the structures of the genre, moves coherently from A to B, and knows exactly when to pull the emotional triggers on its audience and it does it all in just 70 minutes! Does that sound like a good film to you? Or does it sound like a by-the-numbers generic B-move? I guess the problem we have in wrestling is that so many people now have forgotten the basics -- the match is so broken as a narrative genre -- that fundamental competence is now lauded as being a great thing. It's not great is it though? It's just competent. That's got to be just what you EXPECT as a basic minimum, not what you're looking for. I don't want my experience of watching a match to be like a box-ticking exercise, I'm looking both to be entertained and engaged with it emotionally. I can't think of any Demolition match aside from the double turn vs. the Powers of Pain and the Wrestlemania VI match with Haku and Andre (mainly for the post-match with Heenan) that have done that -- and both times it was because of angle elements rather than those within the match. Like I said though, I will watch Demos vs. The Rockers with an open mind, looking for the best. And if I like it I'll be sure to let you know.

I do not like the implication here that I do not read the back and forths here, because I do. I fully appreciate and understand the benefits of economy and pared-down movesets, but at the same time -- and sure, this might be against the prevalent orthodoxy here -- I would still like to see a little bit of variety in someone's offence. Demolition literally only did three or four spots. I mean that was it. You mention Hogan; Hogan had a lot more spots than that and I *still* think his selling ability is underrated in general. You're probably right to single me out, I'm probably the one guy here who hasn't watched 100s of Jerry Lawler matches, and I've already admitted that I scarcely know who PG-13 are. And as we've been over already quite a few times, I don't even take matches as the main unit for analysis when judging a wrestler or a tag team. I still think that someone doesn't even need good matches if they are entertaining. Hell, if I did my Top 50 wrestlers list tomorrow, Vince would probably be one of them. Point is, you don't have to subscribe to a critical orthodoxy in order to take part in a conversation, often it's more interesting if people aren't all on the same page. As the ongoing debate in this thread has demonstrated, not everyone has the same criteria, such is the nature of making a value judgement. For me, you've GOT to do more than forearms and double axe-handles, and if that IS all you are going to do, then I'm expecting great brawls early Duggan style. Demolition never had great brawls because their violence was stylised and cartoony. Sure, you might say that was 80s WWF style, but I can name about 20 guys or more who still managed to have good offence under those conditions. My dislike of the Demos extends far beyond moveset, but the bottomline is that they had about 3 or 4 moves and they never even put them to good use.