JerryvonKramer

I've seen people criticise Hase for the same thing (shrugging off an injury) very recently. Is it also invalid in that case?

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-82-top-100-greatest-wrestlers-ever-special-part-2-top-40/ Chad and Parv complete their Top 100 GWE lists in a longest-ever-WTBBP marathon to the finish line. Don't forget to get your Top 100 ballot in before April 3rd, 2016: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33561-the-voting-thread/

Jushin Liger vs. The Great Sasuke (4/16/94) I've talked about the real importance of ring generals before, and this is a pretty good example of why they are absolutely vital and why that set of skills shouldn't be under appreciated. Here Liger, seemingly in heel mode, takes a punk to school and gives us his version of Sam Houston vs. Ric Flair. The botch in this match and the masterful way Liger reacts to it also shows you how the ability to work organically and drawing on experience to think on one's feet -- part and parcel of what a ring general is about -- can help to make a match. Some great storytelling in this, and Liger was great. I thought Sasuke was pretty awful, but he was able to work around his obvious limitations and shortcomings to have a very good match. **** Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Ohtani (2/9/97) Still can't see a jacket. Loved the urgency and sense of struggle in the early matwork here. Felt like both guys were working hard to hurt the other one, which is the best type of matwork to my eyes. Liger is amazing at being expressive despite wearing a mask, and somehow he's able to convey aggression through it. Once the strikes and bombs come out in this one, there is no looking back. One slightly jarring thing in this match for me is Ohtani's "idiot white meat babyface" type performance. Just seemed outrageously goofy to me, and weirdly out of place in a Japanese context. That did make Liger slapping the shit out of his face more satisfying but it's a performance that I'd describe as "curious" to say the least. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of this too much because it's a phenomenal match and Liger is at the peak of his powers. But yeah, the thinking he'd got the pin celebration spot and the signalling for the belt, and general mugging on his part felt pretty strange. Which might sound like an odd criticism given the praise I've heaped on Hase lately, but I've never found his character work jarring like that. Anyway, despite that, great match! ****3/4 Jushin Liger vs. Owen Hart (4/28/91) Owen seemed extremely spotty early in this match, in a 00s Indie way. Just felt like he did too much in general and I'm glad Vince and Pat Patterson helped him to reign in these tendencies in his later work. The egregious "junior-ness" of it all doesn't make me a very happy bunny. It's a bit of a shame to see so much excessive flash and puffery in Owen's work here -- and I do like Owen generally. Liger, though, helps to give this bout some much needed gravitas and structure. And the limb work that follows helps to get the bad taste and superfluity of the opening exchanges out of the mouth. I enjoyed the basic psychology of Owen targeting the arm with a variety of pretty painful looking moves, some Anderson shit. And then Liger replies with some of his own. I think Liger is probably one of my favourite mat workers. Nothing he does is that fancy but it looks effective. Liger in general has a lot of "heft" as a worker, much more than the average junior or Luchadore. You always feel his bodyweight even when he's coming off the top. Even though it is spotty to start, this becomes a pretty good match once it settles down and Owen is a lot better through the middle and end portions, hitting his offense with impact and authority. Liger once again really good here, and pretty strong contender for "worker of the 90s". Good shit overall. ***1/2

This. Sting is probably the biggest beneficiary of the consistency oversight.

Probably the guy I feel most embarrassed about having on my list, and I'm blaming the system. But he is darn good in 92.

I just want to say that Ted in Mid-South practically murders Hennig in AWA and that is the bed rock of both of their cases, despite the fact that they are more famous for playing larger than life characters in WWF. I say that also while being reasonably high on Hennig in AWA, especially when he gets the title. But for me there is a clear gap between those two as GWE candidates. I have both on my list, but Ted is a good bit higher.

I think there are lots of things we can infer from things like card placement. - We know an opener, a midcard match and a main event don't have the same goals. - We know an NWA title match and a WWF title match in 1985 have different aims. - We know a match designed to set up a feud is different from a blow off. I think it is valid to talk about purpose on that general level. What we can't know about is intention or specific orders from the back, unless those things are revealed to us in dirt sheets. And even then, we know the perils of that.

I just wanted to note two things before taking my leave of this one: 1. I have Andre on my list. 2. This discussion came from several of us watching the footage in context and in order noting a pattern of Andre's matches sucking badly in WWF during the Vince Sr era. Matt's observations come from seeing something in Andre in 1989 and working backwards to back up that claim. And he hasn't ever tried to hide that. It's cool I think if he can see stuff that we might overlook. I mean his analysis of 1991 Garvin and Hayes Freebirds is some funny stuff, and he saw things there that me and Chad routinely ran roughshod over cos you almost already know Jimmy Jam has the worst worker award tied up for the night. The discourse is richer for this.

In the "official" version of Titans history, Crazy James never existed and this show never happened.

I really want to see Matt D review more matches from the Vince Sr crew. No part of that is meant snarkily or perversely. I just think that his way of viewing wrestling will exonerate the Sciclunas, the Denuccis, and the Strongbows of this world, which if nothing else would be really fun and interesting to see done. I guess some of my own confusion sometimes comes from the fact that I don't really understand why he picks an act like Demolition to praise as opposed to guys who worked Mid-South (to my mind the most smartly worked of any promotion, especially in terms of working around limitations), but maybe he thinks it has been done already?

The real reason for the Divas revolution, ha ha

And what if the answer is "for people to take a shit break and buy snacks?"

I guess it is also worth noting that watching matches in the context of a whole card can have an effect on things too. When you sit through miserable undercard matches just to even get to the Andre match only for it to be a let down, that can only compound it. Which is to say there is a difference between pulling out that one match to look for positives and the experience of watching it after fifteen minutes of Jose Estrada vs The Hangman or whatever it was.

Matt probably deserves a proper response here, but I'm afraid I can't give him one beyond the fact that we all thought that match was shitty, and you could do pretty much exactly the same thing as Matt did with any Baron Scicluna or Chief Jay Strongbow match. In which case, it feels like an exercise in clever rhetoric and finding value in the terrible rather than an approach that can serve for evaluating wrestling matches. Which is to say, you can excuse pretty much anything if you try hard enough. Maybe Matt will find himself to be a huge fan of late 70s WWWF. I can't see any reason why he wouldn't. And it'll be fun to see.

The funny thing about that movie is that it is very clear that the Twin Galaxies people love Billy and don't realize that he is a giant tool. There is some sort of crazy hero worship thing going on with him, that just feels creepy from the outside looking in. No doubt its outdated and infused with as much fiction as fact... many documentaries are after all. But that shouldn't take away from the HoF level heeling that goes on therein. If memory serves doesn't he engage in some absolutely stellar shithousery straight out of the most nefarious of playbooks when he actually goes to the trouble of doctoring a video of himself beating Steve Wiebe's most recent score which he sends in via post just to make the whole thing even more preposterously moustache twirling? Its absolutely next level stuff. And the bit where he just turns up with his valet on his arm and saunters through the players in a transparent attempt to put Wiebe off as he closes in on his record too. Print the legend etc... What I love about that whole deal so much is that he has a stooge heel stable behind him too. Minions who do his bidding. Sycophants and snitches and spies. All-time movie villain. What really makes it for me is the pathetically small scale of it all.

He's on my tentative list. He may drop off, but if I had to submit today he would make it. He'll be in the 90s, though. Too many all time great matches and performances to dismiss. He's sort of like a mini-Sgt Slaughter in terms of being a greatest hits candidate. But Khan is a ten-track single disc and Slaughter is a double-disc duluxe set with a couple of hidden gem album tracks out there too.

Awesome awesome call, LOVE that!

Did anyone rank Khan in the end?

This is a nice little quotation from OJ that highlights some differences between the way he watches wrestling and the way someone like me or Winged Eagle do: I'm pretty sure on the last AJ Excite show I praised Hase in his match vs. Akiyama for literally doing push ups while he was in a leg-lock. A mat-purist like OJ is gonna think that stuff is all kinds of goofy. A philistine like me though? To me that's just doing a great job of keeping everyone engaged and awake during the mat stuff. Like so much of that rote NJ mat stuff is so fucking boring to me, and Hase is the one guy who will pull out tricks to keep me entertained. I don't care if he's balancing skittles on his nose and clapping like a seal while juggling fire, it's more interesting than a headlock on its own. I don't really like matwork that is cutesy or intricate or anything like that. I like watching a guy work an arm or a leg, but anything more complex is above my level of understanding of these things. Picture a fairly bright 9-year old and that's probably about my level of watching pro wrestling to be honest. I mean part of the reason I'm so high on Jack Brisco isn't cos he does anything fly on the mat, it's cos he waves his arms like a lunatic when he's selling a basic hold. And also because his matches have pretty solid A-B-C psychology insomuch as you'll get the same bodypart worked over. Anyway, I think it's interesting to consider the different ways people react to the same stuff. As I've said I respect the way OJ watches stuff, but I can't ever bring myself to care more about matwork than 1. "did this stop me falling asleep?", 2. "is there some sort of narrative throughline to what is being done?" (which is no more complex than looking for, move A: arm, move B: arm, move C: arm) and 3. "okay, when are they gonna ramp up into doing some throws now", which will kick in around the 8 or 9 minute mark, possibly a bit later if I know they are going long.

I did get my re-tweet from Cornette by the way!

Should have also mentioned that the 93 series with Money Inc are the last great matches of Ted DiBiase's career, 3.75-4.5 range.

I'm pretty sure Eddie is above Rey on mine.

I'm about ****1/2 on most of those matches RVD listed, if not all of them. Would also add: vs. Doom (2/6/90) [Clash 10] vs. Doom (5/19/90) [Capital Combat] I actually think Doom were better in 90 than they were in 89. I'm 4.5 on those too. Scott finished a tiny bit above Rick on my list for his singles run which amounted to a single BIGLAV point. I would also say that Scott had some pretty state-of-the-art offense for 1989-94, which for me hasn't lost its impact because he hit that stuff with a mixture of wrecklessness and force that I don't see in later stuff. I kinda WISH the Steiners had been AJ guys and not NJ guys. I mean, can you IMAGINE the matches these guys could have had vs. Four Pillars or Williams / Ace in head-drop city? It would have been mental. I don't care who makes fun, I'm happy to say I'm still a Steiners mark.

Just wanted to comment on both the Steiners individually, because I think they are probably the easiest guys to scoff at who made my list. There's been a lot of talk recently about how important FUN is in watching pro wrestling. Some of the most fun I've had is watching the bully-prick jocks Rick and Scott throw guys around for fun. I will say more on this in Scott thread. For Rick, his 1989 is pretty underrated and the Rick vs. Varsity Club stuff produces some career-best material for both him and Mike Rotunda. Also, while I'd agree that he has basically zero understanding of even fundamental psychology, Rick Steiner could wrestle and with such a solid amatuer background could do some of the chain and catch stuff better than a lot of guys. I dunno, I think the Steiners are the biggest victims of this "working smart" thing. Sometimes, y'know, who cares. The matches are an adrenaline rush, and I don't really see a huge amount to separate why I like them from why I like Brock Lesnar.