Gregor

D'Lo Brown's head waggle. Even better was that he got billed from places like Helsinki whenever he was the European champion. Mr. Bob Backlund using words incorrectly. Chris Jericho wearing "1,004" on the bank of his trunks, and the fake Malenko wearing "1." Bobby Heenan laughing at Doink's pranks and calling him a master illusionist whenever multiple Doinks would show up. Kevin Nash always stepping over the top rope, even when he was pretending to be Sting.

It's been a while since I last watched it, but I didn't like the Rumble match. A lot of the stuff with the weapons felt forced. It was just like, "Hey, now we're going to use barbed wire," or, "Now we're upping things even more with THUMBTACKS!" and all they had to do was reach under the ring. There wasn't anything clever about the way they introduced or got rid of them. Compare that to how organically Foley's previous crazy brawls flowed, or even to the iron man match a few months later, and this one doesn't seem like it had the same amount of thought put into it. I do remember really liking the PPV match with Benoit, though.

Had more eyeballs than must-see matches, which is never a good thing but especially damning in his case. That said, the Quebecers gave the WWF a fun tag team scene for a little while almost single-handedly. That went to pot right around the time they left the division, and Ouellet continued doing good stuff as a singles wrestler in 1995, so that run has to count as a positive for him.

There was that time Elizabeth sprayed Sting with silly string.

In one of her shoot interviews, Sunny denied getting with Bret but did say that she got with Bulldog, which was just as likely to cause backstage drama.

Taylor getting knocked out is bad, but right before that, when Anderson gets bumped, Taylor does this slow jog to the other side of the ring before sliding in, missing the chance to count a fall. Normally I'd assume that this was done as a parody, but in 1993 WCW it's generally safer to bet on incompetence. Then the random guy grabs the object and Ventura refers to Flair as Rude after the match. This had to be depressing to live through as a fan. I thought Flair worked hard here. I watched only the second half, but he bumped, used top-rope offense, and even did Rude's finisher. Okay, bumping could still be him on autopilot, but the impression I got was that he was trying and it just didn't translate into a good match.

I'd actually like to hear your thoughts on Ultimo, if only because when going through the '90s you didn't seem to have the dislike for him that seems to be the dominant feeling for him here.

It's weird. Even though I think that he's full of it on a lot of stuff that he says, I still like listening to him, whereas with other people (Russo) I just can't bear it.

Of the best Shawn Michaels matches, this is probably the one that feels least like a Shawn Michaels match. It's wrestled in Austin's style, Austin is clearly the center of attention, and the match shares a lot of spots with Austin-Mero from the previous year's King of the Ring. I don't think that either participant thinks very highly of this one, but I'd have it in the WWF's top five for 1997. The press slam on the outside is the nastiest-looking bump I've ever seen Michaels take.

Jarrett's guitar. Why does he have a guitar? It had nothing to do with his character by that point, and, even though it once had, he'd been a singer and not a guitar player. Triple H wasn't a construction worker, but he's at least associating himself with something threatening. Jarrett for some reason chose a musical instrument. On top of that, it's a terrible weapon because every time he used it the referee would have to ignore the pieces of guitar all over the ring.

The two of them didn't use their power in the same ways. Austin occasionally refused to do jobs, but at times it felt like all WCW booking meetings must have started with, "Okay, guys, we've got some promising programs going on up and down our cards. How do we get Hogan in on them?"

After the last time Ross had Schiavone on his show as a guest, someone here said that Schiavone sounded like a better podcast host than Ross. This one was surreal, though, as it was Schiavone tying things up and keeping everything on track when Ross would go on long digressions from the topic. I remember at one point Schiavone said something like, "That's why you were such a good announcer - after a great match you always made sure everyone knew just how good the two wrestlers were," and I thought to myself, "Wait. Which one of you is conducting the interview here?" That was such a host-y thing to say. Anyway, this one wasn't as good as the first Schiavone interview. They slipped into curmudgeon territory and Ross displayed some of the habits for which people often knock him. It seemed like he was talking a lot more than Tony, but that might be because Ross just talks a lot more slowly.

X-Pac was definitely in blackface. Picture

I'm honestly not sure what the standards are in this thread. Given that no one is listing Hogan, Dusty, Rock, and guys like that, it seems like it isn't about look or reaction and is based on in-ring actions. "Great matches" has been listed as a criterion, but even though people are primarily listing highly regarded workers I don't think it's simply "who was the best worker of all the people who were faces?" In any case, I'm not sure it matters all that much for Atlantis. Would you really bat an eyelid if someone called him a better worker than Lizmark but a worse tecnico, or if they called him a worse worker but a better tecnico? Atlantis seems fairly close to all four of those guys both as a worker and as a tecnico (although I know you found Rambo more likeable than Villano III). It's probably easier to judge Solar and Villano as tecnicos than as workers, though, just because of footage limitations. As I said earlier, I can see the argument that Dandy's not a pure tecnico, but who was? Atlantis, Lizmark, and El Hijo del Santo, obviously. I assume Villano III and Angel Azteca continued to be pure tecnicos after they unmasked (when they were tecnicos - I don't know if they ever had any runs as rudos). What about Javier Cruz, Americo Rocca, and Ringo Mendoza? Dandy didn't seem to be presented all that differently from them. I'm limited by my lousy Spanish, but, even though Dandy's rudo past did seem to get mentioned and pop up in his character (the feud with Azteca, cheating to beat Satanico and Fiera, and I'm not sure but I think after that time he hanged Fiera he got asked in a post-match interview if he was still a tecnico), he still seemed a lot closer to Atlantis than to tecnico Perro. Regardless of whether he's a pure tecnico, I brought him up mostly because I think that he's a better babyface than Atlantis - better seller, better at getting fired up, better wrestler, and his character just came across as sharper than Atlantis'.

You're going to have to do some apples-to-oranges comparisons when determining the best babyface ever. Even then, I think Dandy stands out from maskless tecnicos more than Atlantis does from masked tecnicos. Hijo del Santo and Lizmark could conceivably rate above Atlantis. Solar and Villano III probably have backers. Dandy's competition is... tecnico Casas? Other than him, the maskless tecnicos who are as good as Dandy at the babyface aspects of being a tecnico are guys like Brazo de Plata. Okay, I can see that. To me, Dandy was the better tecnico, but not seeing him as a pure tecnico is fair. I do think that he was better than Atlantis at title match wrestling as a tecnico, though.

I'd rate Dandy over Atlantis as a babyface/tecnico. A lot of times Atlantis feels a bit like Sting. Dandy seems more real.

Bret had plenty of 10ish-minute matches. It's just that very few of them were particularly good or memorable. Some of these might have slipped over the ten-minute mark but you've got these from 1995-97: vs. Owen Hart (no-DQ, RAW '95) vs. Buddy Landel vs. Goldust (early '96 RAW) vs. Owen Hart (November '96 RAW) vs. Vader (January '97 RAW) vs. Vader (early '97 RAW, after that last one but before WrestleMania) vs. Steve Austin (street fight) vs. Goldust (July '97 RAW) vs. Vader (Friday Night's Main Event) vs. Goldust (MSG RAW) The no-DQ match with Owen was good, and the street fight was definitely better than the Sasso match (albeit not really indicative of how well Bret wrestled short matches, as it was more of an angle), but the others were forgettable. The other Owen match was probably the best of the rest, and even then the run-in at the end was more exciting than anything that Bret and Owen did together there. None of the matches was bad or embarrassing - Bret's a great wrestler - but they weren't much better than competent either. I don't think this proves that Bret was much worse than he looked or anything like that. It's just something he didn't do well.

I don't think Ultimo Dragon was bad; I think he was a better version of the British Bulldog or someone like that, an exciting guy who can absolutely be part of a really good match. My biggest problem with him is that his whole character is that he's better than his opponent. In pretty much every exchange he has, that's supposed to be the takeaway - Ultimo Dragon is the superior of these two wrestlers. It gets annoying. My second-biggest problem with him, and I know it's unfair to judge him on one match, is that his match with Javier Cruz made it pretty clear that he needed an opponent at the level of Negro Casas or Emilio Charles Jr. in order for him to have a good singles match in Mexico.

Hall might have been one of the top five wrestlers in 1994 WWF. That was a pretty weak year for them, though, and that's Hall's peak.

Silver King vs. Emilio Charles Jr. is worth watching. Silver King vs. Apolo Dantes is, too, but it's not as good as the Charles match. Silver King/Gran Hamada/Texano vs. Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr./Rambo got a ton of praise from the people who went through the match discussion archives, but I haven't seen it and it doesn't appear to be online. I remember thinking that Silver King was one of the better guys in 1994 CMLL. He's not a classic luchador, but CMLL was pretty dreary in 1994 and he was one of the most exciting guys they had. The only match online I can point to off the top of my head is Silver King/Ultimo Dragon/El Dandy vs. Javier Llanes/Emilio Charles Jr./Pierroth Jr.

Weird wrestler. He and Emilio Charles Jr. had the same basic skill set. Emilio was a little better at bumping, and Bestia was a little better at offense and maybe selling. His celebrations were always great. For whatever reason, though, when he was backup in someone else's trios match he usually put in a solid performance rather than doing anything to stand out the way Charles would. As a result, you get a year like 1992, when he was one of the most pushed guys in the promotion and also one of the best, and other years in which he has a lot of solid outings but nothing outstanding. He has some good stuff in 1996, when he started getting pushed again, but physically he wasn't the wrestler he'd been in the early '90s.

I agree that he was the best pure wrestler of his team. I think El Brazo was the glue, though. If you take Brazo de Oro out, then the team isn't as good in matches like Brazos vs. Dandy/Super Astro/Popitekus and Brazos vs. Infernales; if you take El Brazo out, then the comedy isn't as good, as he was the one who was best at reacting to Brazo de Plata. I can see it both ways. Oro has a case as the best overall wrestler for sure, though.

I've never had a problem with Bret's charisma or intensity or anything like that. I think his record for delivering in big matches is outstanding, and I think that his house show/television match record is better than those of most of his contemporaries. To me his biggest problem is that he wasn't good at wrestling short matches - not that he didn't think they were worth his time and therefore didn't bother trying, but that he just wasn't the kind of guy who could wrestle a fast, fun seven-minute match. The most fun sub-ten-minute match from him that I can recall is the one with Will Sasso.

Yeah, there are only three or so guys in 1996 WWF who were definitely better than Savio. I'd probably have him in my top five. He had some of that year's better house show matches for them, too (vs. Goldust 1/26/96, vs. Steve Austin 10/12/96).

I think the fingerpoke and what it represented meant a whole lot more to WCW than Mankind winning the title did to the WWF. They already had the title on a new star that the fans wanted to see on top. If Rock had retained in that match I don't see how anything really changes for the WWF that year. On the other hand, if as many people switched channels on that line as WWE lore says, then it's a good thing that it wasn't the night they chose to do the awful finish from IYH: Rock Bottom.