Gregor

The "butts in seats" line/Mankind's title win being some kind of huge, tide-turning moment - it was big, but the WWF was clearly in the lead by that point. That line's also become maybe the most dominant image of Tony Schiavone, even though the "greatest night in the history of our sport" phase of his career was really just those last few years in WCW.

Changing your mind about a long contract less than a year into it indicates, if not a lack of long-term planning, then at least a lack of foresight. Then they kept the belt on Bret all the way through Survivor Series, with the plan being that he would lose the belt in his home country to the person whom he hates the most, while he has a clause in his contract stating that he has control over the finish and while he has a provision in his contract (I'm probably misusing those words) stating that he doesn't even have to wrestle that match. On top of all that, they've already informed him that they have no intention to honor that contract, which is the sort of thing that might make him less likely to go along with company plans that he was always going to find disagreeable. I guess it shows a long-term commitment to their idea about when and to whom he'd drop the belt, but they either didn't think about or did a bad job of considering how much of a headache that match would be, and it left them in a spot with no wiggle room. As soon as they told him about the breach they should have started planning how they'd get the belt off him as soon as possible, because at least that way they have two months or so to make it happen, and he might not have used up all of his required dates by then, too (not sure about when this happened). Was there even a reason to tell him of their plans to breach the deal while he was still champion? The whole thing seems incredibly poorly thought out, and the way they were still scrambling for a solution in the week heading up to Survivor Series makes me think that they'd assumed that everything would just work itself out. I think that's what Loss meant by pointing out that, using nothing but PPV matches that they actually did schedule, there's a pretty easy path to get the belt where they wanted it.

Vince Russo would usually "get the blame" for booking offensive angles because he was the one who was booking when they happened.

This guy's channel has a lot of vlogs about spirituality, but it also has some WWA/Tijuana stuff that I've never seen before (don't know if it's actually new). This video has a trios match with Alcatraz, young Silver King, and an unmasked As Charro and then at the end has the first three minutes of a Santo-Casas title match. He also has an interview with promoter Benjamin Mora, and given that the uploader's last name is Mora he might be a relative or have access to old WWA videos.

I thought Schiavone and Heenan were really good together in that match. Tony has a reputation as a less than ideal partner for Heenan's material, but the bit with Tony's "thumb" felt like an exchange from Heenan's announcing prime. Sorry about going a bit off-topic there, but I kind of always root for those two to have good chemistry when I hear them announce, so I enjoy it when it works out.

The Union. Sid as a face after WrestleMania 13. Heel Mike Tenay. Sable's association with the Oddities. When was it that WWE hired a bunch of '90s guys to wrestle dark matches? I remember D'Lo Brown being one of them, and I think that Too Cold Scorpio and one of the Godwinns were in that group, too.

I like Ernest Miller. I like Stevie Ray commentary. Todd Pettengill wasn't a good announcer but I found him likeable otherwise. I wish heel Tony Schiavone had gone on longer because I thought his promo was pretty good (the content of it was boring Russo stuff, but his delivery was good). One of the most exciting things about watching 1999 WWF was seeing who would turn on whom each week.

Sorry about that, I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you. That was just an observation I had about late-career Owen Hart that I was randomly throwing out.

WCW's famous movies would have been backstage segments in WWE. For the Jake Roberts one, instead of shooting laser beams out of their eyes, they'd just stare at each other and breathe heavily, and Stephanie would scold them and book them in a chairs match. The White Castle of Fear one would have Sting spiking Vader's, Race's, and Cheatum's food with laxatives, and Vader would challenge a gloating Sting to the strap match from inside a bathroom stall. For the boat bomb one, the heels' evil plan would instead be to dump a pile of dog poop on Sting and Smith, but Smith would overhear them talking about it and press slam Cheatum into the pile, in a moment that would get replayed in every video package leading up to the match. Then Teddy Long would come out and say, "You guys wanna play around in poop so badly? Well, at Beach Blast, you're gonna get that chance, because we're gonna have ourselves a tag team match!" After the feud, Cheatum would stick around for four years as Sting's comedy sidekick. To write Daniel Bryan out, WCW would have him come out and randomly thank the fans for their support, and then Hollywood Hogan (who wasn't feuding with him) would talk about how sick this makes him and how Bryan is a puny little brain-dead nobody. Then he'd hit Bryan with a chair, and after a long Hogan promo Roddy Piper would confront him to set up their match.

Owen seemed to connect with WWF fans even through 1998, when a whole new group of people were watching and he was doing stuff like feuding with Steve Blackman. They got on his case way more than they did with guys like Big Bossman or Ken Shamrock. I don't know if he was just that good as a character or if they sort of viewed him as their own, with him being one of the only New Generation guys still around. When I last went back and watched stuff from that time, he was still fun, even if it didn't feel like he was putting his heart into it anymore.

People criticize Hijo del Santo as a formula wrestler, but Casas had stuff he'd go to also. Look at his matches with Ultimo Dragon (the 1992 one), Mocho Cota, and Bestia Salvaje. In all three of those Casas gets barely any offense and then pulls out basically a fluke win to cap off a disappointment. That's a difficult layout with which to have a satisfying match, and it's one that Santo would never have used - he was never going to let himself look worse in winning. Sure, he had a formula, but it was a good formula, one that I'm sure that he worked hard to hone and make as dramatic as possible, and there's no way he would have brought back iffy stuff for a second chance, let alone a third. That doesn't mean he always figured out how to make things work; he wrestled Psicosis a whole lot, and the two never nailed one of their matches. The standard Santo match, though, would almost certainly have been an improvement on any of those three from Casas. I agree that Santo doesn't have higher highs. Their best stuff is at the same level, but Santo has a higher number of great singles matches (of course, Santo has more singles matches on tape from his prime than does Casas). He was a better apuestas match wrestler than Casas and no worse in title matches. To me the case for Casas comes down to trios matches, where Santo was often at his most formulaic and Casas was still looking to shine. He could be annoying, like with his weird semi-feuds with Dandy and Felino in 1993, but there are far more times that he looked brilliant in those situations. It's been a while since I watched the buildup to a Santo singles match, though, so maybe I'm underrating him in that department. Anyway, shorter version: Santo was more formulaic but I don't think that makes him inherently worse than Casas, as not every idea Casas had was an ingenious one. Santo was a better and more consistent big match wrestler but not as consistent in the smaller ones. Right now I'd probably lean toward Casas, but I feel like I have it closer than most people who are choosing Casas.

Dandy vs. Llanes and Jaque Mate vs. Hijo del Solitario both had seconds, but those were title matches. The policy on seconds for non-title singles matches in that era has never been clear to me, as it seems like they'd just use them whenever it was convenient. Even before 1994 you get stuff like Pierroth vs. Supremo (December 1992) having seconds, Felino vs. Ciclon Ramirez (July 1993) going without them, and Atlantis vs. Mano Negra (October 1993) having them. For hair matches, Negro Casas vs. Fiera (October 1993, same show as Atlantis vs. Mano Negra) doesn't have them, but Dandy vs. Emilio Charles (October 1993) does. AAA was the same way. I don't know if there was some bizarre commission rule that covered all this and explained which matches get seconds or if it was as random as it appears.

If there's such a thing as critical obsolescence, then I'd like to think that the standards for it are higher than "I watched the matches and they didn't hold up."

Dandy wasn't a bust, though. There were no expectations for him when he came in, and even if there had been he was put in a role that virtually guaranteed that he would have almost no impact on the company. WCW would never have done anything equivalent to moving Jose Reyes off shortstop for him. Jack Morris = Edge. Most wins in the '80s = king of the ****+ main event. Game 7, 1991 = that time in 2006 when ratings went up during his brief reign as champion.

The NBA thread is a great read, but baseball's the only sport I really know well enough to actually make comparisons of my own. Some of these have been dancing around in my head for a few days so I figured, whatever, I'll just make one for baseball. Scott Hall/Mike Scott Was having a fairly ordinary career until getting a new gimmick mid-career, which allowed him to completely reinvent himself (beyond what you'd think would happen by just changing characters or adding a new pitch). For a few years he was one of the game's biggest names, but he fell to irrelevance pretty quickly. Angel Azteca/Mike Witt Really good for a few years in his twenties, but didn't do that much afterwards and didn't leave much of a mark on his league's history. Had a perfect game in his mid-twenties. Jerry Lawler/Satchel Paige Iconic figure; symbolic of his territory; career lasted forever; made the bigs at a late age, and he was successful there (even though the resulting output wasn't close to his peak stuff) but also kind of became a caricature of himself. We have enough of Paige's Negro League statistics and footage of Lawler in Memphis to know that they were all-time greats, but we still don't have a full picture of either guy's prime years. Brazo de Oro/Yadier Molina Brazo de Plata/Ben Molina El Brazo/Jose Molina Brazo de Oro and Yadier are the technically gifted ones. Porky and Bengie are the round, comical ones who give the family its image. El Brazo and Jose are the least of each trio, but they have some underrated skills that make them quite valuable. Porky and Bengie doesn't quite work, as Yadier is actually the most famous Molina, and there are far more members of the Brazo family than there are Molinas. Bret Hart/Tom Glavine Rarely used as his team's ace but still produced like a #1; could seem kind of cold and cerebral and hard to like; switched from his long-time team to their biggest rival towards the end of his career, where he was still pretty good, but it never really felt right. Hart has a junior hockey team named after him; Glavine was selected in the 1984 NHL draft. Mark Henry/Phil Nevin Considered a huge bust for a while; turned it around and ended up having a pretty good run. Rey Mysterio Jr. has elements of Roberto Clemente (tools guy who aged very well, complaints of malingering) and Ichiro Suzuki (phenom who was unlike anybody else in the U.S. when he first showed up) but I don't think either fits. El Dandy would sort of be like a guy who was dominant in Japan but got used as a bench player or middle reliever when he came over to the U.S. and became kind of a comical figure in MLB lore. Was there anyone like that? Hideki Irabu was pushed pretty hard in MLB; he was more of a disappointment than a jobber. Who are some other ones you can think of?

This method isn't really fair to Michaels, though. For one thing, just giving a point to whoever did better with a certain opponent somewhat obscures how each matchup went. Bret Hart is an advantage for Austin, but Michaels and Hart had some matches that were very good. The Michaels-HHH series doesn't reflect well on Michaels, but even they managed to have some good matches together. None of those matchups is as big a blowout as performance vs. Undertaker. Michaels also loses a lot more if you take out uncommon opponents. He loses Jarrett, Razor, Diesel, Bulldog, and Jannetty (Austin had matches with some of those guys but not in comparable circumstances); Austin loses Rock, Steamboat, Vega, and Mero. I'm sure I'm missing some, but I think that Michaels has a greater percentage of his best stuff against guys Austin didn't wrestle than vice-versa, and I don't think that it's simply the result of his list of unique opponents being better than Austin's. I also disagree with the argument that Austin-Foley is a better pairing than HBK-Foley.

Fiera and Black Magic had a mano a mano in 1992 that's available in full, but I've never seen it. I'm not sure if their 1994 match is available in full. I actually have a clip of the last two minutes of the match; it looks okay, but I think they screwed up the finish, so Fiera had to win with a random small package instead.

Foley: I think that Mind Games is his career match, but he does have other great matches around this time. If you want to argue that Mind Games was them meeting expectations then I can see the argument for that even though I disagree. Taker: Undertaker improved later in his career but HiaC was probably the second great match that he ever had, and the third wouldn't come until like 2002. Jarrett: IYH 2 is an outlier for him. Jarrett was a more than capable wrestler but getting 15+ with him never meant that a great match was pretty likely. Hall: Average to slightly above. Unlike with Jarrett, I'd say that having a merely good match with Hall was something of a success. Michaels probably does have more disappointments than Austin, but I really don't see the case for Austin as being better with mediocre wrestlers. Who were the mediocrities out of whom he coaxed greatness? Austin's a guy whose best matches generally came against other guys who had great matches. Savio Vega didn't, at least not in the U.S., but he was better than Hall and about as good as Jarrett. Rock? Angle? I'll grant that I like some of the Sid matches more than you do (and probably wouldn't call them great, either), but performance against guys who weren't great seems like an advantage for Michaels.

I understand looking at individual performances, but at this point you're basically just using it to handwave away a bunch of Michaels' best stuff. Michaels had a great match against Diesel - ah, but Nash delivered a killer side slam and talked some nice trash, so Shawn didn't really do that much. He had a great match against Undertaker - but if you watch the match, it was Undertaker's methodical offense that set the tone for the whole thing. He had a great match against Jarrett - but the stalling at the start was obviously out of the Jarrett playbook and therefore he carried the match. He had a great match against Razor Ramon - hey, everything Hall did in that match looked great. He had a great match against Mankind - but Foley was clearly the one calling the shots there. Why did all of these guys have their best performances against Michaels? Some of it has to be the opportunity to work a long match, and a lot of these were no-DQ or gimmick matches, but Steve Austin wrestled some of these guys, too, and his matches had similar advantages. He had famously bad chemistry with The Undertaker, and Shawn-Foley was a much better matchup than Austin-Foley (obviously Austin has some better matchups, like with Hart). If you don't think Michaels' matches were great, that's a fair argument against him. If you think he had some great ones but that he should have had many more with the opportunities that he was given, that's a fair argument against him. If you think that he did well with the opportunity that he was given but that someone else could have done better, well, that's a little too much speculation for me. Intead, your argument seems to be that a bunch of guys had their career performance against Michaels, which sounds almost like a compliment. I feel like at some point you've got to give Michaels some credit rather than look for caveats that explain why this match wasn't his doing, either.

You forgot to capitalize the M and the T.

Just to be clear, Casas was my pick for '92; it just seemed like a tough call because of the missing stuff and how many guys were great that year. Atlantis might not be in the 1992 top five and his 1992 is better than anyone's 1994. I agree that Casas isn't the answer for 1994 (he and Cota never seemed to click), but I can't recall many standout performances from Santo that year, either. Lizmark and Parka had good years but their singles matches don't help their case.

First five years for Mexico: 1990: El Dandy. 1991: Tough year. Fuerza Guerrera and Emilio Charles Jr. are probably the top two guys in CMLL, but there's no legendary year here. Hijo del Santo, Atlantis, and Blue Panther have arguments, Brazo de Plata was the man at the center of a big year for the Brazos, and Brazo de Oro is a darkhorse candidate given that he has the match with Santo in addition to his Brazos stuff. I'd go with Fuerza. 1992: This is a strong year for a lot of guys, so it feels kind of wrong to pick Negro Casas, of whom there is very little footage for the first five months of the year. 1993: Negro Casas, but Lizmark has a case. 1994: Rey Misterio Jr. maybe? This feels like the worst year of the five, although there's a lot that I haven't seen. I'm ignorant of too much wrestling (as evident by the fact that I didn't list 1995-99) to judge whether any of these guys was the best wrestler in the world, but Dandy in 1990 and Casas in 1993 feel like the ones with the best cases. Casas was just as good in 1992 but was a TV regular for a little over half a year.

Lucha production gets knocked a lot (and I know I've done it), so I just want to point out that the camerawork for this match was outstanding. They made sure to get closeups of all the most visceral stuff, like Casas biting the face and Fiera breaking out of a hold with Casas' fingers in his mouth. Both guys did a great job of selling, so in that sense whatever shot the crew chose was going to be worthwhile, but even then they didn't have to show Fiera trying to shake off the damage during his first-fall comeback. That they did really added to the match for me. Anyway, great match. It's kind of weird that my favorite period for Fiera is his 1991-1993 rudo run but (arguably) his two best matches came just before it started and just after it ended.

I prefer Michaels. I have him as a great singles wrestler from May 1995-January 1998 and Austin as a great singles wrestler from May 1996-August 1997, although Michaels' missed time makes it closer than that. After SummerSlam '97, Austin drops off significantly. Austin 's 2001 doesn't do that much for me but that's around the time the WWF style starts to lose me, so I might be missing out. They were about equal as TV wrestlers (generally good but neither produced much standout stuff) and equal as PPV wrestlers, but I think that Michaels got a bit more out of his run. Both guys got consistent opportunities to work long PPV matches. Pre-prime, I think that Michaels was better as a Rocker than Austin was before Stone Cold, but that pre-Stone Cold Steve Austin beats 1992-95 heel Michaels. Regardless, I think Michaels kind of overachieved and that Austin kind of underachieved during that period. I'm not as familiar with post-prime Michaels as I am with post-prime Austin, but I generally saw them as about equal. As far as individual attributes go, Michaels was a better bumper and more fluid in the ring. I'd rather watch Michaels wrestle. Given the choice between a random Austin match and a random Michaels match, I'd take the Michaels one. Austin had better punches, better offense (although the berth here isn't huge), and slightly better selling. I disagree with the argument that Austin was better at garnering sympathy; he always felt like Hogan or Rock in that you could never really put him down. Michaels did a better job of making the things that happened in his matches meaningful. Austin in his WWF champion years would have long portions of his matches made up of unfocused brawling. It got the crowd hot, and some of the spots were nice, but none of it meant all that much, and that hurt a lot of the stuff that he did during that period. I guess the counterargument is that Michaels' nip-up and comeback rendered previous stretches of his matches pointless, but it never felt that way to me, and maybe that's why I ended up rating him ahead.