Gregor

Psicosis in AAA was more than a midcarder. I wouldn't call him a main-eventer, but he feuded with and even defeated El Hijo del Santo (albeit unconvincingly).

I swear YouTube used to have a Dandy vs. Blue Panther title match from like 1992 that was clipped down to about ten minutes.

There's a handheld of a Hart vs. Vader match from around this time. It's not that long, but they got more time than they did here.

I've watched this a couple of times and each time went in expecting to like it, but it's not happening. I think they were thrown off a bit by wrestling a one-fall match. After the matwork (which was good but didn't strike me as exceptional), they just sort of jump ahead to the third-fall, back-and-forth kickout spots, and then they stay there until the controversy with the referee. The shift in pace was rushed, and they spent way too much of the match exchanging two counts. They'd have been better off doing something like what Estrada did in his match with Lizmark, when he was in control for a long time and built up some sympathy for the tecnico, before going to the third-fall stuff. Here's Meltzer on the match (5/10/93 Observer). I don't know what to make of the "via a referee's decision, Lizmark was ruled the winner" stuff; it looked like a standard submission.

A lot of people online were mad about Benoit, Jericho, and Angle all losing to WWF mainstays at Fully Loaded 2000. That's the biggest one that comes to mind.

1996-98 HHH couldn't really wrestle like 1999-present HHH because he rarely got 20+ minutes and a main event slot. For the most part early WWF HHH seemed like a guy who was trying hard even if he had some flaws and was kind of generic, and the matches he had felt like typical WWF midcard matches rather than a style unique to him.

Randy Orton vs. Chris Benoit (1/13/06, US Title) I was dicking around on DailyMotion the other day and this came up on the list of related videos. Even though this was during the couple of years that I got back into watching current wrestling, I had no memory of it. I do remember how depressing SmackDown was in this era. They play a big dramatic video package before this event to make it feel special, even though the story is pretty bad. Randy Orton is trying to win the vacant title on behalf of an injured Booker T because Booker will then owe him one. The work is pretty good but the layout is awful. They work holds at the start and it's pretty realistic and intense, even if there aren't as many counterholds as I like in mat wrestling. There's some other cool stuff scattered throughout, like the two of them fighting on the top before Orton takes a great bump to the outside off the barricade, which he sells beautifully. They also get Booker ejected in a clever spot that Benoit almost ruins by pointing to his head three times. Faces don't point to their head three times. Benoit's in control for the first 12 or so minutes, which is way too long for a 21-minute match. They had a good opportunity for a transition when Orton flung Benoit into the post, and the one that they use instead is just Orton kicking his way out of a sharpshooter. Orton's in control for like three or four minutes and half of his offense is chinlocks (the other half is some nice kneedrops and a textbook dropkick). Benoit then chops his way out of a chinlock - an even weaker transition than the earlier one - and they go into the homestretch, which is almost all Benoit. He really is relentless here. Even when Orton is on top Benoit keeps grabbing onto him and chopping at him. He looks tough but not particularly sympathetic. Orlando Jordan runs down to help Benoit - it looks like they were having him do some sort of incompetence angle - and gets taken out immediately. The ref gets bumped and Booker comes down to ringside, nails Benoit with the belt, and that's it. It's kind of hard to believe that the ref wouldn't DQ Orton for Booker being there, and it makes the whole ejection spot seem pointless. I don't remember how Booker ended up paying Orton back. I remember someone at the time describing Orton as a guy who was great at the little things but struggled with the big things. It's hard to tell from this, given that he was on the defensive for almost the whole match and didn't get to do much in the way of big things. He had some really nice glazed-eye selling and took some moves beautifully - he did such a good job with just a back elbow that it got replayed - but he also had some lame over-the-top evil faces. Really, though, it was the match as a whole that nailed the small stuff and flubbed that big stuff. Not all of that was the workers' fault (dumb run-ins, anticlimactic angle), but they could have done a much better job with this.

I didn't say that you should treat all opinions the same. I don't think that you have any obligation to engage or even consider one-line YouTube comments on the wrestling videos that you watch. I already said that the reason that I post here is the wrestling that people talk about and the way that people talk about it. But, if you think that there are only a few other places on the internet where people's opinions are their own instead of just opinions they've adopted after hearing someone else express them, then I don't know what to tell you. That's not something unique to this site.

I agree that this match feels organic, but it also got more time than matches generally got in this era. I can't think of many other early-'90s EMLL/CMLL matches that got over 30 minutes in bell-to-bell time (as in first fall bell-to-bell plus second fall bell-to-bell plus third fall bell-to-bell). That in itself is going to make the match feel special, although the performances of the two wrestlers obviously merited amount of time they were given.

My point isn't that the conclusion should be "hive mind." My point is that, regardless of how it got there, it probably is fair to say that the board likes Dandy and Lawler. I don't think that it's fair to say that about any individual here, unless you already know that whoever it is you're talking about actually does like Dandy and Lawler, but saying that the board generally likes a wrestler doesn't mean that its members are latching on to that opinion in an effort to fit in or sound smart. I'm not worried about protecting "the outside." But you posted in a self-pitying thread lamenting that people don't examine individual opinions here seriously enough, and then you went on to talk about how a bunch of other people's opinions are basically just things they've heard other people say and blindly accepted. If that's all the respect that you're going to afford outside opinions, then I don't see how you can complain about the outside not treating yours any better. I'm sure that you have watched a lot of wrestling, and, if you value the opinions of people who've watched a ton more than you value those who watch little outside of modern WWE, that's fine. It's an entirely different thing to say that the modern WWE fan's opinions aren't conclusions they've come to alone. Maybe you've read or heard stuff that confirms what you thought about how other people got their opinions, but I'm sure people can come here and find stuff that makes them say, "Oh, well, he's just trying to sound smart/sound correct/be different." "Hive mind"/"Received opinions" isn't the proper response in either case. People like what they like for a reason, even if a bunch of other people like the same stuff. For the most part, this place is no different from anywhere else. I post here because of how much people are willing to talk about matches or wrestlers that they like and because of how much wrestling they're willing to talk about, but I don't think that my opinion is any more valid or reflective of how I really feel than that of someone elsewhere who posts nothing more than, "I like this match."

No one, when talking about the opinion of the board as a whole, thinks that everyone here thinks exactly the same thing. They're talking about a consensus or the difference between an opinion here and the take on the same subject in other places. If someone says, "Oh, prowrestlingonly.com likes Chris Masters," they're not saying that everyone here likes Chris Masters. It's not the busiest board on the internet, but there are enough posters here that someone's going to have to dislike the guy or at least not care about him. All it means is that Masters is liked here more than he is in most places, which (although I don't regularly post anywhere but here) seems to be the case. That doesn't strike me as a bad thing or as a good thing. Maybe it's because I'm just anonymous message board poster rather than someone trying to get their opinion out there in other places. People here generally view Dandy as more than a punchline and Jerry Lawler as more than an annoying commentator. Sure, there are arguments about guys like Hayabusa or Backlund - but that's kind of my point. There aren't too many other places where you could even have those arguments. Plenty of things define this site; you can't just look at all of the ways in which you're different from other posters and then wonder how anyone could form an overarching opinion. That said, there's a difference between describing the site and treating someone as just a product of the site. If I had a wrestling fan friend who asked me about that blue site I'm always on, I'd say, "Oh, yeah, it's cool. People watch old shows and matches. Remember El Dandy from WCW? People there think he's awesome!" Even though I'm sure there are plenty of people here who don't care about Dandy and maybe even some who watch his old matches and wind up unimpressed, I don't think I'd have said anything inaccurate or offensive there. If someone sees Dandy vs. Casas ranked ahead of Bret vs. Bulldog on people's top 100 lists from 1992 and says, "Oh, what a shock, someone on this site prefers a Dandy match to a Bret Hart match," that's a bit different. What's kind of annoying is that people here do the same stuff that this thread is complaining about. I bet that plenty of people who love wrestling, who love 1998 and onwards WWF/E, don't think Kurt Angle is a good wrestler. Even worse, we'll have people here talking about how people rate Angle highly primarily because they've bought into the hype about him that has been spread by other people. How is that any different from the worst things that people say about this board?

I hated this feud so much. I hated pretty much everything Bossman did in 1999. I know a lot of people think he was a great heel, and I can't really argue with that, but stuff like murdering a pet and making a mockery of a funeral was so evil that I just didn't want to watch it. Either way, there were probably better ways of getting fans behind Big Show than having him bawl and jump on top of a moving casket.

When I was first getting into watching old wrestling matches, his were the first ones that I remember routinely disappointing me. I don't know about working in a vacuum - it seemed like WCW fans were generally into him - but he was just so boring on offense as a heel. He'd work these long, uninteresting holds without ever getting crap for it, I guess because he used armbars and leglocks instead of chinlocks. I'm not someone who lets weak punches ruin a match, but Malenko's were distractingly bad. I agree that he was better as a face. He has a house show match with Guerrero in 1997 that I thought was good enough to be 1996's or 1998's WCW match of the year.

La Fiera is in a lot of ways Mexico's Barry Windham - natural wrestler, very good at an early age, extremely graceful without looking soft. At age 23 he looked like a superstar in the making, and, although he was a pretty big name, he ended up having a fragmented career with intermittent spurts of greatness. That's more than most guys are able to produce, but his career still doesn't feel complete.

Remember this thread? It's been a bit more than a quarter since then but it's still a fun idea that I don't want to see die. The categories are: Current Favorite Wrestler to Watch (in the last poll, the board seemed most excited about Dean Ambrose) Last Fun Match You Saw Wrestler You Want to See More of Last Live Show Attended Match You Are Looking Forward to Watching Soon the Most Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw Last Interesting Thing You Read about Wrestling Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately Here are mine: Current Favorite Wrestler to Watch Emilio Charles Jr. Always fun, incredibly charismatic, and maybe my favorite character of all time. I like to think that if I were a wrestler I would spend a lot of my time shouting at the crowd and then running for the exits when the faces got fed up with me. Last Fun Match You Saw The famous 1999 Sting vs. DDP Nitro match. Wrestler You Want to See More of 1991-93 La Fiera. Far more interesting as a rudo than as a tecnico. Last Live Show Attended I've never been to a wrestling show. I've had only one wrestling fan friend ever, and that was back in sixth grade and right before we both stopped watching it. The idea of going to a show by myself doesn't interest me. Match You Are Looking Forward to Watching Soon the Most I dunno. If something interesting pops up on YouTube, then I'll watch that, but it's not something I plan out. Talking about Jeff Jarrett recently got me interested in rewatching his house show matches with Bret Hart, but I wouldn't say that I'm looking forward to it. Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw A couple of nights ago I was flipping through some Ernest Miller promos on YouTube which transitioned into me watching a Cat vs. Hole-in-one Barry Darsow match. Nothing grabbed me, though. Last Interesting Thing You Read about Wrestling The last thing that really stood out was from ohtani's jacket's 1980s lucha thread, when he pointed out that AAA for the most part eschewed Diablo Velazco-trained wrestlers. I'd never noticed that. Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard Steve Austin doing commentary over his match with Rock at the Astrodome. Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately Probably watching a bunch of matches from the Fuerza Guerrera vs. Misterioso feud. There were some really good rudo teams in that.

My sister would sometimes watch WWF TV with me around this time. Earlier this year I mentioned something about buying wrestling DVDs or whatever, and her response was, "Do you remember when one wrestler tricked another wrestler into eating his own dog?" Apparently that's the one thing from wrestling that's burned into her memory forever.

Ah, OK, I can see that. I guess I thought it was more of a stylistic comparison because of the Michaels-Flair example, as Michaels actually did feel like a poor man's Flair at times in his early heel run.

Okay, but the idea was that Jericho emulated Michaels, and I was wondering in what ways that comes across. I doubt Jericho watched Michaels wrestle and said, "Yeah, I wanna work light just like him!"

Bestia Salvaje (1, 2, 3)

How is Jericho similar to Michaels? Jericho was a guy who was all about offense. He strikes me as more of a poor man's Benoit or Guerrero. I think Jericho's being a bit underrated here (I'd definitely have him as better than average) but agree with the general idea. I'm not sure if he was ever a great wrestler at any point in time, let alone on average throughout his career.

There are probably plenty of better examples, in large part because this doesn't have much to do with wrestling style, but the first thing that popped into my head was that WCW guys were always talking to the camera on their way to the ring. WWF guys rarely did that.

It wasn't laid out that differently from other Michaels matches of the time, other than the stalling and Jarrett winning some exchanges early on. Then they transitioned to Jarrett on offense with a big bump from Michaels, cut off a comeback attempt with the Michaels turnbuckle flip, ran the ropes a bunch, and then moved to Michaels' comeback after he won a slugfest. I wouldn't call this a particularly distinctive layout - I'm sure a bunch of WWF matches from this time went like that - but it definitely isn't unique to Jarrett. His selling was fine but I don't really think it was a big part of the match. More telling is that there aren't other Jarrett matches from around this time that resemble this one. If he were the only guy making things happen and the match were in his style, then there should be others like it. Jarrett rarely got to wrestle 19 minutes, but it's not as if the 10-15-minute encounters are all that similar to his one with Michaels. I don't intend for this to come across as dismissive of Jarrett (who I think was quite good, even in New Generation WWF with a character that wasn't very fun) or as arguing that Michaels carried that match. It's just that I'm not a fan of taking credit away from guys who were part of something good, and even accounting for that I don't really see the match as a one-man offort.

How did Jarrett carry that match? His stalling at the start was good. His offense was good. I don't really see how that makes for a match that he carried. Aside from the stalling and Jarrett actually winning some exchanges at the start, it wasn't that unusual for a Michaels match from that period. Granted, the standard line about the match is that Michaels carried Jarrett, but I wouldn't say that, either.

Okay, I watched both the WM ladder match and the Goldust one. They do stick pretty hard to the ladder in '94, but the only time that it really feels inorganic is when there's a double knockdown and Michaels gets to his feet first and sets the ladder up in the corner. The rest of the time they're going for it either to climb (and win the match) or hit the other person with it. That doesn't strike me as a shift in the logic of pro wrestling. In a cage match, guys are going to try to climb. If there's a chair in the ring, they're going to go for the chair. There's one spot when Ramon is making his fired-up comeback - he rolls Michaels back into the ring, slips the ladder into the ring, and then enters himself. Then he just cracks Michaels with the ladder. If he'd done something else, like set the ladder up or whatever, yeah, that would have taken me out of what they were doing. He was focused on hitting Michaels, though, and the ladder was just what was there. The Goldust match didn't strike me as vastly different. Early on, Goldust goes for the ladder, Michaels hits it into his face with a chair, and they drop it to do some other stuff. Once they bring it into the ring, though, it's pretty much as big a part of their match as it was in the WrestleMania match. I question the logic of doing both exposed turnbuckle spots and spots with the ladder in the corner (it looks weird when Goldust goes out of his way to put the ladder in the corner with the bare 'buckle), but the way Michaels takes and sells the ladder bump does enough to differentiate the spots. Neither one's ladder spots feel more contrived than the other's. The non-ladder portion of the '94 match feels longer (I didn't look at timestamps), but that's in part because the '96 match starts getting clipped after the ladder comes into play. Michaels' PPV ladder matches are just about his only big-time acclaimed '90s matches that don't hold up as great for me, but the 1996 one doesn't feel like any sort of psychological improvement. The only Michaels ladder match that I love is a house show one from 1/15/94, which is tighter than the WM one and has a more heelish performance from Michaels.

What "stupid shit" is there in the ones from 1994? I don't remember anything as silly as Michaels hitting the superkick with his pants down. Edit: Forgot the dropkick to the ladder. That was stupid.