NintendoLogic

What are the actual example examples? Plenty. Andre. Big John Studd. Jerry Blackwell. Barry Windham. Also, all the guys you mentioned had multiple extended injury layoffs. Anyway, count me among those who continue to be baffled by Roman's booking. He's booked just strong enough to engender resentment among fans who don't like him but not enough to send the message that they need to shut up and deal with it. It's the worst of both worlds.

For HeadCheese, here's Kawada vs. Taue from 1991.

Imagine wearing this in public. https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/knife-pervert.html

After. He broke his neck in a match with Onita in 1983.

There's a pretty big difference between Ricky Steamboat working an armbar in the opening minutes to establish the story of the match and Ultimate Warrior applying a bearhug a minute in because he blew himself up sprinting to the ring.

joe was always the better ref than wada imo Out of curiosity, what do you think of Akira Fukuzawa as a commentator?

It depends on the type of match. A match built around brawling and hate is probably best at 10 to 15 minutes. More scientific matches generally need at least 20 minutes to fully develop the story. It's quite rare for any match to need to go much longer than 30 minutes, though.

Any particular blind spots you're looking to fill?

For AstroBoy, here's Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco from 1978.

Like Tabe said, the problem with the finish was that Kyohei inexplicably didn't count to 3 after the running elbow even though Kawada clearly didn't move a muscle.

This thread inspired me to revisit 6/6/97, and it's quite a bit better than I remembered it being. The last ten minutes or so were surely excessive, but I thought that was the point. In the Carnival final, Kawada beat MIsawa in a virtual squash (albeit with an asterisk). Here, Kawada throws everything but the kitchen sink at Misawa only for him to come back in fairly routine fashion, establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was still The Guy. On that level, it worked for me. As for the section with Kawada outside the ring and Misawa inside, they weren't just standing around doing nothing. Kawada was recovering from eating a Tiger Driver on the floor. Misawa was inside the ring because the referee ordered him back in. He kept trying to go after Kawada, but Kyohei kept ordering him back. I will grant that the ending was inexcusable.

I wouldn't go by crowd reactions by who the bigger star was. With Bryan Im struggling to think of 10 decent matches he had, I mean I can think og the ones like the Mania triple threat, Cena, but other than that im stumped. Now Hardy well I can think of the ladder match vs Taker, the triple threat at armageddeon, morrison, Jericho, punk, TLC Triple Threat Tag matches, HBK, RVD, Styles in TNA. I'm not really sure if this is a troll comment or not.... Here's an even simpler argument for Bryan - 18,000 people paid to see him win the title from Cena at Summerslam. 78,000 people paid to see him win the title again at Wrestlemania. How many of those people specifically paid to see Bryan, though? Would Wrestlemania have drawn any less if Bryan was working with Sheamus in the midcard as was the original plan?

Underrated relative to what? Every lucha commentator I've seen rates him highly as a star and a worker.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people who WWE is still called WWF than who know of Daniel Bryan.

Reviewed Finlay/Samurai and the Portland tag. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41687-fit-finlay-vs-el-samurai-njpw-42392/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41688-southern-rockers-vs-scotty-the-body-top-gun-portland-7889/

This Secret Santo pick from Tim Evans pits the future Raven and the former Cuban Assassin up against one of the lesser rock-and-roll pretty boy tag teams of the 80s. Scotty is managed by Jonathan Boyd, who is accompanied by a snake. The Rockers have a valet of their own, but she literally does nothing in this match. In fact, she's barely even visible due to her placement in the corner opposite the hard camera. It's actually Scotty who makes this match. Between him begging to be tagged in when things appear under control only to immediately tag out at the first sign of trouble, interfering behind the referee's back, and dancing like a Chippendale, he does a pretty fantastic job of being an obnoxious little shit you want to see get his comeuppance. The FIP crawling between the heel's legs to make the hot tag is a spot I always mark out for, and Steve Doll has an impressive snap suplex. Unfortunately, the ending is pure Wrestlecrap. After Doll gets thrown to the outside, Scott Peterson goes to check on him and is accosted by Boyd. He runs into the ringpost while fleeing in terror from the snake, allowing Boyd to roll him in the ring to be pinned. If something like that had happened in WCW or TNA, we'd still be talking about it today. In all, this was kind of depressing to watch. The in-ring action is nothing special other than a handful of nifty spots, and the derivative and dated presentation elements give this the feel of a promotion hopelessly behind the times.

This was Matt D's Secret Santo pick. The Youtube link lists the date as 5/23, but that can't be right since this is a TOSJ match and the very famous Liger/Samurai final takes place on 4/30. Anyway, there's nothing too fancy here, just straightforward smashmouth wrestling. From Finlay, we get snug headlocks, stiff elbows, and some incongruous flying offense. From Samurai, we get some leg work (that Finlay completely blows off) and surprisingly decent punches. My favorite Finlay spot is the one where he lifts his opponent up by the hair (or mask in this case) and slams him sternum-first into the apron. There were audible gasps from the audience when he busted it out here. The end comes when Finlay misses a splash from the top rope and Samurai gets the pin with a Japanese leg roll clutch. This wasn't a barnburner by any means, but it is an interesting look at Finlay pretty much on autopilot.

Yeah, it's totally normal and appropriate to call someone a wanker when they commit a minor social faux pas and you're not the slightest bit outraged.

What a silly non-issue this is. It's amazing how many people have such a hate-boner for Dave that they bend over backwards to find things to be outraged by.

If you really care about correcting the historical record, better to raise the issue now than several weeks or months or whatever down the road when no one is paying attention.

Count me among those who are in shock. I was under the impression that he was in fantastic shape for his age, so I expected him to go well into his nineties. The remarkable thing to me is that as far as I know, he had no true enemies in the business nor are there any anecdotes that reflect poorly on him. That's an incredible feat in a business as scummy as professional wrestling.

Austin was cutting promos in the buildup to WM13 about how he didn't know a lot of technical holds but would simply beat Bret into submission. And I always figured Austin got the Octagon Special from Pillman since he was using it as a finisher in 1995 and the two were tight. For the record, the greatest I Quit match of all time is Cena/JBL. In your hearts, you know I'm right.

Sorry I'm late. I had to go out of town for the weekend. For Tim Evans, here's Steve Corino vs. Shinya Hashimoto.

Cherry-picking a handful of counterexamples does not disprove the overall point.

Braun's biological age is relevant because big guys tend to hit the wall and hit it hard in their mid to late 30s.