NintendoLogic

That match was great. I love Rollins' new finisher. Guess we all need to get ready for the Reigns singles push. Does anybody else cringe every time Rey takes a bump?

I think Bret forgot to tuck his shirt in.

I think it'll be a good crowd tonight. Boston is a pretty smarky town to begin with, and most of the city will be watching the Patriots game, so those in attendance will be the hardest of the hardcore.

The spinning toe hold is a wrestling move.

No love for the (Midnight) Rockers? As far as Japanese teams go, Baba/Inoki is pretty legendary.

I figured this would be a fun question to ask given all the matwork fans on this board. If you were to create a matwork primer, what matches would you include? I'm not necessarily talking about the best grappling you've ever seen, more like textbook examples of fairly basic stuff executed at a high level. Off the top of my head, I'd say something like El Dandy/Black Warrior would be a good example.

As for least favorites, I hate this one I've seen Blue Panther do a few times where he puts his opponent in an inverted Gory special and then gallops around the ring like he's giving the guy a horsey ride.

Sabu was the one who landed on his head and broke his neck in that match.

I think this is to some degree the case. At the same time I'm sometimes at a loss in really understanding what Tanahashi fans mean by "structure" and how they ascribe some kind of highly positive quality to Tanahashi just for working the general "epic match" blueprint that has been around for ages. It's actually something that really struck me back when I started watching Tanahashi matches in 2009, especially his much lauded match v. Nakamura that year. It struck me as something I'd be impressed with if I were unfamiliar with main event style puroresu (which isn't meant to take a condescending tone or anything); it had the opening mat work into a longer but low key body of the match and then jumped off into the hot homestretch. But, I mean, a lot of matches do that. A lot of good matches do that, a lot of okay matches do that and a lot of boring matches do that. What matters is how those segments are worked, not that they're there. A lot of these super pimped New Japan matches feel to me like shells of epic main event style matches. They have that broad structure but they don't do anything interesting with it; the opening matwork isn't good, the middle move trading/control segments are just there and not worked in an interesting way and the home stretch is pretty by the numbers. I don't see what great quality there is in a guy working the basic structure of an epic main event if he can't do the "stuff" that makes it interesting. I guess some people can like "epic main event match" for the sake of it but I've seen it, and to me for something to be great it has to do something interesting. I think you're really selling Tanahashi short here. If working the epic match blueprint is such a simple thing, why are so few wrestlers any good at it? My guess is that 90% or so of the guys currently working in Japan would be unwatchable if they were regularly working matches of 30 minutes or more. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my experience mirrors OJ's. Based on where the praise was coming from and my experiences with modern Japanese wrestling, I expected Tanahashi's matches to be a ridiculous orgy of finisher kick-outs and head drops and fighting spirit no-selling. I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn't the case. Tanahashi's not an all-time great, but when the modern Japanese scene is littered with worthless loads like Suwama, he can't help but stand out.

It should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of the Sharpshooter. I also really like Mariko Yoshida's Spider Twist.

I have to admit that when I saw the thread title, I thought that the poster who goes by the name of Mad Dog had died.

I think OJ's assessment is spot-on. Tanahashi's matches aren't going to have a bunch of cool moments, but they will have a well-structured and satisfying narrative arc. It seems to me that a lot of those who are anti-Tanahashi tend to be more interested in Stuff than in structure, which is where I think a lot of the disconnect comes from.

I will be really sad if Pat doesn't realise the potential of his story. I can't wait to hear Pat's thoughts on all the wink-wink nudge-nudge comments JR made in the broadcast booth.

I just did a search for posts by him and had no problem pulling them up. Dare I reveal the secrets of my arcane knowledge?

This isn't exactly scientific, but I played the name recognition game with a 33-year-old female acquaintance. She knew who Hulk Hogan was, but she had never heard of Molly Ringwald.

I skimmed through Shoemaker's book at Barnes & Noble today. Among other things, I learned that the famous Liger/Pillman match took place at the 1995 edition of Superbrawl and that Sid wrestled as Lord Humongous in Mid-South. Also, the chapter on Crush contains a completely irrelevant side discussion of "geopolitics in wrestling" (anti-American heels, in other words). I don't know if I'm more confused by that or the fact that there was a chapter dedicated to Crush in the first place. EDIT: It looks like most of the chapters on individual wrestlers were lifted virtually verbatim from his Dead Wrestler of the Week columns. So I guess that explains it. Oh, and he thinks that Iron Mike DiBiase is more well-known among wrestling fans than Mitsuharu Misawa.

Yeah, what Diva wouldn't be thrilled to have her body image issues turned into a joke on TV?

It was basically the same match the Shield have every week. Are you saying this like it is a good or bad thing? A little of both, I guess.

I find it interesting that OJ's thoughts on Tanahashi's matches are basically the same as my own. I'm pretty sure that's the first time he and I have seen eye to eye on a wrestler. It's also nice to see some pushback against the argument that Tanahashi/Suzuki was a carry job.

It was basically the same match the Shield have every week.

I've said in the past that WWE should go the 80s AJW route with the women's division and market it toward young girls. Someone like AJ could totally be the centerpiece of that effort.

Aren't monthly PPVs at an inherent disadvantage here? It's a lot harder to present strong matchups three months in a row. Maybe we should include Clashes to even things out.

It begins...

Thanks for the input, everyone. Of the matches mentioned, Finlay/Regal, Kong/Hotta, and Hash/Tenryu from the 98 G1 come closest to what I had in mind. I'd also go with Hash/Yamazaki from the 98 G1 and Ikeda/Otsuka from 4/26/99.

I haven't seen the match in a while, but my recollection is that Martel worked not-so-subtle heel against Jumbo in All Japan. He wasn't cheating and stooging, but Flair didn't really do that in Japan either.