NintendoLogic

I recall seeing a Bourne interview where he mentioned discussing Chomsky and Zinn with Daniel Bryan, so I rather doubt that he's a Republican.

Perhaps Will can introduce a politically correct filter to PWO. Something like gaikoku no senshu. Considering how everyone misuses words like puroresu and joshi at least they get the usage of gaijin right. How are puroresu and joshi misused?

The rest holds are a dealbreaker for me. They make it impossible for me to watch a Rude match of any length.

In a move that will no doubt cause consternation among many, I've undone the expansion pack and pared my list back down to 40. I've decided that when making lists like this, you need a hard numerical target. Otherwise, why not just list every match ever? And 40 isn't an entirely arbitrary number. Whenever I've tried to move beyond that, I've ended up with matches that either are lesser versions of matches already on the list, exist mainly to fill a niche, or just don't do much for me after a while. In particular, Rick Rude is a guy I've soured on a lot recently.

Agreed with everyone about Eddy being the star of this match. I literally laughed out loud when he walked into the ring to give Benoit a Three Stooges-style eye poke. Overall, though, this was pretty exhausting to watch. Toward the end, there were tons of big moves and nearfalls in rapid succession without much in the way of long-term selling. I didn't hate it or anything, but it's easy to see how the style would end up going off the rails.

To echo everyone else's comments, the sheer amount of accumulated knowledge on this board is simply outstanding. The months I spent lurking here were like a postgraduate course in wrestling history. Also, the board has taught me to reach my own conclusions and not simply defer to established authority. My first forays into non-US wrestling were New Japan juniors matches. They didn't really do much for me, but I was under the impression that they held in universally high regard, so I figured the problem was lack of understanding on my end. Coming here and being exposed to different perspectives gave me the courage to say "You know, maybe these matches just suck." The thing is, this board's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Simply trying to hold your own in a discussion can be incredibly demanding in terms of both knowledge and intensity. In fact, that's why I haven't been around too much lately. I've been going out and dating more recently, and it's kind of hard for me to shift my brain from in-depth match/wrestler analysis mode to date conversation mode.

It was Brock's doing. If he can't win March Madness, no one can.

A clash with Vicki Guerrero over marriage equality is inevitable, since every gay man has at least one friend or acquaintance like Vicki. There are no exceptions. The Guerreros were/are devout Christians, so I wouldn't be surprised if Vickie had some horribly retrograde views on homosexuality.

I'll co-sign on this. Other than the simultaneous hot tag, the knuckle lock/test of strength is my least favorite spot in wrestling. On the short-term memory front, last year's Orton/Del Rio feud provided a particularly egregious example. In their match at HIAC, Del Rio had Orton scouted and cut him off whenever he tried to go through his signature routines. But in their match the next night on Raw, Orton was hitting all his signature spots with no resistance from Del Rio. I guess the mindset is that they can afford to tinker with the formula on PPV because just about everyone watching is an established fan, but on the shows, there's always someone tuning in for the first time, so they have to establish the signature moves. You might call it the triumph of Flair-ism.

John Cena's Bad Bad Man was in the trailer for season five of The Shield.

Hilarious botch aside, Del Rio/Show was really good. But the repackaging of Del Rio as a Mexican hero is a bit heavy-handed for my tastes. Look, he lies, cheats, and steals just like Eddie! West Coast Pop! Shades of the great Rey Mysterio! They should probably tone it down a notch. My favorite part of the Chamber match was everything involving Mark Henry. My least favorite part was anything not involving Mark Henry. The Cena FIP section in the six-man was quite good, but the hot tag was complete shit. Christ, I hate WWE hot tags. They single-handedly ruin every single WWE tag match for me. And they've succeeded in completely cutting Ryback's nuts off. They need to repackage him or turn him heel or something, because any revenge he gets on the Shield at this point is going to be too little, too late. The Rock is so not in ring shape, it's ridiculous. It's actually kind of sad to watch. I always thought making Rock/Cena a triple threat match with Punk was a terrible idea, but I'm starting to think it might be necessary to make the match watchable. The first few matches were really good, but everything from the six-man on was pretty weak. I'll go thumbs in the middle.

That's one visual I could've done without.

Loss should go back to the Kurt Angle avatar.

All around I think the answer is yes if we are looking at the last two years or so. I'm not sure anyone is a better promo. No one is a better character. There are one or two guys you argue are better in the ring, but I'm not sure I'd buy it. Who agrees? I don't know if he's the best worker, but he is the most consistently entertaining. I can't remember the last thing Henry was involved in-match, promo, run-in, or anything else-where I thought "Man, that sucked."

Being a hick is a function of mindset, not geography. Brock Lesnar is a hick. Bill Clinton is not.

I just watched the match. The crowd did seem to be behind the foreigners to a surprising degree (as an aside, I find it interesting how many of you still consider "gaijin" to be an acceptable word to use), but they were clearly the heels. You can see that in the beginning when Doc flips off the crowd because he didn't think he was getting enough heat. You shouldn't put too much stock in crowd reactions. A while back, I saw a match from Georgia where Giant Baba defended the PWF belt against Terry Gordy and the dumbass hick fans booed Baba even though he worked face and Gordy worked heel. My overall thoughts on the match echo MJH's. It's nothing you'd have to force me to watch at gunpoint or anything, but it's not worth going out of your way to see at all. One surprising thing to me was how distracting Kikuchi's size was. He looked like a child in there against Hansen.

Not even HHH is worse than Kane.

I could not disagree more with this. Interference is one of the things that makes All Japan tags great. The fact that guys are doing more than just standing on the apron makes it feel like more of a team effort than other forms of tag wrestling. And it can take so many forms (breaking up a pin or submission, cheap-shotting the guy on the apron, the illegal guys fighting outside) that it never feels stale or formulaic. Plus, it enhances the drama because more thought has to be put into setting up the hot tag. Note that I'm speaking in general and not specifically to this match, which I'll watch later.

Obvious troll attempt is obvious.

Here's something that should put a smile on everyone's face: Bret Hart says that HHH is overrated and has never had a great match. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2013/0...-him-overrated/

I've been thinking for a while about how spending too much time at a board like this can lead to an echo chamber effect where, for example, you can't even imagine how someone could dislike lucha or still think that Bruiser Brody was a great worker. So when someone with the opposite set of views shows up, it completely disrupts the ecosystem.

In wrestling, perception is more important than reality. If people think Cena's STF looks bad, then it does.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting anyone to put Necro Butcher above Ric Flair.

I remember reading that it was Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel who made Mid-Atlantic one of the country's premier territories.

What can I say? I have many vices, of which one is a tendency to procrastinate. And it's not like I'm getting paid to post here or anything, which further lowers the sense of urgency. Beyond that, I don't particularly enjoy being confrontational, at least not over something as relatively trivial as wrestling. The upshot of all this is that the passage of time combined with things getting a bit too heated meant that I was content to let sleeping dogs lie until tomk resurrected this thread. But I hate to see you disappointed, so I'll endeavor to formulate a response worthy of your immense talents. In the meantime, here's something for you to chew on. We both agree that Cena has been grossly mismanaged. The point of disagreement is over how that came to be. I've argued that WWE wanted Cena to be a bigger star but undermined him with their incompetence, while you've argued that WWE deliberately tried to cut Cena off at the knees. I would submit that someone who would take such a counterintuitive (to put it mildly) stance isn't in much position to be embarrassed by someone else's views.