NintendoLogic

That Bret write-up is pretty spot-on, but I would note that plenty of people, myself included, consider the Survivor Series match with Austin superior to the Wrestlemania one. In fact, I think it's the greatest US match of all time.

I don't know if the MLB/WWE analogy really works. The antipathy MLB owners have for the players is easy to explain. They've never been able to break the player's union the way their counterparts in the NFL, NBA, and NHL have. Tearing the players down may have made baseball less popular, but class solidarity trumps self-interest. The WWE, on the other hand, doesn't even have a union. There's no rational reason for them to tear down their own workers.

What El-P said. Great matches aren't necessarily the end-all be-all, but I don't know what else you'd use as a starting point.

Wait, what? I have a hard time seeing how something other than great matches could be a better determinant of who a great worker is. If you want to argue that no one working in the US in the 90s had enough truly great matches for this to be a relevant consideration, I can see that. Otherwise, I think this is way off.

Someone needs to go back in time and tell that to 2000 Jim Ross. More than anything, I think this shows how the term "technical wrestler" has become completely meaningless and is simply a synonym for "good wrestler."

Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team. It doesn't count.

I don't think Jericho belongs. By his own admission, he had no real understanding of psychology until he got to the WWF and learned from Pat Patterson. I'm at eight. Bret's the clear #1. Then, in no particular order, I've got Shawn, Austin, Vader, Foley, Eddy, Rey, and Owen.

But Bret has US citizenship through his mother.

How did Bret 'open' anything for WWF in Europe? They successfully ran England, Ireland, Germany and other countries in 91 and 92 before he was an established main eventer. He was a top guy on several successful overseas shows (which judging from Cawthorn's site) which were pretty loaded, but then the same thing happened in '95 with Nash mainly on top. Rather than give anyone undue credit, it's probably more a case of WWF in general being over and the novelty of them coming overseas with most of the talent that was the real draw. I need to re-up my subscription, but I recall seeing something in the WON or F4W about Bret's international drawing power. And I'm pretty sure Vince himself has said that Bret was his biggest international draw.

Bret was a better worker and a better draw than Sting, both by a significant margin. In the 90s, only Austin, Hogan, Taker, Rock, and Foley headlined more 10000+ shows than Bret. Sting isn't in the top 15 on that list. And Sting didn't open up any markets for WCW the way Bret opened up Europe for the WWF.

I agree completely. The way I see it, in-ring ability can be broken down into longevity, versatility, and peak performance. Jumbo is my pick for GOAT because he's the only one I'd consider great in all three categories. Funk's a solid #2, though. It's a shame we never got to see middle-aged and crazy Terry go up against grumpy old man Jumbo.

Something tells me that the extent of this guy's "shot-o-kon" [sic] karate background is picking Ryu in Street Fighter. And what possible reason would he have to keep his finisher a secret? It must be some ridiculous Canadian Destroyer-esque move that he can't generate any heat without.

This match is neck-and-neck with Joe/Necro for the title of "best match I never want to see again." This literally made me physically ill.

That Orndorff video was like a cross between Chris Masters' original entrance and Rob Conway's theme when he was The Con Man. As for ROH, is the term "American Strong Style" still in vogue or have they moved on to something even stupider?

SNME was a huge flop on a major broadcast network. I don't see a Clash-type show on a c-tier subscription network doing any better.

Man, Kobashi looks like shit. But his theme is still awesome. There was a post by I think Johnny Sorrow about how the Godfather should have just come out with his hos, done a lap around the ring, and headed on to the back. That's pretty much where I'm at with Kobashi now. He should come out to Grand Sword, bow to the audience, and walk on back. Also, that match really needed Dusty Rhodes on commentary. HE'S GOT AN UMBRELLA!

There's also the fact that for a lot of wrestlers, it's all they know how to do because it's all they've ever done. Manami Toyota has been wrestling since she was 16. What the fuck else is she going to do, go work on the Human Genome Project? This might not be the case as much in the future, though, since more people seem to be coming into the business with college degrees.

I've been thinking a bit about 80s New Japan lately, and with the news of Vince's most recent blowup backstage, I thought it might be fun to compare arguably the two most successful wrestling promoters of all time. On the one hand, Vince never bought an island from Fidel Castro or made plans to promote an event in North Korea to commemorate the 100th birthday of Kim Il-Sung. On the other hand, Inoki actually managed to win an election.

I heard it was the ring bell shot that did it. Apparently, the beatdown after Cody started bleeding was longer than the events preceding it, which kind of surprised me.

My preference is definitely for discussing matches and wrestlers. It's just that it's hard to do sometimes. Most of the recent stuff isn't really worth discussing in much detail, and it's difficult to come up with anything original or insightful about the old stuff because it's already been discussed to death.

If you were American, you'd know that tax cuts pay for themselves.

Some guy posted it on DVDVR. He didn't source it either.

The bigger question I have is what kind of spell she has over Morrison that he'd put up with all the shit she's causing to rain down on his head. At this point, he makes Doug Christie look like Ike Turner.

I thought it was a 2/3 falls match with one of the falls being an Iron Man match? Yeah. But setting aside the fact that I don't want to see anyone in ROH in an iron man match of any description, having one as the final fall is basically begging them to disregard the first two falls entirely and squeeze as many nearfalls as they can into a 15-minute window. Not that they need an excuse, of course.