Chess Knight

Hero v Rotten from some show in 2002 is really good. Kind of Benoit/Finlay-ish but sloppier (with stiffness, still). I remember Hero taping his own leg together; he bent his knee and wrapped tape around his thigh and shin or something. I'm pretty sure you can buy the match on ClickWrestle for a buck. I tried once but something fucked up (translation- I'm pretty shitty with computers). Not long before megaupload shut down I managed to find dozens of IWA-MS on some sites. Might watch them pretty soon.

I've never thought Warrior/Savage was a great match and have tried to love it each time. Still, I find a huge appreciation for the aftermath. Brilliant stuff.

I liked the BATB tag WAYYYYYYYY more than I thought I would last year. If it wasn't for Nash's absolutely drop-dead shitty offense I would thought it was damn good.

SmackDown/ECW show from 2008. It was in Australia and most of the people were calling Egde a wanker. He got on the mic and said "I don't know what a wanker is but I am NOT A WANKER." Then ran around the outside of the ring yelling "YOU'RE A WANKER, YOU'RE A WANKER, YOU'RE A WANKER, YOU'RE A WANKER." He took forever to get in the ring (defending WHC v Batista) and Dave got on the mic and called him a "world class bona fide chickenshit." Card itself was ok, but the general experience was way more fun.

I haven't seen this Japan match that's getting talked about, but I watched Punk/Henry twice and if I didn't enjoy the IWGP thing it wouldn't be hard to say why. Most of it is just specific examples of what was good and what wasn't. Punk v Henry was awesome (hyperbolic, I guess. I mean if I used star ratings it'd be like ***1/2 but I'm picky and think that's almost great), because of a lot of reasons I still remember. Opening was Punk distancing Mark because if he got too close Mark would eat his fucking face off. Henry got past that because he's a fat man and started humiliating and yelling at Punk because he's a mean fat man. The yells of "I OWN YOU," and "DID I TELL YOU TO MOVE" were so big and dominating. Punk's sell of anything Henry did to his back was terrific and I remember those squeals and facials when he was under the ropes or near the corner. Punk tries multiple times to build offense but Henry keeping booting him (some looked NASTY btw) and keeping him from stringing anything together so we have a great little story built for a 12 minute Raw match. If Punk strung anything together Henry may have been in deep shit. Punk WAS in deep shit when Henry lapped on the bear hug and Punk pulled out the most desperate elbow flurry of his life. Looked like a truly awesome struggle and it had the suspense that at any second Henry could shrug it off and turn Punk into meatloaf. Punk finally gets more than a little offense and gets his signature "knee/bulldog," but Henry's STILL not down enough and throws him outside the ring to get a breather. Neither guy can recover- Punk isn't getting back in the ring (back's hurt/he's taken way too much b/w this and the bumps v Jericho) and Henry's shaking off cobwebs too long to do anything about it. I didn't love the finish at all, though. Maybe I asked for too much to have a definitive end to it but I doubt I'd have to exaplin why a count-out finish isn't preferrable to me. That wasn't me with a notepad, or even THINKING during the match. You just pick it up while watching it b/c you noticed it. Whenever a "review" or something is written, it's pretty much nothing more than someone writing the experience they had while watching it. Sort of. There's a better way to word these past few sentences. I'm 50-odd % sure of what you mean here, I think. I've read so-called "reviews" that are like "this was a great match with really good psychology and awesome moves. *********3/6." where they don't expand on anything. I don't want to be look-my-nose-down grump who won't take someone like that's opinion seriously, but it's hard for me to care to watch it unless they actually say something about the match that sticks out. "This was a great match with really good psychology and awesome moves" applies to thousands of matches. It doesn't have to be expanded on in a prententious way or anything, it usu. goes little further than naming which spots you liked and didn't like. Some just make an amazing visual (e.g. Henry booting Punk in the gut after Punk jumps from the turnbuckle). Explaining why one match is better than the other IS confusing. I'd have nothing but good things to say about Punk/Jericho from Mania, but I reckon Punk/Henry was better (both "really good ***1/2"-level to me). Honestly I may JUST chalk that down to the fact I'm a sucker for big man v little man. As someone who is convinced he has OCD, I love making lists but can never fucking make them in the first place. I watched the entire 1996 yearbook and had planned to make a top TEN match of the year list. I went from "top whatever I love" to "top 25 with honorable mentions" to "only top 25" to "top ten" to "fuck this." I actually got the ten matches I thought I wanted to use, but deciding on the order was torture and the only thing I was 100% sure of was that 12/6/96 was #1 and Kudo/Toyoda was #2. Comparing wrestling from different countries doesn't phase me, but just comparing wrestling matches in general can be a real hair-puller which is why I don't love to think about it unless it's an easy comparison. Ironically the problem might be I put too much thought into it. Explaining why I like a match to a casual fan (especially in-person) would be torment. I mean the chance of a casual fan talking up why they like the match other than "I liked this more than that" is really slim, but if you get into "tighter offense," "better selling," "told the story better," they'd probably look at you like you were a nut. I recently found out my friend watched wrestling for some time, and he knows more than I thought he would as far as "insider" stuff goes, but I still don't get the impression he'll be ....me-ish and think Benoit/Angle is inferior to Benoit/Finlay because of "no-selling" or "stiffness" or whatever. What those matches have to do with this...IDK, but the point is a casual fan won't be explaining any of that any time soon. I could rat on for minutes and minutes why I think Benoit/Finlay is better than Benoit/Angle, I doubt a "casual" could other than "this was boring, that was boring," "this was good, that was good." A casual fan probably won't even ask why you liked a match anyway. The great match v great match thing IS hard to explain, but how often does anyone explain it? I prefer 6/3/94 to 6/9/95 as best match ever. Can I say why? Not really. It literally goes no further other than I myself getting more emotionally compelled by the former. I last watched it on June 3rd of 2010 (was going for an every-year thing. didn't last in 2011, obv), and I got honest-to-God goosebumps watching it; there's a lot in that match to analyse but when two matches have extreme positives and little negatives, there's going to be almost no reason you prefer one to other beside personal preference. I watched the RWTL 96 final, and there's literally NOTHING wrong with that match I can remember. It was borderline perfect. Still, I just thought 6/3/94, 6/9/95, one of the Flair/Steamboats, etc. were better. Analysis counts for something but if I take the "I enjoyed it more/less" aspect away, I just won't ever enjoy pro wrestling. IDK how much of that made no-to-little sense.

Punk's been using "Cult of Personality" since he returned from his "I'm gone possibly defending the title elsewhere" period in July/August.

I'd hate to go terribly off-topic, but what was the complaint there? Did anyone expect/hope (a) HHH v RVD in 2002 to be that good or (b ) Rob to win?

Canek apparently drew massively from the mid-'70s through to the early 90s in UWA (mainly or exclusively, IDK), but I've always heard that Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras were the next tier below El Santo draws in Mexico. I've never actually gone out of my way to look deeply into that, but it's something I couldn't not read if I tried.

I think extended beat-down are something I prefer in lucha. I can't really get behind Misterio and Juventud doing move-for-move 100 km/h sprints for fifteen minutes. I don't think they've had a bad match (except the cage in early '96. Holy shit), and it's good wrestling when you leave them alone and have no shitty Konnan run-ins, but I'd much rather watch El Satanico be stooged around for a bit and think he's back in control only for one of his partners to accidentally whack him in the face. I can understand someone not wanting a finishing stretch to be too one-sided, but I don't get that vibe anyway. Also I think everybody wanting to get into lucha should watch as many 80s/90s Brazo tags as possible. Pay noticeable attention to the obese beach ball-shaped one jumping on people.

Christ the build to HHH v Jericho isn't even fit for Heat or Velocity. I mean shit, RUNNING OVER A DOG? 2002 Raw really was the shittiest.

The NWO one is really good and having Nash there as the real insider left little room for speculation. Seemed like by the end everyone at the table (I think it was Dillon/Hayes/Okerlund/Nash/Ross) was in agreement by the end that the NWO was a great thing that got worse and worse as time went on. Then there's the historical moments one from 2008 with Flair being a calm-mouthed jackass. He's seated next to Foley as well.

I've given lucha matches to guys who weren't/aren't into it, and most of the time they've preferred either brawls or emotion-fueled matches. Atlantis v Villano III 3/17/00 and Santo v Dandy v Negro 12/696 were well received by someone who really didn't love matwork heavy lucha.

Is that the one where Aja beats the shit out of Hotta's hand and brutalizes her ? Is so, yes, amazing match. Yeah. I remember pretty much cringing when Kong started to look like she was honest-to-God trying to tear out Hotta's fingers. I think Misawa/Kawada 6/3 prevents me from calling any other match that year a "match of the year contender," but Kong/Hotta's almost about as good as anything else I've seen from the year. I'd be surprised if I bought the eventual '94 yearbook and found ten better matches on it than that.

Aja Kong v Yumiko Hotta 1/24/94 belongs here, I think. Hope I'm not wrong about that match still being exceptional.

To be fair wasn't the angle that he broke Gary Wolfe's neck? It was one of the Pitbulls, I think. Douglas def got a lot of heat, though.

I've thought about in my all-too often moments of nerdy contemplation. I have a lot of stuff to see, but there's some goodies in 1984. Murdoch & Adonis v Samoans 6/16/84 Murdoch & Adonis v Briscos 12/28/84 Slaughter & JYD v Sheik & Volkoff 11/10/84 (this one may not be that great [or it might be, who knows], but a while back it was huge personal favourite of mine. Been years.) There's a bunch of Slaughter, Murdoch & Adonis and Backlund tags spread across Youtube and Dailymotion that I've never seen but have always been meaning to as well. What's everyone's viewpoint on the No Way Out 07 main event (Cena/Michaels v Taker/Batista)?

I kind of liked the SuperBrawl 8 match. Well, I guess I only liked it because I expected it to be the pure dogshit, but Hulk's belt usage was fun and he came off like the hierarch wanker that he was. I'm probably going too off topic ITT.

Uh. When? Because I don't think I've ever seen such a dramatic before/after contrast in ring skills as there was with Sting after his gimmick change. Most of the time he looked like he'd completely given up and was just running through the motions. (Especially memorable was his godawful performance at Halloween Havoc '98, when he dragged the worst match I've ever seen from Bret Hart.) Every once in a while he'd seem to wake up and have a better-than-expected match with random folks like DDP or Sid, but mostly it's like it wasn't even the same guy. Oddly, it seems like he tries harder in TNA than he did in late-90s WCW, but by then his body was shot and you could tell that he couldn't do the stuff he wanted to anymore. Sting had some really good matches in 1999 (albeit, to me, surprisingly). v DDP 4/26 smokes any other WCW match from 99 through to the end. 9/20 v Benoit rocks, and 4/12 v Flair felt like Sting had never changed from the late 80s. I'm not going to touch on the HHH stuff, but yeah, I went through some 99 WCW recently and Sting stuck out to me as a "holy shit he isn't completely sucking like I expected but is actually pretty damn good" wrestler during the period.

I'll never stop watching wrestling, but current programming.....I barely followed it for two years. I got into past things really early and became hooked on that instead. I watch Raw and SmackDown surprisingly often (Eh on Raw; that's been too bad too long), but it's mostly if I hear something good from a 'net poster or if there are no good sitcoms on. Or if I'm excited to see a weekly act like I was for Bryan and Henry in recent months. But yeah, been watching wrestling (as in, from all eras/companies/whatever) and won't stop that, evah.

I don't love or hate the series as a whole. The late 03 was a favourite of mine years ago and I'd probably still like it if I watched it now. I liked SummerSlam and could tolerate the HIAC. Everything else is either "eh" (Royal Rumble 04) or terrible (Boot Camp from Troops Trbiute, 3 stages of hell). Shawn and Trip worked a match in 96 where Shawn used Hunter's nose for this and that; that's probably the out-right funnest match they had againt each other.

Trip being good when not overly trying tends to be the unviersal opinion around people who don't like the guy. I like him myself, but I can totally see where that's spawned from. Check any 2003 Title match where H is basically a tenth-rate Ric Flair impersonator, and the match usually stinks. Then look at him just actually like a dick without trying to put on a "clinic" or w/e in the SummerSam 04 match v Eugene; that ruled.

Pretty sure that Rey v Tajiri is 1/1/04. Here's a pile of other Rey v Tajiris in the 'E: SD 8/1/02- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivnLJPuZ18...feature=related Sometime in 03 [EDIT- 4/9/03, apparently]- No Mercy 03- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM6MVox1El4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721JscxmQTE SD 9/25/03- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K03e9i9bprc...feature=related SD 2/12/04- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqWOUDYWQ4Y

In his sleep...God, I really couldn't imagine what that's like. RIP.

Is it (Tajiri v Lobo) this one? EDIT- Fuck I didn't even see Dylan post the link.

I've heard from a ton of different sources that Meltzer was a *****-giver on Magnum v Blanchard. Anyone know how much truth there is to that?