Chess Knight

If you're starting in 2005 then that means you should be going through the SmackDown 2006 run. And SmackDown 2006 = Am I the only one that gets a youtube video when clicking this link?

I've been enjoying what's been wrote here a ton, but I'm more inclined to go this way as well. I can understand why Flair's spots and the logic behind are discussed (esp. when you watch something and wonder why in the hell Ric would even try it), but some of it is just to "give the crowd what they want" from a non-kayfabe standpoint. I don't exactly remember where I read this, but Flair said he did the same stuff over and over because he saw Ray Stevens live as a fan (or youngster wrestler) and was disappointed because Stevens didn't use his signature stuff. Ric wouldn't want a person leaving the show saying "I really wish I saw Flair get tossed off of the rope like at the Great American Bash" or something.

It's not just you. Honestly they were dull as shit and I hardly like them much better as babyfaces.

I don't like the TLC matches (outside of the one on SmackDown 5/01), but this is generally what i feel about separating "good" from "favourite". I don't know if this brings up anything about psychology or story-telling (two terms which i hate using in wrestling), but I've enjoyed matches that were flat-out bad and felt good matches were not really my thing. I'll use the 96 yearbook as an example: Liger v Kanemoto 4/1/96- realistically, there's nothing wrong with this match. Had nice moves, everything looked good, and nothing bringing it down. But shit, I got a little bored watching it. Idk if it was the shitty crowd or the fact I had seen the moves done a lot already before, but I'd almost never care to watch it again. Psicosis v Ultraman 18/1/96- well, this started out as a pretty "good" match, but it eventually turned into pretty much a dog shit of a wrestling match with other luchadores coming in and peforming thir own moves for no other reason than to seemingly want the crowd ooh-ing and ah-ing over them. Still, tranwreck or not, I liked this, had fun with it, and it made it me laugh at times because of how silly it got. If I had to say which match was objectively better, I'd probably say it was Liger v Kanemoto, but I have no shame in liking the pile of mess that was Psicosis v Ultraman. This is probably the big reason I stopped using star ratings. They're great for "this is what I thoguth of the match in one word," but if i had wrote how much i liked Psicosis v Ultraman and then plunked ** at the end, it wouldn't do what i wanted (this isn't a jab at snowflakes, btw). ---------- As far as "psychology" and "storytelling" go, I don't know if I'd say it was overrated or too much of pre-requisite, but I think i can be taken too seriously. 90s All Japan is an example. I mean, yeah, there's brilliant continuity through the deacde and they play off of stuff from the past really well, but I've seen a lot of people say that 90s AJ should be watched almost in order to really "get" it. I would say there's some stuff you wouldn't "get" if you hadn't watched a previous match, but if a guy out of the blue watches Misawa v Kawada 3/6/94 and doesn't know of the stuff with the leg, or the Jumbo v Tenryu references, or the finish not being used in years, etc. etc, I'd highly doubt he'd not enjoy just because of that.

Nobuhiko Takada/Kiyoshi Tamura v Yoji Anjoh/Jim Boss (UWFi 30/7/91) --Went around a half hour, and it got pretty draining after a while. I could have watched three hours os Tamura v Anjoh though, the first match-up they had in particular had some ridiculously cool shit. The Takada v Boss stuff was as boring as anything I've watched in a long time. Their first match up had me so bored that i was getting more interested in the fact that the ceiling looked to have sprung a leak and was dripping water in the ring. Either that or I imagined something to keep me watching. I felt embarrassed for Boss pretty much the whole match- whiffed kicks, awful stances, pretty avasive on anything. I'm not a Takada fan at all either, and I found it mostly dull as shit whenever he was on offense, but he had some nice stuff which popped the crowd with a kick or soemthing else. Pretty sure the crowd got a laugh out of Boss at some points. Tamura and Anjoh ruled and did what they could, but Takada and Boss' seeming refusal to....do anything.... was frustrating. This was "Kiyoshi and Yoji."

http://prograps.blogspot.com/ Most of what I've wrote about in here is WCW stuff. Pardon the spelling errors because I'm a fast and quite lousy typer.

Watched the entire second disc of the set yesterday, and I said "Buddy was a better promo than I thought" earlier in the thread, and.... I think he's better than I thoguth after thinking what kind of promo he was (or something). Really loved the Snuka one and the interview where he was talking about beign compared to Ray Stevens. Not sure what my favourite match of the disc was, but the Snuka match was better than i thought it'd be and probably the best Snuka singles I've seen. LOVED the match with Mando as well; thought Buddy was the perfect stooging dick to Mando's Mexican good-guy-who-can-do-the-moves-that-you-can't fury. I need more Mando. Watching a really young Tenryu (it WAS him wasn't it?) wrestle in San Fransisco as a sort of rookie underdog was a little weird. The hyped match with Ventura- was it not taped/didn't air or was it took sucky to put on the set?

Didn't think this was that bad, thought it was a lot better than the awful chunk-blowing pile of dogshit that was their strap match.

I tend to agree with this, but I'm still not seeing any Steamboat that's as bad (maybe "bad" isn't the word) than some of the Tito I remember that came from the 90s. Again though, I haven't watched a single Tito thing in a while, so I have no idea what I'd think of the stuff now. Still, a flat out bad Ricky Steamboat match escapes me and I'm not sure how he isn't at least "consistant." if I listed all the good/even above average stuff he was involved in in a year like 1992, it'd likely be a huge list.

I'm not here to shoot anybody down. Unsuprisingly this is boiling down to different tastes in the long run. I haven't watched every match you mentioned there, but I really enjoyed the 88 Rude match, 92 Pillman match and Regal matches (*really* enjoyed would be overstating that because I actually was a little disappointed with them). If I have the right match in mind then I remember thinking the Sheik match was fun as well. Been years since I watched some of them, and my tastes have done an enormous change, but if I went and watched them today I doubt I'd think they were poor. "For me, Steamboat needs his opponent to have a good night to have a good match" This interested me when I first read it, because at first I thought, "I def. don't agree with that," and then I tried to cook up some examples and can't. There's tons of examples of a match being more of a "The Steamboat Show" than a "The _Steamboat's_Opponent_ Show," but I don't remember a really good Steamboat match with a poor opponent. Maybe the Honky stuff? I should probably stay away from a Tito Santana talk. I get the idea I'm less of a Tito fan than a good chunk of people and honestly haven't watched a match of his in....probably a good 20 months. Wouldn't surprise me if I went back and loved a bunch of his stuff, but I would be surprised if I thought he was pulling better matches and performances than Ricky Steamboat. Again, though, I won't say for sure for now. Flew off topic there for a bit. re:Tenryu- Yeah, there's a lot of Tenryu I have yet to see, but from what I've watched the guy really starts hitting "it" somewhere in 88. Idk if "bland" is the word, but if someone read about all the Tenryu love and then goes to watch nothing but pre-88 Tenryu then they'd probably be let down a little. I'd still say he had enough good and little enough bad to call him cosistant during that time, though. Another most consistant: Terry Funk? What's the *truly* bad Terry Funk? Or, even, the "less than average"?

I doubt you'll find a wrestler without their fair share of sucky matches. Even with that I can't really recall a truly sucky Steamboat match, and I'd definitely take the worst stuff I've seen from him over the worst Tito Santana. -- How good a pick is Tenryu for most consistant?

Didn't even think of Taker for hit and miss, but yeah that seems about as suitable as anything. I'm finding it a little hard to think of anyone more straight-up consistant than Rey Mysterio or Ricky Steamboat. They have their "lows," but I think it's more off a "Rey Mysterio in 1999 is kind of disappointing compared to Rey Mysterio in 1997" rather than "Rey Mysterio in 1999 wasn't any good."

I think Vince said KOTR 95 was the first time he had really noticed the ECW chants and how popular the company was getting. Choosing Mabel v Savio Vega as the King of the Ring final probably doesn't help WWF look like a good company to them Philly fans either.

I still haven't watched Parka/Mesias from last year, but I think Panther/Mariachi is the only thing fucking with this for "best AAA match I've seen." I remember the third fall being insane.

Haven't watched this since 2009, but back then I thought 6/94 and the Clash Flair/Steamboat were the only matches I'd ever seen competitive with this. It's been two and a half years, and having watched an enormous amount of great matches, I keep the opinion I had back then. I've seen good heap of people on other forums (some of which hadn't watched 10 puro matches in their life), watch this for the first time in the last year and name it the greatest match ever bar none.

I don't think Wight was entirely the victim (for lack of a better term) here either. He should have cut it out the first time it was stopped. Watching him trying to keep going back to that promo every time it was interrupted was uncomfortable. He'd get attacked and then go back the same sentence, and then it just ended with him trying to satrt it again, "I sat at that table-" and the NWO tipped the announce table over. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4e9sr_fo...of-doom-8_sport It gets interrupted at 10:07 or so, then he goes back to it on 11:07. Hulk comes in with the car/Arnie stuff and then Wight goes back to it AGAIN at 11:50 to be cut off a second later. I don't blame Hulk for stopping it, but I feel embarrassed for Wight every time I see it.

That stuck out in my mind the most. I'll probably skip over that end part once I get to it again. I felt sorry for Wight looking like a green fool trying to cut this seemingly pre-planned promo while everyone else is screwing it up for him.

This smokes a hole in anything else I've seen from RVD. I thought Rob looked a hell of a lot better here than he did anywhere else. Kroffat was doing the load, but I got an Austin v Angle vibe where wrestler A is sort of "leading" wrestler B without it being a complete carryjob, but wrestler B couldn't have a match like this with anyone else.

Haven't seen this in a while, but the last time I did I adored about as much as I ever had. El Samurai awakening pissed off "don't touch my fucking mask" Jushin Liger is one of my favourite things ever.

Earl Hebner annoys me to no end. His two counts are absolutely awful and you can almost nwo that the wrestler will kick just because Earl changes body position every time. I love watching him getting wiped out at SummerSlam 95 by Mabel. Was watching some 96 BattlARTS recently, and the ref there has this habit of yelling "GIVE UP, GIVE UP, ESCAPE, ESCAPE, GIVE UP" whenever someone's in a submission move. He's likely told to do that, to ask them if they give up, but I'd rather he'd not yell and scream single words. I honestly can't say there's any referees I truly like. The best ones are the ones I'd take no notice of.

What's the reason Benoit/Regal 23/9 didn't make it?

Liking this thread a lot. Started watching the comp of Rose last week that Goodhelmet put together, and him throwing up in the middle of the bloody ring after Lonnie Mayne dropped on him was surreal. Buddy was a better promo than I thought, the one with him having a bloody head and him talking about watching his own blood drip into his hands was terrific. I'm also kind of surprised how much I like Ed Wiskowski. Always gotten the impression he was just "there" from others before this stuff.

Didn't like that cage a whole bunch when I watched it years ago; hoping I like it next time because I love GAB 07 between Jeff and Umaga. Overall, I like 2008 WWE a fair bit. I think there's more under-the-radar stuff than people seem to know. Michaels/Jericho had their feud, which can get really overrated, but is still good. I liked the Unforgiven and GAB ones a lot on last watch. I've still never watched the Michaels/Batista Stretcher from One Night Stand (which ties in the to Michaels/Flair/Jericho story), but that's supposedly a goodie. Edge has his feud with Taker, and it's..ok, but outside the HIAC (which I hardly like anyway), nothing is worth too much. The TLC especially is horrid. Cena/Orton from No Way out is something I liked, and others I talk to tend to worshp it, but I haven't seen it since it aired. Rey and Punk had a really good one at Armageddon. I like HHH's year a lot. Being a fan of him more than....I suspect anyone else here helps enjoy it, but it's a big step up from what he doing in DX before injury and again in 09. Doesn't have anything blow-away great, but I could see anyone liking something from him that year. There's a nifty set of stuff on TV. ECW has a lot of cool stuff with the midcard guys. Chavo/Punk had a really good series. I remember a Chavo/Bourne being talked up somewhere, probably Segunda Caida. I remember an Undertaker/Festus being talked up as well at WKO. A Finlay/Mike Knox belfast brawl took place that year IIRC and I remember digging it.There's a Flair/Michaels v Chavo/Edgeheads/Edge (was Edge in it?) cage match before WrestleMania which I've seen get praise. Unless my memory's fucking with me, Matt Hardy had a good year overall. I remember him feuding with Chuck Palumbo and Mark Hnery at points. Speaking of Chuck, Jamie Noble had this program with him, got a win over him, and started wearing a t-shirt which read "Noble 1, Pulambo 0" (With Palumbo misspelt and everything). I think Regal had a chunk of good stuff, 2008 was his King of the Ring push which he screwed over in favour of substances. He had a couple of matches with CM Punk that I liked. No Mercy's my favourite WWE show of 08 by a lot. Most prefer Mania, and I like Michaels/Flair, JBL/Fit (which doesn't get the love it deserves, btw) and Show/Money a lot, but the rest of the card doesn't do anything for me at all. No Mercy has the Hunter/Hardy I like a ton, the good Show/Taker, a surprisingly watchable Kane/Rey, a good Henry/Hardy, a fine-for-what-it-is divas match, and the Michaels/Jericho ladder match which I like (albeit not as much as most). Taker/Show LMS from Cyber Sunday would be my WWE MOTY. The whole program between is good (bar the crappy casket match from whenever); I def. prefer it to Edge/Taker. I've talked too much about the positive and not as much on the negative (Kane/Rey was a waste of Rey fuckin' Mysterio, Chavo/Horny was in 2008, wasn't it?), and made this post a random mess, but take it for what it's worth.

Watched this a while back and adored it. Thought it was about as good a match as I've seen from either guy, and I *might* call this the best non-All Japan singles of '95 I've seen. Thought it was at least as good as any Benoit/Finlay/Regal combo match as well.