Yo-Yo's Roomie

Edge's Edgercator leg lock (I think). Show also had that Cobra Clutch backbreaker.

As I said, I haven't seen it since it happened, so my memory could be bang wrong. When I get to it in my watching I'll check back in to this thread and give my thoughts.

I'm not the kind of guy who can just whittle off match lists for wrestlers, but off the top of my head, I really liked his stuff with MVP (the Mania match is sneaky good), the Summerslam match with RVD, the feud with Booker where they revisited the best-of-7, of course his stuff with Regal and Finlay, he was the best part of the Mania triple threat with Hunter and Shawn, I think I liked his feud with JBL, I remember a surprisingly good match with The Miz when Miz first started wrestling regularly, I thought the match with Eddie at the first One Night Stand was really good, though I haven't seen that since watching it live, I'm sure there was other good stuff with Eddie too from that time period, the Summerslam match with Orton was pretty good considering Orton's experience level, and I know I really liked the title defence against Kane at whatever ppv that was. I'm a couple of months into 2003 in my WWE B ppv watching, so I'll probably be able to add to this list and be more concrete about some things as I move forward. It's also possible there'll be things that don't hold up for me as well as I thought they would. What are the great pre-Benoit feud Angle matches?

At worst I'd say Benoit and Angle brought out the worst in each other, but I think it's a stretch to say wrestling Benoit a lot had a lot (or anything) to do with Angle's decline as a worker. The reality is more that Angle brought out some terrible traits in Benoit, since Benoit was always a really strong seller, and was having good to great matches with a wide range of opponents before and after wrestling Angle.

Shawn's move was the Teardrop suplex.

I thought the match with Punk at the Royal Rumble was really, really good. But that was largely due to an excellent Punk performance. Still, I'll take Rocky over Cena all day long. Rock can make pretty much anything watchable with his charisma. I watched the Hogan rematch the other day and Rock pretty much carried it with his heeling. I mean, it had virtually nothing else going for it, but the Rock still made it worthwhile. I think Rock sells better too. I know I like his comebacks more.

When I first started working night shifts, to help me get to sleep during the day I would put on Japanese wrestling, not because I find the matches boring, but because I find the commentary soporific. Now I work too much so can fall asleep to anything.

Crash Holly as a Moore-on.

It's a matter of kayfabe though, isn't it? In kayfabe terms, being the world champion should supersede everything, but in real terms we know that being in the main event of WrestleMania, even if losing, probably means more. And they've really driven that home hard, with the idea of the WrestleMania moment being the holy grail for these guys. It's just another version of the wanting to have a great match/steal the show Vs wanting to win debate.

I would say there should be an element of believability to it, especially for a babyface who bases most of his matches on a long heel control section leading to a big comeback. I don't really see any authenticity in Hogan's selling, and that makes it hard for me to invest emotionally in his struggle. I would argue that he isn't really gaining sympathy through his selling, rather that he has the crowd's sympathy because he's Hulk Hogan. I guess I'd simplify it by saying that selling to me is acting, and Hogan is a terrible actor.

Putting that one example aside, I just don't see a case for Hogan as a great seller. I like Hogan a fair bit, but if I was going to make a case for him for a list like this it would be based on charisma, and timing of his comebacks, and not on selling.

I can't buy into the idea of Hogan as a great seller, let alone one of the greatest of all time. His selling was far too cartoonish, and goofy, and over-the-top. Not to mention not very logical. I just watched some of his stuff with Hennig, and he sells the neck-snap by jumping up to his feet and holding his throat like he's just been choked. It looked really ridiculous.

December To Dismember has to be worth a mention.

WCW at the NEC in Birmingham. March of '93 I believe. Main was Sting and Dustin Rhodes Vs Paul Orndorff and Barry Windham in a lights out, bunkhouse match. Vader defended the world title against Cactus Jack.

No-one will challenge Flair. He'll take the top spot handily.

I, for one, hope you keep going with this. I enjoy your reviews of bad wrestling, even if I don't always agree with you (I loved the Flair/Foley Summerslam match, for example).

Almost did a spit take when I read this. Dude lies in holds all the time. He'd always do that face lock spot where he'd smother a guy. We must have seen different matches, because to me he's a master of doing stuff while in holds.

I've seen him work face. I just don't know that he was particularly great at it. To me it's a huge feather in your cap if you can be great at both heel and face. But, as I said, when you're one of the best ever heels, I can forgive you not being a great face.

Genuine top 10 contender, possibly top 5. Such a talented wrestler. Great at working the mat. Has lots of longer matches with a lot of working holds, and what I really like about Rose is that he never just sits in a hold. Whether he's applying the hold, or the recipient of the hold, he's always working, selling, mugging, grabbing for some hair, wrenching, looking for an out. The guy had an abundant supply of shit he could do to fill a match. He could stall, play to the crowd, beg off, primp and pose, and my favourite, the challenge his opponent to a contest of athletic feats spot (here's a nip-up, can you do a nip-up?). Buddy Rose doing athletic spots even when the pounds really starting to pile on is one of my favourite things in wrestling. Only Porky is a more entertaining fat guy doing athletic things. Rose has great comedy spots, and was a great stooge, but he could turn it on and get serious, had a great mean streak, and was really effective targeting an injured body part or a cut, and just looking like a real dangerous guy. Could brawl. Excellent tag worker. I've never seen Buddy shit the bed, and it's not like he was in there with great talents a lot of the time. To me, Buddy is the quintessential territory heel, the guy you love to hate who can have a good match with just about anyone. The only possible knock against him is I don't know how well he worked as a babyface, but if you're an all-time great heel, it maybe doesn't matter that much.

I've just been watching Buddy Rogers matches from the 50s where his piledriver is played up as a 'nobody is getting up from that' kind of move. He won a fall in a 2/3 falls match with it, and his opponent couldn't even recover to continue into the next fall. It was weird watching the 80s lucha set, where piledrivers weren't really that big of a deal. Did the piledriver as death move in lucha start with the Art Barr/Blue Panther angle, or before that?

I think Benoit and Jericho for sure should have been pushed to the main event. Neither were probably cut out to be 'the man', but both I think would have been accepted as top tier guys. WCW had so many over midcard guys that it's really criminal that none of them were really given a chance to do something at the top of the card.

Does Cena really have escalating finishers? Okay, he has the super-AA, but he rarely busts that out. It's usually just repeated AAs or STFs. Bret was a guy who didn't really have a knock-out shot, but had a wealth of wrestling knowledge to fall back on if his chosen finish didn't work. I guess if he came around now he might have a signature pinfall finish, but I don't think it was really prevalent back then to have more than one finisher. Bret would never do anything as stupid as a springboard stunner, which is another reason he takes this easily for me.

Kawada, Misawa, Kobashi, Taue. I don't think anyone in wrestling has ever come across as a bigger badass than Kawada. You could put him across the ring from Brock Lesnar and I'd say poor Brock.

Goldust also had a great 2002, a great 2009 (I think it was 09) and a great 2014, and probably other good years in between.

You would think that Vince, in general, would want everyone on his roster, male and female, to reach their full potential to make him money, but apparently he doesn't. He's the most successful wrestling promoter ever, but he's left so much money on the table (be it through pettiness, short-sightedness, misreading his audience, or whatever) it's ridiculous. I'm not gonna claim sexism against anyone who doesn't think a diva match could headline a ppv, but it does seem an awfully old-fashioned point of view, particularly in a post-Rousey world, a world where Jennifer Lawrence is a huge action star, where Peter Jackson created a female character to draw in the female demo for the Hobbit franchise, where Serena and Maria are bigger draws than most of the men in tennis, etc. Even with its reputation for booking women like shit/as filler, WWE has still had some really over female wrestlers in the recent past. I'm rewatching all the B ppvs, and am up to 2002. Trish is getting pops on a par with most but the upper-tier guys. Lita is consistently one of the most over acts in the company, and has been since she first hooked up with Hardys. Shit, I watched Lita challenge Chyna for the women's title, and the crowd reaction was unlike anything I've heard before. It was like the fans were getting angry at Lita for not making more of the few windows of offence she was allowed. Really weird dynamic, but certainly a very visceral genuine connection between performer and crowd. In fact, if you put the Lita from 2001 into modern WWE, she might just be the most over act in the company, and certainly wouldn't look out of place at the top of the card. More recently you had AJ Lee who was consistently getting pops on par with most of the guys. There was a tonne of buzz around Kharma, and I think she could have easily been a top of the card attraction. I don't think anyone is suggesting you could headline a show with Natalya Vs Alicia Fox (and those are two of the more well-thought of females, work-wise) anymore than you could headline a show with Tyson Kidd Vs Damien Sandow, but I think it's clear that there is a bunch of room for growth in the divas division, and I see no reason why that couldn't result in a couple of the girls working on top one day.