Yo-Yo's Roomie

Such a weird segment when you have arguably the most hated heel on the roster threatening to leave the company ace off the biggest show of the year, and then playing to the fans when they agree with her.

I think X-Pac/Shane is also a decent match from 15. I mean, it's still a rotten show, but not a total one-match show.

WM5 seems low. Solid matches like Haku/Hercules, Rockers/Twin Towers, Perfect/Blazer and Brain Busters/Strike Force, and then good matches in Rude/Warrior and Hogan/Savage. I'd put it top 15 probably.

What gets me about New Day is the undercurrent of "hey, black people, you may not be accepted on the level of white people, but if you just have a positive attitude and accept your lot, you can still have fun".

Lots of Alan Sarjeant. Black Terry in his physical prime. Bock. Mocho Cota. These are the ones that stand out right now.

The latest Sight and Sound film of the year poll had contributors also pick the best TV show of the year. One critic (Robert Greene) picked WWE Raw (specifically from January to April). Elsewhere, contributor Tim Lucas had See No Evil 2 as one of the 5 best films of the year, calling it a "joyfully manipulative theatrical experience, full of life and humour", and praising Kane for his "Brando-in-his-prime-like command of his craft". Okay, not that last bit.

I just watched this while researching Panther for the GOAT project, and thought it was fan-fucking-tastic. I ran a search to try to find some other opinions on it, but have a hard time navigating the search function here. This was just incredible to me though. Panther just pelting Villano with topes, both men ripping the other's masks off, Villano getting busted open hardway, Perrito Aguayo being a scummy prick on the outside, the fans being so exultant it literally seemed like they were praising Jesus at the finish... Just an absolutely captivating experience.

Shouldn't they be finding a way to get those Bryan fans to show up at house shows? Or generally finding a way to parlay his overness into making more money for them?

Waltman was the best WWF wrestler in 99, I think. It isn't saying a lot, but he was really good that year. The best at making those throwaway Attitude Era undercard matches seem meaningful. Great babyface worker, good heel worker too. I'll take Arn out of the two though.

WWE Monday Night Raw, April 6th 2015 Lawler is back on commentary, with no mention made to his 'heart attack' last week. The show opens with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, Kane, the Big Show, and the new WWE champion, Seth Rollins. They all gloat about their masterplan from the previous week, which resulted in Seth winning the title. Brock Lesnar's music hits, and Paul Heyman comes out. He says he thought they were on the same page, but obviously not. Brock isn't there tonight, but he has resigned one of his former charges, and issues a challenge to any member of the Authority. Triple H is reluctant, but Kane accepts the challenge. When we come back from commercial, the Authority are still in the ring. Rollins talks about being the architect of the Shield, and how he is the only former Shield member to wear gold. Triple H talks about the stipulation from last week, which stated that if Bryan didn't win the WWE title, he would be fired. He says that unfortunately, Bryan couldn't get the job done, and has been fired. Brie Bella comes out, and accuses Triple H and Stephanie of being jealous of Bryan and his popularity. Stephanie says she'll give Brie a chance to win back Bryan's job. Tonight it will be a Summerslam rematch- Brie Vs Stephanie. Brie does the yes chant, but Stephanie adds the caveat that Brie will be defending Nikki's Divas title in the match. Up next is Piper's Pit with Roman Reigns. Reigns talks about how much he respects the fans, and their right to cheer or boo whoever they want. Dean Ambrose comes out. He says he's sick of being an afterthought, and that winning the Shield triple threat last week proves he's the real star of the Shield. He complains about how the fan support got him nowhere, while Reigns and Rollins got everything handed to them. Piper gives Ambrose a verbal dressing down, calling him a cheap Roddy Piper knock-off. Ambrose goes to attack Piper, but Reigns knocks him out with a superman punch. John Cena comes out and he, Reigns and Piper celebrate. Dolph Ziggler in action next. Dolph Ziggler Vs Cesaro The announcers talk about how Dolph has a date with Kendall later tonight, based on their backstage segment last week. Dolph beats Cesaro with the sleeper in about 5 minutes. Backstage Brie apologises to Nikki for getting her involved in her issues with Stephanie again. Nikki says she's fine with it, because she has total faith in Brie defending her title for her. Blockbuster announcement: tonight, Reigns and Cena challenge the Usos for the tag team titles. Fandango and Rosa Vs Sami Zayn and Emma Zayn and Emma win a short comedy match, and celebrate by dancing. The Big Show's music hits, and he comes out. he does the Carlton with Zayn and Emma, but then knocks Zayn out. Emma looks impressed with Show. Bray Wyatt comes out and cuts a promo in the ring, talking about how he cast aside his family last week, and saying that soon he will be a champion. Rowan comes out and attacks Bray. He whips him into the steel steps as we go to commercial. We come back from commercial to join a stairs match between Bray and Rowan in progress. Bray Wyatt Vs Rowan- Stairs match The announcers talk about the stairs match being Rowan's speciality, as he loses in about 7 minutes. Luke Harper is watching on a monitor backstage. Dolph Ziggler walks by, all spruced up for his date. Harper looks him up and down, and says "you clean up purty". Ziggler looks concerned as he walks away. The Usos Vs Roman Reigns and John Cena Reigns and Cena win the tag titles in a good 3 minute back and forth match. Afterwards, dissension is teased between the Usos. Backstage segment with Triple H and Stephanie talking about her match later. Stephanie says she beat Brie once, and she'll do it again, but adds that Nikki will be banned from ringside for the match. A hype video is shown for the Vigilante Sting. In it he says that next week he'll make his intentions clear. Dolph Ziggler is on his date with Kendall. It isn't actually Kendall Jenner, but Charlotte with dyed black hair. No mention is made of Charlotte ever having been on the roster, or that this is a different girl to Kendall Jenner. They are in a restaurant, and Dolph buys her a rose. Someone asks Dolph for an autograph, and Dolph obliges, which impresses Kendall. Kane Vs Heyman's client Heyman introduces his new resignee as Ryback. Kane and Ryback have a 15 minute match, which Ryback eventually wins with a schoolboy. Ryback works heel. The Miz Vs Kofi Kingston Miz wins in about 4 minutes. New Day surround Miz after the match, but a masked man comes out and makes the save for the Miz. The announcers speculate that the masked man could be Mizdow. Back to Dolph on his date. They've finished dinner now, and are sharing a dessert. Dolph asks for the check, but realizes he doesn't have his wallet on him. The Ascension Vs 2 local jobbers The Ascension win the squash. JBL challenges either of them to a cowbell match next week. They accept. Ron Simmons comes out and says Damn. Dolph and Charlotte are washing dishes in the restaurant. The restaurant manages quips that he wants Dolph to show off his dishwashing skills. It's main event time. Brie comes out ready to go. Stephanie comes out and says that she's already beaten Brie once before, and doesn't need to do it again. Instead she's chosen a proxy to fight for her, and introduces Tamina. Brie Bella Vs Tamina Tamina dominates, but Brie fires up and makes a comeback. Steph tries to get involved, but Nikki Bella comes out. Steph knocks down Nikki, and she and Tamina double team Brie. Daniel Bryan's music hits, and Bryan comes out to a huge pop. Brie hits the Bella Buster on Tamina and covers, but Bryan pulls the ref off at 2. Brie looks at Bryan confused. Tamina superkicks Brie and pins her, making Steph the new Divas champion. Nikki gets in Bryan's face, but then the two make-out. Nikki pie-faces Brie and she and Bryan make out, while Stephanie does yes chants with the Divas title on the ramp.

Having binged a bit on Bison recently, I don't think she has much of a case for a list like this. Here's my pros and cons: Pros I think Jungle Jack were a good team. She and Aja worked well together, and had an aura about them. Very expressive worker, and had a lot of fire. She could take a hell of a beating. I just watched Jungle Jack Vs Bull and Grizzly Iwamoto, and she just gets murdered. One tough cookie. Cons As a singles wrestler, I think she was at her best against smaller girls, who she could outmuscle and bully around. Otherwise she didn't really seem imposing enough for the way she worked. I also think she didn't really impress herself on her matches enough. She wasn't a dominant enough figure, and almost seemed a passenger in a lot of the matches I saw her in. While she was solid in most areas, she didn't really stand out to me as being great at any one thing. Those chops she does look horrible a lot of the time, especially against bigger opponents. And she can be awfully reliant on them. On the whole, Bison seems more like someone who falls into the 'good hand' category, who you can plug into various roles and she'll do a steady job for you. Not someone you really expect to blow people away, and not someone who has a real case for top 100 of all time.

One or two people probably just think Heyman is better. Or maybe they've seen so many awesome Steph performances the past year that they've forgotten about a bunch of them.

Here's to you, Billy Robinson: Pros Obviously a great technical wrestler, and great at working holds. I love the way Robinson would really crank those holds. I think it was the Verne match from Japan where they work a long headlock section, and I was getting a sore neck just watching it. I really like the sense of progression in Robinson matches, and the way they transition from working holds to big moves to brawling (and vice versa). A Robinson match to me always feels like it's progressing, escalating, and never just stalling or filling time. Billy's short temper spots are some of my favourite bits in wrestling. There's that great thing in the Verne match where Verne keeps palming Billy on the forehead, and you can see Billy getting more and more pissed off. Or a guy will just give him a shove or a strike and his whole demeanour changes. Billy just carried himself so well as a wrestler, in the way he moved around the ring and his body language. This to me is what a wrestler looks like. Cons I don't think he was a particularly good heel. Not a great tag wrestler either, from what I've seen. I get the sense that there were certain instances where he didn't really feel like giving much to his opponents. I noticed it in particular in one of the Jumbo matches I saw, where he really didn't sell much for Jumbo's stuff. I didn't think he was so good in the one WOS match I saw him in. I'm pretty sure Billy makes my list. He does so many things well, things I really value in a wrestler. I wish more of his earlier career was available, as he could definitely be a top 20-level guy, given more footage.

I also prefer the 26 match to 25, and haven't seen a really good argument why 25 is better. When I did my big ranking of all the Mania matches, I think I had the 26 match at 5 or 6, and the 25 match down around the 40s.

A good excuse for me to link to my 'every Royal Rumble match' rankings from DVDVR: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2031-every-royal-rumble-match-ranked/?hl=%2Broyal+%2Brumble I'd probably say 2007 is the best show. Really strong undercard on that one. Honourable mentions to 2001 and 1991, and 1992 still has the best rumble match, in my opinion.

I did my due diligence on Dundee. Maybe had seen a couple of his matches going into this, so I wanted to knock off about another 20 or so to try to get a rounded opinion on him. Here are my thoughts: Pros I think it's safe to say that Dundee/Lawler is one of the best match-ups in wrestling history. They just had incredible chemistry with one another, and every match of theirs I saw (maybe 5) was outstanding, and had me wanting more. Great punches. Not at Lawler's level, of course, but great nonetheless. I especially dig his jabs. Great tag worker. The Lawler/Dundee team were excellent, but I saw him shine with a number of different partners. Particularly strong at working shtick in a tag setting. Great brawler. As a face, but especially as a heel, he was so intense, and when he got out of control, it was really something (see the Dundee/Landell Vs Mantel/Lawler tag, for instance). Great gimmick match worker. The scaffold match with Koko Ware, the bullwhip on a pole match against the Fantastics, Texas death match etc. Cons Does he have the matches? As Will alluded to, when you take away the stuff with Lawler, where is the real high end stuff? I would say it's a knock on him in general that he wasn't able to replicate the magic he had with Lawler in the rest of the his career, at least to a consistent level (from best I can tell). May have been a bit too reliant on his stock-in-trade: punches and shtick. I don't see a tonne of versatility, despite evidence that he was a very good technical wrestler. I understand the argument that his act worked for him, but I think he could have stretched himself more. I'd baulk at calling Dundee a lock for my ballot, though I think it will be difficult finding 100 guys better. He just seems like the sort of guy where if you put him in the right situation against the right guy, he's going to produce something great, but if you take him outside of that box, you might just get good. That maybe doesn't sound like a huge knock, and it really isn't, because having consistently all-time great matches with one opponent is certainly something that should at least put you on the radar for a project like this. But, if I'd seen him have a classic with an Eric Embry, or Tommy Rich or a great straight match against John Tatum (and who knows, those matches could be out there) then I'd feel more comfortable calling him a lock. As it is, top 50 seems about his ceiling.

I'd say Flair sucked because he tried to be the same old Ric Flair, and he couldn't do it anymore. The better old man Flair performances are when he just goes full on crazy with lots of bleeding and weapon shots. Basically when he takes the old man Funk approach.

I have seen people say Jimmy is better. I think he's the slightly bigger one.

Addendum: his headbutts sometimes made him look like he was doing the Riverdance, and his powerbomb either looked like he was killing people, or like he was placing them gently on a bed of feathers.

I've watched most of the matches Loss recommended (thanks for the list), and a few others to round out my research. Here are my thoughts: Pros The first thing that stands out is Onita's charisma, even in the stuff from the early 80s. Just a magnetic personality. I really like the way he sells the big spots from his death matches. He's like Willem Dafoe getting killed in Platoon or something. One of my big gripes about Cena and Shawn in particular is what I call their action movie montage selling, so slow and overly dramatic, no nuance. Well, that brand of selling works a lot better when you're selling an actual explosion as opposed to a clothesline. The big death matches are really well-structured, with all the big spots usually being well built to and having meaning. Really good understanding of his role, and created a character perfect for his environment. He's a total badass, who's vulnerable enough to convey the sense of danger involved in these matches. He doesn't come off like a monster who doesn't care about what happens to his body, rather a man who is willing to take his body to the limits in order to succeed. It's almost an internal battle with Onita, how far can I take myself? Cons Mostly worked a style that I find pretty devoid of artistry. I'd probably rather watch any other style of wrestling over death match wrestling. You can say he performed the style well or that it was successful, both of which are true, but that doesn't alter the fact that I find that style of wrestling lesser than pretty much every other style. In that respect, I kinda liken Onita as a candidate for my ballot to Hogan, and I'm not sure who I would rank higher. I don't have a particular problem with Hogan's formula, but I don't think it's very nuanced either, and not usually what I'd consider GOAT-level wrestling. I've seen Onita doing some really stupid shit in his matches, and that's ignoring the fact that working with barbed wire and explosions is pretty inherently stupid to begin with. I've seen him potentially cripple an opponent and potentially cripple himself. All wrestling carries a semblance of risk, of course, and I think that all wrestlers do stupid things in matches, which usually go unnoticed, but when you're working in this kind of environment, you should probably take a little more care. I'd say Onita is a low-level candidate for my ballot. He's a guy with some really good qualities, which are almost cancelled out by his bad qualities. I do give him credit for working a style I personally hate, yet still making me care about and appreciate as a worker. Ultimately that may be what gets him onto my ballot.

It's still condescending though. Why can't they just be women? Why can't the men just be men, for that matter, instead of Superstars?

Has the Milan Miracle been mentioned?

I think it's worth mentioning that Vader's WWF run is not quite the dead zone that people make it out to be, and he was actually surprisingly consistent there, with his 97 in particular being strong. To illustrate this, I've been watching all the In Your Houses in order recently, and through the end of 1997 I had Vader in 7 3 star+ matches. Compare that to Shawn, where this period from 95-first retirement makes up a large part of his GOAT candidacy, who I have in 8 3 star+ matches. Obviously Shawn has more high end stuff (not to mention that this only covers the In Your Houses, a small sampling of matches from the time period), but I still think it says a lot about how the reality of Vader's WWF run differs from the perception, given how close he gets to someone who is widely regarded as the best the company had in that era. I don't think Vader's WWF run is adding much to his candidacy, but it's not the strike against him that some may have it as either.

Having dug a bit deeper into Atlantis, I'm not sure I'd say his peak stuff is better than Angel Azteca's peak stuff. But, of course, it seems that Atlantis has been able to perform at a high level for much longer than Azteca. 30 years of high-level output is certainly impressive, and makes him a lock for my list, though I'm not sure where he'll fall. I'll add to my earlier statement about preferring his work in trios to his emotional singles matches by saying that I find him to be very good in title matches. I guess my main problem with him is that I don't always find him believable in the way he portrays hatred. It often seems forced and hokey to me. That said, I have since found performances that go against that assertion. There's a trios match post his mask match against Kung Fu (and you'll have to forgive me not remembering who is involved off hand) where Kung Fu attacks Atlantis out with his nunchukas before the bell, which takes Atlantis out of the entire first caida. He comes back in the second caida and just unleashes beautiful fury on Kung Fu. Another good hate-filled Atlantis match I saw was from 2006 (I think) against Perro Aguayo Jr. They really went at each other, and I really bought into it. When I consider everything I've seen of him, that he was in what I thought was the best trios on the Lucha set, his early 90s work with Blue Panther and Emilio Charles Jr amongst others, the Villano III match, the Ultimo Guerrero match (finish excepting), and the fact that he has stood out in so many of the trios matches I've seen, I can't see him falling outside of my top 50.

Daivari over Shawn Michaels and Rico over Flair were both eyebrow-raising ones.