WingedEagle

I don't know if Kansai & Oz have enough of a run where they place on a list like this, but I Oz and Masa Fuchi absolutely deserve some kind of honorable mention. They add so much to any tag match from their work on the apron and in ratcheting up the heat as part of any team.

Love this. Hopefully it gives folks some random, quick hit things to look up as it certainly did that for me. Current Favorite Wrestler to Watch: Masa Fuchi. Just rewatched the AJ/NJ tag from 12/00 as part of the Best of 2000s and an AJPW 6 man from 1/29/94 as part of the Yearbook. I'd love to see some all time Fuchi singles matches (holler if you can point me to them), but he brings as much character and heat to the tag & 6 man matches from the four corners era as anybody. Last Fun Match You Saw: Aja Kong vs. Yumiko Hotta, 1/24/94. I knew nothing about it heading into the match but and was a bit underwhelmed by Bull/Kyoko and the Toyota/Yamada tag on the undercard, but holy shit was this not an incredible spectacle that did its best to approach Dump/Chiggy. I'll have to add more in the match discussion thread but I blown away by this, and really the only thing it was lacking was the killer crowd it deserved. Give it a hot crowd and we're looking at a classic. Wrestler You Want to See More of: Dragon Gate! I swear I'm going to jump on board and try to get into this ASAP. Hoping to burn through a couple recent NJ iPPVs I've fallen behind on today and then give this the look it deserves based on Alan's love. Also, Jack Brisco because Mooney has me salivating. Match You Are Looking Forward to Watching Soon the Most: Brisco vs Inoki. Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw: Its been a while since Heyman has been on TV for anything significant, and Ambrose has been sent to third rate horror movie school after flunking out of bad comedy, so let's say Flair's backstage promo after Starrcade '93. Last Interesting Thing You Read about Wrestling: Rusher Kimura bio in the Observer from 2004. Love going old school. Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard: Austin hasn't had a guest on recently, so All Japan Excite Series Numbah 2. Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately: Bull-Hotta. MORE MORE MORE

Maybe I'm an outlier but I enjoyed Taker/Flair when I rewatched it this summer. Flair did his part given his limitations, bled like a champ and we even arguably the last non-throwaway Arn moment. I was pleasantly surprised. Not a classic or anything anyone should hang their hat on, but not something I'd fast forward through either.

FLIK, what else should people check out leading up to this?

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him. Two totally different mindsets. Misawa was coming back to town and making all the same stops on the loop on the next tour. The local ace still had to headline for the next X months if/until the NWA Champion made his way back to town. To some extent that makes protecting the local star a hell of a lot more important.

Perfect, thanks.

Is Rusev/Sheamus available on demand yet?

Maybe not. I liked almost all of those matches, and some of them a lot. Particularly the Dory, Terry No DQ, Dutch barbed wire, Dundee LLT and Idol/Freebirds bouts. I didn't particularly care for the Savage stuff much. I may have also not framed things in the proper context -- I found it all underwhelming as far as making a case for Lawler as an all timer, not as a worker who I enjoy and can appreciate.

Steamer absolutely belongs on my list. But I have zero desire to rewatch anything here. We'll see how that shakes out. Need to be objective and give certain matches another look.

Will, I loved the post. Problem is that your recaps set a bar that the matches just don't reach for me when watching them. They highlight certain qualities to look out for. But the matches almost always underwhelm. There's enough here for me to rewatch some Lawler matches when the time comes, but not so much that he would place.

Have to imagine Lawler will be my low among guys who otherwise finish high. Will be surprised if he places for me.

I thought their profit on it was rather small, but it was still profitable. I don't think they do it at a loss.

Looking forward to that one and saving it for a weekend run. Side question: do we have any idea how lucrative this is for Austin? I don't have a clue if he makes serious money for it or if its more a steady promotional vehicle.

Just wanted to add that I loved Jimmy's post as it expressed a major point I haven't effectively been able to make on my own -- selling is great, but it often feels like a crutch that can be used to knock a wrestler or match when someone mounts a comeback, pulls out a win or delivers any sustained offense because in doing so they to some extent had to stop completely selling whatever work was previously done. You carry that too far and you've got an all time squash performance.

That's basically where I am as well -- the entire match shouldn't be one tug of war over a ladder, but if its a gimmick match I want the match about that gimmick rather than have it serve as some prop like a chair that's pulled out for a random spot. It also goes against what I generally think about rewatching matches, but I think the HBK/Razor matches have been somewhat hurt over time because of the explosion of similar matches in subsequent years. At the time, they felt pretty crazy and innovative and shouldn't be dinged that badly just because I've since been desensitized due to the gimmick being overdone.

But isn't the ladder being somewhat an end unto itself at least part of the point of a ladder match?

The problem with the number is that I believe they previously indicated an expectation of 1MM+ by year end. That clearly isn't happening at this rate and is the impetus for luring folks in with a free November. At this point its about managing expectations that have run away from them. The good news, if any, is that the failure to deliver on what they promised may at some point force them to think outside the box and try different things from creative, content and promotional perspectives. But we're not there yet.

Kane? No, not the worst. But given how long he's been booked so often he definitely has a craptastic resume.

I'm absolutely with you on a well timed no sell. I'm just not at all there with with openly and regularly inviting your opponent's strikes. Its one thing to simultaneously throw bombs. Its another to stand there with your hands down and ask for it.

I don't hate WWE. There are nights I love it and nights I don't like it, but if I really, truly thought it was garbage with nothing redeeming I'd turn it off. Not every episosde of any show or every game in every sport is going to be a winner.

That show was a ton of fun and a breeze to sit through. I even got to check out a bit of MNF during Kane's interminable chinlock. I'm sure it won't exactly do gangbuster numbers, but I'm kind of psyched about an old school Survivor Series show. Some fun, long matches with quick exchanges that advance storylines sounds pretty good. A fresh Ryback, rejuvenated Henry, a plainly different Orton -- all good times.

Then watch an actual Wrestling company. WWE has always leaned on kitsch and spectacle. I've made the same arguments for a trolling end many times but WWE IS Sports Entertainment it is a different genre, it isn't booking it IS Creative for them. They hire writers to come up with creative and goofy stuff not bookers to book towns. Hardly a newsflash but seem to eer back to them being a Wrestling company. At least in the case of the main event finish, though, there's still a different expectation for something like Seth Rollins vs Ambrose in a Hell in a Cell match compared to The Undertaker vs. Yokozuna in a casket match. Exactly. Not every program is booked the same or every match laid out the same. There are different goals and expectations that will bring about difference reactions from the audience. This is good because otherwise the product would get awfully boring.

Considering the bulk of the material in the book was never written about in the Wrestling Observer you can imagine how seriously I'm taking this claim of plagiarism. I'd be happy to engage any specific critiques, but I'm not interested in some kind of personal battle of wills with an anonymous internet guy making pretty absurd and hurtful claims of illegal and unethical behavior. Maybe I didn't articulate these ideas well and took things beyond the HIAC discussion. For that, I apologize to anyone I offended and won't raise the topic again. Of course that's not what I wrote at all. No? Specifically, you said: Your words telling people they didn't enjoy the show because they intended not to and should reevaluate themselves as wrestling fans (or were we critics here yet?). And they had to enjoy this show because you said it was good. And if we dare to opine otherwise, we're no longer wrestling fans. Which part of that is not telling people to enjoy the wrestling that is served them and going above and beyond that to tell them if they don't, they're no longer fans? I like, no love to eat. Huge fan of food. My aunt can't cook to save her life. The woman literally screws up boiling vegetables. I'm not exaggerating. This intelligent, otherwise fully functioning adult is rendered an absolute incompetent in the kitchen. But I'm a food fan, so should I eat that garbage and just ask for more? Its effing wrestling. It goes through hot spells and cold spells of various lengths, like many creative endeavors. But since when can fans of the genre not acknowledge the highs and lows? I think The Wire is the greatest TV show I've ever seen. I think Season 4 is far and away the best season of any show I've ever seen and an easy pick for my desert island DVD. In spite of all that am I no longer a fan when I say Season 5 just didn't measure up to what came before it, even if I liked much of it and loved other parts? If Raw tonight kicks ass, I will say so and hope it does. If that happens, I guess I'm a fan again. Fingers crossed for all of us!

I think its a fascinating question with compelling cases to be made for both. One of those things you could listen to reasonable people debate for a long, long time. Without Bischoff and Nitro, does Vince give Austin & Rock a chance to rise to the level they did? Who gets a chance at the top of the card if Turner money isn't there to bring over Hall & Nash? All interesting stuff.

That doesn't even make sense as a critique. I wrote the book in Pages for one and it's meticulously sourced to include dozens of interviews with core subjects. Don't they explain the whole literal / metaphor thing in writing 101? Maybe it is meticulously sourced. It just so happens that when reading it the thought that came to mind most often was "huh, this sounded a whole lot better when I first read it in the WON" and the second was "wow, this was poorly edited." In this case, I'm speaking as critic, not fan. That last line is the closest thing you've come to an accurate statement, though it is again flawed because the issue here isn't a blind rejection of anything other than a clean finish. It was a rejection of what people viewed as a crap finish on top of a crap match in a main event that was highly anticipated. If that same finish followed a hot match, rather than what those who didn't enjoy it may have seen as a couple contrived spots built around some poor storytelling, I don't think the reaction would be quite so negative. Similarly, if there was a strong, conclusive finish after a hot, brief finishing stretch that followed the earlier theatrics and wasn't built around a bunch of characters people find stale, I don't think the reaction would be quite so negative. There are very strong purposes for having inconclusive finishes. Believe it or not, some of the fans you rush to label as critics actually understand and appreciate that. Very often, that purpose is to build and maximize anticipation of a conclusive finish. Where that's teased and drawn out for so long only to be scrapped in favor of smoke and holograms -- literally -- people may very well find that disappointing. But stay the course with such nuanced analysis that says everybody should enjoy whatever is presented to them at all times and avoid any criticism at all. That's the kind of deep, probing thinking that keeps the critics coming back.