WingedEagle

Its a fair point. Gotta assume all of us had the luxury of watching in intervals rather than from the mezzanine section behind third base. Definitely a different perspective.

That's some pretty hilarious photoshopping.

Candidates for finish only/cuts.

Superbrawl II & III are great picks. 3 was the first WCW PPV I ever ordered and I thought they'd all be that good. Didn't quite turn out that way, but from the Benoit/Scorpio opener to the classic finish it was a special show. I just ordered a couple yearbooks from Will and definitely looking forward to seeing these again.

I agree the first match in February was their best, by far. Most folks have hyped the rematch as truly elite but it did not click for me the way the original one did.

Exactly. The opener is hot, the ladder match is fun, main event is good, even the should-be-garbage tag/handicap titles match is good. Super hot crowd which gets bonus points for taking a place a couple miles from home. Just a fun night.

Great call on MITB '11. One of those Perfect Storm nights in wrestling. A few other personal favorites including some consensus picks: Royal Rumble '92 Barely Legal '97 Bash '89 Summerslam '98 Mania 17 Dream Slam II Big Egg Universe When Worlds Collide Canadian Stampede No Way Out '01

Managed to finish this before football started. A few quick hits: 1) Tonga/Inoue/Captain NJ vs. Ishii/Jado/Hashi: Tonga had a couple decent athletic spots and I'm a big fan of Ishii although he didn't have any chance to shine here. But it was short and entirely inoffensive. Jado does not 2) Liger/TM/Takahashi vs. Tagushi/Kushida/Bushi: Also short and acceptable for what it was, but nothing special. Takahashi looked impressive for someone I've never seen before and am interested to see what he can do when featured more. 3) Iizuka/Yano/Takahashi/Sapp vs. Nakanishi/Akebono/MVP/Strongman: I love Yano and wish he had more of a chance to shine. This was a fine clusterfuck to get a few guys on the show and have a couple fun spots with the big men. Looked like everyone had a good time and I did too while it lasted. But again, nothing standout and at this point its just keeping my attention without pissing me off or really drawing me in. 4) Tanaka vs. Benjamin: This sucked and was offensive. It may have been quick but it didn't feel like it. 5) Archer/DBS Jr. vs. Goto/Anderson: I really enjoyed this, particularly DBS and Anderson. Some spots were a bit contrived but everyone worked hard and it certainly didn't go too long. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see DBS get a solid run back here in a year or 2. I expected a title change but enjoy the champs and am happy to see them get a legit run with the titles. 6) Suzuki vs. Nagata: I love Minoru Suzuki. He's one of my all-time favorites. I'd probably enjoy him reading Green Eggs & Ham because he has the best facials in the business. So while I probably liked this more than most, I didn't love it. They didn't go out there looking to blow away the show. Nagata's early arm work on Suzuki was good but then it was just dropped until the end, and by that point his kicks were so blatantly striking the back rather than arm that it was a bit of a tough sell. This was still really solid and fun with a nice finishing sequence. 7) Low Ki vs. Ibushi vs. Devitt: I know its based on a video game, and that this took place in Japan, but with the tragedy in CT still fresh I didn't love Ki coming to the ring guns blazing. End political rant. However, I LOVED him wrestling in the suit and as noted above, pulling off the jacket rather than the strap. This was a really fun spotfest with Ibushi in particular shining. Jr. HW spotfests don't really cut it for me these days, but I enjoyed this about as much as anything this style. Ibushi turning Ki's attempted Tree of Woe into a huracanrana was awesome. I'd like to see Shelley vs. Devitt. 8) Tenzan/Kojima vs. Muto/Ohtani: This was about as great a "legends" match as you could ask for. The chop sequence Dylan mentioned was truly cringeworthy, but otherwise everyone did what people were familiar with and didn't stretch it out too long. Ohtani looked swollen as all hell but seemed to have a good time and other than the running kick that missed by a mile didn't do anything he couldn't do well. 9) Makabe vs. Shibata: I enjoyed the fast faced brawling to start quite a bit, then things got a bit stupid with the backdrop suplexes and then Shibata taking the shot to the back of his head that wasn't really followed up on. The finish seemed to be about 5-7 minutes too soon. Arguably the most disappointing match on the night given what we got versus my expectations, but Makabe is still a BETTER BRODY THAN THE ORIGINAL. 10) Nakamura vs. Sakuraba: This was fucking awesome. I loved Sakuraba's work on the mat and the quick strikes throughout. Easily the best match I've watched recently. I'm curious about the booking with both Sak & Shibata losing, but from today's WON update apparently there's more to this. 11) Tanahashi vs. Okada: Fine, I'm a sucker, but I love these two together. I was really surprised Okada never even hit the Rainmaker, as if that were the case you'd think Tanahashi would've been working the arm throughout the match, but that just didn't happen. Also really surprised we didn't get a title change, but this was quality and they hit a lot of big spots that I appreciated from their prior matches. Probably my least favorite of the 3, but still an easy ****+. Overall I thought this was a really fun show and with 2 great matches closing things out have zero complaints. But top to bottom I enjoyed October more and perhaps TLC, among recent big shows.

These would be my no brainers. Can certainly edit further based on over-representation.

Just starting a new thread for those that want to discuss so that others can avoid spoilers.

That is the best possible reason for having him ranked so highly.

Since when ? The day I stumbled onto puroresu I heard about Hash as being a great fucking wrestler. Even when the New Japan heavies weren't pimped at all, Hash was the exception to the rule because he was working a stiffer, harder style akin to the AJ guys which were the references back then. I love Hash, he's been a favourite of mine for ever, but it's the first time I've heard of him being "underrated". But hey, if people have forgotten how great he was these days, he should be put back into the mix yesterday indeed. If people are going to work the gimmick where they pretend Hash was ever hyped on the level of the AJPW boys or even Liger they are going to have to try it on someone who hasn't been around reading these boards/newsletters for almost 20 years. To be fair it is true that Hash was always touted as the best of the NJPW guys, but outside of your more insulated and puro heavy pimping circles I don't recall him ever getting play as a "holy shit this guy is other worldly worker" the way Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Liger or even Hokuto and Toyota did, and even there I don't remember him really cropping up as a "head of the class" guy. You could maybe toss him in the same category as Tenryu and Fujinami as a guy who was clearly highly appreciated and thought of as a great worker within the circle of fans who are really interested in all puro, but outside of Phil, Dean and a few others I don't remember him ever being touted as on the level of the aforementioned people even though I think he definitely was. Hash was unquestionably hailed as the ace performer in NJ, but at no point do I recall any direct or indirect assertion that he was on a par with the AJ elites. I'm not sure I'd argue he belongs there, though Dylan's point makes me want to rewatch as I haven't looked at much of his stuff the last few years. But I don't ever recall him being on a level with the four corners.

Hash was *always* a step above all NJ heavies for me. He always did a terrific job carrying less talented and charismatic stars to some of the best matches of their careers. I haven't looked into the details yet but you can probably point to nearly a couple dozen stars who had their best match with him in either singles or tags. He's the one guy you can point to when asking "what if" about having the opportunity to work in All Japan during the era and comfortably say he'd likely fit right in. Some may say that's giving him too much credit. I do not.

I think I am going to attempt this. A part of me thinks the smart road to take would be to tie it in with Superstars. Yes they are different shows and different things are going on with both in terms of over all presentation. But the key is that both shows were the "wrestling" shows where the undercard talent were given time to shine against each other (and occasionally against upper card talent). In that case could also mix in FCW/NXT and make it a essentially mid-major comp.

For all the talk about the excellence of execution, I generally prefer Bret's brawls.

Right, no question he was cooling off, but that can happen when you put the world champion in an undercard battle royal in August, the Gillberg mess in September, and vs. DDP in a heatless face/face title match in October that followed 2 months of Hogan & Warrior crashing ratings and leaving a stink on the entire promotion.

Exactly right. Goldberg was hardly losing steam due the streak at the end of '98, and in a pretty great place as a draw considering that they pushed him and the title beneath Hogan all fall until Starrcade. But it was Nash's turn so there you have it. I wonder if the Goldberg of a couple years later would've handled things differently and been as quick to take the loss at that point.

Man that really was some shit. Luger winning got a huge reaction and it was less than nothing in the scheme of things thanks to the booking. Its really incredibly when you look at that, Goldberg winning the belt and countless other hotshot moves they did solely to move a rating for one night. Just pissing away an unfathomable amount of money.

I read this to mean that you believe ECW was a promotion that helped turn WWE into the most profitable wrestling promotion in the US. I find that beyond the realms of logic, reason, truth or fact. If I'm mistaken, my bad.

There's nothing at all hyperbolic about stating a preference for WWECW's matches to ECW's, or vice versa. That's a purely subjective observation and I'd listen to a credible case for either, even if I think the mcmahon-branded matches hold up better. But to say that ECW was responsible for or caused WWE's boom or to somehow suggest it was anything more than a somewhat visible player in the same industry is effing ludicrous. And I LOVED original ECW.

I loved ECW then and still enjoy looking back at it, especially some of the promos and angles. It also opened the big 2's eyes to a lot of talent, ideas and styles that may otherwise not have been appreciated or exposed quite as much. But as long as Austin and Rock make their way to CT, that rocket is taking off on essentially the same trajectory with or without ECW.

Before heading out for a last drink and celebration with the wife and friends, here's a big shout out and thank you to the PWO crew for making me think more about wrestling and making it more enjoyable -- which is exactly why I and I'm sure others love this place. Brody in 2013!

Going on gut WWECW produced more in the ring that will be looked back upon favorably than ECW. But as far as angles, creativity and impacting a segment of a generation of fans, ECW has it. I still remember staying up late in middle/high school to catch the latest from Heyman on MSG. That was never the case on SciFi.

Brody would scream and act intense, but I'm not convinced his work on the mic is much better than Sid's. No question he had a certain star charisma that let him headline so many places over the years, but he didn't exactly deliver much more on the stick than in the ring.