WingedEagle

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.

Sid, without question. Check out his promo on an early IYH where he basically asks to reshoot it and Jim Ross tells him their live. Brody didn't do comedy.

Somehow forgot about that, even with the thread on renaming the WON brawler award the history of it wasn't picked up on. Pretty clear this book was being written long before July 1988.

I remember noticing that when watching this on the AJ 80s set. No question he was loved in Japan and Brody/Hansen would've been electric over there. Taking another look at it I'm also struck by how gray Brody was. If Bin Laden could spring for Just For Men you'd think Mr. Goodish could as well.

What does the fact that Brody was gutted in Puerto Rico have to do with acknowledging him stinking up Japan, Texas and most anywhere else he went? I don't see the connection.

Its hopefully in my mailbox downstairs and I can't wait to pick it up after dinner. Absolutely love the extensive obits/history pieces on guys or eras I'm not too familiar with. On the other hand, this is why I can wait until after dinner to pick it up.

Maybe this is why I was struggling to come up with my current Fave Five. I was going to post that for me it was a somewhat more stylistic answer, as I've been seeking out guys like La Fiera/Casas/Santo/Dandy as I increase my exposure to Lucha and folks like Volk Han as I'm also looking to watch more shoot style wrestling. But, for example, today I've watched Daniel Bryan's promos & matches from the last couple WWE shows while flying through the rest on DVR, some end of '94 AJ and now some '80s Memphis from the DVDVR set (Hey, we've got snow and shitty weather so the wife was kind of enough to let me get away with that today while she watches some mysteries). More often than not I'll take advantage of that ability to watch a variety of styles and performers and keep it mixed up with new matches and angles while sometimes turning back to classics. Next I'll probably check out some lucha Dean's posted over at DVDVR.

Bonus points here for the stretch plum setting up a pinfall finish. It made that spot so much bigger in the tag league / carnival finals and all of Kawad's big matches basically until he won the TC.

Just saw this for the first time. While inferior to all of their big matches as noted above, it was fun and unique to see them in this setting without the same stakes and work without some of the crazy bumps that became part of the protocol for this feud. Loved the Kawada/Misawa interactions here as even though Kawada is the champion you can tell how important it is for him to get that elusive fall over Misawa.