concrete1992

I have no vote so what does my opinion matter but screw it. -Yeah, I'd say he has good case for being a draw. Really hard to nail this one down with a lack of sell-outs and being able to point to the drop of NOAH and AJPW as faults of their own and that Tana didn't keep them up but NJPW just didn't do something crazy dumb. Difficult to tell but I personally feel it is unfair to give him some credit for that. Not selling out Sumo Hall non-G1 I'm not going to use that as the definitive test of his drawing ability. -Lots of guys have gotten in by wok alone. Could Tanahashi? I'd say he has as good a shot as any as making it in on this front THOUGH I don't agree with the standard to get in this way. As a main eventer for the #1 promotion in Japan I'd like to see him go for at least another 2-4 years before I would consider this the way to get him in. Saying that a lot of voters think he's great? That's really an argument that is completely boosted depending on the results. I'd say I agree but I'm not perfectly sure. -Top 5 big match wrestler ever? Don't agree but this is a subjective point. -Buddy Rose and Bill Dundee? This doesn't have so much to do with Tanahashi's case? Nevermind then Would I vote for Tanahashi? Not now. When you have a good deal of career still ahead I feel it is unfair to set a standard for HOF that this much of his career is worth being in a HOF. To me it feels like letting a Michael Jordan in the Basketball HOF after '93. Did he have a case after winning 3 NBA championships and 3MVPs? Yeah but then he goes on and wins another 3 of both. Maybe not a 1:1 comparison but for me it feels like why not let the career play out more and have a full resume to judge. Oh and Joe on WC would be bad ass.

Can't we all just get along?

Continuing on. This story isn't as an exciting time next up: The next show I went to, this time with a new friend who was a minor wrestling fan was the 2nd night of a tag tournament to crown the 1st ever 2CW Tag Team Champions. I was excited to see the first ever crowning of this company's tag champs that I'd consider myself a fan of at this time. Still am. I had no idea of the results of the prior night but was very much pulling for Steenerico to make it to the 2nd round since at the time they were certainly one of my favorite teams on the independent scene. Before the show got started they busted out a projector and showed a highlight video and results of Night 1 of the tournament. Didn't take long for me to get met with the news that they didn't make it through. Instant sadness. I wanted to feel optimistic so I built my teenage self back up and got ready for the show. I was a little bitch. In the very first match I saw El Generico live. His opponent was Loca Vida who had faced off with AJ Styles a couple months prior. Right off these guys were going to steal the show, right? NOPE! Don't know what they were going for but it was not enjoyable. Remember it solely because of my disappointment. During KOT '11, Generico would do me right. Overall it was an OK show with the first semi-final being between the Killer Steves and the not too long living Alumni Club (they portrayed jocks/football players) and OOMPH! Ended in Double DQ which may have been the best way for it to go because that made the other semi-final THE final with Jigsaw and Delirious going against Up in Smoke(Cheech&Cloudy) to become the first ever 2CW Tag Team Champions. The crowd that evening were OK but during this match they became the Binghamton I knew and love. Both teams put on a fantastic match with Jiglerious coming off as uber masked babyfaces that were amplified by the fantastic heel work of Cloudy and Cheech. In the end 2CW ended the show with the regular Up in Smoke winning the titles and getting booed out of the ring. Afterwards though Jiglerious got a standing ovation and Delirious brought a child into the ring and lifted him on his shoulders. Really great feeling leaving the match. Leaving the show, while not the greatest, I knew I watched a significant moment in a tiny promotion's life. At the time they were a little over 4 years old and coming up in April next year they will be on 9 years. Indy shows man. Even when you are seeing a part of the history of a small promotion that probably won't ever be more than a blip in wrestling history, if that, you feel like it is something special. Maybe that's just me being sentimental about this promotion.

Why do you keep mentioning voting for a wrestler that falls a little bit outside of the fans of say a Tanahashi or Shawn Michaels?

Was actually at that 2CW show. At the time it was a dream match for me. Fun stuff for sure Mando I have seen zero of those suggestions but that last one sticks out like something I'd love because SAMI!

CHIKARA certainly counts in this sort of question. Watched Danielson/Castagnoli vs. QuackSaw and it may be one of my favorite indy tag matches of all time. Thank you very much for the suggestions both Nighthawk and NintendoLogic. Keep 'em coming.

I figure I'd post this question here over some other places I frequent since I feel as though I'll get more of a response I'm looking for. Simply looking for some of the best tag team matches that have happened in indy wrestling. Tried looking through my wrestling collection but I've grown tired of the DGUSA and most ROH style matches on them so maybe there are matches that have gone underneath my radar that I could be pointed to. Thanks in advance.

I've been watching a ton of HH for my own list and one match that hasn't been mentioned but I LOVED was Bobby Eaton vs Terrance Taylor from HH '91. Real splendid match and I'm realizing that my life seems to have been missing some "Beautiful" Bobby.

I really like the whole idea of this thread and sharing these stories and experiences of this tinier setting. I'm enjoying doing this write-ups going show-by-show. Seems like there was always something that I'd like to note on these shows that made them a great part of my personal history with wrestling.

The Night Things Got Real 2CW came back to Binghamton in July and this time I decided to go with my friend who didn't like wrestling too much but since I put my sad puppy dog eyes on he came. In the end he rather enjoyed the show but he had no idea what he was getting himself into. 2CW was in the midst of a cross-promotion feud(a feud that actually had a MAJOR impact on both companies and probably Upstate NY independent wrestling) with the Rochester based NWA Upstate and it was heated. Binghamton is one of the most heated wrestling cities in the country that no one really talks about and might take the form of a tinier ECW crowd a little too well. The match that took place was a 4-on-4 falls count anywhere tag match. Representing Team Upstate were Brodie Lee, Cloudy, Dunn and Marcos. Representing 2CW were JD Love(an owner), ZSIII(school trainer), Loca Vida, and Hellcat. This match took place after Hellcat(owner or booker of Upstate) turned on Upstate when he was a special guest referee during a Wargames match between the two promotions the month prior in NWA Upstate. The 2CW probably lacked in talent but this ended up being a brawl throughout every inch of floor the fans could see so that wasn't so talent wasn't really necessary. My friend and I were eating it up digging the use of weapons and such. We we getting a fun brawl which 2CW showed me last time I came that they could do. This was more chaotic. Maybe a little too chaotic because things took a turn for the worst during the match. Bingo being Bingo likes to drink and fans were getting extra rowdy towards Team Upstate screaming obscenities and the such. One fan decided to throw a chair towards the action to maybe help out the faces even though he accidentally hit Loca Vida if I remember correctly . Brodie Lee did not take lightly to this action and saw the fan who did it. That fan must have wished he hadn't because Lee stopped what he was doing, went over the guardrail, followed the fan outside the building and knocked him out cold. The whole building emptied in a blink of an eye. I didn't know 200+ people could exit that quickly. My friend and I didn't know what the hell was going on and by the time we had gotten outside we had caught the tail end of it and returned inside. To everyone's credit past that the wrestlers finished the match with Upstate splashing 2CW through tables from an auditorium like stage and the fans managed to not be so crazy. The next match had the tall task of getting the fans attention back without being this super heated that works the fans up into a frenzy, and the next match worked the crowd into a frenzy but not with a match that got the fans hating a heel or anything. It was quite an ROH type indy match between Eddie Edwards and Isys Ephex. One of the most found memories from a show still. The stip was there must be a winner and that's not really a lovely stip but it was a flat out sweet match. There was a moment that made my friend go "OH SHIT" louder than everyone with Isys being on the guardrail and Eddie suicide diving him off and both men going into the chairs in the front row. Main event was SWB who was now the champion(something I was happy about after my first show) who went against Jimmy "Jam" Olsen from Upstate. Was a good match but didn't capture me like those other two big moments from the show. I remember the finish being weird yet awesome with SWB winning, not with his finisher, but a powerbomb onto the guardrail that looked like it killed Jimmy "Jam". Jimmy was a great little heel in 2CW who would later become champion but got took out rather easy here. There we have my 2nd 2CW/indy show and it was certainly an experience that has totally stuck in my memory. Oh and the show was called 2CWATHON if anyone was interested.

I can't touch some of these golden posts. At 20 years old and only having attended my first indy show at 15 I think I'm just gonna start there and work my way through my experiences at my hometown indy, Squared Circle Wrestling (2CW). At the age of 15 there were 3 promotions in America then I was even aware of in WWE, TNA, and ROH. I knew others existed but if you would have asked me to name a single one I doubt I would have been able to give an answer. Being these were my teen years I was looking for something different and that is when I stumbled upon Ring of Honor and I was in awe. Living near Binghamton, NY, without the ability to drive and even if I did not really wishing to ever drive to NYC or Philly (still ZERO interest), I had zero clue how I'd be able to see anything resembling this unique and amazing stuff happening in this relatively small promotion like ROH. Like any person would do I took to the internet hoping to find something and I stumbled upon 2CW which ran shows in Binghamton. I saw they had brought in Samoa Joe as well as Bryan Danielson to their shows in the past so they had to be somewhat good and to extent I was right. After I had found this little promotion I thought that if I didn't go I'd regret it so I purchased 2 front row tickets for my dad and I. He wasn't a big wrestling fan anymore but my mother didn't want me going alone cause she was worried about her baby. She probably was right because when I went on February 23,2008 for the Fight To No Avail show I would not have wanted to walk into American Legion Post #80 by myself. There were probably over 200 people there and it was much more diverse a crowd as I would have expected. Had no idea that for a few hours we'd all be the same. First match certainly helped me gauge where things were going. It was a 3-way tag with one team consisting of a fat man in a bikini and a guy with a standard lucha gimmick, two guys in matching singlets called The Killer Steves, and a team of your heels. Can't say I remember too much other than not being what I was expecting, even if I possibly should have. Throughout the rest of the card I'd see matches involving Antonio Thomas, John Walters, Brian Fury, two guys dressed in these full red and yellow tasseled body suits, a Blue Meanie "match"(who was apparently the draw though I had zero idea who he was at the time and why people cared) with a guy wearing a long sleeved shirt and sweatpants (he is the trainer of a wrestling school), a ladies match that was better than all but one match on the card, as well as a match that was started by the booting of a camera guy who would later become one of the staples of the promotion. Crazy how that works. Up until the main event I had thought that the dream of having an awesome indy promotion in my backyard was just that, a dream. I was 15 and thinking that maybe just maybe I'd get lucky. Then the main event came and it was supposed to be a tag match where the winner became champion but they scrapped that(wise decision) and just had it be a 4-way elimination match. The men in the match were the champion, Dizzie, Slyck Wagner Brown, Isys Ephex(the champion in 2013), and Eddie Edwards(WITH DREADS). It wasn't the greatest of matches but for a kid popping his indy show cherry it was everything I could have wanted. They were diving around, brawling in the crowd, and in the end I was a satisfied customer for the match I saw. The main event was probably what made me a fan of the promotion and lead to me being more interested in what is going on in independent wrestling. I have now seen much better 2CW shows but that night nothing could have made me happier.

This is an amazing down time listen. It has been on all day at various points. I'm still about an hour from the finish. Just hit the Top 10. A lot of the guys I haven't seen much of at all. I guess I should get on that haha. Hearing Mick Foley love always makes me full of glee. I met him at a festival in town and actually hung out with his son Dewey(my age) the whole day and we bought baseball and football cards. Easily one of my Top 5 favorites.

The card looks okay I suppose. With PPVs being so close this does suffer a bit in the intrigue of the whole thing. RVD vs. ADR being a hardcore match makes me feel much more comfortable with that match being solid. Rhodes vs Shiled could be butt loads of fun. Bryan vs. Orton will likely be good even if I'm not a big fan of them going back to back on PPVs after having quite a few matches on TV before this. Yeah so I wouldn't call this great or anything but I also wouldn't come close to saying it looks actively bad.

CC vs Generico was easily one of my favorite indy matches of 2011. El Generico was essentially Mr.Underdog when he was on the indies. As an indy fan I look forward to your thoughts on most of that especially those 3 wXw 16 Carat matches you've got on the list. Haven't watched them in awhile but I remember enjoying the whole tournament a good deal.

Fave 5 1.Blue Panther-What a glorious bastard. Old you say? STOP THAT! 2.Eddie Kingston-After going through the 12 Large Summit again he is just so damn good. Sad thing about Chikara closing is that that's where he had most of his awesome performances. 3.Too Cold Scorpio-He's a guy that's usually #1 in my heart but right now I'm just going through some random matches he's had. Him vs Owen on RAW in a KOTR qualifier was short(TV so yeah) but so much fun. 4.Dean Allmark-Allmark in 2013 is a joyful thing. Him with Brown and Dynamite are probably the most consistently fun things I've experienced this year. 5.Yoshihito Sasaki-Not the best of the Strong BJ bunch but every match he's in I know there will be something so crazy stiff I'll want to crawl into a corner and die a little.

I have no problem saying I felt like an idiot listening to this match but I LOVED IT! Felt like I was getting an introduction to some guys even with being familiar with some. Kinda sad that I don't really have the time or attention span to watch a ton from one person or era and spread myself out more. Its podcasts like this which makes me want to change that. One thing I do know is Mexico is LOADED! From what I've seen of Carlos Colon, he's absolutely awesome. Hansen vs Colon :')

I know this forum doesn't usually have a large amount of CHIKARA love but nonetheless my co-host Murray and I ,Sam, discussed the 12 Large Summit from 2011. We talked about some of our favorite matches, stand-out performances, and I ramble about the finals for about 5 minutes. Give it a listen and tell us what you liked, didn't liked, or whatever. Here is the episode on BlogTalkRadio

I don't think this thread is for matches that are 100% loved by everyone but matches enjoyed by large majority of fans. The fact I haven't watched enough stuff in my life makes this thread pretty nifty when something I haven't seen pops up. I used to always trick my friends over to watch some wrestling with me and it was always the SUPER SPOTTY stuff that stuck with them. This was like when I was 13 or 14. TNA's X-Division was a big hit truthfully, actually TNA in general stuck rather well with their Bloodiest Matches comp they released. I don't know we were teenagers and it seemed awesome. Haven't watched wrestling with a non-fan in quite some time. Seems to be a waste of my time honestly since they'll just be annoyed within 10-15 minutes.

Magnum vs Tully I Quit Steel Cage!!! Probably my favorite match ever. First watched it on the WWE Bloodbath: Wrestling's Most Incredible Steel Cage Matches DVD. I was about 10 at the time. Totally unique to what I had seen at that point. THAT HATE! It just comes across so well that it is hard for a fan to not get enamored by it.

-Shinsuke Nakamura vs Sakuraba is insanely awesome I thought. -Vordell Walker has been having a pretty good year. If someone doesn't book that 2 Cold 2/3 falls match will make me cry(not really but I'll be sad). His matches vs Cruz were really good. -Luke Gallows vs Jake Davis put the biggest of smiles on my face because it is a great match and it gives a nice start to what will be more Luke Gallows awesomeness -Rey Hechicero vs Charles Lucero's title match from 8/4 is probably my favorite lucha match of the year and a Top 5 match for me. I don't think I'll see much Chikara here but I recommend Eddie Kingston vs Green Ant, both of them. Also Archibald Peck vs Mark Angelosetti 2/9 may be one of my favorite indy feud enders in recent years. Maybe not the best from a pure quality standpoint but they had a bunch of callbacks and just an overall enjoyable experience.

Seems like a battle of evils and in which case I choose the lesser being Sabu. RVD was a guy I thought was the coolest when I was like 13. Not so much in 2013. My opinions vary on both guys. Sabu is a guy I find myself taking more of a liking to the more I watch random matches of his and RVD the opposite. Not saying I love Sabu, not even close, but I'm at least entertained a good majority of the time by his stuff. Even if the enjoyment comes via trainwreck.

AJ Styles being on the ballot. That's a real thing. Huh?

All this TEW talk made me step back into it last night. It is a very slippery slope. Always a fan of FPR. Let's me destroy wrestlers I hate with wrestlers I love from across eras. Sami Callihan has killed RVD. AR Fox was mauled by Vader. The joy As a kid I didn't have any clue about WCW outside of the video games. While I hadn't seen any of them on TV, WCW vs. NWO Revenge made me fall in love with characters. LA Parka was killin' errybody.

Ummmmm....

Sadly I'm not the one who puts the stuff on itunes so the only way to listen to it offline and on the go would be to download it off BTR