thebrainfollower

It totally was CS

Arn Anderson is in my top 10 right now. Am I out of my mind? I love Arn but is this going too far? Ric Flair Jumbo Tsurta Randy Savage Nick Bockwinkel Jerry Lawler Terry Funk Misawa El Hijo Del Santo Bret Hart Arn Anderson My list is biased to what I like though. Only about 30 Lucha and Japanese wrestlers total. El Satanico and Negro Casas for instance are the only 2 luchadores in the top 20 not counting people who wrestled in the US Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard The Midnight Express – Eaton and Condrey The Rock and Roll Express The Rockers The Midnight Express – Eaton and Lane Dory and Terry Funk Misawa and Kobashi Bockwinkel and Stevens The Andersons Furnas and Kroffat The Hart Foundation The Dream Team The Fantastics The High Flyers The Freebirds The Hardy Boys Kawade and Taue The Fabs The Road Warriors Demolition Strike Force The Steiner Brothers The Bulldogs The Faces of Fear The Islanders

That was not QUITE what I meant. I meant in terms of how much time and effort each member worked as in did Morton do 75% of the match as Valentine did? I didn't say Gibson was equal to Beefcake I meant did Morton do as much MORE for his team as Valentine for his

I feel like Starrcade wins in 92 due to the year long hype Savage-Hogan in 96 was really odd. They booked Savage as a total loser for months beforehand with him getting beat by the Giant and getting beat down by the NWO week after week and never getting his revenge. Even then as a kid into the angle I was this as a such a foregone conclusion that I could have cared less.

Bischoff contradicts himself a lot these days but one thing he says is that he didn't see Starrcade as his main PPV. I have heard Halloween Havoc and occasionally Bash at the Beach and Superbrawl as his choices. I figured I'd take a lot at 93-98 and determine what WAS the biggest show each year. Not so much my results but promoted matches and how it was booked going into it. Gonna use just those 4 big ones. 1993 Superbrawl - Under Watts, doesn't count. Beach Blast - Tag match with Sting/Bulldog vs. Sid and Vader was heavily promoted. A solid mid card as well but hardly booked as the must see show of the year. Halloween Havoc - Nope. Vader-Cactus wasn't treated as a huge deal. Starrcade - eh midcard but the main that year was definitely booked as the match of the year to see. Give it to Starrcade this year. 1994 Superbrawl - Not by a long shot. Bash at the Beach - Yup this was the big show. There was no bigger WCW show in history in EB and the higher ubs that year. Halloween Havoc - Close second. Main blow off was celeb filled and treated as a big deal. Close. Starrcade - Nope not treated as a big a deal as the cage or Hogan's debut. 1995 Superbrawl - Hogan-Vader 1 was a big deal. It was promoted heavily IIRC but didn't really seem THAT Special Bash at the Beach - Not really as big a deal that year. Old feuds being wrapped up and a 0 dollar live gate. Halloween Havoc - Marked a major change in the booking and had the hot new feud of the year. Give it to this one I guess by default Starrcade - No Hogan and the WCW-NJPW series tell you what WCW thought of this one. 1996 Superbrawl - The double main was a big deal and a blow off. But not as big as what came Bash at the Beach - The formation of the NWO> Historic but I'd argue it was not promoted as much as Starrcade Halloween Havoc - Hogan-Savage was an afterthought. Nope. Starrcade - Booked as the ultimate battle of the legends. Even I bought it as a huge deal and ordered it. 1997 This one is clearly Starrcade. Not even worth debating 1998 I'd give this one to Bash at the Beach for the celebs. So whatever he says HH was never WCW's main PPV IMO. Thoughts?

And just to get it out of the way. Trish Stratus vs. Chyna - Raw April 2001 Trish was given this match as punishment by Vince for slapping him. The week prior she actually beat Ivory clean in her first ever match as a face and the whole storyline was supposed to be Trish is getting much better and can now hang with the top girls even if not actually beat them. Chyna goes for a powerbomb but Trish rolls behind but Chyina casually press slams and powerbombs her for three then cuts a promo on how nothing the other girls are. Lita counters but Chyna squashed her (not nearly as bad) on the next PPV and Vince fired her. 0 star match (I don't give negs). Totally worthless but that's due to Chyna completely. She hated Trish for her "Fake body" badly and made sure to make her look terrible. In 2000 it made sense here it's just unprofessional. And it looks like she gave Trish a neck injury that forced her to take 6 weeks off to boot.

If you like something it's not hard to sit through. And I like Trish matches except the Chyna ones.

Trish Stratus vs. Melina - Survivor Series 2005 This is Raw vs. Smackdown with Melina beating Christy to get the shot. This is less than 5 singles matches in Melina's WWE run too (not sure about OVW). MNM kidnapped Trish to taunt and threaten her to establish Melina's a psycho and give Trish a reason to care. This is early on into the Mickie James thing with her being Trish's willing sidekick at this point. Trish is obviously mad at the humiliation and charges right into, doing the Austin Thesz press to Melina. Melina bails and confers with MNM so Trish leaps to the top rope and flattens all 3 with a huge cross body block to the floor. Not sure about a 130lb women flattening the tag team champions to be honest but it's an amazing looking spot and she does a great job with it. Trish dodges their retribution as Joey Styles gets over the angle and her boys being Melina's only shot at commentary. Commentary here has JS pro Raw and Tazz pro Smackdown so it's VERY contentious and annoying as a result. Trish grabs Melina and gives her a nasty hair pull sold well but Melina's high pitched scream after every thing is really irritating. Handstand into a headscissors by Trish. Nice forearms by Trish and an Irish whip reversal spot with Trish going head first to the corner then leaping up. She goes for another scissors but Melina is too early so Trish converts it into a mule kick. That WOULD save the spot but Melina totally no sells it and forearms Trish to take control. The problems with Melina are showing right away actually in small ways. Melina with a nice forearm and some choking but Tazz is just insufferable on commentary here. Corner choke and then boot choke follows as choking and kicking was Melina's offense at this point. Trish's sympathy selling is first rate. Trish returns the favor and compare Trish's awesome selling to Melina's unless she is in close up. Melina rakes and hits a really good looking high kick. Melina attacks Mickie to distract the ref so MNN can hit the snapshot on Trish. Hate the idea of men beating up women like this. Fortunately ref catches it and ejects them. Melina hits a huge spear and punches away, Melina hits a good clothesline. Good surfboard from Melina and Trish's selling of the pain is just first rate. Trish comes back with some forearms and kicks but the bulldog is countered into Melina's hairpull facebuster, her finish at the time but that gets 2. Trish goes for the matrish to duck a clothesline but gets hit in the abs. The story here seems to be Melina is just flat out better as a wrestler and a huge new star. Kudos to Trish for putting a new rival over this big. Trish comes back with forearms and a great stratusphere, well sold except for that terrible shrieking. Spinebuster gets 2, really well done, Melina ducks the chick kick but gets hit with a martial arts kick to the chest. Another attempt at the bulldog is countered by lifting Trish up and putting her on the apron. Melina charges, Mickie moves Trish and Trish kicks Melina's head hard then hits a top tope bulldog for the pin. See Trish and Melina have to work around Dunn's camera obsession here lol. Great match overall. See how Trish worked 4 different "overmatched" opponents and got 4 different stories out of them. Trish must have really liked Melina as she put her over as a vicious nasty heel, let her take most of the match and sort of needed Mickie's help to win. Ironic given Melina's complaining about Trish taking "her spot" years later helped cost her and Morrison their jobs. 3 star match that's really good and Melina's coming out party. Trish doesn't have a selfish bone in her body in ring.

Which teams is more unbalanced in terms of the members making it work, these guys or The Rock And Roll Express?

That is true. Getting your new monster heel by having him face a bigger badder monster heel and having him bump around for him while relying on your manager...........what were they thinking?

Ouch I just think Hogan loved the whole friend turning angle and thought Beefcake, being the longest established and closest of his friends would have the most impact. In WWF this might have worked okayish but not in WCW where fans either didn't like Hogan, didn't care about Beefcake, or both.

It's a tribute to Trish how much she put into a random match on Raw with Stacy Keibler IMO. I really hope some of you actually try and give this stuff a watch and argue my points before just dismissing her out of hand entirely. Trish Stratus vs. Nidia - Heat May 2004 I'm getting to the good stuff eventually lol. Story here between the two is there isn't any. Nidia is a rookie on the way up at the time and Trish has just started wrapping up the "Christian's girlfriend" thing and becoming a full time wrestler again. Other than 2 short Raw matches with Lita that were more angle this is her first match as a heel since actually learning how to wrestle. So it's really important to see what her style will be. And it's such a total 180 to everything she did in 02-03 and such total commitment to being a heel and not eye candy that I just love it even if it's not that great a match. It's also a TEXTBOOK example of how much to give a weaker face opponent, proving just how smart a worker Trish was. Trish is in all black and with Tyson Tomko as her enforcer/problem solver here. I'm almost tempted to give Trish extra points for one of the best "you losers are beneath me" arrogant walks to the ring, something she excelled at. NIdia looks nervous at both Trish and Tyson here. Coach and Al Snow..........not so good on commentary. Nice hard side headlock takedown from Trish to start, good facials at working the hold. Trish kicks, forearms and smashes away, taking her time, measuring the blows and showing real viciousness. Good forearms to the upper chest get some real sounds of pain. Trish converts an attempted Irish whip into a sort of half clothesline/half hair takedown from behind to Nidia. Odd move, looks okay though but she never tried it again. Really nasty hair pull from behind to a bending Nidia gets a good sympathy pop. Nasty soccer kick follows. Trish then viciously stomps Nidia's fingers in a nice heel move. Nidia covers that hand so Trish stomps the other one just as hard. Nidia is sitting up so Trish stands over and just start berating and mocking her with sneering contempt so Nidia slaps her, sold very well by Trish. Nidia comes back with a few strikes but Tyson casually grabs Trish's leg to pull her out to bail. This is almost a bit too much IMO in terms of what to overcome. It's like Diesel helping Shawn Michaels out against Virgil in 93 but the idea is get Trish heel heat and establish her new character so it makes sense. Snow actually calls his involvement "A bunch of crap". Baseball slide into Trish sends her flying for a loop and well sold and Nidia then bails away to avoid Tyson, with him not fast enough to catch her. Decent idea. Nidia throws Trish back in and Trish begs off, not being afraid to be a cowardly heel at all. Nidia charges in so Trish suckers her with a nice drop toehold into an armbar combo. Trish adds a leghook in a double submission move she probably should have done as a regular move as a heel. Coach mentions he's had a dream with Trish like this, very classy Coach. Trish converts to a wristlock again look at the effort she puts into the hold, she's certainly not just doing a dull WWE chinlock spot at all. And then comes said chinlock but again both girls actually try here. Trish adds this nasty little touch to the hold as well. Very mild Nidia chant as Nidia powers up. Nidia does the elbows and tries the irish whip escape but Trish pulls her tights in and forearms her down. Cute. Stomp and Trish slides to the floor so she can grab Nidia's hair, pull them face to face and slap her viciously. Seriously heel Trish is awesome you can see why crowds wanted Lita to kick her ass. Suplex is countered with a small package and then Trish errs by being too obvious going for a backslide set up. Definite mistake on her part. Camera work could have easily fixed that as it is a second long. Nidia hits some weak clotheslines but watch Trish go above and beyond selling them with great back bumps each time. Backdrop and Trish sells it Rick Rude style, landing right on her butt and screaming in pain. Northern lights gets 2 and Nidia runs the ropes right into the chick kick. Trish does a nice fall against the ropes, stunned her opponent had that much in her for a brief second, then covers for the pin., but makes sure to hook the tights as well just cause. All heels should be proud. This is exactly how much to give a rookie who's being built up as something someday but not ready yet to hang. It's probably Nidia's best singles match in WWE. 2 and a quarter star, deducted one quarter for Trish's feeding of the backslide. They had one other singles on Raw fought over some orange soda. Yes I'm serious.

Trish Stratus vs. Christy Hemme - WM 21 The other "match" they had was the rematch the night after this, which is actually quite funny as Trish simply KO's Christy with one kick before the bell (To a pretty good pop as Heel Trish was starting to get cheers). Anyway the original idea here was the first ever divas ladder match between Trish and Lita to settle this feud once and for all. But Lita got hurt at NYR 2005 and was out of wrestling for ANOTHER 18 months (Lita actually spent more time on DL than active during her WWE career). With Trish having wrestled the likes of Victoria and Molly to death they decided to go with Christy Hemme due to the playboy cover. Story was Trish was jealous of the attention and basically started bullying Christy until Lita began to train her. This was Christy's 2nd televised match ever at this point. Also Trish was badly injured, working only one tag after this and then taking 5 months off to recover. In a strange and poor decision she wasn't even beaten or stripped of the title, she just vanished off TV and returned 5 months later still the champion. Christy is with Lita. Trish comes out dressed in this bizarre German peasant girl/business suit hybrid. Not sure what she was going for at all there. Video package sets this up and does a pretty good job. With Trish hurt I assumed Christy was getting the Rocky miracle here at the time. Trish starts by laying down and offering Christy a free pin, establishing the theme, Trish sees this as a total joke. Her character was incredibly cocky as a heel and this is the height of that. Trish shoves her down and easily sidesteps a charge, being more concerned with adjusting her hair. A contemptuous kick sends Christy flying to the floor in a heap. Trish rams her into the steps with Christy taking it badly. Trish stomps and chops away as the announcers debate Trish taking this seriously at all and Trish's body language is indeed completely relaxed. Trish mocks and skips Christy's pose to a huge pop. There's a general problem here in that no one really seems to be pulling for Christy as she's not a good babyface and Trish is "one of us" and not a playboy model to the crowd. Lita's popularity was NOT transferable it seems. Trish goes for the chick kick lazily and it get blocked. Christy grabs the leg and lands a low blow while Lita distracts the referee to insane overselling from Trish. That does NOT get the crowd on their side. Christy grabs the legs and Trish pulls herself up on the ropes to be slammed down. Christy stomps and tries a bridge, doing a lousy job of that too. Trish goes as if Christy is going to irish whip her and Christy just forgets what to do so Trish chops away instead. Terrible. Trish lays some in pretty good too, doing better chops than in the Gail match 2 years earlier and mocks Lita. Trish does a corner charge into a rollup but Christy's timing is so bad Trish has to just stand there for a few seconds without moving for it to work. Trish counters a charge with a spear (too hurt to even do a spinebuster or lift her). Trish beats her up a bit more on the floor then rams Lita into the guardrail. This is as good as a hurt Trish wrestling a near literal broomstick could be but it's not good at all. Christy comes back with a rollup and some really lousy kicks to the knee that get small boos. They do the turnbuckle ram spot and a hairpull from Christy. Christy hits her twist of fate for 2. Trish's selling of all this has to be commended as she looks confused, scared and realizing she's way underestimated her opponent. She's doing her best to get this terrible offense over as a threat. They do a slow rollup sequence and Trish powers out then hits the chick kick for the pin to a mixed pop. A one star match and that's ALL due to Trish. Given the circumstances of Trish being too injured to take most bumps and her opponent being terribly inexperienced and barely trained (Brie Bella is the best Japanese women's wrestler in history x2 compared to Christy here) this was the best possible thing they could have done. Trish had one more tag and then got much needed shoulder surgery. Sadly this is the LAST singles match she ever worked as a heel in her career.

The goal is to cover at least one match of her 20 opponents and a few random tags and such and some promos as well hopefully. I hope other people actually rewatch and comment on some of the matches I am talking about before they make a judgment as to her worth.

If there's a good Torrie Wilson match out there that's not a tag I am unaware of it. Trish Stratus vs. Gail Kim - Raw August 2003 Story here is Gail just lost the title to Molly. Gail was about to turn heel and was a tweener. Trish is a face. The biggest problem with Gail going into this is that she has NO offense other than headscissors and hurricanranas. It got so bad Scott Keith made a gag out of it. Match runs about 5 minutes and has a finish issue but BOY do they fix the Gail offensive issue. The majority of the match is based on submissions and one of the best chinlock spots the company had for the whole darn decade. Seriously check this spot and then use the "Trish could not work mat wrestling or subs argument again". Gail starts off attacking Trish from behind as she makes her way to the ring, cementing a budding heel turn. The bump Trish takes to the floor looks pretty serious and Gail stomps away and chokes her out with her coat. Sliding dropkick gets two and Gail then counters a sunset flip with a NASTY knee to the back of the head. Gail then locks in a chinlock and here is where both but particularly Trish, not known for mat wrestling according to a GOAT 100 argument, really really shines. Trish uses the flip herself out counter really well and Gail keeps the hold locked in, tightening it as Trish sells it even better. Trish tries to whip Gail into the ropes that's blocked so Trish reverts to the back suplex in an increasingly desperation counter, but Gail keeps the hold locked in even after that. Good stuff. Trish's facials and selling she is going out are first rate here. Trish powers up and flips Gail over head to finally break the hold to a decent pop especially for matwork in a 5 minute divas match. A Trish charge eats boot and Gail goes RIGHT back to the sleeper/chinlock (looks a bit like both) to finish. Trish rams her back into the corner and even that BARELY works, taking several attempts as Trish is selling Gail's hold like death here. And even then Gail just locks in another hold a dragon sleeper but Trish uses her feet to climb the ropes and flip out, countering with a reverse DDT on the way down. Awesome stuff. And to the commentary screw Jim Ross for not selling the heck out of what was just one of the best minutes of a chinlock and related stuff I've seen on WWE that decade. Trish fights back with forearms, countered with a knee and Gail runs off the ropes into Trish's spinebuster (Trish kept her head down before the move a second too long IMO). And it's a really high and impactful one as well. Trish chops away (not her best stuff) and ducks a clothesline into her Chick Kick for 2. Gail kicks away and goes for an irish whip blocked into the stratusfaction for 3. Didn't like the finish that much as the chinlock seemed to be forgotten and that was the bulk of the match but that's true of virtually every WWE bout that decade so I let it slide in context. But seriously it's a barely 5 minute match with a 90 second chinlock spot and both girls work it so hard it ends up becoming a really good 5 minute match and the best Gail had in WWE at that point. Now Gail has an offense and a gimmick, submission expert, one she'd keep for the rest of this tenure. 2 and 3/4 stars for the most effort in a chinlock WWE had that year. Seriously watch this sequence if you think Trish can't do holds.

He never wants anyone to point out he's lost a match. Hogan's a delusional mark for himself and has been for decades. Hawkeye is right but that's not what Hogan's said. Hogan thinks pointing out the WM VI result was the issue

Never said she was the equal in ring of the Japanese women. Trish Stratus vs Torrie Wilson - Raw September 2005 This is a bad match. As in one of the lesser matches of her career and certainly one of the worst in this run. But there isn't a good Torrie-Trish singles match out there, nor many tags as opponents. I have heard neither woman cared for the other and I've never heard that about anyone else as it relates to Trish and her opponents. But there's not a single Heel Trish vs. face Torrie around. Story here is Trish came to the rescue of Ashley against Torrie/Candice/Victoria. They never really explained this and it was a weak face turn by far IMO. There's a very contrived spot to allow Ashley to double clothesline Candice and Victoria and basic forearms, punches and chops. Trish does a great job selling Torrie's lousy kicks but that's it. Torrie has no moves she can use to bump Trish and isn't taking any either herself. Ends in a heel miscommunication rollup. I blame Torrie for this to be honest but it was lousy and they only hand one other singles match in 2001 and that's not much better as Trish was still learning then. 1 star for Trish's selling Torrie's weak strikes.

Oh yeah I remember that. The Muhammed Hassan angle was terrible and showed clearly that Vince was not going out of the 80's in his political or social presentation.

Good use of Eva Marie too, getting the victory over Bayley without actually having to wrestle title matches if they go that route. Gets her heat

Trish Stratus I want to do this to present my case as her being at the very least the WWF Women’s GOAT. Instead of using just her best stuff my goal is to cover every opponent she ever wrestled and I’m going to start with lesser opponents and not so great matches. One point I want to illustrate is that Trish was a very smart worker, particularly as a heel. Trish Stratus vs. Stacy Keibler, Raw October 2004 championship match Lita was injured again and the division was thin, so they noticed Stacy getting good reactions and gave her a little mini push. She got the pin against Trish’s team in 2 tag matches then pinned Molly to set this up. Smart booking as she had not (and never did) pin Trish. Today the champ would have lost 3 non title matches first. One thing I like about heel Trish 04-05 is that in wrestling she wore practical dark clothes and rarely sexed it up. You can’t say the same thing about Sable, Torrie, Stacy, or any of the other divas presented as sex symbols at the time. Shows respect for being a heel. Is Stacy wearing the colors of a local soccer team? The story overall here is Stacy is way over her head and should have no chance. But she has two things going for her. Her height and her long legs which are played up as her best weapon. Anyway they do a little chain wrestling and Stacy gets her slow mo cartwheel to frustrate Trish who ends up in the corner. Trish gets kicked and Stacy does her Nash boot choke. Watch the way Trish sells this. Rather than stand there she is lifted up off her feet and bucks and kicks like she is truly being choked. It gets over STACY KEIBLER as having a great offensive weapon and is one of those little things I love about Trish. Okayish sunset flip gets 2 and Trish bails to avoid the spinning kick, Stacy’s finish at the time. Trish grabs the leg from the floor and posts it well then does this funny heel bit where she folds her arms on the apron and talks smack to Stacy. She was great at playing a very cruel woman. Trish works the leg in the corner, again watch her facials here for the effort she puts into heeling it up then locks in a decent half crab, a new move for her more or less that works the leg. Lawler actually stops drooling to sell the game plan, take out Stacy’s best weapon. More leg work and choking on the ropes. Trish goes for her great corner naked choke but gets slammed off in a really good nasty looking bump. To her credit Stacy sells this, being unable to follow up as her knee is bothering her badly. This sort of selling is actually better than in most WWE matches of this time and Russo stuff for sure for a 4 minute match. Stacy shoves Trish away when she goes for the bulldog so Trish says F this nonsense and viciously kicks her knee out. She then hits the chick kick……….on the shoulder for the pin. NO idea what went wrong there as Stacy was not going down fast. But given that Trish NEVER botched this before or since I will assume it was either an injury on Stacy’s part or the booking. It is a problem though. A 2 star match. Trish wrestled smarter than WWF Flair, giving a weak challenger as much as she should (and that Stacy COULD do) and working a gameplan that negated her opponent’s only hope while being a nasty vicious heel all the way. Good stuff. Remind me of late heel Andre in making each little move and facial expression matter.

JDW and I concur totally on this. I just cannot rewatch Benoit but I did see all his stuff in WCW and WWF/E as it happened so I am reasonably sure as to my views on his work. I think being the opposite of what was pushed as the main event everywhere he went is a big part of Benoit's appeal at the time to smart fans.

He is a lock for my top 5 too. Looking at Bock, Flair, Jumbo, Lawler for sure. Need to watch more lucha to see if anyone there cracks top 5

That is very fair and consistent then.

Not that I ever saw. Did Beefcake even give a logical explanation for it? That feud is something I have chose to forget.

See your point now more clearly. Yes I agree Flair is NOT #1 in everything but he's close enough and so highly rated in everything. He's probably my #1 pick at this point once I do more than a small lucha sampler. Jumbo right now is up there with him for me. IS Flair the number 2 draw in the 80's? Wonder about this as compared to say Andre or Road Warriors to be honest.