Jimmy Redman

I think guys like Cena have shown that it's not impossible to break the chains of being brought up solely in modern day, sanitised WWE. But I agree that it's difficult, and Orton is the best example of the kind of soullessness that they were breeding in people about a decade ago.

Exposer has hit it bang on the head. It had never occurred to me before, but that's exactly it. His matches don't garner heat - not in the sense of noise, but of an emotional hook. His strengths are all of the non-emotional aspects, like bumping, technique, timing of spots, interesting counters, using signature moves. There are a lot of Orton matches I like. A lot. I thought he was outstanding in 2011, for example, just on the basis of having good TV matches every week. But that's exactly the reason why it's so hard to care about him so much of the time. His matches just don't resonate emotionally.

I think there's a bit of a tonal (and moral) difference between "I overlook a shitty aspect of Austin's real life character to enjoy his wrestling work" and "I'd have beat that annoying bitch too" or "Austin should have given her a Stunner hyuck hyuck" (Not quoting from The Board, just paraphrasing based on the above description).Not to mention trying to intelligently defend his behaviour.

For Rey vs small guy matches, if you combine his cruiserweight division run with the odd match since then there's a decent list of them, more than you'd think for his WWE run. You've already covered his cruiser years though, and I can't think of a significant example off the top of my head that I haven't already listed at some point. My feathers, for one, aren't ruffled. Between this and Cena I've enjoyed your take on some of my favourite guys, even when I disagree with a lot of it. Different perspectives are interesting. On Finlay, I was actually a little underwhelmed with all of their 2006 matches, and I think the one from SD November 2007 is easily their best match together.

So, I'm someone who would say that I don't really "get" joshi. I am a big fan of women's wrestling, and I've tried watching joshi matches so many times, but most of them do very little for me. The matches that I've watched up to this point I can separate into two broad categories: a. Over the top monster heels with gimmicks, interference, no rule enforcement and the like (e.g. Dump/Chiggy) b. Fast-paced, go-go-go athletic exhibitions (e.g. JBAs, Toyota) And neither of those types of matches do much for me. I can see and even accept the quirks of both styles, and get what they're going for and even say that it's well worked, but it just doesn't touch me in a visceral way. I don't enjoy the experience of watching the matches. I just...don't get it. Then last night I watched Hokuto vs Kandori. And then I got it. That kind of match was so much more...recognisable to me, I guess. The structure, the pace, the story, they were all something I could really get into and enjoy. So I guess the point of this post is for me to ask, can someone who knows more than me recommend more joshi that looks like Hokuto/Kandori? I realise I sort of started at the top because it's one of the highest rated matches out there, but I don't need them to be as good as this one necessarily, just worked in the same style. Is this how Hokuto generally worked? Kandori? What is there to check out from "this" kind of joshi?

For fans of the tag title match at the PPV, don't miss the rematch on SD, which was more of the same goodness. Highlighted by Xavier Woods laughing on the floor, and everything Cesaro and Kidd did. Many more matches between these two, thanks. I'm still getting my head around Naomi as a heel and I'm not sure I like it, but between her forearm and Nikki's forearm, I think when it comes time for their match I'll be begging for something I never thought I would ever beg for again thanks to New Japan: a forearm battle.

That is his point, but again the response to that is, if the match quality is still good, what does it matter? I understand Matt's point about adaptability when you have a guy's limitations holding him back from performing in the ring, and he has to adapt in order to maintain a level of quality. I can see how an inability to do that would be a negative under Matt's philosophy. I think a guy's limitations not holding him back from performing in the ring, but possibly resulting in shortening his career (which we still don't know with certainty yet)...that I see as another matter entirely. If it's not affecting the quality of work, why does he need to adapt at all? (In a GWE sense, not a "concern for his wellbeing" sense) I agree with stomper that it is a slippery slope when we're penalising a guy for something that has no effect on his in-ring performances, only consequences for his real life wellbeing, and to ask how is it any different to Misawa or Benoit using a high-impact style in the ring that ultimately cost them in real life in one way or another. Even an Edge...do you mark certain ladder matches down because they lead to Edge's early retirement and he should have "known better" than to continue using a high risk style in the ring? I definitely think these are the relevant questions when you start holding Bryan's 2015 against him due to his health issues, ASSUMING that the quality of his work has remained high. Of course if you think the quality has dropped that's a different story, but I don't get the impression that that is Matt's argument. His argument seems to simply be that he should work differently because we are aware of his real life health issues. To put it another way...if you watched Bryan's 2015 work having no knowledge of how bad his health is, would you still mark him down?

Fucking co-signed. I decided to chuck this on after reading the hype around it recently, and Holy Shitballs. I've been struggling to sit through wrestling matches lately, and I was going to have this on while I practiced my chords, but then Hansen starting mauling Kawada from the get go and I was glued to the screen for the next however long this match went. I don't even know, it felt like five minutes. What a motherfucking war. War, war, war. Hard shot after hard shot. I was in love by the time Kawada rammed him into the ringpost, and when Hansen hit THAT MOTHERFUCKING LARIAT I realised that this is now my favourite match from the entire 90s so far. I'm with Parv, I don't care what comes after this in the timeline, or before it, this match is amazing.

From memory, that match is Regal vs Christian on ECW TV in late 2009, maybe November or something. It's on goodhelmet's 2009 MOTY comp.

Because he isn't working in a way that would prolong his shelf life as a wrestler? Or because you don't like the matches? (Only asking because this seems to be a follow up to your post in his other thread about Austin's comment)

For what it's worth, when the Bellas got their first big in-ring push in 2011 I was impressed with them, they were good at working the bitchy twins gimmick even then, and Nikki was always the better and more committed heel of the two. I don't remember her ring work (or Brie's for that matter, although Brie was the better match worker during their first run) really being of the standard that it is now though. You can clearly see their improvement, and the influence of their respective partners on their work, with Brie flying around with dropkicks and stuff, while Nikki added strength and the Cena power spots. They're both better than they used to be. But they were already good before they left the company.

You were close.

When the fuck did Bo Dallas realise that he was a heel? Because fuck that.

Naomi is a heel now?!?! What is happening in this life??

He's had that sunken chest for years now. Even before Jericho developed his.

I haven't really watched much wrestling or kept up with the scene at all in the last six months or so. But I watched Mania, and this weekend I finally cracked it and voluntarily sought out wrestling matches to watch and checked out the board again. Now, like a recovering drug addict who decided to be bad just one more time I am in full-on binge mode, sitting here at 2:30am watching Survivor Series 2003 for the umpteenth time, just quivering with how good - and bad - it feels to dive face-first back into something so horrifically addictive. I need help. So anyway, my point is that I'm watching Shawn Michaels' performance at Survivor Series 2003, incidentally the performance that made me a wrestling fan, and I just want to say that you're all motherfucking crazy as shit. Shawn is other worldly. I know I owe you all a case, and I'll deliver it one day, but for now you just get inane sleep-deprived rambling. Shawn rules.

You weren't imagining it. He really was doing Christian before Christian did it, working his ass off having great TV matches with everyone in sight, and also working as a convincing big-fish-in-small-pond babyface ace. I just watched him vs MVP at GAB 2007, which is a damn great match with a superb Matt performance.

I thought Ryback and Rusev actually had a hell of a big man battle on SD this week.

To be honest I think Big Show's whole run as ECW Champ was really good, especially early on when he was having great matches every week on TV with a weird assortment of people. In the early period Heyman had creative control and he seemed to be on a mission to prove some kind of "THIS is how the Big Show should have always been booked" point, because he was portrayed as a total monster for an entire six month period (probably a record for the career of the Big Show) and he really delivered in that role. His July 2006 is one of the single best calendar months of work I've seen on WWE TV. That's a weird thing to say, but it happens that he just had really good matches on telly four weeks in a row...vs RVD on 4/7, Flair on 11/7, Undertaker on 18/7, and even Kane on 25/7. I wonder if anyone has watched or will watch the non-Flair matches and agree with me. The matches I kind of liken to a reverse NWA travelling champion thing, where instead of the champ travelling to different territories and being challenged by the local hero on his home turf, you instead had challengers from the normal brands "travel" to ECW to challenge Big Show on his home field, under his rules (allowing for the idea that "extreme rules" are now to Show's advantage now that he's on the ECW roster, as per WWE Storytelling Logic). So every other week you get the Flairs and Takers and whoevers of the world coming in to work an "ECW match" against this unstoppable monster, and at the same time there's this overarching "ECW Originals vs Evil Paul E" storyline that links everything together. You get the stand-alone curiosities of the third brand, as well as the episodic television that Heyman specialised in.

Basically this. I'm not really comfortable using the term "carryjob" because when I think of examples, I generally come to the conclusion that the guy being "carried" actively added to the match. More than anything it's just a shorter way of saying either "I don't like this guy but he had a good match and I need to qualify it", or "This guy is usually terrible but he had a good match and I need to explain it". I think the closest you get to true examples of carrying are when you have someone who is loaded, knocked out, relatively untrained (celebrity or first-match rookie, whatever) or physically inept, someone who literally has to be lead by the hand around the ring.

I remember a while back during a conversation about HHH I ended up listing off the top of my head all of the times he'd undeservedly gone over someone, made people look bad for no reason, or inserted himself into hot angles (I think this was back after the horrible Brock feud). It wasn't a comprehensive list but it was still staggering in volume. - Going over in the WM2000 main event - Going over Jericho in mid-2000 - Botching the Angle/Steph love triangle - Going over Austin in Three Stages of Hell, then forming the Two-Man Power Trip instead of playing second-fiddle to Austin the new top heel - The entire Jericho/Steph storyline for WM18, then going over - The entire Booker T/racism storyline for WM19, then going over - Exposing Scott Steiner by trying to cosplay as NWA Champ in long title matches - Going over Goldberg at Summerslam 2003 on one leg - Goldberg holds World Title for two months before dropping it back to HHH - Traded to Smackdown in 2004, traded back for THREE GUYS (RVD and Dudleys) - HHH vs Shawn Michaels feud in 2004 overshadows Benoit's title run - Eugene heats up in mid-2004, so Hunter works with him and destroys him - Going over Orton for World Title after the one-month reign and kicking him out of Evolution - Works WM22 with Cena, Hunter as the supposed heel continually calls him a shitty wrestler and gets pops - DX in 2006 - beat all five of Spirit Squad by themselves, generally beat the entire roster all at once habitually and take up masses of TV time along with McMahons - Squashed Booker T, Carlito, etc. upon his return from injury in 2007 - On more than one occasion beat up Londrick by himself in the ring, while they were tag champs and everyone involved were babyfaces, for no particular reason. - Did the most horrific, laughable "job" for Jeff Hardy in December 2007 when Jeff was becoming a superstar and being groomed for a title shot. - Didn't put his good friend Ric Flair over cleanly in his last televised match in Flair Country, during an angle where Flair was booked to win all of his televised matches or else retire. All in aid of some bullshit feud with Regal that ended when Hunter beat him cleanly in about 4 minutes a week later. - During his Smackdown run in 2008 verbally buried the midcard and beat up multiple people by himself once again - Beat Jeff Hardy cleanly twice more as he heated up again, and only lost the title to him via Edge in a three way - Going over Orton at WM25 after Orton was super hot after punting Vince - Another DX reunion in 2009, going over Legacy, Miz & Morrison, etc. - Going over Sheamus at WM26, losing at Extreme Rules instead - Going over Punk at Night of Champions 2011 after Punk was super hot and they had that worked-shoot feud where Hunter got to bury him as a skinny-fat indy geek with ultimately no comeuppance - The Hunter as COO storyline, where the entire Raw roster revolted against him and he visibly didn't give a shit, he got to bury them all some more before they came back with tails between their legs - Hunter, now a part-time wrestler and authority figure, works even-stevens with Brock Lesnar for a year after Lesnar had just completely destroyed Cena the company ace, and goes over him at WM29 - As an authority figure, routinely puts himself over the active talent, shows no fear, acts tougher than all of them and buries anyone who challenges him with jokes and smirks - The entire Daniel Bryan/The Authority storyline (until it was thankfully concluded properly at WM30) - Going over Sting at WM31 when Sting finally worked for the company after an 18 year wait - Will possibly work with The Rock at WM32? (I'm not up with the news, just basing this off the angle they shot at WM) I've probably forgotten some things too. Some are worse than others and some I'd argue aren't really that bad, but when you add everything together you really get an overall picture of a guy who is almost pathologically determined to put himself over at the expense of all others.

If you want to enjoy a different and kind of brilliantly funny 619 setup, watch his match with Eddie Guerrero on Smackdown January 2005.

Damn, I'm on holiday and don't have access to a computer to write the kind of thesis that Cena requires, but let me just say that Parv going through Cena is also fascinating and I eagerly await. I do have some points in respond to some of your issues, I'll address them when I get back.

One thing that always impresses me about the really good Divas matches is just how much they are able to pack into the 5-8 minutes they are usually given. You wouldn't think you'd be able to fit beginning-middle-end or a coherent story or gear shifts into such a short space of time, but somehow they do.

That reminds me of a time years ago when someone I was talking to was dissing Kelly Kelly and used "She'd never be able to work a 60 minute broadway" as a 100% serious criticism. Like yeah, her, and how much of the male wrestling population.