Lee Casebolt

Was really good in his early career, then suffers from having his prime years dominated by being a bit player in the worst in-ring period in American wrestling history. I need to take another look at his WCW run when I can be more objective about it, because as much as I hated Syxx, the Lightning/1-2-3 Kid deserves some consideration.

Since TNA is basically a 1999 WCW tribute band of a promotion, that makes perfect sense.

He did at least one match with Chris Dolman that is either a worked shoot or a clumsy shoot. I don't know anything about the circumstances, though.

I see where Dylan's coming from, but I need the framework of "working" positions or I will never be able to sort out this many people. I've got 136 wrestlers I feel more or less knowledgeable about sorted (Arn Anderson #1, Abdullah the Butcher #136) based on my current feelings, and another 125 nominees listed to get to and plug in over the course of the project. Nothing's set in stone yet, though.

If it's the six man I'm thinking of, Andre takes a couple spills from the apron out into the crowd. Watching some poor schmuck in the first row seeing Andre fall into his lap is hysterically funny.

The mystique would definitely be gone. I've compared Brock to Andre in the past - he's a guy who feels like an event because he wrestles so rarely and his performances are generally spectacular. If he's on tv every week, that aura becomes impossible to maintain. Big Show's career would have been four times as good if he'd wrestled one fourth as often.

I don't see why the Dr. X stuff wouldn't count. A change of gimmick doesn't make him a different person. Bill Eadie's work counts whether he's Ax or Masked Superstar, right? Same thing.

I was never high on Styles, but his post-TNA work is a million times better than anything he did in TNA. It's the best available evidence for the idea that what people do in TNA should not be held against them.

It's funny you say that, because revisiting mid/late 90s Luger, I think much more highly of him now than I did then. Some of it's character work - the tag team of heel Lex and best friend babyface Sting never fails to entertain - but I think he's better in the ring than I wanted to admit at the time. He's a "what if" guy a step down from Windham and Rhodes for me. If his booking had been better, if his legs weren't repeatedly cut out from under him whenever it looked like he had a chance to break out as The Man in a promotion, how much better would he be? Still probably won't make 100 for me, but he may end up on the bubble depending on how my dive into lucha/joshi/WoS goes.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TgvrOlf4ic[/embed] Another change up. I have no idea who Cyclone Ayana is, but he's got to be better than Calhoun. It's similar in layout to the Thesz match. The matwork is a little more pedestrian in execution; Ayana's pretty good, but he's not in Thesz's class. His smaller size does let Rogers use a little more power in counterwrestling, using a body slam to get out of several different positions. He gets to be a little bit more of a bully wrestling on top, too. The kneedrops and such are one thing, but the wristlock/hammerlock combo looks horrific in the best way. Rogers milks a good two minutes out of that hammerlock and it never looks dull.

[embed] [/embed] I wanted something different from the Thesz match to follow up, and see how Rogers worked against a variety of opponents. You don't get too much different from Lou Thesz than 601lb Haystacks Calhoun. This one obviously will not be going 60. It's mostly what you'd expect. Less technical exhibition, more schtick and cheap shots. Calhoun is the original immovable object, and Rogers is basically wrestling around him, trying to make stationary positions as interesting as possible. He's got his work cut out for him; Calhoun is awful. The foot stomp against the barefoot wrestler is a nice touch, and I do like the finish.

There's a handful of WSM competitors who had wrestling careers of some length or another - Kazmeier, Nathan Jones, Geoff Capes, Tom Magee - but for guys who had long wrestling careers, it's pretty much Mark Henry and Ken Patera, and then everyone else.

I'd given up on AJ well before the split.

Someone give me a quick primer to the essential Dundee (non-Lawler division)?

Right outside my top ten at the moment, which is almost certainly too high. Along with Barry Windham, probably the premier "what if" guy for me. If a couple booking decisions change and he keeps his shit together over the years, I feel like he's someone who could have been in the conversation for #1 overall.

I need to force myself to go back and watch his stuff, but he legit may not make my list at all. I hate how the 90s AJ style evolved, and the fact that it literally killed him doesn't improve my opinion any.

Buddy Rogers thread started. I'll have two more reviews up tomorrow.

To a nicer guy, a thread couldn't happen. Buddy needs some reviews to get his just consideration for the 100 Greatest poll. [embed] [/embed] Rogers vs Lou Thesz, 1-26-51 The new Chicago footage is going to be a huge boon to Rogers, Thesz, Gagne, and O'Connor, at least. In Hooker, Thesz claimed you could tell how good a match he had with Rogers would be based on the result. If Thesz was winning, Rogers would dog it. If they were going to a draw, Rogers would work hard. Given the running time I'm assuming draw here, which suggests Rogers will be on his best behavior. My favorite part about good Golden Age wrestling is how credible the matwork is. If you're not someone who enjoys matwork, this match is not going to be for you. Also you are bad and should feel bad. If you are a matwork aficionado, you're in for a treat. Most of the holds are more or less legit and worked as such, and even the pure show holds are used to give the appearance of looking for a submission or a pinfall rather than a time to just lay on the mat. Rogers and Thesz do not disappoint here. No fancy reversal sequences or lockflow-like changing one hold to another just to do it. Things like a headlock takeover are worked with much less appearance of cooperation. It's just two guys cranking on each other, looking for advantage or escape. When the brawling breaks out - usually at Rogers' instigation - it's primarily sneaky little shots in the clinch or on the mat. Rogers working from underneath a headlock is a joy to watch. Rather than just lay there, he sneaks in these little punches to the spine, ultimately forcing Thesz to retaliate with a drubbing to Rogers' face. That draws the attention of special referee Jack Dempsey - who's quite good in that role, doing the job without attracting too much attention to himself - and Rogers uses the distraction to grab the trunks to roll up Thesz for the pin attempt. Whenever Rogers cheats, it's always something that is hidden from the referee but in plain view of the crowd. It's a very professional approach to heeling I really appreciate. It's a Rogers thread, but I need to say some good things about Thesz, too. Obviously he's a master technician, but he's also skilled at working in his own roughhousing when the need arises. I'm a huge fan of his elbow, where he slaps his own fist to drive the elbow into an opponent. It works better when he's playing the heel - it just looks like he's trying to get away with something - but even when he's not it's a unique signature, something to set him apart from what everyone else is doing. If I have a complaint about this match, it's that I'd like to see a greater sense of urgency from Rogers in the closing minutes. For the most part, he works the last two minutes like the middle two, while the champion Thesz is the one putting in extra effort to try to put away the challenger. Shouldn't that be the other way around? Still, for a match that goes most of 60, this one really moves, and keeps a steady pace throughout.

I love 70s Inoki. I watched him challenge Dory and Brisco for the NWA title, and he was step for step with both guys. Ditto with Billy Robinson. Inoki/Andre was always a good match, too. It probably won't mean anything to anyone else, but I am also a big fan of Inoki's Pro Wrestling vs The World faux-MMA tours. From Pakistani wrestlers to top judo players to Muhammed Ali, Inoki never looked out of place challenging the toughest guys in the world, and generally got genuinely entertaining matches out of non-workers.

Antonio Inoki Buddy Rogers

For that matter, Cena's one of (arguably the) best wrestlers of his generation, but aside from being freakishly strong, he's a pretty mediocre athlete. Every move he does looks like a potential disaster in the making. The matches are still great, though.

One of the best things you can say about The Rock is he got significantly better when he could have just coasted on charisma. '98 Rock and '01 Rock are night and day.

A short summary of my afternoon so far... "Here's Abdullah vs Billy. Let's watch that!" *watches* That was fucking terrible. Maybe Billy's a bad matchup for him. *watches Abby/Carlos Colon *6-15-86* That was terrible. Do I just not like Colon? *watches Colon/Hercules Ayala 1-6-89* That was badass. Maybe it was just a bad match? *watches Hansen/Brody vs Abby/Colon, '84 lumberjack match* Sort of a mess. Abby's clearly the weak link here. *Abby/Yoji Anjoh 10-27-01* No expectations going in, but how can you find this and not watch it? It's kind of a fun way to kill five minutes, but it's all Anjoh. Against everyone from Billy Robinson to Bam Bam Bigelow, Carlos Colon to Yoji Anjoh, Abdullah manages to be the worst guy in the ring. He's sometimes effective at getting himself over, but he does virtually nothing to make anyone else look good. I'm with NintendoLogic - well below Brody, and nowhere near my 100.

1. Golden Age 2. Lucha 3. 21st c. indies 4. PR 5. WoS 6. Fujinami & Choshu

The ICW cage match with Savage is must-see. I don't know that he'll make my list, but he is a guy I need to go back and take another look at.