Rah

Did you watch their match from December 1995? I'm honestly baffled why nobody talks about it - my review is the sole one here on PWO and I can't find any traction on WKO etc. https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/41219-1995-12-01-emll-negro-casas-vs-el-hijo-del-santo/

Rey vs Randy Orton, Smackdown 7th April 2006 It's my go-to match to show what a motivated Orton looks like. Sure, Rey was on a hit streak in 2006 but this match being great is mostly down to Orton

Belair is an ex-Crossfit competitor so that doesn't bode well for the future of the PC. Besides, WWE most successful developmental programme is basically letting talent go and hiring them when they've got polish again.

Do you think it could have been better if they had gone for a 2/3 fall structure instead of the single? It felt a little under-dramatic as far as (Casas) hair matches go.

"apparently" ... "no excuses" You can't claim a mistake yet not own up to it.

Wouldn't this be true for RoH Bryan, as well?

Is COVID-19 safety measures the work of paedophiles, dirty commie bastards or Satan's spawn? I'm struggling to keep up.

Beyond that indy run, Drew is probably the best Superstars TV worker in WWE history. Now, that doesn't sound like much. admittedly, but he got a LOT out of random 5-10 minute matches than most other wrestlers could out of double that time. His matches against Chris Masters are almost all high end and give a sneak peak into what I'm getting at. That said, Sheamus has been greater for longer, is more consistent on a weekly basis and has much higher highs than Drew (Bryan/Sheamus, Cesaro Best of 7 etc). Both are fantastic big men workers but if a match for each was to pop up on Youtube, I'd be more inclined to go with Sheamus 99 times out of a 100.

You could point to a little earlier than that and I'd have no qualms. Even by the great Elimination Chamber tag, Reigns was the best of the bunch. He was doing so many little things in that feud and really carried his character over the build and to the eventual payoff. He's been excellent for so long (8 years) but the booking surrounding his work has really soured those memories for most, it seems.

Can he challenge for the Smackdown title? Though I guess this is going to be used as an "escape clause" to the rule if he does win.

A lot of wrestlers post things against their storyline and actively mention they are playing characters. If Vince is fine with them, why wouldn't be fine with Miro/Lana posting their in real life situation? EDIT: seems Sasha Banks is on a roll liking Instagram posts relating to anti-vaxx conspiracy. Wrestling is such a frustrating hobby. Either your favourites get released or you realise they're morons.

Some of those stories about trying to separate Breeze/Woods are nutcase level. We know how petty WWE can be but it never ceases to amaze me sometimes. Last line seems to be a hint as to what everyone else is assuming. I see he also posted a photo of him in his Left Right Left Right merch.

Can someone give me a Brad Armstrong primer?

Even then Tyler Rust has been wrestling for almost 2 decades. He felt stale about 8 years ago in PWG. It seems so weird to me that a decade ago, in WWE, things felt so fresh with all these young talent. Fast forward 10 years and we have the same talent on top (and bottom and middle, ugh) with nobody else really coming through. I don't know how often I go through Wikipedia profiles of older wrestlers (especially from the 90s) and think "wow, he's a lot younger than I thought". There's this weird preconditioning WWE gives that older = better yet the opposite has always been true with their successful workers. There are a plethora of talent in their 20s just toiling away with no sign of getting any form of push. A few damning exceptions aside, the complete opposite is true in AEW. I don't have much time for their ring-work but they feel so fresh that I'd take it over a good WWE programme any day.

I totally get you and agree with you on that point. I was a massive Okada apologist in the early stages of his push but I've soured quite quickly on him. I'm guessing a lot of that was more picking a camp because the general consensus on the forum I was on was that Okada couldn't lace Tanahashi's boots and it drove me insane. I still think that's insane, btw. His execution is whatever, though it is strange that those who champion him have the same disdain for Cena's STF. I think he's one of the best at his particular style and goes a long way in making you forget the 30 minutes of drivel before the last 5 minutes of flash which is fascinating in and of itself. It's not a style I have any time for, though, and I can't bring myself to watching his epics with Omega for that reason. So I get Okada's case even if I wouldn't have him near a top 100. I wonder if he would have more online fans if he went by his real name, Carl Malenko. People have a deep fascination with Dean Malenko as the crème de la crème submission workrate guy of the 90s but he's so vastly inferior to brother Carl it's maddening.

The highlight of the video is Drake being so salty over the IWA-MS incident he dropped it in his speech ( "our children have been carried away captive by [...] the woke ideology in professional sport")

The issue with Okada is that he bookends his longer matches with cool stuff but the middle ground is so overwhelmingly boring. It's NJPW house-style and he probably learnt that from facing Tanahashi but, my god, I don't want to ever see another match go past 15 minutes. He's basically the Taco Bell of wrestlers - wildly popular but what you get is the drizzling shits.

There was that rumour that Vince soured strongly on him after he didn't fight Batista over having a fling with Melina. At least some of that is true, as of 2011: Either you don't fight someone and you get relegated for the rest of your tenure or you instigate a fight and get future endeavored. Vince, everybody.

I am clearly a lot higher on the guy than you are but we agree there. Oh, man, that's a trope I do hate. I don't think he's the most emblematic worker for this spot, though, and it was quite widespread in wrestling, especially in the 90s. I imagine it's a move that popped a crowd for these guys once so they went to the well until it ran dry (hint: it was always dry). I don't know how many times I've seen Shawn do it or have his opponents jump into it, for example. I am excited for the watch party, though, and am open to the idea of Andre's longevity and consistency being a lot longer and higher than I thought. At the moment I feel Arn got much more out of much less than Andre even if I don't think Arn is a top 5 "reliable hand" worker.

They're valid arguments, depending on your criteria of 'greatest wrestler', but I don't see much application to how I interpret that moniker. A lot of those points are either in his favour due to genetic lottery (obviously not in health) or impact. The landscape with or without Andre and WM3 doesn't matter to me in this project.

Washed up, out of shape Barry and Jericho are not someone I'd go out of my way to see. Totally in-shape Jericho is not someone I'd go out of my way to see - there's far too much stink in his career. Barry, on the other hand, has some corkers in his resume and always seemed like a true great even if he didn't put in the effort(?) to maintain that.

We can hatchet job quite a broad career retrospective of Casas. Copying this over from WKO - this is just his 2008-2018: As you can see, it gets more detailed once there was more focus on weekly lucha. That's a litany of matches where Casas is doing some good stuff across a spectrum of styles despite being booked in with some terrible workers/programmes. Through a lot of this he injects this larger than life charisma while still factoring in these little touches (how his body and ego slowly breaks down across his feud with Rush). I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that we can work between the cracks and conclude for the years there isn't a comprehensive list (or even much coverage) that, most probably, Casas was working at high quality. He isn't spoken of in as much detail, or as evaluated as much as Terry but that's an issue of fan interest more than Casas' output. Terry popped up in a lot of places that have extensive taping, viewership and, most importantly, discussion (some of which in real time). I don't want to sound like Funk's case is benefited solely by this (a lesser worker would have been shown up) but it is certainly propped up by that - as with a lot of the other heralded greats (Flair/Bryan). Lou Thesz and Le Petit Prince are most likely not going to rank as high as they would if they had more matches available to us. Lucha guys have a massive mountain to climb if we are to think of someone as great because of how much output they have or how long their output is. For better or worse, there is a sentiment that singles matches are of higher calibre than trios and that does many a disservice, especially when their case could or should be made on a weekly basis as opposed to Great Match Theory (Virus and Black Terry). If Matt D, or anyone else, can go through a few months and shed some light on unknown Casas that would be swell. There are 1049 matches on Youtube from 1986 all until two days ago. Large swathes of it are trios with no direct endgame but it's all there and ready for us to view.

Did they use a crash pad in the cell? I'm not sure what is going on here between the cutaway and the random hand shoving table parts out from under the ring:

Evolve 83

Alex is a conundrum to me, he seems like he should have been bigger than he was but his over-inflated ego is probably half the reason he never amounted to anything. Imagine thinking so highly of yourself that the WWE is dying to sign you but you're holding them off because you don't want to be part of a non-union company.