FedEx227

Maybe I missed them but what 2014 mid-card New Japan matches featured guys kicking out at 1 late in the match?

I'm going to be watching you like a hawk tonight and tattling if you chant.

I disagree that "THIS IS AWESOME!" is a way to get the fans over to...themselves I guess. There are instances of "WE ARE AWESOME!" which, yeah, that's beyond grating and as Joe mentioned earlier, "YOU FUCKED UP!" which I've always hated. I've gone to probably 150 indie shows over the last 10 years and I've never thought that "This is Awesome" was anything more than "Thank you wrestlers in the ring for putting on an entertaining match that we in this crowd enjoy" It has little to do with the crowd putting themselves over.

Right, this whole discussion is pretty ridiculous and short-sighted. The modern "BOO" / "YAY" is chants. I don't chant when I go to shows but it doesn't bother me. People are paying money to go to a wrestling event, you can do and say whatever the hell you want as long as it's not vulgar. If that's what makes fans enjoy modern wrestling and the modern wrestlers gear their matches towards it, again, who cares? I can enjoy a match just the same if people are saying "This is awesome!" during a spot or cheering.

Which finish? Benadryller? Have you seen his Dream Gate match from this year vs YAMATO? Not a Dragon Gate style match at all aside from some minor interference, and a totally different style of match from the usual Ricochet bout. Yeah the Benadryller. I guess I don't mind the move itself so much as the ridiculousness of building stretch runs around the struggle to get a guy up in the fireman's carry, just so he can set them back on their feet and kick them in the head. Just kick them in the fucking head! I love Rico but I totally agree, I hate the move.

Give me some time and I'll get this together for you. I'll try to dig up as many videos as I can as well.

Right, Boma Ye is not protected. Pretty much without fail, every single other one is teflon. The Rainmaker hasn't even had a kickoff hinted, it's instant death.

They usually stop playing the theme, dim the lights and people watch in-house commercials on the Titantron for a bit. Then, they come back from commercial, replay the music and the person acts like they just walked into the ring. It's WWE production zaniness and it's awful live.

I am interested to know why you so strongly disagree with Dave on it. I guess I don't disagree with MMA being apart of the equation in Japan but I do disagree with his continued resistence to giving any sort of direction to voters. In that Gordy List article I take a quote from last year's Observer where he basically says "Should you consider MMA, well, maybe not but voters did for Sakuraba, so I guess you should, but Sakuraba and MMA in Japan is a lot different so maybe you shouldn't, but I mean, maybe you should, I don't know" It answers nothing and just adds more confusion. It's your HoF dave, does MMA count or not? Does only Japanese MMA count but not American? I don't think it's worth getting into detailed discussions about the differences between Japan/USA MMA, just say yes or no and we can all move on. I suspect after this year Lesnar will have a better pure wrestling resume but until dave says one way or another there's going to continue to be questions about guys like Lesnar and how to treat MMA especially in the context of bringing pro wrestling fans with you to other mediums.

Ricochet (reviews are via W2B on Voices of Wrestling, if you'd like me to resubmit with my own reviews, let me know) Open the Twin Gate Titles – Akira Tozawa & BB Hulk © vs. Naruki Doi & Ricochet (Kobe World 2013) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x130oz0_mad-blankey-akira-tozawa-bxb-hulk-c-vs-world-1-international-naruki-doi-ricochet-dragon-gate_sport IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Kota Ibushi © vs. Ricochet (NJPW Dominion 2014) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zyt9o_kota-ibushi-vs-ricochet-njpw-dominion-6-21-2014_sport Best of the Super Jr. 2014 Final: KUSHIDA vs. Ricochet http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ywoce_njpw-best-of-super-juniors-2014-finals-ricochet-vs-kushida_sport Open the Dream Gate Championship: Ricochet © vs YAMATO (Dragon Gate Dead or Alive 2014) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpNt-lDRCT8

Bingo. It's easy to keep up the narrative that current wrestling sucks or isn't worth your time if you never watch it or give it time.

I advocated for Brock being a contender and a definite HOFer but not now. He can wait, especially since he has time to build his resume. I'd honestly wait until SummerSlam numbers fully come out and we have an idea about Network subscriptions. If he's driving people to the Network, that's another feather in his cap. And again, when I did my Gordy list on Lesnar I used dave's only rationale as far as the inclusion of MMA even though I 100% disagree.

If you want to discount and ignore everything that's been done over the last 15 years on the independents, that's your prerogative. I can turn that around and say, "Why should I waste my time on 1970s wrestling when there's so much wrestling going on right now all across the world?" I'm not saying that, but one of these will be accepted far more openly than the other. I'll let you guess which.

I don't think dave is necessarily saying Bryan isn't over, he's playing devil's advocate and saying that's probably what Vince is thinking.

Low Ki is another that may have a better resume in 2006 then he does in 2014 just by having some stinkers along the way. Even his NJPW run left a lot to be desired for and, honestly, he's never going to work in a major company again so he's going to have far less opportunities to build on that resume. He's still absolutely worth a nomination though.

I think one of the huge issues with a lot of these guys (guys I would love to nominate as I feel they are in MY top 100 of all time) is they are still building their resumes so it's hard to make a true argument about them. I've made it very well known how big of a fan I am of both Ricochet and Johnny Gargano. They are two of my favorites in the indies, I've seen them work some of my favorite matches in a number of different settings over the course of the last five or so years but what's the next step for them? I always feel weird voting a guy as one of the greatest when we don't know what the future has in store for them. I'll absolutely nominate Ricochet as I think his body of work has some great stuff already (even if it's small). Gargano has a little ways to go and unfortunately most of his great stuff is hidden behind WWNLive promotions and is hard as hell to see.

Hmm.... Joe's an interesting one. When I was still watching him in ROH and when he had just went to TNA, I would've absolutely said this guy is a top 100 wrestler of all-time. Since then, he's had spurts here and there but he's been lapped by a lot of the field. I'm just not sure there's enough there with only his indie work to put him on my top 100 but he will certainly be in the running.

Checks all the boxes for me and only improved his resume during his WWE run. I'm one of the rare guys on this particular site that enjoys his WCW work more than WWE but can totally see the other end of that. The guy is one of the best babyfaces ever, was a shining light in an otherwise dim WCW for most of its run and overcame a lot of shitty booking in WWE to still be one of their top stars. Absolutely a guy who, when given the chance, made an impression on each and every person who watched him. A lock for my top 50 at the very least, probably top 25.

I'm not sure that's true... at all. Most indie matches, a majority of the undercard actually, are the exact opposite of a 20-minute "high spots/near falls" match. I think there's too many people here extrapolating a few matches as a way to represent the entire genre these days, it's really not that. Indie undercards and main events function just as they always have, rarely if ever does an undercard match go over 20 minutes and rarely is it a super high-intensity finisher, high spot, near falls/kickout fest. There are a few here and there and Ring of Honor was certainly guilty of it through most of 2004-2007 but it's not common-place. The only 20 minute+ match you'll get usually bleeds into intermission and is followed up by some slower paced, momentum building type matches.

We certainly have the avenue and rapport to do this. I would love this subject, Dylan, let's keep this in the back of our pockets.

The recently-debuted Prince Devitt is a great example as well. He cut his teeth in Japan with NJPW but in the past 3-4 years has worked everywhere from CMLL, New York/East Coast (NECW), California (AWS/PWG), Canada (CWF) and all over the United Kingdom and Europe (PROGRESS, RPW, ICW, wXw in Germany). Each and every one of those has a distinct style, distinct fans, distinct presentation and the like. Devitt doesn't work the same in CMLL that he does in PROGRESS. Shit, he didn't work the same in PROGRESS as he did in ICW. PWG is a lot different than NECW.

Sorry, I misinterpreted your original post and wasn't sure if you were mis-remembering what stable he was in at the time. But anyway, yes I seem to recall something like that happening but can't find any specifics.

I didn't think it was any more stiff than a usual Shibata match. There were some pretty stiff strikes in the corner but nothing totally out of the ordinary. Pretty weird narrative Dave had about this match.

It's pretty out there. I put it around ***3/4, our reviewer Bryan Rose gave it ****1/4 and most people as you said, had it around a **** range. There was nothing about it that screamed ***** and he's definitely on an island to his own with that rating.

That's about all I can really name that was good but both were legitimately great and Flair/Savage as we know started WCW's upward momentum on the house shows. The DDP feud made Dallas a legit babyface star and were some progressive (by WCW standards) matches/stories. As others have said, I'm not going to count his last two years as meaning much. He was on his last legs and probably shouldn't have been in the ring anymore. Ruth on the Braves or Mays on the Mets. It doesn't cloud the greatness before that.