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Weird to see those guys getting votes when Fujiwara, Satomura, Takayama, and Hayabusa strike me clearly as the strongest candidates in the section. Drives home the feeling of not being on the same page as the voters.

Surreal to finally see footage of Hack. Also looks like a shoot to me and gives a strong argument against the idea of him as some bodybuilder who was clueless about wrestling. Seemed like the guy he was wrestling didn't have much of an answer for when Hack took his back.

Is the Fujiwara/Sayama rivalry really a hidden gem to voters? Thought that was one of the key parts of his career and shoot style as a whole.

This was pretty mid. I thought the first 2 eps covering the period from Vince buying the company up to around the steroids trial were the highlight because you got lots of unseen footage/photos and there was an attempt to provide some type of pushback to the WWE's narrative, often coming from the wrestlers themselves. Tony Atlas accusing Pat Patterson of sexual harassment right after hearing Vince swore up and down he was innocent stuck out to me. As it went on seemed like the editors ran out of time or money because it just became a straight puff piece with everyone playing it safe in their interviews. A massive example of that is the part covering the Triple H/Stephanie affair, where the role of Chyna in creating the initial storyline and effect it had on her is completely ignored. Even the parts covering Vince's departure feel tacked on and don't offer any new insight.

The company that did the digital transfer for me believes it's a transfer to film from a tape master. The 5GB file on archive.org has interlacing artifacts like you normally see from old TV tapes, and I think I can also see scanlines running across the video if I look closely. A lot of old boxing matches exist from someone just pointing a film camera at their TV screen and saving that, though this is way higher quality and more professionally done than that stuff.

His neck must have been taken a pretty bad turn. You'd think there'd be more fanfare around one of the last names to debut in the 80's retiring.

It's up. https://vk.com/video498684816_456239061 https://archive.org/details/tony-st.-clair-vs.-clay-thompson-joint-promotions-8-19-1967

The full version of this is one of my holy grails.

I bought it. RIP my wallet.

I think I like this one a little bit more every time I watch it. I wasn't into Shiro's armlocks in the first fall but I got into it once it became a brawl. Satanico is really great with lots of nice details in his stagger selling. Note also his body part selling and how he sells the blood. Satanico might be one of those guys whose stuff gets better the more you pay attention. It also should be pointed how hard every bump looks on this mat, and how it's always sold as a big thing. I really got into what they were doing with the 3rd fall in creating a feeling of them both running on fumes. They milk the hell out of every near fall and each kick out feels impactful. Finish is dog shit but whatever.

Great list. I'm with you on loving 11/24/1989. Absolutely tragic that it finished so far below the lame Space Cadets 1984 6-man on the DVDVR set. Is Caifan/Hechicero 1/31/2009 available to watch anywhere? Curious that it's the only Hechicero match on the list. Also, I think you might want to give the Dandy/Santo match from 1998 that just dropped a shot.

Nice that I'm not the only one who hated that stand-off they did.

It's not make or break for his case, but I quite like this short match vs. Sawyer. Shows his capability as a weekly TV worker and hints at there being gems from Memphis we don't have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rK_JqGe7YQ Other stuff: vs. Nagurski 10/1951 vs. Walcott 9/29/1966 vs. Inoki 10/9/1975 vs. Teranishi 10/3/1979 vs. Tsurumi 10/4/1979 Also would recommend the clips of him vs. Johnny Valentine. Even clipped down to just a few minutes you can clearly see how great both guys were at doing the little things.

The series seemed rather biased to me towards Bischoff's viewpoints. It glosses over how toxic the politics backstage were when it came to creating new stars. The decision to end Goldberg's streak is defended on the grounds that Goldberg was cooling off and he needed to go into chasing the title again, but no time is spent on how badly he was booked in the space leading up to his loss and afterwards. They mention Goldberg's title win over Hogan and Bischoff gets a chance to defend the decision to put it on network TV, but it's not brought up at all how Goldberg only got 1 PPV main event in the time between his title win and Starrcade. The Millionaire's Club vs. New Blood storyline is also mentioned and defended, but the series doesn't bother going into why that storyline is badly remembered (crowd being expected to cheer for the old guys over the new guys). The claim that Turner was offloading expenses from their other properties onto WCW's balance sheet is repeatedly made with no evidence, but they also fail to mention all the ways that WCW actually was wasting money, doing things like a KISS concert. The narrative that Jamie Kellner deserves all the blame for killing WCW remains highly suspect to me. Any kind of attempt from Bischoff to get time on a different network and why it didn't work out isn't mentioned at all. Can they honestly say that it would have been just as impossible for WCW to find a different network if they were still as successful as they were in 1998? If WCW's free fall ratings and buy rates played no factor at all, how could TNA have found a deal with Fox Sports a few years later, when wrestling was even less hot?

You underrated the hell of out that Mascaras/Inoki tag. The mat exchanges between them blow my mind every time I watch it.