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People really should check out his CZW ladder match with Lio Rush. Fantastic stuff from both guys.

Let's get some vids in here

Yeah, but 2018 is looking to be the year that older seeds are starting to pay off with the Chinese box office totals overtaking the US after being a relatively minor player a decade ago. India and China are going through rapid development and are seeing a middle class quickly emerging, which makes them a prime target for cultural exports. Combine that with the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries looking to rehab their image and WWE's US TV ratings are suddenly looking less important than ever.

Not limited to MMA, so I'm all ears to those recs from ADCC and whatnot. Glad this got bumped as I did some BJJ rolling recently and it's gotten me watching lots of shoots lately.

Looks natural to me. He's lean, but doesn't have much size. Makes me think that older pic could have just been a product of lighting/camera angles. I agree that it is dumb to accuse him of taking gear when he looks like that.

My interest in his comeback dropped a lot after Lesnar left as Lesnar/Bryan was the big dream match I was holding out for. Hell, I was under the assumption the main reason people wanted him back so bad was Brock/Bryan. I have no idea what sort of thought process leads to thinking having Lesnar/Reigns 3 times in one year is a better idea.

Are there any pics of Dave's physique since that pic that went viral a few years ago? If he still looks like that, I'd be pretty confident in saying that he's at least on TRT, which is basically low-dose steroids that's prescribed by a doctor. Pretty much impossible to be that ripped at his age without some help.

Since it seems people have different opinions on what "historical importance" means, the definition I'm using is pretty much what role someone played in creating the wrestling landscape that exists today. It's not about who has more iconic moments or who drew more money, though those are things I'm factoring. Went with Cena over Hansen. I love Hansen, but Cena pretty much created the concept of a post-Attitude Era top guy in WWE and the fallout from his mixed reactions is still being felt with the Reigns situation. Goldberg over Angle. Massive draw in his peak and was responsible for carrying WCW through its last gasp in the Monday Night Wars. He also created the template for the monster face with his short and brutal squash matches that WWE still tries to imitate. Orton over Styles. Close one as neither guy really had much influence beyond the hardcore fandom, but went with Orton because of the RKO out of nowhere memes. Bryan over Hardy. I understand Hardy's was the bigger star at his peak and also a huge influence on WWE's gimmick matches, but Bryan was a huge player in creating the 2000's indy wrestling boom and working style. He, alongside Punk, was also a big influence in removing WWE's previous stigma from hiring super indy talent and paving the way for guys like Styles and Joe to get main event level pushes. I don't think Hardy had quite the same impact due to his influence largely being felt on shaping dangerous match-types that, by nature, can never be the main attraction on a regular basis. As far as general high flyers, I think the more crisp style propagated by WCW cruiserweight guys and Rey Mysterio in particular was more influential over Hardy's more sloppy stunt-centric approach. Edge over Batista. I don't think Batista's Hollywood career is relevant as the question is about who's had more of an impact on pro wrestling history exclusively. Batista was a big star, but he didn't really do much in breaking down walls and was pretty much a continuation of WWE's trend of pushing big men into main event spots. Edge is right alongside Jeff Hardy in creating the modern conception of WWE gimmick matches as daredevil stunt shows. He was a big star in his own right as well and the Matt Hardy feud served as a forerunner to the reality era stuff we get now.

It feels like a bunch of internet darlings slapped together into random matches. There were matches on Wrestlemania weekend shows that had better dream-match appeal than anything on here, like Riddle/Suzuki and Janela/Sasaki for example. To be fair, their strategy still seems to have worked out just fine business-wise and I wouldn't surprised if there are a few matches that get MOTYC praise given that the boys are likely to put in the extra effort for the big show.

Good write-up on an interview that went under my radar. Surprised to see the Savage/Steph rumor is still alive.

**1/4 for Hansen/Colon is nuts.

Is it so hard to show a video of the bump in question before going off on a tangent about it, people? It's probably not a good idea for a 12 year old to take a flat-back bump. Just like it's probably not a good idea to to enroll them in kids' class for other contact sports like judo, BJJ, muay thai, etc. as countless gyms around the world are offering. At the end of the day there's a limit to how much control parents have in stopping their kids from doing something stupid on their own accord, especially if they're dead-set on doing said stupid thing. It's better to have them learn it in a professional environment with adult supervision over doing some backyard shit.

Hogan in the mid-80s is legit one of the greatest ever at manipulating a crowd and getting mileage out of every move. I'd go 1986 since you get the underrated Bundy feud, the great brawls with Savage, and the Orndorff feud with some other fun tags like him and JYD vs the Funks.

Haven't watched them, but jdw had some praise for Backlund's matches with Slaughter and Muraco in his old 80's WWF watching thread. http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10063#10063 http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=14797#14797

I've seen much worse from Cena.

Focusing solely on entertainment value of a wrestler's matches seems as extreme a position as focusing solely on the drawing ability and historical significance. Ideally, you'd want to strike some sort of balance between all those factors like the WON HOF strives to do. I don't think it's right to penalize highly regarded older performers for not having a lot of full matches available as such a thing is largely a matter of luck and doesn't say anything about their actual worth as a performer.

It depends on the type of event that you're going to. If your live experience is primarily from going to WWE TV taping or PPV's (which I'm going to assume is the case if you're talking about there being monitors), I would agree you aren't missing much by watching on TV as it is produced with TV in mind, but the vast majority of live wrestling events out there aren't like that at all. Most of my experiences are from going to indy shows in the US and Japan, so it's never been too crowded, and I always enjoyed the chance to get a unique and intimate look at the action as a completely different thing from watching wrestling on TV with some producer picking the best camera angles. Watching stuff live gives you the opportunity to soak in the atmosphere and be a part of the show, which you just can't do when you're watching stuff from 50 years ago. I'm pretty surprised how, for all the talk about the importance of crowd heat and investment, that more people in this thread aren't appreciative of the live experience and are simplifying things into what's available on a high-speed internet connection in a first-world country.

For me this boils down to how much you value the live experience. Would you give up the opportunity to have easy access to all this taped footage for the opportunity to go back in time and be apart of the crowds for the best matches ever? I probably would because I tend to think of watching footage on TV or on Youtube as a second-rate thing to getting the full live experience. NJPW of today gets a good rep because it's an improvement over 2000's NJPW, but if you go back and watch the footage it can't compare to 90's and definitely not the 80's in terms of atmosphere, crowd investment, or even ring work. Best time for me probably be 90's Japan as not only do you get to see the best matches from AJPW and shoot-style, but there's just so much excitement back then from how the art form was getting pushed in bold and new directions, and you can feel when you look at the crowds in the matches from back then. There's really no comparison to the stuff of today now that everyone's seen everything and wants to be meta.

I am saying that you are overthinking things here. There's no need for any explanation beyond people being predisposed to watch and write about the kind of wrestling they enjoy. I don't buy that Meltzer just woke up one day and decided to start giving out ratings like candy and everyone else followed suit. If anything the idea that higher ratings should be protected is the exception rather than the rule. I remember going to the GameFAQs WWE board 10 years ago and people regularly blasting Meltz for not having 20 more WWE matches at 5 stars. Then I went on the F4W and saw Alan4L with his MOTY lists consisting of literally hundreds of **** matches every year. The cool thing about this being a forum is that you're welcome to give your own dissenting opinions if you think a match is being overrated, which seems far more productive than just complaining about it without naming any specific examples.

The June Japan ratings thing is pretty easy to explain. People have to manually type up reviews to get them posted on there, and no one is going to make the effort to review some random match just to shit on it. There's plenty of Japanese matches that never get a thread because they aren't good enough.

Late, but congrats on getting noticed by some of the actual wrestlers you're writing about.