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I agree and I am surprised the ending seems to be the main complaint about the match. The ending was to be expected given AJ's character and the need to give him a needed big match win while protecting Cena. The blatant spot calling, though, did a lot more to take away from what was otherwise a great match.

The "guilty until proven innocent" viewpoint being floated around in this thread is bullshit. I'll point out that not only are Lawler's and his spouse's totally different, but the police at least saw enough credibility in Lawler to arrest her as well.

Better quality version https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=18wMsQsLMGI I'm not convinced this wasn't a shoot. I agree that it looks like an old school amateur match.

Ambrose/Lesnar was basically a bait and switch. Book it to give the workrate fans something to be interested beyond the Wrestlemania name, but then stop the guys from doing too much do it doesn't upstage Shane/Taker or Roman/HHH. They did a similar thing at Battleground with booking a great sounding Lesnar/Rollins match but then just using it as an angle to hype the Undertaker feud.

The huge 70's footage dump with a bunch of new/rare matches that just went up on YouTube might change that. Where's that? This channel https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC9MpPz1UWkKBEgBd2j1YXhQ

The huge 70's footage dump with a bunch of new/rare matches that just went up on YouTube might change that.

That's probably why he doesn't care for it. If his vision of pro wrestling is beat the shit out of your opponents then it's no surprise that he has such negative reaction to something that looks more like a floor routine than a fight.

I've made a topic in the past giving a serious look to mainstream boxing as a form of pro wrestling http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32105-boxing-is-pro-wrestling/&do=findComment&comment=5703524 I think modern boxing exists as a hybrid between a real sport and pro wrestling. It's not "worked" in the traditional sense but it is pretty close to that and pro wrestling style characters and feuds have become an inseparable part of sport's drawing power. The same thing could be said about MMA, though its fans generally seen much more insecure about the pro wrestling influence. To an extent, I think pro wrestling has left an inescapable influence on all combat sports and I would welcome any other serious critique of them as forms of pro wrestling. I have also been thinking about making a topic for Trump's presidential campaign as a form of pro wrestling. I think there is a lot to discuss there for how he has used the pro wrestling playbook to draw the sort of interest WWE dreams of garnering.

Some new Fritz and Kiniski matches from 1970 are up on Nicovideo if you search for their names in Japanese. Hopefully the 1969 Fritz match will show up soon and I'll save it this time. I have to admit I am coming around to the idea that pre-AJPW was not a super worker. I count 13 full matches available from 1964-1972, plus some highlights of stuff in JWA. That actually seems like a really good sample size, especially given the sheer length of most of those matches, and I'd agree that the guy just doesn't have enough moments of greatness in those. The Destroyer match is still great stuff, though, and it's probably where the super worker talk comes from as both guys really hit it out of the park. Below that, I also think he had really good chemistry with Fritz even if they never had a match reaching the heights of the Destroyer match. The thing with Baba is he wasn't that good at a lot of the things often associated with a great wrestler. He wasn't that good at selling a beating, he wasn't that athletic, and his offense often looked awkward. When he's working upwards of 30 minutes like in many of these matches, it's almost an inevitably that things will drag a bit just given his tool set. What he has going for him in a big way is charisma and connection to the crowd. Those are things that really don't decline with age and it's why I think his prime may have been in the late 70's-80's when he was working shorter singles and tags that let him play to his strengths.

I'd be interested to hear the case for leaving Misawa/Kawada off the all-time feud list, since I assume it's intentional after mentioned in the AJ thread you were down on them. That would be my pick for best in-ring feud ever for all the epic singles and tags they had. Probably even best feud period given their history before the feud and for how great they were at using the matches to advance stories.

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star. Because that really hurt Cena from becoming the top guy during the original brand split. Seems pretty simple that someone could be the top guy on Raw and someone else would be the top guy on Smackdown but then just accepting the very simple logic of that (and how that would keep a top guy for each touring group) would eliminate hundreds of message board posts and tweets bitching about "omg devalued titles!" Except that the top guy on Smackdown will almost inevitably be slotted as a B+ player, and just like the last time it leads to no one going to SD branded shows. When Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio were the top stars on Smackdown, they were selling the most merch in the whole company or close to it.

The skepticism towards the brand split and having 2 world champions strikes me as complaining for the sake of complaining. For nearly all of its run, brand split era Smackdown was a remarkably good show because it filled a similar spot as NXT does now, giving guys a chance to develop their characters and in ring skills without the politics of Raw. And part of that includes letting guys shine in the show's own world title scene. Saying you can't build top stars with 2 world titles is nonsense as that era gave us such memorable runs as the Jeff Hardy/CM Punk feud and Mark Henry's hall of pain, which I doubt could have developed as well as they did with Raw's politics in the way. Since the end of the brand split, Smackdown has been a completely skippable show. It, and even Raw to an extent, just feel like glorified house shows with guys going out and having good matches that somehow feel utterly meaningless and forgettable in context. The company simply has too many talented guys to be able to develop something memorable without giving some people the shaft, so buying back the brand split is an obvious fix.

1. Kawada - No brainer as #1 to me. Great as a tag guy I the 80's, all-time great ass kicker and seller in the 90's, and then carries the promotion through much of the 2000's. Basically a 20 year stretch as a guy as you could make a case for as one of the best in the world based solely on work in AJ. 2. Misawa - Good as Tiger Mask, really good feuding with Jumbo, and then incredible as the mid-late 90's ace. 3. Kobashi - Great as the rookie fall guy in his few years, becomes the best wrestler of AJ's absolutely stellar 1993, and then amazing through the rest of the decade, including several times where he looks like literally the best wrestler of all time. 4. Jumbo - I'm not as high on his 70's or 80's work as some others but his 89-92 has to rank as the greatest 4 year stretch ever for a wrestler. Churned out mini-classics on a near weekly basis while elevating a new generation to take his place. 5. Hansen - I actually enjoy a lot of his 80's tag work with Brody as two monsters destroying their opponents. Some classics working both with and against Tenryu later in the decade and then a great run in the early 90's, though his output declined sharply after 1994. 6. Taue - Holds up his end very well and brings in his own unique contributions when tagging with Jumbo and Kawada in some of the best matches in the promotion's history. An amazing singles wrestler as well in the latter half of the decade. 7. Akiyama - The best rookie ever and a tremendous tag guy first with Misawa and then Kobashi. Also one of the best singles guys in the promotion in the past few years before the split. Has also been the main guy holding the promotion together since 2011. 8. Baba - The constant of the promotion's prime run from the early 70's to the late 90's. Lots of really good stuff in the promotion's first decade and then plenty of great tags as a part-timer afterwards, showing that he could still hang with the promotion's best even into his 50's and at 60. 9. Tenryu - I love what I've seen of him against Choshu, Hansen, and Jumbo in the 80's and what I've seen of his early 2000's. Just haven's seen as many classics from him as the guys above, but his stock could easily rise if I watch more of his return run. 10. Fuchi - Great as a junior heavyweight ace and one of the best tag wrestlers in the best 5 years of possibly any promotion ever from 1989-1993. Disappears for much of the latter half of the 90's but still looks great when he shows up and resurfaces as a great old man babyface in the 2000's. Still knows how to be entertaining even today. On Terry Funk, there were some actually pretty great 80's performances that got uploaded onto YouTube (now taken down) that weren't available for the 80's set, including a pretty sweet 1980 Jumbo match. I'd still agree he just doesn't have the sort of volume to match the other guys, though he would easily be #11.

He falls forward and takes the opponent down with him. I don't see why that stands out in a world where suplexes and Irish whips are commonplace.

Doesn't look any worse than those spots where a guy's head gets rammed into the announce table and they put their hands up to avoid real contact. Or a pedigree.

Basically she said the line "Davey M's 5 star matches" during a TV segment and Dave responded on Twitter by saying no one will remember her.

Wow, that's it. Such a great showing of the ring genius from both guys.

I dream of the day when that 1969 match with Fritz from LA surfaces online again.

Orton brought the violence just fine when he wrestled Foley in 2004. I think he was really good 04-07 and then had a nice resurgence with the Christian feud in 2011. What killed him was the wacky viper gimmick and WWE constantly rematching him with Cena and Triple H, selling them as all-time feuds when his chemistry with either guy wasn't that great.

For a long time in WWE I think they intentionally cultivated the view that women couldn't wrestle and were just there to give people a bathroom break and do photo shoots. At Night of Champions 2009 McCool and Melina bad the best WWE women's for several years in either direction and they ended up with a lot of heat for upstaging the boys. There's also the deal with Gail Kim turning to shit after going to WWE and leaving after complaining about what a poor environment it was to have a good match.

There's a stigma against southern accents because states in the Deep South, where you'll find the thickest accents in the country, happen to also be the poorest, least educated, and most obese. Combine that with the region's history with the civil war and the rampant racism and it's a pretty easy region to make fun of. Half those guys you listed as being able to work around a southern accent are from Texas. I think, given the area's wealth and popularity as a vacation destination, there's not much association with the neighboring Deep South, so that's what makes it possible for people get a Texan accent over without getting branded as a southern guy. Same thing for Florida.

I think Roman Reigns would be the obvious answer. If he keeps delivering in the ring I could see him as the next list's equivalent to Cena.

A big match at Budokan that I've somehow heard next to no pimping and only found out about when it showed up in my recommended videos this morning. Really strange as it's a great match. It's a perfect example of a match that has absolutely no wasted motion from Hashimoto hobbling to the ring up to him (I think) challenging Kawada to a singles match in the post-match promo. The crowd is molten from the beginning and all four guys do an amazing job of keeping them there throughout, making every strike thrown and tag made feel like a huge deal. There's nothing that could be seen as "down time" or "time killing" yet the match still has a great sense of progression through selling and has a beautiful finishing stretch that plays off of the strike exchanges and leg work earlier in the match. Just two masters of the trade in Hashimoto and Kawada at their top of their trade with a motivated Mutoh and Ogawa to keep things moving. ****

For the vast majority of Indy promotions out there it actually still is the same as it's always been with promotions relying on local guys and bringing in name talent for the occasional one-off. What you're talking about is only seen in the super indies, where it's simple business to load the card up with name guys regularly if you have the cash for it and your goal is to be recognized as a big promotion. We are definitely past the point of there being guys who only draw in a certain region, what with social media being out there to get the word out. I think what's in place is more of a feeder system than a counterculture. Guys start out wrestling locally then when they get good the promotion starts booking them against name guys to build their brand on social media. Then they get bookings in those super indies after they get a good following and finally get a shot at the big leagues.

Incredible stuff man. That has to rank amongst the best wrestler bios ever written.