funkdoc

yep, supposedly tully was fired for failing a drug test. i always figured the original plan was to keep the tag titles on arn/tully and have demolition beat them at mania as for the hogan match, didn't they often put his match on before most kids went to bed? that was definitely a thing at house shows, so i could see it on PPV as well EDIT: or just see grimmas' post!

yea fxnj, i agree with you on that bit. i just see any comparisons between styles as matters of relative skill, and joshi happens to have its own distinct style. also, even in sports, joe's way of looking at things is rather unusual among the more analytical types. i just thought of this example: bill james is one of the most vocal people out there in the belief that the quality of play in major-league baseball has steadily improved over time. yet, when he ranked his top 100 all-time baseball players, his top 3 were babe ruth + honus wagner + willie mays. how would you reconcile this? simple - he focused on how dominant players were within their own era, with a bit of adjustment for the fact that it's harder to dominate nowadays than it was in the 1910s. even in a sport as seemingly simple as baseball, you can never get a true apples-to-apples comparison between different time periods. i don't see the point in tailoring your requirements to that goal in much of anything, tbh...

i think that's the point, joe: you are rather unusual in your lack of interest in relative skill. comparing just raw athleticism is boring to a lot of us, and this entire project is one of relative skill for many. i go back to the point of comparing shootstyle to deathmatch wrestling - how can you fairly do that with any metric besides relative skill? personally, i could kinda maybe see comparing men & women in your way if the women wrestle men frequently (like lufisto IIRC?). but strength and physicality and such are completely different when it's women vs. women, i think. you hear a lot about bull & aja being the "female vader", and i don't see how them lacking vader's size & power would matter when they didn't wrestle men.

will, from what i've seen wingedeagle strikes me as one of this board's closest things to the traditional 90s workrate fan. loves 90s AJPW and NJPW juniors (and NJPW heavies too, to be fair), still really high on bret & shawn, etc. it's not surprising to me that he couldn't get into lawler

reminder that rip rogers technically main-evented a PPV

let me just refer back to dylan's line about him not even being one of the 10 most important guys in ECW

yea, shoutbox or IRC is the way to go imo. IRC tends to be a more intimate environment (no, not like that!!!) and it's an offsite thing, so there would be room for both i think.

in the bigger picture, the issue i take with this is that it (perhaps inadvertently) tends to minimize the deeds done and lead to greater support for these people in general. think of all the big hollywood names digging in to defend woody allen and trash dylan farrow after she came forward with the molestation stuff...if that's what valuing art means, then art can go to hell.

i seem to recall brutus actually putting in more effort than usual around 1990 or so, before the accident. i thought he was downright watchable at that point but maybe my memory is off also, i'd rather watch singh than strongbow. at least the former LOOKS like a threat and isn't pretending to be of another race...

evilclown: if you are in fact acting in good faith here, i would offer this up - i think a lot of people here just don't like the mcmahons' core philosophy toward wrestling. look at someone like loss, who's very consistent on this - he's laid out his fundamental issues with 80s WWF many times (see hulk hogan GWE thread for a recent example), and he & others here are brutal toward stuff like gorilla monsoon's commentary and the overall presentation of the show. i would say a good chunk of this forum are wrestling fans but definitely *not* WWF/E fans, and that doesn't just apply to the modern product. problem is, it's the only game in town in the US, so people will still keep up with it to some extent & watch the PPVs because there is an incentive to TRY to find something to enjoy in it. in particular, WM30 and the following night's raw got a ton of people's hopes up, and i think some are still coming to terms with the fact that it's still the same old WWE at heart. and there's no WCW or joshi or shootstyle or red-hot AAA/AJPW to turn to anymore...AFAIK you really just have NJPW & CMLL as viable modern alternatives to titanland, and we know how divisive the former is here. put all of that together and you have a recipe for people still tuning in once a month to a show that doesn't really satisfy them. loss gave up earlier this year, but even he took a decent amount of time to realize that he's just not a WWE fan...and he probably dislikes the style more than most. in the immortal words of bill parcells, it is what it is.

lol @ evilclown's entry-level trolling and the people who fall for it to get serious for a moment, i think part of the divide here is that so many on this forum absolutely fucking despise the attitude era & everything it represents, especially compared to virtually the entire rest of the wrestling fandom. so the match layout for the main event was about the worst possible thing for this particular bunch...shouldn't be surprised at the reaction here. i also find this place to be rather...curmudgeonly when it comes to the goofier elements of pro wrestling. like pol & probably evilclown, i *love* stuff like bray wyatt's screwy finishes. i dig the stardust character (though not his work in the ring), which has gotten a lot of hate here from day 1. this place is just so strongly attached to 80s NWA and/or 90s AJPW aesthetic, whereas i think pro wrestling is INHERENTLY corny and doesn't embrace that side of itself enough if anything. a match ending via hologram is the sort of thing that makes me say "yep, that's so pro wrestling", just like a face in peril or an ether-soaked rag or ted dibiase's dracula cape. i love this forum, but i actually think there are some interesting points in this thread where i couldn't agree less with the core membership

thanks for the good-faith reply, dylan! you seemed pretty heated about this earlier it's tough to accurately sum up my standard on this sort of thing, but i'll try! basically i tend to feel harshest about actions which harm those in oppressed/less powerful groups, and particularly when this is the result of exploitation by those in power. sexual abuse, child abuse, structural violence in its many (including non-physical) forms...i think you get the idea. i don't even really watch football anymore unless i'm with my family. gets harder for me with the realization that the only way to stop the game from being a death trap is turning it into flag football. i wouldn't mind that, but i don't expect it to ever happen. i've got plenty of other stuff going on in my life so i'm no less happy for giving up old pleasures. more so than individuals, i tend to be concerned with organizations that normalize awful behavior. see the racism within WWE...dylan had a great example with sasaki, as stuff involving trainers really tends to go under the radar (rovert even alluded to similar things within developmental recently). reminds me of athletes being pressured to practice without water and dying of heatstroke. as for how that all relates to this, i'm just not interested in a project that would require me to ignore so much of this stuff. i find it fascinating to see the efforts from those who do, but it's not for me at all anymore. i couldn't fairly have a top 100 without lawler, but i don't want to say "hey this guy may very well be a rapist pedophile but HOT DIGGITY DAWG was he good at making fake punches look real!" EDIT: yes el-p, i believe khali accidentally(?) killed someone in training. don't know the whole story

i'm likely on the extreme opposite end of most on this board. having personally known people who've gone through, to pick one example, sexual abuse and the fallout that never seems to end, i just don't want to glorify people who did things on that level. and i see sports and performance as ultimately less significant than the systemic/societal issues these deeds often reflect. the invader deal is actually tougher for me in some ways because i believe the narrative surrounding that has been in some part informed by subtle racism. i'm thinking of the idea that invader could use wrestling clips for his defense because puerto ricans didn't know it was fake (maybe this was true but it seems highly suspect), or the "that's just how they are down there" stuff you hear from people in the business. even then, not sure i could bring myself to watch a match of his. and yes, i'm not exactly down to watch a ray rice or richie incognito play football again either EDIT: matt d, i wonder what your argument would be for rating misawa but not benoit. i mean yeah he didn't kill anyone else directly, but the style he helped popularize...

on the real though, minis don't get near enough of a serious look so i am genuinely thankful this thread exists

Feh, *I* don't rate midget matches! *waddles over to wrestling convention in jorts & owen hart t-shirt*

fair enough, i'm thinking more about media coverage these days and how it focuses on those types. though maybe even that isn't as big a change as this midwesterner wants to believe it is... i will say that when i moved from the cleveland & columbus areas to san diego, i noticed the sports talk radio and such out here feel way more "hollywood" in the subject matter they tend to focus on. i mean shit, the browns guy for my hometown paper probably still doesn't know what twitter is - he had an unintentionally hilarious rant in the 2000s on how he & his friends had never heard of U2. so maybe i got a skewed picture my whole life, dunno anyway, apologies for the derail! to get more on-topic, i think the image of "working class" has changed some nowadays. you don't necessarily have to be big or rugged or an immigrant for younger generations to view you that way. i would say daniel bryan is definitely relatable in that way even if he looks silly to some on this board. i've known plenty of geeky dudes with giant beards (surprisingly popular look) struggling to find a job or get into grad school or whatever, so bryan naturally struck me as that type of character making it big. the modern job market & educational system have created a new underclass of sorts, so that's going to change the presentation of this kind of stuff i think. hopefully that made some kind of sense, i really need to get to bed holy crap

could you at least sneak barry horowitz onto the "most improved" list for his push that year? i jest but only partially - from my memory that was pretty much the best thing about 1995 WWF

why has pete's bomb-ass post not gotten any replies yet really surprised you mention how tough 94 was to get through, considering i've heard quite a bit of Best Year Ever talk for it. i feel like the weakness of the american promotions in 93-94 has to hurt the case for those years, no? i'm also surprised at the lack of joshi in your awards given how much you seemed to love it in your yearbook posts. personally i'd vote aja over vader for outstanding wrestler, and not have that hard of a time doing so. it's hard to be more consistently good than vader was, yes, but what MOTYCs does he have in 94 besides arguably the takada match? maybe the dustin one? i'd go so far as to say this was easily vader's weakest year during his prime, if you don't include his WWF time as part of that. in fairness i can imagine how hard it would be to justify any woman for WOTY during this time, since the emphasis on interpromotional matches makes it hard to single anyone out as a key draw. your voting for that award thus far does tend to be dominated by the US & all japan, from what i remember...less confounding factors with those promotions. you make a very good case re: WMOTY. my visceral reaction was the doink survivor series match because that kind of comedy is about my least favorite thing, but i have to give it 3rd because of how low on the card it was compared to the underfaker or the ECW match. personally i would give underfaker both worst match & worst feud, due to all the effort put into it and how much it was expected to draw. i would also argue that undertaker vs. yokozuna was actually a pretty damn good sprint followed by a potential worst angle of the year, so no way in hell would i vote that for worst match. regal vs. larry over los gringos locos in feud of the year? really?!? i think that might be the pick of yours i take the most issue with, but maybe you don't factor drawing into that award like i would. if you're just going by personal enjoyment then i take back my comment. i just tend to see drawing/stardom as a more integral component of a classic feud than a great wrestler, which would make for an interesting thread in its own right... finally, screw your "objectivity" and give me art donovan over joey styles any day! he was just so darned endearing as the guy who didn't have a clue, and i weirdly enjoy that in a non-ironic way. i think it's how genuine he came across, compared to all the people who've had vince shouting in their ears over the years. great stuff as always pete, look forward to seeing how much the dungeon of doom dominates the "worst" categories in 95!

i always chuckle whenever i read about that. in the midwest we had a group called Power Team in the mid-2000s or so, but they weren't wrestlers. they were christian weightlifters or something who would do speaking tours and perform feats of strength while talking about jesus. so that's what i always think of whenever i hear about sting & warrior's past haha

yea, i'd say randy savage came off more ridiculous in the 80s than he would today. definitely agree with matt's comment - how out of place would he be in a world with terrell owens & chad johnson & clinton portis? hell, portis used to do a bunch of wrestling-style gimmicks for his press conferences! Bro Sweets & Sheriff Gonnagetcha say hi... EDIT: or hey, there's that MMA guy who re-enacted the shockmaster debut for his weigh-in...

joe, my feeling on this is that there are certain moves that just LOOK like they should end the match or at least put the opponent in serious danger. this is like the discussion on tiger mask vs. dynamite kid when they no-sell the tombstone piledriver on the floor, and i'm one of the people who can't stand that at all either. i think pol has said some interesting stuff here - basically, IIRC, wrestling has its own internal logic & lore and he doesn't like spots that don't fit that. the hulk-up is an established Special Ability for lawler & hogan, and just something you have to deal with if you wrestle those guys. davey richards-style no-selling doesn't really fit that profile. he doesn't have wolverine's healing powers or anything, so it just comes off as corny while other "cartoon bullshit" FEELS like it makes more sense. i don't 100% agree with all of this myself (hulking up after finishers can get fucked imo), but it's a less common argument that i can appreciate.

yeah p. much this, and this is coming from someone else who's rather cold on shawn wasn't it jimmy redman who was going to rank shawn #1 and make a big post here? eagerly awaiting that!

someone with backlund and RVD on the same list??? i'm diggin this

there was that one AJPW elimination match on fan appreciation day, from the early 90s...i think it had the four corners + baba & rusher kimura lol. was over 70 minutes IIRC

i'm surprised you weren't sure of that. in my experience that's second only to the viagra on a pole match as the definitive Vince Russo Thing