funkdoc

this would be a bit awkward for people who know multiple languages and would pick a non-english speaker... also, i can second dylan's comment on JR. heck, during the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, there was a twitter account called FGC Jim Ross that was just doing a lot of his cliche calls except about video games. and it picked up a bunch of followers even though i don't think it was that good at all. the guy is definitely still a name!

there was a really good criticism of "botch" earlier in this thread IIRC basically the way people use it nowadays came from botchamania, to the point that you see arguments over whether something is an Official Botch or not. as if people are tracking those and rating matches that way

i feel like a lot of the criticisms of dean could also apply to the early-career owen hart who meltzer & co. raved about so much, except with more high-flying stuff matches like owen vs. liger have that same "soulless exhibition" & "no struggle" feel that people always mention with dean

definitely agree re: "wrestlecrap" and "botch", but i like "movez" well enough as useful shorthand for a real phenomenon

he actually got a serious push thanks to the gulf war, then IIRC he fucked it all up by beating his wife and getting involved with other shady stuff didn't he try to burn down the police station too? seem to recall that...

gimmicks like adam rose & the funkasaurus could last longer if they gave a crap you need to gradually develop those characters and start showing other sides of them. i loved the idea someone here had - have rose beat people up out of nowhere, and eventually reveal that he has a split personality w/ "adam rose" & "leo kruger"! really, in general, that kind of development has been highly lacking in WWF/E and it's something they will need to learn if they want to be taken any more seriously as "entertainment"

i'd say the horsemen getting turned into a de facto KKK was a bigger turning point for flair than heading to titanland

it's interesting to think about these slightly more subtle attempts to create one's own version of another promotion's popular wrestler. never figured that about honky but it makes perfect sense! we all know about the renegade, but i think it could very well be argued that van hammer & jungle jim steele were less blatant attempts of WCW's to make their own ultimate warrior

yea i don't get why WWE still hasn't realized that goody-two-shoes guys smiling all the time will get shit on by adults, unless we believe the idea that it's intentional with cena that shit killed diesel's run as champ from the get-go, it hurt steamboat a bunch in his '89 main event run, and so on maybe vince still worries about ever having another warrior on his hands (i.e. face champ who doesn't connect with fans because he doesn't act much like a face) and just plays it extra safe

my larger point is that we're now at a stage where that type of work feels fresh again to modern audiences and fwiw busick is currently the weakest of the 3, though i doubt the difference would be great enough to matter if you don't like them

that's basically what CZW title matches are nowadays lol the thatcher/gulak/busick trifecta has been getting a lot of buzz in the indies for that sort of thing, you know =)

re: hogan i have long suspected that the WCW crap got him that label. you can justify politics when you're the biggest draw ever, and others won't likely get mad when the politician is making them more money as well. that didn't happen in WCW after the initial buzz, hence others were more likely to complain!

ehhhhhhhh i'm not buying the WM30 one that 100% strikes me as vince not wanting both cena & undertaker to lose on the same show

i think he appeared on TV after havoc but not sure

i would throw in your kamalas & papa shangos & boogeymen for the younger crowd. not ashamed to say i was terrified when shango made the lights go out at a house show in late 92!

i kinda suspected the jericho win before the show tbh among those Casual Smart Fans parv loves to talk about, the meme with jericho is "he loses every match whenever he comes back". it's become a very obvious cliche and they had to do something to make his jobs mean anything again. take that and add in the biggest throwaway PPV of the year, and voila! jericho takes the first one, then wyatt wins the two on the shows that actually matter. not exactly rocket science imo

i tend to strongly discount 6-man work for a single wrestler unless there was a truly special performance from the individual in question, and i didn't see any of that from bray in the shield-wyatts feud. basically to use a football analogy, i think putting wyatt in the top 50 would be akin to giving shaun alexander the MVP award. people thought alexander was an amazing running back due to his years of big numbers, but eventually we learned that seattle had a historically great offensive line and he was along for the ride more than anything else. wyatt is the biggest example of a "system guy" in pro wrestling right now - that is, someone whose surroundings have given them a great resume without great performance. in my view, a top 50 wrestler should be someone who can succeed in multiple "systems" as it were. bray wyatt, at this point, has been heavily reliant on WWE's production values and stacked roster to make him look good. he certainly has the potential to grow beyond that, but he's not there yet imo in short, i tend to think more like bilthompson on this kind of stuff. i am most impressed by wrestlers who can give a memorable performance in an otherwise worthless match, and will put them in the top 50 ahead of someone who was just another guy in multiple **** matches. i see those as the wrestlers most likely to succeed when given a bigger role in a bigger promotion, though obviously that's still far from a guarantee.

fnxj: i suspect at least part of what pol is referring to is the US indies' aping of "Strong Style" or whatever you want to call it, and the people who like those workers. see: the infamous davey richards superplex GIF not to say that japan would be off the hook either, kobashi at his worst fits this awfully well too

i don't see bray wyatt as anything close to top 50 material he's had exactly 2 good singles matches i know of this year, and those were against bryan and cena. and the cena one had about the most foolproof gimmick out there!

JR's much more recent episode of transphobic behavior is worth noting in this context... i'm with bill on this one but i get why loss is putting the hammer down, so i'll stfu now

no, they really used jake's theme in the original there!

nah lol, we just mean average star rating of a given wrestler's matches that were reviewed by ~da meltz~

ronda rousey is definitely a legit name w/ the general public, at least younger ones even if not by name, plenty of people know her as "that chick who beats everyone with an armbar, right?"

oh yeah, re: the ernest miller question i thought i heard that 3-time line referred to point karate. not positive

yeah, my father (from upstate NY) has a bit of nostalgia toward strongbow. even as a kid he could tell the guy was italian, and he didn't care! i'm with loss, he just stood out as such a cartoon character in that time and maybe that was seen as fresh. also, wasn't he an investor in the WWWF or somesuch? would explain why he was always booked so strong and put in such great positions to get over there EDIT: an interesting thread would be "completely useless in-ring workers who drew money". strongbow, tiger jeet singh, big daddy...