Shining Wiz

I don't think you're supposed to admit that.

Since I know it will be well thought out and backed up with evidence, I'm curious about your opinion of Punk.

I can't say it was good. I can say it was a lot better than it was, and better than I thought I would get to see tonight. I went to my local/regional Indy and it wasn't bad. Wasn't actually good, but it really wasn't bad. And, best of all, it really was fun. XWA started about 12ish years ago as a shitty hardcore show in an even shittier bar in Saint John, New Brunswick. It was essentially a backyard fed that moved indoors. Over the years, they grew to the point they gave a full tour route, hitting each town once a month year round. I've been to a few shows in the past, and while I found them fun nights out, that was probably more about not seeing decent live wrestling in 4 or 5 years than it was the quality of the product. But then tonight.....they all got better. Not great, but something happened over the last year or so since I'd seen a shown that moved them from "guys pretending to do what wrestlers do on tv" to legit, if limited, pro wrestlers. A tight two hours, a well spent $15, and a pleasure to watch a tiny Indy grow a little.

Don't worry, that guy is long gone I pray this is a joke, and said person did not actually exist. Though, I've only ever seen gnarled, 55 year old Bob Brown. Maybe young Bob Brown deserves some consideration. (Please read sarcastically)

Personally, if a wrestler is able to get me into their matches and/or character, it's never mattered to me how well they draw (except for the obvious fact that the more popular they are, the more they get to do). Going on the (unfortunately often false) assumption that people won't be jerks for being jerks sake, I think such a list as this is more interesting if the the guideline are loose/wide ranging. While it's fun to think of things in the AFI mode - best brawler, best flyer, best technician, biggest star, etc... - I think it's even more interesting to do a "GOAT" list that lets people decide how they want to rank things themselves. That being said, the guy who ranks Bulldog Bob Brown #1 because he was on the scene when they were a kid should have his vote discounted (and sanity checked) unless they can provide a legit reasoning as to why they would say such a thing. I completely agree that footage has to available. Because really, if we can't watch a few matches, what's the fun in that? But I think acknowleding/allowing the subjectivity in individual voters will make the end result that much more interesting and worthwhile.

As a newbie around these parts, I would say I will try to avoid seeing such a list. What folks voted 10 years ago has little effect on what I think now.

I think we define big matches differently. To me, it has to be a big match going in. You could very well have a great match that people talk about after the fact, but if it was an undercard match that was just really good, then that is completely different than delivering a great match on a big card in a position where your match is a focal point.

Fun.

I'd argue they had a great match, but that it wasn't big. But that's beside the point. As for whether Regal was capable, since he was never in the position to do so, who knows. He never had a chance to, and that's about all you can say really.

He had good matches. No doubt. But he was never a particular focal point of WCW put in a position to have a big, important match. He was a lower mid carder sent out to have good, impactful, physical matches. And I don't think, in the history of WCW, that there was a match as big as Steamboat/Savage. Better, most definitely. Bigger though, no.

I love Savage/Steamboat. I do not care one iota how they got there, the end result was great. That being said, I can see why someone who takes pride in making improv great would not have enjoyed confining themselves to a tight script. As for Regal ever having a match as good as it, I always really enjoyed Regal because he was different, but he was never in a position to have a match that great. Maybe completely out of context he's had matches as good or better, but a really good Super Bowl is always going to be better than a great game between two 3-13 teams because it means more. (No, I am not saying Regal is the Cleveland Browns, just to be clear). Savage/Steamboat had a strong story line, was at the biggest show of a super hot period and in front if a massive crowd. It was a bigger match than Regal was ever given the opportunity to take part in.

ECW succeeded because it was different. All the "annoying trends" that grew out of it are annoying because, by copying ECW you by definition miss out on being different. It becomes derivative and obnoxious. 20 years later, you go back and look at the shows and you think, I've seen this a thousand times - because by now you have - but you also still feel some of that authenticity, originality and energy that they had by being different. ECW started to make national waves when I was 15 and two or three years away from getting a dial up connection. It existed in the Apter mags in pictures and stories. Then, it existed in write ups and web pages for a couple of years before I could actually sit down and watch it live(ish) and up to date. They put on athletic matches WCW and the WWF wouldn't or couldn't, had characters that were more modern and story lines that were less insulting to a fan's intelligence. It was different at a time wrestling was stagnating and gave a group of fans who had nowhere else to go a bit of hope that the pro wrestling they liked wasn't quite dead yet. That's not to say everything they did was great. Far from it. A lot of their wrestlers were awful, a lot of matches were awful.....but that fit into the show. It fit into the grimy, gritty atmosphere they created better than someone like Shawn Michaels, Sexy Boy ever could. In the op, the question of whether it was genuine quality or a Heyman illusion was asked. There was no illusion....it was just ECW. When guys like the Public Enemy or 911 left and were incredibly awful in other promotions, it wasn't a shock to find out they weren't great wrestlers, but it was a disappointment to see them used in a way that didn't reflect what skills they did have. There's no illusion there, that's just smart wrestling and storytelling.

This turned out 1/2 right so far.

Kane and Seth put them there so that they could use them.

Really, all of them save the TNA title look great (thinking of the actual WWE belt, which looks much better than the pic above).

This Bella angle is the best thing I've seen on Raw in ages. I didn't think they had it in them, but they hit a home run. That was great.

I don't have a good answer for why punches don't (always) bug me in the same way. At lease a really good fake punch looks better than a good fake armbar? it's a reach, but it's something..... As for the dissonance - are you an MMA fan at all? I'm a massive MMA fan and train BJJ, so maybe I'm just a little more sensitive to bad technique than some?

That's why I threw in the BJJ/Judo mention. Japanese crowds would have been familiar with the armbar from judo (at least I would assume some of the crowd would have been). But I would imagine that if I saw an armbreaker before I knew what an arm bar was, maybe I wouldn't have the same problem?

Personally, for me, it's because when you're watching shoot-style, they are making inherent references to MMA (at least now.....UWF-i and others obviously predate the MMA boom and therefore, in their time, I likely would have viewed them quite differently). For example, a 'cross armbreaker' is a dangerous move because we know it's a legit MMA (and BJJ and Judo) submission maneuver. Prior to it's prevalence as such, it had no context of being such a thing in pro wrestling. So, by working that move into a pro wrestling match, you are making an open reference to an outside word. However, in order for such a move to be of any use to a pro wrestling match, two things have to happen - it has to be put on badly, and the person taking the move has to be able to 'fight through it', even though when applied correctly, that's not happening. So, for me at least, it's taking moves that only have relevance because they are 'real', and bring them into pro wrestling with no other context. Moves like suplexes and bodyslams and stf's eithe always have or have acquired a context within pro wrestling that doesn't set off the same "god that looks horrible" feeling I get from shoot style, or that angry faced flow rolling which is popular on the indy scene right now. Hopefully that makes some sense.

Let'er rip. I just watched my first uwfi last week....

Did he explain how? It's not available to hardly anyone, free for those who do get it, hasn't passed CRTC approval yet and did I mention most of the country doesn't get it? I have Rogers. It's not free. Mistyped on my part. I meant that it was still in the free preview stage. Which, since I'm with Bell, I should frame as a question rather than as a statement.

It was the impetus for the WWF updating its show and led to their hottest streak ever. That positive outweighs the negatives, IMO.

It'll be fine as long as he loses again.

Did he explain how? It's not available to hardly anyone, free for those who do get it, hasn't passed CRTC approval yet and did I mention most of the country doesn't get it?

Re: battle royals......I love battle royals. If I could only watch one match a year, it'd be the Rumble (gimmick battle royal, I know, but still). Always love battle royals. Re: AWA......Greg always deserved a title run. I couldn't even keep a straight face typing that.