GOTNW

Please elaborate on what you mean by that.

There was a great statement about Terry Funk's selling that I wished I could quote (the board it was on is dead ) about how he would take realistic elements and then dramatize them which would make the match feel more like a spectacle-but his greatness lied in the fact that he would sell enough for it to feel special and just enough for it not to feel like a ridiculous parody of selling (see-Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair taking a bump into the corner). Probably my #1 USA resident.

When I was younger (keep in mind I am still younger than pretty much everyone on the board) I envisioned old wrestling as something that had a lot of shitty punches and blade jobs off of ringpost bumps. This was obviusly ignorant and incorrect prejudice and watching old puro for the "best of 70s" project at puroresu.tv changed that. My taste has shifted dramatically since then but I'm still not big on the Memphis/Mid South style. I don't like his pimped stuff enough to view him as a GOAT contender or anywhere near that, but I appreciate his minimalistic work and the quality of his punches. I'll rank him-though not very high.

I was really impressed with his performances against Lawler. How much Mantell is there available? Where would you guys rank him?

The more Flair I watch the less enamored I am with him. As I've been exploring the DVDVR 80s lists I often find myself completely apathetic to his matches that finished fairly high. I love the Steamboat series and his Onita cosplay but aside from that his work seems mostly obsolete.

I'll rank him. I'd consider ranking him based on his shoot style stuff alone because UWF is the greatest wrestling promotion ever but he has a very solid resume of pro-style matches as well and manages to make his matches feel special and unique.

In a nutshell Aries is a good worker, but not one I particularly care about and I have zero desire of ranking him.

He was in an awesome tornado tag w/Alex Riley vs The Miz and Jack Swagger around that time, not sure if was before or after the Cena match though. That match was inexplicably great. I really can't fathom how a match involving Alex Riley, The Miz and Jack Swagger managed to be that good. Rey really was the master of WWE TV style, and even if it is generally a style I don't care much for he deserves recognition for it. He also carried Cody Rhodes-the blandest and most mediocre worker you'll ever come across-to something worthwhile

Night Of Champions 21.9.2014. Viewing advised.

I'm not exactly a PWO veteran but it wasn't hard to figure out your gripes with modern WWE style and conclude you'd think e.g. the Cena-Owens match is shit. Have you seen the Cena-Umaga Last Man Standing match? It's very atypical for a WWE title match and one of Cena's greatest performances. And more importantly, I reckon it's something you would actually consider quite good, if not great.

We all enjoy pro wrestling for what it is. We just don't agree on what exactly it is. No. Pro wrestling is neither. Defining pro wrestling as, say, a subgenre of performance art wouldn't affect this whatsoever. It would simply cease the preposterous idea that pro wrestling is something so unique it cannot be properly defined.

Touché

If we define art as, well, art, then a banana or a cloud cannot be art by themselves. But they can very easily be conveyed into art by painting,photography and film. And they could also be declared art if a human were to modify them somehow-creation is but an illusion anyway. Interested in how banana art looks like? http://www.tofugu.com/2011/12/05/banana-art-keisuke-yamada/ I liked Bill Thompson's arguments until he decided to challenge the definition of art itself because I don't think that is necessary to recognize pro wrestling as an artform. If we can prove pro wrestling fits the norms of what art is conventionally defined as then challenging the very definition of art is completely redundant for this discussion. Pro wrestling could be seen as a performance art, but we should not ignore the fact that it is also often filmed which further enriches its potential beauty. You cannot look at Lucha Underground and ignore the effort that it took to produce the show. But you can also look at Memphis shows and appreciate the still and focused camera work for the atmosphere it creates. Meanwhile Raw has shitty camera work which evokes nausea. You could attend Lucha Underground and Raw tapings and even if they were identical in quality live watching Lucha Underground's television show would be far more aesthetically pleasing. But we don't really perceive wrestling shows like other TV shows. This is mostly because of how stale wrestling shows have looked throughout their history. It's fascinating that no one had thought of implementing techniques used literally everywhere else before Lucha Underground. And it's something that could be taken even further. If someone were willing to invest in it there's no reason why a post-wrestling show couldn't be created. The people in attendance are there for the action anyway-why not experiment with the narration? I mean this: certainly isn't going to create high end art. Even if we were to just focus on pro wrestling as a performance art there is no reason why it shouldn't be seen as art. The only thing I've gathered from this thread is that pro wrestling somehow inherently cannot be art because someone deems it not fit as such. Which is completely irrelevant. We aren't arguing about whether or not pro wrestling is seen as an art but whether it should be. And considering what passes for art these days it's not very hard to make an argument pro wrestling should as well.

A few that instantly come to mind: Puma vs Mundo from the first show Puma vs Mundo-Ironman Mundo vs Del Rio Puma vs Hernandez Fenix vs Mil Muertes-Grave Consequences Fenix vs Mil Muertes-Deathmatch The Gauntlet to determine the first Trios Tag Champions

Vader.

Did Jumbo even do headdrops other than his great looking, but relatively safe Backdrops? Compare this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xgnD1T6aCA to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhpiB4U2oRk It's night and day. Misawa's offence was heavy on German and Tiger Suplexes and he'd already used the Vertical Drop Tiger Driver by 1991. Steve Williams was using Backdrop Drivers as early as 1990. But the change really came when Misawa became the ace and Kawada and Kobashi followed his stylistics. As soon as he started main eventing, for obvious reasons. Shortly after he legitimately knocked out someone in a tag match in All Japan in 1990 I'm not sure about this one but without rewatching stuff I'd say 1992. It would be wonderful if you actually factually back up your statement. Misawa went form Tiger Driver>Tiger Driver 1991>Emerald Flowsion>Emerald Flowsion KAI>Fireman's Carry Emerald Flowsion while simultaneously, at all points during his career, having other believable match ending maneuvers (as in, he actually won matches with them, not just "they looked great and got pops"). And sure, people won matches with strikes before him, but those strikes were mostly lariats. It wasn't an inherent part of the style like it had become when Misawa was on top. Well watching a 10 minute ***1/2 match would be a lot more entertaining than watching a 25 minute *** one.

The stars are just an aesthetic. Whether you use them, numbers or percentages (like I do), it really doesn't matter as long as the system you are using makes it the easiest for you to differentiate between the quality of the matches. I have a friend that watches everything. Literally everything. Except lucha. If he watched lucha he'd probably watch more wrestling than Dylan. And in 2015 he has given about three matches ****. Personally, I'll look at something like my ratings for a random WWE PPV like this year's Payback(DUD, DUD, **, ***, *1/2, DUD, * , *3/4, **1/2) and conclude they perfectly represent how much I enjoyed any of those matches, and that suffices. For me, yes. A *** match is something I genuinely enjoyed. **1/2 is inoffensive and average-the qualities are either canceled out by the match's faults or it has neither qualities nor faults. ** is a tehnically fine match between two profesionally trained wrestlers that offers some things I like but is generally uninteresting. **** is a great match, ****1/2 is a fucking amazing match that could very well be a MOTY in some years, ***** means it's one of the greatest matches ever.

Takao Omori http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/29749-kenta-kobashi-jun-akiyama-vs-yoshihiro-takayama-takao-omori-ajpw-october-giant-series-103099/?hl=%2Btakao+%2Bomori http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30507-jun-akiyama-takao-omori-vs-go-shiozaki-kento-miyahara-ajpw-real-world-tag-league-12614/?hl=%2Btakao+%2Bomori http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30501-jun-akiyama-vs-takao-omori-ajpw-6152014-vacant-triple-crown-championship/?hl=%2Btakao+%2Bomori

Yeah that match isn't a top 10 Cena match. Like the Khali matches it proves Cena can get something solid out of a shitty opponent but it's more of an argument for Cena having a great performance than the match itself being great.

Hashimoto fought a fat guy pretending to be a frog in HUSTLE. You can't top that. MIsawa was working big matches in that manner before Kobashi was even fully pushed. He introduced the junior-esque aspects, strikes being sold like death, started the headdrop madness and presented the idea of constantly introducing new finishers as soon as the old ones were devalued. I guess you may be correct in that it was Kobashi's influence that took the style the furthest it ever got but in terms of overall influence there's no question who was more important. I watched that Taue match somewhat recently and there's no way I'd give it ****.. For Taue it's a clear indication he really wasn't as great as some think he is (though he mastered the style eventually). For Misawa it shows he could work long with 93 Taue without making me gouge my eyeballs out. The 1995 G1 final is a great match, but it's also a total Hashimoto carry job. All the negatives in the match (like the matwork being pointless and leading nowhere) are staples of Mutoh's work while Hashimoto is clearly responsible for carrying the entire body of the match with his charismatic performance. It's a match Hashimoto could've had with any competent wrestler that knew a couple of holds and could do a Moonsault (which Mutoh couldn't even execute properly since he botched climbing on the top rope at the end.......it was pretty hilarious).

Can't believe this is real honestly. RIP.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30458-kazuyuki-fujita-vs-toshiaki-kawada-njpw-g-1-climax-081405/?hl=%2Bkazuyuki+%2Bfujita http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25882-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-kazayuki-fujita-njpw-best-of-the-super-juniors-060504/?hl=%2Bkazuyuki+%2Bfujita&do=findComment&comment=5596411 Could've sworn there were threads for Fujita/Shibata and Fujita/Chono but Kevin Wilson's random IGF show review that includes a Fujita match will do then: http://www.puroresucentral.com/IGFReview-8.23.14.html

That KENTA match is a horrible example. Don't get me wrong it's an amazing match but it's also an extended squash.

Nominating Kazuyuki Fujita.

Yeah, at breaking his own neck maybe.