Parties

Kaientai will be represented by Dick Togo, who's more deserving in all aspects of the game. Nothing against TAKA, and he's sustained himself really well as one of those Suzuki/Takayama/Sano types who changed their game as they got older. He's as good as grumpy veteran as he was as young upstart. His WWF Light Heavyweight run was one of the things (perhaps the thing) that got me watching Japan. But he's not top 100 for me.

70s Japan has been one of the things I've been trying to watch more of lately. It's improved my opinion of almost everyone I've seen with the exception of Baba. He was in some good matches, but usually in spite of his work. Implausible offense and look, zero charisma, no selling. He was a massive star and had the cultural cache, but his execution on everything was awkward as can be. As Jetlag notes, he constantly looks like he's killing time, even in the most heated parts of matches.

I tend to find him really entertaining to watch. Not someone I would have thought of to nominate or put on a list, but for such a huge star he's actually kind of a sleeper contender. The Piper matches are shockingly great for a guy who was deemed too old. Hansen stuff's a lot of fun. Larry Z feud lives up to its myth. Awesome stuff with Koloff. Has one of the better Baba matches. As others have said, his charisma is off the charts and his crowd reactions are so good that he stands a chance on the strength of his star power as much as anything.

Guys who won't make my list? Takada (MOTY contenders in late 80s/1990 with Maeda). Atlantis (vs. Villano III) Backlund (vs. tons of awesome people, but in particular the Muraco cage match as neither guy will make it and that's a MOTYC) Hogan (vs. Backlund, Inoki, Hansen, Savage) Austin (vs. Bret, WarGames '92) Ohtani (heel NJ juniors run, in particular his match with young Tajiri) Owen (vs. Bret) Dibiase (vs. Murdoch, Duggan, Flair) HBK (vs. Jarrett, Candido, everyone in '94/95) Sayama (vs. Babe Face, the Brits, and everyone in the original UWF) Inoki (vs. Maeda, Fujiwara, tons of other people) Dump Matsumoto (vs. the Crush Girls) Angle (vs. Austin) Samoa Joe (vs. Kobashi) Munenori Sawa and Super Tiger II (BattlARTS six-man, best match of 2008, probably the best match of that low, dishonest decade) There are honestly dozens more examples of this. Half the Smarkschoice list fits this description. Tons of main eventers were given huge opportunities to achieve, and sometimes did, but aren't making the tight cut of 100. Footloose vs. Can-Ams from '89 is close. MOTYC in 1989 of all years, and the only guy who'd make my list is Kawada. Malenkos vs. Fantastics from that same year is phenomenal, and none of those four make my list.

Beg pardon, love?

Really liked the Festus match, as it felt like a rookie-vet war of hosses, a la something you could have seen in World Class/UWF Watts/80s Japan. Thought it showed signs of them striking the right balance with him, where he was still a gothic character yet also one who could serve as credible and renowned babyface champ for Smackdown. There's also the Summerslam '99 tag of Taker/Show vs. Kane/X-Pac that is way better than it should be. And I liked the HITC with Brock much more than the one with HBK. And he's good for his half of the Cell match with Foley. I'm sure there were others. It's not even that he's bad by any means: there's just so many guys that I enjoy more who didn't reach anything close to his status as a star.

He's almost a lock for my list somewhere, but I don't know how low he'll go. I will have him above a lot of "star" American 80s/90s/00s nominees who might not even make my list. I will Anjo much higher than someone like Waltman or Low-Ki. I think he suffers a bit by hitting his peak status in UWFi, but he is always both highly entertaining and extremely talented on the mat. If his career had sustained, I could have seen him as an Onita type of over-the-top but charismatic personality, but the closest place for such a character by that point was HUSTLE. His career as a shooter was too weird to gain traction, but as one of the only shoot style guys willing to work as a sleazy, semi-cowardly heel, he mastered his role. An #85-100 option, but a strong candidate who shouldn't suffer just because he's the 7th or 8th best shoot style worker.

The Foley podcast conversation was interesting. I don't think you can hold him responsible for his bad imitators, but I can absolutely understand revisiting his work and thinking, "This isn't what I want wrestling to be anymore, and it set a bad precedent." If Foley makes my list, it will be on the strength of '88-'98, while ignoring as much of what came after as possible. I really love the first half of his career as territorial bump freak, and the evolution of the Cactus Jack character as he found his comedy in WCW/ECW. He's also a guy who works as hard in irrelevant undercard stuff with Mike Shaw as he is in main events with Shawn Michaels. Stuff like the Tarzan Goto match did a lot in the last few years to remind me of how cool he could be.

I don't say this to troll - by all means, vote for him if you wish and have fun doing so - but he might not even make a top 500 for me. He has only a handful of matches I like and they aren't even the pimped ones. Massively over character who soundly makes the argument that being a popular wrestler has very little to do with in-ring skill.

I have a lot of Japanese guys in my top 100 - more than expected on first draft - and Maeda is above Choshu and maybe even Jumbo. That said, I'm a huge proponent of UWF. Choshu's performances, while incredibly heated, often felt too repetitive and redundant during the New Japan set and the All Japan and 90s stuff that I've seen. That's not a moveset critique (though Choshu does often go for the same stuff over and over in his matches, to the point of tedium) as much as its that I find Maeda's own limited ("structured"?) approach of kicks and matwork to be more versatile, realistic, and entertaining. I haven't seen that many mediocre Maeda matches, and the ones I don't much like are with guys like Mutoh and Koshinaka who I rarely enjoy. With good opponents, he was phenomenal. I'd also argue that he is often the ring general of the UWF-NJ invasion angle, which I and others here have called the best in-ring feud of all time. He's the guy who sets the pace of when those matches go to big offense or stay on the mat. He's the leader and most dangerous member of his faction, not because he was booked that way but because people bought it in his work. There may be people here who downgrade him for being a sour, uncooperative dick, which he absolutely was. We all love Hansen for reckless lariats and smashing up eyeballs, so "good intentions" don't mean much to me on this topic. And there's no question that Maeda's rep as "real" (be it a real fighter or a real jerk) was vital to being so over with his audience, and gaining the "aura" OJ refers to above. He is if nothing else one of the most fascinating and dynamic personalities of 80s wrestling. And even if that weren't the case, he has one of the best sets of great matches of any singles worker from that time. Very, very few guys anywhere in the world were better or more consistent in singles matches during his WOTYC days of '84-'90, which is also probably wrestling's creative peak as a medium. I really wonder in a lot of these comparisons of workers and eventual rankings how much recent viewing helps. It's been what, eight years since the DVDVR Other Japan set? Five since the New Japan set? Compare that to how much of the Tenryu and Hansen backlist people have been hyping online lately. Maeda's not a guy who's fresh on our minds, but he's worth revisiting.

This may be obvious, but part of valuing the world title is talking about a bunch of sports-like stuff that Vince probably hates and doesn't want discussed on TV at all. On modern WWE TV, no one but Heyman really hits upon why you'd even want a world title. From a kayfabe perspective, your world champion: Is the highest paid worker in the company. You want that title because you want that money, whether you're Ric Flair in a limo or Stan Hansen feeding a big fat wife and nine kids. Heyman occasionally hinted at this notion when Brock was champ, but it was rarely played up. So much of celeb status (esp. in America) is about viewers coveting the wealth of big stars, whether you're Lebron, Jay-Z, or a Kardashian. Has more political pull with the booker than anyone else, but still not enough to bully around authority figures without consequences. The Vince-Austin dynamic worked because they were stuck with each other. Flair talked a lot of trash on TV about Crockett, but in the end knew that he was the boss. Watts ran Mid-South, but Watts treated heel and face champions with a modicum of respect. Likewise, everyone cowered to Grizzly Smith. We kinda see this in the current iteration of Rollins as jewel of the Authority, but it's so poorly done for all the reasons I've discussed ad nauseum. Receives preferential treatment with regard to travel, accommodations, sponsorship, etc. You know, like an actual celebrity. We never see world champions enjoying the good life nowadays, unless they're naturally flashy guys like Batista. Rollins wears his same stupid gear everywhere he goes. Brock's whole character is that he's in this because he likes hurting people, likes winning, and then wants to go home and hunt. He cares nothing about perception, whereas someone like Rollins probably should be wearing suits when cutting promos, or at least athletic gear that's expensive and on trend. Is recognized by both themselves and their peers as the best talent going: the measuring stick. Great athletes in all organizations want to be champions not merely for the fame and money, but because they are so competitive and so eager to be great that they vie for the opportunity to be the objective best in their field. "For love of the game". Everyone should be jockeying for a match with them! Or at least working their way up the ranks. I suspect part of why we never hear guys cut promos of this nature is that Vince is of late obsessed with not wanting anyone to “whine”, which he equates with publicly expressing any kind of desire or ambition within one's career. And because he has so little faith or interest in so much of the roster that it would never occur to him that of their characters should so any fortitude or aspiration. I'm not saying Zack Ryder should be calling himself the next world champion, but there's no harm in your top babyfaces taking pride in themselves, while simultaneously acknowledging that Rollins is the man to beat because he's that damn good. A world title (or even simply the promotion's top title) can't mean as much in a post-touring champ world. Rollins didn't even go to Japan for that Beast in the East show, and you come away from an event like that realizing how much bigger Brock is than the belt right now. You need to reinstill that aura. Honestly if the belt was only defended a few times a year on PPV, with people having to go to house shows to see the touring title match, that'd be a pretty badass deal.

I liked the sober ones more. Sad to hear Flair as elderly, semi-irate drunk, esp. after he looked so old on the Dusty roundtable. Past episodes have been great and it's definitely still worth listening to weekly (Funk, Steamboat, Bret, Meltzer in particular). But this was Flair slurring his speech more than ever, and dragging out his well-worn grudges with Bischoff/NWO. Conrad was smashed too, when he's the one often able to reset the show and get Flair back on track. That said, certain things on there are really fascinating, even if they're false/exaggerated: claiming Beefcake stole jewels from Hogan's house, crazy drinking stories, burying Honky, Sullivan's secret plan to pop the Network, etc. I actually thought the most interesting thing was how little Flair thought of Bill Dundee, acting gobsmacked that Dundee had a place in the WCW booking committee, when most evidence would suggest Dundee was a vastly better booker than Flair, and likely a better one than Sullivan. They were also way off on the timelines and locations in certain stories, but such is the nature of old wrestlers telling tales.

So Makabe not only has Guy Fieri's hair, but is in fact the Guy Fieri of Japan?

Hogan's ability to electrify a promotion and make things feel more important should count for something. He did it not once, but THREE times in his career for three different companies. Assuming the three cases in question were WWF, WCW, and TNA: Hogan in all three cases was likewise instrumental in creating the worst periods in the histories of all three companies. Moreso than any other wrestler. You can't celebrate Hogan's positive influence on box office (clear, valid) or his "big match" capacity without acknowledging that he was true poison (and IMO equally poisonous) at three pivotal points (end of WCW, '02-'03 WWE, and post-2010 TNA) as well. All three groups were badly burned by him, in ways so damaging that each company has since failed to recover. Anyone reading the news lately knows that Hogan is his own worst enemy. And while this sound unfair to some, I blame him (with Vince of course) for a lot of the current WWE overemphasis on legends getting that “one last run” a dozen times over, at the expense of the last 12-15 years worth of young talent. So much of Vince's conservative booking and obsession with the past via old grudges originates in Hogan's big runs after the Rock match at WM18. But to be fair, perhaps that's simply Vince chasing Hogan's aura and failing to catch it. As a worker, he absolutely does not make it. For all the matches he made “bigger”, what about the endless matches he made smaller due to his ego and rapidly deteriorating abilities post-1990 or so? Is seven good years ('83-90) a top 100 length of time, even when compared solely to direct peers like Bret, Valentine, Andre, Slaughter, Savage? He has some very good matches and very good performances. But people sought out and glorified those performances (vs. Hansen, Fujinami, Schultz, Savage, Backlund, etc.). Are there ten desert island Hogan matches? Is there even one, on the spectrum of everything else? I recently said that Earthquake at Summerslam '90 is the best case I've recently seen in which you could argue Hogan looked great and (with the help of four other awesome guys) carried a bad worker to a solid match. But I don't think Hogan has many maestro carryjob outings on his resume.

I really don't understand how after Dominion you'd get to anywhere besides a Nakamura G1 win leading to him vs. Okada at the Dome. If that's not what they're doing, then much of Dominion's booking made no sense. Same for the way the blocks are broken out. As for the other big names: If Goto proves as dead in the water as he looks, I could see AJ and Ibushi squaring off for the IC title sometime in the next six months. Or rudo Naito takes it off Goto, to infuse a second heel into the main event mix. The prevailing fear is that they're going to play it too safe, but it's just as bad to see them hitting the panic button and starting to change the belts too often.

I agree: that Battlebowl, while definitely uninspired and quickly forgotten, is too entertaining to be the most useless ever. Vader dominant show, plus you have Flair and Austin forming a tag team. If "useless" just means "worst", then it's a pretty common conversation. To me the worst late-run WCW shows (Starrcade '99, really almost every show from 2000) are the genuine worst PPVs ever put on, as there was something huge at stake and it was brutally squandered. But if it's just useless in terms of bland, unmemorable, and advancing nothing, Loss' mention of 2003 RAW-only shows is a good one. Badd Blood '03 main evented by a terrible HHH vs. Nash match is historically bad. There's inexplicably a Flair vs. Michaels match on that show too, and a Goldberg-Jericho match with tons of botched spots. Vengeance '03 had the LMS blowoff to Kane-Shane, the terrible Goldberg-HHH main event, and Al Snow and Coachman defeating JR and Lawler in a tag to become the new broadcast team of RAW, which I totally forgot happened and I assume was erased not long after. It's amazing to look back at how bad RAW was in '03: Hunter at perhaps his worst, Bischoff as heel GM, very few talented workers on the roster (almost all of them being on SD at the time) with some all-time terrible ones, and some of Vince's most cynical, self-indulgent booking. It's as good a marker as any as the point at which WWE fell off a creative cliff for several years, and in a way RAW hasn't really ever recovered, even 12 years later. You have to go to the peaks of Cena's first big run in '07 before they got even somewhat back on track - and RAW was mostly bad even during and after that run. But you can make the case that they were coming off the rails as early as Backlash '02, when they learned all the wrong lessons from Hogan-Rock at Mania and started booking Hogan as the top star. Incredible now to think that the all-time worst periods of WCW, WWF, and TNA were all to a large extent caused by Hogan.

Goto-Nakamura: I never know what to expect from a Goto match, and I'm not sure Gedo does either. Started with perfunctory title match grappling, and some Nakamura handstand flair thrown in for spice. I can understand the booking. Nakamura loses the belt and rematch to build to a G1 win and main eventing the next Dome with Okada. But when the former champ completely outshines the new champ, you risk making Goto look second-rate. Which he is and always has been. On one hand, that came through here. But I also feel like he was made to look bad by the booking. If he's the champ, and Nakamura is about to win the G1, there's more to be gained by Goto decisively kicking the ass of the established top star. Go to Suplex City and have him beat Nakamura in ten minutes. You're not gonna kill Nakamura's heat by having him decisively lose the match that comes right before the biggest win streak of his career. If Goto has any warpath in him, this is the now-or-never run in which he needs to show it. Frankly he's already had a couple now-or-never runs prior to this one that didn't click. I don't know if he has that killer instinct, but this is a match where he could have brought back some of those violent strikes from his Shibata series. Instead, he was made to look inferior to Nakamura the entire match. Even in defeat, it ended up being the Nakamura show, which is an error in booking more than it is in the performances, of which Nakamura's was terrific (perhaps better than it should have been), while Goto's was as lackluster as ever. Even as a series of moves in a bubble, I thought it was a rote sequence of stuff that I've seen Nakamura do enough times. Mix it up a little. Had way less heat than his stuff this year with Ibushi and Strong. Again, that's as much the fault of the booker as it is the very talented worker. I realize Japanese booking can be conservative, but this was Jim Inhofe conservative. The last minute or so was good – wish the whole match had been like it. Styles-Okada: Opening video of the past champions was awesome. I forgot Makabe held the IWGP title. That is shameful and sadistic. Styles looks great from the outset: really crisp and fluid in his motions. Okada is a guy I'll admit I don't get. He almost always looks awkward to me. Even aesthetically: the hair, gear, and lanky Baba build seem gangly. I've only liked his work in things like tags where he's the third or fourth best guy in the match. He feels like the Rock, in that he's clearly really over and the crowds view him as very charismatic, but when you're removed from that cultural cache and aren't understanding what's being said the promos, it just looks like a guy who can't really work. His character doesn't come through in his matches. Styles was fantastic early on: he's figured out the expressive stuff he lacked in past years, and all of his selling was superb. Awkward strikes from Okada. Likewise seemed like he wasn't equipped to catch Styles off aerial moves on first bounce, leading to miscommunication. Seems like Styles is able to work around the height disparity, but Okada is having trouble. Liked the combo of Styles getting crotched on the ropes and then dropkicked, but he was too quickly back on offense. I believe it was Dylan who said that Big Show has a better elbow drop than Okada. He runs the ropes better too, but I digress. Doing four Tombstone reversals doesn't work for me either. Styles bumped his ass off throughout, all of his flips and dives looked impactful, and he heightened the drama via his reactions. Styles is the closest guy that we have to prime Ric Flair, and he was trying to make magic with the closest guy we have to prime Tom Zenk. The last 30 seconds was good (or at least impressive in pace), but like Nakamura-Goto, a huge title match needs more than 30 rapid seconds. Overall, this show didn't make me want to see more Goto, or even see Nakamura and Okada headline the Dome. It made me want to see Styles vs. Sakuraba under UWF rules, and Nakamura vs. Yano in a “Coward Waves the Merch” match.

Makabe-Ishii: Makabe has been terrible for his entire run as a star within the company. Maybe his whole career. He's had only a couple of decent matches in all of the last ten years, with vastly superior opponents. That they have to put him with Ishii to make Makabe look even passable speaks volumes. That botched catch on the dive was as bad as everyone has said. Just so stupid. And Ishii still hit the dive perfectly! Meltzer's idea that they were botching to tell a story is particularly ridiculous once you watch the match, as Ishii - the guy selling the injury - isn't even the one botching anything. It's all Makabe. This felt like it went on forever: way too long at 18 minutes. The problem isn't that Makabe was this bad here. It's that he's been this bad for a decade and gets a pass because he's now a New Japan vet. Worst guy on this show, which is something considering both his status in the company and the tag match that followed. Kingdom-GunGallows: Karl Anderson is another guy in the running for most overrated in the business. Always a snooze, always out of position for spots, coasting on some fanboy imitation of Austin/Arn nonsense. There's a springboard dive in the ring with him and Taven that they whiff so badly it's comical. Gallows has regressed a ton as part of this team. In WWE and the indies shortly thereafter, he was one of the best in the business and a Hoss division revelation. We're now seven years removed from that epic Undertaker match on Smackdown. Today he's bumbling around, throwing lame punches and moving like molasses. Bennett and Taven are the most generic guys in ROH, which takes practice. Their double kicks to Gallows missed from a mile away. Anderson and Gallows are heels who now work like fun-loving drunk babyfaces. These guys have the rep of being goofs backstage. And honestly, more power to you. If your career in wrestling can be to get paid good money in Japan to have mediocre ten minute tags where you don't take many bumps and get to bring your wives overseas as your managers, then I say go get smashed at Ribera and enjoy your life. Bell to bell, it was two teams waiting until they get to hit their finishers. When Maria as valet is hands down the best worker in the match, you can hit fast forward. Tanahashi-Yano: I actually liked Yano's creepy entrance here. He's become sort of a macabre John Candy character, laughing at his own weird jokes and shilling merch like a Japanese version of William B. Williams. It works for this type of guy in this type of match, which I guess I'd compare to Bret working Doink at Summerslam '93. I thought the comedy spots really worked here, and that Tanahashi deserves credit for taking a crazy Funk/Foley bump over the rail into the chairs. I'd have cut a couple minutes off this, and if it had gone five more it would have died, but I thought they played off each other well and that this had some great timing in knowing when to hit certain spots, which was never previously Tanahashi's strong suit. And they both sold better than damn near anyone else on this show! Yano is a guy I used to loathe watching, but he really held his own as dirtbag southern heel here. Billy Joe Travis could have had the same match with Tanahashi in 1990 and we'd all love it.

Ten-man tag: Dorada was the standout, but Liger and Sho Tanaka looked good as well. Not sure what Kenny Omega's doing at the top of your juniors division when Dorada is in the pre-show, but Dorada seemed so big and powerful in his offense that he almost doesn't come off as a junior. 3-way juniors tag: Bullet Club has gotten too derivative of DX and the NWO for my tastes. Young Bucks were nothing beyond lame shtick. Whenever they had to wrestle it sucked, and their finishing run in the home stretch was really dumb. Don't buy them as champs at all: the “playing pro wrestler” critique is overused, but it's what I think watching them do terrible versions of Austin's mudhole stomping, etc. Cody Hall is creepy as hell, for better or worse. Meltzer called Romero the best guy in the match, when he was to my eyes the worst. This did come together at the end once the Bucks were out of the spotlight and the focus was more on Vice and ReDragon. I thought Fish looked good in his offense and mannerisms to the crowd, and there's something about Baretta that I like, even amidst his transformation into Seth Rollins. Naito/Honma vs. Yujiro/Fale: I like Yujiro's entrance of hot awkward lady, fake tattoos, and manic grinning. And that Naito's heel turn is predicated on being one of those guys who wears baseball hats indoors at inappropriate times. He was more interesting here than he's been in years. Too many guys are in the Bullet Club, and thus the shows can feel heel-heavy, but Naito really should turn and it's smart booking to get him there. Kind of a nothing match to build an angle, but Honma was entertaining as always. Sakuraba-Shibata: Easily the best match so far, and one of the best anywhere this year. The staredown was so much weirder with Sakuraba's odd mannerisms. His kicks were great, as were the struggles in the front facelocks. Such basic stuff, yet they made it all mean so much more than the 900 moves done earlier on the show. Biting the rope to get a break was awesome. Sakuraba's armbar choke with his feet was great. Shibata's selling in the sleeper was tremendous. Great stuff. Omega-Kushida: I can't believe what a good job they've done with Kushida in the last 6 months. I thought as recently as this year's Dome show he came off as a mediocre guy lost at the bottom of the pack. That video of him as a kid was so awesome. That's how you book a babyface going for a title. Huge improvement over Omega, who sometimes looks solid, and on some nights seems like the most overpushed guy in wrestling. All of the “Cleaner” stuff with the broom and garbage can was so bush league. If that was done on WWE he'd be laughed out of a job. Kushida's selling here was so good: he did great at playing to the crowd and getting them behind him, and Omega improved a lot once he got in the middle of the ring and built spots around destroying Kushida's knee. “Fighting spirit” has become a bastardized term, but it really did apply to what Kushida portrayed here. Not a great match, but a great performance/story.

Holy hell: this. I agree with everything that was said about the show, but the hard camera was the standout for me. It needs to be constantly noted how bad a director Kevin Dunn is, and how badly produced RAW is by the standards of anyone who ever watches sports. Imagine the flaming pitchforks that would come out if the NBA Finals was filmed as a series of rapid cutaways between closeups of the basketball/closeups of the players faces/bumbling shaky-cam everytime anyone scored a basket. This show was filmed with honestly less production than New Japan. If anything this looked like a present-day Big Japan show. Which was awesome. I've said this before, but Jericho is like Orton in that he's a thousand times better in a live/house showish setting than he is on RAW or a WWE-styled PPV. Everything about his style is hurt by extreme closeups and mic'ed rings, and aided by the opportunity to play off the crowd and work uninterrupted 20 minute matches. That's not even to say he isn't a flawed or even overrated worker - he absolutely is - but he's a strong example of how almost everyone on that roster looks better in a house show setting than they do on RAW. I'm still not sold on Balor and thought he really didn't rise to the occasion. I still dislike his moveset, his weak strikes, the paint, his mannerisms, his little-to-no selling, etc. I liked Owens throwing the flowers and thought he did OK. His beard is terrible and a stip of the Battleground match (which he'll win) should be that if defeated, Cena is allowed to forceably shave him like the ornery pug that he is. Thought Cena and Ziggler worked really well as a tag team. I agree with whoever on this board (maybe Will?) who recently said that every main event worker in WWE should have a de facto tag partner who they team up with on special occasions, even if they're both singles workers 90% of the time. Reigns and Ambrose, Sheamus and Barrett, Orton and His Parole Officer (HHH). Point being I would have no problem if Ziggler became Cena's go-to guy. They even have a kayfabe history together off of the 2014 Survivor Series win. And Dolph makes for a better Kikuchi than say, Zack Ryder (who I would say is more like the Ogawa to Cena's Misawa, or perhaps more accurately the Danny Spivey to Cena's Hansen).

Yes. Also: Usuda is so good that while I wouldn't put him on a top 100 all-time ballot, he's for me really not that far off.

What are the matches I need to see? It's been years since I watched the big one with Wild II, but otherwise I'm more apt to check out the early NOAH stuff against Kikuchi/Momota, Kikuchi/Ogawa, Liger/Murahama, Marvin/Juvi, Marvin/SUWA, Kobashi/Honda.

I popped for the mention of how weird the J.J Dillon-Tito Santana match was. There's something about that one that always felt to me like your strangest uncle trying to work a match with a real life wrestler. The stat of Landel starting in WWF the same day as Austin is amazing. He was only three years older than Austin, four years older than that young upstart Shawn Michaels. Not saying he could have been big there, or had Michaels' longevity: watching that match with Bob Holly, his body would have definitely been an issue. He does not look like what Vince thinks a 33, 34 year old guy should look like. But charismatic as hell, crowd is in hands, and best elbow drop in the business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPkZ5sTFuPQ Been watching some peripheral Butch Reed at the bookends of his career. WCW 1990 is strange: the wheels have totally fallen off as they cling to guys like Ross and Cornette to try to keep it together. The Long and Cornette stuff wouldn't fly in 2015, but the exchange of membership cards is still hilarious in a "smh" kind of way.

Definitely agree: this place is the anti-coliseum. I was in the balcony, but it looked like the people who paid for floor seats got hosed. There are outdoor junior high basketball courts in NYC more fit to house wrestling than this. And those courts serve better drinks.