NotJayTabb

Unlikely to vote for him, but I think he's worth discussion - Jonny Storm Vs Chad Malenko (Collyer) (All Star Wrestling, 14/3/2001) You may know Malenko better as Chad Collyer, so this has the chance of being decent. Hilariously, he still has the initials "CC" on his trunks. Malenko tries to get a "USA" chant going for some easy heat. Nice little mat sequence gets us warmed up. I love the simple touches, where Storm asks the crowd if he should wrench Malenko's arm again, while Malenko shakes his head. They work a nice sequence of counters and reversals, which ends with Storm on top, which must seem like manna from the Gods for this crowd after some of the earlier toss on this show. Malenko takes control and slows things down with a chinlock. He sends Storm high into the air with a massive flapjack. This is being worked very simply, like a good TV match, with Storm getting a few hope spots on his comebacks before Malenko cuts him off. Makes sense, as this isn't a crowd that wants long indy-style matches (which these guys could certainly do). Top rope rana and a moonsault press by Storm gets a good reaction from the crowd. The end comes as Malenko blocks a second top rope rana and hits a tornado DDT for the win. Really enjoyed this. Vs Chad Malenko (All Star Wrestling 22/2/2001) This was filmed 3 weeks prior to the other match, so it'll be interesting if they just had a stock touring match. Seemingly not, as Malenko stomps the shit out of Storm in the corner to start. No mat work, just the more muscular Malenko hammering away on Storm. Storm sends him packing with some dropkicks, playing up his speed advantage. There is a mat section after this, but it's nice to see they mixed it up a little bit. They're definately working some different bits into this match, with Malenko doing a nice little showboat by running round whilst holding a delayed vertical suplex. Malenko keeps control on Jonny, with a nice single leg crab and an STF. Jonny's comeback here includes a nice rana in the middle of the ring, but Malenko catches him leaping off the top for another rana and plants him with a powerbomb for three. Another good bout between these two. Trent Acid vs Jonny Storm (GWF Battle of the Champions 2003) CZW was pretty popular in the UK in 2002, so Trent gets a decent reaction here. Ross Gordon returns and cuts a promo that I can't hear very well. Acid stalls like Hell to start. The highlight of an overly-flippy opening segment is Acid smoothly reversing a hiptoss into an abdominal stretch. Acid really has his character work nailed on here, waiting until Jonny turns around before hiding behind him, then following him in a hilarious, OTT manner. They brawl into the unlit crowd, with something impossible to see earning a "Holy Shit" chant. Acid feigns a leg injury in the corner, then suddenly strikes to attack Storm in a classic heel spot. Acid's mannerisms are great in his control spot, and I like the way that, for a guy who often did too many choreographed looking moves in his matches, he works simply here, drapping a leg over Storm's throat whilst posing to soak up the boos. I also like him following up a backbreaker with a full Nelson camel clutch to focus on Storm's back. Storm's offence at this point was mainly high-risk and flashy, so he was perfect for comebacks that pop the crowd, with a top rope leg-lariat looking great. A triple jump rana gets two for Storm. They work a pin reversals sequence before an Acid Yakuza kick gets two. A second attempt misses and Storm hits a rana for the win. It broke down in places, but overall this was damn good.

Yeah, I agree with all this. It gives it a real "every single vote counts" feel, which means those sentimental #100 picks have some weight. I also like the idea of seeing who each wrestler's high vote is, so we'll actually get a definitive answer to the "Which wrestler will you be the high vote on?" thread :-)

The thing that made the Bret feud work is the difference in personalities between the two. The uber-serious traditionalist wrestler vs the zero-fucks-giving, brash brawler. They just sparked off each other in a way that I can't imagine working with a different wrestler than Bret. Not to mention how much Bret was willing to give Austin in the feud - Bret's big comeback match saw him narrowly win by turning Austin's secondary finisher into a desperation pin. It wouldn't match the Taker character for that to happen, and Michaels wasn't that giving.

"Horowitz Wins!" will forever stick with me because of how unexpected it was. One moment I was watching a basic squash whilst eating breakfast, the next I was on my feet in delight

Thought as the year is still young, it might be fun to have a thread for people to write about shows they've been to this year. I'm always curious to see what shows people have been to, who's been standing out and who to keep an eye out for. To get the ball rolling, here's some words on the only show I've been to so far in 2016 House of Pain Wrestling - 31/01/16 My first show of the year was a House of Pain Wrestling show in Calverton, Notts,. HOP is an academy based promotion, with all the workers coming from their training school, run by BritWres standout Stixx. HOP shows are a nice opportunity to see up-and-coming guys for a reasonable price (6 matches for £5) and a core of workers who are noticeably improving month on month. Joseph Conners & Gabriel Kidd vs Brett Ryans & The Collective Conners is easily the best guy in the promotion and is one of the better guys in the UK. He’s been working bigger shows than this for years, but he still works HOP shows seemingly for the love of helping to work with less experienced guys. This was a comedy opener, as Conners had another show in Leeds to work that afternoon, but was plenty enjoyable. The face team of Kidd and Conners had plenty of fun mocking their mismatched opponents (Ryans is working a royalty gimmick, whilst Collective seems to be some kind of fashionista, who yells “Collective!” a lot), as well as Conners mocking his partner’s ever-increasing gut size. Kidd is a decent young worker with bags of natural charisma, so this was fun without ever threatening to steal the show. The heels won with a quick roll-up on Conners after a clash of heads. Juken vs Danny Thomas Another nicely-worked match. Juken recently turned face, causing him to jettison his former persona of angry German Jurgen Heimlich, a name which was never going to see him taken seriously. Plus he isn’t actually German. He’s another experienced head in the company, working a few tours of Japanese indies to get more seasoning, and he looked great here, really comfortable on the mat and with nice looking strikes. I’d only seen Thomas before in a six-man tag, and he’d not stood out, but he kept up well here, and I liked the story of his stealing Juken’s moves to try and show him up. They’d fought previously with Thomas winning with a low blow. Here, he hit a low-blow again, but was too cocky with his cover, allowing Juken to cradle him for the win. Lucas Archer, Tommy Taylor & Vasillios vs ABH (Johnny Concrete, Eddy Martins and Dante Deurden) Before the match, we were warned that the action would spill out all over the room, but it actually turned out to be a regular six-man bout that operated almost entirely in the ring. The format really helped, as there were enough quick tags to avoid exposing how inexperienced these guys are. Taylor in particular is a guy I’ve not been too high on in the past, but he looked great here, crisp in his offence and looking more comfortable in the ring, so it was nice to see his improvement. This built logically, with a long face-in-peril section before the big spot of Vasillos slamming the 25 stone Concrete. The faces won by DQ, when Vasillos got laid out with a kendo stick. LJ Heron vs Ritmo Heron is super-solid in the ring, really reliable and the right person to put in the ring with someone like Ritmo, who shows potential but is still a bit green. I saw him before Christmas taking on another green worker and that match felt like it went on too long. Here, Heron was able to reel him in and take control of the bout, resulting in a much better match. There were a couple of minor timing flubs from Ritmo but this was decent on the whole, with Ritmo winning in an upset. Mr Goodman vs Disco Dan This was Goodman’s debut, and his gimmick is one part Mr ZERO, three parts Right To Censor, cutting a pre-match promo in dress clothes with a thermos mug, complaining about vulgarity and tomfoolery. Disco Dan works a comedy disco gimmick, so a lot of this match was based around trying to fool Goodman into dancing, with a test of strength/Saturday Night Fever gag being pretty effective. Probably the weakest match of the day, and it was still fun. I liked Goodman’s serious focus on the arm leading to an armbar tapout win TimbaWolf & Barricade vs The Foundation (Danny Chase & Alex Gracie) This was for the tag titles, held by TimbaWolf and Mike Wyld, but Barricade had to sub for the missing Wyld (in a great bit of heeling, Gracie came out wheeling a spare tyre which he hinted was Wyld’s, and lamenting Wyld getting a puncture). The Foundation of Chase, Gracie and LJ Heron have been the main heel stable in HoP for nearly 2 years, but have been showing signs of falling apart, with Chase failing to help Heron cheat in his earlier match up. I think Chase and Gracie have both gotten really good in 2015, with Gracie stellar on the mic. He’s manages to be a really entertaining talker, whilst also being utterly unlikable, which is a hard line to balance. This was a good tag match, given a bit of time and with a fun heat section on Wolf. Barricade is a beast, as well as a former HoP champion, so he was really effective as a hot tag, overwhelming the Foundation. Predicatably, Heron showed up to run interference, which backfired as he accidentally hit Chase with a spear, leading to a face victory. Really good main event, and the post match fall out of the Foundation falling apart left a cliffhanger for the next show.

On my current WIP list, which admittedly is pretty rough, I've got Arn just in my top 25, and Tully just in my top 40. I see Arn as more consistent over a longer period of time, which goes in his favour.

"Rob Black: idiot or carny" feels like a debate that could go either way.

It's a fun match, but even then IRS slows it down in the middle for a lengthy abdominal stretch session or two

XPW once booked a Buck Naked match, where the object was to strip your opponent naked in the middle of the ring. Now obviously, two women willing to take part in such a match aren't going to be highly trained grapplers, but given that Rob Black was a pornographer, and both Lizzy Borden and Veronica Caine had a history in adult entertainment, the audience were clearly expecting some nudity. The execution was terrible. Borden and Caine were both members of heel factions (the Black Army and the Enterprise), so the crowd ended up babyfacing the Black Army for interfering and helping try to strip Caine, despite them being massive heels in a previous segment. It got to the point where Borden was just about to strip Caine....and the lights went out. When they came back on, Caine had vanished. The Enterprise took credit for this to big heel heat....which was promptly wasted in the next match as Enterprise member Steve Rizzono jobbed to a man in a monkey suit (literally billed as "A monkey") in a comedy match. What they managed to do was annoy their entire audience, taking away any reason to trust XPW stipulations in the future, accidentally babyfaced their main heel faction and wasted any heel heat with a throwaway 3 minute match in the next segment.

Nowhere near my top 100. He's been in some good matches, but he's probably #1 on a list of wrestlers who I don't want to watch wrestle. There are worse wrestlers, but none who will have matches of such a length that are so uninteresting. There's nothing about him that compels me to watch a match, and he's been responsible for some of my least favourite matches ever - I still have nightmares thinking about that wretched Last Man Standing bout from the 2004 Rumble.

I really like Tommy End, but I think it's a bit soon for him to make a list like this, and I think he'll have a better shot in 10 years time when we next go through this process. I've seen Tommy live numerous times in the last few years, as he wrestles a lot for Southside Wrestling, who often run 5 minutes from my house, and I've seen him have great bouts and not-so-great bouts. He's really fun to watch as a heel - his 2013 match with ZSJ based on him slowly breaking Zack down with strikes and trying to avoid getting taken to the mat was a lot of fun, and seeing him beast Rich Swann and Robbie X in competitive squashes was enjoyable. The problem is that they were almost TOO fun and resulted in him being turned quasi-face, where's he's less fun. I don't think he's a sympathetic enough seller to rally fans behind him - what was great in the ZSJ match was that he sold Sabre's comeback strikes in a way that showed they were hurting him, but he was too dominant to let his mask slip to his opponent. He's not as able to tell a story with his selling as a face, leading to matches like the Hero stinker* I sat through last August, two guys working a "I'm a great striker" gimmick against a guy totally no-selling the blows. Made me think that you can't be that good a striker if your opponent is bellowing "Come on!" in response to your elbow/kicks to the head. Hopefully these kinks can be ironed out, but for now he's not getting near my list. *In the interest of fairness, I should point out the rest of the audience loved it and gave both guys a standing ovation. It WAS terrible though.

Ha, I can't believe they're continuing the Big E/Nattie's sister storyline. Tyson Kidd's horror at Big E cavorting in his hot tub is one of the greatest Total Divas moments

Really enjoyed the All-Star tag match, there's something about the All Star style I really love. There's not enough places in wrestling where the face will move away from their corner to persuade an audience of kids to yell "cheat" at the heel. I've always kinda thought that All Star would be a perfect place for the WWE to send guys who aren't quite NXT-ready, having good simple matches night after night, and the stage set-up is perfect for getting used to wrestling to the hard camera.

There's something really disappointing about the fact I'm going to have to get through 6 hours of work and then 3 hours of college before I can get to watch that tag match.

Doug is a guy I'm considering for the bottom part of my list. He's been ever so consistent over the past 15 years, and he's been a mainstay in the UK scene for most of that time - It was once said that you could go to any BritWres show in the country and you could be guaranteed two things: a pre-main event raffle and Doug Williams in the main. He reminds me of James Mason, in that you can put Doug Williams in a match against anyone, veteran, import or rookie, and he'll put on a good match. What he has over Mason is that a lot of his better matches have made tape, which helps his case. His RoH run was fun, he was the most reliable competitior in 1PW, putting on some great matches against Nigel McGuinness and Lance Storm, and he's a rare guy who isn't hurt by spending a few years in TNA. He made the British Invasion into an enjoyable faction, despite being paired with two green guys, his run as non-flying X-Division saw good matches against Kendrick and Kazarian, and even his brief TV title run saw him put on a cracker with AJ Styles to win the belt. He's a real contender for my list.

Nominating Doug Williams Doug Williams vs Mark Haskins (TNA Destination X 2011) Haskins is the mystery opponent for Williams, an opponent none of the crowd have heard off. Still, this shouldn’t give them the right to be total dicks, which unfortunately, they are. For despite putting in a good performance, they shit all over Haskins. The opening sequence is particularly fun, with Williams slightly dominating on the mat, but still falling prey to a couple of pinfall attempts. Williams is larger and more experienced, so it makes sense he controls much of the match, but Haskins does some really nice stuff. I especially like the way that, when Williams hits him with a forearm to break a hold, Haskins replies with a straight headbutt. Haskins also takes a nasty looking bump on the ring apron. Haskins does slip a couple of times (which the crowd shit on him for), firstly in the middle of an otherwise smooth sequence of offence whilst trying a springboard clothesline, and secondly when trying for a Shooting Star Press, though this plays into the finish: having wasted a few seconds by slipping, he misses the SSP and Williams rolls him up for 3. A pretty good match, a terrible crowd. Doug Williams vs Pete Dunne (TXW King of the Royal SummerMania Series 2014) Williams was Eddie Dennis' choice to fight the number one contender to his Triple X title. Williams cheap-shotted Dunne to kick off, but this soon developed into a fine technical affair. Williams was dominant on the mat in the early going, which makes sense given his experience advantage, but Dunne was able to get back into it with some tough-looking strikes, and locked in a cloverleaf for a near tap. Dennis distracted Dunne mid-match, and Williams attacked from behind to fully complete his heel turn. Despite this, Dunne was able to pick up the victory. as Dennis lambasted Williams after a two count, and this distraction allowed Dunne to get a roll-up for the victory. After the match, Williams and Dennis put the boots to Pete, until brother Damian came in to make the save. Pete seemed a little put out that Damo didn't make the save sooner, but they left united. Fine main event, and I liked the way that Williams' initial superiority made Dunne look even better when he was able to fire back and take over himself. Doug Williams vs Tyler Bate (TXW Wrestle***** 2014) One of the big success stories in Triple X in the past 12 months has been the rise of Tyler Bate, who keeps getting better show by show, looking like he belongs with the bigger names that he's been put up against. He's been so impressive, it's easy to forget that he's not picked up a win yet since his debut, yet remains massively over with the crowd. Here, he took on one of the biggest names in BritWres and the result was another terrific match. His style gelled perfectly with Williams, as both guys like to work the mat, throw in cutesy spots (there was a repeated criss-cross section here that was a lot of fun) and hit a nice suplex or two, and this was a really good bout. The story here was that the younger, less experienced Bate was having to struggle to keep up with Doug, but was growing into the match as it progressed. Bate managed to block the Chaos Theory and hit his ever-impressive deadlift German suplex for a very close two, but ultimately Williams was able to tie him up for the three count. Another top performance by Bate, who must be the most promising young wrestler in the UK at the moment.

I find play-by-play a bit tedious and it's something I try to avoid unless I really can't think of much to say about the match. I generally try to pick out the bits that are important to the match result and bits of the match I like/dislike. For example, if someone hits a nice highspot or does something logical that I want to comment on, I'll put it in there. Likewise if something looks really shit or something about the match annoys me. It's tricky sometimes though, and I do sometimes use too much play-by-play as a crutch to mask my limitations at analysis. I actually think your reviews are really easy to read JvK. You explain what's happening in the match, but with little bits of your own opinion in there to give it some flavour. I like guys who get over their own opinions in the review, and aren't afraid to be honest for fear of going against popular consensus. Dylan had a thread here where he reviewed full shows for a year that I really enjoyed, and I go to Segunda Caida every day. The recent NXT review, where they were laughing at "Giant" Colin Cassady for wrestling like a cruiserweight, was terrific and spot on.

Really enjoyed reading this. I assume (hope) this is something you're intending to keep up all year? Just one thing I picked up on... I think the reason Bayley was FIP is because Carmella has a title shot coming up where Bayley is the clear favourite, so they had to show that Carmella can be a winner. Carmella getting beaten up for most of the match, and Bayley saving the day, would make it look like Carmella had even less of a chance of winning the belt.

The only person making my list solely on 2010- footage is Sheamus. That said, there's a number of guys who wouldn't make my list solely on 2010s footage, but probably wouldn't make the list on pre-2010 footage either; guys where the combined eras get them included: Christian, Orton, Henry, Hero. Finally, there's guys like Danielson, Styles and Cena who would place, but lower, without the 2010's footage.

Don't think he's been mentioned yet, but Tyson Kidd seems pretty much set in a mechanic role if he ever comes back. A lot of guys have been given their debuts against Kidd over the years, and I'm pretty sure he was one of the first guys they put against Sin Cara when they were trying to adjust him to the US style. He's always been moderately popular, but never a guy likely to threaten the main event, but is able to get a decent match out an opponent.

Been going through 1994 Raw's recently, and Jeff Jarrett is a guy who is a lot of fun in squashes, really good at getting his character across which helps keep things interesting. He's so cocky that he leaves openings which the jobbers take advantage of to take control on him. He'll get up embarrassed, beating the jobber down in fury, then start letting his guard down again, repeating the cycle. It gives a fun edge to his squashes. He ended one match by pulling the jobber's tights, a totally unnecessary piece of cheating.

I'll be just below Microstatistics, in that I've got Liger pencilled in for #4-#5, depending on how I end up judging between him and EHD Santo

I've seen people complaining about the Authority putting Reigns in a number one contender match, making no kayfabe sense. The bigger question is why would HHH want to risk having to face Brock again?

I'm not sure where I said he was only over with kids though. He's popular with women and believe it not even some grown men. Everything I ever read about merchandise sales says that his stuff sells. And that he's either the most over or 2nd most over guy on house shows (outside of the UK) From my personal experience, I went to 2 house shows in the UK last year headlined by Reigns, and he was over as fuck in both of them. Biggest pop on both shows. I know British crowds have a reputation for being "smarky", with Brit reaction to Cena being a key reason why, but I think we're more likely to accept a guy like Reigns than Cena. There's something very un-British about Cena that I think puts people off, something a bit too flawless.

I don't think it was fully on the up-and-up. Reigns got #1 in a rigged number pick, HHH got #30 in most likely another rigged pick, and the McMahons orchestrated a mass beat down of Reign's by the LoN, who've been portrayed strongly as their henchmen. They executed it clumsily (someone on commentary should have speculated how HHH got the best number), but it's something they can bring up tonight on Raw