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For Headcheese, El Brazo/Brazo de Oro/Brazo de Plata vs Anibal/Ringo Mendoza/La Fiera, February 1 1991

Two big lugs seeing who can hit each other the hardest is a long way off from my aesthetic preferences for wrestling, so I can't say I went in expecting to enjoy Williams vs Hansen. Now I imagine the average human being would say that two big lugs seeing who can hit each other the hardest is an exact description of professional wrestling, and I don't really have any counter to that, but whatever. The first six minutes or so of them just slugging it out bored the hell out of me the first time I watched this. I was looking for some kind of story to follow and instead it was just a slow back and forth brawl. Watching it again I liked it more as I sort of got a feel for how each guy was waiting for the other to finally crack, but it still went on awhile and didn't have anything that stood out other than Williams putting Hansen in a wristlock and headbutting him. When Hansen started to sell this got really good. Williams' specific attacks didn't even matter that much, Hansen just bled, fell over, struggled to get up, did whatever it took. I liked when he flopped over the railing and the fans looked at him like beachgoers gawking at some creature that washed ashore. He kept fighting back like he had in the first part, but now Williams was responding immediately and refusing to let him get back in the match. Got right in Hansen's face and taunted him too. The final third was fine. I'd have liked the finish more had Hansen not done that exact counter a couple of minutes earlier. Good match that overcame the doubts I had going in.

Yamazaki/Kazama vs Kansai/Saito had a bunch of neat technical ideas that grabbed me more than anything else in the match. Yamazaki at one point couldn't get her opponent up for a double underhook suplex, so instead she dropped down and turned it into a hold I'd never seen before. Saito got out of a toehold by going for an enzuigiri from her back. Kazama avoided being placed on the top rope by kicking off into a headlock takeover. The plot of the match didn't really have a hook for me. The longhaired team seemed to have better teamwork, and when they won with a doubleteam I was proud of myself for seeing that, but I have no idea if that's actually what they were going for. They dominated most of what was shown and there wasn't a whole lot to worry about from their point of view. Maybe that was in the part that got clipped. So there was some quality wrestling here but it didn't feel like something that strove to be looked back on by the end of the year, let alone almost thirty years later. For NintendoLogic: Hijo del Santo/La Parka/Octagon vs Santo Negro/Psicosis/Eddy Guerrero, February 19 1995

Edger, I don't have a lot in my arsenal to recommend other than stuff from Mexico, so the least I can do is keep it short (my number one choice was a 41:07 Youtube video because I remember you posting something about the CMLL Welter title, but I don't want to do that to someone on my first time doing this). Americo Rocca vs Kid Guzman, April 27 1999

Oooh, I suppose I should list that stuff for me... I'll watch whatever, no limits or preferences, but all I have to work with is basic internet sites. No subscriptions or anything.

I'll play.

How else would you describe large swaths of the Konnan HOF bio?

Some missing ones: Satanico/Pirata Morgan/MS-1 vs Pierroth Jr./Jaque Mate/Masakre **** (CMLL February 21 1992) El Dandy vs Negro Casas **** (CMLL July 3 1992) Emilio Charles Jr./Negro Casas/Bestia Salvaje vs Atlantis/Lizmark/Ultimo Dragon **** (CMLL July 31 1992) Negro Casas vs Ultimo Dragon **** (CMLL August 28 1992) Negro Casas vs Ultimo Dragon **** (CMLL March 26 1993) Atlantis/Dandy/Chris Jericho vs Mano Negra/Javier Cruz/Norman Smiley **** (CMLL July 9 1993) Negro Casas vs La Fiera ****1/4 (CMLL October 1 1993) Blue Panther vs El Mariachi ****1/2 (AAA October 30 1994) Konnan/Louie Spicolli vs Eddy Guerrero/Art Barr ****1/2 (AAA November 1 1994) Felino vs Pantera **** (CMLL December 27 1994) These are all from the Observer although I don't know if they're all Meltzer's ratings (you can tell from his writeup of the Casas vs Fiera match that he didn't actually see it for instance). There might be others missing, I mostly just went looking to confirm ratings for matches I was pretty sure got four stars.

I never got what the Goldberg vs Jericho feud was supposed to do for Goldberg. If Jericho can't beat Malenko, Rey, or Juvi then no one's going to be wondering if he'll be the one to give Goldberg a loss.

Assuming these questions were being asked in earnest... Some holds being more punishing than others is not something unique to this style. Hulk Hogan's legdrop is the most obvious American example of this. In this match, the only immediate submission comes from the nudo lagunero, which was known as Blue Panther's favorite finishing hold (not sure if Warrior was acknowledged as Panther's relative at this point). Not surprising that it would be more effective than an STF or figure four. Even then, sometimes a hold is cinched in perfectly and sometimes it is not. Sometimes a wrestler would rather give up quickly in the first or second fall. I cannot read Dandy's mind from twenty plus years ago, but the headlocks in the second fall felt like something that Jim Ross would have described as a veteran trying to control the pace of the match. He was down a fall, he had been outwrestled both on the ground and off the ropes in the first fall, and he needed to dictate the pace. That was precisely how that fall ended up playing out, with everything flowing from the headlock, even if I thought it could have gone on longer and Dandy could have scored a more decisive pinfall. Did Dandy attack Warrior's arm? I remember him using the DDT and kicking Warrior hard in the back before using the figure four, but it has been a while since I watched this. The figure four was treated as a big part of the match. Warrior emerged from it fine, but Dandy had injured his own leg while applying it and keeping it on as the ref tried to break it, and the rest of the match had the intrigue of whether Dandy's leg would give out on him, especially after the moonsault from Warrior. This was a title change that was supposed to put Warrior over big, which is why I'm guessing they went for a finish in which he outwrestled Dandy rather than an opportunistic one in which he attacked an injured body part. I can see where the Flair vs Steamboat comparisons would come from (headlocks, pinfall attempts after chops), but qualitywise I think this is more like Dandy's match with Javier Llanes than Dandy vs Angel Azteca or Dandy vs Negro Casas, which are the ones that usually get put on the Flair vs Steamboat level.

Holy shit, no, that's an awesome upload.

A lot of this I don't think is right. First of all, I don't really get how ranking wrestlers is like ranking dishes just by looking at each dish. Wrestling is supposed to be consumed just by looking at it. Fans aren't supposed to have a deeper experience than that. I don't see how that ties into the food analogy. When you see some article like "We tried every major fast food burger--see which one ranks best!" it never goes into detail beyond what's on the burger, how it's presented, what it tastes like. There's no behind the scenes, here's how it's made information, just the things any consumer can sense when they buy it. I joined this site during the big ranking project, and even though I didn't vote and barely made any comments I knew that there were plenty of people talking about how they weren't going on conventionally great matches and taking risks on guys who didn't have much on tape. Arn Anderson made the top twenty, didn't he? We don't have as much information as those who actually participate in the matches, that's true, but it's not like the exercise was an attempt to determine who had objectively contributed the most to quality professional wrestling in its history. If the project had been more like that and required participants to cite arguments with opinions of other wrestlers, it would have gotten a hell of a lot less participation. Probably less interest in the results too. Even then, why should I care about Chris Jericho's opinion of Ric Flair when he's never stepped in the ring with Mick McManus? No one was claiming to know more than those people. They were making the best list they could, and most people wouldn't have done so if theirs would have been the only list and their biases wouldn't have had any other ballots to balance them out. I think anyone could tell it was halfway between "greatest wrestler ever" and "wrestler I most enjoy watching" and that the end result would always skew towards certain styles. That can be frustrating, but judging one style as subjectively less enjoyable than another isn't a whole lot different from judging one wrestler's bumping style as subjectively less enjoyable than another's.

Is there a message board on the entire internet in which the word "comeuppance" is used more than it is here?

What are some of his more egregious lies?

Isn't that the one that he says in his book he called, telling Flair that he was the champ and that he was the one who was going to say how the match went?

I think that matches that are too short are more likely to impress me than are ones that are too long. In one I'm wanting more and in the other I'm ready for it to end. Over the course of a career I'd prefer a wrestler feel like they laid it all out there. Quite a few guys have slipped in my estimation because they didn't aim for greatness enough. You can look at it as consistency or knowing your limitations, but it could just as easily be seen as playing it safe or not knowing how to take things to the next level. There are countless good wrestling matches. Great matches are rarer, so I respect the guys who try for those even if they have some big misses to go along with the hits.

Konnan is in. He has a lot more going for him as a candidate than Vampiro, though. Vampiro has a reputation as a big draw, but he doesn't have that many big crowds you can point to for his main events. Right after AAA formed, Arena Mexico attendance was swiftly declining from where it had been before, and they were able to pop one last big crowd there with Vampiro vs Pirata Morgan. That's good. By the end of the year, he was being scapegoated for the dwindling attendance, which led to Vampiro vs Black Magic, the planned main event of the big December show, getting scrapped (although given Vampiro's history it's possible it was something else that pissed off the CMLL front office, either way it was decided that he wasn't a big enough draw to work through it). Afterwards he wasn't even put in a position to draw huge crowds. Maybe he was a boon to the smaller shows, but that's a lot harder to figure out and it's not the sort of eye-popping stuff like the 48,000 for Triplemania I that looks good for a hall of fame resume. Sort of like Sting during the same period, he was a top guy while his promotion was at its nadir. Part of the reason that the CMLL crowds were smaller in that era was, of course, that Konnan was bringing in so many for the opposition. Konnan being in doesn't necessarily mean Vampiro should be there too.

Atlantis has what is probably the best collection of masks of any wrestler. He doesn't have nearly as many as El Hijo del Santo, but in the comparatively few mask matches he had Atlantis took the masks of Kung Fu, Mano Negra, Villano III, and Ultimo Guerrero. I'm not sure if Hijo del Santo has one mask that was as historically important as any of those four (well, I guess Kato Kung Lee's), and Atlantis still has some nice second-level ones like Talisman's. Santo the original might be ahead but I don't know enough to tell just from looking at the list of his wins. The 1993 anniversary show headlined by Atlantis vs Mano Negra was one of the rare CMLL bright spots during a down period for the company, and it came at a time when their status as the number one promotion in Mexico City was actually being threatened. Vampiro was considered a bigger draw at the time, but it was Atlantis who saved the day. Apparently in the immediate aftermath the promotion went right back to drawing poorly with only rematches of the anniversary main event drawing anything for them. Having (arguably) great matches in 1984 and in 2015 is an impressive feat, even if he was carried for the Satanico match in '84. I don't think he had a whole lot of MOTYCs during his prime as a worker, but I really do like the Blue Panther match from 1991 and the Emilio Charles match from 1992. He seemed to drop off in a major way after 1992. It's either a backhanded compliment or a forehanded insult, but that played a major part in the decline in CMLL match quality from 1992 to 1993, IMO. So many 1993 matches when you see Atlantis' name and go in thinking they might be awesome, and then they aren't, in part because he isn't. Goes to show how important having him in there at the top of his game was in the years before that.

Lizmark in this was good in a Jordan scoring 27 on 10-22 shooting for the Wizards kind of way. Obviously a good showing, especially given where he was physically, but nothing special compared to what he could do in his best years. He still had the good moves and he still knew what to do, but he lacked the explosive athleticism from his prime that made him a top worker. The latest match I can remember in which he looked like he could still run with the guys at that level was the cibernetico from early 1996.

Ha, wow. I remember seeing a 1991 match between them on video once (Orihara won that one outright). One of the more random matches to have happened multiple times five years apart, let alone been filmed both times.

Hell hath no fury like a weeb who feels like he's being out-Japanned.

I was watching a match from early 1995 AAA recently and was thinking to myself, "Damn, Eddy looks better here than I ever remember him being when teaming with Love Machine." And it got me wondering if that was when he first became a great worker, and also if there was anyone out there you could pinpoint the moment or match when it happened for. So yeah. The moment when you thought X went from good to great (or, if you'd prefer, from bad to good, or whatever).

Not that it's going to mean much coming from someone with only a little over a hundred posts here, but good on you for being willing to reconsider.

In general, if you're going to make fun of someone's English, it kind of ruins the effect when the first sentence of your post reads like stereotypical caveman talk.

And then after being driven out of the U.S. because of the rape, he gets the ring name Love Machine.