kid dracula

Was it "cheating" when Johnny Cage punched Goro in the nuts, saving Earth from an Outworld invasion? I ask you

Exactly!

Just to emphasize one other point -- I think it's an established part of Brock's character that he has one weakness. When he's "rocked" with an unexpected strike, he struggles to recover. His selling in these instances is very strong, and it leads to thrilling moments where suddenly you think Daniel Bryan (or whoever) might pull it out after all. I think that he learned the dramatic power of this from his UFC fights, which is pretty clever.

I don't agree with this, and I don't think Brock's offense is narratively or psychologically unsound. This is what it looks like to my mind, within the internal logic of wrestling: Most wrestlers don't immediately start throwing bombs because they are physically unable to. You can't immediately hit your opponent with your finisher because they will dodge it / counter it / fight out of it. You have to wear them down with more basic offense, or find a way to catch them off guard. Brock doesn't have this problem. His character is physically superior to his opponents, because he has a freakish combination of strength, speed, and agility. His most effective moves are suplexes and F-5s. His easiest and most direct path to victory is to hit those moves right away, and since his opponents are unable to stop him, he does so. This psychology also works when Brock loses. He's so overwhelmingly powerful that the only way you can beat him is by immediately hitting him with bomb after bomb, without giving him the moment he needs to establish dominance; this is why, narratively speaking, his losses tend to be in sub-five minute matches, and he nearly always wins in longer matches. Someone could argue that this just means that he is booked way too strong. But I think that Brock is uniquely qualified to play this character; if, say, Kane's matches had been booked the same way, it wouldn't have worked. That's why I think Brock is special. And as I noted earlier, I think Brock's selling in places like the Bryan match is extraordinary, even if he's eating up a huge percent of the match. I understand completely why you would find this style of match unappealing, but I don't think Brock's matches are incompatible with the established narrative logic of wrestling.

haha, I had a feeling this approach would not be well-received! I totally get what you mean here, and the approach you've laid out will likely be mine as well. But I do understand where Erlewine is coming from -- it's not that he doesn't think the Beastie Boys are popular enough, it's that he thinks they belong in the canon of "greatness" next to Dylan and the Beatles. He can use his power to emphasize that, rather than reinforcing views about Dylan that are already accepted. Just to give an example: in my opinion, modern New Japan has been sort of underappreciated in these circles, despite being commercially successful and being regarded highly elsewhere. That may be because the style is contrary to what most PWO posters appreciate, which is totally fair. But I could see the rationale for someone voting Tanahashi #1 to make the point that they think he's an elite worker who belongs in the canon. For this particular project, though, I agree that the better answer would be to advocate for our favorites in the threads and let the list come out as it will.

Sheamus pitching a shut-out here. I admit I haven't seen a lot of Drew McIntyre, but every time I do see him I'm kind of baffled. He seems like a very 1980's vision of a pro-wrestling star. Watching Mania this year, he didn't stand out as being particularly better than Lashley, and he looked 1000x less cool. Sheamus has a lot of matches I've liked, and he can look mean and hit people hard.

I read an interesting blog post today from the rock critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, talking about his ballot for the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 albums ever. His position is basically that the critic's role in casting their ballot should be advocacy over accuracy. His #1 was Paul's Boutique, and he left the Beatles and Dylan off his list completely (even though he doesn't dispute their greatness or importance.) Does anyone think this approach has any merit? Here's the post, if anyone's interested: https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/rolling-stone-500-greatest-albums?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Yeah, in addition to setting up the match with Goldberg, I just assumed it was in Vince's head that Eddie could never plausibly beat Brock Lesnar without some help. I think this is an interesting question, though: the match has a run-in to set up another, bigger match that was a critical disaster. So is Eddie vs. Brock a perfect success, because it perfectly set up the Mania match? Or is it flawed, because it contains a "defect" due to circumstances that are irrelevant to someone watching the match years later?

For sure, and I'm looking forward to revisiting Brock 1.0 sometime soon. I remember loving the Eddie match but also wishing the Goldberg run-in hadn't been there.

The Balor match is definitely not bad, and may well be his best match ever. I also think it's distinctly different from the other two I mentioned. For undersized Brock opponents I'd go: 1. Daniel Bryan 2. AJ Styles 3. Finn Balor

I don't think they were exactly the same but they definitely have the same basic structure. A Brock formula, if you will. Brock Lesnar vs Finn Balor, Royal Rumble 2019 Let's see if the Brock formula can get a four-star match out of this broomstick. Balor has an extremely smug look on his face and I'm excited to see Brock wipe it off, but I don't think that's the dynamic they're going for. This is a weird match where Balor attacks Brock's weakened intestines, and Brock is almost working from underneath. He half-heartedly throws Balor around a little bit, but he's mostly just selling his tummy ache. Brock survives a long offensive flurry from Finn and then catches him with the kimura out of nowhere, and Finn taps. This one doesn't really work. It felt like Finn took most of the match, and no real drama built. The psychology was off, and the finish seemed built for a guy like Balor to beat a guy like Brock, not the other way around. At least it was different. Oh, now Brock is mauling him after the bell, haha. This wasn't close to the level of the Bryan and AJ matches. NOT EPIC

Love the idea of someone knocking Owen off their list because he once sold for a bag of popcorn

Are there some obvious examples of Owen dogging it in a match?

Brock strikes me as someone who has a pretty impressive list of epic matches, and I think I'm going to revisit some of them on my lunch breaks. (I never want to stop working from home.) First, going backwards through Survivor Series: Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan, Survivor Series 2018 This was an incredible performance from both, but I want to highlight Brock's performance. His selling for Bryan's comeback was so strong that one minute it looks like a joke that DB is even in the same ring with him, and the next minute the crowd is biting on nearfalls. I was tempted to say that the early match beatdown of Bryan maybe goes a little long; but really I think it was perfect, because ultimately Bryan comes out of this looking like superman even in defeat. I was buzzing watching this. EPIC. Brock Lesnar vs AJ Styles, Survivor Series 2017 I think this is a step down from the Bryan match, partially because I don't think AJ's offense was quite as effective in this setting. It's still very good though, and this match is interesting because the heat segment on AJ is not just suplex city. Brock dominates with striking and just generally big-manning, as well as hitting an absolutely sick flying knee in the corner. He also counters the calf crusher by dribbling AJ's head on the mat like a basketball, which is quite a spot. Once again, he sells AJ's comeback like a champ. Brock sells being "rocked" about as well as anyone ever, I think -- maybe because he's actually been in that position? Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg, Survivor Series 2016 Well, okay. This isn't much of a match, but taken together with the awesome pre-match hype video, it's not a bad way to spend 10 minutes. I remember the rematch being better.

How do you view Sasha Banks in comparison to the top historical Joshi candidates?

I happened to watch Owen vs 1-2-3 Kid from KOTR this past weekend, and not to be inflammatory, but I think I would take that four minutes over Punk's whole career. Owen was really incredible.

I agree with this btw -- but if input is what puts Bret ahead of Flair, I think this becomes an interesting comparison. Bret has the list of famous matches, but he only finished four spots ahead of Regal in 2016.

Bret seems to be beating Flair on the strength of his input (technique/ring smarts as opposed to output of great matches), so I thought it would be interesting to put him against another strong input candidate. What do you think?

Toyota's offense is better than Shawn's. Her dropkick looks more powerful than sweet chin music. Bridge out of pin is more impressive than kip-up. I voted Manami.

I watched basically zero wrestling in 2020, but this summer I've been watching Dynamite most weeks and it's a fun show. It's not clear to me what someone like Paul Wight is doing to earn his keep, and I have no idea what they stand to gain by doing interpromotional angles with Impact. It seems like we're probably fated to sit through one mediocre Cody Rhodes showcase match on every PPV for the next five years. I also think the extra hours of programming are probably a bad idea, but they're in the same tight spot as WWE there -- how can the company say no to more money? What else... I think their graphic design is mostly pretty poor, and most of their merch is ugly and dated-looking. I'm looking forward to the video game, though. On the whole the show is good, and the promos are lightyears ahead of WWE. Even when they're not particularly good, they still sound more or less like a human being speaking, as opposed to an awkward recitation of buzzwords. And overall it's just refreshing that a relatively non-embarrassing wrestling show is on TV. What's the best match in AEW history? Hangman/Omega vs. Young Bucks? Is there anyone who prefers Raw to Dynamite?

Thanks for this context. Watching that match from 2013 I was struck by the sheer fact that the crowd was invested in both the work and the outcome of the match -- which seems like a rarity in recent WWE, pandemic notwithstanding. I feel like there had been some criticism that Bryan wasn't really that over, it was just the chant that was over; but that seems demonstrably untrue.

I guess that's true. I should have phrased that differently; I don't really care about "business." What I mean is that Hogan was the star and focal point of the promotion, and he was not delivering in the ring. In that sense, historically, Hogan was a failure during those years. (As far as GWE goes, anyway.)

Last night I happened to come across Bryan vs. Seth Rollins from RAW, 2013. Not quite a great match, but as a showcase for Bryan to show off his fired-up offense and some incredibly sick submission moves, it was a tremendous outing. DB was over like crazy. Watching this match, you could get the impression that WWE was a very hot promotion in 2013, with Daniel Bryan on fire as the lead babyface. Was this actually the case? I wasn't following WWE during this time but I'm skeptical.

Great point about Hogan's bad WCW matches. A lot has been made about whether or not Ric Flair's late-career should hurt his candidacy, but however bad his matches got you can't say they actively hurt business. I wonder where to draw the line as far as positives outweighing negatives.

Looks like the Tenryu match is on youtube so I'll check that out for sure. Thanks!