kid dracula

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest he was only good in Japan. I happened to watch this particular match and wondered what else is out there. It's been a long time since I watched any Hulkamania-era matches, and I haven't felt particularly driven to do so, but I imagine I'll get around to it.

I sort of stumbled upon Hogan vs. Stan Hansen from 1990 last night, and I was absolutely delighted by it. It was only one match, but suddenly Hogan is stuck in my head as someone I'll need to consider for this list (whereas before he was not even on my radar). It was also sort of amusing to see how deferent Hansen was to Hogan -- in comparison to how he works someone like Kobashi, where he's just immediately trying to kick the guy's teeth in. Are there any stand-out matches from Hogan's early New Japan run?

Yeah I can't vote in this one, because this is the number one question I have to answer between now and 2026!

Because you said that Flair makes wrestling look silly, whereas Bret makes it look serious. I don't think that's a fair criticism. I happened to see Bret vs 1-2-3 Kid the other day. I thought it was a really strong match and a lot of fun, but I wouldn't say there were no moments of unreality that took me out of the match. For instance: at one point Bret has Kid beat, and he goes for the sharpshooter, but Kid's too close to the ropes. So, surely Bret just pulls him to the middle of the ring and puts on the sharpshooter, right? In fact, what he does is give Kid a precious moment to recover, and then picks him up and puts him on the top rope (where Kid is most dangerous!) and goes for a superplex that is naturally countered. Surely if I was in a "real" contest, as Bret is supposed to be, I wouldn't make such an obvious mistake? Maybe this would make sense if Bret's character was an arrogant bully, but that's not him at all. I don't hold this sequence against Bret or the match, because these kinds of moments are inherent to pro wrestling. In a sense, the only "realistic" wrestling finish ever is that Danielson match where he elbows Nigel McGuinness to death -- if your opponent is on the edge of defeat, just keep hitting them! But still, the moment of unreality was avoidable; Bret could have slapped on the sharpshooter only for Kid to somehow counter it, for instance, and then they could have built to the superplex spot from there. Anyway I'm intrigued by this idea that everything Bret does is hyper-logical (I know that is his own claim about his work). I haven't seen every one of the TV matches you mention so maybe I will check them out.

This is how people talk about Ric Flair, who was recently voted as the greatest wrestler of all time: he was a dancing monkey. His owners would take him from town to town, let him out of his cage and into the ring, and he would do his tricks for the nice people who bought tickets. With time, he learned that if he did a really special trick, like flipping over the turnbuckle, he would get even more peanuts thrown to him from the crowd; and so he always made sure to do that one. Bret Hart, on the other hand, was an elite-level genius. He demonstrated this the time that he fought with a guy while waiting for another guy to jump on him. And by taking the same sternum-first bump into the turnbuckle every night, despite the fact that every other wrestler who ever lived was able to take turn around and take it on their back. I don't find the idea that Bret is better than Flair to be offensive, but I do think it's offensive to call Flair stupid and dismiss his career as some kind of joke. Yes, and Flair would have a different match with Lex Luger than he would have with Ricky Morton. And they were both different than the match he would have with Ronnie Garvin. This has been litigated over and over again. If those are "Flair matches," it's to his credit. I cannot imagine watching Flair/Steamboat and thinking that Ric is putting on some kind of clown show, like he's Santino Marella. I don't think I've ever seen a series of matches that more closely replicate the exhilaration of watching a great fight. The idea that that's "entertainment" and what Bret was doing is true sport -- I don't get it, man. Maybe someone would argue that the Steamboat matches aren't representative; but I would suggest that Flair has at least as many classic matches that run totally counter to the criticisms of him as Bret has classic matches, total. I'd be interested to know how you respond to the criticisms against Bret. Why did he only deliver when he was given the chance to put on a "spotlight" match? Why does he have so few memorable TV matches? And what are you supposed to do if you're taking a moonsault and there's no one nearby to brawl with?

This is really lame.

fwiw Dave says the idea here is to give guys in WWE and NXT who want to work in New Japan the chance to do so without leaving, so it's not as if Vince is planning an invasion angle or something.

I know this isn't true, but my first thought was that this is an evil scheme to keep Danielson from leaving. I'm not even sure how I would get excited about this, because I don't know what matches I'm supposed to want to see. Five or six years ago Tanahashi vs. Cena would have been some kind of dream match, but that ship has probably sailed. Roman vs Okada? It would be good, I'm sure, but it doesn't feel like a particularly intriguing match-up. Honestly this feels more like something that would happen in NXT, anyway.

He's definitely well-respected. Broadly speaking it feels like Shawn Michaels has been more influential to modern wrestling than either Bret or Ric.

Not saying you're wrong, but what's the evidence to support this claim? And do you mean future generations of wrestlers, or of fans?

Shibata quickly became a personal favorite when I started watching New Japan in 2016. I need to see some of his early career, but I love his aggression and his seeming contempt for whoever's in the ring with him. Obviously the Okada match is an all-time great performance from both, although it's somewhat marred in my mind by the aftermath (how excited can you get watching someone do something that ended their career? I dunno). I remember a very fun match against Matt Riddle from England that worked for the same reason as the Okada match -- they were both willing to look frightened and weak when confronted with Shibata's overwhelming manliness!

You're right, it's not a fair comparison, but it does fairly convey how little I think of HHH

Wow, thank you for sharing this -- that's an extraordinary list! I was curious how this would look in comparison to a modern candidate, so here is the list of John Cena's opponents in title matches, including house shows, 2006 - 2007: Umaga Mr. Kennedy Edge Randy Orton Shawn Michaels The Great Khali Bobby Lashley Shawn Spears Carlito Jeff Hardy Chris Masters I'm not at all trying to pick on Cena here, but the difference is kind of staggering.

I have a question about Flair's candidacy. The conventional wisdom seems to be that in the 80s, apart from having great matches with his best opponents, Flair developed a formula that allowed him to go from territory to territory, night after night, and drag good matches out of whatever stiffs the local promotion offered up to him. My question is: who were the stiffs? Are these kind of matches on tape, or is it just part of the Flair legend? Meltzer said on Twitter the other night that nobody in history is close to Flair as a night-to-night house show wrestler, and I don't doubt it. But I'm just trying to get a handle on the historical basis for that reputation. I looked back over Loss's fantastic posts from 2014 outlining the peaks of Flair's title reigns, and I definitely see names that don't jump out as top workers; but also a lot of names that people have defended as actually being quite good (Kerry Von Erich, Butch Reed, etc.) Who were the proverbial broomsticks?

No way in hell on HHH. My mindset is usually to weigh the good much more heavily than the bad, but in the case of HHH, one can imagine that the entire wrestling business might be better off if he had never entered it. Also, I can hardly think of another wrestler whose case for being great depends more heavily on a single match (RR 2000). Ultimate Warrior had a huge physique and a handful of good matches, too!

Thanks for the helpful list, El-P. I dug for this thread because I'm interested in considering Angle for GWE, on the basis of one of these two theories: 1. His reputation as a go-go suplex meathead is unfair/incorrect, or 2. Being a go-go suplex meathead is cool. We'll see! I have seen very little of Kurt in TNA, so it'll at least be new.

Bret Hart was my first favorite wrestler, and I've never loved a wrestler more. The first time I saw him I was probably ten years old, and my family had randomly rented Summerslam 91 from the video store. I loved the match against Hennig (up to and including the part where he randomly rips his singlet off, seemingly just out of spite!) and there was something about the way Bret carried himself that distinguished him from everyone else in WWF. I love Bret, but I'm struggling with the idea of where to put him on my list. I feel like his case is build on a relatively small handful of great matches that he had over a six year period in WWF. I remember a while back, Bryan Alvarez had rewatched Bret vs. Bulldog 92 and said something to the effect that it was a very good match, but he had seen 4 matches that were as good or better in a week of G1. This brought into focus something that had been in the back of my mind for a while. (Maybe you disagree with his assessment of the top modern G1 matches, but the point is that a single four star match doesn’t seem as special as it used to, back when I was a kid watching WWF TV.) I think Bret’s best WWF work stands out for two reasons. First, he was delivering strong main events at a time and in a promotion where they weren’t necessarily expected. Second, he was having those matches against guys who did not reliably produce great matches (Bulldog, Diesel, Undertaker, etc.) He also had some strong matches against guys who you could call his peers, in terms of their skill and their desire to have a good match. I like the Hennig matches. Flair seems like a weird match-up for him every time I see it, but it’s good. It seems fair to call his matches against Shawn good but not great. One very good match against Austin, and one all-time classic – a match that will live forever. The problem is that I think I could probably list most of the good-to-great Bret matches off the top of my head. (Owen, Sean Waltman, uh… tag against Steiners? His okay matches in WCW?) I haven’t gone back and watched 90s WWF TV, but my understanding is that Bret is not known as someone who has a lot of little hidden gems on TV. Over the past few nights I’ve been watching Kobashi & Misawa matches from All Japan & Noah on youtube, and last night I saw the title change from 2003. What Bret match do I think is on the same level as that one? *Maybe* Austin at WM13? But I think I’ve seen a ton of Misawa matches that are in the same ballpark, and I’ve really barely scratched the surface with my dive into that stuff. To give a more recent example, I’d put most of Okada’s title defenses 2017-2018 over the majority of Bret’s career. That’s all output, though. If you weigh input more heavily, Bret’s case probably improves. His nickname was fitting, because he executed his offense flawlessly. (In this respect I would easily put him over, for example, Okada.) Great selling of course. I’ve heard the criticism that Bret looked like a weak champion because he so rarely got big wins with his offense, but I like that his character’s motivation in the ring was often “just find a way to get the other guy’s shoulders down.” Also worth noting that there’s a big difference between having a great match against Kenta Kobashi and having a very good match against Kevin Nash. Maybe Bret would have thrived in an environment like All Japan; or maybe he would have seemed less special in a promotion with a deeper well of talent. I realize this long-winded post is mostly just rehashing a lot of the philosophical issues surrounding GWE 2016. All of that debate is sort of swirling in my mind, and right now it has coalesced around Bret. I like seeing that people are going to have Bret as high as #1, but I just don’t think I can get there. I still believe the greatest wrestler of all-time should have a huge catalog of great matches. At the end of the day, Bret will probably end up somewhere between 40 and 20 on my list. I just can’t decide if I’m being too hard on him or too easy!

Just want to say that I'm very excited to see that GWE is happening again. As a lurker I thought the previous project was a blast, and I feel dangerously tempted to participate this go-round. The sheer amount of footage is daunting, but one match a day for five years....

That's just what I was looking for, thanks. Hoping for a great match on Saturday.

I was genuinely bummed out to hear about Moxley's injury. He was so great in the G1 and I was very much looking forward to seeing him with Omega. Can anyone comment on how Pac has looked since leaving WWE?

What a sick match. Hateful and psychotically violent, and the fact that it's a 60-year-old all-time legend in there savaging a dude with barbed wire adds a surreal element that I found totally captivating. The finish was kind of lame, but what are ya gonna do. I love Flair yelling "This ain't a lay down on your ass match!" at Foley. I don't know how to rate it but this would make my top 50 WWE matches for sure.

I kind of picked this at random from Loss' master-list of Flair matches. This one tells a fun story of Koko being outmatched on paper, but refusing to give an inch to the champion. He keeps catching Flair off-guard, and then repeatedly Flair tries to regain control and just gets knocked on his ass again for his trouble. Really cool sequence where Flair tries a leg scissor takedown, and Koko scrambles out of it! Neat, you never see that today. Nothing Flair tries is working, and he’s getting flustered. Finally Koko screws up and falls for the old test of strength trick, and now Flair can go to work. Koko makes a hot comeback, his punches and chops look good. Koko gets a sleeper and forces Flair down to the mat, the commentary notes that this is to counteract Flairs height advantage. Flair makes the ropes and Koko gets up to do the bird dance. A few weeks ago I was at the flea market with my girlfriend, and I was showing her some old WWF toys I remembered from when I was a kid. She pointed at the Koko action figure and said, "that man has a bird." Well said, imo. Flair comes back and gets the figure-four, Koko reverses. Koko with a backslide gets two. Koko tries a sunset flip, Flair tries to stop him by punching him in the head, but he hurts his hand and Koko takes him over! Now Koko gets the figure four and Flair makes the ropes. Big dropkick from Koko, and another. Was that Koko’s finisher? Now at ringside Dusty is being attacked by Bill Dundee, and Koko is distracted. Focus, dude! Flair hits him with a knee from behind and… pins him? Kind of weak. Why not cradle him or something? The babyfaces make a comeback and clean house. Neat match. **** easy.

Hasn't Dave reported that the median age of WWE viewers is like, 56? That seems like a pretty big problem. Their audience is going to keep getting older, and they're going to struggle to replace those fans because their shows are bizarre and inaccessible. People are talking about the new TV deals like it means WWE is set for life, but what happens if Smackdown bombs on Fox? (This seems to me like a completely plausible and maybe even likely outcome.) What if USA decides that those 2-3 million viewers that they can barely sell advertising for aren't really worth hundreds of millions of dollars after all? I wonder where that leaves WWE five years from now. In some sense it probably is meaningless to criticize WWE because everyone who posts here knows what they're getting when they decide to watch. But I'm not sure I buy the idea that WWE can do no wrong because they're invincible.

Ronda's throws look fairly legit to me.

I think it was a mistake to put this match on after Omega/Ishii because it absolutely could not follow it. I'm also really baffled by all the head-drop stuff. I think the guys doing it must think it comes off as really exciting and dangerous. As a viewer, it's actually less dramatic and satisfying than a big back bump, and it takes me out of the drama of the match because I just worry about their safety. Insane that Naito is taking germans on his head while Hiromu is still laying in a hospital bed.