supremebve

I actually planned on doing this, but it got to the point where I was trying to differentiate between a 4.567687878578467766456 and 4.567687878578467766457 and it kind of lost it's appeal. With wrestlers its more fun, because you have to try to figure out what makes each guy good and how one guy's great strikes match up to someone who has a great suplex. I enjoyed it because it helped me figure out exactly why I gravitated to some wrestlers over others. With matches, I was just nitpicking little insignificant things that made the process less enjoyable than just sitting there getting lost the matches. Another thing I didn't expect is with wrestlers you can watch long matches, short matches, tag matches, battle royals, etc., the variety kind of makes it more fun. When you've spent the last 2 hours watching 3 epic matches, you kind of realize why PPVs always have goofy comedy or a lower card match between main events. There is kind of diminishing returns on epic after a couple of hours.

AJ Styles in 2006 was a great worker already. I'd call him legit great as early as 2005 at worst. But he had literally nothing else going for him back then - bad look (fresh-faced fraternity dork), abysmal mic work, etc. For better or worse, he would not have made it in the WWE of 2006. You are putting the blame in the wrong place. AJ Styles was more than ready as a professional wrestler, 2006. WWE was worse as a product than AJ Styles was as a wrestler. The aftermath from all of the wrestler deaths, the reboot of DX, HHH being the top star, JBL, Kurt Angle flaming out, etc. AJ was better than all of that.

I started lifting seriously in the 8th grade for football and it was all about form and doing things the right way. I'm 36 years old and have never had a weight lifting injury, because I was taught the right way from the beginning. I knew that Velasquez video was going to be bad as soon as he lifted that kettlebell with a curved spine. Why is he doing kettlebell swings with a 203 lb. kettlebell? There is no way whatsoever you can actually control that amount of weight, he's essentially just slowly tearing his labrums over and over again. No wonder his shoulders are tied together with spit, gum, and baling wire.

I'm dying laughing at the list of fighters who haven't shown any cognitive issues including Ken Shamrock. Otherwise, you have some good points, this has been fun.

My first point was that those things aren't actually parts of the sport in this context. All of those things are clearly reasons both sports are more dangerous than they have to be, but you can do both activities and never participate in any of those things. So, sure they're not exclusive to either sport but neither sport exclusively employs drug addicts and steroid users. The day to day training for a fighter, especially one at the UFC level is pretty brutal, that is why so many fights get cancelled. I was listening to a podcast where a couple of MMA journalists were talking about some of the craziest things they seen at training camps, and one of them was how no one wears headgear while sparring. Another thing was how many places take pride in their "hard" practices where they basically spar at full power multiple times a week. There is a good chance that Cain Velasquez, who probably should be the best heavyweight of all time's, entire career has been destroyed the debilitating injuries he's suffered in practice. Daniel Cormier, who has suffered his share of practice injuries, has been an elite wrestler since he was a child, of course he gets beat up more doing pro wrestling than in Olympic wrestling or MMA. He's not an elite pro wrestler. Other than the aforementioned Cain Velasquez, who Cormier coach, there really isn't anyone who is going to be able to compete with him enough to beat him up in the gym. It isn't just Chuck's speech that was the problem, he was physically deteriorated in a way that he went from having one of the best chins in the sport to one of the worst over night. Sure, his lifestyle probably didn't help, but him blocking punches with his face didn't help either. Tito, for what it is worth, only really took major head trauma while fighting Chuck. Of his 5 KO/TKO losses, 2 were from body damage, one was essentially from exhaustion, and the two Liddell fights which he kind of turtled up and let the ref stop it once he was hurt. Don't get me wrong, he's taken his damage over the years, but he was always smart about not taking too much damage. Foley is not typical for pro wrestling though. It's amazing that he's still alive based on how he treated his body over the years. Let's say John Cena, who is clearly harder on his body than most pro wrestlers, is the typical pro wrestler. How long is realistic for him to wrestle a full career? 20-25 years? Do you think somoene like Max Holloway, who is a 26 year old champion can fight for 20-25 years? He won his belt from Jose Aldo, who is about as good of an MMA fighter who has ever lived, but is clearly past his prime at 31 years old. He's not a guy who took a lot of damage in fights, but he's clearly deteriorated in a way that is obvious to anyone who has watched his career. A 31 year old pro wrestler who isn't going out of their way to work a dangerous style is not someone you'd generally call past their prime. I think the real issue is how many punches to the face do you have to take, before you learn how to effectively defend punches to the face? How many times do you bang your head off of a mat, before you perfect your takedown defense? How much does a kick to the head actually scramble your brain? Learning pro wrestling means learning how to make it look like you got punched in the face, how to minimize the damage you take on slams and suplexes, and not getting legit knocked unconscious by getting kicked in the head. Training combat sports you actually take all the damage you are faking in pro wrestling.

Probably worse. For as bad as wrestling is for you, most wrestlers don't end up with pugilistic dementia. I remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin wanted to take up boxing, so we asked my uncle to take us to train and he looked at us and said, "no, everyone who boxes ends up with slurred speech." Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were just on the Dan LeBatard show and even though both of their bodies are broken they are still cutting promos like its 1985. How many former employees (sorry, independent contractors) of Vince McMahon did not reach the age of 60 or even 45? As much as he disgusts me, I highly doubt that number will ever be anything resembling like that for Dana White. Are we pretending that those were problems with the act of wrestling vs. the act of fighting in a cage? Drugs, steroids, suicide, etc. are problems with pro wrestling, but have much more to do with the culture around the sport than the sport itself. Everything about professional fighting from the practice to the actual fights is about trying to maximize the damage you do to your opponent. Wrestling on the other hand is about how to protect you and your opponent and minimizing damage. Neither are safe, but you are going to take a much bigger physical beating on the day to day fighting. Wrestling may be worse in the extreme long term, because wrestlers are able to wrestle for far longer than a professional fighter is able to fight. Honestly, go back and watch Chuck Liddel's fights, and note how quickly his prefight interviews go from sounding like an articulate dude who could do your taxes to almost unintelligible. If you start at the first Tito fight, he sounds like an English teacher, but by the second Tito fight he sound like a completely different human being. That is a two and a half year span. Unless there is a Steve Austin head drop or something, it can take a decade before a wrestler shows that kind of obvious trauma.

But it's not encouraging discussion, that's sort of my point. Most, if not all, of the interesting debates are taking place in the discussion folder. I don't know, maybe it's me but the nomination process just feels like an obligation. Also a giant number of matches being nominated was always going to be an issue with this kind of project. But I seriously doubt people will nominate random matches they are not considering for their lists. I agree with this. If a match can't convince 3 people that it is worth considering, it's probably not worth considering. This is assuming people have actively watched the matches nominated and thought they weren't good enough, which is a huge leap. More likely is that they haven't got to them yet. There are 5 pages of matches in the 90s nomination folder, all of them have gotten enough votes (This is the only one from the 80s list There is nothing stopping you from campaigning for a match, matter of fact it should be encouraged. My point is, almost every match is going to get the votes, and if you think a match isn't getting its due you can bring it up in the discussion page.

I agree with this. If a match can't convince 3 people that it is worth considering, it's probably not worth considering.

Probably worse. For as bad as wrestling is for you, most wrestlers don't end up with pugilistic dementia. I remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin wanted to take up boxing, so we asked my uncle to take us to train and he looked at us and said, "no, everyone who boxes ends up with slurred speech." Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were just on the Dan LeBatard show and even though both of their bodies are broken they are still cutting promos like its 1985.

Basketball is not a combat sport. And for the record, LeBron actually outweighs Plumlee. I don't think McGregor has to add a pound to his body to knock out Alberto Del Rio no matter how much time Del Rio trains. Del Rio fought Hiroyuki Ito, who is 170 lbs. with a 5-11 record and lost. Del Rio does not have the athleticism, skill, or talent to compete with a fighter the caliber of Conor McGregor. One of them is an elite, world class talent, the other is a professional wrestler who last got knocked out by a dude who I couldn't find a picture of on the internet(none of his last 7 opponents have enough of a profile to have a picture or their heights and weights on Sherdog.com). Basketball is not a combat sport, but no one believes that someone like Plumlee could compete with the best players in the NBA, despite them being in the best league on the planet. Somehow, you believe that someone like Alberto Del Rio, who has never shown the ability to fight at a UFC level, can compete with one of the best fighters on the planet. He can't. He's legitimately bad at MMA. His best win was against Brad Kohler (12-15), and it's because Kohler got injured (Kohler was in the middle of a 11 fight losing streak). You want to know why he wore the mask? Because it is the only reason any of these places were willing to pay him to fight. For what it's worth, he was fighting the kind of competition that CM Punk should have been fighting. He did have that fight against Cro Cop, which was ill advised and went the distance with Kazuhiro Nakamura (185 lbs.), which is admirable...but I think he only fought one other person with a winning record.

Have you watched Del Rio fight? I have, and he's not good at it. McGregor is a top 5 pound for pound fighter in the world, and is better at every aspect of MMA than Del Rio. He hasn't knocked out a welterweight, but the only one he has fought is Nate Diaz, who has on of the best chins in the history of the sport. McGregor puts him out of his misery in the first round every single time, his skill level is far too high for someone like Del Rio to actually compete with him despite the size difference. The size difference is also much smaller than you think. McGregor probably walks into the cage around 170-175 lbs. and there is no way that Del Rio is anywhere close to being in fight shape at 240 lbs. (his Sherdog profile is 210 lbs.). His last fight was a knockout loss to some dude named Yamamoto Hanshi, who has exactly one knockout win in his illustrious 5-6 record...it was Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio is an actively bad MMA fighter, he will not be able to compete with one of the 5 best fighters on the planet. He will be knocked unconscious. Do you think Mason Plumlee can compete with LeBron James at basketball? He's a professional basketball player, Plumlee is bigger, he was an All-American in college, and is currently in the NBA. He's much closer to LeBron James than Alberto Del Rio is to Conor McGregor. He should at least take a few games of one-on-one right? This is the argument you are trying to make. You are telling me that Mason Plumlee wouldn't be ran off of the court by LeBron James.

Have you ever grappled? Seriously, if you haven't done any grappling, he'd probably take you down and tap you in the first round. I don't know how anyone watched that first fight and thought Punk had any business in the cage with a professional fighter. He decided to become fighter at a time of life when most fighters are thinking about their exit strategy, and that is before we take into consideration all of his previous injuries. He's never been a good athlete, which is a huge detriment when you are trying to be a professional athlete. The amount of arrogance it takes for a dude who never even wrestled in high school to believe that he'd be able to be a professional fighter in his mid-to-late 30s is legitimately insane. It is like someone who never played football deciding to becoming a NFL quarterback. It is incredibly stupid for anyone to believe he'd be able to do it. I honestly don't know how he got past the licensing board. There is a huge lack of respect for how good these guys are at fighting. I remember someone telling me that they thought Alberto Del Rio could beat Conor McGregor in a fight. These aren't just dudes off the street, getting drunk and fighting in a bar. These are serious athletes who train up to 8 hours a day to become better fighters. The amount of talent, athleticism and skill that it takes to be an elite MMA fighter is so much higher than anyone gives them credit for. People really believe that random assholes who used to do Tae-Bo can compete with professional fighters. Stop it. This is fake news. I never said that Del Rio would beat McGregor in a fight. I only said it was absurd to think that McGregor would beat his ass. On a completely unrelated note, it just occurred to me that having Curt Hawkins break his losing streak by squashing Mike Jackson would be so hilariously petty that I fully expect WWE to do it. Del Rio would get his ass kicked and knocked out within the first 3 minutes of the fight.

Brock was also a National Championship wrestler in college. Wrestling is the best foundation for MMA that exists, because you get to decide where the fight takes place. If you can either take your opponent down or stop your opponent from taking you down, you have a huge advantage. The real issue isn't Brock's athleticism, but CM Punk's complete lack of athleticism. If you're the worst athlete in a fight your technique has to be good enough to overcome the athletic advantage. Punk's body looks broken, which isn't surprising after years of pro wrestling, but he can't keep up athletically. Look at someone like Yoel Romero, who is 41(at the least, he's a Cuban refugee...there is no telling how old he really is) but is still as good of an athlete on the UFC's roster. He's an Olympic silver medalist who seemed to learn striking by learning all of the things that can knock someone stupid before learning how to properly move his feet. His athletic advantages are going to keep him at the top of the middleweight division for the foreseeable future. He's fought plenty of people with better technique, but his athleticism allows him to smash them any way. That is the kind of person who excels in the UFC. An insane athlete, with world class wrestling technique, and he just lost what could very easily be his last championship opportunity. This is not something you can just decide to do because you're bored.

Have you ever grappled? Seriously, if you haven't done any grappling, he'd probably take you down and tap you in the first round. He'd have a job on. I'd like to see Phil fight Joe Rogan or one of the scrubs in the womens divisions. This is how I describe grappling to people who have no experience. Grappling is like reading. If you've never grappled, it is like not knowing the alphabet. You don't know enough to know what you don't know. A white belt in jiu jitsu is like a first grader who can read "See Spot Run." He isn't good at reading, but he knows infinitely more about reading than someone who doesn't know his "A, B, C's." A blue belt is like a middle school honors student. There really isn't much you can put in front of him that he can't read and understand. A purple belt has graduated from high school and has his choice of what colleges to go to. A brown belt has graduated from college, and is looking to get a post graduated degree. A black belt is a Ph.D and there are even levels to that. When I first started grappling, I used to goof off with my friends and I could hit a side choke on all of them with little to no trouble. The number one reason why, because they didn't know that it was something they should have even been defending. I was a 1st grader, they didn't know the alphabet.

Have you ever grappled? Seriously, if you haven't done any grappling, he'd probably take you down and tap you in the first round. I don't know how anyone watched that first fight and thought Punk had any business in the cage with a professional fighter. He decided to become fighter at a time of life when most fighters are thinking about their exit strategy, and that is before we take into consideration all of his previous injuries. He's never been a good athlete, which is a huge detriment when you are trying to be a professional athlete. The amount of arrogance it takes for a dude who never even wrestled in high school to believe that he'd be able to be a professional fighter in his mid-to-late 30s is legitimately insane. It is like someone who never played football deciding to becoming a NFL quarterback. It is incredibly stupid for anyone to believe he'd be able to do it. I honestly don't know how he got past the licensing board. There is a huge lack of respect for how good these guys are at fighting. I remember someone telling me that they thought Alberto Del Rio could beat Conor McGregor in a fight. These aren't just dudes off the street, getting drunk and fighting in a bar. These are serious athletes who train up to 8 hours a day to become better fighters. The amount of talent, athleticism and skill that it takes to be an elite MMA fighter is so much higher than anyone gives them credit for. People really believe that random assholes who used to do Tae-Bo can compete with professional fighters. Stop it.

Really, I always hated that move. Who does a good one? I always remember it looking like the person giving the move hitting the ground first and breaking the fall of the person taking it. It's on the list with all of the complete shot/downward spiral/reverse STO moves that don't look that devastating to me.

The Full Nelson Slam is a move I think we should see way more. It is one of those moves that always looks impressive. Konan sucked, but the Tequila Sunrise was a dope looking submission that someone should bring back. Somehow no one uses the slingshot suplex, or the jackhammer as a finisher, but if Big E ever gets a singles push he should use a slingshot jackhammer as a finisher.

I'm trying to figure out if I totally agree or totally disagree with El-P about Nia Jax, but it's one or the two. I honestly hate the that they take disparate people and try to fit them into one Platonic ideal. Nia Jax is a very attractive woman. She doesn't need to be a very attracitve monster, or the "Barbie for Big Girls." Let her look like her character. If you want her to be a monster, she should look like a monster. Dolling her up and constantly talking about how she used to be a model takes away from that character. If you want her to be the sympathetic, bullied, babyface then I understand trying to doll her up to make her more sympathetic. They do not allow people to be themselves in a way that allows for a diverse group of looks and characters especially among women. Where is the WWE version of Bull Nakano? Why is Sarah Logan so dolled up when she's supposed to be a hunting and fishing girl from the backwoods of Kentucky? As a character, are we supposed to believe she cares that much about her hair and makeup? Nikki Cross and Shayna Baszler are pretty much the only two women who look, act, and behave outside of the WWE norms. I'd like to see more of that, especially if they are going to do a yearly Mae Young Classic. Let the women find their looks, style, and character and make it work in a way that makes sense. I like looking at pretty women as much as the next guy, but as far as wrestling goes I'd rather watch a character that connects more than a pretty face.

I'd like to say that Old Liz is on the list. Stacy Kiebler is probably my all time favorite. Sherri was my problematic fave. Alexa Bliss is built Ford Tough. I find Sasha very attractive. Lana could steal Lex Luger's gimmick, because she is the Total Package. Molly Holly is my sleeper pick for being drop dead gorgeous in a regular old woman type of way while being surrounded by women who were all dolled up to look like Barbies. Eve Torres may be the most attractive woman they've ever had on roster, but they put so many bells and whistles on her she didn't really stand out. If you look at her on her social media, without the crazy hair extensions and wild make up, she's insanely attractive. I'm not into the body builder thing, but if I was Kaitlyn would be my aesthetic ideal. Charlotte was in a goofy WWE video where they played dodgeball, and Charlotte looked 10x better when she picks her own clothes than she does in her wrestling gear. Her wrestling gear isn't very flattering in my opinion. That goes double for Dana Brooke, who wears gear that makes her look dumpy, but every time I've seen her in street clothes she's looked great. Nia Jax is really pretty, like I don't think she'll ever get over as a monster heel because her smile makes her too attractive. AJ Lee is perhaps the best looking girl next girl in wrestling history.

I think the indy workers trying to recreate 90s AJPW is kind of like rappers in the late 90s tying a bandanna around their head and expecting to become 2pac. Sure, they were fans and liked that style, but they kind of cherry picked the aesthetic parts, but not the deeper parts that made those style work. AJPW was a lot of flashy moves, but those moves were built upon years of character development, story-telling, and psychology. That's not something you can really recreate in a high school gym with a cast of characters that is fluid by nature. You can do a bunch of flashy moves and drop people on their heads, but without the foundational psychology of AJPW you're putting solar panels on the roof of a dog house.

I love this idea. GWE was great, because I watched a bunch of wrestling I would have never watched otherwise and then made a list that made the most sense based on what I watched. I took it seriously enough not to be insulting to everyone else, but never so serious that it caused me any stress. I'm pretty sure 75% of my posts here were discussions regarding GWE and it is probably the most fun I've ever had on a wrestling board.

Yeah, Gertner always struck me as someone who was really good at what he did, but what he did wasn't good enough to be a bigger star. He wasn't a great manager, he wasn't a great color guy, but he was so good at his character he could excel in small doses.

I came here to talk about Austin vs. Dude Love. In my opinion overbooking is harder than hell to do right, but if you get it right you can get something special. I love Austin vs. Love, because of all of the bullshit that comes with it. It may be Austin's greatest performance as a wrestler. He plays the tough guy ass kicker as usual, but there is also so much small subtle stuff that shows frustration and vulnerability that makes this match great. I honestly don't know if there is another wrestler who could have pulled that performance off.

I hate to admit this, but Disco Inferno was my boy. He's one of the few comedy wrestlers that actually consistently made me laugh. There was a match where he was fighting tooth and nail with Dean Malenko and winning until he'd start dancing and Dean would stretch him half to death. Then there was that time when he was going to debut a new submission, but couldn't remember how to apply it. He pulled a drawing out of his tights and still fucked it up. The pic was just a crude drawing with one leg crossed over the other. He wasn't a great worker, but he was great in his role.

Is there a more WWE thing than pushing a guy who is clearly not ready, and blaming him for not succeeding instead of blaming themselves for putting him in a position to fail?