Microstatistics

I feel bad for Cena having to sell his ass off through this shit.

And not surprisingly, the match with Charlotte and Sasha Banks is the match of the night. Around *** 3/4. Clever spots, strategy, etc.

You're crazy. Absolutely crazy. Fair enough. I thought the Rumble match was complete garbage so the bar isn't that high.

Call me crazy but that was better than Styles's series with Cena. Pretty decent, watchable match. ** 3/4 ish

So is Shane Liger, Takada and Sangre Chicana all rolled into one? Big dives, matwork, punches he can do it all apparently.

That is some high praise. Look forward to rewatching this after going through a lot of the stuff leading up to it. It's already been said but this truly has the highest stakes of any match, ever. And it is because of that, the back and forth nature of the match works so well because each nearfall and submission hold is treated like life or death. This generated genuine drama and suspense and is what makes this match unique and different from basically every match that is constructed in a similar manner.

Very good but disappointing given the hype surrounding it and the competitors involved. I liked Styles heeling it up, the dueling leg work motif and some of the spots and drama. My favorite spot was Tanahashi selling his neck on a bridge to put over the lingering effects of Styles crazy springboard reverse DDT. I thought they had the pieces of a great match but weren't quite able to put it together. Still, very much recommended. *** 1/2

I think this is the match where Angle allegedly told Eddie to sell less because it was interfering with his spots. Not sure if it's true or not. I thought Angle's selling was fine for the most part and Eddie's great ankle selling covered up for any inconsistency. Angle's performance was good but a bit odd, one minute he would do awesome matwork and tenaciously work the leg and then the next minute he would use the Angle Slam as a transition move. Eddie was just outstanding in terms of offense, selling, character work: just someone at the height of his powers. Despite some weird moments and lackluster pacing at times, overall I thought this hit the great mark. Excellent matwork, continuity with the past, creative spots, intensity. ****

.I have a feeling if this happened in Memphis or Arena Mexico, people would be losing their mind over it. But the stigma attached to the participants might cause people to overlook (or dismiss) it.

Is HHH watching Volk Han in his spare time? What was that leg hold at the end? Surprised he didn't just do a figure four.

Finally got to see this and it completely lived up to the hype. Takada was absolutely fabulous here. He shrugs off Fujiwara's initial aggression in a cool, stoic manner but then is phased by the Fujiwara mind games and then tries to weather the storm using logic and his famous kicks. His selling, KO teases and urgency are all top notch. Fujiwara, not sure what to say, maybe the most cerebral performance in wrestling history. He came out extremely aggressively and when that doesn't work, he tries to out-think Takada. Repeatedly luring Takada into a false sense of security, thinking 2-3 moves ahead, temporarily absorbing damage so he can place himself in the advantageous position at the end of the exchange. He gets a little too complacent and it costs him at the end. The violence of the headbutts, kicks, palm strikes, etc. is immense. A great sense of struggle throughout the match. Builds off their 2/90 match extremely well. An all time classic for sure. **** 3/4

I think it is the best match Hogan ever had against someone who wasn't a super worker (Fujinami, Tenryu, Bockwinkel).

Really well put. The venom behind all the strikes is just something else. Also Santo is great here but Casas is just on a different planet with facial expressions, character work, selling the struggle, violence etc. This is one of the most unique matches ever. An apuestas match but they start off with lucha title style matwork. No blood or mask ripping. Yet the aggression, hatred and hostility are off the charts. One fall structure but the first pinfall attempt is 15 minutes in because the win is irrelevant and they just want to maul each other. Add some body part psychology and moments of real, gritty struggle and you get a lucha classic. **** 1/4

I agree. Big, dramatic, clash of the titans style match with a superb crowd. I usually dislike Hogan but he was pretty good here and the Rock gave an excellent performance. They adapted pretty expertly (almost shockingly so) to the crowd flipping the face-heel dynamic.

This exactly. If you have a problem with his answer, I'd like to know which lucha matches you consider to be surefire 5 star affairs. Because I don't know more than one either. Easily, UG-Atlantis Atlantis-V3 MS-1-Sangre Chicana Dandy-Azteca Dandy-Satanico and my viewing is super limited, there is a ton more I've heard others praise. Working on my ridiculous 5 star matches project, I have 40 lucha matches rated 5 stars from 1983-2001. I have Satanico vs. Koshinaka 84, Dandy vs. Azteca 90, Eddie/Barr vs. Santo/Octagon 94 and Santo vs. Dandy vs. Casas 96 at *****. But I only have like 13 matches in total at ***** at this moment so that's a pretty good ratio. Two matches not on that list that I wanted to mention and I think are up there with the best matches from anywhere are Americo Rocca vs. Mocho Cota 1/27/84 and El Satanico vs. Sangre Chicana 5/26/89.

With Wrestlemania 33 fast approaching, what is your pick for greatest match in Wrestlemania history? I am going to go with Bret vs. Owen WM 10 as my #1 Followed by Bret vs. Austin WM 13, Shawn vs. Taker WM 26, Bryan vs. HHH WM 30 and Brock vs. Roman WM 31 as rest of the Top 5 (in that order) Some other really good/great matches I can think of - Eddie vs. Angle WM 20, Shawn vs. Cena WM 23, MITB I, Edge vs. Foley WM 22, Austin vs. Rock WM 17 etc. Also what is the worst WM match ever?

I've heard the reason was that Taker's big dive spot looked awkward. Edit: I'm assuming they are talking about WM 25 which is usually more acclaimed, even though personally I think WM 26 is a classic while WM25 is good but nothing more.

I sort of get the point Grimmas is making. Meltzer announcing that he thinks only one match in Lucha history is ***** might cause many of his followers to think Lucha is inferior to puro/US wrestling and cause them to even outright dismiss it. But that is just the subjective opinion of one person and people really shouldn't give it that much consideration. If they do, then it's their loss because Lucha might have clicked with them had they tried it (or it might not have which is just as valid as they came to that conclusion on their own). You can't really blame Meltzer there.

I thought Lioness was the glue here. Added cool veteran touches when it came to offense and selling and held things together. Superb performance. Top notch action and strong storytelling. The botches didn't really disrupt the momentum for me. Great match. ****

Yeah I have a feeling they will push Roman as the pseudo-heel against Taker. Pushing him as the top babyface against HHH, Brock atleast made sense from a character point of view. Against Taker, I don't see it. Also to your last point, I concur. I have said it several times here and still think it's true: the moment he actually turns heel, the hate will magically evaporate.

I don't like Owens but this booking is extremely short-sighted. Sacrifice someone who they see as a major star for the future to put over a feud between old part timers. The Jericho thing atleast mitigates it a bit.

My pick for biggest carryjob - Alexander Otsuka vs. Naoyuki Taira (5/11/2000). I thought Taira was pretty awful here to be honest but an unbelievably great Otsuka performance pulls a **** level match out of nothing.

Tamura is wildly outmatched but comes out all guns blazing out of defiance. Maeda is stunned but quickly counters with a leglock and brutal knees to the face. Tamura's selling is amazing. A 2 minute, 19 second match that almost hits the great mark. Tamura and shoot-style are the best. *** 3/4

Great Topic Greatest Individual Performances in an All time Classics/Great matches: Kenta Kobashi vs. Misawa (1/20/1997) - Pretty much perfect in terms of selling, offense, character work, intensity, emotion etc etc. He was flawless for 42 minutes straight. Jushin Liger vs. Sano (8/10/1989) - The best and most consistent limb selling ever Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Maeda (8/13/1989) - Maybe the best example of someone being able to effectively tell a complete story through facial expressions and body language Terry Funk vs. Lawler (4/6/1981) - The best character driven match ever. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Martel (9/20/1984) - Unbelievably great selling - damage, fatigue, desperation etc I'll go with those as Top 5 for now Greatest Individual Performances in not-great matches (this was much much harder) Dick Murdoch w/ Adonis vs. Briscoes (12/28/1984) - Very good match to be fair but felt like a one man show at times Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon (4/2/2006) - Probably a weird pick. Far far from the best thing you'll see, overbooked to hell too, but a pretty outstanding performance to get a decent match out of this mess, with a non-wrestler too.

While this is a great, great match on its own, it is a brilliant lead-in to their MOTD the next month and enhances the story of that match. I thought the story here was that Grey has completely outmatched and pretty much gave a performance of defiance. Even when he had control, Myers never really looked in any sort of trouble. They build off all of that in the November match with Grey's growth and improvement and how Myers initially approaches the match based on the result here and how he is forced to change gears. This feud rules. ****