joeg

After a really shitty loss with really shitty refs my high school football coach once said the best refs are the ones you never knew were there. I think thats true for wrestling too. If you don't notice the refs it means there wasn't some stupid angle or some over elaborate finish etc which makes the match that much better.

Wait, Jerry Lawler said something that may have been politically incorrect or insensitive?

I kind of want a heel Hero run where every time they announce his weight he corrects the announcer and insist on them announcing him at a slim trim 225... like what Buddy Rose did and Bubba did in the past

Chris Hero is 265 my ass, he's easily 300. I'm 6'2 310, the last time I saw him in person he was 2 inches taller and every bit as fat as me. Owens I'd believe is 267 because he's so short. Owens is a lot skinnier than he used to be, it wouldn't surprise me if he was pushing 325 when Cornette sent him home from ROH. And regardless of how you measure obesity neck to waist (what the military uses), BMI (what doctors use because its easiest), body fat percent (what's used at the NFL combine), etc Crosby wouldn't qualify at his size as obese in any of those... his BMI would qualify as overweight, but BMI is always skewed for athletes. BMI is only a sliding curve comparing weight to height, it really is the least reliable measure of obesity there is when discussing athletes. Body fat percent measured by skin calipers is probably far more accurate.... Owens and Hero would not do good on a skin calipers test.

I agree with stro for the first time. Hero's weight gain has helped him. It gave him a unique look, one that separates him from everybody else as opposed to him looking just like everybody else. I truly believe that.

I like Bubba btw. Anybody who is 6'4 300 pounds plus and can bump the way he can AND can cut a promo is good in my book. I haven't seen a lot of Bull Dempsey. I remember him being kind of a comedy act... Can he bump the way Bubba or Hero can? Can he talk the way Bubba can? Can we move well? Is he light on his feet like Hero? Does he work like a proper 300 pound guy?

I actually am of the opinion Hero gaining weight and now pushing 300 made him more marketable. Before he was this tall, lanky, gangly guy with no character or personality or look. Now he's THE fat guy who can really move and bumps really well as opposed to just another guy who moves well and can bump well. Now he's the modern Buddy Rose. I know that seems illogical but the extra 50 pounds of gut added something to his character. He stands out now. I'm of the opinion that a wrestler can't look like everybody else. If that means being fatter like Buddy and Dusty or more jacked like Luger or Lesnar, or smaller like Rey, it doesn't matter. But if a guy is 6'2" 235 and looks just like everybody else is when they get lost in the shuffle.

that was a total a Tajiri carry job, but there was one with a guy who i'd never seen or heard of that was even before that match.

Injury to the cervical spine. No feeling or mobility in his extremities iis the word...

Oh there was a Tajiri vs some random indy guy match that popped up on youtube like 4 years ago and was a hit over at the old puroresu.tv board. I'm going with that also.

I'm going Hart vs Davey Boy at SS 92. Terry Funk in the Funk Brothers vs Abby and Sheik feud in All Japan. Terry's what made those matches. DDP vs Goldberg- closest thing to a great Goldberg match Genki Horiguchi at El Numero Uno 2003, The 4 matches he had that night... not all the matches were great or even good, but the show, it should have been a star making performance

To answer your question- probably. Steamboat vs Savage for the IC title happened probably every night for a year and a half. Here's what a cagematch search came up with- http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=41058 .

in April 81, they ran Backlund vs Hansen in a cage and Slaughter vs Patterson. Its on the network.

YES to Golden Magic vs Pirata Morgan Jr IWRG 2/12/17 mask vs hair. Really enjoyed this. I thought Pirata Morgan got a lot of heat on the outside with his shenanigans. There was a lot of violence, and plenty of blood. I thought it was a very good apuesta, nothing earth shattering, but very good. NOMINATING Shibata vs Ospreay NJPW 2/11 This might have been my favorite Will Ospreay match. I enjoyed the series with Kushida, but most of the time his matches are just too much for me. This did a good job of telling a story based on limb work and didn't get into the excess of a usual Shibata match or the usual Ospreay match. I'm guessing that it being in the middle of the card had something to do that. Takahashi vs Dragon Lee 2/11 Wow, um this isn't for everybody, they go over board in every way, but I loved it. Big bumps (like up there with Omega's WK bump), an incredible level of hate (which is what makes the match for me), incredibly athletic spots, great heel work. It is what you expect from these two. Elgin vs Naito 2/11 Very good match. It has a lot of great heel work by Naito. Elgin does a very good job selling. They tell a very good story. They went long leaving me satisfied with the finish, yet left it open for a rematch some down the line.

YES to the Elimination Chamber match. Did a great job of setting up matches and feuds going forward to wrestlemania, had some crazy spots and crazy bumps, and told a great story. Nominating Nakamura vs Roode NXT Takeover San Antonio 1/28- That was probably the best selling of a knee injury I've seen in recent memory. I don't know if I need to go into more detail than that. John Cena vs AJ Styles Royal Rumble 1/29- I understand this isn't for everybody, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was a good end to AJ's great title run and a great blow off to the Cena vs AJ feud.

Point taken... but I'm doubling down. I think Kendrick was almost as good as Danielson, always have. I think he was probably the second best out of that whole group of early 2000s indie guys. Kendrick in his first run in 04 was it? When people went to Benoit with questions about things, Benoit would have Kendrick show them.

I always thought Shelton Benjamin would have been a main eventer or a world champion at some place and time being booked by Bill Watts. Lightning Kid/XPac is one I thought who came way too early. He was 5'11", skinny and really fucking good. Now there are just in his spot on the card who are 5'11" skinny and mediocre. Same thing with Brian Kendrick. Kendrick when he came into WWE had better skills than anybody on their roster, and now in his 4th run with the company 15 years later that still seems to be the case.

Short answer- Yes. Absolutely. You also have to think of how guys are breaking in these days for the most part. 35-40 years ago you had to know somebody who knew somebody to break in. Starting with the death of the territories, but especially since the death of ECW and WCW, WWE has actively gone out and recruited talent with no experience or connection to the business what so ever. They've actively gone after athletes who otherwise may not have ended up in the wrestling business. Baba and Inoki always went after amateur guys. This is a relatively process with the WWE over the past decade or so with Jerry Brisco shaking out the bushes looking for athletes. Anyways, that's why today's wrestlers are more athletic, its because better athletes are getting into wrestling.

YES to Okada vs Suzuki 2/5 This match had a lot of bells and whistles but told a pretty good story. My only gripe is Okada's uneven selling of the knee injury. 20 minutes in, he can't stand on it. 35 minutes in he was exhausted but the knee was fine. It was like he got a cortisone shot or something.

I really like Richards/Raven vs the Pitbulls match. I kinda think of it as like Raven's tribute to Piper and Valentine.

Short answer- they were done to death in the late 90s early 00s. It's like count outs or DQs, they've been done to the point that they are no longer unique.

The only person who did it and it didn't look like shit was probably Tajiri.

6/9/95 and Flair vs Steamboat Landover houseshow for me... Are we going to do a top 100 matches of all time? I'd be curious to see how matches from different styles, different eras, and different promotions end up finishing.

The only flaw with 6/9/95, as I see it, is the way Kobashi's leg is taped up.

I was also thinking, Flair probably had multiple 4 star matches every week for 10 years as defacto touring NWA champion. However, How often did one of those matches end up on tape? I'm guessing once every few months. So much of what was Flair's regional TV while champ consisted of either angles or promos or short matches ending in dq to hype or set up the loop for the week(s) he was in town. The 60 minute draws wrestled on those loops didn't make tape for the most part. So that's why I said 50ish made tape. If you look at the matches people are throwing out there, they are mostly from after the NWA died in 84. So either Flairs best stuff was in his late 30s and 40s or it just never made tape. I going with it never made tape. The real number for Flair 4 star plus matches probably can't be counted.