SmartMark15

A lot of people have (rightfully) credited Styles' 2016 as one of the great rookie years in WWE but Brock's 2002 was jusr as ridiculously good. And Brock didn't have a decade of experience around the world going into that run.

Was this the year of the initial Manhattan Center run? I recall those shows getting a lot of buzz and love at the time that they came out.

Watching some Raws from post-Rumble 2000. As fantastic as the top stories are--HHH as the heel champ and Rock chasing at him, Big Show playing the #2 heel, the red hot tag division--the stuff that doesn't age well ages miserably. Specifically, anything involving women on these shows is most likely absolute dogshit. Chyna seems to be the only one for the most part immune from it.

For me, still easily the best Hell in a Cell match in history. This is Tully-Magnum levels of bloody, hate filled, and violent. Lesnar's performance is fantastic and well documented. The guy is just great at pro wrestling. Taker deserves a lot of credit here too. I legitimately for most of the match believed that his hand was broken and that's important. He does let go of that selling towards the end but I can chalk that up to adrenaline as well as the painkiller he took earlier in the PPV. Bloody and violent. I think that this is one of the truest HiaC matches there is up there with the original Badd Blood incarnation. *****

Seems interesting that general consensus shows that there's not much worth seeing on Raw in the 2000s.

Growing up as a fan in 06, Edge-Cena defined a lot for me. I can't really objectively point to it and say it's an all time great but it was a lot of fun for what it was. I thought the HBK-McMahon storyline was quite strong in the lead up to Mania 22 then it fell off a cliff. Those are some nostalgic favorites. When I started watching indie wrestling, ROH vs CZW, Danielson vs. McGuinness, Punk vs. ROH, Generico-Steen all stand out.

Remember watching a lot of 09 Smackdowb and loving it. You had great IC Title feuds in this time too. Rey and Jericho fighting for the IC before switching off to Morrison. Good times.

All The Shield trios matches, Bryan gaining more and more steam with every week. Great year for TV.

Now that I've gotten a WWE Network subscription, I was wondering what everyone's favorite periods of weekly television are. A time when you thought that week to week, every show was just strong and must-see. I'm currently checking out the post-SummerSlam 2002 editions of Smackdown and outside of some ridiculous crap (Billy and Chuck, anyone?), the product was just incredibly strong week to week.

It's a classic for a reason. Simple story sustained throughout as we cling on to see if Misawa can really topple the Ace. The answer is yes and no. Misawa gets the pinfall here, but it's not a decisive one by any means. He caught Jumbo on a counter and he didn't put the man down decisively quite yet. Agree with everyone that the middle stretch is a bit nothing. Not a big fan of the hold reversals myself. But the real meat of this match is the finishing stretch and that was fantastic. ****3/4

Oh man was this amazing. I went into this match having only seen one Otani match (the wonderful Ultimo Dragon match) and a smattering of Liger matches (mostly his American stuff but also the El Samurai wonder). Being mostly cold about these two, I did not expect to get as invested as I did in this match. They start off with a handshake but the intensity really just does not let up for a second in this match. They made their lock ups intense, I loved the struggles going on in the corners, and all the matwork and selling looked great too. This up tempo energy meant that once the big moves started coming up, I was going insane. Big dives to the outside followed by frankensteiner attempts, fisherman busters, then that gorgeous palm strike. Beautiful moments in Otani struggling to knock Liger off the top even as Liger swats him away. Then that fantastic final stand off as Otani tries to power through one final onslaught and fails. Was not expecting to go this high on it but this is an easy *****.

Might have been in a separate thread where I read about Flair doing a similar practice technique with a string hanging from the ceiling. He had to punch it without making the string move.

AJ Styles isn't the best striker in the world. But I do think his strikes are quite underrated. He really makes them look and sound good without being over the top.

This was much better than I expected given what was written about it online from live reports. Gargano is just a naturally over babyface, the kind of guy who can lose as long as he puts on a great match before the three-count, which he always does. I only fear for what that might translate to on the main roster. In any case though, he put on quite a performance here tonight. I loved how he was so consistent with selling the fingers all throughout the match. One of the main things I hate about Marty Scurll matches, for example, is how quickly they forget the finger work. Here, Gargano really sold it like Dunne had broken his fingers. Then you have little moments of drama like Dunne biting Gargano's fingers to escape. I enjoyed how they milked Gargano's realization that Dunne had his mouthguard out which led to him going for some strong headshots to try and finish Dunne off. Dunne checking his teeth after the Superkick was a great touch too. Strong finish as well. Overall great stuff. ****

Ultimate Survivor was a generally fun show. Thought the Party-Caray match was very well structured and paid off wonderfully. The main event was decent but it was more of an angle to set up the Battlecade main event which I'm quite intrigued in.

Really one of the worst aspects of that match is how much they exposed Angle. Without the TLC smoke and mirrors, you could really tell the guy is just much slower than he was. That Cena sequence might have been the most glaring portion.

I do believe in the long run, AJ'S career will hold up better. He's been one of the top workers in the world for over a decade now.

I find myself having a hard time choosing between the two. One huge obstacle for me is that AJ really missed out on times where I developed a real emotional investment in him or his career. A lot of that has to do with the fact that he languished in TNA for so long. Meanwhile guys like Danielson, I followed for most of his pimped out feuds and then bought into him even more in the WWE. The closest I came to feeling that for AJ was his 2009-2010 run in TNA and that seriously petered out once the Hogan era began. Meanwhile Shawn is a wrestler I grew up with in his post-comeback era. So while I can be objective and say that AJ has been far more consistent with his work, the sad circumstance is that for a long time, I just didn't care about the guy.

Outside of the Suzuki and Nakamura matches, what are the Styles matches to see in NJPW?

If nothing else, he's easily the most improved of the year.

Even staunchly "smarky" spaces like WhatCulture on YouTube have bent to the simple fact that the guy is a great worker.

I second this. In terms of consistent in-ring performance, I think only Roman gives him any competition. Don't try to mention that anywhere outside of PWO though, lawdy. I fly my Roman flag high. #BelieveThat

I second this. In terms of consistent in-ring performance, I think only Roman gives him any competition.

But that's the joy of this forum!

Rewatched. What a classic. ****3/4