SmartMark15

Thought the IWGP Title match was really strong. I can't keep saying I dislike Okada considering I've enjoyed nearly all his title defenses this year and this is the first time he pulled something quite great out of someone I considered an inferior worker to him. Props to Cody though. His heel shtick was actually quite over and his cockiness helped fuel Okada's great Ace mode comebacks.

Definitely agree with the card placement. It's a flaw of trying to make EVERY card a 10/10 supershow. As quality as those Chicago shows were, they were fairly tough to sit through. As for repeating angles, might I ask which ones you had in mind? Only one that comes to mind off the top of the head is trying to recapture the magic of ROH-CZW with the failed faction warfare experiment (which I feel wasn't an innately bad idea).

Care to expound on the hallmarks of Memphis booking?

Saw a post comparing Gedo's NJPW booking to old school Memphis. That made me want to talk about bookers and their strengths and peak angles that define their particular style. Let me start it off with a booker I'm very familiar with: Gabe Sapolsky. STRENGTHS 1. Supercard Construction - Especially starting in Mania weekend 2006 in Chicago, Gabe had a knack for creating stacked cards. The amount of quality wrestling that went into a lot of the big 05-07 cards was really quite fantastic. The 06 Chicago Mania weekend cards, Supercard of Honor III, Man Up. 2. Title Contender Hype - I always thought that Sapolsky was very good at creating the proper clamour for the people he was setting up for title reigns. He got them incredibly over and even his "surprise" title winners had such strong booking behind them that no one bat an eyelash at it. Peak examples: Austin Aries, Homicide, James Gibson. 3. Title Reign Booking - Sapolsky always booked his top guy strongly and gave them a reign-long storyline that built and built. You had Samoa Joe's dominance, Nigel McGuinness' mounting injuries leading to his heel turn, Summer of Punk. WEAKNESSES 1. Over Scheduling - Can't recall if this was more of management or Sapolsky's choice but even would be the first to tell you that in 07, his scheduling of shows weakened his booking. Too many big supercards led to weird decisions like having Danielson-McGuinness in Philly air as part of the Chicago PPV or have Rising Above 2007 (which had a better card) be filmed too close to Final Battle. 2. Too Late Pulling the Trigger - Problem Sapolsky developed that eventually became a bad habit for ROH bookers to follow. Started with McGuinness who won the title six months to a year too late. Continued to Tyler Black and almost every top ROH babyface since.

Gotta second the Danielson love both for his ROH run as well as a second fantastic run in the WWE. How about some Samoa Joe love too for his 04-06 run in ROH and TNA? Crazy over, dominating performances in the ring, and a wide variety of high level matches with a lot of different people. Huge ROH mark so these are the first few that come to mind. Kenny Omega is on quite a run starting from last year. Given some polishing and proper booking, he could be putting on crazy classics soon. Really looking forward to his third Okada match with the 30 minute time limit.

Speaking of ECW squashes, Mike Awesome tossing Spike Dudley through tables in a World Title match was amazing.

A Naito-Omega match seems likely for the final. Interesting that they gave away Omega-Okada III as a G1 match but I'm excited to see what they can do with a tight 30 minute limit.

ROH used to be the benchmark promotion whose main eventers basically dictated the US indy scene. Starting around 2009 though they fell behind the curve REALLY bad while companies like PWG were more than willing to pull the triggers they were waiting on. Now, it feels almost like ROH is playing a poor game of catch up especially with this Cody title reign. Just sad really.

I'll throw my vote to Cena-Lesnar just doe the sheer spectacle of it as well as Lesnar's killer facials and Cena's desperation selling. A 5-star classic if you ask me. I'll also throw in Lesnar-Goldberg from Survivor Series. A shock at the time and kicked off one of the best booked feuds in recent memory.

Current favorite wrestler to watch: In terms of current wrestling, it's gotta be any Roman Reigns PPV match. The heat he generates makes him the most over guy in almost any match he's in. Last fun match you saw: Minoru Suzuki vs. Sanshiro Takagi in a Tokyo Dome Empty Arena match. Only saw the first 26 minutes that DDT posted on YouTube, and that was enough for me to give it ******1/4. A ludicrous rating for a ludicrous match. Wrestler you want to see more of: Pete Dunne. I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've already seen from him. I want to find some his more silly indies stuff like doing Triple H water sprays or swapping gear with Bate. More of silly Dunne please and even more of crazed Regal-esque Dunne too. Last live show attended (if applicable/different from last time you answered): Last year's Manila house show. Based on the results, it's pretty much the same show that they ran in the UK but WWE house shows in the country are super rare so the crowd was ready to be hot for pretty much everything. Some chanty-smarky-silliness but I couldn't help but empathize. Like I said, we don't get live WWE shows here. Match you're most looking forward to watching: Pretty much all the prospective Lesnar matches. Lesnar/Joe and then rumored Lesnar/Braun and Lesnar/Reigns II for WM 34. Last fun interview/promo you saw: Heyman putting over Joe's Clutch and putting over Lesnar. It's such old school perfection that people might actually end up bored with it. Last interesting thing you read about wrestling: Aww man, not sure really. There's so much goodness on this forum which is what I frequent the most so there's that. Last worthwhile podcast you listened to: Squared Circle Gazette's Most Shocking Title Changes. My first contribution to them! Most fun you've had watching wrestling lately: Someone posted hours of Midnight Express footage in compilations on YouTube. That was just chicken soup for the wrestling soul. Old school, heated, fun. Great to see the week-to-week booking of it. Favorite recent post on this board: I honestly love all the stuff here but I do enjoy perusing the 5 star lists as well as the 2017 MOTY Thread. Favorite thing about the wrestling landscape in the past three months (if you live in the past, then go with your past three months of time-traveling): Joe winning the Extreme Rules match and giving us the joy of a build vs. Lesnar. Whether it pays off or not, we'll always have the build at the very least.

Awesome stuff. What a compact, simple story that still holds up today. Aries brings the fire whereas Joe does his best to prove that he's still the dominant ace of ROH. The Ole kicks do slow things down a tad but Aries comes right back with that sick corner dropkick and things go into overdrive very soon after. The crowd can feel that something special is happening and you can't help but get invested in that finishing stretch. Joe tries to smother Aries with strikes but Aries just keeps fighting back and mounting offense until he finally gets the Brainbuster/450 combo and the crowd explode. Even knowing the result, I still kind of lose it going into that final stretch. ****1/2

NOMINATING (begrudgingly): Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega - NJPW 6/11

A great match marred by the frustrating bad habits of the two workers in it. It's so hard to watch this match because of all the points in where flashes of absolute brilliance shine through only to be bogged down by no-selling, overused finishers, and generally predictable booking. What I can say for this match is that its peaks far outshine the peaks of the 1/4 match. On this forum, I've made note of the "5-star moments" and this match is actually riddled with them. The problem is the rest of the match can't support the brilliance of those individual spots and moments. 5 star moments include: springboard basement dropkick (looked AMAZING), finally hitting the One Winged Angel, Omega's BC taunt pulled into a Rainmaker, and the Rainmaker-crumble-dodge. But, as others have noted, too much is out of place here. The Cody drama killed the momentum (even though it signaled the start of the best 6 to 10 minutes of the match), the fairly brutal knee work that I really enjoyed went absolutely nowhere (The Most Beautiful Dropkick In No Selling Today!), and as soon as they announce that they're 50 minutes in, you know exactly where they're going and all tension disappears. The last ten minutes or so of this match are deathly boring and predictable. The only highlight might just be Okada's desperate crawling towards Omega at the finish. I thought that showed a lot of intensity and urgency. Too bad it came after ten minutes of telegraphed finishers and needless dropkicks. Great, but frustrating. ****1/4

This reminded me of the Payback match between AJ Styles and Roman Reigns in that it had two babyfaces taking on each other and lots of shenanigans to protect both of them. Loved Bret going for the leg and Diesel sold it pretty well actually. The slugfests were intense and Bret hitting that dive out of nowhere really added to it. Thought the heel tactics also added to the story with Hart tying up Diesel and using a chair. Bret is really great on offense in pretty much every match I see him in. ****

If I understood commentary right, this seems to be Flair's MSG debut. Feel free to fact check that for me. Really basic old school match that works quite well, if you ask me. Early babyface shine for Piper until Flair is able to cheat his way back on top. Loved the desperation Flair showed here, taking the tiniest openings to get the advantage back. Piper made for a great FIP and actually looked really good fighting from underneath. Loved the spot where Piper wouldn't let himself be tossed out. Heel shenanigans take over but I didn't really mind, they didn't detract too much from what the match was. Then, we get a historic Piper job! Holy shit, I marked out! ***3/4

You also have Sheamus' first WWE Championship win against Cena in a tables match. The fact that the finish was so weak only added to the strangeness of it and it was one of the first times I recall production abusing the close up crowd reaction shots.

As an ROH fan from about 2010 to mid-2012 (that was the period I closely followed the product), Eddie Edwards beating Roderick Strong to become ROH World Champ was a huge shock. The crowd was heavily invested in Davey's chase for the gold so for his tag partner to overtake him was a real surprise.

I thought that this was really great! Just a real down to earth, basic limbwork focused technical wrestling from Flair and Hart that built naturally to that great finish. I liked Hart's early offense and how tenacious he was going after Flair's arm. Flair actually sold it fairly consistently until the match progressed to focus more on Flair's legs. And really, Flair sold the leg amazingly right where it mattered where as Hart was hit and miss with his own leg selling. I liked Hart stealing the Figure Four and I thought both Figure Four spots were worked well and milked the crowd. Great stuff and even Hart's inconsistent leg selling couldn't keep this from being awesome. ****1/4

"There's a difference between queering off and getting your needs met on the road." -Luke Gallows as Sex Ferguson

Great stuff that paces itself perfectly to an incredibly brutal and visually impressive finish. The sheer strength of Cesaro to pull that off is absolutely insane. All your favorite Zayn-Cesaro spots are in this and they build wonderfully. ****1/4

Rewatched this for the first time in years after listening to the Anatomy of a Match podcast with Edge and Christian where HBK and Foley go over this match. Oh boy does this one get ever better with time. Shawn looks amazing on offense in this match. There's an intense urgency to him because he needs to survive the maniac in the ring with him. Mankind's character work is just absolutely top notch. From the wildness of his offense to him always being outmaneuvered to lead to his demise. I'm even a big sucker for him stabbing his own leg to transition from selling it like death to starting to overcome the pain. Just an absolute belter of a match that never lets up even a little. A lot of creativity and thought clearly went into it and the result is just...fantastic. ****3/4 (pending future 5 star consideration)

First thing to come to mind would be that Batista takes Cena's place. I don't think he'd ever get quite as over as Cena did but he certainly has an opportunity too. He might just end up having the same spot as Cena now in 2017--taking time off to make Marvel movies then coming back for four or five PPV matches a year. Wondering if Orton might have been better protected or still have his momentum killed by Triple H in late 04.

NOMINATING: Best Friends vs. Leaders of the New School - PWG 3/18 ZSJ was the star of the match. He was absolutely great at bringing the intensity to this match and he bumps like a maniac too. Thought this was really fun, being worked like a traditional American style tag team match with the cheating and the cut offs while the babyfaces tried to get their shit in. Trent played a great FIP and Chucky T made for a fun hot tag. Did drag a little at the start but it certainly picks up. Thought the finishing stretch with ZSJ and Trent was awesome. ****

Agreed that ZSJ was the star of the match. He was absolutely great at bringing the intensity to this match and he bumps like a maniac too. Thought this was really fun, being worked like a traditional American style tag team match with the cheating and the cut offs while the babyfaces tried to get their shit in. Trent played a great FIP and Chucky T made for a fun hot tag. Did drag a little at the start but it certainly picks up. Thought the finishing stretch with ZSJ and Trent was awesome. ****

This is a tough one as I'm a big fan of both. I'd personally have to go with Daniel Bryan. Now, full disclosure, I've seen much more footage of Bryan than Tsuruta but I do love what Tsuruta brings to the table. There's a calm certainty about him in the ring that works really well in the ring and he also strikes with an urgency and impact that sells the weight of pretty much everything in the match. Grumpy Tsuruta against the youngins led by Misawa might be one of the greatest characters in-ring of all time. Perhaps I just haven't seen the match but Tsuruta's big hole (certainly due to his booking as well) is that he was never able to really garner any real sympathy in the ring from his selling. Bryan, however, was a guy who seemed to excel in most any role that he was given to fill. In ROH, he played the cocky champion from 05-06, then he was the babyface ace that stood head and shoulders above most other talent from 07 onwards. In WWE, he made for a great chickenshit heel, as well as probably one of the most over and successful underdog babyfaces of all time. While Tsuruta definitely takes the cake for longevity, I feel the quality of Bryan's peak stuff and the variety of it helps him stand out. I love how both these guys bring a sense of urgency and legitimacy to a match. Any time they're in the ring, you feel a unique sense of danger from them that comes naturally from both their skill and the aura that their personas present. Now, you can take a look at my ***** and ****3/4 list to know that I feel that Brock's peak stuff certainly outweighs Ki's. Brock's second run with WWE has been one of the absolute best in wrestling history in terms of match quality. While I believe Low Ki has been a fairly more consistent performer than Brock (2016 was a fairly abysmal year for Brock), I think that I'll pick Brock for a couple of things. Brock's generally been much better at laying out a match to milk the most possible drama and heat out of it. Given the right opponent of course. Brock's been able to sustain this image of him as a badass destroyer of worlds even despite terrible performances (vs. Taker from Mania XXX, vs. Ambrose) and despite being made to look completely vulnerable (vs. Goldberg). Ki, because of his booking in mid-00s ROH and X Division TNA, is more prone to having more spot-heavy matches. Ki has also yet to be put on a match (that I've seen) that's felt as spectacle driven as say Brock vs. Cena from SummerSlam 2014.