Boss Rock

The Mankind-Undertaker feud is one of my all-time favorites. While I think the Boiler Room Brawl was their best match, this was a really fun brawl.

My name is Greg and I'm 26 years-old. I was originally introduced to wrestling watching (I think?) WWF Mania. I remember my first favorite wrestler was Ahmed Johnson. I watched until I saw the Undertaker-King Mabel casket match from Season's Beatings and being only 6 years-old, it scared the hell out of me. I didn't watch wrestling again until the build-up to Summerslam 2002, and I was immediately hooked. I only watched WWE until about 2005/2006 when I discovered TNA. Around 2009-2010 I lost interest in both television products (being in college at the time also had me focusing on other things) but largely kept up with it online. I would also pop in from time to time, mainly during the Nexus run, the Pipe Bomb, and Lesnar's return. I got back into watching it full-time right before Summerslam 2013 and got to witness the saga of Daniel Bryan, probably the greatest (even if largely accidental) wrestling story I've ever seen. Around 2015 I began exploring other products and became a huge fan of Lucha Underground and New Japan, both of which I still watch today. I also try to catch Evolve and CMLL when I have the time. Reading through the Greatest Wrestler List on this site inspired me to do more historical viewing and I am currently in the midst of working on my own 100 Greatest Wrestler list. My favorite promotion is 90's All Japan, my current favorite wrestler is Kazuchika Okada, and my all-time favorite wrestlers are Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, Mitsuharu Misawa, Stan Hansen, and Kenta Kobashi.

Yes for AoP-Revival-#DIY and Day-Lee.

Yes for Okada-Omega II (one of my favorite matches this year and thought it out-did the WK mathc) and Yes for Dunne-Bate II.

KUSHIDA-Hiromu Takahashi from Sakura Genesis comes to mind. Not really sure if it qualifies as a squash considering the pre-match angle of KUSHIDA nearly finishing him early, but loved the story of KUSHIDA having the perfect strategy only to make ONE mistake, and boom it's over. Really sold the "dang, how do you beat this guy?" booking of Hiromu.

Owens is an interesting case. He's a guy I still like because he's capable of having good matches, he just has a lot of bad habits. Late 2016 is a great example of that, as he was either lazily doing chinlocks for meta heat or having spotfests with Seth to try and pop the crowd. I think some blame deserves to fall on how his reign was booked because it was all about getting Jericho and the list over by having them do comedy, but he would either completely dog it or try and play to the crowd during matches. I feel like he's started to get away from that as he's been doing more heel banter during his matches. He just needs to do less chinlocks. I'm still optimistic about him on SDL as his mic and character work is phenomenal as the cold, uncaring heel who claims his actions are driven by providing for his family when in reality he's just a bad person.

I really liked Edge as a heel. Sure he was a bad actor and his facials were extreme, but the guy knew how to get heat. He was the sniveling coward who was incredibly resourceful and was seen as dangerous when pushed too far.

Santino Marella winning the IC title in his debut. Literally had no idea what to make of it.

Love this match.

Great match, possibly even better than the last one. Loved how Ishii tried to blitz him early so Omega has to go to drastic measures to stop him. As annoying as Kenny can be in tag matches, he more often than not steps it up in singles matches and proved his worth again. Ishii was also great here, his spots were insane but made perfect sense in the context of the match. ****3/4.

Okada is the only guy I can think of who has consistently put on above-average matches with Fale (with the exception of their Destruction match last year). They just have this really weird chemistry together. The Invasion Attack match is still their best, but they worked a good "big man vs. smaller man" match here. ***1/2.

Didn't really like this match much. Other than Tiger's wicked tombstone, it really seemed like he was holding Volador back by forcing him to work underneath. And the top rope C4 nearly landed on the ref!

I really liked this match, even more so than their first encounter last year. I've found Finn a bit boring in the past but he has very good chemistry with Reigns (whose selling was absolutely tremendous, btw).

This was really good stuff. Their entire feud is proof that you can do fast-paced, spot-heavy matches but still tell a story. These guys hate each other as evidenced by their back-and-forth chopping. They also know how difficult it is to put the other away, hence the death-defying spots. The german suplex spot was a bit ridiculous, but unlike the Scurll-Ospreay match, they actually took the time to sell and show that while both were clearly rocked, they still had enough wherewithal to fight. It almost reminded me of an MMA fight where even though a fighter is rocked and on the verge of unconsciousness, he or she can still take punishment and land that one fight-ending shot (Cheick Kong-Pat Barry specifically comes to mind).

This run he's on is unassailable for sure and the cap on what has been a great career. But the idea that he's some dramatically different wrestler now (not saying you're saying that) is wrong. All the things he's doing now he's been doing for a decade in a half plus. He hit hard in 2003. He could sell his ass off in '05. He could work the mic at the turn of the decade. He was an even more spectacular spot guy back then. He'd been the total package for quite some time. Call it the stink of TNA/better opponents or what have you, but I think alot people's preconceived notions about him were just flat out wrong. He didn't become "NJPW AJ Styles" or "WWE AJ Styles" he just brought AJ styles to those companies. He'd been dragging good matches out of sub shane mcmahon level workers for eons. Glad he's getting his just due finally. That could very well be true. I haven't seen a ton of his later TNA stuff because I had fallen out of the company and wrestling in general around then, but he was always very good, especially 2005.

I really think it's his 2014-present run that catapults him. If we only had the TNA stuff, I'd definitely put him top 100 but probably in the middle or latter half. I feel like his NJPW run to now has been an all-time great run. I have him at number 7 now.

Mat wrestling is admittedly not my cup of tea, but when it's good, it's great.. This was a cool exhibition between two of the masters. Big props to Navarro for being able to go with a guy half his age.

Liked this match a lot. Felt like it fueled the narrative of Tanahashi still thinking he's the man when he's not. That, and Naito still being resentful of Tanahashi "stealing" his WK 8 main event. ****1/4.

He was drawing the highest ratings in 2014. http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_77624.shtml#.WQjpwfnyvct http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_78083.shtml#.WQjqC_nyvct http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_78252.shtml#.WQjqKfnyvct

But are his merch numbers what you want from a top guy? And before Sting and Goldberg, Daniel Bryan was doing killer TV numbers. And the whole selling the brand model is arguably one of the biggest reasons they're having problems with ratings and attendance right now. The company's biggest periods of success are when they had a top guy (who the crowd actually liked) to get behind. Guys like Austin, Hogan, and the Rock. And the company was pretty dang successful when pushing those guys. And the model of a top face used to be who was almost always who was doing the best TV numbers and selling the most tickets, which is when a promotion was always at its most successful.

They never reached the peaks of Austin and Rock sure, but they went back up 2005-2007 after the Reign of Terror and JBL's run.

I think the difference between Cena and Roman is that Cena was able to do good business relatively quickly as top guy despite being booed where Roman has not. Other than being a decent merch seller (and not what you want from a top guy), he's really made no meaningful impact on TV ratings or ticket sales.

I think I'm in the same boat. If it's getting consistently worked on for the majority of the match and then the wrestler goes "Nope, I'm fine!", it can be a bit annoying. But like Loss said, I like to focus on the things a match got right rather than wrong. If limb selling gets ignored but the comeback/finish is enough to keep my interest, then it tends not to bother me as much. Although I do have a great appreciation for those who can make the match interesting while still selling a limb. I don't think there's an end-all be-all when it comes to limb selling and really depends on the match and story being told.

If Austin, one of the best minds in wrestling, is calling for a heel turn I think it's worth doing.

Thought this was a very good match, but obviously a bit flawed. Okada getting in some of his normal offense was weird, but I think they did a great job of making Suzuki looking like an absolute monster while Okada did all he could to persevere and pull victory from out of the jaws of defeat. One of my favorite spots was Suzuki just laying into Okada with slaps and yet he just walks him down like "Yeah, I know I'm getting my ass kicked but I don't care. I'm not backing down". Still too long and there should have been more with the offensive selling, but I still bought the ending of Okada digging down REALLY deep. ****1/4.