Viking Hall

He could have been Pro-Wrestlings greatest historian and in this day and age of Podcasts and Vlogs could probably be making a decent living out of doing just that (which I think deep down, is what he enjoys the most). Instead he's become a punchline, through nobodies fault but his own.

The Fantastics vs The Sheepherders was an absolute riot, definitely in **** maybe even ****1/2 territory. Two teams that surely don't get nearly enough credit just going all out on one another. I have seen a couple of their brawls before, so the chaos wasn't too surprising but with the lack of commentary and the crowd reacting right there this one seemed even more raw. The Fantastics certainly live up to their name but The Sheepherders antics really do take it up a notch. What other Sheepherder matches do I need to see? Besides that match, I've enjoyed the whole show, a real lesson in just how great Tag Team wrestling can be. NWA/JCP/UWF isn't something I've delved into nearly enough so there's lots of people here that I've not seen that much of. Buzz Sawyer in particular really caught my eye. He's someone whose name and reputation outside of the ring I knew about but hadn't really seen much of. I properly popped for the way he put Italian Stallion away in the first match. Young Rick Steiner was already a monster too alongside him. Also loving the Koloffs, Nikita looks like a ready made star but can go too and Ivan is just absolute gold, going to need to see more of Ivan in particular. Weirdly, as well I kind of enjoyed what I saw of Wahoo McDaniel, he doesn't really do that much but has that air of someone who could take your head off too. I'm presuming his career was winding down by this point but I know he had some wild matches in his time so this has pushed me to perhaps search out a few of those too (if they exist).

Surely the most obvious answer is smiling, mulleted babyface Scott Steiner to Big Poppa Pump? The two are barely recognisable both in look and attitude.

I would go along with this entirely. He looked pretty great. I would imagine DiBiase put together the match in terms of structure, but as you say, there's nothing here that suggests Magee wasn't holding up his own end and wasn't at least competent in the ring. When you consider some of the lumbering lumps that got WWF airtime and pushes in the eighties and nineties I have a hard time believing that Magee was any worse than a lot of those... hell, based on this appearance alone, I'd say he was far better than The Ultimate Warrior and he got to the very top of the mountain. And while we're on that train of thought, how about that for an alternate timeline seeing as Magee arrived months before Hellwig... similar builds and look, Hellwig probably had him tipped on weird charisma but I'd go with Magee when it came to at least vaguely interesting matches. Think there's more to this than he was just a bad wrestler.

A match between a guy (a kid?) I'd never heard of before this match and another that this time last year I absolutely despised and yet it might well be challenging for a Top 5 place in my end of year rankings. I can only think that hanging around with Minoru Suzuki has forced ZSJ to improve because he has gone from someone I could barely stand to watch to being someone that I look forward to seeing. There's still the odd niggle with him but he may well be 2018's most improved wrestler and if any match is an example of that, it's this one. Vicious, hard hitting and with enough emotion that I totally forgot I was watching something which was basically unfamiliar to me I can't recommend it enough. If it's not a 5 star match, it's a hairs width away. One of my favourite matches this year.

I haven't read through this thread but I will take your Tiger Jeet Singh and I'll raise you Big Daddy. He was the star when wrestling was one of the most viewed things in the UK, counted actual Royalty among his many fans and appeared on some of the biggest mainstream television shows in the country too. He was an absolute phenomenon and yet he was the drizzling shits in just about every attribute you would judge a wrestler on. He couldn't wrestle, he had no look and was notoriously not a particularly charismatic speaker. I would be pretty confident in saying that he has literally never had an even halfway decent match let alone a good one. Of any wrestler that 'made it' he has to be the worst, and by some margin.

Ospreay certainly makes my Top 5 this year too, it's phenomenal just how much he's improved and how much more of a complete wrestler he is. His match with Lethal had me off my seat on more than one occasion, incredible match.

Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix have to be in the discussion too. The biggest things to break out of Lucha since Rey Mysterio in the mid-nineties and wrestling a seemingly constant international schedule with a consistently high match quality with a crazy variety of styles and opponents. I don't think I've seen many matches involving either of them that hasn't brought it in one way or another, from bloody hardcore brawls to the craziest spot fests, they never fail to entertain me.

This might potentially sound weird but I think this event suffered from being at the end of 2018. The match quality has been so high this year that what was a selection of good to great matches will be somewhat lost in the mix once the year gets dissected. Any other year I think the Gargano vs Black match in particular would have been in and around the MOTY candidates (possibly Dream vs Ciampa too) but will be unlikely to make anyone's Top 10 this year. Is 2018 the year we reach the top of the mountain in terms of in-ring work?

I've still got a lot to watch so this is very much a draft but my Top 10 is currently looking like this. Chris Jericho vs Kenny Omega - NJPW - Wrestle Kingdom 12 - 04/01/2018 Johnny Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas - NXT - Takeover Philadelphia - 27/01/2018 Tommaso Ciampa vs Johnny Gargano - NXT - Takeover New Orleans - 07/04/2018 Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kazuchika Okada - NJPW - Wrestling Dontaku Day 2 - 04/05/2018 Pentagon Jr. vs Kenny Omega - ALL IN - All In: Chicago - 01/09/2018 Sami Callihan vs Pentagon Jr. - Impact - Slammiversary XVI - 22/07/2018 Marty Scurll vs Kazuchika Okada - ALL IN - All In: Chicago - 01/09/2018 Aja Kong vs Hikaru Shida - Oz - Flower Bloom in Yokohama - 17/09/2018 Will Ospreay vs Jay Lethal - ROH - Death Before Dishonor - 28/09/2018 Johnny Impact vs Austin Aries - Impact - Bound For Glory - 14/10/2018

This match is a lesson in psychology and is arguably one of the best demonstrations of heel work ever committed to film. Jake looks every part the sleaze here and uses every trick in the book while Dirty White Boy plays a great babyface in distress and does a fantastic job of selling all of Jake's dastardly antics to the max. Nice creative use of outside interference and a foreign object for the finish but it was just missing something to take it from being a really good match to being a great match. The lack of action is almost what makes it stand out, but perhaps just a kick up a gear for the final couple of minutes to put it to bed could have made this a really memorable hidden gem. Nonetheless is should absolutely be on the curriculum for any wrestling school in lessons to get the most out of very little, which Jake was totally the master of and certainly a match every wrestling fan should see at least once.

They did yes, I think they gave each other the thumbs up in the ring which seemingly sealed the deal.

I think he'll be LIJ's Junior representative until Hiromu returns and then he'll start his assault on the Heavyweight division.

Yeah, ridiculously fun match. Funk is absolutely mental here, bumping all over the arena, falling through tables, swinging (and not always missing) at everything that moves and just generally turning it up to 11. Have to say that Virgil impressed me here too, he didn't do anything particularly special but he played the perfect 90's babyface and did a great job getting the crowd behind him. Can't imagine the competition is high, but surely this is the best Virgil match of all time?

Been watching the WWF PPV's from 1996. A real transitional year but a lot of good - great matches in there. Shawn Michaels the character is grating to say the least, but watching without the TV filler shows just how good he was in-ring at that time as nearly all of his matches end up being match of the night.

Yeah, just saw that after posting typically, although doesn't necessarily mean he's exclusive, right? However, I agree that Shingo seems way more likely now.

Naito has announced a new member of LIJ will be joining on the 8th. Neville/PAC?

I agree that this was way better than it looked on paper. The Addiction vs Chase Owens and Hangman Page was a great fast paced Tag match while the 6-Man that followed was one of the most fun matches I've seen this year. The four 'main-events' were all good - great too with the headline Tag Match being my personal pick of the bunch. Don't think it'll be a show that gets remembered for years to come but there's enough on there for it to be an underappreciated gem, which isn't a bad result all things considered. Oh, and as for the commentary, J.R. stumbled about a little but Kevin Kelly kept it together and by the end they seemed to have found their groove quite nicely with J.R. in particular seeming to relax and have some fun. Decent show.

As someone who hasn't seen too much of Negro Casas (but has liked what he has seen) what are a few of his essential matches?

Brilliant match, Will Ospreay is coming on in leaps and bounds and maturing as a performer and put on one of his most complete performances here. Aggressive, hard hitting and easily went toe to toe with the bigger Jay Lethal. The commentators kept alluding to this being a 'new' Will Ospreay and he certainly evolving into a different and in my opinion, much improved beast. Jay Lethal certainly held up side of the bargain too and the two meshed perfectly into one of my favourite matches this year. Really hoping for a rematch here as it felt like there's unfinished business. Looking forward to seeing Ospreay's continued development into a Heavyweight too.

Does Mike Awesome deserve a mention? Well over 250 lbs and could leap around a ring like someone half his size.

Stan Hansen vs John Cena: Love Stan Hansen and would watch his matches over a Cena match almost every time but I don't think there's even a close comparison when it comes to who is more important historically. Cena is arguably one of the top 5 most famous wrestlers ever and gained a mainstream following that very few have attained and therefore takes this one by some stretch. Kurt Angle vs Goldberg: Close one this but Angle just pips it for me. Goldberg came along at a time when the industry was at its hottest and became one of the biggest stars in wrestling but was only around full time for a fairly short window of time. Angle on the other hand maintained a long career and parlayed his successful legitimate career into becoming one of the best pro-wrestlers of his generation. While Angle was never the top guy (although came close in TNA), I would also claim that Goldberg also had others around him that could have been considered the top dog too and since Angle was the better worker, had more longevity and the legitimate background he takes it. AJ Styles vs Randy Orton: Picked AJ fairly easily on this one. While Orton has had the more mainstream career for me personally he's always been a guy who's just been around rather being than the driving force or renowned worker Styles is. AJ took a while to get to the top of the table but has always been consistently considered a great worker and as the evening begins to draw in on his career I think he'll go down as an all-time great in-ring talent. Jeff Hardy vs Daniel Bryan: Jeff Hardy scrapes this one for me. Bryan is easily the better worker of the two (in fact I've never particularly cared for Jeff's in-ring work) but in terms of longevity, iconic moments and just being constantly over it probably ends up being a pretty one sided argument when it comes to historical importance in Jeff's favour. He inspired a whole generation of high fliers and arguably if it hadn't been for issues outside of the ring could and should have emerged as one of the WWE's biggest stars in the early 2000's. There's a lot of flack that goes alongside him but I don't think the impact his career had, certainly early on, should be dismissed. Batista vs Edge: Batista all day on this one and again someone who's in ring work I don't particularly enjoy but can't dismiss. Edge had an incredibly noteworthy career and probably has dozens of matches in his library that can be considered vastly superior to Batista's but if there's one thing you cannot ignore when it comes to historical importance and that's mainstream recognition. Batista has parlayed his wrestling career into becoming a genuine Hollywood star and arguably the biggest star to emerge from wrestling other than The Rock so based on this alone it's an easy win for him.

Seemingly Andre's last taped match in Mexico before he would have what would become his final matches in All-Japan the following month. Andre, as is to be expected is not in good shape here and keeps his work down to a minimum, just doing the occasional spot and holding off opponents for his teammates El Canek and Villano III and while it's very obvious that his in-ring days are numbered he still gets a great response from the crowd which is nice to hear. El Canek and Villano do a great job of playing the faces in peril against the impressive team of the ageing but still brilliant Buffalo (Bad News) Allen, the gigantic Great Kokina and a masked Black Scorpio who come together to form a formidable trio and pull of some cool stuff especially with Scorpio. Kokina is already showing all of the traits that would get him signed to the WWF later that year and bumps around the ring like a man half his size and proving that for a small window he was certainly in contention for being one of the best Super Heavyweights to ever step through the ropes. Scorpio is also decades ahead of the curev and stands out here as being one of the true talents of the match, busting out moves and spots that wouldn't become commonplace until the early 2000's, really coming into his own when going one on one with the two Luchadors. All in all the match is a chaotic affair with a slightly hokey finish, but a nice little slice of history for a variety of reasons. Not a classic, but interesting nonetheless. *It should be noted that this thankfully isn't the infamous Andre/Bad News accident match, that was untelevised and presumably came after this one since Bad News seemed to think it was the last time he saw Andre alive.

More to the point, who is she and why is she a thing?

Well no, not in everyday terms, but in his prime he was never noted for being a giant or anything whereas if he emerged now he would be one of the biggest men around.