Frankensteiner

Yeah, Raw matches definitely have more of a TV studio feel where they're trying to put over an angle or get over the idea of an "exciting" TV show. Once you get into May I think they're pretty good about providing at least one long-ish feature match every couple weeks.

It should be noted that handhelds of house shows really exploded around this time ('93-'96). I don't know how you feel about watching handhelds, but that could certainly fill the gap of losing broadcast house shows. On my last check I counted roughly 28 shows available from 1993 alone, which comes close to equaling a full year of MSG/Spectrum/NESN shows in the late 80's. I also would like to ask what you meant by getting more from PTW matches than RAW matches.

What was the whole deal with Pillman at this point? Did they plan to turn him face eventually when he was ready to come back? It seemed like at first Austin/Pillman/Owen were all set up against Bret (I think they had that one interview together at Mind Games). Then IIRC Pillman was shown cheerleading backstage when Bret made his big comeback anouncement. I think Austin stared him down at the same time. The whole thing with Austin attacking Pillman made no sense considering how they were presented up to that point. Then once Pillman was out, they seemed to tease Bret/Davey vs Austin/Owen. And that was dropped quickly.

I might be in the minority but I still thought Hennig was pretty great in the WWF. His 1993 face run is probably my favorite part of his stay there though. Have you seen any of that? The other day I went through a list of his matches in that 1990/1991 period. From what I've seen, I liked the matches against Tito (SNME), Bossman (Main Event), Shawn (Road to WrestleMania special), Garvin (SummerSlam Fever), and Hercules (Toronto). He has 3 taped matches against Piper but I've only seen the MSG match and it was really good. Perfect did spend the first part of 1990 going up against Hogan and Warrior which maybe aren't the best matchups for him. Also from this time, he has long-ish taped matches against Jake, Bulldog, and Valentine that look interesting on paper.

I agree Bret was really good at this. In addition to the examples mentioned, really liked the roll-up finish against Bigelow and the finish to the TV match against Backlund. I think Mysterio is also pretty good at doing this today. Flair's finishes were always trash. They were either poorly built to or the execution was off.

It's a shame about Angle because he does a lot of things well offensively. Not too long ago I watched his matches with Guerrero from 2004 and was really impressed by the opening mat exchanges Angle pulled off in those. Of course the matches eventually went off the rails.

The only Martel/Zhukov match on the AWA set is the cage match, which was like 12 minutes and had the advantages of a gimmick and blood. It's true that Shawn's style is largely conducive toward pinballing around for big guys. But he also worked really well with guys like Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett, who don't fit that description at all. Yeah, I gotta call BS on the multiple compelling matches with Zhukov. The Cage match they had together was good, the others were not good at all. That's like if I said Michaels had an amazing match with Salvatore Sincere in '96. I would still put Martel ahead of Michaels in my rankings but it has to be said Martel had much better opponents to work with during his peak run than Michaels.

It's not about any set total number of matches, but I think everyone should at least see some good, some average, and some poor matches of any wrestler before coming up with a definitive statement (though I also agree with what NintentoLogic said regarding a wrestler's top 10 matches). I don't feel a Best of 80s set is a good representation of any wrestler for the reasons previously stated. It would also help to get some context by looking at the other matches happening on the card at the same time, see what the promotion is looking for in terms in-ring style, see how the opponents work with others, etc.

If this is the case the peak performance/prime argument is dogshit and has to be immediately discarded as an idiotic way to evaluate wrestlers. Peak/prime refers to a time period in every wrestler's career, not the quality of the best matches. Every wrestler has a span of 4-6 years (give or take) where they're in their prime. You can still cherry pick matches from that time-span which is what the 80s sets do. Meaning there's no real prime/peak comparison between guys. This is not at all what I was saying. If someone has seen all of the great-to-good-to-average-to-bad Bryan performances as well as all of the great/good/average/bad Bret Hart performances, I think it's fair for them to make a comparison between the two. We are assuming that all of the footage available on tape of either guy is an accurate representation/proper sample of their work. The raw number of matches don't matter in this case. The 80's sets are not an accurate representation/sample of any wrestler's work because only the best work is represented.

You have Vader listed twice. I just C&Ped your list and kept all the names of guys who I thought were better than Shawn. Some of the guys I deleted simply because I haven't seen enough of them (i.e. Rose, Billy Robinson, etc.) so I've automatically added 5 spots to account for blindspots. Shawn ended up as a Top 25 guy. If you account for Japan and Mexico, he'd be in my Top 40.

All that tells you is you've seen 66 good Jumbo Tsuruta and 63 good Genichiro Tenryu matches. There might be 200+ matches of either guy that were just dogshit and you wouldn't know about them. But you probably know all the dogshit Shawn matches. Who do you think is gonna end up looking better in your mind? I don't think 20 matches is nearly enough. How can you fairly evaluate someone's strengths and weakness based on their 20+ best matches? That's crazy. Can you imagine evaluating a basketball/football player on the best 20-30 games of his career? It's absurd.

Why? If you are someone who believes in evaluating peak v. peak the 80's Sets are as good a comparative tool as I can imagine. Peak vs. peak to me doesn't mean top matches vs top matches. It means comparing one guy's prime to another guy's prime. You can't get a good grasp of a worker by watching a number of cherry picked matches for a Best of a promotion set. Well, I think the former reaction is far more common. It's not really just about Shawn but any WWF/WCW wrestlers where all the footage has been examined. You watch the top 15 Chris Adams matches on the Texas set or the top 15 Murdoch matches in Mid-South, they might come off as better workers than say someone like Davey Boy Smith. On the other hand, if all people had on DBS were a select few matches against Bret, Owen, Shawn, and Vader, I'd imagine he would be looked at more favorably than he is now. I seriously doubt more than a minority of people here or on the DVDVR boards have gone through all the WCCW TV/Ft. Worth/Legends shows or all of the Mid-South House Shows/TV/UWF TV/PPW shows. This is nothing I can prove definitively but I would guess people have formed opinions on these workers simply based on the limited footage on the 80's sets.

For the most part, I don't think you should use the 80s sets to ever evaluate one wrestler against another.

Definitely Top 50. Probably Top 30. Possibly Top 20. However, my top 100 is heavily slanted towards US wrestlers just based on what I've seen.

Shawn is ahead of: Rude, Arn, Williams, Jericho, Hogan, Andre, and Bravo. behind: Martel, Tully, Gordy, DiBiase. Can't comment on Robinson. He's right on par with Hennig, I think. I like Hennig better as a worker but Shawn probably has a bigger list of good-to-great matches.

I've seen the Pro match and the Cage match on the Horsemen DVD. Haven't seen the Cage match from World Pro. I haven't seen any of his singles from Memphis. I'm not trying to knock Morton because he was great. It's just that Michaels was easily better in my view. I think there's a little less skill required in being a great worker in southern tags than there is in working long-ish singles matches.

What exactly are all these flashes Morton had in singles? I recall one or two good/great matches against Tully and a couple overrated matches against Flair. Eaton had a better singles run in 1991 alone. I would rate Michaels above Morton. But I prioritize guys who work 20-30min singles main events over tag workers. Morton was great at what he did, but I think it's more difficult to work great singles matches than tag matches adhering to a formula. Not to mention Michaels was a great tag worker himself.

I don't think Flair's faults are at all similar to Shawn's faults. If I had to list Flair's problems I'd start with his repetitiveness, inability to build a coherent match, and tendency to get lost in the ring unless it involves his own shtick. Shawn could be pretty boring as a heel and was sometimes an inconsistent seller in his main run as a babyface. In general, I think Shawn was easily better than Flair, though I'm only evaluating Shawn on his prime years. He was garbage after his comeback.

Why not? Based on guys I've seen in their prime: 1. Hart 2. Savage 3. Austin 4. Rock 5. Michaels 6. Backlund 7. Slaughter 8. Punk 9. Foley 10. Mysterio 11. Hogan 12. Guerrero 13. Lesnar 14. Flair 15. Cena

Yeah, I'm assuming this is a subjective list? Regardless, you've got to be a pretty big Guerrero mark to put him #2 on a WWE Champions list.

So the UWA website is still up and presumably taking orders. Anyone know what's going on? Was the deadline extended? I ordered the House Show set on Monday and am still considering getting some of the TV episodes that I think may not be out there and available as DVD masters (releases prior to Vol. 60).

I guess it might be a love it/hate it type match. I recall it placing pretty high on the SC WWF matches poll. I personally prefer this to the WM X match. EDIT: After a little checking, it placed #14. Also got a #1 vote. I didn't participate in that poll but could easily see myself putting this at #1 if I had.

This was such a great match. Re-watched this a few months back and still loved it. In fact, I would easily consider this a top 10 match in company history. They did a hell of a job keeping this logical and exciting at the same time. I also recall loving how well they built up to the big spots. Owen was a total brat, so trying to escape the cage and run away with the title really fit his character more so than trying to go toe-to-toe in the cage with his older brother.

The whole Hogan thing was such a sham. I just loved everything about WCW before he showed up. Good matches up and down the card, their big shows finally had great production, etc. To your point, Flair was just a victim and they booked him horribly. I can't argue that those Flair/Hogan and Flair/Savage programs did well financially but they did nothing for Flair personally. I would have liked to see him booked as a living legend type character he was throughout 1993 and early 94. Hogan still would have been fine if it was WCW starring Hulk Hogan. Instead it was the Hulk Hogan show with WCW wrestlers.