Frankensteiner

No, both can be true. This obviously has Patterson influences just like every other WWF main event match which needed to get over some angle (Anvil heel turn). I was just surprised you made that Pat Patterson comment here since if I were to put a list together of the most Patterson influenced matches this wouldn't even make a Top 100. Probably not even a Top 500.

The near falls are pretty standard fare for the Bret Hart finish run and are all part of the layout of matches I mentioned earlier. You can compare the Michaels interference spot to Fuji interfering in the Bret/Yokozuna TV match, just without the crazy bump. But the layout is the same. Regardless, the Michaels and Anvil spots are pretty short to call the last 5-7 minutes a Patterson special.

That's a strange comment considering this is basically your typical Bret v big guy run to the finish: five moves of doom, a couple of late counters and reversals, using the ring to your advantage, desperation Sharpshooter attempt, etc. Pretty similar to stuff he did against Razor, Bigelow, Yokozuna, Diesel, and Undertaker in other matches. Anyway, I thought it was a pretty great finishing run. This to me is just as good as the other Bret/Diesel matches. In some ways I prefer this one because of the strong face/heel divide.

Only thing I can think of in relation to the Helen line is that it's an acknowledgement of the past and a foreshadowing of their feud. Bret basically started out as a heel (not really, but his first major run was as a heel) whereas Owen debuted as a face. So Bret was always good but sometimes lost his way, and Owen only faked being good. Them switching sides and opposing each other is how it was always meant to be according to Helen.

Rick Martel vs. Jerry Lawler, 10/12/85, Nashville, TN I guess this would be considered more of a Memphis match but it was for the AWA title on a Pro Wrestling USA show so I don’t mind including it here. As a match, I thought this was pretty disappointing. For one, after watching the stuff Martel did with Bock, Rheingans, Jumbo, etc. I totally didn't buy Lawler outwrestling Martel in the early going. Then it seemed as if they spent an eternity with Martel working over Lawler’s right leg. It would have been fine had they done a longer run to the finish or if Lawler actually bothered to sell the leg on his comeback. Only aspect that was really interesting was Martel working as a heel, and on that end he did a good job. I wonder how many times he worked heel up to this point in his career; it couldn’t have been more than a handful, if any at all. Overall not really on the level of Martel's best title defenses in the AWA.

I think Hogan's charisma and look are what got him over. OJ makes the point to a higher extreme than I would. I don't mind Hogan quite as much. But to answer your question, LOOK. Being a tall blond guy with big muscles in the middle of a national fitness craze, plus his part in Rocky III. His charisma put him over the top, but those things were all hugely important. I pretty much agree with this. If we're going to go along with the idea of Hogan having great talent because of how over he was, you pretty much have to contort yourself into the same argument for Konnan in Mexico. I don't think anyone wants to take it that far.

It seems to me like they'll be doing a submission match next month.

Hum, what ? Doesn't make a lick of sense. Cena is leaving. Traditionnal wrestling booking : guy leaving because the heel destroyed him. Babyface comes back several months after and gets his revenge. It's easy, it's simple. Now, Brock has already been beaten. He's not that special anymore, I don't care what anybody says. If at least Lesnar had beaten up Cena after the win and the show ended with a bloody Lesnar triumphant, a foot on Cena's carcass, then I would agree the loss wouldn't matter than much. There Cena won, KOed Lesnar, cut his cute promo, Lesnar was nowhere to be seen. End of story. Now you have to *re-build* Brock ? Well, that is poor booking no matter how you twist it. Cena isn't a traditional babyface. He gets booed a lot. By having him do badass things and beat Brock he can come back stronger than if Brock had put him on the shelf. I bet he gets a better reaction when he returns than he would have if he'd jobbed. His cred got a major injection from this match and month long feud. It was an interesting reversal of conventional booking. It's not going to change anything. Didn't Cena do some "badass things" in his feuds with Umaga, Orton, and Edge? People don't boo Cena because they perceive a lack of toughness; they boo him because he's such lame character. Cena will come back as the same smiley, happy Cena with terrible humor and forced delivery. Any cheers he might receive initially will fade once people quickly realize the character is still the same. So I watched the Cena promo from last night. And it was Cena at his most obnoxious. I just wanted Ace to kill him by the end of that segment. Anyway, there are some good reasons for having Cena beat Lesnar, but to get Cena over with fans for being a bad ass is not one of them when he comes back and does interviews like that.

I know their other ladder match is pro-shot, but is this one a hand-held? Other than Night of Legends, I don't think SMW had any commercial releases in 1994.

From Bret Hart's recent interview on the Score (via Wrestling Inc.):

Jannetty/Skinner is a pretty sweet little match. Definte reccomendation. Of the Bret matches, I liked the Kamala match but the Shango match was decent too. Maybe Shango's best ever (setting bar real low)? It was just an energetic match. The Berzerker and Virgil matches are meant to be total squashes so there's not much there. The Bret/Virgil match is slightly notable because it's worked like a proto-version of Bret/Kid. And you gotta check out the pre match hand-shake.

It wasn't until Rock won the belt at Survivor Series '98 that TV title defenses became frequent. Bret had those three matches (the Kamala match was for Coliseum) after winning the belt in October. But after the Virgil match in late November he only had one other televised WWF Title match until losing the belt to Yokozuna in April. That's one match in 4 and a half months. The frequency of TV title matches during Bret's second reign wasn't unlike the number of SNME-era Hogan defenses.

Hum, what ? Doesn't make a lick of sense. Cena is leaving. Traditionnal wrestling booking : guy leaving because the heel destroyed him. Babyface comes back several months after and gets his revenge. It's easy, it's simple. Now, Brock has already been beaten. He's not that special anymore, I don't care what anybody says. If at least Lesnar had beaten up Cena after the win and the show ended with a bloody Lesnar triumphant, a foot on Cena's carcass, then I would agree the loss wouldn't matter than much. There Cena won, KOed Lesnar, cut his cute promo, Lesnar was nowhere to be seen. End of story. Now you have to *re-build* Brock ? Well, that is poor booking no matter how you twist it. Cena isn't a traditional babyface. He gets booed a lot. By having him do badass things and beat Brock he can come back stronger than if Brock had put him on the shelf. I bet he gets a better reaction when he returns than he would have if he'd jobbed. His cred got a major injection from this match and month long feud. It was an interesting reversal of conventional booking. It's not going to change anything. Didn't Cena do some "badass things" in his feuds with Umaga, Orton, and Edge? People don't boo Cena because they perceive a lack of toughness; they boo him because he's such lame character. Cena will come back as the same smiley, happy Cena with terrible humor and forced delivery. Any cheers he might receive initially will fade once people quickly realize the character is still the same.

I'd assume this would have been Borga had he not gotten injured. Once they decided to go with Bret it probably didn't matter who was teased as Luger's opponent.

Seconding this. Tamura/Yamamoto is my favorite shoot-style pairing. Terrific match and very accessible for people who may not be especially into shoot-style. Overall, one of the best 3 or 4 RINGS matches ever.

The point about JCP is interesting as a comp to the WWF. As far as I can tell, the opinion was and is that JCP was some sort of serious pro-wrestling alternative to the cartoony-style 80’s WWF, with Flair and Hogan representative of the gap between the two companies. In reality Flair was just as much of a cartoon as Hogan, and JCP ran as much bullshit as the WWF. The only differences were that Flair wrestled a more athletic style than Hulk, and the JCP cartoon was a slightly darker, more violent version of the WWF one.

So what's the deal here? I haven't seen any of the lead-up to this but is Hash have an injured shoulder going into the match and that's why he responds by going after Fujiwara's injured knee? Or is Hash just a dick by going after Fujiwara's injured knee unprompted?

If Brock had a Sid-like sabatical, that is, washed out of pro-football, went to TNA for a year before getting fired, and maybe did a couple of indy shows, there is no way he would get the kind of response he did on Monday.

I don't know that there's a lot of crossover. But I think many WWE fans will know Lesnar was a champion (and kind of a bad ass) in a legitimate fighting sport. Thus making him a bigger a star to WWE fans than he ever was in 2002-2004.

When the final suplex is reversed it automatically becomes a horrible spot. I can't see any argument against this. The guy got a last ounce of strength to reverse the final suplex. If both lay on the ground and sell, it is not a problem. Well, I've just watched a couple of Eddy/Rey matches where Mysterio reverses the final suplex by slipping out on the way up and then immediately starts running the ropes.

Is it not patently obvious that Punk/Jericho were trying to have a great match, significantly moreso than Punk/Henry? I can understand confusion with 'self-conscious epic' and how it might need an explanation, but 'weren't trying to have a classic' seems self-explanatory; it's the same/a similar phrase to one people have used plenty of times regarding matches were guys, not go through the motions as such, but clearly aren't going 'all out'. Punk/Jericho were pretty clearly going 'all out' (and understandably so it being a World Title match on the biggest show of the year) but I don't see how one could think Punk/Henry were. The point is, guys misconcieve (or fail at) the big matches now. Someone on DVDVR - I forgot who - talked about how 'no one knows how to work the body of a match anymore; it's all about the finishing run'. It's the reason why so many people (and you've said so yourself, Dylan) are so apathetic to endless near falls now, because it's become so forced and unnatural - it's how people 'identify' big matches at this point, and so the big matches generally come in two parts: before the near falls, and the near falls. Not to be an 'AJPW Fetishist' (though I see nothing wrong with preferring that), but the difference between a Punk/Jericho (or HBK/Taker I; or even an ROH match :|) and the matches that brought these near falls into vogue (and ignoring a lot of NJ Juniors had the same problems), the difference is night-and-day. The problem isn't the near falls themselves, but how they get to them and what they do between them: in a nutshell, they just don't do it as well. And so, what we're left with is that the best matches are those that don't fail, which are the nice, little TV matches were everything makes sense, a few nice spots, nothing too reaching... I mean, that's quite the negative phrasing for a match I liked (Punk/Henry), and it may well end up a solid Top 10 WWE match, but yeah, it says a lot about the standard that guys are at were it's a MOTYC. I agree with most everything here. The problem is that wrestlers today, more so than at any other time I can remember, are enamored with the idea of putting on “five star classics” for their own personal vanity. Whether that stems from increased ‘net smarkness, I’m not sure (but it's really not that important to the discussion). But this absolutely comes through during the big matches on PPV. I think the term “self-conscious epic” is pretty apt. This is why PPV matches are tinged with this transparent desire to put on classics and ultimately always fail to deliver. TV matches are worked in a different manner. I would agree there have been a lot of good and sometimes very good matches produced on WWE TV. I would disagree that these matches are on the same level as the top-MOTYC matches from the 90s and 80s.