Frankensteiner

As a team, Demolition fell pretty fast. They went from tag champions to doing jobs for the Road Warriors to becoming pretty much a JTTS tag team. They got Fuji back as their manager and some completely nondescript theme music. Granted Ax/Eadie left but it was still a pretty fast fall.

Some of those choices don't even seem like teams to me, just singles wrestlers who teamed regularly. I would add the Heavenly Bodies, Steiners, Rougeaus, Quebecers, and Blu Bloods above PG-13.

Tenryu/Hash wasn't winding down. It went all the way through to February of 1994 with Hashimoto finally picking up the win against Tenryu after two previous defeats. Tenryu/Fujinami finished up before that match.

I think the Genius also read a poem/MC'ed during the Macho King coronation on Superstars.

Yeah, phased out.

I've been listening to Bret Hart's podcasts and actually found out a couple of interesting things: -Bret laments guys from the previous era not putting him over. I think everyone knows the Hogan situation from Summerslam, but what I didn't know was that Jake Roberts was scheduled to work a program with Bret over the IC title after WrestleMania VIII. Instead Jake declined and left the promotion. Also, as soon as Bret won the world title in '92 the plan was for Warrior to lose to him at that year's Royal Rumble. But Warrior of course was fired before that. I don't understand why they didn't just have Savage work a match with Bret at some point. They should have built that for Mania and held off on giving the belt to Yokozuna until later in the year. -Apparently Bret was a huge fan of Finlay and tried to get him booked in the WWF in '92-'93. It didn't work out for whatever reason but this would have been a great program at that time. It's too bad the only match between these guys was a 5 min throwaway on Nitro.

Were the matches with Duggan any good? I know they did not make the Mid-South set (at least in singles) but I was thinking of seeking them out since '85-'86 Duggan is one of my favorites and you would think Duggan/Kamala in Mid-South would be a good match up.

I liked Godwinn's two match series against Bret from Superstars and Action Zone in '95. I suppose they're kind of run-of-the-mill type matches for Bret, but I enjoyed them. For Zhukov, I thought he had good matches with Martel in the AWA, one of which was a Cage match in Winnipeg (IIRC, they were all in Winnipeg). I haven't seen them in a while, so maybe Dylan can comment if they hold up.

Correct.

I'm not disputing Choshu as being on top longer or even being a bigger star. I'm just curious about the methodology of comparing two guys from different promotions & regions and declaring one as unequivocally better draw than the other. NJ was at its most profitable in the 90s. If you look at the list of guys who drew 10K+ houses in that 10 year period, Bret is even with Hashimoto and ahead of Muto, the two biggest draws in NJ.

I am curious, how do you quantify Choshu as "waaaaay bigger draw" than Bret?

A couple of matches that I have not seen listed: 3/8/93 Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow (HV Best of Bret Hitman Hart) WWF Title defense. It's better than their Barcelona match and on par with the KOTR match. 6/12/93 Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund (MSG Handheld) Great match, my favorite of their series, and historic for being Backlund's first pinfall loss in MSG. Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna (Cage) There are 2 handheld versions and one CHV version which was on the PWO discs. One of them should be included. 11/5/93 Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler (Indianapolis Handheld) Not great or anything but the feud was terrific and because of Lawler's legal issue this was the blow-off. Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna (11/21/93 Survivor Series Showdown) Their best match together. From the list above, I think the following matches should be considered:

Haven't seen that particular match, but I don't know if that statement is something I would agree with. It seems to me like he didn't get very many opportunities to work singles matches in the first place. Prior to getting the NWA belt, he spent most of the year in tags. Going back to 1991, he had that series against Pillman which were all strong, I think a TV match against Arn late in the year which I liked, then TV title matches in `92 against Austin and Arn which again were at least pretty good. His NWA defenses against Regal, Scorpio, Arn and Johnny B. Badd were great. The only match that kinda sucked was against Muta. I honestly can't think of any other singles match he had during 91-93. I think maybe a match against Rude during the KOC tournament?

Speaking of Dustin's 94, I know people generally love the Dustin/Studd stable feud but man, I can't get over that shitty ending to War Games. Dusty with Parker in the figure four and the Nasties dropping elbows, meanwhile the central guy in the feud is off to the side, not on camera, and doesn't factor in the finish. Pretty crappy blow-off if you ask me.

I understand your point, but I believe Lawler had a title shot against Michaels in 1996 (those with the yearbook set can confirm).

Was watching this yesterday and they actually cut out an entire segment between the first and second commercial breaks, the part where NKOTB Donnie Wahlberg calls in and discusses his sibling rivalry (in reference to Bret/Owen) with "Marky Mark."

Wish the Boogie Jam match could have been included without commentary. I hope they don't turn the crowd noise down.

85-94 is 10 years, my calculation of 7 years takes into account his inactive periods.

I agree that Kerry-Sting is really really close but I would choose Sting. Kerry-Flair is better than Sting-Flair but I think that's more about Flair slowing down in the 90s than anything to do with Sting. And having just re-watched their Clash I match, I have to say that it's a pretty strong MOTYC for '88 and smokes Flair's matches with Luger from the same year. I don't think that match is a complete Flair carry job either. Otherwise, I'm not sure Kerry has another series of matches as strong as Sting's series with Vader, Cactus, and Regal. I dunno, the way I look at it is Steamboat's big run was 1985-1994 which boils down to about 7 years worth of matches when taking into account all of his inactive periods. Hart's peak was from 1991-1997 which sums to 7 years, during which there's only 6 months worth of Bret working heel. So I wouldn't necessarily say you can comp Steamer to 60% of Bret's work. I think it's closer to 85-90%. I guess it depends how in-depth you want to go. I think if you chose each guys 10-15 best opponents from their peak, there would be enough to comp their work as faces. As far as a classic face v face matches for Steamboat, the only ones I can think of are those US Tourney matches with Dustin in early '93.

So... Kerry or Sting? Tamura or Sano? Steamboat or Bret? Marty Jones or El Dandy?

Agree with just about everything here. From the current guys, I like watching Mysterio, Christian, and Regal. Never really been a fan of Jericho's wrestling but he is a guy who can get angles over. I've liked some stuff from ECW & Superstars in the past year. It's probably because no one (i.e. Vince) really gave/gives a shit about those shows so the workers have some more leeway.

The mid-card is certainly bland, but so are the main eventers for the most part. And I completely disagree with the notion that Cena is a great babyface. There is nothing genuine about the guy. Everything he says, the way he wrestles, his moves, his matches, it all feels like it's been fed to him by somebody working in the back. By what standard is he a great babyface? Cena's routinely booed by half the audience. It's like Rocky Maivia circa 1997 only with merchandise sales. If you mean from an in-ring standpoint, then it's a different argument, although one I don't think is true either for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Batista is similar. A generic heel wearing designer clothes and sunglasses. Once you get past the attire he's got nothing of his own. I don't really think he's all that charismatic either. Just some buff dude with tribal tatoos working out in your local gym. Lex Luger circa '87 wasn't anything special. He was put with the Horsemen to hide his blandness. But '87 Luger would be a good role for Batista, sort of like what he did with Evolution. Edge sucks. I can't even imagine someone I would like to watch any less. Lame style, lame overreactions and facial expressions, does less with more than anyone. Rey Mysterio - I have watched a ton of WWE Rey Mysterio matches over the last 6 months and now think he's one of the best ever. But he's another guy that comes across as unconvincing and scripted (except the Punk stuff, which has been good). Maybe this isn't all his fault. I would be curious if you could go through a list of headliners of the 80s/90s and point out the wrestlers who you find less convincing than these guys. On WM 6, that was certainly a shit show and one that doesn't fit the description of mediocre. I wouldn't really have the desire to watch it from start to finish but I feel the same way about WM 26. I think WM 7 - 9 had multiple decent to good matches, though and would rank them ahead of this WM. But everything probably comes down to your enjoyment of current WWE and their style.

Well, I disagree completely. Personally, I still have more desire to watch a mediocre show from 89 or 93 than what is seen as a good show today. Outside of Punk and maybe Jericho, I couldn't even imagine a blander and less convincing set of personalities than what is seen in WWE today. You can probably get 20 different muscle heads off the street and program them to act and wrestle exactly like Cena and Batista. Also, the commentary is horrendous. And stylistically, other than Rey, it seems to me like everything is looped. It's like a college football team where they recruit different players but have them run the same plays. With all that said, plenty of people seem to like current wrestling, so what do I know?

Steamboat was a very good face wrestler. Great at selling, good mat worker, and really crisp in executing moves. On the other hand, his strikes could look weak and "fired up" Steamboat often seemed more corny than intense. There's a number of guys I'd rather watch, but I can't deny Steamboat was a great wrestler with a larger body of great matches.

I'm not sure if I understand your point. Comparing guys working in different environements is what people do all the time. If you voted in the SC Greatest Wrestler poll, which I believe you did, you had to engage in ranking different wrestlers working different styles and working different promotions. So if you indeed sent in a ballot, you're contradicting yourself here. I didn't vote based on who the better babyface was, I simply voted for what I thought the best matches were. That was a matches poll, not a workers poll. If someone says Rey Mysterio Jr. is the greatest WWE babyface worker ever and another guy reckons it's Tito Santana, that would actually make for a pretty cool argument, but I don't think it's as simple as listing matches. I was referring to the Greatest Wrestler Ever (or something like that) poll on the old SC board, not the Best WWF/E and WCW matches polls that have taken place in the last 2 years.