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Frankensteiner

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Everything posted by Frankensteiner

  1. I'm not sure why you're trying to suggest that wrestlers don't get praised for working stiff when guys like Vader or the BattlArts mainstays have basically received a ton of praise because of their stiff, hard hitting style. Based on that one psychotic interview with Ikeda (or was it Ishikawa?) we know they take pride in working stiff. This is one reason I didn't have Ikeada on my list. I think it's very relevant, but the issue is that we're unable to tell who actually hurts their opponent and who doesn't (other than the self-admission by Ikeda, or when opponents criticize guys like Vader and Goldberg...) I agree that some guys hit hard and it doesn't look great. But on average, I'd say it's far easier to make things look good when you're actually hitting harder.
  2. I don't care about guys working safe. To me, that's an issue between workers and has little to do with my experience as a viewer. I completely understand why it's relevant to wrestlers when they talk about who's good, and I find that kind of analysis interesting in its own way. It's just not something I thought about for one second in the context of this project. I think it's relevant. Wrestlers get points for working stiff while others get deducts for working loose. There's obviously a certain art to it. Plenty of guys would probably be considered better offensive wrestlers if they did not care about protecting their opponents. The problem is it's difficult to discern who's actually hurting their opponent. I still personally ranked Vader above Michaels partially because Vader is better offensively, but if Michaels was as careless as Vader (by all accounts) with his strikes, he probably would be looked at more favorably in terms of offense.
  3. not the only example of Kobashi being excessive. It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling. When I watch those matches, I get the feeling they continue on and on (...and on and on) long past any sensible point. In fact, I get the feeling that it's 3 or 4 matches crammed into one. It's like the Crash TV version of match building.
  4. I had Bret at #3 and Kobashi didn't make my list. But I am a person who considers AJ 90's style excessive and at times almost unwatchable. Misawa and Kawada made my list because they have qualities I appreciate despite the style but Kobashi is someone who embodies the excess of that style in the most negative ways possible.
  5. I think there will be more. I have 2 British guys in my top 13 and they're not any of the above names. It's not Rocco either who I'm guessing is going to make the list as well.
  6. Surprised I was the highest voter for van Buyten given Jetlag's hard sell. He probably benefited from being the guy I binged on prior to submitting the list but, even with that, I figured others (and Jetlag especially) would have him ranked higher.
  7. Mine would be Perro Aguayo vs. Jerry Lawler sometime between 83-84. I thought Loss meant if the GWE list were a dating database, which other wrestling nerd would be your date based on voting preferences.
  8. Ballot submitted. I enjoyed reading all the comments and regret not posting more myself. Going through my list, just about everyone after the top 15 ended up much higher than I thought initially when sort of ranking these guys in my head. Some guys were actually shockingly high and guys who I thought would struggle to make my list made it with plenty of room to spare.
  9. Frankensteiner

    Cesaro

    If we're judging WWE workers by how their work appeals to the casual 8 year olds in John Cena t-shirts, then how do you evaluate someone like Regal or Finlay? Regal worked a mat based style with a focus on strikes and suplexes. This is not a style that is especially in demand by the casual WWE audience (it's not really a style that is in demand by the hardcore WWE audience either). Should Regal be penalized because he's working a style that is incongruent with the audience and the general aims of the promotion?
  10. I re-watched a lot of Bryan's main run recently and what struck me was how much more I enjoyed him as a worker in 2011-2012 rather than the big run he had in 2013-2014. There's a little too much excess there with the repeated crazy dives, big moves, etc for my liking. He was almost working as a caricature of himself to go along with the long hair and beard image. I'm probably on an island with this, but in terms of WWE style workers, Punk's main run from Money in the Bank 2011 to SummerSlam 2013 was better than Bryan's main run from 2013 to retirement.
  11. Duggan and Slaughter come to mind right away. Sarge is pretty safe on my list but there is a big gap between his top-end stuff and the next tier down. Also Yamamoto in RINGS is a good choice too. Best matches against Tamura, Han, TK, Maeda, etc. are all spectacular.
  12. I will come back to this later, but as I said in the other thread, I rank Bret higher because of his versatility and variety of opponents. The other thing is I really don't see where Steamboat was an elite worker for longer. Steamboat's peak was '89 - '94 whereas Bret's was '92 - '97, pretty similar although there was more inactivity for Steamboat during that period. There's really not much difference in Steamboat prior to '89 vs. Bret prior to '92. They were good to great workers, but not elite. Their match together in Boston would rank in the same spot on both guys best matches list pre-peak. Both were similar in that they peaked in their mid to late 30s.
  13. There's plenty and JVK already hit on some of them but here's others (dates are to the best of my recollection): vs. Eaton - WCWSN 12/14/91 vs. Arn - Pro 3/28/92 vs. Vader - Worldwide 5/15/93 (I didn't really like any of the other matches they had on WCWSN) vs. Pillman - WCWSN 2/20/93 Lumberjack Steamboat is obviously terrific but it should be noted that, in comparison to similar contemporaries like Martel, Tito, and Bret, he's had by far the best opponents at their absolute peak (i.e. 89 Flair, 89 Funk, 89 Luger, 92 Rude, 92 Arn, 93 Windham, 93 Vader, 93 Regal). Are there any matches where's he's had limited opponents and produced something memorable? With Martel and Bret, I think they were more versatile with the opponents they had to work with. And when you compare Steamboat and Tito in the same setting and similar opponents in '84-'88 WWF, I think Tito looked much better. I have all of them ahead of Steamboat. Steamboat is still a top 50 guy though.
  14. I don't know that I agree there. Bret/Austin really ended in July after the 10-man where Austin moved on to Owen. Bret/Shawn started in December 96 and went through to Montreal (you can even trace the beginning of the feud all the way back to February '96). The fact that they didn't have proper matches until November shouldn't mean they weren't feuding. It was pretty clear they were always building to a match at several points only to have it be derailed by injuries. And Survivor Series 97 did better business-wise than any of the Bret/Austin PPVs.
  15. Wasn't there just news about Bryan trying to give notice to WWE only to find out he couldn't because of an injury clause? I don't keep up with news very much so that could be bullshit... but if he wants out, would announcing his retirement be another avenue to get out of the contract?
  16. The other cool thing I liked about that spot is that it was a riff on the semi-regular spot he had where he got launched into the barricade. Only now there's a table there instead as a landing spot.
  17. Bret gets value for smart in the ring and finishes, because look at the others in the WWF at the same time who both had Vince, Patterson and the WWF office. None of them are anywhere near his level or even stand out as particularly good at it. You don't think Savage was a great finish guy? I think if you thought about this for a bit you'd find there are a lot of great finishes to WWF matches in the period that Bret was active 85-97. I think the only guy who can compete with Bret on finishes in the WWF/E is Mysterio. I don't think Savage's matches really had as many great finishes as you think. I would argue the Steamboat match and the Flair match at WM 8 are up there. The Warrior retirement match was pretty memorable for how decisive it was, and I guess it was a great finish for what they were going for, but what else? Then I'm really drawing a blank on the other great finishes in that time period. All of Hogan's biggest matches ended with a legdrop, Shawn's were mostly SCM (I would argue the Diesel IYH finish was great for that match), etc. Tito slamming the cage door on Valentine was great... but overall, I just can't think of any one wrestler who consistently had finishes on Bret's level.
  18. Well, you have other people in the thread saying the Garvin title win was one of the greatest Crockett matches of all time, so it will be interesting to see where OJ falls on that one. My post was in reference to the above mentioned praise of the match. I know people here are fairly high on Flair, and I figured the match would have its fans, but the talk of this being a top 10 match was pretty stunning to me. I see it up there with the Starrcade Luger match as far as overrated Flair matches go. As I recall, OJ agreed with some of the comments I made regarding that match so I'm curious what he thinks here.
  19. I guess you will need to find out for yourself, but that cage match where Garvin wins the belt is pretty bad. Completely meandering and needlessly long, the kind of match where you wish Flair and Garvin had an editor or agent trimming half the fat off. I think the match exposed that these guys were probably better off going 15-20 minutes instead of 30+. Flair & Garvin were amazing going at it in the studio match, and outside of Flair's promos, that was unfortunately the high point of the feud. The cage match at Starrcade was pretty good too because they kept it under 20 minutes.
  20. I think the last two are shoots. Not sure about the first, but possible shoot as well.
  21. All my best to you and your family during this difficult time.
  22. 1992 had a fair amount of changes too. Obviously Perfect for Warrior, but also Bulldog/Mountie was canceled, and the Nasty Boys ended up replacing the Bushwhackers in the Survivor Series match. Also, Bret/Shawn was champion vs champion but I think when the match was first announced neither guy had their belt yet (Shawn didn't for sure).
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  24. To be fair, I don't think race had anything to do with it. The Man Mountain Rock and Rad Radford music gimmicks were just as shitty.
  25. I took a stab at getting a preliminary list together. I easily came up with about 130 names, although putting together a Top 25 is proving to be more difficult. The locks for my top 25 are the following (listed in alphabetical order): Atlantis Bret Hart CM Punk El Dandy Genichiro Tenryu Kiyoshi Tamura Marty Jones Mitsuharu Misawa Nick Bockwinkel Randy Savage Rick Martel Shinya Hashimoto Steve Grey Tatsumi Fujinami Volk Han
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