goodhelmet

WP, I'll be releasing a 4-5 disc Lawler best of set at the end of the month. I am only waiting for his AWA matches and it will be ready. If you look at Lawler's run from late 70s to early 90s, the man was phenomenal. Lawler had great runs/matches with... Bill Dundee Dutch Mantell Austin Idol Harley Race Ric Flair (best ten minute time limit draw I have seen w/ a great angle) Kimala (Yeah, friggin Kimala!) Randy Savage Kerry Von Erich Koko Ware (which I am having a hard time finding a good copy of) Bob Sweetan Nick Bockwinkle Curt Hennig That doesn't even include the feuds that he got over. That is strictly on in-ring work.

I think your ranking of Steamboat is absurd but I already know your dislike for his work so no real argument there. I think Bill Dundee may be too high because no one has been able to point me to any non-Jerry Lawler matches that could be argued as classics. Where's Rick Martel? I don't have the Eddie Gilbert love at all. I have watched a ton of his stuff and the angles, interviews, etc. are always entertaining but I can't think of one match that stands out that would represent who Eddie is as a wrestler the same way you could do that for Regal and the Finlay Uncensored match or the Benoit Pillman match.

In World Class, Brody was a special attraction but not necessarily a draw by himself. That territory was so hot because of the VE boys & Freebirds that anything else they brought in was just icing on the cake.

Who still collects tapes?

What the fuck is this... HHH the barbarian???? I didn't see the show but fuck.

Oh most definitely. I really need to start diving into my World Class stuff because there was real heat in those matches as well. Hell, almost anyone who has done a shoot interview and worked in Mid South has made the comment that real heat does not exist today. Bill Watts even mentions it in his book. We We knew it back then too but look at how much struggle a Gino Hernandez or Chris Adams put up before getting thier head shaved. The fans were going batshit. On the Cornette MX comp, there is a match from Houston between TA & Wrestling II vs. the MX. Cornette had worked the crowd up so much that after the match, the Houston officials finally stepped in to tell the MX to stop before they caused a riot. Shoe, if you have my Magnum TA comp, it should be on there.

Well, I will probably make an addendum to this for people who ordered the first set who buy more stuff from me. It will include more lucha, more puro and any other match people come up with or got left off the initial set.

I never heard about them blading thier ears but it is so obvious that Dusty bladed his arms.

The WM lineup- Not enough to make me pay $50. Not one match says "that is a must-see at all costs" match. Fit Finlay's comeback- I have mixed feelings as I do with anybody WWF pushes. On one hand, he has been getting alot of positive feedback from the net. On the other hand, I was watching his match with Benoit and it was so obvious that no one in the audience gave a shit about this guy. When the audio is cheering like crazy and the entire crowd is motionless, the piped-in heat kills me. Still, I think he is a breath of fresh air in a stale environment and I hope that those canned noises will soon be genuine. The ROH v CZW feud- Means nothing to me since I never cared about CZW in the first place.

I never heard the story of Tenryu blading his chest. That is fucking insane. also, I probably mistyped Shiosaki in the match listing so that is probably my bad.

VQ and Source?

Mike, how much Continental do you own?

I have become obsessed with the Mid South territory. So much so that I am thinking of starting a Mid South fan site. I enjoy Memphis but while I think the angles are on par with what was going on in Mid South, the wrestling actually featured on the Mid South TV and Power Pro shows was better than the little wrestling shown on Memphis TV. In order to get some high quality matches, you have to find some commercial tapes or some arena footage and there isn't that much complete footage out there. I have also been loving the hell out of World Class lately. Part of it may be the memories it brings back as a kid. The other part is that I just enjoy the matches. Also, this was a company putting its marquee stars against each other week in and week out.

I'm curious Will. Did you dislike the "head dropping" style because it was dangerous to the workers, or did you feel that those moves were being done at the expensive of more sound, mat based psychological wrestling moves? I actually enjoy the head-dropping when watching wrestling. However, I understand how it hurts the product. Inevitably, what happens (and we see it on the indy circuit all the time) is that wrestlers feel the need to create some new devastating maneuver. Why does Kobashi need the Diamondhead or Burning Hammer when he has won more matches with the Lariat? Why does Kawada need the Ganso Bomb when he has the Brainbuster and Powerbomb at his disposal? I can understand Misawa breaking out the Tiger Driver 91 in a big match to put away an opponent. That doesn't bother me. Dr. Death was breaking out backdrop drivers in the early 90s and they were killer. It isn't the head dropping that bothers me but the feeling that these guys started doing them for the sake of doing them, instaead of having to include a new weapon to put away a more powerful opponent. It bothered me that the Backdrop drivers that were used as a deadly weapon in the early 90s were used with regularity in the late 90s as transition moves. As for the Ganso Bomb, in the match, I actually liked the use of it. It was used as a counter and a dangerous one that fit within the context of the match. IT could have been the finish but with Kawada, you aways got the feeling he always needed to do more to finish off Misawa (since Misawa had always gotten the best of him) that I didn't mind that either. I have more of a problem with its use in the Muto matches where there was no respect for the move.

Because if you watch the match carefully, Misawa is trying to take Kawada over with a hurracanrana. Well, he gets trapped since Kawada isn't going anywhere so Misawa is actually dangling there.Kawada just says "Mother fucker, I feel like dropping you on your head" and he does. It illustrates All Japan head dropping at its worst. That would be like calling the Tiger Driver '91 a botched Tiger Driver... but it isn't.

Hey, I noticed you skipped Tenzan-Kojima!

I am watching Summerslam 90 right now and I knew I missed some WWF around this time but damn... Hulk Hogan and Big bossman teaming up? Earthquake and Dino Bravo teaming up? Hacksaw Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff teaming up? What the hell did I miss?

I agree completely with the assessment of Mistico-UG. It is a perfectly enjoyable match but not a MOTYC. However, when you get to the Perrito-Mistico match, I think you will have to decide where it will go in your Top Ten. For about 2 months, that match was my favorite match of 2005. Still, I will have to watch some of those matches more closely but Perro-Mistico will still be in my top 5.

The only problem with that line of thinking Dave is that over the last year I have picked up about 15 comps worth of WWE TV with nothing but wrestling. On those comps are 5 minute matches, 10 minute matches, 15 minute matches, 30 minute matches, etc. If they wanted to, they could have shown wrestling... and quality wrestling at that. They chose not to. When I tuned in, I saw hardcore crap that, looking back, seemed like a clip right of 2001.

I tuned in for about 10 minutes last night. I caught part of the street fight and when Shane and Shawn went through a table, I flipped the channel. Seriously, if I was someone who stopped watching in 2001, or whenever the bottom dropped out, and saw they were doing the exact same stuff 5 years later, why would I tune back in? And I am not piling on sek but there is no way you can spin that number as a positive... at all. The entire idea of showing up on network TV was to increase your exposure, yet the ratings are comparable, if not lower than a typical week of SD!. No new viewers, not all of your regular viewers. Where is the positive? That they went up against a basketball game that also had bad ratings?

OK, i have the Fans-MX roundtable and saw the Eaton-Lane version. I may have to pick that Eaton-Condrey one up.

Which shoot was this teke?