MikeCampbell

Are you talking about their match from August at the Kiel?

I guess jdw was Eddie Edwards' lone vote.

Zangiev worked a single against Takada, and a tag (with Hashimikov) against Yamazaki (with Anjo). Zangiev vs. Fujiwara or Tamura could have potentially ruled it hard!

Keiji Mutoh also fits the category. When he was motivated, like he was versus Hashimoto in '95, the result would be a top pick for best NJPW match of the decade. Other times, like vs. Takada in '95 and '96 . . . not so much.

I really liked the fact that the main event ended with Bryan going over Del Rio, given that Del Rio just went over Bryan cleanly a few weeks back.

Most likely the latter. I was so looking forward to seeing this when I got Will's Brad Armstrong comp, to say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

I'm sure that Hirohito wasn't the ONLY reason why they started billing them that way.

Kenzo Suzuki was supposed to come to the WWE in '04 as "Hirohito" and have programs with Jericho and/or Benoit playing up U.S. vs. Japan (hence Benoit being billed from Atlanta and Jericho from Manhasset).

My memory is probably exagerating it, but it seemed like every ROH show 2002-early 2004 or so would feature at least two or three spots where someone would get overhead suplexed into the corner.

Jeff Hardy from 2002-03. He was damn near sleepwalking through his matches.

What would Landell have been called, had he joined? Bud Landell? William Landell?

This is why I've mellowed out to the booking of running Van Dam vs. Mahoney at Anarchy Rulz '99, rather than going ahead with Van Dam vs. Johnny Smith. While the latter would have been a fresh match, it'd have most likely wound up not being all too different from what we got instead.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=3909 Storytelling really just comes down to how the viewer perceives the action.

Slickster and I watched the 11/30/91 MSG show not that long ago, and I think a couple matches from there warrant consideration. Hogan vs. Flair: The obvious follow up to Flair costing Hogan the title at Survivor Series (which I'm sure is earmarked to be included), and it features Flair KOing Hogan with knucks for a three count (followed the decision getting reversed). Nasty Boys vs. Rockers: A good match in itself, and also adds fuel to the Rockers dissension when Shawn accidentally (?) causes Marty to get pinned.

My father used to always call them "wimps." The funny thing is that when I was a kid and saw the old Piper/Mr. T angle on the set of A-Team, T called out Piper for only wrestling "wimps." So I assumed that was the actual term.

Didn't RVD/Sabu vs. Can Ams happen in ECW?

Holy shit, you don't say. I herd (ah !) about it before, but never actually saw it in execution. What a terrible idea. Look at this guy coming out with an army of kids to the ring. And he's taking off that kid's shirt ! Yeah, he should have team up with the Candyman, who "loves to give children candies.". Anyway, that Beetlejuice gimmick was embarrassing. Barr appeared to be a good worker, totally ahead of his time in 1990 WCW, but that character was destined to fail. Another case of WCW trying to outcartoon WWF. On the worthless debut aspect, J.W. Storm appears. And Moondog Rex is on TV). Fresh talent. And meanwhile, Orndorff who looked so good is already gone. Wonder why his comeback was so short. Same thing for Bam Bam, who appeared for a short period of time, did nothing of note, then vanished. What a bizarre period. I know Bigelow stayed in New Japan until the end of '92 when he went back to the WWF. Orndorff was back in '93 after doing a lot of good stuff in Smoky Mountain.

What about Tito? Steamer and Savage have the 'Mania III match, but were any of their other matches nearly as well received? (Honest question, BTW) The Tito/Savage IC Title feud in '86 produced quite a few well-received matches.

I don't really think it could realistically be notched up much more. It's not a matter of Hogan's jobs being clean, I don't think any top level babyface did that many clean jobs at the time in the WWF. But the fact that Hogan's jobs were spread out with more than a year and a half in between them, and the interim between jobs featured Hogan, belt or no belt, dominating in the ring and in the storylines. So, even if Hogan is going to have long title reigns by '00's standards, there needs to be some creative ways to get the title off him, without killing his Superman aura (which was a huge reason for his appeal in those days) and without screwing him over so much that he's basically Sting before Sting with how stupid he must be to keep getting screwed like that. I can see Piper getting a screwjob title win on the 2/18/85 MSG show on that aired on MTV. That was the same show that Orton hurt his arm on, so the cast is right there for how to do it. Then Hogan/Piper can headline WrestleMania for Hogan to get the title back. Or, if Vince feels like Mr. T wrestling in a must, then run the tag match and put Hogan over Piper in order to justify Hogan a rematch the next time at MSG. They actually ran MSG between 2/18 and 3/31 on 3/17, with Hogan and Piper not wrestling but doing a Piper's Pit. That would work just fine in this scenerio too, with the new champion bragging about his win and taunting the former champion leading to some sort of brawl.

Here's what I'm not entirely clear on. Are we just dropping the general hotshot booking down in the previous era? Or are we basically taking all of wrestling as we know it in 2011 (PPVs each month, live TV every week, all sorts of gimmick matches, etc) and moving back 30-35 years? In the previous era, the WWF Champion really didn't job. I believe that Flair was really the first WWF Champion to get beat like a rented mule around the horn. I can only think of four times Hogan layed down in 1984-93 and it "counted" (Hogan would sometimes job at house shows, only for it to get reversed for Flair getting caught with knucks or Bundy wanting the five count, which Hogan would then kick out from), 2/88 to Andre, 4/90 to Warrior, 11/91 to Undertaker, and 5/93 to Yokozuna. So, if we're saying that Piper, Bundy, Orndorff, Andre, DiBiase, etc. would have "definitely" gotten title runs, how are they actually getting the title from Hogan? Are we assuming that Piper is pinning Snuka to win a four way match that has Hogan and Orton involved? Is Orndorff cashing his his MITB contract on Hogan after Studd and Bundy beat him down? Or is Hogan simply more willing to do business in this new hotshot environment?

Funny enough, at Super Brawl II Jesse Ventura comments that if Ross wore a big cowboy hat that he'd look like JR Ewing.

There was also some fun stuff with Santino and the Honk-o-Meter, and a fun little Kofi Kingston/Paul Birchill IC Title feud. One of the final RAW's of the year had an eight or ten man tag, I forget how many there were, with this fun spot with Cena doing the Five Knuckle Shuffle at the same time Kofi did the Boom Drop.

Granted, this is totally from memory, almost four years ago now, but the early 2008 Jeff Hardy superpush, en route to Orton/Hardy at the Rumble that year was some of the best stuff going on in the WWE at the time.

Because "The total sports network" was apparently butt hurt at having wrestling on their channel, to the point that the people on Sports Center would poke fun at the AWA. So if the ratings got low enough, ESPN could cancel them.