elliott

Check out Vader vs Steamboat 10/16/93 Saturday Night lumberjack match for a really good Vader match outside the usual suspects.

It is absolutely insane how great JCP was. I kinda forgot. So glad you guys are doing this project.

Thanks for posting all of these reviews Will! And I was glad to see that note about Phil & Shoe's thoughts on this match, because I was blown the fuck away by this match. This and the Starrcade match are both top 10 contenders on my list and their GAB match is awesome too. I've not been in love with Arn the singles wrestler in 85/86 (compared to his peers in JCP), but that trio of tag matches really knocked my socks off. 1986 Ricky Morton just churned out great matches.

Fixed the dates and added cities on the above recommendations, thanks to Paul's work. I kept the 9/22/86 WPW 6 man air date the same because Paul wasn't totally certain whether the match was 8/3 or 8/12. For those wondering, all of these matches are from GH's 4 Horsemen, Midnight and RnR Express comps and should be relatively easy to find.

The 1/19/86 Flair/Garvin match from Atlanta that I recommended is on GH's old 4 Horsemen set and goes to a double count-out after around 25 min. There is some clipping, but it doesn't seem like we're missing over half of the match. "Clippedish" is how I noted it on my running list. Their 3/29/86 Cage match is also one to go out of your way to see.

Thanks for updating the list Zubaz! I'm a bit behind you, but have some recommendations I'd love to see get consideration. 1986 was absolutely loaded. Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Atlanta 1/19/86) Midnight Express vs Rock n Roll Express (SOTS 2/7/86) Dusty Rhodes vs Arn Anderson (Cage Match WPW 2/23/86) Ric Flair vs Magnum TA (WPW 2/23/86) Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes (Handheld 3/9/86) Dusty Rhodes & Wahoo McDaniel vs Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (Bullrope & Strap Match - Greensboro 3/29/86) Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Cage Match - Greensboro 3/29/86) Dusty Rhodes vs Tully Blanchard (Texas Death Match - Charlotte 4/26/86) Midnight Express vs Rock n Roll Express (World Pro 4/12/86) Dusty Rhodes & Wahoo McDaniel vs Ric Flair & Tully Blanchard (Bullrope & Strap Match - Charlotte WPW 4/12/86) Ric Flair vs Ricky Morton (Cage Match - Roanoke WPW 7/11/86) Tully Blanchard vs Ronnie Garvin (Taped Fist Match - GAB 7/26/86 Rock & Roll Express & Magnum TA vs Ric Flair, Ole & Arn Anderson (Elimination Match - WPW 9/22/86) Rock & Roll Express vs Midnight Express (Handheld 8/16/86) Ron Garvin vs Big Bubba (Atlanta Street Fight - Starrcade 11/27/86) Dusty Rhodes vs Tully Blanchard (First Blood - Starrcade 11/27/86) Road Warriors vs Midnight Express (Scaffold Match - Starrcade 11/27/86) Rock & Roll Express vs Ragin' & Ravishin' (WorldWide 12/20/86) Ric Flair vs Nikita Koloff (Handheld - Cincinnati 1/4/87) Rock & Roll Express vs Ragin' & Ravishin' (Worldwide 2/87) Midnight Express vs Barry Windham & Ron Garvin (Pro 2/21/87)

I really hope people give Flair/Steamboat 3/17/84 a close look. I thought it was the level of their 89 matches the last time I watched it. I'll have Piper/Valentine Dog Collar and Wargames 87 in some order at the top. Some of the matches that haven't been mentioned yet that I'm looking at in the 3-10 range are: Piper vs Valentine 7/83 RnR's vs Russians 7/9/85 Final Conflict Tully vs Ron Garvin 5/3/86 I haven't gotten there yet in my rewatching, but I expect the 9/87 Flair/Garvin title change will do well. I watched a cage match between them from 3/30/86 that I thought was really great and is something I'll revisit again later in the project. On the first watch I saw it as a top 10 sort of contender.

What are folks' early project top 5-10 contenders?

I didn't want to post a big list of recs because Zubaz said he was trying to start them out slowly to keep discussion moving. Pretty much everything I would have recommended for the 90s have been nominated except for a few, so I figured I'd add those and hold off on 80s recs for now. I did include one 70s match though because I just watched it and didn't want to forget it. So I'd put these matches up for consideration: Greg Valentine vs Wahoo 9/7/77 Barry Windham vs Brian Pillman Taped Fist Superbrawl 5/19/91 Vader vs Ricky Steamboat 4/24/93 Vader vs Ricky Steamboat Lumberjack Match 10/16/93 Larry Zbysko vs Steven Regal Slamboree 5/22/94 Terry Funk vs Tully Blanchard Slamboree 5/22/94 Vader vs Hacksaw Duggan Starrcade – 12/27/97 Steven Regal vs Fit Finlay Parking Lot Brawl – 4/29/96 Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs Lex Luger & Giant – 7/13/97 Also I saw on the Google Doc Criteria: "- If a match or event was promoted by Jim Crockett or Ted Turner owned-WCW it counts for this project." Does that mean the AAA/IWC When World's Collide show is acceptable, because it was promoted on WCW. If so I'd include El Hijo del Santo & Octagon vs Eddy Guerrero & Love Machine Double Mask vs Double Hair 11/6/94 Perro Aguayo vs Konnan Steel Cage 11/6/94 I think that would cover the 90s for me.

Cool. I will work on putting together a big list of 80s recommendations later for JKWebb to add to his master list (thanks for starting that!). There are some major things missing so far. The first WarGames hasn't been mentioned and that's either my # 1 or 2. For those of us non-Facebook users, I propose we use the Greatest Matches Ever forum: http://gweproject.freeforums.net/ Also, unless I missed it in the thread, is it a top 50 matches, top 100?

Fantastic! Thanks for posting this!

I think the historical candidates should be treated more like the veterans committee for the baseball HOF. A limited number of voters not open to just everyone. Bearcat Wright got 125 votes for 48%. That seems like a lot of people voting in the historical bucket. I agree the way it would work as you describe it is silly. Especially when people voting for historical candidates now could also just vote for Slaughter (for example) now too if they thought he was worthy.

All of the votes? I'm curious what Dave's fundamental point is here? That Slaughter belongs in? That Slaughter doesn't belong in? That waiting and judging a wrestler's career after the highpoint of their career is a better way to glean historical perspective than rushing to judgment during their peak and thus the voters are correct not to vote in Slaughter? Or the opposite? Its bizarre. I know "wrestlers never retire" but no other Hall of Fame works even remotely close to this. I will never understand why he thinks it is a good idea. And remember, the reason for the original 35 yrs old or 10 yrs experience was due to the forced early retirement for the 70s & 80s AJW wrestlers...so this major flaw was created for the sake of about 10 candidates...some of whom had already unretired and were regularly working again. I also disagree with the idea that there won't be viable candidates moving forward. We could search through the wrestlingclassics WON forum and find quotes from 15 years ago of people saying the exact same thing, but at least one modern wrestler has been voted in every single year except for 2008. It also suggests that all the historical candidates are in. Mark Lewin, The Sharpe Brothers, Pedro Morales, the Assassins, Eddie Quinn, Ray Fabiani have all gone in over the past 4 years. Hans Schmidt didn't even make it on the ballot until 2007, when he was 82 years old. Historians noted him as a possibly overlooked candidate, did the research and built a case for him and he was eventually voted in. Backlund went from 10 votes in 1998 to 110 votes in 2004 because more information became available, people considered it and voted for him. I think most people now would agree that Backlund absolutely belongs in. There has been successful and unexplored wrestling from all over the world. How many of us were familiar with Martin Karadagian in the years before he went in. If folks were really concerned with a lack of viable candidates going forward, they could start holding the historical candidates to the same low standard of the modern guys. When the Ultimo Dragon of the 1930s goes in, Dave should shut it down.

Dave's obit on JYD is one of the best things he's ever written.

this sounds amazing. is it online?

Have Kandori or Megumi Kudo ever been on the ballot? If Hayabusa is on the ballot, Kudo really seems like someone who needs to be considered and looked at. Arn & Tully "w/ JJ Dillon" specifically is weird. So should the Brainbusters run not be considered? Just put the 4 Horsemen on the ballot and be done with it. Wouldn't Tully be a better candidate on his own?

My roommate cried during Rampage. It was quite a moment.

I absolutely love this match. I watched all of the 2000/2001 Lucha PPV's a couple of years ago and this was the biggest surprise. I made Matt D watch it a while back and he described it as Lucha's Austin vs Dude Love.

Financial reasons is part of it. AJPW had a streak in Tokyo from like late 1990-1995 or 96 where they sold out every single show. By 1998 that wasn't happening and I'm pretty sure the non-Tokyo shows were down as well. They still did good business, but were not longer automatic sell-outs. As OJ alluded to, I think the main thing people were referencing was staleness. You might not see a huge difference between 1991 AJPW and 1998 in terms of the main event matches. But check out the June Budokan cards from 1991 vs the June 1998 card. June 1991: Ismu Teranishi pinned Mitsuo Momota (9:50). Mighty Inoue pinned Mike Golden (5:59). Joel Deaton & Randy Rose beat Motoshi Okuma & Haruka Eigan (10:38). Buddy Lee Parker & James Earl Weight beat Yoshinori Ogawa & Richard Slinger (12:23). All-Asian Tag Champs Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas beat Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (20:58) when Kroffat pinned Kikuchi. Giant Baba, Masa Fuchi, & Rusher Kimura beat Abdullah the Butcher & Giant Kimalas 1 # II (13:03) when Baba pinned Kimala II. Steve Williams pinned Toshiaki Kawada (20:46). Mitsu Misawa pinned Terry Gordy (21:18). All Japan World Tag Champs Stan Hansen & Danny Spivey beat Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (15:40) when Spivey pinned Taue. June 1998: Takeshi Morishima & Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Makato Hashi & Kentaro Shiga (9:46). PWF Junior Heavyweight Champ Maunukea Mossman pinned Satoru Asako (10:12). Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinori Ogawa beat Gedo & Jado (10:28). Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura, & Mitsuo Momota beat Jun Izumida, Haruka Eigan, & Masa Fuchi (9:35). Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield beat Masao Inoue & Takao Omori (14:13) when Williams pinned Inoue. Johnny Smith & Johnny Ace beat Giant Kimala II & David Heath (8:18). Akira Taue beat Bobby Duncum, Jr. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama beat Tamon Honda & Jun Akiyama (7:15) when Albright pinned Honda. Kenta Kobashi beat Toshiaki Kawada (33:49) to win the All Japan Triple Crown. The 1991 card is much deeper with 4 legitimately interesting looking matches. The 1998 card is a terrible show outside of the main event. We can agree or disagree on the quality of the Kawada vs Kobashi match, but the truth is that match had been run for 5 years by that point so it makes sense that folks would complain of staleness. I wouldn't "blame" the pillars & Akiyama for the staleness of the promotion at all to be frank. It was all about booking. The main event guys did the best they could to keep things interesting. I agree and disagree with OJ about whether or not Baba should have worked with other companies in the late 90s. I would have liked to have seen it as a fan and knowing what we know now about Japan back then (the AJPW split and everyone co-promoting with everyone) they really should have done it. It probably would have helped the key guys stay healthier because instead of Misawa & Kobashi pushing each other further and further in matches to keep things interesting, you'd get Misawa vs Takada or Tenryu vs Kobashi sort of matches where they don't have this history of having 30+ minute matches. But I get the point about business dipping post interpromotional feuds.

Looking forward to your thoughts, OJ!

Fujiwara had as many matches as ric flair. Kandori had as many matches as Steve Austin and Eddie guerrero combined. That's neat

Hahahabahahah. Terry is the best. The set includes a Terry promo hyping a match against Invader 1 where Terry promises use his thumb to pop out Invader's eye.

We're going to make it an annual project, so please recommend stuff! I am willing to give anything a shot!

I watched every 80s set and had more fun watching PR than any other set. Y'all should make this happen

This is fascinating