elliott

I kinda can't help but chuckle at Nintendologics comment about strong offense being able to overcome terrible selling and then citing Vader as an example since the rhetoric that has surrounded the Hogan vs Vader series is that Hogan's no selling of the Powerbomb hurt Vader's mystique. I voted for selling and it isn't even close when the question is framed this way. But at the same time, I can't help but think they way we look at selling is flawed. To me, selling is about more than "ow, my X, that hurts." Selling exists in offense and body language as well as simply "OW, my leg." We never talk about it in this way and I think its a potential missed opportunity for some interesting discussion. When HBK starts off a match against a bigger opponent and he is ducking out of the way for lockups and coming up with jabs on the other side to show how he's quicker & smarter than his opponent is selling his strategy. When Kazunari Murakami is staring down Yuki Ishikawa with the most preposterous sneer imaginable, he is selling his assholishness. When Stan Hansen charges at guys throwing wild blows, it isn't just Stan Hansen on offense way-laying dudes. It is the man Stan Hansen selling the wrestler Stan Hansen and that is how the wrestler Stan Hansen goes after people. So yeah, I know we talk about selling in terms of taking damage and reacting to that damage, but I think there is more to it than that. Offense is intertwined with selling in more ways than simply taking a move and acting like it hurt. But just thinking about how we normally talk about selling. It is so far and away more important than offense.

You should definitely pick it up no matter what, but I'm down to do something if you want! PR or whatever. With the success of Between the Sheets, worst case scenario we could read old dvdvrs

Did you get it? I'd be down for that and don't have the time restrictions Matt does because I don't ever sleep.

Very cool idea.

When I first watched Invader I vs Ron Starr my immediate thought was "Wait...was that the best match ever? I gotta watch that again. " Invader's selling & comebacks just work for me on a level really only Sangre Chicana can compare to. I was sending Dylan a message about how much i liked the set and especially the match while I was watching Invader vs Perez and I said something like "ANd now I'm watching this AL Perez match, are you fucking kidding?" Those are my #1 & 2. Glad you dug the Terry matches too. Disc 3 is where its at!

Aw man, I'm sorry to hear that. But we all have our flaws. Really though, I haven't watched a baseball game in over 10 years but I'm still rooting for the Cubs. Good luck!

This is the first match I'd call 5 stars. I seriously think Invader 1's selling after the chair shot all the way to the finish might be my favorite selling I've ever seen.

This sounds awesome.

Thank you for the time stamps. Amazon game just isn't my thing.

We should all be pestering Matt & Stacey about this. Pretty sure the head honchos at PTBN probably came up with this idea as a not so subtle hint to the Parejas Increibles

Yeah feel free to move it over here. And if you, or anyone, wants to post the Gordy list on wrestling classics by all means go for it. I know there are more voters there that probably aren't coming here and I don't have an account there

To be fair as I said above, I still think the 1/20/97 match is a classic. I also feel the same about the 96 tag league. I've avoided 6/9/95 like the plague because of how much I disliked the 4 corners tags other than 12/3/93. I'm abnormally tired so I'll make a more ridiculous post probably tomorrow, but to quickly address Parv, yes I probably hit on the headdropping too much but its really part of the bigger problem which is excess. What they're doing combined with how long they're doing it too each other. My 2 favorite 90s All Japan matches are Hansen vs Kobashi 7/93 and Kobashi & Kikuchi vs Can Ams 5/92.

I think his peak is probably 2010-the end in my eyes. I think he definitely has some great stuff in between his days as a great young wrestler and his WWE run, but I thought the ROH stuff I watched was really hit or miss. Its a really ambitious run to be sure and impressive in that regard and also in the fact that he always worked his fucking ass off and you've got to respect that. His work ethic, ambition, and such a wide base of knowledge led to a situation where when he nailed it, he fucking nailed it and had some really great matches. But when he missed you're left with something like the Nigel series that I know has its fans but I genuinely hated. And that was long match after long match which is going to irritate me more than a few bad or average 15 minute long matches. I'm willing to lay a large part of the blame on Nigel, but there's other stuff like vs Tyler Black & Davey that I also really didn't like. I do like his WWE run quite a bit. I think he is awesome when he first shows up and making MIz work a match like he's Munenori Sawa. Shit like that is more impressive to me than 40 minutes of Nigel. People should really go back and rewatch those very early Bryan in WWE matches because they're fascinating. I think he generally kills is in WWE. My KENTA Lite criticism isn't a real criticism actually. He's much better than KENTA and generally has terrific chemistry/matches with Sheamus, Henry, Punk, Orton, and really anybody. I think he crafted an all time great hot tag formula. I found him much more consistent in WWE than on the indy's because he was able to figure out a way to fit his wide array of wrestling knowledge into the framework of the WWE house style. When left to his own devices he can sometimes deliver an incredible match and sometimes an utterly soul crushing match. The worst part about the bad matches (like again the whole Nigel series) is that you can see something great hiding underneath all the shit trying to get out. But there's just too much shit. I can't really blame them as people or anything like that. Their fans paying to go to the shows loved it and wanted to see those epic 30 minute matches with a million nearfalls. That doesn't mean I have to like it after the fact My comparison to KENTA is troubling to me because it seems like between basically stealing that guy's entire...literally everything...but when you combine that with his working in the WWE formula, it just seems like he wasn't his own man anymore. Guys like Rey Jr, Eddy, or Benoit, even when they went to WWE and had to adapt their styles to to the framework of the WWE style, they still managed to feel like Rey Jr or Eddy. They stood out. Daniel Bryan, really after a certain point he just felt like KENTA adapting his style to fit the framework of the WWE house style and still managed to feel like KENTA...but was actually Daniel Bryan. Almost like Dick Slater ripping off Terry Funk but the opposite of that entirely because Daniel Bryan figured out how to be KENTA better than KENTA. I thought early on in WWE he really stood out as being this totally unique worker and it was awesome watching him try to hold onto that pseudo BattlArts style he was working and making it work in WWE while trying to figure out what was going to work for him on the big stage. And eventually I guess he's like "eh, fuck it, I'll just do what KENTA does" but you can do that shit in 12 minutes. 37 minutes is another thing entirely. So its a backhanded compliment maybe? Something like that. I don't know what to do with the end of his career in a lot of ways to be honest. . Should he have adapted to work a safer style that would perhaps prolong his career? Yes absolutely. We all know he was an awesome mat worker who could do compelling shit on the mat in a Regal sort of way. Regal's opponent didn't actually have to be all that good a mat worker for him to figure out how to cool interesting shit with him. But the unknown question is when it was too late for Bryan in terms of changing his style for his long term benefit? Given that it was literally right after Mania XXX which was his crowning night in the business, you have to assume he needed to change his style up not just after coming back from surgeries, but way before that. Presuming he was reluctant to change up his style because he was having his greatest professional success, I totally understand that and hindsight is 20/20 and we all have different perspectives. It sucks that his career ended when it did because I think we were yet to see the best he was capable of. Daniel Bryan retired at 34. Flair turned 34 in 1983 Terry Funk turned 34 in 1978 Hansen turned 34 in 1983 That's the top 3 in GWE. Bryan retired at an age when most wrestlers are just starting to have their peak. I don't think we actually got to see his peak. I mean we did based on his actual career we can point to it and say "This is his peak." But I think if Bryan didn't get hurt, we were about to see the best run of his career. All time great match against Cena at SummerSlam, series with Orton which was full of terrific matches and "Fuck you" finishes, that Bray Wyatt match that was so good there's not another Bray singles match in the same universe, all building to the zenith that was the HHH match. The Kane match was shockingly good. And then poof. Gone. The Reigns match was fucking awesome when he came back but there he is the next month doing the dumbest spot ever and he's then gone. I mean, Cena match, Orton series, Bray match, HHH match, Reigns match were insanely great. He was about to have his real peak. None of that last part is to denigrate him as a worker. I just want to make that clear. Its just to say it sucks what happened. Now officially every internet wrestling fan has made a sad about Daniel Bryan retiring post. If I had to explain my feelings on Bryan Danielson the professional wrestler in one catchy, easy to remember phrase it would be: I think Bryan Danielson was a great wrestler but I liked him more as KENTA in WWE than as Bryan Danielson on the indies. Dear god, no, I'm moving on to Misawa... I deny it! All of it! Invoking Biglav and bringing that back into my life only makes it worse! (these are jokes...just to be clear) Its kinda funny that we agree he was the 3 or 4th best pillar through 93, because thinking more about it, there's more Misawa singles matches I like from 92/93 than post 95. I dig the first MIsawa vs Kawada match. There's a champion carnival match from 3/7/93 between the two that I'd never seen before I watched it for GWE when I was watching All Japan stuff and I loved it. Everyone says they didn't match up well, but I enjoyed his 92 match with Hansen. I like the Jumbo matches too. The further away he gets from playing underdog against Hansen & Jumbo and "The Man" against Kobashi & Kawada, the less I like the matches and a lot of that has to do with his (and Kobashi's, and Baba, and other factors) pushing the style in a direction that I tended to not like. That's a general rule but not a 100% rule. And honestly the very peak best stuff where they were really starting to dip their toes into the stuff I didn't like but were still holding on to the prior shit I did like a little more, that's when they had the best stuff. Something like 6/3/94? Absolutely one of the best matches ever. Misawa vs Williams from I think September 94 (the TC CHange) is great. I love the two famous Taue matches from 95 and the Carny match against Kawada where he breaks his face was actually probably great because he broke his face. But Misawa vs Kawada as a single falls apart after 94. I cannot explain how I have a weird problem with All Japan being too big and ridiculous and still like 1/20/97 but I love that shit to this day. I can't do Misawa vs Kobashi after that. Or any Misawa vs Akiyama match. I'm struggling to think of a single Misawa match after 1/97 that I really like, and I feel like there's at least one with Takayama but I honestly can't think of another. There are a number of tag matches of his I like actually even going into his NOAH days. But I'm struggling to think of big singles matches I've enjoyed on any level. Its not just MIsawa. Its Kobashi and Kawada too. Less so Taue because I can point to a few more things I like with Taue. It was really funny when I saw Dylan saying WWE did "Self Conscious Epics" because I thought that exact same thing rewatching that stuff I just wasn't really ready to talk about it because I was taken aback by the fact that these matches I always thought were great were suddenly matches I was rolling my eyes at all these ridiculous spots. I kinda feel like I get what OJ talks about when he says he's finished with a wrestler. He always referenced Bret or Hokuto and now I get it. I don't really want to watch Misawa vs Kawada against because every time I do I like it a little less and the wrestlers annoy me a little more and I'd rather like more wrestlers than less and if that means not watching their matches in order to still like them, so be it. I think most people would say late 93-1/97 is a fair, if not conservative description of is peak. I think I'd agree with that. Maybe pushing it into early 94, but lets say late late 93...That's not a very long peak is it? 3 1/2 years? I mean. That's pretty good. Daniel Bryan might have just had a decade plus as the best in the world. Ric Flair's 80s? I don't think that Misawa was the best in the world from late 93-1/97. I've said several times I think Tamura was the best wrestler in the world from 94-99, and there are several others I'd rank above MIsawa during this time period. Anyway, my point just objectively, is that 3 1/2 years isn't all that long I agree with you about Misawa having a great presence and I'd agree that he'd be 10/10 in that wack system. Shit, I think I argued with Parv for it. But Hashimoto and Tenryu were just as compelling chopping each other to death as Misawa/Kobashi were dropping each other on their heads, you know, if not more so.

So, its later now. I almost don't know which one to start with. I flipped a coin. Bryan goes first. Ok, its still tough. So, here's the deal, I still absolutely love a lot of early indy American Dragon/Danielson. I think the Low Ki matches absolutely hold up as great matches (I haven't rewatched KOI, but I've watched the Super 8, Steamboat Match & Submission match within the last 3 months). I rewatched those on a Low-Ki binge and came away thinking "Yeah, I prefer Low-Ki but I'm not willing to say he's absolutely better than Bryan in this era." Bryan was a lot more polished and while Ki was as well in many ways, I think there's a lot more untapped potential watching young Low-Ki than Young Bryan. Young Bryan was basically already a great worker and you could tell he was going to get even better but you sort of knew what he was going to be (as a worker, not as a star). Young Ki, gosh that dude was just overflowing with potential and he could have done a lot more not just as a star but as a worker. The early Bryan matches with Spanky and Regal I think hold up as well. Stuff like that I really enjoy. The ROH stuff really wore me down though. For every match I liked, I found another 2-3 that I just couldn't get through. I thought the Nigel matches were terrible matches. He's maybe the best example of a wrestler where I like what he does, I like long portions of his matches, but by the end of them I find myself thinking "I hate this and just want it to end." The criticisms that people have lobbed at that mid 00s indy run of going eight to forty minutes too long is a very real thing. Was it ambitious? Absolutely. Impressive? Sure on some level. Was he having MOTYC's every show. FUCK NO. I started to like him again towards the end of the decade when he was popping up in Evolve and getting away from the "Super Indy" style of wrestling and back to a more William Regal combined with BattlArts stylistic feel. I imagine when people look back at his WWE run they're going to talk about how wasted he was for the first few years working guys like Miz or Dolph Ziggler or Ted Dibiase. Uh, here's the thing, that's Bryan at his peak to me. Carrying the Miz in 2010 to a legit very good match based completely around submission work? That is impressive. Getting very good matches out of Ted Dibiase? This dude figured out how to have a compelling 3 way "submissions count anywhere" match with Miz & John Morrison? As the WWE run continued, I think he got worse and worse in some ways. He was still having good-great matches. The Sheamus 2/3 Falls match was a legit great match. The Cena match is my pick for the best match in the history of the company. The HHH match is so far and away HHH's best match its comical. There's a lot of entertaining stuff and he's very consistent. I ranked this dude in the top 30 for my GWE poll almost entirely on the strength of that WWE run. But as I was watching a ton of Modern wrestling post project (Got and watched all of Will's MOTYC sets and poked around the internet for other stuff as well), I realized that Bryan in WWE was an experiment to answer the question of "Would KENTA be good if all of this matches were 10-15 minutes instead of 25-45 minutes?" Because that's what Bryan evolved into. He slowly just became the US version of KENTA only working 1/3 as long. The matches were certainly better than KENTA's nightmarish marathon matches and I think he still had some holy shit level great matches. But by and large I'm less impressed with that WWE run after having to sit through all those KENTA matches. One final note, and I'll kinda use this to bridge over to Misawa...I thought that WM IC Title match where he and Ziggler (I think it was Dolph) were doing the dueling headbutts on top of the ladder that everyone dug at the time was one of the dumbest fucking spots I've ever seen. I care about adaptability in a wrestler, maybe not as much as Matt as evidenced by our Stan Hansen discussions (which Matt is obviously wrong about ), but it is important. It is a big reason Terry Funk & El Satanico are my #1 & #2. Coming back after major, career threatening neck surgery and a shocking history of concussions only to pull out a spot like those dueling headbutts just to pop the crowd is so fucking stupid that I can't even believe it. In general, I think Bryan was a great wrestler, but I'd have him more around 75-80 now instead of top 30. Jumping over to Misawa. That's sort of my biggest criticism of All Japan in general and Misawa specifically. I think the repeated headdropping spots are awful. Again, I get the appeal and I was right there with everyone else. But the more I think about it and the more I watch stuf like Dick Murdoch vs The Nightmare, the deeper down the list MIsawa falls. Jerry Lawler being able to craft compelling matches around hide the chain spots or Terry Funk getting mad because Rick Martel is elbow dropping his cowboy hat are much more impressive than "Ok, you dump me on my head for 25 minutes over and over again and I'll eventually come back and kill you" which I think is is an incredibly lazy and stupid way to build a match and as the years wore on, you could see the effect it was having. Not just on Misawa, but the matches. His top rope splash and facelock submission were once awesome nearfalls that became less and less relevant until they became basically throwaway spots that meant less than Steve Austin flipping guys off or The People's Elbow. Looking at his career more specifically, was Misawa one of the 250 best wrestlers of the 1980s? Tiger Mask II didn't really suck, but its not something I would point to as a generally great part of his career (important yet, match quality wise, eh). Of all the next generation wrestlers in All Japan, Kawada & Kobashi "figured it out" sooner than Misawa and became great wrestlers by 92 (digging further, Jumbo became great quicker than Misawa, Jun did, its hard to say with Taue but I'd lean towards yes as well, only Tenryu took as long/longer to figure it out than MIsawa, but Tenryu proceeded to peak much higher and much longer and was much smarter in the ring than MIsawa). When Misawa finally caught up, in 94/95, the All Japan stuff started to fall apart for me. Really, it starts to fall apart as early as 1993 at points. There is some great stuff later on to be sure I still like. 1/20/97 still somehow, someway works for me where almost every other big All Japan match post 6/3/94 is a chore to get through and leaves me rolling my eyes. Oddly enough if a lot of those matches were chopped down to 18-20 and the first big headrop or the lariat or whatever ends the match, I might think a different way entirely (all that Kawada needed to be in the running for best ever was working New Japan instead of All Japan imo). I might still think those dudes were the best wrestlers. Similar to the Rey/Juv point I made in the other thread, the initial praise about those guys often surrounded the pace they worked and how they would get into the nearfalls "and keep going and going and going" and it was beyond what any heavyweights had done before. Well, the "going and going and going" part is absolutely what causes me to roll my eyes. This is about to be one of those "Way harsh, Tai" moments, but to be perfectly blunt, if you completely run out of ideas to pop the crowd and get heat for your matches unless you're getting dropped onto your head over and over for years in every match to the point where you end up getting essentially decapitated in the ring, I can't think of you as anything other than a dumb wrestler and dumber person. He could have been one of the 5 best wrestlers ever. He had the talent but I don't think he had the smarts. I know this paragraph is awful and probably offensive, but I can't look at this guy's matches and think he's a smart wrestler. I did a post GWE "gut reaction" sort of list about a month ago and both guys still made my top 100. Misawa was 77 & Bryan 78. If I did it again, I can't imagine Misawa making my top 100. Bryan almost certainly would still be top 100. So yeah. Sorry. I'm going to go run away and hide now as you all destroy me.

I do think it is Eddy, but I did want to give props to the people who voted for Psicosis. Psic & Rey very much grew up together and had their first great singles matches together. I know the Juventud rivalry got a lot of love at the time and when folks were looking back at Rey's early career in the early 2000s talking about how mid 90s Rey was at his peak. The things people praised about the Juventud stuff is the sort of thing that I roll my eyes at now. It is awesome that those guys were major tape watchers and loved Japanese wrestling and I know a lot of folks loved the way they combined lucha with dragon suplexes, powerbombs, UWF mat work they watched their favorites do. But I feel like those guys wanted to desperately to be Misawa & Kobashi and that manifested itself in the matches.I hate the use the El-P criticism of the Joe/Kobashi match and accuse them of cosplaying their favorites. But that is totally the vibe I get from Rey vs Juve matches. They were less about finding themselves and more about trying to be these other guys they really liked (which really...is not a terrible trait in young workers, I just felt Juventud took Rey in the wrong direction from where he was going with Psic.). I don't think his matches with Psicosis fell into the same trap. There is some of that but I don't find it as blatant as the Juve matches. The series with Psicosis feels more like two young workers who are able to do amazing things but are still finding themselves and figuring out how to be great luchadores. Juventud matches feels like luchadores trying to play All Japan workers. I can see digging that aspect of Rey/Juve, I used to myself, but I think something like Rey Jr vs Santo is a much better match than any of the Juventud matches I've recently rewatched. I found more variety in the Psic matches as well. I might just not really like Juventud anymore and just haven't realized it yet. That is very much in play. I think Childs makes a really cool point about Rey being the best opponent for a lot of people and that may actually be a cool idea for a thread. Some of my absolute favorite Rey matches are actually of the one off variety and not necessarily big long running feuds. If I made a top 10 Rey Jr matches list, I'd have the 1997 match and the Smackdown 2005 Eddy matches without question. I'd have a Psicosis match, probably that one that Tim loves so much but maybe even Bash at the Beach too, which I have always adored. Then its a kind of weird list. I think the John Cena & Low-Ki matches are phenomenal and both strong candidates for my favorite Rey Jr match. I promised Jimmy Redman I would watch the Rey vs Morrison match from 2009 that she loves and that is a stunningly great match. I guess my point is basically, man that Rey Jr guy was amazing. I'm so glad he finished 7th in GWE. One quick little thing I had to mention because I'm probably the only person that feels this way. I wouldn't say he's the best or even 2nd best opponent for Rey, but I have always loved the Rey Jr vs Dean Malenko matchup. I know, I know. I get all of the criticisms, about Dean "Grounding him too much" but I think they're pretty silly. The Great American Bash match specifically is such an amazing debut match for Rey and a big part of that is because Dean grounded him and worked holds. Rey was actually a good mat worker I thought and Dean's entire gimmick was basically "mat wrestler." So OBVIOUSLY he would try and ground this little super quick dude who hits the most wicked high spots in wrestling. That's just good psychology. I'm not sure if they hit the Bash level again in their future matches (I haven't watched the other ones in a long time) but I always dug the matchup because of the dichotomy of styles. I can't really imagine praising the Dragon match from WW3 and then criticizing Malenko for "grounding Rey too much." No, Rey hit some awesome highspots. And those two were smart enough to know that Rey probably shouldn't blow through all of his "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" level spots on the first night in the promotion. He gave just enough of a taste. Their Nitro match where Dean hits the super gut buster (its the next night, right?) was the first time I saw Rey Jr wrestle and so I've always really liked that match as well, just not at the level of the Bash match. Anyway, yeah dudes. Rey Mysterio Jr. Its too bad we never got an extended feud with Danielson.

Disc 3 is my favorite 80s set disc. 3 matches i'd call 5 stars and at least two more off the top of my head in the 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 range.

I think Canada is fine. He's temporarily banned from japan due to the real life narita airport nightmare. I want to honor that reality but I think Canada is ok

So, what US Promotions want to use Dr Death until he can come back to Japan in March? I figure he could freelance until then maybe. Dr Death needs to feed his family too!

Don't you worry my friend, the classics are coming edit. I count 6 matches I'd rate 5 stars

Obviously the title of this should be Best Rey Jr Opponent. I shouldn't start threads.

Will anyone pick someone other than Eddy?

Its funny you say that. i watched Dustin Rhodes vs Steve Austin from Havoc 91 and thought at the end "this might be the best 'young lions' match ever." Great match.

I think Dymamite & Sayama had better matches with other people. Dynamite with Fujinami & Buddy Rose. I thought Sayama was awesome in UWF with some classic matches especially against Fujiwara.

Mitsuharu Misawa and Daniel Bryan. More on that later.

I'm very intrigued to see how the voting comes back for Fujiwara. I feel like most people that run in our circles would agree that he should be in, but I'm not sure if the voter group at large views him that way.