elliott

Would add Hokuto/Kandori vs Bull/Aja from 3/27/94. I always thought that was the greatest match ever until I learned about Sangre Chicana.

What changed between the nomination of Invader and this post?

Not sure Misawa ever became better. I'd take Misawa's output over Kawada's in a few given years--1995, 1997--but not because he'd clearly surpassed him. This is kind of what I was thinking. I agree with Dylan that Kawada wasn't a blow away great worker in the 80s and he wouldn't crack a top 100 "80s only" list for me. But I can't see an argument for MIsawa before 1995. And any post 95 year feels more like opportunity/footage than Misawa really being better.

I wasn't around during the release of the 80s AJ set. But watching it I imagine the consensus is still Kawada was better than Misawa in the 80s. At what point do people think Misawa became a better worker than Kawada?

Anybody have any predictions for guys who will appear on every ballot? Pretty sure on the smarkchoice poll the only two guys who made every ballot were Eddie Guerrero and Voldemort. If I had to guess I would say Ric Flair, Vader, and Daniel Bryan make every ballot.

I would highly recommend anything from 2001 involving Satanico and Ultimo Guerrero facing each other. All of the trios and tag matches are great and the big cage match from the anniversary show is a tremendous performance from Satanico in a MOTYC. He is definitely past his prime by then but 2001 is a pretty important year for Satanico's case because he was a legit #1 wrestler in the world candidate that year. Based on the footage either 1984 or 1989-90 would be his absolute peak years.

I've been periodically doing youtube searches for recent uploads for Satanico matches and this popped up tonight. Cool find alert. Satanico vs Blue Panther 7/25/2015 Talk about a dream match from 1992. Small intimate setting for this one and the crowd is pretty jazzed to see these two go at it. Starts with some good back and forth mat work. It’s obviously slow and not really as smooth compared to what these two did in the past. But they get over the struggle of the exchanges quite well and there are some surprisingly quick tumbling routines given Satanico is almost 66. Ok I actually liked this a lot by the end. 14ish minutes of back and forth mat work from two masters. Not everything is as smooth and perfect as it would have been in the 80s or 90s but they do a good job getting over all the counters and not working beyond what they could do (except maybe the surfboard attempt by Panther which Satanico should not have attempted). I should watch the El Dandy match from last year that I liked a lot to compare them, but this is definitely worth watching. I wouldn’t call it great but logical and well worked considering the obvious limitations. I don't think there is a singles match on tape between these two from earlier in their career so I'm glad we got to get this one. I love the internet.

Agreed with El-P here completely. I could watch an endless amount of Faces of Fear vs Jobbers matches. Also agree about the Rockers match from Mania. One of my favorite WWE tags ever.

Just to start, I would agree with Dylan that Buddy is the best wrestler in the world (based on what's available and what I've seen of course) from 77-83. I would also say that I don't necessarily think that Buddy is a STRONG #1 candidate. But he is someone I am thinking about as a candidate along with a bunch of other guys. Lastly (haha not really), I thought it was interesting that JRGoldman said Buddy would be his highest ranked guy who wasn't a #1 candidate because when I made a (very) rough draft for my list, Buddy was the lowest ranked guy I would have considered for #1. He was still 15th. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt I lowballed him. That’s what got me thinking about Buddy, this project, and the unproofread madness that follows is the result. I understand not being able to see Buddy as a #1 candidate, while still viewing him that way myself. Everyone has a different #1 candidate be it Flair, Lawler, Jumbo, Fujiwara, Casas, Satanico, Santo, Tenryu, Hansen, etc. Whoever. These guys work different styles and in different places and time periods. But the one thing they all have in common is they are peak+longevity candidates. They had a clear peak where they were a best in the world candidate and then continued to have great matches (some consistent, some sporadic) after that peak as old men. It's impressive to be able to say Stan Hansen had a great match in 1975 and 2000 (and a million in between). You can't do that with Buddy Rose because (excluding the AWA run) he was basically done as a great worker by 1984. Just for context, Buddy was born 2 weeks after Randy Savage and 3 years after Jerry Lawler and Ric Flair. Buddy is definitely a different sort of candidate. Like I said before, he isn't a traditional peak+longevity candidate. He is a peak+variety candidate. But even then it's kind of tricky because in some ways he IS a longevity candidate. He’s also a great match theory/Matt D Demolition theory wrestler (don’t worry, I’ll get there). Buddy is the sort of candidate that makes you think about what those terms mean and what you value in wrestlers. We keep talking about peak because Buddy’s career is so short overall and so much of his case is down to his peak and how impressive you think it is. Every wrestler peaks obviously. But there are different levels and different lengths. Some guys are top 50ish workers at their best. Others are candidates for the best in the world. Etc. I know Dylan pointed to 1980 as Buddy’s best year and people can call that Buddy’s peak but what I (and Dylan I assume) mean when we’re talking about Buddy Rose’s peak is the stretch from late 1977-1983. Five and a half years as the best guy in the world or at worst a candidate for it. That’s actually a pretty impressive length of time and not something to just gloss over. I know someone can come in and drop a bunch of wrestlers and say they were best in the world or candidates or whatever and they will be longer than 5+ years. That’s ok and I expect it. I would like to say again that I think Buddy was the best guy in the world for 5+ years. So I would need to see guys that I thought were also undisputed best wrestler in the world for 5+ years. I would also say that I think being the best wrestler in the world for 5 plus years is really impressive. And I wonder how many guys were the best in the world for 5 straight years. Obviously that comes down to personal preference and a lot of other things. But since I do think he had a 5+year run as the best wrestler in the world, that does mean a lot to me as far as him being a candidate for #1 overall. Buuuuut. Context is important. So it really doesn’t mean much to just say “Buddy’s peak was this high and this long” and leave it at that. Especially for a guy like Buddy who is primarily a peak based candidate, we have to look at what he was doing to be the (or one of the) best guy in the world. As a quick aside, I wanted to first address some historical things. I expect people to say “Being the best wrestler in the world from 77-83 isn’t as impressive as being the best wrestler in the world from 92-97.” There are a number of reasons you could use that argument. You could think matches are just better from 92-97 than the 77-83 timeframe. Or you could point to vast amount of footage from 92 to 97 and point out that it would be harder to stand out in that time frame. I understand those arguments completely. And I would just say that Buddy’s body of work from 77-83 is as impressive a stretch as I have seen from any wrestler regardless of timeframe. I’m not swayed by the idea that Misawa/Kawada was better than Rose/Martel. And I think when you look at the big picture and what Rose did during that peak as a whole it is staggering. This leads us to variety. The “peak” part of the argument for Rose is important, but just as important is the “variety.” Buddy was among the most versatile wrestlers I’ve ever seen. As I said in my first post: “He's a guy who had great matches/performances as a babyface, an ass kicking heel, and stooging heel. He was great in long singles matches, short sprints, tag matches and 6man tag matches. He has great feuds as a singles wrestlers and a tag wrestler. He could work holds on the mat, do great schtick, and had really awesome highspots. He was as great working comedy spots as he was in wild bloody brawls. etc etc etc.” … “We have a shit load of available footage from late 77-83 and it shows Buddy having consistently very good-great performances in different settings: Singles, tags, heel, face, against young green workers, against old veterans, against good wrestlers, against bad wrestlers, against flyers/power wrestlers/mat workers etc.” Buddy wasn’t a wrestler who simply excelled as a tag wrestler or as a brawler or as a mat worker or working schtick. During that 77-83 run he was great at literally every single aspect of wrestling no matter who he was against. He was just as natural working comedy stooging spots as he was bloodying an opponent. Anything you could hope to see is in that run. But the thing is, you can’t really see all of that watching a few matches here and there. You have to watch it all in context and see the whole arc to really grasp his brilliance. (This is the Matt D Demolition part). Buddy was the ace of a promotion that showed big, long, 2/3 fall matches between top stars on free TV. The success of the promotion was basically built on Buddy’s ability to have long entertaining and different matches every week. So seeing this happen week after week year after year (aside from some trips to) is really impressive to me and makes me believe in the “wrestling genius” nickname. But the thing that makes Buddy an interesting candidate, is that in addition to being a “great at everything” candidate, he also has a huge list of great matches and feuds that stands up well next to just about anyone else’s. It might not have matches 25 years apart, but it is long and includes a long list of names. It might not be as visually impressive to see several Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper on a match list of doom compared to something like Misawa vs Kawada. But that Roddy Piper feud is fucking awesome. I’m not saying all the Rose vs Piper matches are better than 6/3/94. But it is a great feud with some great matches and Rose is doing it with Roddy Piper, not Toshiaki Kawada. This isn’t to say Roddy Piper sucks (he doesn’t, he is awesome). It’s more to say that someone might look at a Match list of Doom for Buddy Rose and not be able to fathom how he’s a #1 candidate when his best matches are against guys like Matt Borne, Roddy Piper, and Jay Youngblood not fellow greats like Steamboat and Funk or Kawada and Kobashi. I’m not accusing anyone here of having that perception and really I’m just rambling. But it’s another thing that makes Buddy a “non-traditional” candidate for number one. If I were to do this list today, I probably wouldn’t have Buddy as my #1. But I was thinking about the project and what things matter to me. Peak, longevity, versatility, great matches, etc and it got me thinking about Buddy Rose. I do think he’s a #1 candidate, but I can’t deny he’s a weird choice and I understand people not seeing it. I mean, Buddy is a guy whose candidacy is based primarily on a 5 ½ year stretch and a tremendous one year post prime (the 84-85 footage I’ve seen is still very good but there isn’t as much footage as the previous years). Compared to someone like Hijo del Santo who had great matches for what, 30 years? Santo found a timeless formula and used it to have great match after great match. Rose had great match after great match but it only amounts to about 7 years. Yet I’ll have both of them in my top 10 and I view them both as #1 candidates. Just for radically different reasons. Anyway, Buddy rocks and everyone should buy the Rose set and watch it all twice.

I just watched this. To my untrained philistine eyes it went something like this: Kick - kick - submission attempt - Commentator cums in his pants - Crowd pops. Rinse repeat for 14 minutes until one of them actually submits. Didn't seem to have any sort of psychology to it at all to me, felt like the last 10 minutes of your typical Cena match only trade the finishers and false finishes for submission attempts. To me this lacked a lot of elements that I associate with pro wrestling. Namely: - Rope running - Collar and elbow tieup - Throws of any kind - Standard strikes that aren't kicks, like the reverse knife edge, forearm smash, or similar I would like fans of this style to answer the following questions: - What specifically do you like about this match? - Tell me about the pyschology, why isn't it like your typical modern WWE style false finish fest? - When you watch these matches do you feel like you are watching pro wrestling? Can you flick from something like this to a normal US-style match or, say, an All Japan match without feeling jarred in any way? - Why would you watch this over UFC? I watched the 9/96 and 1/97 Han/Tamura matches with Parv's questions in mind. What specifically do you like about this match? It is Han vs Tamura. So I specifically like the mat work. The technique, speed, and skill displayed on the mat considering the degree of difficulty in what they’re doing is more impressive than literally any US-Style matwork based match I’ve ever seen. The skill and conditioning it takes to work on the mat at that pace doing those moves is seriously mindblowing. Tell me about the pyschology, In broad general terms, Volk Han is the older submission master who can pull out insane finishes from out of nowhere but he isn’t really known as a striker. Han will use strikes when the opportunity presents itself but he is mostly going to try and use crazy tricked out submissions to finish the match. Tamura is obviously extraordinary on the mat as well as he would have to be in order to climb the ladder in Rings. But he is also an excellent striker and has the ability to finish the match while standing. Tamura uses his strikes to weaken Han to set up submissions. Han is more defensive minded, waiting for you to slip up on your technique or get overzealous with strike attempts so he can grab a limb and snap it but if you leave yourself open for palm strikes or knees Han will throw them. They clearly don’t have the same effect Tamura’s strikes do. The finish plays directly into this as Tamura is trying to finish off Han with his kicks, Han grabs the leg, kicks Tamura’s other leg out, and locks on a submission. why isn't it like your typical modern WWE style false finish fest? Seriously? It is different because anything could finish the Han/Tamura. It could be a hard kick to the stomach, a cross armbreaker, a choke, any number of different leg submissions etc etc etc. WWE likes to pimp the RKO as a move Orton can hit from any place, but realistically he is just hitting the RKO and you know the match will finish after an RKO. Volk Han has 1000 different RKO’s that he can lock on from 1000 different positions (obviously exaggerating). This wasn’t Cena using 5 FU’s to put someone away or whatever. Not to mention things like number of knockdowns and rope breaks leading to points which are another way to win. When you watch these matches do you feel like you are watching pro wrestling? Yes. I think they are pretty clearly cooperating. Can you flick from something like this to a normal US-style match or, say, an All Japan match without feeling jarred in any way? Sure. You just can't expect all matches to be worked in a similar fashion. Especially if you're looking at different styles. I wouldn't watch 80s Lucha and bitch about the lack of headdropping suplexes. And I wouldn't watch Baba vs BIlly Robinson and say "This could have used more chair shots and ref bumps." Wait a second... Headdropping suplexes Chair Shots Ref Bumps I associate all of those things with pro-wrestling. Han/Tamura didn't have any of them. It was still a classic match. Its just worked in a style that doesn't involve ref bumps or chair shots or rope running or ric flair style chops. All styles don't look the same. You shouldn't expect them to. Why would you watch this over UFC? Because I like cooperation and people working together for money/fame more than I like people fighting for money/fame.

The more I think about Buddy Rose, the more I think of him as a candidate for the #1 spot. He's a guy who had great matches/performances as a babyface, an ass kicking heel, and stooging heel. He was great in long singles matches, short sprints, tag matches and 6man tag matches. He has great feuds as a singles wrestlers and a tag wrestler. He could work holds on the mat, do great schtick, and had really awesome highspots. He was as great working comedy spots as he was in wild bloody brawls. etc etc etc. Buddy's case isn't about longevity, it is about density + variety. We have a shit load of available footage from late 77-83 and it shows Buddy having consistently very good-great performances in different settings: Singles, tags, heel, face, against young green workers, against old veterans, against good wrestlers, against bad wrestlers, against flyers/power wrestlers/mat workers etc. All of this took place over a relatively short period of time 77-83. But there's enough footage within that period of time to know that Buddy's peak was as good and versatile as his biggest fans will tell you. I would recommend any and all singles matches vs Martel, Piper, Jay Youngblood, Hennig, Dynamite Kid, Adrian Adonis, Bob Backlund, Matt Borne, Marty Jannety. There are some things I want to rewatch like vs Chris Adams, Butch Miller, Snuka, Lonnie Mayne, etc. Everyone already knows about the team with Doug Somers and the feud vs The Rockers and it is an all time great feud. I would also highly recommend the Buddy Rose/Ed Wiskowski team as a great forgotten team with the match vs Martel/Piper from 8/2/80 being their best match if I'm remembering right. Anyway, everyone should really try and watch some Buddy Rose for this project. He's a legit #1 candidate if you value peak, variety, and even volume of great matches/performances.

I watched Dory vs Terry also and I was not a fan. There were some things in the match that I liked but they were completely because of Terry. It's always interesting to see Terry in a long mat based match because whenever I think of Terry Funk I think of wild crazy man brawling Terry Funk. So it's always kind of cool to see him work a long technical match. But this wasn't an example of Terry in a great match. Terry did some interesting things here and there that made me wish we had a long Terry vs Billy Robinson or Horst Hoffman match. Terry's selling and facial expressions during holds tended to be really good and he was able to garner sympathy and generate "Terry Terry Terry" chants in spite of some really dull mat work from Dory. I found Dory to be extremely dull throughout the match. Just really slow, uninteresting work controlling the match from a headlock base. It was kind of amazing watching these two in a match together because Terry would do interesting things to keep the match moving along but Dory would take it back down with the most pedestrian counters possible. I'm not at all averse to long mat based matches and there are Dory matches that I like a lot. But this was not a good match at all and it was clearly due to Dory overwhelming all the cool aspects of Terry with his Doryness. I would not recommend watching the match.

More to do with being a NASCAR thing than a 'rasslin thing though. I mean using your logic Ricky Bobby could be for Ricky Steamboat & Bobby Heenan just as easily. Stony logic. Let me have my pipe dreams. And Ricky Morton/Bobby Eaton are about 50,000 times more Southern than Steamboat and Heenan.

Yeah I posted without looking at the matchlists and for some reason I thought the two singles vs Fujiwara from NJ were before the formation of UWF1. I would amend to say 84-89. Late 83 is pushing it but I liked him in NJ before the first jump to UWF. I loved his matches against Fujiwara, Tiger, and Yamazaki from UWF1.

I agree with this (and all the other stuff before it). I literally just watched NJ and OJ sets and Maeda looks like one of the best guys on the planet from late 83-89. Maybe that would look differently if I watched all the week to week TV the set makers watched. But Maeda rivals just about anyone in Japan as far as peak performances and feuds.

As the working style evolved, Baba seemed to keep trying to add stuff that fit into being a "wrestler" in that era. Dude added a DDT because wrestlers in his promotion did moves. If you count up the moves he did in 1969 with the Destroyer (or other similar late 60s / early 70s stuff on tape), than chart what he added after that, it's pretty amazing how he evolved as the sport got more spotty / higher tech. He was freaking Baba, a major star and didn't have to do it. But he was smart. How difficult is it for wrestlers to add moves to their repertoire? I don't have a sense for how difficult or easy that is. I don't think it's "difficult" but not very many people do it. Talking about Baba adding the ddt is more an example of pointing to him being smart. Its not that he "added a move" it's that he added an easy to execute yet high impact move to help stay relevant while the guys around him are doing moonsaults and powerbombs. He didn't have to do it because he was already one of the 3 biggest stars in the history of Japanese wrestling. But he did. And thats awesome. Konnan talked about when he got more famous he could get away with doing less in the ring. Baba was a bigger star than Konnan ever was and felt it was important to add things to stay more "current" (well as current as he could). This is often pointed to as comp vs someone like Flair who as he aged dropped more and more of his former signature (offensive) spots. I don't want anyone to think I'm arguing Baba is great because he started doing a ddt in his 50s. That's crazy talk. But it's a pretty easy example to point to Baba being smart.

a1wrestling was 13-15 years ago I would buy the shit out of a Sano comp.

Really Cuban screwed Dirk. Figuratively. Because literally... http://pointafter.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/dirk-nowitzki-mark-cuban-steve-nash-cowboy-hats.png

I hope he ends up in San Antonio.

Don't know where else to put this, but it occurred to me while watching MX Express & Ernie Ladd vs RnR Express & Duggan from Mid-South. I really hope Will Ferrell's character in Talladega Nights is named after Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton. I'm just going to assume that it is.

If Will doesn't vote these two #1 in the tag team poll and #'s 1& 2 in the singles poll, I will be disappointed. But seriously, Will, what are your favorite Lawler/Dundee tag team matches?

Seriously, I can't get over how good this match is. Last time I watched them all I liked this more than the Vader/Muto and Muto/Chono matches from the G1.

How is Regal's early pre WCW work? I haven't seen any of it. This is what made Will's Regal set... The Masked Destroyer, Blackpool Carnival Roy Regal vs. Marty Jones (WOS 9/3/1986) Steve Regal & Dave Larsen vs. Giant Haystacks (Reslo 1988) Steve Regal vs. Tony St. Clair (Reslo 1988) Steve Regal & Robbie Brookside vs. Dave Duran & Jimmy Munroe (WOS 7/30/88) Steve Regal & Robbie Brookside vs. Kendo Nagasaki & "Blondie" Barrett (WOS 8/24/88) Steve Regal vs. Terry Rudge (Germany 10/7/88) Steve Regal vs. Robbie Brookside (Fancam) Steve Regal vs. Indio Guajaro (JIP) (Germany 10/15/89) Steve Regal vs. Jorg Chenok (Germany 5/23/90) Steve Regal vs. Indio Guajaro (Germany 9/11/90) Steve Jones vs. Mongolian Mauler (Reslo 1990) Steve Jones vs. Col. Brody (Reslo 1990) Steve Jones & Orig Williams vs. Klaus Kauroff & Col.Brody (Reslo 1990) Steve Jones & Orig Williams vs. Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy (Reslo 1990) Steve Regal vs. Col. Brody (Bremen Late 1990) Steve Jones & Orig Williams vs. Shaun South & Shane Psycho Stevens (Reslo 1991) Steve Regal vs. Anakonda (Germany 6/9/91) Hellraiser vs. Serge Ventura (France 10/91) Steve Regal vs. Col. Brody (France Early 1992) Steve Regal & Steve Adonis vs. Drew McDonald & Herodes (France Early 1992) Steve Regal vs. Drew McDonald (France 1992)

It's like the reverse Bret Hart to WCW situation. DeAndre screwed Dirk.

From the Flair thread... goodhelmet, on 07 Jul 2015 - 12:36 PM, said: jdw said I think Wilt and Shaq get talked about so much because they are clearly all time great top 15 players, and yet still disappointing considering their size and athletic ability. If they lived up to their potential and with their physical advantages, those guys SHOULD be 1&2 in some order. David Robinson doesn't get talked about much because he was in some ways a disappointment because of his size and athleticism but he was such an overwhelmingly good human that no one wants to talk negatively about him and his playing career just doesn't match up with Shaq/Wilt/Hakeem/Moses. Ewing was a big disappointment for sure. But he doesn't have the level of success of Wilt/Shaq and isn't a top 10 candidate like those 2. Very few people from my generation know jack shit about Reed except for the injury. They know ever less about Cowens. Cowens is hurt because he peaked in the post Russell pre Magic/Larry era that is just a dead zone of knowledge for people who didn't live through it or take the time to research it. Hakeem is in the Shaq range for me. Top 15ish guy. i usually rank them side by side with Hakeem above him. I wonder how many people blow off Hakeem because he won his titles when Jordan was playing baseball. Moses is in the Hakeem/Shaq range. He's not a GOAT candidate like some people pimp Wilt and people thought Shaq was gonna be but he's solidly on that next level. People go on and on about Shaq/Wilt because they had incredible careers while still being disappointments.