elliott

I was going to recommend that match against Santo actually! I was trying to find the date! The Tajiri match from ECW is great too. I actually enjoyed when Nicho, Damian666 and Halloween joined CMLL in the early 2000s during the time Rey Jr was there pre WWE. But I'm not sure how that ages. There's a Psicosis vs La Parka match from 12/19/97 in Tijuana that I remember loving. It was a brawling all over the building type match with both guys taking huge bumps. I saw it on a Bob Barnett tape back to back with the famous Santo/Rey Jr match and I preferred Parka/Psicosis.

Someone I just wanted to mention almost for the sake of getting good recommendations (because I have no earthly idea if he's a realistic candidate buut i'd love to see the pimped stuff) is Steve Corino. 3 great matches would be vs Tajiri from Hardcore Heaven, vs Champain from OMEGA (on a Schneider comp), and the 4 way with Hashimoto, Dylan Night and Gary Steele from 12/16/01. Is there anything from Zero One that's worth seeing? What about other indy stuff?

Thanks OJ! Matt, I know you said 98, but now I wish somehow La Parka was brought in (as La Parka) to be Undertaker's little brother instead of Kane. Parka was one of the absolute favorite WCW guys for my casual fan friends back in high school. Really I would say only Goldberg was more positively talked about. I feel like if he had been presented somewhat credibly by WCW he could have been a huge star in the States.

Call me crazy but I always thought Barry could have been an American Jumbo Tsuruta. Which is weird when youu consider how bad their match against each other was. They were really good pretty much right away. They were tall guys who were obviously great athletes and moved around the ring really well. You can see a natural evolution in how they worked early in their careers to how they worked near the end of their relevancy. Something like Brisco vs Jumbo from 74 is to Barry/Race from Florida as Jumbo vs Misawa's punks is to Barry/Scorpio. I think Barry was a better tag worker and probably more versatile but I think Jumbo probably maxed out his enormous potential (or at least came close) while Barry never really did despite being similarly gifted (and still having a ton of great matches). Maybe it's just the similar body type. Not disagreeing with your comment about Dustin either but I wanted to mention that Jumbo/Barry comp because its something I always think about when I think of Windham.

"HOF of bad decision making" is such a great line. What sticks out about Barry is that he excelled in every role he was put in. He looked great as a young guy climbing the ladder, he was great pushing Flair to the limit and then later he was great as a veteran. He was a terrific bumper and could sell and show vulnerability in spite of being a big guy. He could also work as a tough ass kicker. He could work face or heel. One of the best tag team wrestlers ever. I think Windham had all the tools to be a contender for best of all time. Obviously it never came together like that but Barry was still an exceptional worker. Probably a top 30 candidate for me.

OJ, could you (or anyone I'm all ears) recommend maybe 5-10 LA Park matches from the 2000s as a starting off point? I've seen the bloodbath with Santo from Monterrey and i'll definitely check out the Ultimo Guerrero match. What else should I look into? I'm aware of the feud with Wagner Jr but what are the standout matches? I know you said he excelled in brawls but are their any title matches you'd recommend in addition to the UG match? I haven't followed lucha post 2002 at all and want to fix that. Park is the guy I'm most looking forward to diving into.

I would definitely consider Dump for a list like this based on artistic merit. Some of the best in ring story telling takes place in out of control bloody brawls. I don't know if I'll end up voting for Dump but I'm looking forward to rewatching her for the first time in forever. And cutting your opponents hair to counter a side headlock is just brilliant.

I absolutely love the Perro hair match from 86 so I will definitely check out the 92 feud. Sangre really stood out for me because he always carried himself like a major deal and the crowd treated him as such. His interactions with Andre in that 6man were terrific. And I love Mil Mascaras chasing Sangre around the ring in that trios match. Obviously the MS-1 match is one of the best ever. I loved the singles against Villano III and Satanico. Oh the 4way elimination match with Perro, Villano III and Faraon was great too. The lack of footage for 80s lucha is such a bummer and makes ranking them so difficult. If you're someone that just values peak performances and epic match feel, someone like Chicana could be ranked really high. I really love the guy and will dive into the 89-96 CMLL run during the course of this project.

This is someone I'm dying to learn more about. I thought he was one of the handful of best guys on the Lucha set. Great brawler, maybe the best seller I've ever seen, and his matches always felt really special. Really stood out even in the 6 man tags he was in. But there's not 2 dozen of his matches on the set. What should I seek out post 1990?

How much footage has to exist for you to consider someone for your top 100? Is there enough Destroyer or Pat O'Connor out there? What about the 80s Lucha stars?

I'm on my phone and can't seem to edit that huge post but I will. Thanks for reading guys! Soup touched on something I didn't really talk about but I think is a great point; Hansen put a lot of care and thought into his matches considering he is usually described as a wild out of control brawler. I think he's definitely "wild" and a brawler but watching the matches he looks very much in control (this POV is based more on his Japan work, in US and PR he's more out of control). Hansen wanted to push his opponents into trying to fight him instead of wrestle him because Hansen will always have the advantage in a fight. There's probably a better comparison to sports but I look at him as a Dennis Rodman type agitator. He gets in your head and pushes and pushes until you're not playing your game, you're playing his game and by then you're already done. You'll have more success if you keep your composure and don't let him push you out of your comfort zone and into his. Stan Hansen the wrestler seems to prefer getting punched and kicked in the face to getting put in a hammerlock.

Wow that did not include the paragraph breaks I made at all.

Right now I think Stan Hansen is the best wrestler of all time. There are a lot of different factors to look at when thinking of the Greatest Of All Time. I will try and look at several of these and how Stan Hansen fits and why I think he's the best ever. I will also try and address the major criticism you hear about Hansen's case for the best ever. Longevity. Based on the footage, Hansen looks like a very good worker as early as the late 70s. He was great no later than 1980 when he had great matches with Backlund and Dusty to go along with the Inoki feud. While he had been in great matches before, he had his first all time classic in September 1981 vs Andre. It was a true clash of the titans style match. The rare dream match that is even better than you imagine going into the match. Hansen's last all time classic was 12yrs later in July 1993 vs Kenta Kobashi. By this time Hansen was a grizzled 43yr old veteran going toe to toe with Kenta Kobashi at his working and athletic peak. Hansen would have some great matches after this but that was the last time Hansen had a Match of the Decade level match. I think it's fair to say 1993 was the last time you could call Hansen a great worker. I think it's probably a conservative estimate but based on what I've seen, 1980 is the earliest we could call him a great worker. Peak Peak will be difficult for Hansen because you can make different arguments for what his peak was. If someone wanted to say it was all of 1980-1993, I would listen to the argument. But let's break it down a little more... 81-83 includes good - great feuds/matches with Inoki, Backlund, Andre, Baba, Terry Funk and Austin Idol. The Terry Funk and Baba feuds are all time classics. The Backlund series was excellent. The Austin Idol series was good but you really wish it was Hansen vs Lawler instead. I am not a fan of the Inoki feud but I know some people are and it waas a major feud so I wanted to at least mention it. I will say they did have some good matches. The all time classic match with Andre also took place during this time frame. 86-89 could also be looked at as his peak. He had the underrated AWA run that included good-great matches with Martel, Bockwinkel, Slaughter, Blackwell, Hennig, and Leon White. He had a great feud with Tenryu and then formed a great short term tag team with Tenryu. He formed the very good team with Terry Gordy during this time period and he had a very good at times and disappointing at other times feud with Jumbo Tsuruta. The strength of this time period though is the all time classic feud with Carlos Colon. Arguably the best feud in history. 1993 could also be his peak if you want to limit it to just one year. Hansen was always a great hierarchical worker. He would dominate guys lower on the card and would go toe to toe with the native ace or other major stars. 1993 made for a perfect storm for a guy who understood how to work this way. By 93 Hansen was 44 and slowly heading to the end of his career. He was still great and one of the top guys in the company. But he was getting just old enough for Kawada and Kobashi to really push him to the limit. Hansen benefits here by getting to work with some of the all time greats at their athletic peak, but Hansen understands exactly how to work with them and sell for them. Identifying Hansen's peak is difficult because he had so many great feuds and matches spread out over a 13ish year period. When discussing someone's peak, in addition to identifying when it is, the really important thing to figure out is how high they reached. Even Sid had a peak as a worker. Hansen had all time great feuds with Funk, Baba, Tenryu, Colon and Kobashi. I think The Colon, Funk and Kobashi feuds/rivalries are all contenders for the best feud in wrestling history. I think the Tenryu and Baba aren't quite on that level, but any time Hansen faced off against Baba or Tenryu felt special and epic. He had classic matches with Curt Hennig, Toshiaki Kawada, Mitsuharu Misawa, and Andre. So to the question "how high was his peak," I think it was as high as anyone's ever. I'm just not totally sure when it was Versatility This is probably not what people think of when they think of Stan Hansen. He's not someone who is going to wow you by working hold for hold on the mat, and then highflying and then brawling. Hansen was a great brawler. But I don't think he was exactly a one trick pony. His matches with Baba didn't look like the Colon matches which look different from the Kobashi matches. He was excellent in bloody brawls, he could go toe to toe with a fellow monster, and when AJ made the shift to the "pure wrestling all clean finishes" style Hansen was excellent as an aggressive shit kicker and wasn't what I would call a "wild out of control brawler." He could work great short 6min sprints, 12-18min matches, and 20+minute epics. Hansen worked essentially one style his whole career; "brawling," but he was able to do a lot with it and feel fresh for over a decade against extremely different opponents. Playing their role/Projecting Character with ring work Hansen was a big tough Texan who wanted to beat the shit out of you and that's what he did. He would frequently jump his opponent at the bell. He pretty much always a heel but since he was a shitkicker, he wouldn't beg off or rely a bunch on cheating. He was rough and would bring the fight to you. As he aged he was able to show more vulnerability while maintaining his tough guy aura. He was like the Clint Eastwood of All Japan. I think Hansen is the best ever at wrestling like his character. Selling/Bumping Another underrated part of Hansen's work because of his character and wrestling style. No one will confuse him with Ricky Morton, but he shouldn't have worked like that. He was actually a very good bumper for a man his size and knew when to bump. I think of his selling as "wounded dog selling." You could hurt him and get him in peril, but he is still dangerous and you're always a moment away from getting killed. The 7/29/93 match against Kobashi is the most obvious example of the wounded dog. MOVEZ I know. Who cares. But I did want to note that I can't recall Hansen ever trying to do something in the ring that didn't make sense for Stan Hansen to be doing. Even as a 40+ year old man doing topes worked. I would also like to note that he had a good moveset that he added things to over the years to help stay fresh (powerbomb, ddt, tope). He had great knee drops. And I think the lariat is the best finish in history. Tag team work While I see Hansen as the greatest of all time primarily because of his singles work, Hansen had lots of good-great tag matches as part of several memorable teams and he was always the best guy on the team (with one possible exception, the Tenryu team). He had good-great matches teaming with Brody, Dibiase, Gordy, Tenryu, Baba, Hogan, Spivey and Ace. The Tenryu team was the only time he wasn't clearly the best guy. Big match feel Hansen is a guy who excelled in major matches and had a lot of matches that still feel epic 25-30years later. Hansen vs Andre from 9/81 feels like the biggest match ever. His matches against Funk, Baba, Colon, and Tenryu always felt major. The Vader eye loss match has an epic feel. The atmosphere for the Backlund MSG matches is insane. Memorable Opponents/Feuds/Matches Hansen has a laundry list of great opponents. All time classic feuds - vs Terry Funk, Carlos Colon, Kenta Kobashi. I would call these contenders for greatest series in wrestling history. Very Good-Great feuds - vs Backlund, Giant Baba, Tenryu, Rick Martel, Jumbo Tsuruta, Misawa, Kawada, Slaughter Other feuds worth watching - vs Inoki, Austin Idol, Lex Luger Great one time opponent/not really a feud - vs Dusty, Andre, Hennig, Bockwinkel, Jerry Blackwell, Vader, and Hulk Hogan. If you would like 10 matches to watch (not ranked); 1. vs Andre 9/81 2. vs Giant Baba 2/4/82 (first match) 3. vs Terry Funk 4/14/83 4. vs Carlos Colon bull rope 5. vs Carlos Colon Cage 6. vs Tenryu 7/27/88 7. w/ Gordy vs Tenryu/Kawada 12/16/88 8. w/ Tenryu vs Jumbo/Yatsu 12/9/89 9. vs Kawada 2/28/93 10. vs Kobashi 7/27/93 Work Outside Japan The big criticism that typically comes up with Hansen's greatest of all time candidacy is that he was only great in Japan. This is definitely not true. He had one of the best feuds in history against Carlos Colon in 86/87. He had the terrific MSG series in 81 against Backlund. The Austin Idol series in Memphis was good but you really wish he had a run against Lawler. In the AWA he had very good-great matches with Martel, Sarge, Hennig, Bockwinkel and Blackwell. There's also the Leon White match which I don't love but isn't bad. Hansen also has the WCW run with a good series against Lex Luger. The majority of great Hansen matches are from Japan. But that's obvious. He spent the majority of his career there. But he didn't just do ok outside of Japan. He had a lot of very good matches, some great, and he had arguably the best series of his entire career. Final Thoughts I think Stan Hansen is the greatest wrestler of all time. He was really great for a really long time. He peaked as high as anyone who ever worked. His low point came after his mid 40s when his body finally wore down. He had classic feuds and matches with a variety of opponents over a 13year period in WWWF, NJ, AJ, Memphis, AWA, and Puerto Rico. He is one of the best ever, if not the best ever, at playing his role and working in a way that makes sense for his character. Not every match was an all time classic and not every match was totally different. However he had great matches throughout his career with radically different oppnents over a long time.

I don't mean to derail this by bringing up someone not on the ballot, but was Sputnik Monroe ever on the ballot? It seems like there would be a good argument for him based on the "historical significance in a positive manner" metric. His role in desegregation in Memphis seems like a really strong building block and I know he worked on top in Texas and Florida in addition to Memphis. Are Memphis results/attendance from the 60s out there? I kind of want to do a ton of research on Sputnik over the next year and send it to Dave because based on the little bit I know he seems like he would be a good candidate. I feel like he wouldn't be if he was just a random southern sometimes headliner from that era but if positive historical influence is taken into consideration, he would have to be considered a strong candidate for the ballot if not the Hall. Do we know what the perception of him as a worker was? I know he was a brawler but was he considered good or great? Not asking if he was Stan Hansen or Ric Flair as a worker. But if he was seen as a very good worker in addition to being a headliner and the desegregation argument, it would just further strengthen and round out his candidacy for WON voters.

I've been plowing through the incredible Lucha set for the past several weeks. Its the first 80s set I've watched and will participate in the voting. I want to say first off that the Lucha set is absolutely incredible and I will have matches in the low 90s that I really liked a lot and everyone should buy it. But this post isn't about the lucha set. I wanted to see how people here have gone about setting their rankings for these 80s sets? I figure there a variety of different ways to go about it: multiple complete viewings, ranking as you go on instinct, giving star ratings that you adhere too when making the final list, or even making a top 20-30 and then just kind of throwing the rest out there etc etc etc. I'm interested to see the different ways people go about it and what works for them.

Watching the lucha set got me thinking about this thread. Some of these will be difficult due to lack of footage but humor me. Satanico vs Jerry Lawler (for some reason every time I watched a Satanico match I thought "this is what a Mexican Jerry Lawler would wrestle like") Los Infernales vs Choshu's Army pick your own members La Fiera vs. Pirata Morgan vs El Dandy Who would yall compare Chicana to? Incredible brawler, had at least one great title match off the top of my head. Probably the best at selling and garnering sympathy on the set. Charismatic as fuck. Sangre has blown me away more than anyone on the set. Who would you guys compare him to/whats the general perception?

My long term intent with this thread is to post brief comments on all the matches. Brief mostly because I suck at long reviews and there are others who will do these great matches the justice they really deserve. I read a few of OJs awesome history lessons but decided I wanted to go and mostly blind on the first watch and see what really hit me. When I finish the set I plan on going back and reading OJs lessons and rewatch things with more context. I haven't regularly watched since my douchebag late teens early 20s smark phase of the late 90s and early 00s. I watched a lot of lucha back then, mostly mid 90s AAA, Barnett comps and as much current stuff as I could from 2000-2002 so I'm pretty familiar with the style even if it's been years since I regularly watched. However my 80s lucha viewing was limited to santo/casas and Chicana vs ms-1. Looking at the match list I was familiar with guys like Fishman, Talisman, Ringo Mendoza, etc that I had never seen before. Some like Dos Caras, Mascara Ano 2000, and Rayo de Jalisco Jr I had seen but way past their prime. And then there are guys like Herodes, Mocha Cota, and as chara who I had never heard of. This set has it all. Satanico, Atlantis and Dandy showing themselves to be all time greats. "Guys that sucked" actually being awesome like Perro or Rayo. And then there's someone like Mocha Cota who became my favorite wrestler ever in about 3 minutes. You hear that phrase "something for everybody" a lot but this set truly has it if you're a fan of wrestling. If you like mat work, there are a ton of matches with really smooth crisp matwork. If you like wild out of control bloody brawls this has some of the best you'll ever see. There are fast paced sprints and slowly built epics. There are great advancing a feud storyline matches leading to incredible resolutions later on the set. You get to see all time great workers already in their prime like Satanico and then you get to see future GOATCs like Hijo del Santo grow up from being a green yet clearly talented young worker turn into an excellent worker. This will be impossible to rank because I've liked literally every match. Even matches in the 80s and 90s will be matches I enjoyed. This set has been truly amazing so far and everyone should buy it, As of now I would call my top 10; 1. MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana 1 2. Satanico vs Gran Cochise 3. Mocha Cota vs Americo Rocca 1 4. Mocha Cota vs Americo Rocca 2 5. Sangre Chicana vs. Perry Aguayo 6. Santo Jr vs. Negro Casas 7. Satanico vs Koshinaka 8. Satanico vs Chicana 9. La Fiera vs. Baby Face 10. Perro Aguayo vs. Villano III vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraon. My top rated trios match is actually #11 and is Satanico, MS-1 and Pirata Morgan vs. La Fiera, El Faraon and El Egipico. I have a list of about 10 matches I need to re-watch because I was distracted for one reason or another. Santo vs Espanto 1 is one of those matches and a couple other that could rank fairly high for me. Bottom line is this set fucking rocks kudos. And it gives me some who's better/best ideas.

Just a couple of quick recommendations for CMLL. I watched a lot of Lucha in 2001 and early 2002 but haven't watched any of it since then. So I'm sure there's someone that can give a much bigger and better list. But I wanted to mention a couple of things to be on the lookout for. The feud between Satanico and Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero and Tarzan Boy over the name Los Infernales should be heavily represented. I loved the Infierno en el Ring match from the September PPV. Great story telling and performance by Satanico. I remember voting that match either one or two in the WON MOTY voting and the Los Infernales feud as feud of the year. The other match I remember voting either #1 or 2 in the WON awards was a 6 man tag from Tijuana shot by B.B on 10/18 with Rey Jr/Vampiro/Damien vs Rey Sr/Halloween/La Parka. This might not hold up at all and the very presence of Vampiro in this makes me a little wary. However I remember La Parka being the standout of the match putting on a hell of a performance. Incredibly heated crowd with La Parka setting fire to either a flag or a mask I can't remember which. Its definitely worth watching to see Rey Jr between WCW and WWE.

As promised i'll give my rankings. These are more off the cuff because some of these are MUCH fresher in my head than others. I intend to revist of all them and try my hand in reviewing them to try and figure out a more solid ranking. 1. Brock vs Cena -different from anything we've ever seen in the WWE. Great re-introduction of Brock. Great selling from Cena. 2. Cena vs. Umaga - I like monsters in wrestling and Umaga was a pretty Damn good one. I want to watch their Raw match. I think I did years ago. They give me a Sting vs Vader vibe only if Sting were better than Vader. 3. Cena vs Daniel Bryan SummerSlam - I might be overeating this because it's so recent and the ending left a sour taste, but in a vacuum this was tremendous. I saw maybe 3 BD indy matches in the early 2000s so I don't have the emotional connection some others might. I thought this was a great traditional Ace world champ vs underdog match. I thought it had a great crowd, and I thought Cena playing the subtle heel was great. There was a weird spot where Bryan may have been a little too dominant but they changed course pretty quickly. 4. Brock vs CM Punk Summer Slam. Again I'm probably overeating this but I thought it was a great big guy vs little guy match. Punk trying to chop down the tree and finding creative ways to outmaneuver the beast were great. Heyman stuff held it back from really comparing to Cena/Bryan I think but this was another great match. 5. Cena vs Punk Money in the Bank. One I really want to go back and watched. Felt really epic and special at the time. Fantastic crowd and a great ppv overall (Show vs Henry is borderline great). 6. Matt Hardy vs Edge. I may be overeating this but I thought it was one of the best WWE cage matches ever. I can't think of a better one honestly. Really stiff with both guys throwing bombs from the start and Matt Hardy selling like a champ. Satisfying ending. 7. Eddy vs JBL Judgment Day. I haven't watched this in a long time but I've loved it every time I did. Fantastic guerrero performance and JBL more than holds up his end of the match. They were having a good match before the gusher and really exploded from there. Might end up higher on a rewatch. 8. Eddy vs. Rey Smackdown the first time I watched it I didn't get the hype then I watched it again and was like "oh I'm an idiot." I thought it was a fine match, but when I really watched it I saw a fantastic match. These two have great chemistry but stood out as a great "advancing the storyline match" but also holds up as a great standalone match. 9. Shield Debut match. I didn't know what to do with this. I loved it. Everyone looked great. I hated Kane back in the day and had never seen any of them before. Everyone keeps saying chaotic and violent etc and it's exactly right. Ambrose comes across as a star in the debut. Great Kenta Kobashi like facial expressions. Rollins had great timing on his high flying moves. I understand Reigns has become the star of the group and I look forward to catching up and seeing that happen. He again seemed to have really good timing. Love this match but it's hard for me to rank with these others that's why I'm wanting you guys to do it! 10. Taker vs. HBK WM 1 I'm probably underrating it. Big time feel. Kind of the perfect modern WWE self-conscious epic. I liked it the first time I watched it and have liked it every other time. But. It just doesn't feel as good as the matches I've already ranked. 11. Big Show vs, Mayweather - another match I just love. Everything is perfect. Show's offense and selling. The interactions with mayweather's posse. Just a ton of fun. Again it feels like a great match but hard to rank against some of these other matches. 12. Eddy vs. Brock - Sentimental obviously. Great moment, but it sucks to have a crowd chanting for someone not in the match. I haven't watched this in a long time and another viewing might bump it up. I love big guy vs little guy dynamic. 13. Bryan vs Punk over the edge. This was a great NJ Jr style match. Cool submissions, hard strikes, big moves, etc. But really well done in that style. 14. Sbeamus vs Bryan 2/3 Falls - this should probably be ahead of punk/bryan but I haven't watched it in a while. I remember the armwork being great. And really good selling from Sheamus. Fuck I know I'm underrating this. This is why I'm gonna rewatch all these. 15. MnM vs Hardys Rumble 07 - I had this in this group because it always got really high praise here. Its a great southern style tag match. But I feel like I should replace it for something else? This is just off the top of my head what I recall about the matches. I've watched most of them within the last 6 months but it's been a couple years for others. I plan on doing more full reviews. In the meantime, I'm still interested to see what you guys thing.

Sheamus vs Show is exactly what I meant. I think it was Hell in a Cell Last year. Sheamus went for the brough kick and Show knocked his head off. Great match. As for NL's point about praising attitude/new generation matches being more contraian, I definitely see your point. But there are still a lot of matches from that era very highly thought of. You'll see plenty of praise on these boards for Owen/Bret, Mind Games, Jarrett/Hbk, Austin vs hart, Austin vs Foley and Foley vs thumbtacks etc etc etc. So there are definitely points of comparison. I'm more interested how the big matches now compare to the big matches 10-15 years ago. I think given the changes in WWE programming over the last several years will help swamp the Attitude/New Gen era for TV matches.

Keep 'em coming guys! Is there a consensus "these are the 5 best matches?" I'm thinking the earliest I wanna see would be post Eddys win vs Brock. I'm less open to Child Killer matches these days. I don't mean to necessarily side track my own thread, but I'm also curious where some of these matches would rate with some of the New Generation/Attitude matches. How do some of these compare to stuff like Mind Games, Bret vs Davey, HBK vs Nash, Austin vs Foley over the edge, the Austin/Bret matches, the Foley/HHH rumble, Austin vs Rock WM 17 etc. I kind of want to see Matt do a side by side comparison of Mind Games vs Punk vs Cena or Hart/Austin vs Brock/Cena something like that. Or see Dylan talk about Rey vs Eddy in comparison to something like, I dunno, Bret vs Owen from Mania. I feel like a lot of these matches I've mentioned compare really favorably to some of our old favorites. In a place where the posters are more reasonable than your average Internet wrestling fan I want to see how some of the current "classics" compare to our old WWE favorites.

Are there any other major matches I'm missing? I liked Sheamus vs Henry from Hell in a Cell but didn't think it's quite on this level. Same with the Henry/Cena match from earlier this year. Would the Battleground tag with the Rhodes family be out of place on a list like this?

The Shield debut was really great. I'm not sure how to rank it against all those big time main event singles matches. It reminded me of a Choshu with anyone vs Tenryu or Hash with anyone multi man tag; high energy, with a chaotic feel to it that added to the match. I know it was highly praised by a lot of people on this board at the time and I know there have been a ton of really good Shield matches since then (I've only ever seen the vs Cena, ryback and Sheamus match which was really good too, and I would love to get a Shield comp) so I'm curious if that first one sticks out in people's minds still as a MOTYC or if it's been diluted somewhat due to all the good-great Shield matches. As a stand alone match having seen no other Shield matches, having seen none of them wrestle before, and only seeing the pre match promo's I was blown away. Anyway, I look forward to the rest of your list!

Hey guys. Lonnnnng time lurker and formerly semi-frequent poster back in the day. I love this board. Its like the very best of A1, Smarkschoice, tOA, and dvdvr in one place without the bullshit. So many familiar names. Anyway, I haven't watched a ton of wrestling lately (about to get back in the game I hope), but I've seen a lot of the major WWE matches from the last couple years. I was wondering how yall would rank them. Brock vs Cena Extreme Rules Brock vs Punk Summer Slam Cena vs Bryan Summer Slam Cena vs Punk Money in the Bank Bryan vs Sheamus 2/3 falls extreme rules Taker vs HBK first WrestelMania Punk vs Bryan Over the Edge Matt Hardy vs Edge the Cage match from I think 2005. Ryback, Bryan, Kane vs Shield TLC debut match Eddy vs JBL Judgment Day? The blood match obviously. Eddy vs Brock Lesnar No Way Out title change Rey vs Eddy Smackdown match Cena vs Umaga Rumble Hardys vs MnM rumble. Big show vs Floyd Mayweather Rank these matches (i'll do the same later). I saw the Cena vs Rey match but wasn't paying full attention so I wouldn't feel comfortable ranking it. I haven't had cable for several years and my computer is in the shop. So I know there are lot of matches Dylan, Exposer, Matt, etc can tell me and as soon as I get my computer back I will watch those too. But i'd really like to know if I'm missing any epic PPV matches on the level of these particular ones. But I'm totally down to watch random Drew Mac/Chris Masters match. Anyway, how do you guys rank these high end WWE matches from the last decade?