Eduardo

This is a must read, one of Meltzer's greatest issues. Really awesome stuff. Also, there was a great issue in the Spring of 2004, where Dave recollects his thoughts on the 1991-1992 scene, all the scandals that went down during that time period. He ends that piece with a cute anecdote about Hart-Michaels.

This is one random Randy Savage moment I just totally love. Him tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it in the air, and yelling "CONFETTI". Ha.

If I remember correctly, didn't Dave Meltzer also mention this about Baba? I forgot the details or the circumstances of why Meltzer was talking about this, but he mentioned once in the Observer that Baba had a lot of say on the details that went on in the ring. I wish I still had my old Observers somewhere, maybe someone on here will remember exactly what Meltzer said.

I'm very much looking forward to the next GWW show. This is really tragic news. I treasured Savage as a performer and thought he had unbelievable charisma. I recently saw his matches with Tito Santana, and just loved him in that.

From the latest Observer:

No he's not, Kane had some ridiculously huge lifts on his boots.

This sounds so great!

Along with the aforementioned Han/Tamura/Fujiwara, Otsuka/Ishikawa/Greco are also personal favorites of mine. Too bad Greco just disappears, if he stuck around, he could have been an elite level all time great. But I agree that I favor Panther, Solar, Navarro, Daniel Lopez, etc over the rest of the world. Atlantis is not someone that's going to be brought up as much as those elite guys, but I think he was Panther's best partner at producing some of the great matwork in pro wrestling history. Both their 1991 and 1997 matches are classics, and they had a bunch of great trios.

A week before that Rebellion PPV, they used the bar cage for the infamous Kennel from Hell match on Unforgiven 1999. Right before the McMahon-Austin cage match, they had re-introduced the chain linked cage on RAW for a Kane-HHH match (which I think was the first TV taping use of a chain linked fence cage in the 1990's in WWF unless I'm missing something).

Why did WWF end up changing from chain link fence to the blue bars cage in the mid 1980's? And why did they end up changing back to using chain link fence in 1999?

I must have missed something or I'm out of the loop, but why is Meltzer asking "Do apples have pits?" as one of his poll questions?

Never heard that story before. Anyways, don't have time to watch the match right now, but this is the only match Los Guerreros-Cena/B-2 had in case anyone is interested -

Hmmmm.....

I haven't seen it in years, but I still love the post-match of the Savage-Warrior match. Actually, really the whole scene including the match and post-match is probably my favorite moment. Also, I love Bret Hart's celebration with all the other wrestlers after beating Yokozuna and Owen looking on from the aisle way at the end of WrestleMania X.

Awesome, so excited to listen to this.

I think Bryan's talked about that photograph and Hemme like 3-4 years ago on one of his podcasts. For whatever reason, he just really, really, really loves that particular photo. I don't visit F4W/Observer as much as I used to, but does that photo still actually get posted on the front page?

Brian Kendrick on the Price is Right:

You're not mixing it up with an Apter mag, it was definitely a WWF magazine. I remember being surprised and at the time thinking how cool it was that they had a ladder match in Toronto (it stood out big time since ladder matches felt like a rare thing in 1996). I know it's online now via handheld, but I haven't seen it yet.

Along with this, a promo aired earlier before this match that featured Blue Panther training to prepare for this match. It was about 2 minutes long, and it featured him out-grappling his training partners in a ring in a gym. It really set the mood for what ended up being one of the great lucha title mat classics of all time. You could also include El Dandy/Apolo Dantes/Ringo Mendoza vs. Bestia Salvaje/Los Canibales (8/25/91), not a special match or anything, but I remember liking it and it has a novelty effect of it being Moondog Spike and Moondog Spot making their Arena Mexico debut by teaming up with the awesome Salvaje, and working with El Dandy. Pantera/Ciclon Ramirez/Aguila Solitaria vs Bestia Salvaje/Arce/Vulcano (10/20/91) could also be thrown on there. It's a fast paced match that I could see people who get the yearbooks liking. The ending sequence to the second fall is pretty cool, but the short third fall and Ciclon's tope not being as explosive as it could have been kinda hurt it. But as expected, the three great rudos are spectacular bumpers in the match and Ciclon's always fun to watch.

It was interesting, in the post-match interview, Dr. Alfonso Morales asks El Dandy why did the crowd reaction change from the previous week. Dandy tries to argue that the crowd was split, that half the crowd were rooting for him and the other half were "villamelones" (crude way of saying casual fans that don't understand the sport). Obviously, the crowd was much, much more pro-Santo than Dandy makes out in the interview. Basically, in some way, Dandy was trying to say that the people cheering Santo had no idea of the storyline and were just there to see Santo in a big stip match, and he was claiming that the "real wrestling fans" (or the ones that were following the storyline) were the ones cheering him, and he does get a portion of the crowd to cheer him in the post-match interview. Obviously Dandy was in character when saying all this, but I think there is some truth to it.

It depends on the context, and obviously what you, Helmick, and others are comfortable with doing. If a decade from now, you guys do a 2008 yearbook, I think something like Hideo Tokoro vs Daisuke Nakamura from K-1 Dynamite 2008 should be included. Nakamura is a U-Style guy who fights exactly like his hero and coach Kiyoshi Tamura (even wearing similar getup), and Hideo Tokoro is someone that idolizes Volk Han, and has patterned his style off of Han. Both guys then clearly have a match that is patterned off of Volk Han vs Kiyoshi Tamura and Volk Han vs TK matches, including using an exact same finish (rolling sambo leglock into armbar counter) that was used in the Volk Han vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (RINGS 08/24/96) match that you liked Loss. It could included, the argument being it is two guys doing an obvious tribute to RINGS shootstyle matches that they grew up with and that were obsolete by that point.

Matt Hume, Jason DeLucia, Dave Meltzer have all talked about some stuff in Pancrase being worked. Apparently, the Suzuki-Shamrock fight from "Pancrase-Eyes Of Beast 4" was worked and done to get the title off of Shamrock right before he went to fight Severn at UFC 6. It doesn't take an expert to realize that the obvious Shamrock vs Hume match was a work. Shamrock even does a variation of a spot he did to Duane Koslowski in Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi. In PWFG, he did a northern lights suplex, then transitions to a kneebar, while here in this match with Hume, he does a northern lights suplex then transitions into a kimura/double wrist lock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtpgr2MUqqM Meltzer has had some interesting things said about this Rutten-Funaki match. Take it however you wish, but Meltzer has said that Funaki wasn't trying to win this fight, but instead was just trying to have a great match. And that Funaki was extremely happy with the end result, not caring that he lost. But I've never heard this from anyone else but Meltzer, and of course Rutten denies it.

If you liked this match, I think you would love Dandy-Llanes. One of my favorite reviews from OJ was his take on the match: http://prowrestlingonly.com/blog/ohtani_s_...p?showentry=133 Trios really dominate the scene a lot, so you could see certain guys go years without having great singles showcase matches but still being an integral part of quality trio matches. Sometimes, some guys have certain years were they shine and do a lot of great stuff. For Dandy, that was 1990.