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The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling
ohtani's jacket replied to ohtani's jacket's topic in Megathread archive
Here are some miscellaneous matches I ordered. A few of them turned out to be pretty damn good. Alan Kilby vs. Saxon Brooks (5/28/83) Saxon Brooks was a heavyweight prospect with a judo background who'd been on television once before. Nothing really came of him in terms of his on-screen career, but he couldn't have asked for a better carry from Kilby. Walton was a bit critical of Brooks, continually pointing out how deliberate he was with his moves and how telegraphed they looked. Brooks looked awkward coming off the ropes, and I think it bugged Walton a bit. I kind of liked him, though. He had that amateur-turned-pro charm to him where all he really knew how to do was adapt his judo background to the ring. Some of his throws were a bit rough looking as he didn't really know how to cooperate yet, but he gave Kilby a workout and I honestly thought this was one of the better Kilby matches on tape. Dave Finlay vs. Johnny Kincaid (9/3/85) Man, I always thought Kincaid was washed up by this point, but this was awesome. He was super aggressive and Finlay responded by working stiff. Great contest. I usually hate the Princess Paula shtick with Finlay playing the whipped husband, but I kind of liked it here. Paula gave him a dressing down after he dropped a fall and wouldn't give him the kiss he needed to wrestle, so he took his frustrations out on Kincaid by beating the shit out of him and Kincaid responded in kind. Weird narrative if you think about it for too long, but it was a cracking match and hands down one of the better Princess Paula era matches. I need to rewatch the Kincaid/Marty Jones match, as I always thought Kincaid wasn't much chop past '78-79. Ray Steele vs. Black Salem (1/9/86) Black Salem, jeez what a name. He was the dark skinned West Indian wrestler Jamaica George. Some kind in the crowd kept making mildly racist jokes. I say mildly as I couldn't quite make them out but they had something to do with the difference in skin colour. This was a good bout, but Steele won two-zip and was on top for 90% of the bout. At times it was like he was riding him amateur style. It was weird that George didn't get a fall, but I've always wanted Walton to bust out a West Indian cricket reference on commentary and here we got two -- Viv Richards and Joel Garner. Very few of you will know how awesome the West Indian cricket team were in the 70s and 80s, but trust me that was a mark out moment. Pat Roach vs. Johnny Kincaid (12/11/85) Johnny Kincaid, don't call it a comeback! Fuck this was awesome. Kincaid just took it to Roach and put him in a grovet that made him squeal like a pig. Never seen anything like it. Roach's selling was sublime. The finish was the best "falling to make the count" finish ever as the first chance Roach got free from the grovet he sent Kincaid flying. Roach never really worked like a big man in the sense that he didn't take advantage of his size (at least during his elder statesman phase), but tick him off and he was like a bear with a sore head, or neck as the case may be. For a throwaway tournament bout, this was badass. Jim Breaks vs. Kung Fu (9/3/86) For some reason I still don't fully understand, Breaks and Kung Fu made an appearance for Dale Martin in '86. Jim hadn't been on ITV since '84, and Walton was naturally happy to see him back, but the magic was gone and this was a hockey, shtick-ridden bout. The crowd enjoyed getting on Jimmy's case, and Walton even got in the act by providing a back story as to why Breaks didn't like him (he informed the ref that Breaks was holding the trunks one day), but it wasn't an enjoyable experience for me and was very All-Star-ish. Tom Tyrone vs. Lee Bronson (8/4/87) Speaking of All-Star, here was Tom Tyrone going nowhere fast on one of their shows. All-Star may have been great for charismatic workers like Rocco, but guys for who wrestling was their bread and butter, these short, meaningless bouts sucked the life out of them. Dave Taylor vs. Johnny South (3/16/88) This, on the other hand, was an All-Star bout that ruled. South was one of the best veteran workers on the circuit and a real asskicker. Taylor loved a good fight and these two were happy as muck beating the crap out of each other. This is the kind of match that dropped a young Steve Regal's jaw. Taylor fans need to see this. Pat Roach vs. Caswell Martin (10/26/88) This was the last match to air on ITV. I had this romantic notion that it would be the last piece of footage I watched, but with all the random shit popping up on YouTube I went ahead and watched it. Damn good match, actually. Miles better than I was expecting. It looked like they went out there with the intention of putting on a good show, not only to eulogise 33 years of wrestling on ITV (though that was certainly part of it), but to encourage people to continue going out and watching wrestling in their local halls. Indeed, Walton put a plug in for the ongoing house shows as they braced for the final round. Roach was years removed from his best, but dialed back the clock here, and Martin was one of the few guys who still looked in peak physical condition right up until the end. I enjoyed this immensely. Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Honey Boy Zimba & Lenny Hurst (6/13/83) I think I officially love the Riot Squad. There's not much competition, but they may be the best tag team I've seen in British wrestling. Certainly, one of the few who understood how to work the French style of heel tag work. McManus and Logan were also very good, but Finlay and Murphy were more athletic. There was an inordinate amount of headbutts from Zimba in this bout, but the heels pinballed about and made it work. Entertaining bout. -
Nobody knows the full story, The foreigners who worked in All Japan told Meltzer the bits and pieces they observed but none of them knew the real reason they had heat. Kawada and Steve Williams also disliked each other.
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When Misawa died it was said the heat came from him. A lot of the British guys disliked each other -- McManus and Pallo, Jones and Rocco. Ken Ben seemed to have heat with a lot of people. Blood-boots Keith Martinelli allegedly had a backstage fight with Skull Murphy. A lot of guys hated McManus, Pallo and Kellett, who were unsurprisingly three of the biggest stars in the business. Adrian Street disliked everything about Kellett. There was an infamous double cross on McManus by a Northern promoter and wrestler who were out to prove a point.
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That match was incredible on write-up. I think it might be a top 10 lucha match of the 90s. Definitely one of Casas' best. How did that slip through the cracks all these years? I haven't checked whether it's on Lynch's list since that dataintcash guy has slightly mysterious sources, but honestly that's an all-time great match.
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Negro Casas vs. La Fiera, hair vs. hair, CMLL 10/1/93 This looks like it was the show-stealer on the 1993 Anniversary Show. I'm not sure how wildly available it was before, but if Lynch sold it I doubt many people bought it. It was a fascinating match for me on a number of levels. Casas was going through his whole "is he or isn't he a tecnico?" phase, and Fiera appeals to me as a scumbag rudo and not a worn out baby face, so I wasn't sure how the heel/face dynamic would play out. There was also a significant size difference for Casas to overcome, which seemed like a fairly big hurdle given it's difficult to imagine a guy the size of Casas dominating a taller, heavier man. If there's anything the Vintage series should teach us, however, it's to never doubt the genius of vintage Negro Casas. The primera caida was full of subtle complexity. A lot of people watching lucha for the first time tend to find the opening falls basic (crude even) to the extent they wish lucha would do without them; and in fairness, the first fall here was built around the wrestlers taking turns throwing each other into a row of chairs, but for the seasoned viewer there was a tremendous amount going on. Casas got the jump on Fiera while he was posing and went high on him; the idea being that making Fiera groggy was Casas' best bet at throwing him off. Flinging Fiera into the front row chairs is fairly standard lucha brawling, as was the posting on the outside and most of the other shots Casas got in, but I loved the intensity. Casas broke the count and threatened to pop the ref in a spot that would normally come across as comedy but felt more like nervous tension; and he used a little of the kicking game that his feud with Ultimo was built around with the obvious foreshadowing of Fiera being far more renowned for kick-based offence than Casas. Back in the ring, Casas bit at Fiera's forehead, which is not really synonymous with the Casas apuesta matches we have, and I loved the general focused attack on the nose, face and forehead area. The pin attempt while giving Fiera a "facial," as they say in Australian rugby league, was a great touch and a brilliant catalyst for Fiera's snap back breaker. And what a great back breaker. Ostensibly, it was to buy himself some time, but like the way he walked off the headbutt to the outside, you could tell the irritation was building. The transition for Fiera on to offence proper was naturally his kicking game, and we know Casas sells kicks like a champ and goes down like a bullet. Fiera gave Casas an awesome posting, carrying him over his shoulder and throwing him into the ring post like a javelin, then did the same thing to hurl Casas a few rows back. This was a spectacular bump for the time. You see this thing a lot on indy YouTube videos these days, but back then it was risque given the commission didn't like wrestlers falling on top of the fans. If you needed any more evidence that they were trying to make this special, you had Casas bleeding in an apuesta match, which racking my brains I couldn't remember seeing before (comment below if you have), and Fiera busting out a huge Japanese influenced German suplex instead of the standard pinning maneuver or submission you'd usually associate with these bouts. That was a big time fall and Fiera had every right to slap the turnbuckle in delight. It lay down a steep marker for the match not only because they reversed the traditional lucha logic that whoever dominates the early portions of the opening fall goes on to take it, and therefore challenged themselves to keep ahead of the usual psychology, but simply because it was so good. But the second fall was just as entertaining. Fiera brutalised Casas to begin with (to the point where you could be forgiven for thinking that Fiera was the rudo and Casas the tecnico), and Casas sold like few others can in lucha as they're simply not wired the way Negro is. Obviously, he's a big picture guy, but where he excels is in the moment-to-moment details. He's always thinking, "okay, I fell out of the ring, what can I do here?" or "I got posted, how should I sell this?" He'd probably tell you it's instinctive, like he just fell one way or the other and tried to look as out of it as possible, but it's the commitment to doing it that impresses me. He sells everything, and naturally he garnered a lot of sympathy from bleeding so much and taking such a beating. Is it right for a rudo to behave that way? It's questionable. It's easy to make exceptions because it's Casas, who always had a flamboyance and flair for the dramatic no matter which side of the fence he stood on; and there was the size difference which I talked about before, which was clearly coming into play. Originally, I was going to play off this riff that as the best wrestler in the company on the biggest show of the year, Casas was belting out the numbers like Judy Garland in A Star is Born, but despite liking the connection between Casas and Garland, it was actually a whole lot tougher than that. Casas' comeback was defiant, and he threw everything he had at Fiera despite not having the energy reserves to do so. I really liked how the turning point came after he ate those jumping knees from Fiera. He collapsed backwards into the corner and had to wave off the ref with a finger wag, and you knew it was now or never if he was going to fight his way back into the match, but it took massive amounts of energy for him to mount that comeback and he didn't spring into life so much as he bit the bullet and went for it. It paid off but he was in no condition for a third caida. He used the ropes to pull himself over to his corner and sucked in the big ones while he collapsed in a heap; the ref continuing to check his cut. Moment-to-moment selling. He came out the blocks in the tercera caida with a swank running dropkick to the corner that was a little too peppy for the state he was in; but when he missed a second time, Fiera kicked him in the head and it produced an iconic looking image of Casas with a crimson mask, slightly darkened by the grainy, deteriorated video footage, that was honestly, without a hint of hyperbole, one of the best images in any lucha match I've watched in the seven or so years I've been doing this blog. I always think of Casas as this cocky, flamboyant, gender-bending, tongue-in-cheek showman, but this was as violent an apuesta match as any from the early 90s and there was plenty of fight in those curly black locks. Fiera hit a snap suplex and dropped an elbow the equivalent of your favourite territory worker's elbow drop, and then they just unloaded: kicks from underneath; slapping exchanges with both guys kneeling; Fiera kicking Casas in the wrist while he was in the action of guarding his face; there was even a takedown that was predicated from a strike to the face rather than the usual shove to the chest. And I want to point out that only 15 minutes had elapsed on the video. This was not a long fight, though they clipped out the rest time between rounds. In probably the greatest moment in the match, Casas went for an STF attempt and fish hooked Fiera. As Fiera powered out of it, Casas kept him hooked, and you could see Fiera glaring at the ref in disbelief like, "are you gonna do something about this?" Being a lucha ref, he was busy with some ineffective count, and Casas practically had his finger in Fiera's eye socket before he was able to turn and punch his way out. Casas went for the selling jugular in the stretch run -- selling the kicks he struck as though they were shin splitting; stumbling as he tried to go up top; treating every blow from Fiera as though it were 3 seconds to midnight. Fiera monstered Casas like he belonged in Japan, honestly. I don't say that as though Japanese offence is innately better than lucha work; rather to stress that it's unusual to see this level of offence in a lucha libre match. There were some potential knockout blows that could have left Wakabayashi shrieking in a shrill voice. It's not what I normally like in my lucha, but for show stealing content it's hard to top. You could maybe argue that the only false note in the match was when Casas tried to get the crowd fired up before he went up to the top for his frog splash attempt. It wasn't in keeping with how badly out of it he'd been only moments before but he wanted the adulation. He went a little overboard with it, and Fiera had to lie there a mighty long time off a missed frog splash attempt of his own, but the crowd loved it and it didn't kill the finish. There was a wonderful pan of Arena Mexico on their feet while Casas danced for joy. Casas and Fiera seemed pumped, as though they were thrilled with the match and how it was received. Fiera insisted that Casas be the first to shave his hair, but Casas was too gracious. In a way it broke kayfabe, but it was a huge match for Casas on his biggest night in CMLL to date. If there had been any doubt about who the best wrestler in Mexico was, Casas shot straight to the stars. It will take a while to digest, but this feels like a top 10 lucha match for the 90s, or at the very least, the greatest match that no-one ever talked about until dataintcash uploaded it.
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The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling
ohtani's jacket replied to ohtani's jacket's topic in Megathread archive
Johnny England vs. Kid Chocolate (8/2/78) I like England as a performer, but he overdid the posing. He would have gotten more heat if he'd been more judicious with the flexing. The good thing about England being a lower midcard heel act was that Kid got to show his wares more than usual. KC was as much a jobber to the stars as Black Jack Mulligan, but since he was a face he wasn't afforded the chance to be very interesting aside from the odd flashy move or cracking headbutt. England was clearly going over here, but he was low enough down the totem pole that they worked this on an evening footing. KC submitted from a dislocated elbow, which he sold really well. Kid Chocolate vs. Johnny England (4/3/79) Shorter, less eventful bout notable only for the fact that England was now rocking a massive afro. Alan Dennison vs. Johnny England (1/30/79) This was pretty bad. Dennison at his worst, really. Strongman Dennison tried putting bodybuilder England in his place and his execution was crap. Pete Ross vs. Johnny England (12/19/79) Farmer's Boy Pete Ross got a surprise pinfall over England, but that was about all he was getting. Squash. Alan Dennison vs. Johnny England (7/27/81) One of the most boring bouts I can remember seeing. England worked Dennison's leg over for an eternity and it was tortuous to watch. Anyone who bangs on about targeted limbwork being outstanding psychology can do me a massive favour by extracting this from my memory banks and implanting it in theirs. Ringo Rigby vs. King Ben (2/9/83) This was pretty intense to start with as it seemed like Rigby was yet another guy who didn't particularly like King Ben, but it was a no falls, twenty minute contest and they couldn't keep up the intensity levels. Not a bad bout, though. Sid Cooper vs. Ringo Rigby (9/1/83) I read a cool story about Cooper the other day. Apparently, he had a match with referee Max Ward in the late 70s where he promised he'd shave his head if he lost. Ward won the bout and Cooper never grew his hair back. He was past it at this point and only really good against select opponents, but I've still got a lot of respect for him after that Ward story. Bobby Barnes vs. Ringo Rigby (5/10/83) Barnes looked like a gay Doink the Clown by this point. It's kind of sad to watch his decline as he was such a tremendous performer in his prime, but he still drew a massive amount of heat and some guy in the crowd had a real go at him when he used a closed fist on Rigby. I'm not sure what to make of Rigby. When I first started watching the 80s stuff he seemed pretty good, but he spent so much time in the States that he never really got back into the groove of British wrestling and at times came across as a bit of a hybrid worker. John Naylor vs. Johnny Apollon (3/21/83) We only got a fall or so of this, but what a tremendous contest. Apollon looked like he was trying to prove himself against a Wigan guy and Naylor actually looked badass for a chance. If Naylor had worked snug like this instead of trying to be the "Golden Boy" he might have been a top worker. Great uncooperative bout with Naylor grinning like a maniac and schooling Apollon, who still managed to look game. Cool bout. -
Was Hogan winning the belt at Wrestlemania IX better because there was a conclusion to Bret vs. Yoko?
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If Lawler were a minimalist, as silly as that notion is in wrestling, he wouldn't pare a match down to its most dramatic elements. The only thing that really comes close in wrestling is early UWF.
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Jerry Lawler having dramatic, bloody bouts in the Mid-South Coliseum isn't really my idea of minimalism. The empty arena match was post modern, though. My idea of minimalism would be Ikeda vs. Ishikawa in front of a tiny audience, a lucha indy handheld or that Thatcher match where there were only a handful of people watching as though it were a sparing session.
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Hey, they won twice and they were awesome.
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- Match Made in Heaven
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Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 3
ohtani's jacket replied to Loss's topic in Megathread archive
This is so effing cool. -
What did Hogan say about Dibiase?
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The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling
ohtani's jacket replied to ohtani's jacket's topic in Megathread archive
John Elijah vs. Mohammed Butt (4/10/86) Before the bout, weightlifter turned pro-wrestler Butt made an unofficial attempt at breaking his British record for the one-arm clean and jerk. He lifted 198 lbs to the delight of the Pakistanis in attendance then treated us to a crappy wrestling bout. This was type vs. type, and while I like Elijah, Butt was an absolute stiff. The theme of this episode was Pakistan vs. England, and as usual the opposition ran rough shot over England sweeping them 3-0. British wrestling was extremely diplomatic about these things. In any other country, whether it's the US, Japan, Mexico or Puerto Rico, the home country would win, but England always jobbed. Perhaps reflective of the nation's pessimism towards its national teams? I wonder. Skull Murphy vs. Clive Myers (11/27/85) This started off like a house on fire with Murphy hanging with Myers on some amazingly quick exchanges and impressing the shit out of me, but it fell apart as the cheating began and ended on a flat note. Disappointing after the first round hinted at something special. Clive Myers vs. Caswell Martin (4/10/86) Some lovely work in this, as you'd expect from Martin vs. Myers, but it was the same sort of incomplete bout that dogged Martin his entire career and prevented him from having the great matches that guys like Jones and Grey did despite being equally talented. An example of a guy being technically excellent, but not having a thoroughly grasp of structure. Lenny Hurst vs. Jean Le Force (7/15/86) Originally, I thought Le Force would be some cool catch wrestler, but now that I think about it there weren't really any cool catch wrestlers left in the 80s. Anyway, he was actually Rambo from the CWA, who later became part of the Truth Commission and was originally from Montreal. He looked like an early John Cena prototype here and was absolutely massive compared to Hurst. Hurst did a good job of working logical spots against a big man and was thrown around like a rag doll when Le Force took over, but was embarrassing late period stuff. Hardcore fans are always looking to blame the Crabtrees for the demise of televised British wrestling, and while it's true that the post-Wembley Arena Big Daddy era sucked hard, there was shit all up and down the card. Another nail in the coffin. Dave Duran vs. Ray Steele (5/7/87) I like Duran more than a lot of guys who were on regular television at this time, but they only showed the final round of this. I'm not sure why they bothered. John Elijah vs. John Kowalski (9/16/87) I also like John Kowalski, and I'm a fan of maestro wrestling, but how could anyone think that the British public wanted to see John Kowalski in 1987? I can imagine an alternative universe where Walton is given the book and brings back Bert Royal and the corpse of Mike Marino. They did the same thing with Moser. No wonder All-Star seemed more exciting. Ray Steele vs. Tiger Dalibar Singh (11/25/87) This started off slowly (complete with corny pre-match promos), but turned into one of the better late period matches. It was a British Heavyweight title defence for Singh, and in classic Joint fashion, Steele had beaten him 2-0 the last time out. The action was superb for a pair of heavyweights, though they may have overdone the kick outs. You don't often see kick outs in British wrestling as pinning maneuvers tend to gain the fall, but they upped the ante here with a number of nearfalls. A few of them weren't timed that well, but that was my only complaint in a heated bout that showed the workers had a bit of life left in them even if the television didn't. Jon Cortez vs. Jackie Robinson (11/25/86) The start of this was awesome with Cortez rocking an ugly moustache and Finlay's dad reffing, but they couldn't keep up the pace and it meandered. Not uncommon for a Jackie Robinson bout, I'm afraid. -
Perro Aguayo Jr. (July 23, 1979-March 21, 2015)
ohtani's jacket replied to sek69's topic in Pro Wrestling
It's also a country that for decades had a regulatory body exerting control over the "sport" despite having no legal authority. The lines between kayfabe and reality are far more blurred in Mexico. -
Perro Aguayo Jr. (July 23, 1979-March 21, 2015)
ohtani's jacket replied to sek69's topic in Pro Wrestling
Man, and today was my birthday too. Same year as me. Gutted. -
This analogy is off because wrestlers have more creative input into matches than actors do into the process of filmmaking. The analogy doesn't work, because you have guys like Hitchcock who say "actors are like cattle". Films don't rest solely on the performances of actors because it is and has always been "a director's medium". Wrestling matches are not "the road agent's medium" are they? There's no part of this analogy that works at all. And I'm loathe to come up with an alternative because I'm not sure that an analogy helps. It's best not to argue about film, but we've all seen movies where an actor's performance made a film, and people who don't actively seek out auteur's work and simply go to whatever's at the cinema have probably seen numerous examples of an actor saving what would otherwise have been a lousy picture. The other day I watched Maggie Cheung elevate an average romantic comedy in what was an otherwise competently directed film, but without being on set it's impossible to know exactly what went into that collaboration. The great matches argument is an interesting one, but it's not all that complicated. Emilio Charles Jr is a guy I love, but he's not a great singles match worker. That's something I've had to come to terms with over the years, and instead of exonerating him for it, I've accepted it as part of who he was. If I compare Emilio, who has the character work I like and is great in trios, with Santo, who has the classic singles matches, should I be honest and rate Santo higher or put Emilio above him because of my personal quirks and because it amuses me to do so? To me the obvious answer is that it doesn't have to be one way or the other. What I need to do is weigh up whether I value Emilio's heel work more than Santo's great matches. There doesn't have to be a consistent criteria. Sometimes I can go with the character actor types and sometimes I can go with the laundry list types. You seem to be doing the same with Flair and Arn, who feel miles apart in terms of match output.
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Santo's a great one to thrash out because he's as much of a formula guy as Flair. His signature stuff is breathtaking to watch, especially in his younger days, but it's hard to argue how "smart" he worked when it's the same patterns over and over. I have no doubt he had an excellen grasp of lucha psychology, and I'm sure those who've seen him live will attest to his ability to work a crowd, but it's not an original thing he's doing. When he delivers a strong match he's delivering classic lucha. The psychology isn't a matter of indvidual brilliance but a shared, communal psychology that hundreds of workers have demonstrated. Santo has a mystique that comes from his mask, his lineage, and how he coped with the burden of expectation; but what do we really know about him? Few of us could break down his character or understand his motivations. I still can't understand the heel turn and subsequent storyline. What you're left with is a cool looking guy in a mask who's a caricature: a super hero and son of a legend. Every positive point you can make about Santo's character is drawn from a generic concept of how a tecnico should behave. As for the matches, he probably had a ton of great matches in the late 80s and early 90s given the talent he faced. He probably had his share of disappointments too. With the matches we do have, only Dandy really compares to quality of singles matches. I guess Casas too considering people love his modern stuff. He's probably the cream of the crop when it comes to singles matches even if I think other workers are more interesting. A lot of the more interesting workers are rudos, which naturally allows them to be more creative, however I'm not sure I'm able to distinguish Santo from other top tecnicos other than the fact that Santo has the matches on tape and they don't. I also want to make sure Santo gets some credit for always delivering a classic lucha match even if it's the same formula again and again. At least he delivers.
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Do we really need another Flair debate? Flair as #1 is a boring choice. Yes, it's contrarian to vote someone over Flair just because Flair is a stodgy choice, but it's equally heinous to vote for Flair just because he's an institution. I like the passion people show for Flair and that the love can be re-sparked by a promo or television segment, but to me the best approach to the list would be to challenge that passion by watching as many wrestlers as possible, and if you come back to Flair you know that passion is unequivocal. As far as criticisms go, I wish could cricticise/scrutinise their favourites to the level they do Flair, but I've just about given up on that hope. I'd love to know what makes Santo better than Flair, for example, but no-one is ever willing to go in depth.
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Wrestlemania XIV was a critical and commercial success at the time it aired. The matches may not hold up in retrospect, but it was an important turning point for the company. I wonder if its impact has diminished over time.
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No, he wouldn't. Jim Breaks working as Jim Breaks in the WWF sounds awful.
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Promotion style absolutely matters. In fact, I feel so hard line about it that I honestly believe guys do need to learn the WWE way of working. When Jericho and the Radicals first jumped from WCW, I thought we were finally going to see some great matches in the WWF and instead they were really disappointing. It took them a while to adapt.
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Like most creators, Baba didn't know how to end things and the Four Pillars thing went on forever. I sometimes wonder what the reaction to 90s All Japan would be if it were happening in real time today. New Japan is often criticised for being stale, too thin on top, and repetitive; what would Twiiter have to say about 90s All Japan? Similar criticisms were being made during the rspw days, and I wonder how it would be these days if people had reason to care about the results and not just the match quality.
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Too much modern product bashing, not enough old school
ohtani's jacket replied to JerryvonKramer's topic in Forums Feedback
People are more interested in Twitter and podcasts these days than they are message boards. Add to that the fact that people are more inclined to read about wrestling than they are to actually watch it and you have a lack of discussion. The original GWE list as done at the apex of message board posting and is one of the reasons why I don't think the 2016 list can improve on it. I will say that sometimes I try to look up the matches you've posted about in the Microscope and can't find them online. If you want to generate more discussion you might need to share stuff. -
I expect a Segunda Caida Complete and Accurate for this: