ohtani's jacket

I think Terry Funk is a great wrestler. One of the best ever. However, it would be nice if one or two matches dropped from his prime because when I see people comment that other people aren't volume workers it always makes me wonder why Terry gets a past on this. To me, he's a total performance-based candidate (including promo ability, if I'm being honest.) I know we have great Terry Funk matches on tape, but I wonder if I'm the only one who raises half an eyebrow at this.

I think lucha needs more people involved like cad who offer takes. I might not always agree with the things he says about lucha, but it's always interesting and always thought-provoking. If there was more discourse surrounding the lucha candidates, you could start comparing them to the top guys on the list instead of simply comparing them to other luchadores. In my mind, there's very little that separates Negro Casas and Terry Funk as wrestlers. You should be able to have a discussion about which of them is better, but we're not there yet because I don't think we've full distilled what it is that makes Casas a great wrestler. The other thoughts I have about lucha is that I think because its been dismissed in the past, I think there's a tendency for people to try to shield or protect it. I can understand where that instinct compares from, but I think the mentality of "don't say anything bad about lucha" prevents the discourse from growing. Access wise, it would be great if there was a way for fans to find out that you need to watch these three lead-in matches and the apuestas, or that these half a dozen matches showcase a particular rivalry. I don't think that information is easy to pin down. Just having a quick and easy list of the best matches from 1993 AAA or 1992 CMLL would be helpful. Then, I think you have to acknowledge that lucha, at least the classic lucha that I love, is closer in spirit to the US territories than a lot of modern stuff, and since those workers took a dip, there's nothing to suggest that people would necessarily love old-school lucha. There's also a problem with fans who like to see a laundry list of four star matches and above. That was always a problem with lucha. You had matches that showcased the artistry of lucha and lucha in its purest, most beautiful form, but there wasn't a list of all of the four star matches that El Hijo del Santo had. That said, i don't really know how people consume wrestling these days. This is simply based on what I've seen over the last 20 years.

I’m guessing it’s Funk, Kobashi, Danielson.

Hijo Del Espectro, Jerry Estrada & La Parka vs. El Cobarde, Picudo & Pirata Morgan (AAA, 10/1/93) Fun little clip that sets up Pirata Morgan vs. Estrada. It looks like only the first fall aired on television (unless it was a one fall match.) There was a decent amount of action for a single fall. Pirata spent the entire clip wearing a pirate shirt. His exchanges with Estrada showed promise, but I have no idea how or why Morgan chose Picudo and El Cobarde as his partners. Such an odd trio.

This was a pretty good match. They kept things simple and concentrated on working moment-to-moment. Not sure what the point of Austin was as the guest ref. The finish was clean but strangely anti-climatic. I was expecting something screwy to happen. Usually that wouldn't disappointment me, but I was waiting for some sort of moment and it never came. Not sure how this feud escalated to a HITC match.

Live from Jim Ross' home:

I can't see the argument for Aja being better than Misawa, but I'm sure many people would agree.

Amusingly, the closest analogy to Misawa just dropped.

I don't think people preferring Kobashi to Misawa is anything new. It's always been difficult for people to appreciate what made Misawa such a phenomenal ace because the traits are typically viewed as boring in an American wrestler.

Well, Misawa at 10 certainly isn't boring.

Bitching about the results is the fun part.

I always got the impression that Bret was happier wrestling the Isaac Yankems of the world than wrestlers of his own caliber, and the reason for that was that he got to stay in his own little bubble where everyone could see what a great worker he was for carrying guys to a better match than they usually had. That's why I never get that excited over the talk about Bret jumping to the NWA in the late 80s. I don't think he would have truly fit the wrestling culture there. Having said that, Bret spent his prime working in a company that wasn't exactly a hotbed for great wrestling. It was a miracle that we got as many good Bret matches as we did. He was one of the driving forces behind the WWF delivering great main events during the 90s. Bret has a solid resume of work from his prime. Someone said Pillman had better matches/performances, but I can't agree with that. I like the discussion, though. At least people talk about Bret's strengths and weaknesses not like Vader or Aja where nobody points to a single flaw. The countdown was more interesting than the top 10 (unless the order of the top 10 is particularly surprising), but that's usually the case with these things.

His post-exodus work isn't the best, aside from a few bright spots. I know I became actively disinterested in his work while going through stuff from the 00s. That said, I would weigh his peak more heavily. I'm curious to see who's risen above him.

What did Kawada do to piss people off?

I haven't seen that match in years and have no recollection of how it compares to other Breaks or Grey matches. If you want to start with Breaks, I think the 1977 Vaulkner match or the Young David trilogy are good starting points. My own gateway to WoS was the famous Grey/Myes bout from the 70s.

This was the best match of the evening even if it was a generic WWE brawl. What an oddly booked show. It was weird seeing Taz sell the action after his announce table was destroyed. JR gushing over Hunter was sickening after all those years of damning him to hell. How did Orton walk out of this show as the champ?

This was effective in setting up Triple H's injury, but that was about all it was effective at doing.

Shitty angle to set up this match with some terrible acting from Triple H and McMahon. Hunter was a face here? This must have upset a shitload of people at the time. More of an angle than a proper match. JR oversold the finish completely. No, JR, I was not watching some incredibly historic moment.

I like Joe and AJ, but I don't think they belong in the top 20. Clearly, they're to a lot of voters what Bret Hart was to my generation, so it's not a surprise. Perhaps in time it will balance itself out.

Cien Caras vs. MS-1 (hair vs hair, AAA 8/13/93) This was a disappointment. Not because of anything the wrestlers did inside the ring but because of the booking. The first two falls ended in DQs due to the seconds and the third fall finished with some Tirantes fast count bullshit. This is the type of thing that made me hate AAA. They couldn't trust Caras and MS-1 to work a compelling and dramatic apuestas match on their own? Caras and MS-1 ended up working a bunch of holds that were more reminiscent of a title match than an apuestas but they were the only good thing about this shit show.

My biggest takeaway from the lucha results is that people still aren't taking it seriously. We can argue back and forth about most of the top tier candidates, but for lucha there is no real discourse and not a lot of critical analysis. You'd be hard pressed to find a critique of Negro Casas or Santo. You might find the odd outspoken lucha fan who has an opinion that's different form the norm, but until we get people critiquing a lucha candidate the way they do with the top US and Japanese guys it'll never be given the respect it deserves. Even Santo at 20-something is a soft pick. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of those votes were based on a handful of Santo matches that voters watched during the viewing period. That's great in terms of people discovering Santo, but what does it tell us about how Santo measures up against other candidates? What are the promos and cons of Santo over Liger, for example? Why Santo over Casas? I would really love it if lucha was taken as seriously as some of the other topics we've been arguing about even if it meant more fighting on the internet. Regarding the results (which bar Mysterio Jr, I guess), I think Emilio is an oversight. However, I also think it's been a long time since we were talking about that '89-90 stuff. Atlantis, Sangre Chicana and Virus all have a case for the top 100, I can also see why they wouldn't make it. That reason clip from the Mexican movie with the Chicana vs Perro bloodbath suggests we're one match discovery away from folks getting excited for Chicana again. I don't think there's much more Atlantis or Virus can add to their cases.

Thank the heavens and the stars that Macho Man finished ahead of Punk. I'm thrilled that Santo is overtaking Liger too. The top 20 has some overrated mofos in it, though.

Not a bad result for Casas. Could have done with being a bit higher, but at least the people who voted for him represented.

I think we can all agree that Triple H was a better worker than Cena.

Some interesting info from reddit: "This show had an interesting backstory. Tickets went on sale in late May and sold about 14,600 the first day with no announced matches. WCW announced a Hogan/Goldberg non-title dark match to the local Atlanta media in mid-June, advertising that the only way you could see Goldberg/Hogan was live in person at the dome. By late June they had sold about 27,000 tickets. On July 2nd they announced Hogan/Goldberg would be for the title and on TV and they moved another 10,000 tickets in four days." Y'know what made a huge difference? The remaining tickets cost $10 and $15 respectively.