ohtani's jacket

The only problem is that he was boring as shit. I don't really agree with the notion that you have to had wrestled the majority of the 90s to qualify. In a perfect world, there would have been workers who were great for the entire length of the decade but there wasn't. A couple of peak years ought to be enough.

I think this is especially true in 2011 where you have guys (like me!) who think that everything is overrated and that the 13th best Arn Anderson performance in a Dangerous Alliance tag match is better than the best formerly pimped 90s match. Seriously, though, we've seen everything and thrashed it out a million times before. I think for many people it's a case of, "well, what else can I enjoy from the 90s?" Then maybe you have a guy who thinks "perhaps Tito Santana's run as El Matador is underrated", and off he goes. And I like that. I like that a lot. Lists like this should be idiocentric, otherwise we might as well look up Meltzer's list of star ratings or Loss' favourite matches and ring the bell.

Oh, and Jerry, you really need to stop judging everything based on PPV matches. There is no way that Arn vs. Flair is a top 5 match on any list bar "matches I never want to see again in my life." Thank you.

Judging this sort of thing by the number of great matches a worker had doesn't get us anywhere. Look at Eddie Guerrero's 1997: great heel turn, fantastic acting, but all he has to show for it match wise is one all-time great match against Rey Mysterio, Jr. and one or two other TV matches against him. Even if you look at his US work from '94-99 it's hard to find too many truly great matches yet many people liked Eddie as a worker and would consider him for the top 10 on that basis. Bret's best year was arguably 1994 and even then he only has the two matches against Owen, the TV match against 123-Kid and the Steiners tag if you're being generous, but again people liked the run. And that's what it boils down to for 90s US work -- great runs, not great matches. Flair's last great run (in my opinion) was 1990 and that was solely on the basis of big theatrical matches with Luger. Owen had a great run in 1994. Doink the Clown had a run in 1993, and on it goes. But I can't think of any two workers who was as consistently good week in, week out as Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat in 1992. It helped that WCW had a strong angle that year and great TV (for the first six months, anyway), but Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat were the MVPs of the heel and face sides, IMO. The argument that Arn was only solid is probably true, but solid (and by solid I would consider it truly entertaining) beats out 90% of the other wrestling in the 90s. No, he wasn't as shit hot as Tully Blanchard in the mid-to-late 80s, but US wrestling in the 90s wasn't anywhere near as good as US wrestling in the 80s so I don't see how that detracts from what was the best stuff of the 90s: the Dangerous Alliance feud. There are workers who I think had longer stretches of being solid than Arn and Steamboat, namely Windham from 1990-93 and Dustin Rhodes from '92-94, but I don't think either of those guys were ever as good in the ring as Arn and Steamboat at their best. Anyway, this is a tricky subject for the precise reason that there weren't endless great matches from US workers in the 90s. Personally, I would place consistency and "solid, but truly entertaining" above any other criteria. Hell, going off the deep end for a second, Arn's contribution to the Studd Stable feud is better in my eyes than anything Shawn Michaels did in the entire decade. But if matches are the criteria, I'd like to see the winner.

I don't think anybody for the rest of the decade touched what Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat were doing in 1992.

I think it depends on the style of wrestling. Many of the WoS guys looked great in their 50s and so do a lot of the older luchadores. The reason for this, presumably, is because they weren't huge bumpers. There's a big difference between the mat workers who look great and guys like Pirata Morgan and Emilio Charles, Jr.

Personally, I like the consummate showman heels like Satanico and Mick McManus. Any heel that does the same thing each match but is brilliant each and every time is a master performer in my books.

The British wrestling scene began struggling in the early 80s. Even before World of Sport was taken off the air, Joint Promotions was running fewer shows. The defections to All Star Promotions left it looking like '93 CMLL.

A ref bump as a cut-off for the "hulk up" is not a good example of going back to selling. The whole spot was just a teased comeback.

At some point you have to accept that you're watching a wrestling match and that it's just a staple spot.

Tito, Steve Grey, Chigusa Nagayo and Kyoko Inoue stand out to me.

For me it's workers like Perro Aguayo and Los Hermanos Dinamita, though with the latter I think their 90s work and beyond was better than their prime 80s stuff. My appreciation for big theatrical workers does not extend to Konan, however. I think Tony St. Clair despite not being a great worker was an awesome foil for the best heel workers of his era, and I'd rather watch him over a multitude of British heavyweights.

The most important category should be least nauseating.

The British TV stars like McManus and Pallo belong in the HOF before Johnny Saint.

I've never really thought about this before, but why didn't they run the Flair/Funk "I quit" match as the Starrcade '89 mainevent?

Ha, great thread. Jerry Estrada. I could write a whole page about how much I hate Jerry Estrada. There's a number of guys I think are overrated to a certain extent -- Santo, Casas, Panther -- but these things tend to go in cycles. Ten years ago we all thought Jumbo was the greatest worker of all-time and now people want to pick holes in him. How much does that have to do with Jumbo and how much is it people getting bored? If you're looking for more Santo matches like his UWA stuff, you'll end up disappointed and eventually he's not that great anymore. Or you find better guys, like a teenager finding more serious music. Mark Rocco's a guy I used to love until I found there were dozens of better Euro workers. Steve Wright was another. Johnny Saint. Most people are sick of Liger these days, but there's always a chance of coming back round like I did with Misawa. You just need a new take on matches you hadn't seen. Perhaps fickle appreciation is a neat thing about being a wrestling fan and something to embrace. At least it means you can change your mind every ten years.

I think the answer to this is clearly Black Terry and Negro Navarro since they've been better in their 50s than in any of the younger footage we have of them. Some of the Euro guys were awesome vets as well, but I can't be bothered working out how old they were when they were good. Casas' work post '97 is overrated.

They were simply doing what everyone else did in the bubble economy. Whatever they invested their money in, it wouldn't have much much difference in the long run.

Yes, I was acknowledging the point.

Well, that's not quite every houseshow match. Fair enough. Cheers.

They should have, but I'm struggling to think of an example from the same era where houseshows were acknowledged or referred to in any way aside from being broadcast material. There's also the chance that it wasn't some sort of intentional story progression. Perhaps it just fits when you watch the matches as a series. They do, however, do the early "Steamboat's got to be careful not to be DQ'ed" bit in Wrestlemania III.

I always thought it was a known fact that Steamboat had been DQ'ed in all the houseshow matches leading up to Wrestlemania III. I could never understand the criticism of that match from a booking standpoint, similar to the Bret/Owen cage match which didn't make sense to have any blood in the context of the feud. 1997 was arguably the best year in CMLL history in terms of what we have on tape. Either '97 or '90. '88-97 works for me.

I managed to find that Orton/Mysterio match. It was a good match considering how limited Orton is, but it was spot driven and choreographed and followed along the lines of the typical WWE match patterns. These things are okay if they're executed well, but it's blatantly obvious that they're executing them in terms of following the patterns. This is especially the case with transitions. All WWE matches have the same kind of transitions that are replayed again in slow motion and lead into commercial breaks. That's obviously part of the overall production, but it makes it seem like the matches fit too neatly into the overall package. I think the quality of matches is definitely higher than at any other time in WWE history, but I'd rather watch great matches from the 80s no matter how scare they were than the current Hollywood-ish formula for blockbusters. Of course some of the better 80s stuff was formulaic and staged looking as well, but with simple camera set-ups at an arena and the lack of commentators screeching about angles and the workers' gimmicks it simply feels like professional wrestling, which is always staged looking to some degree. With the WWE everything is so planned and carefully orchestrated and they're all so focused on working the WWE way that it definitely seems homogeneous.

Can anybody give me the date on the famous Mysterio/Henry match? And isn't there a Orton/Mysterio match worth watching?

I'll have to watch it again at some point because I don't remember the opening falls being a problem.