EricR

That modern wrestlers really liked being lumped in and compared in any light with an Olympic champion.

Not really. Dave defends Angle as a HOFer and thinks he was a good choice. Not exactly: He didn't vote for Angle that year. He feels Angle made the case eventually. Meltzer also thinks that Angle's TNA has added to and strengthened his legacy.

TomK illustrated the best and most obvious reason of Angle getting in so easily: old workers wanted to be lumped in with his legitimacy. He's just like us, gold medal caliber wrestling skills and cutting off the ring."

Calling him a "lost 90s superworker" was not meant to be a Fujiwara type revelation. All those reviews are within the concept of WCW MNW syndicated shows. And in that vacuum he's definitely a superworker. He understands the goal of his matches on those C and D shows better than almost any of the other workers and over the course of the project he's been one of the most pleasant surprises for me. I cited plenty of reasons why - beyond his cool fistdrops. All you did was whine that one tossed off sentence was tantamount to being "lectured".

And for those talking Sagrada/Demon, I just recently watched a trios where the tecnico team was Blue Demon Jr., Mascara Sagrada, and Strongman Jon Andersen. It was pretty much the worst thing I've seen all year. None of the tecnicos wanted to show ass, and it was the main event of the card, so the match was literally a 16 minute squash with the tecnicos taking 98% of the offense.

Except I listed numerous, specific examples of why he was awesome - from 8 different matches - that I think would be pretty hard to disagree with after watching the matches. I didn't just pull any of those reasons out of thin air, they were all things that made him stand out over most other workers on those shows. I'm not advocating he should have been in main events, he was perfect right where he was on the card and making the most of his spot in the pecking order. But to compare him unfavorably with Brian Adams or Stevie Ray makes me think you weren't paying too much attention.

Yeah calling Vincent/Curly Bill one of the three worst WCW workers is absurd. Along with the two match reviews Matt posted, here's the rest of his matches I've reviewed. I've liked every single WCW Vince match I've watched so far. These reviews also reveal that I have zero memory of stuff once I watch it, as I make the exact same revelations practically every match, like some dorky ass version of Memento. vs. Barry Horowitz Man, I really really like late 90s Vincent. What the fuck? He has no offense whatsoever, but does little things that just work. He's like what Stevie Richards added to late 00's Sunday Night Heat. Here he does some cool hot shots on Barry, then chokes him in the ropes while hitting these awesome body blows. Horowitz does cool things too and I love him stomping both of Vincent's hands while he's on the mat. Vincent does really hilarious "ohhhhhh my hand...OHHHHH MY OTHER HAND!" selling. Some cool spots in this that you don't ever see. Vincent has Barry in a headlock and ran up the turnbuckles with it and when he went to flip it into a bulldog (like Kidman would do) Horowitz just planted him with a back suplex. At another point Vincent had Barry draped over the top rope, and climbed to the top to do a guillotine leg drop! But Barry moved an Vince crotched himself and it was awesome. I loved Vincent's finisher in WCW, too, the single arm DDT rolled into a Fujiwara armbar. I REALLY want to see Vincent against Finlay, Taylor or Regal. w/ Brian Adams vs. Benoit/Malenko This was supposed to be Brian Adams vs. Dean Malenko, which sounds kinda shitty on paper. But it was changed pre-match to the tag you see above, which to me sounds completely AWESOME on paper and explains the earlier, shorter Vince match. Seriously, late 90s WCW Vincent is a revelation, just the perfect syndicated TV worker. Really knew how to cater his style to whatever guy he was working and he really may be the great lost late 90s superworker. His work against Malenko here was great, flying into his silly leaping flipping calf kick and once he goes on offense really begins the story of the match (working over Dean's back and building to the Benoit hot tag). He has all sorts of cool forearms and clubbing blows and an amazing elbow drop to Dean's back, with Adams then working it over with a nice tilt-a-whirl slam and just stretches Dean over his knee. Yeah it all gets no sold by the end of the match but the work by nWo was strong and you can't expect much more from a 6 minute Saturday Night tag that ends in a run-in. Personally, I thought Adams and Vince smoked the vanilla midgets in this match. an earlier tag w/ Brian Adams vs. Benoit/Malenko Well this match was fucking awesome. People are going to pull out the "pretending to like a shitty wrestler to sound kewl" card, but holy shit is Vincent one of the best things about this rewatch project. Dude makes total throwaway matches watchable, and he really steps up his game in bigger matches like this. He is responsible for holding this one together, actually. Benoit looked good and dished a beating, but the beating was made way more fun by Vincent stooging around the ring for him. He was really weird, in that he always seemed like he was playing a guy that wasn't really a wrestler. He's probably most similar to Stevie Richards, I guess. Neither guy really has any offense, but what they do they do really well. Vincent is such an anomaly in that I don't remember him being any good at ALL in WWF. I don't know when exactly he got good, but he is flat out awesome in '98 WCW. His control segments are great, as he dishes out tons of backrakes and clubbing blows. His clubbing blows are awesome as they aren't quite punches, aren't quite clubbering, but they land somewhere around the dudes neck/throat and look awesome. He bumps great, and always makes tagging in Adams a big deal, either by desperately scrambling to him or by cockily strutting over to take him in like "Yeah you know I was just beating your ass, now here's the big man." Match gets tons of time, gets some good nearfalls, and is a great Vincent showcase. Great stuff. w/ Konnan vs. Steiner Bros. Well Vincent looked AMAZING in the main, and boy did he take a crazy beating from the Steiners. Scott almost dumped him on his head with a belly to belly, Rick gives him the fasted and most dangerously painful Oklahoma Stampede I've ever seen (running him full speed stomach first in to the buckles, with Vincent's knees whipping over the top rope. If Steiner had been offline then one of his knees would've shattered into the ringpost), powerslam off the top, etc. It gets to a point where Vincent tries to tag out and Konnan backs away, and Vincent's face is priceless. He then gets bulldogged off Scott's shoulders for the loss. Fun match I wasn't expecting much from (since Konnan may be the worst in WCW...him or Stevie Ray). vs. Marty Jannetty First off, Marty fucking Jannetty (!) gets a clean pin over a member of the nWo halfway through 1998! WHAT!? Vincent looked awesome here, hitting an assortment of fistdrops and "Hitman" style elbow drops. Then Jannetty somehow gets the win. Insane. Did not see that coming. That's one of the great things about syndicated WCW, is that you get weird hierarchy matches between people that you've never seen win one match. Who wins a match between Van Hammer and Scott Vick? There are often no foregone conclusions with these matches. I didn't even know Marty was employed this late, let alone winning matches.

Dandy vs. Negro Navarro

Yeah it was pretty quiet. Any idea how it was built up? It seems like an odd match to just throw out on PPV with no build, and give 10 minutes (which would make it the 3rd or 4th longest match on the card).

I would not be shocked if this approached 60+ discs.

Yeah Phil and I are gonna be watching a lot of Lawler over the next week +. Will's got his gigantic set coming out soon, and the man himself is turning 64 in a week! Today we're gonna put up our reviews of a Lawler/Hennig towards the end of Hennig's life, and some Helms/Lawler match from a WWE PPV that gets 10 minutes and I have zero memory of ever happening.

Donovan Morgan told me years ago that when Takayama snapmared him and kicked him in the spine, both of his arms temporarily went numb. Ever since then I always get shivers when seeing that spot.

It's really obnoxious that Dave thinks it's completely impossible to evaluate how well something worked unless you watched it as it happened. As if seeing modern workers is what made Brody or Takada's 80s work seem boring as hell. From all the 80s projects it's been REALLY fucking obvious what worked and what didn't, and from what I've seen the same shit that worked then works today, style notwithstanding. His goal seems to be to discredit the people that are watching the footage, but it comes off as a far bigger insult to the actual workers, as that also implies that their work or "entertainment" wasn't good enough to transcend a couple decades. Imagine a movie critic arguing that a pile of shit like Forrest Gump must always be considered a classic because people in 1994 thought it was, and anybody who says otherwise now just don't understand what they're watching. It's pretty clear that the reason he condescends to people who have been going back and re-evaluating footage is because by and large most of his favorites have aged like hot dogshit.

What was the one WWF match Finlay had in 1989?

I didn't realize it was Knobbs' exit from the company, but Meng spearing a cardboard cutout of Goldberg is a favorite moments amongst me and my friends. It's amazing. They're brawling backstage and a bunch of fans are around, and one of them has the Goldberg cutout. Out of nowhere Meng just screams and spears the thing in half. Unreal.

Dory's insistence on keeping his hair long is really adding to his age, but we'll all look like idiots when he shows up at a Halloween party with the most accurate Cryptkeeper costume you've ever fucking seen.

There was a funny sketch with Kevin Nash. I forget the context but Shelley/Sabin were showing him some foreign wrestling and he says something like "I've never even seen a two-sided ring before!"

Phil and I are gonna rake in the BUXX when our Segunda Caida book comes out (where it will then be painfully apparent how often we re-use jokes)

Norman Smiley's wind-up bodyslam always impressed the hell out of me.

With his horrible open wide collar and awful Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer brow and hair, HHH looks like Meat Loaf in the "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" video.

5/22/07 1. Snitsky vs. Tommy Dreamer The dream match everybody was waiting for! Snitsky posts Dreamer and works over his shoulder to start, until Snitsky misses a big boot and crotches himself over the top rope. He did the exact same missed spot last week against RVD, so it appears this is going to be his "Andre stuck in the ropes" spot. He doesn't make it look very good, though. Dreamer's comeback was really cool but then he went up top for no reason other than getting caught by Snitsky. Man that's dumb. Tazz also overdoes the "Snitsky had BAD intentions behind that shot!" as he also drove it into the ground last week. I fucking hate that phrase when MMA announcers use it, and it's no less stupid here. What other intentions would ANYbody have when he is fighting someone? You have two guys trying to win a fight. OF COURSE a punch will have bad intentions. I guess that are rare instances like "Man, I had to hit you with that chair to save you from yourself! I was trying to help you! My intentions were good." Elsewhere in 2007, Timbaland did a music video with the Hives, and it featured Layla and Torrie Wilson. That's weird. 2. Kevin Thorn vs. Wyatt Laro? 90 second squash, but a good one. Wyatt...something (Styles and Tazz kept pronouncing his last name slightly different. Laird, Lara, Lahro, Layro. I have no idea what it was supposed to be as he didn't get an onscreen graphic) bumped nicely for Thorn and Thorn didn't dawdle and busted out a nice clothesline and a fine yakuza kick. Fans actually get amped for Wyatt's comeback but it's shortlived and Thorn hits his finisher, which Styles now calls Original Sin. Also, no Ariel with him this week, so I assume she got canned out of nowhere and never mentioned again (because they sure weren't talking about why she wasn't there this week). 3. Matt Striker vs. Brett Major So, this wasn't very good at all. Ryder is so-so now, so imagine how polished he was 6 years ago. He had some big bumps, and then some of the worst punches you've ever seen which I suppose means he's supposed to be the new ECW Chris Chetti. It was weird seeing him break out offense that I don't associate with him, like a rolling senton (once he started getting somewhat over his offense became more locked in). I still like Striker and he looked good here. They spent so much time putting over how he's the weak link of the New Breed that I was positive he'd lose here, which really made me buy into Major reversing a vertical suplex into a small package. So that was a good pinfall fakeout, but Major just wasn't that good overall. 4. RVD & CM Punk vs. Elijah Burke & Marcus Cor Von Wow, what a dud. This was one of the more boring matches I've seen in some time. They get plenty of time to do something, and this couldn't even hold my attention for 14 minutes. I had to break it up into two parts. A couple minutes in we get Burke and Marcus isolating RVD and working over his legs for what seems like an eternity. The leg work looks good (especially liked Burke knee dropping RVD's legs and slamming his knees into the canvas over and over) but my god they work his legs over for 8 minutes. There are never any teases to tag in Punk during this whole time, just the two guys working over RVD. No missed hot tags, not even any attempts. Just RVD having to sell leg work for a long time. RVD as a salesman always brings plenty of unintentionally funny facials. Eventually after the longest 8 minutes of my month, Punk tags in and the crowd is going crazy. And then Cor Von hits another awesome Pounce (I don't think I'll ever tire of this move) and Punk goes flying into the ropes and...the ref calls for the bell. You see, Cor Von was not the legal man. Oh, my god. Was this during that period when the refs were supposed to call things "as if they were a shoot"? Because a couple weeks back when Vince pinned RVD Scott Armstrong waited way long to count because one of RVD's shoulders were up, and now this match ends out of nowhere in the flattest way possible, over something that rarely ends a match in WWE. This was a horrible waste of 15 minutes right here.

Yeah Burke's been looking really good so far. After watching this era of ECW for just a few weeks he's one of the few bright patches. If Stevie Richards was a regular that would help. But damn if this roster leaves a lot to be desired. It probably doesn't help that the only WWECW I had seen up until this point had Finlay and Mark Henry matches every week.

5/15/07 Vince starts us with a sit down interview wearing a white doo rag (to match his suit) and doing a kinda bonkers promo about how much he likes his "skull caps", and thinks they look cool, but what he likes more is not wearing anything on his head at all and how Bobby Lashley took that privilege away from him. For anybody that was sick of MacMahons on TV, I think Vince is so incredibly awesome once you're removed from the situation. 1. RVD vs. Snitsky On paper this does not look great, but RVD's best opponents are usually immobile roid guys. He bumps around big for their moves and makes them look better than they really are (and bumping has always been his strongest suit). When he's against another "athletic" guy they just become mindless jerkoff sessions. RVD still has plenty of problem spots in this match (his forearms have always been a train wreck) but this match is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. They've both been in with "better" workers, but this is a good match up. It's not a good match, mind you, but a good match up. All of RVD's spin kicks land nice and snug and he peppers them in at the right times. Snitsky doesn't blow anything and controls with acceptable power offense. Match ends when Snitsky hits RVD with a chair, so apparently that is not a thing you can do in the new ECW. 2. CM Punk vs. Steven Richards They do a Punk video before the match highlighting all of Punk's martial arts expertise, and it shows footage of him just hitting his awkward spinning mule kick and slapping somebody. He also calls jiu jitsu "jits" which is just about the most annoying 'breve you can use. I did not realize Richards was still a WWE employee at this point but I'm stoked as I always liked his WWE work. The Bob Holly matches from Heat were two of my favorites from that time period. This match was really great and about as awesome a match as you could do in 4 1/2 minutes. Punk has his ribs taped up from getting hit with the Pounce last week, and Richards immediately eye rakes Punk and starts ripping at the tape. He starts working the body with punches and stomps, snapmaring Punk and just booting the shit out of his back. Nice, satisfying THUD there. Richards works him over with a cool bow and arrow and keeps to those ribs. Richards always had really great body part specific match layouts, depending on what the match called for. Punk's comeback was nice and quick, with Richards getting into place for everything really well and flying face first into the GTS. God I wanted like 2 more minutes at least, but they filled the time they had really well. 3. Kevin Thorn vs. Nunzio Thorn seems pretty boring, just making a bunch of scowly faces and plodding around. Nunzio looks GREAT here. His bumping was always pretty spectacular, but his evasive offense here was really satisfying and his stick and move style worked nicely. He had a really great dropkick to Thorn's ankle and then hit a sweet dropkick off the top. Then Thorn just kinda brushed it off and hit his admittedly cool finisher (like a Stunner but with the guy draped over the top rope, called the Dark Kiss). I imagine most guys don't take it as well as Nunzio, though. Extreme Expose is up now, and okay Kelly does legitimately seem out of place during a bunch of this, and even takes a kick to the head from Layla at one point (Layla does a lot of high kicks and was lying on the apron doing them, when Kelly tried to walk through the ropes mid-Layla kick. Whoops.) which they admirably move on from somewhat smoothly. Layla looked so damn tiny and skinny during this, much less curvy than present. 4. The New Breed (Matt Striker, Marcus Cor Von, Elijah Burke) vs. Bobby Lashley Boy, sure are a lot of 3 on 1 handicap matches on the new ECW. They're even building one up throughout the show for the upcoming Judgment Day PPV. This match is pretty much nothing until Cor Von hits the Pounce a few minutes in and Lashley spills spectacularly over the top rope to the floor. For a move that seems really hard to make look good, a lot of guys seem to make the Pounce look really good. Burke looks really good working over Lashley. He had a bunch of nice body blows, a cool Kabuki right uppercut, and a great fistdrop off the top to Lashley's ribs (was Burke a guy getting pimped in 2007? He looks really good here). Lashley's come back kind of comes out of nowhere, like they just got the call to go home. They go from Lashley selling a beating to just immediately going back on offense, dispatching Burke and Cor Von, and then hitting his finisher on Striker. Striker gets more height on a chokeslam/power bomb type move than anybody I've ever seen. Holy lord. This match could have been really good if Lashley's transition to comeback was worked in sensibly. Instead they just flipped a switch and it was "Okay, my turn to do stuff" and the whole thing ended up rushed.

This sounds like a real fun project and Loss couldn't have made things much easier with all his links to YouTube and downloads. I'm gonna try my damndest to watch and review all these on Segunda Caida and make an ongoing ballot/ranking as I do it. I'll start in 2000 and we'll see how far I get (most likely I'll get to April of 2000).

Yeah it felt like something that at the time I would have been more worked up about ("they're blowing it! This isn't like the original ECW!")...well, maybe if they had done the WWECW fed in say 2003 when I still actively missed the original ECW. Watching now it just seems hilarious and Vince is way more entertaining than a lot of the pushed ECW guys.