EricR

Konnan is a potential worst in-ring of all-time candidate, so that one should be easy.

So to clear all the is he/isn't he talk up for good, Rock is officially black. I finally got around to watching the 5/2/11 Raw (Rock's Birthday Raw), and Tyler Perry wishes him happy birthday in a pre-recorded message. Does not get any blacker than Tyler Perry acknowledging your existence.

I did look a little botched, as Cara seemed like he wasn't expecting to hit the mat as early as he did. But Bourne sold it awesomely enough that I didn't consider it a botch at all. He treated it like he just got whipped into the mat face and chest first, lifting his face up to feel his nose for blood before plopping it back down lifelessly on the mat. The people who were comparing Matt Cross to Bourne in the Tough Enough thread months ago don't know shit about dick.

I love his work. He's a square peg in the round hole that is King's Road style, and that makes me love him more. His run as GHC champ may be my favorite title run from my favorite puro company. Sniveling heel with zero offense that keeps pulling out wins was really compelling, and at the time it was actually really over (he managed to get inside cradles and small packages over as finishers to the crowd). It would be like if WWE gave Stevie Richards a run with the title at some point.

How did this happen? Like...seriously? Who cares if Mariah Carey or Jason Kidd or Michael Hayes is black?

I'm going to quit watching wrestling due to it being so sexist! Wrestling is a racist, sexist, ashamed-of-welfare-taking fans witch hunt and it is awesome!

List needs more Porkchop Cash. And also, surprised to not see Iceman King Parsons on there since we just saw a bunch of him on the Texas set. Brickhouse Brown has popped up on the 80s sets as well.

How do you tell when a thread is past its prime?

What's always impressed me even more, was how athletic he was at his weight, while being over 40 years old. He was 41 in his last WWF year, then went to AJPW/NOAH and took crazy bumps for a few more years.

Viscera has had good singles matches within the last 5 years. I remember a lot of people being really into his ECW run. I really liked the Benoit singles match (with V taking a german). Stuff turned up online of him working Memphis which I liked. I haven't seen much of his Japan run though.

Jesus, an 18 minute Sal Bellomo match?

I actually had no idea that Zhukov got a singles win over ANYbody, whether by CO, DQ, or pinfall. I though he was just losing 4 minute matches at that point. Yikes.

I like Mistico more than most, but he is flawed. He has some impressive spots, and he gets ridiculous height on bumps, and can bump really crazy at times. But his pacing can be sketchy and his strikes (even stuff like kicks to the stomach) look weak. But, I think he takes a good beating and I have gotten into plenty of his mid-match comebacks. If we were doing a 500 during his best years, I can see him peaking at the high 100s.

How is this depressing for lucha fans? There are over 100 luchadors that make weekly TV that I enjoy. WWE can't sign all of them. Lucha didn't suck when WCW signed a bunch of luchadors. WWE is killing the lucha libre tradition!!! They've signed 2 guys from a company with the biggest current roster in wrestling!

I think the show just happened to come out during that 6 month span where Bo was arguably the most popular athlete around. You had the endless Nike ads, all the publicity for the "Bo Breaker", the "running up the wall" Spiderman catch that was replayed to infinity as a highlight, the giant All-Star game homer (off Rick Reuschel.*sigh*). Bo was HUGE right at that moment. Nobody knew at the time he was an average fielder at a weak position, struck out a bunch, with decent speed and big power. At the time he was viewed as a mega star.

Dana White made a comment around the time of the GSP/Koscheck fight that GSP was the most well known Canadian athlete of all time, "a billion times bigger than Gretsky". But that was like 5 months ago, so not really sure why Dave and Bryan would still be talking about it, let alone debating it. Most dismissed it as crazy Dana hyperbolic hubris months ago.

Now that you've accepted it, we can now begin to heal.

Angle is arguably the worst at adapting to opponents' styles. He wants to have the same match with everybody, no matter size or ability.

I always wished they carried over the D'Lo Brown column "He's So European" onto TV. Those were hilarious. Just him, wearing his European title and a beret, saying goofy fanfic things like, "As I was sitting in the French bistro, looking out over the city..." could've gotten over. And Stevie Richards column in WCW magazine was the greatest. Although I think it only ran for two issues. In one of them he called Glacier's finisher the Icicle Kick. Awesome.

So apparently I was one of the only people that really liked Wrestlemania. I thought Edge/Del Rio was really good, though really wanted the armbar to finish. Brodus, Christian, and Ricardo were all really great at ringside, with Christian's punches looking awesome and then taking a huge bump from Brodus' throw, Ricardo running into frame to pull the foot was great. Del Rio took some massive bumps and I really am quite in love with him. If you told me a year ago one of my favorite workers would be Dos Caras Jr.? Forget it. Edge looked lousy but everybody else worked overtime to make that not an issue. Really liked Rey/Cody and loved all the mask stuff, liked Rey's big tangled up in the ropes bump, liked Cody's big springboard kick. Thought the 8 man got perfect amount of time for the people involved. Kane got to hit his cool uppercut that Gabriel put over huge and that was all, Santino hit the Cobra, I was fine with this. Thought the backstage skit with Snoop was actually funny, actually laughed out loud at Piper's reaction. Though I really hate the Hornswoggle talking in grunts thing. REALLY liked Orton/Punk, as Orton cut way back on his slithering bullshit and Punk was amazing. His high kick to reverse out of the RKO was an awesome spot. While I normally don't care for the "guy leaping and being caught in the RKO" spot, I thought this was handled well as at least Punk was caught during a spot he routinely does. Also, the pre-match video with Orton hitting all the punts was my favorite WWE promo video since the HBK/UT Placebo-covering-Kate Bush video last year. Really made Orton seem way more interesting and dangerous than he's come off in the past year. Lawler/Cole was booked odd for reasons many others have gone over, but I still really enjoyed large parts of the match, and really dug Cole getting pulled headfirst repeatedly into his Pope bubble. Also liked Lawler grabbing Cole by the headgear and beating him. Taker/HHH went too long for my liking, but I liked large parts of the match, and HHH's backdrop bump was insane. Taker busts out his WM dive, match drug towards the ending, but actually bought the Tombstone as the finish, so they at least got me hooked there. Thought the 6 man was also perfect length. Layla took a big bump of the clothesline on the floor, and Snooki soaked up the boos while doing a legitimately better handspring-based offense than when Davey Richards tries the same. Her finisher reminded me of Chris Hero's 2001 CZW juniors tribute offense and I dug it. Main event I really liked up until the ending stopped it dead. EVERYthing before that I really loved. Both guys seemed to be working really stiff, way stiffer than I remember either of them working in a long while. Cena's running clothesline on the floor was insane and the way the shot it made him look like a monster. And the spot that got them counted out was really great, too. Miz really went SPLAT right onto the concrete. Ending stank, but the match itself had too much good. I guess I don't really get the people saying the show didn't have any "wrestling" on it. I thought it had three good-to-great matches on it, but some here seem to really be shitting a brick about it. Whatever, I didn't pay anything for it and while it ran a little long, I chalked it up as a good night of watching wrestling with friends.

It seems like I'm always the guy who tries to run to Nathan Jones defense in all of these threads, and I think they always get ignored (or people just don't believe me). I really think he was starting to get how to be effective in the ring, and then just kinda quit a month later. http://www.filestube.com/80e9ea964c01f2980...es-11-6-03.html That's the 11/6/03 Smackdown match which I love. Jones/Matt Morgan/A-Train/Lesnar vs. Benoit/Angle. It's clear that it's not Jones being carried by guys, and he's even put in the position of having to work the first 2 minutes against Angle and Benoit. Yes, Angle bumps huge for him, but he shows great presence, throws an awesome shoulderblock and back elbow, bullies Benoit into the corner in a real cool way, takes a dropkick to the knee really nicely (dropping awkwardly down to one knee and then shaking his leg out afterwards). That's all he's in until the very end, where he misses a big boot in the corner, ends up crotched on the top rope, then takes an INSANE bump to the floor that's worth the price of admission. I don't think he had too many more matches before quitting (I think he had Angle and Benoit singles matches, and maybe Team Lesnar match at Survivor Series), but if his performance in this match is any indication, he was really starting to catch on before quitting.

This counting just his run as Godfather or all incarnations? I was just accepting your challenge to find someone in a national program for more than a year that didn't have a good match. I haven't seen every Soul Taker match, and Papa Shango matches are nothing more than a relic from my childhood, and I missed a lot of the Kama: Extreme Fighting Machine run.... But I saw the whole Godfather run, and cannot think of a good match.

The Godfather? Also, Kimala had a really good match with Bret Hart in WWF, as well as plenty of fun matches elsewhere during the 80s I liked his Tenryu match in All Japan. LOVED the tag with he and Botswana Beast. As for Nathan Jones, not only did he have the Benoit match, but he had the miracle Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner matches in Australia, and towards the end of his WWE run he was in a bunch of stuff I really like. He looked like an honest to god awesome wrestler in a Smackdown match that (I think) was Angle/Benoit vs. Jones/Brock/Morgan. He took two massive bumps over the top and his offense looked good. Arguably best guy in the match. I don't think he was around much after that though, sadly. And I never got too into Virgil stuff, but REALLY thought Vincent/Curly Bill had some awesome stuff on WCW syndie TV in '98-'00.

My radio station got a lot of last minute tickets to Elimination Chamber. The seats weren't very great, but we got a row of them a couple days before the event.

I'm a huge fan and was considering doing a Golberg Complete & Accurate at some point. The Elimination Chamber with him in it was amazing, easily my favorite Chamber. Crowd was too hot for him and is offense was so damn dynamic. I really liked the matches against Hak, Chistian, and Mark Henry. There are many more but I'd need to check my tapes. Golberg captured the fans imagination in the ring. Tiger Mask always looked apathetic and got put over everybody so he got over.