Ryan Faulconer

If the best match is only three stars, then I would say there hasn't been a MOTYC so far. I guess I prescribe to the old-school mentality that MOTYC means 4 1/2 stars or better. I couldn't see a three star match contending for MOTY no matter how novel it may be, though I'm sure I could convince myself otherwise if I really liked the match. What happens when there is a year like 2000 (or whenever) where there aren't any ****1/2 matches? Does that mean that there aren't any MOTYCs? There is a point where it is hard for matches to live up to their hype. There was a time when every ROH show supposedly had the MOTY and when we get around to watching things just don't add up. There is a case for a lot of live wrestling experiences being overrated. RAW gets a lot more praise than Smackdown even though the matches are close to being equal week in and week out. I'd say that Cesaro/Cena was the best TV match I've seen from WWE this year.

Is there an iTunes link? I'm a subscriber to the iTunes PTBN but I don't see it listed.

I think he's done that twice. First was against Dos Caras in 95 Mask League and the second against Ohtani during the J Crown finale in 96. He did that roughly within a year of each other. He's taken a few too many bumps to the head. I always thought the Dirtbike Kid "shoot" was a receipt for something that happened earlier. He didn't permanenly injure the guy so it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary from the wacky world of pro wrestling. The match happened during the 1999 Mask League. Booking in MPro always seemed pretty inconsistent. Even during the peak years of KDX's feud with Sasuke the matches weren't booked like anyone in the US would think an important feud like that would need to be. Gimmicks like Dakko Chan/Doc Chan/whatever Jody Fleisch was called were pretty stupid. I think Shinzaki did a lot of the booking over the years and not Sasuke. Ted Tanabe probably helped too so it is hard to put the blame on anyone in particular when it comes to MPro's lesser momments. I think Sheldon Goldberg wrote a long article detailing the difficulties of dealing with Sasuke during the year(s) ECW worked with Michinoku Pro.

Most of the better Battle Royales/Royal Rumbles have had a similar formula as well. The 98 WarGames is an example of doing it wrong. Every one before that (with maybe the odd one here and there) managed the time and milked crowd reactions. I haven't liked the TNA versions but ROH's Steel Cage Warfare has been good more often than not. I still haven't watched the Smoky Mountain war games from the blu ray.

Hopefully I can answer this without writing a novel to explain it. I met the girl who is now my wife when I signed up to plentyoffish back in 2006. I had two back surgeries and I was stuck in the hospital for just over four months in late 2006/early 2007 so I thought I would put my downtime to some use. My profile listed my interests with me listing "lucha libre" as one of the last things on the list. I don't really hide my interest in wrestling but I thought listing that would sound more exotic and less "idiot thinks fake fighting is real". If the girl knew what lucha was I considered it a good thing. If she didn't know what it was there would be none of the patronizing questions that are usually what we as wrestling fans hate the most when talking to non-fans. Anyway - I had just had two back surgeries in five months so my mobility was pretty limited once I got out in February 2007. My first "dates" with this girl were centered around hanging out at my place watching DVDs/sharing my music tastes/showing her my paintings. After a couple of dates she asked me what the 200something VHS tapes were that stuck out in the corner like a pink elephant VHS collection would. I told her about Mexican and Japanese wrestling and then showed her the six man tag from MPro 3/16/96 and probably some lucha - IIRC. Since she is a nurse her only questions were based around how much those moves must hurt and how badly injured those guys must be. She is so sweet and understanding. Over the next few years I began replacing my VHS with DVDs and she never passed a word of judgment over that particular interest of mine. She does wonder where all these DVDs will go if I keep adding to my collection but that is a discussion solved with a bookcase or shelf rather than an indictment over my intelligence like some people who don't "get" or watch wrestling that we are all probably too familiar with. My wife has a bigger problem with Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Robot Chicken but even that she enjoys because she sees how much I enjoy watching them. Her only lingering thoughts (after seeing ATHF) revolve around how she can never look at Santa or the Easter Bunny the same again. When I was in university (95-99) there were plenty of stupid questions and insinuations if the subject of pro wrestling came up. Some of that time was the boom period though and people seemed to have fun watching the crash tv format. When I was younger in the 1980s I dealt with teachers who loathed wrestling and took every opportunity to belittle it and point out the most obvious aspects of what us fans have long since accepted. People who question our sanity for enjoying pro wrestling should really turn the mirror on themselves. When they smugly point out the ridiculousness of pro wrestling I sometimes wonder if they know that their favourite televised or live performances aren't real either. There are probably many examples of actors getting insulted or twitter DEATH THREATS because people can't separate fiction from reality.

It was always my understanding that workrate didn't define particular style of match. What defines a match is the style of workrate. There can be slow workrate and fast workrate. Good or great or your favourite matches can have low workrate but still get the right story over and impress the fans watching. Every match is a workrate match. Every match has psychology too but there is good/smart psychology and/or bad/dumb psychology that confuses us. The term "spotfest" seems redundant and misused a lot as well. Every match is a spotfest. Well - I guess Nash vs Hogan from January 1999 isn't a spotfest but that is only because it contains only one or two spots. A highspotfest seems like a better description of what people mean in that context. Nevertheless...that probably belongs more in an earlier thread on the board that was defining wrestling buzzwords. Defining good wrestling on a message board like this means nothing without examples of a board member's individual tastes. In a more specialized forum like DVDVR's lucha section (before the restart) or the year-by-year discussions on this forum probably do more to explain someone's definition of what a good match is for them.

So who is more carny - Heyman or Quack? Heyman has a legacy to look back on and consider. We could almost devote an entire subfolder to the various schemes scams Heyman pulled with his wrestlers. Quack has students that are afraid to wrestle for anyone else. They might even pay to wrestle on Chikara shows. Is there anecdotal evidence that the same could be said about ECW's lockerroom? I haven't seen any Chikara beyond early 2011. They were pretty enjoyable from 2007-2010. After Claudio and Sara Del Rey left it felt like the roster was about four wrestlers deep - although your mileage may vary.

They probably can't fix the problem when week after week they seem to be rewriting the shows either right before or during RAW's broadcast. This doesn't explain Smackdown's similar routine but I don't think they are very good at problem solving of any kind. I really dislike commercial breaks on live TV wrestling broadcasts. Bulking up to a three hour RAW has not only given us longer but also better matches which makes the break in action tolerable. The 1980s wrestling formula was so avoidable. They would tease a main event and then run out of time during the ring introductions. Now that I have been enjoying a lot more WWE this past year I rationalize the frustrating TV format. They always use the same formula for ad breaks for every single match. In a messed up but vengeful way I think every match should be held under cage/lumberjack/barbed wire/inferno match rules. It would force them to use more than one transition into their almost agonizing ad breaks. I found it so annoying in CMLL back in 2006. The commercial breaks could be longer than the first or second falls...or both combined sometimes. It was probably one of the reasons I stopped watching lucha TV as religiously. I know I know...I was watching it on a VHS or DVD and the fast forward button was right there at my fingertips. It still took me out of the match and helped ruin my enjoyment of my favourite promotion.

How about some lucha? 03/08/98El Hijo Del Santo vs Felino indy 04/24/98 Atlantis, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Black Warrior, Blue Panther, El Hijo Del Santo CMLL 06/05/98 Octagoncito vs Mini Abismo Negro AAA 07/03/98 Mr. Aguila, Olimpico, Pantera vs Rey Bucanero, Ultimo Guerrero, Zumbido CMLL 11/03/98 Astro Rey Jr., Oriental, Tajiri, Tony Rivera vs Karloff Lagarde Jr., Ultimo Guerrero, Violencia, Zumbido CMLL Sometime in 1998... Atlantis/Mr. Niebla/Mr. Aguila vs. Rey Bucanero/Black Warrior/Emilio Charles Jr. (CMLL Japan) I didn't see these ones listed... 03/13/98 Hayabusa vs. Mr. Gannosuke (FMW) 5/19//08 Hayabusa vs. Masato Tanaka (FMW) 05/27/98 Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa (Battlarts) 08/08/98 Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Koji Kanemoto & Dr. Wagner Jr. (NJPW)

For someone who takes so much pride in mastering the game he has a really poor way of showing it. His matches were almost always too long. Some of the best have had that problem over the years with Kobashi/Punk/Hero/Danielson being examples. I don't think their matches ever stretched out and became boring like HHH's. He doesn't understand how to use his own signature prop. When he used the sledgehammer it always looked like crap. He will go and "big league" younger talent from smaller promotions but the stupid goof doesn't know how to portray exciting violence in the ring. Huge hulking body builder types don't make for good heel champions - especially when they do most of their action with the microphone...and that "action" is drawwwwn out and not actually anything that can hype up a crowd. His finishing move is not exciting like Austin's or The Rock's or even Foley's finishes. He can pretty much only set it up one way and that way is the wrong way if you are going for drama and excitement. He can make an entrance with a great sounding theme song. Skinnier and bump-happy HHH was probably what suited him best. After 2001 the party was over and he has bored me enough to go out of way to watch other wrestling. Shoehorning in "king of kings" as a nickname is something a backyarder would do. Almost everything he does (excluding all those steroids) is something a backyarder or even a recently hired guy from the indies would be something that would bury them as a talent. Triple H - Main Event Body - Backyarder's Brain. That should be the title of his next DVD.

I remember WWE in the 90s using really lazy looking transitions a lot of the time. They were usually really goofy looking punches with what seemed like the exact same number of blows thrown in every single transition. When the action was taking place in the middle of the ring it felt like the only way offense could shift was through a series of punches. WWE tag team transitions to this day can be annoyingly predictable. Everybody has to do the short-arm-style clothesline when they take over control. When I watched Dragon Gate until 2005 they had their share of head scratching transitions. Some guys would go back on offense immediately after kicking out of a two count.

Here's one that fans confuse both the origin and the meaning. Strong Style People think this means wrestling like they did in All Japan during the 1990s. As far as I know it was coined in New Japan by someone like Choshu. It doesn't mean ANYTHING besides describing the New Japan style of wrestlers. That's not the style of wrestling they use because the term moves with the times to fit whatever New Japan wants their wrestlers to be. It is the NJPW equivalent of "WWE Superstar".

Togo has been doing the pedigree since 2001. His sentons should look great. He has one of the best ever.

I think that the inconsistency of WWE booking can actually highlight the strengths of former indy wrestlers a lot more than weekend after weekend with ROH/PWG/Chikara/Gabe's world doubleshots that all those guys used to work. Daniel Bryan or Cesaro or Zayn or Bourne or whoever just LOOK better in the WWE environment. They stand out among the pack. Part of that is how see-saw pushes or match layouts can be in WWE and that is really one of the more frustrating things about following your favourite wrestlers as they transition into WWE. Put them in between your average Ziggler/Sandow types and goofy divas and someone like Bryan or Cesaro really will look like the best in the world. Guys like Bryan/Cesaro/Zayn/Bourne/Harper/Rollins look pretty similar to what they were showing in the latter portion of their indy careers. Cesaro is definitely better than he was in 2006 but by 2010 he seemed fully formed to me. Same goes for everyone else....except for Ambrose. Ambrose always stood out as awkward on Gabe's shows. I'd recommend his recent interview on Cabana's podcast for more of his own perspective. I don't know what to think about CM Punk in WWE. He almost seems overexposed to me - and I don't even get PPVs. Sometimes he looks like someone who has it all as a WWE performer. Sometimes he looks like that guy from 2003 IWA-MS only in front of a large paying audience instead of a few rows of empty chairs with scattered diehard fans amongst some beefy looking girls or old smoking gentlemen. Punk is definitely better than he was when he first got to WWE TV. It is definitely a good thing that match times are cut across the board once you transition from indies to WWE. I enjoy long matches too but less is more - more often than not. I find WWE leaves me wanting more once a match or show is over. When I watch the indies I'll find myself sometimes completely satisfied with the end of a show or match. Unfortunately I can also find myself taking incremental breaks from watching wrestling after some indy shows as well...and that never happens with WWE. I'm dying to see the WWE Network but I'm in Canada and I'll have to wait longer than some of you in order to enjoy current WWE all week long.

The earliest stuff I've seen from him was from IWA-MS in...maybe 2004. He seemed pretty methodical or lumbering while moving around in that horrible and/or great looking IWA-MS ring. The difference between Claudio then and Claudio in ROH/CZW/Chikara in 2006 and onward was a real surprise to me. He went from green to great during that span. He also used to dress in a dress shirt with a tie and pants. Switching to tights and/or shorts helped a lot presentation-wise. I guess he got a lot more muscular during that period and the Swiss Money Holding gimmick and outfit was so limiting and minor league. I loved his last matches in Chikara with Sara del Ray and El Generico. If it was Daizee Haze it would have been a different story (with a terrible plot and actors to match) but SDR and Claudio really worked well together. Claudio and a flyer is usually my favourite Claudio. I'm so glad that Generico transitioned into Sami Zane rather seamlessly. Now he and Cesaro can work together for years in a better ring in front of bigger crowds.

I think I'm finally becoming bored with WWE TV wrestling. I wondered when it would happen in a post a few weeks ago and I'm sadly surprised that it happened this quickly. The shows are loaded with wrestling and I would never hold that against them but...with a roster as big as it is they should be able to do more match-up wise than a ten man on Smackdown. I'm not giving up on the shows but last night was the first time in a while that I turned off the show before the usual and reliably enjoyable main event. Now that they have all these tag teams they should try and remember how to book tag teams. There are no singles matchups between feuding teams to split matches before they meet on PPV. There aren't any angles between the teams really either. It seems like every non-title match goes to the challenger. I know it is accepted WWE 101 at this point though. It feels like every finish to every match is revealed during the ring introductions and the first sentence or two that Michael Cole calls. Antonio Cesaro had a nice(ish) long US title run. Every match he had on TV was non-title though and he seemed to lose every single time for what seemed like weeks on end. I know I know - I'm like a year late to comment on that one but it was just the most glaring example of lazy booking that came to mind. I do find myself really enjoying the simplicity of WWE booking lately (with a few obvious exceptions). The shows are just crammed with matches with most of them being good or better. These are all good things. I guess I'm just waiting for the next shoe to drop in the storylines and we get past Royal Rumble this year.

If the WWE Network is widely available in Canada then they will have a much much larger library. Canadian Netflix is tiny compared to our American neighbours.

Does anyone think Dustin could have made a better lead babyface in WCW than Sting? I'm starting to ask that same question. If Dustin had stayed in WCW the entire time the quality of his matches would have piled up faster than Sting.

Yeah Bix is right. I got a little carried away there. Punk is someone who I simultaneously like and dislike for being aloof or confrontational with fans. I don't like how preachy he would get but I also enjoy how he can carry a gimmick/character in the world of 2013 wrestling. He seemed like a really good babyface on the indies. In WWE he just plain looks like he isn't having a good time being one. I've been watching the ROH compilation DVD for the Summer of Punk over the past few days. I'm amazed at how much it looks like a redo of the Shane Douglas/NWA speech from nineteen years ago. A lot of wrestling falls in the category of "you HAD to be there..." and I am pretty disappointed at just how much his ROH title win falls into that category. The Aries/Punk match REALLY doesn't stand the test of time. It looked ridiculous to me as a fan who buys the DVDs and watches the shows expecting to enjoy them. I enjoy a lot of ROH but that end stretch and promo afterwards looked like a jaded wrestling fan's wet dream come to life. The next night when he wears the suit and signs the contract on the belt comes off looking a lot better.

Punk used to have a livejournal and his attitude then was just as obnoxious. I guess he is the same way on Twitter but with only 144 characters to work with instead of a daily blog. It might have something to do with being straight edge but it could just be Punk thinking he is some righteous avenger of whatever morals he chooses to live by.

That SmackDown sure had a lot of pro wrestling on it. I joined in just as Ziggler/Orton was starting and from then on there was more wrestling than a few weeks of 1999 WWE television. The Shield's series of matches was almost perfect TV wrestling. I hate those commercial break ques whenever someone leaves the ring. Sometimes it comes ten seconds into the match which isn't too annoying. The breaks just when the action really kicks in are really the most frustrating part of enjoying TV wrestling. I can't really see much of a difference between 2006-2010 Seth Rollins/Tyler Black and his present day version. I enjoyed ROH Tyler Black so that isn't meant as an insult in any way. The matches are shorter and to the point in WWE/NXT. He had a fair number of shorter compacted matches scattered throughout his ROH days. They were usually on the unappreciated shows that weren't put over as must see in the WON or by Gabe's shilling. The series actually reminded me of the ROH version from the Man Up show. The WWE version had better selling. The ROH version tried to involve all the participants during each match as strategists and/or cheerleaders. I'm being vague with the comparison for fear of a major shitstorm of guffaws should I namedrop The No Remorse Corps vs. Resilience in a thread discussing an excellent year of WWE programming.

Punk was loved so much because a lot of people saw him grow up over the past decade or more. He was a guy like Kurt Angle and they both had several tools in their toolbox even at an early stage in their career. Most wrestlers have one tool or skill that they excel at show promise or even excel at early on in their careers. He is also a big wrestling fan who (IMSMR) posted at DVDVR and popped in on the chat room sometimes. I get them confused but I remember either him or Hero asking me for lucha recommendations. It was probably Hero but in 2001-2003 I had no idea who either was or what IWAMS was like so they kind of blend together in my memory. I'm not that big a Punk fan at this point but his availability online in his IWAMS days helped him build that initial fanbase online. Punk was one of my favourites until around 2005 but he hasn't grown as much as Danielson or Cesar or Hero or probably many others. Before the long match gimmick was overdone to death Punk was one of the first guys to do it. A lot of people equate length of match with its quality. Guys like Punk or Hero or Samoa Joe were loved in no small part because they had long matches. In an era not far removed from the crash tv years they were seen as and put over by others as throwbacks to "great wrestlers" who wrestled long matches. Most fans know that those two traits do not make someone a good wrestler but the gimmick sure helps them with some fans. The best thing about Punk is his credibility. He lives his gimmick. The dude has his gimmick tattooed on his knuckles. In a time when almost all wrestlers treat it like an acting gig I'm 99.9% sure that he is probably the guy that we see in the wrestling ring. He hasn't used the straight edge part of his character recently but the arrogance and ego that come from it are probably CM Punk - private citizen - only he tunes it up to 11 when he wrestles. Wearing his influences on his tattoo sleeve (KENTA and Macho Man to name a few) when he got to WWE hurt any bit of remaining mystique he might have had with me. I still think he's probably top fifteen in WWE but copying moves that he's not particularly good at performing makes him look less polished than his contemporaries from the indies who made it to WWE with him. Daniel Bryan and Antonio Cesaro seem like much more organic organic performers to me.

When he arrived on TV (actually PPV) he was better than average for his experience level. He had a great gimmick and it was pushed and protected. I thought he was a little stiff and awkward in his first few months but that changed as he started to work with better wrestlers in non-squash matches. He reminded me a lot of the original reaction the Toryumon wrestlers received. Most rookies in Japan got the same minimalist Da Stijl-like presentation with the matches to...uh....match. The fact that he wasn't cookie-cutter rookie formula made him look like an actual WWF superstar not long after his big debut. Stephanie McMahon started calling him cute on the air and they could have done a heck of a great feud with Triple H within a year of his initial breakthrough. He first seemed a little wooden and forced in his promos but that would quickly change within his first year on RAW/SmackDown/PPV. He had a great cocky gimmick with catchphrases and personality that made him a perfect fit as either a babyface or heel. For an Olympic gold medalist wrestler he didn't really do a lot of that "wrestling" stuff. He was a good WWF-style brawler. Slowly he picked up some of the traits (and moves) of his better opponents which made him that much more over. His gimmick was over enough that *open can of worms* fans all over believed he was a "technical wrestler". Angle was nuts enough to do crazy spots like moonsaults off of cages and quasi-death matches with dangerous assorted plunder. He was exciting to watch from early on. He wrestled a style that can thrill the fans with action packed performances and that's probably a good thing in any lockerroom or from most fans' point of view. The injuries that derailed momentum and the fact that he seemed to wrestle the same match with everyone started to hurt my enjoyment of his matches. The true example of his non-stop action packed no-psychology style would be matches with superheavyweights like Big Show or Kane. Angle would routinely find himself being outwrestled in simple mat exchanges when it really didn't fit the storyline or the wrestler he was facing. He's really the prototype for the greatest possible wrestler template. He has all the ability to be versatile in any role. If he is healthy and with the right opponent or agent he could probably wrestle any kind of match.

I was comparing the strong matches on a weekly basis from the Smackdown 6 period to now because it seems that eventually the law of diminishing returns is enforced and we just want something new an different. For some reason the comma doesn't work on my keyboard so that is quite a run-on sentence. I was specifically but probably not focused on referring to the same group wrestling each other over and over again. The Smackdown 6 did have people saying that any booker (or committee of booking primates) could book the same great workers (and Edge and Chavito) into great matches. When I mentioned the Smackdown 6 I really meant those same 6 wrestlers that everyone associates with that moniker. I guess their equivalent sextet would be Bryan/Shield/Rhodes Bros. If the original SmackDown 6 had included BookDust and Christian/Jericho it would probably have ruled that much more. Sigh. The only time I can think of where they worked together was during a ladder match on RAW IIRC. Where I come from (on the internet) is pretty much exclusively DVDVR/tOA/PWO/WKO centric. I started out reading SCOOPS/Rantsylvania/Netcop and began reading RSPW before it became RSPWM and then dropped off the face of the earth relatively speaking. I don't agree with a lot of the "canon" opinions that originally breathed life into the DVDVRs themselves and then the board itself but the matches discussed are where I started from once 1999 WWF really chased me away from believing "thou shall not have any other gods before Vince". I mean - I grew up watching all the wrestling that was on TV in the 1980s but eventually it always came back to the WWF. A lot of that has to do with the WWF's dominance of the sports networks here in Canada. A lot of that also has to do with the WWF's cyclical stumbling onto great things every now and then. The general consensus in this section of the internet has changed dramatically over the last five or six years. I think part of it came as a result of companies like ROH and Dragon Gate hitting a critical and creative peak.. The death of Eddie Guerrero and Misawa also seemed like a "wake up" call to the internet wrestling fans. Pair that with the Benoit murders and Kurt Angle being released because they had pretty much had enough of him and we had a real sea change over the span of some small message boards online. My original point was that debunking the SmackDown 6 happened long before (and somewhat during) all of that. There was a time before the tilde key was used either ironically or dismissively. Before terms like "movez" were coined and other words like "workrate" were used to refer things that actually weren't related to the definition of the word - people would get tired of good/great wrestling due to either dull repetition or familiarity. 1999 really was the very worst year of televised wrestling over the last twenty years or more. The PPVs were usually better but they weren't guaranteed like in previous years. I don't remember any good Austin/Undertaker matches after the SummerSlam 98 peak. Test/Shane WAS really a WWF classic smoke-and-mirrors match that they should study and copy from to this day. HHH/Rock were a pretty unsatisfying pairing outside of the ladder match the previous year. Edge & Christian vs. the Hardys were good matches in 1999 but on TV they were usually three minutes and/or shoehorned Michael Hayes to make them six mans. WCW still usually had quite a few quality TV matches each week. They would spread across four different shows and aired at irregular but consistent syndicated hours. Like my original point though they often went unnoticed or were unremarkable because they had a consistency that even the staunchest fan of quality wrestling could dismiss unless they weren't in a diehard and hardcore fan frame of mind. ECW on TNN was usually worth checking out due to the novelty of them being on a network viewable network. The Christmas and New Year's shows still give me the warm fuzzies that being a stubborn wrestling fan or pursuer of other niche entertainment can relate to.