Tim Cooke

Maybe I need to move this to the Rey thread but I'm interested in how Rey doesn't make a list when 66% of the list is going to be Lucha guys.

“Flair is great” ”Flair is stupid” I don’t care to go down Flair vs Bret again and don’t have a horse in the race. But it’s hard to say those two things above and try to have a reasonable debate on which guy is better.

They did a lot of things right in this match. Wargames 1992 is a top 10 match of all time for me. 1994 and the original 1987 fantastic matches as well. This didn't reach those heights but it came damn close especially in 2021. Sammy starting the five minute period was absolutely the right call and that segment felt like a blend of the old school and new school coming together. Rope tricks, when they make sense, which was the case here, can really elevate something stupid like a flying cutter. A tad disappointed that they didn't pull a few more general spots: Double submission move Head between rings A 2021 version of the Steamboat/Rude rana from 1992 But overall, I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed the Road To segment where they hit the WCW nostalgia hard and that sits well with me as a WCW fan.

@elliott I remember this from the old tOA boards from 2001-2002. God we're old.

If you have the Network, watch the January 2004 Smackdown match against Noble. Not willing to say it's better than their 4/27/04 Velocity match, but it's very much worth seeing and better than their 2007 matches.

Now that Roy Lucier continues to put out stuff that only Lynch had, we've gotten more Esapnto/Santo Negro/Pentagon Jr. AAA matches and damn if he hasn't been at least solid in all of them. He will make my top 100 again.

Best springboard dropkick ever. High end peak but it was short. His 1996-1997 holds up.

99.99% sure that the 4/22/97 Tamura vs. Kohsaka is a shoot. It doesn't have the holes that you can see in the 6/27/98 match, as good as that match is to try to be as realistic as possible. RINGS was doing undercard shoots since 1992 (mixed with some kickboxing, etc.). No more than 1 match per show until 1998.

Have binged the first three weeks of the Shoot Style top 25 and am currently listening to the most recent episode. Highly enjoyable. I wouldn't do this right after you're done with the Shoot Style list so you don't burn out, but I think you can get a lot of extra context watching how UWF style transitioned into MMA. My recommendations would be: * Rumina Sato (watch all of his fights from 1994-2000 in chronological order and then also watch his 11/15/02 and 03/11/05 fights. * Kazushi Sakuraba (watch all of this fights in chronological order through the end of 2003) * Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: his RINGS shoots in order and then his PRIDE fights in order through December 2004. And then watch the two Josh Barnett classics from 2006. * Kiyoshi Tamura non-worked RINGS fights: 04/22/97 vs Kohsaka, 4/23/99 vs. Frank Shamrock, 4/20/00 vs. Gilbert Yvel * Tsuyoshi Kohsaka: 9/26/97 vs. Frank Shamrock; 9/7/02 vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (DEEP) Let me know if I can help out in any way as I have almost all of these matches digitally.

Absolutely fantastic!

Ronda would be my pick, especially since she did it in a horrible WWE environment and pulled good to great matches out of average to slightly above average wrestlers.

Naito vs. ZSJ from Night 2 is probably tied with Ishikawa vs. Ikeda from wXw as 1-2 in my MOTY's.

"Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi ­ 26th Anniversary Show (Triple Crown - 10/31/98) Great match. But little things like half nelson suplexes on the floor that lead to nothing are auto deductions in my book. Not at the level of the 6/98 Kawada vs. Kobashi... and far behind the Misawa vs. Kobashi from 1997. Off my Top 20." So I assume this would have landed in his top 30-35.

Hadn't watched this in years. Did after your review and very glad I did.