Tim Cooke

The Fantastics are a great team and their matches with the Midnight Express were some of my favorite US tag matches of all time. But I don't think they were better than the Midnight Express and head to head against the Rock n Roll Express, the RnR are usually going to win out for me. And I don't think they are better than Eaton/Lane, none the less Eaton/Condrey. Tommy Rogers was the steady guy of the team, always great. Bobby Fulton, when he was on, was very good but if he was off, it wasn't fun. I would say that 1988 is their peak as a team but it's really a 3 months peak. Their debut in Norfolk on Pro from March 12, the WTBS studio brawl on March 19, Clash I on March 27, winning the tag titles on Worldwide in Chattanooga on April 26, and the straight jacket angle on WTBS *is* their 1988. The Great American Bash match is a major disappointment, as the Baltimore crowd doesn't buy their act and even though the FIP segment with Rogers features some of the best MX offense ever, it doesn't make up for the first part of the match that just doesn't connect with the crowd. I think the Gilbert/Simmons match from later on that year is okay but it makes me think the driving force behind the great 1988 matches was the Midnight Express. I'm not too high on the Fantastics Mid South/UWF matches. Their World Class matches against the MX are very good and on an old Barnett tape, he had the first five minutes of a Chris Adams/Gino Hernandez vs Fantastics match that looked tremendous but just cut off after 5-6 minutes.

The first match of the Chikara restart PPV had some of the better heel heat I have seen in recent times. No 'This is Awesome" or "This is wrestling" chants, just very over faces and very over heels. Haven't seen anything else on that show beyond it but it shocked me how loud the heel heat was.

In any entertainment medium, quality is almost always subjective. What you like and what you don’t like in these mediums are almost always rooted in some form of bias. Within wrestling, the only standards that are mostly objective are: drawing (and even that has some major issues) supplying fake offense and theatrical bumps for the entertainment of an audience We can tell from an analytical perspective who drew big and who didn’t, with the usual caveats of “is this a true attendance figure” and “was this a person drawing or was it a promotion.” From reading this thread, I think most, if not all, agree about the second point as well. Where this argument gets bogged down is the subjective argument of “what is good wrestling?” From what I have read and heard from Meltzer on this subject is that you can only judge wrestling in the here and now without showing some type of bias. I don’t believe that is true but everything I’ve heard Dave talk about on his radio shows or write about online says that older matches can’t be judged against modern matches because of context. Again, this comes off as a piss poor argument to me, but I do believe this is what he means and for whatever reason, he believes it. But here is where the problem lies. PWO, which is the best board for wrestling discussion in 2014 bar none (and 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009) is a niche place. The people who frequent this place watch so much more older wrestling than 99% of wrestling fans that PWO could even be considered a niche of a niche. It’s just so small – which isn’t a negative especially because it generates really interesting discussions. But to 90% of Dave’s readers and then 99% of the regular wrestling fans in the world, they will go back and look at an old match on You Tube and usually come to one of three conclusions: That match was good That match was not good That match left no impression In the case of 1 and 2, most fans wouldn’t spend more than a few minutes thinking about the context of the match, the styles of wrestling around the world at the time, storylines, etc. I’m guessing Dave hears a lot of something like this: “Hi Dave, I just watched one of those Misawa vs. Kobashi matches you love so much. It was no where near as good as the Michael Elgin vs. Davey Richards match I just watched. You’re off your rocker if you think those All Japan matches are better. Joe Schmo” Back in 2002 when jdw used to try to get into deeper conversation with Dave at Wrestling Classics (I’m thinking the Shawn Michaels/Nobuhiko Takada thread), Dave stood firm on his stances (Pride = wrestling being one of the main points). Because the medium of writing only allows for so much precision, unless you are an amazing writer, debates can often be useless because points are being articulated well enough. I imagine if a Dave was having a one on one conversation with someone who articulated a viewpoint about the Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid matches not holding up in today’s world and spoke about the context of the time, other matches from different promotions at the time, matches in the same styles, etc – Dave may still not agree but would at least walk away understanding there was a deeper thought process occurring before the final opinion of “TM/DK matches don’t hold up today” was made. It’s easy to make rash, controversial statements on the internet, something we have probably all been guilty of doing at different points. So I can see some of where Dave is coming from and even though I disagree, unless I had the opportunity to talk with him about this subject in a non-written form, I couldn’t necessarily accurately gage where he is coming from. My last point in this poorly written, long winded post. Until September 2012, my favorite live baseball game of all time was September 28, 2011 when the Orioles beat the Red Sox to essentially knock them out of the playoffs. The game fit the criteria of a good baseball game: close game (4-3 final) lead went back and forth good pitching good hitting exciting finish important finish But because I was there live and had endured too many years of arrogant, ahole Red Sox fans coming to Baltimore and acting like they where in their home stadium, this game held an extra special meaning to me. But 2 ½ years later when 9/28/11 is discussed, the key points aren’t Baltimore winning the game – it’s the Red Sox losing and then Longoria hitting the game winning HR to get Tampa into the playoffs. But my basis for the amazing nature of that night spanned far deeper than those two talking points. But I can also see how an outsider wouldn’t understand or care about the extra intangibles, which elevated this from a **** game to ***** for me (in wrestling terms). I used to not be able to understand why someone like Alan4L liked Dragon Gate so much when he seemingly watched a lot of everything that was happening currently and a decent amount of historical footage. He has an emotional attachment to it and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is also nothing wrong with completely discounting his opinion on match quality because I know what he likes doesn’t conform to what I think are the best aspects to wrestling.

2002 also has a lot of good Takayama matches in the G-1 and NOAH, which should help offset Nagata.

Meltzer watches everything UFC and most of the other big US fights. Even if you don't agree with his opinions, it's usually easy to read between the lines and see if such and such fight/match is worth going out of your way to see. A star list would at least gather the info into one place and then *you* personally decide what's good and what's not good. Being an MMA fan but having been over saturated by UFC, a list like this would be helpful. I keep a running list of my favorite all time favorite Oriole games, both live and non-live. It might not gel with other fans opinions but it may make someone who likes the O's seek out a certain game. JDW's AJPW, NJPW, and WCW lists are not infallible, but they are amazing resources. Same thing for Jon Snowden's MMA lists. And Bihari's lucha lists. Hell, even Green Latern Fan and his time keeping of early ROH cards proved to be a handy resource.

The entire Disco interview had some interesting topics of conversation, especially regarding booking. Didn't agree with a lot of it but still interesting to hear. For the Kobashi vs joe ROH match, 1500 people is still very small, a niche of a niche.

Sunk adobe on to Jarrett at the 1/10/00 Nitro, which concussed Jarrett and further threw Souled Out card into chaos

'This is going to sound like I'm an apologist, but all things considered the WWE Network launch was amazingly successful. Yeah, some things didn't work from the start, but the biggest mess arguably wasn't 100% their fault (Xbox 360 app being broken).' I agree with Sek. By Wednesday, everything worked perfectly on my iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and computer. WWE could have done a better job in helping everyone's expectations. I saw that a lot of people took off work on on 2/24 to watch and that is half on WWE and half on the individual. No tech launch runs 100% smooth. When HBOGo first launched, with much less of a base using its functionality, it had a 1 week start of all kinds of issues, in addition to just being a computer only system at launch. I've got nothing but positive things to say about how well this thing went.

Not trying to derail this thread from focusing on the truly great matches of 2014, so hopefully this will be the last I say on this particular Titan vs Virus match... cooket8 wrote: I'm curious to know what lucha matches you think are great. Reading your criticisms, you seem to have inherent problems with how lucha is worked. Interested in your thoughts on the best stuff you have seen from Mexico. I haven't watched Lucha Libre matches with any regularity in many many years, so I'm not going to be one to provide a whole lot of historical examples of what should be great Lucha. But if someone tells me there's a great Lucha Libre match I should watch, I'm intrigued and I'll take a look. Mistico vs Averno comes to mind, as does Negro Casas vs Hijo Del Santo from 1997. My memory for great Lucha trios matches over the years is rather bad so I won't even attempt that. As I noted, I don't have much trouble with the lucha style itself. There's a lot more "fantasy" I'm willing to accept in a lucha libre match than U.S. or Japanese style. But it still has to fit inside the realm of "pro wrestling logic." cooket8 wrote: Wrestling is absurd. When a wrestler hits a splash from the top rope and lands it, he/she is automatically fine. If the wrestler on the mat moves, that same splash ends up hurting, when both should hurt the guy performing the move equally. But in 99% of matches, that's how it goes. It is just something you accept in wrestling, like rope running. Trying to make logical arguments for these types of things doesn't lead anywhere. Yes, these are examples of what fits in "pro wrestling logic." When you throw a dropkick and it hits the target and you land, it doesn't hurt, but when you throw the same dropkick and miss, the landing hurts. That's acceptable. That's the well-established norm. What falls outside of pro wrestling logic is when there's a readily-defined aspect of what steps wrestlers will take in performing a specific move or set of moves. In the case of a surfboard, a wrestler laying flat on the mat who has his legs hooked in a surfboard-type hold is supposed to do everything in his power to not also give his opponent his arms. So when this match contains a spot in which the wrestler on the mat stiffens his arm backwards because of the step taken by the dominant wrestler to gain them, but doesn't take them, and slaps again and they go forward, and then slaps again and they go backward, it removes all plausibility from the spot. There is no logic to what they are doing, and it stands out as silly sloppy work. CocaineSpeedboat wrote: An armbar submission countered with a push-off the legs into a wacky leg-reversal? What?! cooket8 wrote: This is why I asked above about what lucha you think is good. This is a standard lucha cross armbreaker counter. Santo did it against El Espanto Jr. in 1986, El Dandy did it in 1990 against Angel Azteca, Negro Navarro did it again El Dandy in 2001, to name three examples off the top of my head. Beyond not seeing what is absurd about that, it is a standard spot. Destroyer and Mil Mascaras did this in one of their classics in All Japan (10/73 or 7/74). 1973/1974 in All Japan was all about working tightly to make it look as good as possible, yet this was a regular part of Destroyer and Mascaras mat work. I'll take your word for it that historically this is the norm for Lucha Libre. But other than 2001, all of these example pre-date the MMA era where the effects of cross armbreakers are well known in the real world, and pro wrestling in the U.S. and Japan seem to have adapted accordingly to varying degrees. Whether the wrestlers sell the arm/elbow pain like crazy, or find a semi-plausible way to reverse the hold, or scramble for the ropes, etc. But this particular reversal spot seemed to be based in a different world entirely, and if that world is "well it was done in matches from the 70's," maybe it's something that shouldn't be the case anymore because it takes you out of the match unless you have that nuanced historical knowledge. A fresh set of eyes is not going to have that historical knowledge in order to understand why that particular reversal is ok. CocaineSpeedboat wrote: Titan hits springboard frog splash for a nearfall, Virus kicks out and reverses into submission hold, Titan's arms are straightened back without any reason, well, except to give Virus the hold on purpose. cooket8 wrote: Feeding a body part is a part of all wrestling. Your classic RINGS matches where Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura would feed an arm to transition to another mat "high" spot is based on the concept of feeding to your opponent. Misawa hitting two elbows and then going for his spinning elbow which Kawada ducks and proceeds to hit a backdrop driver on Misawa is a feeding spot. The Virus/Titan feeding spot doesn't look out of place in this match nor in any pro wrestling setting. It might look a bit out of the norm in 1998 RINGS but RINGS was going for as much realism as possible. Feeding body parts in this specific manner shatters the illusion the performers are trying to create. They're "skipping a step" in the process of how the arms end up stiffened backward. That's bad work by the wrestlers.

Quoted parts are CocaineSpeedBoat from F4 Board: Quote: Overall, mat-wrestling in first 2 falls contained zero resistance to the holds. I'm aware Lucha Libre matches allow for a bit more silliness in submissions, but much of this match went beyond the limits of "poetic license.] I'm not Bihari or Cubs Fan or Phil Schneider who watch every modern lucha match but I've seen almost everything that is average to great on tape from the 80's/90's and always check out the recommended modern matches. This stood out to me as being something really good, probably great. It felt like Virus was Damiancito el Guerrero taking on a lesser version of Cicloncito Ramirez in 1997 but it's 2014 and it is still getting good heat. I'm curious to know what lucha matches you think are great. Reading your criticisms, you seem to have inherent problems with how lucha is worked. Interested in your thoughts on the best stuff you have seen from Mexico. Quote: Specific contrivances/flaws: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JLXMte85i0&t=65s Titan is doing the side-slaps for the surfboard but Virus's arms go back, Titan doesn't take them, but side slaps again, and the arms go back out. And then slaps again to get the arms back before taking the surfboard. It's absurd. The arms go forward on the second slap to the side, not back. They go back on the first and go back again when Virus gets his hands to connect to Titan's arms. But beyond arguing that semantic... Wrestling is absurd. When a wrestler hits a splash from the top rope and lands it, he/she is automatically fine. If the wrestler on the mat moves, that same splash ends up hurting, when both should hurt the guy performing the move equally. But in 99% of matches, that's how it goes. It is just something you accept in wrestling, like rope running. Trying to make logical arguments for these types of things doesn't lead anywhere. Quote: An armbar submission countered with a push-off the legs into a wacky leg-reversal? What?! This is why I asked above about what lucha you think is good. This is a standard lucha cross armbreaker counter. Santo did it against El Espanto Jr. in 1986, El Dandy did it in 1990 against Angel Azteca, Negro Navarro did it again El Dandy in 2001, to name three examples off the top of my head. Beyond not seeing what is absurd about that, it is a standard spot. Destroyer and Mil Mascaras did this in one of their classics in All Japan (10/73 or 7/74). 1973/1974 in All Japan was all about working tightly to make it look as good as possible, yet this was a regular part of Destroyer and Mascaras mat work. Quote: Titan laying on the ring apron, Virus runs towards him right into the monkey flip over the turnbuckles. There was no offensive manuever even attempted here. It was literally him taking steps into a telegraphed spot. Same thing can be said for any monkey flip spot in the middle of the ring. The guy taking the monkey flip is just running the ropes and not going for any offensive move but I haven't seen that criticism given for the times that Rey Jr, Eddy, Santo, etc. did it. But beyond that, it's also a call back spot to the 1996/1997 Damiancito el Guerrero vs. Cicloncito Ramirez trios, tags, and single matches. I'm not arguing that Virus and Titan did this spot in 2014 as some deep psychology, but it was clearly a spot Virus is holding out for special occasions. I haven't seen him pull that out against anyone lately but I do admit to not watching everything. Quote: Titan hits springboard frog splash for a nearfall, Virus kicks out and reverses into submission hold, Titan's arms are straightened back without any reason, well, except to give Virus the hold on purpose. Feeding a body part is a part of all wrestling. Your classic RINGS matches where Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura would feed an arm to transition to another mat "high" spot is based on the concept of feeding to your opponent. Misawa hitting two elbows and then going for his spinning elbow which Kawada ducks and proceeds to hit a backdrop driver on Misawa is a feeding spot. The Virus/Titan feeding spot doesn't look out of place in this match nor in any pro wrestling setting. It might look a bit out of the norm in 1998 RINGS but RINGS was going for as much realism as possible. Quote: This part is more subjective, but really? That submission hold is the finish? Again, you could argue this for almost any finisher. When Jericho was doing the liontamer in WCW, he always wrenched back, making it look painful. He changed it up when he went to the WWF for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, it was still a viable finisher. In terms of lucha submissions, this finisher looked as hurtful and visually pleasing as you can get.

http://theboard.f4wonline.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=166911&start=50 This doesn't fall into either example Loss mentions above but the arguments in this thread are based on not liking a style or having a grasp on how pro wrestling is worked

For Roku users, check your parental controls. VOD is getting better and my guess will be running at 95% by the weekend

On Demand is not working well on anything but Computers right now. iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV is very hit and miss with On Demand stuff. Live stream worked perfectly on Apple TV. Everything working great on computer. This stuff will resolve itself over the next week. The big thing is the live stream is doing well everywhere, which is what is needed for PPV success. On Demand fixes seem like they are easy fixes.

Work rate is one of those Scott Keith inventions that he used to mean "no rest holds (even submissions) and lots of moves." It was aimed at guys like Nash and Hogan during the Monday Night Wars. In his definition, Dragon Gate has the best work rate ever. Regardless of the apathy that the viewer (and live crowd) often feel after the seventh driver variation near fall.

Now what exactly are we talking here? The stuff Sakuraba and untrained Gracie chumps are doing right now, or all shoot style? Even Battlarts? Shoot Style can have just as many high spots as any other style of match. I'd like to know what is being talked about here as well.

from the 4/9/01 WON Letters Page: WCW I'm going to take the cynical view on WCW's death and simply say "good riddance." At this point, selling the company to Fusient is like trying to start someone's heart again after they're already brain dead. I'm sure WCW's few remaining fans would have been happy to hear news of the sale, but really you know and everyone else also knows that unless you're a giant media conglomerate with billions of dollars to waste, like AOL/Time Warner, you're not going to be able to sustain losses of a million dollars plus a week. If folding the company is the only way to get rid of certain iron-clad cancerous contracts, and I don't think we need to list all the names, then it's worth the risk. The big names in wrestling are always going to get work somewhere, even if it's with an outfit like iGeneration. You know that somebody is going to be dumb enough to start a new operation with the talent and try to fight Vince. Admittedly, all the hard working cruiserweights are screwed. But I think this provides a good lesson in economics for everyone. The ECW talent that left for WCW and made big money, but ECW died off in the long run. WCW bit off more than they could chew with big money contracts for no-money talent, and they too, are on the way out. Everyone on the outside knew the house of cards was going to collapse one of these days, and propping it up further served no purpose that I can tell. Scott Keith

What's the goal of wrestling? 1. To make money. Beyond that, it is like a lot of art forms, where there will be a lot of subjectivity for preference of styles and what individuals like. But I would say that the next most important aspect is getting over, which leads to making money. To get over, you have to have something special. Chances are, the something special you have is going to have to be logical. If that's based on in ring work, the more logical you are, the more likely you are to get the match, yourself, and your opponent over. That doesn't work all the time, but nothing works all the time. I believe that's improvement. There are different levels of improvements. Learning how to run the ropes without tripping is inherently an improvement. But so is being able to lessen the amount of moves you do and make them mean more. That's the common thing I have seen with every indy guy who has made it to the WWE and succeeded. It's funny because you won't find a bigger Paul London fan in ROH during his first run than me but besides poor booking/lack of push in the WWE, he never found a way to adjust to their style and make it work to his strengths (which in ROH was selling and getting the crowd behind him). I've seen a lot of people argue that WWE's style is what killed London and I think that's a cop out. London had the potential to be John Cena lite (I don't think he had all of the inherent charisma of Cena or the body type but he certainly had a portion of the charisma). If a wrestler like Kevin Steen lost 80 pounds, I still don't think he would make it in the WWE. Without his stunts, he is nothing. And his stunts wouldn't fly in WWE. I think Sydal suffers from that a little bit as well. I wouldn't call Sydal a stunt guy but he certainly appeared to be very one dimensional in ROH and the little I saw of him in the WWE. I don't think it means the WWE made him worse, I think it speaks more to his overall ability as a wrestler. It's one thing to get over in front of 500 people in ROH or 2000 people in Dragon Gate. It's a completely other thing to get over in a major league organization, playing by their rules, regardless of what you might think of those rules. The verdict is still out on guys like Generico. Based on his indy work, I'm not sure he has more than the stunts to make him a major player. Doesn't mean he won't improve and I might be dead wrong - I probably would have said the same about Punk and Danielson's chances in the WWE if asked back in 2005. There are a lot of baseball players who were great AAA guys but couldn't cut it in the majors because the jump from AAA to MLB is the highest jump in any professional sport. That's why they call those guys 4A players. There's nothing wrong with being a 4A player and if you recognize what you do well, sometimes you can have along career in the majors as a utility guy. But just because a 4A guy can't start everyday in the big leagues doesn't mean there is something wrong MLB's highest level of play.

I'm currently in the midst of re watching all of the best matches from the US Indies in the 2000's with my brother. We are almost done with the project (hope to do a full write up and have a top 20 list by the end of March). There have been many findings that we expected. A couple of examples: * Bryan Danielson had the longest stretch of greatness of any US Indy worker in the 2000's. It's not even close. He was good when he broke out at the ECWA Super 8 in 2001, had a MOTYC against Low Ki at the July 2001 ECWA show, and just continued to steadily grow as a worker through 2006. * Samoa Joe's run was maybe 1/3 of the length of Danielson's but his output in 2004-2005 may be the highest quality of matches of any US Indy worker in the 2000's * For every good match that went the right amount of time, 9 others ran 10+ minutes too long. This was not an individual promotion problem, as ROH, IWA-MS, PWG, Chikara, etc. all had this issue. Nor was it an issue just related to lesser wrestlers. There are numerous Danielson matches, especially when he was ROH Champion, that were too long. I'm not talking about hour long draws either, which despite what you want to think of them, were at least booked with a specific purpose in mind. I'm talking about the 50+ minute match against Roderick Strong from 11/5/05, which was a nice 20 minute match stretched out over 52 minutes. Same goes for the March 2006 match with Alex Shelley. Even the October 2004 match against Joe, which has an outside chance of making the top 20 (probably will fall closer to 30) is 10-15 minutes too long. For all the WWE's flaws, match length is usually not a problem especially in today's environment. I'm a fan of less is more, quality over quantity so I would rather see two wrestlers put together a tight 15 minute match than a 35 minute match that may have some excellent parts but is also repetitive, losing the crowd at various points, and in most cases, goes long for the sake of going long. Most Indy guys who have gone to the WWE have become a lot better at pacing, tightening their move sets, and getting over with larger crowds. Claudio was always a good base and you know he would do some cool stuff in his matches, but most of his Indy matches never felt completed or like a final product. I imagine that Generico, Samurai del Sol, and others will also benefit from this. Punk has obviously improved a lot during his WWE tenure but then again, his growth was always pretty incremental during his indy days. While someone like Danielson was pretty good from the get go, Punk seemed to improve every 6 months, maybe not in a dramatic way, but in re watching the matches, you see a guy who wasn't stagnant in his progression. Just the growth in terms of working from the first 60:00 draw with Joe in June of 2004 to the second 60:00 draw in October 2004 really stands out. Then you see him working opposite Jimmy Rave (someone who is kind of a lost worker of 2005) in Feb 2005 where he is working from underneath the whole match and say, "Wow, I didn't think he could do that." And he couldn't have in the Spring of 2004. But Punk's growth in the WWE is more move set based. The WWE generally doesn't like the goofy, more indy looking moves, which excludes some cool stuff but also weeds out a large amount of garbage. When he first came in and they portrayed him as a kickboxing expert, it was almost as if they were purposely trying to play against his strengths. Yet, today he still does the kicks and the running knee in the corner and it generally looks pretty good (minus the head kick but no one is perfect). Compare this to him using the Pepsi Plunge, the hammerlock clothesline (for lack of a better description) and other moves that weren't nearly as over to the ROH/Indy crowds as his bulldog and Randy Savage elbow are now to WWE fans. Back to Danielson, in the WWE he can't do all of his mat work. It's not the WWE way and it would take a lot of work to get the fans to care about that (though Danielson could make it work, no doubt about that). WCW crowds were generally much more receptive to new styles but that was also 15+ years ago and a completely different generation of fans. Today's WWE crowds would be less likely to accept that stuff right away (if at all). But what I see is a guy who is much more refined and honed in his overall ability (moves, selling, getting over with the crowd). The difference between a 10 minute match with Kane and those 50+ minute matches with Roderick Strong or 25+ with Delirious is negligible. The WWE has only improved him, Punk, and others. Even Rey Jr, who was just off the charts amazing during different times in WCW, benefited from the toned down WWE style, especially as a veteran. Eddy's 2004 against JBL is the opposite work rate wise (at least in terms of speed and execution of move after move after move) of his 2002-2003 in the WWE on Smackdown. Yet those JBL matches and the Rey Jr. matches from 2004 and 2005 certainly equal if not top his best work prior.

This can't be said enough. MLB Advanced Media being behind this will make streaming issues and downtime almost non-existent. I've been an MLB.tv subscriber for years and even during times with shaky internet or older devices, the service always just worked. Highlights for every team are up almost instantly during games with full video packages available for recaps 3-4 hours after the last pitch.

Being there live, it was even quieter. They didn't do enough to make you sway towards cheering him despite being with the Wyatt's or booing him because he is a heel now. The live crowd, which was generally average, maybe a tic above, wanted to explode with cheers but the booking of the match last night made that impossible.