Tim Cooke

Go read the Wrestling Classics thread from 2002 about Shawn as a WON HOF'er vs. Takada. All he has is work. No eluding here. The farther removed we get from his induction, the more I think the "he was regarded as the best of his generation" is overblown as well. There were 10 indy workers between 2002-2007 working as a Benoit clone. I guess Spanky was a Michael's esque guy (while also being trained by him). Point is - straight work gets you into the WON. Michaels and Angle opened that Pandora's box. No reason CIMA and Breaks shouldn't get in based on work.

If we're going off just work alone (the precedent starting with Shawn Michaels), Jim Breaks should be in.

I don't see the Hodge match up on the Network. The other matches were all there (The Russians vs. Gotch/Goulet tag was a MOTYC).

Memphis TV ratings are tremendously impressive but it's not a top 20 market in the US. Jarrett made a ton of money but was also known for not paying out a lot. He'd probably be in already on my ballot but Meltzer has never loved the Memphis style and thus hasn't given the push that someone who is not in the 50% range to get over that final hump.

vs. Santo (07/18/87 - LA) vs. Santo (1/12/92 - UWA) vs. Dandy (7/5/92 - CMLL) vs. Santo vs. Dandy (12/6/96 - CMLL) vs. Santo (9/19/97 - CMLL)

How does Fredo not have a ballot? I could name ten people who have no qualifications to get a vote but for whatever reason have a ballot. Really hurts Mexico.

Essentially, if Ultimo Dragon got in for his training, Fujiwara and Hamada should be in.

Dustin Rhodes - 1992, if only for the Superbrawl 1992 tag with Windham vs. Austin/Larry and WarGames. Also has a great 1/4 match against Arn and plenty of other good to great TV matches throughout the year.

Lynch, Lorefice have them all. Ditch has some of the better/famous matches as well.

Lanny vs. Bockwinkel sounds very interesting.

He sent that to me on facebook as well. Same exact message. Not friends on facebook and my account is locked down to non-friends. This guy needs some help

So Rousey is a natural. Her bumping, facial expressions, selling were all fantastic. I wish they went back to the bear hug spot again because that's maybe the second time I have seen a bear hug spot done well (the first being Big Show vs. Eddy Guerrero from 4/15/04 Smackdown). Meltzer named someone recently that he thought was the best rookie ever. Matt Riddle maybe? I can't remember. It's been a while since I watched the Akiyama vs. Kobashi debut match but for her second match ever and first singles match, this was probably better than that. Nia Jax was good. She had a nice Bull Nakano leg drop and played the part well. Would love to see what 1994 Aja Kong vs. 2018 Rousey would look like. And the finish was absolutely fine by me. I'm good with logical funky finishes. I think double count outs could be re utilized today to freshen matches up. The cash in, via DQ, on MITB, with a win, is a pretty unique finish and left a lot of storyline and match possibilities open. ****

I found his discussion of how he views matches today fascinating. It's pretty clear that he operates in the wrestling bubble when it comes to match criticism and doesn't read a ton of critical analysis for books, TV shows, films, video games, etc. If he had been using a __/10 scale since the beginning and gave a match an 11, I don't think people would bat an eye. But because he used the five star scale for 36 years, which is about half of the time that pro wrestling has been accessible to a wide audience (I'm using 1950 as the year - I know we can go back to 1905 or some other date), he's essentially relied on the same system for the half life of pro wrestling in the US/Japan. Ultimately, I rate matches so I can compare, list, and sequence what I think is great, very good, average, etc. Dave's professional life is worked pro wrestling and UFC. You rarely see ratings thrown around for sporting events. I usually just list when I'm doing something with baseball like the top 10 Orioles live games of 2012. But I also have star ratings for MMA fights because I see it as a compliment to pro wrestling in that I know what I like, I know what I don't like, and am willing to go back and review periodically to see where my current opinion lives with my past opinions. The ***** classics like Rumina Sato vs. Caol Uno or Fedor vs. Nog I still stand firm, just like Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94. I'd be interested in hearing what Dave would say about Amazon reviews. It's a five star scale and if someone really, really likes a product, they give it five stars and back it up with a thorough review. If Amazon just started saying you can rate this out of an infinite scale, it would become useless. Dave's scale isn't useless for everyone but it's less and less of a resource as time goes by.

This is going to be fantastic!

Can't wait!

Storm said Kawada is not a good worker if he needs to work that stiff. He then said Jeff Jarrett is better than Kawada because he can go do a five minute Nitro match on the fly - calling it all in the ring.

The 5/21/94 tag is the next step forward in the AJPW Misawa/Kobashi vs. Kawada/Taue. They go 20 minutes in June 1993 with Kawada pinning Kobashi. They meet in the RWTL in December where Kobashi goes over in his first truly big win but stay in the AJPW 80's/early 90's "20-25 tag minute" time frame. Misawa gets injured during the Carnival, Kawada gets his first Carnival win, and is ready to finally take down Misawa. But first they need to go get revenge for the December tag. This is the first time they go long. They work the first 25 minutes like the June/Dec 93 matches and then go an extra 15 in a kayfabe "these guys know each other so well, it's going to take a lot more than usual." The 6/3/94 singles match looks like it finishes at 25:00 minutes (like 6/5/89) but they go another 10 with Kawada coming so close and ultimately needed to be killed off by Misawa's most dangerous move. I like how the tags progress to this point. Very debatable how they work starting in the fall of 1994.

Lil Nog (not Alexandre) vs. Kohsaka from the 9/7/02 DEEP show. Not so much traditional mat work as much as it is Kohsaka constantly sweeping Nog from the bottom. I imagine a UWF style match could be worked in this fashion. Tamura vs. Minowa is the main event and is a fun fight with some good mat work as well.

Most Nog matches have good mat work. I would watch everything from the Coleman 9/24/01 fight through 3/16/03 vs Fedor. And then watch 4/24/04 vs Hirotaka Yokoi fight. Allan Goes vs. Frank Shamrock (05/13/95 - Pancrase) has excellent ground work and may be the best overall Pancrase fight from the original incarnation ('93-'96). Caol Uno vs. Rumina Sato (05/29/99 - Shooto). Great all around fight with excellent mat work. Rumina Sato vs. Joel Gerson (03/15/98 - Shooto) Rumina Sato vs. Takumi Nakayama (11/15/02 - Shooto) Rumina Sato vs. Makato Ishikawa (03/11/05 - Shooto) Caol Uno vs. Joachim Hansen (03/26/05 - K-1 Hero's) There's a couple more that I have written down at home and will reply after work.

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