Big Rob

I actually think that the Cell match was way better than anything we could have hoped for at the time. Back then, Ryback was solely squashing people on TV in a minute or so, and that was pretty much it. I imagine he got more time on house shows, but he was still young in to his main roster run. His matches with Bryan were better (especially considering it didn't have the Cell to use as a prop), but that's likely because Ryback was used to working longer, main event style matches with good wrestlers by that point. Plus, I'd rate Bryan above Punk - but that element is subjective.

I'm no Kingston fan by any stretch, and his offense looks pretty ropey, but it wasn't a total one-man show. It still sticks with me that Kofi remembered to sell his injured leg when making the winning cover, which is something that almost nobody else would bother doing. Cesaro's great for sure, and he's obviously going to drag anyone he's working with up a notch or two, but from memory it was one of Kofi's better performances too. That was less evident in their more recent Main Event match I thought, where it was more of a Cesaro show. Edit: just noticed you were talking about the rematch, not the first one. So yeah, I agree it was more of a Cesaro match here and he could have been working most anyone. The pair do have real good chemistry with one another though.

I'll echo the love for Cesaro vs Kingston from the May 1st episode of Main Event. It's so great, I'd still probably rate it the best TV match this year, probably top 5 matches of the year in general.

Given that Ryback was Ryback, how on Earth could the Cell match be considered a disaster? Anyway, I've been to a few house shows in the UK but my favourite was probably when I was traveling round a part of the US. As luck would have it, the day after I arrived in New York City there was both a Ring of Honor show in the afternoon and a WWE show at MSG in the evening. Seriously, didn't even plan it that way so I lucked out here (and a bunch of other times on my trip) big time. The card was... WWE Championship The Miz © vs Randy Orton Guest Referee - Sunny Kelly Kelly and someone (Eve, maybe?) vs The Bella Twins Evan Bourne, Santino Marella, & Vladimir Kozlov vs Zack Ryder, Primo Colon, & Tyson Kidd If Alex Riley wins, he gets re-instated on to the Raw Roster Alex Riley vs The Great Khali John Morrison vs Dolph Ziggler Daniel Bryan vs Ted DiBiase Street Fight Triple H vs Sheamus Main Event John Cena & Randy Orton vs The Miz and CM Punk All the matches were good, even the women's tag was surprisingly good given that it probably went 8-10 minutes. Six man tag was so much fun live as well, all house shows could do with a match like that - just some nice light-hearted comedy but with some cool moves thrown in and typically great selling by Evan. Funny thing from the show was that the opener was the WWE Championship match which ended up in a DQ. The crowd could vote for either Orton to get his rematch in the main event, or for a tag match with Cena and Punk added. Suffice it to say, Orton had to wait for his rematch.

Something like Marty Jones vs Owen Hart would probably be one of the easier matches to get in to if you've not seen any other old school British stuff before. Also, Steve Grey vs Clive Myers from 20th Nov 1975 is like the match that got a bunch of people I know in to the lightweight Brit style, so that would be a good choice too. They're both babyface matches though, so if you'd like a more traditional villain/babyface match, I'd recommend Steve Grey vs Mick McManus or Mark Rocco vs Marty Jones from 76.

Am I totally spacing, or did the Funks never work the R&R? Hell, much as I like Dory, replace him with someone like Cactus and I could really get on board with that. Murdoch and Adonis working the R&R (or indeed, the Funks) in the mid-Eighties would have likely been pretty special too.

Battle Royal wise, I believe there was one on ECW (possibly Smackdown) where Regal is just awesome at teasing being eliminated. He wasn't even a particularly important name in the match, but he went the whole hog with the gimmick. I seem to remember the crowd being pretty gutted when he was eventually thrown out.

Generico has been apparently worked heel for WWE already, so I'd say it was almost certainly him.

I'd have to have a long think about a top fifty favourite matches, I still really haven't watched a big enough variety to do it justice yet. However, off the top of my head I could definitely see the following having a place: Steve Grey vs Clive Myers (Joint Promotions 22/11/75) Gwyn Davies vs Steve Veidor (Joint Promotions 26/05/76) Pete Roberts and Kung Fu vs Johnny Kincaid and Dave Bond (Joint Promotions 08/10/77) Terry Dunk and Dory Funk Jr vs The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher (AJPW 15/12/77) Tully Blanchard vs Magnum TA - I Quit Steel Cage Match (JCP 28/11/85) Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat vs Arn Anderson and Larry Zybyszko (WCW 19/11/91) Kenta Kobashi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat (AJPW 25/05/92) Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude - Iron Man (WCW 20/6/92) Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 16/4/93) Royal Rumble Match (WWE 21/01/01) El Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther (06/10/04) Rey Mysterio vs Eddie Guerrero (WWE 23/06/05) Kenta Kobashi and Go Shiozaki vs Katsuhiko Nakajima and Kensuke Sasaki (NOAH 05/11/05) Chris Benoit vs Fit Finlay (WWE 05/05/06) Chris Benoit vs Fit Finlay (WWE 21/05/06) Pollo vs Comando Negro (IWRG 26/12/10) CM Punk vs John Cena (WWE 17/07/11)

Out of interest, what is your criticism of the match, as I remember thinking that it, along with the TV match a couple of weeks prior were two of the best WWE matches of the 00s, maybe ever.

It's strange how this is so often the case, that a great place to watch wrestling in can often be the pits backstage, there's quite a few British venues like this.

Kane had a very good match with Finlay on Smackdown, the Belfast Brawl one. Kane seemed to work really hard in it, and Finlay was Finlay.

Two guys both claim to be the best in the World, and this obviously leads to an issue between the two. How, in theory, is that a bad idea? C'mon, they're not even the two best guys in their company. Look at how simple and effective Brock vs. Cena was. You don't need a huge amount of motivation in wrestling because the conflict is already inherent. Just cut some promos and do a wrestling angle. Punk can't act and Jericho can't cut serious promos. They'd have to be great promos to make this sort of bad writing work, but they're not. One of them had the WWE Championship. Obviously, we know that it wasn't positioned as the main match , but you really can't fault the theory behind "two guys say they're the best, one has the top belt, they want to fight each other". That's pretty solid as far as "wrestling angles" go. Was it executed perfectly, of course not, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that idea.

Two guys both claim to be the best in the World, and this obviously leads to an issue between the two. How, in theory, is that a bad idea?

The best match I have ever seen live was El Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther, the first match they had against each other in Colchester, England back in 2004. I still have issues getting into much of the lucha libre that I watch, but this was breathtaking, and both men busted their arses for the crowd. That would definitely be a good place to start when trying to break in to lucha.

It won't always work in this manor, but think about it like this - if you bite your tongue on purpose, you'll feel it. But if you bite it by accident (ie. you don't expect it to happen), it hurts like crazy. In the same way, a blind-sided racket shot from Cornette would likely catch you by surprise and could easily be enough to KO you for a pinfall. That and it was a loaded racket. Oh, and I totally agree with the tag team thing. And I hate it when the tag goes on for more than a few minutes after the hot tag.

No true bloodbaths, no. Given how they sold things, if someone donned a Ric Flair lvl crimson mask the match would imediatly be stoped, multiple ambulances called, the heel who busted him open would be murdered by the angry mob of fans and the guy who got busted open would be out for months Chris Colt got banned from wrestling on British TV after being deemed too violent by ITV. I believe there was meant to have been a fair amount of blood in that match, but it was never broadcast.

Hart Foundation vs US Express - Philly Spectrum, 20/9/86 Never seen a Dan Spivey match in the WWE before, save for the odd Waylon Mercy squash, so that's a facination fact for you right off of the bat. I also have never liked Jim Neidhart, and seen very little Rotundo outside of the IRS gimmick, so I'm quite pleased that this was recommended to me, as I likely wouldn't have gone out of my way to see it otherwise. That's not to say it was a great match, but it was a lot of fun, and I got to see some guys who I normally wouldn't pay much attention to, outside of Bret at least. Rotundo's a really good babyface in peril. Once you get to the heat portion of the match, he's all sell sell sell, and does a damn fine job at it. Lovely desperation sunset flip too. I found it interesting that early on, there was a bit of light cheating going on by the US Express, deliberatly swapping positions behind the ref's back, without a tag. Seems out of character for babyfaces in 1986 WWF, but it was a fun spot regardless. I actually liked Anvil quite a bit here, his execution of most moves didn't look great, but his character work was really good, definitely a believable character. Bret was also an entertaining chickenshit on the floor, getting his jabs in on Rotundo before running away from Spivey. Spivey I wasn't so hot on, for a big guy his offence didn't seem that credible. Good match, with a great finish - it looked like Bret took Spivey's head off, and it says something that a guy the size of Hart could make what was essentially just a clothesline look a credible finish against big Dan. Spivey took a good bump for it too, in fairness.

Shawn Michaels and Diesel vs 123 Kid and Razor Ramon - Action Zone 30th Oct 94 This was obviously a really good match, but the fact that Razor is face in peril rather than Kid, kind of bothers me. It shouldn't get in the way of a great match, but in the back of my mind, I can't help but think it would be even better were it Waltman taking the beatdown. That being said, this was good, good stuff. Razor has great punches, that should be clear to everyone, and both Shawn and Diesel sell them fantastically, with Michaels taking a hilarious spill on the apron at one point. I loooooved the Razor's Edge being hit early, and didn't mind too much that it wasn't a huge factor in the match long term, since it was pretty much the first move Shawn was hit with, and realistically he wouldn't be selling it all match long. Great near fall for it, if you were watching the match for the first time, unaware of the hype then you could easily have bought that as the finish, especially on a throwaway show like Action Zone. Hot tag was nice, and there was some cool as hell stuff going on when Kid got back in, especially the tandem SOS into a crossbody. Finishing stretch went on a bit long for my tastes, and Razor seemed to shake off his beatdown a little too easily. I sound kind of down on the match - I did really enjoy it, but I think a combination of knowing how good others have said it is, combined with my "what ifs" hurt it a little. Perhaps I should watch it again at a later date, but for now, it's kid of upper-middle of the road. If that makes any sense.

Back to the GOAT subject, my tastes have changed so widely since I voted in that Smarkschoice poll, and there's a ton more footage available from all over the World on Youtube, Dailymotion and DVD. Stuff like World of Sport has got a ton more available thanks to Youtube uploaders. I'd love to participate in another poll sometime soon. As for Rey, he's probably been WWE's best guys for the past several years, and excels in so many different kinds of matches. He can still do the flippedy dippy style when working with the right guy, but also churns out epic babyface performances like the last couple of Elimination Chamber matches he was in.

A couple of fine matches here, will watch some more of the recommendations soon. I loved the team of Regal and Taylor at the time, and Londrick had good matches with everyone, so I was quite looking forward to rewatching this one, and it didn't disappoint. Started with London and Kendrick jumping the Brits before the bell to continue their fued, and have a pretty nice brawl in the opening minute. Regal is a king at selling small things like a wristlock being cranked on. Taylor is pretty damn good in his own right, loved his really casual kick that he throws at London whilst he's attempting to skin the cat back into the ring. Late on in the match, he has a great spot where he just LEAPS at London to stop a tag, and then slaps on an armlock/neckwrench combo just because he happened to fall in that position. Regal throws a super 3/4 nelson suplex during the heat section as well, he does that pretty damn well. What I like about the match most is that the crowd really didn't care that much for it at the start, but by the time the hot tag comes around, they're buzzing, and really want to see Londrick get the win. Bit of an angle finish which hurts it somewhat, but Taylor gets his swanky suplex in to cap it off, so that's fine by me. --------------- Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs William Regal and Dave Taylor - Smackdown 22nd Jan 07 So that last match lead not to a title match between the two teams, but to a four way ladder match where Joey Mercury got his face exploded. So here we get the rematch, this time with the titles on the line. The match instantle gets a million stars from me since Taylor does a proper headlock takedown, trapping the arm whilst he takes Kendrick over. More people need to do it correctly like that. I like how Regal and Taylor are sold as a threat here, with Londrick constantly going back to a headlock or a front facelock to keep their opponants from doing pretty much anything. We get a tad more flashy offence here compared to the earlier match, with London landing on his feet out of a backdrop, and then proceeding to 'rana Regal with barely a chance to think about it. We know Regal is great, but Taylor is underrated as fuck. He really brings it here with the wacky facial expressions as only an old Northerner can, and looks to be ripping London's shoulder out of it's correct position in relation to the rest of his body. That's some great working of a hold there, and I'd say that Taylor outworks Regal here, which is saying something. The match totally picks up when London gets a rollup in for a near fall. Once that happens, the villains pick up the aggression tenfold, beating the crap out of the tag champ. A subtle move, but it totally makes sense that the Brits would recognise that London still has enough in him to possibly get the win, and as such decide to up it several notches. The hot tag was great, as it looked like it could easily have been an accident, and Kendrick is going crazy hitting everyone that moves. Finishing stretch is really exciting stuff, and a couple more minutes worth would have probably seen this get a really high rating. As it stands, still very good stuff, with Taylor just being great. --------------- Eddie Guerrero and Booker T vs Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio - Smackdown 30/12/04 Rey and Eddie start, and we get some good stuff, but just a teaser of what's to come, and Booker soon gets tagged. Crowd want RVD in, but that obviously wasn't when he was supposed to wrestle, so Rey stays in the match for the time being. Rey and Booker work really well together here, I don't recall how their World Title fued went mind you. Huge backdrop countered into a dropkick was a highlight here. Van Dam getting back suplexed out of a headlock, and then getting the headlock again straight away was something you don't see like, ever, these days. Two hot tags here, which I'm normally not a big fan of, but this was really well paced that I had no problem with it, and the first set of heat was much shorter than the second. Always good to mix things up a bit from the classic formula anyway. All four men are great in the match, no weak link at all. I loved the spot where RVD forearms Booker a bunch of times to weaken him, and then when he turns to tag Rey, Booker just clotheslines the shit out of him. Eddie selling a Van Dam frog splash minutes after it happened was a lovely touch too. I wasn't a huge fan of the finish, classic Eddie stuff which is really funny like always, but it kind of took me out of the match a bit too much. The flash rollup by Rey was aces, though to be fair.

Bret Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs Owen Hart & Bob Backlund - Action Zone 26/2/95 Something about Bulldog getting headbutted seems wrong, his head should be up there with Samoans' in my eyes. The tag to Bret early on was really well done, Bulldog sold his own suplex just enough to time the tag perfectly, that was actually superb in execution. The showdown between brothers may have come a little early, but it's not like they hadn't wrestled each other a whole bunch of times by this point. Loved Owen's counter of a backbreaker by using an eye rake. So simple, but did the job nicely. Backlund running in constantly, only to get knocked on his arse was a fun section, I liked his participation in the match a whole lot when he was the illegal man. He didn't spend much time actually in the match, which at this stage was probably for the best, and it was mostly Owen vs Bret, which is hardly a bad thing. Backlund timed his interference really well, especially the false tag spot, and when Bret went to reverse the figure four. Bret's selling was spot on, but my one issue with the match would be that Bret was almost always in a hold, and rarely made it to his feet. As such, he didn't really get to sell with his entire body, which would have put the match over the top in my eyes and really made it a great performance. He did show a brief moment of this when making the tag, however. I also wish that Backlund had got his comeuppance in the ring, rather than on the floor where it was missed by most of the crowd who were paying attention to the pin in the ring. Something like him eating a press slam leading to the finish would have made this just a little more special. Still, a good match, but I'm not sure it was quite as good as it could have been given the guys involved.

Cheers guys, will watch some more tomorrow. Only gonna do 2 vs 2 matches, so won't include the Survivor Series 02 triple threat, but plenty of other great suggestions. Ricky Steamboat & Tito Santana vs Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake - 21st Apr 85, MLG Toronto Ok, a match that's I've never seen before, or even heard being mentioned by anyone. Given the talent, it's got to be at least good, but it ends up being quite a bit more than that. Personally, I think best WWE tag ever is a stretch, even without having gone over much so far in the project, but this was really good and contained possibly the best hot tag I've ever seen, when Tito tags in Steamboat. There's some great stuff here besides the hot tag too. I loved Valentine being a prick on the ring apron, then waiting until Tito had been sufficiently beaten down before tagging in. He then winds up a huge elbow and promptly... misses! His slaps from the ring apron and later armbar were fantastic too. Beefcake was pretty good here too, although by far the weaker of the four guys. I've never seen much of his stuff, and had always kind of written him off as just a Hogan hanger-on, but he had some fun shtick throughout, and him grabbing on to Steamboat's trunks from the apron was a nice touch. His distracting of the illegal man and the referee was a bit hokey, but Steamboat played off of it well. Only criticism of the match would be that I would have preferred a longer heat section on Tito, and just the one hot tag would have done for me. Two, given that the match wasn't very long, just broke up the fight too much for me, and as such the faces never came off seeming as though there were in dire straights. A fine match though in all, and already this project is paying off, since that hot tag is now in my life. Oh, and the finish is pretty swanky, never seen the atomic drop countered into a figure four before. ---------- The Rockers vs The Powers of Pain - MSG 15th Jan 90 I saw a link to this on Youtube before it was recommended, and it looked pretty tasty. Shawn takes some huge bumps for Barby at the start, the one in the corner looks especially good, he almost falls right out of the ring. Loved the rana/dropkick combo as well, and the powerbomb to Marty to start the heat was well done. The basic story here is one of Marty Jannetty taking an absolute shitkicking from the POP, and taking a ton of mental bumps, including one of the highest backdrops I've ever seen. He flies out of the ring from a boot too, which looks great. His desperate fight back against Warloard and Barbarian looked great too, before he got the good hot tag. Only issue here is that Warlord isn't good. At least here he has guys who will take liberties with their own health in order to make his offence credible, but he's leagues behind Barbarian in terms of ring work, even if he looks damn impressive. Still, there's little to no time in the match when Warlord's in and I thought "Man, this is shit", so props to the Rockers for working around him. Just about the best match so far, I'd say. Not without its flaws still, but very good stuff, and the crowd loved it. Finish was unexpected but good, I like that it didn't have to end with some kind of traditional finishing hold, a fluke rollup. Fine stuff.

Aye, cheers. I was planning to do that going forward, should have really started with the first review too. Now, to make edits as if by magic(!)... Added Lance Storm & Christian vs Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman - Global Warning, 10th Aug 02 Sub-ten minute match, but Rey and Storm bring the goods. It's weird to see Rey do the crazy high-flying here after him (justifiably) being toned down for so long. Very nice build to the hot tag, and Kidman doesn't fuck up his Shooting Star either, which leads to a really convincing near fall. Fine finish too, but it's a short match and I'm sure it won't rank too high after I've watched more. I do want to check out some more Storm/Christian tag matches after seeing this. Booker T & Goldust vs Christian & Chris Jericho - No Mercy 02 Not quite Christian and Storm, but close enough, and Christian was easily the lesser man in this match anyway. That's not really a slight on him, it's just that everyone else was pretty great. Crowd loved them some Booker, and what he did do looked really good. He wasn't in for long, and didn't get exposed at all, which he can be when working for long periods of time. He was here to pick up the hot tag and further his fued with Jericho, so it worked fine. Goldust was a fine Ricky Morton, and they worked in a couple of nice near-tags, simple stuff but the likes of which probably wouldn't be bothered with in 'E tags these days. Goldy's offence looked pretty great too, including a lovely double bulldog and some kind of wacky heel kick that I'm sure Rico was doing at the time. Jericho bumped his arse off for pretty much everything here, making everyone look like gold. I'm not a huge Jericho fan, but he brought it in spades for this match. He covered nicely with the finish as well, considering the second rope broke, although the ref did get a good look at the title belt when counting the fall, so slight negative points for that. Again, like the Global Warning match it's likely too short (9 minutes, give or take) to make a big impact in the list, but it was super fun whilst it lasted.

Semi-inspired by Dylan's Tajiri thread, I wanted to start a project of sorts. I'm a big fan of tag team wrestling, and of much of what the whole WWE product, but the latter hasn't always produced a wealth of great tag action. That being said, I thought it would be fun to try and dig out some gems from the main TVs and b-shows, and see how they compare against the more well known stuff from the late eighties, when the tag division really was strong. By all means, please suggest matches worth watching for me. With that said... 1. The Rockers vs The Powers of Pain - MSG 15th Jan 90 2. Ricky Steamboat & Tito Santana vs Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake - 21st Apr 85, MLG Toronto 3. Bret Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs Owen Hart & Bob Backlund - Action Zone 26/2/95 4. Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs William Regal and Dave Taylor - Smackdown 22nd Jan 07 5. Shawn Michaels and Diesel vs 123 Kid and Shawn Michaels - Action Zone 30th Oct 94 6. Eddie Guerrero and Booker T vs Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio - Smackdown 30/12/04 7. Booker T & Goldust vs Christian & Chris Jericho - No Mercy 02 8. Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs William Regal and Dave Taylor - Smackdown 8th Dec 06 9. The US Express vs The Hart Foundation - Philly Spectrum 20/9/86 10. Lance Storm & Christian vs Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman - Global Warning, 10th Aug 02 11. 12.