Grimmas

It would have to be more discs than the Funk set, eh?

I forgot how much I liked this match. Bubba, even so green, is really great at playing his role. He looks super tough and mean, just slower and not as smart as Garvin early on. His bumping, for a big guy, is really great too. He takes this punch that bumps him to the floor, where he is immediately on his feet that looks amazing. His selling of all this is awesome. He still looks tough, just caught there. The story is what you would expect. Bubba dominates and bloodies Garvin, Garvin fights back. The piledriver is AWESOME, because Bubba is so big he can barely take it. I kind of love the finish, where they are both out and its first one to their feet. Bubba winning by cheating works, because watching this you can see that Bubba has the potential to be a star. I'd say this is an easy thumbs up and should be on the 80's set.

11/23/1989 WWF Survivor Series Elimination Match: The Ultimate Warriors (Ultimate Warrior/Jim Neidhart/Rockers) vs. The Heenan Family (Andre the Giant/Haku/Arn Anderson/Bobby Heenan) This remains as my favourite Survivor Series match ever and, perhaps, my most re-watched match ever. This match has an amazing story with Heenan replacing Tully Blanchard in the match and his actions in the match are the height of his greatest. Also, it has the best Gorilla-Jesse commentary ever as well. It's mostly a Rockers vs. Arn/Haku match with them doing the bulk of the work. It's 20 minutes of greatness. Bonus points is to watch the pre-match promo where Warrior grabs Neidhart's beard and puts The Rockers in a headlock.

We're talking about a ten year period or more, so you don't really need to undercut the argument to the best year, month, week or day. For Flair it's a ten year peak, you stated. However, you also said that the greatest wrestler of all-time is the wrestler with the greatest peak. There could be a wrestler with a greater peak, but its shorter. Where would they rank then?

I think to determine the greatest wrestler of all-time you look at everything the wrestler did. The greatest of all-time is different than who has the greatest for a period of time. If you want to just pick who was the best at their peak, then why not say the greatest of all-time is the wrestler who had the best year? The best month? The best week? The best day?

I really want a Goldust and Cody feud. So bad.

Wait... besides the Rumble and Punk-Rock is there any other matches? I don't remember the Rumble going on so early before.

His WCW run was pretty great too. I haven't watched any of his stuff from his WWF return, I wonder how that is. I remember enjoying his hardcore matches at the time, but I doubt they hold up.

Missed the opening due to watching puppy videos on youtube with my wife. However, this tag match is pretty fun so far. I read the recap on the observer page and Dolph unifying the belts highly intrigues me. I really would prefer the belts unified, I am glad they are, at least, teasing it.

I feel the exact opposite, Dylan has made it clear Funk > Flair.

After reading this thread, I started to watch John Tenta matches. Started chronilogically (because I'm OCD like that) and going through his career for anything that looks intersting. Also, I've always been a fan of fat guy wrestlers and I don't remember how the Quaker was, because when I was 9 I didn't care about that. Tenta was freaking awesome going back. He had a real good match at MSG with Ron Garvin and a few good ones with Bossman. I'm about to hit the Snake Roberts feud, so I'm really looking forward to that and to the WCW and Japan runs. One thing that sucks, is that in the WWF, he didn't get many chances to have good matches. One Man Gang and other fat guys got to face good workers in matches and destroy them. Tenta mostly was in Bravo's corner or teaming with him. When he does get a match against Tito it goes about 6 minutes and then run ins start. Frustrating. He is really great though in being, maybe, the perfect fat man. His splash, leg drop and elbow drop are amazing. He flexes a lot, which I love. He always looks strong and tough and is not flying around, because he is a monster. One thing I want to consider is how he compares to Yokozuna. If Tenta came in late 1992 and put in Yoko's role, would he had done as well?

I heard it was better and Russo was gone, so I gave it a chance. The Main Event had Kurt Angle unmask one of the Aces & 8's to reveal... MIKE KNOX! Tenay went on about how Taz knows this guy and how we know who it is. I didn't, until they mentioned his name in a bit. Also, Sting slowly walked from the back with a bat to slowly destroy the Aces & 8's. So, yeah, one episode was enough.

I've been wondering, Eaton was so great at tags, how was he at singles? I Know he had some good matches and he is a great wrestler. What is his definitive singles matches?

I go 1 Funk 2 Lawler 3 Flair Mostly due to Flair sucking pretty bad for such a long period. Actually he sucked pretty much as much as he was good. I know everybody loves the Macho Man, but does he ever get a GOAT talk? He was great as a babyface and heel. Had amazing matches and some of the best ever. His promos and charisma is off the charts. Where does he rank?

Someone mentioned a Valentine-Anderson tag team and now I am furious that never happened. They would had been epic.

Some reason I always thought The Rockers were over-rated in the WWF. It probably all stems back to an MSG match versus the Brainbusters where The Rockers do a long heel in peril segments on Arn and I hated it. Probably should re-evaluate.

Good right ups John, some real good matches in there. I think I'm biased towards charismatic guys who are bigger and brawl, but can be technical. Muraco had a lot of focus on his character during matches, I really appreciate that. For example, see Demolition.

\ vs. Jimmy Snuka from the Spectrum 7/16/83 for the IC Title. The first section of the match is Snuka killing Muraco, and Muraco just selling this beating great. He is basically a pinball here. He turns the tide by throwing a cup of some drink in Snuka's eyes, that is really the only way he can get the advantage is by cheating. He brings out some of his fun offence, like the Russian Legsweep and the thumb. I love that he doesn't punch or kick or forearm, he more uses his thumb and tapes it up to make it more effective. He hits a great suplex gets two, then tries the one armed irish whip, but it gets reversed to the tree of woe where Snuka hits a nice headbutt on and busts him open. Snuka is back to destroying Muraco with intensity and shoves the referee to get DQ'd. Snuka continues the beatdown after the bell until jobbers pull Snuka off of Muraco. Although Snuka escapes and dropkicks Muraco over the top. Muraco slumps away. Kind of short and not a great showcase of his skills, but Muraco is really awesome in this intense match. You can see why this feud was so hot. I seem to remember loving their Strap match and I know their MSG matches are longer, have to rewatch those.

Muraco is one of my favourite wrestlers ever. However, Muraco is one of those guys that never gets talked about. I think this happens due to lack of footage. There is almost no footage of his San Francisco, Hawaii or Georgia runs. There is promos that are amazing, but not much in the ring. Even the matches with Jack Brisco are clipped. What does exist is a few great years of him in the WWF, then the period of him getting fat and lazy and horribly miscast as a babyface. You can find some great matches in that period, though. The Backlund matches were pretty awesome, as well as the Snuka matches. Watching him at his best, he is great though. His selling is awesome, he plays a great chickenshit heel and is also really great at getting over the intensity of the matches. He could be really crisp in the ring too with more technical matches, or he could be in awesome brawls. He did some nice unique stuff too, like his single arm whip. Of course, something that always stands out is his charisma and promos. He may had been one of the best of all-time. He was funny, but also made things important and serious when needed. There is also the great comedy like Fuji-Vice or eating a sandwich while beating a jobber. Is there more footage out there? If there was more stuff from the 70's, where he was such a great babyface he would team with Andre the Giant, there would be more talk of Muraco, I think.

Bret Hart - with the new DVD and all the talk on the board, I've been watching a lot lately and he's just as good now as he was watching him in the 90's. His stuff doesn't age. Yoshihiro Tajiri - I watched a lot of Tajiri in December and it was a joy. Even his shorter WWF matches were real fun. Negro Casas - For a guy who is getting old, he certainly is still really great. All of 2012 he had just great matches with Panther and others. Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel - I love tag wrestling and Superstars is the show I watched. They have had some real good stuff on that show. Dean Ambrose - Really should be the future of the WWE.

and Flair was the Race of his day.

I have to go with Bret. Flair was great and had so many great matches, but there is just something about him that makes me lose interest. His matches often feel like they are filled with great moments and parts, but as a whole are kind of lacking. While Flair was a master at selling and working the crowd and looking good doing everything, he was not a master storyteller. Bret was a master story teller and to me, story telling is the most important part of a match. Story telling and logic, that is. While Bret was taking the time to make everything make sense. For an example, instead of just taking an Asai moonsault and standing around and waiting, he'd brawl with the manager and turn around at the last second. Those little touches, make the match feel more like a sport and less like a show. On the other hand, Flair would always try the top rope jump and fail every match. It was so dumb. Also, everybody would put him in the figure-four, even if they never used the figure-four. It's stuff like that, that Bret would never do and, to me, makes Bret the better in ring wrestler. Flair is kind of the Angle of his day, at times. Worried more about getting his stuff in, then telling a great story.

There is a promo on tv by Onita promoting an Explosion Death Match with Chono on NJPW TV that is the best promo I've ever seen on Japan TV. He was intense and he was blowing up watermelons to show how dangerous the explosives were. That has to be on the 99 set.

To me, that seems pretty spot on. You can tell Bret had put thought into his matches. There is a story and a logically ending that fits the story of the match. On the other hand, Flair's matches often seem like disconnected parts thrown together, which sometimes equal amazing matches and sometimes are just great parts thrown together.

The first Super J Cup could be on this list as well. With the Sasuke-Lyger and Sasuke-Benoit matches both being awesome and the rest of the card all pretty solid. A great overall show. I seem to remember a Judgement Day from a few years ago that was great. Upon looking it up, it was 06 with London/Kendrick vs MNM, Benoit vs. Finlay, Helms vs. Crazy, Henry vs. Angle, Booker vs. Lashley, Khali vs. Taker and JBL vs Rey. Those I remember all being good with some of them being really good. Not all time great, but one of the better ones of that time period. My absolute favourite show of all-time is Survivor Series '89, not great or even that good, but I love it for nostalgia and fun factor and the main event being the best Survivor Series match ever.