soup23

Pretty much a Savage burial here as he is done. Crowd was dead as hell and I couldn't find myself to care either. Piper is getting close to being my least favorite personality in 1997 and 1998 as it is way past time for him to go.

Have yourself a night Booker T. I though this was on par with the Benoit match even though the crowd heat wasn't there. I was amazed to see Booker try some new stuff including the dive to the outside. Finlay on offense was nasty and cranking out as much offense as he could stretching it. I loved the sequence with the spinarooni. They botched the finish but recovered well and the spike piledriver Booker delivered to finish this was nasty. Big moment for him. (****)

Finish was fun with Jericho looking strong making the ropes on the Cloverleaf. I stand by my statement that Malenko should have won clean here. Him snapping was fine but I didn't think Malenko was the right person to convey the snapped portion that this storyline demanded.

The series has been a shit ton of fun to go through and they reward us with a legitimately great match here. Benoit continues his hot streak of 1998 PPV matches. He really took control here and had more desperation in the air now that his big lead in the series was completely gone and Booker had kicked out of some of his more vicious maneuvers. I really liked the finish with Booker finally able to fire off a successful rally and winning the whole series with his trusty missile dropkick. (****)

I don't know why i blanked on the uncut convo gone wrong tie-in but that is brilliant. I agree that the Hales feud hasn't been good so far and it feels like a desperate promotion trying to cash in on a popular thing that is happening in wrestling in 1998.

I did watch the Cena debut match a few months ago too and thought it was fine and a perfectly acceptable performance from both men. Grimmas really loved the Benoit Rumble match. LOL

We have some good TNA recs from Mick and Joe. What would be some of the hidden gems for Angle in WWF/WWE. I can see him having a shot at my top 100.

Ha Ha *CHUNK That's what I get for typing on PWO instead of working.

Wonder what people think of the Edge series in 2002 as I was really disappointed in watching those matches a couple of months ago. I thought Angle didn't have the pace that plays up to his gimmick in those matches. He was willing to kill time chatting it up with the fans, applying chinlocks and being lackadaisical. It didn't seem like a high school bully thinking he was better than everyone either. He seemed genuinely aloof. Edge for his part didn't help matters as the SummerSlam 2002 displays Angle's strengths a lot better, but those two matches were striking to me at how lifeless they were considering they get thrown out as underrated WWE gems all the time.

You are having arguments every day with Matt D that sound like english thesis lectures, but were the fun police? Anyway, I can't see a case at all for Sting. In fact, of none multi-man matches that are great and he was a apart of, he may honestly only have the Vader series right off the top of my head.

I would also point to the 5/14/94 Jake vs. DWB SMW match that got a lot of praise and shows Jake using his psychology to make a match great.

I may be guilty somewhat of this with my Taue HOF vindication but that doesn't take away from the fact that I think Hashimoto and Hase are great workers for a large junk of their career. Choshu is a personal favorite of many here. Chono, Muto, and Sasaki are more spotty but definitely had some classic matches throughout the years.

Edge is someone who was proclaimed as great while he was wrestling and given tons of snowflakes by Meltzer but now that he is gone, everyone moved on and you don't get a great sense of nostalgia about him from people going back and digging in the crates of his matches. Scott Criscuolo had a good point on Edge in the Survivor Series 2001 podcast which emphasizes both why he enjoys Edge's work and why I generally don't. The crux is that Edge was the ultimate hybrid and never found his one true style. He could have garbage brawls or WWE workrate heavy matches with the likes of Angle, Christian, Jericho, etc. I have watched a decent amount of 2000-2003 Edge the past few months and he has disappointed me both in tag team matches vs. the likes of the Dudleys when given time and his first big singles run up until his 2002 injury. I would safely vote for the likes of Angle above Edge in a list like this.

Oh, didn't realize the Perfect vs. Doink had a series. Looking forward to that coming up. The one I watched was Mr. Perfect vs Doink the Clown (WWF Monday Night RAW 05/24/93) which Charles had ranked #96 for the year.

I really like the Bret KOTR match and I am a fan of the Flair match even though I do see the criticisms of it. The only other match I am familiar enough to comment on is the Doink match since it got hyped in the 93 yearbook watching. Incredible performance by Doink but Curt holds his own as well. I do think 93 is probably his best overall year after 87. Overall, Curt in the US in 93 would be interesting though and I don't know where he would rank. In a historically bad year, I am still unsure if he would be in my top 3 performers which doesn't bode well for him. I have no problem saying he had a good year with some really good performances in 93 but as I watch more of the old Raws, I hope for some great performances sprinkled in.

Growing up as a kid, Curt felt like one of those "what could have been wrestlers". He had an awesome character and then got hurt and was sporadic until he showed up in WCW. Now looking back at his entire career though, he has a good amount of footage on him to judge. Tons of stuff from him from early years in Portland on and his run in WCW is pretty lengthy along with his 92-93 reunion. Seeing all of that, I can't see a case for him. I did really love him in AWA and his series vs. Bock is one of my favorite from the 1980's but once he turned heel, I didn't get the same feeling from his matches. Part of that was his competition at times (Mitch Snow) but he felt like the top guy in a dying promotion for a lot of the time. His WWF has been dissected but I fall on the side of that he was way too showy a bumper at times and didn't allow emphasis to occur because of his outrageous bumping style whether it was a hiptoss or a finisher. He also didn't bump around in a stooging, more comedy manner which I can be more tolerate of. He had some sporadic great matches (vs. Bret, vs. Tito SNME) but I would call this run pretty disappointing overall. His WCW run looks even worse now than before. I kind of got the impressions Curt was cool because the Horseman wanted him and so did the Wolfpac, but no matter what he did in WCW until the West Texas Redneck days, he faded into the background and was a non-factor. He also didn't churn out hardly any good in-ring performances. Instead of having a signature run at the tail end of his career like some contenders do, Hennig damaged his reputation further. I would put Hogan's output in ring over his last few years as an active performer easily over Hennig's.

Good write up Parv, but I don't really like the Arn analogy. Ted has some absolute phenomenal stuff and performances throughout his career but there is a sense of him taking nights off at times watching the footage. Say what you will about him being in the ring with 3 all - timers, his intensity wasn't at the level of the others for a ton of that All Japan footage. Was he terrible in those matches? No, but he didn't have a stand out performance to me on that entire set with the exception of maybe the Tenryu 83 match which I think I am higher on than you. Arn was very consistently good in most matches and seemed to be able to rise a formulaic match to great levels at times. An example is the Clash 17 match where him stooging and losing his shit for Steamboat makes that storyline for the entire match. I don't see his MDM as a detraction in this poll but I also don't think he has that all time feud that others like Savage, Tito, and Valentine had. He certainly helped Virgil in that feud but Piper also helped and that is more padding for a nice short highlight of his run than a huge plus to me. Ted has more highs in bigger positions, but I would argue Arn was much more consistent. Both will make my top 100.

MNW is atrocious. A roundtable discussion along with the compliment of the side by side segments bouncing off on each other would create the frantic atmosphere that was so infectious during this time. I debated many times whether to watch a Goldberg squash or the latest in Austin vs. McMahon. This series has even more so than you usual, became a mouthpiece for WWE revisionist history.

Hey Mike, Glad you finally got registered up here. Could definitely always use more voices on people with a deep knowledge of wrestling history but also a thirst for a lot of the current going-ons. Chad from WTBBP.

Extremely close to finalizing my thoughts on this. Be on the lookout for a post on the official rules and we can get the discussion going!

Do I have to revisit styles tna?

I have known Scott and Justin for close to two years now and don't hold it against them.

Ha, while I don't think any voter that did their true due diligence would vote for either, I do want all candidates that could be named in other corners of the internet to get a fair shake here. I don't want anyone to think that we overlooked those two guys or that we are just being "PWO" goofy by naming random luchadors and territory stars for this list. That being said, Angle is a guy I can perfectly enjoy in some settings but I feel I portray his weaknesses in the Edge matches pretty well that plagued most of his career. He was a guy that could have some great spurts of athleticism and charisma but not enough "glue" to hold most of the matches together. HHH is even more frustrating as their are times like in the Kane match and the Taboo Tuesday 2004 match where he is really good and he can sell a body part when motivated. Of course, we know he has some dreadful performances as I have highlighted in my reviews of the Steiner series where I think Steiner is clearly better.

HHH VS. The Rock - SummerSlam 1998 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/27351-hhh-vs-the-rock-wwf-summerslam-083098-ladder-match/ vs. The Undertaker - WrestleMania 17 http://placetobenation.com/vintage-vault-pre-viewing-wrestlemania-17/ vs. Kane - Judgement Day 2001 http://placetobenation.com/vintage-vault-pre-viewing-judgment-day-2001/ Kurt Angle vs. Edge - Backlash 2002 http://placetobenation.com/vintage-vault-pre-viewing-backlash-2002/ vs. Edge - Judgement Day 2002 http://placetobenation.com/vintage-vault-pre-viewing-judgement-day-2002/ vs. Rey Mysterio - SummerSlam 2002 http://placetobenation.com/vintage-vault-pre-viewing-summerslam-2002/

I think you are being way too dismissive of Taue. On the list of people you named, name one singles match Gordy had on that list that was better than any singles match Taue had with the same guy. Not like Gordy didn't have opportunities either. Williams had some classics with those but also some inconsistent performances sprinkled in. He also has a much shorter peak as Taue. I don't think either was particularly anything of note until 1990 but by 1997, Doc is a non factor while Taue when called upon was still delivering the goods. No metrics I can find show Kikuchi, Fuchi and Yatsu as being better than Taue and I like all three of those guys a lot.