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Oh I love the facepaint Pete and think its a cool design. I am still thinking the promo work from warrior has been good and I liked the crystal analogy. I still am shocked with the playing up of Taker this close to the show.

This really picked up towards the home stretch and I really agree with everyone else that Taue vs. Misawa took center stage and did good for themselves. I like how established Misawa is looking now.

man did I love this. With all the NWA TV watching I have watched, this didn't feel out of place at all and the first 10 minutes were classic building up of momentum. The work was very solid and each competitor was not willing to make a huge mistake given the magnitude of the match. I love Loss's analogy of more steak than sizzle. Finish could have been a mess but worked brilliantly and both guys looked great coming out of it.

Wow Parv, I disagree with most of this. Memorableness and showing up on some lists means nothing to the bottom line of WWE so those things are as insignificant to them as us going back and rewatching the footage. In fact, by the time Perfect became an upper mid carder was when the Rock N Wrestling boom started declining. I honestly can't see you liking many Perfect matches in retrospect because if you thought Tully didn't get enough offense in vs. Kernoodle that is essentially most big time Perfect matches I have seen from 1990-1991 with the exception of the Tito and Bret stuff. He is bumping right along against Hogan in more drmatic fashion than his manager that he is teaming with. Ha ha, should have seen this coming. And I'm not saying I would dig those matches. I remember that one of his when he's tagging with The Genius pretty well. My argument is something like this: Premise1: WWF in the Hogan era emphasized entertainment and character over workrate. Premise2: Therefore, work doesn't get guys over, but being distinctive and creating a big impression do. Conclusion: Therefore, workers in WWF should be judged against different criteria from more workrate heavy promotions. Premise1: Mr. Perfect was distinctive and created such a big impression that 20 years later countless mainstream fans think he's one of the best wrestlers of all time. Conclusion: You have to say, therefore, that he did his job well. Premise1: In a WWF context, the management wanted something very specific out of their matches. Conclusion: Therefore, it's not fair to judge workers against expectations we have from other promotions. I am not entirely comfortable with this sort of relativism, it goes against my instincts, but I can't overlook the idea of guys making the best of whatever role is given to them. What's appropriate for the audience? It's all those awesome Mr. Perfect skits and bouncing around the ring like a lunatic for Hulk Hogan. It's not being an "asskicker". One way of looking at it is to say that he was much more limited in WWF, as people in this thread have suggested. A different way to look at it is to say that he selected what was appropriate for the character and the performance. We don't criticize Al Pacino because he's not doing his Dog Day Afternoon stuff in Cruising. We shouldn't criticize Curt because he didn't do his AWA stuff in WWF. He was playing a different character. Saying he was "capable of more" isn't exactly recognizing all of the limitations and constraints he was working under. Sure, you can say you prefer his AWA stuff, that's fine. You can also say Al Pacino is better in Dog Day Afternoon than in Cruising. But it seemed to me like people were saying that he should have been a bit more like his AWA self in WWF. Is his WWF stuff overrated? Absolutely. But let's not go too far the other way. It's been said a lot that he was working in a comfort zone. How about the idea that he was actually crafting a character and exercising quite a lot of self-restraint to quash some of his more firey traits in that process? "Comfort zone" suggests that he was doing something that came naturally to him and wasn't pushing himself. Seems to me that it's much more likely that "natural Curt" is going to be your AWA Curt. Surely that was his comfort zone, and Mr. Perfect was something he had to be self-conscious about and control more. No? In regards to premise 1, entertainment was assuredly emphasized in the WWF up to and including today, but that is not to take away the fact that other people in that era were able to take to craft memorable characters and sustain workrate motives. Savage and Hogan himself are the first two that come to mind. The only other candidate I see contending with Perfect for someone that had so many great matches elsewhere and so little in the WWF is Dibiase. Premise 2 is not accurate because Perfect did not draw throughout his career in the WWF so therefore he was not really over. Conclusion creates a strawman argument that doesnt sit well with me. If we cant judge WWF against promotions like NWA then we cant really judge NWA against Japan (different working schedules) or lucha (limited footage) or against USWA since we lack so much arena footage. I am always under the impression that any match in wrestling history can be judged and evaluated against any past or previous match. I use this premise for all types of entertainment I enjoy. Second premise I also disagree with because again what does it matter now business wise that people list perfect in their top 20 workers. WWE might get a few more sales out of his dvd (which was not one of their best sellers) but to the overall bottom line it means nothing. I don't think you can build up these lists significance as a pro to the argument while using our retaliations as a con. I don't know how satisfied WWF was with his overall career but its clear he did not do his job really well when giving the chance to be on top of the card, because his stuff with Hogan is really bad compared to everyone else. Early 1990 was not as hot business wise as 1987 but there is no way over the hill Harley should be drawing that much more against Hogan than Perfect. Earthquake right after Perfect did better than him. Premise1: In a WWF context, the management wanted something very specific out of their matches. Conclusion: Therefore, it's not fair to judge workers against expectations we have from other promotions. I cant speak for everyone else but this is a premise I welcome when it is done well. I loved the fact that Hogan had a big brawl type match vs. Hansen in April 1990 right after he worked the signature WWF babyface style match with Warrior a few days earlier. He followed that up by working short, underdog brawls vs. Earthquake. Perfect not wrestling like AWA Curt is not the reason I dislike him in the WWF. Curt being unfocused and acting like he got shot with a gun no matter whether its Hulk Hogan or some jobber on Superstars is where the problems start to creep in. This is Perfect as IC Champ vs. Kevin Reno. He gets outsmarted, then flies over the top rope off a dropkick by Reno. Comes back in and works on the leg for a minute to setup the perfect plex? Huh, not the best psychology.

Wow Parv, I disagree with most of this. Memorableness and showing up on some lists means nothing to the bottom line of WWE so those things are as insignificant to them as us going back and rewatching the footage. In fact, by the time Perfect became an upper mid carder was when the Rock N Wrestling boom started declining. I honestly can't see you liking many Perfect matches in retrospect because if you thought Tully didn't get enough offense in vs. Kernoodle that is essentially most big time Perfect matches I have seen from 1990-1991 with the exception of the Tito and Bret stuff. He is bumping right along against Hogan in more drmatic fashion than his manager that he is teaming with.

BrickHitHouse, you have reached your peak with the Great Bulldog. I cant stop looking at it.

The pro match from 3/26/88 and the worldwide match from 5/14/88

Thank you for that review Chess Knight. That match was fun as hell. Some great cat and mouse stuff with Tajiri bumping like a loon and Henry looking like a beast. I also like how Tajiri got punished for not adjusting his strategy and immediately got pinned after the cardinal mistake of the tarantula.

Spoiler alert for the next show but I have watched up to the 4/88 Barry heel turn on the second show of matches and all is forgiven with Tully as he has been great on the stuff so far.

I came into this show giving a little bit of a chance for Tully to be my #1 overall NWA/WCW worker for the 80's if the matches he was in really excelled. I came out of these tv matches not sure if he will make my top 3. Also glad you liked that Garvin cage win as much as we did Loss. I was deliberating back and forth over giving it the fully five myself and will probably watch again before I construct our best matches list.

Let do Murdoch vs. Luger then to prevent you from putting ROtunda in your top 10 list. Does anyone have the date of the "good" match between those two.

I say we go for Sting vs. Rotunda from 4/1/89 since Sting is someone we will be seeing a ton more of coming up and we always usually have a good bit to talk about with IRS to.

I would enjoy seeing Tabatha interact with Chikara to turn the business around.

God that Pickers show pisses me off. I can accept some of the characters that wonder into the pawn shop as people that should have left the casino floor earlier. I get really pissed off seeing some old widow sell an artifact of her late husbands for cents on the dollar and seeing the Pickers stride back to the car with great glee. Only reality show I can stand at this point is Big Brother and Top Chef. Much like soap operas, I have a lot of personal context to most of the Bravo reality shows through my wife. I swear she also likes quality programming like Mad Men and Game of Thrones.

Thank you Loss, Shoe, and Brickhithouse for all the feedback. Shoe, My mom is definitely on board with the relaunch. I had never really thought about this until this weekend, but I think my passion for wrestling in some ways comes from my mom's personality. I had always assumeed that it was from my dad because his grandfather was the one going to the Cobb County Civic Center all the time. Also, you need to check out that Rhodes/Garvin vs. Arn/Flair match. One of the more satisfying Crockett matches I have seen and I swear I have watched Dusty jumping around and hugging Ron around 20 times thiis past weekend. Brick, Thanks for the heads up on the syndication structure in Kansas. I really feel out of place discussing that because I know a. I was too young for it to really affect me and b. where I lived was weird anyway because TBS could be picked up without having cable.

I thought it was an interesting ending to an ippv that will only be enhanced/hindered by what the true result of the show was. If it was a big work and angle to create interest, then it seems kind of stupid to throw away potential revenue on future events for what they were trying to accomplish here. If it was the last show under the "Chikara" moniker, I think it was a pretty brilliant way to go out and even though we havent had any huge promotions shut down since the Sopranos finale, I am surprised the concept has not been lifted more.

Only specifics is that we talk about what happens in the final match and speculate about what is to come for the promotion. You can skip ahead to around 19 minutes to skip any Chikara talk plus you will get our awesome soap opera analysis.

Loss, I'm guessing you were based in Arkansas at this point, were you able to get TBS by antenna or was that exclusive to cable? That is always something that confuses me.

Good review Superstar and something we are talking about on the podcast today. I watched the Russians vs. RNR match and this one back to back and even though the Russian match was longer, I thought the variety of work made it far superior. I enjoyed this match and thought everyone looked pretty good save maybe some spots with Rude, but I was ready for something else to happen with the 7-8 minute armbar.

Graham if you want to discuss DAYS in a pro wrestling mostly board, I can contribute because my wife watches every day and I had taken an interest to it. I do see a lot of parallels between soaps and wrestling but become more frustrated with soaps in not being able to have a clear blowoff most of the time. I also take the stance of if you bring it up, I will admit I am a fan but it is not something I promote. All of my close and moderate friends know I like wrestling, but me going to Wrestlemania and having pictures posted everywhere on social media outed me for a lot of "work" friends. Of my two closest work friends (both female) one took it very well and even brings it up to me and we discuss vague details such as "isnt there a PPV coming up" and stuff like that. The other one sort of chastised me for it and I do see a difference in our relationship at work which I find strange.

It has been really fun plowing through these tv matches and some of these matches may be contenders for my top 5 matches of NWA 80's list we are going to comprise. One thing though with this NWA stuff and I think this will be a predecessor to the NWA 80's set, is that it is really hard for me to watch a lot of these matches in one sitting. I have been able to watch the yearbooks and even part of the AWA set for 2-3 hours at a time with no problem. Here after the 12/28/85 Ole vs. Magnum and Garvin vs. Flair back to back, I was drained.

Haven't listened to the show yet and I really love Eaton but damn if Zbysko isn't someone flying up my favorites list with the stuff I have watched in the past year. He has been so versatile whether it was his AWA stuff with Bock, him vs. Saito in 2/90, having an intense battle with Sting in March of 1991, the DA stuff, and of course the great feud vs. Regal.