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Chris Hero feels like another candidate for top 10. He had many very good matches with diverse opponents in a variety of places. Matches vs. Michael Todd Stratin and Mark Wolf really set him apart from all other indy candidates except Danielson in my opinion.

I think the question of who was the biggest draw comes up so much because it is a definitive way to validate a candidate and vice versa. While it is not the most interesting conversation, and I certainly think of you Childs as someone with good taste in wrestling, I find this method better than using more objective opponents like Edge's acting or his variety of classic matches.

I just want to say as someone who printed out the All Japan 1990's pimping post and carried it around like a sacred artifact for 2-3 years after first getting into puroresu, I am loving this long style, contemplative posts that JDW is making.

I never subscribed pre merger but did listen and read some of the archives when I joined and now can be positive to Bryan, I think people enjoyed Bryan's writing style and wit. He was also on board early on with audio and had interviews with a lot of the indy talent that we didn't know much about. For instance, Bryan Danielson, we knew he was the "best wrestler in the world" but not much about his personality. Bryan was able to extract a lot of that in his interview. The early Bryan and Vinny shows were also very conversational and relatable and seemed to provide a good mix between two dudes discussing wrestling shows with wackiness mixed in, but also that they know their stuff and there is some professionalism going on so it doesn't appear to be a random Youtube uploader. The timing of these shows coincided greatly too with Wade coming up with some of his most "out of the box" ideas and seeming really disconnected, and Mitchell being extremely smug in his columns. I think Bryan initially had a lot of backage as the "Meltzer and Keller" of the generation of fans that started watching in the mid to late 1980's and 1990's like me, and somehow he just lost his way with some of his customers.

This will be my last response so it doesn't feel like piling on, but go to any WM or UFC F4W convention and you see how great a worker Bryan can be. Those get togethers are great from a community perspective and I wouldn't hesititate to go to the dinner again as I met some nice people, but people were swarming around Bryan and he was treated like a celebrity with comped desserts and the whole nine yards. I really wish the Torch would come together more as a community because that is one area where observer still dominates. I mean a majority of the people you talk to don't even follow the product and say they keep up with it based on what Bryan says or pay $11 for the board. I can only understand this rationale if it is going to be a short sabbatical for school, busy season at work, etc. If I quit watcing something based on disinterest and don't see any reason why thngs will change in at least the relative future, the last thing I would want to do would be to pay money to listen to people talk about wrestlers who if I am true to my word I have never heard of. Wade Barrett and Alberto Del Rio would be two examples and should only just be names if all I do is listen to Bryan and Dave to get my wrestling fix. I know I am rambling, I just feel that in the past year, the voices heard at the F4W site are getting larger and the backlash to differing opinions greater.

Seriously, I stopped subscribing in May because I couldn't take the irrelevant reviews of WOH and the such. WWE 24/7 is a nice addition as is some of the other stuff, but their rant about the lack of viewers that NXT and Superstars get (Which they used as reasoning to not review) and then reviewing something like WOH or a hunting show is so hypocritical. That combined with Vinny given all of a two minute Royal RUmble review were the final straws for me.

I would argue thats one thing NOAH did fairly well in the mid 2000's was get over the lower level talent as threats to the upper tier. Rikio, Morshima, and KENTA were able to trade with Akiyama,Misawa, Kobashi and while it was not 50/50 it was definitely competitive with the ability for upsets.

I think this is definitely one area where both with the expansion of internet and available footage, the scope has widened greatly on matches like these. For instance, in 2001 when I first started online, the main stuff to watch that wasn't WCW/WWE history related were All Japan 4 corners and New Japan juniors, mixed end with high end joshi and mich pro from the 1990's. Now all of a sudden, a match like Backlund/Valentine is fairly highly regarded and yet was unavailable until a few years ago. Ditto for the random indy matches that get high praise like KOW/MCMG from PWG. Anyway my list: El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas 1987 - keep waiting to watch this on the lucha 80's set if possible. Most big heavyweight matches from New Japan in the 1980 - 1990's - My custom tape orders from Lynch were really junior heavy All Indy stuff from 2006-2008, between getting married, finishing college, etc. This was the lowest point of my life for wrestling watching Almost all of Battlarts Big Egg Universe Tons of matches from the 1970's featuring mil Mascaras, Funk, Jumbo, etc. There is just a ton of stuff out there. I think Phil Schneider said in one thread at DVDVR one time that wrestling could end tomorrow and he would be unlikely to catch up on it all and that is true in my case also, I watch on average around 3-4 hours a week (not including Raw or Smackdown) and it amazing how much stuff is out there to consume. For instance, take the 1995 Champions Carnival Final. I watched it once around 6 years ago, I know I loved it then but can’t remember much about it except Misawa's injury being focused on. This is a match that I would like to rewatch, but does it take precedence over stuff I have never seen? In the past year, I have definitely become more snobish in my watching. Before I would watch a show start to finish not skipping anything, now if something on a DVD does not fit my interest, it instantly gets fast forwarded.

1/20/97 hold special consideration for me because it was the 2nd puroresu match I watched and the first time I really "got" the style. When I rewatched all of the general top 25 consensous picks a few years ago, I had the match ranked #2 in the 1990's only behind 6/9/95. Just a great match that still holds up. 10/21/97 is another awesome match and only a notch behind the 1/20 match. 10/31/98 is a culmination of a shift into the head dropping style that has cemented heavyweight matches in All Japan and NOAH for the next ten years. It is a match where they went over the edge with the head- dropping but the match is still wonderful. I think I am higher on 6/11/99 than most as I feel it would have had a great shot at being a strong top 25 for the All Japan deccade. I really love the Kobashi/Misawa series and think the quality really kicks up after 1996.

I don't think it is on the level of Piper/Hart but I have also thought the dog collar match was very intense and well done.

Samurai was in my opinion one of the top 5 junior wrestlers in Japan for a decade. I really really like Atlantis but in the 89-93 era I see him as maybe top 10 or perhaps top 5 but I would not put him above El Hijo Del Santo, El Dandy, Satanico, or Negro Casas from that era.

I think in some ways Atlantis is sort of like the El Samurai for Lucha, he is not as flashy as some other personalities, but is usually at least consistantly good in most matches and has the abilitiy to make a match a classic like the Ultimo/Sammi and Atlantis/Villano matches prove.

With the livecast I only listen to the Wade shows with either Bruce, Jason, or Pat and avoid the rest and even with those, I listen to the first part of the conversation and the VIP after show and skim through the callers to avoid the Chris from NY and Boris from Chicago ilk. In regards to the Observer, I know I have harped on them in the past, but I see no reason why Bryan will watch every World of Hurt show and not watch Smackdown. Again to use a tired comparision but this would be like Peter King writing about a SMU/Houston college football game instead of talking about MNF every week in his column. I think Bryan thinks that no one is affected by this and that no one cancels their subscription, but I let mine lapse two months ago, and the free B&V show this week certainly didn't make me compelled to resubscribe. Wade's views on how to change Smackdown from a Hotline a few weeks ago were pretty poignant and interesting and not as "crazy" as other Wade ideas in the past. I also thought Wade was a lot more spot on the problems with MMA in that same podcast.

Based on the latest hotline, Wade may be getting more scoops lately as he had some tidbits of info today. It could just be who he talked to at the Smackdown tapings, but with my interest in MMA wavering big time this year, I see myself going more and more to the Torch website over the observer which I would have found impossible 2 years ago. A revitalized Wade has been a pleasant suprise and provided a lot of good content.

The $45.00/$55.00 thing depends on the cable provider and I don't really understand how legally it works because I moved 3 miles down the road in the last 3 months and switch from Comcast (where PPV's were $45 across the board) to AT&T (the $45/$55 split)

Is it really only hardcore fans that pirate shows though? Don't casual fans own computers? I would think that hardcore fans would represent the vast majority. Again, most casuals would only visit specific websites such as wwe.com, wrestling.com, etc. I know czwfans usually has a thread that produces a good stream each PPV but I find it hard to believe that most casuals are either: A. going to one of these obscure sites that have threads with decent streams and registering, etc. (Even a bigger site than CZWfans doesn't provide ongoing coverage so stream links would be unavailable.) B. Constantly searching something like jsutin.tv for a stream that doesn't constantly crash C. Having the interest and/or knowledge to register for a site like XWT or PWT to download the torrent. I think you're focusing too much on the "wrestling" aspect. Your average nobody sitting at home has the knowledge to download torrents for movies, music, etc. They find streaming sites like http://www.myp2p.eu/index.php?part=sports or one of a few dozen others that serve the same function and happen to show WWF as well. They won't pay for rasslin' but hey, it's on the site so they'll give it a view. We can agree to disagree but I just feel like if they were a casual fan and this interested they would order the PPV anyway. For example, I have a general interest in the Boxing and buy the 1-2 major PPV shows a year. I don't have HBO but enjoyed the verbal attack between Klitschko and Haye and wanted to see the fight. Instead of chancing the means that I know of that might be showing the fight (czwfans thread, random websites that I don't know if are that reliable, etc.) I just ordered HBO for a month so I was guarenteed to see the fight in the best picture possible. The difference between $20.00 that I paid for this and $45.00 for a PPV is a big one, but in the grand scheme of things I say if the casuals are that interested they will either order the PPV legally or wait and find out what happens and move on.

Is it really only hardcore fans that pirate shows though? Don't casual fans own computers? I would think that hardcore fans would represent the vast majority. Again, most casuals would only visit specific websites such as wwe.com, wrestling.com, etc. I know czwfans usually has a thread that produces a good stream each PPV but I find it hard to believe that most casuals are either: A. going to one of these obscure sites that have threads with decent streams and registering, etc. (Even a bigger site than CZWfans doesn't provide ongoing coverage so stream links would be unavailable.) B. Constantly searching something like jsutin.tv for a stream that doesn't constantly crash C. Having the interest and/or knowledge to register for a site like XWT or PWT to download the torrent.

Bryan's idea for the Punk angle on the latest B&V show is pretty bad and relies far too heavily on audience involvement and getting them to do the exact outcome you hope.

This angle to me has shown in some ways how little the hardcore wrestling fans matter in the long run. We all know that the people that visit sites like this and DVDVR are a very small minority, but I am amazed at how on many of the follow up shows I listened to, people were talking about how they pirated the PPV to give WWE a chance like they are doing some great deed to the company.

The main event from the first show is one of the few matches from chikara 2002 that I have seen but I don't know if I would necessairly recommend it for this project as I thought it was just a decent 6 man tag from workers that were already established and having better matches in other areas. I think something from the students that is relatively short and decent would be more appropriate to see the roots of the wrestle academy and how even now, Chikara is way more rooted based on its students that many other indies such as ROH.

You might want to include one of the first Chikara show matches with the pop ups on the video screen to show how much the shows have progressed. I didn't get into Chikara until around 2004 so I don't know what would be the most appropriate match from both a quality and time standpoint. For CZW I would include the following: Cage of Death Zandig vs. Lobo- a decent deathmatch and really ended the era of the first 3 years of CZW NIght of Infamy - Wifebeater vs. Zandig BOTB JOdy Fleish vs. JOnny Storm I may include one thing with the Backseat Boyz, Justice Pain, Nick MOndo, or Messiah since they were all prominent during this year but nothing stands out and I think 4-5 matches from CZW would be good enough and show how much ROH really took over the indy scene in 2002.

Was the Royal Rumble match omitted on purpose, Loss?

This set is going to be very interesting because I think 2001 more than any other year has stuff that was mind blowing at the time, but does not hold up at all on repeat viewings. Mark/Jay from BOTB immediately comes to mind, that match was mind blowiing at the time and while still amazing that it is essentially two kids having that match, it does not hold up. For the yearbook project though it is not all about workrate so it deserves an inclusion, but those matches should be held to a minimum and more matches like Dixie/Homicide from JAPW that actually improve over time should be included too.

IWA-MS: I would include Tarek/Ian from 10/4/02 and Hero/Ian from a show in May. I would also include the Tracy Smothers riot from No Blood No guts No Glory. After that it gets more selective. The Eddy IWA-MS matches are good but nothing extraordinary. The 4 way match from night 2 of the TPI would be a good comparison to the Scramble Madness match in ROH from around the same time. Hero/Punk had 3 matches that all have merits (the 55 minute tables, the TPI match, and the 60 min draw). Of those three I actually like the TPI match the best but would probably include the T,L,C match first for historical purposes. Other fun stuff you might want to include: Tracy/Bull 6th anniversary Mdogg/Hero 6th anniversary Drunken Death Match Ian/Mark Wolf vs. Ryder/Corp Robinson Bloodfeast Riot from Bloodfeast Ian/Bull I quit from Christmas Carnage 2002 IWA-MS was an interesting year where they still was a lot of shit, a lot of death matches, and more "workrate" style matches that really set the stage for the "peak" of IWA-MS that most people remember from 2003-2006 of great wrestling, bizarre match ups, new talent uprising, a token death match, and a true territory promotion feel.

What was the consensus on these two workers back in 2001? I'm guessing awesome because they were working like Benoit vs. Smith from Stampede, i.e great. They were definitely being pimped heavily by the DVDVR guys. Initially after the ECWA Super 8 match, Lo Ki was seen as being the best but by the Ricky Steamboat ref match it was clear how much that Dragon had improved.