Benbeeach

Almost in disbelief reading all this lol Don't believe this was actually typed. I'd be surprised if Trish Stratus or Medusa knew who the Sandman was never mind Jaguar. The bubble within the bubble of this thread, was perfect. What do you mean Aja Kong isn't familiar with Chris Chetti?

Upon rewatch, absolutely fantastic match. Better than I remembered. In totality, its probably the best comeback Shawn match. It is near flawless, and without the smoz finish we're talking really close to 5 snowflakes. Will expound later, but excellent match. Really think it bodes well for the late era Shawn not being worthless argument. His offense is really snug and laid in (helps that Benoit was selling his ass off, amazing job by Chris, makes you kind of miss him, as a wrestler, and nothing else) Think a match like this in comparison to the modern WWE epic, which Shawn helped popularize and bastardize, is night and day. The way everything progressively builds is perfect and you could have this match in any era any country at any time and it'll hold up. When it finally gets to near finisher territory it's believable and feels right, but this is also a match where vertical suplexes looked like 3 counts if not for rope breaks. Just really really well done and an absolute hidden gem.

Haven't watched in a long time but I remember loving this match. Need to rematch

An easy top 100 of the previous decade. But outside of that . . .

I hear your concerns. The part I quoted is like every match ever. I'm not saying we watch wrestling like sadists do NASCAR, but the risk is assumed the minute they step through the ropes. They're adults, they're pro's.

The reverse rana is what put the match over the top for me. I assumed on first watch sasha took a moonsault bump, all stomach, this is much worse. But I'm with Bill, it looked good, she's not dead, not really my problem. Hope she stays safe and has as long a career as she wants to have. Some kettles in here screaming at black pots

This is probably the correct answer. Sasha does the staredown, will she or won't she shake hands, ends up breaking down, hug, fade to black. But I can't fault her for getting caught up in that emotion. What we got was still pretty special

I'm with this. It just isn't completely out of character for Sasha to show this kind of respect. She's a heel's heel, but she's not a Kevin Owens psychopath. (Granted one day he's gonna show someone a small modicum of respect and it may or may not be huge. Maybe Brock after he wakes up from the coma) I don't know what kind of savage you'd have to be to deny the girls that moment in front of those appreciative fans, because it didn't fit your "continuity." Sasha can still be an asshole tomorrow. Or tonight, whatever

Watching the amounts or wrestling in the way we consume wrestling, with an almost automaton approach to grading good and bad wrestling, sometimes the humanity can get lost. Sometimes it's ok to take a step back, and enjoy things for what they are, or might mean in the grand scheme. Hard to watch a vid like this and not conjure up "the feelz" Has to be a big part of why we all watched to begin with.

^ I agree with this post in full, 100 percent. There is no separating the match from the context. When I inexplicably realized I had a tear on my cheek at the end of it, I knew I saw something special. ---edit--- Missed DMJ's post by minutes

And that doesn't even begin to mention how cool it was to see Liger in a WWE ring. Joe and Corbin being more than passable (but like others have said the best Joe is far far behind us). What a sucker I am for the Vaudevillians gimmick, seriously can't get enough of it and wish they'd go even more over the top. That "old chap" brawling is amazing, they should work more nifty Euro cheeky spots, seriously awesome. And KO is a prime time player, fat be damned. He's punched his ticket now. Great show. Felt really really good to watch.

Sasha/Bayley is as good as I've felt watching wrestling in a long time. I clapped at my screen when it was all said and done and let out audible "way to go's" and "that's how it's done." Sasha is legitimately one of the best wrestlers in the world. When people talked about her with such high esteem, I initially gaffed and guffawed, because I just didn't think a woman, in a "developmental" territory could lay claim to something like that. But it's that praise that made me start paying closer and closer attention to her work. In the 4-way where she won the title, I noticed a lot of little things she did great. Then with the much ballyhooed Becky Lynch match, I could see more and more about what people were talking about. The way she'd wrench in a submission, her bumping, with her being slight of frame making everything look huge, while not coming off weak herself. Her character work, which from an x's and o's standpoint isn't that out of this world. Wrestler who's full of themselves isn't exactly the reinvention of the wheel, but she does it in a way that blows any other woman out of the water, most men too. This match was amazing. It wasn't just the huge spots which were awesome, but again like dylan said, the macro and the micro. Sasha fought for the middle rope double knee drop like heck, and the commentary and work put over Bayley as having scouted it and been super ready for it, fighting like heck to get out of it. So when Sasha finally does go to hit it, she batters Bayley with 10 forearms, perches her on the top rope, and gives the crowd a look, an "I'm not playing games anymore" look, and it's in that look that I was completely sold. It's one part evil, one part cocky, annoyed, menacing. It wasn't so much braggadocio, as it was business, like a boss would do. Sasha speaks of Eddy being her favorite wrestler, and it was the kind of scowl a heel Guererro would do so convincingly that would make you buy into what he was doing more than most of his compatriots. Kudos to the WWE camera work for catching it. And this doesn't even begin to go into all the things Bayley did well. The hand stomping payoff during the submission was incredible and to anyone complaining about the selling, seriously shut up. Limb work = meaning you can never use the limb again is stupid. Bayley sold it like heck, shook it out, screamed in pain. I just bought any time she actually mustered up the strength to grasp with both hands as her fighting through the pain. When Sasha would so much as touch the hand to attempt to break the grip she'd yell again. It wasn't all time selling but it was more than serviceable, it was very good. The finish was bonkers and I couldn't believe my eyes. Was moved to as manly as I'm willing to admit on this forum. I have no problem with a curtain call after a performance like that in 2015. They deserved their moment. It's a testament to the booking and character work that in January I was more or less indifferent if not oblivious to all four of these women and in August they made my eyes well up and onion chopping/allergy season come extra early. Bravo The match has my highest regards. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts were really fucking excellent. It's no less than 4 stars and if someone said 5, I'm listening.

Tanahashi not having good performances before 2011 is laughable. Some of his best stuff is from his early post young lion years to the time he was finding his footing as being "the man." Where he's just showing fire and galvanizing crowds with his selling. He had even less credible offense then so it's not like he was some finished product, but you don't get to here, (wherever here is for him now as a worker, your mileage may vary) without there. And Danielsons output dwarfs almost everybody that debuted from this time frame, Tanahashi is one of the few that still belong in the discussion at least.

HBK/Hogan is really fine, really well worked match. I haven't seen a lot of these matches in a decade and a half plus, would be hard to know where it ranks in the grand scale, but it definitely should rank . . . somewhere. Number 1 is probably Bret/Bulldog. For scale, storyline, pomp, circumstance, position on the card, finish. Not sure there's any other match that hits all the marks as well as it does. But I'd have to go back and rewatch a lot. Match for match I'm pretty sure a summerslam top 40 matches blows away Wrestlemania by a wide margin. ---EDIT--- Count me as on the positive side for Kurt/Rey, Kurt/Austin and HHH/Rock 98. And Bret Taker 97 is very good as well

. . . What Loss said. Not sure if CapitaalTTruth was even giving Austin an actual endorsement outside of "I like him more" and even that, sounded shaky

Mind's blown that John Cena is 38.

His 2006 was really really really good.

I mean, the obvious choice is Cena. Anyone with a beating heart LIKES The Rock more, I watch Ballers every week. But your resume is your resume. This is much more of a slam dunk than Austin/HBK was. (Still don't get how Shawn loses that objectively) ...also I don't think Hogan and Toronto are getting enough credit for how game they were at X8. That was Hogan's best match in 4-5 years, either direction. Rock just so happened to be the guy across from him for a large portion of it. But this is a weird time to defend Hogan vis a vis a black guy so I'm gonna cut that short

John Cena did just fine with his

I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of pro wrestling moves, because none of them make sense, but a Yoshi Tonic, which isn't a Canadian Destroyer, is a momentum based sunset flip, that while they botched (had to be a botch, right?) was actually made better because it actually looked like Steen was fighting it off, and Cena got it off anyway. Steen traps Cena's legs, Cena flips through, his momentum takes Steen over into a pin. It's spectacular, let's just all agree and call it *unique* for a Cena match, but isn't completely asinine, or idiotic, or a Canadian Destroyer. Alright, moving on

Science is super inexact. Citing the Bret matches when both he and Shawn's collective goals never rose to anything higher than "...yeah, fuck this guy" when they wrestled each other in juxtaposition to what Bret and Austin tried to go for when they wrestled is interesting. It's a slam dunk for Austin obviously but I'm not sure Bret wasn't having better matches with the Patriot than he was with Shawn. Not holding my breath on that thread. How much better is Steve vs Dude Love than Shawn vs. Mankind at IYH? How much better is the 3 stages of hell in 2001 than the one in 2002? How much better is 3 stages 2001 than HHH/HBK 12/29/03 from San Antonio, or Last Man Standing from the 04 Rumble? Austin/Angle in 2001 is a homerun pairing in a way HBK/Angle never was (although those matches aren't out and out trash), although Angle was already finisher overkill gobbledy goop by 2005. Was 2001 his formative year? Not sure, and I'm not sure who you blame for that if so. By that same token, are Austin's Jericho matches better? No. Austin has a really good match with Benoit, but so does Shawn. How does HBK/Cena stack up to Austin/Steamboat, Austin . . . Savio Vega? If Austin's skill is varying his style to keep things interesting with other peak workers, then you'd have to point me to where that isn't true of Shawn. Where in alot of Shawn's top matches is one lacking the variety of Austin's? I dig the huge gap between Austin heel brawler on top, and Austin face brawler selling his ass off and everything in between, but where is the sameness in the Shawn matches with Razor, to matches with Diesel, to Bret, to Mankind to Owen to Jarrett to Goldust to Bulldog? I'm not sure I'm really buying all of that. Don't understand how this is valid in some arguments but not in others. It isn't silly at all. When we argue peaks and longevity all the time in other threads. Their careers we are looking at in portions. I don't see how Michaels entire tag run and comeback run, which is something in the neighborhood of like 15 years combined, gets tossed out in a thread like this. If you factor them in, then of course it's a net positive for Shawn. If this was a case of Austin's peak completely obliterating Shawn's at any point, and idk what we're calling them, the Shawn "fluff years" were worthless, then I think this holds some weight, but neither of these is the case. Austins 2001 is great. He has moments of greatness in 98,97,and 96 before that. Shawn has decent to good, if not good to great matches in 2002,2003,2004,2005,2007,2008,2009 and 2010, on top of his already comparable resume. How does this get dismissed? I completely understand the "if I had a choice between an Austin match I'd never seen and a Shawn one, Austin" argument, not sure I wouldn't pick Austin myself (but I'd probably watch a Super Crazy match I'd never seen, before a Misawa match I'd never seen, this says nothing of who's better), but it speaks to choice and decision, based on an argument on what could have been. What we don't have and what doesn't/didn't exist, rather than what we do have. Austin's got the greater match, perhaps greater 3-5, matches. Shawn's best are not that far behind. And Shawn has dozens more good to great matches over the span of 3 decades. What are we valuing here?

Was trying to piece together retroactively a series of rob Naylor tweets, and then it hit me, he was gone. No words. Wow. Couldn't even explain it to group of friends who are non fans. Couldn't put into words the impact nor influence. Just RIP, and thanks

Now that we've actually got this thread booming from the doldrums it once was in, again the question bears asking, given a lot of the criteria we've laid out, where does this 39-11 consensus come from? I don't think it's any sort of hyperbole to say that the number of good-great Shawn matches, sheer volume, vastly outweighs Austin. Steve's best is probably better than Shawn's best but this isn't dozens upon dozen's of matches we're talking about. So again I ask is this a matter of tool set? Who annoyed you less? What are the arguments FOR Austin as opposed to against Shawn? On average I think Shawn is a guy who flew alot closer to the sun, match in match out. Some of the knocks on Austin, injury, the booking at the time, etc... aren't his fault necessarily, but you judge what you have, not what could have or should have been. I also think the Shamrock point was a great one, because those Owen matches are good, I guess, but I think the Shawn matches are more tantamount to Shawn's ineptitude as a professional (Human being?) than any sort of deficiencies as a worker. He was a guy who could essentially have whatever kind of match he wanted 90% of the time, before the back went. Choosing to have a stinker, in those prime years, felt just like that, a choice. Choosing to have some sort of a self conscience epic that ultimately fell short, were probably a lot less selective, and more what they actually were, a swing and a miss. Not to open the bag of worms of what workers could do vs. actually did, because at the end of the day we can only go off of the latter. But again, by that metric, the Austin vote still perplexes me. Also throw me in the group of people who thinks HIAC 1 was borderline great (especially given the fed at the time) and thinks the Royal Rumble casket match is probably Shawn's last great match before the comeback. A good portrait of everything Shawn was and wasn't as a worker up until that point. Does Shawn get any points for being I think indisputably, Taker's best opponent, throughout, maybe a 15 year span? I don't think any worker did as well juggling the undead zombie no-sell aspect of taker's character, with being near equal worthy dance partner as well as Shawn did, unless you count Kane/Giant Gonzales or something but that's kind of veering left. Shawn and Taker's best matches weren't happening during mute, tighten the gloves Paul Bearer era Taker, but weren't that far off. (I also weirdly like the Shawn/Sid title switch from survivor series 96, although perhaps I'm now showing my true colors. It's probably been a decade since I watched it in full, wouldn't be surprised if it's awful on the rewatch, but it's the best non horseman Sid match I can remember watching. )

Was thinking this as well, wouldn't surprise me if austin's 01 blows Michaels 96 away on a rewatch. I think Shawn's got some better resume padding years post comeback that Austin obviously doesn't have post 2003, but I know there's some who consider most everything post 02 Michaels a wash, even though there is some quality wrestling there. . . . no comment on Jerry.

Austin isn't winning this poll on Great Match Theory, that's for sure. I think even being lukewarm on Shawn's most highly touted stuff puts Shawn at a net positive compared to Stunning Steve. Austin probably has the greatest match between the two, but I think the sheer output puts Austin much further behind. If this boils down to tools, I'd love to hear the Austin arguments, ala the Bret/Cena thread because I think this could/should be a thread with similar discourse. Where maybe on paper it sounds crazy but getting down to brass tax reveals something completely different. I think (and this is conjecture) there might be some surface level "don't like shawn, never have, not voting for him" voting here, which in and of itself isn't wrong, but might rob us of a more rich and spirited discourse. In short, is Austin really a 3 votes to 1 odds on slam dunk better worker than Shawn Michaels? The votes would say yes