Death From Above

Really I wish more corporate problems in the world today were settled in wrestling matches. It would be so much simpler that way.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's all a tax scheme. After all look how many of those managed guys in the territories were foreigners that didn't even speak English. Kamala, Killer Khan, and several Russians were probably screwed out of millions in wrestling purse money by the likes of Skandor Akbar. Which if you think about it is pretty brave. How'd you like to be in the room when Khan finds out you stole his money?

Yeah I'm really bored with Triple H but he's only in his 40's, we have like 20 years of this to go, and if he's going to be around I vastly prefer him as a heel. Orton has no business being a face either. So in the big picture I like this.

Funny I've been trying to think of how the magical Mystery Partner works into all this logic recently myself. Like, how do you trick a functional adult into signing a match to wrestle "any random person on earth I can find who I am pretty sure can beat you, and I don't have to tell you who it is until 5 seconds before the mach"? I'd make fun of babyfaces for always getting attacked at contract signings and never learning, but boxing has been doing the same angle for over a decade now so I guess that's more real than we give it credit for. Wink wink.

Rick Martel had a random-ish WCW comeback too but it wasn't bad. Had some ok matches but then got sidelined by an injury and I don't remember seeing him again in wrestling.

I have seen a lot more of Vader that's definitely part of it. He also put himself into positions to top at least four huge companies in New Japan, WCW, UWFi, and All Japan. It's not like he was terrible in WWF either although it goes without saying that for work that's going to be the least of the 5 in that era, even without his push getting messed up. Blackwell I like what I've seen but he doesn't have even close to that kind of exposure, even among your hardcore fanbase.

I think Vader probably wins Tier 2 for me. He's one of my all time favourite guys, but I can't see making a case for enjoying his overall work *personally* more than say, Jumbo, Hansen, or Misawa. And I know Misawa didn't always bring it in NOAH but the body of work he built up in the first half of the 1990's alone is... hard to fathom when you start adding it up. I'd also throw out Baba as an underrated Tier 2 that falls at least partially into the "would like more footage" camp. I say that having seen a ton of his 80's and 70's that is available, as well as the very limited 60's stuff. He's partially a guy that peaked in an era we will never see a lot of and too many think of him as "that goofy old guy" simply through not having been as exposed to older Japanese wrestling. He was clearly a top worker in the late 60's and through most of the 70's, and I don't hate 80's Baba either. I get that some people can't get past the weirdness of his strikes (or his strange, long skinny arm big head alien-looking physique) but I'd go to bat for the guy. I also get that if you don't like long, methodical matches with a lot of holds that a lot of 70's isn't going to be for you.

White people haven't even really worked out that white people aren't a single culture. Never mind taking the big step into people of different colours working that out about each other.

It's really too bad there isn't more of this sort of thing. Wrestling seems to gravitate towards big man vs. big man and little man vs. little man, but often the mix of the two produces cool matchups. Like, Undertaker for years got stuck in big man vs. big man matches that waste his ability to do much of anything as he faced one monster after another, but when he got paired with Shawn Michaels I thought those were some of his better matches up to that point because Michaels could pinball around for him and you get that "trying to chop down the tree" feeling to the offense used against Taker. WCW had a ton of chances to do things like that but failed on that front for the most part. I'm not saying I wanted to see Ciclope and Damien vs. The Steiners every week or something, but it seems with the roster they had that they could have done a lot more of an openweight feel especially in the tag team division.

We should book our own show with anarchistxx vs. Johnny Sorrow in a written opinions on a pole match someday. Guy who hates things vs. guy who likes things feud.

I booked my seat ages ago but that only confirmed it.

I really need to get someone to explain to me how not selling things 100% of the time = bad wrestling trope someday, being as anyone that has ever seen a real fight of any kind in their life should really know better.

I find this hard to believe when Bryan just pinned Cena as cleanly as anyone has pinned him in about a thousand years. I think he means in the storyline. Sorry I'm very out of the loop on WWE TV and only sort of show up for the really big shows. I am easily confused.

I find this hard to believe when Bryan just pinned Cena as cleanly as anyone has pinned him in about a thousand years. Triple H possibly Dusty Rhodes-ing the whole thing, that could be an entirely separate issue.

I'm amused by the concept there was a business to hurt in a territory where Doug Gilbert was working main events.

Man that seems like something that needs to be an angle. Someone tries to just legit give Jim a cake to be nice, and he just flips out.

I wish the CPU had been harder as even on hard it is really too easy to get a ton of mileage out of. But the deathmatch mode is ridiculously satisfying, having Fake Misawa wrestle Fake Hulk Hogan with exploding boards. And it was a pretty decent multiplayer experience with a buddy of mine. At some point I should have added a list to that FAQ just pointing out who everyone was, though I'm sure to most watchers of Japanese wrestling in the 1990's that 90% were kind of obvious.

A merger of Japanese companies has seemed "inevitable" for like a decade now but it never seems to happen.

Jikkyu Power Pro Wrestling? I actually wrote a partial, "enough to get you through the menus" FAQ for this like a million years ago. http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/571482-jikkyo...g-96/faqs/27975 Briefly years ago, but I don't remember anything about it to be honest.

The one thing about even peak-era nWo WCW that really bugged me was the lack of establishing WCW as anything unified at all. It was infuriating that the nWo always had their shit together and WCW couldn't muster up a unified front at all. It made all WCW wrestlers look as dumb as Sting, who in a great irony got to play the only smart guy in all of WCW. ;-)

Been playing more No Mercy and yeah, still a great game. But those handicap hardcore matches in story mode can go get fucked. Even with the difficulty turned down to the children's setting the APA just gangbang you. Eventually they catch you in a double powerbomb, and it's even worse if you play as a fat guy because every rear grapple is basically a backdrop driver. Other than that, still great.

These felt totally electric back when they happened. Not like anything else that WWF had done. I know the net hivemind has soured a lot on Foley but he really did some amazing stuff during his peak periods.

Too bad, Jerry heeling it up in ECW was fun for what it was, I can imagine him punching Funk in the nuts would have drawn all manner of thrown liquids.

I wonder why they never did Funk/Lawler? Jerry did work one ECW PPV against Dreamer.

I actually really like the match where Kawada breaks his arm that comes after this chronologically so it's not like they never had a great match again. Agreed that of their major bouts, this isn't one I'd have anywhere near the top. I'd still take it over a billion other things, but I'm an All Japan mark so take that how you will.