Death From Above

My favourite thing he ever did in Zero-1 was against Satoshi Kojima where he ripped off his orange breathe-rite strip to get crowd heat. I don't know what that really says about the Zero-1 I watched back in the day.

Like I said all along. This shit always gets so over the top with Brody for some reason it blows the whole argument up by making the people involved look not very bright. I guess some people enjoy a good circle jerk more than I, which is cool and all. 2013, a new accepting earth.

Severn sucked in the WWF but it was the WWF, why wouldn't he. I haven't seen enough of him elsewhere to judge.

I do not watch wrestling often anymore at all, but I think we're really lucky to be doing so in the digital age. Most of what I watch is older stuff, and it's so easily accessible. My own enthusiasm may have waned, but it's a great era to be a fan. It's all out there to be had. And when I do feel like scratching the itch it's very simple to find a match that fits the bill of what my mood is calling for.

Maybe he meant "match of the year candidates as of the fourth of the year". I'm not sure if I'm joking or not.

I'd take Bret Hart vs. Luger a lot more seriously, personally. Now that would be an interesting one. This will be taken as complete sacrilege, but I would watch a best of Hogan before I'd watch a best of Hart. Now, the worst of Hogan would probably be several tiers worse than a worst of Bret. But I'd still rather watch Hogan's best of at this point.

What an utterly bizarre thing to say after spending the whole piece arguing that the Fingerpoke of Doom wasn't a big deal.

In what universe is Big Egg a better show than Dreamslam? Big Egg is a chore. And has a pretty weak main event match, considering who was in it.

Taue vs. Nagata was awesome, despite Nagata being in it. I'd like to think Taue vs. Hashimoto could have been even better if it had happened at the right time.

I don't like comparing NJPW heavyweights to AJPW heavyweights that much. To me they are two totally different styles that don't have a ton in common besides being "wrestling that happened in Japan." Shortest description of it I ever mustered that made any sense was referencing it to boxing video games: All Japan was those games with Flash KO's turned off. The only way to keep someone down was to beat them down to 0 health through a sequence of hard hits. New Japan was with Flash KO's on. You had more of an impression that one big move could end a fight suddenly. There are times I found that New Japan heavyweight style hugely frustrating. Their history is full of big matches where they pace it like they're going 40 minutes then it suddenly ends after 20. That's what they do. I think Hash pretty clearly outshines Muto or Chono. Muto had great matches, then had some total dog shit I find the worst wrestling ever. Such a confusing guy. I can immensely enjoy some of his work but he's also is some of the most vilely awful things I've ever seen. Chono, I'm kind of sorry injuries ruined such a huge percentage of his career. You watch some of the early 1990's TV before his body was broken, and he was an amazing worker at 10-15 minute TV matches in that stretch. Probably the best of the three for a time. But it didn't last, and he really wasn't that good for huge stretches because his body was just not with it. Hashimoto is still better on the whole by a long way, and part of that was his relative longevity. I don't know if I'd watch a best of Hashimoto before a best of Misawa, Kawada, or Kobashi. I don't see what the rationelle for that would be except "I don't like All Japan/I don't have the attention span for All Japan". I would probably take Tenryu over Hashimoto as a worker overall, but I feel like I'd have to really dig into that to come to a conclusion. I do love me some grumpy old bastard Tenryu just not giving a shit and destroying people, though. And what I saw of Hashimoto in Zero-1 wasn't that positive. People don't bring up how blah a lot of that stuff was. But I still say Takada vs. Hashimoto is the best heavyweight match I've seen in New Japan, and an all time classic. And Hash's best matches are pretty easily the best group to pick out of his (main) company.

100 000 matches and he couldn't draw 90 000 to the Budokan once. Once again, Hulk wins.

I mention this often, and I'm sure it applies to others. I was in high school during Goldberg's streak, and wresting was pretty hot among kids then. Literally everything you'd catch kids talking about was WWF Attitude Era stuff... except Goldberg. He was literally the only time WCW ever seemed to come up (even if there were nWo t-shirts to be seen). Killing Godlberg off was absolutely fatal to WCW's "cool factor", such as it existed, among that age group. Remember that they followed it up with the Finger Poke of Doom to get the belt back to Hogan which no one really wanted at that point, and it went over about as well as a cup of water to a drowning man. People might have forgiven the first part if it had gone somewhere (basically "Godberg puts the nWo angle out of it's misery", which actually could have been something), but to compound it with a second big "what the hell" moment to reinforce the political status quo... well, that was WCW for you. That was in the glorious days of Raw airing in Canada live on TSN Monday night, and Nitro airing tape delayed on the same network on Tuesday night. I'd hit up DDT Digest on Tuesday morning and have THE SCOOP on things. I sort of miss those days.

In the same vein of "guy I wish there was more of him in his prime", probably Giant Baba. I mean hell, I love his 70's stuff which is at least some of his peak years. And a good chunk of his 80's. I even like his rare appearances in "real" matches in the 1990's for goodness' sake, which I know can be pretty polarizing. Very little of him (or anyone else) out there from the 1960's, but what there is suggests he was pretty great then too. I know some people find him to be the most awkward dude ever, and can't stand him once he's past the best before date. I find him hypnotic and still quite entertaining.

Jumbo Tsuruta - I can't think of any other wrestler that did more to make me *care* about wrestling one way or the other. Was the most immensely solid heavyweight in the world for an absurd amount of time, where you could just put any random person in the ring with him and out would pop something watchable. Also: I never watch best of's built around any one worker, as I find them generally repetitive and tedious. This is probably the one guy I could make an exception for. On top of having a great ability to work all the style changes All Japan went through from the 70's - early 90's, he's also the dude who could just bust out his formula match and I actually want to see it. Stan Hansen - This is probably as good a summary as any: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=12350 Basic condensing: When Stan Hansen does anything, even goofy shit that happens in wrestling, I can actually believe in it. Mitsuharu Misawa - When he died I pretty much quit wrestling cold turkey for a year. I don't know if he's the best, but he is probably involved in the most "matches that I thought were great". Terry Funk - Versatility is the name of the game. Funk does some of everything, and does it well. Anywhere I've seen the guy, he fit in, and I enjoyed him. I also liked how his promos often sounded like "a somewhat exaggerated version of Terry Funk" and not "HURRRR WE SHOUT LIKE WRESTLERS" which covers like 90% of American promo work from similar periods. Ric Flair - He's done plenty of shit that bothers me, but when you start weighing it against all the stuff I've enjoyed... I guess if I must name 5 it's pretty hard to go wrong with those. Will admit I was tempted to throw in Vader, though I get why some have quit on that bandwagon.

Inoki's done a few things that make Vince McMahon seem like a pretty rational guy. I wish we could get a proper, objective, filled with true stories and "true stories", English language book about his life. I never touch wrestling bios anymore but that's no way that wouldn't be one hell of a book. Won't happen in a million years, of course, but still.

Sometimes I feel like "the only guy here that knows enough to know better" who enjoys Brody from time to time. Not like he's a guy I go out of my way to watch, or that I'd hold up as an all-time great. And I see a lot of the bullshit that bothers others about him. But I've always found the amount of venom he draws to be a bit much. It just bothers me less. So he's a selfish idiotic goof. So what? Then again I actually enjoyed Brian Knobb's run as a singles wrestler in the crazy assed blender that was WCW in those years. So it's possible I just have kind of bizarre taste in brawlers.

I loved Sabu when I was back in high school, like 1996/97 I guess. He was just so totally different from anything you'd ever see in WWF or WCW at that point. But really, I doubt I've even watched a Sabu match in 8 years. And granted I barely watch wrestling anymore, and have been that way ever since Misawa died which was my last straw with full time fandom. But I agree the way Sabu would fixate on his table setups was just... something. He's one of those guys where I don't regret being a fan (and this really goes for ECW in general), it was part of me transitioning out of "what was put in front of us" and into "what I want to watch, it is out there", so it served a purpose. I guess it's pretty different now in the internet age where anyone can go watch IWGP title matches if they want to, or whatever. I do totally get where the Sabu hate comes from because I don't really think I'd care to watch that style now.

The more I watched the Rock n' Roll Express the more I want to punch Robert Gibson in the face. The problem is he'd just duck, circle around me, and hit a dropkick.

I am just going to self-ban from even being in here. There's no other path for me or there's going to be bloodshed.

Jumbo is the best wrestler ever and you are a fool. Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Rock. It's not like I don't get the appeal. The guy has IT, I don't even deny that. I'm not fucking blind or something. And he's had some great moments/matches. But I tend to think the high points have caused a lot of people to gloss over just how immensely, soul-crushingly dull his average points were. He had some periods (more so the pre-Hollywood Rock days) where he was pretty much literally doing the same promo every single week with the order of a couple of the catch phrases changed and it was amazingly dull, with matches to um... match. The People's Elbow is also a top 5 all time most retarded thing, as fun as it is. Let's not kid ourselves there. I'm really on board with the Takada thing too. Which is funny because the Takada/Hashimoto IWGP title match is probably my favourite New Japan match of all time. But every great Takada match I watch I always feel like it's the other dude who is the better worker. No one even talks about Muto anymore, so I assume we've all accepted he is (or was, at least) a very talented athlete but a completely braindead idiot who only stumbled onto good matches either through the other dude being smarter than him, or through raw serendipity and alignment of galactic energy fields channeling through him ever so briefly, right? Cool.

Canada and Europe vs. America and Latin America. Kind of easy to call that one in advance.

I loved their Starrcade match. Business implications not considered.

I don't know how you even start to have a carny hall of fame without Kevin Nash.