El-P

Yeah, I always was under the impression that people worked themselves up about references to Mid-South (which also has been way romanticized as a promotion). Anyone even only semi-familiar (as I was) with the Elite in Japan and ROH should have known better. Hey, you still got JR. That's very Bill Watts.

Damn. Now that's a name I haven't heard for about 20 years. I was like the biggest advocate and fan of Miss Naomi Kato back in the days. Gotta dig up those old tapes and a VCR !

Agreed. You need guys like them, a solid team that are over to work the mid-card feuds efficiently and put over the bigger stars. And like I said, Trent (Beretta) absolutely can go places as a single guy.

However it should be pointed out as racist, homophobic, sexist and such in public forums, because it was. People rave about Piper's stuff all the time, but a lot of Piper"s stuff was way offensive period.

Funny, that's the first thing I thought about too. But no, it should not be edited. Because it's whitewashing. And where do you draw the line ? Why this and not Akeem then ? Are babyfaces forcing themselves on heel valets gonna be edited too ? Jerry Lawler's entire stint ? Trish Stratus barking ? Racist heel comments ? Homophobic promos during the first Goldust stint (Piper again BTW) ? Pro-wrestling has had a ugly history, like most of the entertainment industry. Pretending none of it happened while making money off the footage is very hypocritical, especially when it's done under the guise of being "unoffensive".

That Don Callis promo last week with Rich Swann was one for the ages. Unbelievably great stuff. That next PPV surely looks fun on paper with two interpromotional title matches, Omega vs Swann & Good Brothers vs FinJuice. I wonder what ROH are thinking... Yep, you've got yourselves outworked and outsourced by IMPACT, guys. Dixie won. Well, kinda.

Well, half-blackface...

I never said that. I said his promo made me think of a joke that I could make relating to the Christian discussion the other day but since it's kinda mean-spirited I won't make it. And no, it's not about what you said for once.

You show proper respect to the Total Package now.

The question remains. WHY ? Pretty much, although I really expected Miro to fuck up the wedding himself in a sort of a meta angle. aka the Lance Storm Syndrome (boring solid guy who is not getting over, put a hot girl at his side and all of a sudden he gets a reaction, worked in both ECW and WCW, did not happen in WWE and so he did not get over). I doubt it would work in 2021 though, as you don't get a woman play straight eye candy now. I mean, doesn't work for Sabian.

I believe Jade Cargill has had exactly 2 matches in her entire career. Both on Dynamite. So yeah, total rookie. Obviously the only reason she's featured is the way she looks. Now it can go both ways, either she gets good and it's cool, either she doesn't and it will suck so bad. The issue is throwing her so fast on TV, that could end up detrimental. Swole has been pushed before and it sucked. She's just bad. Red Velvet on the other hand was basically a Dark JTTS bit since she showed potential and charisma now she'll probably get a better deal. Yeah, totally. Su-Yung is not a great worker by any means, but the character and presentation in IMPACT is insane. Abadon looks like someone doing a Walking Dead cosplay in a video game convention. And she managed to have a bad match with Shida. Sorry girl, that won't work for me. If James Mitchell had a son.... (NO IT'S NOT A SUGGESTION !!! I love me some James Mitchell, but I don't want to relive the Abyss storyline !!!) And yeah, Hobbs is soooo Ice Train 2021, for better or worse (I kinda liked Ice Train). Pillman is much better working tag team matches for now too. Yeah, that's a throwback tag-team that has potential too.

Fucking A. Jeff Hardy is someone I will never EVER get. Yeah yeah yeah, people always talk about "back in the days he was the biggest babyface this side of John Cena" but whatever, his work has always been pretty much the shits to me. I've really been enjoying Matt Hardy as a working heel manager lately. And he was mostly fun doing the crazy stuff last year. Hager has done much better than anyone had the right to imagine considering he was the black hole that probably sunk Lucha Underground (it's a metaphor people, I know he did not do OK, but he sure sunk the fun out of it in S4 for me). Now, I don't think he's gonna do much more interesting thing that he's done so far in the Inner Circle, so he could be gone indeed. JR I agree, it almost makes you feel bad about him when you say he should be gone because of the tragedy in his life, but the truth is he shouldn't call weekly matches. One in a while for a big match of a style he's accustomed with, why not, but... Shawn Spears is useful in Pinnacle because you need a jobber to take the falls in midway feud matches. I'd keep Janella as I like his team with Sonny Kiss. Colt Cabana is really good and fun to have around. Best Friends too as a midcard tag team although Trent can go places higher. The Gunns, Sydal, Luther, Sabian really.... they could be gone and I would not blink an eye (I gave Sabian the benefit of the doubt forever). PAC is one of the best worker in the world, simply put. Christian I could make a mean-spirited joke about him so I won't. Let's say I kinda got a kick of his promo being "well I'm a really good worker, even the other guys are saying I'm like a super worker" in reference to some stuff that had been said on this board about Christian... I also love the fact they use some rework of his TNA theme, because it was much better than anything he used in WWE and TNA/IMPACT themes are much better than in-house AEW themes. I would LOVE to have Don Callis tell him shit like "You think you can just show up here and challenge Kenny for the AEW title ? Do I look like Dixie Carter to you ?" Hopefully he has really good matches, because that's what he does, ya see ? He was doing that at the end in LU too honestly. He had that great match with Sami Callihan in IMPACT two years ago. He's got charisma like no one else though. But Fénix is the one they should push to the top. Can I say that Cody, since gaining weight, has not looked the same as he did last year ? I dunno if it's injuries pilling up too, but clearly after his great TV title reign, he just seems to have lost something. So much for "Cody is the real star of the promotion" talking point, that was fun as long as it lasted... Actually it's the other way around. He's a big guy with a funky gimmick who can do funky moves. Take the gimmick away, there's not much to him honestly, he's just a big guy who can do a bunch of moves. I'm not sure I'd even call him a *good* worker. Ethan Page was a terrific tag team wrestler with Josh Alexander. As a solo act I don't think he'll do as well. Private Party & Top Flight have potentials galore. The Acclaimed, not so much. Yeah, I don't get the Atout thing, she was supposed to debut with AEW then did not then showed up in MLW. Deonna & Grace would be assets to the women division for sure. Salina de la Renta should manage Fénix & Penta. Hammerstone would actually be a decent signee but I'm not sure what he would bring to a company that already has guys like Brian Cage & Lance Archer who are bigger and can do more. He's a good promo though. Speaking of managers, as much as it was cool to see Jake Roberts for a while, he's just kinda passé honestly. And Vickie Guerrero is terrible. As far as women who have received some sort of a push that could be let go, Big Swole and Abadon can vanish tomorrow. Please. And SIGN KAMILLE.

What's up with the whole Billy Gunn family though ?

I watched the last three weeks as the product has had a renewed focus on what I liked ie Salina de la Renta with Los Parks, and I admit watching Mil Muertes is kinda cool still despite not having the awesome LU production. There's no way Dario Cueto is not El Jeffe (either that or it's a total old-school carny tease). If only to see the promos between him & Salina, I'm gonna watch a little bit more (with the remote in hands to FF through the many segments I don't care for, like some Gringo Loco match or Von Erich promo). Also, whatever happened with Alicia Atout signing with AEW at the start of the promotion and ending end working in MLW ? She's really good at what she does. Calvin Tankman, Lio Rush, Richard Holliday & Alex Hammerstone are also good guys there.

*cough* Akira Maeda *cough* Way different time and context though. In the US, no chance ever. That's not the culture. And it would probably be boring as hell too.

Let's be real, the only news of interest is Kamille beating Thunder Rosa to challenge for the NWA title. Which means we could get Kamille showing up in AEW eventually.

Yes. Sadly. Guys in ROH are in limbo, really. The issue with Rush is that as much as he's awesome in Arena Mexico with a rabid crowd, his stuff won't translate as good in the current setting because he's such a audience-interaction based pro-wrestler. But yeah, AEW should just let some underneath people go now (they got way too much guys) and focus on the real catches like La Sombra (and Thea Trinidad).

Wow. I pretty much could not have put it better as to why AEW often looks like it's booked "just for me", but there you go, you pretty much nailed it. I like the kinda disjointed feel of it too (including in the way characters are not strictly defined), because it makes it way more organic (because it is) and lively (because life is disjointed). I of course love the FMW/ECW aspect of it, I love the "a bit of everything for everybody" (although the one thing AEW misses is more shoot-style based stuff, they would need some guys like SZJ or Suzuki) Nitro buffet, I love the old-school studio wrestling promos, and I'll add I love the wacky shit straight out of LU (although they don't go nearly as far as IMPACT would at times) and love the interpromotionnal shit that is happening right now obviously. Do I really need to go on and on and on about Britt Baker vs Thunder Rosa ? Someone mentioned LCO vs HamaKINO, which was a legendary match in my little circle back then, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Blood & guts. Mayumi Ozaki & Megumi Kudo would be proud. Want inclusivity, you got it. First women's match in AEW that I'd very comfortably call a MOTYC.

Exactly. This is what i've done already. I've made a rough draft of whom I'm comfortable having in a top 100 still from the last two Top 100, and adding some that aren't part of either lists (and that includes quit a bit of current workers). Let's be real, apart from when you deal with complete or mostly unknown spots, you're not gonna "discover" a satisfying top 20 ever worker out of a hat that has barely been discussed. I pretty much "know" who are most of the candidates for the top spots, excluding the following : One of the questions for me is how are the best modern candidates gonna fit in that picture, as really some of the best pro-wrestling I've ever seen has happened in the last 3 or 4 years, from guys who already had some heavily pimped stuff for at least 5 or more years before and are still active at the top level (not to mention guys like Jay White or Fénix for instance, what are they gonna accomplish in the upcoming 5 years ?). Which is why, although it may seem almost a paradox, but really ins't at all, to me one of the main way of approaching this thing is closely following the modern stuff that I really enjoy as it happens. Another question as I (re)visit joshi and hopefully lucha, how much of their candidates are gonna end up on the list and how many at the very top spots. I've been "studying" the previous Top 100 and it's quite interesting how things have evolved and why, and it says as much (if not much more) about the context of the process as about the greatness of the workers ending up on the lists, really. And if there's one thing striking is that in 2016, lucha libre barely made a dent compared to 10 years before while women wrestling pretty much got axed down, which was a real shame. One thing I'm actually looking forward to with @Grimmas wanting to make it more inclusive is how this will affect the result and what it will tell of the viewing habits and mediation (even more than tastes) of whoever ends up being the voting crew this time around. But anyway, yeah, if you want to make it fun, make a draft. It doesn't mean things won't change (even drastically sometime maybe) and that some candidates are gonna shoot up while others are gonna disappear in the end, while other unexpected names will show up. Doesn't matter if the final list is very different (or not), but it sure helps as a tool. Sure helps me identify what can be fun to watch, what I want to watch, what I wont rewatch anymore.

Well, let's be real for a minute. I put the third HHH match in the W because I find it funny as fuck. It's still a bad match though. I put the second HHH match in the W because it did work, but I don't really enjoy it. I could easily have put the Lesnar match in the L, so call me semi-generous on that. Although I admit nothing touches the epicness of both Micheals matches, my two favourites actually happened back to back too and are the Batista and Edge matches. Two great matches, two totally different styles. The Batista match is a great bombfest, just the perfect spectacle for a Mania in a stadium. The Edge match is really smartly laid out, like, super smart (not sure what that says about Edge, I know he's pretty much hated around this part but the fact remains, it's easily the smartest laid out Taker match I've seen and it ain't Taker doing it). The Shane match like I said is some of the worst shit I've ever seen. The Big Boss Man match would be nothing, but the total garbage misuse of the gimmick and the post-match makes it offensive as hell. The Bundy, Gonzalez and Kane matches are terrible. So yeah, it's a bunch of highs and a bunch of the lowest of the low. As long as Taker who doing the zombie gimmick, which he did to perfection, his matches plain sucked. So, "playing your role right" goes so far, but I've always been advocating that "playing your role right" was usually played as a card to defend limited or shitty workers. I can't say I was really impressed by any of Taker's performance until I guess the Batista match. He did a fine job carrying Flair & Orton (one because he was past his prime and without any confidence left, the other because he was dull as fuck). What struck me also is that he really never had an epic match until it became really a self-conscious affair that he *had to* and the context and setting put all the good cards in his deck. Him and Michaels did had two great, epic matches, in a style that really isn't the best to me because it is the apex of a self-conscious Mania epic. It did work, no argument at all and I have no issue calling both match great. But it has to be said it was a grand production from the get-go. It's also a time when Taker was working toward having that one great match a year, so if he failed, that would have been pretty much the entirety of his output for the year which would have been considered a failure. Four years straight, he had great matches. Then, he had a really forced epic and a really forced failed epic (the two Triple H matches, none of which I'd call great, the worst of the two being also the most entertaining), another excellent/great match in which he was totally carried by Punk. And then it was a bunch of nothing to awful matches/performances (until the cinematic, of course, but it "doesn't count"). Coming off this little project, I can't say I'm very impressed with Taker as a worker. I was always under the impression he was overrated whenever he was in the conversation for "great big man worker", but for sure his best output at Mania has heavily dependent on a context that really advantaged him on all fronts. And his negative output is actually pretty damn big and pretty damn low. Blame the gimmick, blame the opponents, the fact remains he almost never comes off as a great worker to me. A good one on average, for sure. A guy who became better at working big matches when he got past 40, but for a few years only because he was already shot. But for a long, long time, he just wasn't very compelling (his first really good match at Mania was more or less carried by Kevin Nash's heavy looking offense and charisma to me) and relied almost solely on a gimmick that was both awesome and pretty restricting in term of working good matches.

WrestleMania 36 (2020) – Undertaker vs AJ Styles This is COVID-era, this is cinematic pro-wrestling, this is not really a match so I won’t even get into it, as it’s still fresh in everybody’s mind and it was quite the amazing spectacle and a great performance from everyone involved (that includes the production people) and really capped off the Taker’s arc in some bizarre, almost fan-fiction way (it’s only logical he came back as pretty much his own biker-self, the Grim Reaper had basically vanished if you don’t count his Disney-ish fan service bonus appearance the previous year), really characteristic of its times, and against one of the greatest pro-wrestler ever. Since he came back way too many times before and they screwed up with some really bad stuff after the end of the Streak, at least we got this to get very satisfying ending credits I guess. This was very much Make Undertaker Great Again. 14-1-12

And so I expect people to bitch about Coach Tony K. showing in face on "TV" in a very Scott D'Amore way (although there's a lot worse things than being influenced by D'Amore, hey, here's a guy you'd want as a script doctor for your booking). I see the show is 2 hours long. Yeah, no. Dynamite + BTE + a few matches here and there on either Dark will do. With eventually another show on TV (which I expect to be really different this time), that's just too much content to watch for a single promotion. Too much time to invest if I want to also check out other wrestling stuff. They should be careful of not driving themselves into complete mental overdrive like WCW did, many have said that Thunder is what killed the booking because it was just too much work.

So, you're getting a Shane-O Mac match at Mania again. Aren't you all happy and glad ? A whole year of COVID was worth the wait, right ? Yeah, they also showed it on TV in the flashback segment some time ago when WWE ran the match (was it on Raw ? on a secondary PPV ? don't remember).

I *knew* there was a simpler way but I never paid attention to this ! And I knew someone was gonna point it out to me too !

Oh that's right. Silly me. I meant he was basically the top guy in the promotion; The angle with Vader re-established him big time after the so-so stuff with Rude.