El-P

YES ! I absolutely used it in jest earlier on. (well, I mean, I am looking out for the great matches, which like you said are easier to judge than individuals, but the GMT name always annoyed me plenty) Well thank you. I'll probably soon need stuff to get my head off that damn 6pm curfew that will never end and the fact there hasn't been any social life in months now and maybe the third lockdown is incoming...

He was doing some very dynamic power spots, including some damn slingshot shoulder tackle which looked incredible for its time. Some of his stuff did not look the greatest, but one thing about Anvil is that his work did not look like anyone else, which was a rarity then and even more now, and what he lacked in actual polish he brought in intensity, which fit what he could do (not a lot, granted). Of course I'd never say he was even near the level of Bret, including in the mid 80's, but he did brought some good shit to the table in big matches too (not to mention squash matches where he was fun throwing guys around). I dunno, I always had a soft spot for the Anvil.

You know what, I might just do that and check some of this French Catch...

Ok, thanks. I thought it was from the INA archive site, which is not free unless you have a special access. Extensive Youtube references would indeed be very precious for the next GWE btw.

WrestleMania XXIV (2008) – Undertaker vs Edge First off, let me say this is one of my favorite settings ever. Love the outdoor shows and the Citrus Bowl with the damn giant boat stuff on the entrance was amazing. Taker closes the show once again for the World Title. Hey, no hat ! What’s up with that ? He looks even fitter than the previous year. It’s obvious that he reached the point of wanting to be in Mania Shape to have a great match. He’s not working monster big man anymore as he’s super lean and fast. Edge as a main-eventer is really part of those lost years for me, as showed by his music theme which is sooooo 00’s WWE (aka bad alternative metal), so I can't say I'm overly familiar with his work during this period. Enough to say that yes, he's got those "spamming stunned emoticons" facials that get on the nerves of about everybody on this board, but honestly aren't that much more ridiculous than a lot of things in pro-wrestling. Not going into details of everything that happens, but basically after the initial exchanges, which had this super cool lucha-libre style double counter of the Old School rope-walk and the now requisite crazy plancha which followed a huge bump by Edge off the top to the floor, Taker bumps outside on the padded barricade. From there the pace slowers down into Edge basically working more or less on Taker’s back, which is a strategy that is worth any other. Taker will regularly get back to sell it even though it’s not the real story of the match. During this sequence, Edge does a really cool back suplex on the barricade, it fits his focus and looks really « bad » (as in « painfull »), with Taker falling off on the audience’s side. There’s also a rather innocuous half-crab spot followed by some kind of leg lock which really don’t accomplish much. The real meat of the match is coming up and it’s all about Edge being a great counter wrestler. Taker goes for the powerbomb, Edge counters. Taker goes for the chokeslam, Edge counters, twice, always straight into an offensive move. Taker himself counters the spear to finally hit the chokeslam. You can see that the crowd is really playing along, as there’s no much danger of Edge losing from the chokeslam (when neither the Last Ride or the Tombstone had been done already) yet they do count and act like it could be the pinfall, but really it’s not what I’d call a « nearfall ». BTW, the announcing anytime Cole was in with someone else (whoever it may be) was getting worse and worse (the previous year was already pretty annoying) but this year with Cole & Coachman was legit terrible, ruining every nearfall with « The streak is over ! » and using awful verbiage like « The Ultimate Opportunist ». Anyway, so basically Edge counters every key spots, including the non-finishers like the big boot following the Snake Eyes in a great spot and dynamics' shift. Taker actually takes a superplex in the last third of the match, so there’s clearly some out of the ordinary big spots at work. Keeping on with the theme of the match, they use the new trope of climbing the corner only to get the Last Ride but this time Edge counters that too, pretty smart stuff. When Taker actually hits it later, it becomes a legit nearfall then and there’s a really good facial sell (from Taker, of course, not the emoticon spamming guy). First Tombstone counter and then Taker actually goes back to Old-School, like he's insisting on successfully doing his main spots that have been countered before. And then the funky part with a ref bump on a missed big boot and they do another cool sequence as Edge taunts Taker which is never a good idea as he get choked, but then again : counter into a balls-shot ! They really do drive the point home and do a great job with it. Then Edge does the old Sid camera shot but as he’s going to revive the ref, he actually pushes him outside in a pretty neat moment so he’s fucked and Taker does the zombie sit-up. Taker then does the Tombstone reversal spot, pinfall attempt, no ref so we have to wait for Charles Robinson to run down the ramp, which is quite funny indeed, and also allows enough time to protect the Tombstone as Edge is kicking out of it : great nearfall. Two croonies show up and they get chokeslamed one over the other outside (brutal) leading into the spear (his best one, really, if there was a time to hit it ok that was it) for another legit nearfall. You know where this is going now, all big spots have been used without success so when Edge is going for another spear (not as good...), Taker is in position for « That Submission Manœuvre » as they say (fuck, the announcing is disgustingly bad) and he wins by tap-out after failing to get the pinfall with his three big finishers. Yeah, this one is a great match, very smart psychology, Taker looked super crisp again (except for the flying clothesline which he doesn’t seem to do right anymore), Edge was excellent at doing the countering machine thingy (one reversal looked kinda flubbed, but it’s ok). Great series of legit nearfalls at the end, maybe there was a minute of two in the middle that could have been scrapped (the whole half-crab/leglock) but at this point it’s nitpicking. Very different from last year’s match in term of approach and just as successful. Taker wins another title to end the show on a great note. 7-9

On one hand, I would LOVE to see if I had interactions with Coach Tony K (I believe I was still kind of a regular at that time). On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to re-read posts by 26 years old me.

Thanks ! That's amazing ! Wow, 2004 ! I thought it was a bit later but nope, the old green board. Yeah, it's like basically "He's one of us." And it's funny, because when sometime I joke that AEW is booking "for me" (not always, but it has happened), there's something to this. I was listening to the Mox interview and it's the same thing, he's talking about how the first time he saw Terry Funk was on ECW TV and then he saw those clips of the death match tournament in Japan on WWF TV (I think during the great JR interview of Mankind), and from then he bought the tapes of the IWA tournament. I can totally relate because I did exactly the same thing. People complain that there aren't "bigger than life" character in pro-wrestling and that they come off as geeks, but guess what, that's because they are exactly like us, they ARE pro-wrestling geeks who bought tapes. It's actually rather cool.

By your own admission, Riho has been a proven ratings draw, whereas we don't know about Britt since there aren't really an audience to gauge the in-house reaction. So, Riho should get it back ! Britt is gonna get it eventually no matter what.

Thinking of it, it's probably for the better than this has vanished, really. Considering the "hey, X said a bad thing 8 years ago, he should be fired and never work again" social media culture...

Wow ! Do you just remember it or is this accessible somewhere on some archive ? I don't remember at all which year it happened either.

Just listened to it. He said it was the most famous thing on DVDVR, I don't think he meant he started it. It did say he started the conversation about which member of a tag team was the best though, and you know what, I actually kinda remember that one ! It's just fascinating to think that those (old mofos) of us who were active on the old DVDVR board probably exchanged with Tony Khan. That kinda blows my mind and is actually really cool and maybe says a lot about why AEW is what it is, and we're getting a fucking FMW match next week (Mox mentioned it wasn't his idea at all and was brought to him). I gotta say, Alvarez popped me when he asked him if he was one of those who argued that Mark Henry was better than whoever because of that match with Kurt Angle.

Agreed. I mean, that is why Taker's arc at Mania is quite interesting. There's no way to make it a numerical exercise, really, for a number of reason, one of which being time obviously and the other being access to footage. And on the global level of the poll, the third being subjectivity, especially in what we each look at that makes us go "This is a great match".

I disagree because it's not happening in a vacuum, plenty of things that have zilch to do with the actual work are responsible for drawing power aka the marketing power of the company, the number of stations they're in, the promos etc... Connection to a crowd is not drawing power. Just like getting a pop is not drawing power. What a worker does with a crowd, I agree, the exemple I always use is the infamous Saturn vs Raven match from WCW where the crowd could not give a flying fuck at the beginning and by the end of the match they were molten and going crazy for Raven's dog & Pony show. That to me is way more impressive as far as good work connecting with a crowd that anything Hogan will do with a captive audience that no matter what he will do will be super hot anyway, because they are already conditioned to be. Agreed. That said, I'm absolutely and more than ever a Great Match Theory supporter, because at some point if you're a great wrestler you're at least gonna have great performances and unless you're very unlucky or work against very shitty opponents all the time or work in the less "great-match-friendly" conducive environment, you're gonna end up having some great matches. So, at the very least, I'm a proponent of Great Performance Theory. (although I hate the term "performance")

Disagree, the belt has been totally fine on Riho before and Shida is a really good champ too (despite the booking of her feuds being weak). You know Britt is gonna get it eventually anyway, but she's in a heated feud with Thunder Rosa now, so that makes two major angles for the women : the tournament final & Thunder vs Britt. If Britt wins, you only get one. Nyla needed to get some re-building after she lost the belt. In a way I'm glad Fénix is not gonna do that ladder match, at least we know he'll live another day. He should definitely get a run with a belt sooner than later, and he can do it both as a heel or a babyface.

Agree 100%. Strictly in-ring work, no promo. But like I said, there's no way English speaking voters won't be affected anyway by what they *know* of the promo ability of X or Y, there's no way around cognitive biases like. Not to mention a shitload of other cognitive biases. So yeah, probably, the only reasonable one is "based on footage". And maybe some negative criterias about factual stuff like : drawing power is NOT a criteria.

Thanks for the clarification, I was less familiar with everything post Kobashi NOAH tbh, although I've watched quite a bit then.

We think we like things because they are actually good for us, when in fact we convince ourselves things are good for us because we like them. In other words, there is no such things as objectivity in aesthetical judgment. The list will never represent anything more than a snippet of the time and the people who put it together. Which is why two things annoyed the fuck out of me last time around and it became *not fun* in the end 1/ This. Ridiculous amount of last minutes voters who were nowhere around the discussions and sharing, which really screwed up the results. 2/ The forcing by people who had seemingly all the time on their hand to incessantly promote a few candidates (you know who I mean) to the absolute detriment of the overall discussion. Absolutely frustrating, took the fun right out of the process. There's no way of rationalizing criterias for such a list, as I already see people talking about promo ability, which by default penalizes everyone not English speaking (and really, anyone not from the US scene). Then again, what would the point be of rationalizing one element when you have a hundred others who can't. Using promos is an advantage toward English speaking workers but not using promos don't change the fact the list will be put together mostly by English speaking people, and mostly americans. Not everybody can watch 3000 matches. Watching 3000 matches doesn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things (just like having 30 years experience at a job means shit, as you can suck at it for 30 years). Not everyone has access to the French stuff Dan & others are watching. Not everyone will want to watch old joshi puroresu. Not everyone has a taste for old shootstyle nor has access to it. By default the most mainstream and biggest promotions will always gets favorited one way or another. By default the "museified" (it it's not a word now it's officially one) candidates will always have a huge jumpstart over all the others because of a status that can be too heavy to discuss. Not everyone will want to revisit for the thousands time old Ric Flair or Bret Hart or Jumbo matches, because it has been exhausted. There will always be recency bias (both in term of "this is exciting because it is new" and "this is exciting because it's just been discovered"). There will always be trouble to find a common ground even when discussing things like "selling" and "psychology", because everybody has a different take on it... Etc. So. My advice to all would be to CHILL THE FUCK OUT. If you do a list, what matters most is the process, and the process should be FUN for everyone involved. If not, I don't even see the point. What @Grimmas said about not wanting to be a boy's club is probably the best idea too. As long as people involved discuss together and we don't get some of the same bullshit as the last time (like the anti-lucha/pro-lucha debacle, on both fronts BTW, for instance). If I make a list, the only criteria will be that both my *own* process and my *own criterias* will basically work *for me*, taking in consideration whatever time I have in my life, whatever time I want to give this and most of all as long as it doesn't feel like WORK. Too many people got "afraid" last time around or did not feel like they "watched enough" (which is the worst argument ever, really) and were literally drove away by the ugly side of the process. That was a bit sad, honestly. So there, that was my ranting about the GWE.

Yes. It's obvious when you watch the booking. He put the title on himself first to pass it to Akiyama and make him the top guy. Then he defeated Takayama, who was an outsider, to pass it to Kobashi and kickstart the legendary reign. Then when the first Marufuji reign did not work out, he got the title back to try and make Morishima's win important. NOAH was never about Misawa.

So, the Young Bucks actually are the sons of Waylon Mercy. You know what I mean ?

The fact they are running Moose vs Swann as an IMPACT + instead of the PPV makes me think they could indeed go with Swann vs Omega at the PPV. Which could mean Moose was only built up to put Swann over (kinda odd as he really looks like the biggest star they have now after that tremendous build and he has never won the title yet). Or go for a three-way. I could definitely see Omega winning the "double title" then, whether he still has the AEW one or not.

And then Rubin asked for a mummy.

"Who the fuck hired Raven ?!"

Well, it has been announced already that Wight is gonna do the announcing on a Monday Youtube show called Dark: Elevation.

Yeah, I thought it was quite good too, and I don't like that gimmick. The whole show really flowed well actually, and they fixed the awkward sound mixing of the past few weeks with a much less annoying fake crowd sound. The 6-men X-division match was something else, apparently Taurus and Decay are set for a serious push (whatever that means about Sammy refusing the stuff he was given). Another highlight was D'Amore going full Vince mode with the "an eye for an eye match next week !", only to completely shit on the gimmick a few moments after. Funny stuff. Remember this actually happened ? I wonder if the whole "let's make the TNA Title official" is basically leading to a unification so they can have their double title too. I would guess and hope so, because I don't see the point otherwise, and it's obvious Moose is gonna get tha IMPACT title sooner than later now.

I had forgotten this promo... I know why. Actually, I gotta say this, I was quite underwhelmed by Al Snow in SMW too. Snow is a guy who had that reputation and got over like crazy in ECW thanks to the Head gimmick, but the more I actually watched his stuff, the less I thought of his work. Maybe Foley was shooting when he was shitting on his work and sense of humour...