El-P

Ok, so whereas we can't really say anything as far as Bryan is concerned, because he never worked in NOAH as a main eventer, we can state the fact AJ Styles has actually mastered Kings Roadtm, and he is the one who should really be put on the same level as Misawa, Kobashi & Kawada.

I have the feeling this will end up being a PWO meme in no time.

AJ is versatile as fuck. He can work babyface, heel, do a long bomb throwing epic (Cena), current NJ main event style, classic X-div matches against Joe & Daniels, carry Abyss to a great match in bloody gimmick brawls, is a terrific tag team worker to boot. There's no one he can't have a decent match against. Hell, he made Shane-O-Mac fun. Dealing in "what if" doesn't mean shit. Neither AJ nor Bryan ever worked shoot-style (which was mostly dead anyway as anything relevant by that point). Let's compare what is comparable. And by that I mean, what actually exists.

Agreed.

That's actually pretty funny. I love me some Taue. I love most every former sumo guy (except Kitao). My problem with Ospreay is not that it looks rehearsed but that it looks ridiculous to the point of being stupid. He can do so much physically, but he just does way too fucking much. But actually, the worst thing about him is not his Petey Williams on crack kinda work, but his godawful facials and selling. I never had the same feeling about Puma (yeah, if people call Daniel Bryan "Dragon" in 2018, I can call Ricochet "Puma" as an LU fan) in term of doing too much crazy shit. He doesn't go above the "ridiculous" line to me. Ospreay also has a godawful emo-vaporwave look, while Ricochet looks sexy as fuck. (yeah, Daniel Bryan, we know, but this thread has gone astray anyway)

None of the old-school style stuff was "realistic". I just watched that video of that French wrestler in the 60's explaining how things work, despite the whole "kayfabe" stuff, pro-wrestling has always been seen for what it was, a carny trick. It never prevented the emotional involvment because real emotions don't need "realism" as a vehicule to be produced on and by a crowd. And yeah, AJ Styles is a great, great fucking pro-wrestler. As far as realism goes in pro-wrestling, I feel like it's an aesthetic above all. To me its almost synonymous with something being 'gritty' in that it favours a down to earth presentation, emphasises physicality, good working punches etc. So I don't see the problem with using it in that context s long as no one is under any illusions about the actual realism of pro-wrestling lol. I agree with the bolded parts. Then again, All Japan in the 90's was super gritty, but although I would use the term, or "stiff", you can always poke holes all over it in term of what I think shodate refers to as "realism" (but maybe I'm wrong, after all, he mentionned Yasha Kurenai in his HOF. YASHA FUCKING KURENAI !!!), which I understand as something looking the most "real" as in how a "real professionnal wrestling" match would look. Hey, I'm an old-school shoot-style fan, Tamura, Han & Khousaka were my heroes at one point, so I'm all for that aesthetic. But to disparage workers because they don't work that particular way (or toward that kind of execution of holds and strikes) seems kinda odd to me. Hell, if we're talking about the stiff and gritty, more "realistic" style of All Japan, no one was as awkward and unrealistic as Akira Taue. Maybe shodate doesn't like Taue though... Oh, yeah, Daniel Bryan. Well he's great too.

Unprovocated insults out of nowhere (with a little wee bit xenophobic tense I see) ? Nice. I have not interaced with you in a long time, but I see you're as personable as ever.

None of the old-school style stuff was "realistic". I just watched that video of that French wrestler in the 60's explaining how things work, despite the whole "kayfabe" stuff, pro-wrestling has always been seen for what it was, a carny trick. It never prevented the emotional involvment because real emotions don't need "realism" as a vehicule to be produced on and by a crowd. And yeah, AJ Styles is a great, great fucking pro-wrestler.

Actually, no. Pro-wrestling, in essence, has nothing to do with realism. Now, you can enjoy the things in pro-wrestling that verge toward a more "realistic aesthetic", to each his own indeed on those matters, but pro-wrestling has never been and will never be about "realism", whatever that means anyway (unless pro-wrestling is actually *professionnal wrestling*, if you catch my drift, and Kurt Angle is the best ever then). Pro-wrestling is symbolism.

Realism has nothing to do with pro-wrestling.

Vince winning the 1999 Royal Rumble. I did stop religiously watching WWF just a few months later.

Well... Harsh noise guys are... interesting. https://rateyourmusic.com/release/ep/danshoku-dino/harsh-noise-wrestling/

Totally agree. After SummerSlam 98, the product takes a nosedive and I was getting sick of Austin vs McMahon already, especially with all these bad Taker/Kane matches. Yes, the early angles were absolutely terrific. But to me, the feud peaked with the second Dude Love match which is the apex of Attitude Era overbooking insanity. After that point, it's only downhill for me, despite the natural chemistry Austin & McMahon had. The 99 stuff with the Corporation and the *gasp* Corporate Ministry is eye gouging material. It gets a pass because it's WWF winning the MNW and because it's Austin (and Taker, to a lesser extent, as people are seemingly more willing to acknowledge the fact he was involved in tons of terrible stuff), but honestly, it's just *really bad*. Plus it's about that time Shane & Stephy gets thrown into the mix, which is another reason to not enjoy it considering we'll still *there* 20 years later.

Well, this guy was breaking kayfabe in 1960 : http://www.ina.fr/video/CAF90023807/la-minute-de-verite-d-un-catcheur-video.html Tells pretty much everything about it (the only stuff that's not credible is when he says 50% of the matches actually turn into real fights because guys don't work well together). His conclusion is that it doesn't matter anyway because even as a worker who knows everything about the tricks, he still can really get into it like he would at a movie or a play. Yep. 1960.

Bryan could/should have been the biggest star in the company. At his peak he was at Austin-level of connection with the crowd. Pushed as he should have and the opportunites that come with that, he would be untouchable at this point.

I'm not writing him off at all. I'm just saying ROH is something I really never was interested in diving into (the few attempts over the years at different points never really worked for me) and since at this point I'd rather watch everything in context, I'm not really into the idea of watching an isolated "Bryan in ROH" anthology, although I'm sure I'm missing a lot of great stuff.

I've actually praised a whole lot of WWE matches and cards (mostly NXT Takeovers) to great lenghts in the last few years, despite not liking the product (and the way its presented) as a whole. So there...

I second all this about AJ Styles. To me, as I'm going through TNA (I'm at mid-08) and adding the NJ & WWE stuff, AJ Styles is probably a top ten worker ever already.

In my experience, there are generally two types of wrestling fans on the internet . Those who are genuinely interested in wrestling and/or its history and enjoy finding out new information. Those kind of folks tend to fit in well here. The other type are basically WWE only fans and get irrationally defensive if anyone questions the official company line. That's where the "snobbish" stuff tends to come from, as there tends to be a big overlap between those folks and those who think education is bad. Actually, I do think there's also an über-snobbish attitude consisting on over-praising everything WWE against the "evil snobbish Meltzerian smark promotions".

This is why TNA is actually a really underrated promotion. Christian's stint in TNA is excellent and he really revels himself as a terrific single's worker and a main-event caliber guy. He was already made-up when he went back to WWECW. Sorry, but again, this is ridiculous. Styles was having MOTYs in 2005 in TNA. He was already being a great worker as early as 2003/04. He was overdelivering despite the shitty booking Russo put him though in term of character. He made the best out of every stupid gimmick he was put in (Elevation X anyone ?).

Well, except this result doesn't really reflect the debates. Most of these N°1 votes come from late voters who didn't even take part in the process at all and who haven't been seen active on the forums before or since. This was one reason the results of the GWE 2016 was so frustrating to some. I don't know Bryan's career enough to compare him (ROH is a massive hole in my viewing, and my distate for what this company brought as far as in-ring style and presnetation goes doens't encourage me to check it out, maybe wrongly so). His highs in the WWE are quite high. The "the 4 Pillars" always worked against each other is irrelevant though. Yes, they did. But there's no way to know if they wouldn't have delivered against Hashimoto, Takada, Mutoh etc… They probably would have too.

Well, I thought I did just that in the Hogan thread, it didn't work. I'm so bad at this kind of stuff.

I still don't know how to embed a video or picture.

Well, like the great French comedian Coluche said in the late 70's, talking about two opposite French politicians : "They have a circus act. One is peeling the onions, the other one is crying." It's like in the WWE, the owners always win in the end, no matter who they book.

Really ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49kFPeItBdg