El-P

Of course there would, because plenty of people don't consider his 80's work as great as it's pimped to be. The fact he was a terrible wrestler in the 00's (yes, terrible) and gets a pass for it when other guys are being lambasted for their post-prime bad work doesn't help the perception either for those of us who don't consider Flair to be that absolute icon of great work. Like I said, I had it at #20 and I am an old Flair fan, but that doesn't mean I can't be objective...

Funny, it's a great point. And don't forget the great hair. Charlotte is everything HHH ever wanted to be, and more.

This explains that. Glad for them then.

No.

The Scott D'Amore booked era might already have begun for all I know, although Dusty's still on board. This episode of Impact, one of the last on Fox, was easily the best in a long while, maybe ever. It was capped off by a really good TV match between Abyss, whom the crowd want to cheer despite his alignement with Jarrett, and Chris Sabin, who is in the middle of a feud with Michael Shane/Matt Bentley (the name is changed on PPV at this time, oddly enough). Abyss proves again he is actually a good worker when he's given the right guy, and Sabin bumps like hell, making the mad trucker turned SM fetichist look like, well, a monster. Excellent, spectacular beatdown, with nicely timed and paced hope spots and comebacks. Abyss also has no issue bumping for Sabin's offense. Mea culpa maxima on Abyss, I was wrong about this guye. Sabin is also on point here, not doing anything stupid. It almost comes down to Sabin going for a win when Micheal Shane jumps in and screws him. Post-match has Abyss turning Jarrett's handshake into a Black Hole Slam, which had the crowd pop big time. Jarrett's maneurism leading to the spot were perfect. So there, an excellent segment overall. Maybe indicating of the best months of the company to come under D'Amore's booking ?

'member when American Alpha had MOTYC matches against the Revival ?

I had not seen this before. Chuckling irrepresibly !!

That six-person tag on E3 was a whole lot of ga-ga and fun. I forgot how awesome Fenix is. I know some people questionned the fact that Puma was leaving LU after S3, and how it was gonna affect the product, but the fact is Ricochet has never been the best worker or character on the show. Fenix was always ahead of him in every aspect. So, this was exactly what it needed to be, without enough bullshit to factor in Taya, who really grew on me with time. That vignette with Mascarita Sagrada visiting Son of Havoc was glorious in its ridiculousness. Lucha Underground has got that GTA San Andreas quality to it, in some ways. Which makes me think that the Mack is one of my favourite guy on the roster, has been for a while, and his match with Matanza was quite good for what it was. Matanza sells more than he used to, but you can't go not-selling everything like in the beginning for ever. The Dario Spin the Wheel warms the old WCW fan in me. Never really got into Texano (apart from the fact he looks exactly like his father), but I can take a best of 5 serie with Cage. Bomb throwing spotfests, why not. Good episode.

And what's bad about nearfalls (it was before it got ridiculous with the indie mentality mindlessly aping japanese wrestling), stiff work (like in Texas or Mid-South, those Japanese stronghold) and clean endings ? I mean, when I dove into puroresu in the late 90's, yeah, I was disgusted with mainstream US wrestling (mostly the work of Vince Russo ruining both the WWF and WCW for me), but what I got from japanese wrestling as a whole was a ton of variety. Yes, there was the stiffness and great AJ epics, but there were also the NJ juniors, the NJ heavies working a different style, the shoot-style, the lucharesu insanity, FMW and the garbage leagues, the entire joshi realm which itself had more variety and style you'd think (between a Toyota spotfest epic and an Ozaki bloodletting, or a Yoshida ARSION matwork clinic). There were different colors and shapes, many many different styles, from the most serious "pure sport bullshit" of shootsyle to the most absurd and ridiculous stuff (lucharesu comedy, FMW matches with people jumping in a pool) and everything in between. Talking about "puroresu" like it's one style is absurd. I guess it's kinda true with lucha libre too, although to a lesser extent (especially today, where it seems everything is getting mixed).

I was about to quit watching wrestling altogether. After 25 years. Seemed okay. Then again, I watched more current stuff than I ever did since the late 90's. WWE sucks ass as a TV product. But they do deliver some legit great matches regularly. Sasha vs Charlotte being the feud of the year. HITC was a legit MOTYC to me. Loved most of the NXT Takeover big matches too. Lucha Underground got me excited about following a current TV show. It's the kind of wrestling I want in 2016. Fuck tradition. I want ridiculousness to the infinite degree. That and a cool aesthetics. Speaking of which, that Total Deletion deal. Head scratching and completely awesome. Finally got to watch old TNA, as a way to cope with… suff. And don't regret it. In the mids of so much crap, there are some great stuff there. AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels are terrific workers. I'm having fun following Raven's last years. This is all new to me and feels fresh. Quickly browsing through the mud gets you some really nice surprises (Abyss as a terrific piece of luggage, AMW the hidden team of the 00's, Ultimate X actually being a terrific gimmick when used right). Watched some NJPW (vade retro satanas), especially the G1, which was kinda mind burning at point. But it made me a fan of Tetsuya Naito, who delivered a bunch of MOTYC and one of the very few ***** match I've ever seen, against Kenny Omega of all people (despite that fact, Omega can still be totally overworking when he's not with the right guy). Loved Marufuji and Tanahashi (bye-bye PWO cred, if I ever had any) and enjoyed a bunch of other people (like Ishii, who's much more than I thought he was). Didn't try my hand at lucha (although I thought about it honestly) or other japanese companies (no real urge) or US indies (no urge at all), but this year was clearly a Revival (pun intended) for me as far as really enjoying both current and new (as in, never seen before) stuff. So, I'd say 2016 was one of the most fun year I had as a pro-wrestling fan in a long, long time.

I'm an old Flair fan. I had him #20 on my GWE list. And I do agree with some if these points. The "wrong leg", yeah, that one is just unforgivable, honestly. Kayfabe-wise, Flair is kind of a dumb as fuck worker who only got by cheating. Un-kayfabe-wise, Flair is a goofy go-go-go worker who did lot of stuff who popped the crowds big time. I'd live happily not watching another Flair match ever at this point, but I have loved watching him for a long time. Beating on a dead horse though. Flair is Walking Dead case. Now : his daughter.

90's NJ heavies have been pimped for ever at this point. Then kinda forgotten about again, because the 80's got more in vogue. The idea that they were better than the AJ ones is… incongruous to say the least (and I'm a fan of 90's NJ heavies). But at this rate, what the hell. (damn, puro is taking over this thread. Poor lucha. Poor, poor lucha) (one should never write "puro" anyway. "lucha" is acceptable) ("puro-lucha" anyone ?)

Are you serious ? People were criticizing headdropping *as it was happening*.

Than they weren't active doesn't mean they weren't influenced though. This fact also explain results like Daniel Bryan getting so high BTW (if you look at the top votes for instance).

KC Timeline with Tully Blanchard is a winner. The fact Tully speaks like a Texas version of Sean Connery in "Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade" maybe part of why it's so fun to listen to. The idea that old Tully is watching matches of himself on his Ipad in his bed and laughs his ass off at the fact he couldn't get Bob Armstrong out of his feet is pretty cool.

Who is the "typical hardcore fan" ? For year I had talked about trends (about Lawler for instance, but not only) only to be derided and even insulted at times, because there couldn't be any kind of influence and groupthink at play in the DVDVR projects (because all the people taking part in these were absolutely imune to any kind of influence whatsoever, they just watched the matches and all agreed (this always comes up when talked about some unseen "classic" BTW, the fact that "all the people who watched it agreed it was great", which is always suspect to me and plays a part into building a narrative that already goes beyond the simple match, which may or may not be great)), but these days it basically all comes down to "typical hardcore fans are Meltzer sheeps" when it comes to "bad opinions". So, there are trends and groupthink, but only on the "other side of the fence". Interesting. (I do agree about MPro though, I was thinking about that too. Much like my beloved ARSION had a clear lucha influence too, if only by Gran Apache and his daughters working over there regularly)

I admit, Fist of the North Star does sound homo-erotic. (Akira is the most overrated piece of anime I've seen BTW. I just wanted to point out that fact.)

ORIENTAL FETICHISM !!!!! "Smoke week everyday"

Raven vs Sean Waltman So, Jeff Hardy doens't show up. Thank God for drugs ! So instead of having to suffer through another abomination of a match, we get fucking 6-Pac instead and the best Raven showcase in more than a year ! Fat Raven hasn't looked very good for a long time, after an excellent first stint in TNA. No issue between the two, but it's kinda like a late 90's dream match of sorts. Waltman is all fired up and make Raven bleed immediately by rubbing his forehead in a cage segment. This is a House of Fun match, so it's all gimmicked up, ECW style, with not that much long term selling but heavy on garbage shots, bleeding buckets and keeping the pace relatively fast. Raven does beats the shit out of Waltman including a severe Singapore cane lashing, while asking the Kid to submit. Quite beautiful in its ECWness. Some neat transition, although Raven's execution is never the smoothest, but the ideas are there. Waltman looks as good as ever, almost, and this is quite the intense affair for a match thrown at the last moment. Some insane table spots which don't amount to much, but this is clearly leading toward chaos and shock and to a beautiful and brutal finish. Raven's facials and body language are as good as ever. Very good/excellent brawl. And the match of the PV too (Jarrett vs AJ Style wasn't that good, as Jarrett at this point is a lost cause to go beyond "solid at very best").

The more I read this thread, the more absurd it gets. So, pro-wrestling fans getting tired of US wrestling in the 90's got hooked on puroresu because of its "hypermasculinity" ? Like, Jushin Liger vs Great Sasuke and shit (don't even argue, the J-Cup was the gate for 90% of us) ? And the fact joshi was huge at the time, a validation of fandom through "hypermasculinity" too ? I think some people have major insecurity issues around there. Like, huge ones. I remember when I was reading the old DVDVR issues (the really old ones), which was a big part of me getting onto japanese stuff, among other things, in the late 90's, it was all about the absurdity of it all. Buckets of blood, kicks in the face, bitchy heeling, goofy clowing, cool masks, lumpy heavyweights and whatnot. I do think that some people take pro-wrestling way too fucking seriously nowadays. Which is too bad, because now is less the time than ever for this.

Honest question : why do you care ? Seriously ? What the fuck does that mean anyway ? Nothing. Unless you value other people's taste and opinion more than your own enjoyment of watching and pleasure you may take out of writing about the stuff you love. It's like bitching against a year-end list from Pitchfork (or NME or whatever). What is the point ? It has 0 value anyway. Only good way to act out is to write about the stuff you love, the best way possible, and if some people watch it and love it too (or even get interested) thanks to your writing, then it's cool (although you don't even have to know about it). That's about it.

Not sure I'd agree with the supposed negative cultural stereotype about Lucha though. As I said, I do think Lucha is actually the coolest form of pro-wrestling in pop culture because of it's very strong aesthetics. Again, there was (still is ?) a lucha bar in Paris,despite lucha not being showed on TV, ever, Puscifer's last album had a lucha theme. Maybe the in the very japanese oriented gamers community do you get more references to Japanese pro-wrestling (if at all), but I wouldn't be too sure about that. I never see any reference to puro anywhere. So, I do think there's an inherent "coolness" of lucha libre, at least from the outside, because it's visually pleasing while good ol' pro-wrestling still remains cheesy as shit. Hulk Hogan vs El Santo, whose picture do you really want in a cool urban spot ?

"Old man grapplelucha", as a mere concept, sounds quite awesome actually.

Same for me, watched the most big stuff lucha for the 2006 GWE poll. And most of what was pimped as great, I indeed found terrific. But it was a time where you couldn't yet get entire TV seasons for zilch like today, and I wouldn't spend a dime on wrestling anymore. There was always something else I really wanted to watch instead and when torrents appeared, it was easier getting your hands on shitload of Mid-south or Memphis TV seasons, stuff I was more curious about. I've been saying I'd watch WWC for ever now. Downloaded and deleted my stack a dozen times. You only got that much time and you get burned out and you have your odd little priorities (like watching old TNA). At some point, you've just gotta choose. Like I've been saying since the beginning : it's mostly contextual. In an odd way, the pro-wrestling TV that got me back watching as it happens and really have fun with it, first time since the very early 00's with ARSION, is Lucha Underground. Yeah, not exactly "lucha libre", but still. If I had to cut down to only one show to watch at this point, that would be it. Back to binge watching that S3 next week BTW. Can't wait.

Shoot-style is nazi wrestling. Lol.