El-P

Wow. I can't believe I'm actually a low vote on Onita. I've been an Onita fan since I began buying tapes in the late 90's. There was a Best of Onita in the first batch I bought, and I was fascinated by the guy since that point. I slowly grew a deeper appreciation for his work, to the point I really thought he was a very good and smart worker. Now, people calling him a great worker today seems totally like a pendulum effect, but I have nothing against it since I'm an old fan. I'm delighted that I'm a low vote on Onita actually and that he ranked higher than my personnal vote. Maybe the best surprise of this poll.

Great post.

This one goes for me as well. I draw almost perverse enjoyment out of watching that episode of Thunder with Nash on commentary just before he gets replaced as the booker. You can really pinpoint the moment where Mike Tenay dies a little inside when Nash starts talking about booking himself into angles. Also the entire Hogan/Bischoff period in TNA is hilarious culminating in the Immortal fiasco, which is a candidate for worst NWO ripoff ever. And then Steiner returns and for the following six months everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute comedy gold. Sounds like the TNA Hogan era is something... As far as WCW goes, since you weren't around the board it seems : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

Flair vs Windham smokes any Garvin stuff. Hell, I'd put Windham at his peak above Flair. We know that. Like most things you've posted in this thread, you've been saying it for nearly 15 years. That's such a low-blow.

Flair vs Windham smokes any Garvin stuff. Hell, I'd put Windham at his peak above Flair.

Akiyama was pimped as great in 96.

Not being a native English speaker nor exactly C2 level (which is the highest point you can get on the CECR chart, I wish I was), no, I don't really get it.

What is that even supposed to mean ?

Maybe people are just not convinced by hours and hours of over-reaching after all.

Exactly. But it seems if you don't follow the new consensus, you're either a dick or an idiot. Like with Hayes. I always thought he was underrated, that he was a pretty good worker, that he brought some shit to the table, even back when the consensus was "He's shit." Now I hear that he's better than Gordy, one of the best Texas worker ever etc… Even if my opinion on the guy, which is fairly positive, hasn't changed much, the fact that I say he went from underrated to overrated make it seems like I'm bashing the guy, when I'm really not. Same thing for Flair vs Garvin. I like it quite a bit. I'm perfectly fine with being in a minority. I don't care one bit one way or another. I was in the consensus when I thought Takada was excellent 15 years ago. I like Takada even more today and I'm within an über minority now on this matter.

You don't really think people around PWO (or Smarkchoice or TOA or whatever board of this ilk) were thinking in term of Scott Keith idiocy in the last 15 years ? Seriously now...

I like his punches a lot. I just wished he would not over-rely on it like he always did.

Sorry, but after a while, I'm just bored of Lawler's endless punching. It feels lazy to me because Lawler is smart enough and a good enough worker to have the sense of doing something else, like, anything else. There's always a point in any big time Lawler match that I'll cringe or yawn at that one punch too many. Too bad, because I really like Lawler. Feels like lazyness and lack of imagination/effort to me.

Yeah, my memory from that time is as blurry as Raven's WCW years.

What strikes me is that a lot of people take the fact X or Y want or don't want to rate Benoit like personnal judgments on the person itself. It was very clear when I didn my dry/dark joke about Invader 1 which jump started the discussion Jimmy is refering to, people took it like I was passing judgments, which was not the case at all. I made my case very clear about Benoit (and others) before, so no need to get back to it. And BTW, I totally understand, and mostly agree, with Jingus points. (I do understand people not wanting to rate Benoit too though)

Classic case of formerly underrated becoming overrated. See also : Hayes, Michaels.

Reviewing shit promotions like WCW past 99 and TNA.

Pretty much a perfect description of how Jarrett was booked and how he came off. To me, it was all Russo's (and Jeff) doing, as they never got over the fact Austin refused to work with Jarrett in 99 so they had to proove that they were right and that Jarrett could be an ass-kicker main-eventer. That was already the case in WCW, but in TNA they could do exactly what they wanted, so they did. And failed miserably again. As far as Don West goes, he was first recruited by Russo to join WCW : http://slam.canoe.com/Slam/Wrestling/2006/01/31/1420308.html PPV 39 Let’s forget the first 35 minutes of this show, and you have a pretty solid card with a strong main-event. So yeah, let’s forget a terrible brawl straight out of the worse part of 1996 ECW and an awful ladder match involving Dusty Rhodes. Although him dropping the elbow from a three steps mini-ladder was funny. Then, Glen Gilberti vs AJ Styles was one of those good Disco match from 97/98, in the vein of the Juvy match at Havoc (I think). Aj Styles really is someone you can look forward too against anyone, and serious Gilberti is always pretty decent. So that was mighty fine. Later on, Mike Sanders vs D-Lo Brown was also quite solid action, the best Sanders has looked so far. D-Lo’s outfit is so low rent, pun intended, he doesn’t look like a star at all. People bitch about Kevin Owens, but this is worse. And the black tights with tribal tatoo/symbol is so generic 00's. Things are pretty confusing as who is a heel or not, but SEX beating up D-Lo afterward puts things back in straight order. Also, Perry Saturn vs Mike Barton was a very solid, stiff match which actually told a story, Barton’s left being punishing enough to make Saturn bleed (see, that's a punch that means something…), and Saturn having to fight through it to get the victory. Barton is jobbed in his first match. Maybe he's just not coming back. He also wears hideous pants with random japanese flags over electric blue. Was he wearing those in All Japan too ? Barton’s work is solid although unspectacular and Perry gives a good showing with impressive offense and nice selling too. Honestly one of the best Saturn single matches I've seen. And a great close up of him hiding his blade in his glove too. Well done TNA director. Barton is a member of SEX BTW, because, well, every heel has to be. So we get a stupid swerve in which David Young is turning against Athena, beats her up (yeah, violence against women… I should have brought back that Russo Tally) and joigns SEX. This is like nWo C-team at this point. Raven vs Kid Kash was only decent thanks to Raven, as Kash sucked here. Blown spots, misplacements, bad timing. Well, his knee was legit hurt, but still. Raven’s got a new Nest/Flock apparently, with Alexis Laree slutting it up a notch and going for the Beulah look, and Julio Dinero looking like a giant Hardy Boy. Trinity hits a moonsauly and leaves, letting Kash getting his ass beat after he interfered in her interview with Tenay earlier. Raven also cut a good promo building up his title match with Jarrett, who’s paranoid now. Ok. This week he hits Dusty with a chair. Jarrett’s so not a main eventer, and Raven is totally carrying the load on the mic to make this look big time. And so, the main event was quite an excellent X-division spotfest between XXX (Skipper & Daniels), Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red, Chris Sabin & Jonny Storm, Shark Boy & Jason Cross. Elimination tag match. Sabin looked very good in his debut, as did Shark Boy. Daniels & Red were the standouts. Total spotfest but in a good way, not too clusterfucky, fun dive sequence and turned into a very good tag team final between XXX & Lynn/Red. Easily the best match in eons. This is what the X-division should be about. Almost clean booking although we get the mysterious luchador again, with his shitty black spider costume. Wonder who he will end up being. My guess is Low-Ki since he hasn't been around. So yeah, best show in a long long while. Actually *good*. How surprising. And what’s coming up in the X-div (XXX vs Lynn/Red + Lynn vs Red for the N°1 contender spot) is very promising. Raven is totally carrying the main event scene, who need AJ Styles back tomorrow so it’s not all about Jarrett. 2003/04/09 Glen Gilberti vs AJ Styles 2003/04/09 Perry Saturn vs Mike Barton 2003/04/09 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs Shark Boy & Jason Cross vs Jonny Storm & Chris Sabin vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red

Flair. Simply because he didn't do that for 90% of his time on top. Plus, kayfabe-wise, if you punch a guy a hundred times, something should happen. If it doesn't, your great looking punch actually kinda sucks. Plus, punches are supposed to be illegal in pro-wrestling. So many heels got so much out of arguing with the ref that no, it wasn't a closed fist. Lawler just went through punching like a machine-gun in a time it wasn't supposed to happen that easily. That bieng said, chops have became way overused in the 00's, and the Woo chant got annying pretty quickly. Also, a weak chop is way more ridicule than a bad looking punch. A bad looking punch, well doesn't look good, but you know it's fake. Weak chop, well, it's *really* a weak chop.

I'll be 50 then if I get there. That would be quite a thing to participate in another GWE poll, basically once every ten years of my adult life. Advices ? Don't burn yourself out.

Really haven't seen enough Garvin, although I think the Valentine stuff is just ridiculously overrated (and I'm a Valentine fan), as is the Flair match and the Memphis stuff. So there. So no way he would make my top 100, although I'd need to see more, really. 2 Cold was my #46. One of the best worker in the world when he was in ECW, was totally screwed up by going to WWF and given a ridiculous outfit (although the gimmick would have worked if they had pushed him, it's not like Scorp couldn't cut a promo). One of my biggest regret of that time is him not going back to WCW instead. Scorp vs Benoit, Eddie, Rey, DDP would have put in the picture of the best guys around. Had a super solid career in Japan too in the 00's. Yeah, Scorp is a great wrestler. I'm glad he got in the top 100, I didn't expected it. Wonderful surprise.

Hopefully him and Piper drop soon. With Dusty gone, we can go to the really good ones. Because really, inside the ring, neither of those three were much (Piper being the worst by far).

Mister Bob Backlund. My number 35. Some of the best matches in the company's history. One of the most singular worker ever, no one works quite like Backlund, which is a rarity. Great matches in the 70's, great matches in the 80's, great matches in the 90's. Say what you want, he's got the resume.

Battlarts is the one japanese indy that I never got into simply because I had other priorities in buying tapes. Nakamura was my #29. He's not my highest post 00's vote though. But yeah, I watched a few of his big matches over the past years, just incredible in this setting. Week to week, no idea, but he's the best big time wrestler today. I didn't vote for the Destroyer this time around. Haven't rewatched anything, in 2006 it was exactly when I was getting into some of his most famous stuff.

Two kids ! Amazing. Glad things are going well for you ! Thanks AsukaFan. I agree counting your blessings gets you on the right track and helps relativize a lot. Don't worry people, I'm overplaying the "depression" element a bit here to justify me diving into Russo land again, although there's a reason why I'm getting back into a project right at this moment. But the true hard times were actually last year at the same period and for the following months. PPV 38 Jerry Lynn finally gets his X-division title match !!! After seemingly making his peace with Konnan, he faces Kid Kash in probably Kash’s best TNA match. Not a great by any mean though, but Kash taking the time to sell his injured knee and acting kinda heelish is a vast improvement over his usual stuff. Lynn gets screwed by another odd looking « luchador », so I guess Konnan was just swerving him. D-Lo Brown vs Jeff Jarrett. Oh man. First, Tenay insists on saying D-Lo was IC champ, which is why he’s familiar the big match pressure. Yeah, keep on making the NWA title look third rate. Jarrett is an awful babyface, physically threatening Goldilocks, acting like an asshole to the point you’d sympathise with Gilberti’s points in the opening promo. Plus, although D-Lo is really solid, they have a bad Double J Special : boring brawling outside, totally rushed sprint with often poor execution from Jarrett (fancying himself as a tough guy is a complete miscast), kicking out of each other finishers (is this a John Cena match ?), bad ref-bumps and run-ins galore. D-Lo had a better match with Chris Harris. Plus, post match sees Jarrett hitting Alexis Laree, now aligned with Raven (which is cool), with a straight chair shot to the head, with awful execution to boot (I guess he thought it was « someone else » ?). Russo’s handprints are all over this show still, with useless feuds like Siaki vs David Young which only leads to more man on woman violence and terrible midcard acts like the Second Generation stooges (I didn’t even watch that Eric Watts video, sorry). More super efficient booking by piling up « surprise debuts » in the same segment. So New Jacks debuts to team with Sandman & Saturn. Ok, he does the exact same crap he was doing in later ECW. But anyway, he gets a reaction. Then, at the end of their match vs Harris Boys & Chris Daniels (poor guy), we get the surprise debut of « This is the man who used to be Bart Gunn in the WWE ! ». Please. He gets crickets, as he’s been in All Japan for years now and no one has cared about him in the US since the split of the Smoking Gunns. Both surprise debuts in about ten minutes, way to get the most out of them. Exactly the same problem with the booking on top, as Jarrett seems to be feuding with four people at the same time. I won’t say it again, but man, Don West is so bad. Enthousiastic but terrible. Wait, not as awful as Mark Madden or the current WWE robots, but still annoying as all hell. Why did Russo recruit him to begin with ? Oh, I guess it's because he had zero experience in pro-wrestling. Mainstream cred ? 2003/04/02 Jerry Lynn vs Kid Kash