El-P

If the #86 doesn't end up my #86, it's gonna be pretty interesting to me. My #99 and #89 haven't dropped yet, which I'm very surprised about (especially #89 since his stock has dropped a lot I believe). Cesaro & Zayn making it around those slots make sense.

Douglas is ridiculously underrated at this point. Made my top 100.

Yep, I was thinking about using it more often actually so I don't have to use too many words to explain myself. Seems pretty clear to me.

I love Catrina's sexy ass and demonic feel, but Dario Cueto coming back as el patron is so much fun. I love how he made fun of Cage's little catchphrase. Over their two seasons, LU made me a current pro-wrestling fan again. Not a small feat. I'm glad we are assured of a third one.

Come on, The Triple Threat was great.

The funny thing about Onita is that pretty much all the guys coming after him and did garbage stuff totally ignored why Onita was so great at it and why he made a shitload of money : milking and selling. That's why watching the very early Onita FMW matches against martial artists is so revealing of what Onita is all about, because he basically worked the same way then : getting his ass beat, selling like a motherfucker, milking every comebacks like crazy. And then of course you got all the Onita mystic with the post-match crying and promo, which is insane even if you don't understand the language. But really, Onita wasn't about taking insane bump and bleeding like a stuck pig. Well, he was, but that's just a part of it. The main thing is that he milked and sold like a mofo. That's why he made shitload of money while all the garbage idiots (Abyss, looking at you) coming after just destroyed their body for basically nothing because all they got out of Onita was : taking bumps in barbwires. That was just a spectacular choice. Onita was like Takada, a master of epic spectacle.

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/ If you have never seen it and you really want to torture yourself I recommend you give TNA 2010/2011 the same treatment you gave to WCW (awesome thread working my way through it) and currently early TNA. I would argue that it is actully worse than either. I have never seen it, but since I diving into early TNA… never know where I'm going to end up… I don't think you could anyone worse than the end of WCW, as TNA has always been irrelevant while WCW was the legit N°1 at one point, so the fall was a lot more painfull. But yeah, sounds like something I might wanna watch...

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