El-P

So, is PRIDE pro-wrestling, Dan ?

I never got the love for Lita as a worker. What did she ever do apart from blowing spots (among other things) ?

I know the feeling. And I'm a Lawler fan (not überfan in that I don't consider him to be that great miracle GOAT candidate worker). But he's not without flaws (although that's not what this particular clip is about, he's absolutely fine there to me). But I mean, do you really want me to explain why it was stupid as shit to have Lawler play hide-and-seek-the-chain in the Kerry Von Erich CAGE match ?

Kevin was the most awkward of them all to me, not to mention really looking like "some dude in his underwear rolling around, with dirty feet to boot". Kinda creepy actually. But all of them were awkward in the same way, so I guess it's either a family thing or just the way they were trained (by their father, so yeah, family). The Von Erich's inherent awkwardness is something you either accept, or you just throw them all to the woodpile. In that respect, I can totally see the John Cena comparison for Kerry, that and the fact he brought stuff to the table in big matches. It's not that I'm high on David. I'm not high on any Von Erich. But David struck me as the guy who had the most potential of the three, he had the strongest personnailty and charisma, I really am curious of what kind of worker he would have become. That's more in a "potential" way that I meant Kerry wasn't as good as David, of course his output ended up much better because he had to fill for David in all those big matches against Flair and such. All in all, Kerry pretty much overachieved, especially after the accident.

Never got the hate for that guy. Then again, haven't watch a Marufuchi match in like 8 years or so.

So yeah, really solid worker in Texas, efficient both as a face and a heel. But never got past the "really solid" level to me. Carried the Dynamic Duo, as Gino Hernandez was sloppy as hell. I didn't get into the late part of WCCW/USWA era, so I haven't seen the Austin feud (and probably won't take the time to). Aside from Gordy and Robert, the best and most regular worker in WCCW over the decade I guess. Still nowhere near a top 100 candidate to me after all.

For the longest time I though Hayes was underrated. Watching a lots of peak WCCW, I realized that this impression came from watching a lot of Hayes teaming with Jimmy Garvin, who's one of the worst worker I've seen. Next to him, even past his peak Hayes looked good. But in the context of peak Freebirds vs peak Von Erich, Hayes just comes off as a pretty poor worker inside the ring. Good timing, strong personnality, but shitty looking offense and very mediocre bumper. Especially when you're surrounded by such a rock solid veteran trooper like Buddy Robert and a big bumping prodigy like Gordy. Plus, all those Freebirds vs Von Erich matches really were a lot about heat, but didn't do that much for me otherwise. Really didn't stand the test of time I guess. Or they just aren't that good. Anyway, I thought Hayes was actually better as a babyface later in the decade, but still a mediocre in-ring worker overall (execution matters, sorry). And I never bought him as either a tough guy nor a cool guy. Badstreet USA kinda ruined the Freebirds intros too (coming out to Freebirds or Georgia on my mind was sooooo much cooler). Maybe the fact he's probably an old semi-racist bigot alcoholic taints my perspective as far as coolness factor goes, but then again, what's his excuse ? So nope. Not much love for Hayes from me.

Das Klaw. I went back and forth with Kerry. He did bring some good shit to his biggest matches and was game. That being said, he had the awkward Von Erich body movement and wasn't as good as David. The Flair series goes from very good to excellent (even great maybe), the Jumbo match is awesome. The Lawler feud, meh… If you love play-hide-and-seek-the-chain, I guess it's a "fun" feud, but Kerry really wasn't the same after the accident, although working on one feet and still having good matches should get some credit. I just don't see the supposed amount of "great match" on Kerry's resume, and since he's definitely a "great match candidate", Kerry won't make it. And really, it took Jumbo to make a really compelling way to work around that stupid claw. Rush's Tom Sawyer is one the greatest pro-wrestling theme you can get for an 80's babyface though, and Kerry was indeed a terrific babyface.

I have no idea, and really don't care to be honest. And I don't see where the idea of watching a match from one wrestler POV comes from actually. The only POV you're watching a match from is your own.

Arguing with Parv about Flair has caused exactly nothing to me. Mild annoyance for 5 minutes maybe. Rankings of any DVDVR sets means exactly zilch to me BTW. But it's really not a matter of trying to prove anything. I saw a thread that said "great match under 10 minutes", I saw this embeded video of a match I had seen already, but watched again to be sure that was the one, and took it as an exemple of actually not being a great match at all. But still fun. I guess saying a Lawler match is only *fun* is akin to be negative at this point, but not really. It's perfectly fine for what it is, I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, I enjoyed it again this time around. But if this is a *great match*, ok, then anything can be called a great match. And Raven would skyrocket in my top 100 then.

Of course. That's why it's a *fun little gimmick match*. It doesn't take a genius to work that gimmick either, but it's well done, and Lawler is quite funny getting money in his pocket by running away. But that's a not a great match, nor even a great angle or TV segment. Fun little gimmick match is perfectly okay though, nothing wrong with loving that.

I wouldn't even call that *good*. It's funny. Lawler stalls more than Zybszko on Lexomils, but that's what makes it funny. But if that is considered a legit *great* match, then I'm fucking Naomi Watts every week-end. Mariko Yoshida vs Yumi Fukawa from ARS 1999 first round is the best 10 minutes match I've ever seen.

After watching shitloads of WCCW stuff, I gotta say most of the Freebirds vs Von Erich stuff just don't translate well to me in 2015. It really has a feel of "you had to be there", because it got great heat, but the matches really weren't all that. I could elaborate on the Michael Haye case (from underrated to overrated), but I'll just point out that as a unit, the Freebird really weren't *that* innovative. Buddy Robert & Terry Gordy were the workhorses, Buddy being better than Gordy at the beginning of the decade (during the peak of the Von Erich feud), then Gordy getting ahead probably after getting to work Japan with Hansen. Lot of fun brawling matches. But they were just that : fun. I haven't seen any match I'd call great, then again, working with three guys whose finishers were the fucking claw, and were awkward as hell, good luck. You often hear how much Texas was a snug territory and how things were realer than elsewhere. Ok. But that doesn't mean it looked better than elsewhere. It clearly didn't. Thus, you have a case where maybe they were beating up each other for real, but it looked worse than other places where they didn't beat up each other for real. Anyway, I enjoy the Freebirds, I'm a big Gordy fan, I like early Robert a lot, I tolerate Hayes despite his shit looking, well, like shit a lot of the time (and yes, execution matters), but to me they clearly are overrated both as a working unit and an "innovative" act. Ishin Gundan thet aren't. Great draw and great heat against the three big Von Erich bros though, but that doesn't mean I think their matches were terrific. They weren't, at least not in World Class.

Frankly, I could. Watched so many Arn matches during my WCW watch, and I never ever got bored of it. And that's without taking in account most of the 80's. Arn in the 90's was a much better and interesting worker than Flair to me on average. Not sure I would (I'm still a sucker for great single matches and Flair takes the cake there easily), but I could.

Matt's post was funny as shit. Dark humour is good. Glad I saw it before the PC version.

It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match.

I would be stunned if he finished below Guerrero, Benoit or Liger this time, and I don't see their cases as particularly linked to the same trends in thought that might or might not hurt Flair. From that list, only Hansen and Funk seem like solid bets to pass him, and I don't think that's a given in either case. My gut sense is he'll finish higher this time, not lower. It would be funny as shit if he finished #8 again, but it's highly unlikely. He'll move up. Yeah probably. What's old is new again.

Funny, I actually red Barthes' Mythologies the other week. And what he says about pro-wrestling is great and also underlines why post-modern pro-wrestling really can't work (and it doesn't)

Seriously, I always loved Oz, but I always considered her a heel, even against Dynamite. Same for Tenryu or Kawada/Taue, who were grumpy assholes kicking you in the face. And again, Hokuto was only a babyface once she represented true joshi and Zenjo against that evil shootstyle bitch from LLPW Kandori. The LCO was a total heel faction from the start. Don't overplay the whole "workrate hungry generation". Many of us (I guess, since I was part of it) were fans of cool heels too, and this is probably why all these workers were pimped the way they were (Shimoda, Takako, Suzuki were all pimped more as bitchy heels then they were when they worked babyfaces, when they did). At the same time, an FMW fan like me couldn't ignore the heel/face dynamics over there, and Onita and Kudo were the two überbabyfaces this side of 80's Chiggy. And it was not hard to get behind Kudo as a babyface, seeing how awful the heel side was and how great she was at making them look passable and make herself look like the greatest overcoming though girl babyface ever at the same time (not a small feat). I don't buy for a second the heel/face dynamic was meaningless. It never was to me. But I always was mostly a heel fan. How could anyone deny the heelishness of grumpy Jumbo anyway ?

No. The issue was Parv's self importance in wanting "listener's only" to comment on his little vanity podcast project, and having an admin taking his side when there was a lot of actual discussions that could steem from actual posts in the threads, without being forced to listen to some podcast. (meanwhile, Parv's latest reaction to contradictors on the Flair thread in the GOAT poll forum was "lol", I guess because not listening to hours of podcasts makes us not worthy, while his reaction to GOTNW arguments on the podcast thread was "oh, I might as well write off this guy for good because he's a waste a time"). And "martyr" isn't even close to the right word. Just disappointed, really. It's not like I'm gonna loose sleep over this. But yeah, disappointed. Whatever.

As long as I'm not forced to listen to hours of podcasts to be allowed to discuss such esoteric workers as Ric Flair, I might send a ballot. Then again, maybe free discussion is not the idea of this board anymore.

Not an iron-man match, but there was the infamous Toyota vs Kyoko 1H match in 95 of course. And yeah JD's had a bunch back then. Fang Suzuki going an hour…

https://twitter.com/stephmcmahon/status/581881800659591168 That quote with the Susan G. Kamen logo on the back makes for a nice little side effect indeed.

He was so slim too ! Amazing clip. The best anecdote about Andre remains the one about Samuel Beckett driving him to school though.

Didn't she and Bret always denied that actually ? (not that I would believe Sunny on anything, but…)