El-P

Nah. Their best work was in 96 when Luger was a goofy tweener. And that's not about in-ring work. The 1990 Steiner match is one of the most overrated match of the 90's (along with the Steiner vs Hase & Sasaki match from the Dome. See the pattern ?).

I'm an ECW and a Sabu fan. But RVD is a no no. Clusterfuck Express.

Oh yeah. The Old Ace & the Young Ace together against the Funks. Terrific team of the 70's.

*vomit*

Ah ah ah !

I don't even see what's sleazy about it if it were true honestly. Ok, they're friends and swingers. And what ? They have nice orgies together and then make money in the same company. Ok. Good for them.

I would need to watch U-style, which was the island after the flood. Battlarts is both insanely fun and suppremely overrated. I like the best guys over there, but no. They don't compare. No, he doesn't. I just went through a dozen or so of UWF & UWF-I matches in the last week. You can say "Takada is sleeping on the floor", it doesn't make it true. Takada was a decent matworker. Not great at all, but decent. Enough for what he wanted to do, especially when others could carry the load on that matter, like Sano, Fujiwara, Yamazaki etc... No. That's just how he worked his escapes and knock downs. It's just like Onita would do in his own way and his own style. Just milking shit up, having a great body language and facial expressions.

Ok, I rewatch the sequence, because I'm annoying like that. Listening to the crowd noise, it's not really accurate, sorry. The crowd noise lowers exactly when Takada takes Fuji by the hand to drag him at the center of the ring. So I blame Fuji, who didn't go for the knock down in what could/should have been a dramatic moment. Then Takada grabs his "shitty" leglock, crowd reacts mildly. Fuji doesn't do shit. Crowd dies. Fuji does nothing while it's the ending sequence that should be hot. Takada feeds him his legs so Fuji counters the right one and grabs the left one and finally puts on his submission. Crowd pops. But the entire sequence came off anticlimatic because of Fuji's reluctance to 1) go down for the kicks 2)immediately counter the "shitty" submission. And really, if the submission was that shitty, Fuji should have said "fuck this" and counter it immediately instead of lying on the back while the crowd was dying. Or he could have sold it like death. That's what great workers do, they sell, and even if the execution of the hold is not top notch (and you won't get an argument from me that Takada is that great matworker with super tight holds, because he's not), it works because the selling does the entire job. He did neither. We can agree on that. It was just that. Ok. Not very good. Not noodly either. Just ok.

The problem with Ziggler is that he looks like Billy Gunn.

Wanting great matwork from Takada is like wanting great matwork from Jerry Lawler. It's just not his game. I don't know why people can't get that through their heads. I guess it's an entirely stylistic matter. "Oh, it's shoot-style so it's about matwork and kicking.". Not necessarily. These are just tools. Takada had the most pro-style mind of the shoot-style guys. And he became the biggest star ever in his realm because of it actually. I have not seen enough Sakata to judge, but his work came mostly after the shoot-style was gone anyway. I don't think HUSTLE produced that much classics. His wife is awesome though. The other two are mostly MMA guys, aren't they ? So I don't even see the point. By UWF standarts, Takada was a very good striker, that's all. His ability to create drama is all about selling and milking shit Onita-style. Nothing to do with pure kicking ability (and really, the ability to create drama of Jerry Lawler has nothing to do with his "wrestling" ability either)

Nice preterition. But that's the very first time I hear that bout the Meros. The rumours going around was Bischoff and Page swapping wives, but there really haven't been anything to it.

But not in a cool way like Rude was !

Interesting. I had seen Finlay in NJ before WCW I think, I guess on Eurosport. But I didn't realize Finlay's WCW work was atypical. And really, although I think he's tremendous as a mechanic, he's lacking something to me, and his WWE work just doesn't cut it in term of great performances either. Don't get me wrong, I like him a lot. But I wonder if he's not in the same bag with DiBiase to me.

Nah. You're the one falling asleep and Takada decline any responsability if you're not paying attention. As far as looking like he's actually fighting, well, I've never seen Cena punt anyone with kicks and palm strikes as agressively as Takada does. Especially when he's pissed when the guy he's working with is the one not paying attention. And when he's going for the ropes trying to escape the submissions, he's simply one of the best ever at making it dramatic and urgent.

Yeah, defensive wasn't the right word, hence the " ". I explained what I meant afterward. Oh yeah, he's awesome at selling the escapes and KOs. And yeah, he's about flash and drama. I've been saying that for 15 years now.

May I ask, who is Paula ? As far as being boring, I remember not being impressed at all by his New Japan when he toured for the Super Junior in 93 or so.

Well, Japanese don't even have letters to begin with. BTW, Hido does have a weird career. Culminating with marying Megumi MF Kudo.

After rewatching a bunch of stuff recently : Nobuhiko Takada. Great worker, no doubt about it. And probably Backlund. And maybe...

(from the yearbook discussion) Takada's biggest strenght is actually on "defense", making every big KO he takes and every submissions he's put on look like death and milk them Onita style. Takada can be awesome on offensive too, especially standing up, kicking or punching you in the face (the headbutt revenge spot during his February 90 match against Fujiwara was a great exemple for instance, as is him punting Kosh face in 96 in retaliation of a dropkick), and although he's not a mat wizard like Fujiwara is, he's excellent at feeding holds to his opponent. And that's what his game is about : he doesn't want to look like a great technician, he doesn't care about that like John Cena doesn't care to work like Steven Regal. He wants to create drama, be put into holds so he can get into the ropes in a frenzy and sell every knock down to the maximum effect. That's Takada's game. Pro-wrestling mentality vs shoot-style mentality ? Who cares. He's terrific at what he does.

When I say he wasn't selling the kicks *that much*, I'm talking about both time he was in the corner eating a flurry. He was just standing there instead of putting them over. As far as Takada only looking good when he's on offensive, that's very wrong, as Takada's biggest strenght is actually on "defense", making every big KO he takes and every submissions he's put on look like death and milk them Onita style. Takada can be awesome on offensive too, especially standing up, kicking or punching you in the face (the headbutt revenge spot here was great), and although he's not a mat wizard like Fujiwara is, he's excellent at feeding holds to his opponent. And that's what his game is about : he doesn't want to look like a great technician, he doesn't care about that like John Cena doesn't care to work like Steven Regal. He wants to create drama, be put into holds so he can get into the ropes in a frenzy and sell every knock down to the maximum effect. That's Takada's game. Pro-wrestling mentality vs shoot-style mentality ? Who cares. He's terrific at what he does.

Watching at this thread, and having not followed the build, I realize I have zero interest in this card, which is kinda sad actually. I may still watch it because it's the second biggest card of the year for WWE (although it really doesn't feel like it apart from Taker vs Lesnar, which sounds bad on paper anyway considering their last match one year ago), but really, I only "care" about Rusev and Cesaro vs Owens. The NXT show doesn't look that great either. The woman match I want to watch, likewise Liger only because of the WTF factor of Liger on WWE TV. Blake & Murphy, Baron Corbin I don't care for at all. The main event could be really good, although I'm not sold on Balor yet (and his intro gets on my nerves).

Well, I went threw a bunch of entire cards from 1990 already, and it was really fun for the most part. UWF 2.0 was a terrific promotion, probably the best shoot-style promotion top to bottom (Tamura in RINGS remains my favourite, ever, but the undercards were often marred with awful stuff)

Garbage. Not as bad as the 01/04 match (but what is ?), but really, whenever Ogawa gets on offense, it's legit pathetic. Hash succeeds in making it watchable and entertaining for a while, but having him sell for the godawful offense of Ogawa (who sucks to an amazing degree, Dennis Rodman was a better worker than this) forever is just depressing. A hundred STO and shitty kicks later, Hash looks dead. I never understood the reasoning behind this whole program. It killed Hash as a draw and he was never the same after this abortion of a feud. Fuck you Inoki.

Do the later NOAH years, when he was immobile and doing a billion chops and a bunch of head drops, hurt him at this point ? I'm sure some would advocate he still had some great matches then, while others probably hate this same period.

The stuff I've seen from the 00's was rather underwhelming from memories, but it was some time ago now (probably around the SC poll).