El-P

The two things Martel had over Steamboat to me, which are more Steamboat criticims than anything else : _although Steamboat is obviously an all-time great, at times, his über-registration of shots could get a little bit goofy if you're not in the right mood _those kinda shitty looking open hands "karate" chops are the kind of things you end up accepting because they're just part of Steamboat (like you accept Tenryu's enzuigiris), but if you're truly objective, they don't look very convincing at all, nor even good, actually Martel over Steamboat doesn't shock me at all at this point, unless you'e going for the… *gasp*.. Great Mat… ok, see where I'l going.

And the answers to the question are : Ricky Morton & Chigusa Nagayo.

Again, Rick Martel has said himself that his heart wasn't into it. That sounds like a pretty reasonnable reason to me. Actually that's why he came back in the late 90's, to end his career on a high note as he was motivated again by then.

Solid undercard SWS worker. Super solid upper midcard FMW worker. Has a few really really good singles match (against Hayabusa in 95). Totally underrated. Would be remembered much more fondly if he had worked in New Japan (or maybe not). But not really a top 100 contender.

Actually, Martel said before that his heart wasn't totally into wrestling anymore at this point, as he was going into real estate and making good money at it, which is why Vince never pushed the Model gimmick really hard. So, shitty booking I wouldn't say so. FWIW, I loved Martel as the Model. No great matches, but the gimmick was gold and Martel was excellent at it.

Not really surprising. History is written by winners. The Kliq won. But yeah, looking at his title history is pretty damn hilarious. _wins the IC title from Bulldog in late 92. Apart from the rapid switch with Jannetty, doesn't lose the belt, gets suspended or something and puts his pal Razor over at Mania X in the title match. _wins the tag titles with his pal Diesel. Doesn't lose the belts, which get vacated after Survivor Series 94 and the split between the two. _wins the IC title from Jarrett. Doesn't lose the belt because of "injury", belts goes to Douglas who gets jobbed out on the same show to his pal Razor. _wins the WWF title. switch with Kliq's friend Sid, then doesn't lose the belt because he "lost his smile". _wins the tag title with Austin. Doesn't lose the belt because of whatever reason I don't even remember, Foley takes Shawn's place. _wins the WWF title via Montreal screwjob, throws a fit before losing the belt to Austin, with Taker waiting backstage in case of bullshit.

And right I was. Decent interview, a lot more based on production and operations than wrestling, of course. Not a lot of good stories though, and a lot of "I don't remember the details" indeed.

Easily the best worker in GAEA, she was incredible to watch. One of best wrestler of post-boom joshi sounds perfectly right to me. Her vs Yumi Fukawa was the dream match that never happened.

And you made mine. Didn't know France housed vampires. Damnit ! And I for one always tell my students to never use litteral translations. (so, you really can't use "you made my night" like you would with "you made my day" in English ?) (then again, I never enjoyed the sunrise)

I'm not sure Billy Gunn was actually ever over by himself. The only thing he did that ever got a reaction was say "suck it !". When he became "The One" and didn't have Road Dogg to do the intro routine anymore, he got about the same reaction as Rockabilly.

You made my night, ah ah ah !

Well, Chyna actually helped HHH get over. Like DX did. And Foley. And Stephy….

God awful worker in WWECW. Truly god awful. And although he showed potential as a green guy in WCW, he gained weight and was already pretty bad when he showed up in WWF in 99 (god, those Kane matches…). I always thought the name was lame as hell too. The Big Show ? Really ? Nah. From what I've seen and considering the opportunities he got, the biggest underachievers of superheavies. Sure, the WWE booking never did him any favours, but still. Overrated guys like Bam Bam run circles around the big oaf.

Atsushi Onita.

Arn Anderson. Shiro Koshinaka.

Good match, bordering on very good thanks to Tenryu's performance. I fail to see how this can be called great, or even top tier in a year like 1990 (if only in Japan). Gotta love George Takano's tights with his initials on : JT. Those wacky Japanese… Takano really isn't very good, he's a buffed up junior at this point, with a bunch of semi-spectacular highspots, but really isn't much of a solid worker. Does a bunch of kicks and dive, looks strong, some goofy palm strikes. He actually was outworked by his usually shitty and fat brother the night before during the tag tournament final, which was a better match too. Tenryu sold his ankle after he used it to prevent Takano from using the german suplex. Takano beat Tenryu with that hold during the tag tournament final, so that was a good element of psychology of having Tenryu volontarily "sacrifying" his ankle by having Takano crumble onto it instead of allowing the german suplex that already defeated him the night before. So yeah, Tenryu was ace during that match and carried that goofball Takano to probably his best single match as a heavyweight (haven't watched the Cobra stuff in years, but I'm not sure Takano was ever that good of a worker). Welcome to "Money Puroresu", presented to you by Megane Super, a freaking glass company. It would be like Afflelou promoting catch in France. Odd. That fed was goofy as hell and not as supremely random as WAR would be, but it had its cool moments.

Typical SMW random match, the kind of like WAR would proudly deliver on regular occasions. Orton looked really good here, actually better than during most of his WWF stint. The match was fine, but the final with Tenryu & Kabuki vs the Takano brothers is really good, with Kabuki showing he had quite a bit left in the tank, and Shunji surprisingly having a solid showing (actually better than his brother).

Hum… just watch that Fuji vs Tenryu match from that WAR show in 93, and if I could find a bunch of matches as good as this, there's a case to be made for Fuji actually not being as dull as fuck as I thought, at least in big matches. This is excellent, and Fuji has some tricks up his sleeves, as this terrific counter for Tenryu's rolling kick. Tenryu's execution really can be problematic at points though, and Fuji was much better in that respect. Honestly, this gives me the urge to revisit a lot of NJ from the 90's to see if Fuji was not actually as good or better than Flair in the 90's after all. Yeah, I'm kind of eating my words after watching this match, but I have no problem doing so if means I'm watching good stuff I wasn't expecting. I still have bad memories of Fuji during that period, including his nostalgia reign in 98 or so. That Tenryu match was only in 93 though, but it smokes pretty much any Flair match/performances from that year apart from the Vader match.

Because some people miles past their prime still deliver good or even better stuff. Piper was godawful, and he was not that old either. So yeah. But really, even isolated peak Piper would have no shot, so in the end, it makes no difference whatsoever to me.

Like shootsyle ?

DItto. He's been on a roll lately.

Thanks for the laugh.

Kansai at her peak (mid 90's until the health problems) was a terrific worker.

Still. It's like Goldy had never existed and they went back Hogan like the previous year when they basically erased Sting from the top spot after a 14 months build (with the amazing evil Hogan promo). The Flair/Hogan deal was a last drop of nostalgia. It couldn't be sustained. Really, in term of symbolism, the Fingerpoke was it.

How's he wrong? The Raw rating that week jumped an entire half a point from the week before, from 3.48 to an even 4.0, the highest number they'd scored in six months. They fell again the next week and wavered for a while, but immediately following Wrestlemania the ratings leaped higher and higher than they'd ever been before. It's pretty widely agreed that the whole Stone Cold/Mike Tyson angle was what drew new fans to watch the WWF in large hordes. No, my post was confusing, that's what I meant. HHH is usually in denial about his own importance, but the Austin/Tyson deal is just too historicaly significant for him to deny *that* one. That would be insane.