El-P

I can't believe I haven't said anything about Onita, who's an old huge favourite of mine. Funny that for the longest time he was ridiculously underrated as a worker. But *great* worker ? Let's be fair for once. He's great at being Onita, and he does some stuff better than anyone (work a death match, for instance, which is fitting; milking dangerous spots; crying). But even as a big time Onita fan, I wouldn't call him a great worker. Some of his stuff looks downright awful. Of course the whole is more important than the sum of its part with Onita. Would he make my list ? Without a doubt.

Hayabusa could be a very good worker when he wanted to be. Super charismatic too, and had a strong connection with the FMW crowd. This poll needs some serious FMW love.

Judging Tanaka's 20 years career on a bunch of matches he worked in ECW which cattered to the worst instincts of the time (and style) is kinda like judging Jerry Lawer based on the kiss-my-foot match in WWF and "Puppies!". He was never as good as Gannosuke at his peak, but I think I'll have no issue putting him as the second best FMW worker ever (yeah, better than Hayabusa on average although he had a few annoying tendencies). I mostly draw a blank on his post 00's years, but from what I've seen from time to time, he was still a hell of a worker.

Russooooooooooo !

Is this a Bam Bam Bigelow special ?

PPV 15 was awful. The only notable thing was the debut of Curt Hennig, sporting a brand new (ugly and loud) outfit, which he never bothered to get when he was in WCW. Hennig & Syxx-Pac & BJ James vs Brian Lawler & Jeff Jarrett & Ron Killings was decent, although Hennig didn't show much of anything really, and we get the second appearance of Mr. Wrestling III aka soon-to-be-Vince Russo. The rest of show show consisted of a bunch of clusterfucks X-division matches, with stupid booking and restarts and nonsensical finishes (1st contender 4-way Iron-Man match - 1st contender match ending in 60 seconds then a multi-man ladder match for the title). The only other watchable match of that bunch was Harris & Storm vs SAT, which was as "good" as a SAT match can be (Joel seems less worse than Jose, but I'm not positive about this). Chris Rock showed up for no reason. Then we get some appearance by some sport guy and Miss TNA. Yeah. That show was a complete waste. It seems like Russo was gaining more power backstage, which would explain why he would soon write himself into the shows, and why so many stupid gimmick matches and idiotic booking. A terrible show. The highlight was the blonde cage dancer.

UWFi's Barry Horowitz.

Well, I was praying to the altar of Volk Han, Tamura and Khosaka about 15 years ago... As far as "realistic", let's not even go there. I might drop that Fujiwara headbutt spot again. And really, nothing is less realistic than a Bitzade Tariel work. Nothing.

PPV 14 had a few good matches and a lot of bad booking, including run-ins seemingly in or after every match. Low-Ki vs Ron Killings was Killings best match thus far, and Ki deserves a lot of credit for selling so well. They worked it like Killings would take the advantage by brawling, including some interesting spots outside, and it made for a good little dynamic. Post match smelled rotten though, with the shitty run-in of a shitty looking flabby mask guy, which I guess is Mr. Retarded himself. I dread the moment he'll actually get on TV… In the same good match/stupid booking vein, Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles in a ladder match was really good, expect for a few quicky comebacks (I'm thinking of Styles comeback after the suplex on the ladder outside), with some creative but not contrived use of the ladder, and a good flow until the idiotic end with a Sonny Siaki run-in (the second one of the show) followed by a Dusy finish. Yep. A Dusty finish in a ladder match. Something that really didn't need to happen, but you know who's booking this shit. Anyway… Third good little match was Amazing Red vs Shark Boy (who apparently is a "cult favourite" in late WCW, which is something that totally eluded me when I watched that particular kind of crap), quite indy spotfuesque, but still fun for what is was. I kinda like Shark Boy. On the other hand, SAT vs Flying Elvises was a bad indy spotfu. I really have no time for the SAT. And Sonny Siaki, in complete Rock clone mode (which makes him quite annoying now, as opposed to kinda funny as long as he was an Elvis), doing a run-in didn't do this match any favour anyway. A watchable tag team match between Harris & Storm vs Harris (yeah, Ron) & some dude named Ashley Hudson (who was actually enjoyable as he's an old-school kinda worker) with more threats of this feud turning into the comeback of the dreaded Harris Twins tag team. And a semi-decent main event consisting of Jeff Jarrett & Brian Lawler vs BJ James & Syxx-Pac, with Lawler is total Memphis comedy heel while Jarrett & Syxx were in 99 WWF TV match mode. James was in "I got fat and don't do shit anymore since I used to be a big star, remember ?" mode, and as much as I enjoyed his mic work, his work is very disapointing. The ending saw Jarrett bash a bunch of people with a chair. This is really old already. The most notable thing was an offensive "babyface" promo by Syxx before the match, saying to Lawler that "You treat your girlfriend like a bitch, and as long as you do I'll keep on banging her behind your back.", with the added insult that if he gets nicer he might have the right to watch. Okay, none of this makes sense really, and it's the typical mysoginic shit that Russo loves, as April doesn't even get to react, she's just there to be abused by Lawler and be call a bitch. If that was a take on Jerry & Stacy, well, it was both cryptic, meta and totally useless (not to mention petty and low class). I can't say I missed watching this show very much, and this episode was particulary heavy on stupid shit. 2002.10.02 Low-Ki vs Ron Killings 2002.10.02 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn

That's an argument I'll like to read, since I'd probably agree in the end.

The Shane Douglas double edition was excellent. The oxycotin story I've heard before (on a KC release I believe), but it's still a fascinating and horrific story. Glad he got out of it. Tons of good stuff in part two also.

That would have taken some thoughts, patience and trust into Rusev & Lana as a long term viable act. Crazy concept indeed. Rusev & Lana were the only thing of interest to me leading to Mania, and I have absolutely lost every bit of interest into them now. That's a shame, Lana was so good in her heel role.

I like Fujiwara a lot (and think he was a great worker at his peak, which would be in the mid 80's). But those headbutts are goofier and less "shoot-style" than anything Takada ever did. And I have no problem with this actually. But it still makes me chuckle every time I hear that Fujiwara is that "great pure shoot-style worker" compared to the evil "all style no substance pro-style worker" Takada. But it's really a dead horse now, since Fujiwara being the God of shoot-style really is the new doxa at this point.

Yeah, those goofy as fuck Fujiwara headbutts were "pure shootstyle". And all those god awful matches involving shitty gaijins in RINGS didn't expose the style at all either. (I love the best RINGS, probably some of my favourite stuff ever, but the bad stuff was atrocious) The negative bias toward Takada and UWFi (the "farce" that also was the hottest promotion in Japan for a while) is ridiculous.

I can't recall a good HTM match ever. He was a gimmick that drew money for one year.

Watched the Steve Austin seasons a few years back. Was funny thanks to Steve Austin's priceless promos. Trish was cool. Hugh Morrus looked like a shit trainer (guess who won the poney ?). And of course, the entire thing was a joke, as the winner was bitchslapped by Vince only to be never seen again and fired not too long ago. I have no idea why anyone would have any interest at this point.

He's the best Shoji Nakamaki ever. That's my case *for* Necro Butcher. So yeah. Total 00's US garbage indies "bubble guy".

Hum... Flair garbage stuff wasn't like Onita *at all*. (And it was embarrasing, but that's beside the point)

I do apologize for that WWECW thread. This promotion was dirty, indeed.

Amazing to know he's still around. Last time I Checked (in 2001 or so), he was working in MPro.

And people talk about freaking Nobuhiko Takada as a "bubble" guy.

The Jarrett's promo was pretty good. Especially Karen's which shocks me cause she's so awful in AAA. Just watched the promo, and yeah, I agree. Although my curiosity about GFW has dropped quite a bit to be honest (six sided-ring... bad idea, automatically refers to TNA).

This cloud is porn.

I don't know if I would go that far, but I expected a clusterfuck and they delivered one hell of a match, with tons of good ideas down the stretch. The one thing I wasn't crazy about was the big Puma comeback after the tables were set up, a little bit too jumpy for me, in a match where the selling was actually well done most of the time. Apart from that, damn that match was fun. Mundo is so much better as a heel, and I think the format of the match allowed them to get creative in a good way. Most logical guitar shot ever. A holy shit spot that actually deserved the chant. Hey, actually, maybe I'd go as far as saying this is a MOTYC to me too. I love this show.

Like Brian's racist grandma on the Bryan and Vinny show? Care to elaborate ? I haven't listened to this godforsaken show in years (I mean, are people really paying to hear Alvarez grandma blab nonsense ?) (and yeah, I second the sentiment. Old fucks saying stupid shit aren't funny just because they are old fucks)