El-P

Am I wrong to be actually interested and intrigued about this ?

Well, this was the best Johnny Mundo match I've ever seen, although he still does work like a cross between RVD and Dean Malenko, with all the cool and terrible things that go with it. Both tag matches were good, the Hernandez turn was really well done, with some interesting dynamic during the match. Now, Alberto vs Hernandez sure looks intriguing on paper. I enjoy the Crew as a latino K-DX (sorry for the dated references), with Cisco as Dick Togo (or as a Gedo, actually). Those vignettes. The more Tarentino-esque this company gets, the better. Daivari ? I had no idea. Damn, La Catrina is back, and waking up the monster. That promotion is so cool, really. The perfect antidote to WWE's dated, dull product.

The Oz Academy reunification for Carlos's retirement was cool as hell. And I'm glad to see that at 46, Ozaki is still the coolest of them all.

Hey, if AJ Lee can get a thread, Carlos Amano, JWP veteran of almost 20 years (I think she began in the mid 90's), retiring from pro-wrestling surely deserves her own thread. From what I remember she was a really good worker, part of the new wave of JWP girls from the mid-90's with Azumi Hyuga, Ran Yu-Yu and Kana Mizaki. I'm amazed she was still active actually. She got her retirement ceremony at an Oz Academy show on 04/15. If joshi wasn't the most forgotten part of pro-wrestling today, I guess it would be quite a news for old fans of the 90's.

For her to satisfy the trifecta of Hall of Fame, her "impact" and her performance needs to be good. For her to not be the most cancerous sore on the wrestling industry, her impact needs to be not be the most alarmingly destructive the industry has never seen. She fails on both accounts. As a performer, she made El Gigante look like Toshiaki Kawada. That bled over to her training: all Moolah proteges wrestled in the same hair-pulling, screaming shitty style that she used. As a booker of women's wrestling, not only did she use her power to hold back talent for 30 fucking years, she also was directly responsible in the devolution of women's wrestling from a reasonably respectable style of wrestling to a pathetic sideshow carnival; bearded women in circuses had more respect than women's wrestling did in her reign of terror. Mildred Burke was not the draw Jim Londos was in her time, but she was good enough to fill out arenas as a performer. No woman in the U.S.A drew a single dime after Moolah took over until horny teenagers started buying Sable merchandise. That is how destructive she was. She killed an entire sub-genre of wrestling, and was greedy enough to pocket most of the money the women did make. Not to mention rumours of her actually pimping some girls. Luna used to tell some bad stories about that if I recall.

Awful for most his career, and tried to made up for it by being insane. But still ended up looking awful most of the time. I think Shoji Nakamaki has better performances. He's probably a much better cook.

Nowhere near as bad as he was pimped to be at some point. Had some decent stuff here and there in FMW and other sleazy garbage indies in the late 90's/early 00's. Looked like a rat yet married Megumi Kudo.

Nominating Hido.

Das worker from early FMW days. A more solid base than pretty much everyone there, training with AJPW will do that to you. Although the first exploding deathmatches with Onita were experiments and the formula developped later, Goto brought a good amount of actual wrestling in those. Always fun to watch to me, would have had much more chances to deliver good matches if he didn't end up in the lower end of the Japanese indie-sleaze after the mid 90's. Got fat and more selfish with times too, but damn, he was like an angrier Kodo Fuyuki, or a sleazy-ass Tenryu. The IWA title match with Foley is easily Foley's best japanese match, the Bathhouses deathmatches are the most ridiculous and fun oddity I've ever seen, and Goto is godlike in those. I basically would have loved to see him come back in FMW in 97 or so, or work with WAR instead.

Black hole.

Debra was never with Jeff Jarrett. And I don't see how "bouncing" from one guy to another makes her a crazy woman. She had different relationships. Ok. And ? Like everyone, basically. There's no excuse, period. The fact that Austin considers it a mistake in his life and regrets his behaviour at the time is enough for me to not put him in the same bag as a shithead woman abuser like Floyd. And yeah, the fact Triple H still puts him over tells everything you need to know about the moral values of this company. Woman beater = ok. A woman with issues (whom you dumped like a crap btw) doing a bunch of porns = bad. Yeah.

Terrific team by two terrific workers. They inspired Gannosuke & Kanemura too.

Apart from not liking ECW (I'm an ECW fan, yes, I am), I could have wrote this post. Unwatchable in ECW (marginally better than PE and worse than the Gangstas) and way overrated in WWF working those "diving from high places though furnitures" matches which made those three teams famous. Gimmicky as hell because of the era (annoying sing-along catchphrases), offensive as characters and getting awful reactions from the crowds (babyface pops for putting women through tables, which was a 6 year old gimmick by this point anyway). They did get better in the WWF, but still... Bubba was the worker. D-Von may have been the cool guy in real life, but man did he sucked.

One of the best music theme ever. And the greatest, most surrealistic, most pro-wrestling post-mortem sendoff ever. I haven't watched the Footloose in ages, but I don't remember thinking Fuyuki was better than Kawada back then. I do love the team though. His FMW stuff is probably one of the greatest case of overachieving ever this side of DDP.

Totally agree with this. I can always get interested into any kind of Sabu match to this day.

Has Tarzan Goto been nominated yet ? If not, well, he should at this point. I mean, there are tons of way shittier workers discussed already. The two deathmatches with Onita from 90, the IWA title match against Cactus in 95, the two bathhouse deathmatches with Gannosuke vs HeadHunters and then Nakamaki & Ohno (or was that Yamada ?).

So basically we can nominate anyone. Godawful worker. And no, his SMW work wasn't that good either. He was "decent" at very best there. Only worker I know with my first name. I'm so honored...

In 96 I easily take Douglas over Michaels (in pretty much every category, work, character, promos, angles). As far as minor past-his-prime acomplishements, he was the saving grace of awful dance partners in mid 00's, when he got watchable matches out of awful feuds. I should check out his TNA stint one of these days, just to see if there's something there. (answer : no) All in all, Douglas is pretty underrated at this point. Can't wait to listen to Austin's two-part podcast with him too.

Anyone watched Foley's "stand up" show ? I thought it was pretty unfunny overall. I cracked a few smiles here and there, but... not much interesting stuff that hasn't been heard dozen times before, in much funnier fashions. And damn, Foley looks sad moving around like a broken down old guy. And Colette, well, hasn't aged very gracefully either to be honest that or the WWE makeup departement really made her look older than she is, which is also very possible).

Killshot vs Fenix was pretty bad and disjointed, but at least the right guy won. That triple threat match was fun for a triple threat match, and the goofy Moth character getting beat up was cute, as was his vignette. Texano is turning babyface I guess. The second I saw those four jabronies I had a flashback to Nitro in 1999 and half-expected Sid to squash them. I wasn't that far off. That Trios champs interview by Vamp was pretty funny. Vamp is definitely in his best role here, as is Konnan as a manager. Who would have guessed I would have eventually enjoyed both of them ? Not me. That Drago vs Puma main event was really cool with a big match (for LU) feel. Nice send-off for Drago, but sad to see him go since he was one of my favourite. Can't we have a Johnny Mundo send-off instead ? This show remains a lot of fun to watch, and Dario Cueto is the best non-wrestling character in ages. Being a real actor surely helps.

Lana is full on Sable mode now. That makes Rusev the next Marvelous Marc Mero. Yikes. (unless it's a "swerve" which would end by Lana finally helping Rusev win back the US title, since apparently the feud isn't over, but…)

Calling him by his real name Phil Lafon really hurt his perception in the WWF I believe (and French just don't get over as babyfaces anyway unless you're in Montreal). He was billed from Paris, France. Oh man, I forgot about that. Another fake French guy. From Paris, of course. From where else ? Plus the name just doesn't evoke "asskicker", unlike Dan Kroffat. It's pretty amazing to watch him drop Al Snow on his head with a Cobra Clutch suplex in a competitive squash on RAW. That audience sure never saw that before. But between the dull French sounding name, the über generic music theme and working as a babyface when he was at his best as a shitbag asskicker, he was doomed. But Kroffat was an terrific worker during his peak in AJ. One of those guys like Scorp that I would have prefered to see in WCW instead of WWF at the time. I can only picture Kroffat vs Regal or Finlay...

Yeah, it's fun to see the main protagonists of the upcoming new golden era becoming more and more important on TV. The heel vs heel dynamic was interesting too, a sign that the WWF was ready to take some risks again. Watching Taker jump in the ring at the end foreshadows so much of the main programs of the early Attitude Era. Very good TV match too. (athough Terry Gordy was sad to watch, and the goofy Executionner outfit made it even worse)

Nah, Doink the evil clown and 3-Count the atrocious boys band were actual good, relevant gimmicks. Here's one for you that I enjoyed since day one : The New Blakjacks. That's the Barry Windham mark in me speaking, and I also enjoyed Bradshaw when he was a pissed off cowboy. They looked sloppy (and fat, as far as Windham goes) but they kicked ass. I wish they had been pushed to tag team champs status and worked feuds with Kroffat/Furnas and Owen/Davey. The tag team scene in 1997 was so odd and fun in a way, with the Head Bangers push and the Godwinns makeover as evil rednecks, mixed in with AJPW gaijins veterans and washed up LOD.

Indeed. To me this match is a MOTYC as far as pure fun goes, I don't give a shit, they had me actually genuinely happy at the end, I mean legit marking out because my favourites won. Super babyface performances by all three of them. And yeah, that dive by Angelico was a thing of pure beauty. With Sexy Star vs Pentagon Jr. being as good as a Star match can be, this was one terrific episode.