El-P

It's funny because even then ppl complained that it wasn't what it once was but joshi would kill now to be at the lvls they were in 05. AJW had been on the heavy death march since 03 so it wasn't a totall surprise when they collapsed, GAEA was still drawing well & putting on good shows so it came out of nowhere when they threw in the towell however. GAEA closed down when Chiggy decided she wanted to quit. Simple as that. Chiggy never saw GAEA has the future of joshi, it was always a vehicule for her own benefit, much like ONita with FMW. SHe could have keep on promoting GAEA, it was the number one joshi promotion. She just didn't care to. Ah, Chiggy, always the giving one. I began using "zombi fed" as early as 2000/2001 talking about JWP, NEO and Jd'. It was painfull to see joshi fell of a cliff so bad at the time. In a matter of a few years, it went from big events and a potential great future, to a bunch of mini-feds not being able to pack Korakuen Hall. ARSION was super exciting for 1 year and a half, then slowly slid then got sucked into Lioness claws and became just another z-fed. I never bothered to check out AtoZ, I taped out way before that.

Back then UFC wasn't a competition, WCW was. Well, they did advertise for WCW too with Billionnaire Ted skits and fake Diesel & Razor.

He was black ? Just a wild guess. Yeah, Reed as a Horseman in 90 instead of Sid would have been all kind of good. Perfect fit.

Yep. And Jackie Brown's script is great. Russo can't write a story that makes sense to save his life. Of course, After Jackie Brown, Tarentino's stock has dropped immensely with me, as I think both Kill Bill and Boulevard de la Mort are a complete waste, and Inglorious Bastards is half really good, half waste. And he was a terrible president at Cannes. I can't think of any big name cinematographic equivalent to Russo to be honest. Oh, yes I can, Shyamalan.

No.

Good match, and great angle. It's too bad the Quebecers didn't get a longer, more consistent run because they were one hell of a team. It's a fine little territorial war too, as it's Calgary's Harts vs Montreal's Rougeaus basically (Oulette was trained by Jacques). Post match angle is awesome, Owen was just great in finally bursting out of frustration (and he was right to boot, Bret was selfish). And of course, the immortal words : "I kicked your leg out of your leg."

Very boring rumble with bad timing and tons of filling up spots with midcarders without issues. Kwang and Sparky Thurman Plugg debuts, thrilling. The bright spots were Diesel running wild and getting a reaction, which pretty much saved his career in WWF, Jannetty throwing himself into Michaels for a few seconds, a cool exemple of long term continuity, and the final spot, which was really unexpected at the time. DiBiase on color was terribly bland, yet another role post wrestling he was not good at.

Aja kills Hotta. Great stuff.

It was kinda sad to see a huge star like Tenryu buried in a see of WWF heel midcarder. This guy would sold out 40.000 seats or so a few months later with Onita at Kawasaki Stadium, which is something no one in the US could be able to do at the same time. At 17 I thought the post-match angle was awesome. Looking back 20 years later, it's kinda retarded. Is that the first occurence of WWF using grand production to sell a flat out supernatural angle ?

Loved those jobbers with pun names. Paul Lee. Jim Boss.

That cracked me up pretty good.

Interesting look. So, from what I understand, Brock vs Cena already at a B PPV right after WM ? Well, that didn't take long.

Dean Douglas. And he was supposed to be pushed quite a bit before the Clique screwed him up. Chris Candido. Never was supposed to be pushed much, but stayed around for a while and even got a tag title reign (with red trunks...).

Sure, but really, I would have enjoyed Punk vs Henry just as much ten years ago. Ok, maybe not as much, I think I actualy enjoys it more today than I would have then, because I'm more open minded and loose now.

Back then, when snowflakes used to be thrown around for every match talked about, MOTYC meant an absolute judgment. To me a match could be MOTYC if the ratings was no less than ****1/4. I know this kind of thinking is a bit passé, but to me the term MOTYC still means a certain absolute quality. It's a same thing when I judge movies. If I don't have more than 2 or 3 movies that I can say are Movies-of-the-year candidates, it means that it's a pretty weak year. If I have zero and that the best movie I've seen is no better than *very good*, then it's a winner by default, but not really a MOTYC. Throw it a year back and it wouldn't be a MOTYC. Well, it's the same thing there.

My point exactly.

Afraid to die before he accomplishes everything he wants maybe. Anyway, the very thought of the Great Khali in the Tree of Life is mindfucking. But watching him in a French movie adapted from a belgian comic was quite the surprise too. I did get a kick out of Kurrgan in the first Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. Great monster in there. Doesn't the Great Khali look kinda like Kurrgan on growth hormones ?

Just saw the Great Khali in a movie. No, I mean a real movie, mainstream, directed by the excellent Alain Chabat, an adaptation of Franquin's comic books, "Sur la piste du Marsupilami". One of the big movies of this early spring in France. I doubt it will ever be distibuted in the US though, but I thought it was funny. And he was refered to as The Great Khali in the credits.

It will sound like a total cliché, but the disapearance of kayfaybe does hurt the perception of wrestling a lot. Everything is too self-conscious these days, including the audience.

Well, after watching so many horrible and nightmarish stuff on that card, I was expecting another huge turd with this match, and watching Gang bump really well for Gigante, actually do some logical stuff like attacking the knee for a while, deliver a flying clothesline that looked really good (Kane still hasn't figured it out) made me enjoy this match way more than I should have. Hey, I never said he had a good match with El Gigante, I said almost got a decent match. Gotta love the get thrown out of the top rope spot when the audience is asking for Flair. The knee attack was nice for a few shots, but you don't want OMG and El Gigante work submissions on the mat, do you ? Like you said, the real reason was kill some time off before Gigante gets back to his feet. OMG always looked sluggish, it's part of his monster appeal. I don't expect him to run around the ring. Anyway, my comment was half-jokingly written, of course Ricky Morton was the best worker on the show and had the best match (which was nothing special), but with everyone either booked in shitty stipulation matches (Austin, Taylor, Eaton, Arn) or underperforming (Windham, Pillman), Gang provided the most surprisingly entertaining performances of the night, as Gigante is usually FF material only. Expection and context played an important role I guess.

Well, as I have stated on my very first post, I also think there's quite a bit of matter of difference of taste that also plays into it. I understand perfectly. That being said, I do think a 10 minutes TV match can be much better than a 30 minutes epic, especially since the TV match works and the 30 minute epic fails to meet my criteria. To me the format is irrelevant to being a MOTYC or not though. I have seen 10 minutes matches that ended up being legit great match. I have seen countless boring 20 minutes plus main events. And not to mention the modern "self-conscious" epic which I can't stand. I wish there will be a match on WWE TV this year that I'll find legit great, so I could make a comparison between this one and the Punk/Henry match.

Ok cool.

Sorry if I got the thread into another direction, that wasn't my intent, but my point is in fact all about asking myself "Have the standarts dropped that much ?" and not "Has there been any better matche on WWE TV yet." I think my point organically derives from the first question actually, because if Punk vs Henry really does look like the best stuff on WWE TV thus far, it means that WWE TV doesn't produce a whole lot of really good matches, and that having this one as a MOTYC thus far means that 2012 MOTYC meets pretty low standards.

I haven't rewachted it, but I remember it as being truly an excellent match, one of the best single Gedo match ever.

Part of it is, I guess, but I think it's interesting to talk about what should be a MOTYC in 2012, and does that imply that standarts have dropped despite the fact there *may* be more good TV matches than ever (at least from the perspective of people who have followed WWE TV in the last 10 years). Transfer Punk vs Henry in 1997, and although it's a very good TV match, it just won't hold a candle to Owen vs Bulldog from Germany or Bret vs Austin from Mania, which were legit MOTYC. Would it be a notable very good TV match ? Maybe, I'd have to watch back 97 Raw which have haven't since then, I guess there may be some good stuff buried there too, but yeah, it probably would look good. The fact that you consider it a MOTYC to me is already baffling from my perspective. Either we disagree a lot despite the fact I enjoyed it and think it's quality wrestling, either the overall quality of what passes for "great wrestling" has dropped a lot since the 90's. It's simple, if by the end of the year, Punk vs Henry still looks like one of the top 5 matches on TV, it means that there was no great wrestling on TV, despite the enormous amount of competitive TV match. Which would imply that not only the standarts have dropped so much that a really good TV match is pimped as awesome, but the overall quality of work has dropped a lot too, despite the current WWE formula which makes it easier for workers to work good matches. I don't think anyone made that claim here. I even said some of the pimped SNME matches are overrated because there was so few of them that all of a sudden a really good match was more remarquable. That being said, you can have a mediocre TV week to week with occasionnal excellent matches (the 90's maybe) and good average week to week TV with nothing better than *good* (the 00's and beyond maybe). The point is : have the standarts dropped ? I think they have, for a number of reasons. Well, speaking about what should constitute a MOTYC seems interesting, but maybe this should be cut into another thread.