El-P

Nord ? I don't think so. It was Brian Clark (Wrath/Adam Bomb) who did. Maybe Nord had a big wining streak on Saturday Night though.

I seem to remember a fun John Nord vs Barbarian match on Nitro sometime. I think I've seen Nord have a good match with Snuka in 1991, and that was Nord's doing. He's a guy I wish would have recieved a bigger push somewhere.

Yep. He was an immature manipulative asshole in life, so it fit him perfectly. This is also my favourite Michaels era as far as character goes, from the Summer of 97 to WM 14.

I won't even comment on Takada because it's beating on a dead horse at this point. Takada = great worker. I've not seen that much of comeback Suzuki, but young Suzuki in the second UWF trumps HHH seven ways to sunday. Tanaka may have become lazy in New Japan, I can't judge as I haven't seen that much of that period save for a few HEAT matches, but before that, the guy was superb. Terrific worker. Plus he married Yumi Fukawa, so he's better than all of us.

Looking back at this period in retrospect, I don't understand this Credible hate at all, and most of it seems to be people working themselves up against the guy. He didn't give long promos in the ring. He was a bad promo, but it wasn't cutting HHH's long monologue style that would kill a crowd. He was pushed as the main event only during the last 7 months of the promotion, and probably solely because Mike Awesome suddenly left. I do think the Impact Players would have stayed together quite longer if Storm hadn't left. I thought he did more than a decent job working on top of a dying promotion with no star power left anyway. Solid worker, really good bumper, probably safe to work with. Like you said, not overly reliable on gimmicks despite the style of the company. Really, what was there to hate ? The name was stupid, the promos weren't good, the look was kinda nondescript, but Credible always came off to me as a good guy who worked hard and did his best with the position he was put into. And yes, he's better than HHH, easily.

Well, since I'm at it : _Carl Oulette

Well, Carl Oulette. He would have been a great fit in either company at this point if they had kept on. Never got back to WWF despite being a really good and impressive worker. Never really got to Japan apart from a few AJ tours. I know he worked PR, but was quickly back in working indies in Quebec. Really a lost opportunity.

Justin Credible vs Carl Oulette - HCTV 2000.07.16 I'm glad I got my hands on those 2000 HCTV so I got to see that match. I've always been an Oulette fan, and was gutted he never got a fair shake after the initial Quebecer stint. This is one of his random appearance looking awesome (I know he worked AJ at one point too). Thus far I only got to see him kill referee HC Loc on house shows, but here he delivers one of the best Justin Credible single match I've seen. Justin just gets killed by Oulette who can deliver the big spots in spade. One thing I love about Oulette is the way he puts so much into everything he's doing. It's basically a bomb throwing match, and Francine has to cane Oulette so that Justin can get back on offense. Not for long though before comes one of the most brutal table spot I've seen, as Oulette looks like a cannon ball putting credible through this. A few minutes later, it's the turn of Francine herself, which allows Credible to cane Oulette from behind as he celebrates. Oulette is really one guy who got fucked bad by ECW and WCW going under, as he never got back to WWF for some stupid reasons. He was one hell of a power/spot worker, a great bumper and always brought a lot of intensity to all his matches. Truly a lost worker of the late 90's. Really cool match.

Vince is doing a Youshoot too. Amazing that this guy is still able to make money out of milking a mythological über success that dates from 15 years ago now, and despite a proven track record of being a abysmal failure since then. People are too stupid.

That's what I understood about what you said, and previous statements that you were bored with such and such wrestlers you've seen too much of, as great as they may be. Every poll would be a time capsule of a period anyway. If we did a poll today, Jerry Lawler and Yoshiaki Fujiwara would probably be high as hell. In ten years, maybe not anymore, who knows.

So that's your knew habit ? Mmmkay. Yes, I know, I can read. I don't think *a lot* went strictly by memories, there was shitload of match uploaded, shitload of discussions for months. Some voters surely did it. See, I can bold words too.

Not exactly true. I remember tons of matches being uploaded during this time, fort months, and matches being talked bout. It was because of this poll that I basically catch up the missing years of WWF peak (00 & 01), and most every big match from the following years. For instance I changed my mind about The Rock thanks to this poll, as I couldn't stand his matches back in 98/99.

Come on. Douglas was hated because he was a terrific heel. The scene where he shooked Pitbull #1's halo turned into a near riot, the heat was nuclear. From supposed smart marks to boot, which made the thing even more fun to watch. People just hated his guts. Him & Francine were awesome during that time.

Agreed, they didn't blatantly ignored the crowd, but they played to a crowd who didn't want to play with them, resulting in working the match in a vacuum. Benoit vs Malenko was a total "ignore the crowd" deal though.

The dead crowd kinda ruins it for me. Super match in theory, but worked in a vacuum. I don't think "the crowds shit over them but they ignore it and hit their best spots" is the best definition of great work. I do blame the crowd a lot more in this case since it's clearly a WWF ignorant crowd, but still. Reminds me of the Benoit vs Malenko 30 minutes draw at Hogg Wild, which would have been probably awesome at Korakuen Hall but didn't work at all for this audience.

Hogan at the beginning of the nWo era was getting serious heat.

I don't see how Kudo failed to deliver either. The Kong match is amazing. Plus Kudo at this time hadn't reached her peak yet as a worker. To me she peaked in 1996. Kudo is a massive overachiever considering where she came from (good looking girl not good enough to make it into the Zenjo camp and recruited by FMW to be their idol style wrestler). Great great worker.

I see what you mean, and I agree. The Benoit tragedy and Misawa's death changed things. The 10 years + monopoly of the WWE changed things also.

I wouldn't really describe 1999 WWF as kid-unfriendly. It had breasts and lots of swearing. Kids want to see that kind of stuff. I feel like Vince Russo's sense of humor would appeal more to kids than it would to adults.1999 WWF was more parent-unfriendly than kid-unfriendly, and I don't know how many parents barred their kids from watching. It was appealing to young teenagers and young immature adults, but I don't think an 8 years old would get a kick out of saying "suck it" while pointing to his crotch, or would want to see Debra's "puppies". Russo's booking was juvenile, but had nothing appealing to childhood, at least from my standpoint.

I wouldn't touch HHH's overcooked shit for anything. The only reason he got his *** on the famous Red Book is because he fucked the Michelin Man.

Of course. I was guilty of it with lucha at the time, and would probably still be guilty of the same blank spot if a new poll was conducted tomorrow. I did vote for a few great luchadors I had watched thanks to some guy (who disapeared)'s pimping, complete with download links at the time. But it was really a scattered vision to say the very least.

Amazing analogy Loss.

Takada would still be ranked very high by yours truly, and not just from memories, but from watching quite a bit of UWF a few months ago. The girls would suffer the most from a new poll because no one watches joshi anymore. Of course Lawler and Fujiwara would benefit the most. I don't remember my list, but guys like Tracy Smothers, Bobby Eaton & Ricky Morton would be much higher than they were. Ditto Fujiwara (well, I hadn't ranked him at all back then). Benoit, I dunno. I was already a bit tired of Benoit by the time we ran the poll, and his stock dropped a bit with me already. I don't think I would even take in account the murders though. I could live without watching another Benoit match for sure but I never had any problem watching him again during my ECW or WCW 98 watch. I do think he would take a pretty hard nosedive in the final results.

Stumbled onto this, and thought it was pretty hysterical. Corino is a great storyteller.

I was gonna ask about RVD. To me, RVD is a shitty worker who could have really good matches in two occurences : _facing a guy who could get into his little game of awkward spotfest : Sabu (in 2000, not in 96), Jerry Lynn (the best at it since he had this great quickness, execution and vista which allow him to play along RVD's silly game), Tracy Smothers (great old-school worker who couldn't do the great spots but rolled around them and built a superb match for RVD) _facing a guy who could beat the shit out of him, even if he's not necesseraly good (Doug Furnas, Balls Mahoney) When you get out of these schemes, RVD can't have a good match to save his life. To me HHH, as much as I find him dull and limited, is much more solid than this. As a worker I would trust HHH to lead a simple, not too long, good solid match, and not get hurt in the process. RVD is out of control and can't do anything outside of his routine. He's also the responsible for the "million counters opening sequences" crap that has spread (way before the Lynn matches). I enjoyed the best RVD matches better, obviously, and the bad matches annoy me as much as HHH's, but I would put HHH above him solely because he's more solid. Kinda the same case as Mike Awesome (although Awesome is a whole lot better than RVD).