El-P

On that note, I don't think she's top 10 at all but Missy Hyatt's atleast worth a mention as well. Can't believe I forgot Missy, but I don't know, she was fun as a TV character, but didn't leave a mark on me as a manager that much. Really, everything she did after Mid-South was un-noticeable (and she said it herself on interviews, she wanted to do broadcasting and hosting shows, she wasn't interested in managing anymore in the 90's). The über slutty Missy with Sandman was fun, but it was a drop of quality after the awesome pairing with Woman I thought. It was too slutty and there was no contrast with the dirtyness of the Sandman.

And booker Really underrated guy in the history of puro with him being assistant booker during the Onita years and head booker until late 98 plus a really good post FMW run putting shows together circa 02/03 until up to a couple years ago. Yep. Go Ito was the Man. On the subject of "Managers that I don't quite get", Paul Ellering gets the cake. What exactly did he brought to the Road Warriors ? I know he was their real life manager, but seriously, what did he brought to the table ? They didn't need him for interviews, he was a shitty worker (compare him to what Bobby Heenan or Jim Cornette could do in term of bumping)... Why was he needed ? Rewatching NWA 1989, I thought Gary Hart was still excellent on promos then.

Well, that was the plan. To build Wrath as a big monster and feed him to Goldy. Of course Nash (who wasn't booking at the time *wink wink*) had a better idea...

"Locker room police" and "locker room court" is such a huge pile of bullshit. Just a bunch of immature crap.

Why am I not surprised. Actually, I think Go Ito, if he had a longer career in this role, could be put in the top 10 easily. I didn't understand his promos but he got the message across. And he was quite great in his role. Not to mention he was a great referee too. Police. Well, you know my feelings about GAEA. Oz is such a queen, she doesn't need a stupid second. It detracted from her matches to me. I love JWP Oz so much better. Sunny just didn't do enough. Her years in WWF peaked with the Phineas Godwinn promo ending with the slopping. That's pretty sad for such a great talent.

Hayabusa vs TAKA was a great short match. I'm not underrating Nakagawa. He could be good, especially during his "Bret Hart" days. And when he sucked, he sucked pretty hard (no, I can't forget the infamous Hayabusa matches nor GOEMON vs Onryo:)). He just wasn't on the same level as any of the MPro guys, who were three great workers.

Probably. Sadly, Hayabusa worked with Sasuke, and it wasn't as great. Well, there's quite a bit of difference between the MPro guys and Nakagawa/Fuji.

Agreed. But Kudo was praised heavily by some. To me at her peak she was one of the best wrestler in the world. And I would be remiss if I didn't mentionned while I get the occasion, which doesn't happen much, how much I loved Bison Kimura and her stiff brawling style. And I always thought was sexy as hell too.

The ending of the show redeemed that awful segment. Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Morton vs Terry Taylor & One Man Gang was not only a good TV match, but it's the beginning of Morton's heel turn, which is gonna be really fun. Taylor steals the show each time he's on TV, he's bumping all over the place and makes a fool out of himself, and looks really good while he's on offense. And One Man Gang was still really good in 91. I understand how annoying the push for Dustin must have been at the time, although he did have tons of potential, but still, it was transparent as far as why he got pushed so much. They also handle Mr. Hughes really well, having him just standing in front of guys and never back down nor actually hit anyone. That's how you build a character. I love the York Foundation. Too bad Terri was dressed like crap most of the time.

Forgot about Droz. Me and my bad exemples. But yeah, Bradshaw was white, big and an office stooge. And a locker room bully.

Bull Drop Inn. New segment with Dus-tay. With Jason Hervey. Whoever he was. And yes, he looks as tall as 4 foot. First guest : Rapmaster PN News. Proceeds to put over Dusty. Of course. Yo baby yo baby yo. It was worse than I ever thought it was. Jason Hervey is dancing. Dusty is rapping. This was *UGLY*. Fucking UGLY. And then, Barry Windham is distracted by a giant rat (Pillman). Fuck, Dusty's booking is already going into the shitter. Thank god, Steve Austin debuts on the same show. Had no idea he wasn't managed by Lady Blossom at first.

Not the point. He could have left, was made an offer, and stayed with Vince. Loyalty matters. This is true. Whether you see him as a valued performer or not, the company clearly did. D-Lo Brown was pretty loyal too. He also got the option to go to WCW after he got himself over with WWF crowds. He stayed loyal. When did he become a world champ again ?

You don't say. My version of Superbrawl had about half the undercard edited out. So no Terry Taylor match yet again (sigh), and for the laughs no debut of Oz nor Johnny B. Badd. Grrrr... I hadn't seen Luger/Sting vs Steiners in a long time, and my recollection was that it was quite overrated. Well, I was right, and even moreso than I think I was. The opening sequences with Luger and Rick are really good, and you feel the match is going to build and build. Nope. They just go into a spotfest, and not a great one. Seriously, it doens't hold a candle to the Tokyo Dome match against Hase & Sasaki, which is already way overated if you compare it to about any big tag match from NJ that year. The Steiners had much better bomb throwing matches with Doom the previous year, I can't figure why this match has been pimped for years as something special. And as of May 1991, I still don't feel Sting at all. When will this guy turn into a good worker ? Meanwhile, Arn & Bobby Eaton had a very good match. You feel they could have done more, but I guess the goal was not to work a world title level match either. Eaton is awesome, and as great as a face than he is as a heel. Great selling. Windham vs Pillman is about as great as a 6 minute brawling match can go. Windham looks like a contender for best wrestler in WCW thus far this year. Butch Reed vs Ron Simmons was good, and you can tell Reed is laying out the entire thing for Simmons. Flair vs Fujinami was yet another really good match, but at point Flair just does embarrassing stuff as he forces Fuji into cliché Flair spots, and you can see the lack of communication or understanding. But overall, very stiff, strong selling, a few good nearfalls at the end. Although of course Fuji didn't get over and the stupid jingoist fans were chanting USA at babyface Fujinami. Well, maybe also the fact that it was a rather smart-ass audience, chanting for the Freebirds, and singing Goodbye to Sid who was leaving for WWF. Jim Ross was at time pretty mediocre I thought this night, being overly excited and overselling the tag match, and talking about Fujinami's "karate kicks". Well... Ross & Dusty just isn't a very good tandem. I miss Paul E.

I wouldn't put him in my top 10, but yeah, Rich was gold in this role.

Gotta love Scott Steiner. He found his niche too late in his career.

In no order : Jim Cornette (obvously) Paul E. Dangerously (obviously) Bobby Heenan (obviously) Sherry Martel (how many matches did she improve dramatically ?) Woman (great presence in ECW with the Sandman, one of my favourite duo ever) Jimmy Hart (Memphis baby, no matter how lame his Hulkamania days were) Gary Hart (really underrated) JJ Dillon (4 Horsemen) Francine (yeah, she was that great in ECW at one point. You would just want to bitchslap her. Biggest cunt ever.) Liz (probably more for aesthetical reasons than anything else, as she didn't do that much outside of being part of an incredible and historical outfit, then looking ridiculously hot in WCW).

Well, indeed, WCW hired everybody and anybody at the time. Still, Poffo was hired as a favor for Randy. And Powers was hired to be a competitive jobber. It's not like they got all TNA on them back then and pushed the guy because he was "ex-WWF" (in the case of Lanny, they sure could at least put him on TV, but that's WCW retardation). And would Bradshaw getting snacked by WCW at any point in 96/97/98/99 have changed *anything* for WWF ? Of course not. He was a complete non factor.

All your posts on JBL make it sound like you just want to be contrary. You liked him when no one else did. Then hated him when everyone else liked him. That doesn't make you right. Well, I realize it may be the impression I'm giving, but that's not the case. I enjoyed Bradshaw in 97/98 because I was getting in to puro at the time and liked the fact Bradshaw was working stiff. Then I got bored by the the time he was in the Acolytes, then quit watching. Then heard about a single push. Was interested in watching his big matches since I enjoyed him before, was extremely underwhelmed by his work and his gimmick. That's it. Now, you can believe I'm trying to be a contrarian for the sake of it, I know it's not the case, so I don't give a flying fuck about it. As far as "making me right", whatever. I just don't get the 2004 Bradshaw love, that's all. At his worst, Bradshaw sucked. He was a plodding stiffness mark and third rate Hansen clone. At his best, Bradshaw was pretty good as a stiff fucker with some redneck charisma and good moveset for a guy his size. I wish he had worked in Japan at some point, he would have fit there. I'm actually curious about his few John Hawk matches in WAR. Some random stuff there.

Hum.. Hansen... "Oh, you're trying to beat the shit out of me ? Ok, where's the eye socket... ok, there."

Ditto. Well I liked him when nobody cared. I remember really enjoying his match with Jeff Jarrett at NWO 98. I don't remember who told that story, but here it is. When Vader was doing his left/right barrage in the corner, if you got with the rhythm, it was harmless. So what Vader did was break his own rhythm so he could punch you good. So whoever this guy was got the stiff treatment, punched Vader in the face as a reply, and next time around Vader softly stayed in his rhythm and barely touched the guy.

Not really. I know some people loved the Bradshaw push in the mid00's. I enjoyed Bradshaw back in 97/98. Then got bored because a third rate Nise Hansen only goes so far. Then watched back his "big push" matches, saw that the guy was worse than 7/8 years before, that his gimmick worked wonders (sarcasm) on the WWE audience, that he took part in two great matches thanks to Eddie Guerrero. Essentially, Bradsaw is to the WWE in the 00's what Johnny Ace was to AJ in the 90's. Except Ace at one point brought more to the table than Bradshaw ever did (and I don't like Ace). Now, as far as his commentary years, I'm filling a blank, not familiar with it. He may have been great at this, I can't tell.

That's laughable. How many guys worked their ass off during years and never got any chance at being headliners ? Please. It's not like Bradshaw had any value at all to WCW. Justin Hawk, Blackjack Bradhsaw... yeah, like Bischoff would throw big money at an aging stiff cowboy guy who was a mediocre worker low on the undercard. Bradshaw was an office stooge, that's why he finally got a push. Just accept it. Won't change anything to the work of him you enjoy. I enjoyed DDP's push in 96/97 a lot and I know why he finally got it (that said, he was a much better worker than Bradshaw and got himself over as hell, while Bradshaw's matches were getting crickets when he got pushed).

I disagree with that assessment of Vader. A lot of the interviews I've seen where people talk about Vader is that he just worked a certain way and that was beating the hell out of you in the ring. Of course, you could beat the shit out of Vader in return and there would be no issues. He was unlike JBL in the sense that he was a big softie backstage. He wasn't out to take liberties on guys and he wasn't out to hurt anyone. When he broke that jobbers back he went backstage and cried about it. He wasn't backstage fucking with guys constantly like JBL. I don 't know, most interviews I've heard categorize Vader as somewhat of a bully in the ring, taking advantage of people he could beat up. Of course that doesn't mean he wanted to injure people. Agreed about being a softie backstage though, the same people said Vader was a sensitive teddy bear. So yeah, Vader just isn't in the same category as JBL, who was a plain asshole from all acounts. Plus he was a great worker, while JBL, well, not very good.

I thought you stopped trying to be a smart alec. I stopped watched WWF programming in 1999, only watched a few big matches up intul 2001 Then in the mid 00's, mostly because of the GWE poll, I revisited the post 00 era, watched most big matches there was to watch. I thought I shouldn't have to explain it.

Holy shit John !!