El-P

That's amazing. Hopefully it won't give WWE any bad ideas...

I think HHH/Rock 60 minutes smoked Hart/Michaels 60 minutes. That doesn't mean I think either are better workers than Hart or Michaels. Plus one reason this match was as good as it was is creative booking, from Patterson I guess. It was really tons of smokes and mirrors, but it worked wonders when you think about the atrocious 30 min match they had in 98. Anyway, whatever you think of the match itself, Fuyuki was better in this than HHH ever was in a long match. And although I haven't seen a lot of his WAR matches (hello Phil, still around ?), there are some really good stuff there too. Between AJPW, WAR and FMW, Fuyuki really blows HHH away.

Well, if that's a case then it's a shame. The only thing I'm willing to give New Jack in ECW is that during the first stint at least, before he went insane, the Gangsta style brawling was nowhere near as violent as it looked to be if you pay attention. Not that it was any more watchable, but at least they weren't killing people brain cells like Balls. I think the only Gangsta match I ever enjoyed was the FBI title win, thanks to you know who.

Oh, WEW. One day I'll get back to those tapes. Well, maybe not. Yep, I can't think of any pregnancy angle that ended up with something positive. The most ridiculous one was Beulah's in ECW. Yeah, I'm a Raven fan, but that one was retarded. The "It's not yours, it's Tommy's" line was great, but the way the angle turned out was jaw dropping stupid. Beulah wasn't pregnant, but she was cheating on both Raven and Tommy with... Kimona ? That said, "I'm hardcore, I'll take both" was kinda hilarious in its grand stupidity. I guess one of the stupid angles that influenced Russo (along with the Pillman bookerman promo which was also very stupid and counterproductive).

Awesome was much better at working his style of match than HHH was at working his style of match. If you want to put it that way "He played his role better". That said, Awesome needed a guy to bump huge for him. He was a great base to bump from, and with the right guys he could have spectacular matches. That being said, and despite being a huge FMW fan, HHH is a more solid wrestler. With the wrong opponents, Awesome really isn't doing much good. Awesome's best matches are much better and more fun than HHH's best matches though. But he can thank Hayabusa, Tanaka and Kanemura for playing along.

Actually Fuyuki smokes HHH based on his FMW run alone. HHH never had as great of a performance Fuyuki had going with Hayabusa for one hour.

You still can't take sarcasm. Chill out a bit. I'll get back to you on this as soon as I get through SMW TV, which may be sooner than later. I may or may not agree with you on this. Needless to say I would be shocked to see New Jack being actually good, but I don't think I could be blamed for this.

Got a major kick out of this : Palais de l'Elysée is the French equivalent to the White House. Nicolas Sarkozy is obviously the current president. François Hollande is the guy who will (hopefully) kick him out. El Flaco is a reference to the fact Hollande used to be fat and dropped a lot of weight the past year, and really looks different now and more "credible" as a presidential candidate in his current shape. There were other posters with minor candidates too. Great stuff.

And as far as miscarriage goes, a friend of my girlfriend went through this shit a few months ago, and yeah, it's pretty terrible. Thankfully Russo isn't around anymore. I thought Terri Runnels having a "miscarriage" was one of the most offensive and disgusting stuff on WWF TV during the Attitude days. Hopefully they don't do any distasteful stuff with Kharma... (not that they ever would : cf Kanyon, Eddie in Hell etc...)

You obviously haven't read many posts I've done in the last few years. Which is totally fine with me, since I probably haven't read anything you wrote about wrestling since about... 2001 or so. How time flies.

Nice to see you're still acting like a dickhead after all these years Schneider. Don't grow up, stay the same, it's perfectly fine with me. For all I care... To Dylan : yes, I haven't seen his SMW days, that's why I mentionned it to make it perfectly clear I'm basing my opinion of Jack's most famous ECW years. Yet, we're still talking about New Jack people. *New Jack*. If we have reached the point where we can say "Hey, he's dissing New Jack, he's a snobish fucker with dated opinions" when one has a hard time even considering the eventuality that New Jack may be a better worker that HHH, keep me posted. Hopefully New Jack will be the great find of the SMW set. Gotta have one I guess.

Any mid-carder that was semi-famous during the late 90's seems like an icon to the current generation I guess. The pictures says everything about what's wrong with today's wrestling. They sure are gangbanging.

Punching an offensive and useless racist gargoyle should be commended if anything...

Can you let us know which claims you think are outrageous? Saying New Jack being easily better than about anyone is outrageous to me, although I haven't seen any of his SMW work. Still, New Jack in ECW was crap, pure and simple. FF material every time. I didn't even think he was a particulary good promo there (and really, I have a hard time enjoying any promo when I know the match will be pure shit). That would be it as far as "outrageous" goes. Yeah, I really don't care for Triple H after 1997...

Not everyone wants to make a thesis nor react on every points made here, yet can still show appreciation for the thread despite some disagrements. I think this is a very good and fun thread to read, that's all. Levy is the polar opposite of Hunter though, in that he doesn't think he's a great worker to begin with (and says himself he's a shitty athlete) and he's all about intricate long-term booking, crazy characters and entertaining clusterfucks as opposed to cosplaying Ric Flair/Harley Race in overlong putrid parodies of so-called "classic main events". I do think the "Hunter is a student of the game" is also way overblown and part of his gimmick. If he's a "student of a game", he sure didn't make any grade as far as working.

Holy shit. That's pretty sad. Any specifics on this ?

Pretty funny thread. Some claims are totally outrageous (and I'm a HHH hater), but some really good points are made too. Also, I'm sick of the Raven bashing at this point, which is getting pretty ridiculous and totally overblown. I can't even fathom the idea of having to go through the entire last decade of WWE TV with HHH on top. A nightmare of dullness on every front.

First breaking point : Royal Rumble 1999. Second breaking point : joshi puroresu going down the crapper in the early 2000's, Lioness Asuka fucking up ARSION pretty good. Third breaking point : Misawa's death.

Whoops Rex King not dead Well, this is a good news then. Wonder how this got around to the point Meltzer reported it. It's not like another guy named Rex King has died I guess (cf Mike Kirchner false death announcement a few years ago).

Luger connected big time in WCW. He was fucked by booking in 1990 when Flair refused to drop the belt to him at WrestleWar despite Luger being hot as hell. Then he got fucked again in 1991 when Flair left with the belt just before he was supposed to out Luger over yet again at GAB. Luger had lost a bit of steam, but was still over. Don't forget that Luger got fucked by booking in WWF also. SummerSlam 93 kinda killed him. His career had this bizarre pattern of him being a choker. Then when he came back in 1995, Luger got super hot really fast, and was one of the most interesting character of the promotion for a few months before turning full fledge face with the nWo angle. Him winning the belt from Hogan on Nitro is still considered one of the biggest moment of the Monday Night War era. Even after doing nothing of note for months in 98, he got a monstruous reaction when he joigned the nWo Wolfpack. Then the Total Package gimmick in 99 made him fun again since he's a much better heel than a face. Luger was *over* with the WCW crowd. I'd argue he was a much better worker than Sting at least from 89 to 91 (well, there's not even an argument, the matches are there).

I ignored Liz and him were married when they hooked up. Bad stuff...

He's mentionning Savage's death, so it's pretty recent.

I don't think Spike does anything *well*. I had to suffer through a Spike vs RVD match on HC TV yesterday, man it was bad. Two shitty workers having a sloppy train wreck of a match. Some impressive spots from RVD, and Spike is willing to fuck himslef up, which is the only credit I give him, but oustide of that, it was painfull. Anyway, it's beating a dead horse, we'll never agree on this. Credible getting a tolerable match out of Chetti (who sucks donkey balls, we agree on that) is pretty impressive to me. The Lance Storm vs Nova match that followed was considerably worse. More athletic, with more "cool spots", but worse. I can't believe I forgot Danny Doring & Roadkill, who were having good matches on every TV show in 2000. I would have loved to see them randomly show up on Thunder in 2001.

If you look at the history : 1988 : Jim Duggan : Rumble was just a special Battle Royal that year Then : 1989 : Big John Studd : failed attempt at revitilizing the career of Studd 1990 : Hogan 1991 : Hogan 1992 : Flair (winner gets WWF championship, the way for Flair to win it without pinning Hogan) Then, the gimmick of Winner goes to WM to face the champ : 1993 : Yoko (not yet a main eventer, but built to become one from the get-go) 1994 : Bret & Luger (one former WWF champ, and Luger who was already a main-eventer destined to get the belt at some point) 1995 : Michaels (elevated him to go to WM to face the champ; yet, after WM he got back at IC title level) 1996 : Michaels (finally elevated him to be a main eventer) 1997 : Austin (kinda already a main-event act, although never officialy main-evented a PPV, so this was the official elevation I guess) 1998 : Austin (the token predictable win to go to WM, the company was already built around him at that point) 1999 : McMahon (Russo era Rumble; swerve; vomit; killed the credibility of the match to me) 2000 : The Rock (already The Man) 2001 : Austin (already The Man) 2002 : Triple H (had to win it after Rocky & Austin damnit) Someone else can do the rest. But the Rumble really never was an event to elevate a new star. When it was the kinda the case, it was usually only the registration that the guy was on his way to win the title at WM, and not an "elevation" per say. Austin in 98, Michaels in 96 were obvious winners and the Rumble felt like a token win on the way (which is also why both were pretty boring).

That's why ECW was cool. It gave an opportunity to guys the big two wouldn't even batch an eye at.