El-P

I think Sid was generally more over as a face than as a heel, and I think it might have had a lot to do with his offense. As a face, it's not as important for him to actually hurt the heels as much as it is for him to beat them. His clotheslines in the International Incident six-man looked pretty weak, but it didn't matter because it was Sid coming in and cleaning house, so the fans went crazy. When he actually had to build heat on a face by making it look like he was killing the guy, he didn't do as well. I might be reading too much into it, and maybe it was just that Sid was a guy whom people wanted to cheer. Actually that's an excellent point. I think Nash is still underrated somewhat. Especially his WCW stint (the nWo one, not Master Blaster/OZ/Vinnie Vegas). (If someone wants to break this into a Sid/Nash/how to work as a giant/monster, we'll probably be fine with it. Unless we're done already.)

Sid had an unbelievable physical presence. His body, his face, his maneurisms were great. Watching Sid squashes in 1991 is pretty entertaining. That being said, I agree with waht Loss said. The issue is that he was physically imposing, but he could only look devastating on offense if someone was making him look devastating. Otherwise, Sid could look like a clumsy goof. He was especially goofy on selling and bumping. That said, there has been times I enjoyed Sid. His super hot period in 1996/early 97 constitutes his peak to me, working with guys like Vader, Shawn or Bret surely helped things a lot. But Sid was all about what the other guy would do. I feel Kevin Nash was better than that. More dynamic to his few moves I thought. It's no wonder Nash had much better matches than Sid had with the same opponents, and a variety of good matches against a variety of workers.

Disapointing that the Bodies didn't work more in ECW. Would have been fun.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

True, but that's not very hard to do.

Utter shit, which he is.

Martel said that when they worked together, Bravo was the face in Montreal and the heel in Quebec City, as Bravo is from Montreal and Martel from Quebec.

Didn't Bravo and Gino Brito own the Montreal territory ?

1995 is clearly the peak of Toyota to me. By 1996, she was beginning to slip a bit I think (although I'm not sure to what extent, I'm not familiar with AJW in 96), and by 1997 it was obvious she had passed her prime. Maybe this match has been forgotten, but it was pimped as a great match back when I first got into joshi in 1998, so...

I don't know about numbers, but he has the rep of being a major name in Montreal and the entire Province de Quebec, when it was a hotbed for wrestling. On top there with the Rougeaus.

I don't get the appeal of Tommy Rich at all. I've seen some of him in Memphis, and he wasn't particulary good. I'm currently watching lots of him in WCW in the early 90's, and he's not good there. Thus far the only time I enjoyed Tommy Rich was as a manager for the FBI in ECW.

Giving the Fabulous Freebirds, two guys whose strong point was talking, not one but two managers (DDP and Humperdink disguised as a roadie) who weren't nearly as good on the mic is one of the baffling decision of the year.

Some think I'm preaching to the Nise Kami no UWF, Nobuhiko Takada. Damn Fujiwaraesque heretics... They can twist it any way they can, Takada turned Gary Allbright into fine wine, and forgave Vader. And he sacrified himself in the Tokyo Dome for the good of Pride and japanese MMA...

You can argue Sullivan booked the über succesful Monday Nitro during his peak years. Knew how to put heat on heels at the very least. Of course Sully run his course and got burned out, but that would happen with anyone.

Wasn't that called the Jumbo Suplex ?

Corrected.

Damnit, we don't have the same source !

Well, I thought Yamazaki was the best worker in the second UWF (and probably in UWF-I too until Tamura matured), and I would point at Tamura's peak as being definitively during his RING years. It's not a big knock against Fujiwara, I thought he was still excellent then, and had several great matches.

To me Ross was pretty bad during the UWF days. I don't know if Watts put pressure on him at that time, but he was overselling everything, screaming like a madman like he would by the 00's in the WWF. Just bad stuff. Ross was at his best during Mid-South before it turned into UWF, then WCW, then the WWF stint from 96 to 98. I thought he stunk in the 2000's.

Seriously, I'm watching an excellent Brian Pillman vs Barry Windham match. And there we go, Ross go on a tangeant about Pillman never being the biggest guy on any athletic team he was part of. And he drops the line "He was the smallest kid on his little league team." For fuck's sake Ross. And then he goes on and on with the *entire* Pillman athletic credentials, complete with coach name and awards he recieved, while there's a wrestling match taking place. That kind of stuff is what annoy the shit out of me. It's not good announcing, plain and simple. It's not fun, it's not interesting. Ross is noticably worse when he's alone, because there's no Missy or Paul E. to distract him from college sports. Also, I realized it's a lot worse when you actually pay attention to it, which means this thread hasn't helped my watching lately. EDIT : and then later on the same show, during a Dan Spivey squash, from nowhere he talks about how the Atlanta Hawks could use a guy like this and goes on another tangeant... This on the same show. I mean... And then talks about yet another damn football team, during the same match !! Jeeez...

Oh, this explains that then. Like I said, I dunno what matches are the set, but since UWF wasn't running lot of shows anyway, I guess most of his biggest ones are there. I never thought Fujiwara was anything special as long as I stumbled onto his 90's stuff (save for PWFG which I haven't seen), but getting into UWF stuff and that was it, I was sold on him being great in his prime.

I'have been watching WCW 89, 90 and doing 91 these days, well, it has really annoyed me at point. Just a few minutes ago, during a freaking JYD match, Dog does a tackle, and here we go, Ross is talking about Dog's football credentials. Paul E. "It's wrestling Ross, it's not football." Ross "I know...".

PWFG is a void to me that I need to fill eventually. But I'm not convinced since I thought Fujiwara already wasn't as great in 1989 as he was before. The greatest Fujiwara matches happened in the first UWF to me. I agree the second UWF was a far more developped style.

There's a middle ground between the über goofy WWF stuff from that time and Ross obsessive ways of talking about real sports.

I'd say Fujiwara peaked in 84-86/87. I dunno, he seemed not as great in the second UWF as he was in the first. Still excellent, but just not as great to me.