El-P

What do you mean exactly ?

I thought Joey was pretty refreshing at the start. Half smarky douche, half candid. Did an excellent job of putting the workers over and explaining the angles. His play by play wasn't that good though, and as soon as they went on PPV he was exposed. Styles really only became a total smarky douche in 97/98. From there he got kinda annoying and came off more arrogant than anything else. He also had a terrible fake laugh. That said, nothing is worse than Joel Gertner on TNN. Just unbearable.

Wait a minute, Twitter is the new way for kayfaybe now ?

It's what it has sadly become with the TLC era and the Hardys/E & C/Dudley Boys so called "great" matches. To me Michaels vs Razor holds up better than anything that has been done after because they simply didn't work the match with the purpose of setting up high falls through tables. The match makes sense, the ladder is used both as a way to get the belt (something that has become secondary in pretty much every ladder match since then, as it is obvious people only climb to jump off and get a "holy shit" chant) and as a weapon. The timing, selling, building to the eventual big falls (resulting in an ending attempt) are amazing and it's much better than any stupid stunts guys like Jeff Hardy would perform. No one learned from Michaels vs Razor when doing the ladder matches. Rock & HHH tried in 1998 and failed miserably with terrible timing and awkard spots. I guess the only two really good ladder match that came afterward were Eddie vs Syxx and Benoit vs Jericho. The rest of tem, and especially all that came from the TLC era and what followed, really is more an heritage of HITC II with the idiotic Foley bumps than anything Michaels and Razor did.

Tiger Jeet Singh says hello.

The thing that jumps to mind immediately is that there are a lot more clear cut contenders for the top 10. I guess Flair, Savage, Windham, Morton, Funk, Backlund, Blanchard, Dundee, Eaton would be my favourites. I'm not overly familiar with Terry Gordy's 80's US work, but if he was as good as he was in the early 90's in Japan, he should be right there too. DiBiase, Lawler, Slaughter, Bockwinkle wouldn't be too far behind I guess.

Finlay was Arn Anderson in 98. Tons of good TV matches. Carried Booker T to his best stuff outside of the Benoit serie. Had the last British Bulldog good match. Yes, a good year for Finlay.

Totally forgot about Juvy, but yeah, he picked it up while Rey was away, was a great face against Jericho, and was excellent after the LWO heel turn too. Juvy is top 5 that year for sure. Jericho was a great character, but not exactly a great worker per say. Booker T was decent at best, fucked Rick Martel's comeback, and only looked really good when paired up with Benoit. Owen was pretty damn good considering the shit he was put through that year.

Time to pimp Damian DeMento people. The world is ready for it. The days of new wrestling greatness is upon us. I'm pretty sure Bastion Booger played his role well too, those Virgil matches on Superstars ought to be revisited.

To me Douglas clearly peaked in 96 after he came back from that awful run in WWF. He was on fire then. In 1998 Eddie is probably my MVP. Candido no being too far behind. And Raven (yes, I said it).

Raymond sure is one guy who got out of wrestling and lives a nice life afterward. Piloting his own plane... I don't know excatly why he retired so young (he was barely 40 I believe), but I think it has something to do with the Dynamite Kid debacle. Anyway, the Rougeaus are quite the opposite of the Von Erichs.

Hoga never did anything that was as great as the production on"Toxic". Of course it's not Spears' doing. I guess Pat Patterson never produced something as good for Hogan. But yeah, these days whatever is "effective" or "playing is role well" is overpimped. I've seen shitload of effective movies that I would hardly call *good*. *Good for what it is* rather.

It's rare enough, but I agree with this word for word. Taking in account some void in what I've seen, here's a list that I can live with at the time : 1 - Bret Hart Case had been talked about to death now. 2 - 2 Cold Scorpio See above. I hesitated between him and Eddie for the second spot, but Scorp has more big matches than Eddie, whose work in ECW against Dean I'm not huge fan of. 3 - Eddie Guerrero Can't go to far without mentionning Eddie. Peaked in 97 and 98 in an amazing way. 4 - Mick Foley Yep. The more I think of him, the more it seems I can't put him much lower. Was around all the time, in different promotions, delivered everywhere, has the great matches. Not a big fan of masturbatory Foley like the Vader SNME or RR 99, but otherwise, Foley was that good to me. 5 - Vader Best monster of the decade. It's just a shame he was never let lose in WWF, but he still found way to deliver. 6 - Rey Mysterio Jr. Best babyface of the decade this side of Bret. Sometimes I'm midly annoyed by him, but I can't deny he greatness of his work in WCW despite some time out with injuries. Half a decade at his level justput him over there. 7 - Shane Douglas Yep. Has been underrated a lot over the years, because he was an ECW guy and the "injured champ who never defended his belt in 98". But man, his work from 94 to 96/97 is just awesome. Not in a spectacular way, this guy was alreay looking like a throwback, but he had some of the best matches of the decade, and could work with anybody at that time. His WCW work as a Dude showed some potential, and when he came back in 92 he was really good already. He has the great matches, which he why he's above... 8 - Chris Benoit I got a bit tired of Benoit by 2002. Still some fanstastic work in WCW, but he was dragged down by the style to me (watching him work DDP was kinda painfull) and he just doesn't have those great matches under his belt. Benoit is a New Japan guy to me. 9 - Sabu Fuck yeah. I even thought about putting him above Benoit, since at that time I can be happy with never seeing another Benoit match again (and not just because of the obvious reason), but I never got tired of Sabu during my ECW watch. Much better than I ever gave him credit for, was innovative, evolved with time, has the matches. Sure, he also has his share of trainwrecks, but Sabu was fascinating to watch during his prime. 10 - Ricky Steamboat Not even years to grant him a higher slot, but he was so good durin the time he was still active it would be ridiculous to scratch him from the top 10. His few years stackup very well against Shawn's whole decade for instance, Steamboat being a much better worker, had about as much great matches, and was a lot more consistent too. Really, if not for the injury and knowing what we know after watching his short comeback a few years ago, Steamboat could have been in the top 5 easily.

Well, that one is rather infamous, but it's 89.

If you're looking only at great matches, yes, I agree it's a completely distorted view. But when there's no great matches at all, I just won't buy the case of a "great worker". Even in the shittiest place workwise like 80's WWF, great workers were able to deliver, maybe not often, but they eventually did. If I don't see any great matches it's either : _the guy really never was given any occasion to have one of them, EVER. _the guy just isn't *great*. He can be solid as hell, but he just doesn't have that little thing that would make him great. As of now, the answer to me is always case N°2. I don't believe in the "great worker without great match" argument.

Hum... I understand, but it's strictly a geographical issue then, AAA being a pure mexican lucha libre promotion. I don't think I would take in account Rey or Eddie's work in AAA to judge them as "US worker". By US I think it's clearly "working in a US based promotion". Well, if we're going by nationality and not place of work, then some gaijins would have some thing to say, most notably Steve Williams, but I don't think that's where we were going initially.

As long as it's actual new footage, I'm perfectly fine with it. But at some point, revisiting WWF TV from the 90's and get excited about a few El Matador (to bounce back of what Dan said for instance) good matches on Superstars just doesn't cut it as far as re-drawing the map of the workers of the 90's. There's also the temptation to overpimp any "new good stuff", simply because it's fresh. And to trash what has been established for years as great, because we're tired of it at his point. I think there should be a balance somewhere. Yes, I agree. I like the notion that there are a number of classics that constitute a corpus of reference. Call me "dated" on that one.

Both of these guys worked in the US before 1995. John I had my doubt about those two. Where did they show up before 95 ? I don't think it was in ECW.

Yep, that's why I put Regal with Arn earlier on. The great matches just aren't there. Super solid week to week, but nothing that make you think "that's great" either. See also Finlay, Fit (well, at least in the US in the 90's and 00's, no idea about his european work). Again, I like those guy a lot. DiBiase falls into the same category to me.

I’ve been watching a lot of Nitros from 1998/1999 lately and Bret’s heel shtick was gold. From the promos to the matches, he was consistently the most entertaining part of WCW (which I guess you can also take as a criticism of how awful WCW was at the time). The buildup to the Sting match was great even though the match itself wasn’t. He did have plenty of good WCW matches though with Savage, Benoit, Flair, DDP, Luger, Booker T, Sting, and even Piper. I think his WCW run is disappointing relative to what it should have been. But it’s still pretty good for what it was. Agree. When I went through WCW 1998 last year, the biggest and nicest surprise was to see how Bret as a manipulative hypocritical sack of shit was the best part of the show. Before the heel turn Bret was a non factor, although the Flair match is better than it has been given credit for. But as soon as he turned, as nonsensical as it may have been, Bret the character was fun as hell. And he did work really good matches. The "Bret in WCW sucked" is a myth to me at this point. The matches and promos are there, at least during his initial heel turn, Bret was still excellent.

Well, if that's the case, then I don't have any interet in it. As much as diving into stuff that hasn't been wachted or talked about much like SMW or 90's Memphis is very interesting, trying to seek out whatever *pretty good* stuff and declare that all of a sudden it's *great* just makes everything irrelevant. There's also the point when it has to be accepted that there isnt any new *great* stuff to watch in one given era or territory. Which brings me to this, there's one territory that looks to me as the black hole of US wrestling, and that's Puerto Rico. Going through the yearbook threads, it's obvious PR isn't represented. I guess the lack of footage and bad TV format is the reason, but it seems like it's the last unique area that really hasn't been talked about, in pretty much any era. Not that I think there are a lot of legit great stuff coming from there, but considering the randomness of the guys who worked there, it's probably fascinating to see what comes from this old-school territory. I picture it as an old fashioned, outdated version of Memphis mixed with tons of bloody stuff. I'm pretty sure guys like Miguel Perez Jr. would be "discovered" if we had the right footage available. Anyway, SMW, USWA and WWC are pretty much the only largely unpimped material of the 90's at this point, and I wonder what could come of it. Sorry for the ranting.

I'm surprised Rude hasn't been brought up more actually since people talk about peak a lot. I probably wouldn't pick him, but he's a better candidate than Malenko. As far as Arn vs Flair goes, it was a failure to me. Just another Flair match, and by 1995 it's nothing great anymore. Blame Flair, blame lack of blood, but it was just there. No hatred, no intensity. Arn had a miraculous match with Luger later in the year that was much more impressive.

Yeah, that seems like a perfectly valid criticisim. I don't think it's necessary, but the fact is Bret had great matches all decade long and was consistent all decade long, which put him in a favourite position to me. The only guy whose peak would be enough to dethrone him would be Eddie I guess.

Even without having seen much of his SMW work, Candido is a very viable candidate to me on the strenghts of his WWF and ECW run.

Just to put things in perspective : Arn : 1990-1996 Steamboat : 1990-1994 Benoit : 1993 / 1995-1999 Eddie : 1995-1999 Rey : 1995-1999 Scorp : 1993 - 1999 Vader : 1992 - 1998 Pillman 1990 - 1997 Shawn : 1990 - 1998 Then you got guys like Flair, Bret, Douglas, Dustin, Smothers who were pretty much always there through the whole decade. Is that about right ?