El-P

Tito, Steve Grey, Chigusa Nagayo and Kyoko Inoue stand out to me. Can't believe I forgot Kyoko.

I had no idea Norman Smiley was employed by WWE.

Well, I'm glad I'm not totally hallucinating then, because at some point, I was just wondering if my brain was totally fucked up (and since I'm too lazy to dig into my external hard drive for Lawler matches...)

I've seen shitload of Lawler's match, and that's the impression I got from it. Now, if I'm wrong and if it's A/not paying enough attention, it means I don't like Lawler's comebacks because it produced the same effect on me as a "no-sell" comeback. The two things I don't care for in a Lawler match are 1/overuse of punches, as great as they might be and 2/dropping down the strap and comeback bit. But hey, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. As far as Backlund goes, nope, I was talking about guys who didn't do the "no-sell" comebacks, not comparing Lawler and Backlund's selling in general. You can sell well for an entire match then do a shitty "no-sell" comeback gimmick, like Sting would for instance (that ruined the Regal match from BATB96). Never talked about selling in the general sense of the word. I enjoy Lawler's selling, it's actually the thing I probably like the most about him (it's not like I can enjoy his varied offense...) So I'll settle for : I may very well be wrong about the "no-sell" bit after dropping down the strap, but let's say I'm not a fan of Lawler's comebacks, which give me an impression of "out of the blue" each time around.

EDIT : read my post Dylan, I'm was not talking about that *at all*. And yes, Lawler no sold his opponents offense during comeback. Drop the strap, no-sell, punches. Every time. I know tha shall not invoque the King's name in vain in 2011, but still, let's be honest here. It worked wonders for him. I find it annoying.

If Lawler's comebacks = Warrior's comebacks, all babyface comebacks = Warrior's comebacks. Yeah, because that's what they all did, no-selling with a little visual gimmick thrown in : Ricky Morton, Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, Brad Armtrong, Atsushi Onita, Chigusa Nagayo, Bob Backlund, Bret Hart... well, I could go on and on. Some did the no-sell routine, it worked for Hogan, Sting, Lawler, Warrior, even Tatanka (oh yeah), but not every babyface in wrestling was about making a comeback by just stopping selling for the heel. I don't care for this stuff, it annoys me every time.

Watching the debut of the new Skycrappers in retrospect, The Undertaker gimmick really made Mark Callous. Sid had megastar written all over him. When you see Mean Mark Callous taking his place, not so much. Not much presence, not much charisma, just a tall red-haired guy with pale skin and a few spectacular spots. Funny how things worked.

Girls cheered him. Male fans, not as much. cf Survivor Series 96. The more I watch Michael Hayes circa 89-90, the more I think Micheals copied his looks. Shawn still coming out to "Sexy boy" with the same kind of outfit in his 40's with balding hair and crooked eyes was much more offensive.

He worked less flashy than in 95-96 though. Bumper heel, sure, but not jumping around face like he became later.

I always felt like Michaels was a natural face as a worker and a natural heel as a character. That's actually pretty accurate.

I had been a big fan of his first heel turn, and wasn't thrilled to watch him as a face. Not that I knew he was a dickhead in real life, but things never clicked to me with Shawn as a babyface in 95/96. He was just a natural heel.

If this was the standard, there would be no babyfaces in wrestling.

Agreed. Shawn was an asshole in real life, and great wrestling characters are an extension of what you really are. Shawn as a face could work for a minuet or two because he was flashy. But his personnality was just repulsive, he was a whiner, a cheater, a manipulative little jack-off bitch. That's why I also think his best run as far as character goes remains Summer/Fall of 1997. He was much more fun as a heel than a face.

In the same vein, I hate TV matches where they sell like they took a beating after 3 minutes of spots.

Flair looks like he's about to die. I can't believe this shit is on TV and people are actually paid to put this crap together. This stuff was old and had overstayed its welcome 13 years ago, and Flair, Hogan and Sting are still on TV along with Bischoff, while Russo writes the show. TNA is the worst promotion ever.

He's really the face equivalent of terry Funk drunk selling or Dick Murdock's antics, or Hennig's überbumping. Bret Hart was a much more realistic seller than Steamboat. Best selling ? Kawada. Hokuto.

I was less thinking in terms of bumps but rather in terms of Cac asking Vader to potato him.

I don't care much for any comeback that consist of no-selling. Lawler dropping the strap equals Warrior shaking the ropes to me.

Mechanically perfect, no doubt about that, but not exactly graceful. Graceful to me is Jinzei Shinzaki, Misawa at his best, Barry Windham. Kyoko was pretty graceful actually. Yeah, I'm glad it turned out fine ! I thought I remembered that. You are the one who probably broke the news to me too. I'm not at all the kind who drools over baby's pictures, but since this is Kyoko, I can't help but find this adorable. Kyoko always had the nicest smile anyway. She's kinda the Kim Deal of joshi.

These are the small aesthetic things I enjoyed in US wrestling. It fit the character too.

I would have never use the words "graceful" and "Kaoru Ito" in the same sentence, although she was a workhorse. She always looked pretty bad anyway, and always had pretty terrible looking outfit, so I guessed she could only get better as she aged. Well, I was wrong. What you describe does seems depressing. Kyoko had a happy-go-lucky fat woman thing going on. Didn't she had a kid too BTW at some point, or am I totally out of the loop ?

Onita, Onita, Onita, Onita and Onita. You can mix in some Chigusa Nagayo at any point. (yeah, I'm petty, but I'm disapointed not to have thought of Loss' answer before he did)

Best line on this board in a long time. So very true.

That's not a structure, that's Hogan being a cunt.

Flair vs Sting was sad at the last Nitro, 10 years ago. I can't even fathom how pathetic it is in 2011. Retire already.