El-P

Maybe my view of Hennig has been tainted by his god awful WCW stint, but even from comparing the matches Lawler had with him, Bockwinckle and Martel, Hennig comes off as the worst of the three, easily. Of course I haven't seen much of his AWA work overall, so my opinion might change. Hennig is a guy I want to love because he was Mr. Perfect, and I loved him back in the days, but revisiting his work over the years just made me think less and less of him. I don't think Kerry was just a step above luggage. When he was on, he contributed quite a bit to the great matches he was involved in. When he was out of it, there was no hope. But since some think he's some fine piece of luggage what about : Kerry von Eric or Davey Boy Smith ?

Agree. Dean never knew how to work with other people anyway, he was always working in a vacuum and doing his own little deal.

Martel in a walk. Hennig is way overrated. Granted, I'm not very familiar with either AWA work, but the few I've seen, Martel blows Hennig away. The best thing about Hennig was the Mr. Perfect's gimmick. After his prime Hennig quickly got worthless, while Martel in 1998 demonstrated he was still solid as hell. Whipreck. I can find 200 wrestler better than Spike Dudley. Candido over both. Not seen much SMW though, so I guess I have some large chunks of Smothers/Candido to watch. Yes, it's a weird comp, as Sabu didn't do the "bleed the face" routine very long. Sabu, in a walk. At the end of my ECW watch, I wasn't tired of Sabu, he's a guy who went way up in my book. Hard choice. I may give the edge to Tajiri, but I have years of unwatched WCW stuff involving Scorpio. Both were pretty great. From what I've seen, Kerry gets the nod. Although Hayes is not bad. I like Saito quite a bit, but I haven't seen much of his prime. Yatus in his prime was awesome, he gets the nod. I like Fuji more than most, but Jumbo is just a top 3 greatest wrestler ever. Judging from the 90's only, Togo. I doubt things got reversed. Valentine.

Oxymore.

I agree about Konnan being one of the all-time worse. Man this guy was worthless 99% of the time, he sucked the life out of good workers he was with. Brutus Beefcake was a better worker than Konnan. Road Warriors, easily, I've said all I had to say about Demos a few weeks ago. Better in every aspect, look, work, matches, promos, drawing power. Eaton/Condrey : I don't want to hammer on the guy, but really, the more I watch Lane, the closest he gets to "not very good" category. Condrey is way more solid.

Cougar Jay is my favourite jobber thus far. Love that Snake guy too.

You're gonna judge Mutoh from what he did in WCW in 2000 ? Come on. He didn't even want to be there, it was under Russo, he hated it. Mutoh has had tons of excellent matches from 95 to 00, and except for a few infamous terrible ones, including the Takada sabotage, I don't see how Mutoh "sucked" during this period. Hell, Mutoh during the 1996 G1 Climax was excellent. He went in AJ with Kojima, not Hash.

What ? Mutoh really saved All Japan from going under, the company was going nowhere fast after the exodus. You couldn't run Tenryu vs Kawada for ever. Mutoh never had any fall from grace, he's been a big star for the last 20 years, got his own company, delivered memorable matches late in his career... I don't see any fall from grace at any point in Mutoh's career, he reinvented himself at the right moment.

In 98 he had a few good matches with Savage at the beginning of the year, then two killer matches with Bret Hart during the Fall when Bret was working his hypocritical jerkoff US champ gimmick. The matches they should have had in WWF for the title.

I'm watching him right now, and quite frankly, Luger in 89 was better in every aspect than HHH ever was. I'm talking work, big matches and interviews. HHH has been ridiculously overrated for ever at this point, it would be time for people to realize this guy was not nearly as good as Shane Douglas, DDP or Jarrett who got shit on for years. He's been a mediocre worker most of his career, with a few *good* peaks. Luger has sucked for a long time, but at least he sucked in short matches, not in overlong self-conscious so-called "epics". Luger sucking for long stretches and HHH being dull as dirt in long matches he had no business working is just about equal to me. Plus Luger has had some fun resurgences over the years, such as the great 96 period teaming with Sting (and overall, the first year of his comeback to WCW), and the Total Package gimmick with Liz at the end of WCW. HHH has been the same awful dull as dirt character for ever and he's a shitty heel. He's an even shittier babyface. Luger was very efficient both as a face and as a heel. Constant switching never kept him from being over with the WCW crowd. Both peaked early, HHH during the Hunter days in about 96-97, and Luger in 89, but Luger, despite having the biggest "suck" period of the two, also has the best peak, by a huge margin, and the best matches. Anyway, I'm enjoying the hell out of Luger now, especially since the heel turn.

There is this : Gorilla and Heenan were best friends. Heenan and Schiavone didn't get along, and at this point Heenan was in cruise control mode.

Inspired by the DVDVR thread : Lex Luger or HHH ?

Why is that? He's hysterical, full of shit, tells a thousand stories and tells them really well, drops shit on everyone, himself included (gotta love the story of the boys in the back telling him Dr. Death was pissed at him and Brickhouse was terrified), talks like a pimp and generally speaking is awesome to listen too.

Totally agree.

That's what I meant. That said, after witnessing the debut of Norman, I highly doubt I'll enjoy his run at all... Finally saw the debut of the Ding Dongs too. Seriously, what the fuck was that ? Corporate people stucking their nose into wrestling, it begins to show a little bit. Ross dropping "that was horrible" at the end of the match is really funny.

Yep and yep. I was watching Luger and thought "This is a money promo". On the same show you had Great Muta spraying Missy Hyatt in the face with the green mist. I guess having something green sprayed in her face was a first for Missy. Oh, and Muta, vs Glacier, well, kinda. And probably the first Steiner brother televised match in WCW. Suplex are finally showing up. And Jack Victory doing yet another JTTS gimmick under the New Zealand Militia gimmick. This guy couldn't get a break, but man, could he work and make people look good. Some of the greatest punches too.

"If I have to step on Ricky Steamboat and his family, I will. That includes that little pig-nosed half-breed child of him". Terry Funk is awesome.

More WCW goodness : _Ricky Santana on my TV, and man did he look good squashing some jobber. I never think this guy was actually good after I saw him (I think that was him) under a hood in IWA Japan _Rick Steiner's love interest played by Nancy Sullivan. They sure made her look like a complete geek, and with the fashion trends of 1989, it was not hard to do. Of course she gets brutalized a bit by Kevin Sullivan. The more I watch Sullivan, the more I enjoy him. He was a great squash worker. Squashes really could make a storyline progress with small things happening on the side, without having to find ways to protect people. _and I saw the damnest video vignette EVER : a blonde Scott Hall with the porn stache fishing on a boat, playing volleyball, swimming with good looking girls, and hunting alligators, all with James Bond's theme !! Fuck Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat, this is why I watch these old TV shows ! _Terry Funk getting confronted by Sting who is sick of Funk making fun of Flair. Of all people, Sting is gonna defend Flair. If only he knew how many time he would get sucked in and betrayed in the following decade... Anyway, this was good and really makes you want to see that match.

Gotta love Bigelow's reaction when the interviewer asks him "How about Nash as a booker ?", at 2:38. "How was Nash as a booker ?"

You don't say. I'm glad it's out there for me to watch now.

Yeah. I admit the "soon to divorce him" was unpredictable back then, but really, this man is called the Dragon, spitting fire is way cooler than coming up with a baby on a poney. Well, at least his wife was hot. I would have loved to have Flair just made some proposition to the hot wife, now that would have been more fun. You know what, that's exactly what I thought about Steamboat : better version of Ronnie Garvin, word for word. Yes, of course. Ric Flair and pure sport build don't go hand in hand. The biggest match that hasn't happened in the 90's to me is really Bret Hart vs Ricky Steamboat. I think Hart was a more interesting *character* than Ricky, and together they would have had some amazing matches probably.

I have never seen heel Norman, so now I'm curious to see how he worked. You make it sound like he was WCW's version of Doink. He was a decent enough worker in Calgary, so let's see. I have the same kind of shared memory with my father about Royal Rumble 93 and Guy Hauray making fun of Bob Backlund. And my father also uses some Eddie Carpentier lines from time to time.

WWF killed the territories and WCW as far as production went. As far as wrestling goes, not so much... quite the opposite.

Actually, Long said in his first interview that Norman was a childhood friend. I just don't see the link between pimp-dressed former crooked referee Teddy Long and a fat psychopat. Long eventually ending up with Doom made much more sense to me at least (although I liked Doom with Woman better).

In one episode of WCW you had _Sting challenging the Great Muta, which promised to be just incredible in terms of spectacular action and colorful stuff back then _Scott Steiner debut squash with Missy Hyatt (who looked so hot back then) on his side. I never realized that the Steiner Brothers basically were born under Gilbert's watch and against Kevin Sullivan. _Terry Funk against a young Eddie Guerrero is a great squash match, followed by a ridiculously great promo "My father put a bullet into that jackass (.....) Are you the one making the top 10 Jim Ross ? If you are I beg you on your knees !" _A superb homoerotic vignette announcing the debut of Flying Brian (hated that they never called him by his name), with Yello's "Oh Yeah" as background music _Another embarrassing Dynamic Dude video, this time with "Don't worry be happy" _Teddy Long dressed as a pimp making fun of Ric Flair, and a stupid Norman vignette _The Fabulous Freebirds, Hayes & Gordy vs The Road Warriors, ending with the SST fucking up the Warriors on the outside. I got a kick at the sense of detail put into it by the Birds, as Terry Gordy was going to jump into the mélée but Hayes being the smart guy keeping him from doing so and winning the match via count out. This wasn't even refered to by Ross, they just did it because it was right for their character to act like this. Ah, wrestlers making sense... _A brutal spinebuster by Ron Simmons and a great flying tackle by Butch Reed in two separate matches. Hum... these two should be put together... Just great wrestling TV.