MJH

It's not down to thinking Orton's a dick (though, by his own admission, he is). I actually got a kick out of it, as I did with Shawn, or Hogan against Warrior (and his commupence on Shawn too to show who's boss). But Orton completely undercut Reigns tonight. Shit, other than the finish, all the replays were Orton's spots, and the crowd were noticeably tepid towards him. That's not how you put a guy over.

Reigns won quickly having been dominated, it was a one lucky shot win not a decisive one, and yes I do. I also think he badly needs to re structure his finishing run because having the set-up, punch and set-up spear back to back kills the momentum dead. In the Shield matches there'd be dives or something from Rollins and Ambrose in between and perhaps with a heel manager to bump it could work. But Vince is so adamant on the boom boom bump feed rhythm for babyface offence I'm amazed they're running with Reigns offence as is. All three of his big spots require lengthy set ups and vs. Orton with the RKO the dead space is only highlighted.

Orton totally undercut Reigns. When's the last time someone did that (and on their big prospect)? Seriously, the two big spots were the powerslam and the RKO counters - Orton's. Then with the sudden finish the win looks a fluke. Shawn would have been proud. I was amazed Vince didn't audible a second spear and powerbomb and then at least you can run with the destructive final few minutes on TV. Oh. The main event was note perfect.

I agree on "special attractions" and more visual wrestlers. The main one that hasn't come up yet, and it's especially applicable to current WWE guys, is those whose execution is better: the difference between, say, Bryan and most guys on the roster is startling live, given the WWE's habit of cutting on the impact of most moves. I've found that there're only a handful of guys who don't look like they're play fighting (poorly).

Generally speaking, a spot is as believable as its execution. Irish whips are fine, but it makes a world of difference if the guy delivering the whip follows through with his momentum. Benoit (sorry) would really follow through and make the move perfectly believable; Naomichi Marufuji half-arses it to a point where - and it must be worse live - it perfectly exemplifies the "fake shit!" aspect of wrestling people hound on about.

I've always been a big fan of the cage match with Flair. It's not great, but I can't think of how he could've worked the match any better to get more out of what Flair could do at that point. I also remember really liking one of the Batista matches - I think it was the HIAC. And I agree with (BP) that the Raw match with Shawn was their best together. Honestly, I quite like a fair amount of his work; it's only in the more overblown, overlong stuff where you think "he's good, but nowhere near as good as he thinks he is." I'm sure Meltzer said something on one of the radio shows a while back re: watching HHH at shows and him doing "exactly what I expected him to do at that point, given the various reactions, etc", and I got what he meant. I also quite like a lot of little spots he's done and introduced to the company: when he does the full hard posting and rotates right around onto his back, for instance, it looks more "complete" as a spot, for lack of a better word, and that's how more guys have started doing it; the Harley corner bump to the floor looks better off the short switch out of the same corner he goes over; I don't remember seeing a guy drape a leg over the ropes by the shin and drop the elbow into the back of the knee as the leg's positioned like a

This. But it also wasn't much of a match anyway. A better, if hypothetical, scenario is had Benoit and Eddie done their 'sleeper' match in WCW, and worked to crickets, or even had the crowd viscerally behind Benoit rather than Eddie, would we be critical of the workers (who've had close to both's career-best match), or the crowd? Or something like Benoit/Regal where the latter blows out his knee and they have to switch it up, turning Regal from heel to underdog, the match as a whole clearly suffers for the switch (injury notwithstanding). I'm sure there are better examples, however... Surely the answer is somewhere in between? You don't want a dead crowd, obviously. From both an atmospheric and a business perspective. At the same time, as a television viewer, and having tastes perhaps divergent from what the live audience on that particular night wants, I want what I want too, y'know? And, yes, WWE television is clearly worked to the cameras: entrances are to the hard cam, rope-running spots are very predominantly ran perpendicular to the hard-cam so they're better shot, even during tags the babyface will always take the top left (as we see it) corner so their faces are in shot waiting on the apron, etc. And there's definitely something to be said for the subtleties you can do to a single ringside camera that you wouldn't pick up live (and, conversely, of course, big visual spots for the cheap seats). The reality is, once you're being filmed, the television viewers are your bigger audience. And that's how the match will be remembered in posterity terms. To run with Migs' music example a little, a live gig can still be a good show even if the mix is terrible and the playing sloppy as fuck. But no one wants to hear it back afterwards.

The best part about Hogan/Michaels was Hogan posing for 20-30 seconds between big boot and leg drop, knowing it was the finish, making Shawn look every bit as foolish as he'd tried to make Hulk look. Did Shawn really think Hogan of all people wouldn't find a way to one-up him in return?

John would know better than I re: any renewed interest in the company following Baba's death -> Dome, etc (I haven't heard that point raised before, personally)... but what killed the 6/99 match more than anything was they had nowhere to go with the feud other than Kobashi going over; they'd done "Kobashi dominates and pushes Misawa right to the edge but Misawa is able to pull a trump card and survive/win" eight months previously. They wouldn't get to do that next match (on a suitably big stage - i.e. for the title at Budokan) until 2003. Hence them just repeating spots and elongating the finishing sequence even more, and with a "new" finish, to project the idea of developing the feud. If they did the '03 match in 6/99, sure, there'd be the usual complaints re: head-drops and whatever, but you'd have a nice four-match story from 1/97 (Kobashi is inferior and loses) -> 10/97 (they're equal, Kobashi loses) -> 10/98 (Kobashi is dominant and loses) -> 6/99 (Kobashi is dominant, Misawa's trump card [ramp Tiger Suplex] almost wins it, but Kobashi perseveres and pulls Misawa's own long comeback to win). Of course...

I'm hardly an authority, but in the case of people I know who've worked Japan it's predominantly pre-planned. Also, a large percentage of moves are known by their English names (dropkick, clothesline, etc), you hardly need call a basic suplex etc, and the company will also assign their most bilingual referee where possible. In the cases of guys who worked Japan for years like a Hansen or Doc, I'd be amazed if they didn't pick up some Japanese where and when necessary and also that the natives would become very familiar with the guys' move-sets (and vice versa). But, yeah, for a one-off fly-in it's planned-out in advance.

With the acclaim over his match with Bryan, I went back and re-watched HHH's cage match with Flair and it still holds up to me as the best match possible with old man Flair. Following dawho's run-down of '90s All Japan, as he's getting into 1998, I rate the 10/31 Misawa/Kobashi match as their second best and a key part in their story that they finally play-off and wrap-up in '03.

I realise this is completely superfluous but the Strat should've been a Tele.

Dream Rush Tag. Hokuto/Kandori's already been mentioned. There's a shitload of Joshi from then (and other times) that could apply, but you might as well take the best matches.

I guarantee you none of his bodyweight was in that knee when it hit; Dynamite's great kneedrop on Bret hurt his knee (that he landed on) far more than Bret's head. Fukuoka's footstomp looks far less painful than it looks (if that makes sense - especially in that clip and I'm forgetting any specific instance where it didn't). If that lands on a guy, flush on the chest where he can absorb the impact the best, it isn't really much at all. Generally, anything to the chest, the upper back, the bigger the area to absorb the shot, is fine, which is why whenever someone kicks someone off a snapmare vertical down the spine, rather than near-horizontally across the upper back, I wince - there's nothing there to take the shot. And as I've said before on the headbutt, it's no different than a front-bump from height (flapjack etc), which are the easiest bumps to take because you can see exactly when the impact is and it's therefore much easier to time than a back bump. With the size of Benoit's chest, plus his arms under him, and then his head turned sideways, there's really nothing in it, even on someone the size of a Scott Norton you'd barely feel the impact of hitting the guy it's so slight (and unless you're doing it to a skeleton and hitting bone, or when there'd be a chair added in, far less risky than most top-rope finishes); Benoit's semi-regular superplex KO spot, for instance, did far more damage to his head/brain, infinitely so. And there's more risk of whiplash on the Dynamite version (not to mention knee damage) because you're ducking your head into the impact and then snapping it back.

Every bump Cena takes is worse on his body than the giant swing. Including most of his offence.

Hasegawa's rolling butterfly suplex, at least until she started turning them before impact thereby turning it into a side bump and giving the girls the breadth of their thighs to break their falls with. When she first started doing it it was 4/5 consecutive bumps straight on the lower back and that's just a fucking killer, especially considering, unlike the moonsault footstomp etc, it doesn't actually look that painful.

I'm in the same boat as Jerome, only in my case it applies to (most) films/books/etc too. I think it comes from me re-watching/re-reading a lot, and that in most cases even when watching for the first time I already know the plot/finish. But, I mean, take any great Japanese match - let's say Kawada's first tag win - did anyone here, John included, not know the result before watching it for the first time? And did that ever stop anyone from thinking it one of the best matches ever? Of course not. Then again, Titanic's one of the biggest grossing films ever and it's not as if people didn't know the finish, nor did that stop them crying when Leo died. When it comes to something like current WWE I don't so much "root" for Bryan as I enjoy his matches and want him to succeed (which he obviously has) and be in a position to put on strong, enjoyable matches. But when it comes to, say, Mark Henry's retirement turn, it's not as if we were raving about how dastardly a double-cross it was; if we were "marking out" it was because of how well done an angle it was, y'know? It doesn't mean we didn't enjoy the hell out of it, but that's not an emotional connection.

Freakish genetics and all manner of drive, of course.

It's a puff piece for the performance centre. Kevin Dunn or whomever is it goes crazy with cutting in order to hide the impact of moves; there's zero chance we're getting this on the main shows other than maybe to replay the odd big TLC type bump especially if it's an injury angle.

Boxing alone (like most disciplines; see how quick the Gracies fell) doesn't get you far in mixed-combat. Basic physiology would give the odds to a kickboxer or any kick-based discipline over a boxer, and a wrestler needs only take the boxer down and ride him out to dominate. A pure wrestler wouldn't know what to do attacking wise from on top (see early Severn), but he'd win on points by virtue of control. The boxer has "a puncher's chance", of course, maybe moreso with a judo player who'd want to get the clinch, but any collegiate-level amateur wrestler (size/weight depending) would shoot low, take Tyson down, and ride it out.

Using The Shield to force Dusty to pick between Dustin and Cody? Good. The Big Show stuff? Good God.

This is the perfect cruiserweight match. Nothing more needs to be said.

I'd disagree. In January, whilst Kobashi came in as champ, he's clearly below Misawa. Here, they work as equals. It's almost too contrived in how much their early controls mirror each other, but when you're talking the two heavyweights with the deepest arsenals of any, it's novel. A few other guys have done it, though with less offence and I guess you could tag the "guy works an arm vs. guy works a leg" idea in the same bracket. This is a strong match, great in some ways, but, yeah, it's not the January match (and I'd put the '98 match over it too though I seem to like that more than most). But back to the arc, by 10/98 Kobashi is dominant and it's only the apron Tiger Driver trick that allows Misawa to get the win. The booking fucked the series by the next year, similar to 6/97 Misawa/Kawada, and they had nowhere else to go with Misawa still going over. Kobashi went over in the 2000 Carnival but because of his injuries it wasn't until the 3/03 GHC match where they finally got to finish the story, essentially repeating 10/98 with the ramp Tiger Suplex in place of the apron Tiger Driver and this time Kobashi is able to fight through it, make the drawn-out Misawa-style comeback, win and solidify himself as the ace.

It's a coin toss. I voted for Ricky solely because I think he had a harder job, and when we talk of "great tag workers", it's almost always on the heel side (Bobby, Arn... if we bring in Japan it's Kawada whose generally named first).