Matt D

It's been discussed in great length before, including during the GWE poll. I finally came to term with it like I said, but for the longest time, it really annoyed me. Similar to the setup for the stinkface or broncobuster. Not a natural position in which wrestlers sell. It's something they only do in matches against Rikishi, or Rey in this case. I don't like it, but it's not enough to dismiss him as a worker in the least. I do think there's a huge difference between trying to power bomb Kidman when you don't usually do a power bomb and wrestling a wrestler who is specifically going out of his way as part of his strategy to get you into a unique and unorthodox position.

They have to be careful. Baszler is a prodigy with a head start.

I have lately been really in to sprints, scrambles, and comedy matches. I think I could catch up on more pre 2015 non-WWE/TNA stuff (just do not send me death matches). Some of my favorite matches are Kenta Kobashi vs. Kensuke Sasaki, FIST vs. Young Bucks (Chikara), Akira Hokato vs. Shinobu Kandori, Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (Brooklyn), and CM Punk vs. Delirious (The Punk IWA Farewell one). My reveiw trade match is this match http://highspots.tv/delirious-vs-man-scout-jake-manning/ Alright, so this is not a sprint or a scramble. It is a comedy match though. I came this close to giving you an ivan the terrible midget match from Houston. It may be Monday before I catch yours but it's well outside my wheelhouse and I'll give it an honest look.

Let me think about it. Im liable to send you a relatively ancient comedy match.

Feature, not a bug.

I'm even ok with the placement. Votes are votes. Am I going to get annoyed that Dynamite Kid will be so high in comparison when he did so much more to screw up the tag team division in 88 and what have you and when so many of those matches don't hold up? Sure, but I get that. It's really only the write up which frustrates me.

Don't mind me. I will constrain myself moving forward. If you don't vote you can't complain. That one just hurt. To be fair, my entire argument for Demolition is that workrate is dumb, so you can see where this would have been a problem in the first place. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/29226-demolition/&do=findComment&comment=5726028 So long as you guys don't crap on Nick Bockwinkel in the top 85, I'll keep my mouth shut. On the other hand, if he made it into the top 85 for one legends' battle royal and some very good commentary work over six or seven arena shows, more power to you.

That Eadie write up is a travesty. Not a ring general, my ass.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/40451-david-starr-vs-nick-gage-beyond-11262017/ This was my first look at Starr and it's a very alien look, I think. I got some sense of the act in the pre-match and of the general commitment the guy has. I'd be curious to see more. On a personal note, if I was 10-15 years younger, I'd be all about Beyond. I didn't even realize it was a MA/RI promotion. Palladino is the guy who announced all the indy wrestling I watched in college so there was something vaguely nostalgic about all of this. It felt like the world's best possible early 00s Chaotic Wrestling match or something. Me and my Brandeis University buddies would have been all about Starr too, obviously. I would have been very annoying about it. Be glad that I was born when I was. I had looked for a few Starr matches back when people (Sam, especially) were hyping him back during the WOTY talk and didn't find too much online not behind a paywall. That's one of the tricky things about casually watching wrestling in 2018. For instance, I think I found one and only one WALTER match easily available. Ah well. Lots of symbolic a=a talk in my write up. Thanks for the suggestion as it's definitely something I wouldn't have seen on my own.

Look, wrestling is wrestling. It's all symbolic in the end. They're all tools and it's all about how they're used. You could overlay the narrative and the performances in this match over a completely different style and it'd still come out pretty much the same, simply accentuated by the trappings of whatever style it was in. What matters are the characters, the transition, the commitment, the meaning that's derived by choice and selling (action and reaction), and the ultimate execution. On that note, things hit. Let's just pull some moments out. The match began with Gage rope-running and chain wrestling with Starr, holding his own. Within about a minute, Starr shifted gears and tossed Gage through a barbed wire table. This is functionally the same as what you'd get in a Wahoo vs Tully match from 82 where Wahoo decides to wrestle with Tully to start and Tully goes to the punches/roughhousing first in order to get ahead of it and have a fighting chance. Just like in that match, however, Tully probably wouldn't be able to hold the advantage and as he tried to escalate things more, Wahoo would play to his obvious strength and takeover. Here, Starr went quickly to the thumbtacks and Gage reversed a suplex attempt into a urinage. He followed it up with some brutal thumbtack usage because Gage is an absolute experienced pro in filling time in interesting ways in a match like this, even if he's not doing big moves necessarily. So, onto the next transition into some heat, right? Some sly capitalization of overexuberence by the babyface, something more involving chicanery or a lucky catch. Here it's Gage trying to shoulder butt Starr off the apron and Starr catching him with a front facelock through the ropes and a quick drop onto the throat. Symbolically, it's the sort of thing that could play in this sort of mismatch in any decade, in any style. Starr followed it up with a side slam and given the thumbtacks and blood and what not, pretty much anything feels like a big move at this point (he steered Gage away from the thumbtacks on the landing but the announcers covered well by emphasizing the selling). While it was devastating enough for a two count, Gage still recovered first and they went into your basic modern Japanese/super-indy chop exchange, with no selling on both sides until the babyface got the advantage. In this case, however, they were using staple guns, but it was exactly the same, down to the stupidity of the initial no selling (I always like the CMLL style where they're selling even the initial chops and it just escalates more). In theory, I loved the last little transition here, with Gage winning the chop(staple) exchange but going overboard and nailing the ref with the gun, allowing Starr to hit a insanely stupid German onto a chair that no one should ever be taking. So in theory, I loved it. In execution, i liked the protected side slam more? It was certainly believable as taking Gage out for the next few minutes though.the match ended with Starr spending about three minutes trying to get barbed wire off a table with a wire-cutter (explained deftly by the announcers) and his own hands, putting the wire around Gage's neck, berating him, cutting off a comeback, choking him out, fighting off another comeback with a brainbuster onto his knee (not selling the knee that just got torn apart by barbed wire, but maybe he did that post match?), and having the ref stop it on the choke out. Here it's a little tougher to find analogues. The idea was that Starr had been driven past the point of humanity and his own heelishness, that he had to go over the top to win, that he had to put his body entirely on the line to defeat a master at his own game, etc. He had something to prove. He wanted it that much. He was willing to sacrifice for his own survival. All that. You can do it in another style, either through strikes, or submissions, or jumping off a high point, but it's easier and more visceral with blood and plunder. Here, I think by chance and not by choice, the wire just wouldn't break. It led to Starr looking more and more deranged as he hurt himself more and more to achieve his goal. There was a bit of Sabu setting up three tables because they kept breaking to this, but here it worked into the match. If the goal of this match was to use Gage's cache and credibility to increase Starr's reputation and show that he willing, able, and dangerous, and could go that extra mile ("He's Hardcore") then this helped to achieve that goal. There was a cheer when he finally got the barbed wire free. If the goal was to make him seem like a more dastardly and evil heel, that's not really what they ended up with but in 2017, when is that ever the goal? Anyway, I thought this was overall effective and just another sign that effective wrestling is all about universal purpose-driven symbols and how they're used, no matter the style, no matter the era.

To put it out in the open i recommended a match fo recent vintage featuring my #1 wrestler of 2017 Glad for this one. Starr got talked up here by Sam and others for a 2017 WOTYC and I haven't seen anything. My match for him is: 5/16/92 El Hijo del Santo, Atsushi Onita and Tarzan Goto vs. Negro Casas, Horace Boulder and Tim Patterson FMW USA

concrete1992, Shot you a PM because I haven't heard back from topropepodcast. Get back to me when you can.

Even with the system diluted over the last year or two, it's crazy to think that this is only the sixth WWF/E match he's given five stars to in the history of the Observer following the promotion.

Cats living with dogs, folks.

Yep. All because of the 619. The very nicest thing Stacey's ever done for me was let me take her #3 GWE pick and make the 619 rant instead of her. http://placetobenation.com/parejas-increibles-7-greatest-wrester-ever-part-7-11-1/ (2:43:00 mark or so) I'm sure she would have more of a potty mouth about it (and in listening back for the first time in a year and a half she follows with said potty mouth).

I imagine if you have seen something and have already written it up (especially recently), you could ask for a different match. Still haven't heard anything from topropepodcast. I guess I'll give it another day.

Is there any character work by her at all? The only thing to her character I have seen so far (mind you, I don't watch the weekly show, at least not in the last half year) are the contacts and the video on the screen during her entrance. I don't even know what her character is supposed to be. Vampire? Werewolf? I think she battles the dark forces of the Negaverse?

I think it's a little different if the part timer is an smaller internet darling workrate guy, one that had been held back over the years.

It's pretty obvious that they're using 205 Live as a way to cope with the fact that so many of the current talent pool is tiny but well-supported by the fanbase. Just stick them all in the corner so as to not dilute the heavyweights they actually want to push/market, etc. Really, what they should have done is made the paltry investment in buying TNA when it was at its lowest and make this the new X Division.

It's on the front page of youtube and was well over 6 million when i saw it was there this morning.

Im sure I can find you guys a podcast of a six year old trying to read the phone book that would be more worth your time.

Week 5 Tim Cooke Kronos Grimmas SirEdgar Matt Franklin Tim Evans AstroBoy WingedEagle dkookypunk43 SPS Jmare007 dawho5 Richeyedwards fxnj Rah bucky southofheavy Migs Matt D HeadCheese topropepodcast concrete1992 Nintendo Logic Jetlag So we had 4 people jump on and a bunch temporarily jump off. We might have a couple of repeats this week. It's bound to start happening. Sam, topropepodcast has apparently been lax on giving people stuff. I'll reach out with a PM later on and make sure he's still with us. If he's not, then I'll be glad to double up. HeadCheese, if that is in fact your name, you're new to the board. Welcome. I've got a few reviews from you here but I don't know much about what you're into/what you've seen, unlike people who have been here for years. Tell me a bit about yourself and I'll get you a match?

It's ok. Not everyone has to do every week. I think we'll still have a solid roster for tomorrow. Keep in mind, I was expecting ~10 people tops, not ~30.

lol ownedIts nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while. This is a time where Im more than happy to have been wrong.

We might have to do a review of people who dropped off the face of the earth, too. But I'm not ready to do that yet. Maybe next week. I'll catch everyone who wants off the ship for a week, everyone who wants ON the ship starting this week, and shoot out a new list tomorrow.