Matt D

My only star rating is for Houston and it is "I think Pete will give this 4*s" Only for that too. Not 3.5*. Not 4.5*

They're a niche band in the metal scene with a cult following. More of a UK deal too. They are not a household name in the States. The Celebrity Wing so far is pretty much all mainstream household names, they wouldn't fit. Refrigerator Perry is the most obscure, but even he was a big deal in the mid 80s. Yeah, why not put JBL in, who probably got bumped off last year due to wanting to change the leaked list a bit. Gives SD a bragging point for having a HoFer on their announcer crew. Lol Motorhead is not a niche band with a cult following, but okay. The band/Lemmy still deserve to be in the HOF more than just about any other celeb in the HOF. Derringer deserves it more than them.

Since he brought it up, full disclosure in that was me. I didn't want to derail things here or bring in too much negativity but I thought Dylan had made a good post that spoke to the "purpose" element that I was playing with quite a bit during GWE, especially as a specific counter to "number of Great Matches." So I sent him a message to that point. I think that any sort of GME project would have to really define just what was being compared, and if such a project took place here, I'd certainly write up matches for it. Whether I'd do a final ballot? Not sure. I'm not even sure I'm going to do one for the PR set and I'm definitely going through all those matches and writing up every single one. That said, it's a right brain/left brain thing. Lots of people here are more comfortable with matches than wrestlers for all sorts of reasons and I'm sure Dylan would agree in that we'd both want people to move forward with such a thing if they'd enjoy it. In some ways it'd actually be fun (albeit disruptive if everyone else wants to walk orderly in a circle around the pool) to play with that same "purpose" argument from the perspective of greatest matches instead of greatest wrestlers. Anyway, I'd say that even past all that, a curated Match HOF has even more value in my mind because it could serve as a great resource for younger fans or ones trying to get into one new style or another.

I'm slightly higher than Pete on the Stomper match. I thought they had a surprising amount of fire when they were on the floor the couple of times they went out. I thought Jones had a lot in his comebacks too. It's really hard to make a stomach claw compelling, however, and they didn't quite manage it. That said, I did really appreciate how focused Stomper's offense was on the stomach in cutting Jones off and controlling him. He was a total pro.

There's an article on Ted Dibiase's suits you'd probably enjoy.

For a good number of years in the 00s, a good number of athletes who weren't fans that might have gone into wrestling previously went into MMA?

Did people know about this channel? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcC3kWhXsYG0GeuXOr_LTfw/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0 I don't think it's a lot that's not already up (OJ?) but it's in one part instead of 3 and maybe better VQ? Could be a promise of more though.

Morton vs Grappler You know that old wrestling cliche about how young babyfaces should watch a lot of Ricky Morton tape? This match is absolute testament to that. His body language in selling was just amazing here. The way that he bumped put just a little extra turn or oomph or enhancement of reality to everything but never so much so that it made you doubt what was happening. It increased the impact without being even a little over the top and it made it all seem more impactful and important. Grappler was a perfect foil for him. I loved the leverage move cut off too (and how Morton had his number before that). Perfect by the books wrestling. I wish they had waited to announce the three minute mark until after one of Morton's escalating hope spots failed (in that they announced it as he was coming back from the chinlock and it would have been better timed after he missed the follow up elbow drop) but that's not anyone's fault really. It's a shame they didn't do more with Grappler here. That brings me to Blanchard vs Casey. It's less of a match, though what's there is absolute comfort food with Tully stooging and cheating and Casey being the game, tough babyface. It's Gino that really shines though. Look, we've learned so much about Houston as a territory. If you asked someone here, three years ago what they key matches were in Memphis over the 82-87 period, for instance, they could tell you, or Crockett from 85-89 or WWWF or Portland from 79-83, just the biggest drawing, key moments. The things that were BUILT to, the seminal matches. With Houston, we've been learning as we go. I don't think many people could have answered that question for the pre-Watts stuff. It's obvious now, from watching before and after, that the May 18, 1982 Tommy Rich vs Gino Hernandez Steel Cage death match has to be up there. It had the stip that if Gino won, Boesch would kiss his shoe too. Gino won. This was a week later and he was on the outside in this match as the cockiest little shit in the world, interrupting Boesch on commentary, running interference on Casey, getting heat left and right. This was the height of the Dynamic Duo as heatseeking machines and there's not a person on this site that doesn't love that sort of thing. Hopefully we do get that Rich vs Gino cage match because it sounds like the best thing in the world.

I'm not really with Joe's post. I get what he's saying. I think context is important to understand what you're seeing. At the end of the day though it comes down to why are you writing reviews? Are you trying to be as useful to as many people as possible? Or are you trying to judge the match as good or not? Are you trying to understand what makes it tick? Is it about getting hits? Is it about knocking down a match or building it up? Is it down to comparing it against every other match you've seen? Are you looking for some sort of universal truth and rating? Are you trying to right some previous imbalance that you see in how wrestling has been previously reviewed. Are you just trying to make sense of your own feelings? Are you trying to engage with other people on your criticisms and counter theirs if you feel differently? People may value different things. Depending on why you're reviewing a match that may or may not matter in how you write your review. Frankly, it may make you more hardline in one area or another. I often see that people who are hardline on your #1 understand #3 far, far better than those who are hardline on #3 understand #1. Frankly, to me, #1 is more cerebral and takes more thought and effort while #3 is more emotional and involves more letting go and getting swept up.Analyzing vs Experiencing. I'm wired to value categorization, pattern-seeking, and attention to detail far more. One seems "smarter" than the other to me (which in turn makes the other "dumber" by nature). I'm sure others find what I come up either as patently ridiculous because I'm overthinking it and wrestling is just a "dumb form of disposable entertainment" or they find mys stuf downright soulless. What I'm trying to say is that no, you don't have to accept everyone's values as being worth the same. Just try to at least be aware of them and try to understand them the best you can, even if you're disregarding them for reasons that you're open about. We need all sorts of reviews out there.

I'm not entirely sure how to tackle this. Let me try with two background comments and then to go from there. Background comments: 1.) I have never seen Goto before and I've only seen one Shibata match, the tag vs Taue from far, far earlier in his career. I can connect those dots to some degree as both performances centered around a sense of attitude and full dedication to, if not a character, than an ideal. I do appreciate that. 2.) My understanding and enjoyment of this match was heavily colored by the commentary. I'm not 100% sure it's accurate. I'm not sure if the company gave them talking points or not. I'm not entirely sure that the crowd reactions they were describing at times were accurate. It didn't feel that way. I never got a sense that the crowd was disappointed in Goto. I also don't know if I'd consider the commentary objectively "good." It was, however, effective, in that I bought into the story they were telling and overlaid it over I was seeing. I may have understood this match very differently and engaged with it far less without the commentary. Ultimately, I liked the first third and I liked the last third, and I was into the finish. I didn't know how this ended and the announcers built it up well enough (likely too well) and Shibata proved himself to be such a force in the match that I didn't think Goto was going to be able to pull it off. That's a testament to the total package, that I was engaged in the finish and popped at least a little for Goto overcoming what was presented to me as "the odds." With how the match was presented, I was absolutely okay with the early arm work being blown off. Here's why. As presented, everything in the first third, or so, until they started doing the corner run assaults back and forth, was Shibata bullying Goto, being disappointed in him, trying to wake him up and make him really fight, to awaken his inner spirit. As such, once it was obvious from the opening moments that this was not happening, Shibata went to the arm not to control him or break him down, but to show him what this match would be like if he didn't wake up. It was a form of bullying, of trying to push him. It was Shibata saying "If you're not going to really fight me, I'm not going to fight you. I'm just going to twist at this body part and break it down and there's nothing you can do about it." It was the pro wrestling equivalent of stuffing him in a locker basically and it made total sense to me that once Goto really started to fight, Shibata wouldn't go back to it. He didn't WANT to go back to it. He never wanted to go to it in the first place. He wanted the fight and by pushing him with the arm work, he got it. I was ALSO okay with that corner back and forth with delayed selling. When it occurred, not enough damage had been done that I couldn't believe they wouldn't fight through it. The point of the match, at that point of the match, was that they were TRYING to fight through it. If they spent the next ten minutes acting that way I would have had problems with it but it led to a moment of selling. With that exchange, I was ok. I was also okay with Shibata popping up. This is what he wanted, at least according to the commentary. This is what he reveled in. When it came to strikes, I could buy it to a degree. He was goading Goto. He was pushing Goto, and once he pushed him there, he had to show that it was his own turf, where he belonged. It wasn't quite "Cactus Jack loves pain!" but it was why he got out of bed this morning, and in that regard, it made sense for him to pop up and prove his toughness. With that bit, I was ok, With the subsequent no selling of suplexes, I wasn't. That's where the match lost me. I was able to suspend my sense of disbelief, was able to go along for a ride that I don't usually enjoy going on due to the back story the announcers fed me, the fact I haven't seen this particular match six other times so it was novel, and the sense of commitment from both guys, but it all fell apart when the escalated things but still did the delayed, two-moves later, selling. I don't think it was necessary to tell the story they were trying to tell. I think they could have accomplished all the more by playing up the wear and tear on their bodies and having each move mean more at this point. And then, they more or less did just that, going into the forearm exchanges (which for once worked for the reasons I mentioned before), and the story that Shibata, MAYBE, shouldn't have woken a dragon when he was so banged up and when that dragon had whiplash inducing offense as his trademark/specialty. Every one of Goto's goofy flip moves was exactly the bane to Shibata's taped up neck and shoulders. And after every one, Shibata would try to fight his way back in it to the point where I thought he'd be just too much for Goto but Goto hung on and it was a nice little moment when he won it. I'm fairly glad I saw this. I don't think it was five stars. I think watching Shibata would get old quickly. This style walks a definite tightrope of appropriateness and the line between grisly and awesome and believable and the whole thing just falling apart is very, very thin. Good on them for getting it back after it did, but the fact that it did in the first place was a problem to me. From a personal standpoint, I'm also not entirely comfortable having relied upon commentary so much for something I might not have seen or believed on my own.

This has definitely been a fun card for people to check out so far. I have a theory that UG matches are the Ric Flair mindset of doing signature spots because he would have been upset if Ray Stevens didn't do one taken to the extreme. It's pro wrestling church. Not just expectation but ritual. This is the same building every week. UG's not fooling anyone. He's not trying to. The fans wouldn't want him to. It's church.

And you should watch that. And you should also watch that Shibata/KENTA vs Taue/someone else tag because you'll get a kick out of young Shibata being a little shit to Taue in it. but I want to see you watch that Trevor Lee vs John Skyler match (get the details from Chad). I'm curious what you'll think of the CWF environment.

Heat evolves, just like everything else in wrestling. People have phones and tablets now - even in the biggest of big spots, some of them are going to be filming it, rather than living in it. I also just believe that people react differently. People evolve. Or devolve.

A match with two of your favorite wrestlers? Come on. That's BS. I'll watch Goto/Shibata if you watch the Trevor Lee vs John Skyler match Chad sent me yesterday, but you couldn't pay me to watch Omega vs Okada right now.

I'm a ringer and all and I'm not 100% sure on the timing but it's a short feeling out process followed by Bockwinkel working the headlock and them moving in and out of it, then Hennig finally shifting the advantage by getting the arm and them working in and out of it, and eventually Bockwinkel gets a leg (after trying a few times) to halt the armwork and takeover. Again I'm not totally sure how the timing of that works out but it's awesome. They struggled. They sold. They had progression within the bases that they were using. Persistence paid off. Great stuff. Elliott thought I should see Omega/Okada, but I'm sure my reaction to that would be just as predictable as Meltzer's and no one needs that. If I'm going to spend 45 minutes on something I'm just taking the extra fifteen and watching Hennig vs Bock again because I haven't seen it in a couple of years.

So uh, Bruce, you've got that Bockwinkel vs Wahoo match lying around right? Otherwise it's a crime against wrestling to tease us with promos.

I'm still annoyed no one would even engage my Mark Henry vs Randy Orton match write up. Disenfranchisement.

There is so much amazing stuff in there. We can hope, I think.

This is outside my comfort zone but Loss pointed it my way so I thought I'd give it a shot. I MAY be reading too much into this one, but I can't help it with post 96 Misawa, really. It all sort of becomes heightened reality. There are things that Misawa (and to a lesser extent the other pillars) can get away with in my mind. They are, after a certain point in time, ascended to some degree. They're on a different plane, a boss level encounter relative to a normal match. I actually have no idea how Hase is positioned at this point, but the sense I had was that he was also someone who had been through his share of wars, a grizzled veteran (mustache and all) who had the unenviable task of chopping down the tree that fought like a god. I love how he tried to go about it, constantly going to the arm, slowly, surely working his way up towards larger and larger attacks. At first, he does all he can to prevent Misawa from getting any distance. Misawa on the other hand, keeps trying to forearm his way through it, which is insane until you realize that Misawa is mythic and ultimately, if he is allowed to punch forward, to forearm his way, he will eventually power through any mountain you put in front of him. It's Hase's job to prevent that here. From Loss' initial discussions, I was expecting a lot more motion, maybe a few minutes of holds, but ultimately them moving in and out of them more. It took me a while to warm up to things, to really see how Hase was controlling the motion and flow of things with his holds, how Misawa was extremely giving in his struggle to get out. The constant shout with every new hold of "Give up" helped. It was ultimately Misawa's gradual weakening of his resistance that really made the match though. When he was able to hit bombs later in the match, they didn't pay off for him. Hase was prepared for them, ready to absorb big blows and immediately put the hold back on. When Misawa created distance and went to the top rope, ultimately, he was going to get caught. It was clear that Misawa wasn't going to regain control in any way but by forearming his way through the pain and through Hase's face. Unfortunately for Hase, it was also clear that he wasn't going to win with the holds alone. There was a sense after the powerbomb and the hold being restablished afterwards that Hase could have absolutely waited Misawa out and won on points. You can't beat Misawa on points, however, and that led to the finish. Misawa was weakened enough that Hase was able to launch four major bombs in a row. Normally that would feel like excess. No, it WAS excess. It was absolutely excess but within the context of this match and within the context of the narrative I have in my head about 2000 Misawa (scraggy "beard" and all), it worked. It felt like Hase's only pathway left yet also something he had potentially planned for, to strike again and again when Misawa was finally softened up. It couldn't work in the context of this battle, however. It wasn't a matter of Hase abandoning his gameplan. It was a matter of the gameplan only being able to take him so far. It had been all he could to do to get Misawa to this point, but it meant that the rest of Misawa's body wasn't broken down enough for this to put him away. When Hase went back to the well immediately, the forearms came hard and fast, Misawa finally punching his way through the darkness, fury unleashed, and that, unlike any of the bombs that Hase was ready for, was something that could not be answered.

Without looking it up what were the best matches of 2014 or 2015? Can you rattle them off like we could for 89 or 92 or whatever? Can you do it for 1978? There's a fine line between some sort of universal resonance and nostalgia. We have people on this very board that could absolutely do it for 2006 or whatever, because that's their 1992. That said, part of the issue is that there's so much more of it now.

I was hoping one of my dudes would watch this so I wouldn't have to. I'm only allowed to watch Fujiwara matches when it comes to Japan, I think. (Just ignore the Hase vs Misawa match I'm about to watch).

History has shown that they were right, too. Think about how bad we are. Imagine the kids in 2030!

Someone should figure out how to get Austin a copy of the PR set.

The meta-story in my head is that as the tecnico fans left in droves after Mistico I left and after WWE sort of showed him (and therefore his peers) to be hugely unimportant in the grand scheme of things, the remaining rudo-favoring crowd turned on many of the younger remaining tecnicos. In that regard, the resentment that drove Rush and the other Ingobernables was the CMLL crowds creating their own monster, one who felt that they should be cheered and revered, that they deserved to be like their predecessors over the years, but that weren't. One of my favorite parts of their act was the teasing, in title matches, a couple of minutes of adhering to tradition cleanly (like you would still often get from other actual rudos), only to start a beatdown early in the primera.