Matt D

If that doesn't do well, then we know Brock isn't a draw.

It's funny. The brothers Cooke chiming in here got me thinking. There's a lot of early 1980s (and late 1970s) AJPW that I hadn't seen before. I was, however, demonstrably more excited when Our Friend in Japan would post something which we, as a community, hadn't yet seen, despite the fact that a huge chunk of what he was posting, new to us or not, was new to me. On the other hand, I don't really have that feeling for what dataintcash posts. It's cool to have someone like Kris see something he'd never seen before, but in general I'm excited for everything he posts that's new to me and not otherwise online. Some of that is because my wrestling budget for the year is pretty small in general and while I've purchased a bit of lucha over the last few years (80s set, Cota vs Casas hair match before it ended up online, Fredo's GdI comp), I'm probably not going to randomly buy this footage. Some of it is just that I care more about lucha than All Japan. I think what it really is, however, is that I feel like this stuff hasn't been examined by the community nearly as much, especially through the non-Meltzerian lens of lucha watching. So that these matches become easily accessible to the people watching now is almost as important as us getting our hands on brand new things. I didn't get that sense for the AJPW stuff that had already been out there nearly as much.

He won the Cow Palace battle royal one year. How does that compare with Ultimo Dragon having 9 belts?

Judy Martin is awesome.

I know in my head that dataintcash will stop posting for a few months soon so I'll have plenty of time to get through it, but in my heart, I want to watch all of it right now because it all looks amazing and I feel like I'm falling behind!

Some very quick thoughts which I'll try to expand on later. In short, I loved it. I'll try to give a full write up in the next few days.

Ah! Just starting this now. It's not the Gold Cup Final. It's Tito defending instead. But that just means the Gold Cup is still potentially out there too. Also, Bruce, I hope you caught that Hayes vs Williams cage match.

Which is why HBK replacing Taylor is a great idea.

Who ended up with Steel/Val?

What moves do regularly get pops right now? (I think he does the move due to a Napoleon complex btw. Size driven main event world.)

Can you imagine 91 sheets. "Another geriatric snoozefest booked by Von Lamer."

And we appreciate 40 minutes (w/ promos) of Tito and Bock. Oh hey! I think that's the Gold Cup match. Can't wait til I can see it tonight.

That's sort of what happened with Frey.

The personality piece on Boesch was awesome. So many great shots of his office. He comes off as so likable. Any grief we give you is out of love for the footage, Bruce.

There's cooling the crowd down and then there's dressing up in a fuzzy parka and shooting them with a freeze ray while cackling maniacally. 16 minutes for Bellomo vs Rose?

Talk about purpose...

Moolah is really holding everyone down again.

I kind of hate to say it, but the selling in and around the move didn't warrant either that or Graves' ankle excuse (which would have made sense after the anklelock). Good recoveries are important and the pancake was a good recovery, but that moment could have been made better by active (and off-script) selling, either of her ankle or of exhaustion, by Bayley.

And for me comparison it's just a helpful tool, one of many. It is a mean, certainly not an end.

Are we ranking matches are trying to understand (analyzing) them?

By purpose, I mean "what is this match trying to accomplish?"

Yeah, so, part of me really wants gordi's stuff to turn into a found footage horror tale.

I also wonder if we shouldn't be more focused on understanding, deconstructing, and classifying than ranking and rating.

I suppose what's most interesting to me, in this regard, is the intersection between the stuff outside the matches and the matches themselves. That's not an answer, but it's a step closer and broader. I care about purpose when it comes to matches. Other people generally haven't.

Watching wrestling live and watching on tape delay is absolutely the same as watching a sport live or on tape delay so long as you don't know the results/details of either. Likewise Game of Thrones.