Matt D

Quick comments. I liked Patera vs Lothario. The bearhug was a bit much maybe but I still think they worked it well. JJ was awesome in his role. He brought so much more to the table than Gary Hart in what we've seen. Patera is a perfect stooging heel to eat Lothario's punches. Good effective wrestling. It's the sort of thing we take for granted because it comes in a sea of matches. If it was the only thing to pop up, we'd value it a lot more. I actively liked Duggan vs Mil too. This is the card with Lucas vs Gino and Tully vs Morton on it so that's cool right there. 82 Duggan feels immediately special. He's just got this reckless heel energy to him. He bumps all over the ring for Mil's stuff with an off-beat charisma that's just electric. He's wild in the way you always hope Brody is (I had a weird Monty Brown vibe from him actually). It's a 12 minute 2/3 fall sprint, basically, but it's well worth watching.

I think I missed this thread before. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it now.

You guys know this. They decide the poster images months in advanced and usually without any idea what the card is, often times with just something that fits the theme. Dean Ambrose is the extreme guy. it makes sense he'd be on the poster. Payback had the Wyatts who weren't on the card, etc.

Really interesting line up of matches. Looking forward to this. EDIT: Potential Houston Bock matches we might still get, just from we know about, in no order: Lothario (at least 1), Rocky Johnson (x3), Dick Slater (x3), Wahoo (x2), Dusty (x2 or x3), Tommy Rich, Mil Mascaras, Scott Casey (x2), JYD (x2-3), Tito Santana (x2-3), Chavo (at least 1), Tony Atlas (at least 1), Mr. Wrestling II (at least 1), Johnny Rich, Ivan Putski, Brody(a few, including one on deck). If we get even half of those... Also, there's an 6/13/86 Hansen no contest. I have no idea if that's been out there before. EDIT 2: That's just from 78 on too. If the wrestling gods are smiling on us, we might get this too: 10/21/77 – Houston, TX @ the Sam Houston Coliseum AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel vs. Terry Funk Also the 77 card with him vs Lothario AND Funk because Harley no-showed but I'm not sure if that was at the Summit.

For people who did get votes, Thatcher seems like a guy that could end up in the top 100. He has good stuff from when, 09? It's the sort of thing that'll add up. I could see Kamaitachi ending relatively high depending on where he goes next. He didn't get any votes at all, right?

I honestly think it's an accident.

Ok, so on second thought, I found time. There are about two minutes cut out but anyone who's seen a decent amount of Bock knows what it probably was (Brunzell ending the Bock control/KOTM segment with a revenge leg posting from the outside, a minute of legwork, into the figure four that we come back to). I really liked it. There was a point around the 48 minute mark where I thought maybe they should go home, but they transitioned into some backwork a couple of minutes later and Bock being vulnerable made it work towards the finish. It's hard to talk about a 60 minute match in a few sentences and I don't have the time to break the whole thing down. This is probably Brunzell's career match that we have on tape. He's got the Jumbo match and some really great High Flyers matches but he definitely held his own here. The selling was great from start to finish, both the dueling arm/leg limb selling, including in really logical ways while on offense. I think there are discernible chapter breaks that build off of what came before instead of forgetting or ignoring it, with callbacks and selling between chapters (though not where it would no longer make sense or matter, but far more than you'd get from a lot of similar matches, especially from Bockwinkel). The late match selling over the last twenty minutes or so, the exhaustion and desperation is really great. I'm not sure anyone is better at selling of cumulative damage than Bockwinkel and while we see that in 30-40 minute matches,we rarely get to really see it in 60 minute matches and he's the best at it. Very curious what other people think even though I know some people have seen at least part of this before.

I liked how sneaky Park was in that match. He did a lot of canny, sneaky things unrepentantly.

I just watched this the other day too:

Dotdotkins posted a stitched together 58 minute Brunzell vs Bockwinkel match. I do think we've had it in parts previously, but not put together like this. I'm still a few days from being able to check it out though.

Alexa is right there with her Claw and awesome over the top reactions to everything. Carmella too. And Athena in the wings.

Probably still a better draw than Brock?

There's a lot of value in an honest surprise for people who can't get surprised easily. Also, nostalgia, and freakshow dives, and stakes. Which they make meaningless all the time.

I can't even imagine how much I miss by being terrible at Spanish.

You can watch a year's worth of Casas matches and never see him do that on the mat too. Some of the ways he reacted to Hechicero's twisty turny-submissions, both in getting out and selling, and trying to struggle against elements of them was as good, logical, and novel as anyone I've ever seen against Hech.

I'm more inclined towards dull matwork than others. That said, the most fascinating part of the match is constrained Brody. I thought it was effective but a little dull, yeah. Can't wait for the long form Von Erichs stuff. I have my expectations raised by the Halcon/Race and Tully/Mil angles. Who was booking Houston in 78-79? Hart?

I'm going to have to dodge and dive and brave angering my wife on Mother's Day to try to see it today because I can't wait.

Most of the complaints I hear are at live events. LIke tonight for example. NXT ran two shows, one in the midwest and the other in Orlando. All the big time "tv stars" were in the midwest and the only guys people in Orlando knew were the Revival, The Drifter and Nia Jax. Granted the Vaudevillans made a surprise appearance but the Florida shows aren't drawing like they use to. They need to build more stars on TV to help out with these split shows and not just bring in indie guys that only work the out of state shows. What did they draw at peak and what are they drawing now?

Not a lot to say about Johnson vs Gino. It was a great coming out party for early heel Gino and I bet Boesch was super proud of him. Brody vs Valentine (Buddy Roberts) was extremely interesting. The best way I can explain it would be like a lucha title match Brody (or to a lesser extent a NWA title match), in that he did a lot things on the level and there was more wrestling, even if it was more headlocks than anything else. It's a testament to Roberts how different he is as Dale Valentine but he really is a poor man's Johnny/Greg. Here, though, I think he was in a position to show a little more. This is a Brody I've rarely seen and I think he wrestled the match extremely appropriately, with a lot of the positives without many of the negatives you usually get from him. If we had a whole career of this guy acting this way, I could see him as more people's favorite. Let me put it this way, there's a moment early in the headlock sequence where it's pretty obvious Valentine is calling spots with him. The level of cooperation was there. They still had their limitations, both of them, but it was a lot better than I was expecting coming in and it frankly has me optimistic for other 78 Brody matches we've yet to get but might like the Wahoo, Dusty, and Bockwinkel ones (And even some more of the Rocky Johnson ones).

Sandow was the third most over guy at the Rumble last year, after Brock and Bryan. It wasn't even close.

I can't get enough of the pitch punch finish.

It also got him away from opponents with bad habits and overbooked matches so that he'd wrestle a broad range of opponents in a lot of different places without any sort of house style. That helped, I think. The difference between a lot of great performances and less than great matches and great performances that could lead to great matches?

Does anyone know why Toscano isn't a CMLL lifer? That's something I've always been curious about.