Matt D

My favorite two thing about Funk vs Orton were A) the transitions between acts. I thought they had backed themselves into a corner with first the piledriver and then the severity of the leg damage but they successfully transitioned out of both and B ) how much Orton came off like a star. That was half Orton and half Funk but I'd rarely seen him like that. The symmetry in the slaps, for instance, was great.

I've been asked at least twice by people i know from places other than here if I think Styles can carry Reigns to a good match? Anyone else have this problem?

Probably for the best because it means I can get away with having said certain things that only you or Jetlag could call me on.

Marty, someday there'll be a reckoning on that Brainbusters/Demolition series.

Isn't 00s AAA basically Americanized lucha?

It's a total joy that we get live CMLL three times a week. Not all of it is good, especially some of the undercard stuff, but I love having it on in the background on the CPU as I'm watching other stuff, and tune in more when it's something I think will be good. More live wrestling is always better than less live wrestling. I'll go off cubs and other people for things I know I need to catch though. As for indy matches, I catch what I can when I can when it makes it online. Same with Elite. No idea what a post GWE world will mean.

There's that, but not just that. It's not just that they're giving us more good pairings, but they're giving us more pairings in general, more big matches, more build and payoff, something like the January card which was an actual full card and not one match and a bunch of nothing.

I wonder if there is anything different in the CMLL booking this year. It does feel different than the last few (well, other than the Esfinge tournament win.)

I think, ultimately, teaming with Felino and Niebla has been a net positive for him too, especially considering he's had to be the "worker" in those matches. He's gotten a lot of positive character and crowd interaction experience from it without having picked up their obvious 2016 downsides and bad habits.

The Lightning match between Cavernario and Cometa on Friday was a blast too and that's on its way to a bigger match.

Not as of yesterday, dammit.

My personal request on this (and no one has to listen to me) is that if people do this, that they post the top 150 instead of just the top 100, because I think in some ways, it's a cooler and more interesting list and it's even more stacked with names that will be new to people and that they can be introduced to and explore.

Your criteria is dubious and involves overvaluing shoulder pads with spikes or something.

I feel like we sort of survived the whole process together. We always argued with one another, five years ago, three years ago, now. This was never a shiny happy agreeable place. But we treat each other with respect for the most part and we enjoy it. I think we will be stronger for having survived this. Hell look at how people treated the Funk vs Orton match yesterday.

So mad at myself for watching the Volador vs Dorada match from Elite. Me and my endless chances.

You glorious madman.

So I watched Atlas vs Markus. It is a singular match, an amazing match in some ways. There are really strong elements, namely the focused backwork from Markus in the second fall and some of the selling of said backwork by Atlas. They do a lot of things right from a layout standpoint throughout the match and Atlas certainly is broad in everything he does, with Markus almost as broad in some of his selling and reactions. But past that few minutes of backwork and selling, and even some of that, the execution here is just brutal, painfully brutal. What they do is so on point, for much of the match, in that it's called well, in that it's enthusiastic and focused, that you can't hate the match, but you can sure as hell pity it. The awkwardness is like very little I've ever seen. You'll never be bored by this one. You may try to rub the image of it out of your eyes for the next two weeks though. It's a beautiful disaster.

I did not. I felt like I could barely wrap my mind around the singles. Demolition would NOT be #1 though. Maybe #5. I probably would have put Condrey/Eaton at #1 (in part due to NWA Classics recency bias). Lucha would have been all over the place, which is in part why I didn't. Infernales would be high. Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero would have been high. RnR would beat Rockers, certainly.

You have no idea how excited I was to get those action figures as a kid. Looking forward to hearing this.

And that's coming from the guy named "Rock of Jericho" folks.

I know everyone's watching Funk vs Orton today, but I'm totally with Pete on Harley vs Halcon and the promos/pre-match/post match around it. This feels exactly like another one of those "Great Nights of Wrestling in Houston." One of those angles that if we had on tape 15 years ago, we'd be talking about on the list with some of those Memphis or Mid-South shows. Race is extremely good at playing a vulnerable champion, often times too good because the situation doesn't merit it. Here, it absolutely does and he absolutely shines. I was really expecting a lot of clowning and stooging against Halcon doing all of his quasi-lucha moves but that's not at all what we got here. What we got instead was Race fighting for his very life after Brody's riot. Halcon was quick to bite and do that ridiculous but awesome over the top straight haymaker. I loved Harley using the Atomic Drop as his primary cut off/killshot move. The way he held him up for the first one really let it set in for the crowd before dropping him made it work for what it was meant to be in a way it might not have otherwise. Yeah, this was really good. I ALMOST want to see the follow up Brody vs Race match (almost. I saw some of his kicks at the end when he was doing the post-match run in and that made me want to see it a little less). Everyone should catch this one ASAP though. Harley doing what he does best at a time when he had all the reason in the world to do it.

Big margin of winning. Really I think it's more that he hit the Flying Body Press for the second time in his career.

Just curious, how much were people affected by the AJPW footage that popped up in the last year in voting for Funk? That was a huge part of it for me, supplementing what we already had to what felt like a pretty big degree. If not that, what specific footage that you hadn't seen raised him in your eyes during the voting period?

My gut says that this will have a way bigger positive impact on the numbers than anything else they've done so far.

Steven told me the #1. It's: