Matt D

Past GWE (and my GWE focus is Classic UK primarily), I want to keep the 3x a Week lucha posting for Segunda Caida up until at least April. That'll take me to two years and 300 matches reviewed and that feels like a pretty substantial footprint. After that I'll likely look at other things. I'd like to catch up on Lucha Underground too. That's it though. Work is busy. Life is busy.

Actually submit a GOAT ballot. Is there really anything else to strive for this year?

I'll have Lawler within the top ten and I'm with Will. It's all based on in ring stuff and I don't think I watched much, if any, Memphis until I was 27 or 28. Angles and promos and everything else are ammunition that a wrestler can use but it's how the wrestler uses them that matters for this. There are opportunities in any wresting match.

We hear all the time the announcement not to throw anything into the ring in Houston. It's sort of a "mind the gap" style of joke you can make about the ambiance of the place, but this is one of the first times I've really seen the trash come flying in. Can you imagine if they did actually overturn that finish?

I think for a lot of us it's way too late in the game to move goalposts. Especially if this is meant to compare/contrast the 2006 list.

I'm most of the way through. Pete was a great guest, because if nothing else, he's really a different voice to a lot of us, but has a ton of knowledge. I always like hearing Kris and Bix interact with people from outside our immediate DVDVR/PWO circle. The RWTL teams were interesting, especially Hickerson/Blackwell. Has anyone seen any of this? I really liked Baba vs Blackwell interaction from early in the decade, but I can only imagine what it'd look like in 88. 25 16.12.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Hiroshi Wajima & The Great Kabuki defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson(11:42) AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 22 @ Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan TV-Show 26 14.12.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 20 @ Sagamihara City Gymnasium in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan Event 27 13.12.1988 Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 19 @ Niigata City Gymnasium in Niigata, Japan Event 28 10.12.1988 Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson defeat Isao Takagi & Takashi Ishikawa AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 17 @ Nakajima Sports Center in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan TV-Show 29 07.12.1988 Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson defeat Isao Takagi & Takashi Ishikawa AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 14 @ Higashine Citizen Gymnasium in Higashine, Yamagata, Japan Event 30 06.12.1988 Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 13 @ Funabashi Civic Movement Park Gymnasium in Funabashi, Chiba, Japan Event 31 04.12.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Jimmy Snuka & Tiger Mask defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 12 @ Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan Event 32 03.12.1988 Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 11 @ Tsu City Gymnasium in Tsu, Mie, Japan Event 33 30.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Danny Spivey & Johnny Ace defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 9 @ Fukui City Gymnasium in Fukui, Japan Event 34 28.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 7 @ Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium in Osaka, Japan Event 35 25.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Abdullah The Butcher & Tiger Jeet Singh defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 6 @ Kumamoto City Gymnasium in Kumamoto, Japan Event 36 24.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson vs. Dick Slater & Tommy Rich - Double Count Out AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 5 @ Kitakyushu Municipal Gymnasium in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan Event 37 21.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 3 @ Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan TV-Show 38 20.11.1988 Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson (7:46) AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 2 @ Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan Event 39 19.11.1988 Real World Tag League 1988: Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu defeat Jerry Blackwell & Phil Hickerson (6:55) AJPW Real World Tag League 1988 - Tag 1 @ Ashikaga, Tochigi, Japan TV-Show

Sure. It's not over. It's just something else. But whatever it is, there's no HHH keeping kayfabe.

I watched an episode of upupdowndown with the Miz playing street fighter, and Bray Wyatt was just sitting there in the back watching in civvies. It's over.

MX vs RnR was an amazing match. Just a picture perfect shine with stalling and ref shtick and . No one was better at feeding and clowning than Condrey and Eaton. A beautiful transition, with focused work giving way to violence and heatseeking, and then oscillating back between hope spots from the greatest face in peril of all time and cut offs including one or two that were up there with the best I've ever seen (what a perfect spot, the Eaton powerslam). Then there was a fun and novel hot tag and such a hot finish. I loved it.

Outback Jack is a recruiter.

Juno accounts existed in 1998. Would 2008 be that much different?

I'll probably end up doing both of them in the end. It's all blind spots to me. What's the best way to do both to get the best appreciation? Just do them both at the same time chronologically?

I went with it because it was 98 Dave and not 88 Dave.

I'm going off an old (98) observer mainly. Dave doesn't follow up on it later in the bio. Inoki, who was half Japanese and half Brazilian, lived in Brazil as a teenager and was a high school track star of such proportions that Rikidozan heard about the large agile Japanese athlete and recruited him into pro wrestling. He started his career as Kanji Inoki (the Antonio name was hidden to keep from the public his Brazilian ancestry making him not pure-blood Japanese and thus fearing it would keep from being fully accepted as a national superstar), and worked both in Japan and in the United States during the early part of his career.

A couple of reasons. I'm still a sucker for a Great Match and Hunter has had quite a few of them. He's not "on" as often as I'd like, but when he's on he's on. Also I haven't watched enough new wrestling (new to me, not recent) to have 100 guys that I've watched enough of and rate to honestly place above him. Same goes for other heavily flawed guys with lots of great matches that in a perfect world I'd be able to eliminate, Edge and Angle being the obvious ones. I am basically excluding Japan so I can't fault you for that. It just means you have something to work towards for the next one. I think there won't be a guy on my 100 that I feel really doesn't belong there, even with my blindspots. We'll see though. As your boss, I am going to make you watch a bunch of Fujiwara Once we get past April, I will. Actually, the whole lucha bit was to really get a handle on it, and I'm hitting some level of diminishing returns now that I have. I'm thinking that once I hit the two year mark, I get the DVDVR New Japan 80s set and go through that. He's all over that, right?

I'm going to stick a random, ignorant Inoki question here. I know he hid his Brazilian heritage early in his career, including not using Antonio. Later on, though, how much of a part of his public perception was it?

A couple of reasons. I'm still a sucker for a Great Match and Hunter has had quite a few of them. He's not "on" as often as I'd like, but when he's on he's on. Also I haven't watched enough new wrestling (new to me, not recent) to have 100 guys that I've watched enough of and rate to honestly place above him. Same goes for other heavily flawed guys with lots of great matches that in a perfect world I'd be able to eliminate, Edge and Angle being the obvious ones. I am basically excluding Japan so I can't fault you for that. It just means you have something to work towards for the next one. I think there won't be a guy on my 100 that I feel really doesn't belong there, even with my blindspots. We'll see though.

That summed up Hunter pretty well. So why is he making your list?

I think they were pretty careful how they managed expectations with Andre relative to Brock.

Come on, Dave. It's ok you write about MMA, but don't make your lead story a compare/contrast about some UFC guy and Reigns so I can't easily skip the MMA stuff if I want to. "Luke Rockhold" is a great wrestling name though.

Also, they're selling Merch. That's a big difference.

I think Piper worked as an opponent because he felt like an outsider, someone beyond the typical WCW dynamic. It was apparent that nothing WCW could throw at the NWO would work and Piper was a wild card, someone from outside the system, someone who didn't care about the rules or the establishment. He shook up the board and that's always exciting in some ways.

We were very much on the same page with this one. It's a really great Casas performance.

Yeah, I've been holding off on this one because I'm still two Exiles behind, but I'll probably have to listen.

What I'm really excited for is Asuka and Bayley teaming up first.