Matt D

We'd be better off without Texas and Japan, obviously.

Chavo Guerrero vs Nick Bockwinkel - non-title. We have a lot of Nick Bockwinkel on tape, but most of these matches are in the AWA, with some in Japan. When it comes to Nick Bockwinkel, travelling champ, we have some clipped matches from Stampede and we have his Memphis matches, maybe a little more elsewhere. Most of those latter are against Lawler, and while great, they aren't quite the same thing as going up against a Bart Sawyer or Koko Ware, like we have with Flair. It made for a missing puzzle piece. Don't get me wrong. Chavo was a big star in LA and he was a star in Houston, but it's not quite the same as going up against Kerry or Dusty. Moreover, this was a match with a very specific purpose and a very specific tone. This was the first match of a two match series, the second coming two weeks later. It's not the same as having a travelling champ in for a week, but it's the same idea. So this was a mid-card match, Bockwinkel against a talented regional star (but not superstar), who he had to make look like gold so that the fans would buy into the idea that he might really be able to take the belt during the main event of the second show. Ultimately, then, this was more of a very well-executed functional match than a great match, but it was a pair of great performances and moreover, I think this is an important match that was sort of missing from the Bockwinkel canon. I know there was some problems with the audio here and I'm glad that Bruce and his team got them sorted because Boesch shines on commentary. This was his finest announcing, getting over the story of the match and some of the little moments so well. The story was that Bockwinkel didn't think Chavo was a big enough star or good enough to deserve a title shot. He offered him a non-title match mainly to embarrass him. So after a bit of that, Chavo took over and really never looked back, with persistent, focused offense and with Bockwinkel making it all mean so much. He worked this like the babyface shines against guys like Brunzell, Martel, and Hennig, working in and out of the holds, but really only taking a small amount of the match for himself. At the end, they went for a few high spots, with Chavo hitting the German at a key moment to take the win and set up the title rematch. I want to focus on two sequences in the match that really show the level of thought and skill involved, how they took a simple straightforward story and crafted something very effective out of it through parallels and build, selling, and payoff. Bockwinkel was amazing in the opening minute, completely controlling the pace and being the smarmiest creature alive. That made his early comeuppance all the sweeter. They began with lock-ups, with a clean, amused break against the ropes by Bockwinkel. Chavo then returned it in kind, breaking clean as well. Bock followed this up with a deep hip toss, raising his hand in satisfied victory afterwards and then a big slam, his arm up once again. He was bullying Chavo here, which isn't a role you usually see Bockwinkel get to play, expressing his superiority and how beneath him his opponent was. So, of course, once they lock up again, Chavo hiptossed him twice and followed with a body slam at three times the speed that Bockwinkel executed those moves. Anything Bock can do, Chavo can do as well, better and quicker. That was the idea, and it was a great start to the match. From there, they went to the arm work, and were this a title match as opposed to the match setting up the title match, I probably would have been lower on it due to the fact Chavo took so much of it. This was the intersection of the heel looking vulnerable and the babyface with something to prove, though, so here, it was appropriate, and Bock definitely made it matter. Look at the second exchange. If the opening one was built off of parallels, this was all about set-up and payoff. Bockwinkel would layer comeback attempts in to keep the crowd interested, to make himself look stronger and more spirited, and to make Chavo look better in being able to cut him off. In the first of these, he was working towards a bodyslam, but due to the damage to his arm was unable to hit it. Instead, Chavo fell on him, and then immediately took back the arm, Chavo playing his role so well in working the hold and Bockwinkel broadly selling it. Eventually, though (two comeback attempts later, the next one being bodyscissor focused, since he couldn't use the arm), Bock would get back to a vertical base. Finally, now, he hit the slam. It was a moment that felt like it meant something due to the previous set up. It should have been a triumphant moment for Bockwinkel, but Chavo was unrelenting and immediately went back to the arm. It was pure futility and frustration for the champ and played perfectly into the story they were trying to tell. The fans responded at the end, popping huge for Chavo's win. I'd be really curious to see how well the rematch drew, because between the excellent job they did here and the post-match promos, including a great impassioned one from Chavo, I'm excited for the rematch. Hopefully, that shows up sometime soon.

For me, the most important part of longlevity is that it provides a lot of different situational data points in figuring out just how great the wrestler was. I think we have a hell of a lot of those with Arn, more than enough to understand him as a wrestler from many different angles. I know longlevity matters more for other people for different reasons.

I thought Elliott post was very good, but my take away was that while Hansen probably did what he should have, you could find around 50 other wrestlers who worked in AJPW tag matches in the 80s that would have made that match better if they were in there instead of him, and that's how I feel about most of his many, many tags in that company in that decade. To me, that says something. Maybe I should be hating the game or whatever, but there are tag matches that I DO like from AJPW in the 80s.

Hugely exciting to see Bock against an opponent I've never seen him matched up against. Looking foward to it, Bruce. Thanks for tracking it down.

One issue is a lack of context, certainly. Also a lack of progresion. I can get a sense of it with the 90s stuff, but I haven't watched with any sense of chronological order with these tags. They're all in a bubble to me. You see a number of pairings multiple times and presumably one match would inform the next on some level, like in every pairing ever, but I haven't watched that way. But I do get this feeling every time a match (new to me) appears that looks like I'd be interested in it on paper.

Maybe I should concede the point and just watch more Puerto Rico or something.

You can't not look at Bret's 80s tags. Those are some of the matches that made Bret's reputation. He's not making my top 10, absolutely not. I'm not sure if he's in my top 20 either. Those are a part of why. With Hansen, it's a guy, in his prime, in dozens of matches over a span of years actively making them worse (bad, even) because he's in them. He's doing this through tendencies seen elsewhere in his work. These aren't some obscure matches, either. The Hansen/Brody team was legendary. You could argue that this is the sort of match we have the most from his home promotion in his prime, right? It's got to be close if it's not absolute truth. It's one of the things he's best known for. How do you discount that if he's in your top 5?

Higher than the tags, but I'm with the people who are way higher on Funk than Hansen in the Funk vs Hansen match, for instance.

I have come to appreciate Stan Hansen's matches in the 90s, many of his performances, the selling which was organic and natural, very logical and the way he corners matches into following along the lines, and frankly how amazing it is that they then come out well, because while natural, they're definitely not a sure thing. His opponent has to do the right thing at almost every point or the entire endeavor falls apart. That said, whenever one of his 80s AJPW matches pops up, I almost always regret having watched it. Case in point: Bockwinkel/Hennig vs Hansen/Dibiase. Hansen gave nothing, and even when Bock or Hennig was taking it to him, he'd take three punches and then rake his opponent's eyes and take over, so it wasn't even any sort of toughness. He just ate them up whenever they were in the ring and dragged things down. At one point, Bock, obviously frustrated, put his legs up to counter an elbow drop. I'd never really seen it done like that and it looked brutal. Hansen completely no sold it and walked over to his corner. I think he dropped three spots on my ballot in a single moment. He wasn't even cooperating with his own partner, going for a back elbow and leaving Dibiase looking like an idiot as he was a second too late to make it a double back elbow. And it happened all the time, in almost every match that pops up. Frankly, the only time he looks good is when he's in there with Brody and Brody's giving even less than he is, artificially pushing him up by default. The only time he ever really seems to give anything (or anyone is able to take anything from him) is when he's up against someone he simply physically can't contain, like Andre, and that can lead to an amazing match, yes. (Or maybe when he's in there against THE BOSS). Otherwise the best you're going to get is stalemate brawling. There's no narrative thrust to it. There's no payoff to it. It's just a dull buzzing in your head. You've seen it once, you've seen it a thousand times, and it can grind an otherwise interesting match to a halt the second he tags in. One thing I do fully appreciate is that all of those great matches from the 90s couldn't exist if it wasn't for it this, because it created the possibility for the cracks that would form that his opponents could captalize upon. It created the aura that made every moment that he sold in the 90s so meaningful. The more I watch him in the 80s, really in what has to be considered his PRIME, the more I think that the only differences between him in the 80s, screwing up tag matches, and in the 90s, having great matches, were 1.) that his opponents figured out how to deal with him better and 2.) that he was physically older and more broken down and simply lacked the ability to stop them from dealing with him (and even then, they had to be clever or lucky or relentless about it). I'm pretty certain that 1982 Hansen wasn't thinking to himself "Man, if I just have another five or six years of non-collaborative performances eating people alive, I'll be able to pay it off in the 90s with some great matches after I've broken down a bit." He was thinking about whatever would make him look best in the moment, that would get him his bookings, and that's fine. It's totally understandable. It's what he should have done for his family, probably, but it sure as hell didn't make for great performances. To me, wrestling is supposed to be collaborative. It's supposed to be about creating the illusion of competition, about two wrestlers working together to create something together. And even then, it's fine, even impressive when matches can still be great without that happening, but when matches are actively made worse beacuse that's not happening, that's something else entirely. Past disagreeing with me completely about his 80s AJPW tag peformances (which is fine; obviously you're allowed to do that), I just don't get how people can just overlook all of these matches.

Glad you liked it. I had to put it together quickly due to time constraints (and I've cleaned up a few typos since), but I think I hit the points I wanted to at least. The Lothario matches are very focused. He knew how to move that crowd and get the most out of everything he did so it's exciting when every new one arrives.

I loved how they were able to create the illusion of motion for Lothario.

Guerreros vs Hacksaw/Lothario I really loved the first ten minutes or so of this match, and the back half was still good, even if it suffered a bit from a few small things. I would say that this might be the best Guerreros performance I've seen in the Houston footage so far. It's between this and the cage match with the Fabs. Lothario and Duggan were such a compelling team, playing off one another and giving each other rub from their very different star power. It was all shine, shine, shine to begin. The first seven or eight minutes were the Guerreros pinballing for Duggan and Lothario. That's not even accurate. I'd use the word "feed" instead. Lothario was a rock in the middle of the ring, and both Guerreros were so good at running into his punches, back body drops, and armdrags. Jose Lothario was a star, but he was more limited here and they were able to make him look like an absolute force. Lothario's timing and resonance was perfect, but it was the Guerreros doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Duggan was in on the act too, and there are little things he did well, such as shaking the ropes while he was stomping in order to make it all seem more devastating and manic and he was more than eager to toss them into the supersock punch and play nice with his partner. I didn't see much ego from the Guerreros or Duggan when it came to Lothario. They knew who they were in there with and they knew what he could do for the match and they all worked towards it. It helped that the shine was narrative-driven too. They weren't just doing things. There was a lot of symmetry in the opening exchange leading to Jose being in there as he was fed again and again and again (including a really nice backbreaker that I hadn't seen him do before). They built to moments here. Lothario controlled the ring, back body dropping and armdragging, like I said, but then he followed it up with a full nelson, drawing the second Guerrero in, and he ducked down to back body drop him while keeping the hold. It was a great visual spot I hadn't seen before and he followed it up by catapulting one Guerrero into the other. It wasn't the best execution in the world, but the selling and reactions were enough to push it over the top. Duggan was in next (and he had a great jumping double sledge), and he reversed a double team into a pair of atomic drops. Again, there was a bit of fumbling there, but it didn't matter because the crowd was into it and the Guerreros sold not just the pain, but the humiliation and helplessness of crashing into one another. All of this led to the biggest spot of the opening stretch, Duggan hitting a cross body on both Guerreros at once. The fans came unglued for it, I think because, as we've seen, Duggan was capable of getting relatively quick wins, so it was believable, even in the first act of the match, as a near fall. They played it up for laughs, though, with both faces trying for double pins and the Guerreros escaping the ring as Duggan stomped about in his style and Lothario did his best to mimic it to a pop. Just a great, imaginative, feel good shine where the Guerreros did the work of a dozen men for a pair of babyfaces that the crowd adored and that knew exactly what to do and when to do it. The biggest problem with heel Guerreros matches that we've seen out of Houston so far is the lack of commitment to heat. They tend to like to give their opponents a lot of comebacks and tags instead of just building to one (I call this stuttering heat because I'm a horrible person and need to classify everything). Here, they more or less built to two, a heat segment on Lothario and a shorter one on Duggan. In theory, it worked fine. In practice, I really liked everything up to about midway through the Duggan one. The symmetry in how they took over was great. After the stomping about the ring, Hector finally came in, wanting a handshake with Duggan. That let Chavo fly off the second rope with an ambush double axehandle. Hector started on Duggan with corner shots, but he fought back and immediately tagged Jose. Hector begged off and Chavo swarmed in again and they took over. Here they started to break out the heel tactics. After a double back elbow, they drew Hacksaw in by punching him on the apron. That let them do the blind switch and double team. Whenever Lothario started to fight back, they'd pull a quick tag. When Lothario almost made it to the corner, they'd distract the ref so he missed the tag, going for the double team when Duggan refused to leave. There was some good stuff with Lothario draped over the rope here and the Guerreros really running circles around the ref. They went for a draped body splash one too many times, though, and there Jose was with the supersock counter, which is probably the best transition move in wrestling, that beautiful, monumental, perfect KO punch out of nowhere. That led to the tag and the second bit of heat. Duggan was in charge for a few moments before missing a big knee drop. That let Hector start on the leg, and for a minute there, this was really good. Duggan was a force and this was an equalizer. If they had stuck with it for a few minutes and built to another hot tag, this could have been an a real classic. Instead, he pulled Hacksaw back to the corner and they worked on it a bit, but then Chavo lost focus, going to more general heel tactics of keeping him in the corner. There was a moment where Hacksaw was supposed to leapfrog Chavo that went very wrong, and both men crashed to the ground after a nasty collision. They recovered went to a more choreographed crash out of a headlock and Duggan made a nice diving tag. In retrospect, since the match was going into a collision anyway, it would have been so much better if they had capitalized on the trainwreck and built that to the hot tag. The finishing stretch was fun. The Guerreros pinballed again, especially Hector bouncing around in the ropes after a supersock. It ended with Cornette coming out and apparently ethering Duggan with a rag covered object (Boesch didn't seem sure), and then after a really nice ref bump off of a second rope reverse body press, Chavo came in to smash Lothario with it and steal the win. Madril made the save setting up the match we already have up on the site. There was a lot to like here, especially the performance by the Guerreros in the shine and really up to midway through the second heat segment (on Duggan), where they lost focus a bit. Yes, there were a few flubs, and I'd chalk them up to the Guerreros and Duggan not being used to working with one another, maybe. Really, these were a very different style of heel than the monsters that babyface Hacksaw faced, but despite the flubs, I think the contrast made for more of a good thing than a bad one. It was another good Lothario performance too but I think they could have streamlined things, had a longer heat segment on Jose, and built to one riotous tag to Duggan and the crowd would have gone completely unglued. Well worth watching though.

It wasn't entirely a one time deal:

It's reality in the way a reality show is reality. Which is kind of like kayfabe in some ways if you were constantly shouting "It's kayfabe!" while keeping kayfabe. It's all very strange.

What a strange day.

I kind of like Horowitz and Bob Bradley more.

I don't know about Savage as a TV worker in 95. I think he was pretty crummy. He worked a lot of 8 minute matches that looked good on paper where he'd give his opponent seven of them, hit a bodyslam and then the elbowdrop and that was it. Rinse and repeat.

I shouldn't be surprised (and I'm not, really), but in reading the Meltzer bio, and in listening to his audio from a few days ago (and thank you Loss for pointing me to it), there are so many of Nick's thoughts on wrestling that Dave presents that line up not just with what you see in his matches, but in the elements that I feel strongly about as well. Intent is important to me, and even though with Bock, all I ever really had to go on was was the definite illusion of intent, it's very rewarding to know that it was really there after all.

And that's valid, I think. When you get to the top ten and their placement, the difference between the very best wrestlers ever becomes a hard thing to place.

I'm still not convinced on what to do with Satanico vs Casas.

He's in my top 6 I think

He's used the Springboard Stunner to set up the FU at least once. Kind of like the time he beat CM Punk by surprising him with a 'rana first.

For people as high on this, does anyone think that there is a better Wahoo match on tape? It's interesting how many wrestlers Bockwinkel has the best match with.

Remember a year and a half ago when all the talk was about how they were going to turn Bray at some point.