Matt D

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.

It's be funny if Kane turns on Taker to be the second member.

I think every single indy spot-laden tag team match should be 2/3 falls. That would let them hit some huge stuff, make it end a fall, do a bit of a reset and escalate again.

I liked the MX vs Poffo/Bracero tag. I think we were a bit spoiled by the Blanchard match. This was more about the MX getting a prolonged sort of heat, taking so long to get around the ring, jawing with almost every fan in the building, posturing, Memphis stalling. All of that made the clowning that they did suffer in the opening minutes mean more. I like how matter of fact Bracero was with his mannerisms. I half wonder if he didn't remind people of Cantinflas. I bet most of the adults in the crowd had seen Around the World in 80 Days as kids. Poffo, on the other hand, had this sense of connecting with a crowd where he made it feel like they were in on a private joke together. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Maybe it depended on the heel. Here it worked though. The heat was super solid, with lots of quick tags and the usual tactics, but it didn't pay off as much as I would have liked. The come back was fine, even if it didn't really stand out. I thought Poffo's work in the shine where he was facing off against both guys was more impressive than his post hot-tag run. I wish we had seen Cornette a bit more involved in general, though. This was fun and I'm glad we have it, because it really shows us Condrey/Eaton against very different opponents than we're used to seeing them against.

re Martel. This story is from the Feb 13, 1995 Observer. he shows up at the end:

It'd be great if he interacts with Cornette.

They could pair her with Bo Dallas, then?

If that got any time at all, it could be a ton of fun.

About that I blame Travis Browne. No, really. This does kill any interest in Ronda at Mania, against Cyborg, etc. for me. "and 1" doesn't have the same punch as undefeated. I get why it might kill interest in a fight against Cyborg, but would it make you less interested to see her on Saturday Night Live, hosting? Because that's the sports equivalent of being at Wrestlemania.