Matt D

I've done such a bad job of writing up what I've been watching. Last night was Steve Grey vs John Naylor. It was the semi finals of a tournament, one fall. This was my first time seeing Naylor and I came out impressed (which could be a testament to Grey because I know OJ really doesn't like him). He had the weight advantage. I'm still getting a grip on the style, really, but there such a sense of struggle and gamesmanship. Here, Naylor had the strength and weight advantage, but was still quick and savvy. Grey spent a lot of the match battling from beneath, early on due to some legwork off of a half crab (And they made something as simple as a crab really matter in their multiple attempts at it during the match). There were a few "hanging onto the arm" exchanges that were just spectacular, and I liked the escalation towards the finish that stemmed from Grey getting slightly more desperate as things went on, allowing Naylor to capitalize. I never know how much I'm superimposing over these matches, but to me, there is a sense of circling with the rounds system, of a forward momentum that sort of ebbs and flows on the way to its ultimate destination. The whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.

First to the post on this one and I think it's very, very good. Inventive shine. Goliath and Moreno both held their own (being guys we hadn't seen as much so I wasn't sure). Then, they managed the sort of stuttering heat that the Guerreros liked to do but with weightier face in peril sections that had very little mid-match shine between them which made it feel like the babyfaces were just more damaged than the heels. Multiple hot tags or at least momentum shifts. I really liked it.

MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana IS exceptional, but it's also the skeleton key that unlocks almost all more traditional lucha.

Every match on there is tagged by wrestler.

I've written up around 230 lucha matches on SC. Not sure if that would help or hurt at this stage.

Will: Luke Harper Hater.

My guess is that for the general audience it's easier to promote guys like Duggan and JYD and WWF Rock and Wrestling era nostalgia acts than the guys like Wahoo and Bockwinkel and 70s nostalgia acts. So that was prioritized.

I love how we see Duggan develop his babyface act through the service.

This is your new best friend: http://www.thecubsfan.com/cmll/roster/matchfinder.php

Not a ton of 80s here (though some), and this is a clunky way to go about it but we've covered a ton of them on SC over the years: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Asegundacaida.blogspot.com%20%22title%20match%22

Also, anything with Satanico. The Rocca vs Mocho Cota matches too.

In the world where he could get his win back vs Koko?

The funny part is the word "ONLY"

From 2009: "*Gene & Ole Anderson Strengths: Consistent headliners as a tag team in the Carolinas and Georgia territories throughout the 70s during a period when they more often than not worked main events. Generally considered the legendary tag team in the Carolinas, which when they started teaming was a tag team territory, and remained the veteran top heel team when the big stars came in and it became a singles territory. Ole Anderson, in particular, was one of the greatest heels and talkers of his era. One of the few tag team in history who were at one point top ten draws (9th place, 1977). Weaknesses: Never “in demand” wrestlers outside of their territory, when it came to being brought in for the hot spot cities like New York, St. Louis, Toronto, Tokyo or Houston like most Hall of Famers from that era were. When it comes to worldwide star power and drawing power, not among the top candidates on the ballot and have never come close in recent elections." Where does that 9th place number come from?

I'm not sure how long after this was Jake's turn but Boesch talked about how he might have wanted the crowd's admiration for purely monetary reasons. THAT specific crowd wasn't going to cheer for anyone but the RnR (you can see the girls in the crowd and how concerned they were at points, etc), but the work itself had a lot of miscommunication and even more than that, just not being on the same page. Jake would want the tag after Barbarian got clowned a bit and Barbarian refused. Barbarian would have firm control, tag out, and Jake would lose it. Lots of little things, even before they crashed into each other a bunch at the end.

Dudleys were my first thought too, but it looks like maybe they give Ryback some rub off of all of this now.

That Jake spot was amazing. Have the RnRs done that elsewhere? I don't remember ever seeing it. This was another match with a babyface chinlock that was a momentum killer. This time with Gibson doing it to Roberts. The heat on Morton was solid, though, and all of the heel communication was a blast. You don't think of Jake as a stooging heel but he was here.

I really liked the beginning and end of the match, but the middle, with JYD's ill-placed chinlock and Reed's long frontface lock sort of dragged. Anytime they were going at it was gold though. I can't understate how good it was when they were pounding on each other. There was just too much of the other stuff.

That was the one where they had Sid and Jake originally, right? Then Sid was injured and it looked like it was going to be Savage and Jake.

I guess that's why it stood out to me so much last night when Brie Bella took the fans' chants of "We Want Becky" and used them to rile the crowd and get them to do the No/Yes thing with her Bryan-style kicks on FIP Paige. Not only was it Brie Bella who did it (as opposed to Kevin Owens or someone), but it was obviously her responding to something that couldn't have been easily predicted in random Becky Lynch chants. It was as heelish as you get in 2015 WWE. More so, probably.

Dustin's made that spot work more than a few times over the last four years or so.

According to this site, the third crow hunting season of the year in MN ends on 10/31. He probably has to get back for that.

149 is a nice round number.

Regal vs Buck was there to punish us because you guys had to watch so many of those matches.

I rented Survivor Series 1990 so many times as a kid. I think what stands out the most is how surreal the Hogan/Warrior/Tito Santana promo is. I started watching only a little bit earlier so I think my lifelong admiration of Tito came, in part, because I thought he was still a main eventer.