Matt D

Dundee and Colon also have a lot of good matches/performances that AREN'T gimmick matches though. I'm not sure that's an agenda thing.

Knowing when to do a crawling headbutt to get the best crowd reaction, the timing between them, etc. There's something to it, though.

The JYD is a bad worker is such WON dogma that it's almost impossible to argue against it when it comes to the WON HOF. I don't really think he belongs in a WON HOF for the same reason that someone like Angle does. In the publishing history of the WON, he was mostly ridiculed. It's not a wrestling hall of fame, it's a WON hall of fame. It's just the best thing we have, unfortunately.

You can watch this whole match again and just focus on what Gino does with his hands while moving. He was very good here but I think it shows how much more confident he'd be a year later.

Whoa. That's a hell of a find.

How can you vote for Bryan's hug it out work that got him over in the WWE when Edge innovated it in the first place?

Basically, I want to not watch anything else for the rest of the year but Puerto Rico. That's not going to happen, but it's where I ended up after listening to this.

I'd put Mike Jackson in over Angle

I am an hour and I can't even begin to tell you how much I learned from this, but then I don't think I have to because everyone else is in the same boat.

Honest question: who in the history of wrestling was better at cutting off babyfaces than Yokozuna? I'm curious who people come up with.

Part of me wants to say that Savage's work is more of a sign of its age and Valentine's is more timeless, but I'm not sure I can back that up right now or if it even matters.

Flair is my working #10 or #11. I don't mind watching matches from a wrestler I would rate over so many of my personal favorites.

Different people will value certain things differently, Parv.

If I had more Bock to watch, I would watch it. There's the IWA at some point right? The "well what do Bock's bad performances look like?" Is a false requirement if he simply doesn't have many.

I will do real time note taking on Flair in November and post it, like I did on big Misawa matches for remedial wrestling on DVDVR. If matches that you want me to see aren't online, get them online by then.

You're very spirited about this. I don't like giving numerical values to things but as we get closer I'm happy to make qualitative comparisons on various metrics. Something like "character-work" has to be unpacked further I think.

I think it'd also be interesting to compare specific elements: Hope spot cut offs, feeding shines or comebacks, early match "time killing", all of those elements but from the babyface side, southern tag heat, jobber matches, etc. Some of that you get from the sort of role based comparisons that were listed above, but some you can get through looking at a lot of different matches and situations.

I know I watch every match I can find (you know, that I don't have to spend money on). I'll admit that I haven't quite managed to watch the Brody one yet, for the sake of full disclosure. I can't speak for anyone else. You know my feelings about looking at as much as possible. It's sort of simple to me. Flair's one of the best ever. He'll be in my top ten or just outside and I'm critical of him. I'm sure he's in MOST people's top ten. If anyone thinks Bock is better than Flair, then he has to be pretty damn good in their eyes, and I think anyone who feels that way, will have sought out most of what's at least readily available, good, bad, ugly, big match, jobber match, tag match, etc. I know I have. It's no great find or anything, but I came across our friend in Japan's youtube account by doing my semi-regular "nick bockwinkel" search to see if anything popped up recently.

I don't think that's true. It's not like only selected Bockwinkel matches were taped or survived in the span of his career that we have. If you feel that way, then maybe the opposite of what you're trying to say is true.

The key thing with Bock as it pertains to footage is that we have him in a lot of different roles.

I'm still a couple of months away from wanting to talk about this.

That they spent years trying to replicate Hart is telling to me (just like they spent so long in Mid-South trying to replicate JYD).