Matt D

It's a fine use for your 100 slot I guess? Though mine will probably be more punitive.

Really in the weeds here, but I think the set up to the match was a net positive. It gave Eddie his moment, explained why Brock wouldn't continue to chase Eddie for a rematch, and set up a dream match so big and so heated that you needed Austin as special ref. Everything worked and, while I know looking back, people can get frustrated at Goldberg being there, at the time, there was such a sense of "I can't believe it. They actually did it! They gave him the belt!" and if Goldberg's interference and setting up the match was how they were going to justify it, most of us watching were just so happy that they WANTED to justify something like that in the first place. We were overjoyed that they needed to set up a Goldberg vs Brock program and that meant that Eddie could get the belt. I think most of us watching at the time were over the top excited for Goldberg's arrival; it had been rumored as a possibility and the second he showed up, we knew that Eddie could actually be winning. I don't think we can judge it against the match ultimately failing because everything they had to do here was a success. It was things that happened later that made it not work.

I mean, the run-in was necessary because Goldberg vs Brock was envisioned as a bigger dream match and a bigger draw for Mania than Eddie, as the underdog, surviving Angle. Eddie vs Brock served Goldberg vs Brock, not the other way around. Eddie vs Brock was the means to get to Goldberg vs Brock more so than Goldberg costing the belt was the means to ending the Eddie vs Brock feud. I get that you guys think the match would be better without it, but the entire point of the match was to set up the Goldberg vs Brock program.

We watched a Buddy Rose tag a week or two ago and that was fun because you could see what he might have been like as an ethnic fiery babyface working a total American style in the 80s, but it was just a good TV match. Plus it's pre-transformation Tenryu, though it's a good example of that (sumo strikes, rolling cradle, etc.) transposed into a different environment. It makes you think that Tenryu might have actually worked better in the states as a babyface, weirdly enough.

Show your work.

Again, totally get where you're coming from. I think a lot of it is just watching this stuff chronological and seeing how he compares relatively. He brings certain different things to the table and uses some of the same things differently. He comes off as a fairly selfish worker to me, but certainly an effective one. Honestly, this just means we need to get more people watching the footage and commenting on it as there's no baseline in reviews, just a few data points between you and us.

"Like" is an interesting word. I respect him. I am impressed by him. I think he understood how to play to the camera and the crowd and get himself over better than any of the other stylists in the footage so far. There's something to that. I think there's something less pure to it, but I also don't think it's been terribly detrimental to his matches as of yet either. Ben Chemoul has an element of it as well, but that's more of a showman's flash, whereas with Carpentier, it's more manipulative and "working." He was able to present himself as a star through his mannerisms and ring-work. That he understands this and so few of the people around him seem to, it gives him a massive advantage which he presses to the fullest and it makes him stand out. It's impossible to deny, but I'm not at all sure I like it, if that makes sense.

I get where you're coming from, but it's not about Andre being one of the best French heavyweights, but instead about Andre being a passable French heavyweight, because the issue at hand isn't about French heavyweights in general, but about the total picture of Andre.

I disagree with OJ completely, by the way. If you’re super familiar with the French footage it’s easy to brush it aside but if you’re just very familiar with later Andre, seeing him work a completely different and relatively challenging style quite competently matters. It’s so easy to take the basic difficulty of the French style for granted if you’re awash in it. Watching NWA title matches from the 80s and seeing guys just dramatically power back and forth on a top wristlock exchange instead of flipping up and over and doing complex escape attempts and cutoffs like you see in almost every French match has been so jarring. That's just an aside, though. With Andre, I think it's revelatory in showing how he was trained, the sort of matches he was put in early in his career, their complexity and length, how he did just work relatively normal heavyweight matches of the style (which as I said, was no small thing), while still leveraging his size, and then how he adapted a few years later as he started to face different styles and different expectations in the states. I think they're important for their own sake especially if you're unfamiliar with the style and I also think they're important as a bigger puzzle piece. But I think a lot of things are important with Andre. I think it's important to see how he works a Japanese trios match in early 70s IWE vs 80 NJPW, the way he uses comedy and interacts with his partners and the crowd. I think it's important to see how he works as part of the Colossal Connection when he has huge reputation and connection with the crowd but can barely move. All of that is important as seeing the Hansen or Race matches a dozen times. The keys to Andre are instincts, control, and adaptability, and it's important to see both how the story begins and the matches of potentially highest relative difficulty on a technique level that he was while he was in while he still happened to be in his physical prime.

His 1989 WWF run not accounting to anything (except for a couple of fun PTW matches that no one rated until 15 years later), too.

Ah, if only the bell never had to ring.

Bear with me here for a minute. I was watching a random trios tonight (not random since I'm watching everything in order, but just on paper, it'd seem random) from January 1990: Tenryu/Footloose vs Jumbo/Kabuki/Mighty Inoue. What made that match interesting? Inoue. He was rarely, if ever, in the mix with these guys up until this point. Also, you get the sense from the Takagi feud and how he worked with Tiger Mask II in this period (remember that Misawa was out for most of 89 with an injury) and some of the stuff that @KinchStalker has translated for us that he was a little tired of the endless feud with Jumbo and the usual suspects, that he was very much up for battling new opponents. The first real time they get in there, he lets Inoue come back on him and lets him hit a few things: a monkey flip, a headscissors take over, etc., good looking, interesting stuff that felt earned because it came after a little bit of a beating. At the end? A punch from the ground that just crushed Inoue and that let his team take back over. But he gave him that and the match was better for it. It let Inoue have a presence in the match with some of his stuff, with some of what he could do, with some of what he brought to the table. If Hansen had been in there instead, Inoue would have been fighting to stay afloat with whatever punches and kicks and strikes he could have gotten. Maybe he would have been able to land a few blows and seem valiant; maybe he would have gotten a little bit of shine and he might have been able to express himself due to whatever color of toughness and defiance he had that made him unique. Maybe. And eventually, if Hansen did allow him anything or if Inoue was able to take anything with those blows, it'd end with an eye-rake and it would fit the same narrative moment of the match. But, it would have been the exact same bit that Hansen would have gotten from any other opponent. You'd have barely gotten to see what Inoue could bring to the table except for in the most primal and subtle ways. It might have felt real and maybe even gripping, but if you'd seen it once, you'd seen it a hundred times and it was less, from a worked pro wrestling sense, then what Tenryu was able to evoke in him by giving him an honest moment to shine as the wrestler he was and the wrestler he could be before crushing him with a fist, instead of just making him fight for scraps and reducing him to just another piece of meat in the ever grinding churn of yet another poor bastard facing Hansen. Hansen might have higher highs (and I have a lot more to watch before I can say that) but if I have to watch a whole bunch of one wrestler or another, I'm going to be more interested to see a bunch of Tenryu.

I wish we had more Owen fancans. I was disappointed with the Boy Scouts one we got a month or two ago when he just gave us a cliff notes version of the 92 Rumble tag instead of something goofy.

Yup, it's the old cherry about the ends and the means. The "tools" are just that, tools. They're not an end unto themselves. I think there are a number of voters here and a much higher number of people not here that would, without hesitation, rank someone who had great tools/execution/timing/cardio/athleticism but no idea how to use them to work a crowd over someone who had almost no tools at all but got so much more out of them. That's an extreme obviously, and the guys in the top half of the list should have both tools and the ability to use them, though even then, exactly what "tools" are and the idea of them being used "well" are both open to opinions.

Punk got a hell of a lot out of a hell of a lot less. Owen has years where I'd argue he didn't at all make the most of his talent in ring (just because you can do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do). You can't really deny the talent gap though.

Do you see a difference in sheets-darling Owen pre-94 and more character driven Owen post-turn?

There’s the argument that Tommy Rich never fully recovered from the feud with Buzz. 2010s Brock made everyone around him consistently look worse.

They should make a t-shirt with Drew's back wounds.

She's Mighty Molly. Come on. I'm pretty sure live crowds are going to eat it up though.

That was more about me and how I consumed Breaks matches than the available footage. Also, don’t shortchange the fact that even here, you are exceptional (meant in the best way) in your knowledge.

There's a sort of Bockwinkel that you rarely see as the 80s go on. It's not at all my favorite side by any means but I do think it shows versatility and helps his case. It's how he wrestles Hogan and Gagne (and to a degree Dusty and others), bumping around like crazy for them. Super high energy stooging.

There are a lot of things going on here. Part of it is that there's an incomplete canon with lucha; part of that is due to footage, but there are other factors too. Some of it is that it's just harder to judge someone outside of singles matches, especially when you have so many other bodies in the ring and generally a singular focus to trios matches that doesn't exist in standard tag matches, for instance. Some of it is just the sheer amount of footage we have for Negro Casas spanning decades. There are holes certainly, but it's absolutely overwhelming, especially when you consider that so much of it is weekly and in front of the same crowd. I argue that people should watch everything Buddy Rose does over a span of 2-3 years in front of the same Portland crowd but while that MAY be attainable, you can't do that with Casas and since he's not the guy anchoring the territory, you probably wouldn't have to anyway. Part of it is that the trios were the week to week matches so it's hard to really make them akin to something. Part of me wants to say that it's like watching Arn or Bret due studio/prelim matches every week to build up to a PPV or house show match that we happen to have. That's kind of a tough comparison for a #1 contender relative to the footage we have for Daniel Bryan or Ric Flair or what not. Personally, I think watching Casas in a trios match is always worthwhile because he is one of the most present wrestlers we have footage of. He also almost always does something I've never seen him do before, in every match. I usually point that thing out in my reviews. It could be a reaction, something for the camera. It could be a move. It could be a spot. It could be bit of selling. It could be a taunt. It could be using the ref or one of his partners or his opponent in a unique way. But if you spend an entire match with your eye on Casas, you'll see all sorts of stuff that you're happier for having seen and yeah, at least one thing will be something you've probably never seen him do before. Where I lack and where I struggle with him, as opposed to someone like Rose or Bock (or Bret, sure) is that I don't have a great sense of his career. I can drop in and out and be entertained but I almost always lack some level of context. I have the same problem with Jim Breaks who is another guy who is always on and engaged and creatively in the moment. I think someone should get credit for playing a supporting role in a trios match, but I also argue that what Casas does that makes him special is actually more than that.

Honest question. Is there any lucha candidate you could say that about though? Could you give a comprehensive narrative of El Dandy's career and feuds in order or Satanico? Hijo Del Santo even?

I learned to love Casas watching him weekly in 2013-2015 (maybe 14-16) in random trios, albeit on the path to Rush. That’s what got him to number 2 on my list as much as his big feuds and 90s stuff, so I’m happy to go through a random few months I may not have seen comprehensively and explore if that holds up and explain it to others.

I’m willing to look at him week to week for a few months in a year he doesn’t have an apuestas match, 2005? 2008? 2011? So long as the footage is complete and readily available.