Matt D

It was really blatant to me. Laughably blatant. Other opinions?

Thanks Charles. I'm glad you liked it. It's nice to try to synthesize some of the thoughts we've developed over the years in discussion here.

holy hell

I think that is a double edged sword though in all honesty. Current matches can benefit AND be hindered by having the context around it AND having a bunch of people communicating about it over the interweb during real time. An older match tends to lack both.Well at least it does for me. Case-in-point: Just watched Steve Viedor vs Gwyn Davies. Only seen one Viedor match and nothing of Davies. All I knew was that it was a championship bout. This match completely latched on to me emotionally as if I were watching a 20+ minute Rocky Balboa fight. Stylistically there were a few things that were jarring but emotionally, something that doesn't tend to happen to me these days, I was overwhelm in the best of ways. Now, it is hard to give an example of a match that was poorly viewed during the time but aged and was viewed better cause I've probably never went back to watch those but I like to believe the point still holds some water. I was buzzing over that match for days after I watched it. I know I'm one of the youngest guys on the forum, but you do guys still have vocal reactions to matches? If I'm watching a match I'm really into, it's completely normal for me to let out a "Woo!" for a stiff shot or "Let's Fucking Go!" for a great baby face comeback. It just makes me enjoy it that much more if I treat it like a real sporting event. On an emotional level, I do think there's huge a difference between watching something as its happening and something from twenty years ago. I got in trouble back during something in the last couple of years (Maybe Brock vs Punk?) because I was watching it downstairs while it was happening and I vocally let out a "Come on!" and the baby, upstairs (and she had to be just over 1 if it was that summerslam), thought I was talking to her and started to get upset at the baby gate because she couldn't get to me. As for note taking, I do it if I'm going to write up a match for a project, or segundacaida. I used to write down every single thing that happened in the sort of stream of consciousness real-time reviews that I did for things like the Buddy Rose matches. Now I do bullet points with key transitions/cool things to note or that I want to remember. You can see a more detailed version of what those look like in the first DVDVR remedial wrestling thread. Ideally, I'd watch a match once and then watch it again, taking notes, but i just don't have that sort of time right now. If I'm not going to write up a match, I won't take notes. I've never in my life taken notes of something that was happening live like a PPV or Raw.

Judy Martin vs Bambi, WCW Saturday Night... right before Halloween Havoc 91. I'm too lazy to get the date on this, but i went looking for funny Monsoon/Heenan PTW stuff on Monsoon Classic and he had just posted this a couple of days ago, so there you go. This was all to build up Madusa as she'd attack the winners, right before the birth of the Dangerous Alliance. Bambi's billed from Stone Mountain GA and she was a pretty good fiery babyface, taking it right to Martin from the get go. Martin sold pretty big around the ring, eating nice enough strikes. She was older now, but still a presence. When she went on offense she proceeded to hit an awesome dropping headbutt to the abdomen, a great heave off of a fireman's carry into a front drop sort of thing(like Warrior's gorilla press but from a fireman's carry and forward not back) and this insane snap suplex that was like a snap brainbuster. The foot choking and hair pulling and what not was used sparingly and well timed to argue with the ref and draw heat. Bambi had a pretty good comeback off of a missed corner charge after a few hope spots/cut offs but then they veered into a confusing Bambi chinlock and sort of stumbled to a finish a minute or two too late. Martin still had it though and she'd added some just brutal offense over the years.

I think if you get to that point, you stop enjoying wrestling for what you enjoy it for. I'm not going to go to the theater and watch the Dumb and Dumber sequel this weekend. Lots of people will. They'll enjoy it. I suppose on some level I can appreciate WHY they are enjoying it, but I'm good, really. Same with whatever Izzy Azalea song is really popular right now (I kind of love Shake it Up as a pure pop song so I'm not arguing that). I can't shut my brain off in any aspect of my life, not watching a movie, not reading a book, not for a single thing. It drives me nuts sometimes, but it's who I am. There's no zen to wrestling watching and there's no universal standard for what's good. I enjoy interacting with it and it's easier for me to do that on an intellectual/analytic level than a more emotional one (not that I don't ever get drawn in that way; it's just even when I do, I'm still trying to figure out what makes it tick). i think the issue here isn't letting go, it's a positivity/negativity issue. I have a finite amount of time to watch wrestling and in that time I don't generally watch a lot of stuff I think I'll hate or even dislike. I don't think you see a lot of reviews like that one that began this thread on this board. We might dislike a match that we watch as part of a larger project but we're probably disliking it in relation to a lot of matches that we dig a ton. I'm not generally going to watch a show just to rip it apart.

If I didn't have a lot of fun watching wrestling, I wouldn't do it.

They hit each other really hard. That's all it takes for some people apparently. The only thing I really like about the match is how it feels like Bock came in with a gameplan, but he's like that in every match.

Really, there's only one top notch WWE source left in this cold, harsh world.

I think there can be a middle ground between the two, though. Honestly, a lot of the Honky Tonk Man matches I was revisiting recently had just that.

Rey Bucanero looked like he was about to break out in the 2006 CMLL I watched. That really didn't happen.

Did we ever find out what the original plans were?

Current Favorite Wrestler to Watch: In this moment, Judy Martin, but it changes by the hour. Last Fun Match You Saw: I watched the Usos vs Gold and Star cage match tonight and "Fun" would be a really good way to describe it. They used the cage well and they smartened up the escape rules and while it was a lot of what we've seen before out of them, i kind of liked the cage preventing the Usos from doing their dives if that makes any sense. It made things feel a little fresher even if the finish could have been hotter. Wrestler You Want to See More of: Jim Breaks! And Fujiwara. But Jim Breaks. Last Live Show Attended: Still 2004. BUT I am going to the Rumble. That was a hell of a negotiation with my wife but I am going to the Rumble with WAY too good seats. Excited for that. Match You Are Looking Forward to Watching Soon the Most: I'm a sucker for classic Survivor Series matches, but I also am looking forward to seeing some of Judy Martin in Japan that we have. Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw: I saw a CWF promo with Jos Le Duc showing off the lumberjack title and Don Muraco showing off his hair tonight. Last Interesting Thing You Read about Wrestling: Chris answered a question of mine on his blog and I thought that came out very interesting: http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2014/10/did-smackdown-usher-in-era-of-even.html (also, thanks Tim) Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard: I've mainly been listening to old Johnny Dollar serials on my commute so by default it almost has to be WTBBP for Halloween Havoc. Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately: That Honky Tonk Man vs Mr. X match was a blast. Also, I'm two matches into Hector Garza's 2010 and he's a lot of fun to watch.

I needed to watch this even though we don't have much of it, just for historical value. This was round 1 of a Tag Tournament for $12K. Here's the Slam article on it, though I'd skip the write up of the match where they really extrapolate too much from the clips we have. The framing information is good enough. From what we see, it was sort of interesting for the time. I think Grable and Martin had been built up pretty heavily as heels and that showed here. They were heel aggressors using every advantage they had even if they were severely overpowered. It probably would have been a fun thing to see in whole.

What the heck is the UN title? I love the idea of a UN title. You could take it to the south and play up that you're a heel who's going to come in and take everyone's guns away to get heat. The babyface could be The Mountain Militia Man who's going to rename the belt the Backwoods Moonshine Championship if he wins.

i don't think they've even officially announced it on TV yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWPbZAB6xH0 Judy Martin vs Desiree Peterson from Boston 7/22/85 - WWF This is well worth watching. It was a blast, actually. They started out with some matwork, just a bit before Martin took a powder and jawed a bit. She had a great way of sort of stalking around the ring to get her opening. After that, they had some back and forth sequence ending with missing each other on various moves (and selling well). There was less of the hair-pulling and hold trading than in the Victoria match; less chicanery too. More action and some hard hits. After a final missed shot in the corner, Martin took over and boy did she ever. First she got Peterson up in a fireman's carry into a clothesline over the top. Then she followed it up with a powerbomb and lifted Peterson up after one which garnered her some very real heat from the crowd. She followed THAT up by tossing Peterson right onto poor Mean Gene (who was announcing). For once, he was a gentleman and just raised his hands up shocked. This was all pretty chaotic,with Peterson out for a while including getting tossed over the barricade. When she got back in, Martin stomped her far too low causing even more outrage, from the announcers, the crowd, and the ref. Peterson tried to come back, including a dropkick but she got tossed out AGAIN, this time onto Gorilla. It was quite the scene with people in the crowd shouting for Gene to have a go at it. Classy. Finally, Peterson made it back in, ducked a shot, and hit a cross body out of nowhere for the win.I would have liked a bit more for a comeback but in a lot of ways the flash pin felt more believable because of how Martin was just killing her dead.

I hope they fasttrack Itami and Finn to the main roster as a tag team, actually, because Devitt could get a lot out of working Dustin around the horn and that's an opportunity that might not be there in six months to a year.

In rewatching this, I was fairly amazed by how violent the Chamber match was. That wasn't in my memories of this. Speaking of memories, I'm very much like Parv as these were some of the iconic shows of my youth so things like Windham's hand getting wedged into the door are indelibly pressed in my mind so for him not to immediately place it is strange to me on some level. It makes for a good balance between the two of you.

It was more to show that there were things he valued more than the elements we lauded heavily in the Rusev match. I was all over the place in that post as I had to run to a meeting and I haven't felt up to fixing it because enough of the point is there and no one's really contested it or grabbed hold of it to the point of needing clarification.

They made Cody and an Uso wrestle a match right before they had a cage match too.

I really liked the message of the Zayn video package on Main Event. "We're in this together," is exactly the message they should be using with Zayn. Zayn is "one of you."

I don't really have time to make the point I want, but I honestly don't think it's about Henry at all but instead about the broader style. Henry and Angle make for a great comparison. You can look at things like how Dave gave Rusev vs Swagger 3 1/4 stars and Orton vs Reigns 4 stars for Summerslam. Henry's really more of a symbol of being able to like a guy who works a slower, deliberate style, but that has great timing, knows when to jaw with the fans or the ref, and how much to give and when to give it, and how there's a huge cross-section of the online audience that would never give a guy like that a look. I don't see how you can have the Henry argument without talking about workrate (though it's not like Henry's stuff doesn't look great and he's certainly not afraid to bump over the stairs and what not), since I don't think it's really about Henry at all. The things that Henry does well a lot of people simply don't value (and I still think that they're things that take more sophistication and thinking and deeper analysis to really understand and appreciate. They're not candy). That's what's being railed against more than anything else.

Bear with me here. I was watching Royal Rumble 89 last year at some point and during the Jumping Bomb Angels match, I thought that far and away the best wrestler in that match was Judy Martin. I never really had a reason to follow up and watch more matches to see though. Now I sort of do. Judy Martin vs Princess Victoria, WCCW, 1983 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NBpABrMKzw I actually think both women show a lot here but Martin probably shows a little more. She's the heel and she's fairly classic in that role, for the time, jawing with the fans, using the hair to win exchanges (including a ponytail in the top wristlock), claiming hair pulling when she lost them, etc. She feeds into Victoria's offense very well bumping and selling and carrying on. There's an extended leghold which she sells well and she finally takes over after feigning that the leg was more hurt than it was and drawing Victoria in. Her offense is pretty brutal, both the hair-based stuff and the blows. There are a couple of good hope spots and comebacks until Victoria's had enough and does the typical native American comeback with some pretty nice looking shots into a fairly hot finishing stretch. I'd say this was actively good and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

This makes me think of Race, but (and I haven't done the legwork enough, but from what I've seen) is it that the forward-looking elements were different between Brisco and Race, and Brisco actually kept the elements of the 70s style that some of us miss and appreciate while adding another element and Race jettisoned those for HIS element that he introduced? I don't know. Does that even make sense?