Matt D

I've been watching all AJPW 89 and I'd say that Tenta "gets it" by that year, though he didn't nearly so much in 88. I think it's actually a missed opportunity that they didn't heat up the Baba vs Abby match by doing an Abby vs Tenta match as a set up. There is a tag and the interaction between the two is good. He was pretty underutilized that year from what they could have done.

Vaguely important to note we're getting new mid-90s lucha every week or so right now thanks to Roy Lucier posting stuff. We had a set up for the Satanico vs Garza hair match which got points for both guys last week. The footage keeps coming.

Piper will be helped by some more distance from the very end of his career and some new or more easily available footage. Off the top of my head, we have the new Valentine match, the Kuwait tag, some more easily accessible west coast footage, 77 NJPW TV matches, an 86 HH vs Savage, and the new 89 Superstars taping match vs Rude. Part of this is that he looks GREAT in all the new footage.

So I can understand that sentiment, but it's not how I see this. I'm not honoring anyone. I'm trying to find some sort of truth based on specific criteria. With certain wrestlers, I will not be able to find that truth because I'm not willing to rewatch their matches and they're thereby unable to be listed. Otherwise the truth, based on my criteria (and i admit that my criteria can be unique, but it tends to be consistent), is going to be the truth, no matter how I feel. Look, wrestling is a wretched, excess-laden business based on carny principles and manipulating people. If we're honoring anyone for anything, it's who's best at manipulating people's emotions and conning them out of their money through performances alone. It's built into the equation. It's full of hazing, bullying, misuse of power, adultery, drug use. I'm not sure you can even find 100 decent people in any culture over any era to make a list of. Molly Holly, Daniel Bryan, and Tito Santana are an awesome WAR team, but... If this is the weight you're carrying on your shoulders for the sake of this project, you're going to make yourself absolutely miserable in figuring out how to possibly exclude one wrestler for exposing himself on airplanes but keeping another one on who bullied younger wrestlers as part of the Japanese valet system (as they were bullied themselves previously) or whatever.

With Breaks, the court found him to be unfit to stand trial. It's tragic and could speak to elements of his character but I'm not sure it has a bearing on what happened in his career decades before. Do people hold what happened with Verne 40 years after he was done wrestling against him as a candidate? I do think ultimately it's going to come down to whether or not people are comfortable watching wrestlers. If you can't watch the footage, you can't rank the wrestlers.

Roger Delaporte One of the great pro wrestling villains of the 20th century. A vulnerable, cringing, and craven lead heel who often sold with close-up expressiveness as if his liver was caught in a bear trap. He was slick enough to hang in the demanding French Catch style, had an absolute mean streak when on top, and could hit as hard as anyone, using his Mr. Belvedere body type to bully and control the ring. He was able to go from sending the crowd and announcer into fits of laughter to doing tangible damage to his opponent with the snap of his finger, and was credible in his wins despite being vulnerable for a huge chunk of the match prior. We have him in all sorts of settings over 20+ matches: tags with an equal in Bollet and with minions like Guy Robin, as de facto babyface vs monsters, in long singles matches against a variety of opponents, from the mid-50s into the 70s. Delaporte/Bollet vs Hayes/Hunter 2/1/60 vs Jean Frisuk 5/3/62 vs Warnia de Zarzecki 4/9/65

Sort of a specifically weird call out here as the slight against them is that their personality issues affected their ring work/matches, which isn't the issue with Lawler, unless you want to hold some late 90s Memphis stuff with Stacy against him (and no one does). Now, if you want to look at the flip side, Brody's probably ok, but the Rockers use of roofies is probably just as disqualifying as anything Lawler's done. It's sort of a race to the bottom. That said, I do understand if someone has a hard time placing ANY candidate because they're not comfortable watching their matches for any reason. That's a slightly different issue and could potentially be a very difficult one. I think it's less so with a candidate that ranked extremely highly on someone's list like in the case of having Lawler at #4, because if you're going to rank him that high in the first place, you probably understand him well enough you don't need to revisit much.

The lackey is part of the package anyone else will have to overcome.

Definitely a way to put a guy over huge.

Yes, but in previous years, we were able to not have to watch him if we wanted to watch the Main Event of Wrestlemania? Or something.

Got to love Concussion Guy brutally headbutting the hell out of Neck Injury Guy.

The Crossface is such a weird "Any main eventer can potentially use it" move.

Just popped in to post this.

It's not even like Edge looks bad out there mechanically but every close up reaction shot on his bug-eyed expression is terrible.

There's the puffed up Edge face we all know and love.

It's really fun to see Bryan's current character as just being at peace with reality and above everything and just exuding this serene and almost giddy joy.

Might have mentioned it, but I'm twenty issues into the Zdarsky DD run and it's just excellent. I'd put it up with those two runs so far.

Did she just win with a basic pumphandle slam?

Fun counter-heavy stuff here. I liked Rhea selling the ankle and then seamlessly turning the motion into paintbrushing Asuka.

I'm not emotionally invested in this match like last night's main event (I think I've seen 1-2 Rhea matches ever?) and I'm definitely not emotionally invested in watching Edge. So I'll be half here as we watched the Pennyworth season finale that dropped today.

I hope they do MITB in the WWE HQ again.

I look forward to them facing Styles and Omos.

Ok, I'm back. I was picturing something more like that Car Circle match with Cena.

Then best Bulldog vs Warlord matches are towards the fall (like the one where Slick got "hurt") as they had the whole year to work it out.

Watch that match I posted. I want a second opinion on his 71 year old performance.