Matt D

I think Bock is better when not working Verne or Hogan. I liked Bock the least the earliest on the AWA set. That I'll say. It's not exactly what you're saying.

Bock is just that good.

The Rude on Regis clip is on youtube and I meant to watch it yesterday because it was mentioned on WWE countdown but I haven't gotten to it yet.

What the hell happened to Al Issacs anyway?

There was huge hype for that, even casual hype. I wasn't watching at all in 1996 but I still watched that in scramble vision.

My criteria ("Mastery (and the proof of such)" ironically, which is different than "skill") probably allows for me to include him. I have a lot more wrestling watching to do before I could tell you if I do.

That Finlay match is awesome. It's a really, really good limb vs limb sort of match. If the finish built into it just a little more it'd be one of the best matches I've seen from the last few years. As it is, it was really good. Finlay is amazing at doing all the little things. He sells his arm consistently throughout. He is so good at little leverage moves. He'll grab a nerve lock just for a half second to immobilize Thatcher so he can lock on a chinlock again since that's what he was working. The way he reaches around to kick the leg out when he's trapped in the corner is such a small thing but it's almost breathtaking. And god does he grind down on everything. He does the broad things well too. Someone in the crowd asked him to work the knee, so he jokes about it and when he finally does go for it, there's a pop. Then the guy asks him to work the triceps and he tells him to shut up. Thatcher plays his part too (he told the guy not to give Finlay ideas). i love how he never quite gets on the arm submission he wants. He sells the leg like a champ. When they're working holds, anytime Finlay hits a kick or something to loosen the hold, he does a great, realistic job of switching positions to prevent him from doing it again. I wish the camera view was closer so we could see him emote a bit more. Anyway, they had some good parallel spots and so many of the small transitions were based around the limbwork and the selling. It only ever picked up a few times but they paced it extremely well, and the finish built off of previous spots (and character based ones in the corner) but not quite enough. I didn't get why he didn't go for the crossarmbreaker one last time after Finlay hurt his shoulder in the corner. Instead, hurt leg and all, he went up to the second rope and paid for it with the match. Past that the thing was really enjoyable. Everyone should watch it.

Is this guy a Vader stand in?

I think I'm not going to revisit it. I was at Royal Rumble 2003. I gave Benoit the standing ovation. At the time, I felt very lucky that I got to see it live. I'm pretty sure I'd despise the thing now. I'll just let that one lay. I still need to watch those Angle vs Henry matches though. I'm actually pretty interested in watching Angle vs WRESTLERS I LIKE AND WILL PROBABLY MAKE MY LIST as well as RVD vs WRESTLERS I LIKE AND WILL PROBABLY MAKE MY LIST just to see how different wrestlers deal with the challenge of them.

Alright, so it looks like 2006 has more of the stuff I'll track down. Thanks.

Given the dates, that list doesn't really have the guys I'm most interested in watching and that might make my list, like Sting (who is a long shot), Jeff Hardy (again, something of a long shot), and Christian. I'll have to do diligence on Styles and Aries, at least; that I admit, but I can't really imagine most of the X-Division mainstays getting much traction since I'm not a big fan of what I've seen or the style. I did see the Storm vs Harris death match at the urging of Stacy and some people on DVDVR and while it wasn't perfect, I still enjoyed it a lot. That's got to be the best TNA match I ever saw as of now, at least. In general, I get the feeling from TNA (and from what people so often highlight and suggest and hold as the best matches) that if you're not a fan of the X-Division style (or Jarrett BS main events), you're sort of out of luck, which I just can't imagine can be completely true for a promotion that's had so many years and so much TV.

You guys missed the memo. The new argument for Sting is that he influenced John Cena's haircut. Cena said as much a few weeks ago on Countdown.

What's his drawing record past his big GA run? You'd count his heel work in Memphis (both runs I guess), but what else? Also, how long was the GA run?

I am going to make sure to watch pretty much every match in this note, that included. Glad you liked the AAA trios. I went nuts for the masks reversal.

Is this a New Breed thing?

Is that another name for Diamond Dust or something?

I think Mark Henry vs Jerry Blackwell is more interesting.

Meng #9 GOAT!

I like the Boston Bret vs Flair ironman way more.

I think Hansen plays exasperated/slightly vulnerable heel champ quite well in his match vs Bock from the AWA set. That's not a role you usually think of him in, no?

One goal with this project is to poke at things with new criticisms. Maybe they'll hold up as valid. Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll let us see things in a new way. Maybe they're just bullshit. I'm not set on this one but I think it's worth looking at. So, your question is a good question and I don't think there's an easy answer. I'm going to ramble for a bit (it's been a crazy week so I haven't hit a lot of posts I've wanted to hit, some of the more general stuff). I think my last paragraph will be the most important. I almost touched on it in my last reply, and thankfully, this is a talking point I like with a specific Vader match, so I can run with it a bit. It seems very difficult and even dangerous to factor context in when examining a wrestler; by that I primarily mean placement on the card and general context in the promotion over time. There are easy examples. One of my favorites is looking at the Johnny Polo vs Marty Jannetty match from Raw, where Polo really went all out. Just a crazy TV match where he showed as much as he could. This was because Levy was frustrated that he wasn't wrestling regularly and that he was used as a manager and a production guy. It was a very solid performance. It was also the exact wrong performance, to the point where the next week on Raw, Vince was talking about how he wrestled the match as a chickenshit manager, when that really wasn't the case at all. JJ Dillon tells a similar story about how he wanted to really go out and impress the "boys in the back" when he was supposed to show a ton of ass. Now those are macro examples and not necessarily micro ones, and if you just saw those matches outside of the broader context of what was going on, you'd probably think they were pretty good. The second is a Vader thing. Look at Starrcade 94 (sorry). He wrestles Duggan early in the card for the US title. It's mainly a pretty good brawl almost completely devoid of standard "big man spots." That wasn't just a Duggan thing. Look at his really quite good series with Yokozuna the year before. He's not adverse to that. So why do they work that way? They work that way because later on the card, higher billed, was Sting vs Avalanche, which they were saving all the big man spots for, so as not to burn the crowd out on them. So my point? It's really tricky to try to judge a wrestler on how he's managing his work relative to the greater goals of the night or the promotion. That brings in a lot of other information that's hard to get to. That said, how can you dismiss those factors mentioned above as being important once you know them? They're hugely important. I need to think about this more and present this better but: Would you say that doing things that are going to hurt the credibility of your co-workers or the overall product might matter? Doing things that will hurt your own matches moving forward because they're unsustainable and they condition the fans that certain time-tested moves and spots and tricks are no longer valid or that they're not enough? Is there a cost to this over time and does it matter? Can a spot be effective in the moment but ill-thought out in the long term or even in the context of the entire card or on your health over time? does that matter? If so, it's probably only to try to figure out people in the top 25. That's sort of the high level nitpickery we're on, but that's one element. I think ultimately, if I watch a wrestler do something that's above and beyond, watch him really use that tool, and he does so in a way that adds to the match and that makes logical sense within the match and especially that has a greater effect in the immediate than not using that tool would have done, I'll probably give him credit for that. But the tool has to be used well. At the end of the day, the best wrestlers are the ones that use the tools at their disposal the best. If all else is equal (which is very rare), then having more tools matter. Where I differ from a lot of people is that I might more highly rate "using the tools available tools well" than what tools are being used. Sometimes that means I'll credit a wrestler with less tools who use them exceptionally well than a wrestler with a lot of tools who uses them well, but just well. I weigh the how far more than the "how many."

First off, I don't have a horse in this race yet. I haven't seen enough Vader in far too long for me to have a strong opinion on this. That said, I found this interesting and I want to raise a potential (and only a potential) counterpoint: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Just because there are tools that you can use doesn't mean they're the right tools for the situation. And some of that speaks to viewer expectations and some of it just speaks to certain narrative tools being more useful than others in creating a desired effect. It's possible that while he could "get away" with the bumps and while they might have added something for some viewers with certain tastes or in some situations in general, him doing something that he didn't have to "get away" but that instead would have more properly fit the situation he was in could have had a stronger overall effect? I wish I had some specifics for this and I'll keep it in mind while rewatching Vader, but I will say that if people feel the need to criticize the bumps, then maybe it did have an effect on those viewers suspension of disbelief, at least. Or maybe they were just making their wrestling follow strict rules regardless of the actual match in question. I don't know.

I'm sure if someone whose opinion Parv values wants him to take a look at a particular indy guy, he will. Half the board has looked at the Funks vs Abby/Shiek match because Parv wanted them to. He's looked at stuff I've suggested, etc. His criteria isn't unreasonable. That said, the idea of him watching a lot of Chikara is personally amusing to me.

Totally agree on Ricochet over PAC.

The rudo side in that match might be my favorite ever.