Matt D

Mainly, that is not an issue because we are dealing with the best of the best here. Almost everyone in this argument has both great matches and great performances. There are situational constraints to consider however. We have talked about this elsewhere. I think it is more interesting if you invert the question you just asked. Then it becomes "if someone has great matches, how can they not be great?" That is a tougher question for me to deal with. It comes back to subjectivity though. Usually I want to know what a wrestler did to make a match great. Regardless, I am not looking for the wrestler who has the highest number of great matches on tape. I am looking for the wrestler who I think is the greatest using what matches we have as evidence and what the Wrestler does in those matches as evidence. More later if you really want it but I can't imagine anyone wants it at this point. The old wrestler stuff really does tie in to my views however.

Or by watching a ton of matches and seeing different wrestlers in different situations and trying to find patterns and understandings. That's why we are doing a greatest wrestler of all time poll and not just a greatest matches one. Otherwise it would be a strictly numerical exercise.

It's all guess work. This is us trying to find patterns and understand things when we never have total information. That's why every bit of viewable data and every different situation we can see a wrestler in helps.

I think you guys are missing the point. It's not about the performance in and of itself but instead about what can be learned from it, the choices made, the ability to adapt, the understanding of craft behind that ability. Why does one wrestler have better late career performances than another? Why does one adapt and another not? That's the point of it. The why. It's an element of versatility and there are clues there to explain performances from earlier in a career. Seeing someone late in their career can help explain how they see wrestling and how well they understood what they were doing earlier in their career and how well they can handle limitations. You have to factor in context but then you always do. To me it's not about output; it's about understanding. I'm not counting the number of bad matches and dividing by pi. I'm trying to understand how a human being interfaces with his craft.

Rollins could bump around the ring for him at least, though. Could he have a sort of misunderstanding face vs face brawl with Ambrose or would that hurt Ambrose since Austin might eat him alive as a personality?

I think there's a way to use a legend to get a new guy over without necessarily pissing the crowd off because the legend loses. Someone could wrestle a match and earn Austin's respect or what not. I think the point is to maximize the use of the legend, certainly. Part of that is popping a buyrate and protecting future buyrates(because you don't want to turn people off with how the legend was used), but building for when the legend isn't there is important too. He's more like the travelling NWA champ than Da Crusher.

I don't think his TNA work is bad from what I've seen. it's just that he wasn't put in the right situations to show us anything meaningful one way or another. If he had a non-garbage singles match that got any time, I'd like to see that.

In WWE, Batista was talking about the things they couldn't do, be it nut shots or whatever else. Certainly Jericho got suspended for screwing with a flag on a tour. We saw what happened to Bryan.

Hot tags and comebacks and timing? It's definitely trickier. Maybe variation? I love Demolition for how well they changed up their act depending on whether they were wrestling the Hart Foundation at Summerslam or the Killer Bees in Philly. Presumably a team should have different looking matches if they're wrestling Arn and Tully or the Road Warriors or the MX, etc.

Yep, another guy to basically start from scratch with. Can we do this in 2022?

I think the major thing the next few months might do for Dustin is give him a bit more meaningful heel work. That's the biggest hole in his resume. I don't think his late 95 work holds up very well. His 96 does somewhat better, especially once he really got the heel character down, with his ladder match with Michaels one of my favorite Michaels matches from that year. After that, there's really just 98, and his run vs RVD which is better not mentioned (likewise: Black Reign, though if they'd given him something other than garbage work during that run it'd be interesting to see what he could do as bloated as he was). If he gets to hold the tag titles for a few months now, it might be just what he needs, really.

Another guy I have to see basically everything of.

I think what might be useful would be a watching party like done for the 80s sets with some people who love Lawler and some who don't get him watching at the same time on the same line.

And frankly I wish they'd get off my lawn. Were I to use smiley faces one would come in here. Where we ended up in the standards argument after pages and pages was that what made wrestling good and compelling hasn't changed. Just the tools. Even better tools have to be used well though and sometimes they can be a crutch to make it so people don't learn to use them well. They can distract.

Have you seen Buddy Rose week to week in 79-81? Just curious.

They changed the timeline the second they came back.

As a general rule I avoid this argument but: 1) there is something to the idea that if you listen to classic rock channels (or even classical ones) you'll get a better selection because the dj can pick and choose over years and leave out the substandard stuff, sure. 2) that said, one side of this argument comes off like the functional equivalent of Michael Bay fans.

I need to see the few matches we have from him between those runs, when he's teaming with and/or feuding with Callis in Canada. Some of that is online:

I know I said I wasn't going to start tackling these til January, but since Charles went to all the work, I wanted to give it a go. I made it through the first hair match. I'm going to need a bit of time before I tackle the second. It was quite possibly the most manipulative wrestling experience I've ever witnessed. It's sort of insane to think that right around this time Baby Doll was riding off on Dusty's horse. Is that a weird thought? The audience is full of young girls. The violence is extreme, far more than was needed, and we all know this because we've seen so many wrestling matches where the violence wasn't there but the emotion was. That's not to say it wasn't effective. It was hugely effective. They go to extremes but they don't waste them at all. They led with the chain and they never looked back. There was escalation but they started already in the orange danger zone. They take deep shortcuts but that just means that they get further along the road sooner and quicker and once they get there they stay there. They make it their home. Dump's entrance is amazing. I watched a lot of anime when i was younger, and I watch some with my kid now, so I picked up a familiar vibe from it. I thought Chigusa's entrance was somewhat underwhelming in comparison. It's unquestionably a good wrestling match with a mismatch, and heat, and hope spots, and build, the fight for the Scorpion Deathlock, so that when Chigusa puts it on, it's almost like a victory in itself, even if it doesn't win her the match. She's defying her opponent by putting it on, defying her opponent who hurt her leg by using it herself. It's a triumphant moment, with the blood running down her face, even if it's an ultimately futile one. It's actually hard to separate the non-wrestling stuff from the wrestling here. The entrances are part of this. Chigusa defiantly screaming on the house mic after the match is part of this. Knowing all that I do about wrestling, AND Japan, AND the 80s, and today's twerking pop culture and everything, I still can't entirely wrap my head around the fact that something so manipulative and violent and targeted exactly how it was targeted could have existed. I'm not glad that it did. I'll move on to the next match but I don't think I'll revisit this one any time soon. It was well-structured, well-executed, primal wrestling, though. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting.

I watched a few of these and I am intrigued. Please humor my ignorance. How did it work? Were they calling spots in the ring?

I would say the bet is kind of null after that finish which didn't really work for either side of the bet. Unless we decide to both accept the punishment, Kenny vs. Spenny style. I'm okay with waiting to see how Raw shapes up tonight and whether they're doing the match again at NOC.

Basically, whenever you got Blackwell in a cage, great things happened.

Can we get an official ruling on my bet with goc. Cena won but Brock retained. They're probably going back to the well for Hell in a Cell which sort of stalls the spirit of the bet. I still kind of think that Cena takes it there with a Rollins cash in maybe

My brother explained this one pretty well. If you wait for Cena or Lesnar to win they will be on rough, but competitive shape, but costing Cena the match when Brock is on the verge of losing is much, much smarter play than waiting for the match to end. Still fucking stupid finish No it wasn't. In no way shape or form was it. Why? 1.) You're cashing in on Brock instead of Cena. No matter what happens Brock will come back and kill you (this will happen). 2.) There's a chance that Cena might take offense because you caused a DQ when he was about to win (this happened).

I hope we get Brock killing Rollins out of this.