Matt D

Then what is there to argue about? We're trying to find which guy has 17 matches that are great and which guy has only 16? That's how you're going to decide this? Isn't it far more important what makes those matches great than how many the person has?

I love Andre in the Colossal Connection matches. That's my favorite Andre probably and it's some of the most brilliant wrestling I've ever seen when it comes to using what resources you have available when they've become, both so very, very limited, but also so incredibly special. There's very little wrestling smarter than Andre in the Colossal Connection. One of my favorite performances of all time without question is Andre and Haku vs Demolition in December at MSG.

Personally, I'm taking a pretty consistent and distinct set of criteria to a lot of wrestlers I haven't seen much of, especially ones that people will be arguing for, and then reevaluating the ones I do know well in a very strict manner. You just don't agree with my criteria. Charles very succinctly defined the difference between this and the WON HOF is that the latter is about drawing and influence and on some level work and that this project is about aesthetics. You can do a numerical tally of WHO HAD THE GREATEST NUMBER OF GREAT MATCHES ON TAPE, but that's even less interesting to me than if we just picked all our favorites now. I'd much rather take a comprehensive qualitative approach (one that's consistent over all major candidates) than a quantitative one. As long as people are open minded and consistent it'll be okay. For me, the matches and what happens within them are the primary sources that I draw my evidence from in order to generate conclusions. It means that maybe people won't have entirely shared criteria but as a community, given the knowledge and wealth of experience we bring to the table, I'm pretty confident that whatever list we come up with will be well worth the trouble of the next few years and going through this process.

Looks like it was taken down. Sorry. I'll keep an eye out though. EDIT: Or what OJ said. EDIT2: Arn is pretty much the perfect representative of the Matt D school of what makes a wrestler good, yes. BUT because of that, I'm going to put him under further scrutiny than I would otherwise. Including watching Renegade and Erik Watts matches.

I didn't necessarily see him as a heel so much as a jerk (or more necessarily a dick). But maybe that's inwardly the same thing to me? I just saw a dynamic character there, one that appealed to me way more than the other three and that I actively wanted to track down more of, while I came out of that series with the idea that watching the other three more would be something of a chore. I'm trying to think of a pop culture reference that makes sense. The big guy who takes your ball when it lands in his yard and pops it. And then laughs. Just because he can, and what are you going to do about it. Or the sort of big bully that would put his hand on Kobashi's head while the guy charged at him but couldn't reach him with his punches (he didn't do that but I would have believed it if he did). I posted my real time notes pretty thoroughly for the last bunch of those matches and you can see the exact moments I popped for over multiple matches. He reminded me a bit of laughing heel Andre or Ernie Ladd screwing around with guys. All that said, maybe? If it was just one match, I'd buy into that idea more, certainly. I watch a luchador for the first time now and sometimes I see something that I realize obviously isn't the case after I see a few matches, but i saw multiple matches here and they were pretty long matches as well (my lacking sense of time notwithstanding). I've seen another couple of Taue matches since then, though, and I don't feel any different. That said, I'll be the first guy to tell you I lack context. At the same time, I know what I like (and usually why I like it) as well as anyone. EDIT: I think the above was especially true for my first impressions, but (and hey, this shows my ignorance or something) I can't imagine watching the 06/09/95 tag match and not seeing faces and heels, between the devastation of the leg and the crazy Kobashi superman comeback and everything.

People seriously need to see the late 91 Arn vs Windham TV match. I THINK OJ likes that one too. It's probably on dailymotion as part of a WCW Pro Chicago or something but I'd have to track it down.

How the hell have I not seen that? Thanks.

Is there any footage online people could suggest?

I might rewatch that match tonight. I'm kind of curious how savvy he is in it. Granted, I penalize a guy like Shawn for being clever in the ring but using that for something other than the good of the match, so I'm tempted to if Arn did as well. It shows me a couple of things if that's the case. It's not exactly the same as some of Shawn's greatest hits mind you, but there was a ton of backstage drama about that match.

What's an outright bad Arn performance? What's a not very good Arn performance? I'm just curious what people can source. He's got lows that are higher than most people's, no?

Just to clarify, I'm not saying Taue should be in the WON HOF. I don't know. I haven't done the research. I was just commenting on my impressions of the matches that I saw and then further commenting after Snowden's response which I found borderline insulting considering how consistent my enjoyment of Taue is to most of the other things I like and how many words I spew out to back most of this stuff up. I apologize for any thread drift in this specific case (and only this case) partially caused by me.

I've seen him kill great matches (matches that he helped make great) by decided that he had to do ill conceived comedy in a finishing stretch.

If that is the concern then I think I will sleep soundly during this process. My only worry is seeing enough footage because of real life constraints.

I know you may find this incredibly counterintuitive or just contrary but those are not the things I really care about the most when it comes to what I think good and special pro wrestling is. If you have read any of my previous thoughts on anything then you would know I'm not trolling you here.

I've made so many posts in the last few days that I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Also, I saw my first Volk Han tonight, so I'm definitely all over the place. I am not intentionally trolling anyone; I just come from the old DVDVR school of shouting in all caps when excited. If I start breaking out the ~~~ then we're in trouble. And again, a lot of what I argued wasn't necessarily saying I'm going to put Haku on my list. Some of it is just general stuff that I'm working through (which will bleed all over when applicable, here, because I thought Goodear had a really good point that could be extrapolated outwards). I was hoping Dylan or someone would chime in on really good stuff from him in Montreal I haven't seen. What's his best SWS match? I've seen one or two fun matches with him in Mexico but just fun. I'd put his best stuff as Islanders matches (I like Rick Martel vs Haku a lot), the Cage match vs Slaughter/Blackwell which was my #2 or #3 AWA set match, and Survivor Series 89 which we had as a Microscope Match where I think people liked his performance a lot. I do feel there are gaps I haven't seen. I've got to watch the longish Meng vs Benoit match again and I don't really want to.

Yeah, as OJ said, from what I've seen, he has amazing charisma, just amazing, as much as almost any wrestler I've ever seen, and he's as good as almost anyone at framing a big move or moment to make it seem important, but he'll completely derail matches by deciding that instead of selling or helping to ramp up the anticipation or the comeback, he'll should be putting his hand to his ear and winking to the crowd (metaphorically) trying to get them to chant his name. I thought he was a revelation the first time I saw him but boy does It get old real quick. He's still engaging but it keeps matches that should be good or great from being nothing more than fun and frustrating.

God dammit, OJ. He's this big surly dude who takes pleasure out of getting guys into atomic drop position and just tossing them across the ring, and that's when he's not chucking them around by their throat or dumping them over the top rope. I got so much out of him in those matches and I had no idea who he was coming in, and that was over multiple matches. I wasn't trying to be contrary. Apparently i just didn't know better (Again).

I think it's the sort of person Flashman always complains about.

Kawada's emotion was much more subdued. It was there, of course, and tangible, but it was behind a scowl. It was in what he didn't do as much as in what he did (and there's a talent to that, absolutely). Kobashi had flourishes, no doubt, but Taue just sort of oozed this larger than life (in part due to his size which I think is key in a lot of ways, but in part due to just how he moved and the disdain he manhandled his opponents with) personality. I'm not saying he necessarily brought more to the table, just that he brought as much and I could only imagine a conversation otherwise in the strictest terms of workrate. Now, I think a lot of the conversations in years past were very much on those terms.

There's a ton I haven't seen, but from a lot of the really classic tags I saw, I think Taue brought as much to the table as the other three, without a doubt. What he brought was a sort of personality and flair and color and verve. It's not the sort of stuff that people would have gone nuts over in the 90s because it's not super workratey (though he held his own really). It felt like he brought a little bit of Memphis to the matches, if that's not going too crazy, the sort of emotiveness and dickishness that plays all the way to the back row, and that's something that's appreciated a lot more now. What he added were things that the other three just weren't doing. Am I way off on that?

No, but he might have had different problems to deal with, like the lack of technology, and it's interesting to see how he deals with those different challenges, and maybe he shows a level of savvy that after seeing what specific challenges he has and seeing what the president does, you decide that he's actually the better politician. It's just a matter of learning enough about politics to try to understand those differences and weigh them.

The corollary here is greatest vs best. Is there a difference between those two words? I'm probably leaning towards no. My favorite wrestler isn't the one I think is the best, necessarily. I have a lot of nostalgia for certain wrestlers (Bret's a good example.). But I will probably go with the best, because otherwise, you're starting to bring in things like drawing and card placement and what not, which aren't part of this aesthetic exercise to me. Rip Rogers is one of my favorite wrestlers. There are qualities he has that appeal to me strongly, and that I consider "great," and maybe those qualities will get him on my list, but I see things that he doesn't do as well as other people, things that I value, even if I might not like some of those other wrestlers as much. I think what I won't do, is give someone a lot of credit for things I don't value. That's another better way to put some of this, I think. And I'm going back to Davey Richards. He does things that pleases his audience. He probably wrestles the right match for the crowd he's in front of. I probably would give him some level of credit for that, but it's sort of a tie-breaker thing. For people who are looking at greatest as something other than "Best by your criteria" how could you discount him or Sabu or RVD or someone who has that level of following and pleases the audience he's in front of? Likewise Hogan, who for much of his career did exactly what he was supposed to make the crowd happy. I guess that's when some of you look at number of what you consider great matches? I'm happier with my approach.

To me, it sort of feels like one of those old Goofy cartoons, where he was trying to do sports, and you'd have a narrator commenting after every mishap but mostly silent otherwise. Or those black and white shorts like "So you want to be a...?" Does that make sense?

I think we have enough output over the last couple of years to really understand his strength and weaknesses (of which he certainly does not have many). I suppose I'd have to dig back into his indy work a bit. I think he's had a better WWE run than Bryan, personally, more apt to implement consistent and meaningful selling into his ringwork and try to tell a total story, including building between his WWE matches which not a lot of guys do. If anything, the lack of babyface matches in WWE is what's going to hurt him for me, because I'd like to see that range. I'd like to see some arguments for Bryan over him when it comes to what they do in ring during that WWE runs.

His work was a huge resource back when the AWA set watching was going on. I was happy to see when he started posting here a bit more frequently. Big loss to the community.