Matt D

There's a really fun Michaels vs Goldust fancam match from 96.

Fair enough. I fully admit to pulling some of that stuff out of thin air since i didn't feel damned to look at numbers. What's your verdict when you compare the two of them ultimately on which of the two was a bigger draw during their WWF runs then?

The problem here is that this was a direct comparison to Hennig, who bombed as a Hogan opponent which is a worse sin than succeeding as a Hogan partner.

It feels more like an "Oh God, Why!" fantasy booking playground.

It's not hard. Beefcake was close to the top of the card in 1989 including being in the main event of Summerslam and the No Holds Barred PPV special, basically in the Randy Savage in the Mega Powers role. Hennig was almost immediately shunted to the top of the card at the beginning of 90 and bombed worse than any other major Hogan challenger. That would be the crux of my argument. A Meltzer theory at the time was that Beefcake was going to turn on Hogan and feud with him at the start of 90 but I think that was just a guess. Obviously they went with Hennig instead. Anyway, Beefcake also main evented in 85-86 vs Hogan and in 86 on C-shows as part of the Dream Team or on A-Shows as the last match of the night (with Hogan wrestling as the last match before intermission). I'd have to look more to see if he main evented B-shows vs Honky in 87-88 but I think it's absolutely possible. So Hennig has the doomed early 1990 run, a very short run with the IC belt in 90 before Kerry takes it at Summerslam. He spends the rest of the year chasing Kerry and getting swallowed up by the Team Warriors at Survivor Series, gets the belt back at the end of the year, has the Bossman feud which I don't think lit the world on fire, and loses to Bret at Summerslam. Part of me feels like his biggest impact on the WWF was his time as an announcer/manager and between Survivor Series 92 and Wrestlemania IX when he was basically the #2-#3 babyface in the company. Now then, most of that is qualitative. I'm sure John can come back in and slam some numbers down on this stuff, but my gut says that Beefcake was a bigger draw and really, in total, a bigger deal when it comes to this era of the WWF. I'm not saying he SHOULD be talked up, necessarily, just that when it comes to this, maybe he should be talked up more than Curt.

I liked that stuff so much as a high concept that I'm a bit annoyed they've run Bryan vs Orton 3 PPVs in a row instead of mimicking it.

Hennig was built up as a great worker before the internet had much of any wrestling talk. The WON and Torch and other newsletters loved him going back to his AWA Title reign, which was 1987. I don't think hardcore fans at the time were all that enamored with his Mr. Perfect gimmick, other than it got him a WWF push rather than getting buried in the prelims. I'd also extend it: Dave rambles on about how people in the business (read guys who came along in the past 15 or so years) looked at Hennig as a great worker. Likely because he was something they great up watching, and relative to the WWF he was a worker that "worker based" wrestlers would have liked. Much as in 15 years we'll have a bunch of guys in the business who think Punk and Cena are all time greats... which they may or may not be. The major reasons Beefcake doesn't get talked up is: * he sucked as a worker * he had no influence in the business (since being a sycophant had a long history in the business) * he never drew of note * he wasn't a real top of the card guy There basically is no case for him. I'm tempted to argue that Beefcake was more of a draw in the WWF than Hennig.

You guys spend way too much time thinking about TNA.

Buddy vs Mike Popovich - 8/23/1980 - 1 Fall to a Finish Popovich was an All-American from University of Oregon who just went through Sandy Barr's school. He'd debuted on an earlier card in a special attraction match but since Martel lost a loser leaves town and someone else was injured Owen puts him into a match with Buddy. They make a big deal about Martel being gone and the fact someone gives Popovich flowers before they match. They even made sure to thank the kids for continuing to come out with Martel gone. Buddy starts with an arm bar but Popovich eventually reverses it. He's moving a bit gingerly in there and his arm clubbers look stilted with his knees to the elbow and stomps looking worse but it's a good idea. They're taking things nice and slow. He gets Buddy down but Buddy kips up and they reverse the arm bar back and forth a few times til Buddy makes it to the ropes. Buddy clubbers him on the ropes to intimidate the rookie but Popvich pops him right back and Buddy retreats and takes a time out through the ropes, before suckering Popovich in with a kick. Buddy takes over here with pretty simple stuff, including a full nelson which I haven't seen him try to do for a year or so. Popovich straight out powers out of it and puts him in one of his own. They're doing a pretty good job putting over Popovich's strength and basic wrestling skill. Buddy struggles for a but bit finally drops down with the help of the ropes and turns it into a headscissors, which is a pretty weird way to get out of a full nelson. Popovich does a kip up of his own, but Buddy sneaks around with a beautifully timed sneakshot to the kidneys and starts honing in, culminating in a bear hug. Popovich undermines the arms and puts Buddy into a far bigger bearhug. Buddy cheats to get out but Popovich reverses a shot into the turnbuckle and really takes over. Buddy ends up begging off and getting leveraged out of the corner. He gets a cheap grounded kick in and starts playing king of the mountain with Popovich, kneeling on the apron and punching down. KOTMs get over the face as dangerous to the more desperate heel, generally. Anyway, the big angle here is that Savage (the ref) grabs for the mask from behind to stop this. and Buddy grabs him through the ropes, getting Dutch's leg tied up there. At that point Buddy goes to town briefly on the stuck leg, landing on it off the top before Popovich can come in for the save. They sell this as a potentially broken leg for Dutch and Popovich wins via DQ and then carries Savage to the back. So this was a match. Buddy did a pretty good job carrying the green guy and making him look like an up and coming threat with both power and skill, but maybe not as good a job as I've seen him manage in the past or was expecting. I have no idea just how many matches Popovich had under his belt though. Wrestlingdata.com has this as his first match and Bonnema only mentioned one other. If that's the case, I suppose it is pretty impressive after all.

Curt Hennig was downright horrible in 98, one of the worst worker in the company next to Brian Adams and Stevie Ray. Bret's WCW work is underrated. He's the one who gave Booker some decent matches, not the other way around. Bret had some actual very good matches with Luger the same year. Booker made a decent impression for a few months when he was in the ring with Martel and especially Benoit, but he got worse and worse after his post-injury comeback in 1999. In 2000 Booker was mediocre at his very best and often actually quite the poor worker. Sloppy as hell, shitty timing, really annoying in a RVD way and 100% formulaic and predictable. Luger was pretty good in 98-99, no?

Watching the Piper vs Wiskowski match from 80 that just popped up (which is, by the way, way better than the Martel vs Wiskowski match from the same year), I really wish we had a decent run of Piper in AWA in the early 80s. It was a style that was so good at using a hold for a base and Piper was just excellent of working up out of holds with hope spots to build up his comeback as a babyface. I think Piper's 1980 might be one of the best babyface years of the 80s.

The biggest complaint I have heard about Reigns is that he'll sell by getting taken out of a match for a minute or two and then just be up as if nothing happened.

I'm definitely going to have to go through everything again. You can get a gist of a match this way but I still don't think it's a great way to analyze them. With the lack of commentary I can understand, my general ignorance, and the relative length of matches on the set, I'm glad for the help though. Way I see it is this. If I have time to get through the set a second time, my way, great. Then I'll have a good ballot. If not, I'll at least have a general idea of things. We'll see how it goes. Corleone's frigging awesome in the Canek match (I really like his selling too) but Canek brings absolutely nothing to the table. I thought it had a far stronger first two falls than the Fujinami match, which barely had a second fall at all. That said, Canek brings way more to the table in the Fujinami match and the third fall gets really good so it's probably a more complete match, even if it wasn't a more entertaining one.

I wouldn't do it. I think my highest japanese guys would be Saito and maybe Tajiri. I think I've seen 1-2 Misawa matches in my life, if that. My list would be patently ridiculous.

I still think Bossman could well be better than Ted.

One of my favorite thing about the podcast in general is how you two really do have different opinions on things and strong opinions but they're not necessarily opposing ones, just different. They add, not subtract.

I'm going to go back through everything a second time with full write ups, but I did watch the first three matches with the party. I'd already written up the first one and I do think you guys missed a lot of cool stuff through it. The Andre and Centurion matches were new to me though. I'm with Will on the Andre match. That's the most fun i've had watching wrestling in ages. It was like watching Princess Bride Andre. I've seen him in mutliman matches before and getting swarmed but never with guys just pinballing at him like that. I do agree that I liked it more at the end of the first fall than at the end of the second, BUT my favorite moment in the whole match might be with the rocket headbutts when he was held in the ropes and Caras saved his big buddy by grabbing the legs from outside letting Andre come back and win. There were a lot of things I liked in the Centurion/Hamada match, especially the end of the first fall with the back body drop (and I agree with Phil that Hamada takes them SO well) being the finish and the end of the second which began with another back body drop and ended with the big backdrop suplex. I pretty much liked the entirety of the third caida too though I thought it had some extraneous bits and could have been tightened up a little. Ideally I'll write them both up at some point. Easily the funniest stuff was "your fellow jew." And I can say that since I was raised that way.

I don't think it's a big one for anyone who saw his ECW run in 09, especially his work with Sheamus and the Regal match and then the Superstars match with Jericho from the next year (I think). We haven't had too much of his indy work from this year come out, but Dustin is Dustin.

Haven't we established that people talk about Bulldog Bob Brown with reverence too?

I know you're not a Twin Towers fan, but for educational purposes, I would suggest bittign the bullet and watching the 3-4 match series we have with them. That's the best example of Babyface Demolition (if you hate the Brainbusters matches which I understand where you're coming from there) and you can see how they adapt to the situation in ways you wouldn't expect on paper. Those matches are all about containment, selling, and comeback. Ax's fired up babyface "house afire" in one of the matches is one of the coolest things they've ever done. Also, please watch the Colossal Connection match from MSG in December 89. I don't think you did. As always I can point to my writeups for these.

I'm not saying you can't compare it to a no DQ match in another territory. I'm just saying that there were elements in that match that the crowd would pick up on that you may not have due to a lack of exposure. It was a good match, but it also is enhanced on another level you might have missed (through no fault of your own).

They were all things that weren't done or were done differently in the months (and years) prior so the crowd would have noticed the difference. I wouldn't have noticed or mentioned it otherwise. Context matters.

1) Nord was great in 91-92 and I've pointed to the Bulldog match as a very, very easy example. I think he's actually one of the very best guys in the WWF during that period. I like him so much more than prime Brody. 2) Bigelow is a guy who suffers heavily from having his best match ever in his rookie year (or close to it) and that's a very weird hurdle to get over. I think he has lots of very good matches (I could mention a bunch from 93-95 pretty easily) and certainly did improve greatly, but that's one of those counter-intuitive things that shut the argument off with him almost immediately. i can't speak for how his ECW work has aged but my impression is that people here don't like it as much as at the time.

Caught the Neville/Graves/Regal vs Wyatts match from the Jul 10 NXT. It falls apart at the end with Regal's clearing house and interactions with Harper not looking nearly as good as it ought to have but the early shine and long heat on Neville are both really good. It's easily the best I've seen Rowan. He looked actively pretty good at parts which makes me think his biggest problem is knowing what to do in brawls and random attacks. FIP with flashy hope spots is a pretty good role for Neville too.

I know some people feel strongly about only watching wrestling on their TVs and not their computers or what not (and for those people, Will might have some interesting ideas to discuss with you), but it is astoundingly easy right now to find pretty much all there is of Buddy in Portland for 1979 and the first half of 1980 on youtube and there isn't a single person on this specific message board that shouldn't drop at least half of what they're watching (presuming the other half will be lucha) and just watch chronologically. I can't imagine a better use for your wrestling watching time.