Matt D

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.

Alright, this is really tough. Both guys could work an incredible variety of matches. Maybe Buddy could go a little harder than 40+ year old Bock but considering the way Bockwinkel would pinball for Verne or the intesnity he showed in his babyface matches vs Larry or Hansen, it's hard to really put them too far apart. Bockwinkel always came in with a plan and his matches almost always made a lot of sense, but Portland was a territory that was more logic driven than any place in the world. Buddy was certainly more innovative in moves, counters/transitions and I'd say in finishes too but part of that was the nature of the weekly format in Portland which is something Bockwinkel was not beholden to. Both guys could have great matches with subpar talent. Both guys would have matches that looked wildly different and told different stories. I think MAYBE Bockwinkel had a wider range of character and that's not a slight against Buddy who had a real consistency of character that played into the logical nature of his matches. It's just that Bock would portray a wider range depending on his opponent. Sometimes that's a pro, sometimes it's not. I don't like a lot of the Hogan and Verne matches, to be honest. I don't think Buddy would have wrestled those matches that way either. He's hugely giving but not so much so that the match means less for it. Both guys were amazing tag workers with Buddy really standing out for his antics on the apron, the likes of which I've never seen anyone else do, and integrating new tricks all the time and Bock for his near perfect ring positioning and timing. Buddy may have been slightly better at selling a bodypart but Bockwinkel's full body selling may have meant slightly more in the context of big matches. It's tricky. Bock has some longer matches with a bigger feel and Buddy has all the 2/3 falls ones. I think where I am now, from what I've seen and relative to his age, I would put Bock slightly above Rose, but once I see two things (Babyface Rose and some of Rose's sprintier work with Dynamite Kid) I reserve the right to move things one way or another. I think Bock could go ALMOST as well as Buddy but when he does, his matches may lose something that Buddy's don't. I guess I wonder if Buddy didn't have a slightly better mind for putting together matches, but I'd have to see more to be sure since Bock had one of the very best ever.

I think they could do a low impact, holds-based match which Cena wins, then have Alberto use a gimmick to demolish Cena's injury post-match in a safe way and have Sandow cash in to let Cena take more time off. Both heels get a ton of heat from it and Cena has a built in revenge feud with ADR when he gets back.

I really hope we have Dustin at the top of the card on Raw/Smackdown for the next few weeks at least.

You're a bastard. This is going to be really hard until I see Babyface Rose, but I can at least compare/contrast and will do so in the next twenty four hours or so.

Another amazing Rose vs. Martel match that I edited into my triple post. Portland is just too good. I don't deserve how good it is: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5565810.

Wait. If it'd Hollywood Hogan, can he use the weight belt?

What's even the argument for Rude? I don't remember anyone talking much about him. Main eventing WWF C-Shows and being the top heel in WCW during a pretty brutal two year downstretch?

The amount of time in that match was almost certainly Andre's choice, no?

I know three ways are hell but Show and Bryan are so good at match layout (or participating in such a thing) that I kind of badly want to see what a HITC with all three guys would look like. You people never get on board with my curiosity on this stuff. You're all "But I want a good match." pfft. We get a good match every other time Bryan is out there. I want to see some experimental wrestling now and again, dammit.

Savage being out of Survivor Series really hurts it.

You squeeze PPVS together too closely and this is what you get. They really should have added some gimmick to Bryan/Orton.

All those people are either dead or close to retirement in any practical sense.

Obviously this is all about who wins in 1986, Tyson or the Great Kabuki (with Gary Hart)?