Matt D

What I like most about post-86 babyface Piper is his "hulk up" comebacks. He does this punch drunk thing that I find to be one of the most effective of the style. It's weirdly believable.

There's a Piper/Orton vs Orndorff/Andre tag i like.

Parv, go watch Piper vs Perfect MSG from late 90. I'd be curious to hear what you thought about that.

I've rewatched Hansen vs Hennig. I haven't rewatched Martel vs Race. I want to talk about context first. I think context is 100% important because every match in the history of wrestling has a purpose. The wrestlers go out to accomplish something. Sometimes, it's just "have a good match." Sometimes it's not. Some things are harder than others. Sometimes they accomplish something without intending it. Sometimes you get a very good match that fails to accomplish what it's supposed to. There's a really fun go-go-go Jannety vs Johnny Polo match from late 93-early 94 Raw and it's supposed to be Levy being underhanded and cowardly. He went out and controlled a lot of the match and did dives and what not. From most standpoints it's probably a better match than a Jannety vs Chickenshit Manager match would have been, but it was absolutely the wrong match for the situation. JJ Dillon talks about a similar match that he had like that where he wanted to really impress the boys (Levy was frustrated from not being used). To me that matters. I can understand why it wouldn't for someone else. I think you need to try to understand as match as best you can if you're really analyzing it on the level of trying to work out what the best 20 matches of the decade are, or what not. I'm going to have a little more about this to talk about when I talk about Buddy Rose in 1979 in the next few days (sorry). Ok, that out of the way, I actually think the emotional story of Martel vs Race is better without context. If you showed someone who hasn't seen a ton of Martel in AWA that match, you see this kid standing up to Harley fucking Race and holding his own and Race selling huge for him and both guys really presented as equals and the story in your head that you come up with in that situation will be better than the supermatch story of the match itself. I think the Hennig match actually tells a better straight up narrative, and it does it within the confines of the back-and-forth structure, which to me, is very hard. It's a lot harder to tell a good story in a back-and-forth match than to tell one in a match where you have shine/heat/comeback or whatever. There are narratives that work with that structure, escalation being one, one guy resorting to underhanded tactics first is another, etc. I still think it's trickier. Granted, there's a lot of all japan I haven't seen, or whatever. In the Hennig-Hansen match, I think there's more a great narrative of Hennig, either to prove himself or to avenge Blackwell or just because he thinks it's the only chance he has, going all out against Hansen every chance he gets and Hansen, who doesn't take him seriously at first (See the attack on Blackwell after Hennig's first offensive flurry gets cut off) quickly realizing what he's up against. From what I remember, Race-Martel was a lot more of a 50-50 match and in a lot of ways, it's what makes the match work. Both guys are treated as superstars and equals. With Hansen-Hennig, it's much more like 65-35 for Hansen. Because of that, there's sort of a deconstructed heat that is layered throughout the match and what Hennig does aren't comebacks so much as they're him dominating for a stretch. They're not presented as equals and they shouldn't be. Hansen is a force. Hennig is a guy coming out of a team where he was second banana to Scott Hall. If it was a little more even then it would be hard to take seriously; it would seem artificial. If it was a little less even, then it'd a good Hansen vs Young Lion match but it wouldn't elevate Hennig in the way this does. I have some problems with it. I don't like Hennig's late match monkey flip. I get that it smartly sets up a reversal shortly thereafter and a much more important small package, but I think they could have accomplished that with something that felt more in place like a roll up off the ropes or a corner splash or something. I don't love the kneelift at the finish. I wish that Hennig had already had the Axe in his arsenal at this point because that would be a great tease. That said, it could contradict what I wrote above. Maybe that would make things too 50-50, while Hennig just having the advantage at that point even if he didn't have anything close to a surefire pin could actually be more effective in the big picture. In general, it's not my #2, but it's still a great match that effectively tells a very tricky story and I like it way more than either Bock vs Wahoo or Hansen vs Blackwell. I do think there's a difference between Race vs Martel and this match from a storytelling perspective. People are free to disagree with me though.

This made me instantly think of my answer for this question, which is Crush. As in, Hawaiian colourful babyface Crush. I thought he was the new heavyweight superhero babyface, the new Hogan. And believe it or not, my reasoning had a lot of "smart" value to it, as I knew Ax was gone and Smash went on to become Repo Man, leading me to think, "Okay, Crush gets to be Crush still. He must be a big deal." Then he lost to the Doinks and his stock immediately dropped in my eyes. I still think Crush was super over in late 92. It's before he'd really taken on the accent.

Sicko. I wish someone would watch those Buddy Rose vs Stan Stasiak matches and tell me if I'm nuts for liking them so much. Stan brings a lot to the table against Buddy, but I can't entirely tell if he brings a lot of stuff Buddy can use or if he brings a lot of stuff that he himself uses.

So I guess I'm going to be watching 1984 Memphis TV now.

Can we start a pool on how long Johnny lasts before his life of hard living gets the better of him?

Ah, that I can understand. Wrestling, to me, is symbolic and what matters isn't how something looks but how it's presented and built up. It's like any other element of fiction to me. That's a personal thing. I get others feeling otherwise. I bought the Five Fingered Death Touch in Kill Bill because how they presented it and I buy the 619 here since it's pretty damn well protected and over (and that's even without the meticulous set up).

For the last many years Rey's matches have been laid out around him trying to get guys into the 619 position. It's a narrative thrust to almost every match he's had for the last what, five years? When he was first using it, I do think people stumbled in there but now, whole swaths of his matches are consciously built around him trying to position guys and people countering or not. It's very, very overt and hardly people stumbling into position anymore. Now, that might not be interesting to you as a match-watcher, and that's fine, but it's as logical and organic in his matches as armwork in an Arn Anderson match both in concept and execution. Trust me, I started watching wrestling again in 09 and I was expecting to absolutely hate all the 619 stuff when I saw Rey and i was floored by how well put together his matches were being that they were all centered around him trying to position his opponent for the 619.

Weirdly, this has made me want to revisit the booking around Cena vs Lesnar from last year. The main premise of the original post here is that the way last night was "booked" if it were "booked" was counter-intuitive if they wanted to make any sort of lasting, meaningful money from this.

It's an issue, regardless. Far more than Rey's positioning of guys which is something he actively and logically shoots for. His offense is set up in order to do that. From a kayfabe perspective, he conspires and even sacrifices better offensive positioning in order to set up guys for that since it's such a killer move for him. At first I was annoyed on principle but after actually watching a lot of matches I ended up impressed not annoyed. I think the "Flair won the NWA world title with a flying body press" logic is very, very weak, however, even weaker than Everyone Powerbombs Kidman because hell, I'd want to powerbomb Kidman too if I had the chance. One of my favorite wrestling moments (and I've mentioned this before) was seeing Tully hit a prone smash with a double axe handle from the second rope since that somehow validated every time someone randomly jumped into someone's foot. at least someone it hit once.

Rey is very good at getting guys into that position though.

Do we have to go back to Slaughter's Super Destroyer days for this to make sense? Do we have any footage of him being Beautiful Bob Remus or whatever?

I wasn't really watching in 97, so I missed the time where WCW was really on top and since I grew up as a much bigger WCW fan than a WWF fan, that bugged me. So I was sort of a WCW cheerleader at the start of all this, with the cruiserweights and Jericho getting me back into things in 98. So when Russo/Ferrara jumped, I was excited because I thought it'd matter and that everything would turn around. It seemed like a huge deal on paper when we didn't actually know much. You can only imagine how those expectations made me feel a few weeks later.

I didn't realize Heenan was still doing Thunder. Poor bastard.

Face Adonis is pretty great once you get past how jarring it is; especially good in tags.

Buddy vs Yaki Joe, 2/3 Falls, 12/29/79 What a way to end 79. Joe's announced from Mexico. Buddy's playing up his hair matches (apparently he beat Bastein in one too). He's lost the cage matches vs Roddy so he wants a hair match with him. The stunt granny has a sheriff's badge. She's pissed at Buddy for stalling. That's pretty great. Sandy Barr is screwing with Buddy again, this time pulling his hair after he pulls Joe's. The fans eat it up. Buddy screws around with Barr, mimicking a hip toss to show how Joe pulled his tights. Pretty funny stuff. The payoff is Buddy pulling joe's hair again to get out of a top wristlock and eventually allowing him to really work on the arm. After a few minutes Joe chops his way out. The way Buddy sells the overhead ones to the skull is so great. Buddy's getting mauled and the sheepherders run in, not even doing anything, to cause the disqualification for the first fall. Interesting switch up of structure making Buddy look vulnerable without him actually eating a pin. Buddy and the herders pantomime illegal chops in front of Barr and it's pretty funny. Very silly for them to interfere and cost the fall like that without doing any damage though. The sheepherders want to stay out on the floor but Barr threatens to DQ Buddy immediately if they stay. The fans count them out and we start the second fall. Buddy stooges big, trying to sneak behind Joe and hitting the floor to avoid the chop. From what I've seen Joe isn't great, so they might be stooging and stalling a lot to deal with that. We get an extended knucklelock back and forth which Buddy makes work really well. Hair pull to get out. Buddy hooks a leg but ends up in a body scissors. Joe keeps pulling him back and sort of atomic dropping Buddy into the mat and then starts rolling around with him. That was kind of entertaining for a moment but goes a bit too long. Buddy finally gets positioning on Joe and mauls the face to get out. He's portraying being really pissed off here, stomping and roughing up the face. Somewhere in there Buddy ties Joe's shoelesses together which leads to this great little spot with Buddy irish whipping Joe on his face a few times, ultimately working on the back and face until he does the trip again and hooks in the Robinson backbreaker. Great burst of intensity and hatred out of Buddy there. Third fall starts with Buddy gloating and Joe pissed off. He immediately attacks the leg and gets Buddy in a toehold. They go back to the hairpulling with Barr pulling Rose's hair for the third or fourth time and they get points for an ongoing narrative at least. The leg work here isn't dynamic or anything but it's varied enough with Buddy fighting enough that it's not so bad. Joe finally gets a weird leglock I've never seen but it lets Buddy get under the ropes. Joe works over Buddy out of the corner a couple of times but charges into the post and gets rolled up deep for the pin. It's a typical flair sort of finish but I really haven't seen Buddy go to it much if at all in 79 so it seems sort of novel here. There was some good stuff here but I wouldn't tell anyone to go out of their way for it. If you want to get a picture of what Buddy could do with a guy with marginal talent over 25 minutes and three falls this wasn't bad though.

Like when he ate all the secondary and tertiary belts.

I should have gone with Butch Reed/Buddy Landell too. Ah well. B-Sides choices: Thomas Rich/Richard Morton The Flame and Bullet Bob Adonis/Ron Starr John Tatum/Rod Price Black Bart/Ron Bass

Currently, in no order. Bock/Saito Blanchard/Arn Eaton/Arn Demolition Rose/Wiskoski But ask me again in six months and you'll get completely different answers.

They're setting up a Rose/Piper cage match with some great promos including one where Piper slams a beer bottle into his own head. I don't know if we have that match. They ran it for a bunch of towns it seemed, but maybe not for TV. There's also a Rose vs Bastien hair match we seem to be missing. Ah well. Rose/Sheepherders vs Martel/Stasiak/Yaki Joe - 2/3 Falls - Dec 21, 1979 No idea who Yaki Joe is, but i'm expecting some fun FIP stuff with Martel here. Martel vs Rose is immediately exciting. Very few guys we've seen are able to really go with Rose. Martel can and they do a lot of quick shine stuff including a straight up 'rana. It's amazing how great a babyface Martel was, even this early with certain things. Luke and Martel do a test of strength but Williams slowly angles him into his own corner allowing Rose to tag in and take over on Martel for a minute until Martel fires back with Buddy selling huge for everything Martel does. Martel has a pretty good atomic elbow smash and it's a shame he got rid of it. Tag in to Yaki Joe and no one eats wrenching headlocks like Buddy, though Luke, who ends up in eating them too, does a great frazzled flop afterwards. This entire shine is basically the fans counting along to wrenching headlocks, with a few heel cheaty hope spots and a huge highspot of Rose coming into interfere and eating a Martel 'rana while he holds onto Williams with the headlock. I love how the Sheepherders beg off. Finally the heels swarm and start to work over Martel again. Martel's a dervish with his hope spots and the fans really react. A lot of times he flies too far or over positions and the heels capitalize on his over-exuberance due to superior ring positioning. Buddy's flying back elbow is really nice. They do Barr missing a tag due to heel interference in a headlock which I haven't seen much if at all in my 70s Portland watching. They draw out the hope spots until Martel flies across the ring for a great hot tag to Stasiak, who tosses Buddy into the corner pole and gets in a quasi heart punch. Joe comes in and does some pretty lame chops that Buddy sell like death and looks actively lost once before stumbling into the heel corner, getting swamped til he rolls to a hot tag to Stasiak who is frigging awesome with his crazy old man fire. They keep having him bear hug the heels until interference knocks him out from behind for the first fall. Second fall starts with the heels getting Stasiak in their corner and pummelling with quick tags and keeping him in the corner until he fights out. Martel's pretty good cheerleading on the apron until he gets the tag. They're building up Martel to wrestle Harley in January. He trades slams with Buddy with Buddy bumping huge for him on one. At first glance Yaki Joe is not very good but he does sell the shoulder well after running limply into the corner. Heels work over the arm. The best part is Buddy holding onto a wristlock as he eats chops from Joe. It makes me want to see Wahoo vs Buddy from this era. Martel rushes in but only allows the heels to triple team. Then they do a heatless out of nowhere tag to Stasiak which could have been built up a lot better. I blame Joe here. Martel comes out of nowhere with a sunset flip from the outside to give the faces the second fall. This was all a bit rushed at the end. Rose cheapshots Joe between falls and Stasiak chases him back which is a fun little bit of chaos to switch things up. Williams really goes over for Martel's armdrags, as does Buddy (Miller, not as much). They're doing a great job making Martel look good here. One thing I love about Buddy in tag matches is the way he always seems like a threat when he's on the outside. He'll just run from off the screen and do an attack out of nowhere. It backfires here though and the faces work over Williams, including a cool double atomic noogie to the temples by Yaki Joe. We get a FIP on Joe here, with the heels just goozling him in their corner until Rose capitalizes on a missed hope spot with endless knees to the spine and an assisted backbreaker. I love how inevitable Buddy's finishing stretch is, especially when they play with it in some of the bigger matches. Here, though, he just plows through Joe with the Robinson backbreaker and that's it. The story here is that the double backbreaker (basically a backbreaker on a Sheepherder's knee on the outside) was just that devastating. Well, Yaki Joe sure isn't very good. Martel showed some really great flashes here. I liked him a lot more than in the singles match i saw. Being in a tag team is a great place for him to be at this point in his career.

They would have found a way to use Miz to make money in Memphis

Buddy Rose vs Jim Gagne - Dec 1, 1979 - 1 Fall So in between there was a great angle where Buddy runs in to interfere in a Sheepherders vs Piper/Stasiak title match and just mauls Piper's eye again AND an angle where he burns the kilt. I have zero idea who Jim Gagne is. He has a mustache. He is not related to Verne. Buddy starts out with some escapes only to get outclassed, including Gagne doing a flip with Sandy Barr's help. he keeps going back to the headlock/chinlock as a base, with Buddy escapes only to miss a move and end up right back in it. We've seen this a few times from Buddy but certainly not every week and it's always entertaining. Gagne is actually fairly athletic in a world's best Buck Zumhoffe sort of way. At least he's really working the headlock. The headlock grind is something that really got lost as they went into the 80s and it's a shame. Buddy hits a belly to back which is definitely the best transition in a headlock-driven match. Buddy is selling the headlocks great. He's even selling them with his hair. after a slam he locks on an over the shoulder backbreaker, which is something I've not seen out of him but he can't hold it and gagne fights back immediately, even selling the back. Gagne's offense in the corner is pretty good and his dropkick is okay. Buddy sells a kneelift for him like it's a decapitation. Maybe Gagne is more of a poor man's Mike Jackson instead? Anyway, He goes for a monkey flip in the corner. Rose blocks it. He lands on his back and Rose takes over, honing in. Gagne makes a comeback, and goes for another headlock. Buddy turns it into the inside backbreaker and there's the match. Good stuff with a very simple story but well-worked. I'll take good logical wrestling anyday.

I think there was sort of a boyhood dream element with the Miz that they could have played up and didn't. It's also that he won it using the MITB briefcase in a bs manner. He also worked his way up from the tag belts to the mid-level belts, to winning it. In context it's not as bad as "Reality star wins title!"