Matt D

The Blood Diamond. I think Larry's AWA stuff is super underrated. Larry's stalling is genius since he's like a shark when he finally attacks. I LOVE Bock's charge in this match and the piledriver was huge. I think i zoned out during the Slaughter/Hansen stuff, but I agree that I would like to see the TV build for it and it's a shame we don't have it. Vader always said that he worked so stiff in his career since the first two guys they put him in with was Brody and then Hansen. I think Kris always adds a lot to the dynamic. I hate saying this but we're looking at a nitro 3 man team with the luchadors when they bring tenay in. So we have Bischoff/Mongo/Tenay. That's insulting to everyone in its own way, but I don't mean it that way. Will completely misread pissed off Bock. Johnny caught it though. Obviously I was wrong. He's Dusty not Mongo. I know you guys talk about how when you're talking about other things it means you're not as into the match, but when what you're talking about is Queen that means that the match inspired you to talk about great things. The hair ranking at the end was epic. 1. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Col. DeBeers (4/17/86) - My working #15 (I expect to have this higher than anyone else) 3. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Ric Flair (1/17/86) - My working #31 6. Stan Hansen vs. Sgt. Slaughter (2/23/86) 9. Buddy Rose, Doug Somers, & Larry Zbyszko vs. Steve Pardee, Mike Rotundo, Jimmy Snuka (4/17/86) 11. Col. DeBeers vs. Buck Zumhofe (2/23/86) 12. Stan Hansen vs. Sgt. Slaughter (Bunkhouse Match) (3/9/86) 13. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Larry Zbyszko (2/23/86) (Loved it but it's just a matchlet) 15. Mike Rotundo & Barry Windham vs. The Fabulous Ones (4/20/86) - Working #135

I stopped once I hit Regal weeks ago. Starting to listen again now: Kris knows a lot of stuff. We all know this but still. It's worth mentioning. Also, he does a great evil Russian heel. I'm kind of disappointed that when Johnny brought up Regal as a Horseman we didn't get a Regal/Roma comparison which would be kind of apt. The Martel vs Boris cage match is my working #47, so it just made my top third. I think it's such a great showcase for Martel as champ. Zhukov is sort of the guy who looks the best on the set relative to the fact that he is Boris Zhukov. The cool thing about Volkoff is that he hated the USSR. He was a defector who defected during an int'l athletic competition and he saw his heel act as a way to really strike back against the Soviets. Kris continues to foreshadow the finish gloomily. This is one of those matches that is going to probably get knocked down a few slots when I reevaluate things. It's the AWA. All finishes are basically shit. The fans loved this one at least. I'm glad Kris isn't a fan of the midget match either since I have that relatively low. And I just laugh at you poor fools having to watch Regal vs Buck. And Kris is a jerk for saying "Lawler/Dundee" in the same sentence as this. I love how Buck would come out with the ghettoblaster boom box and then be playing Santa Claus is Coming to Town or whatever. That old Continental sounds so cool. Oh come on, there are plenty of AWA matches that I've seen that are LOADS better than this and that belong on the set more than this. Both with importance and quality, Hall vs DeBeers belongs. That ladies tag match no one else cares about belongs. Some of the Andre stuff belongs more than this. For historical value Bock vs Adnan maybe. Even Larry vs Ledoux because it's a great Larry performance. The Slaughter/Blackwell vs Roadies tag. One of Lawler's random defenses against Teijo Khan. ANYTHING. Anyway, this is my #147. It's functional. Boring as hell with one or two fun things. But functional at least. It was a wrestling match. Kind of. Anyway, no wonder Will's other kid wants nothing to do with wrestling. This is probably the sort of stuff he was combing through will making comps during sensitive formative times. I don't think the JIP hurts Flair vs Bock much since it's such high end stuff. It hurts it as in it could be top ten if not for the cut, but it's still top 40 with it. I always consider the leg loop in way to put on the Figure Four the "Ron Garvin" way to do it. I think Flair's way is much more visual. I need to see the Backlund vs Race match. I disagree a little about Johnny's comment "Or if you hear us going OOH OH OOOOH OH." To me that could well mean that they're just hitting each other hard and bleeding, or that it's particularly spotty. Not that it's necessarily a good match. Sometimes I think that guys punching each other hard for ten minutes is the 1983 equivalent of a headdroppy Indy Spotfest and that is enough for some people. I'm ok with Hansen vs Hennig being mostly Hennig since Hansen is a totally different animal than Hennig and sometimes you need to get over the champ strong early on. Also because this ends up part of the longer Hennig story. I think it fits well with Hansen in general. How Bock wrestles him, how Leon White does. How Hennig does next time. God, Hansen's title run is actually pretty compelling as a whole. I'm less okay because it seemed like the point of it was to get over Hall as a potential challenger. Slaughter said he gave all of his Pretty Boy gear to Jesse Ventura. Nord is really good by 91. I get that he wasn't yet here. Imagine a Brody that bumps crazy for people and has killer offense. This is my #48 3. Nick Bockwinkel vs. Ric Flair (1/17/86) 4. Stan Hansen vs. Sgt. Slaughter (2/2/86) 5. Rick Martel vs. Boris Zuhkov (Cage Match) (11/14/85) 7. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Rick Martel (9/29/85) 8. Ric Flair vs. Magnum TA (9/28/85) 10. Stan Hansen vs. Curt Hennig (2/1/86) 14. Jimmy Garvin & Steve Regal vs. Scott Hall & Curt Hennig (11/14/85) 16. Steve Regal vs. Buck Zumhofe (11/28/85) Don't think I need to necessarily rewatch any of this stuff.

Buddy Rose vs Jay Youngblood - 2/3 Falls - 1977 - Special Ref: Jonathan Boyd First fall is absolutely hilarious. Jay's almost an afterthought in this thing, to the point where the fans are chanting "We Want Jay" when he's right there, in the ring. Boyd stymies Rose at every point. Fast counts against him. Slow counts for him. Allowing hair pulling by Jay. Funniest wrestling you'll see all day. The fall ends with a lightning fast rope running segment. Second fall is Buddy mauling Jay with great looking offense finishing with the Billy Robinson backbreaker. Third fall is an almost immediate DQ as Buddy gets fed up. Hugely entertaining. Buddy Rose vs Adrian Adonis - 2/3 Falls - 9/8/78 - Rip Rogers is Handcuffed to Steve Pardee Babyface Adonis is so weird to watch. This is a lot of fun, though. First fall is very back and forth with some holds and reversals, a decent amount of shtick, cool legwork from Rose, Adonis sort of no selling it, Pardee being the equalizer to prevent Buddy from taking a powder after the come back, and a great looking pinfall after a missed haymaker by Rose. Second fall is an extremely long front facelock segment that's worked very, very well. Lots of comebacks and slow and steady wearing down as Buddy finally sets up the Neckbreaker only taking too much time to go for the pinfall afterwards. Finish is Pardee forcing a missed top rope move by Buddy which isn't the best choice maybe, but Rose loses two straight falls in this and STILL ends up extremely protected. Very good stuff.

There is a DeBeers/Psicosis/Ryuma Go vs Billy Jack Haynes/Rey Mysterio Jr./CW Bergstrom match on youtube. It is from 1994. It is a fancam. It is 35 minutes. Can someone please watch this thing so I don't have to?

It's probably Dibiase at Survivor Series 90 for me, but I didn't start watching wrestling until around then.

It took a few years of lurking before I felt comfortable to talk here and that's after being on DVDVR for years and years. Now everyone wished I talked less.

In this note, he probably is. John Olerud it is. Let's move on!

Muraco vs Windham Flordia, 1980. This is an awesome 3 minute mauling. It's probably the most intense I've ever seen Don and I immediately want to see more of his stuff from 1980 Florida.

Savage makes this.

They keep investing and investing and investing over the next two years.

Kotter is all about vaudeville style wordplay. It's aged amazingly well

I would like to see Parv talk about Tony Danza for 3000 words. I would like Johnny to talk about Welcome Back Kotter next.

They turned Hughes with JYD

And the stuff that was good, like the nose-breaking angle with Steamboat stumbled into the stalking Madusa angle.

Do you ever look back and then see where we are now and wonder what the hell happened?

There were a lot of quick changes in direction too. Watts didn't really let things finish well before switching things about. I wish we had a long run of Arn Anderson challenging Sting, for instance. As a kid, the switch to Watts really turned me off. Flying Brian was my favorite wrestler at the time and I was really into the Dangerous Alliance.

It's hard to tell from the TV who was successful or not since from watching it you'd believe that almost every guy was getting over, especially Master G and Snowman. When exactly did Reed turn face. Snowman vs Jake was June 86 and I thought it was after that, but it's been a while.

With Reed, wasn't he sort of the last resort? He was a heel (and a great JYD foil) until all the other guys failed, and once he turned face Vince pretty much snatched him up? Or is my timeline off in my head?

We were doing so well too

If Johnny was a wrestling character, he could absolutely manage the Ding Dongs

Does that first Superdome show sync up with first WWF shows in various areas from the era before numbers quickly dropped?

He wasn't just an ethnic hero, he was a folk hero.

And for the love of god did Watts ever try his hardest to replace Dog.

Can Vader be Chris Farley?