Matt D

Well, Now we have to call you on that, you know. I think everyone here could post as one to do so.

I had in my notes how much I liked Hansen's attempt to get out of holds early on, so I absolutely agree with that. I did think I was missing a lot of the context, so thanks for pointing it out. I remember seeing a Tenta tag in UWFi where I was impressed by how many things they accomplished coming out of the match. Here I didn't see it as clearly but some of that stuff, even without context,is crystal clear. NL, I think we're going to have to disagree. Obviously it's stylistic, but why should we care about the guys reaching for a tag when they're just going to come in and break the hold up a moment later. I don't get hose these things jive.

I think this was Chad's pick. It is not hard to find, but keep in mind you're looking for the 5/18/94 match. I'll have more opinions later but I do want to point out a few things. We're good for the next few weeks but people should fill in their first pick if they haven't already. When I think we're tapped, or if we're getting closer to the end of what we have, I'll ask for a second round of them. I've seen very little All Japan from this era. I know it is sort of the high watermark of workrate style wrestling, the whole King's Road thing, but this was all completely new to me I'm not sure I've ever seen a Kikuchi match and I've seen very little Ace in Japan, and probably less Misawa/Kobashi than anyone on the board. That said, I thought the no-selling was at least relatively contained and logical. There was reason behind it and escalation for the most part. Kikuchi spent almost a third of the match on the apron even though he had his fighting spirit moment earlier in the match. They would build to a move hitting/have impact. Certainly the crowd was into what they're doing. It's pretty obvious to see how this style has gotten warped over the years though. Even back in 94 they were walking a very fine line and I think at certain points they went over it. For the most part, I was satisfied though, at least in this small dose. I'm not sure this is the style for me. It's so weird to me to see Williams/Hansen clapping on the outside. The crowd responded but it was still sort of surreal to see I could have used a bit more traditional tag work. The main story, I suppose, was that William and Hansen were able to overpower their opponents at almost all points, but the Japanese were able mostly get by through toughness and slightly more finesse in their teamwork. There was a lengthy enough heat segment on Misawa, with Hansen stating on back work but then moving away quickly. I did like how they built up the pile-driver through the match though. When they finally hit the spike pile-driver there's a real sense of escalation. The bump Kikuchi took over the corner was huge. What bugged me the most about the match was all of the interference whenever a hold was on. There was a moment where Williams had Misawa in seated chinlock and they show Kikuchi and Kobashi desperately reaching for the tag, dramatic. A moment later, when they don't get it Kobashi just comes in and stomps. i feel like that's how 3/4th of all the holds in the match end and it adds to the craziness of the six man, but I think it really undermines the tag structure, especially when they go back to things like desperately reaching for a tag. It reeks of doing stuff and not having any idea of why they're doing it. They also flip the camera angle at the very end so the Americans' corner is in the bottom right when it was in the top left the whole match. It was pretty weird. I liked the finishing segment, especially Williams' last second save from the floor. I didn't think the last Lariat looked great but they did tease it a lot during the match and I'll take concept over execution any day. I'm glad I saw this but I'm in no rush to see a bunch more of this style right now.

There are things more effective than the element of surprise. It's a super match and I think it's more of a draw than either singles match up.

Does anyone contest this is the match of the night?

Piper's awesome on commentary here. When Warrior is calling for the power of the gods.

I think he had good matches in 93. Not a ton but he had them. Stuff with Bret, the Tag with Razor vs Bret+Perfect. Some TV stuff was pretty good (Tito, Owen). It doesn't help that he spent a lot of the back half of the year wrestling Borga.

Shoot-wise, I'd lean towards the Kevin Sullivan ones. There's some interesting stuff there. In general the Rene Goulet one is interesting because it's about being a road agent, but it's not as interesting as one might hope.

My favorite question right now is "What if Vince became a wrestler in the 70s?"

Big Boss Man vs. Jake Roberts, Tokyo 4/13/90 Hadn't seen this before. I really liked the opening stuff. Both guys were doing great little things to keep the advantage: Boss Man's gut punch, Jake's rushing Arm Hanger while Boss Man was jawing with the crowd. I like how he reacted to the early DDT attempt by going to town on Jake's hair, pissed off, and also the bump he took out of the ropes. I actually thought it was a fun character based way to do that sort of an opening segment without making it just chain wrestling or shtick. It ends on a big move and then Boss Man takes over with some really intense back work, ref and fan interaction, and a lot of gritty offense in general. Little things like how he'd grind the knee into the back after the backbreaker while whipping jake about like a ragdoll. Likewise with the bearhug. It's one of the only times I've ever seen a bearhug that was used mainly to damage the opponent and not wear him down or go for a submission. I'm not sure the chinlock was the right thing to do for this match, but it was relatively brief and both guys really worked it. I think it was mainly for calling spots anyway as Bossman came right back with the beautiful running sledge to the back, the slam, and then right into the huge transition bump. I like how for the first ten minutes of the match Jake's two big moves were ambush yanks upon the arm and how the second one sort of set up the short arm clothesline. It makes sense he didn't go right for the DDT after that like usual since it's basically the entirety of the offense he hit in the match. Pretty fun back and forth finishing sequence for the match. I would have liked to see the back work pay off a bit more, maybe as a final transition tease instead of the reversal on the knee lift. I think your initial feelings were more accurate though. This was very good. I also thought it was full of a lot of character work between Jake doing sneak attacks and slithering around the ring in his selling post-bearhug and Boss Man basically being Boss Man, even if there was no program.

Very fun mini feud.

I can't get enough of the kid whose dad is filming all of the 93 MSG fancams. He's the most stereotypical New York Italian kid ever.

The thing is that neither of those two claims seemed wildly controversial to anyone but you.

I honestly wouldn't mind reading more about Butch Reed.

Losing Lawler and Heenan in quick succession was a hit.

Sting is more of a personal favorite. Luger is better. Early on definitely. Even in 93 I like Luger a lot though.

JvK, while I'm glad to go digging, if you were to represent me with the short list of Flair matches you wanted me to compare/contrast once again, I intend to do that this month and it'd make things easier.

How resented was Bock for how he got the title in the early 80s?

I love Pro Wrestling USA Robinson where he's backstage as Kamala's handler. It's the most random thing.

They should have put him with Kassie. That was way too extreme for AWA though.

Well I've seen two far more than competent performances albeit in very small doses between 00 and 02 today. One that I didn't like as much but it was, you know, a two minute syndi match.

Is this a meaningfulness thing again?

Big Boss Man vs the Hurricane Metal 02/02/02 Now this is a fun sub 3-min match. These things do exist. It's worked very smartly. Tons of shtick from both guys. Hurricane starts out with the handshake and Boss Man takes his hand. They share a thumbs up and Boss Man pulls him in and intimidates him. Hurricane tries for a slam but gets clubbered for his trouble. Boss Man taunts Molly outside. Hurricane tries offense. Boss Man overpowers him. His strikes again look good. Hurricane goes for the chokeslam. Boss Man chokes him instead. Does the "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD" thing again. Ref breaks it. Molly hits a missile dropkick. Boss Man sells it exactly as much as he should, chases Molly around, runs back in. Hurricane briefly takes over, hits a big move or two, including the big body slam, and then Boss Man hits the Boss Man Slam out of nowhere with a huge hook of the leg and that's the match. They managed to set up things early in the match (the bodyslam attempt, Boss Man's taunting of Molly) that paid off later on. It was very believable with Boss Man giving just about as much as he should have for Helms. Again, it's not a great match in the time limitation, BUT if you can come up with a better sub-3 minute big man/little man match I'd love to see it.

Big Boss Man vs Test SmackDown 1/4/00 Official WWEFanNation youtube site link: One problem with looking at matches from Boss Man's matches from his comeback is that the matches were so damn short back then. This went about four minutes. It was set up after two big encounters with Albert and Boss Man that Steph and Hunter put Test in and the main story was Boss Man working over Test's broken nose. There's a lot you can see from this though. Boss Man had great nose-based offense. Lots of varied stuff including nasty knees and punches, dropping him on the barricade, a mugging sort of rear-noselock. He had smart cut-offs of hope spots, including a backelbow and boot in the corner to the nose. He ate Test's offense really well, especially his crappy strikes and died amazingly on a big boot. He was great jawing to the fans early on and was really good at giving his offense room to breathe. His timing on his cut offs/eating Test's hope spots were really good. Obviously this isn't going to be a GREAT MATCH or anything (it's four minutes long) but everything Boss Man had to do here, I think he did well. I even think he did a very good job of getting stuff in those four minutes effectively. I also saw a nothing two minute Metal Saturn vs Boss Man match from 02 and he was definitely not in as good shape. His punches were still great. His selling of Saturn's punches were great, but he was sluggish down to his gear which was his black swat shirt with khaki pants. After hitting a big boot he raises his hands and shouts "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" which was pretty awesome.

Who in the history of wrestling not Ricky Steamboat or Tito Santana actually prefer being a face?