Matt D

Hart to Hart. Diesel's Truck Stop The Polo Grounds Afa's Tiki Bar Luna's Salon That Crazy Alley Where Slick Turned the One Man Gang Into Akeem This is a horrible idea for a note!

Ok, so this note http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=15302) was basically me vs the board on my feelings, until it became this weird, goofy thing about soccer (with some great JvK vs Loss subtext about whether a midget could beat someone up or something) but.. Instead of quoting a lot of stuff, I will sum up in a few paragraphs for the sake of everyone's sanity. At the end of this it still might make sense. If that's the case, I'm sorry. It's hard to explain why you like art sometimes, I guess. Here's my attempt. What matters to me the most is that if you pick out a move in a match, the move means something. It makes sense. It fits into a narrative. That a wrestler is telling a story with every second of every match. That I think the wrestler always knows what they're doing and what they're doing has meaning and weight. That's basic. That's the bare minimum. If you don't do that, you're not going to be a really great wrestler in my mind no matter how much action you put in your matches, or even how much the crowd is into things. From there, to be really great, you have to build stuff between acts in a match, between moments in a match. Your transitions have to make sense. You have to sell what's happened beleivably so that it ultimately has meaning. To be good, you have to be telling a story at all times. To be great, that story has to be well put together and compelling. A wrestling match is like a novel, not like a sporting event. It's fiction. That's its strength and what makes it better than any artificially sportswritten narrative overlaid upon a sporting event could almost ever be. The best wrestlers are crafting it at every moment. That doesn't mean they have the whole thing planned out. So long as everything is sold, and the selling matters and so long as things are built upon and reacted to in logical ways, it works. Those watching just have to be able to connect the dots without too many extraneous parts. I point out more specific things elsewhere. But that's the sum of it for me. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?act=...amp;pid=5529146 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5524467 Finally, I will say this: To hell with great matches. What matters to me is watching a ton of a wrestler in a ton of situations and seeing how he handles a specific situation over time. To see whether or not he gets it. What matters isn't whether or not a match is great, but whether every single thing a wrestler does is great.

To me, Hansen/Hennig wasn't even about wanting to see Hennig win the title. It was about the timing of it. It was about them building to a more frustrating (to the fans) final moment. A mad dash to beat down the champ while he was trying to get a solid win to put this kid in his place. A build to a moment where Hennig REALLY had him only to have it snatched away due to the time limit. I know Hennig couldn't really do his second rope dropkick in the confines of what they were working, but I didn't think anything that happened at the end there could have put Hansen away, and I needed that, especially at the end.

Listening to the Wrestling Culture podcast, I'll amend my statement somewhat. I think Bret's better in ring. I think there are people better than Bret in ring. I don't think Flair's one of them. Flair's a better WON HOF candidate. Bret does the things that I care about in wrestling far, far better than Flair. I think other people do that better. Flair's not one of them. If you ask me "WHO IS BETTER?" I say Bret. Because I care about what I care about wrestling, not what you care about wrestling. That's not subjectivity in the way that we've been talking about. It's not a favorite thing. It's honestly what I think is more important in a wrestler. It's not just what I like more. That said, if i was going on the consensus of PWO, as best as I can figure out, and certainly on the terms of the podcast I just heard, Flair wins over Bret on GOAT on those specific standards. That said, I am never, ever arguing about GOAT on this board, especially not on its general standards. At best I'm arguing "greatest I feel like I can competently argue about on my standards." But I do think I frame every argument I make, or I try to. I think I explain what I'm talking about as much as anyone else on the site. And if people don't want to argue along those lines, that's fine. We can make our points separately and people can either find them interesting or not. I go half way when I can. I shut up when I can't.

A match tells a story. If they can tell a complete, meaningful story in that time then there's no reason it can't be great.

If the draw had been set up just a little better in that Hansen vs Hennig match, it probably would have made my top ten for the entire 80s for the AWA. I know Dylan has it high. So... A great match is a great match. If a match can both use and overcome the limitations of that sort of time limit, then it's a great match.

Neither here nor thre, I actually really love Lawler on commentary in 93. The Magistrator is often hilarious and he had really good chemistry with Vince and Savage. Don't get me wrong: The heel color guy in Superstars is its own thing. You have a role that's completely different than getting over the psychology and excitement in longer matches. He was very well suited for that role, though. Funk's Grill is the best interview segment out of the three, though. I love slumming Arn on the stool in Flair for the Gold, but that doesn't make it effective or anything. I think my favorite Funk's Grill is the one with Missy Hyatt.

With the holiday I had completely forgotten Raw was even on.

Reality exists. I've explained myself more than enough on this. There are both summed up links and a big project if anyone is interested and wants to contest me on my very clear, very specific talking points (and no one ever does, so... yeah). Meanwhile, I'm glad to review shitty British Bulldogs matches where Dynamite takes way too much offense if you want though and am actively looking forward to watching a bunch of Killer Bees matches at some point after seeing Brunzell on the AWA set. And someday I shall see random Montreal tag work!

I was saying that to Dylan a week or two ago. This place has been great lately.

I feel like I've said everything possible to be said. So I'm mostly bowing out here. I like the 88 Demos/Rockers match more than more of the Brainbusters/Rockers series. It's funny. Michaels credits Arn and Tully for teaching him that if you don't have a very dominant babyface shine, you can actually get more heat sometime, but there's a lot of heel-in-peril there. I think the Busters/Young Stallions match that made the DVDVR list is actively terrible. The Demos/Stallions match isn't much better though. Right now the only WWF ARN/TULLY stuff that I'm really interested in rewatching is vs Luke and Butch. I think there might be something to learn there even if they hated being programmed with them. If you're comparing entire bodies of works, Arn/Tully win. If you're comparing WWF only work, I'm not sure. Here's everything I had to say in the long Demos thread in five posts. I literally have nothing else to say First Word: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5508971 Second Word: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5510741 Third Word: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5510906 Last Word: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5510935 Top Ten: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...t&p=5511368

Bock is being reevaluated not due to some sort of whim or fad but because a lot of people have watched a lot of Bock they've either never seen before or never seen all at once before. I feel like Race already went through a "being watched" stretch like that a few years ago and the end result was the current prevailing "Race as Angle" mindset, that probably is a bit harsh, but not entirely unwarranted either. That came from something, namely people watching matches. It'd take another bunch of matches that people hadn't seen being assembled in one place for a lot of people to watch or at least a general shift in our community's mindset as viewers to create another reevaluation of Harley, I think.

Unfortunately, my best Bock reply is a Vs Flair one, and I understand that I have certain disputed points in my Flair pov that I'm not yet ready to confront. I'll say more in a few days, certainly, and I'll pick out matches like Dylan is doing and gladly at that. I'll say this: I've seen even more Bockwinkel since then and I feel even more strongly about the things I think he did well.

I hate that cage match. The bloodbath is a real contender for my #1 however.

I love Solie/Dusty and Cruise/Dusty from 95 Prime. I love 91-92 Mooney/Hayes, because Lord Alfred had started to lose it a bit and he'd be a really snarky and grumpy heel type figure out of the blue in the most amazing ways, like hating High Energy's pants. I kind of liked Matthews/Striker on ECW but I didn't like Striker when he got moved up to the big leagues probably due to how he was produced. I really loved Tony/Heyman on WCW Power Hour in 91 and Tony/Larry on WCW Pro Chicago. But my favorite is Monsoon/Johnny Polo. Levy just had a way of stymieing Monsoon that was hilarious.

I am not a fan

Well, there's your first problem.

95% of the audience don't watch wrestling like we do.

So if you have a big moveset it can all look like crap? Also, how big a moveset did guys have in 1990-92 WWF, really?

I thought the exact opposite actually, and enjoyed the contrast on the show between the two monsters. Vader was really all about athleticism, quickness, with lot of spots and quick shots, bumping a lot (his detractors would say too much and too easily), while Tenta was much more traditionnal in his approach, kinda like a more offensive minded version of the One Man Gang, with tons of percussion spots (hey, he's a former sumo), a mix of deliberate style with a few heavy spots, and milking the hell out of his bumps (not as much as OMG, but much more than Vader). Anyway, I enjoyed it quite a bit, although his matches with Savage are even better. That's actually one of my favorite talking points ever. Because Sting vs Avalanche was one of the big matches later in the night, Vader works a completely different match with Duggan than he might have otherwise. It's a perfect example of how you have to think, at least a little, about card placement when you're trying to really understand and analyze a match. It's really true. That's another comparison to Henry. Everything he does looks huge and believable and super solid.

Ok, one thing that I think I never get across well is this. Bret does his moves, yes, but HOW and WHEN and WHY he does them is different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmwQQfbamKY Bret/Owen vs Well Dunn in the lead up to Survivor Series 93. He does the inverted atomic drop/clothesline combo, yes, but he does it after catching his opponent on a leapfrog off the ropes. I've seen a bunch of Bret matches and that's not usually how he sets it up. It was during a back and forth part of a shine. He hits the backbreaker/second rope elbow/sharpshooter in succession but he hits the backbreaker off the rope instead of just lifting the guy up like he often does. And the elbow leads right to the sharpshooter which isn't usually how he sets it up even in a lot of his squashes. It works, because that backbreaker is part of his house of fire hot tag, clearing house and as such it rolls right into the finish. He mixes things up to fit the match. Not the what, but the how and the why.

Jerome's going through them anyway. He's doing this so we don't have to.

Tenta has a few matches with Bossman in 90-91 and most are quite good. Honestly, I think Natural Disasters are wildly underrated. Watch Disasters vs Beverly Brothers from Summerslam 92. I think it really might be the best match on the card no matter how crazy that sounds. I'll delve more into the results later. He's got the best Elbow Drop ever though. It's world destroying. I think you can make a real comparison between Tenta and Mark Henry when it comes to ring presence and knowing how much and when to give and when to eat an opponent up and I kind of want to force Dylan or Tom to do that.

Ha. It could have been Rick Bassman.