Matt D

Does the Dibiase/Patterson title change exist? youtube has I know what I'm watching tomorrow.

"A running team" in football used to be the old three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust, grind-it-out, Woody Hayes offense--passing only when necessary. Now, particularly in the NFL, you're a "running team" if you rush on 50% of your plays. These things can happen. This is a performance art not a sport. Is this sort of how Nickelback became metal or something?

It's just become less technical.

i made a very honest effort to get DEAN to draw Sandow today.

I'm still not feeling it. If a technical wrestler is one thing, and that thing doesn't exist anymore, then there are no more technical wrestlers. What we have instead is something else.

When we start coming up with terms like "mat grappler" I think we're veering into dangerous territory.

I know I see limbwork or matwork as the key to the word

Which goes back to needing to look at his relatively early babyface work, right? Of which we don't have a ton of?

I think we need to define what the hell we're talking about a little bit better.

He was thought of a future NWA champ when he was a babyface in Mid-South, WWF and Georgia, right? Most of the matches most of us have seen with him are after the Georgia run, no?

Though I'll admit one thing. I've seen a lot of heel dibiase, both in Mid South and WWF, but I've seen less of his face work, especially from Georgia, but also in mid-south. You look at a match like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-6JVsDr2c And you see some semblance that he did some early (and vaguely interesting) armwork but even more, that when he was using the figure-four as a finisher, he'd set it up on some level in a vaguely technical way? Of course, VON KRAMER is making a mostly WWF argument, so I imagine it's moot.

What i'm saying is that you can at least call Dory a mat technician, whether a good one or a bad one. You can't call Dibiase one, one way or the other.

At least you see where they're coming from though. Ted just didn't do any of that. That's the difference.

Isn't he really more of a power wrestler in WWF (relative to the moves of the time). I'm only partially kidding. More seriously, I think one issue is the definition of "technician." That really needs to be hammered down. But this goes back to what I was saying in the other note. If every wrestler in the world says one thing, and the evidence in the matches say something else, it'd be crazy not to go with the evidence we can actually see, especially in a case like this.

In my mind, the only thing it has weight on, even a little, is when it comes to "leading matches." For some people that doesn't matter at all, since they care about great matches, and if someone happened to be lucky enough to be led in great matches by a ton of different opponents, over a span of years, then why wouldn't they be great? Maybe someone who hits softly but looks like they have great strikes should get more credit than someone who just hits hard in order to have good looking strikes? Maybe? Maybe if we're in an era or territory where we have very very little footage to look at and all we have to go on is what other wrestlers say? But really, we're talking very few situations where what other wrestlers say matters in the least.

Why?

The simple fact of the matter is that we have different criteria. When we say a wrestler is better or worse, the criteria is what matters to us, whether it's having a match with coherent storytelling, having offense that look realistic, selling well and consistently, bumping big, or having a wide moveset. Everyone's criteria are different. Different things matter to different people. But since I don't have to work with the wrestler in question, I care a hell of a lot more about what people WATCHING the matches think than what people not watching the matches think, even if those people are other wrestlers.

Why the hell did Tatum never make it?

Current Guys Who I am Looking Forward to Seeing More Of (in the stuff I am watching now): Nick Bockwinkel: The AWA set really opened my eyes. He basically does almost everything I like in wrestling. He works smart AND hard. There's consequence to just about everything he does and reason behind just about everything. No two Bock matches are the same. When he needs to be intense, he can be intense. When he needs to stooge, he stooges. When he needs to sell, he sells. Just a brilliant worker and there are still so many matches of his I haven't seen yet. Bret Hart: I've seen a ton of Bret, but very little from 93-96. I'm midway through 93 now and he's had SUCH a year. Three Bam Bam matches. The Perfect vs Luger/Ramon tag. The surprisingly good Flair ironman. The Luger singles. The Perfect match. The Yoko cage. The Backlund match. Etc. etc. Great year so far, and there are some Lawler fancams and unaired matches upcoming that I can't wait to see. Bret is really a wrestler I take for granted. Daniel Bryan: Speaking of great years. He's hit that point where he's practically bulletproof. He gets over in comedy segments. He can be put into a match against anyone on the roster and be legitimate. The crowd loves him and he has bits that are completely interactive. Everything he did all year turned to gold. They can do almost anything with him and it'll be great, so yeah, i can't wait to see what 2013 looks like for him. Buddy Rose: Alright, I'm not really at a point where I'm regularly watching Buddy matches but it's great to know there's so much out there I haven't seen yet and I loved him so much on the AWA set. So at some point soon I'll more actively seek them out. Probably more Jumbo matches too, but that's beside the point. Matt Borne: There are a few stories of 1993 WWF, but one of them is absolutely Borne as Doink. The Perfect series, the two Jannetty Matches, The quick Backlund Match. The MSG Waltman match. The really fun Money Inc/Doink vs Steiners/Tatanka tag. I've seen my share of Big Josh but I've never seen any Borne in Texas and I mean to check out some of that at some point.

Lex and Arn have a really great chemistry in that match.

Would it be too inflammatory to say that Dave has a history of that?

No, seriously, Nord had a hugely varied offense for a 91 WWF heel, would bump so huge, especially for a guy his size, but not in a way that took you out of the match since he was usually in there against big guys like Davey Boy, had this crazy manic energy to him that Brody wishes he had.

I want to call it the Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl Award

From listening to way too many shoots, guys seem to like him because he stood up against promoters so much AND helped them stand up against promoters and/or taught them normative things when not a lot of other guys were willing to.

I frigging love 91-92 John Nord