Matt D

Up with the baby so sorry if this is incoherent. This is a lot more even. Thank you for the rewatch. Not everyone would do that. Not everyone on this board would do that. It works even better in context. There's a reason why Demolition is so pissed off. Personally I am such a proponent of smart workers and playing a role (i.e. taking just enough and giving just enough that I admit Eadie being really smart is a huge part of the appeal. Wrestling is symbolic so that the offense worked for the crowd works for me. That is just me and really, a lot of times what they do DOES look good on top of that. I think Darsow shows huge improvement from when he started the gimmick; he learns over time, though I realize this is a couple of years in, but in some matches you can tell more and his physicality balances things. I still do get frustrated when he does something that's not foolproof but they tag pretty frequently when on top and Eadie is DEFINITELY directing traffic most matches. For the Rockers match notice how they can turn up the pace while selling. Watching Eadie on triple speed because the match calls for it is sort of amazing. Also, if you're going to watch a third match, I suggest the 88 Hart Foundation match. If you watch that, check out how Demos treat a much higher on the totem pole face team on a much higher stage. It doesn't make sense for Eadie to beg off on Jannetty so he doesn't. When he does it for Bret at an appropriate moment, it therefore becomes a huge deal. That speaks to the versatility. They could play FIP vs the Twin Towers because it made sense or they could be pissed off and dominant against cheating technical heels like the Brainbusters. They could turn up the pace with the Rockers but could also stooge off against the Harts. Their matches against different teams generally feel different, and they even change things up when wrestling the same team. Watching the Towers series is interesting in what they do differently with different matches in the series. Great matches, maybe? But over time they (and I realize it's mostly Eadie from a mental standpoint yes) do things that I've rarely seen WWF wrestlers of the era do. When I started to appreciate Demolition matches, it was when I was watching a lot of MSG/Boston/MLG/Philly shows one after the next so I was seeing the whole roster go through their stuff. The Demolition matches were surprisingly compelling and varied wildly in structure from match to match which surprised me as I had a pretty negative preconceived notion and not a lick of nostalgia I started to delve deeper. The things that stay constant is that they make their opponents work for every bit of offense, every bit of relief, and every hot tag, and that in and of itself almost forms its own story. It's pretty cool. Anyway, Thanks again for the consideration. You exasperated the heck out of me before.

I love the Andre tag, for what it's worth.

Wow. There's so much emotion in everything but the last Brainbusters/Demos match. That's just a weird title switch non starter. I can give you very exact examples of where I think the emotion is. I wrote the thing up. Let me know if you want me to point it out. In general, though, it's your opinion but I think that's a real quizzical one. The SNME match is one of my favorite matches of all time, because of the story they told. The MSG match is just an awesome pissed off revenge mauling with Arn and Tully fighting for their lives. That said, I love the RnR title win too, but we are talking a different language here.

I'd be really surprised if most of the internet went with Cena at all, let alone like this. Happily, though.

It killed me with early angle that he never really did a lot of wrestling or matwork. I remember being really frustrated by that when I was younger.

I never can get anyone to argue me on my points when it comes to them, which drives me nuts. Granted, in order to argue me on my points, you have to take sort of a comparative view, so I do understand. It goes against the "great match" mindset to some extent (not that they don't have some).

On paper that's a really fun heel team. I kind of want to go back and find promos.

There's a difference between a traditional superman babyface comeback after selling a whole match and skipping the apparent tedium of selling so you can get the next spot in to pop the crowd.

If you know what to look for, you notice certain things. I wish I could watch Flair matches, for instance, in blissful ignorance, like I could five years ago. Unfortunately, I can't. Tito matches too, though I kind of like his formula so I don't mind as much.

I'm not even sure what to do with that. Anyway, I think a hell of a lot less of Flair for the same sort of reasons, if it makes you feel better. If I differ in opinion with a wrestler when it comes to some very essential aspects of wrestling, it is very likely i will like their work less and rank them lower than I might otherwise? This seems like a reasonable tenet to me.

We can't talk about Shawn Michaels' attitude noted in a Shawn Michaels book about a Shawn Michaels match in the Shawn Michaels note? Ok, we can talk about it in the other note. EXCEPT it's a match with Shawn Michaels in it, and we have a note specifically about Shawn Michaels matches, so obviously we can't talk about it in the Demolition note, because we have a note specifically about Shawn Michaels. We are in Catch-22 land here. I get where you're coming from, John, but it's a little silly. Let's make this reply productive at least: Quote in question, which I think is pretty damn interesting as it pertains to Shawn and his understanding of wrestling in general. I retyped it off of books.google.com after a quick search. Also I get that wrestlers are carnies in books, but I tend to believe Shawn feels this way. Page 136, Heartbreak & Tragedy: The Shawn Michaels story. That mindset pretty much misses completely the idea of a role, that it'll take more to knock down Andre than Ray Rougeau, that the heel tag champs should be protected in a different way than the Conquistadors, and that them falling down matters to the match way more when the babyfaces have to earn it. That having an exciting match doesn't necessarily mean you have a GOOD match. So those are Shawn's thoughts and my problems with them. That I think Demos gave very well in that match and very smartly and that it was an exciting match with more meaning and resonance than a lot of other Rockers matches from the era is really beyond the point.

Despite Michaels being bitchy and saying that Demos didn't give them nearly enough, which is blatantly moronic and perfectly false. (He adds for the fourth time)

what they should have done was put Cena with a young guy and have them win the tag titles for a while. They used Kevin Nash to 1995 Diesel Punk!

He's the International Champion, thank you very much.

Or maybe Bret was just pissy that Flair does stuff "just because it works" without thinking it through more.

I need to rewatch it tomorrow but there was some really fun and innovative stuff I'd never seen Re: AJ in the Punk/Bryan match. (In other words, I loved the AJ bullshit spots). The SD MITB was pretty crazy. I felt like they didn't do as good as job as they needed to convince me that guys should be down for as long as they were however. i missed a lot of the rest.

Warlord is a great prop for certain guys, like Jannetty. He also has some pretty good matches with DBS but that's a bit of a cheat since they had a whole year to run with each other. And people (not Dylan) argued that there were no good Kane matches, no good Kane Performances, and certainly no Kane matches better than the Michaels one. That's why we're here. Obviously that's not the end all of what this note can be, but I was just keeping things in perspective.

I think about half the people on the board wouldn't admit to the first half of what you said. That's sort of the point of this note.

So the people who are REALLY anti-Kane, do you dispute the last three posts? If so, on what grounds? It's not saying he's a superworker or anything.

Oh man, the Drew Mcintyre = Underrated sign.

Welcome to PWO. We examine everyone and everything. Nothing is a given here. Nothing is untouchable. There are no sacred cows. You can back something up, anything up, more power to you. That said, I'm not watching a bunch of Nailz matches.

Yep, it's a lot more meaningful to break down what they do well and why. And what they don't do well over a series of matches. There are trends and patterns. They are worth examining and judging a wrestler way more than "Great matches"

All I will pimp is the Backlash 08 Kane vs Chavo match. You only have to watch one Kane match for my sake Will. Promise! Here's what I said about it: IF you do watch it, please keep those things in mind.

Sound the alarm! Will's generalizing and discounting stuff without watching specific matches again! And really, the argument isn't even ABOUT Kane. He's the control in this situation, the constant. The argument is about the other guys in the matches relative to Shawn and how the matches are put together, how well they can work with Kane and how well Kane can work with them. The match that the others are being compared to is a Kane match too! The argument, as best I understand it, is that Shawn vs Kane is a shitty match and a big reason for that is due to decisions Shawn made in his offense and how he decided to work Kane. While the matches were touted as good, that's independent of the prime argument, which is that they're better than a possibly terrible Shawn vs Kane match.

I'm disregarding your opinion completely for just tossing away the backlash 08 match like that. It's great. That you come off like a rude jerk for no reason doesn't help. Seriously read through this note from start to bottom and really take a look at why people are saying what they're saying. It could just be that you look at wrestling differently than a lot of us do. But you're just listing off matches or dismissing them with a few words. Wasn't one of the big arguments in this note that we SHOULD push Shawn with great matches, because if we break him down with things he does well and things he does poorly, it doesn't look nearly as good on paper as if you look at his "great matches?"