Matt D

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?"

He will too.

Tim is a wise man.

Yeah, I was about to say.... Well I'm younger than YOU!

Fans went nuts for him. I always forget Taker, but he was more over than Bulldog. I don't know why. He just was before they gave him the accent. Savage, Warrior, Bret, and Taker, yes. Though Warrior was gone a week before Survivor Series. He had a dark match and again, was super over. Like Sid right before Royal Rumble 92 over. I think kids loved the head vice or something. He was the wrong guy for the Doink feud. I don't feel like going Superstars digging. Can we just trust that he was over enough to surprise me despite logic dictating otherwise?

Uh, considering the weird Vince/Steph dynamic, Chinatown comparisons for the WWE rather creep me out. I think Vic said Finkel and that would have made sense to me.

Do we have younger fans here?

Honestly, Crush was super over for his first couple of months, before they really played up the accent and everything. I think he was the third most over babyface on the roster right before the Perfect turn.

I think either Barry Windham as The Stalker or DDP as A Stalker would count.

So when have you ever got the indication that what you want and what Meltzer wants are the same thing when it comes to this?

It's okay not to like Demolition, but if you don't, and you actually watch some matches, then all I ask is that take a look at WHY I like them and if you're going to engage, engage me on either whether I'm wrong about those points and why, or why you just don't think they matter. The latter is perfectly valid. People have different tastes. But it's not some crazy random thing, me liking them. It's not a whim.

I LOVE Bock's WWF announcing. It's so different than anything else you get.

We could probably break off a note just on what having "Good offense" means. Is it meaningful offense? Is it offense that looks believable? Is it varied offense? Is it innovative offense? Is it offense that the fans respond to?

isn't a lot of the offense issue being able to fill in the gaps and find things to do. In that regard, Steamboat had the opening match arm work and then the karate stuff for his come back. I can't see Arn Anderson going "NOOOO! NOT SHAWN MICHAELS!" but with Steamboat it was believable.

I'm curious (and I know you were sort of fishing for flaws since you generally like his stuff, but humor me). How long do you think a finishing comeback should be in 1996 WWF? From what i saw in 96, the MAIN Shawn Michaels match story was one of cutoff comebacks. And USUALLY, the payoff would be that he'd come up with a distinctive comeback of a few moves before kipping up and starting towards the finish. I think it'd bug me a lot more if all of his matches went forearm > kip up > inverted atomic drop > bodyslam > top rope elbow > SCM. Usually they don't. There's usually at least a twist or two in there somewhere from what I've seen. The only one that sort of ended like that was the house show match. Does it make sense for him to kip up mid match and then have another 6 minutes of back and forth, or another cut off and a second kip up? I'm curious what you'd prefer.