Matt D

Re: Tito/Steamboat/etc: Is it somehow innately more difficult to have good matches in mid 80s WWF than JCP or elsewhere?

Do we get Foley before or after the heel (Ace, Steph, Vince, whoever) authority figure or after him?

Is Graham/Race title vs title any good?

I will say that there's a decent amount of interesting looking stuff on Shotgun Saturday Night in 98 but they seemed to be running 4-5 matches per show which makes me think nothing got too much time. Neither this nor that but has anyone seen this?: Shotgun Saturday Night 6/16/98; Austin, TX; Frank Erwin Center 6/27/98: Terry Funk, Bradshaw, & Dustin Runnels vs Jerry Lawler, Brian Christopher, & Scott Taylor

For 98, I'd need to look at Finlay again. He's got televised matches against Brad Armstrong, Barbarian, Jericho, Meng, Booker, Alex Wright, and Eddy, but he's also got stuff that should be telling against Renegade, DBS, and Scott Putski.

Christian had one of the best single years imaginable in 2009, but I haven't seen any of his TNA run so I can't really judge it. Honestly, I don't feel super confident making a list like this because I didn't watch much from 2005-2007, and then I REALLY didn't watch anything at all from 2007-2008. I might have seen 4 TNA matches in my entire life and I haven't seen very much US Indies past FCW since 2004 or so.

Is he? I don't know. If he's not I'm curious why, though. I want someone to knock him off the list and if the only reason that he's getting knocked off isn't due to specific elements of his work but just because he doesn't have a litany of great matches, I want to know that too.

Wait a sec. We're talking about Buck. Let's keep talking about him. What COULD have he done that he wasn't already doing to get into that top ten? Was there some element of his work that wasn't up to snuff relative to other wrestlers?

I feel like Great Workers can be kept in situations that keep them from having Great Matches, but that doesn't mean they're not doing Great Work. While Good Workers can be placed in situations where Great Matches become a lot easier to pull off and therefore you have to look at something other than whether or not they had Great Matches. And it's never about what the wrestler says is effective or what they claim to be effective. We're not judging worker-to-worker. We're just judging what we see. I just used that example as a way of saying that it wasn't certain guys' jobs to go out there and have GREAT MATCHES most of the time. that doesn't mean they're not a great worker.

A lot of it is that wrestlers are trying to accomplish different things within different confines and with different purposes. JJ Dillon talks about how he had his first match in a long time after becoming a manager and he wanted to go out there an impress the boys and he worked his ass off and had what he thought was a great, exciting competitive match and got chided out over it in the back because it wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. He did it for himself not the overall show. But he was probably capable of doing EXACTLY what he was supposed to do and making it wildly effective. You watch a large body of someone's work, squashes, matches all up and down the card, things that should be good on paper and things that should be less than good and you see everything the wrestler does in all sorts of situations. Not everyone gets the same opportunities, the same amount of time, the same "epic stage" and the same opponents. You look at a body of work, not for "great matches." You try to figure out if they accomplished what they were supposed to do and how difficult it was. You look at the big things that they do and the small things. You basically deconstruct their body of work. Or at least I think that's as valid a way to gauge a wrestler's skill (if not more so) than limiting yourself to the great matches/performances. You're certainly welcome to disagree, but I hope you at least see where I'm coming on instead of getting exasperated by it.

That is a good point. However, simply because new footage is being found and unearthed all the time, it does allow for newer things to become wide-spread and popular amongst certain groups. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that a newly found match would/could replace some of the big time US matches that have been talked about since their broadcast and/or release. Kind of like its hard for me to imagine an All Japan match being unearthed and being better than 6/3/94, 1/20/97, or the 6/9/95 and 12/6/96 tags. It is possible, but unlikely. I still say that the bigger point is that tastes change.

Coal Miner's Glove matches were so much cooler in 1984 Mid South.

I know that it could be a completely valid thing. People's opinions change and wrestling is a subjective art form. I could absolutely see myself liking a Paul Roma and Arn vs Bunkhouse buck and Dick Slater match more than Arn vs Flair on PPV(I really like Arn's transition after the Flair Flip, though it's a bit lessened since he does it on TV shortly thereafter, but I agree that the match isn't nearly as good as it should have been). My favorite WCW match of 93 is a Blonds vs Scorpio+Bagwell match from Worldwide, and I feel pretty confident about that. And some of my favorite WCW 95 stuff is WCW Prime tags with the Armstrongs or Lightning Express and Bunk/Slater. And that's not me trying to be obscure or indy or bucking trends. It's because there are elements in those matches I like more. It's only a problem if you try to come up with some reason to make it a problem. There are no objective best matches. There's no dogma here. There's a big note on this very site about why we all like wrestling and what we like about it. I think that we're as self-aware as anyone, and think as metatextually as anyone about this stuff. I don't think there's any big "danger" here at all. I don't necessarily think it IS a problem, until you reach the stage where you are rating the Bunkhouse Buck Worldwide match from 93 above Steamboat/ Flair '89, Steamboat/ Savage WM3, etc. I know that certain uber-pimped matches lose stock -- Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask comes to mind -- but I think it is possible to reach a stage where things start becoming absurd. When someone genuinely thinks Skinner was a better worker than Ted DiBiase (or whatever). I'm not have a go at anyone or anything in particular, I don't think anyone is obscure for the sake of it, I just think it is possible to lose perspective. i.e. pimping the unheralded and tearing down the pimped, a form of overcompensation I guess. All that said, I'll accept that Flair vs. Arn isn't the best example to illustrate the above. You realize that now I want to take a look at Keirn vs Dibiase.

I know that it could be a completely valid thing. People's opinions change and wrestling is a subjective art form. I could absolutely see myself liking a Paul Roma and Arn vs Bunkhouse buck and Dick Slater match more than Arn vs Flair on PPV(I really like Arn's transition after the Flair Flip, though it's a bit lessened since he does it on TV shortly thereafter, but I agree that the match isn't nearly as good as it should have been). My favorite WCW match of 93 is a Blonds vs Scorpio+Bagwell match from Worldwide, and I feel pretty confident about that. And some of my favorite WCW 95 stuff is WCW Prime tags with the Armstrongs or Lightning Express and Bunk/Slater. And that's not me trying to be obscure or indy or bucking trends. It's because there are elements in those matches I like more. It's only a problem if you try to come up with some reason to make it a problem. There are no objective best matches. There's no dogma here. There's a big note on this very site about why we all like wrestling and what we like about it. I think that we're as self-aware as anyone, and think as metatextually as anyone about this stuff. I don't think there's any big "danger" here at all.

the Luger US Title two-match series was good. I'd have to go back and watch more and I really don't want to. I also wasn't kidding about Tenta. He's not THE BEST, but his stuff is really worth looking at, especially now during the height of the Mark Henry push. He's a guy who seemed to know exactly what to do in the ring all the time, could perform amazing feats of strength, had the most credible looking offense in the country (maybe finisher aside but they built it up so it didn't matter), and knew EXACTLY how much to give and when to give it when selling.

I've always felt great matches is one of the worst ways to judge great workers, especially if we're talking in the US. for WWF it's a little bit easier in the 80s when you had so many taped house shows, but even then.

Since Big Bubba was brought up... I'd probably throw both him and Tenta out there. Tenta was SO good at "playing his role."

So I've been watching Southwest from 83, and one of the things I find interesting is the USA ad. This is early Jan, right after the tournament that Tully one. they announce as the stars on their own in-house commercial: Bruiser Bob Sweetan, Cowboy Scott Casey, the Turk, and the masked Grapplers. I'm still trying to figure out if the guys they brought in for the tournament are sticking around or not, but Adonis, Tully, Mike Graham, Ken Lucas/Ricky Morton seem to be the guys featured. It's not a bad show from what I've seen so far (and the Lou Thesz commentary on the first show was great), but you do kind of think "Wait, THIS is the show on USA? And THIS is how they're promoting it?"

Actually that article was full of stuff that I feel like I should have known, just from being as tuned in as I have been over the last two decades, but didn't.

Maybe they foresee pirating getting a lot worse?

Anyone see Rollins vs Ambrose from the last FCW TV show? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvnVyTj4wOM...feature=related 30 min iron man match. I'm really not THAT familiar with either guy. I think Moxley/Ambrose tries a little too hard, but at least he stands out as something different from all the other guys. And Rollins/Black seems to be a lot of what I wouldn't like about wrestling the last few years. That said, I liked the first 27 mins or so of this decently enough. They sold and slowed things down. The storytelling for the first ten minutes was good. The first set of falls were really good, sort of the Rude-Jumps-Off-The-Top-Rope fall from his Iron Man Match but even more organic to the storytelling of the match. I won't spoil the end but there was a submission that didn't seem to fit the match, even if it was executed well, and too much finisher stealing, and then way way too much burst of energy/no-selling towards the end. Also, Dusty looks so old.

I like broader history or wrestler discussions (often revisionist) more than specific match discussion, if that makes sense. My very favorite thing in the last year was probably the Vince vs the World stuff.

Jimmy Lennon going in with the first class setting a precedent for ring announcers beinv eligible and Fink being the only other one who belongs? Boyd Pierce should get in due to his awesome jackets alone.

I forget that you deal with the outside world with your column. I remembered that when reading your Mark Henry thing and seeing some of the "slow, boring, plodding, no movez" comments. I was about to say "Who the hell do you interact with that wouldn't like that?" Braver man than I.

My favorite no-sell comeback of all time was Piper's. He sold it as if he was out of control and punch-drunk. I buy it more somehow.