Matt D

Do we count Punk as a draw in that he bolstered a C-Level PPV to a higher rate than it would have been otherwise? I'd love to say Christian but SD wasn't exactly drawing. Could, hypothetically, the RnR count as Wrestler of the year in 84 Mid South because even though they weren't booked "on top" necessarily, not in the main vents, they still popped the territory?

can hogan even physically lay down now? I think he might be a Ding Dong/hunchback now.

I really feel like Vince has gone out of his way to make sure no one's over in their home town ever since.

I picture Vince yelling at grey-haired Billy Kidman, who had been looking at his watch carefully, asking him who the hell Rob Naylor is and Kidman shrugging and doing his Al Wilson impression which Vince somehow loves.

I guess it's silly at this point but what are some examples of Flair matches with great storytelling throughout/smart working? Not because I think they don't exist, but because there's a lot of stuff I still haven't seen and I'd like to see it. The best I can think of off the top of my head are some Flair vs underdog matches where he underestimates the young lion babyface, who gets some offense until flair gets mad.

I just love the idea of someone trying to explain Rob Naylor to Vince.

That seems like something that should have been in Bret's book considering how amazingly detailed it was, but I honestly don't remember.

This place is an Asterisk. Or the opposition backbenchers.

Actually, there are some positive numbers for Taker. It's a mixed bag at times, and since he's been around forever there it's as easy to find bad numbers as good ones. But there are good ones. That Taker vs Taker thing did a surprising number. Rumble '96 did good business, and I've always thought Bret-Taker (with the Nash aspect of the feud) playing a role in it as much as the Rumble and Shawn's vaunted return (it's not like he was out that long). After a certain point, how much credit do we give to Taker for Manias that drew. I know he main evented XIII and that didn't go so well but the Taker/Kane feud was a big part of the lead up to XIV. He had a high profile match at XVII. And XXI as well with Randy where they really started to play up the streak. As for Kurt I still think it's a combo of the legitimacy thing that pros can't get enough of because it's carny as hell and the fact that Angle does this all out action style that Dave's always loved.

I think HHH is the guy who comes off the worst in Bret's book, actually.

After that I'm vowing not to watch a single ECW match for the next year.* Someone remind me of that on 10/10/12. *unless it has Tracy Smothers or Tommy Rich. Let's be serious here.

Just curious, what consensus HAVE we(I don't think I can really include myself in there, but I am a poster here, so...) changed?

I don't think it's JUST overexposure with Flair, though that's a part of it, but also changing tastes. People value things they didn't value in years past and they don't value some things as much as they used to. And I think some of that affects Flair as much (if slightly differently) as it affects someone like Sayama or Benoit.

I will say that sometimes I'll see a Flair match like the one vs Hack Sawyer in Portland which shows me something different and I get excited about that.

There are actually a ton of Dory tags that I wish were taped. Tito and Flair are definitely interesting cases since both of them have certain rigid thoughts about what a match should be. Tito felt strongly that he should outwrestle the heel at the beginning, the heel should cheat to get over him and then cheat to stay on top during the heat segment, and then he should have his comeback leading to the finish. That's not exactly rocket science but he didn't want the heel to be able to keep up with him wrestling wise in the shine segment, for instance. But yeah, Tito has tons of great matches, included some stuff that hasn't been seen as much like Tito vs Windham in 89 and a couple of Tito vs Harley matches I really need to see at some point.

How was Eadie in AWA? I haven't seen enough of his higher profile GCW stuff either, just jobber matches.

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.