Matt D

No one can feud with Greg Valentine that long and not have at least one good one. That said, nothing comes immediately to mind.

The Kamala/Danielson match makes me FURIOUS. I near yelled at my screen when I saw it. The first half of the magic is just great. Exactly what it should be, and then all the ref bs happens and it just kills it deader than I've ever seen a match killed in my life.

The greatest US Tag worker ever from a loose kayfabe perspective has to be either Arn or Eaton, no? Eaton had, at least, the teams with Koko, Condrey, Lane, Arn, Benoit, Keirn, Regal/Taylor. Arn had Ole, Tully, Larry, Eaton, Roma (well, they did have the belts) and Mongo. Those are just regular partners. Bobby was part of the Heavenly Bodies for a while, technically. He won tag titles with George Gulas and Lanny Poffo and a six-man with Tojo Yamamoto. Arn often tagged with Flair or Pillman or other horsemen and had a short run tagging with Austin or other Studd Stable members.

You want to cause yourself pain? Watch some Bolsheviks/Young Stallions matches. Or Nikolai vs Zhukov. Actually, the latter ones are really interesting if only to see how astoundingly over Volkoff was in the summer of 90. He was the #3 WWF Babyface for a while. Also, Middling Demoliton Squash: http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.p...663&st=120#

Where does Koko fall?

WCW's Tag Division in 1995 is actually amazing. The really fun stuff was just relegated to the C shows. Lightning Express, Studd Stable, Bagwell/Patriot, Pillman/Badd, Blue Bloods. Armstrongs. http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=54696 actually, go there. I want someone to get use out of that.

Buck, Dick Slater (I like Slater more than Buck but that's just a personal preference) and Austin are definitely up there (and on a slightly lower level would probably be Tim Horner of all people). Austin was AMAZING even in jobber matches that year. If you haven't seen much of his syndi stuff from the end of the Stunning Steve run, let me know and I'll try to find a match or two.

Double Post. Sorry

Really good two match series with Cactus Jack in early 93. And I think a pretty good two match series with Dustin around that time too. Also, they're in my absolute favorite Lethal Lottery match, Rude/Shanghai vs Tex/Bagwell. re: Rip Oliver. I was trying to explain on DVDVR why I'm a little soured on Portland right now after watching a whole lot of Portland TV all at once and I got some nasty looks I think. I think it'd be different if I could just hop between Buddy Rose matches. Holy god yes. Wrestling is all about doing the right thing well at the right time to tell a story. Except for, you know, if you don't think wrestling is about that at all, which is absolutely fine, but makes for some tricky attempts at conversation since we're going from very different starting points. I know you say it's not about workrate, but then you mention moveset. You can have a match between two guys just doing crappy punches and it can be good so long as the punches are done at the right time and sold the right way and the narrative pulls together around it.

Him talking about getting the Stalker gimmick and summarily blowing it is pretty interesting too.

I am haphazardly throwing terms around, I freely admit, but he mentioned the cadaver bits not setting in correctly repeatedly.

He has some problems with the timelines in the shoot, but what I worked it out to is that he gets injured right around the title switch, has a ghastly knee replacement surgery (he keeps talking about cadaver ligaments or something), and then it doesn't take and at Slamboree 94, within a few minutes of the match starts, it just "disintegrates" and he and Flair have to scramble to work the rest of the match.

Barry had a definite formula on TV in late winter-early summer 93. He was doing the same match every week from right before when he got the NWA Belt to well into his run. It's really interesting if you watch those matches back to back. And It's not a bizarro mystery, John. He cleared it up in his shoot. His knee literally decomposed completely in the midst of that Flair match, just a few minutes in. The replacement didn't take and it had decayed within his knee and poof, once he put pressure on it, it went again.

The weirdest thing, to me, is that when Hennig comes back later in the year, they pretend this stuff never happened.

Mine is easily Rude winning the US Belt off of Sting and Bobby Eaton trying to delay the ambulance and all that.

Bulldog's last WWE match vs Eddy was really quite good though. Track it down. Also, Re: Windham. You have to keep in mind he had his knee totally reconstructed in 93 and then when he came back in 94, it literally decomposed and fell apart in his first match back with Flair.

Herc is awesome in 91. He's got a string of good PTW matches and the best Inverted Atomic Drop in wrestling history that year. And honestly, that survivor series team is pretty good. Steve Mfing Keirn who had the craziest moveset in the WWF in 1991, John Nord, who had probably the best looking offense in the WWF in 1991, and Herc who really did have a good year in 91 (I suggest checking out the bossman matches). 3 out of 4 isn't bad.

I love Darsow taking credit for the Goldberg gimmick.

Now the Jerry Flynn match, on the other hand, holds up!

I kinda like the japanese themed Rude one, but the best part of these in general was Ric talking about arn's proclivities.

There isn't a wrestling fan in the States that doesn't, at least a little, want to be involved in what's going on. Past a heel specifically taunting members of the crowd or a babyface asking the crowd if they want "one more" of a move, I don't think there's anything that involves them so directly as the ten-count punches in the corner.

The heel winning at Wrestlemania was a big deal. It just didn't happen.

Goldberg vs Jerry Flynn from the 3/26/98 Thunder is the best Goldberg squash.

Larry Z used to make bets while announcing on how many clotheslines he'd see in a match.

To give Hunter fair credit, were I to give him a second moment, it would be the reaction he got on Raw that night when he came back from that injury. And number 3 would be that promo in the ring with Cena where he just demolished him.