Matt D

There are limits to what I'm going to do for you guys. BUT, there are Rick Martel, Booker, Jericho, Hall, Jarrett, Steiner, DDP and Luger matches. Not a ton to work with.

You learn a hell of a lot more from PTW and House Show matches than you do from SNME's and PPVs when it comes to 80s WWF. I took one for the team and watched.... Steamboat vs Beefcake no DQ Tito vs Beefcake DK vs Beefcake Ron Bass vs Beefcake Philly Jacques Rougeau vs Beefcake and Model Rick Martel vs Beefcake Of these I'd suggest as pretty good matches: Steamboat vs Beefcake http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ybe4_ri...-vs-brutu_sport This match actually has nuclear heat for some reason. The No DQ mainly comes into play early on with Brutus using the Gi to choke and blind Steamboat. The story of the second quarter is Steamboat being unable to outpower Brutus but Brutus getting nailed hard when he tries to outstrike him. The finish is weird since it almost seems like an audible. Really slow-counting ref. Beefcake kicks out of the flying body press. Johnny V holds down the foot and Beefcake gets the pin. The Fans Go NUTS. Riot nuts, and the ref quickly restarts the match and Steamboat rolls him up. and Tito vs Beefcake 5/18/85 Boston: p1: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xahq8p_ti...efcake-pt_sport p2: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xahqc2_ti...efcake-pt_sport Hey, it's your standard Tito match. Nothing wrong with that. Beefcake actually does a GREAT job selling all of Titos armdrags and holds, including one of the best "armbar held on after the bodyslam" spots I'd ever seen. When he takes over his offense is surprisingly good. Tito's comebacks are fiery and the ending has the usual Johnny V shmozz. Beefcake pros: -A few really nice looking, effective moves: Falling forearm, really nice second rope single clubbering axe-handle, second rope stomp, amazingly great jab he sort of stopped using after he turned face. 10-count Double chops to the traps on the top rope. -Bumping(as a heel and in flashes as a face): Mainly, he's really good at taking mid 80s WWF face offense. He made Tito look great for the opening shine period. Occasionally he'd sell a kick or hit in a stylized way but it worked. He also bumped for heel Jacques' dropkick by flipping heel over head. He ate a Bass clothesline like it took his head off(and maybe it did). -Crowd interaction: It was hokey. It sometimes took away from the match, but he was over and the fans wanted to cheer him or boo him and he at least didn't ignore them. -Timing as a heel: I have to assume that he was at least partially calling his heel matches and they were structured well enough. Less meaningless rest holds than you'd think, for instance. Cons: -Face Offense: Not so good. Lots of clearing the ring so he can ham and atomic drops and a lot of stuff that didn't mean a whole lot in the context of the match. He definitely never "set anyone up" for the sleeper. -Face Hamming: As a face, he was over but a lot of it was style over substance. It's fine in places. The match vs Martel was a good place for it(though not necessarily a good match because of it) because it's in part a comedy match where Martel's vanity is on the line. In the match vs Bass which was a grudge match, he showed a ton of intensity in the beginning but then quickly started clowning it up again. It was groanworthy. -Clunkiness: Again, this was something I saw more as a face. He just wasn't so smooth in the ring. He'd stumble. He'd have timing issues. Little things. Verdict: Perfectly carry-able in his heel run. Effective but sort of dreadful as a face.

Seriously, Beefcake had matches with Steamboat, Santana, Valentine, Bass, Dibiase, Savage, Jacques Rougeau, Dynamite, Rude, Martel. There's got to be some good stuff in there. I'm tempted to watch a bunch and find something.

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.