Matt D

Re: the Rooster thing. Sometimes he'll take a kernel of truth and make it into the whole truth, when it was only a small percentage of it or at the very least, certainly not the most important aspect. As people have said, it's useful as 1.) the company line/way Vince may have rationalized things and 2.) that kernel of truth that we very often didn't have before and adds to a whole picture.

Since 2015, he had the Roman MOTYC, great Undertaker feud with 2 MOTYC, cool Orton match, great Goldberg feud, Joe feud wih 4-way MOTYC, and Styles MOTYC. He must have been a hell of a worker before that if being in several of the best matches and moments for the last few years tarnishes him for you. Suplex City is the worst structure in the history of wrestling on any sort of a major stage.

The next few will be the Fingerpoke of Doom, Bash at the Beach 2000, and I think something else I wasn't hugely interested in. I might skip them.

He's called out numerous times on his own show every episode for being a company man and a shill. He goes too far into extremes to be considered credible, I think. It's up to the viewer to decide when to believe him and when not to. It's another piece of evidence to weigh against the rest though. We're better off for having it more times than not.

The only time I see Eddie overrated is when I see claims that he was an all time great all through the 90s and early 00s, when in reality he had plenty of periods of just being good with flashes of greatness. I'd be vaguely interested in a "Greatest Peak Ever" with that period being an X month period (maybe even 1 year).

I kind of want to see what they'd do in a cage?

I'd put it this way. There are things that I always sort of accepted (like the fact Mabel was at least considered for the role of the third man or that Savage vs Hogan was promised to Slim Jims at Halloween Havoc) that I'm now at least willing to doubt.

Hechicero's only been mentioned once in the thread, and that's as an honorable mention. I think he deserves better than that.

I feel like Cena sort of fell off a cliff when he started to "adapt" to the second wave of former indy guys becoming the norm as his opponents. That said, he still gets points for adapting and it did pretty much win over the crowd. You suddenly can't be making a "not enough movez" argument against the guy who's doing springboard stunners.

Looking at tomorrow morning to randomize. Let me know if you're jumping on/off.

I haven't had a chance to see this yet but I figure some people might be interested (it's a local special on the history of Hawaiian wrestling).

His chest was such a mess after the GRRE the doctors won't let him perform. (For real.) You do know that Bryan worked the dark match vs Nakamura after 205 Live, right? I'm not hunting for a better version, but I'm sure some people might be curious.

Does Casas really have that much of a case in the 1980s? Based on footage? Probably not until 87, no. I suppose "touching four decades" would be more accurate.

Re: Casas: Based on footage, who else can be one of the best in the world in four decades?

If they put him on tv every week, I'll actively seek out that match. That's not true for anyone on the roster (except for maybe Dustin if they gave him time) right now.

If you look at my specific word choice, I'm not sure we disagree heavily on your last paragraph. Even with the rest, I'm trying to say something fairly specific.

My argument for Taue in 2018: In practice, his weakness was a strength. In practice, their strength became a weakness. My biggest criticism of the mid-90s AJPW classics is excess. Taue's physical limitations acted as a necessary drag upon them, grounded them. That sounds like an unintended consequence of a negative attribute but Taue worked wisely to the very edge of his limitations while the other three always had the power to limit themselves for the good of the match (and future matches) and simply chose not to. I'm not necessarily saying that he's better than them, but I will say that they're far better off with him than on their own.

Well, it was a good run.

What's Bryan doing tonight?

Past having first hand knowledge from certain wrestlers on certain things, the only place I'd put Conrad's knowledge against anyone on this board, is about belts. The guy obviously has a lot of money and has purchased a lot of wrestling memorabilia and he legitimately knows more about belts than probably any of us. Everything else though?

I can't find a thread on this but it feels weird to me that there wouldn't be a thread on it, so I'm not making one as of now for the sake of not accidentally creating a duplicate. Given the time and place and Kawada, I have this gut feeling that I would have liked it more if I had gone back and rewatched the 91-93 matches between them since some things are definitely callbacks. Then, however, I think about it some more, and I start to wonder if I wouldn't feel the opposite. This felt a little like a greatest hits version of those matches, but without some of the sharp focus or the outright, over the top, slugfest feel. Case in point: Hansen hits the dropkick/tope combo from the 93 version. The camera angle feels a bit better, the speed of the tope a bit more intense. There's a DDT on the floor with the pad removed and an early transition comes with Kawada reversing a suplex on the floor. There's the sort of legwork you'd see in earlier matches but while it's good, it's blown off. This, to me, has a lot of Hansen being Hansen, and I am the lowest guy on the board on that. He's a force of nature. Nothing matters for long. Kawada really doesn't break the code on how to fight him in this match. He gives up on the legwork. He does about 16 jumping kicks to the head in the match. Hansen blocks the last one, which is nice. There are always touches like that in these matches. I half feel like Kawada's entire plan was to get to the point of the lariat and lock in the Fujiwara armbar. Hansen blocks it the second time which leads to the finish. I'm not sure if it's because of Kawada being a thread or Hansen selling his age more, but there were a few moments of Hansen actually having to hulk up a bit (utilizing the Crusher Blackwell dead-stare hulk up), which you don't always see him do, and in those moments I felt the "oh crap." sense that Kawada was about to die. I don't know. I think matches where Hansen's opponent cracks the code are more interesting than matches where the opponent tries for twenty minutes to crack it and never quite gets it. It's remarkable just how good Hansen's offense is, especially for his age and for 1994. He has so much stuff, some of it little (kicking the arm away so he can elbow drop Kawada), some of it bigger (doing the second rope bounce on the elbow drop). He accomplishes more visual damage with a stomp than almost anyone. His piledriver was almost a fall-down/fall-back piledriver plex. But in the midst of it, I was never really waiting for Kawada to comeback. I didn't feel like there was going to be a key moment where he found the fire within or capitalized on a mistake. Maybe Hansen would just have to take a breath. Speaking of that, they went all out at the beginning with the early tope/dropkick/ddt on floor and there was a Kawada chinlock early on which was 100% a resthold, right before the legwork. I don't think it really served any purpose in the match other than "Kawada contains Hansen for a minute as he gets his plans together," and it felt pretty out of place in the match and to me, felt like a direct cost of that dynamic, crazy opening. A pacing consequence. They could do what they did but there was a narrative price. Kawada throwing a lot of kicks, staggering Hansen, but ultimately being unable to crack the code is a pretty compelling story for 91 or early 92. I'm not sure that it's what I wanted in 94, especially not after their other matches. A lot of times, when I come out of a mid 90s AJPW match feeling this way, I think it's half their fault and half mine (just for missing a dozen points of nuance as I'm watching the match out of context). The dropkick/tope combo was sure breathtaking here though.

You're also morally obligated to watch every match with Ivory commentary.

I'm vaguely interested in the episodes with Raven on commentary but not a whole lot else.