KB8

He was top 20 for me last time and he'll be right around there in 2026. A bunch of trios with him involved that I'd never seen before have popped up on YouTube over the last five years, and I imagine that'll be the case over the next five years as well (the lucha libre corner of YouTube really is a treasure trove that keeps on giving). He had a fairly short peak, but we have a better picture of what he was like now in those lean CMLL years of the mid-90s. The Llanes match from '94 was always praised and we now have some of the lead-in work to go with it, including an awesome trios match (that might've actually been out there before 2016, but I only saw it after the last vote). Random trios from '95 where he and Ray Gonzalez try to mutilate each other. More footage certainly doesn't dent his case, is what I'm saying. And even if that peak was short, holy shit what a peak it was.

Casas will probably be my #1 this time (up from #3 last time) and I want to do the week-to-week examination of him that Loss brings up in this thread. Not because I think I'll have much of anything to say about him that hasn't already, but because he's fucking awesome and that feels like a fun way to spend my time watching the pro-wrestling.

Thanks, NL. Agreed on those Strike Force/Islanders matches. I watched a bunch of them just before the 2016 vote and they pushed Martel into my top 40 (and pushed Tama onto my list). Since then I've watched a couple more, one of them being my favourite of the lot, so I'd expect him to do at least as well as he did last time.

What's the date on Martel/Zenk v Funks? I don't think I've seen that.

I'm admittedly a real low voter on those Sasha/Bayley matches (on Bayley in general, I guess), but I prefer Rousey/Charlotte to them as well. There are probably three, maybe four, Rousey matches I'd take over the Sasha/Bayley matches. Including Rousey/Sasha (which Sasha was awesome in, FWIW).

I've favoured peak a little more than longevity from all the way back when the first GWE started and Yoshida's peak, even without yet having seen her most widely acclaimed match from that run, is one of my absolute favourite runs from any wrestler ever. I've only seen bits of her 90s AJW stuff, but she was really fun mixing it up with Kyoko in a few of the matches I watched a while back. Just a really fun underdog babyface. Then ARSION comes along and she's amazing. One of the all-time best at milking a near submission and making people genuinely buy her giving up to wrestlers several rungs down the ladder. Obviously her grappling is stellar and the more of it I watched the more she felt like a hybrid of Kiyoshi Tamura (the speed and explosiveness) and Trauma I (the inventiveness of her matwork without feeling like it was done for the sake of flashiness). I actually watched some mid-2000s Yoshida and, I think I mentioned it in the general 2026 thread, but even if she wasn't *as* awesome as she was in '98/'99 she was still excellent. The Yoshiko Tamura match ruled and she was hand-leading a Cheerleader Melissa who'd had about three months' experience and most of it wrestling in a fairground to a decent bout. There's also a match against Atsuko Emoto (whom I'd never heard of and had never seen before or since) from a 2007 Ibuki show that had some fantastic stuff in it, though unfortunately the version I saw only had 17 minutes of the 30 minutes they wrestled. I'm a stupid huge Yoshida fan and I'd like to do a full Complete & Accurate over the next five years just to see how high I can justify having her. As of right now it might be top 30.

She had maybe the best rookie year of any wrestler ever, and even if Dav'oh's suggestion about her matches being laid out to a tee is almost certainly correct, there was more than enough of what she actually did within the framework of those layouts to make me think she just "got it" straight out the gate. Like, she was just about the best in the company at selling limb damage - or just selling in general, maybe - and had lapped most other wrestlers with literally ten times or more the experience of actually doing this pro-wrestling nonsense that she had. Captured Big Match feel, had charisma for days, was awesome at suddenly ripping out submissions from nowhere during matches, etc. I don't think she gets on unless she has another run, but I loved that year we got and I don't think she's a totally batshit insane low-end choice.

That Jaguar/Jackie Sato match from 12/16/80 is so great. Probably the match that sold me on deep diving 80s joshi in a more broad sense.

I'll probably vote for Kitahara this time and I want to go through Jetlag's list of stuff outside WAR/SWS. A vicious little bruiser who can take an otherwise fine midcard match and turn it into something awesome by losing the rag and trying to brutalise someone.

That match with him and Rick Steiner v Koko Ware and Italian Stallion from the '86 Crockett Cup also ruled. I voted for him last time and he'll likely be higher this time.

Starr is someone I'll consider for a lower end vote this time and that's largely because of the Puerto Rico footage, which I hadn't seen before the 2016 vote. Same for Abby, who I really wouldn't have even considered before but is someone I loved going through the Puerto Rico stuff. Invader 1 is an obvious lock. Boricua is also dead on about that footage bolstering already strong cases. Hansen was already my #1 in 2016, and even if he doesn't end up as that in 2026, seeing the Hansen/Colon feud has pretty much made him a top 5 candidate for life. Puerto Rico Terry Funk is also my favourite Terry Funk, and even if the PR stuff alone isn't responsible for this, it's a huge reason why he was somehow stupidly just outside my top 10 last time but will be a real #1 contender this time.

His big kneedrop also looked absolutely badass, to be fair.

I probably won't spend any time talking about Flair this time around. I was sort of bored doing it by 2016 so I don't really have any interest going around in circles again five-ten years later. I'll probably have him about where I had him last time - outside the top 20 but inside the top 30. So like, 27 or something, who the hell knows. I like OJ's take on things - how his ballot would essentially be a snapshot of where he is as a fan at a particular point in time. I approached 2016 pretty similarly to that, but as I've tweaked and updated my list sporadically since then I've leaned even more into that idea. I probably would've had Flair, Jumbo, Misawa and Jushin Liger top 5 in 2006 (I never took part in the smarkschoice GWE poll, though the WWF/E poll in 2008 was the first big internet wrestling nerd poll I did participate in, so here's to smarkshoice). My top 5 in 2016 never had any of them and likely won't have any of them in 2026. I sort of learned to stop thinking too much about where I've BEEN as a fan, of what I used to think was the pinnacle, and trust the judgment of where I'm at now (and was at in 2016), so what I thought fifteen years ago doesn't weight so heavy on my mind. If that's hipsterism or an example of being distracted by the shiny new toy then so be it*. Plus Negro Casas is better than all of them anyway. *tbh, I'll fully admit to being one of those "always looking for new discoveries" types. I've literally been watching this stupid nonsense since I was three years old so I've earned it.

I don't really have anything to substantiate this other than having a "feel" of what Matt likes based on all the stuff I've seen him talk about before (maybe that's substantiative enough?), but I get the sense Kandori might be more up his alley exactly *because* she's pretty unique, and in that sense brings some stuff to the table that might ease him in a little better. On the other hand you're both probably right in that she's not really representative of joshi as a style (that's a pretty broad way of looking at things, I know), especially if diving into 90s boom era joshi is the starting point.

I actually watched a bit of early-to-mid 00s joshi towards the end of last year and quite enjoyed it. Joshi's never been my favourite style of wrestling and that is not an era I ever would've thought I'd have the urge to dive into, but I mostly went after the Mariko Yoshida stuff (to see if she was still as awesome as she was in the late 90s, and I'm not sure she was AS awesome but she definitely was still awesome) and that led me onto some Yoshiko Tamura and then a smattering of other girls whose names I honest to god couldn't tell you now even with a gun to my head. Not a chance I'd have dedicated any time to deep diving 00s joshi during the 2016 project, but I wouldn't be dead against it this time if elliot (or whoever else) is throwing out recommendations. On another note, I've also been tweaking my 2016 list sporadically over the last five years and some parts of it are quite a bit different now compared to then. I just started a PhD and it's kicking the shit out of me already so who knows how much time I'll have to hit a bunch of blind spots over the next few years, but I've certainly hit some of the blind spots I had last time and I'll make a run at a few more before 2026 when I will nearly be 40 fucking years of age my goodness (no offence of course to any of the old(er) heads who are already there).

Man, I loved Reed. He was such an awesome find going through the Mid-South stuff and I get hyped for every new Reed match I come across (the new Reed stuff from NWA On Demand was a treasure). Genuinely one of my three favourite wrestlers of all time.

There's a Murdoch/Andre match from '84 on the New Japan handheld stuff. Really fun seven minutes mostly built around shtick, as Andre was starting to break down by then. In '79 it probably would've been sensational.

I basically remembered nothing about this. It's weird as well, because at least one new Fantastics v Dundee/Mantell match was unearthed during the great summer of NWA On Demand, yet my excitement for that wasn't through the roof. Clearly I was a fucking idiot and forgot what a good thing looks like because this ruled like a bastard and the fact there's another one out there is very awesome. It got lots of time, which meant we got LOTS of Dundee and Mentell Memphis horse-shittin' it up to a molten crowd. My favourite was the hide the foreign object shtick. Dundee hid it in his mouth, his trunks, his kneepad, a new place every time the ref' checked him. When they take over on Rogers - with a foreign object shot, of course - they largely beat the crap out of him while interspersing it with punches or karate thrusts or ACTUAL foreign object shots to the throat (Mantell's whip being the object of choice). It was an awesome heat segment and Rogers was at the peak of his powers selling it. There were a couple points where he was thiiiis close to tagging out, probably close enough where it would've been hard to suspend your disbelief if it was someone else milking it, but Rogers walks that line perfectly with his selling and you buy him as being totally out on his feet, just that half a second too slow to reach out before Dundee or Mantell can scramble to intercept. Tommy Gilbert takes another awesome ref' bump, pretty much having Fulton powerbombed straight into his face, then we get a great finish with Fulton turning a double team into his own advantage. The Mid-South set had some of the best US tags of the 80s and this felt like it could hang tough with the real high-enders.

This was like the first half of an awesome arena match plugged into a TV setting, and where it would ordinarily be disappointing that the other half of that awesome arena match never materialised, you forgive it because it was presented within the package of an awesome Watts TV angle instead. It's for the North American title and before the bell Butch Reed gets in to say he's challenging the winner. "That's all I've got to say." Murdoch walks up to the mic: "Well if that's all you've got to say then walk on out and sit down." Babyface Murdoch rules because he retains more than a few traits of heel Murdoch, he just implements them a little more...loveably? The opening few minutes are based around both guys being tied together at the arm, taking each other over with armdrags, working the front chancery, both of them really grinding the forearm across the jaw, just all around surliness from two guys you expect that of. They go back and forth for a bit after that, then Tommy Gilbert takes a killer ref' bump and the shenanigans start. First Bob Sweetan interferes on Williams' behalf, so Reed jumps in from ringside to even the odds. During all of this Murdoch hasn't actually seen Reed OR Sweetan in there, as the latter blindsided him when Murdoch was going for the brainbuster. Eventually Reed gets caught and falls onto Murdoch, so when Murdoch comes to again he just assumes it was Reed who clocked him in the first place, not Sweetan. Murdoch throwing amazing punches on a redneck rampage is a truly beautiful sight and this was the sort of thing Watts excelled at throughout this period. Just super fun TV wrestling, and it adds some fire to the upcoming Reed/Murdoch match I thought was an absolute stone cold classic when I last watched it.

This was what it was. I could count on one hand the amount of people I'd put ahead of Reed on a favourite wrestlers list and still have fingers left to spare, but I've seen these Flair matches before and I wasn't all that excited about revisiting any. Especially not the longest of them, and this one goes an hour. You know what you're getting with Flair. He'll either start out sporting and progressively unravel, or he'll be unravelled in the first place and just get worse. By this point him and Reed already had beef, so we got the latter and he was throwing cheapshots and begging off inside a minute. I liked the first third and final ten minutes well enough. That first twenty minutes is largely Reed working a headlock and...look, it was fine. Sometimes it was even really good because Reed has an awesome grinding headlock and it always looks like he's trying to wring a guy's head off. Flair will go for the shinbreaker and Reed will just grind the hell out of that headlock until Flair's equilibrium is shot to bits. They milk Flair grabbing the tights to try and roll him up, Reed gets annoyed and throws mounted punches, back to the headlock they go. Flair isn't all that interesting working holds from below but I can get by. They then transition into working a font facelock and I'll always like the spot where Flair tries to suplex his way out of it only for Reed to hold on, roll over and squeeze even harder. They lose me a bit in the middle though, and part of that isn't really their fault as there's a jump in the film and we miss about ten minutes. It's just that before long I'm kind of waiting for the bell to ring and that's never a good sign. Last twenty minutes are your Flair on the Ropes extended finishing run. Objectively it worked because the heat built and built, and they did some stuff I liked a lot. Reed has awesome punches and he threw many of them, great combos that were capped off with his big winding uppercut. Obviously he works the leg and applies the figure-four, but I liked the twist here with him refusing to let go even when Flair got to the ropes and the ref' being powerless to do anything about it. That no DQ stip came into play best of all when they started hucking each other over the top rope and we got a couple great splats to the concrete, including one of Flair's best off an uppercut. Flair just picking Reed up and crotching him on the ropes was another great spot, basically kicking off his only semi-extended run of offence the entire match. Reed's shoulder tackle off the top was absolutely top banana as well and maybe if he wasn't so fatigued he'd have hit the gorilla press slam in time. I guess I'd have liked Flair to work a bit more from above. I get the rationale behind him not doing that and I did think he looked like a hardy bastard for toughing it out, but like Sleaze I thought Reed needed to overcome a little more. Tommy Gilbert was also kind of annoying at points. I eventually got used to him going through the set the first time, but he has a touch of the Kiniskis about him where he wants to be super involved, and it stifled some of the stooging Flair would do in the corner. A few times you wished Reed would actually pull the trigger and put him on his arse.

The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey) with Jim Cornette, defend the NWA World Tag Team Titles I can't tell you how much I loved this. My tastes have changed in some fairly substantial ways over the years, but I think your tried and true southern tag worked in front of a hot crowd will be one type of wrestling match I'll never tire of. It doesn't need to be complicated. A solid babyface shine, a solid heat segment, a nice little run to the finish...even that, the most basic play on the formula, will usually be enough to keep me halfway engaged. From a layout standpoint this was as simple as you could get. It had two actual transitions the entire match and it was barely ten minutes long and it was balls to the wall great. The crowd are batshit nuclear and the Road Warriors are just stupid over. They're one of those acts that basically anybody could get behind, that sort of larger-than-life presence that can mesmerize you, completely badass, yet talking about growing up on the streets of Chicago and having to fight for everything in life keeps them grounded just enough to be somewhat relatable. About eight tenths of this landed absolutely perfectly. I'm a sucker for wrestlers who are built like the side of a fire engine doing unexpected athletic shit and if Animal's leapfrog never had me on the floor then his fucking dropkick surely did. Condrey and Eaton's stooging during the shine was something to behold. They did all of the overt stuff to perfection - the temper tantrum by Condrey where he threatened to walk out, every one of Eaton's bumps - but the subtle stuff is what puts them on that GOAT pedestal. Eaton trying to point out that Hawk is behind Condrey without giving the game away, how Cornette confers with them to change strategy, how they position themselves in the ring as if they're actually trying to create separation between both Road Warriors, it's all awesome. There was one amazing sequence where Eaton tried to basically run away only to be gorilla press slammed - from the floor - over the top rope and back into the ring, just to get smashed back out and clotheslined on the concrete, while Condrey was busy getting knocked around inside the ring by Hawk. Hebner pretty clearly sees Cornette walloping Animal with the tennis racket for the big transition, but you forgive that seconds later when Hawk chases Cornette around and through the ring. This jacked up monster of a guy being mere centimeters from grabbing Cornette's coat as he escapes out the other side was like something from a horror movie (though in this movie you want the monster to actually succeed). Nobody drags referees and wrestlers out of position during a heat segment like the Midnights and Condrey's mean mugging to draw Hawk in was phenomenal. Everybody knows he has no chance if Hawk actually gets a hold of him, just like the Midnights have no chance to win if the match stays on the level, but Condrey's banking on wee Earl Hebner to play meat shield long enough for Cornette to jab Animal in the throat with that racket. You totally buy Hawk as the kind of lunatic who can't help but bite on everything as well. At one point he cleared the top rope and I'm not sure Condrey expected him to move quite like that. Someone in the crowd got so enraged they even threatened to throw a table! If I could've asked for one thing it would've been another Animal hope spot before the hot tag, but that hot tag was blistering all the same and Hawk annihilating folk was outstanding. I also don't think I've seen a crowd so annoyed by a Dusty Finish. This was before everybody and their granny expected it, so the jeers and outrage were directed at the Midnights escaping with the belts rather than whoever booked another finish like that. I need to see every match these teams ever had together.

I've been going through '86 Crockett on and off throughout this year, mostly on Will's Four Horsemen and Midnight Express comps. I've also been going through bits of World Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic TV on the Network, and I picked up every episode of Worldwide recently. I haven't been watching EVERYTHING, only the stuff that interests me, but the year has so much awesome stuff going on that I end up watching about 90% of it anyway. Like the back half of '85, the booking is stellar. I'm up to the Crockett Cup (April 19th) and it's been built up extremely well. Basically everybody feels important for one reason or another, the top of the card is stacked, the tag division is stacked, the low-to-high midcard is super fun and even your borderline enhancement talents like Mike Jackson will often stand out and be great (often in tags against the MX or in singles against a Tully or Arn or Black Bart). Some guys will have one or two feuds going at the same time and they'll sometimes intertwine, but the booking never feels confused or haphazard. So Flair is feuding with Dusty, but he now has major beef with Morton and there's the lingering issue with Garvin that hasn't been settled. Dusty is chasing Flair's title, but he's still got the Tully beef. Tully had the Dusty and Magnum feuds running almost simultaneously at the end of '85, then focused more specifically on Dusty, and now he and Arn just broke Garvin's hand so that's about to kick off as well. As of mid-April Morton is at war with Flair, which we know is building towards the Bash, but him and Gibson are still feuding with the Midnights for the tag belts. The Midnights have the RnRs feud but are also feuding with the Road Warriors, while the Road Warriors have the Russians to contend with at the same time. While there'll be some crossover, each individual feud still feels unique and singular in a wholly positive sense. It's sort of astounding how well it's all booked and I can't praise it highly enough. The 1/4/86 episode of World Championship Wrestling might be the GOAT episode of TV for wrestling promos. There were like eleven absolute corkers on this. Baby Doll is OUT as Tully's perfect 10 and JJ Dillon is IN as executive director of Tully Blanchard Enterprises. Apparently JJ had given Baby Doll a ticket to go to Acapulco as a Christmas present from Tully, but Tully never knew about it and so Baby Doll had basically skipped without telling him. They recap the official split that happened on Worldwide as Baby Doll tries to explain the situation, JJ denies it and so Tully slaps her across the face for stepping out of line. She's been bought and paid for and she belongs to him. Of course Dusty comes out and saves her and says she doesn't belong to Tully any longer, "SHE'S MINE NOW, DADDY!" This feud is so fucked by modern standards. The first time around, back in mid-'85, Dusty came across as a way bigger prick than Tully despite Dusty being the babyface, now Tully naturally comes off worse as he physically struck her, but Dusty deciding she's now his doesn't play so great through modern eyes (or any eyes, but you know what I mean). Have to love Dusty saying that Tully broke the sacred rule by putting his hands on a woman and it's totally unforgivable when six months ago Dusty was making her shovel literal horse shit, dragging her around arenas by the hair and trying to rip her clothes off on TV. The 80s were wild, y'all. The Four Horsemen is very much a thing now btw, as Tully outright refers to them as that in his interview, then Arn and Flair do the same later. Ole is out injured as Dusty gets major payback for the broken ankle. Him and the Road Warriors basically do the same thing to Ole as Flair and the Andersons did to Dusty but of course Tully, Arn and Flair say it's totally reprehensible. It's okay though, because JJ and Tully know how to get back at Dusty and they'll take him down using the domino effect, starting with Dusty's long-time confidante Jimmy Valiant. Dusty has a couple promos on this episode that are incredible. He may not look like Ric Flair with all them muscles, but that's because he likes the night life just a little bit more than the gym and as long as he's still making half a million dollars a year he doesn't give a damn. He also took out Ole - "the head of the family" - and he's coming for Arn next. There was a cool bit on an episode of Worldwide where Baby Doll came out and threw a big leg cast at Arn, clearly a PORTENT of what's to come, and Arn about shit himself and refused to touch it like it was cursed. Flair is on another planet working THE STICK~ right now. This is easily the highest I've been on Flair in aaaaages. He's so much easier to digest when you're not watching a bunch of lengthy title matches on the spin. With the Horsemen set (or just watching the TV each week, interspersed with the arena footage) you get to see the angles, the interviews, the shorter studio matches where he's either outright squashing Rocky King or working semi-competitive with Sam Houston or having a total potatofest with Ronnie Garvin, the tag matches, and THEN the lengthier title defences. The lengthier matches are still generally my least favourite, but I even enjoyed one of the Dusty title defences from February when I didn't think I ever needed to see another Flair/Dusty match. He cuts three promos on the January 4th episode of WCW and all three are amazing. In the first one he addresses the Ole injury and loud Dusty chants in the crowd has him telling someone to keep their mouth shut or they'll be on the outside looking in. "Can you imagine this? My interview time and I gotta put up with these idiots." His cousin Ole can't compete in the greatest spot in the world, professional wrestling, because of a HEINOUS attack by Dusty Rhodes. He goes off on one about Dusty's earlier interview where he was talking about making half a milly in a year. "I spent more money on spilled booze with Leona Helmsley last Sunday night sitting on my lap than you've made in the last six months. You know why? Because I am legitimately a Big. Deal." He then goes off on Baby Doll who betrayed one of his best friends in the world, and now that she's on the other side of the tracks he doesn't have to worry about hurting Tully's feelings. "I never liked you to begin with! I've seen better on the backside of the worst days of my life!" Flair brings up a night in Philadelphia where she almost got to ride Space Mountain but Flair turned her down even after she repeatedly knocked on his hotel door. "God bless America and god bless Ric Flair. WOO!" Of course later in the show Baby Doll says it was HIM who was chasing HER that and she turned him down because of "a size issue." She then asks, "Why settle for one ride when I can have the whole park?" and I guess Flair has a wee pecker and Dusty doesn't? Either way Flair is fucking apoplectic and does that bit where he's like "next time you ride Space Mountain you'll be like this" and lies on the floor like he's in a sex come or something. Fuck if I know but it's great shit either way. The January TV title tournament from Greensboro is clipped up a bit by whoever recorded it but Arn/Garvin and Tully/Wahoo looked like fun matches. Tully is a tremendous worker and I guess I forgot that because I haven't paid attention to him in so long. He looks as good as anybody in the world around this period. Fans are chanting "I QUIT" at him all through the match and JJ gets on the mic and says "the next person who says I quit will be ejected." Folk naturally go full on apeshit and chant all the louder. We never got much of the final but hey, Arn came good on his promise and walked out the television champion of the world. There isn't an exact date on it, but the impromptu Flair/Tully v Dusty/Magnum match from one of the January arena shows looked absolutely great. Insane crowd, double juice from the babyfaces, pretty much all you could want in a heated southern tag. It had some unfortunate clipping but the twelve or minutes we got were awesome. I wish we got more of Flair working tags because he's an excellent tag wrestler. Like in the Flair/Arn v Dusty/Garvin tag from the 2/22 episode of Worldwide. It lasts about four minutes and in the running for best sub-five minute match ever. Flair/Garvin cage match from Greensboro (3/29) was also incredible and up there with anything those two have done together. The Tully/Arn v Dusty/Wahoo double strap match from the same show was a super awesome little brawl as well. Midnights won the tag titles in February and basically every Midnights/RnRs match is the bomb. Cornette might be the best promo guy in the company in '86 and that is a ridiculously high bar. He gets fined on TV for constantly interfering and he could not give less of a shit because momma can pay that in a second, or he could pay it in cash there and then. "I didn't bring my wallet out here because I figured Bob Caudle would try to get in my pocket." The following week Jim Crockett Jr. gives him another fine, but this time he's no longer allowed to bring the tennis racket to ringside and he goes ballistic. His chemistry with Caudle on Mid-Atlantic is great. One week Caudle brings up the Road Warriors and Cornette throws another rager. "I can get up in your face and get just as red as you, you old alcoholic!" Caudle visibly has to stifle a laugh at that because he's a good sport. He has another AMAZING line where he says, "If brains were gasoline, the Road Warriors couldn't propel a flea's motorcycle around a raindrop. You're STUPID!" He basically rips the Road Warriors and RnRs to bits every single time there's a microphone in front of his face. The match with the Road Warriors from 4/18 in Philly (from Cornette's rarities tape) is incredible. I actually think it's the only MX/Road Warriors match I've seen outside the scaffold match, and even then I remember nothing about that. It was ten minutes long, the crowd was surface of the sun level hot and everyone involved was amazing. Might be the best Road Warriors match ever. Speaking of the Road Warriors: they're a hoot every time they're on TV. I remember Legion of Doom promos as a kid where I was just mesmerised by these two maniacs in face paint and spikes shouting about whatever nonsense. "TELL EM', HAWK" was basically my catchphrase as a kid (yes I was a strange child, fuck off). I haven't seen any of the Road Warriors/Russians matches but I really want to see one of those chain matches they're hyping on TV. My favourite Road Warriors promo ever happens on the 2/1 episode of Worldwide. Hawk: "Ever since we were just little punks growing up in Chicago we got pushed around a lot. Then we did somethin' about it and ain't nobody pushin' us around no more, ESPECIALLY not Nikita Koloff, Ivan Koloff, or that stupid lookin' GERMAN. I've HAD IT!" The Flair/Morton feud properly kicks into gear at the end of March. Flair had been taking digs at the RnRs on interviews for weeks, calling them teeny boppers, talking about how he's the world champion and all about the REAL women while all the teenagers in their training bras go loopy for the RnRs. He started out with subtle little jibes but they got progressively more obvious each week, and because the RnRs never responded or even acknowledged it it made Flair sound like an insecure prick. Then on the 3/29 episode of World Championship Wrestling the RnRs have a match with a couple of your ham n eggers. Flair had been out hyping the Crockett Cup and decides to stay out to do commentary on the match. All through it he bigs up the Arn/Tully team, says the Midnight Express with his good friend James Cornette are the best tag team in the world because they have the belts, and of course slips in a jab at Morton and Gibson because they DON'T have those belts. So after the match the RnRs are heading to the back, and Flair obviously can't help himself and calls them over. He pulls a bra out his pocket and says a REAL woman told him to pass it on to Ricky Morton, because Flair likes the woman who are this tall (raises his hand about his own height) and Morton like them this tall (drops his hand to like knee height, which sort of intimates that Morton is a nonce but I don't think that was necessarily the intention). He drops the bra on Morton's head and at this point you can tell Morton has no time for Flair and his bullshit. They have some words, Morton says Flair would be nothing without the people, Flair basically calls him a moron because Ric Flair would be Ric Flair wherever the hell he wants to be, so Morton casually takes off Flair's shades and steps on them. Flair is obviously apoplectic at this and it leads to a quick brawl where Morton humiliates him, which kicks off what's probably my favourite Flair feud ever. Their interactions thereafter are molten hot. Morton strips him to the waist on TV the following week - after Flair came out during a Morton singles match and instigated the whole thing - and Flair of course is incenced afterwards. Says that's twice now Ricky Morton has sucker punched him and Dusty has come to Morton's aid, but now the Horsemen have HIS back and things will be different. Arn says, "That punk kid Ricky Morton is overstepping his boundaries. A wise man knows his limitations. I don't know if you qualify as even BEING a man Morton, but my friend, you've got involved with the Four Horsemen." On the 4/12 episode of WCW they have an impromptu match where Morton scores a "pinfall" on Flair before all hell breaks loose, and you know this is leading to Flair and the Horsemen being total bastards and exacting some hellish revenge. I'll watch the whole Crockett Cup show on the Network once I've caught up with some more TV from the first third of the year. I'm not really interested in seeing any more Flair v Dusty but with two guys so good on THE STICK~ I feel like I owe them my eyeballs for it. Flair's lead-in promo is obviously great. "I don't do jobs in front of 70, 000 people. I walk down that aisle and take care of business, like only Slick Ric can."

If - or perhaps I should say WHEN - I start that Complete & Accurate Black Bart, this gets a stonewall EPIC. What a badass wee match in front of an awesome crowd; a real treat that I wasn't expecting when I flung on a random episode of what was probably Crockett's C-level TV show. I feel like I've barely seen any Black Bart, but every time I have he's great. Just a hulking big presence with an amazing grizzly bear look, super fun bumping and killer looking offence. Houston also should've wound up being a megastar, or at least a moderatestar, and he looked great here with his energy and selling. A perfect combo of two perfect midcarders, stepping up and delivering in a TV main event. I liked how Bart would try and use the ropes to his advantage early, backing Houston into them and wailing on him, throwing a headbutt to the chest, trying to keep Houston from using any of that speed advantage. Loved the bit where Houston snuck underneath one of those blows so it was Bart against the ropes, hit three punches that brought Bart a little closer to teetering over the top each time, then finally sent him out and into the barricade with a dropkick. It was a great bit of milking from Bart, the sort of thing you'd see from your all-time burly giants squeezing every bit of juice out of a pop. Houston works the arm for a little bit and Bart is fun again as a big wounded animal, then he takes over with a huge hotshot and goes TWO-PRONGED with his attack, working the throat and forehead of Houston. It ruled. He'd hotshot Houston across the barricade and choke him across the ropes (and blatantly with his bare hands), then he'd bite and claw at the forehead. Plus he'd sell the arm, my favourite instance being when he hit an AWESOME single-handed delayed backbreaker. It looked fucking spectacular, how he held Houston in the air, damn near vertically, with that one arm doing all the work, letting Houston and everybody watching know what was coming, before snapping him in two with a perfectly executed backbreaker. When Tommy Young took a ref' bump I expected some sort of schmozz finish, but instead we got Houston taking a lunatic bump through the ropes after his visual pinfall, followed by Bart guillotining his head off as he climbed back in (another hotshot-type move! Continuity, motherfucker!). I will now watch every Black Bart Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Title defence.

The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey) defend the NWA World Tag Team Titles Pretty awesome abbreviated version of the classic MX/RnR formula. A few of their spots didn't come off perfectly just yet, but they were clearly starting to mess around with the difficulty sliders and find ways of getting all four involved in sequences (all five if you count Cornette; six if you count the ref'). This happened in Philly and it's cool to see how batshit wild even your non-southern crowds would go for all of this. Someone in the crowd has a sign with Cornette slander on it and Cornette immediately gets heat for throwing a tantrum. In an awesome spot I don't think I've seen them do before, Morton dropkicks Condrey into Eaton on the apron, and Cornette tries and fails incrementally to use his shoulder to keep Eaton from falling off. As Cornette's legs slowly buckle the heat goes up and up and the pop for the house of cards crumbling is why you can imagine this match-up working pretty much anywhere in the world. Morton in peril rules, Condrey dropping knees on his throat rules, Eaton's missed rocket launcher splash rules, even the Dusty Finish rules. Pretty much the definition of "this is pro-wrestling, motherfucker."

Not as good as the previous week's match but I pretty much loved this as well. If nothing else it highlights how Piper is the absolute king of the punch drunk comeback. He has so much energy no matter what he's doing and any time he starts wildly throwing himself into offensive flurries people are hooked. Everything looks frantic, often reckless, never half-baked. It doesn't hurt that he has absurd amounts of charisma. Just fucking lorry-loads of it, so even the most standard of in-ring actions elicits a response. He's also an awesome bumper and I'm not really sure it's talked about enough. His bumping has the same reckless quality his offence has and he about killed himself here with one of the best back drop bumps I've ever seen. It was like an Eddie Guerrero monkey flip bump where his legs would catch the ropes on landing, but it never had the grace of Eddie with the perfect rotation on the flip and instead looked like he was taking a Jerry Estrada bump all the way over the top rope. I have no idea whether he meant it or not and that's really what makes it so crazy. This was a super fun use of the lumberjack stipulation. Piper starts out by just punching Rose in the wrist off a lock-up and obviously that leads to some arm work, because sometimes the simplest course of action is the most effective. Rose takes a huge flat back bump off a kick to the arm and evidently some will hate that, but I loved it to death. His big bump into the corner later off a kneelift was also majestic and one that even the most miserable of the miserable can appreciate. Rose backing Piper into the corner over by Wiskowski so Ed can trip him is your first big transition and the first great use of the stip. The second is Rose continually booting Piper out the ring so Wiskowski can throw him back in as roughly as possible, clearly taking some cheapshots while he's at it. When it's Rose's turn you know he's going to milk it for all it's worth. He's one of the all-time great stooges and I love how he goes absolutely all in on ALL of it. None of this "I'll roll out and you can shove me back in there nice and easy" carry on, he actively tries to run and then leap away from danger and the lumberjacks must EARN THEIR KEEP by securing this projectile of a body and flinging it back in the ring. After about six attempts at this he sort of deflates in defeat, rolls over and looks up to notice Piper standing over him, at which point he about shits himself and everybody loses it. It's an easy comedy spot to throw out there, but the timing of it was impeccable, he played the goof to perfection and you ten thousand percent buy a pissed off Roddy Piper as the last guy you want standing over you in an inescapable situation. Finish is one of the most satisfying bullshit finishes ever as the pop for Brooks coming in through the crowd is monumental. Portland is the greatest and Brooks' post-match promo ("I haven't worn these boots since I came back from Vietnam, but I'm wearing them now because I'm here to FIGHT!") is also the greatest.