KB8

I actually did not think of that. Fair enough.

dont understand how three people left hogan off their ballots and six people left Bruno off their ballots. Savage at number one was shocking to me. I was all but sure that number one wouldve been hogan or Austin. Wow. Thx for the chance to participate in the voting. Hope PTBN does a greatest wrestler ever for Crockett Yeah, I'm sort of baffled that guys like Hogan, Austin and Cena aren't unanimous votes. Bruno and Rock as well (though maybe in Brunos case I could see a lack of footage possibly being an issue, or not being big on the in-ring work from the era...I guess?). I'm surprised Michaels made it onto every ballot and those guys didn't. I thought for sure some folk would've left him off. Flair being a unanimous vote and those guys missing ballots is weird. Even if you want to ding Austin for longevity, or Hogan if you're not big on him in the Workrate category, or Cena for being stale for a while and cutting corny promos, those three still feel like absolute no-brainers to me. Hulk Hogan, fer chrissakes!

I haven't followed WWE closely for ages so I had no idea Harper and Rowan were teaming again, but I like the idea of big bearded bastards running around with warhammers. More people should do that thing they did where they legitimately try and murder someone with mallets and shit.

Pro-wrestling. There really is no other business like it.

Yeah, I learned about the rape trial as well whilst pursuing the whole Juicer thing. I didn't know that was what essentially ran him out of Portland (I mean, you can't really blame them), and I guess what eventually sent him to EMLL.

I subscribed to the Observer site for the month and I'm currently reading through the old newsletters, starting from '91 (disappointingly I learned after paying for my subscription that there aren't any from '89, which bummed me out as that was the year I really wanted to jump into. No matter). In a couple issues Dave has referenced someone called The Juicer while recapping WCW shows. I had no idea who that might've been and I assumed he was doing that thing he did where he'd refer to someone he thought was shitty by wittily spinning their name. Like how he'd call the Ultimate Warrior the Anabolic Warrior or the Junkyard Dog the Junkfood Dog. I was racking my brains trying to think of who this might've been. I figured it had to have been someone who was, you know, juiced, but I kept drawing blanks. So I went to Graham's site and checked the results and it turns out there actually was someone called The Juicer! Further investigative journalism revealed that it was just Art Barr doing his Bettlejuice gimmick but changing the name for copyright purposes. I hope you've all enjoyed my fable.

Maybe a little disappointing given who they are, but they never really went for epic. It was a wee bit more understated than that and in some ways it actually felt more like WAR Tenryu than All Japan Tenryu, where they laid it in and it was built around that laying it in more than the bomb-throwing. The powerbomb was the one bomb that was thrown and they certainly made use of it. Just after the intros while they're still in the process of clearing the streamers out the ring, Tenryu, totally unprompted, powerbombs one of Gordy's crew. I don't know who it was, but there didn't seem to be any reason for it. There was a person there to be powerbombed and so he powerbombed him and we one and all marvel at the man that is Tenryu. Gordy naturally took exception and powerbombed Tenryu right back, and Tenryu basically sold this powerbomb for the rest of the match. It was awesome, sometimes subtle, but you never got the sense he recovered from that move at any point forward. He'd try and fire back, maybe hit a lariat or a gamengiri, but then he'd grab the back of his head and sort of stumble, clearly groggy, and that would let Gordy regain the advantage. Gordy was mostly punch-kick on offence, but he threw in some big corner lariats and Tenryu sold them like the clobberings they were. Good match, but it feels like they've got something bigger in them.

The first fifteen minutes or so of the 1990 Rumble are pretty great because the heat is sky high and Piper, DiBiase, Savage and Jake (there were others, but mainly those four) carried the shit out of it. The booking of the '92 Rumble is really great, with Flair/Davey Boy being the meat of the first half, all the heavy hitters being saved for the second half, and that brief little Flair/Piper mini-match in the middle that I actually thought was the best part of the whole thing. Plus Heenan does the best commentary job there's ever been for an hour straight.

I'd gone back and forth on this for years. I always wanted more hate, I wanted blood, I wanted Steamboat to throttle Savage. It had always left me underwhelmed until about a decade ago when I watched the entire feud. Context helped it and so did that interview that was an extra on the Wrestlemania 3 DVD or whatever, with Steamboat talking about this being his last chance at the belt, how he'd come back from injury and let his temper get out of control and how it never got him anywhere. It might've been a convenient way to get out of someone bleeding in the blowoff to the big blood feud, but if nothing else it worked and added the layer that made it all click. I'm not sure I'd still call it a top 10 match in WWE history, but it's a great match. The main takeaway I had this time was that they built the hell out of this thing. It wasn't like it started out with no heat. People were into it from the start, as you'd expect. But by the end, even with the phantom heel pinfall and the fact they never COMPLETELY pulled the trigger on that clean win, the place was molten hot. Hebnar was gassed out of his mind towards the end and people were just losing it for every roll up and nearfall. It had lots of cool little throwbacks to the major points of the feud. Some of them I wish they maybe did a bit more with, like Savage working the throat and Steamboat playing up those moments where he'd turn loose, but I thought things like the nearfall off the finish to the Toronto match and Savage going for the bell came off great. Even Savage coming out and moving Elizabeth as far away as possible from Steele touched on the history. I suppose they could've done more with that brief bit of arm work. I'd maybe have liked for them to do away with a bit of the back and forth so Savage could have a longer stretch on top. I'll never love that phantom pinfall. It didn't really matter, though. What they gave us was an exceptional bit of pro-wrestling and one of the more iconic matches the company's ever had.

The Network has a bunch of pre-90s WWF shows from MSG and the Spectrum and Boston in full. I wanted to watch the Hogan/Kamala main event from this show anyway, so I just ran through the whole thing. I may check out more shows from around this time because the midcard had some studs and Hogan main events are usually fun. Mike Sharpe v SD Jones - Fairly putrid. I have a bit of a soft spot for Sharpe the jobber as he's really vocal and looks like he's always trying to make himself look like a fool. Some of his stalling and horse shit was kind of amusing and he clubbed Jones in the ear one time. Otherwise this was about four minutes that felt like eight minutes. Mike Rotundo & Dan Spivey v Jacques & Raymond Rougeau - I liked some individual parts of this, at least in isolation. The Rougeaus have nice offence and brought some fun arm work, then some fun leg work, then some fun stuff that was neither leg- nor arm-specific. Rotundo was in the ring for the majority, but I never felt like he was actually in any sort of danger because he never sold like he might've been. It was babyface v babyface so the Rougeaus never exactly put a traditional work over on him, but a few times he sort of got up and could've tagged out but didn't and effectively reset the match, like everything before it hadn't happened or meant anything. Spivey threw one or two forearms that connected nicely, then it got testy and the ref' threw it out, getting in everyone's face with the making money gesture. Heavy fines may have been issued had conflict escalated. I can't think of a babyface team I'd be less interested in watching than Rotundo and Spivey, but if babyface Rougeaus match up with decent opponents then I'd be up for watching some of that. Harley Race v Pedro Morales - It's pretty cool that this match even exists. Former NWA champ in his goofy crown with chin strap against former WWWF champ. Morales is at the tail end of being able to do much here, mostly throwing a few nice body shots, but Race turned it into a bump show and I was totally fine with it. At one point he took a backdrop from a standing position after it was Morales who came shooting off the ropes, which was pretty impressive as Race is not a small individual and Morales wasn't a youngster in 1986. Harley's taken a whipping in some circles over the years for maybe throwing out offence willy-nilly, but he was basically the sole reason this was fine so I don't mind him running through piledrivers and suplexes. How many kings have shared that same entrance music? Has the king gimmick been a staple in WWF for over thirty years now? Must there always be a king in the WWF in the same way there must always be a Stark in Winterfell? This match has raised more questions than it's answered. Dick Slater v Steve Lombardi - Eesh, Slater is called 'The Rebel' here and kitted out with his confederate flag jacket. Gorilla says you'll struggle to find a braver man than one willing to wave a confederate flag in the Boston Gardens. Slater's balls are so big he's the babyface, naturally. Lombardi is just plain old Lombardi at this point and hasn't donned the torn up shirt and jeans. This was like five minutes, had some okay arm work from Slater (minus the worst Russian leg sweep this side of Shelton Benjamin) and a pretty butterfly suplex. I'll be honest, I had no memory of Slater being in the WWF. I'm guessing he was only there for a cup of coffee and did nothing of note? Little Tokyo & Lord Littlebrook v Pepe Gomez & The Karate Kid - This got off to an exceptional start as Littlebrook made a point of ripping on Gomez and Kid for being tiny. I couldn't tell you the last time I watched one of these matches so I don't know if all of the spots are staples or just some of them (I mean, some of them DEFINITELY are), but it was pretty amusing and got a chuckle out of me. Nobody wants any part of Karate Kid's martial arts, not even Little Tokyo who is a master of the martial arts in his own right being Asian and whatnot. Gomez is wearing plastic bandoleers and looks like Hector Guerrero from my avatar on PWO. My favourite part was when the ref' admonished Tokyo for something or other, so Tokyo climbed the middle turnbuckle, kicked the ref' in the gut and took him over with a sunset flip as Karate Kid counted him out. A real show of midget solidarity, there. I can only conclude that the ref' purposely made them all look stupid at the end by botching the finish in embarrassing fashion. Can you say 'political hit?' Adrian Adonis v Junkyard Dog - Good grief Adonis is humongous. He does not look adorable in the slightest but man did he go all in on that gimmick. This wasn't good, but it was short, had a few okay headbutts, some lukewarm stalling early on, and a pretty awesome turnbuckle bump from Adonis where he went upside down Flair-style then wound up on the apron tangled up in the ropes Andre-style. If nothing else it's impressive that he managed to combine those two signature spots as relatively smoothly as he did given his portliness. Jimmy Jack Funk v Blackjack Mulligan - Mulligan's cowboy boots and Yosemite Sam shirt combo really is something. I couldn't even tell you the last time I watched any Blackjacks but Mulligan is huge and super imposing, like way more so than I remembered. Jimmy Jack is wearing a Zorro mask and probably the worst Funk there's been. This was also not good, just sloppy and clunky and uncoordinated. But it was only about five minutes so at least they were merciful. The Islanders v The Dream Team - Beefcake's involvement in this was basically limited to stooging, mugging and hitting a few stomps. Bulk of the heel end was held up by Valentine, and you may not be shocked to hear that the match probably wasn't hurt because of it. First stretch is total Valentine in peril. Usually you want Greg to be fish hooking people and elbowing them in the temple, but I dug him getting schooled by Haku and Tama. Tama is, once again, the funnest motherfucker in wrestling. His energy is utterly infectious. Then he eats a Valentine back elbow and SOARS over the top rope with an awesome bump to the floor, and good golly is Tama just about the greatest under-the-radar bumper ever. Brutus runs a few distraction spots and mostly sticks to the background so Valentine can deliver the ass beating, which includes a fucking Ganso Bomb-style piledriver! If there's a Tama/Valentine singles match I need to seek it out, because no way it wouldn't rule. This was fifteen minutes that flew by. Dino Bravo v Corporal Kirchner - I guess this was fine for a piss break before the Hogan Show. Dino hit a few decent suplexes and a crazy piledriver that was somewhere between that and sit-out powerbomb, then Kirchner came back and hit a few things, then Johnny V ran distraction and it ended. This ref' is the same one from the midgets match and boy he isn't having a good night. He has a touch of the inverse Hebners where he counts super slowly all through the match then speeds it up x12 at the finish. Gorilla slaughters him for it as was Gorilla's wont, but it's hard to disagree with him on this occasion. The young man is quite frankly a disgrace to his profession. Hulk Hogan v Kamala - The Ugandan Headhunter is a way cooler moniker than the Ugandan Giant. This was a super fun eight minutes of Hogan formula. They establish early that Kamala is a big fuckin unit as Hogan barrels into him and looks out wide-eyed to the crowd when Kamala doesn't budge. Hogan tries to slam him, almost gets him up, but the back gives out and Kamala takes over. It's Hogan v Superheavyweight 101. Kamala working on top is fine enough initially, but then he stabs Hogan with the Fang of Shang-Chi or some nonsense and it gets pretty awesome. I always assumed WWF had banned blood by this point, but Hogan gigs himself and gets some big time colour. I loved Kamala biting and gouging at the cut, and in a gruesome spot he licks Hogan's blood off his fingers, apparently enjoying it as he's a cannibal and a fan of such delicacies. Hogan's bloody convulsing is kind of goofy, but it's one of those Hoganisms that I find at least amusing. We get the comeback, the slam, the boot and the legdrop, the posing, the Hulkamaniacs seeing what they came to see -- it's the ultimate WWF experience! I'd like to check out the rest of the Hogan/Kamala matches because I bet they'd all be fun.

Perfectly solid midcard bout. When Muraco can't be arsed he's hard to watch, but this was apparently his first appearance in MSG so maybe he was up for it. Martel is Martel and thus awesome and usually enough to drag something to watchable on his own. The rough collar and elbow tie-ups early suggest these two might've had a nice heated feud in them somewhere. Martel's headlock work was pretty decent, really grinding it in and kicking his legs wildly when Muraco tried to suplex his way out of it. Muraco has a taped thumb gimmick which I always thought was reserved for wrestlers who'd just come back from extended excursions to the orient. It's been so long since I've seen a Muraco match that I couldn't even tell you when he started doing that. Was he doing it from the start? He works Martel's throat after taking over, jabbing him with the lethal thumb and slingshotting him up into the bottom rope. Martel's bump at the end certainly looked like it could plausibly keep a man out of the ring for a count of ten, so I'll take that as a count out finish. Muraco tends to swing wildly from being really good to really atrocious, but if he was motivated I could see this being a super fun twenty minute match. Would've been an interesting comparison with Muraco/Steamboat if nothing else.

nope he was fully untraied before going in to rINGS is only training was Sambo I'm aware that he came in raw and that he was a Sambist. My point was that he'd sometimes do things that looked sort of carny for a shoot style promotion - like some of those Hapkido throws - yet everyone bought into it anyway because he was Volk Han and he was incredible. I don't doubt he'd have been able to translate all of that into a pro-style setting, is what I was getting at.

Some of Han's Hapkido was carny as fuck and everyone bought it regardless. I can only assume he'd have been amazing working pro-style. I mean, he's Han.

I'm not really sure comparing Shayna Baszler to Volk Han is entirely fair to Baszler. I mean, I guess I can kind of see why you'd want to, but Han is one of the very best that's ever done it and a ridiculous outlier. It's a huge bar to reach and I don't think you can call out anybody for not being as good as Volk Han straight out the gate. I literally don't think there's ever been anybody who has.

Man this was fun. It's about as pure babyface as I've ever seen Flair work. I guess he was already Slick Ric by mid-'81, but it wasn't the same babyface Slick Ric as we'd see later. A lot of babyface Flair felt like a guy who was naturally a prick taking time off from being a prick because he had issue with an even bigger prick. Old man babyface Flair was easy to root for because he was two hundred years old and being brutalised by people seventy years his junior. His biggest hope spots were still low blows or biting someone in the face. Sympathy was easy to come by and he was beloved, but there wasn't much difference between babyface Flair and heel Flair. He was wooing and strutting here, but he did it with a real babyface energy, like he figured he had to work for his reactions rather than taking for granted that he'd get them regardless. He was throwing dropkicks, super fast body punches in place of the chops, working much quicker than usual. No measured knee drops, no flopping, instead we got small packages and house o' fire. Even the figure four was applied quicker than I've ever seen him do it before, and he went into it as a reversal off a Piper knee drop so there was no methodical leg work beforehand. He just did everything at babyface speed and it was super refreshing. The stuff with Piper also ruled and Piper was an awesome shit head with the early stalling, the cheapshots, choking Flair with the tag rope, etc. Snuka didn't exude the same charisma, but he was a fine lieutenant and I liked how he was always trying to cut the ring off, keeping Flair in that heel corner and dragging him back whenever he tried to scoot away. I don't know who Dewey Robertson is but he was fine and played his part in the finish, so I guess he did what he needed to do. Flair even celebrated with him afterwards like he meant it, rather than patting him on the back because he's the Nature Boy and the plebs should be privileged to share in his victory glow. I've somehow seen hardly anything from this Flair/Piper feud, but based on this I'm hyped to check out more.

This was okay for parts and then a bit ropey for others. Standard criticism of Flair and/or Flair Formula is that he/it can sort of stifle guys because they need to change some aspects how they work when they're opposite Ric. They're forced to do press slams or always apply the figure four or whatever. If I'm watching a guy opposite Flair for the first time I'm usually interested in seeing how he'll plug his own stuff into Flair's formula, how much he'll delegate to Flair, etc. The first fifteen minutes of this was really just Kabuki being Kabuki and it didn't feel much like your typical Flair match at all. Kabuki threw a bunch of superkicks and I liked how Flair sold them as if he had no idea how to defend against them. He'd just walk into a superkick and have to scramble to the corner for a reprieve. Kabuki can hit them from anywhere and Flair had no answer for it. Kabuki's nerve hold wasn't the most compelling way to fill time, but I get a kick out of him switching it up a bit from the traps to the stomach to the obliques. Flair was really vocal with his selling too, and if nothing else you could buy him being frustrated at having such a hard time figuring Kabuki out. Then the last ten minutes kind of teetered on being not very good. They tried a bunch of the Flair staples, but only about half of them came off. I didn't mind that the headlock into bridge into backslide spot never worked, because Kabuki isn't necessarily the most athletic guy and sometimes things like that add to the sense of struggle, but then they just got back up and went into the backslide after a few beats anyway. If something didn't work they'd just...do it again. There was no improvisation, it was all sort of "checking the boxes" and then Flair chucked the referee and that was that.

I wouldn't have had Punk ahead of Rey, Andre or Backlund in a million years.

There's something about Flair's black and white robe. My first exposure to him as a kid was when he showed up at Survivor Series with the big gold belt, Bobby Heenan raving about him being the REAL World Champ, pomp out the wazoo...and that incredible robe. As a four year old it was the definition of regality and I've been a mark for it ever since. Maybe the black and white brings out his inner bastard as well, because there was a five minute stretch of this where he was as surly as I've ever seen him. The first fifteen minutes were fairly standard Big Match Flair. He wasn't rampant with the cheapshotting and mostly played by the rules. He'd beg off once or twice, kind of flirt with being a dickhead, but for the most part he behaved himself. Taylor wasn't buying whatever Flair was selling and Flair kept finding himself being taken over or having his head squashed in a front facelock. The build wasn't anything new, but these two work it well together. Then Flair got chippy and it led to them absolutely lacing into each other. At the best of times he's pure hubris, but this wasn't hubris; he was pissed and wanted to fight. He's the world fucking champ and who is this wannabe? Taylor backs him into the corner, winds up for a left hand, the ref' stops him short...and Flair knees him in the balls. I've made comment about being burnt out on Flair plenty of times, but I could watch this Flair all day and it's disappointing we didn't get to see him do it more often. He really cleaned Taylor's clock for a spell there, chopping him to ribbons, dropping the knee across his forehead, stomping him in the corner, throwing nasty little body shots, blatantly choking him, popping him with an AMAZING right hand that Terry sold like it broke his face -- just a great little segment. I wish it lasted longer. The last fifteen minutes never went off the rails as such, but it became more of your standard Flair fare. Standard isn't necessarily a knock because standard Flair fare is still a very awesome thing to lots of people, but I can really go either way these days and I much preferred it when he was bullying Taylor. They seemed to maybe run out of ideas down the stretch as well, going to the backslide spot a few times and reaching a point of diminishing returns with the nearfalls. I lost count of the number of times Taylor grabbed a headlock to set up the next rope running sequence, but it built to a fever pitch and it's hard to come away thinking Taylor didn't look all the better for it. Still though, some of the brawling in that mid-match stretch was as potatoey and awesome as the best Flair/Garvin or Flair/Wahoo exchanges I've seen. I'd rather they filled more time with that.

Owen had to feud with Bret for 9 years.

I'd lean towards Owen in that I prefer him in-ring to Davey by quite a bit and the King of Harts character was really fun (and he was interesting enough playing it that he remained relevant when he was injured), whereas Davey's character, heel or face, was basically just British guy who was proud to be British. Owen never had the extended stretch as part of an established team, but I'm not huge on the Bulldogs anyway, and honestly, I'd probably rather watch Owen and Yoko. Owen probably gets versatility points for the Blue Blazer run, the post-Montreal babyface run, and I guess the heel run with the Nation, which was at least different from deluded younger brother with a chip on his shoulder (I think). I don't know how good a promo Owen was, but I'll sure remember his rant after kicking Bret's leg out of his leg more than I'll remember anything Davey ever said.

I wouldn't have had Tito top 10 overall, but man was he fucking awesome and easily one of the best babyface workers the WWF have ever had. How many babyfaces brought the fire like Tito? If it was a pure in-ring poll then top 10 wouldn't have been crazy at all, I don't think. Between him and DiBiase, for something like this, I guess a lot of it depends on where you land between workrate and promo/character. To me, Tito pretty clearly walks the former while Ted pretty clearly walks the latter. Ted had the bigger Jump Up moments outside the ring and he was positioned higher on the card than Tito (though it's not like Tito was never placed in high profile positions). I put a lot of stock in guys being able to work tags and Tito has a bunch of really good to great tags in the WWF (Ted's tag run came at the tail end of his career and it was with an ageing Rotunda rather than prime Martel, but it is what it is). I flat out like Tito more so I guess I'd go with him.

Kind of under the radar gem and maybe one of the better Michaels TV matches of his second run. There are a couple other matches between them from around this time, one of which from Armageddon that I don't remember at all, so I guess they were feuding. I don't care much for Kennedy so I guess you can say it's faint praise, but this might be one of his best matches outright and I thought he was really good in it. Michaels worked over his leg early and I liked the sell of it, mostly in how he was super vocal. Michaels threw on a half crab variation where he sat across the hooked leg rather than doing the normal version of the hold that would target the back, which was a cool touch. He also yanked off Kennedy's knee pad during this section, and for someone I don't really think of as a "little things" guy he brought a bunch of neat touches. There was the aforementioned wrinkles with the leg work, the way he was dogged in fighting for a crossface, later on punching Kennedy in the knee to create some distance, it was good stuff. Most of Kennedy's run of offense consisted of back work as this is the 2000s and a Shawn Michaels match, but it was solid back work. The tackle to the floor that set it up was pretty gnarly (Michaels' bump was great) and he had a nice seated abdominal stretch where he was twisting the lower back at a mean angle. Shawn's comeback had some clutching at his spine like a pensioner with chronic sciatica tying his shoe laces and I know people hate that because he's a lame actor or whatever, but the hairline was on its way out and he was already cross-eyed so if nothing else I bought him as a pensioner with chronic sciatica tying his shoe laces (and, you know, I appreciate the selling whilst executing offence and such). Finish was surprising as well and I just enjoyed all of this a bunch. I haven't really watched any post-comeback Michaels in a long time, but I'm actually kind of interested in going back to see how a lot of it holds up. For a guy who was my favourite wrestler all the way through childhood and then for a minute after that, it's strange how little I've thought about him in around a decade.

This and Volk Han at #4 I mean, tbf, Han as a top 10 guy is something I’ve seen before. Kopylov as a top 10 guy is something I’ve never seen before and it wasn’t too long ago where we ran a poll and someone had Scott Steiner as their #1! (I am not knocking that list, btw. I’m all for more lists with obscure Russian sambists ahead of your Dynamite Kids and Bret Harts)

Andrei Kopylov as a top 10 all-timer is some wild shit that I’m all the way in on. Well...at least he had Dory ahead of Terry! Right?