KB8

This probably wasn't done any favours coming after some absolute corkers on the disc. It's hard to top Invader/Perez or Colon/Hansen, you know? That said, this wasn't trying to be either of those; it was a short TV match and if nothing else a fun look at TNT, the future Savio Vega. He was really game in this, threw some nice uppercuts to the throat and leveled Colon a couple times with big thrust kicks. He headbutts Colon at one point and I'm wondering if Colon has been doing a Fujiwara-ish hard head gimmick this whole time where it's pointless trying to headbutt him, because he just stares at TNT like he's a dummy before throwing a headbutt of his own. They're treating TNT's cobra clutch as quite the death kill here and it leads to the grizzly post-match visual of Colon lying KO'd and foaming at the mouth, which coincidentally is another Fujiwaraism.

A step below their first match, and I guess it kinda sort of maybe feels more like feud progression than a fully formed match, but fuck it. It's these two, and it was good, and it was very different from that first match. This time Colon jumps Hansen at the bell, and in one of the few occasions I can ever remember we get Stan Hansen very much on the back foot to start a match. Colon busts him open and throws his awesome headbutts while Hansen tries to rid himself of his chaps and jacket. It's this kind of thing that makes me think Hansen is the best to ever do it. If you've seen one Stan Hansen match then you've seen him beat the crap out of somebody. If you've seen several Stan Hansen matches then you've seen him beat the crap out of several somebodies. He might be the best ever at that particular aspect of pro wrestling. But his selling and ability to show vulnerability or, in those rare instances, even fear; those are the things that really put him over the top. I hadn't watched any Hansen outside All Japan in ages, and that was never an environment where you were likely to find Hansen outright begging off or borderline stooging. But he wasn't afraid to here, and Stan bastarding Hansen asking for a bit of reprieve made Colon seem like a badass in his own right. There was some dueling limb work in this, and it didn't last long or anything, but I liked how it came about. First Colon goes for a high knee in the corner and hits the turnbuckle, so Hansen jumps on this opening and goes after the leg for a little bit. He soon drops it in favour of throwing Colon into a fence and mushing his face into it, but it was cool while it lasted. Shortly after this Hansen tries to lariat Colon on the floor, but Colon moves and Hansen lariats the ring post, so Colon works the arm for a short spell, wrapping it around the post and bashing it off the dugout. That doesn't last long either, but both felt like examples where an opportunity presented itself for one guy to inflict some extra damage on his opponent, before eventually going back to the more attractive option of beating his head off something solid. Hansen kicking the shit out of the commissioner post-match ruled as well. I don't remember ever seeing him lariat somebody while they're on all fours, but he did it here and of course it must've sucked being on the receiving end of that.

This is the best thing Al Perez ever did in his career, right? This was another awesome wild brawl, right on the level of your crazy Jim Duggan Mid-South alley fights (in a lot of ways this is probably the Puerto Rico equivalent of Duggan/Sawyer). It's becoming trite to say it at this point, but holy fuck was Invader great. This had all the blood and face-punching and nut-punting you'd expect, but Invader's selling holds it all together. Maybe that's doing a bit of a disservice to Perez, because he was really good in this and I'd be shocked if he was ever better, but Invader in this kind of match is one of the surest things of the 80s. The progressive toll of Perez's shots, the blood loss, the desperation he puts into his comebacks, with his running punch and double thrust to the throat -- it was all awesome. He has the crowd eating out the palm of his hand as well, the way he beats on his chest when it's time to REALLY kick somebody's butt and the crowd responds by going mental. Perez tried to throw him over the side of a stairwell and he was literally hanging over the edge of this drop by his legs while the crowd were screaming and losing their minds, and this is Puerto Rico so you know it's plausible that he might actually fall. Then he came back with a chair and the people were right there with him for every shot, and of course he threw Perez down the fucking stairwell because every single fan in that building would've done the same. And what is Invader I, if not a man of the people?

And now for a look at a completely different kind of crazy person. Where Terry Funk is unhinged and liable to do something nuts at any moment, he IS pretty goofy. It doesn't mean you should be any less wary of him, but you can laugh at him sometimes (just make sure he doesn't notice). Hansen...there's nothing funny about Hansen. There are no goofball antics with him, no instances where you go, "that guy's a maniac, but it was funny that time he got his pants pulled down and bounced around bare-arsed." He's just a whirlwind of chaos and violence and there's no building up to it. There's no simmering, no bubbling below the surface before it erupts. It's front and centre for everyone to see the second he hits the scene. And it's infectious. The way he carries himself, his demeanour, everything about him sets off everyone else around him, to the point where the whole arena ends up rabid. It's like when one dog on the street starts barking. It sets off the neighbour's, which sets off the other neighbour's, and before you know it every dog on the block is howling. That's what Hansen brings with his presence. It's a chain reaction of palpable fucking craziness. I'll be honest, my expectations for this feud were through the roof, and that was before I'd gotten a handle on how good Colon was. After those Colon/Abby matches they were even higher. The best brawler of all time coming into THIS territory, working against the ace...of course I was expecting something special. And fuck, how about this for a place to start? Hansen was so amazing in this. He takes out the referee inside half a minute, then wraps the bullrope around Colon's neck and swings him into the ring posts. Security literally have to follow Hansen around the ringside area because he's kicking barricades and getting in fans' faces and generally being a madman. He breaks a foot stool or something over Colon's head and jabs the broken corner of it into his face. Hansen's energy is seriously something to behold. He never stops; it's just constant crazy. At one point he picks up one of the many pieces of garbage lying in the ring, shows it to the crowd like "thank you for this crushed up Coke can, I'm now going to stab your hero in the head with it" and stabs Colon in the head with it. Colon's selling through all of this was great as well. He's fighting the odds from the very beginning and at times it feels like all he can possibly hope to do is slow Hansen's momentum rather than actually gain an upper hand. But the more he does stop the momentum, the more he can chip away at him. Every time Hansen loses control, it takes him a little longer to regain it. Stan sold that cumulative damage in a way that made it look like Colon's attacks were mounting up, and it made everything Colon did feel truly earned, because Hansen never gave him anything easily. It all got the crowd behind their boy even more, so by the end they're just losing their mind. When he finally managed to take firm control - after a good old kick in the balls - it was like he'd climbed a mountain, despite the mountain trying to throw him off at every turn. Then Al Perez had to come and spoil his party. Awesome first installment in this feud. I'm ready for everything else these two did together.

If comic books are to believed, and I see no reason why they shouldn't, there's probably an alternate universe somewhere/sometime in which Terry Funk only toured Japan once every few years, and the majority of his peak was spent on the island of Puerto Rico. Don't get me wrong, I love Funk in Japan as much as the next guy. He had a ton of great stuff there. But imagine those Funks v Abby and Sheik matches happening in Puerto Rico? Imagine Funk getting to wrestle Carlos Colon or the Invaders or even Hercules Ayala every week? I wonder what kind of names they could've brought in with the drawing card of a former NWA World Champion being there full time. Fucking hell, never mind Abby and the Sheik, imagine Funk v Hansen happened in Puerto Rico?! A man can dream, I guess (those Funk/Invader matches from the early 80s are Holy Grail material at this point, btw). This is the final of the Universal Title tournament, which Funk reached by somehow getting past Windham and Martel despite literally wrestling parts of those matches with his pants down and/or a wooden chair around his head. His pre-match interview was incredible here. He calls Puerto Rico a giant pig farm again, says Colon is a yellow coward pig, then says he knows how to speak in a foreign language the crowd will understand. "Oink oink," he says, while you take a second just to thank the wrestling gods that we've been blessed with Terry Funk. Savinovic uses his sleeve to wipe his face of Funk's spittle so Funk just outright spits on him and this match is twelve stars before anybody's even gotten in the ring. This was actually a slightly more subdued Funk performance than his last two. Maybe it's because it's the final for all the marbles, but he was a little more businesslike. We still get some awesome shtick early on, though. This time he tries to back pedal from Colon and trips up over his own discarded chaps, then he takes a Flair Flip in the corner before seamlessly moving straight into his seesaw bit in the ropes as Colon peppers him with punches. Pretty soon he takes over, and as usual he goes to the piledriver outside, this time doing it on the stage. I'm a dork for guys working a chinlock and pulling the referee out of position by grabbing the hair, then using the other hand to blatantly choke while the ref' is looking out for more hair pulling. We got that here, and Funk even makes the hair pulling look like he's trying to give a guy a permanent bald patch. I'm not the first person to bring up Terry Funk's selling, but man is Terry Funk great at selling. He takes a punt to the balls (he did it to Colon first, so it was warranted) and it may be the best sell of a ball shot I've ever seen, and he even tries to turn it into a distraction spot by feigning a ruptured testicle so he can grab a foreign object. His sell of the figure four, while in the hold as well as afterwards, is really awesome as well. Nobody throws headbutts on jelly legs like Terry Funk. Not quite up there with the Windham and Martel matches, but it's good and something you won't regret watching.

Might be my favourite Colon performance yet. At first I figured this was going to be his Jerry Lawler performance, where he starts slow, gets beaten up for a while, then cartwheels (drops the strap) and makes his big comeback while the crowd goes nuts. And in a sense that's what we got...but at the same time it was much more than that. The first half was all Abby, jabbing Colon in the throat with a pencil, throwing big headbutts, biting Colon's forehead open and generally dominating. Then Carlos made his big comeback, complete with cartwheel and crowd going nuts. And THEN he went full caveman on Abby, and I've never seen Lawler blatantly punt a guy in the balls - repeatedly - or attempt to scalp someone with his teeth like Colon did here. He was rabid; not quite as savage as he was in the June match, but he was out for blood and wouldn't be satisfied with a mere trickle. Abdullah ruled on the back foot. Some of his weeble-wobble selling before finally going down was Blackwell-esque and he really milked his bumps for everything they were worth. It's one thing to go down for a leaping headbutt, but it's another to time it so that the crowd goes full on badger shit when it happens. In true Abdullah fashion, though, you could never count him out. He's always hiding a fork or a plain old jaggy stick somewhere, and this time he had Gary Hart with him so that made him even more dangerous. Case in point: we reach peak Puerto Rico level when Hart hands Abby a shiv and Abby STABS COLON IN THE DICK! I couldn't believe it when he did that. When Colon went and stood over him I thought, "he could stab him in the dick here. Wait...surely he wouldn't do that." But then he did! He actually stabbed him in the dick and I outright shouted "holy shit he stabbed him in the dick!" This match-up has delivered every time out, and there haven't been two that follow the same pattern yet (other than the pattern of blood and stabbing), which blows my previous "these Abby/Colon matches all probably have a similar formula but it feels like they'll throw just enough different wrinkles in there to keep it fresh" theory to bits. This was completely different to the June match, which was completely different to the March match, which was different to the very first match on the set (complete with post-match riot). And I think it's time I stopped comparing Colon to guys like Lawler or the Von Erichs or any other territory babyface mainstay. You can draw parallels, sure, but I've seen enough of him now that I think he absolutely stands on his own. This wasn't Carlos Colon doing a Jerry Lawler. This was Carlos Colon doing a Carlos Colon. And I hope he doesn't change for anybody.

Fucking hell, Terry Funk in Puerto Rico might be one of my favourite wrestlers ever. It's like Walt Goggins in Sons of Anarchy or Timothy Olyphant in Archer, where they show up for an episode or two and just absolutely steal the show (man I miss Justified). This was another incredible Funk performance, maybe even better than the last one. The whole first half is basically one big Terry Funk comedy stooge showcase. He slaps Martel before the bell and runs away, so Martel elbow drops Funk's cowboy hat and Funk's chaps fall down. He gets back in the ring and wants a boxing match, so Martel obliges and Funk ends up throwing midair punches before falling flat on his butt. He climbs the ropes, but he's unsteady up there and just falls and crotches himself on the top rope, and I cannot possibly describe his sell of this. I couldn't do it justice. Everything Funk does in this first half is designed to make him look like an idiot and it was god damn beautiful. People at ringside laugh at him so he starts throwing chairs into the audience! I never noticed the safety net in front of the crowd so when he threw the first one I expected a fan to literally be killed. Then he grabs the security guard by the scruff of the neck and threatens to ding him, but this is motherfucking Puerto Rico and security in Puerto Rico aren't scared of shit, so Funk backs up apologetically. Then he threatens a fat guy in a green t-shirt instead. He almost falls out the ring running the ropes again, so Martel pulls his trunks down and Funk obliviously walks around with his bare ass out. When he eventually realises he's been humiliated (again) he picks another a fight with the fat guy in the green t-shirt. Concluding that his current strategy is getting him nowhere fast, he takes over by changing tact and luring Martel into that dreaded false sense of security. He breaks clean a few times and applauds Martel's efficiency at working the headlock, but as soon as he gets his chance he goes to the low blow. At this point he takes all that anger at being laughed at and directs it at Martel, piledriving him on the grass, choking him with a chain, throwing him into stacks of chairs. When Martel comes back we get more of Funk walking around with the chair over his head, but this time they turn that into an utterly insane spot with Martel piledriving Funk on the floor with the chair still around his neck! In very un-Terry Funk-like fashion he barely sells this and basically goes straight to the spot where he gets his head/chair stuck in the ropes, but I'm astounded they did a spot like that in the first place. I mean, you know Funk is a lunatic, but wow. I also love how Martel can't hit his slingshot splash even in Puerto Rico. In fact, I loved all of this. All of it. I'd put it a hair below the Windham match, but it still ruled and I want to see every single thing Terry Funk ever did on this glorious island.

So, in one of my more shitheaded moments, I had Terry Funk at #11 on my greatest wrestler ever ballot. After watching a fair chunk of Terry Funk matches the last couple months, #11 now feels at least twelve spots too low. He was absolutely incredible in this, just having the time of his life coming into Puerto Rico and doing a greatest hits of Terry Funk shtick. In the first few minutes he gets Flair Flipped in the corner and tries to yank the nearby cameraman off the apron, then he nearly falls out the ring running the ropes and picks a fight with another cameraman at ringside, who of course runs away like a sane person. He launches a wooden chair in the ring out of frustration, but Barry is cool as ice and plucks it out the air with one hand. Eventually Funk takes over with an awesome transition. He spits on Windham and bails to the floor, and as Barry chases him out Funk grabs him and rams him into the post, then hits two piledrivers on the floor. I don't know if he pointed to his head afterwards like he was smarter than everyone else, but it was one of those moments where you knew the crazy guy wielding the branding iron had been around the block a few times. Barry is great selling the ensuing beatdown and Funk is clearly having fun being in a territory where it's not as frowned upon to mule kick someone in the balls. When Windham takes over again he gets his revenge by hitting a couple piledrivers on the concrete, and Funk then spends the rest of the match on the back foot doing something amazing every thirty seconds. Windham was already super great in 1986 and this isn't even remotely a carry job, but it's really Funk being Funk with Barry playing along. Terry is so great at setting things up here, usually stringing multiple comedy spots together seamlessly. Barry rams his head into the turnbuckle as the crowd count to ten along with him, then Funk grabs the ropes in a daze and staggers over to the adjacent corner, so Windham follows him over and does it another ten times. Then Funk comes out the corner rocking back and forth as if Windham is still bonking his head off the turnbuckle, like the motion has been permanently seared into his muscle memory. At another point he punch-drunkenly falls out the ring and tries to crawl away, stands up with a chair wrapped around his head, then gets stuck trying to climb back in the ring because the chair won't fit through the ropes. It may honestly have been the hardest I've laughed - like genuinely, heartily laughed - at a spot in a wrestling match ever. There was about fifty other things he did that ruled, too. He fell into the laps of pensioners at ringside, recklessly fell headfirst out the ring in an almost reverse Buddy Rose bump, went for a neckbreaker but ended up only hurting himself because Barry was holding onto the rope (and you could see Funk set it up by forcing him over to the ropes as he was about to do it), did an AMAZING double pirouette off a punch that Simone Biles probably stole for a floor routine, and in his post-match interview he called Savinovic a pig and Puerto Rico as a whole one giant pig sty. I'd seen this match before years ago, but I really didn't remember a whole lot about it. Turns out it was grade A awesome. Who would've thought?

Wonderful match, with one of the most unfortunate, annoying clip jobs imaginable. What we have is a pre-commercial stretch that's awesome and a post-commercial stretch that's even better, but at some point in between then Ron Starr ends up tapping an artery and not seeing that middle portion of the match is one massive kick in the nuts. The pre-commercial stretch is way more tentative than the stadium match, but they traded the wild brawling for a really cool slow build. This is a title match, not a street fight, so they actually have to adhere to a rule or two...at least for a while. Invader goes to the hip toss early and Starr eventually counters one with an STO, but his control is always short lived as Invader keeps finding ways to come out on top of exchanges. I loved the bit where Starr blocks a few punches in the corner and Invader slowly backs up, refusing to engage him any further, staring him down with contempt. The coolest spot during this part was when Starr went for his DDT, really throwing his hips into it, but as he's about to fall back Invader slips out and takes him over with a slick hammerlock takedown. They go to the commercial break at this point, and I don't know how much we miss exactly, but when we come back Starr's Rambo vest has been torn off and the blood's flowing freely, so you know you want to see what led to that. Everything after the break is amazing, though. Almost right away Starr throws Invader out to the floor, and I have no idea who she is or why she was there, but some woman comes over and smashes a chair over Invader's head, then casually walks away as fans pelt her with trash. Invader hits yet another gusher and this might be his best selling performance yet, struggling to his feet before collapsing into a cluster of seats, staggering around selling the blood loss. It's a truly exceptional sell job, from a guy who makes lying on the floor bleeding utterly compelling. When they went into the finishing run I was thinking it was going to end the same way as the street fight, but they went another few minutes after that and everything they did felt like the last gambits of two warriors destined to die on the battlefield. The selling, the desperation, the nuclear crowd heat -- this was just tremendous stuff. And I loved the decisive finish, with Invader's attempted cross body being that one bridge too far and Starr caputalising with his DDT, the crowd in near shock. I think I'd already take Ron Starr over a bunch of his more highly pimped peers (I mean, I've never seen a Dick Slater performance I enjoyed more than Ron's in this or the street fight), and Invader is undeniable at this point. If we had this in full I could see it being my outright #1, but even as is it'll still go high.

On the one hand this had some really good stuff. On the other hand both guys were wearing identical ring attire and I couldn't tell who was who. I *think* Medico was the tecnico. The crowd were super hot for whoever the tecnico was, anyway. They popped huge for his punch flurry - and good grief what a fucking punch flurry this was - and they rallied behind him when the rudo took over. The rudo - I assume White Knight - was a bit chinlocky, but he hit a nice vertical suplex and his top rope elbow was first class. I may re-watch this if Boricua's history thread sheds some light on who's who (and maybe some backstory), but as it stands I still liked it well enough. Those white masks were absolutely dapper, btw.

If ECW had ever ran a baseball stadium show, this is about how I imagine it would've went. This was ECW before ECW was cool, baby! And it was awesome. They basically brawled all over the stadium, from the infield to the dugouts, through the crowd and into the stands, on top of what looked like a stage set up in the middle of the field, then eventually into the ring. There were bits where they'd end up disappearing amid pockets of fans, then Starr would reappear by running away as Invader tried to chase him down and throw stuff at him. It was like one of those cartoon scuffles where all you'd see is dust and flailing limbs, passing through one end of a building before reemerging from the other as you hear furniture crashing in its wake. I really haven't seen much of Starr, but he was great again in this and he's been one of the best guys on the set. He brawls, he bleeds, he bumps and stooges, and he isn't afraid to jump off the top rope and land balls-first across someone's knee. Invader continues to absolutely rule it in everything he's in. This was one of the rare occasions where his opponent actually out-bled him, but his selling was still outstanding and the way he fires back with strikes like it might be his one last chance of survival is always awesome. I understand why it's the case, but he really feels like one of the most underrated or least talked about great wrestlers ever. Last few minutes had guys getting whipped with a weightlifting belt, punch exchanges while both guys were on their knees (which led to Invader hitting his double chop from a kneeling position, and of course it was tremendous), nasty post shots and double knockdowns where they both just recklessly clattered into each other. And I don't have any problem at all with the finish being what it was. This was badass.

Watched this again tonight for the first time in five years. My thoughts on it now are the same as they were then. What I wrote about it at the time: Man this fucking ruled. Tamura is as fired up here as I've ever seen him and it really felt like he wanted to win this more than anything else in the world. His look of utter "fuck you" defiance when Maeda shoots in for the first time and tries to take his ankle is just amazing, and the crowd reaction at that moment is one of the best I've seen in a long time. Match is actually a bit spartan, but Maeda has an incredible aura and the charisma of both guys really makes it. I had also never seen this before and wasn't sure who won, so I was losing my shit at the end. I wanted Tamura to get to the ropes about as much as everybody else in that building did, and it's not often I get drawn into a match like that anymore. So yeah, it rules. I couldn't even come up with a comprehensive list just off the top of my head right now, but this might be one of the best sub-10 minute shoot style matches ever, right?

Awesome. I'm all about any new Murdoch footage popping up.

Was this available before, shoe? There was one on the Mid-South set, though the dates are different. EDIT: I see Phil asked you this exact same question in your other thread.

I played with mine all the time. Royal Rumbles with fifty action figures. I remember being at a market with my grandparents when I was a kid and I came across a stall selling Rick Rude, Demolition and Akeem and I freaked. I didn't even know there were figures made of those guys. That was a great day. My brother got a bunch of the newer, super-detailed ones like the Classics series. There's a couple suitcases full of my old ones and the ones my brother had sitting in the spare room at my mother's house.

Pretty sure this is the earliest Tenryu match I've seen (might've seen some clips from Texas, but that seems unlikely and even then I doubt it would've been a full match). He's younger in this match than I am currently, which is just mind boggling because it's Tenryu and hasn't he always been forty six years old? I don't know how long he's been back in Japan at this point, but he's been wrestling for about a year and I guess if you're gonna give him a showcase then it might as well be against his trainers (there's something just RIGHT about Tenryu being a Terry Funk trainee). Tenryu and Hata, kitted out in their rookie garb, got to do more in this than I'd have expected. There's a semi-lengthy spell in the first half where they work the headlock on Terry, and Terry is a master of keeping a headlock interesting so it was a pretty nice stretch. There was one bit where Terry, still in the headlock, hit a shinbreaker on Hata, who sold it by keeping hold of the headlock on the mat while making sure he was stretching his leg out and grimacing at the same time. When Terry wasn't trying to free himself from the headlock he was rolling out some nice offence, especially his gut wrench and vertical suplexes, and at one point he hit a nasty dropkick right to Hata's face. Tenryu never punched anyone in the jaw or booted them in the eye, but he threw a couple meaty chops and got to bulldoze his way out the corner to a big pop. It was pretty surreal seeing him come in at the end to save his partner and take a back step when Dory went to cut him off. If this was WAR he'd have punted Terry in the liver and sent Dory back to the ranch for his horse shit.

Probably '86. In addition to what's already been mentioned there's Puerto Rico having an awesome year, with Funk coming in and being crazy, the beginning of the Colon/Hansen feud, and Invader I having amazing brawls with a handful of different folk.

Reed/Taylor from 5/84 was so good, and tremendously heated for a midcard match with no ongoing feud implications (that I'm aware of, anyway). Reed's amazing selling and bumping for Taylor's early punches, the neck work with Taylor's crazy no-hands bump on the hotshot, the brass knucks in the trunks, Taylor bleeding, forehead biting, Reed telling a fan to get in the ring, Taylor's fiery comeback, molten hot crowd...I figured it'd be good, but they just hit us with a ton of great stuff that I wasn't expecting. I might've had it top 50 if it had been on the Mid-South set.

I thought I was good at fitting obscure football references into write-ups, but that Abel Xavier name drop is impressive.

I should probably try and seek out that Low-Ki match already.

He also has Terry Funk's rodeo of insanity coming up and that's pretty much worth the price of admission alone. Good grief is disc 3 one of the best single discs of wrestling this 80s project has produced (that might be an interesting conversation, actually...).

Chavo Jr. is another underrated Rey opponent. They had a match on a 2001 WCW PPV that was easily one of the better matches the company had in its last couple years (not an astronomically high bar, but still). Their No Way Out 2004 match was pretty great and the Great American Bash match the same year was outstanding. I don't remember much about the '06 feud now other than the daft storyline running through it, but I don't imagine it sucked. They must've had something decent.

Flair and Jumbo. A lot of that is burnout. I feel like I've seen pretty much all I need to see from those guys at this point. There are still Flair matches I could watch no problem if I put them on right now, and I still like the grumpiest old man Jumbo shows a ton, but for the most part I don't have much interest in watching either of them, and haven't for a few years now.

I participated in best WWF/E match ever and best WCW match ever polls on another forum a few years back, and the best WWF/E match poll on smarkschoice a few years before that, and I think on all my ballots I had no less than four Rey/Eddie matches. At this point I think I'd have their Halloween Havoc match #1 on my WCW ballot (I had it top 5 at the time) and their 6/05 Smackdown match would be a serious #1 contender for my WWF list (I had that somewhere around my top 10 at the time). It's right up there with Tenryu/Hashimoto, Ishikawa/Ikeda and Lawler/Dundee as my favourite recurring match-up in wrestling. Of course that was my pick. I like lots of stuff he did with the other guys as well, though. I haven't watched anything he did in singles with Psicosis or Juvi in Mexico in almost a decade, but the ECW matches were still fun the last time I saw them and last month I watched a six minute Rey/Juvi match from a September '97 Nitro that was pretty great. Haven't seen any of the Jericho series from WWE since it happened, but I remember it being really good. I don't remember anything they did in WCW being blow away great, but maybe I missed something. I thought they worked well together in WWE, though. I've only seen a few of the Punk matches, but I'm pretty sure I liked them all. There were two or three from 2010 that I liked a lot. This is more of a "Rey was HIS best opponent as opposed to the other way around" kind of thing, but Rey/Angle was always really good. Angle was a super solid base for him and he got to throw Rey around like a jock bully. By the end of Angle's WWE run Rey was about the only guy I was interested in seeing him up against.

And before watching this set and seeing those guys in the lead up to the match, if I'd seen that on a match list I wouldn't have been hyped for it whatsoever (which was probably the case when I originally skimmed the listing for this set, in fact). Part of that is because I wouldn't have ever seen Chicky Starr before and Ron Starr and the Invaders would've been guys I'd seen maybe twice in my life, and certainly not recently enough to have a feel for how good they were. But then you get a disc and a half into this and you see those names and you realise that, in actual fact, that is a pretty damn stacked six man tag. And that's kind of the beauty of this set.