KB8

I actually thought the TDM was right on the level with all of the Buddy stuff from '80, and maybe even better than it. Maybe.

I watched it a couple years ago, too. I was pretty sure I wrote about it somewhere as well, and it turns out I did. Piper's promo earlier in the show was spectacular. He just goes off on one and makes no sense at all. It was seriously fucking great. Lawler comes out to the ring staring at people with complete disdain. There's this one lady with a sign that says "Piper for President" and Lawler notices it, bursts out laughing, then shoots her a look of pure disgust. If this match happened ten years earlier it probably would've been tremendous. By '94 that ship had sailed, but it's not because either guy sucks (shit, Lawler is STILL awesome in 2011, never mind 1994). Lawler is my personal pick for greatest puncher in pro-wrestling history, and it's unsurprising that he throws a bunch of GREAT looking punches. Piper's punches aren't nearly as good, but what he has is a GREAT eye poke. He casually pokes Lawler in the eye after a flurry of punches and I honestly rewound it about 4 times. Best moment of the match (which is as good as any moment on the entire show) is Lawler peppering Piper with first class punches while Piper is propped up against the ropes. Piper is belligerent to the end, telling him to bring it, spitting on him, using the ropes to drag himself back to his feet. When he throws a big haymaker, Lawler goes down like a ton of bricks and the arena pops like it should. Not a great match, but it's something a fan of either guy can enjoy. So yeah, I'm a fan of both guys and I thought it was fun.

He kind of had two "peaks" to me. In the 90s he was at least really solid, but mostly a bit...vanilla, I guess. It's almost astounding how much less charismatic he seemed in '96 compared to post-heel turn in '97, never mind his babyface run in WWF/E. That heel turn in '97 was great, and I thought he was as good as anyone in the world during the last six months of the year. He never really did a ton in WCW after that, though. He was still solid-good in the first short run in WWF, but it was after he came back in '02 when he really put it together again. I still think he was the best in the world in '05, and I'd honestly put him in that year up against most guys in history if it came to comparing guys at their absolute best. But yeah, he never had as lengthy a period as a real top tier guy as other potential top 10 guys/women in history. Who knows how long he'd have continued to be as good as he was before he died. Probably a while, but, y'know, it's not like you can really use that as an argument in his favour.

Eddie's my favourite wrestler ever and even I wouldn't have him above Dandy.

Well shit, that might be even better than the bear theory.

Is there a story behind Mocho Cota's missing fingers? I like to think a bear ate them. I also like to think that bear later became a rug in Manuel Cota's living room. The first Cota/Rocca match completely blew me away, btw. I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy and the only one that thought it was truly outstanding, and it seems a few others share that view. It's way too early to make placement predictions, but I really can't imagine not having it top 20 at the end. Shit, the top 20 for this is going to be a fucking Murderer's Row.

The more I watch of Ultimo the more I think he just wasn't very good at all. Maybe it's just because he wrestles a style that I generally don't enjoy all that much, which would make it more of a style issue than an Ultimo Dragon issue, but...well, even wrestling that style I still don't get the sense he's very good.

Duggan/Sawyer is probably the gold standard for me, too.

I'm pretty much repeating everybody else, but yeah, that was a hell of a post. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of the Tenryu + Pals v New Japan feud in '93. It's pretty much become my favourite thing ever in wrestling after seeing it on the yearbook. Tenryu is just spectacular all the way through '93. I should also finish that yearbook (going on three years since I started it).

I really, really hope you keep this up and go through every other year as well. This is an awesome thread, btw.

The Tenryu/Ishikawa v Hashimoto/Ohara tag from the 6/14 New Japan show is a match I thought was genuinely tremendous when I watched it earlier this year (meant to mention it in this thread, but clearly forgot as I'm wont to). It's handheld, so I'm not sure if there's a TV version out there, but I thought it was one of the best sub-15 minute matches I'd ever seen on first watch. It's everything you love about the WAR/NJ feud. Buckets of hate and heat and violence and Tenryu/Ishikawa are just a pair of grade-A assholes to Ohara. I know Ditch has this, because that's where/who I got it from.

I love the shit out of this match. Honestly one of my favourite matches ever, and I was blown away at how fun it was when I watched it a couple years back. I lost my mind at a couple of the double team spots.

Will stuck this on his Eddie comp and when I watched it a few years ago I was totally blown away by it. Pretty much the perfect TV tag, and one of my favourites ever.

I thought this was pretty awesome when I last watched it about four years ago. I'm actually looking forward to re-watching this more than I am the Liger/Ohtani match. Is this in full, btw? Only version I've ever seen was JIP, and as far as I was aware that was the only version that existed.

That Hansen/Kea v Kawada/Tenryu tag from July 2000 is fucking awesome as well. So four decades. And yeah, right now he's my GOAT.

Some of my friends have been trying to get me to go with them to ICW shows for a while now. I think I should stop saying I'll go and then not go and actually go for a change, because a Scottish World of Sport match might be the best idea for a gimmick match ever. Pretty sure more than a couple people have pimped Mikey Whiplash to me as well. Friend of mine went to the ICW Royal Rumble show (I'm not sure what it was called, only that they ran it at The Garage in Glasgow before the WWE's Rumble PPV was shown in the same club) and it sounded like it was nuts and definitely something I'd enjoy getting smashed and watching in person.

I agree with the rest hold point. He's still one of my favourite wrestlers ever, though. And having the best sell of an atomic drop of any wrestler in history kind of makes up for the crappy rest holds.

I think I wound up liking this as much as I did because I read this thread first. My expectations were lowered, but I wound up thinking it was a blast. Not on the level of the truly transcendent WAR v NJ matches, but I'll take pretty much anything I can get from this feud (which I'm convinced is the best in-ring feud of all time at this point). Tenryu/Mutoh exchanges were all great, and I really dug Mutoh constantly taking shots at him. Loved the bit where he runs across the ring and chucks the ref' out the way so he can beat on Tenryu some more. And holy shit does Tenryu throw one of the loudest chops I've ever heard on Samurai.

So it's almost been a year, but I got through May! 1. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 5/23/96) 2. Megumi Kido vs. Combat Toyota (FMW 5/5/96) 3. Shane Douglas vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (ECW 5/11/96) 4. Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega (Caribbean Strap Match) (WWF 5/28/96) 5. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Dick Murdoch (PWFG 5/23/96) 6. Shawn Michaels vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley (RAW 5/13/96) 7. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 5/24/96) 8. Ric Flair & Randy Savage vs. Arn Anderson & Eddy Guerrero (WCW 5/19/96) 9. Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Buzariashvili Ramazi (RINGS 5/25/96) 10. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (AJ 5/24/96) 11. The Gangstas & Tommy Dreamer vs. The Eliminators & Brian Lee (ECW 5/11/96) 12. Ric Flair vs. Eddy Guerrero (Nitro 5/20/96) 13. Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam (ECW 5/11/96) 14. Sting & Lex Luger vs. Meng & Barbarian (Nitro 5/20/96) 15. Volk Han vs. Hans Nyman (RINGS 5/25/96) 16. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Takako Inoue (JWP 5/18/96) 17. Cactus Jack vs. W*ING Kanemura (FMW 5/5/96) 18. Sting vs. Scott Steiner (Nitro 5/27/96) 19. Brian Christopher & Flex Kavana vs. Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee (USWA 5/25/96) 20. Bill Dundee & Jerry Lawler vs. Cyberpunks (USWA 5/18/96) 21. Dean Malenko vs. Jushin Liger (Nitro 5/6/96) 22. Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel (Cage Match) (MSG 5/19/96) 23. Terry Funk & Mr. Pogo vs. Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka (FMW 5/5/96) Honestly, I've forgotten about half of the stuff there at this point, but I can at least remember enough about the best/my favourite stuff for the purposes of a top 100 of the year if I do one (whenever I finish the whole thing...could be a while). The 5/23 All Japan tag is my #2 MOTY right now behind Hashimoto/Takada and is just a killer tag match. Shawn/HHH probably looks ludicrously high and some people will think I'm nuts for having it above Kawada/Kobashi, but I thought it was a super cool TV match and the best thing they've ever done together. That Flair/Savage v Eddy/Arn tag is just a blast. Only goes about 6 minutes bell to bell, but the whole thing is one of my favourite "overall packages" of the year. I've always enjoyed the hell out of it. Touched on Sabu/RVD in the RVD thread -- I was stunned at how much I got out of those matches going through this yearbook. They're trainwrecks, but they're awfully entertaining trainwrecks. Hopefully I can knock June out in less than 11 months. Hopefully I can knock the whole thing out in less than 11 years.

I'd probably agree with most of this. Guy was not afraid to take absolute lunatic bumps, and was far more enjoyable to me when he was fighting from the bottom (how were the Lesnar matches? I haven't seen them in years, but on paper they sound like they could at least be decent) since his offence was generally pretty rubbish. He'd throw a nasty looking kick now and again, though. Going through the '96 yearbook and watching the Sabu matches for the first time in forever, I was stunned at how much I enjoyed them. It's because of the "spectacular trainwreck" thing, yeah, and most of it was because I wanted to see how much insane shit Sabu would try, but years ago I hated them...so that's at least something. Haven't seen the Smothers/RVD matches (or match...I don't know how many they had), but I've always hated the Lynn matches.

Was that six-man on the disc along with the promo, or was it on one of the discs from the first Memphis bulk? Or was it on a different disc completely? Because I got the discs from the Memphis bulks yesterday and that tag just sounds out-of-this-world fun.

Honestly, while the 4/26 match is excellent, I thought the rematch from a week later was practically just as good. Both are pretty different, too.

Martel is pretty fucking awesome. Going through the AWA set, I thought he was really good in everything but didn't get truly great until the '84 match with Jumbo where he wins the belt. Then I watched the Portland matches with Buddy Rose from '80, and he sure as shit looked like he was already truly great at that point. Makes me think the pre-'84 Martel stuff on the AWA set was just overshadowed a bit by the awesome Blackwell stuff, the Bock/Wahoo match, Brunzell, etc, as opposed to my original theory (really good before '84, great after it).