KB8

Brunzell fucking ruled. Gagne in cage matches climbing onto and jumping off of everything rules as well, but I generally agree with Matt that Brunzell has been the surprise of the AWA set (although I'm only 3 discs in at this point).

Not even Rey or Eddie? I thought those two would've been stone cold locks for most peoples' top 100 (but maybe you're not most people!). Those two would almost certainly be in my top 20, with Eddie likely top 10.

Man, the Patera/Backlund Texas Death Match from MSG might be my #1 when we get to the new WWF set. I recall the January match being pretty excellent as well.

1990 CMLL is fucking outstanding, yeah. I haven't watched any of it in about 4 years, but I've been waiting for this yearbook to drop so I can go back and watch it all again. All of the USWA stuff sounds tremendous as well, and I've more or less seen none of it. Zero. I might try and get through at least a fraction of the unwatched stuff I already have here before buying this, so I don't know if it'll be a first day purchase (although I'll wait until I see the final list first), but it'll be in my hands eventually.

Feels like there's a cooky 'team driving the car/team playing the music in the car and doing shit to make the journey fly by' analogy right there to be made re: the Demolition/Rockers match. Although I'm not creative enough to come up with anything that'd do it justice (if it even makes a lick of sense in the first place). FWIW I love that match to death. I actually last watched it about a year ago, which, funnily enough, was around the time of the 2011 version of the Demolition debate.

Koko/Race sounds like a blast. I had no idea it ever happened. I'll have to track that down for sure. Watched the Hogan/Funk series at the weekend there and thought it was pretty good. I liked the Philly and Toronto matches more than the SNME blowoff, but the SNME match was good as well (felt a little disjointed at points, though. Like they were trying to cram in TOO many of the better spots they rolled out together in the house show matches). After I finished watching it I wanted to give the Hogan/Race series a look again (pretty sure I've only seen the Texas Death Match), so I'll definitely do that soon.

Watching wrestling hungover might actually be my favourite way to watch it. I'm really weird when it comes to watching wrestling, in that I can only ever watch it before I go to bed or not long after I've woken up or I'll fall asleep after about 15 minutes. If I try to watch wrestling in the afternoon or the evening I end up falling asleep. Every time. When I wake up hungover I usually throw on some wrestling since I'm not really in any shape to be doing anything else, anyway. Watching wrestling hungover on weekend mornings is something I've done since I was, like, 18. I did it when I lived with my parents, and I still do it in my own place to this day. I honestly was not joking when I said I must've watched half the Mid-South set hungover on Saturday mornings. Shit, most of my wrestling watching in general these days is done on hungover weekend mornings since I have hardly any time to watch it during the week (although if I wouldn't keep falling asleep when watching it at normal times I'd have more opportunities). My hungover wrestling of choice today was 1990 CMLL, btw. El Dandy bodyslamming Angel Azteca on his head doesn't do Angel Azteca any favours, but it takes the edge off a hangover ever so slightly.

I tried to reply to this thread at 4 in the morning, but I was too hammered to be using an iPhone to type anything out. Thus I gave up. My buddy and I watched a shit ton of Randy Savage stuff wasted a few years ago. It was the greatest. His promos are hilarious enough when you're sober, but they're incredible when you're smashed. There's a promo from...I think it's World War 3 '95, where he randomly shouts "YOUR MOUSTACHE IS CROOKED!" at Gene, and we both completely lost it. If I come home drunk and end up watching wrestling then it's usually the Memphis or Mid-South set. I literally must've watched half of the Mid-South set the first time through when I'd come home hammered on Friday nights. The other half I watched hungover on Saturday mornings. Most fun I've ever had watching wrestling was the Michaels/Undertaker match at Wrestlemania 25. I used to have a Wrestlemania party at my place every year, and there was about 12 of us going nuts for that match. And we were all either hammered or on the way to being hammered.

I had no idea Loss was going to tackle this bad boy. That's awesome. Pretty psyched about diving into this myself. Busting open a new 80s set is always good times.

Watched this on the latest Schneider Comp this morning. Still amazing. Wrote about it on the old blog. Pretty much a master-class. Two of the absolute elite tier level guys in wrestling history wrestling maybe my favourite kind of pro-wrestling match (lucha title match)...I've seen it about 6 times over the last few years, and I always find something else to love about it every time. The first caida is about as good a fall as you'll ever see in lucha. It goes about 15 minutes, and roughly 12 are entirely filled with matwork. There's a moment where they both roll out to the floor and trade a couple slaps, but they quickly roll back in and take it right back down to the mat -- this is about who's the better wrestler, first and foremost. I don't even think they hit the ropes once in the first 10 minutes. The wishbone spot is the kind of thing people who don't really like or struggle to 'get into' lucha will maybe be turned off by, but other than that I don't think anybody could watch this and think the matwork is "cooperative" or that the holds are came by too easily (which is the criticism of lucha matwork one tends to read the most). Things like Casas reversing a Fujiwara armbar by turning it into a seated abdominal stretch look pretty spectacular to begin with, but it's the struggle that puts it all over the top. Dandy tries to hook Casas in a tapatia, but Casas is having none of it and won't give up his arms. Dandy tries to take another route and go for a camel clutch, but again Casas gives him nothing. When Dandy eventually hooks it in proper, it feels like a victory all of its own. They're having to fight for everything, and Casas is especially great at making it seem that way. Dandy doesn't put a foot wrong, but Casas looks like the best wrestler in the entire world here. He comes out in the second fall and goes straight for the jugular. My favourite moment of the match might be the low blow he sneaks in when the ref' isn't looking. The entire match is more or less wrestled clean, but Casas is who he is...it's in his nature. The fact it came out of nowhere after he'd been behaving himself up to that point made it seem even more like a dick move. And the slow-mo replay...that shit was NASTY. When Dandy makes his comeback and drops Casas with that extra bit of force, it really feels like a big "Alright, fuck THIS shit" moment. Third caida really brings it home like you'd want. If you want to nitpick there's a couple transitions that might be a bit dodgy, but other than that it's right on the money. Dandy coming out the gate the same way Casas did in the second fall (right down the to the running dropkick) was a great payback spot of sorts, but Casas' sell of the fatigue was out of this world. There's points where it looks like he'd rather lay down and die than keep fighting, but his pride wouldn't let him. The way he struggles to get out of the majistral...that motherfucker is a fighter right 'til the end. Just an incredible match. If I tried to come up with an all-time top ten, this would probably be there.

I saw this when I was going through a bunch of episodes of RAW from '94 a few months back, and I thought Yoko was pretty great too, all google-eyed and spazzing out. I had never heard Crush doing commentary on it before, even though I thought I'd seen the segment a bunch of times in the past (must've always seen an edited version). "He's just saving himself for Wrestlemania, brudda." Semi-related (I guess); Vince would have a different guy on commentary with him on RAW practically every week in '94. One week you'd get Jim Ross, the next week you'd get Savage, a week later you'd get Crush, or IRS, or Harvey Whippleman, and one week he even had Bastion Booger.

I wrote about this earlier in the year as well, so I'll just C&P it since I can't see myself liking it any less whenever I get to re-watching it on this set. I'm assuming most people remember this for the Owen turn and subsequent "That's why I kicked your leg out of your leg" promo (I know I did), in which case everything leading up to that has been lost in the shuffle, because this was a really fucking good match. Bret and Owen controlling things at the start is good, then Bret plays face in peril and that's good, then Owen comes in and throws the Quebecers around and THAT'S good. Owen has an awesome belly-to-belly, and as soon as he got the hot tag and started whipping the Quebecers into the ropes I was hoping he'd belly-to-belly suplex someone...and sure enough he did. Then we hit the part most people probably remember (other than the post-match), with Bret taking a spill out to the floor (because Polo held the ropes open as he was running off) and coming up clutching his knee. Bret is really awesome at selling the leg from this point on (not just in this match, but in the rumble match later). The only thing he manages to put together offensively the rest of the match is a half-assed sharpshooter that lasts about 3 seconds before he crumbles in a heap again. Other than that he just sells the crap out of the injury the whole time. There's a great segment on the floor where the Quebecers mug him and Owen keeps trying to come around and protect his brother. Jacques nails him in the knee with a chair, Pierre jumps off the steps and lands with his entire body weight on the leg, and Jacques sneaks all the way around the ring while everybody else has congregated at the other side so he can whack Bret in the knee with Polo's putter. Eventually the ref' throws the match out because Bret is borderline-crippled, and that's what sets Owen off. You can sort of see where he's coming from with this. He's RIGHT THERE for the tag, but Bret has other ideas even though he can barely stand up. Little brother is ready and waiting, but big brother tries to go it alone. All you had to do was tag, Bret. All you had to do was tag. I might've kicked his leg out of his leg, too.

This was really fucking good, maybe a top 5 TV match of the year. Gets plenty of time (about 20 minutes) and everybody brings it. Marty and Kid have a bunch of neat double teams and the Quebecers keep having to stall and regroup. They tease Marty going FIP when Jacques (I think) pulls the rope down from the apron as Marty's running in, and Marty takes a really cool bump over the top. When he lands it looks like he splats his nose on the floor. When Kid comes in after this he strings off a couple great highspots. Vince's call of the somersault plancha off the top is amazing. It sounds like he swallows his tongue because his brain is overloading trying to think of a way to describe it. "GBLUGH. DID YOU SEE THAT?!" Quebecers eventually take over when Kid is up top ready to go for the kill and Pierre shoves him off. I don't recall seeing more than 5 Quebecers matches in my life, but I was shocked at how good their heat segment was here. They don't really work it in a way that allows for good hope spots, which admittedly sounds pretty counter-productive, but instead they just murder Kid with a bunch of great looking shit. Pierre's assisted top rope somersault senton looked brutal (that's one thing about them I do recall) and they absolutely kill Waltman with this Total Elimination variant where Pierre hits a running lariat as Jacques casually sweeps his legs away. I would've liked them to build to the finish a wee bit better, but that's neither here nor there. Pop for the title change is a POP and Savage hitting the ring and celebrating is why I love that crazy bastard.

Heh, I haven't watched a Samu match or even thought about him in years and years but I was able to instantly remember that "oh yeah, he did do that one a lot" He also does it in the '94 rumble and it looks insane. He really throws himself into it and I'm not sure how it didn't yank his head clean off.

Man, Butch Reed as a Horseman is basically a pro-wrestling dream scenario for me.

I stumbled across this by accident a couple months ago and thought it was a lot of fun. I said this about it (I was in the midst of watching a shit load of 1994 WWF at the time): Oh, fuck! Dream match! Waltman and Marty were two of the best guys in the company in '94, and the Headshrinkers might be the best tag team. This got ten minutes and totally ruled like I hoped it would. There are some GREAT kicks in this. Waltman throws a few roundhouse kicks that look like they'd just shatter your jaw, and both Samu and Fatu rattle Jannetty's brains with side kicks. Great spot where Jannetty rams Samu's head into the steps, but Samu just shakes it off (he's Samoan and has an indestructible head) and cracks him right under the chin. Kid and Marty try and work the arm and make quick tags so Fatu just punches Kid in the nose and flattens him with a fatboy powerslam. He looked disgusted that a 70 pound girl would even try that. Marty is a really good FIP, taking a sweet inside-out bump off a Fatu clothesline (which is a cool role reversal since Fatu always loved to take that bump when he'd get clotheslined) and sells the shit out of getting choked with the tag rope. He and Samu have a nice sequence early on where they do a criss-cross spot with Marty dropping down and catching Samu with a monkey flip. When they get back up they do it again, but this time Samu drops down and tries to monkey flip Marty, except Marty is hip to it and just punches him in the face instead. Apparently Samu getting hanged in the ropes is a signature spot of his, because he does it again here. Maybe I should feel guilty about loving that spot so much since it wound up mutilating Mick Foley and turning him into a hideously deformed freak, but I'll assume the ring ropes in the WWF were more forgiving than the ones in Germany that ripped Foley's ear off. So I will continue to love that spot. Headshrinkers should've been on every show WWF ran, every week of every month in 1994 (although I think they turn face soon...that's mildly disappointing). I'm curious as to what made you guys toss this on the yearbook. I'm obviously not complaining or anything, because I really like it and think it fits right in on a project like this -- I just didn't expect to see it here. Although there's a fuck ton of cool semi-obscure matches on these yearbooks (which is maybe my favourite thing about them), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised it got put on.

Buddy's promo really is phenomenal. "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends...just as long as I'm buyin'." I don't think Loss is being hyperbolic in the slightest when he says this is a potential Best Promo Ever, either.

Been watching the ECW set (which is fucking incredible), and the Tajiri/Guido match from 3/24/00 really feels like one of the best sub-ten minute TV matches I've ever seen. I've watched it 3 times in the last 2 days and I fucking love it. That spot where Tajiri sits Guido in the tree of woe in the corner and stomps a chair straight in his face looked brutal. Guess I'll ask this in here -- what's the best Tajiri/Guido match? The only matches I've watched from the set so far are the ones from disc 12 (so nothing pre-2000), but there are other Tajiri/Guido matches on the set from '99. I'm pretty fucking stoked about watching them at some point.

So I've started on Will's SMW set. Just been watching bits from a couple of the extras discs so far, and am I being really hyperbolic by calling Buddy Landel an all-time great promo guy? If nothing else he's a guy that doesn't seem to get a ton of pimping as an interview, when he REALLY should. Shit, I must've been guilty of it myself. I've seen enough Buddy footage to know I like him a lot, but I never thought as highly of him as a promo until now. Not sure why...maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.

Surely Jake Roberts? He was the guy that I thought of first. Jake in SMW was just ridiculously scummy looking (although it's not like he didn't look like a scumbag everywhere).

I prefer Hash/Sasaki to this as my working MOTY, but that's because I'm predisposed to loving shorter matches where two beefies smash the shit out of each other more than hour long matches with less clubbering and so forth. Breaking this down into 6 10 minute blocks, I thought the first and last blocks were the weakest while the four in between them were really great. They sort of have a parity theme going on until the last ten minutes where Kawada looks to pull away. Similar "strategies" by both guys at points in the middle -- both use the powerbomb, both work the leg. Kawada gives Kobashi a ton and has to chop him dead in the throat a few times to slow his momentum, which fucking ruled. Thought it started to teeter into overkill territory a bit at the end, but Kobashi knowing he's fucked and just trying to crawl around the ring to get away from Kawada, while kind of goofy, was a cool bit of selling. Loss basically covered everything already. Definite MOTYC.

Ueda and Robley are pretty much the greatest Scuzzy Looking Bastards tag team I've ever seen. Probably.