Dylan Waco Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 I don't know the answer to that and it may be a debate worth having but I think it applies on the other end too. Calling Hogan "effective" for example strikes me as a massive cop out/"hedging" on your part. Why not just call him "good?" Why pretend that there is some sort of gap between "good" and "effective?" A lot of it is just in the words we use. Hyperbole is common on the net, but that doesn't explain everything. Sometimes people are just playing with a much broader "range" for what is and isn't high end. Sometimes people just think things are better than I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 I feel like Great Workers can be kept in situations that keep them from having Great Matches, but that doesn't mean they're not doing Great Work. While Good Workers can be placed in situations where Great Matches become a lot easier to pull off and therefore you have to look at something other than whether or not they had Great Matches. And it's never about what the wrestler says is effective or what they claim to be effective. We're not judging worker-to-worker. We're just judging what we see. I just used that example as a way of saying that it wasn't certain guys' jobs to go out there and have GREAT MATCHES most of the time. that doesn't mean they're not a great worker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victator Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Arn was in his share of great matches. The matches with Tully vs the RnR Express, The Rockers, The Harts and Demolition. Matches with Barry Windham in 87, the Regal match at Superbrawl, if you can forgive the lack of Exploder suplexes and shooting star presses. He was a big part of the best Wargames matches. That is off the top of my head. Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler of all-time because no one nailed as much of exactly what they wanted to do in a match: make people buy more tickets to see him. I don't see a problem. Hogan at his peak was great, no one was better. Few guys were equal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 If someone gets excited about Tito Santana's El Matador work and says it's great, it's not that difficult to conclude whether the person thinks it's truly "great" or is simply excited about what they've watched. The usage of the word is not that important compared to how compelling the person's enthusiasm is. It takes more than one person to decide that Tito Santana's El Matador work is great. If other people watch it and agree, it may or may not take on a life of its own, but it's a damn sight better than people clinging to the same 20 year old opinions. I like Tito's work in the 80s a good deal. Really solid worker. I probably like some stuff of his a bit more than others, such as he Orndoff and Rude matches that some can find slow and boring. Tito great? I'd go with good, solid worker. Tito vs Rude and Tito vs Orndorff great matches? I'd go with solid matches that are well worked. The WWF in the era was littered with a shitload of Bad matches, Boring matches, very unenjoyable matches. Often times with workers who have way to much talent than to be sleepwalking through matches. So... Good, Solid, Watchable... those are matches to seek out if you're looking for decent stuff from the WWF in the 80s. I hate tossing out "great" for what otherwise is simply good or solid because it renders meaningless the WWF matches in the era that are truly great. It also runs the risk of tosing out "great" and someone thinks this is on par with something else I call great such as the 6/89 Jumbo-Tenryu. Again, we've lost putting value on something being "good" or "real good", and instead need to ~! everything. It's the equiv of MOVES! in talking about a match: just a word tossed out for a pop that doesn't have meaning two sentences later. Nevertheless, this is getting off topic. The great matches criteria doesn't work, hence the difficulty in putting together a top ten. If there were workers with a laundry list of great matches it wouldn't be a problem, but there aren't and so different criteria must be applied. If people think Bret is the guy, then Bret's the guy. I don't ever want to watch another Bret Hart match so long as I live, but as Dylan said everyone after Bret is where it gets interesting. The fact that a top 10 doesn't immediately spring to mind is not a very good reflection on 90s wrestling, and it's not as though we haven't revisited it either. It's funny because it seemed great at the time. I'm scratching my head at the notion that there aren't a good deal of Great Matches in the US in the 90s. Dylan and Jerome went through ECW and have peppered us with regular comments on how it was better than folks remember it, falling between that range of the Hardcores / House Organs who overrated /over pimped everything and the Haters who ripped everything. That's *ECW*. We don't think the rest of the US in the entire decade didn't kick out some great matches? Loss has already in 1992, 1993 and 1996 tagged a lot of US matches that are in the really good / excellent / great ranges. I suspect that there are a lot of other ones out there in the other 7 years of the decade, and even matches in those three years that people think more highly off than Loss does. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Well... that's not something I didn't know 25 years ago: that Arn was good. On my TV and in arenas. A lot. Most of the times I saw him. Good = Good When did saying something is good become and insult, and we felt the need to crank it up to 11? John Meh, for better or worse it's nature of the beast in these types of discussions a lot of the time. You can enjoy someone and when asked about them say largely nothing but positive things about their work and no one would think twice about it but in the context of "were they in the top _" things sometimes get taken more negatively if you say that they aren't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 If the 90s had plenty of great wrestling matches then who were the 10 best workers? I'm not seeing a lot of commitment to the topic here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankensteiner Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Nevertheless, this is getting off topic. The great matches criteria doesn't work, hence the difficulty in putting together a top ten. If there were workers with a laundry list of great matches it wouldn't be a problem, but there aren't and so different criteria must be applied. If people think Bret is the guy, then Bret's the guy. I don't ever want to watch another Bret Hart match so long as I live, but as Dylan said everyone after Bret is where it gets interesting. The fact that a top 10 doesn't immediately spring to mind is not a very good reflection on 90s wrestling, and it's not as though we haven't revisited it either. It's funny because it seemed great at the time. I agree with pretty much all of this, right down to not giving a shit if I ever see another Bret match or not. I was bored at work today and sketched out a list to see if I could get to a hundred names that I think were safely "good" for both the 90's and the 80's in the U.S. I hit the numbers, but the big difference is that with 80's names there were a lot more guys who immediately jumped off the page to me as "top tier" type of guys. With the 90's it gets real thin, real quick. I don't believe this means 90's wrestling was "bad," but it is sort of odd that there are so few definitive U.S. workers from the period. Well, there's way more 80s promotions/footage than 90s promotions/footage. Hence, more guys with better resumes. If you weren't having matches in JCP or WWF, you can go to any number of other places to put on your 15-25 min performance. But if you compare 90s WWF to 80s WWF and ramp era WCW 90-94 to JCP TBS era 85-89, I would take the 90s easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 I don't know the answer to that and it may be a debate worth having but I think it applies on the other end too. Calling Hogan "effective" for example strikes me as a massive cop out/"hedging" on your part. Why not just call him "good?" Why pretend that there is some sort of gap between "good" and "effective?" Because I've tried to differentiate between two concept: * having matches that *we* find good / excellent / great from an "this entertains *us*" standpoint * having a match that is effective in popping the crowd Brittney Spears at her peak popped the crowd. Backstreet Boys did. NSYNC did. They were effectively produced and promoted pop idols. Great music? Do you really want to have a vote on that? What I've tried to get at with 80s Hogan is that while he might not entertain us, and might even bore the shit out of some of us (if not down right piss us of when watching him), he was pretty effective in what he did. It's worth nothing that I'd used the same word in describing a lot of what I don't like about Flair: I may not like it (such as Flair have a shitty Figure Four or when he gets in I've Go Stuff To Do mode at the expense of match storyline), but they are effetive spots. Do I think 80s WWF Hogan was a good worker? Not really. Bad? No... not at all. That's what I'm trying to get people to see. What you imply in the question is that there are only extremes: Great vs Shitty Good vs Poor Great vs Not Great What I'm trying to get at that there is a hell of a lot more than that. It's okay to be "good" or "solid". There is something above Poor/Shitty that doesn't really get you into Good. A lot of it is just in the words we use. Hyperbole is common on the net, but that doesn't explain everything. Sometimes people are just playing with a much broader "range" for what is and isn't high end. Sometimes people just think things are better than I do. I agree with this. A problem we run into is when someone asks a question: "What are the great Dustin matches?" And someone responds with a List Of Doom of 200 matches. That's an exageration... but still, we've seen Lists of Doom like that which end up being pretty meaningless. No one is going to sit down and watch those 200 matches before going back to you with: "Yes/No Dustin Is Great" Or they might be five matches into it, hitting matches that are really more Good/Solid but very watchable and be struck with the following: "Okay... this stuff is pretty solid, but WTF... these aren't GREAT~! I don't have time to sit through another 195 of these if this is the level of stuff that they think is great. Okay..." *wanders back to the board* "I don't know... I'm just not seeing Dustin as great. He's good and all, but what I've so far don't really go above that." Response: "Have you watched Match X yet? That motherfucking rulz!" "WTF... that is match #142 on this list. I've got to watch 136 of these things before getting to the great stuff? Fuck..." I know hyperbole is common. It's not terribly useful if you're trying to figure out who are the Top 10 workers in the US at the time. I mean... "Bunkhouse Buck was fucking GREAT!" So you're saying he's a candidate for the Top 10? "No... just that the MOTHERFUCKER was GREAT!" Alrighty... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Who disputed that Hogan was effective in the sense you mean? I can't imagine that is something that needed to be pointed out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Wait a sec. We're talking about Buck. Let's keep talking about him. What COULD have he done that he wasn't already doing to get into that top ten? Was there some element of his work that wasn't up to snuff relative to other wrestlers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 If the 90s had plenty of great wrestling matches then who were the 10 best workers? I'm not seeing a lot of commitment to the topic here. Go back through the early parts of the thread. Lots of wrestlers names got tossed out. Several times. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Who disputed that Hogan was effective in the sense you mean? I can't imagine that is something that needed to be pointed out You've read all the WON's in the 80s, right? I don't think Hulk's work was talked about then as complimentary as I have in the past half decade. What took the 1987 Worst Match Award? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Wait a sec. We're talking about Buck. Let's keep talking about him. What COULD have he done that he wasn't already doing to get into that top ten? Was there some element of his work that wasn't up to snuff relative to other wrestlers? So Buck is a candidate for the Top 10 of the 90s? See, Daniel... names are getting tossed around all over the place. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Is he? I don't know. If he's not I'm curious why, though. I want someone to knock him off the list and if the only reason that he's getting knocked off isn't due to specific elements of his work but just because he doesn't have a litany of great matches, I want to know that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Who disputed that Hogan was effective in the sense you mean? I can't imagine that is something that needed to be pointed out You've read all the WON's in the 80s, right? I don't think Hulk's work was talked about then as complimentary as I have in the past half decade. What took the 1987 Worst Match Award? John It's not 1987. I've been around the net roughly as long as you have. Since I've been around smart circles knock on Hogan has NEVER been "Hogan was ineffective," or "Hogan didn't get desired reactions," or "Fans were not buying Hogan's shit." I have literally NEVER seen anything like that in fifteen years of traveling in these circles. Lots of dismissive shit about how he couldn't wrestle, how he sucked in the ring, how he was a jerk, et. But Hogan as Ineffective Joke is something I think is probably pretty fucking rare in modern times. Something you MIGHT find on the far fringes of Classics or some place like that, but I tend to think that in this day and age it is the rough equivalent of Pro Wrestling Smart Fan Bigfoot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Arn was in his share of great matches. The matches with Tully vs the RnR Express, The Rockers, The Harts and Demolition. Matches with Barry Windham in 87, the Regal match at Superbrawl, if you can forgive the lack of Exploder suplexes and shooting star presses. He was a big part of the best Wargames matches. That is off the top of my head. Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler of all-time because no one nailed as much of exactly what they wanted to do in a match: make people buy more tickets to see him. I don't see a problem. Hogan at his peak was great, no one was better. Few guys were equal. Most of these matches you mentioned when pointing out Arn's greatness doesn't apply since they took place in the 80's. The discussion is best U.S worker of the 90's. I'm a huge Arn fan and think he's an amazing worker for what it's worth. Plus if you ask me this Regal vs Arn match blows away the Superbrawl match. Steven Regal vs. Arn Anderson (WCWSN 10/9/93). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 I don't even get this Hogan argument. He was rated higher than Jumbo in at least one of Dave's top 100 lists! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 If the 90s had plenty of great wrestling matches then who were the 10 best workers? I'm not seeing a lot of commitment to the topic here. Go back through the early parts of the thread. Lots of wrestlers names got tossed out. Several times. John Only Mad Dog gave a list of his 10 best workers. I want to see your Arn Anderson/Ricky Steamboat-less list. And as for Buck? Why not? Roll with it. Not everybody is going to agree with every single "project", but for those of us who hadn't watched a lot of early 90s WCW "Dustin of the Day" was an eye-opener. Dustin wasn't without his flaws and many of his matches were poor, but I still like him enough to go deep into that list. Pimping Buck, even if it's ridiculously left field, is still better than rolling out the Dean Malenkos and Chris Jerichos. I dunno. Maybe I'm just bored. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 What do people think of Scorpio as a sleeper number two pick? I'm guessing the default for most people would be Shawn or Benoit, but I think Scorp's best stuff from the decade stacks up very well with there's. Watching the ECW footage he never came across as phoning it in to me and he had more "next level" performances than anyone including Tajiri who I am obviously very high on. The knocks on him would be that his Flash Funk run - while not awful - was uneventful in every way. And it's arguable that he had fewer stand out matches in 94-95 ECW than he should have with some of the guys that were around him (though I never saw him in a bad match from this period). He may not have been better in the particulars than Benoit, but I'd say he had better mechanics than Shawn. I also thought he was better in Shawn's hyped "best year" of 96 than Shawn was. Benoit was probably more consistent, but he lacks the matches that really knock me on my ass as a fan and always has. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 1. Bret Hart. Had WWF and US Match of the Decade Candidates against Bulldog and then Owen at SummerSlam. Then once more against Austin at WM13. His match against Piper at WM8, his WM10 against Owen, King of the Ring '93 against Hennig, THE Montreal Match, and SurSer '96 against Austin are strong matches that are likely to be at or above MOTYC status - and would make the Best of Year comp. Though not as fluid or organic in movement as Volk Han, Bret looked like he knew exactly what he was doing in there. I hardly ever noticed many mistakes being made solely by Hart. (I think the way his character was molded to match the wrestler illustrates his strength of wrestling over that of showmanship a la Hogan. Vince knew he could make money off Bret). The way Bret wrestled, at his peak, to me, is comparable to watching Michael Jordan play defense in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. And he would occasionally bust out some different moves and looked like a natural doing them. Because even when he did get hurt, in general even, I can't recall a time he ever had to have a match ended because of injury in the nineties. He went on the DL, but not until the match was over. I could be wrong, but barring a glaring omission, I can't think of one. Even then, he hardly missed any amount of significant time because of injuries. Unless my brain doesn't work right, that equation in the wrestling world would be the definition of a 'good worker'. He was able to wrestle at a very intense looking wrestling style for pretty much the entire decade. His chest first bump into the corner always looked like, "Oh shit," would be coming out of my mouth if I had ran into it. There's a reason why the moniker "excellence of execution" exists and is not hyperbolish. He crafted some epics in that ring. Though some consider him boring, I find his particular brand of methodical movements/offense/defense appealing. But I can enjoy highspot workers because instead of being a slow-80s style grappling contest, its Rey versus Psic in ECW - a 'highspot match' that works. But the thing is that Bret was able to adapt to different styles of matches. Sure, he was no Terry Funk or Sabu, but Bret was more than capable as a brawler. His through-the-crowd-brawls with both Austin and Michaels were some of the best I'd ever seen, and looked better than most of the more esteemed ECW crowd-brawls, which I am a fan of. And needless to say, I have been a fan of 'longer' matches for quite some time now. No one in my mind defines the very "Best US Wrestler of the '90s" than Bret Hart. --- I can't figure out #2 yet. --- Eddy Guerrero. Had ECW and WCW and US Match of the Decade Candidates against Malenko in ECW and Misterio Jr in WCW. Had a slew of outstanding matches during what time he spent in ECW and WCW. And if the masks versus hairs match is in the equation, it only bolsters Eddy case for clearly being one of the decades finest. To me, Eddy/Dean was the nineties equivalent of Flair/Steamboat and Savage/Steamboat. They met in WCW, though not every encounter was the same ECW goodness, which, I attribute more to the ineptness of WCW booking ideologies, they, nevertheless, were able to have some really strong matches against one another - namely - the US title match in March '97. Chris Benoit. More known for his New Japan work in the nineties than his stateside stuff, but, there are plenty of good examples of Benoit's excellence no matter what continent he worked on. His brawls with Kevin Sullivan were some of the hardest exchanges either man had ever had in a ring. His Owen Tribute match is a WCW and US Match of the Decade Candidate. He has the matches against Booker T. Matches against Finlay. His debut matches against Eddy. His Road Wild '96 show-stealing match against Malenko - and they have an excellent match on Nitro ('99 IIRC). He was the anchor of the WCW tag division in early/mid '99, of which, the pimped April PPV match is a WCW and US Match of the Decade Candidate. Benoit was enjoyable to watch when he was doing NWA Indy bookings. Rey Misterio Jr. Has a ton of great performances. His matches against Psicosis in ECW represent my favorite moments of lucha, and is a ECW MOTDC. His mask vs. title match against Guerrero is a WCW and US Match of the Decade Candidate. His matches against Psicosis in WCW, namely, July '96, is one of the better American lucha themed matches of the nineties. His matches against Juventud Guerrera in ECW are excellent matches. Rey was involved in several cruiserweight title matches, of which, many are good-great. Plus he was a part of the WCW tag division in early/mid '99. Mick Foley. Has a resume of career shortening matches that spans the decade. He was the best brawler for a long time. Has actually been involved in a lot of heavily pimped matches. His feud with Eddie Gilbert in '90-91 are among some of the best hardcore related matches the US saw in the decade. His feud with Vader has some established good-great matches. His two hardcore tag matches in WCW. His brawls and hardcore matches against Sting and Rhodes are good matches. His stuff with Sabu in ECW and small US Indie companies. Then he goes to the WWF and has some of the most brutal matches in WWF history - the IYH '96 match against Michaels, the Hell in a Cell against 'Taker, and the I Quit match against The Rock. It really is quite surprising that Foley didn't spend more time on the DL. He was no glass man. Sabu. He was no glass man either. He was opposite Funk in my ECW MOTD. His NWA Indy bookings provide some stellar, albeit, largely untalked about greatness, namely, against the likes of Funk, Foley, Benoit, Al Snow, and Devon Storm. Some of the stuff he did in ECW stands the test of time, some don't though. But I like his Stairway to Hell match against Sandman. His stretcher match against RVD was good. I like the one-hour three-way. Had random great matches, namely, against Scorpio in Feb '96. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 That Bret write-up is pretty spot-on, but I would note that plenty of people, myself included, consider the Survivor Series match with Austin superior to the Wrestlemania one. In fact, I think it's the greatest US match of all time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Personally I think the decade should be split in two. Like 90-94 and 95-99. I think the best workers of the U.S only worked 5 or 6 years because of injuries or the landscape has changed. Compare like 94 and 96. Even though it's only 2 years difference I feel 94 would have more in common with 89. All in all I think that would gauge who were the true best workers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 There was a thread on Classics recently with people rating the top guys from 77-86 which honestly felt like a pretty fair metric in a weird way. Having said that I have no problem with looking at the 90's. There is never going to be a perfect way to look at things and this makes for an interesting discussion. I may actually try and throw together a "working" list as in the last five years I've dug through tons of WWF and WCW for the SC projects and watched all the SMW and ECW for those sets. USWA is something I am real weak on, and I am spotty on other indies, but it could be a decent resource for me when I catch up on that stuff or go back to view more things later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 I'm going to make a statement: The Rock is a candidate based on his micwork alone. i.e. "It doesn't matter" (ha ha get it) if he had zero good matches, the level of his performance on the stick puts him in contention. How many times have we heard old guys say that you don't work the crowds into the stadiums, but talk them there? I think promos have been severely undersold in this thread. Once you take "worker" to mean more than just the matches, then Bret is no longer your automatic number 1 pick. You have to look at Austin. And others. If matches are the only criteria, then it's obviously Bret across the decade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 That Bret write-up is pretty spot-on, but I would note that plenty of people, myself included, consider the Survivor Series match with Austin superior to the Wrestlemania one. In fact, I think it's the greatest US match of all time. I think I'll always rate their Mania match higher, with the tie-breakers being the perfectly executed double-turn aspect, a bit better storytelling ("he didn't quit, he passed out from blood loss!"), and the fact it was the culmination of several months of build up. Still, the SS match is excellent and maybe a better example of Bret's skills (and Austin's) as a worker in that the two of them were wrestling each other for the first time and had yet to build up a rhythm in the ring, and they were still able to have an all-time classic match. Just an awesome feud that makes me miss the old days every time I think about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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