Good not great wrestlers

[WingedEagle]

I'd definitely add Dutch & Bob to the list as well. I know I'm alone on Fuller and perfectly okay with that. I absolutely ate up his mic work during the 3 way feud with the Bodies & RNR. That promo where he's doing curls before the match? Hilarious. There's a guy who doesn't need any character direction at all. Whether its on point or over the top, it always comes across as legit with him. At least to my jaded yankee ears

[Badlittlekitten]

Morton was a great promo in SMW. Pritchard was annoying, don't rate him at all.

 

My favourite SMW talker by far is Tracy Smothers. It doesn't matter that he stumbles over every line when you full of that much fire and passion.

 

On topic, where would Michael Hayes fall under? I know there has been some revaluation of him lately. Not sure I'd call him great myself, although I haven't seen enough of his prime years to make a proper judgement.

[shoe]

Also, in Memphis, the chain in the pants isn't the same as a roll of quarters or brass knux or a slapjack. The point is to punish, not knock out. The chain is a momentum turner, not a game ender.

We've seen a chain used as a KO finish in Memphis more times than I could count.

 

 

In the Bundy/Lawler 10,000 dollar challenge which is a masterpiece. Lawler gets KO'd by a chain.

[goodhelmet]

Yeah from Bundy's fist in a Vader like shoot punch.

[shoe]

Will you're back peddling quicker than a Memphis heel on a Lawler comeback . 1st you say the chain isn't a game ender. Then a certain type of chain can be a game ender. Then if the man has fat fists and uses a chain it can be a game changer. Jerry "she told me she was 18" Lawler would be proud of you.

[El-P]

Will you're back peddling quicker than a Memphis heel on a Lawler comeback . 1st you say the chain isn't a game ender. Then a certain type of chain can be a game ender. Then if the man has fat fists and uses a chain it can be a game changer. Jerry "she told me she was 18" Lawler would be proud of you.

Thanks for the laugh.

[goodhelmet]

Will you're back peddling quicker than a Memphis heel on a Lawler comeback . 1st you say the chain isn't a game ender. Then a certain type of chain can be a game ender. Then if the man has fat fists and uses a chain it can be a game changer. Jerry "she told me she was 18" Lawler would be proud of you.

It is all in good fun. In my initial post, I should have said it is not always used as a finisher. Of course the chain can be a game ender but it is not always played as a game ender. It depends what the story of the match is and when the chain is presented. Phil and I just watched a Joey Mercury match from 2007 where Mercury pulls out the chain early on to take control and he uses it as a crutch. On the Texas set, he used the chain in a similar fashion. Here is my review of the match...

 

Jerry Lawler vs. Eric Embry Legends of WCCW 9/18/90 (EDIT COMMERCIAL)

- Early on, typical Lawler schtick which rules. Lawler starts it off with a back body drop but on the 2nd one, Embry drops him with a nice DDT. Lawler gets tagged with an enziguiri forcing him to take a breather but he grabs a towel and chokes Embry with it when he comes back in. NICE! They are playing hide the chain with a towel instead and it rules nearly every time Lawler does it. In the meantime, he distracts the ref and keeps killing Embry. With the towel outside, Lawler unties his boot and with the first chance he gets, wallops Embry who is saved only by getting his foot on the rope. Shit, Lawler is giving a clinic on using weapons in the ring. Yep, he starts with the chain. Shit, Embry is just a supporting actor in Lawlers play. Toying with Embry the entire match, even his pins scream asshole. Of course, Embry makes a big comeback with a few nearfalls. Embry nails Lawler with the chain in a nice twist but the ref is distracted. This gives Lawler time to recover and get a quick pin. Shit, this will finish high on my ballot. SLAM DUNK.

[Cox]

I'd definitely add Dutch & Bob to the list as well. I know I'm alone on Fuller and perfectly okay with that. I absolutely ate up his mic work during the 3 way feud with the Bodies & RNR. That promo where he's doing curls before the match? Hilarious. There's a guy who doesn't need any character direction at all. Whether its on point or over the top, it always comes across as legit with him. At least to my jaded yankee ears

I love Fuller's promos too, but he was in Smoky Mountain for a few months. It's hard to compare his promos to guys like Cornette, Morton, Smothers, Dirty White Boy, etc, who were being asked to carry the promotion for years at a time.

[WingedEagle]

No question, the sheer volume of material that the regular headliners had to come up with doesn't make an entirely fair comparison with Fuller. If he was responsible for that much its possible I'd think a lot less of him. That being said, I didn't find any other headliner there nearly as grating as Cornette when he was in punch line mode.

[Matt D]

Generally, when you get to the level of people in the GOAT argument, I find that the major differences of opinion are in what people value most.

[Loss]

Generally, when you get to the level of people in the GOAT argument, I find that the major differences of opinion are in what people value most.

No doubt. We are all shaped by our personal tastes and biases, which is what makes the debate interesting. We'll never get to a right answer on anyone, and there is no right answer. But I think it's a good thing for Lawler to be scrutinized at this level simply because it has never really happened in the same way that it has for most others who have had the GOAT tag thrown their way. If he can survive it and still come out looking just as good or better than he ever did, that's a big positive.

 

I've seen ohtani's jacket make the point before that he doesn't think people are interested in critically evaluating some of the newer favorites, but I think that's a process. The first step is that people see the wrestler in a new light and go through the honeymoon. Eventually, things get real. I don't think it's that no one is interested in critically discussing El Dandy, for example. I just think most of us are not at the point yet where we feel comfortable doing so.

[Loss]

Shoe, I know you're still going through everything, but what would you consider Lawler's prime to be? I agree with the general point often made that his post-prime is a huge positive in his favor, but I just wonder what are considered his best years. Would it be 1982-1988? Not to say he dropped off significantly after that or anything, but what years of his career does he have the most high-end matches available? What years would you say he was in the top handful of wrestlers in the business -- performing at a level as good as the best stuff coming out of Japan, Mexico or Europe, or from his American peers?

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not shoe, but my thought would actually be 82-89. If someone wanted to argue that there were a few guys obviously better than Lawler in 89 I wouldn't argue against that, but I also think his feuds with Kerry and Embry from that year were excellent.

[shoe]

Shoe, I know you're still going through everything, but what would you consider Lawler's prime to be? I agree with the general point often made that his post-prime is a huge positive in his favor, but I just wonder what are considered his best years. Would it be 1982-1988? Not to say he dropped off significantly after that or anything, but what years of his career does he have the most high-end matches available? What years would you say he was in the top handful of wrestlers in the business -- performing at a level as good as the best stuff coming out of Japan, Mexico or Europe, or from his American peers?

 

I'd go 81-89 as his prime. A lot of his schtick he's able to do for years. He's one of the smartest workers around, has great timing, is a great promo. I feel the criticisms aimed at him are fair. I feel at times he can rely on schtick too much. He does bury his opponents a lot in promos. Him and Cornette use the same insult book. One mostly as a heel, and one mostly as a face. He has a cocky swagger, and can be an asshole as a face. I think when you compare him to his peers in the U.S I'd have to say Flair,Rose,Bockwinkle,Funk, Hansen are the guys from 81-89 you'd be comparing Lawler too. Each guy has different strengths and weaknesses. From 81-89 in Japan I'd say you have Jumbo,Tenyru, and Fujinami are guys you're comparing Lawler to. In Mexico which is one of my weak spots I'd rate Casas,Santo, and Atlantis. I'm sure someone who's more of a lucha guy can pimp some.

[goodhelmet]

OK fuck this... if anyone can help me make a long post without an IP driver error, i will post my rebuttal. I see apostrophes and dashes in other posts. I eliminated most of them in the last half hour and still cant post my shit.

[Loss]

If you type apostrophes and dashes in Word and paste them into the box instead of typing them directly in the box, that's what causes the error.

[goodhelmet]

OK makes sense.

[Mad Dog]

Masahiro Chono

Hiroyoshi Tenzan

I wouldn't say either of these 2 were that good.

 

The only memorable Tenzan match I can recall is that one with Kawada years ago and I'm not even sure that holds up that well upon a re-watch.

 

Chono moreseo than Tenzan. I would place Tenzan as average for most of his career and then he kind of peaked and became what I would call good in the early 2000s.

 

Chono has been in great matches with a variety of opponents. He's good in tags and singles matches. Sure, they were usually against the guys I would call great but he did have that 2003 carry job against a totally broken down Hogan.

[dawho5]

I think the whole debate over whether the quality of Hansen's American work would take him out of GOAT is a little off. To illusrtrate, I will draw a comparison between another GOAT guy and Hansen.

 

Ric Flair had some very fun Japanese matches. His Kerry von Erich match from AJPW was awesome just to see Flair vs. Kerry in a different setting. In the States, Flair cheated a lot to get to his control segments and generally made it look like Kerry had his number if he didn't go to the eyes, cower away and cheapshot, etc. And that made for awesome heat from the (from what I've seen) pro-Kerry crowds. In Japan, it was more of an even setting with Flair using a lot of technical wrestling to counter and get to his control segments. Just fun stuff to at least see. it was not (as was the case with all of his Japanese work I have seen), however, in any way groundbreaking or very influential. Back home, though, Flair was one of the most influential wrestlers of his generation and rightly so. He made everyone he wrestled look great and knew how to generate crowd heat like few others.

 

Stan Hansen's American work was hit or miss for me. Some of it was very good (the Hennig match was nice, the Funk match where Stan gets mud thrown in his eyes after throwing Funk into the lake is too much fun, need to see some of his Blackwell stuff), but the majority of what I have seen is not on par with his Japanese work. I can understand that, the difference in styles is pretty big as you reach the '90s. His Japanese work is every bit as influential as Flair's American work was, if not always quite at Flair's level. And he put over most, if not all, of the really big names in AJPW while he was there.

 

Personally, Kawada is my GOAT, but both the above mentioned are top 5. Which gives me a thought, take a long, hard look at Kawada and find some major faults as I watch my '90s AJPW. Back to the point, I could never fault anyone for saying either Flair or Hansen was number 1. They are both incredible workers who had a huge impact on the next generation.

[El-P]

OK fuck this... if anyone can help me make a long post without an IP driver error, i will post my rebuttal. I see apostrophes and dashes in other posts. I eliminated most of them in the last half hour and still cant post my shit.

Same here. And I don't use Word at all. Really frustrating.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's any special character that isn't standard plain text that causes the error. Curly inverted commas, the long dash, anything that isn't standard.

[Loss]

Accents too. Believe me, I know this is annoying. The upgrade is in progress that will fix this.

[JerryvonKramer]

Back before the Soundcloud days, I used to do the .xml sheet for the iTunes feed for WTTBP manually and iTunes doesn't accept any of those characters either -- and if I made a single mistake it would cause all the episodes after the mistake to not show up or even make it so that no episodes showed up. Receiving PMs about how the feed had messed up and then hunting down the offending character was a constant source of irritation for me.

 

It didn't like the ampisand ("&") sign so posting match-listings from Will with tags in them I'd have to change that to "and". Elipses are another one, that's your three periods in a row ... which can become a special character. Trying to think of some other ones. The pound sign. The dollar sign. Stuff like 1st, 2nd, 3rd when the letters go little. Bullet points of any kind. In some circumstances even just a space can become a special character. I think the current PWO is more forgiving than iTunes but until the upgrade I'd recommend typing all your stuff in NOTEPAD not MSWord. That's plain text and doesn't automatically format stuff. Also make sure formatting is not on when you use "Add Reply" (as oppsed to "Fast Reply").

 

Ok, I'm off to play D&D.

 

 

EDIT: Pound and dollar sign caused an IPS error in making this post.

[babylonianfrost]

I'd definitely add Dutch & Bob to the list as well. I know I'm alone on Fuller and perfectly okay with that. I absolutely ate up his mic work during the 3 way feud with the Bodies & RNR. That promo where he's doing curls before the match? Hilarious. There's a guy who doesn't need any character direction at all. Whether its on point or over the top, it always comes across as legit with him. At least to my jaded yankee ears

Damnable internet. The one time I wasn't being sarcastic online...

You're on point that Fuller was a great talker, especially in his Memphis stuff in the late-'80's/early-'90's.

 

As to the topic, I saw someone mention Dick Slater earlier and I'll second that. Barring brief flashes here and there (some UWF here, a JCP promo there, a few random Hardliners matches elsewhere), I've rarely found Slater to be more than "good." People have talked him up occasionally, but he never connected with me.

[Bix]

Dick Slater feels like kind of an unfair pick because we don't have anything from his prime, though I'd rate him as "great" anyway based off stuff like the Mid-South feud with Butch Reed.