Chris Benoit

[El-P]

Benoit's arm-work is really good in that match with RVD. It's also terribly misguided, and blatantly wrong. I don't hold this against anyone else, but I'll hold it against Benoit. RVD is my least favorite wrestler ever. If you do limbwork on him, it will take up time, but the second he goes back on offense, no matter what, it's over. Forget it. Doing limbwork on him is a black hole. Good limbwork against him is actually a negative, and frankly, Benoit should have known better. He was too caught up in what should have worked to adapt to his opponent. It's like how Malenko wasn't great at adapting to a crowd.

 

As absurd as it may sound, I think this is pretty interesting criticism here. And I would agree actually. That's why Jerry Lynn, for instance, got the best out of RVD, because he seemed to knew what would RVD bring to the table (big spots, intricate sequences) and worked to his strenghts instead of forcing something that was gonna be lost anyway. I haven't seen that match, so I can't really judge, but the criticism, on paper, sounds valid to me. I think there's something that could be said about Flair also on that matter (in a different way though), but I'm not quite qure how to express it right now.

 

Anyway. Rewatching WCW, it's obvious Benoit was a great wrestler, there's no way he shouldn't be very high on the final list. Of course he won't, for reasons which have no relation to pro-wrestling.

[peachchaos]

He murdered two great performers and their son and they discovered his brain was mush from in-ring abuse.

 

Directly related to wrestling.

[elliott]

Anyway. Rewatching WCW, it's obvious Benoit was a great wrestler, there's no way he shouldn't be very high on the final list. Of course he won't, for reasons which have no relation to pro-wrestling.

 

What changed between the nomination of Invader and this post?

[El-P]

I already made myself clear during the whole Invader craze around here. Mosy of us grew up with Benoit, and even if we never watch another match of his, ever, it doesn't change the fact everyone knows how good he was. No point in trying to troll me back into this argument.

 

I first and foremost replied to the interesting point made by Matt here, which has more to do with working in general than Benoit in particular, which is why I added my two cents about him too.

[Slasher]

I don't blame anyone for not wanting to revisit Benoit out of principle, but this isn't Greatest Human Ever. Benoit does deserve consideration strictly on his work alone so the people who are criticizing those with an open mind needs to chill out. You are not obligated to include him on your lists but those who do put some time in revisiting him are also perfectly in the right to do so and don't need to be talked down or vilified for it.

[Jetlag]

What are his best 90s matches? I've only seen the Owen Hart memorial match and a couple bouts with Villano. I like some of his 2000s work for stiffness and style, but there's also some workrate/90s nostalgia crap there. So far I have him way below Finlay and Regal.

[Grimmas]

What are his best 90s matches? I've only seen the Owen Hart memorial match and a couple bouts with Villano. I like some of his 2000s work for stiffness and style, but there's also some workrate/90s nostalgia crap there. So far I have him way below Finlay and Regal.

Exactly. He is super over-rated because he seemed like he was working a legit style compared to others in the 1990's. I think you can blame a lot of the bullshit no selling, finishers meaning nothing WWE style on him. Remember Kurt Angle was actually a good wrestler until he faced Benoit a lot.

 

For the worse example look at RR vs Angle for a complete shit match where it was all over indulgence exhibition bullshit.

 

I think Benoit died before the true backlash against him started and I think it was only a matter of time.

[El McKell]

What are his best 90s matches? I've only seen the Owen Hart memorial match and a couple bouts with Villano. I like some of his 2000s work for stiffness and style, but there's also some workrate/90s nostalgia crap there. So far I have him way below Finlay and Regal.

 

vs Great Sasuke Super J Cup 1994

w/ Shinjiro Otani vs Black Tiger & The Great Sasuke 1994

vs Koji Kanemoto 1995

w/ Dean Malenko vs Raven & Perry Saturn Spring Stampede 1999

 

If I wasn't supposed to be working I'd probably have a couple more matches on the list and dates for these ones.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

At worst I'd say Benoit and Angle brought out the worst in each other, but I think it's a stretch to say wrestling Benoit a lot had a lot (or anything) to do with Angle's decline as a worker. The reality is more that Angle brought out some terrible traits in Benoit, since Benoit was always a really strong seller, and was having good to great matches with a wide range of opponents before and after wrestling Angle.

[Grimmas]

At worst I'd say Benoit and Angle brought out the worst in each other, but I think it's a stretch to say wrestling Benoit a lot had a lot (or anything) to do with Angle's decline as a worker. The reality is more that Angle brought out some terrible traits in Benoit, since Benoit was always a really strong seller, and was having good to great matches with a wide range of opponents before and after wrestling Angle.

What are the great post Angle feud matches?

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I'm not the kind of guy who can just whittle off match lists for wrestlers, but off the top of my head, I really liked his stuff with MVP (the Mania match is sneaky good), the Summerslam match with RVD, the feud with Booker where they revisited the best-of-7, of course his stuff with Regal and Finlay, he was the best part of the Mania triple threat with Hunter and Shawn, I think I liked his feud with JBL, I remember a surprisingly good match with The Miz when Miz first started wrestling regularly, I thought the match with Eddie at the first One Night Stand was really good, though I haven't seen that since watching it live, I'm sure there was other good stuff with Eddie too from that time period, the Summerslam match with Orton was pretty good considering Orton's experience level, and I know I really liked the title defence against Kane at whatever ppv that was. I'm a couple of months into 2003 in my WWE B ppv watching, so I'll probably be able to add to this list and be more concrete about some things as I move forward. It's also possible there'll be things that don't hold up for me as well as I thought they would.

 

What are the great pre-Benoit feud Angle matches?

[El-P]

At worst I'd say Benoit and Angle brought out the worst in each other, but I think it's a stretch to say wrestling Benoit a lot had a lot (or anything) to do with Angle's decline as a worker. The reality is more that Angle brought out some terrible traits in Benoit, since Benoit was always a really strong seller, and was having good to great matches with a wide range of opponents before and after wrestling Angle.

 

Yep. I mean, let's not put the murder of good wrestling on the back of Benoit too, really.

 

When going through WCW during the mid to late 90's, two guys were clearly the best workers in the company : Benoit and Rey. Actually, you say Angle and Benoit got the worst out of each other, and that is very true, but the WWE as a whole got the worst out of Benoit (in many ways). He was a much more diverse and subtle worker before the 00's. In WWE he got roided like never before (yes, he was roided in NJ before, but never to those extents), and got into stupid excess like the systematic rolling germans (which he only began during his very late WCW work I believe, possibly under the first Russo regime) and stuff like the Angle spotfus. Benoit in 1996 was a pure joy to watch.

 

Then again, when watching early 90's New Japan 13 years ago, I came to the realization that I enjoyed Riki Choshu vs Hashimoto a lot more than Jushin Liger vs Pegasus Kid. And that was way before any kind of post-Benoit workrate guilt, so it's not like I'm advocating Benoit as the perfect worker either.

 

Want to blame someone for the current WWE style ? I think Angle would be a perfect culprit actually. And since he was pimped as an überworker by both the reviewers (Meltz included) and all his peers who just came at the idea of a gold medalist, his way of working set the tone for the decade to come.

[Childs]

Some backlash against Benoit the wrestler might be warranted in that he really wasn't the third best of all time as he ranked in the SC poll. But he was great and going through the yearbooks really confirmed that. Great offensive wrestler, and he brought an intensity to matches that made them feel like more than they might have been in other hands. I recall 1998 as his crown jewel in that respect. Amid all the NWO bullshit, he cranked out great work week after week against guys like Booker, Raven and DDP, none of whom seem likely to make a lot of top 100s. Throw him in with a Finlay or Regal, and he could produce a violent, detail-oriented gem. Match him with Liger and he'd give you an impressive spot fest. Shit, I even liked the Angle match Grimmas always pans the last time I watched it. It struck me as a story of two guys who genuinely believed they were the best athletes in the company pushing the tempo on each other. That kind of match isn't normally my cup of tea, but in context, they pulled it off.

 

For a long time, I would've ranked Eddy over Benoit. But the yearbooks completely flipped my thinking. Eddy at his absolute best in WWE might have been better, because he brought so much charisma to his work. But there's no way he outworked Benoit most years.

[Grimmas]

Eddie's 97/04/05 are better than any Benoit year easily

[Jetlag]

I've seen a Benoit-Eddie match from WWE that was almost shockingly bad. And Eddie was able to carry Edge to surprisingly good bout around the same time. I guess part of it was the booking, but they just couldn't meet up and did some dated pseudo-WoS work only for a directionless second half that couldn't decide between junior match and Eddies cheating. I'll check out some of the mentioned 90s stuff, however.

[FJBR]

Was that their One Night Stand match? For whatever reason both guys were just off that night, I wouldn't really use it as evidence as far as Benoit's overall ability at the time.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

As I said, I haven't seen it since it happened, so my memory could be bang wrong. When I get to it in my watching I'll check back in to this thread and give my thoughts.

[El-P]

Some backlash against Benoit the wrestler might be warranted in that he really wasn't the third best of all time as he ranked in the SC poll.

 

Agreed. I believe he made my top 10 back then, and he would never make it today. Not sure at all he'd make my top 20. And that has nothing to do with the murders nor "workrate guilt".

[Badlittlekitten]

Watched the Angle rumble match recently and while it's not an all time classic it was enjoyable. Nowhere near as excessive as I feared going in. Not even as excessive as the last Cena match.

[WingedEagle]

I've always enjoyed Benoit/Angle as well. They usually went too long but the Rumble doesn't drag like others and is still one I liked a ton when I watched again on the network over the last year.

[Jetlag]

Was that their One Night Stand match? For whatever reason both guys were just off that night, I wouldn't really use it as evidence as far as Benoit's overall ability at the time.

 

No, it was an earlier match of theirs. I think Eddie had long hair.

 

Anyways, I watched a few 90s Benoit matches. The Spring Stampede tag is a pimped match I've actually never seen before. It was kind of big dumb poor man's Fantastics/Can-Ams tag from AJPW and doesn't really do anything for Benoit. I imagine it has status because it was the first tag of it's kind in the US. I could do without this type of match to be honest. Benoits NJPW stuff kind of exposes his blandness. He just seems to be going back and forth between moves. The Sasuke match is kind of a move exhibition. The Kanemoto match was "technically good" but it felt like watching a computer simulate a match. After that I saw Benoit vs. Finlay which was a sprint. Benoit works like junior in it. He throws a mean chop but Finlay absolutely smokes him with a stiff as piss beating that Benoit doesn't really answer.

 

Then I saw a Regal match. Benoit seemed to come alive a little in that. It was still tough for him because Regal was ridiculously awesome in that and all over the place with his Snake Pit-fu. He even had one of the best ways to eat a tombstone piledriver I've ever seen.

 

Benoits best showing in the bunch may have been against Eddie. He controls much of the match and modifies some of his moves to work over Eddies arm. He also absolute obliterates Eddie with the most ridiculous of powerbombs. Even in 1995 you could tell Eddie was different from everyone else (especially juniors) with the way he did things and would slow it down, or even the way he did something as small as a cover. Benoit working dominant was a lot better than move trading Benoit.

 

So far it seems Benoit suffered from 90s ills. I'll probably dive a little more into his WCW work and watch some longer matches because he looks a lot more tolerable there than in his japan stuff. You can tell the Dynamite Kid influence. It also looks like he wasn't as much of an assbeater as he would become later in WWE and instead more of a typical junior, which is a negative for me. Looking forward to watching him vs. Sullivan and Scorpio, though.

[stomperspc]

I think it is true that some wrestlers with some really bad tendencies like Kurt Angle or Davey Richards were influenced by working with or watching Chris Benoit. I am not sure Benoit should shoulder the blame for those guys being poor/overrated workers, however.

 

Some wrestlers have a tendency to borrow the most easy-to-replicate attributes form wrestlers they like, without fully grasping the big picture. There was more to Benoit than being a big time workrate guy. He was a very good seller pre-WWF. He had an intensity about him. He worked stiff but usually not dangerously so. His sense of timing was very good in terms in terms of when to make a comeback, when to cut his opponent off, ect. He was more than one-dimensional. It just so happens that guys who he influenced or might have influenced copied the workrate and offense aspects and nothing else. That’s not necessarily Benoit’s fault.

[MJH]

I've never had any problems watching Benoit. I watched probably his best match (sleepers vs. Eddie) on the Thursday? I think of that week and even right in the midst of that there was no doubt he's one of the best wrestlers I've ever seen. Best execution ever circa 95/6 and I don't think it's close. Very very strong bumper. Of all the NJ juniors he's the one whose matches had structure more often than not. Great great TV worker. Made everyone in WWE up their game when he came over. On the half dozen handhelds I've seen from that era in WWE it's literally shocking how much better his stuff looks opposed to everyone else's. Very versatile, super consistent. A fucking great pro wrestler.

[Badlittlekitten]

Oops

[Badlittlekitten]

I thought he was pretty cool during his days as a Radical because he was a cult internet hero and he was different and I was young. I think he was hurt by being over pushed during the middle of his WWE run but I'm sure there's lots of good matches in isolation. Last time I watched Benoit was when he popped up in my early 90s WCW viewing. He looked decent, especially in the Clash Brad Armstrong match. He's somebody I'll have another look at down the line.