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Tony Garea


Grimmas

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Better to have too many threads than too few. It's fun to hear the case for and against virtually any one. But that's kind of the curious thing too: you can make the case for damn near anyone, esp. anyone who worked in front of hot crowds in the 70s/80s. There aren't many guys from that era who weren't at least watchable. Garea and Martel were a good team by the standards of their day, held the belts, worked well together. But were they even one of the 20 best tag teams going when they teamed together in '80-82?

 

For comparison I just watched Rene Goulet team with the Sheik against Crusher/Bruiser. From the rabid crowd screaming for the entire match, you'd think Goulet was a genius for hanging upside down in the ropes and selling punches like shotgun blasts. Point being that especially by today's standards of airing monotonous routines on TV every week, someone like Garea looks surprisingly good. He'd be one of the most entertaining workers on RAW right now. But I think that says more about RAW than it does about Garea being close to top 100.

 

In even a tentative list that I've drawn up, it's amazing to me how great you really have to be to make the cut. 100 is brutal competition. So many awesome workers are left off a list of 100 that someone like Garea just doesn't have the resume (from what I've seen, which is no doubt not as much as many here).

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Garea and Martel weren't great cause of the benefit of hot crowds, comparison to today, or any other shit. If you watch them you'll see a great team and Garea was fucking great.

And Goulet doing that spot IS fucking great. Goulet was a great wrestler.

This idea that performing in front of hot 70's/ 80's crowds is some sort of non factor is nuts. "Well, sure, they had great matches and popped the crowds, but people liked anything back then so blah blah" is weak beer , bro. I've seen enough old footage to know that the crowds would often sit on their hands if the wrestling in the ring stunk.

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Totally fair that not that everyone who worked back then got great reactions. It's not to take anything away from Garea. You would call guys like Garea and Goulet "great". Better than the more lumbering MSG midcarders of their era for sure. I would call "great" a stretch, esp. in a Top 100 conversation. Wouldn't even say he was among the top tag workers of the years he was with Martel.

 

Re: crowds, I can only speak for myself in acknowledging that I sometimes glorify older workers by the great reactions they got. If I watch something Garea's era of WWF on mute, it's a very different experience. Was he hot, or was wrestling hot? Chicken or egg. That's not to say Garea and co. didn't earn it, but they had much better booking/presentation/kayfabe to work with than today's WWE guys. Most of this stuff looks cooler in hindsight. Their romanticized legends grow with age. Again: if he were on RAW tomorrow, we'd all love him and be fantasy booking him into feuds with Cena, Sheamus, Cesaro. I'm being critical and a bit pedantic, but it's a top 100 discussion. Anyone who's drafted a list right now knows how stiff the competition for a top 100 really is. The bottom of my current list is filled out with guys like Slaughter, Ashura Hara, Scorpio, Carl Greco. All truly phenomenal workers with "Best in the World" caliber moments in their careers. And they barely make it for me. That's how tough 100 is.

 

But there are much worse qualities to have than a generous, upbeat definition of what's "great". In all sincerity: more power to you, bruddha.

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  • 1 month later...

Garea is good. I think his team with Martel in the WWF would make my top 5 baby face teams in the history of the company. With that said it's a small sample size. I also think he has no business making a top 100 ballot unless he's family or you owe him money.

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