Loss Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 I thought I'd make this a long project and do a post for every year if we can. Basically, if you saw a match in 2004 that you thought rocked and got little pimpage, talk about it here. This isn't where you mention Joe/Punk II or the WM three-way or anything like that, but rather matches that fell completely under the radar that you'd recommend checking out. Here are my choices. I wish I could provide some indy matches as well, but I haven't started on ROH just yet (will be in the next day or so), so my choices are going to be limited to WWE. 05/10/04 - Chris Jericho v Christian (Cage Match) This match had the benefit of a great storyline going into it, so the heat was off the charts for this one. Jericho was emulating Michaels circa 1995 a lot in his wrestling style at this point, and it showed here, with him shrugging his shoulders before doing the dive off the top of the cage and wrestling as sort of a cocky daredevil. Christian bladed like he fucking meant it here, and it was a sight to be seen. I like how the match builds: Jericho is crazy with the offense ----> Jericho is about to get a quick win but Tomko is going crazy swinging a chair outside the ring ----> Jericho does a great dive from the top of the cage ----> Christian starts blading before briefly taking control ----> Jericho beats up Tyson and Trish for fun, popping the crowd HUGE when he finally gets his hands on Trish. The suspense in the last couple of minutes or so is very strong, with both coming within inches of winning the match. This should have been the blowoff, because this was the point when the feud was officially out of steam, but they still sort of feuded for another six months or so, just because the writers couldn't find better stuff to do with either of them. 06/21/04 - Chris Benoit v Kane This is one of the better big man/little man matches WWE has done, with Benoit engaging in a war of attrition and absolutely refusing to back down. Matches like this, with more focus, are what would have made Benoit mean the world as champ, but HHH was jerking off higher on the card and Benoit was sort of an afterthought. I wish I could see the match again so I could be more specific here, but sadly, I don't remember a lot of the details. 08/09/04 - Chris Jericho v Edge Rock on! These two have had some stinkers since this one, and they had some stinkers before this one, but for one night, everything seemed to work. Both wrestle as the subtle heels, which fit the storyline since they were trying to build sort of a "which one will turn?" mystique around the match with Batista at Summerslam. Again, I wish I could be more specific, but I do remember them doing a terrific job of creating suspense and drama, with the crowd buying every single nearfall from the 10-minute mark onward. It's another one I'd like to view again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Manm, I watched zero WWE TV in 2004 so I don't know what hasn't been pimped countless times so I nominate Joe-PunkII. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Manm, I watched zero WWE TV in 2004 so I don't know what hasn't been pimped countless times so I nominate Joe-PunkII. Yeah, and you like Misawa/Kawada from 6/3/94 and Flair/Steamboat matches too. Go you. Joe/Punk II has been pimped by plenty of people. Were there any ROH matches you saw that you thought were great that have ignored? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Actually, I'll have to look but most of the good ROH matches have been pimped to death by someone. It is also much easier to keep track of those matches since they are all on home release DVD. For WWE, if you miss the television and don't tape it , you prolly will never see that match again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 I guess it goes back to what we were talking about before. Puroresu fans have done a *far* better job of keeping track of the great matches available over the years than US fans. There's not a Rasman WWF or WCW page, for example, and the ECW mutants, wherever they are, didn't go through all the Fancams and come up with the few essential matches. I'm glad that seems to be happening for ROH. I wish it had happened for the old US territories and for SMW ... hell, it's not even really happening for current WWE TV. Too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 I don't want to say you are alone on this but I wouldn't know where to start. Hell, you mentioned Mark Henry-Booker T and I had no idea they even fought. Maybe, you should start making a list of all of the matches you saw that you want and post them in the wishlist thread or continue doing the year-by-year reviews for companies so we can get an idea of what matches we missed out on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 That's what that Excel document is -- kind of a working wishlist. I do plan on continuing with the year-by-year threads. I'll probably pimp what I can in these threads, and then if there's something on that Excel doc that I haven't seen that I'm curious about, I'll put that in the wishlist thread, one year at a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bruiser Chong Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Puro fans definitely keep closer tabs on matches. Anytime I've looked through a thread about any puro, the date is usually attached to the match. I watched basically every episode of RAW from its incarnation until about 2003 and I probably couldn't give you a date to go with any of the matches I liked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 6, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 6, 2005 Okay, if no one has anything to add, we'll go to 2003. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Cooke Posted April 6, 2005 Report Share Posted April 6, 2005 Jay Lethal vs. Low Ki from 10/2/04 ROH warrants a listing here. The best 'veteran' vs. 'younster' match of 2004. This is the direction I want to see ROH go towards in terms of storytelling and characters. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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