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Matches That Changed Wrestling


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I'm truly shocked nobody has mentioned the Hogan, Hall and Nash vs Savage, Sting and Luger match from Bash At The Beach 1996 yet. It was the beginning of the NWO for God's sake ! From this moment until April of 1998, Nitro has beaten Raw each and every week.

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Well, except the matches that got those insane star ratings were all insanely successful for the audiences for whom they were worked (thinking about the NJPW matches or lately the AEW tag-team match).  So maybe the aim of epic star ratings (which honestly strikes me a kinda ridiculous especially when you're talking about Japan) actually produces insanely great and successful matches for the audience. In which case, the whole thing is a moot point. 

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15 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

I'm inclined to say that Hardys vs. Edge/Christian at No Mercy was at least as influential as HBK/Ramon. In addition to raising the bar for death-defying spots, it really marked the beginning of sticking as many guys as possible in a ladder match so there was never a break in the action.

8 hours ago, El-P said:

Yes and yes. Although I'd say TLC was even more influencial, really. 

Sure, but the latter doesn't happen without the former. 

 

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4 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Sure, but the latter doesn't happen without the former. 

Of course, but in term of importance in changing things on a wide scale, to me the impact matters more than the precedence (is that a word ?). Which is why even though Tiger Mask vs Dynamite did not indeed invent junior wrestling and guys like Fujinami and Gran Hamada were already having great lucha-infused matches in the late 70's, it was Tiger & Dynamite that made the real big-time impact. As far as big-ass clusterfuck stuntmen ladder match, TLC is the most impactful match of the genre to me.

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1 hour ago, El-P said:

Of course, but in term of importance in changing things on a wide scale, to me the impact matters more than the precedence (is that a word ?). Which is why even though Tiger Mask vs Dynamite did not indeed invent junior wrestling and guys like Fujinami and Gran Hamada were already having great lucha-infused matches in the late 70's, it was Tiger & Dynamite that made the real big-time impact. As far as big-ass clusterfuck stuntmen ladder match, TLC is the most impactful match of the genre to me.

I don't dispute the impact of Hardys vs. E&C or the TLC matches, but I think you are underestimating what a big deal Shawn vs. Razor was at WrestleMania X.

Even though it feels like Shawn-Razor and the first Hardys-E&C match happened a decade apart, there was really only a four-year gap. The two Shawn-Razor matches were in '94 (WMX) and '95 (SummerSlam), Hardys vs. E&C was in '99, followed by a Triangle Ladder Match at WrestleMania 2000 (adding the Dudleys into the mix), the first TLC match at SummerSlam 2000, and the TLC rematch at WrestleMania X-Seven. 

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37 minutes ago, C.S. said:

I don't dispute the impact of Hardys vs. E&C or the TLC matches, but I think you are underestimating what a big deal Shawn vs. Razor was at WrestleMania X.

Not at all. Definitely very influencial. But most matches after TLC looked like the first TLC match rather than an actual, well constructed match like Razor vs Shawn (there were some exceptions like Benoit vs Jericho early on). And basically the gimmick became a recurrent thing in WWF/E during and after the Hardys/E&C/Dudleys feud. Like you said it was more than four years, which is pretty long actually, between Razor/Shawn 2 and the next ladder match in WWE. You only had one in WCW at Souled Out and probably the Stairway to Hell in ECW (unless it came after the first Hardys vs E&C, don't remember).  The Money in the Bank match is basically TLC. And last fall, Young Bucks vs Lucha Brothers pretty much had the best and most spectacular match of this kind, ever, almost 20 years after TLC made it legendary.

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- As much as I think it is one of the most amazing matches ever - by my own definition of what can be great wrestling, mind you - I wouldn't put Foley/Taker HIAC on the list. My qualm is that, as I believe Foley alludes to himself in his first book, going off the cage through a table was a spot he nicked from the first Michaels/Taker match. Was Foley's leap way crazier? Absolutely. But Michaels and Taker brawled on top of the massive cage, Michaels took bumps up there, he dangled from near the top and fell through a table. Foley added to the insanity, but Michaels/Taker was undeniably insane for the WWE at that time - which is I'd put that match on the list and not Foley/Taker HIAC. I'd also add that, after Michaels/Taker HIAC match, we saw the WWE move relatively quickly towards using the NWA/WCW/"classic" chainlink cage uniformly and away from the big blue bars of the 80s and first half of the 90s. (I'm not enough a historian to remember if they used the blue bars in the 70s.)

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21 hours ago, Loss said:

Thought about this one but I couldn't point to the specific match in the series that had the most impact. Maybe the 2/3 falls one at the end?

I'm not sure if there was one match that stood out from the others. Perhaps the 2/3 falls one because of the high rating from Meltzer. I think it's highly possible that people saw some, but not all of the matches, and that they were influenced by the pairing without even realizing it, e.g. they were influenced by Benoit vs. Sasuke from Super J Cup. 

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4 hours ago, El-P said:

Not at all. Definitely very influencial. But most matches after TLC looked like the first TLC match rather than an actual, well constructed match like Razor vs Shawn (there were some exceptions like Benoit vs Jericho early on). And basically the gimmick became a recurrent thing in WWF/E during and after the Hardys/E&C/Dudleys feud. Like you said it was more than four years, which is pretty long actually, between Razor/Shawn 2 and the next ladder match in WWE. You only had one in WCW at Souled Out and probably the Stairway to Hell in ECW (unless it came after the first Hardys vs E&C, don't remember).  The Money in the Bank match is basically TLC. And last fall, Young Bucks vs Lucha Brothers pretty much had the best and most spectacular match of this kind, ever, almost 20 years after TLC made it legendary.

My argument for Michaels vs. Ramon is that there really hadn't been a match like that in the WWF since '84. It's not a particularly violent match compared to the matches that came later but I think it paved the way for the gimmick matches the WWF did in the Attitude Era. The territories had gimmick matches, WCW had gimmick matches, and hardcore wrestling was growing in the States at the time (someone more familiar with the style could point to the influence on that -- King of the Death Matches, perhaps?), but I'm specifically referring to the WWF. I wonder if you see some of the edgier moments of '95-96 without the ladder match (even with the ECW influence), and given it was the first time Michaels stopped the show, it seemed to have an impact on the Kliq running amok for a couple of years. Perhaps Michaels would have been pushed anyway, but the star turn at Wrestlemania didn't hurt. 

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26 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I wonder if you see some of the edgier moments of '95-96 without the ladder match (even with the ECW influence), and given it was the first time Michaels stopped the show, it seemed to have an impact on the Kliq running amok for a couple of years. Perhaps Michaels would have been pushed anyway, but the star turn at Wrestlemania didn't hurt. 

That's an interesting point. There's no doubt that match was the ultimate star maker for Micheals. I believe he would have been pushed anyway (he main evented Survivor Series 92 against Bret, something that is somewhat forgotten), but the ladder match was the eye opener to this guy having the potential to be a big star and being a one of a kind worker. And it was indeed the very first "Kliq match", with Diesel at ringside at the beginning. That being said, the guy Vince wanted to push to the top at this point was clearly Kevin Nash (he won the IC belt a few weeks after Mania then worker against Bret at that disastrous KORT show, which was already testing the waters for what was about to come).

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22 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I wonder if you see some of the edgier moments of '95-96 without the ladder match (even with the ECW influence), and given it was the first time Michaels stopped the show, it seemed to have an impact on the Kliq running amok for a couple of years.

 

Considering the ladder match was set up due to Shawn  losing the IC title due to a flare up of not-gonna-job-itis, you could make the claim the seed were already planted for the Kliq to run amok. 

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On 5/1/2020 at 2:03 PM, Chorros3 said:

This is was also the first thing that came to my mind. 
 

Also, Onita vs. Masashi Aoyagi from the first FMW show; although Inoki had been in many different style fights over the years, the pro wrestling feeling was always prevalent, in line with the heated bullshit finish style of 80s New Japan. The FMW match was different, just an atmosphere of hate and slow built even before the match starts that would serve as the blueprint for Hashimoto vs. Ogawa and those crossover fights well into the Inokism era. Elements of those athlete vs. entertainment, slowly built pre match, the match itself having and unpredictable feeling and being a sprint more often than not can still be seen thirty years later when Brock Lesnar feels motivated. 

I was intrigued by this. Is the match 10/06/89? And is there anything besides the fan cam?

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Really surprised the five-and-a-half-hour Ed Lewis vs Joe Stecher draw from 1916 hasn't been mentioned. Maybe it was too obvious? "Slambang" wrestling was already around, but this "terrible" match gave a major boost to the transition from "real" to "worked" (read: from "deathly dull" to "colourful"). That's my limited understanding, anyway. I'm happy to be wrong.

MTV and WWF combining for The War to Settle the Score (Feb 19, 1985) laid the groundwork for Wrestlemania, and made wrestling "cool" and mainstream for a bit, and launched everything since.

I'd like people's thoughts on the one match that perhaps should have changed wrestling: June 13, 2009, Mitsuharu Misawa's last match. Would I be right in saying it, unfortunately, didn't change diddly-squat?

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8 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

I'd like people's thoughts on the one match that perhaps should have changed wrestling: June 13, 2009, Mitsuharu Misawa's last match. Would I be right in saying it, unfortunately, didn't change diddly-squat?

It's very frustrating to see people like Naito and Ibushi take these wild bumps (especially Ibushi), it's like they think it can't happen to them. At least people have learned their lesson from the Shibata vs Okada match, as I haven't seen a shoot headbutt since then.

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I think I have too high of a threshold in my mind, which is why I'm struggling with this topic. I'm thinking of matches where the way it was worked bell to bell changed something fundamental about the way business is conducted in pro wrestling, and there don't seem to be an awful lot of examples of that. Influential matches, yes, there are many.

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3 hours ago, Loss said:

the way it was worked bell to bell changed something fundamental about the way business is conducted in pro wrestling

That's why I thought Lewis/Stecher might get a gig. Five and a half hours of Lewis "running away" and "on the defensive" might have been the straw that broke shootfighting's back.

And I thought Misawa's death would have changed bell-to-bell business, but I guess wrestlers will always be whores for a pop, and their ego's are purpose-built for one-upmanship.

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Where would Bret-Shawn Montreal rank?

Yeah it’s more about everything going in, and the aftermath than the match, and even the moment itself but still.

Also by the same significance after the fact token, the title changes from Backlund-Sheik-Hogan are necessary (I put Backlund-Shiek in there, well because you need when the transition champion becomes said transitional champion).

Dark horse pick for “in conversation”, Taker-HBK Royal Rumble 1998.  Easier for a legit injured HBK to do the WM title drop honors, which in turn sets up the post Shawn DX.

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On 5/2/2020 at 3:08 AM, Loss said:

Thought about this one but I couldn't point to the specific match in the series that had the most impact. Maybe the 2/3 falls one at the end?

I would have said the MSG match, as I am not sure that without that match, the New Japan matches would have gone around as "viral" as they did in the early tape trading (and aspiring wrestlers) scene.

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On 5/3/2020 at 6:11 AM, Dav'oh said:

Really surprised the five-and-a-half-hour Ed Lewis vs Joe Stecher draw from 1916 hasn't been mentioned. Maybe it was too obvious? "Slambang" wrestling was already around, but this "terrible" match gave a major boost to the transition from "real" to "worked" (read: from "deathly dull" to "colourful"). That's my limited understanding, anyway. I'm happy to be wrong.

I just flew a bit over the Strangler Lewis bio from Steve Yohe and yes, that is how it reads. I always thought that this was a bit hyperbole and there was a gradual transition without a hard trigger, but in the years after that debacle, Lewis actively began working as a heel (or at least put himself in situations where he was considered to be one). For example, about a 1920 match between Stecher and Lewis, Yohe writes:

Quote

The days of Lewis and Stecher wrestling five hours without touching each other were long gone. The two now knew and trusted each other and the fact that both had the same boss in Jack Curley smooth out any bumps in the relationship. Stecher had returned from his training during WWI a bigger stronger wrestler in perfect condition, who no longer based his style solely on the scissors. In 1920, his style was well rounded and he seemed the master of every hold. Lewis on the other hand, had grown in size and weight with his feared headlock becoming more and more the tool he used to bring excitement to his matches. In fact the headlock was taking on a life of it's own. Sometimes overshadowing Lewis himself. Lewis was a gentleman outside the ring, well liked by everyone. He wrestled clean but his headlock was taking on heel dimensions all its own with fans and sports writers. It was seen as a brutal hold that caused injury. Some of the old hardcore fans thought it was too brutal for the scientific sport of wrestling, that used to be a contest of pinning a foe, not hurting them. The injury to Caddock had lifted the Lewis headlock, over Gotch's toe hold, as the most famous hold in pro wrestling history.

It might have just been a first step and much bigger steps were taken over the next 20 years, but there was definitely a radical change in those couple of years, at least on top of the wrestling world.

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