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Good matches "ruined" by their endings


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33 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

I agree that Cena overcoming the odds the way he did made for a better self-contained match. But from a booking standpoint, having the invading monster shooter lose clean in his very first match was an insane decision any way you slice it.

It's not insane when the invading monster shooter had previously walked out on the company angrily complaining about having to lose matches, later held up another company's world title and was publicly in contact with UFC about a comeback. Pretty sensible really that Vince wanted assurances Brock would do business before putting him over his Top Guy.

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1 hour ago, Log said:

I've always thought this one worked because it fit the story.  It all made sense and called back to their feud.   

That's true. It was that Steele barely touched him and Savage propelled himself awkwardly, with the commentators having to tell us he'd clonked his head on the ringbell (iirc, it's been a long time). It was that a run-in finish on Randy's behalf would've been shitty, and a run-in is a run-in, to me. It was that I didn't like the Steele/Elizabeth storyline. It was that they needed to add Savage-Steele to Savage-Steamboat. It was that Steamboat couldn't beat Savage on his own. It's that something so great had an interference finish, even though it made sense. 

It was a lot of things, but if I gave out stars or scores or elephant stamps, the match only loses a tenth of an elephant stamp, so like 4.9 elephant stamps out of five.
 

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Honestly Jesse Ventura's extended temper tantrum immediately after the match is what bugged me the most about Savage-Steamboat IMO.  That was a prime time for both Gorilla and Jesse to shut up and let us enjoy the moment and almost immediately Ventura is going on and on and on and on and on.  Steele running in to make sure Savage didn't do it again made total sense, especially after I watched the product from the 1986-87 timeframe on a weekly basis many years back.

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I never noticed it at the time (I was also nine years old so I just brushed it off as the guy who roots for the heels mad that the heel lost), but yeah watching it now it comes off as Jesse trying to get Savage his heat back from losing and really did a disservice to Steamboat. 

It is kind of a point in Dave's favor when he says that matches can only be viewed in the time they happened, since someone watching 60 years from now would be all "why is this weird bald hairy guy getting involved in this great match?" without the context of the storylines of the time that made him being there make perfect sense. 

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I know Steele didn't give us a lot of **** (or ***, or **...) classics, but I would argue that no one in history except possibly the Macho Man himself did as good of a job as getting Elizabeth over as he did. You could draw a line from the Steele-Elizabeth storyline all the way through the Bad News, Jake, and Flair feuds--I don't think any of those have the same impact if Steele hadn't set the tone.

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To this day I don't know how the flying hammerlock was "worked". I'm sure Shawn Michaels would've lasted five minutes in it (Cheapshot! High-five!), but there didn't seem to be a lot you could do to support your own weight.

Then again, I don't understand why the Indian Deathlock is mocked. I had Gene LeBell's Great Book of Carny Holds and it was a perfectly cromulent move.

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11 hours ago, CarpetCrawler said:

Honestly Jesse Ventura's extended temper tantrum immediately after the match is what bugged me the most about Savage-Steamboat IMO.  That was a prime time for both Gorilla and Jesse to shut up and let us enjoy the moment and almost immediately Ventura is going on and on and on and on and on.  Steele running in to make sure Savage didn't do it again made total sense, especially after I watched the product from the 1986-87 timeframe on a weekly basis many years back.

I honestly don't get the love Jesse gets. He can be really good and I enjoy his commentary. But holy shit does that guy just fucking steamroll big moments by not shutting his fucking mouth. I just watched Sting winning the TV Title and Michael Hayes is pissed on commentary but he also does that well getting out of the way and giving Sting the moment. 

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10 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

I know Steele didn't give us a lot of **** (or ***, or **...) classics, but I would argue that no one in history except possibly the Macho Man himself did as good of a job as getting Elizabeth over as he did. You could draw a line from the Steele-Elizabeth storyline all the way through the Bad News, Jake, and Flair feuds--I don't think any of those have the same impact if Steele hadn't set the tone.

Side topic to George Steele but we were talking about wrestlers in Oscar nominated movies and he was really great as Tor Johnson in Ed Wood. It might be one of the best roles a wrestler ever played in a film. 

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I'll throw one out. Kobashi/Akiyama from Departure 2004. Anazing match. Akiyama should have won. The guy had momentum and that was a potential star making moment and he lost. They struggled to ever build a star in NOAH and I think they were too deep into getting Kobashi that big run instead of going with the fans. 

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10 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

To this day I don't know how the flying hammerlock was "worked". I'm sure Shawn Michaels would've lasted five minutes in it (Cheapshot! High-five!), but there didn't seem to be a lot you could do to support your own weight.

Then again, I don't understand why the Indian Deathlock is mocked. I had Gene LeBell's Great Book of Carny Holds and it was a perfectly cromulent move.

Sometimes the most mundane moves are the ones that would hurt a person the most. A hammerlock is incredibly painful. I think the abdominal stretch is an old hooking hold the old timers would use in training. Richard Belzer passed out from a chinlock. 

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Piggybacking off the Steamboat/Savage discussion...

Was Steamboat's reign the most disappointing to come after a match that's considered a classic?  I'm sure there are instances where someone won a title in a classic match, but had to forfeit because of injuries or something like that.  But, I can't recall a single match (let alone a great match) from his reign, just when he lost it to HTM.

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58 minutes ago, Log said:

Piggybacking off the Steamboat/Savage discussion...

Was Steamboat's reign the most disappointing to come after a match that's considered a classic?  I'm sure there are instances where someone won a title in a classic match, but had to forfeit because of injuries or something like that.  But, I can't recall a single match (let alone a great match) from his reign, just when he lost it to HTM.

Kenny Omega's IWGP reign. He won it off of Okada after one of the most acclaimed matches of all time and ending one of the most acclaimed title reigns of recent years, only to have half of his defences consist of mediocre Cody matches. He at least had the Tanahashi match though.

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50 minutes ago, Mad Dog said:

His NWA reign was equally as underwhelming if you ask me. Kind of just disappears after winning the title and then loses it a few months later. I guess he had the Flair matches in the NWA. 

Did he ever defend the NWA title against anyone other than Flair?

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