Megathread archive

I was thinking it's a toss up between B. Brian Blair & Brian Adias with Mike Rotundain the discussion. Are there any other candidates I'm overlooking?

http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/h...t.asp?aID=20000 There are no words.

I take it everyone's seen the clip on RAW. I'm excited about the prospect, but a little skeptical as well. Thoughts?

I was talking to my brother about this tonight. When WCW and ECW went out of business a lot of guys in both promotions were either not picked up by the WWE or were picked up but with a reduced push/limited role. We were trying to brainstorm guys who were probably most adversely effected. The two names we sort of settled on were Shane Helms and Steve Corino. Helms was in the midst of a fairly substantial push in WCW. They were finally reemphasizing the cruiserweights and Helms was effectively being treated as the ace of that division. He was given a grandiose entrance that made him seem like a big star, was having good matches and appeared to be really making strid…

So my wrestling related New Year's Resolution is to review more full shows. I enjoyed doing it for King of Trios even though I didn't really like at least half of the weekend, so I figured I will keep it up and dump everything into this thread unless/until I start up a blog of some sort again. Show One House of Hardcore, October 6 2012 This is Tommy Dreamer's new promotion. In theory this could be a disaster of a show based on EXTREME nostalgia and old guys phoning it in. Let's see how it turns out in practice. Crowbar v. Shawn Daivari This was actually a pretty good opener. It was kept short and worked back and fourth, but all the transit…

By this, I mean wrestlers you think you'd enjoy based on your established preferences but can't really get into. Take me, for example. Based on what I know I like, I thought that Riki Choshu and Shinya Hashimoto would be right up my alley. But their work doesn't do much for me. There are certain elements I really like, but as an overall package, the souffle just doesn't rise. Anyone else?

I wanted to start a thread about guys who had lengthy careers (at least 10 years) and had consistent runs at or near the top of the card who consensus says was outright bad. I want to leave out someone like Bruiser Brody from the discussion, and focus on guys who even at the time were thought of to be bad by people in the business. My first example for a guy like this is Ox Baker. He had a great look with the eye brows and the facial hair, was somewhere around 6'5 and 350 lbs but from everything I've ever seen or heard about him he was absolutely terrible in the ring. Reading his bio here: http://thelegendaryoxbaker.com/bio.html and it sounds like he was also involve…

I was thinking about this over the last couple of days, but when I started posting about wrestling on the net over fifteen years ago the range of acceptable "best ever" candidates was really small. It expanded a bit over the years but by and large there was a very small number of candidates that wouldn't be met with accusations of insanity/trolling. I would say about ten years ago the serious candidates would have been: Kawada, Misawa, Jumbo, Flair, Destroyer (I believe the Beyer pimping) and maybe Liger. There were a few guys touting people like Funk, Takada, various Joshi figures (most notably Jaguar, Aja or Hokuto), Dynamite and Harley but they were more isolat…

The recent Ronnie Garvin talk gave us a leading contender here, from NWA world champ to jobbing to Boris Zhukov and tagging with job guys in losses against The Orient Express in 3 years. Alright, I guess you might say there was a change of company involved, but still that's quite the fall from grace. Has anyone else fallen down the ladder quite as quickly and dramatically as that? I'll offer up for consideration Sgt. Slaughter who went from WWF champ in early 91 to feuding with "Col. Mustafa" by the end of the year and basically nothing (well, tagging with Duggan in squash matches) in 92. The decline was quicker for Slaughter than it was for Garvin, but the WWF …

June 10th, 1983 saw Harley Race become a 7th time NWA champ beating Ric Flair in St. Louis in a result that was actually surprising at the time. Sure Race had the cache but other than a couple of guest shots on some big shows, Race was under the radar as he was only working Central States, St. Louis, and even Bruiser's WWA. Harley was always the safe choice to hold the title because of his rep and history but there were other guys who could've really benefited from having the 5 month run that he had as the champion. I don't think that a Crockett wrestler would be in play to win the title because Flair just had it so.... David Von Erich = logical choice and subject of…

All the talk of Tito recently has made me think more about the role of the JTTS. Now typically, this guy was not a scrub, but a "name" who had been in the game for a long time winding down his career putting over younger guys: Tito in 93 Greg Valentine in WCW Virgil's entire career after the DiBiase feud Iron Sheik as Col. Mustafa Hercules after the 1980s Dino Bravo in 91/2 Terry Taylor in most of his major fed incarnations Nikolai Volkoff in 1994 Ronnie Garvin in most of his WWF run You get the picture. Now, I've often wondered about what is THE POINT of having this lower midcard level? It sort of makes sense if you book it like so: Sh…

From Tim Graefe's review of the ROH PPV: Homiesaywhat? I think I heard something snap in my head when I read that. How can you watch everything a company has ever done but pretend to be a total newcomer for the PPV show? Of course the review is capped off with this: I think my nose is bleeding.

I thought this would be an interesting list and I'd like to get some input. Essentially I would like to compile a list of "must see" matches. The matches that ultimately define wrestling and its history. What I'm looking for is not a comprehensive list of "five star" matches. Rather, matches that are representative of workers, styles, promotions, countries, what have you. Such a list would include great matches, but also great angles, memorable moments, perhaps great crowds or big houses. Misawa/Kawada (6/3/94) would make the list, but also Hogan/Andre from Wrestlemania III, and the Von Erich/Flair cage match. (You may not agree with them, just demonstrating some examples…

Apologies if this was discussed, I wasn't able to find a thread. Picked up a kindle copy of Matysik's new book for $10. Obviously an interesting read, and Matysik has a good sense of history. I think he's too far anti-WWE in his opinions as far as taking an undue amount of copy to take apart WWE's own top 50 list. (Especially not when he puts Randy Orton on his own list.) More maddening though is his insistence on legitimacy as a criteria. With all due respect, there's no way in hell Brock Lesnar is a top 50 wrestler. I'm about a quarter of the way through. Not to suggest it's not worth buying. It is. But a list like this definitely generates discussion and I think …

I'm surprised we don't have a thread like this already, but I'd like one that is distinct from comments that don't deserve a thread. This is an all-purpose thread for small questions, chances are someone here will know the answer. Here is my first little question, and it's mainly directed at people here who have some in-ring experience: - When watching matches, if someone does, for example, a sweet-looking suplex, I tend to give the credit to the guy doing the move. But how much of the work is being done by the guy taking the move? How much complicity does the guy taking the move have? And how much credit should be given to the guy taking the move?

I'm not particulary fond of the tag team standard that is "playing Ricky Morton". I suppose this could be down to the fact that it's so overused to the point of ridiculousness in modern wrestling. The beating that the "Ricky Morton" takes has become more and more harsh with the eventual comeback destroying my suspension of disbelief and negating much of the good points of the match. Don't get me wrong, some wrestlers really excel at this role because they are naturally good at selling and along with the other participants in the match, they subscribe to the "less is more" concept and don't ruin the suspension of disbelief that they create. Some modern promotions like…

Was randomly thinking this over the other night with my brother. In no particular order I settled on Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Jerry Lawler, Stan Hansen, Rey Mysterio, Buddy Rose, Nick Bockwinkel, Eddie Guerrero, Ricky Morton and Barry Windham. This is not so much a list of guys who I think are the ten best in U.S. rings only (i.e. Hansen would not be so high though I don't think it would effect the others), but rather the ten U.S. guys who would probably be the highest in a GOAT list if I were to ever do another (and let's face it, I will). Non-native born guys like Dundee, Finlay and Regal feel weird to leave off, but I'm not sure I'd rate them above any of those ten an…

I've often read how Hogan was the worst "sportsman" of any babyface champion for his needlessly dickish behaviour in his matches. While I do recall him often whalloping the hell out of Sherri Martel, and Jesse Ventura complaining about his cheating in front of the ref early in a match and it being glossed over by the other commentary, I am having trouble remembering too many specific instances. The most notorious moment of the crowd turning on him would probably be the Royal Rumble, where he eliminated Sid Justice from the outside and the crowd booed him so intensely that they switched the boos and cheers in post production. Can anyone give any particularly egregious exam…

My podcasts with voter and wrestling jack of all trades Kurt Brown on the subject: Part 1 Part 2 --------- PERFORMERS LIST Gene & Ole Anderson The Assassins (Tom Renesto & Jody Hamilton) Atlantis Red Bastien Carlos Colon Big Daddy (Shirley Crabtree) Edge George Gordienko Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero Gran Hamada Volk Han Owen Hart Curt Hennig Chris Jericho Rocky Johnson Ivan Koloff Konnan Karloff Lagarde Mark Lewin Jose Lothario Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) Mick McManus Bill Miller Fabulous Moolah Pedro Morales Dick Murdoch Rey Mysterio Kendo Nagasaki Jackie Pallo Blue Panther …

We've pretty thoroughly covered the U.S. over the last few days, but who was best in the world? Anyone who knows me won't be terribly surprised by my pick. It's Jumbo. With Hansen right behind him.

Interested to see what people say if Dillon doesn't make top 10, who is getting in there? Would anyone rate Fuller over Dillon? A lot of questions for this one, I'd say number one is undisputed (Heenan) and probably number 2 as well (Cornette), but the conversation after that is interesting.: There are people who like Jimmy Hart and people who don't, same with Gary Hart. What about the old WWWF's "Triumvirate of Terror" (Blassie, Albano, Grand Wizard)? How do they rate? If there are really 10 better managers than Dillon, who were they? Do you rate Vince and Shane as "managers", or Bischoff? Was Meltzer right to rag on Mr. Fuji for all those years? What about Slick…

At DVDVR in the Memphis Stock Picks, Phil talked about Harley Race being the 70's version of Kurt Angle - lots of moves, big bumping, no real idea on how to lay out a match. I like the Baba/Race matches from the 70's and the Race/Jumbo match from 1977 but a lot of the other Race stuff I have seen has been mediocre. I always dismissed it as wrestling I don't really care for that much but with Phil bringing up the Angle comparison, I think it is valid. In terms of guys from the 70's who I have seen a fair amount of footage from, Race really doesn't come close to Baba, Destroyer, Jumbo, Lawler, Dundee, and Robinson for having the entire package. Moving into the 80's, sam…

In working on the AWA project I've watched a good bit of Slaughter in 1985 and he was still at the top of his game when he came into the AWA cutting promos about how he was a victim of favoritism in his former job and couldn't get a world title shot because the promoter was scared he was bigger than the champion. I then started to think about it and let's say that Sheik beats Backlund for the title and they do the Slaughter turn still in February but they don't bring in Hogan and they let Sheik have another couple of months as champion beating Backlund in rematches before Slaughter was ready in March to take the title. We all know how awesome the Slaughter/Sheik matches w…

This is a fancy way of saying you don't take my opinion seriously.

It's common knowledge that the coverage of independent wrestling on the internet (aside from perhaps IWA Mid-South) focuses mainly on promotions based out of the east or west coast of the United States. Lost in the shuffle, however, is a bunch of quality wrestling action and promos featuring Midwest-based independent wrestlers. It's pretty amazing what a slight shift of geography, and perhaps more importantly, having a solid, full-time job can do to the exposure of some truly talented weekend warriors. So, with the approval of Loss, I'm starting this thread simply as a resource to introduce you to many Midwest-based wrestlers you: a.) May only know as a name you'v…