The Microscope

Are there any pictures of Adonis and how he looked after losing 127 lbs as his trainer said before his wreck? I have read and heard he was getting in good shape...but have NEVER seen a photo...

After seeing his Global stuff I'm am really digging his work. Just wanted too know what you guys think of him.

I have never seen a bad Kensuke Sasaki match. It has nothing to do with my 4 match sample size. I really liked his performance in the 1990 tag team, Dome '95 against Hashimoto, and these matches with Tenryu and Kawada. The timing of his entry to wrestling reminds me of Jun Akiyama. He is a bit younger than the Three Musketeers and he is pushed in the tag ranks and bubbling on the undercard. I feel like him and Akiyama never truly reached their potential; they seemed groomed to be leaders of their respective promotions going into the 2000s. Sasaki always reminded me of Choshu with an even better mullet. I think Sasaki has a great look and really has a presence as a total …

I don't really care for either guy. People give credit to Sabu for being innovative. RVD is considered sloppy but is always popular. Who would you prefer to watch in the ring?

Initially, I thought this was a no-brainer so why bother? However, with the AWA set and rediscovering the Rockers in the WWF, people are calling them a Top 5 team. I have also seen some pushback on The NWA and teams that worked a southern style. A year ago, I think the Rockers get slaughtered at this board. Now, with more WWF fanboys on board and the AWA stuff, I want to know who people enjoy more!

I havent seen too much love for Colt on here but maybe i'm not looking hard enough. I think he's very talented and has a very unique almost British style to his wrestling. He's easily one of the best comedy guys out right now but when he's serious he's also pretty damn good. The street fight with Generico against Steen and Corino was ver good and his matches with Homicide were great in ROH. I havent seen the Pearce title change or the Lawler match but i've heard they were great as well. I realize i might have a Chicago bias towards him but fuck it i like him. What does everybody else think of him? Is the comedy too much sometimes? Is he a great or just good worker?

OK, so the Rockers vs. Rock N Roll Express was a one sided ass whooping. However, it did bring up Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton as a comparison. I would love to see people dissecting these guys.

It has always amazed me how someone without any formal training managed to A: become one of the business's most respected trainers and B: be someone who has had as many great matches as he has had while somehow never even getting a look from a major promotion. It's difficult to comprehend. So my question is this: If someone asked you about Mike Quackenbush, what would you say were his contributions to the business (if he made any?) And, what would you say would be a good matchlist to get someone started on his best work?

Undertaker has the big time main events. Goldust has some great Midcard stuff going on. Both have had their share of embarrassments.

From this week's Observer: Expect that talking point to be rolled out come HOF time this summer. "Edge had the highest percentage of ****+ matches of any other main eventer!"

Looking at a few random singles matches over the years, I've been really impressed at Marty's ability to get himself over in front of just about any WWF crowd, whether he's being pushed at the time or not. The three matches that stand out are Jannetty vs Hughes from All American in '93, Jannetty vs Skip from RAW in '95 and his comeback match against Kurt Angle in 2005. He seems like a guy who could have had a really strong singles run if he had his act even halfway together. Really excellent at working as an underdog and building to interesting/creative spots when working against bigger guys. It's also interesting that in the Skip match, he manages to get himself more ove…

Yoko had limitations but he is someone who I have always wanted to explore in full. He was impressively agile for his size and weight. I’ve often thought he was one of the better big man sellers in wrestling and his teetering act was great every time. During the height of his career he had lots of interesting match-ups with guys like Bret, Taker, Savage, Duggan, Hogan, and was in a tag team with Owen for a long time. I’ve decided to go back and look at some of these matches and get a better look at Yoko’s work. He’s always struck me as someone who has had a decent body of work for what he could do. Yokozuna vs. Tatanka (March to WrestleMania X 2/23/94) I was expe…

I've seen a bunch of talk lately about the GOAT. A lot of names have been thrown around for top 50 lists and such, however I have yet to see a female wrestler's name mentioned. This lead me to two questions: 1 - Who is the greatest female wrestler of all time? 2 - Where would they rank in an overall greatest of all time list? I don't have good answers for either. I assume for GOAT the names would be Jaguar, Lioness, Hokuto, Bull, Dump, Devil and Aja Kong. Maybe Sherri Martel? I'm not sure who the best North American would be.

The Islanders vs The Killer Bees MSG 12/86 The Islanders have kidnapped Matilda from the Bulldogs as the Bulldogs have slipped to the #2 face team with Strike Force as the Tag Champs. Since the Islanders ended up losing their feud with the Strike Force in order to maintain their #2 heel status (behind the rising Demolition) they ran a program with the Killer Bees so they could collect some victories. The match was decent, but nothing fantastic it was just meant to reinforce the Islanders position on the card against the JTTS babyface tag team du jour of the WWF. The shine segment is dominated by headlock attempts by the Bees. Tama is his usual excellent self as …

There has been a lot of GOAT discussion on this board and it is well established who is typically thought of as being in that discussion and who is not. In this thread, I'd like to see who the PWO regulars would rank in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers of greatness. Tier 2 is for guys who are obviously not in the GOAT discussion, for whatever reason, but who are still pretty great. Tier 3 is the next rung below that and so on. I'd expect to see a pyramid shape here: only a handful of guys worthy of GOAT discussion, maybe double that in tier 2, double that again in tier 3, etc. I haven't worked out my own tiers yet. Probably Ricky Steamboat and Bret Har…

The "Not-Yet Fabulous" Rougeaus vs The New US Express 12/86 Boston I did not know Rotundo was around this late in the WWF. I have never really watched Spivey. No usual Rougeau BS early on, which I miss, but I presume that is due to it being face vs face. Gorilla notes the fan dont know who to root for in this match. Which is weird because they seem awfully of this guy named "Boring". So I am a bit higher on the work than the crowd, but I do see where they are coming from. The Rougeaus seem more game as this is close to their WWF debut whereas the US Express is on their way out. Spivey works an armbar in vanilla fashion why Jacques tries to get him to do anything. Rot…

While I was away I rewatched many of the Legends of Wrestling roundtable shows. If you recall the first 6 of these showcased "Superstars of the 80s". Let me remind you of the guys to whom they dedicated 30 mins or so each: Terry Funk Roddy Piper Hulk Hogan Bob Backlund Andre the Giant Jerry Lawler JYD Ric Flair Sgt. Slaughter It's very difficult to quibble with these selections. They all make sense. These were the biggest stars of the 80s or the most talented. It's a very fair representation. We might put cases forward for other people to be included ahead of these 9. I can see an argument for Dusty, for example. Piper and Slaughter may have some competiti…

If Steve Austin would have lasted longer in the WWF/E Main Event scene (he did 98-99 then Late 2000 - early 2002) do you think he'd get the Backlash HHH gets for not putting people over or not being helpful to other wrestlers, holding people back, or not? Austin left WWE supposedly cause he didn't want to put Brock over, on TV, but I don't know if a PPV idea was ever tossed. He wouldn't work with Jarrett and didn't want to face HHH at Summerlsam '99 one on one…I don't know about others…but you see the idea…HHH being there in Main Event from 99-10 outside a couple injury years gave him a MUCH bigger time to be hated… Just something I've always wondered.

I do not think there is a tag team more suited for the hyper-compressed, spot-oriented style of WWF wrestling moreso than the British Bulldogs. Even the fast-paced Rockers weren't so reliant on spots and moreso on traditional babyface shine and heel heat segments. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, were designed to be crowd-popping machines. Every move seems like a highlight reel moment to amaze the crowd. Selling and bumping get in the way of the next crowd pop and are only to be done if necessary to advance the story that is being foisted on them. Heel heat segments in Bulldog matches are like dance breakdowns functionally necessary, but they stand between you and the hoo…

All the talk yesterday of Mark Henry's pending return got me thinking of how much i like the guy. His Hall of Pain shit was phenomenal and to me his heel work is always where he's best suited. I dont really like him as a face as he sort of just blends in but him destroying guys and putting on high end matches with Bryan and the Big Show was my highlight to 2011 outside of Punk. What are your thoughts on him? Oh and there so needs to be a Hall of Pain mini comp.

I just finished Will's Buddy Rose set and am now 100 percent convinced that Buddy was the best of all time at taking backdrops. He looked out of shape and on the big side, so when he went up to take the backdrop, that was impressive in and of itself. He usually got some big air and landed hard, which is also essential. Finally, he was awkward and uncoordinated enough that the backdrop didn't look totally like a staged fake wrestling move. Combine all that with Buddy's facial expressions and selling after landing (and sometimes during the backdrop if the camera angle was right) and you got the best taker of backdrops of all time.

I remember watching RVD wrestle Jeff Hardy at Invasion 2001 and thinking he was going to be a megastar. He had an aura about him, a complete connection with the crowd, not to mention some incredible offense, a superstar air of arrogance and a willingness to take major bumps. He was ridiculously over for a few months, and probably the only guy who came out of that entire storyline looking good. It seemed a lock that they would hotshot the title belt on him at any point. It was all downhill from there, unfortunately, and for the last ten years he has been coasting on the reputation he earned during his ECW run. I don't think I could name a memorable RVD match, promo or…

So I watched the Enos v. Jericho 96 match and the Enos v. Benoit Souled Out match early last year and thought both were really damn good. Enos then became a guy I eventually wanted to search more of (putting a wrestlers name in youtube/dailymotion and watching whatever pops up is my favourite thing to do ever), and, well, I eventually did. I'm doing a 'project' with some guys so IDK when I'll watch more Enos but I'll try to make time for it. I have Enos stuff lined up to eventually get around to, soI'll be coming in here every now and then (whenever that is) to talk about some Enos matches. Hopefully other folk will, too, because MIKE ENOS! Mike Enos v. Mike Tolbe…

Both guys are considered the lesser members of some pretty great tag teams. Gibson has some cool stuff in his arsenal like the Indian deathlock, but I'd think I'd take Fulton in a straight-up comparison. I kinda like him as a babyface hothead, and he really seemed like a guy who loved wrestling. What do you think?

Masters recently did an interview. One of the questions asked was what his best match was. He mentioned his Superstars match from 2011 with McIntyre. I thought that was pretty cool since Dylan Waco has long pimped it as a match to show Masters as a good workers.