The Microscope

Sitting watching the Horseman comp and I can't help but wonder how different the wrestling business could be had Magnum TA not gotten injured. So I wanted to hear what you guys think. What if Magnum TA didn't get injured? (Does Crockett still sell to Turner? Does Hogan still end up in WCW? Is WCW still alive?) Where do you see the career of Magnum and the other major players going if TA is still around?

So we got a Jerry Lawler topic but no Bill Dundee? I've been watching the Lawler vs Dundee 3 disc set and it made me want to start this topic. When I first got the Memphis DVDVR set, The Lawler/Dundee loser leaves town match was my number one match. Now that I've seen the 1979 verson, I think I like that match even more than 83. So many great punches and I loved the finish being a simple missed elbow drop. As great as the Lawler/Dundee feud was, Bill has also had some other good ones. Like the one with Bob Armstrong in the mid 80's or the one with Wolfie D in 95-96. So what is everyone's thoughts on Bill. Does him never getting a serious run in NWA or a run at all in WWF…

I've had some discussions about Holly before with my brother and we sort of agreed that he came in at a bad time. I don't think he gets enough praise because I believe he did have some really good stuff especially from his WWE run in 04-06. He's a great tag wrestler and obviously a fun brawler. I thought he was always good working underneath and for the hot tags in tag matches. He had good to great matches with tag partners such as Billy Gunn and Charlie Haas which is saying something. Overall, he's a pretty solid worker and has had flashes of being very good to great. I find him to be somewhat under appreciated. Let the Bob Holly talk commence.

I like Jeff Hardy.......a good portion of the time. Sure, he has obvious glaring flaws that can easily take away from a match. I also think he was one of the biggest stars in wrestling at one time and has had some excellent feuds over the years with guys like Punk, Umaga, MVP, and I even enjoyed his stuff with HHH. He's a lunatic bumper which sometimes can become a little over the top but it's fine more often than not. I actually think he can be a pretty compelling babyface too and was definitely that in his last run with WWE. So, here we have it. A collection of random Jeff Hardy match reviews that I will come back to from time to time hopefully after this initial splurg…

I was thinking about the all time greats of the 80s and how the top three are definitely Funk,Lawler, Flair to most people in different orders depending on preference. My question is who is number four? I'm talking guys in the same vein as the three kings that mostly wrestled in the US but also ventured to other countries, so I'm discounting the guys who are lucha and Japan based wrestlers for the majority of their work. So a guy like Hansen would fit because he had enough of a body of work but a guy like Jumbo wouldn't. While these guys are the stars of the 80s I'm still taking their 90s work into consideration as well if need be. The reason I say that is because the end…

Here's the scenario. It's 1990. You have one spot on your roster for a female manager. Your choice is between Sherri and Woman. Who do you go for? Both of them had hot 1989s in which they were integral parts of long-running angles. I guess with Sherri you get more bumps. Arguably Woman is the slightly better promo. I ask this because I have no idea which way the PWO faithful would go. I'm not including a poll because I think they discourage discussion.

his interview with Austin on that podcast sparked me up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZDyaZIPj0 I'll listen to aguments, ok, but I have no problem saying Terry Funk is the best

I was thinking of these two wrestlers and comparing their careers recently and started to wonder which guy people thought was better. Both had really fun matches in long WWF and WCW careers. Both also had Japan runs and a good tag team run (Twin Towers and Faces of Fear). What is interesting is that both guys are really good in the ring, but don't have an abundance of great matches, more great performances. Is there an argument for either guy?

How is there no thread for Little Guido. Dylan's went on about his ECW work that was great, but I seem to remember his WWE stuff being pretty good too. I really need to re-watch some of that. Just watched an UWF against Hiromitsu Kanehara http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnhRgJ7LeSA and it was pretty fun even that early into his career.

I agree with Dylan. Let's have a "Best Offensive Wrestlers of All Time" thread. There's a lot of guys who've had great offense over the years: Vader, Yatsu, Kobashi, Eddie, etc. Let's bring that talk here.

I'm not clever enough to do the reviews and things, but I always thought he was great. Fantastic sleazy heel, and I always thought he could really go and watching him a lot recently I don't think he's talked about enough. A fantastic worker.

From the 80s sets we have done, here are the Flair matches we have put on the sets. I am also going to post nominations for other territories as well as my thoughts on some of those matches. Ric Flair is the fucking man. Mid South... Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (4/28/85) Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich (4/28/85) Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (5/3/85) Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich (5/4/85) Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (6/1/85) Ric Flair vs. Wahoo McDaniel (7/12/85) Ric Flair vs. Butch Reed (8/10/85) Ric Flair vs. Butch Reed (10/11/85) Ric Flair vs. Ted Dibiase (11/6/85) Ric Flair vs. Butch Reed (11/8/85) Ric Flair vs. Jake Roberts (11/24/85) Memphis... …

I've been thinking for a while about Benoit's legacy from strictly an in-ring standpoint. Yes, I know. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? But hear me out. When I got back into wrestling in late 2004, Benoit became my favorite wrestler. Then in 2007. after the, um, unpleasantness happened, I stopped watching wrestling for a few years. Even after I resumed watching, it was a while before I could bring myself to watch his matches again. These days, I don't watch his matches for a different reason: for the most part, they just don't do much for me. Looking back, I find it funny that Benoit was largely exempt from the criticisms that Angle received even thou…

Lioness coming back in the 90s as this older, really pissed off bitch who would take everyone to the mat and make them suffer has become something I've really enjoyed. She really seemed to work a totally different style than everyone around her, and in some ways, came across as more credible than even Kong and Kansai. What post-Crush Girls Lioness do I need to see? I'm also not remembering much about her in the 80s. Was the 90s a drastic style change for her, or was she always sort of like this?

Bret Hart credits Leo Burke for a lot of his development as a wrestler. From everything I've heard and read, Burke was an excellent wrestler. Other than a brief time period in Toronto and a cup of coffee in JCP (losing to Denny Brown!), he doesn't seem to have gotten much a shot in big time territories. There's quite a bit of Burke footage on Youtube, mostly from late 80s, early 90s Maritimes or WWC, at the end of his career. His knees are shot, but it's obvious his heart's still in it even if his body's not. You can definitely see some of where Hart learned to sell as a baby face from watching Burke selling a beating. Any thoughts on Leo Burke, or recommendatio…

One of my favorite guys of the Memphis/Texas territory. He's a lot like Buddy Landell where he had some great moments but most of his career was affected by Drugs. His 2 plus year feud with Brian Christopher was one of the few things that was enjoyable in the final years of the Memphis territory. It's a shame he was in jail when SMW was around cause he would have been great there. Share your thoughts about the sweet music man here. I'll recommend to matches later.

I am working on comps for both of these guys and I think it is a fair question. Both guys were over HUGE at their peak of their popularity and were never considered great. Hell, the best match either guy may have had might be against each other. Sid was able to stay employed for over a decade but I don't think he was ever the game changer that Goldberg was. I also prefer Goldberg squashes over Sid squashes but I know my good buddy Naylor would disagree. As bad as they were on the mic, I could listen to Sid all day long. I prefer Goldberg remaining silent.

So, Dylan and Jerome were having their debate on Raven awhile back and it resurfaced in the bad wrestler thread. Having said that, I can't name very many great wrestling matches but I can name several feuds he was part of that were very good. I think it is to his credit that he may not have been featured on the ECW matches that much for a guy who was there that long but he is all over the extras. As a wrestler, I am in the Dylan camp that this he is extremely disappointing. Still, the Dreamer feud is still being talked about as one of the most memorable feuds ever. The Sandman feud is still talked about with fond feelings and no one I know is arguing that Sandman was a gr…

Consider this a recommendation thread in addition to a discussion thread. I am a pretty big Adrian Adonis fan but I want to see more of his work. So I was hoping to get some opinions and recommendations from more knowledgeable people. How much of his older stuff is even readily available? I would definitely like to see more of his tag team stuff with Jesse Ventura and his AWA stuff as a whole, really. Are there any good matches with Backlund? What about his bald-headed return to the AWA in the late 80's? I know he put on quite a bit of weight but was there anything good, worth seeking out? It's a damn shame that he died so young. "Good night, Irene!"

Going through the big WCW shows, I was interested by the character of Maxx Payne. A guy I knew little about, and only remembered from this run, and then showing up in WWF as Man Mountain Rock. I don't know that he's deserving of his own thread, but I would like to hear some opinions on him, and find out if anyone else was entertained by him at all. I think the Maxx Payne gimmick was really good, though I'm not sure exactly what it was. Was it an attempt to cash in on the popularity of grunge, or was he more of an 80s metal guy? What was the idea behind billing him from 'the state of euphoria' (which I thought was really cool)- how did that play into the gimmick? As a…

Should I bring the results stuff into this thread? I kind of want to but it's not essential as I have thread over on Classics. Anyhow I'm sure people who are watching the AWA Set have thoughts on his career. I have watched pretty much all of the other Blackwell I can find on youtube and other places and I think at this point we can say he was a really tremendous wrestler. Of big guys only Vader is ahead of him and even there I'm not totally convinced of it. We tend to see his peak as 80-85 and I don't disagree with that, but we have pieces from before then that really show flashes of greatness. Some of his WWF matches v. total zeros and undercard guys are impressive…

Well, there you go. Talk about them Steiner boys if you want to, to me most of their most pimped stuff doesn't hold up at all (the Dome match, Luger/Sting 10 minutes spotfest, abusing a young japanese worker). I enjoyed them trading bombs with Doom and Williams/Gordy, and their best match is probably the Nasty Boys from Halloween Havoc 90 (a case of a mediocre team and a shitty team having one hell of a match for some bizarre reason). Fun for big spots, but that only goes so far with me.

I was wondering how much footage is out there for this team. I was watching their match from 1980 in MSG against Tor Kamata and Bulldog Brower and was shocked that they were able to pull that level of match out of those guys. Kamata has some schtick he can work, but Brower has nothing in the tank here. Right at the start the heels Pearl Harbor them and Steamboat does some amazing selling that makes Kamata look like a million bucks . Later Kamata and Steamer have a fun karate off. Youngblood had a lot of energy and could sell too. This match wasn't a lost classic , but just a glimpse of how good this team was. This was also their MSG debut and they got over pretty good. As…

I'm probably not going to post reviews of his matches here, because I have the PR thread for that, but if others want to do that in here I am all for it. Instead I'm going to cross post this from the WON HoF thread where it was no sold by everyone other than Johnny. I'd be interested in hearing from critics of his candidacy on the point I talk about below and I do believe there are critics on this board. I realize it's not WON HoF season and this is sort of an odd time to be bringing it up, but I am watching all this Puerto Rico so I've been thinking a lot about Colon as a candidate. I have no clue how complete the attendance data is from Puerto Rico, but I…