goc

I liked Rusev vs Sheamus but it would have been so much better in front of a crowd that hadn't already been burnt out on 4 hours of wrestling at that point. I understand the reason they wanted to put it on after Raw as a Network Exclusive but the dead crowd hurt it a lot for me.

I'm really surprised at how down you are on Brian Christopher, especially since I'm pretty sure you have seen a lot of his USWA work. I wouldn't put him anywhere near George Gulas, Mighty Zulu or Tiger Jeet Singh, even if I never liked him all that much.

I know I'm the outlier on how much I love this match but I think it's a perfect example of what makes Lawler so great. Here he is wrestling King Kong Bundy in a $10,000 challenge match where every minute that Lawler survives he gets $1,000 of Jimmy Hart's money. This was MY #1 match on the Memphis set. Lawler makes King Kong Bundy look better than he ever had before or since and does a fantastic job of getting over the $10,000 challenge gimmick.

We were supposed to start discussing possible opponents for El Torito in the new minis division but you guys missed the cue.

Yea but none of them wrestle as miniature bulls. I'm all in with Badlittlekitten's idea!

Writing promos for someone else can't be easy. It certainly can't be easy to write promos for a bunch of different guys with completely different characters. And that's talking about a good writer who understands and loves wrestling. The writers they hire? We should be happy the promos aren't any worse. They should give every person on the roster the opportunity to write their own promo and then let someone like Vince, HHH or Steph pick between the talent's own version or the writer's. I have a stupidly long running game on TEW with a lot of characters that I made up. I still couldn't write word for word promos for any of them.

I support this 110%. El Torito is better than everyone in the Divas division and I would like to see him do SOMETHING.

I almost named him also but I wasn't sure if he really had a long enough career. Pretty awful wrestler though for sure.

I'm not saying every wrestler is going to be considered on 3 matches alone. But if I'm not familiar with someone or their style and I give it 3 matches but don't like it, I just don't see myself plowing through to see if it takes. I haven't seen any wrestling that I eventually liked that I didn't at least see SOMETHING in the introduction to the style that I liked enough to keep going.

If someone pimps you 3 matches as someone's best work and you watch all 3 but don't see the big deal, how much deeper should you dig?

I understand that there are problems with rankings guys who we don't have that much footage on. But I also think that at the least they are worthy of discussion based off the footage we have and what we know of their careers, even if it's ultimately decided that there isn't enough evidence to really support a case.

My knee jerk reaction is that Shawn is also not going to make my list but I want to give him a fair shot. I don't dislike him I just have found him to be highly over rated from the first time I got on the internet in like 1995.

I really doubt that Foley will make my list.

I may really look into Ikuto Hidaka. I have really not gotten into most puro I have tried to watch but I do remember that I really liked that NJPW vs. Z-1 feud from the 2000s and Hidaka was a real standout to me there.

I don't think so. These are WWA, Dick the Bruiser's promotion out of Indianapolis.

He has a lot of matches on tape from WWA. I'm already getting some Ladd stuff off those discs, I might as well see what Heenan looked like before he went to the AWA.

I don't have the footage to make an argument for him, and really wasn't going to try. I thought it would be of interest to see him in his prime though. If you really want to go out of your way to see an Ernie Ladd match there are 2 good 6 man tag matches with The Midnight Express vs. RNR Express & Jim Duggan from the Mid-South set. Then there is Ladd & Butch Reed vs. Brickhouse Brown & Master Gee which isn't as good but still worth watching, from the same set. He's obviously past his prime, but you have to keep in mind those matches took place in 1984 when he's 46 but he could still pull off a few athletic spots. This is a guy who played pro football from 1961-1968 while wrestling part time. He quit football due to knee problems but continued to wrestle until 1986. I realize that it's almost impossible to make a case for Ernie Ladd due to a lack of footage. But I also know that he was huge star in the business, one of the best promos I've ever seen and judging by his prime there, and even his post prime, was an incredibly athletic guy for 6'9, 300+ pounds. If I can't put a guy like Ernie Ladd on my list when his only real negative is lack of footage, I have a very tough time putting someone on my list who can only beat Ladd in the footage department. Using Sheamus for an example, Ernie Ladd blows him out of the water as a promo and a top star. I'll do some more legwork on this though to see if there really IS a case to be made. I have those WWA discs and I'll have some of those matches up on youtube by tomorrow. I've never even looked at them before.

This is probably the best look at prime Ernie Ladd as we are going to get. I just put this on youtube, this is from some 16mm reels that if I remember correctly Bix bought from the Watts family and had converted.

Is there a distinction here? There were pretty much two separate Sheepherder teams by the mid-80s as Butch & Luke stuck together and Jonathan Boyd took on Rip Morgan as his partner.

I like Stan Lane and he'll be on my Tag Teams list more than once but I couldn't see him making my top 100 without someone making a really strong case for him.

I do think that's a fair point. Sheamus is a guy who in the overall scheme of things, hasn't made a very big mark in WWE. He has an advantage of having a lot of good matches on tape, but should he really get on the list over guys we have less footage of but had a much bigger impact? I mean when there is at least a handful of footage on a big name from the past that looks really good, I'm going to rank that higher over a guy who has had the advantage of being in a completely different era where having good matches every week on TV is actually possible.

The Plowboy was okay in the 1970's. Not a wrestler , but was effective as a monster heel. His top moments were when he served as Jerry Lawler's henchman around 76. Plowboy could at least execute a legdrop . When the 80's rolled again he was to broken down by carring all of that weight to do anything in the ring . He did draw some money in Memphis . Once again George Gulas is the Worst of the Worst , Did George Gulas ever draw a dime or have a match that was not a laughing stock ? Did you ever see him team with Bobby Eaton? I read on Wrestling Classics that they were actually a decent tag team, even if it was mostly down to Eaton. Is there any tape of George Gulas? I can't remember seeing any.

Anyone wanting to see some of Tommy teaming with cousin Johnny should check out The Nightmares thread where I've uploaded a few of those matches on to youtube.

He was good enough to have one of the best series of matches on WWE PPV this year. With Hornswoggle. I keep hoping they'll bring in someone new for him to work with but apparently that would take them over the allowable amount of minis on their roster. Will absolutely keep an open mind to him as a candidate and I'm looking forward to watching more of him about as much or more than any other nominee.

Even those main events aren't guaranteed because they've given Cena some real crap to work even at WrestleMania like Miz & some hodge podge multi man stuff. How is Cena supposed to have a match with Miz that feels worthy of being a WrestleMania main event? No top star has been exposed to worse booking than John Cena and it is something that hurts his case just like everyone else has pluses & minuses to where they worked.