Loss
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Can we get a thread for Yokozuna?
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That criticism is fairly new and to me, it seems to be a surface-level criticism just because it goes against type of what people think of a monster doing. If there's more to it, I invite anyone to go into that. I do agree with the general point that wrestlers shouldn't do everything they can just because they can. But it wasn't just showing off. It was a way he could do a better job than most monsters of making his opponents look good while still being a monster because he was able to go their speed and take their offense. Even though he left his feet more often, it still meant a lot when he did. My take away when Vader does three consecutive rapid bumps for Sting isn't that Vader is not as invincible as other monsters. It's that Sting sure is good to be able to take it to a guy like that. That's actually a great lead-in to a conversation I wanted to have with you at some point, and now is as good a time as any to bring it up. We tend to criticize wrestlers sometimes for not working smart when they do things that maybe they shouldn't do for easy pops. But then I wonder how smart it is to be perfectly capable of doing something that would help a match or pop a crowd that a wrestler just doesn't do for whatever reason. Conventional wisdom is that it takes a hammer and a nail to hang a picture. If I had a special power that allowed me to hang a picture on a wall with a piece of tape - something that no one else has been able to do but for whatever reason I have figured out a secret to doing it - shouldn't I use my special, one-of-a-kind skills? In the case of Vader, I think it's worth looking at how he was able to maintain his aura and be more giving at the same time, then ask if that all comes down to simple athleticism, or if there are things he did that other monsters could learn from.
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This is probably also a good thread to say that I think the Iron Man match is something people would look back on and for the most part consider a near-classic match if it didn't have the booking issues. Shawn really made an effort there offensively and did quite a few things I hadn't seen him do before or since. Make it a regular match that just happens to go to a 60-minute draw and you don't have the issue of people just instinctively waiting for falls, giving it an entirely different feel.
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For all we want to say about Shawn's comeback, I enjoyed most of the high-profile stuff he did in his first run quite a bit. There aren't too many matches pre-1998 where there's a rep attached to it and I just don't see what's so good about it. Maybe the Iron Man, but that's divisive anyway. I didn't like the Bret match at Survivor Series '92 at all. The Undertaker match at Ground Zero really disappointed me, but it's hard to think of too many others. Then there are matches like Shawn vs Austin at King of the Ring '97 that are excellent but don't really get very much credit for whatever reason. Shawn will be in my top 50 most likely but I do need to watch his big matches post-comeback with an open mind to see if anything he did bumps him up during that time. I know from memory that he was not at all a strong week-to-week TV worker from 2002-2010, but I don't think even his biggest supporters claim he was anyway.
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Thanks Chad! Does anyone have any TV match recommendations? What have been the best ones this month?
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Is it safe to say Vader was good from 1986 to 2000, with a peak of 1992-1996 in the middle of that? It's not a #1 case and probably not even a top 20 case, but it is a strong case for any wrestler. To answer Dylan's question, the "best big man" case absolutely works in his favor, and I don't at all think it's unfair to give him extra credit for that, the same way we give guys like Ricky Morton credit for defining a role. He was working from a starting point in terms of his body type that has produced far less great workers than guys in the 220-260 range and not only did he overcome that, but he also had a long stretch where he was very good, and he was also probably the best American wrestler in the world in the early-mid 1990s. (That's something I'd have to think a little more about, but it wouldn't surprise me.) I think people who criticize Vader for bumping his ass off are missing the point. He's a guy who could get away with doing just about anything in the ring because he was Vader. What I mean by that was that he managed to create an aura around himself where the whole was far greater than the sum of the parts, even though the sum was pretty high. Lots of monster types can't play pinball and maintain their credibility, so they have to take a different approach. Vader could. He had all of these extra tricks at his disposal because he was a fantastic athlete and used them all as much as he could. You sort of forget about the rapid fire bumping when he puts a guy in the corner and starts leveling him with fists. He was also a breath of fresh air in a post-Flair heel world, which is something that has been mentioned in his favor before. There were a lot of guys at the time (Shawn, early Austin and Pillman are the first that come to mind) that were just doing their take on Ric Flair, but then you had Vader, Cactus and Regal doing something very different.
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