Loss

I appreciate you watching the match again and I enjoyed reading that, even if you ultimately came to the same conclusion. I don't think the way we see this match is going to be reconciled, and that's fine. I can't really dispute much in the specifics of your review (except criticism of Flair throwing chops when he's supposedly in the middle of leg work, as if it's somehow unfocused -- mixing in strikes in the middle of limb work is something that's fairly common across many styles, unless I misread your point). I'm just glad that you decided to give it another shot. At the very least, I can read that and have an even greater understanding of what bugs you about Flair these days. It's not even the stuff that gets dragged out the most. There were some points you raised that I don't recall you mentioning before that I think are interesting as it relates to both guys. I know how you see these things. I get on you to watch more footage instead of relying on old opinions, so you do, and find that you still view whatever is being debated pretty much the same way. And then from me, you get crickets. I don't want that to happen this time, but I'm just not really sure how to respond to it. I want to say more because I don't want you to have that "crickets" perception, but I just don't really know what exactly to say at the moment. I hope I'm motivated to come back to this at some point. That's the great thing about these threads.

Wrestlers are rarely asked tough questions in interviews, which is why most wrestling interviews suck. All wrestling interviews are PR interviews in some form or another.

John, your harping on possibly inaccurate but innocent comments from Jerry make it appear as if you have a personal issue with him and are actively looking to interpret his posts in the way that benefits you the most. It's happened in multiple threads now. He made a comment from memory and was also basing it on a comment I made on a podcast recently that was from memory. That's not really a cardinal sin. It's something we've all done at certain points. I'm willing to admit my memory might be off and will give the match another watch in the future, but Jerry "took his ball and went home" because you have a history of attacking him excessively for the occasional tendency to throw out a comment in haste. He finds it difficult to engage with you because you come after him with a special vitriol that seems only reserved for him, and I can't say I blame him for not wanting to get into this with you. Will you be watching the build to Flair/Arn at Fall Brawl and then rethinking the way that match is worked anytime soon?

I would say the promo where Jake said he should have to pay money to feel as good as he did when he slapped Liz was a very memorable moment in that feud, so I agree with Jerry that the angles and the promos were both key parts of it, and I could tell that's what he meant.

Derrick King & Drew Haskins vs Christian Jacobs & John Michael Worthington (SAW 01/22/11) Worthington is left to take on Derrick King Enterprises by himself for the first part of this. He is awful and has a long ponytail. The match is dragging and when I see Jacobs show up, I just hope he tags in soon and the match picks up. I mean, it's an example of what the tag formula can do for a match, but there's seriously nothing keeping this match together except the tag formula and a few neat heel things from King. I laugh when Jacobs does a dive to the floor and Worthington has the nerve to try too. Fun to see an okay heel team carry a green and clumsy babyface team through a match, but not really notable beyond that.

Dingo vs Akira Tozawa (ACW 01/16/11) I have never even heard of either guy, or this indy for that matter. But I like the dark and seedy atmosphere quite a bit. This was an excellent match made even better by an awesome crowd. Dingo accidentally chops the ringpost at one point, which leads to Tozawa doing some cool work on Dingo's hand and arm, including a great chairshot after a ref distraction. But live by the sword and die by the sword, as Tozawa's momentum is halted when Dingo catches him with a chairshot as he's about to do a tope. Dingo doesn't really have much flash in his offense, but that's pretty cool in this setting, and he knows how to use the stuff he can do really well. The rapid dropping of knees on Tozawa's chest was great, and he worked holds with hidden chokes which was pretty cool. They built a really hot final stretch that really wasn't based on 2.9 nearfall overkill as much as it was constant shifts in momentum where it was hard to tell who was going to be able to do enough to keep the other guy down long enough to win. It's like they have taken some of the wrestling norms of the past decade that drive me crazy and trimmed the fat. They still capture the parts that work for modern crowds without getting drowned in the excess. I'm the first to admit that I'm probably overrating this in some ways. There is seriously nothing I can point to that put the match over the top. Yet somehow, it got there. What I liked about this was that they weren't working tribute-style to a previous era in a way that isn't as good as the people performing in that previous era, which is what I feared a lot of the indy stuff in 2011 might be. This was something new and fresh that I really liked. There was nothing spectacular about any individual part of this match -- the offense or the selling or the match layout. But taken all together, it really works because they were good opponents for each other and what they do is executed so well.

It was a great finish, but I was surprised in that I didn't really catch any awful moments at all. I was surprised at how good their stuff looked.

Jerry Lawler vs Tommy Dreamer (NEW 01/15/11) What I saw was just highlights, but they were good highlights so it was hard to get a read on this match. I always like these guys working each other (by "always", I mean I love the 1997 match). Lawler doesn't seem to have lost a step and Dreamer was always better than he was given credit for. Fireball finish!

Big Show vs Cody Rhodes vs Dolph Ziggler vs Drew McIntyre (WWE Smackdown 01/07/11) This is fun for Big Show being a total monster and tossing guys all over the place until they all team up to take him out. All three guys are in a contest to see who can take the biggest bumps for Show's really good offense. Show takes some nice bumps for a guy his size too. I hate multi-man matches, but I thought this was excellent in establishing Show as a monster babyface. Everyone involved did exactly what they needed to do to make it work. Great surprise finish with Ziggler taking the fall too.

The Miz vs John Morrison (WWE Monday Night RAW 01/03/11, Falls Count Anywhere) This is the kind of match I've been waiting to see in the few matches I've watched for 2011 - something where the guys are going after each other like they really don't like each other instead of just running through a series of rehearsed moves. This was surprisingly GREAT (yes, GREAT!), especially for a guy like Morrison who I always saw as more of a highspot guy. He still does the impressive athletic stuff in this, but first and foremost, he's working a match that makes sense and builds to the big moves in an effective way. Much better match than I would have expected, with Miz looking like a tough champion for winning such an aggressive match and Morrison looking good for pushing the champion to the limit. Some really excellent nearfalls in this. Miz really looked like a good champion here and this is the best match I suspect I'll ever see either guy have.

Added all of this to the master list. High praise. Added this one as well. Added. Anything that's at least "very good" I'm interested in seeing if you want to list specific matches. What's the date on the Cena/Miz? I'd love to watch house show stuff if you can recommend specific matches and I can find them. Do you know when this happened?

I actually thought Nash gave a solid performance here. I liked how Flair really treated him as a serious threat and how Nash stooged for Flair and Piper in this. Nash's reaction to Flair's sucker chop was awesome.

Thanks. I will watch everything I can find online.

Ooh, I have to listen to see if Chad drafts Lightning Kid!

Yoshihiro Takayama vs KENTA (NOAH 01/15/11) Takayama looks like he's fighting his son. Hilarious size difference here. There are some really stiff shots in this one and it would appear Takayama gets busted open hardaway. I'm not really sure there's anything going on here as far as building a match. They flirt with making the match about the size difference at times, but KENTA takes most of the offense, so that doesn't really work. It's just two guys hitting each other really hard. But sometimes that's enough I guess. It's definitely the appeal here.

Mark Sterling vs Jeremy Wyatt (3XW 01/07/11, No DQ Iron Man Match) 60 minute match that goes into overtime between two indy guys I've never seen before. Could have been ugly. But they were nice enough to carry me through it the best they could. Yeah, this was really long. At times, they were really good in ways that surprised me. But they didn't seem comfortable with each other at times either. I thought they paced the match well, it had a really good layout and I appreciated that they kept most of the offense basic (with a few really cool surprises). But the way these guys worked just felt like two guys trying to recreate their favorite 80s match for the first half -- very derivative and rehearsed feeling. I wish some of the facial expressions and body language had been a little more exaggerated, because I think that could have put this over the top. I understand that it was no DQ, but I also think the referee could have added a lot to the spots by going outside with them in a failed attempt to break them up instead of just standing in the ring like an idiot. I was expecting this to fall off the rails when the weapons and teased interference stuff started, but that's really when the match picked up and the overtime part of this was better than the Ironman part. This is a very good match that they should both be very proud of, even if they seem a little green at times.

Ask Korchenko.

Interesting topic, but please have that conversation on the other side.

I've heard that story before too, but it always seemed questionable to me because Jumbo had been facing NWA champions for years and there had never been any problems. Race is at ringside for the 10/81 Flair vs Jumbo match though (Flair's first Japanese tour as NWA champ), so who knows?

The Meng/Haku stuff is interesting in that it seems to be balanced by people in wrestling calling him an incredibly nice guy too. Just don't cross him I guess.