Loss

It did stand out to me that he was using it as a finisher instead of the Rock Bottom.

Savage vs Warrior will be career vs career at Wrestlemania! We get comments from both. Savage's promo was particularly great.

It's great to see Austin and Lawler on opposite sides in a match given plenty of time. It's not a singles match, but we also see Austin work with Jarrett and both are a treat. I love the headlockery and power spots with Austin and Lawler, and Austin's work really shows how much he improved in a short period of time. Price isn't much, but the other three are so interesting that I'm really not paying attention to that. For some reason, they keep blurring Jeanne's interference. Weird. I wouldn't call this a good match, but it's an interesting one.

A feature on El Santo, including funeral footage from 1984! His peers and a few contemporaries say some things about him that I'm sure are nice. We even get a few old clips, which look phenomenal. Cool segment, and a sad reminder of how little lucha footage we really have.

I didn't really love this match, but I understood why it was recommended. There's some world class comedy here, especially involving Super Porky and his hurt feelings.

I WANT DA BELT. Flair interrupts quickly and starts screaming at him. Flair gets up really close to him to really sell the size difference. Pillman is about to have a squash against Cruel Connection #2 and they end up calling off the match so Flair and Gigante can go at it. The Horsemen end up attacking him from behind. Flair beats the fuck out of him (seriously, listen to those chops!) until the Steiners and Pillman quickly run them off. I actually really liked this segment. Flair was great!

This was fantastic tag team wrestling. Barry Windham didn't do much in 1990, but he is really finding himself again here. He looks great in this and the previous match. I really like him and Arn as a team. This is also an excellent FIP performance from Brad Armstrong. The sunset flip from Brad on Arn is the best sunset flip I have ever seen. Arn is selling frustration that he can't keep his balance despite his best attempts. Doom end up running in for the DQ in another shitty finish. I remember lots of non-finishes when Dusty got the book around this time. It's a shame because this match really deserved one, even though the big difference between this and Morton/Rich is that it was more fleshed out before the Doom run-in.

Yeah, they had a match at a family reunion a few years back that made tape and was pretty solid. I wish Lawler and Dundee would work at my family reunions.

There is a tag from Knoxville earlier in the decade that is in full, but I'm not sure how it is. Also a couple of Lawler/Brisco matches. The one I have seen I loved. Not sure if there's more or not.

We should start calling him Iceman King Punk.

Bob Armstrong as a heel in late '95 USWA is incredible, because he's doing this "aww shucks" act and he is HATED despite never really throwing a punch or being caught doing anything terribly wrong. He just reeks of insincerity so much that no one likes him. Lance Russell's interactions with him are priceless. All he's doing is just a minor twist on the SMW commissioner persona, which is what makes it so great.

I will never forget the story that his fingers were accidentally slammed in a taxi cab door when was Big Bubba. However, fans were around, so he had to no-sell it to protect his gimmick, even though he was in severe pain.

These would be my picks. I tried to shoot for a combination of best matches and matches that are good demonstrations of what was going on in the company at the time. I will go back and look up specific dates if you have trouble. I did this from memory. Ric Flair vs Harley Race (8/17/83 - This is the actual date, not the air date. But it's the full match that led to the Flair injury on the Flair DVD that set up Starrcade) Rock & Roll Express vs Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev (07/09/85 - Can't remember the exact air date, but that's the actual date) Tully Blanchard vs Ron Garvin (Worldwide 05/03/86) Ric Flair vs Ricky Morton (Pro 05/86 - First 15 minutes of match before shows goes off the air) Rock & Roll Express vs Rick Rude & Manny Fernandez (WCW 12/86 - Title change) Magnum TA vs Nikita Koloff - Whatever Best of 7 complete is out there Ric Flair vs Barry Windham (Worldwide 01/24/87) Midnight Express vs Barry Windham & Ron Garvin (WCW 05/87 - Finals of US tag title tournament) Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Ron & Jimmy Garvin (Sometime that summer on WCW) Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Worldwide 09/25/87 - Title change, this date is off the top of my head and may not be right) Barry Windham vs Tully Blanchard (WCW 01/23/88) Midnight Express vs Fantastics (Pro 03/26/88) Midnight Express vs Fantastics (Worldwide 05/14/88 - There are multiple versions of this out there, but there is one that aired in some markets that is fairly close to complete. And this match goes something like 50 minutes.) Ric Flair vs Sting (Don't remember exact dates, but they had a couple in early '88 worth checking to see what they did prior to Clash I) Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs Lex Luger, Barry Windham & Sting (Main Event 04/03/88) Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs Lex Luger & Barry Windham (Main Event 04/24/88 - Windham turn) Barry Windham vs Eddie Gilbert (WCW 12/31/88) Ric Flair & Barry Windham vs Ricky Steamboat & Eddie Gilbert (WCW 01/21/89)

The more I think about it, Chris Jericho returning from a five-month layoff to work 45 minutes in his first match back - and do a great job of it - may be the most impressive thing he has ever done. He deserves big praise for what he did last night.

This intrigued me so I checked out George Farah on Wikipedia. Check this out:

Agreed, and as a contrast to Rock, it was even more impressive.

I thought Rock/Punk was pretty disappointing, mainly because Rock looked Lex Luger at SuperBrawl II-level embarrassing. He also seemed to have trouble keeping his wind. I am sure it's hard to do so when you have to work at a pretty high level and don't wrestle year-round. But it still stands out.

Rock is so ridiculously juiced. It stands out more in the modern era than ever.

I think Rock is winning. If he was losing, the Rumble would go on last. They like to send the crowd home happy.

Summerslam. Jericho won, then did a job with his WWE career at stake the next night.

That's pretty much what I said. Or at least that's what I thought I said. If you want to compare Flair and Funk as old guys, feel free. Maybe it should be part of the conversation. But I'm not convinced that it should be an equal part of the conversation. When people think of these guys, first and foremost, they think of them on their best days, when they are fairly young, and when their stardom is at its peak. It's when they made their name and established their legacy. That's why I think it is more important. But I suppose it doesn't have to mean that everything else is unimportant.

I love the Nate Silver Rumble stats stuff. I thought that was tremendous!

I would rank DiBiase higher, but Boss Man had a deceptively strong WWF run -- as a promo, a worker, a participant in memorable angles and a draw.

Ok. I re-read some things. I'm hoping this puts a nice bow on this conversation. If it doesn't, it doesn't, but I am hoping it does. Part of this is changing my thoughts, and part of this is clarifying where I was coming from before. I have no problem with Funk's old man act being part of this conversation, as long as it's not in the sense of specifically comparing it to Flair's old man act. The reason for that is not because Funk wins out, but it's because I think Flair has a robust case that has nothing to do with how he performed in his late 40s and early 50s. It's probably shortchanging Terry Funk to define him by his "middle aged and crazy" period, but maybe it would be shortchanging him not to mention it at all as well. I would hope no one would ever try to define Ric Flair by his late 90s and early 2000s. I am fairly sure most people realize that's ridiculous. I could see someone reading my points before and thinking there were arbitrary cutoffs and time periods that should be completely discarded on a whim or to fit a predetermined candidate. I didn't intend it that way, but I can understand seeing it that way. In fact, and this is a change in position after having this conversation, I'm fine with someone including Flair's bad years in the conversation too, as long as they are not disproportionately weighing it against many more years where he was better. "Flair falls down a few notches because of a rough patch" is a perfectly reasonable point of view, even if it's not something I would go out of my way to bring up within this conversation. "Ric Flair's late 40s and early 50s are proof he was always overrated" would be more a point that I would challenge. As long as we're defining the wrestlers who peaked high (not just Flair) at their best, I have no problem with including any time period in the conversation. I just don't want anyone to have the takeaway that Flair's decline is more important than his peak period. I don't think you had evil intentions, Matt, and I apologize if I gave the impression that you did. Dylan, I know you well enough to know better. Is everyone else ready for this thread to end?

If the point the entire time has been that a high-quality post-prime is a positive that should be allowed a place in these types of debates, I can accept that, as long as it's not at the expense of those who don't have it. If we're not holding once great wrestlers getting old and limited against them, so be it. I have no problem using it as a positive. I have a problem using the lack of it as a negative. If I had said that earlier, could we have saved ourselves a lot of time and frustration?