Kostka

I thought the ADR/Brodus Clay pairing really captured that, especially on house shows. Total Rude/Bundy vibe. Best example of it in recent years though, was the Jericho/Big Show pairing.

Monster Heel should have it's own category too, as the make-up of a monster heel is different than any other kind of heel. Stan Hansen would get my vote there.

What makes a great heel? Two words: Tully Blanchard

True, but he didn't pinball for Sting the way Abyss pinballs for well, everybody. No matter how often Vader left his feet for Sting, you never forgot that he was a giant grizzly bear who could kill Sting with one shot.

Always wondered why ROH didn't become more Smoky Mountain esque. I guess they were afraid to move away from the established niche style that their fanbase likes.

Best news I've read in weeks.

04-06 ROH had so much more diversity roster wise. Samoa Joe was so much different than CM Punk, who was so much different than Homicide, who was so much different than Bryan Danielson, Colt, Nigel, Rave, Aries, Spanky, Gibson etc. They had much stronger characterisation. They also had guys like Steamboat and Foley around backstage to work in the role of a "road agent", something Gabe never believed in, giving their shows better flow and teaching the guys how to slow down and pace themselves better. They regressed a LOT stylistically in the absence of Danielson, who seemed to be keeping the ship afloat in that sense,even after they lost steam going into 2007. Now it's worse than ever as far as having a bunch of samey no selling Puro CAWs who do 800 suplex variations and shooting star piledrivers per match. It's like.... if this was 2005 and Chris Masters, in 2011 form, got released by WWE, I would be fucking PUMPED because I'd be dying to see him work some ROH shows against guys like Danielson, Joe, The Rottweilers, Nigel, Punk, The Embassy (the Rave/Shelley/Jade Chung/Abyss version), James Gibson, etc. Now, I hope he stays far away.... though Masters vs Richards would be amusing for different reasons.

Tito was easily one of the best workers of 80's WWF. It's not even close. Great, great babyface.

Ultimo Dragon used to be my favorite wrestler, because I was introduced to Japanese wrestling first through 90's New Japan Juniors. Needlessly to say, I'm not a fan anymore.

If you want to say "Hulking up" means "no sell", then no, Lawler didn't do that. If you want to say he "Hulked up" in the sense of having a trademark adrenaline rush with the strap gimmick, then sure, but I'd like to see cited examples of where he brushed off damage to run through a come back, the way Hogan or Warrior did, because they are completely different. Lawlers style of comeback remembered injuries throughout the comeback sequence. Hogan and Warrior style comebacks ignored the body of the match.

Except Lawler didnt no sell during comebacks. The only time I recall that happening was during Lawler/Martel when he brushed off some leg work, but other than that, Lawler was a very consistent seller throughout his entire career.

If a fresh babyface gets tagged in for the first time in a match, and I'm a heel and able, I'm tagging out and getting away from that motherfucker. I know what you mean, though. WWE is usually pretty good in the past decade about working southern style tags. I watched a Finlay/Regal vs Lashley/Batista tag yesterday from 06 and it was your simple-stupid southern style tag where the heels kept Lashley at bay and they built and built with hopespots until Batista finally got the hot tag and they went to the finish (double spears, spinebuster). There are tons of other examples too of WWE doing this well.

I always loved Dustys big, charismatic comebacks. Fuck the rest of the match, as soon as he got to his jiving bionic elbows, I was marking out. For that reason he was an excellent hot tag. Another great FIP was Hiromichi Fuyuki in the late 80s. I think he was better than Kawada during that period (he surpassed him later on, of course). Jim Duggan was a hell of a comeback in 1984.

How is that "new"?

I'd go with Lawler for best comebacks. The dropping the strap was pretty iconic and featured better (obviously) punches and selling than Hogans.

I hated The Rock as a teenager too, for a lot of the same reasons the hip kidz hate Cena... then I rewatched and called myself an idiot. On the flip side I used to like Angle a lot but now he's one of my least favorite guys to watch. I used to think Bret Hart was the greatest of all time until about 10 years ago when I discovered the internet and started digging into the vault of wrestling history. I still like Bret, but I've cooled on him considerably just by opening my eyes to so much more wrestling.

Punk went from being the hottest prospect in wrestling to an annoying message board smark, complete with no good counterpoints. A lot of what Punk has been saying lately (I.E. Land of the giants) aren't really valid talking points in 2011. Also, you can tell when Punk is reciting generic WWE scripts and when he's ad-libbing and working off more of his own stuff. Last night felt like the former.

Its John Cena, though. He needs to beat The Rock. Any kind of backlash isn't out of the norm for the nature of his character. The same people who would shit on it are the same people that shit on him already. I don't see how it would hurt him.

Link doesn't work for me. Edit: Nevermind, got it.

Stupid question: what would be the differences between this and WWE 24 7/Classics?

*Cries*

Yeah, that's the best way to go. This way, Rock can have in-ring interactions with some other current roster guys as well as build WM28 without blowing their load on it early. I'd put Rock on Cenas team, with the story of them trying to one up and top each other, emptying their arsenals on Miz/Christian type dudes.

I don't want Rock and Cena to touch until Mania, but this is 2011. I didn't want Cena and Barrett to touch, didn't want Punk and HHH to touch, etc. With that being said, I could see Rock being apart of a Survivor Series elim tag match. You could put him on Cenas team and tease dissension rather than putting him opposed to Cena. I REALLY want to see a promo-off between Rock and Punk, though.

No offense but...Jesus, man.

I just can't get into Tenryu. Granted I haven't seen much of him outside of 80s All Japan... but he's not nearly as impressive to me as Jumbo, Hansen, Terry Funk, Choshu, Khan, Kawada, Fuyuki, Yatsu and probably others.