NintendoLogic

No, Matt.

If you'e going to accuse someone of arguing in bad faith, you should at least have the courage to use your own words rather than hiding behind someone else's.

It seems to me that the Flair defenders are trying to have it both ways. If you try to critically examine how he works his matches, they accuse you of singling Flair out when plenty of other guys are guilty of the same things. But if you do liken him to someone else, they insist that what Flair does is totally different.

Cena's dad is a huge fan, yes. Cena was a fan for a time as a kid, but he had stopped watching by the time he was a teenager. His main loves were football and bodybuilding, but he wasn't good enough for the former or big enough for the latter. He was brought into the business after being spotted in a gym. I'm not saying he doesn't have passion for the business, but he's not some starry-eyed fan living out a boyhood dream. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, mind you.

Actually, Cena wasn't much of a fan growing up. Pro wrestling is something he was recruited into after he couldn't make it as a bodybuilder.

I don't understand the hangup over the term "bitch." I mean, "chickenshit" isn't exactly a term of endearment, but we use "chickenshit heel" in neutral or even laudatory terms all the time. As for what playing the bitch entails, it goes beyond selling and bumping big for your opponent. It's acting in a way that makes you come across as a coward or a buffoon.

Stiffness isn't something I seek out, but it's not something I have a problem with as long as guys aren't dumbasses about it. Stiff shots to safe areas like the chest and back are fine. Kicking someone in the head full-force is just stupid.

You mean the match where Flair destroys Luger's leg with a chair while JJ Dillon has the ref distracted and gets the pin with his feet on the ropes?

Back when I was a lurker and still trying to find myself as a wrestling fan, this thread was invaluable in helping me expand my wrestling horizons. I've been pondering the answers I would give for the categories goodhelmet suggested for a while now, and I've finally reached the point where I'm confident in my selections. Must see cage match Got to go with the 1992 WarGames. Must see high flyers match Eddy/Rey from Halloween Havoc. The 2005 Smackdown match is a better match, but Havoc has better high flying. Must see match with blood Hokuto/Kandori. Must see mat work Can't go wrong with Han/Tamura. 1/22/97 is their best match, so I'll go with that one. Volk Han is someone even people who aren't into matwork or shoot-style can appreciate. Must see gimmick match I'll go with the Cena/Umaga LMS match. It has the feel of a traditional pro wrestling match without sublimating the gimmick. I feel like most gimmick matches fail on either the first count or the second. Must see world title bout 6/3/94. Must see 1970s match Baba/Robinson, 7/24/76. Must see 1980s match Lawler/Dundee, 6/6/83. Kind of surprised that I'm the first one to mention it. Must see 1990s match Misawa/Kobashi, 1/20/97. Must see tag match 6/9/95. This is a pretty interesting topic, so I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of the newer members. Oh, and I'm 31.

I recently saw Flair vs. Brett Sawyer from Portland (the October one) and thought it was blowaway great. It's also more ammunition for my argument that early 80s Flair was the best Flair. He's not stooging or taking shortcuts in this match, he's in full-on asskicker mode. He puts Sawyer over as a credible challenger while still making it clear that he's the world champion for a reason. It's the kind of match I wish he had wrestled more often. Flair fans and non-fans alike should check it out.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who can't stand that guy. If he really thought that Rock winning the title at the Rumble was an attempt to hit the reset button rather than something that had been planned for over a year, he's either clueless or deluded.

The other day, I was wondering if Zack Ryder has ever had a good match. I figured that if he did, it happened in WWECW, so thanks for this. The match was too short to leave much of an impression, but it was good while it lasted. For what it's worth, I don't think the Zack Attack is that terrible a finisher. It's better than a standard Overdrive, at least. Granted, that's an exceedingly low hurdle.

I deleted that comment because I thought it came across as more confrontational than I intended. It's really not something I feel like getting into an argument over.

Eh, I suppose not.

Wow. If you didn't think Okada/Tanahashi was any good, our tastes are even further apart than I thought.

After seeing a few matches for the first time and reappraising a few more, I bumped my list back up to 50. The thread title is no longer a lie! Also, some of you may have noticed some similarities between Childs' list and my own. That isn't an accident. His recommendations in both this thread and the matches you must see before you die thread were invaluable as guideposts for which matches to check out. I guess that makes us bros.

I mentioned the 70s because Loss said he had great matches that spanned three decades. The only 70s Hansen match I've seen in its entirety was with The Destroyer, which I thought was kind of meh. I haven't seen all of the cage match with Bruno, but what I did see looked pretty good.

What 70s Hansen matches would you consider great?

I watched Rose/Martel and Rose/Bass and was quite impressed by both, particularly the Martel match. Some folks have uploaded a ton of Portland wrestling onto Youtube the past few months, so I'm looking forward to checking out more of Rose's work. However, he did come across to me like something of a poor man's Ric Flair. The fact that I also watched Flair vs. Brett Sawyer probably contributed to that feeling.

It should work if you skip around on the time bar.

I don't think what I said was unfair. Saying that tastes are shaped at least in part by past experiences strikes me as completely uncontroversial.

I think that generally speaking, the wrestling you're exposed to first strongly influences what you think wrestling is "supposed" to look like. I think that's especially true in conversations like this. The Flair backers tend to be ones who grew up on 80s NWA, while Bret backers more likely had their first exposure to 90s WWF. I think that explains why so many of the Bret backers are Canadian or European.

I just watched the match, and I absolutely loved it. It reminded me of Misawa/Kobashi on 1/20/97 with Tanahashi destroying Okada's arm and Okada overcoming it in a way that seemed earned and not cheap. I also really liked how Tanahashi would go after the arm to cut off Okada on offense. And the tombstone spot at the end was a nice callback to their Dome match. I was kind of dreading watching it when I saw that it was 31 minutes, but the time flew by. If I were to levy a criticism of the match, it would be that it didn't really make much sense from a storyline perspective for Tanahashi to go after the arm when working his opponents' legs had consistently worked for him in the past. Overall, though, I'd say this was easily the best of their matches together and the clear favorite for my personal MOTY.

So Dave gave the full monty to the latest Tanahashi/Okada match.