NintendoLogic

I took a Grandpa Simpson quote and added an Irish accent. It seems to me they have similar styles of rambling anecdotes.

"So I toied an onion to me belt, which was the stoile at the toime."

Well, yeah. Most things in these types of discussions are. Also, for what it's worth, there seemed to be a consensus a while back that 1988 to 1997 was the best ten-year stretch in wrestling history. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=14200

Which is why I said "or close to it." With a topic like this, absolute standing is more important than relative standing. To put it in numerical terms, suppose Flair was a 90 for most of the 80s with no one else scoring higher than 85. If Misawa was a 95 for most of the 90s, I don't think he should be penalized if Kawada or Kobashi scored a 97 a couple of years. I don't see this. Virtually every promotion was better from an in-ring standpoint in the 90s than in the 80s. All Japan was better. WWF was way better. New Japan was probably better. AJW was better. CMLL was most likely better, but there are footage availability issues. 90s WCW and 80s JCP are close to equal. About the only promotion that was clearly better in the 80s was Memphis. Granted, you have promotions like Mid-South that were no longer extant in the 90s, but I don't think that's nearly enough to tip the scales in favor of the 80s.

Quite a few promoters have the mindset that guys in the undercard shouldn't work too hard and have matches that are too difficult for guys in the main event to follow. I think that's bullshit myself. Anyway, I'm also in the Loss camp on this. I think mainly in terms of matches, and my favorite wrestlers are the ones who've appeared in the most matches I like. At the same time, I have a few one-hit wonders, wrestlers I couldn't care less about overall who are in a match or two I really dig.

There is this: http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/topic/3...good-match-now/ It's threads like that that are responsible for DVDVR having the rep it does. Bonus points for the "Meltzer hates wrestling" and "Meltzer only likes matches with big moves" talking points.

I don't know. There isn't really an established term to describe a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type. Jim Ross used to use "catch-as-catch-can style" to describe Shawn Michaels, but that's quite wrong. The difference is that Liger had plenty of matches where he spent a significant amount of time on the mat. You can argue about the quality of it, but it was there.

I have been following. And I've said in this and other threads that matwork is a necessary component of technical wrestling. If you don't work the mat, you're not a technical wrestler. See, I don't really consider kicks and chops to be brawling. That's, like, martial arts or some shit.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Buddy Landel vs. Freddy?

I don't see this. When did Misawa ever demonstrate mat skill? About the only time he ever went to the mat was to apply the facelock. And he never worked his way out of holds that were applied on him, he just made the ropes. It wasn't his technique that got him out of trouble, it was his elbows. I don't really see this either. I did some thinking a while back about what constituted a brawl. Like, I've heard Shawn Michaels described as a brawler, and that didn't sound right to me. I've decided that a brawl should have at least two of the following elements: -Punches -Blood -Foreign objects I would also add a lack of working holds. If you're fighting a guy on the street, you're not going to put him in an armbar.

You guys are seriously overthinking this. If you're skilled at hold-counterhold wrestling, you're a technical wrestler. If you're not, you're not. Simple.

A term being misused doesn't make the term meaningless. Also, since when is Randy Savage a technical wrestler?

To me, the ur-example of wrestlers having loopy opinions is Terry Funk saying that Masato Tanaka was better than the All Japan boys. Who you gonna believe, the Funker or your lying eyes?

As far as apples-to-apples comparisons between guys with similar gimmicks go, I think Brody had better strikes than Abdullah. Pretty much anything Abby did that didn't involve a fork looked like garbage.

Add me to the list of those for whom Brody's popularity is a complete mystery. I'm no Sayama fan, but when I watch old Tiger Mask matches, I can totally see why he got over. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what would've been particularly appealing about Brody when Stan Hansen was right there.

I thoroughly despise Abdullah the Butcher. A morbidly obese man waddling around and stabbing people with cutlery is emphatically not my idea of good wrestling. I can't stand Dump Matsumoto for similar reasons.

I didn't make any substantive changes to the list, but I did give up on rankings after the top ten. Also, I considered swapping out a match for Rock/Jericho from No Mercy, but after a rewatch, the ending with Stephanie getting Rock Bottomed left a bad taste in my mouth.

It came in 37th in the DVDVR best of the 90s voting. I wouldn't go to bat for it as a top 50 match, but it wouldn't be horribly out of place either.

I showed this video to a non-wrestling fan friend. His response to the second clip: "What the fuck did he just do? Is he fighting himself?" Later in the video, he made the following observation: "He's not gonna die normal, is he?"

Yeah, there's a big overlap between cowboy culture and samurai culture. Look at how Yojimbo became A Fistful of Dollars and The Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven. For what it's worth, I think facial expressions are overrated. I never got why people like it when wrestlers ham it up like Jim Carrey on acid.

It's not that Flair wasn't versatile at all. It's that he was less so than other guys in the GOAT conversation. In fact, it often seemed as if he was actively resisting changing with the times and was simply content to play his greatest hits every time out like some classic rock band. It doesn't necessarily disqualify him, but it's something to take into account if you're trying to determine if he was better than every other wrestler who ever lived.

I would argue that Misawa's run as best in the world or close to it was at least as long as Flair's, and he did it when the worldwide standard of work was higher.

The point about wrestling ability not necessarily correlating with training ability is certainly well-considered. I can only offer the following retort: Billy Gunn, dude.

This is the greatest post in the history of this great sport. Would this change your mind?

If there were a chef who put a potato in every meal he prepared regardless of how well it meshed with the other ingredients because that's what he thought his customers wanted, I don't know how many people would consider him the greatest chef of all time.