NintendoLogic

For a while, I've been entertaining the idea of compiling a list of desert island matches that would be broad enough to serve as a crash course for those just getting into pro graps. After some thought, I've managed to put together a list of 50 matches that pretty well encapsulate what I like most about wrestling. And with the discussion on the most recent Wrestling Culture podcast about favorite matches that you could watch over and over again, I felt the time was right for a favorite matches vanity list thread. As the subtitle indicates, this isn't just intended for discussion of how awesome/stupid my list is. Feel free to contribute your own. And it needn't be 50. 10 or 25 or whatever else is fine. So without further ado, here's my list. After the top ten, it's strictly in chronological order (edit: they're all in chronological order now). Also, I had intended to write a little bit about what I liked about each match, but then I got lazy. Still, I'd be happy to give my thoughts on specific matches for those curious. Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (Memphis, 3/23/81) Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee (Memphis, 6/6/83) Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (EMLL, 9/23/83) Sgt. Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik (WWF, 6/16/84) Terry Gordy vs. Killer Khan (WCCW, 11/22/84) Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (Mid-South, 3/22/85) Bill Dundee vs. Jerry Lawler (Memphis, 12/30/85) Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu (AJPW, 1/28/86) Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose/Doug Somers (AWA, 8/30/86) Riki Choshu vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara (NJPW, 6/9/87) Stan Hansen/Terry Gordy vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, 12/16/88) Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair (WCW Chi-Town Rumble, 2/20/89) Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW, 6/5/89) Lex Luger vs. Ricky Steamboat (WCW Great American Bash, 7/23/89) Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (WCW Great American Bash, 7/23/89) Naoki Sano vs. Jushin Liger (NJPW, 8/10/89) Stan Hansen/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Yoshiaki Yatsu (AJPW, 12/6/89) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW, 6/8/90) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 9/1/90) Jumbo Tsuruta/Masanobu Fuchi/Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 10/19/90) Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Masanobu Fuchi/Akira Taue (AJPW, 4/20/91) Ricky Steamboat/Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson/Larry Zbyszko (WCW Clash of the Champions XVII, 11/19/91) Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes vs. Larry Zbyszko/Steve Austin (WCW Superbrawl II, 2/29/92) Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat (AJPW, 5/25/92) Big Van Vader vs. Sting (WCW Great American Bash, 7/12/92) Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Barry Windham/Brian Pillman (WCW Starrcade, 12/28/92) Sting vs. Big Van Vader (WCW Starrcade, 12/28/92) Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, 2/28/93) Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (AJW, 4/2/93) Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect (WWF King of the Ring, 6/13/93) Barry Windham vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (WCW Clash of the Champions XXIII, 6/16/93) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 7/29/93) Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (AJPW, 12/3/93) Bunkhouse Buck vs. Dustin Rhodes (WCW Spring Stampede, 4/17/94) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, 6/3/94) Vader vs. Dustin Rhodes (WCW Clash of the Champions XXIX, 11/16/94) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (AJPW, 4/15/95) Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 6/9/95) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, 7/24/95) Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind (WWF In Your House: Mind Games, 9/22/96) Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WWF Survivor Series, 11/17/96) Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama (AJPW, 12/6/96) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 1/20/97) Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WWF Wrestlemania 13, 3/23/97) Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Eddy Guerrero (WCW Halloween Havoc, 10/26/97) Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki (NJPW, 8/2/98) Jun Akiyama vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 2/27/00) Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin (WWF Summerslam, 8/19/01) Eddie Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE No Way Out, 2/15/04) Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero (WWE Smackdown, 6/23/05)

Wrestling historian Scott Keith on Halftime Heat:

I don't think Dylan would fail to give a match a fair shake based on who was in it. But I do think it's a bit unfair to penalize Tanahashi for an anomalously great Suzuki performance.

Now that I'm caught up on lucha, I think this is off. I thought Tanahashi contributed way more to the Suzuki match than Sombra did to the Casas match or Che to the first Terry match.

Do you have an ad blocker? I recently got one, and it's made DM a million times more tolerable. On the All Japan front, there needs to be more love for Sekimoto/Okabayashi vs. Akebono/Hama. It's not the best match of the year, but it might be the most fun. Styles make fights, and power offense vs. fat man offense is a matchup that rarely disappoints.

Thumbtacks. In 2012.

And wasn't Naito working the G1 with a blown-out knee?

How was it less than good? It was too short to have any real meat to it, and the transition to Funaki on top was terrible. He does a heel hook, wins a strike exchange, and hits the Hybrid Blaster. The first time I saw the match, I felt like Krusty after watching Worker and Parasite: "What the hell was that?" Anyway, I watched Punk/Cena and Funaki/Suwama. I thought the former started out really well, but then it just plateaued for a while and ran out of steam toward the end. The latter was quite a bit better than I thought it would be, but it wasn't anything close to a MOTYC. Funaki isn't the kind of guy who should be in long matches, and Suwama isn't the kind of guy who can carry someone to a main event epic.

If Adam Copeland were a bad actor, would he have received a starring role in a WWE Films production? They don't give those to just anybody, you know. You have to at least be on the level of noted thespians Glen Jacobs, John Cena, and Paul Levesque.

I loved Tanahashi/Suzuki. In fact, I thought it was the kind of match you'd have to go out of your way to find serious problems with. Suzuki may have been the main driver, but I never felt like Tanahashi was just along for the ride. The High Fly Flow onto Suzuki's leg in particular was awesome. I'm a huge mark for limb work that plays into the story of the match, and this match had it in spades. In fact, it's the best match centered around dueling arm/leg work I've ever seen. What sets it apart from Samurai/Ohtani and Hayabusa/Tanaka is that both guys sold consistently throughout and didn't magically heal when it was time for them to get their shit in. The only real problem I had with the match was Tanahashi being in the cross armbreaker for too long. Shoot-style submissions should result in either an instant tap-out or a frantic scramble for the ropes. I haven't seen Punk/Cena from NOC yet, and I want to watch all the top matches again to be sure, but this is my tentative MOTY. On the All Japan front, I'm pretty shocked that people are calling Funaki/Akiyama, which isn't even the best sub-five minute Akiyama title defense, a good match, let alone a great one. I have no real desire to watch a Suwama match of any length, but I'll check it out eventually.

Speaking of debates, I wonder how Vince feels about the VP debate supplanting his match with Punk as the week's most entertaining beatdown by an old man. To further tie it into wrestling, conservatives are now trying to say that Biden should be disqualified for kicking too much ass in the same manner that a wrestler who refuses to break a hold after the bell has his win overturned by the ref.

When I saw the Smarkschoice WWF poll results, I was struck by how few of the top matches were decisive feud enders and how many had screwy finishes. The OP already mentioned THAT'S GOTTA BE KANE! In addition, HBK/Mankind from Mind Games had the Vader run-in for the DQ. Angle/Austin from Summerslam had Austin getting himself intentionally DQed. And of course, Austin never actually submitted in the submission match. That's not even getting into all the matches with ref bumps and run-ins. It seems that the WWE has kind of struggled in providing really satisfying blowoff matches.

Dylan can't do a Dusty Rhodes impression? No wonder he doesn't have a WON HOF ballot. Anyway, the Regal story sounds off. He started wrestling in 1983. Clash 6 happened in 1989.

It's like anything else in wrestling. Clean finishes are the preferred way to go, except when they're not.

Dave has said that Dump Matsumoto was more well-known at her peak than Steve Austin ever was. But I think you have to distinguish between name recognition and drawing power. Everyone may have known who the Crush Gals were, but they only really drew from a niche audience, albeit a highly passionate one.

Shoot Phil Schneider a PM.

Wrestling is real within the reality of wrestling. Within that same reality, the abdominal stretch is not an effective submission. Again, it wasn't like Gorilla was burying the Million Dollar Dream or the Sharpshooter. And even if you do see it as a serious issue, it was usually mitigated by the color guy. Like, when Gorilla would say something like "In all my years in this business, I've never seen anyone submit to a side headlock," Jesse or whoever else would chime in with how it was supposed to be a wear-down hold. I think the ideal approach was by whoever was announcing this one Flair/Wahoo match I saw. He talked about how the double wristlock wasn't going to win a match on its own, but it set you up to hit the moves that would win the match.

This isn't a big deal to me either. Anyone over the age of five knows that no one's going to submit to an abdominal stretch. It wasn't like he was burying legitimate submissions. And Kent Walton talked all the time about how guys were unlikely to get submissions with the holds they were applying.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Gorilla was ideal. But the claim made by Dave and others was that he was actively injurious to the product, a below replacement-level announcer in sabermetric terms. I don't think that was the case.

It works for me, but it redirects to http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/forum/2-wrestling/ .

Out of interest, what is your criticism of the match, as I remember thinking that it, along with the TV match a couple of weeks prior were two of the best WWE matches of the 00s, maybe ever. I thought that Finlay faking an eye injury and begging off at the knees like a chickenshit Memphis heel didn't really fit the tone of the match as a whole. And the transition from Finlay eating a German on the floor to being on top a minute later seemed a bit abrupt. But on further reflection, they're fairly minor quibbles. Anyway, I watched Randy Savage vs. Genichiro Tenryu from the WWF/All Japan Summit. Why isn't this match talked about more? It's fucking awesome. It's like Savage/Warrior from WM7 times ten. And I found uber-badass Tenryu having to sell Sherri hitting him with her shoe to be perversely entertaining.

I think it did get the show over. I'd say that an announcer who comes across as smarter than everyone else has more credibility than one who always acts shocked when someone doesn't get a pin off a dropkick. When the same guy who tears wrestlers apart for not hooking the leg says that Hulk Hogan is the greatest professional athlete in the world today, you're more likely to buy it.

To be fair, weren't the Braves a last-place team the year before? I'd imagine they weren't exactly expecting the Braves to be in that position when they scheduled the PPV. Beyond that, wasn't it always scheduled for the fourth Sunday in October?

It's October, so he's reposting his old Halloween Havoc rants. This allows me to revisit perhaps my all-time favorite SKeith-ism: his claim that Stan Hansen was washed-up in 1990.

Pirata Morgan's daughter is no slouch in the looks department either.