Bierschwale

I remember it from a recent-enough viewing to be a really, really cold match. The lack of face/heel distinction is really important in why it doesn't work. Kind of too obvious of a spotfest, even if the spots were brutal, because there wasn't much that glued them together or a real atmosphere of hate. Certainly not bad but in a five year stretch ('99-03) so saturated with ladder matches, I can think of several that I like more.

The no-brainer thing to do would be say "any title match with El Dandy" and that is exactly why I will do it.

I do agree that this is a really excellent match, one trapped on possibly the worst RAW in a few-month span that had some of its worst overall episodes ever. Very minimal drama about getting the opponent into the ambulance, just two dudes beating the shit out of each other and making what is historically a terrible gimmick match into an awesome brawl that had a genuine flow and strong storytelling from beginning to end with a genuine sense of finality in the finish. Ambrose has had an INCONSISTENT 2015 to say the least (And for as much of the "Reigns political hit" perpetuation that has come, which I really agree with, it is actually shocking to see the post-Rollins cooldown that Ambrose has received where he's only actually wrestled on about half of the live programming for the main roster since then, with only one singles win in the last four months, without having any kind of notable injury because he's wrestled on SmackDown or Main Event for nearly every one of those weeks), but he's genuinely great in this match. I'm not sure of a WWE match this year that deserves a re-watch more than this one because of it just having such a dreary setting, coming at the end of a feud where two guys were told to make chicken salad out of chicken shit, and being surrounded with all-time joke match gimmick that meant that it was really hard to get a read of it live.

The esteemed Mr. Sleeze originally wrote (because I can't actually quote the original post because I'm an idiot):

It just would have been Barrett or Rusev or Sheamus getting squashed no matter what.

There's always a Reigns heel turn, which would have only worked seven months ago at this point.

Double posted.

So... I guess that we don't have footage of that.

I really like the Akebono-Miyahara TC match from this year.

Corino busting out the roll of quarters on Whitmer was cool as hell, but that meant less Mark and there is no good reason to not use Mark Briscoe when you have even the slightest excuse to do so. Him taking Whitmer's crutch is apparently the only thing he did at that taping. That's just weak.

The gravediggers looking for possible "burials" are pointing to this: http://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2015/10/18/9562707/a-very-good-picture-of-the-luke-harper-fan-club

I only learned tonight that Nick Berk has unretired just to job in Dojo Wars matches, which made me inordinately happy.

I think that I can define what I think is the highest form of versatility better than versatility itself, and I don't know if it makes any sense, but being a great versatile worker is about making me believe them no matter the situation. Whatever they're doing makes sense to who they are supposed to be.

I'm totally down with Liger-Nish. I habitually think of Nishimura as a graduated junior when he really wasn't past his young lion days, so I was ruling out something like Hase-Liger from '91 (which I can't find anyway) for that reason. The larger point which is that Rey has a great history working heavies which Liger doesn't still stands, though. But those few tags with Liger-Vader interaction are worth the price of admission. Obviously not a knock on Liger, but a plus for Rey.

Tajiri vs. X-Pac at SummerSlam '01. Tajiri's

Bayley's from San Jose.

The original tone of the thread kind of took Ricky out of the equation. His most famous Gibson-less match is with Rich at Havoc '90, which I actually watched yesterday in a case of excellent timing, and he is great-great-great but it's barely a tag match, of course.

What's Liger's second-best match against a heavy (#1 being the Hashimoto match)?

Washington Avenue was the Albany venue. The Philly shows were at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby.

This is why the Women's title was on RAW.

I really agree about how the juniors (and both tag divisions) have been so oversaturated by non-natives in the last couple of years. I looked it up a few weeks ago; just for 2015, there's been nine teams to challenge for either tag title. Six all-gaijin, one mixed, and two all-native. Zero all-native matches since those two teams were Goto/Shibata & TenKoji. Two years for the HWs (Iizuka/Yano-TenKoji), three years for the juniors (Taichi/TAKA-Liger/TM).

There is absolutely no better evidence for the political hit than this promo.

The Briscoes would have been amazing in Puerto Rico.

It's known that Mistico II is a different guy (and subsequently that Dragon Lee II is a different guy). I actually hope that this gets Mistico II's shit together, somehow. It's unfair to just compare him to his brothers because Dragon Lee and Rush are great for completely different reasons, but does anyone really care about Mistico II at all?

Also, he doesn't suddenly turn until HBK '95 for random matches.