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Fenix gets a lot of Rey comparisons and I fully understand that, but he reminds me more of Blitzkrieg where he's purely about doing some crazy shit and showing off his physical abilities and everything else is secondary if it exists in a match at all. Rey even in his physical prime where he could do anything he wanted was much better about weaving in his spots and and selling, where as Fenix is just WANNA SEE SOME AWESOME SHIT HERE I GO no matter what is going on in a match prior or after. Which definitely has its place and there isn't a guy currently in wrestling that makes me hit the Titus.gif in real life pretty much every time I see him, and that's pretty rad. However, I haven't really seen him do much more than that, and I don't feel like AEW or at least his position in AEW really is going to require that of him anytime soon.

Well now I'm going to have to change it because fuck Jim Cornette

His terrible HBK histrionics that he clearly thinks is great acting should disqualify him from anything tbh

This is really something. I agree with all the above comments about it being weird, being too long, it's messy, there's not much "psychology" in the defined story or strategy. All four guys are gassed as hell (Vader especially, but consider that Arn/Flair/young Austin are also gassed and Vader has 100+ pounds on all of them). Around the 12-15 minute mark, Flair goes on a huge string of extremely fired up babyface offense and it seems like it's heading to the finish, but then it goes on another 15 minutes. Somehow they never lose the audience despite plenty of miscommunications, sloppiness, and general aimlessness. In some ways this reminds me of a hateful puro tag match from the 80s, but the second half also has Arn/Flair working as the RNR Express. I don't give star or number rankings to matches I keep track of, I instead use this scale: Skippable (nothing of note or value) Skippable but interesting (little of note or value but maybe an interesting spot or pairing or some other historical oddity) Recommended (Unequivocally good and worthy of your time) Highly Recommended (Absolutely should watch) I would give this a Highly Recommended rating if I was keeping track of it like I was going through the AJPW Archive. It's messy, long, full of flubs or at least weird miscommunications (Flair particularly has multiple times where he doesn't seem to have a good way out of a spot so he literally just falls down, not even the Flair Flop way, he'll clothesline Austin in the corner and then just fall over lmao), it doesn't really have a story in it beyond each side being "fuck you" from start to finish, a lack of a finish. But boy is it engaging and entertaining even in the down spots. I'm trying to imagine anything like this on WWE TV in 1993 or years in either direction.

Gonna be extra lol when Kenny wins both the TNA and Impact titles and is on Dynamite with TNA's head guy and it isn't mentioned.

I actually don't like watching Darby because I always feel like I'm going to see a broken bone on live TV. My first impression of him seeing him in EVOLVE was man this kid is dumb and then I saw him on TNT doing the same shit and now Sting is his dad and I guess that's pretty cool.

WWF jobbers in the Raw era sucked outside of Chris Hammerick doing his bump once in a while and a couple of cool names like LA Gore. Otherwise it's just a bunch of shitty ECW guys and like....Thrasher. The squashes themselves also weren't fun unless it was the Steiners or Yoko killing dudes. Unlike WCW where those jobbers got WORK.

Destroyer stuff into the 80s will not cool you off on him, but probably won't raise him much in your estimation, either. He's pretty much doing all of his classic stuff but there are no stakes to anything so it's skippable fluff altogether. He's just as talented and capable deep into the 80s as he was in the 50s/60s/70s, though. Probably into the 90s if I had to guess.

It doesn't really feel like AJPW has too many belts in the 80s because most of the time they're all held by Jumbo/Baba/Tenryu, usually overlapping singles and tags, so it's not like you'll get UN, PWF, NWA International, PWF Tag, All Asia Tag, NWA International Tag on the same card because they're all held by 3 people.

No I am referring to the Punk match in 2013, but he might have done it with Balor as well. He gets shoved into the corner of the table and starts saying "Paul, my stomach" and changes color as he looks like he's about to puke.

Kintaro Oki is real weird to me as I've seen matches where he literally does nothing but headbutts and it's the worst, and I've seen matches where he does nothing but heatbutts and it's pretty awesome. A couple of classic Baba/Jumbo vs Oki/Kim Duk tags in the mid 70s that really set the template for the high energy hateful tags more associated with Choshu's influence on AJ. Sakaguchi was also definitely awesome.

It's crazy how much better of a wrestling program Saturday Night is in 1993 compared to Raw. In terms of like...everything. Better wrestling, better commentary, better production, better squashes, better weekly storylines, better build to PPVs, better characters and motivations. I think the only thing you could maybe argue is better on Raw at this point was the ring mat.

I really do enjoy matches where dudes just do not take Inoki's shit and bully him. There aren't that many, but the above mentioned Rolland Bock match, Vader, and the Thesz/Gotch vs Inoki/Sakaguchi match where Lou just straight up legit bullies him with ease and treats him like a rookie is hilarious. I definitely do enjoy all the Backlund matches, but I have come to really enjoy Backlund because he's so weird even if I don't find too many of his matches particularly entertaining as a whole. Inoki/Brisco from JWA in 1971 is awesome. Some real proto UWF stuff that I wouldn't be surprised was the specific inspiration for Maeda/Takada/Sayama to get into wrestling and go down the path that ended up being UWF. The Dory match in 69 is real good, too. I enjoy all the Andre matches, and there is one match with Tiger Jeet Singh that is good (and I mean one) but I can't remember which of the hundreds it is. I know there was a bunch of really cool shit on youtube that NJ nuked when they started NJ World and then never uploaded those matches, including a ton of Inoki stuff that I wish I would have checked out while I could. I also wonder what could have been if NJ had a better cast of gaijin in the 70s, because god damn you look at his match list and there's some real dire looking shit compared to what was going on with AJ at the same time. And really into the 80s as well. I think Inoki's 90s output is rarely talked about but he has some real good spectacle matches with Hase/Tenryu/Muta/Vader. Over all it's hard to argue that Baba doesn't have a better track record despite Inoki being a much more capable athlete and mechanically better. I do wonder how much of that is the gulf in talent both guys were regularly working with in their prime years.

I have trouble with him as a top tier great as well because I find junior stuff especially when Liger was at his peak generally have zero story or psychology at all. Just cool moves. Which is cool, especially combined with a cool look. Like I'm always going to play as Liger in games because he's got brainbusters and powerbombs and SSP and palm strikes and koppo kicks and shit. But I often don't find much to sink my teeth into in his matches other than cool moves most of the time.

The slam off the top was a running gag by 1994/1995 at the latest. I would argue earlier which is why it was always a big pop when he'd hit a move off the top as a face even in 1989 and 1993.

I can't say I've actually ever seen too much of his work, but his nut shot to Kimo at the Dome might be the GOAT nut shot in pro wrestling. Just annihilated that breh's balls.

The sell of getting rammed into the corner of the announce table in the Punk match is an all timer. This coming off his bout of diverticulitis and his sell job was turning ghost white (no small feat as he was already purple) and desperately trying not to puke.

No that's a pretty accurate memory. Ted is real dry until the 1985 tours where he suddenly adopts Stan's look and energy for a bit, and in 1986 he has a lot more energy and intensity to his work, but they never really gel as a team. Part of that could be that it seems like everything on tape with Ted also involves Tenryu, and despite what feels like 100 matches between the two, they never had chemistry.

I'm 100% positive Brock is going to do whatever it is he feels like doing in the ring. No agents are telling Brock what to do in his matches, and no one in the ring is telling him to do shit he doesn't want to do.

I would definitely say the glory of Stan Hansen is the chaotic nature of his being can produce excellence or a mess, but ultimately everything Stan Hansen does in the ring feels authentic to what Stan Hansen should do in the ring.

I'm not talking about high talent guys sitting on the sidelines. Not talking about Andrade types. I'm talking about these people who got recruited to the PC and then did nothing for years but get paid to be in catering.

Yeah there's a whole lot of talent that gets signed to WWE that really has no business being there to begin with, those people should be thrilled they're getting paid to have access to the PC 24/7 and not have to travel and take bumps.

One thing I never understood was why he had a reputation as being a stoic guy. Misawa is obviously the stoic one and Kawada was very prone to intention emotional outbursts in matches all the way from the Revolution days to the end of his career.

His matches with Choshu suck but I'm putting that squarely on Choshu, who seemed to be going out of his way to have shitty matches with the top level guys in 1986.

Finlay is another guy, maybe an even better example than Arn of enjoying a guy for his individual performances more than the sum total of his match quality due to positioning on the card.