goodhelmet

Can't you love the science of pro wrestling?

My favorite part of Dory in All Japan in the 80s was him getting his ass kicked. When he was getting beat up, all felt right in the world. When he went on offense, it was like a vacuum suckling up every good vibe the match had up to that point.

If you ever compare Dick Murdoch to Kane again, I will fucking ban you.

You won't be interested in my list.

These are my working Top 20 (not in order). As much as I want some sleeper guys to go higher, not going to happen. 1. Jerry Lawler 2. Bill Dundee 3. Buddy Rose 4. Daniel Bryan 5. Dick Murdoch 6. El Dandy 7. El Hijo Del Santo 8. Genichiro Tenryu 9. Jumbo Tsuruta 10. Jushin Liger 11. Kenta Kobashi 12. Mitsuharu Misawa 13. Negro Casas 14. Nick Bockwinkel 15. Rey Mysterio Jr. 16. Ric Flair 17. Stan Hansen 18. Steven Regal 19. Tatsumi Fujinami 20. Toshiaki Kawada

I enjoyed the matches from the first few ROH shows. When we were screening recommended matches for the 98 and 99 yearbooks, it was unbearable to watch and most of it looked so fake. They may as well have called the promotion Wrestling School and just called the spots out to see if we liked the execution. Not a guy I seek out or want to see more of.

I emailed Meltzer. Maybe he can shed some light on the situation.

I agree that the win-loss record against those two isn't that big of a deal. I am much more interested in how those matches were promoted and drew but I am sure somebody did that research given Meltzer considers him a household name in Japan at the time and gave so much weight to his working on top over there.

I wouldn't disagree with that assessment. Then again, Hansen is the best gaigin who ever lived so he has that going for him.

Baba was already slowing down in the mid-80s. They aren't comparable. Baba was non-existent by the time Choshu and those guys arrived.

Where did he end up on the Smarkschoice list?

You gotta give me some details!!! This sounds fascinating.

I was there live for the Richards vs. Elgin FIVE STAR MATCH from Florida. I enjoyed Elgin early on. Hated the match overall once they started getting into no selling top rope dragon suplexes. Will definitely finish ahead of Davey Richards in my listings.

First off, we need to establish how many were pinfalls or countouts. If they were pinfalls, it suggests Murdoch was willing to job which we know guys like Brody were not willing to do. Guys like Dibiase and Gordy aren't really good comparisons because their wins/losses were probably tag league matches at the tail end of Baba's career. We also don't know his overall wins / losses in Japan total.

Yeah, I just got the reply button when I saw Joe's post. Anyway, really enjoyed the audio between Meltzer and Matt Farmer. Didn't agree with some of the opinions but Idid like tthe discussion about the working differences between today and the past.

And i think i could explain with examples why Jerry Lawler is a great wrestler. If you can do the same, explaining why he sucks, with examples from his peak, that would be more interesting to me. Having said that, I am not interested in talking Tanahashi or Lawler with you. I have a list of ten other wrestlers I would rather discuss.

There are so many other matches i want to see so that would be at the bottom of my list. Also, Kris can you put those data dumps into spoiler tags to save scrolling time.

Also, I agree with you about looking into those numbers. Whatever those numbers were, Inoki and Baba must have been happy to bring him back time and again and not just as a favor to the Funks as Parv indicated earlier.

I suspect he was told by somebody in Japan that he was a household name at the time. I suspect he was more successful than you are giving him credit for because we can list plenty of guys who went to Japan briefly and didn't stick for whatever reason. Dick was able to stick a make a career out of it. I think it could also be like a guy like Mick Foley. I bet you would be hard pressed to find a lot of people who know who Foley is in the US now. Back in the Attitude era, he probably could have been labeled a household name.

You are reaching Johnny Sorrow territory.

I don't think Dave is lying about that. Having said that i will concede that he may not be a household name in your neighborhood. Also, he didn't specifically indicate New Japan when he said that line so we would have to take a time machine back to 1996, ask 1996 Dave who his source is for that quote and then take said time machine back to Japan even further to verify of to was true. if Murdoch used a hammer lock and it got over in the new shoot style, that is all that matters. I think we can go back and watch the footage to see what's up.

The obit was written in 1996. Unless you were talking to people 20 years ago about 70s Era wrestling then i am just going to take Meltzer ' s word. Also, Meltzer was specifically talking about his mid 80s New Japan run and not his peak in Japan when comparing him to Adonis or Superstar ( his tag partners in New Japan). Finally, you are deliberately misrepresenting what he said about shoot style... he said he was one of the few guys who could work the style AND hold his own because he was atough guy. The arm bar discussion was a completely independent of the shoot style discussion and i find it weird you chose to connect the two together.

Recently on his podcast, Chris Jericho gave props to Meltzer ' s Hall of Fame. Like everything, it depends on the wrestler and the age of said wrestler. I know Foley has also been on record acknowledging his status in the WON Hall of Fame.

Loss isn't that old. I'll probably be dead in ten years but don't think Loss is going to give it up that easily.