ohtani's jacket

Where are the Sting as GOAT arguments then? Why are you looking to the company for GOAT arguments? They call themselves the WWE Universe for chrissake, what do you expect? If you're looking for some bastion of the truth you're looking in the wrong place.

Shawn was heavily hyped, pushed and marketed before his comeback. He's one of the biggest stars in the history of the company. That's always been the perception regardless of the numbers he drew. It's much closer to 50% reality, 50% marketing.

I wonder how Parv feels about the way Hogan was marketed. The marketing for Michaels makes perfect sense from the company's point of view.

Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (5/28/83) I watched these tags out of order as this was the first in the trilogy. This wasn't quite as good as the other two. In fact, it was more like the style of British tag wrestling I'm used to as though they hadn't quite broken free of the shackles. There was still plenty of good stuff, but you could probably argue that Jones and Myers were too dominant and the Riot Squad were too much like a heel in peril WWF team. Vic Faulkner/Marty Jones vs. Lenny Hurst/Jim Moser (aired 3/31/84) This was a match filled with interesting contrasts. On one hand, you had Marty Jones, arguably the best wrestler in Europe at the time, working awesome exchanges with Lenny Hurst and then on the other hand you had Vic Faulkner playing silly buggers. A lot of what Faulkner did was amusing and the West Indians were willing and able straight men, but it occurred to me that perhaps what had been holding British tag wrestling back for so long as the popularity of the Royal brothers and how they turned tag matches into gimmick comedy bouts. The contrast worked, don't get me wrong, but it did prevent the match from being flat out awesome, which it could have been under different circumstances. If you like comedy in your wrestling it was the best of British, that's for sure. Vic Faulkner/Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay/Rocky Moran (aired 3/31/84) Faulkner was more serious in this since it was the final, but again it felt a bit one sided with Jones steamrolling the Irishmen, though it has to be said that Jones' powerlock is, as Walton puts it, both 'murder' and 'Indian death." Jones was so much better than everyone else offensively and wrestled with such intensity that he often outclasses his opposition perhaps without meaning to. That would be my biggest criticism of him. Apart from that, I would rank him alongside Breaks and Grey as the best of his era with Cortez being next. These matches I watched recently were the last real footage of Jones available aside from bits and bobs, and I'm glad I went ahead and ordered them as I was not only reminded of the class of the man but found a couple of hidden gems. This wasn't one of those gems, but a decent bout. Faulkner working seriously was almost as goofy as when he was taking the mickey, but I suppose that's a stigma I've attached to him. Moran was a bit disappointing by previous standards and his tag team with Finlay didn't really have the same vibe as the Riot Squad. But I suppose aside from re-watches and maybe the odd bout here and there that puts a close to Marty Jones. Great wrestler and phenomenal talent that I hope more people familiarise themselves with in the future.

BRAWLS AND BLOODBATHS Cena vs Edge (Last Man Standing) - Backlash 2009 Again going with the one I haven't seen. This was such a boring match. It's a last man standing match, brawl for fuck's sake. The first two thirds were unbelievably boring. They went to the 10 count so many times. I was actually pumped for this one as I enjoyed the entrances and the pre-match vibe, but they sucked the life out of it with the 10 count spots. I hate Cena's adrenaline rushes. If the match is all laid out for you like a script then the only thing you need to worry about is execution, and if you can't execute a believable transition back onto offence under those circumstances then you can't be much of a worker. Then came all the stuntman bullshit. The Attitude Adjustment into the crowd was a stupid spot that put the fans in danger. Then there was a bunch of bullshit crowd brawling, running around backstage, gimmick spots and stunt tricks. All of this shit sucked. Cena can't run properly for starters and apparently you have to kill him dead to win a match. Edge and Cena are the wrong guys to do a match like this. Their acting skills are so shoddy that it looks stupid when they try to sell that they're out on their feet. That spot where they were so buggered they leaned on each other was tripe. Everything about this was tripe. The commentators trying to sell those steps as being heavy was a bad joke. This was a DUD.

Hashimoto/Zangiev is the greatest short match ever.

Kato Kung Lee vs. Kung Fu (Mask vs. Hair) (4/29/88) There aren't a whole lot of explanations necessary for this one since it was an apuesta match between former tag partners. Not only as Los Fantasticos incidentally, but dating back to the late 70s as tag partners in EMLL and in the "El Triangulo Oriental" trio with Satoru Sayama. None of my Spanish sources have ever written up this feud, and I don't have access to the magazines from the time, so you can take a stab at guessing the motivations yourself. In 1984, Los Fantasticos were on the top of the world having defeated Los Cadetes del Espacio to become the first ever UWA World Trios Champions, but things quickly fell apart as they did with many short peak trios teams of the 1980s. When the Fantasticos broke up, they each went their separate ways. Black Man opted to stay in the UWA, Kung Fu went back to the promotion that made him, and Kato Kung Lee began wrestling on the independent circuit (mostly Promociones Mora.) Lee took a payday at the end of '86 from Mora and dropped his mask to Santo in Tijuana, which exists on tape apparently: Lee then kicked around for a year or so before the bout you see here. The build doesn't appear to have been anything special though obviously we're missing Arena Mexico records from the weeks prior. The Atlantis vs. Kung Fu rivalry was building up a head of steam at the same time and appears to have been a bigger deal in the promotion's eyes. Kung Fu dropped the NWA World Middleweight Title to Atlantis in June and would eventually lose his mask to Atlantis in October of 1990. Kung Fu and Kato Kung Lee fought each other a few more times, most notably on the 3/1/91 Arena Mexico show, but the bouts were never anything special and far from important. As one of my sources so wonderfully described, Lee would fall into a slump in gambling fights and pedal his hair to numerous wrestlers in the years that followed. It's worth noting that in late '88, Lee and Kung Fu reformed Los Fantasticos with Black Man and worked some of the UWA venues together, as well as appearing at Arena Mexico in 1989, so apparently they buried the hatchet for a time. That would also indicate that Kung Fu turned technico some time after dropping the belt to Atlantis. While Lee won't be remembered as one of the greats of lucha libre, he was an interesting guy out of the ring. His real name was Johnny Lezcano Smith and he was born in the Arraijan District of Panama. He started out learning taekwondo and judo at his local YMCA before being introduced to lucha through wrestler Chamaco Castro, who once put his hair on the line against a young El Hijo del Santo in Panama for what it's worth. Smith trained in secret and made his professional debut without his parents knowledge (or consent) and when his mother found out she tried to enroll him in the US Navy. According to Smith, he fled to Colombia where he continued to wrestle and subsequently fought in Venezuela, Panama and Guatemala before moving to Mexico City in 1970 where he fought for many years in Ciudad Juarez before getting a break. Definitely a life less ordinary and one of the more interesting routes to distrito federal and the big time.

SELLING BODY PARTS Cena vs Damien Sandow - Raw 28th October 2013 It goes without saying that this was a better selling performance from Cena than the past few matches. In fact, this is the Cena whom I'm more familiar with and have always thought was a pretty good worker. It seems to me that the Cena of the past few years is a better worker than the one from '07-09, though I guess that's easy to say when you haven't been watching him for seven years straight and gotten tired of the same old shit. I really couldn't imagine Cena doing a better job selling this match, though. The arm hung there like it was barely attached, he sold it for the entire duration and it effected all of his big spots. And best of all, he never went overboard with it. If you're a psychology mark then this is like a wet dream. Sandow seemed fairly generic, but the finishing stretch was exciting and the nearfalls were great. Amusingly enough, there was a "this is awesome" chant that I will happily admit fit the mood. Since this was a television match, and an opener to boot, and I couldn't imagine it being any better, I'll drop the big ****

Lawler was an average joe who succeeded at pro-wrestling through grit and determination. Hogan was presented as a genetic freak and outstanding athlete. There was a world of difference in their appeal to the common man.

I watched a Malenko/Smiley match from Worldwide and I would agree that it's a total spotfest. It's wrestled at pace, the transitions are too easy and nothing is sold. On the other hand, it's a five minute Worldwide match so who's really bothered. The biggest problem with it was that Smiley wasn't on Malenko's level as a mat worker so comes off looking second best.

Malenko vs. Smiley sounds like fun. Matwork for its own sake is beautiful.

OVERDRAMATIC SPORTZ ENTERTAINMENT STORYTELLING Cena vs Randy Orton (I Quit) - Breaking Point 2009 Oh man, this was bad. Was this even a wrestling match? It felt like a straight to video B film. I know the guys who come up with this stuff are trained writers who've read all the right books and been to all the right seminars, but this was exhibit A in the argument that you can only adopt certain story elements in wrestling and not have all these cinematic ideas. It was like watching a film student with some knowledge of the I Quit classics try to direct one of his own. The ideas where there, but the wrestlers didn't have the range to pull it off. Cena can't act. He's not even that good a promo. Yet here he is having to deliver these hammy noooos into the microphone. His acting was poor and his selling even worse. He can't transition onto offence properly and he's not able to do any sort of sustained selling. The way he shrug off the beating he'd taken here was an absolute joke. I don't think I'm a huge stickler for consistent selling and I'll give a wrestler a break if they drop their selling but continue doing something good, but c'mon. He was handcuffed to the rope and the pole and brutalised. He should have been half dead. The commentators tried to sell it like he was half dead. Whoever came up with the whole handcuff thing was clearly thinking about the visuals and how sadistic it would make Orton seem, but on top of being overly violent in the way it was presented, it just led to one cringeworthy moment after another. And after all that, Orton quits that easily? Are you kidding me? I contemplated rating this as a DUD. Meltzer gave it **** 1/4, which surprised me as up until now we've been pretty much in line with our ratings. I had the warning coming in that it was overly dramatic, but my opinion of Cena's selling continues to nose dive. Let's give it **

20-25 mins is ideal. I don't mind a shorter match so long as it doesn't feel too short. I'm in the same boat as Matt about caring about video length times.

I will watch the other Cena/Rock match eventually. I didn't know that Rock was injured. He did well to gut that out.

Phil Collins has more artistic merit than Chief Jay Strongbow.

Well it depends on how they work it. The story could be something like "here are two big dominant teams, used to overpowering their opponents with high impact offense, but neither of them has have faced a team like THIS before!" That's not a story; it's a situation. Situations are part of stories but not stories in and of themselves. If that was enough story for a wrestling match you could argue that almost all matches tell a story since wrestlers usually have motivation for disliking each other or wanting to win. You could almost guarantee that the Steiners and Road Warriors would not take that premise and work it into a story. They're not the type that seem capable.

The idea of Hogan carrying Orton would blow a few minds.

Just working a spotfest doesn't tell a story. The Steiners and Road Warriors are roided up power wrestlers so they do a spotfest where they trade power moves isn't a story. It's just a match with a series of moves that starts from a beginning and builds to a conclusion, but there's no real story in there.

You should watch the one Billy Robinson WoS bout we have on tape and see how it differs from the US and Japan stuff he was doing at the time. It's a bout against a young fella named Lee Bronson, which disappointed some of the fans over at Wrestling Heritage who would have rather seen him take on a bigger name.

I'm trying to think but nothing springs to mind immediately. If there was a guy who used suplexes regularly then I imagine it would have been his specialty and used to end a fall. I doubt if McManus ever threw a suplex. The guys who did more moves in the 70s were the new breed of workers like Rocco and Jones. The older guys were a thousand years old and did the same shtick they'd been at since the 50s.

It's like anything else, it just comes down to how much you like the workers. The more people like someone the more forgiving they are. Spotfests can be great. I had a whale of a time watching the No Mercy tag the other day. I just don't want to watch them all the time like some fans do.

Except for all those real fights that were exciting as shit.

First you said worked grappling wasn't realistic enough then you said real grappling is boring as shit. I take that to mean that you don't like worked grappling regardless of how realistic it is. But doesn't that mean you should dislike everything from Verne Gagne vs Thesz through to this Thatcher stuff? Any time anybody works a hold in wrestling they're misapplying it.

Tully's Southwest stuff is worth watching if you're a fan of his, but not if you've got a bunch of other stuff on the go. You basically see the roots of his Crockett stuff and watch as he develops into ind of the great studio match workers.

I find Daniel Bryan or any number of others to produce more realistic looking pro wrestling matches than they do. I find a punch from Goldust more realistic looking than Thatcher's grappling. I literally just spent two hours on the mats watching far more realistic grappling. The most realistic looking pro-wrestling bouts historically have been catch-as-catch bouts. No matter what sport you train in that remains true.