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I am sick and tired of your constant lies about this subject: all of the Chikara Ants were NOT guys in masks, they were all real honest to God giant mutated ants taught to wrestle.

Yeah, Vince never misses on talent.

Just mixed up my text message conversations and sent my boss an anecdote about Bette Davis hating Larry Cohen, and that, “Barbara Carrera and Colleen Camp were grade A 80s foxes.”

Hypothetical. If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. His current storyline started pre-Corona. Did Drew steal your girlfriend or something? (The poster would like to clarify that if my uncle decided they wanted to be my aunt and keep their balls, that would be cool too)

It's AKI Man

Your obsession with Gulak is getting weird.

One of the best parts of Bret's book was this paragraph about Blade II wonder if they brought up HBK more often, whenever they wanted to get a rise out of dad.

Boss Man in a landslide. Dude could hang with Kenta Kobashi. He was straight fire as the kids today say.

As you've said on multiple occasions, you took a 15ish year break from watching wrestling. As a result of that, I would suggest your assessment of Jericho's time in WWE is somewhat limited and off the mark. With Jericho, going back to the middle of the '00s there seemed to be some fairness to the idea that he'd been mishandled because he'd never received a firm commitment in terms of the company pushing him as a tippy-top guy. But once he caught on, he was always heavily featured and given match and promo time during that run. He was almost always an integral part of their roster. From 2008-2010, I'd argue he put in a run that rivals his time in WCW. Almost every time he came back from a hiatus, he was constantly getting chances to express his creativity, from dramatic new looks to wordless promos to the List and so on. There were things along the way that he took as missteps or slights, like the Fandango feud or his match with Owens not being for the Universal title. But on the whole, it's reductive to suggest he was "badly mishandled" (your words) and didn't get to express his creativity. WWE is certainly produced to more rigidly conform to a single person's vision, but you're really writing off a lot of high-quality work at the highest levels that stemmed from Jericho's personal input just because it happened in that company. I'm happy he feels more creatively fulfilled now, but I'm sure there are a lot of talents in WWE who wish they could be as "badly mishandled" as Chris Jericho was for 18 years.

How about not 'fridging women, period? It's a cheap, dumb cliche, a lame storytelling shortcut, and has no place in a company that's supposed to be progressive. Like does the character of Brandi Rhodes only exist to give Cody something to fight for? That's weak. I think people who criticize Ross' at times tone deaf commentary, and stuff like Jake semi-molesting Brandi for heat, do so because we expected AEW to be better than this. To put it more bluntly, this is all some Vince shit and is not what I personally want to see.

This is what I'm talking about. It's a ridiculous standard to apply to AEW. I know they're working with a skeleton roster right now because of the pandemic, but 50 year old Christopher Daniels main evented their last TV show. A few weeks ago it was 50 year old Dustin Rhodes. Jake Hager was recently in a world title match that I'm told went on for six days. This company doesn't have room for a 33 year old potential ace-level worker who's made versatile by his decent sense of cheeky/goofy humour? I don't think one needs to be "can't miss" to qualify for a spot on this team. The "natural ready-made feud" thing is weird too. That standard is never applied to anyone coming into a fed. They're creative. If they want him, they'll think of something. I'll spare you my own personal fantasy booking because who cares? And maybe Cody doesn't like Drew for whatever reason and that keeps him off their radar. Entirely possible. But the bar of entry you're setting for this company strikes me as being unreasonable.

If Gordy is in the discussion then you gotta throw in Doc. Wasn't much difference size wise between the two. I don't think there was a scarier wrestler to me in the late 80s/early 90s than Doc. That whole 108 stitches in his eye just scared the shit out of 10 year old me.

I just hope the producers booked the correct Matt Striker, if not they’ll probably need to book Chad Collyer as well. ”Kristy, your baby daddy will be decided by a 45 minute 2 out of 3 falls submission match”

If he gets chosen, I hope he does the "I'm marking out, bro!" deal.

Paul Burchill to be exact.

I talked with the lads at ROH Review about my time announcing for Ring of Honor (2002-2004). Hope you all enjoy it. https://soundcloud.com/bbgwpod/roh-review-interviews-jeff-gorman?in=bbgwpod/sets/roh-review

Barry had 19 rebounds in this game!

Well if it isn't Invisible Stan then what's the point of a mystery participant?

I'm confused by the argument that AEW shouldn't hire someone because Vince didn't want him enough to keep him. By that logic, they couldn't hire anyone, because anyone who qualified would be under contract. I understand the concern of AEW turning into "WWE cast-off land". That's part of what did TNA in, both in the short term and the long. But I think AEW is in a much better place, both creatively and popularity-wise, than TNA ever was. Should they hire everyone who gets released? No. Should they hire anyone right this minute, when everything is in flux? Maybe not. But I would argue "Guy who was working extended programme with Daniel Bryan this week" is no worse than "Guy who was being cuckolded by Bobby Lashley", "Guys who couldn't get on TV", or even "Guys who haven't been on TV since February."

There is not a single goddamn moment of his in-ring career over the last 10 years or so that I have wanted to miss. CZW is not the vibe I want to watch. I drank that shit up when he was on his way up and on top there. Catch Point was not to be fucked with, and I disagree that the "No-Fly Zone / Better 205" stuff fell flat. I thought it worked just about as well as anything of that nature was going to in that particular fed. I enjoyed it more the first time around in CZW, as it felt like a much deeper issue because of the stand he was taking against ultraviolence. I feel like because he hasn't done anything that has resonated with you, you are being dismissive of the idea that he might get that kind of reaction from anyone.

I would say Barbarian probably should be on there.

Vader should be in the discussion. As should Terry Gordy. But if we're sticking to just those four, then Boss Man at his best was better than the other three at their best.

RIP Larry Csonka. I was a regular reader and big fan. He seemed to be really fair to the content. And really passionate about wrestling in general. He also seemed to have a really measured consensus opinion that was no doubt his uncompromised true feelings. Especially loved his best matches list for each month and for specific promotions.

The thing about Larry was he combined quantity with quality. He reviewed just about every show, even Xplosion and Main Event, and he gave each show just as much attention. Very sad news.

That's terrible news. Larry reviewed anything and everything. Truly an amazing work ethic.

Five years ago, Kevin Owens debuted on the WWE main roster. Hell of an introduction.

New Spike Lee film starring Chadwick Boseman, Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr. Out June 12th on Netflix.

For me personally, Gulak was one of the few can’t miss guys in WWE. Everything he did, he committed to and made work. Character-wise, he was practically the second coming of Kurt Angle, as far as being able to slide seamlessly from over the top goofiness (he was the best part of Enzo’s 205 run) to serious asskicker. This. He hasn’t been a 205 Live prelim guy in a long time, and anyone arguing he has been is just setting up a strawman so they can argue for their own personal preferences.

I'll volunteer for that coma.

I'm tired of it but I understand it and will continue to stay the fuck home. There's a difference. You know who just can't deal with being unable to do something enjoyable that they want to do and ends up throwing a shitfit when faced with disappointment? Children. And honestly, that's speaking ill of children, because these people are far worse. I have a five year old who will chill the fuck out once I explain why she can't have something she wants right away. Honestly, part of me doesn't care and just wants to see Darwinism do its thing. The only problem with that is that these morons go out to restaurants, movies, protests, circle jerks, whatever, then go back to their communities and end up getting smart people sick.

He wasn't a 205 Live prelim guy last week and when you have to pretend he was....

And thus I became an obnoxious smark who cheered all the heels and booed all the faces. The more WWF went all-in on sweeping Bret under the rug and trying to tell me I should be happy about the ascent of HBK, the more I rejected him and by extension every other face on the roster (didn't hurt that Foley, Vader, and Austin had all just come in and were all clearly cooler, nevermind better, than the tools in the midcard and especially HBK, who I was already inclined to think was a much more natural heel and sounded insincere phony every time he tried to cut the "top babyface" style promo a WWF champ is expected to cut. Even The Undertaker became somewhat Guilty By Association; if he was a WWF face there had to be something wrong with him). It was extremely easy to start liking WCW better, especially once the NWO angle started up. For the first time, but surely not the last, the WWF seemed to be telling me that my fandom and my fan dollar Was Not Wanted. HBK coming in on zipline while Bret got his usual entrance didn't make HBK cool or exciting, it made Bret look disrespected that even as champ and company torch bearer for 3 years he somehow wasn't seen worth of his own special Wrestlemania entrance. Ditto to having it end 1-0 which, on top of what I mentioned in my previous post, I also interpreted as disrespectful and/or a strain of my credulity (I wasn't quite internet-smarky enough to know "burial" as a term but if I had I'd probably have been using it in my dismay over this result. You're telling me Bret, who's been beating Michaels consistently over the last 3 years and successfully defended championships against him several times before, suddenly can't get a fall on him in 60 whole minutes? Bret somehow isn't WORTHY of the respect of at least going down 2-1? Get the fuck outta here! Gorilla Monsoon wasn't fan friendly for spontaneously adding sudden death over time to ensure a definitive winner, he was ratfucking Bret by arbitrarily & spontaneously changing the rules of the match after the fact to sabotage part the traditional Champion's Advantage (retain the belt on a draw). For Gorilla -- 1/2 of the primary reason I even got in to watching wrestling regularly in the first place -- to do this to my favorite and the first top guy I ever embraced (and almost the last) was like a betrayal. Imagine Mr. Rogers flicking a cigarette at a child and telling him to eat shit for being so stupid as to believe everyone is special. That's Gorilla Monsoon going in the tank for HBK, for me. I don't think I even saw the "get him the fuck out of my ring" stuff because I turned it off rather than subject myself to Vince McMahon spazzing about "the boyhood dream" as if a WRESTLER wanting to be the WORLD CHAMPION OF WRESTLING is somehow such a unique fuckin' aspiration. And then, I guess so Bret couldn't overshadow HBK from the under-card and remind people who was really the best like he'd done during Diesel's reign, Bret was just off TV entirely for six months, effectively retired, unable to be an antidote to Michaels being shoved down my throat. The more Vince tried to tell me I should LOVE Shawn Michaels, the more determined I became to despise him forever. And I pretty much did. And it all started with Wrestlemania 12, which I'd bought with my own money, recorded with a tape I'd bought with my own money, blew off phone calls and did chores early so I'd have the afternoon clear and free to watch interrupted, and before it was even officially over I never wanted to see it again.

Pinkie Sanchez showed up to a house party during my birthday once. We ended up playing No Mercy at some point and had Test win the world title during a 6-man scramble, since he had died the previous day. Good times.

Obligatory “i’m sure he will soldier on the best he can.” Joke ?

I'd put Yoko on this list before his weight got really out of control. I'd also put the Barbarian on there as well.

This may very well go down as a Top-5 night in DVDVR Board history.

Collyer would just use his Dr. Mindbender powers on the lady and win the whole show. I now realize I would totally watch that show if he was on it, trying to hypnotize everyone so he comes out on top.

Matt Striker potentially being a reality show villain is something.

Rick Martel pretending he's Roddy Piper.

ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS [3] Instead of a review here's a funny thing that happened to me: I won a contest on twitter that was supposed to send me a switch and a copy of the game. After winning, they basically stonewalled me so I just send them fifteen updates about my black bean burritos. They eventually blocked me, while other people started tweeting at me about how "WE'VE EXPOSED THE SCAM" and I'm like idk man i won a drawing and my prize was annoying this goober about my burritos. I got to have a good time. Anyways I was trying to win the thing for a friend and that's why I have this game anyways, so it's exactly as good as it needs to be. THEM'S FIGHTIN' HERDS [4] "hey lamp i notice that every time you yell about some weird game being your frontrunner for game of the year no one believes you" yes that's true more often than not "and now you feel that strongly about a fighting game that started as a My Little Pony fan game" mhm "are you like... are you trying to make this harder?" I can see your point, inner monologue, but honest to god this game's fucking great. If you can break through the barrier of "Bootleg MLP Aesthetic" everything in it mechanically is pretty ingenious. It's got a great in-depth tutorial, a LOT of different singleplayer content (Story mode, target challenge, combo training), it's got an incredible lobby system and impeccable netcode. This isn't my line (I think it's Sajam's?) but it's still the truth: if you make a checklist for everything you want out of a fighting game, and then play Them's Fightin' Herds, see if you don't check off like 90% of it. The one problem right now is character depth (only 6 characters at launch and no dedicated grapplers) but they're adding more and they wont be charging for them. "ok but how much of saying this is your game of the year is related to you not admitting you've totally lost interest in doom eternal less than halfway through" OOPS GOTTA GO

I talked about this before about a year or two ago. Canelo started at 15. Erik Morales started at 16. JCC Jr. started at 17. With Morales and Barrera, they started so young and were champions by like 19 or 20. However, by 29 or 30, that is when they started to go downhill in terms of their performance. It also doesn't help that both guys were fairly active fighting several times a year save for injury and promotional disputes. FWIW I believe the age limit in Mexico is 14 or 15 to box professionally. It's a fairly common practice today that many young boxers who are somewhat decorated amateurs from the United States under the age of 18 go to Tijuana where rules are fairly lax to have pro fights. Of course, you also have random journeymen (who are grown men) from the states who pad their record by going to TJ and fighting people who probably should never be in a boxing ring. That's kinda the downside. Despite amateur boxing not being fairly popular in Mexico, the workaround is matching these 15-17 year olds throughout the country at the very least against grown men or tough kids their age. Thus, you have the guys who made their pro debuts early being skilled enough to be contenders. For example, Orlando Salido made his pro debut at 17 and got knocked out. He would go 8-6-1 in his first 15 fights (including another loss to the guy who beat him in his pro debut) and go on to have a good career. So the belief is that because their fighters are forged in fire, they fight with an unmatched ferocity. I think that's why Mexican-American fighters want to fight with the spirit they believe typifies fighters born and reared in Mexico. I mean because of Chavez Sr., it was always around in one way or another. However, after this new golden age of featherweights and those hovering around there from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, everyone wanted to be that. After the UFC card on Saturday, I watched the Juan Manuel Marquez (fresh from his lineal lightweight title win over Joel Casamayor) versus Juan Diaz (fresh off a vindicating victory over Michael Katsidis after the Nate Campbell debacle) fight from 2009 in Diaz's hometown of Houston at the Toyota Center. It may have been Diaz's hometown, but Marquez was the clear fan favorite. Thus, you have Juan Diaz trying his best to prove himself a legitimate Mexican fighter. That ultimately proves foolhardy against Marquez, who eventually wears Diaz down by round 7 in a war of attrition and scores the KO with his nasty, signature uppercut in round 9. You have this dichotomy going back to probably Oscar De La Hoya after his gold medal win in 1992 where these seasoned amateur fighters want to show they can apply their trade as true Mexican fighters even though that's far from they've been asked to do as amateurs. Hence why the De La Hoya/Chavez fights (especially the first one on the eve of the 1996 Summer Olympics) were so big despite Chavez being years removed from his prime against an absolutely horrendous matchup for him. A large part of why Mexican fighters are so revered is their upbringing as fighters even though you still have different socioeconomic factors that separate other Mexicans fighters. For example, you have Marco Antonio Barrera being from the more affluent Mexico City whereas Erik Morales was raised in an apartment above a boxing gym in Tijuana so both guys thought they were better or tougher than the other. You also have some of these cities (like Ciudad Obregon, San Luis Potosi, Culiacan, etc.) that weren't producing many or any world champions for that matter and then one guys wins a world title and the flood gates open. I mean Sinaloa (the state in which Culiacan is located) was more known for marijuana and cartel activity before Chavez Sr. moved there to train. It's just a whole different world to wrap your head around.

Did that end up in J. Peterman's book?

Alright, lemme finish this, that way I can be caught up when I start Mania 13 tomorrow. Blade Hart is sitting at ringside and gets his dad's sunglasses. So the match is underway, and they start with some strikes, but it's instantly clear, they are going to pace themselves for this. I'm not blaming them, an hour is a long ass time. Vince and Jerry do agree that the winner of the first fall would "probably" win the match... boy you ain't kidding. So, what it looks like they're going for, and what the announcers are putting over is HBK is "out-wrestling" Bret. Bret seems annoyed that he's being put into headlocks and armbars right away. So that's fine, I'm just wondering when we'll actually get a decent near fall (since I know this is going to be 0-0). The headlock sequence starts at about 4 minutes in and continues for nearly 10 minutes(!).. Okay. HBK gets tossed to the outside and the first truly big spot of the match happens as HBK takes over, throws Bret into the timekeeper (is that baby Tony Chimel?). Bret moves and the timekeeper eats a hellacious Sweet Chin Music. Chimel does a stretcher job from the kick and that actually eats up about 5 more minutes here. So, now we're 20 minutes+ into this match and there has not been a legitimate near fall. The guys in the front row I mentioned? They're getting restless. Michaels keeps working the shoulder through arm wringers and bars... and this is not making for a compelling match. Vince and Lawler are starting to get restless themselves as Jerry's gone through all of his Helen and Stu jokes and Vince is starting to say things like "the first fall is coming soon." And they keep saying that for about 5-10 minutes. Now we're about halfway home. There's just nothing going on aside from stalling. Three of the four guys in the front row have apparently gone and will be back later with merch(!) Okay, so this match is just dragging now. They're doing the first 5 minutes of a long match in 30... well 40, because they're still not really going. Part of the issue is that they've got the clock of the match on and those zeros are looming large. Bret finally starts his 5 moves of doom sequence at around 42 minutes in, and frankly, they should have caused at least 2 falls. This match would have been so much better if they'd been 1-1 or 2-2 going into the final 15 minutes or so. Bret working his ass off to take HBK out, and then Shawn countering something out of nowhere with a superkick to even it up. What they're going for, I think, is two pitchers throwing dueling no hitters. But we are at the 50 minute mark now and there have again been *no near falls*. If you're really going to book zero-zero, you really need this to be something where the crowd is teetering at the edges of their seats because they think that all important first hit will come any second. That just has not happened. The guys in the first row are now visibly frustrated and/or bored. The crowd is extremely restless now. And 2 counts are being met with boos. It's about 55-56 minutes in when Michaels *FINALLY* hits Sweet Chin Music on Bret causing the crowd to wake up. Now both guys are down and stay down, so we miss our first true near fall chance. I can see the faces in the crowd are pissed now because just nothing has happened and this first legit chance at 1-0 is wasted. But Bret makes a comeback of his own and we're now at 59 minutes in... and there's the tease of a Sharpshooter that gets the crowd off their asses because HERE'S the first true chance of a fall, 59:45 in. But... HBK holds on and we have a 60 minute draw. Bret takes his belt and isn't really happy, but he's still champ so, you know whatever, he's leaving. So of course, Gorilla has to stick his big fat nose into it and orders Bret back and says sudden death OT to determine the winner. Bret is nonplussed. But he heads back to the ring dutifully as he rightly thinks he's basically got Michaels beat anyway. So away we go again as Bret is coming close to reapplying the Sharpshooter, HBK works out and finally nails a huge SCM. Now the crowd is really ready. HBK is up, and crushes Bret with the third and final Sweet Chin Music for his first WWF Championship. Of course, here's where it gets interesting. As HBK is kneeling and Bret is out, Hebner is basically ready to present him with the belt, and I'd forgotten about how Shawn *AUDIBLY* tells Hebner to "tell him to get the fuck out of this ring." Bret was clearly expecting a handshake spot or something, gets up and leaves, and is clearly pissed off at this. (I can tell because he angrily PULLS... HIS STRAPS... DOWN.) LOL Blade Hart is singing HBK's music. HBK orders Lothario OUT. And Hebner's about to leave but then Michaels ORDERS him to put the belt on him. Hebner can't quite get the snaps on, and *now* HBK is pissily telling him to GTFO too. Once he's out and all alone... THEN the celebration can begin. I'm sitting there, finishing my ride, mouth agape because I honestly had wiped all this from my mind. Shawn is being the Bridezilla and needs HIS MOMENT to be special, goddamnit. He's very lucky he was so good. --- Mania 12 is such a mixed bag. In some ways it was looking to the future, and many ways it is stuck in the past. Diesel-Taker was great and would provide such a template for future great Undertaker matches. But man, Warrior-HHH was a colossal mistake although an argument can be made that it indirectly gave us Austin 3:16 (HHH was supposed to win KotR, but he was till pissed about Mania, so he participated in the MSG Incident...) Also, I can safely say, history is not at all kind to the Iron Man match. Well, all in all this marked my longest ride to date, clocking in at 81 minutes. So, I took the weekend off and just walked around. Good times. End of Day 36.

@supremebve This is a match that, quite literally, changed my life. I was introduced to this match by the Violent Panda video review on 411Mania in 2004. I sought it out, got a copy of The Best of Ebessan from IVP videos. My eldest daughter is 8 years old. She has been doing ballet (her choice) for literally half her life. Yesterday, we were watching the DVD from her ballet company's big year-end extravaganza. They had some comedy ballet performers from Tokyo as special guests. Their comedy style mostly involves subverting the tropes of ballet, and as my daughter watched it and laughed I felt proud. At 8 years old she understands ballet well enough to get when the tropes are being subverted. What blew my mind about this match was that a lot of the comedy is about subverting the common, often subtle, tropes of Japanese pro wrestling. And there is a huge audience (in what I now recognize as Osaka Jo Hall) reacting to and playing along with it every step of the way. This crowd understands pro wrestling the way my daughter understands ballet! "These are my people!" I though. I desperately wanted to be a part of that. In 2005, I went to Japan with the woman who would eventually be my wife and the mother of our little ballerinas. I got to see Kikutaro (the original Ebessan) live at the AJPW World Tag League finals in Ota Ward Gymnasium. He had me laughing out loud. It was pretty great. In 2007 we went back to Japan to get married and on our honeymoon we went to Osaka. One of my wife's friends had given us directions to the Osaka Pro home arena in the entertainment district of Namba. As we wandered around the area trying to find it, we bumped into Kuishinbo Kamen and (the third version of) Ebessan, who were out on the streets drumming up business for the show. I tried to sneak close to them so that my wife could snap a picture, but they busted me... and then posed for pictures with both of us, and escorted us to the arena. We had an amazing time at the show. Afterward, we bought little plush dolls of Ebessan and Kuishinbo... and then, no fooling, Kuishinbo Kamen ran up to my wife, tore the dolls out of her hand, and ran away. He then came back with both dolls autographed in black magic marker. Two years later, the contract ran out on my job in Canada and we decided to move to Japan. The Namba area of Osaka was too busy for us to live in, but we wanted to be close enough to go to some Osaka Pro shows... now we've been living here, a train-ride away from Namba, for 11 years. I've been out eating and drinking with Kuishinbo and I am flat out drinking buddies with Ebessan III. I finally got to meet Kikutaro in 2012. They are all great guys. I've seen them do variations of their comedy match in various combinations literally dozens of times and it has never failed to entertain me. Osaka Pro was a huge part of my first few years living in Japan. I still have friends from those days. And it all started with this match:

I feel like this is more a criticism of the booking than Gulak? He got the goofy PowerPoint/No Fly Zone gimmick over. Then got himself over again as a serious grappler. Then got put back in the NFZ gimmick and made it work again. Then, improbably, got himself over as a babyface shooter. I see a guy who has done nothing but succeed in whatever has been given to him. But he doesn’t get to decide how it all pays off in the end (or not).

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair (60-minute Iron Man match) I like Flair's WWF "Zarathustra" knockoff more than the actual original piece. Anyway, WOOs and chain wrestling to start. Flair works the arm and cheats just out of the ref's view to stay on top for awhile. Basically, it's ten minutes of this same armlock/hair pull/use ropes for leverage stuff. Flair eventually tries three straight pinfalls and gets three straight two-counts. Then more arm stuff. It changes up a bit from the arm-wringer that Flair has been working for what feels like the whole length of the previous Iron Man match that I watched, but then we're in a hammerlock situation and, look, I don't give a fuck. At least Owen stalling is entertaining because Owen is entertaining at chicken-shittery. More two-counts out of Flair working Bret onto his back out of a wristlock. More arm work that is totally unvaried and uninteresting and FINALLY Bret gets some offense in with a few gut shots and then straight rights to the jaw. Flair eventually shuts that down with an inverted atomic drop before whiffing on an elbow drop and getting reversed on a back body drop. Bret goes for the figure four, gets a couple of two-counts, and then Hebner kicks Flair's hand off of the ropes rather than, y'know, breaking the hold. I do like that once Flair's in the ropes again, Bret just lets Hebner untangle the hold rather than releasing it himself, which was something he always did and which added to the sense that he was super-ring-savvy. Anyway, we're five hours twenty minutes in and Flair takes control again, hitting an elbow strike and then a knee drop (that he does a nice job of selling even though he hits it). He then whiffs on a kneedrop and Bret figure-fours him, dragging him back to the center of the ring and working the knee with elbowdrops after a break. He goes back to the figure-four leglock, which Flair breaks, and eventually Flair gets control back only to get reversed into a rollup off an Irish whip for three. Bret's up one. Anyway, Flair on top after the break, Perfect gets booted for heel chicanery and distracting the ref while Flair cheats. Flair's broken down Bret's leg, using a chairshot among other things, and goes for the figure-four leglock, eventually getting a submission out of it after grabbing the ropes for leverage. After the rest period, he goes back to Bret's knee and again gets a submission off of a rope-assisted figure-four to go up 2-1. So basically, so far we've got a carbon copy of the Bret/Owen Iron Man layout except that Flair frankly is a clearly worse in-ring worker than Owen (yeah, I know, I know, hot take here that a very small minority would agree with). Owen stalling >>>>>>>>>> Flair's uninspired arm work and Owen's cheating >>>>>>>> Flair's cheating. Anyway, Flair back on the figure-four, but the rule of threes says that he gets caught this time and the ref doesn't let him get away with it. There's some back-and-forth up to the 45-minute mark. Flair uses the ropes for leverage on a few two-counts, and you know something that occurs to me? I think Flair is a VASTLY better worker as a face. He is actually really good working from underneath, great facial expressions, great desperation moves, dies when he gets crushed. That One Flair/Vader match is probably his best in-ring performance that I've ever seen. Honestly, I'd rate Flair/Funk Hardcore as his second-best in-ring performance. Flair as a heel is the greatest on the mic other than maybe The Rock or Jake Roberts, but put him in the ring, and the match is about whether or not his opponent is just right for fighting from underneath. For whatever reason, Bret ain't it. This match would have been much better somehow with Sting in it instead of Bret, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It's weird because to me, Bret is a pretty damned great worker from underneath. TBH, I blame Flair for this not being that great because this is the only time that I've been bored by Bret trying to hang on against his heel opponent EVER in my fucking LIFE. I'mma just rush through the rest of this review: Flair is in control for what feels like such a long time that he makes a HHH heel control segment circa-2004 seem like a mere blink of the eye. Then he goes up top, and you know the drill: he's tossed from his perch, he gets 5MODed, he gives up in the Sharpshooter. Heenan shows up and hands something to Flair behind the ref's back in the rest period, he punches Bret with it, he gets a two-count only, he does some stuff, he gets reversed, he shows everyone his bare ass, he gets small-packaged off a figure-four for three just before the time runs out and the final bell rings, you know the deal. Crowd is hot for it, though. Yeah, I wasn't a fan, but for different reasons than I'm not a fan of Bret/Shawn Iron Man. If you only have time to watch one Bret Hart Iron Man match, it should be the Owen one, IMO.

People understand that Gulak has spent the past few months being paired with and getting constantly put over as a great talent by a guy the entire AEW audience views as a pro wrestling god right?