Mookieghana

Win-loss records for the top appearing fellas on WCW Worldwide & WCW Saturday Night (1999-2000) Spoiler: Cpl. Cajun & Disorderly Conduct were on a lot.

I keep thinking of The Beverly Brothers vs Bob East & Pete Christie (2/6/93 WWF Superstars) Whole match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x86ylz_the-beverly-brothers-in-action_news#.Ue2mSo1wrpU The brutal part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aPlfPbEh9w #prayforchristie

We were discussing WCW Worldwide/Saturday Night (1999-2000) and someone brought up the time that Hayabusa came to the US and wanted to wrestle for WCW but was basically offered a slot on Worldwide against Toad (fka Frog). So he just hung around backstage talking to Great Muta and Kevin Nash. I love this picture because it looks like Hayabusa is scratching his crotch while posing with Ace & Russo.

And for shameless plug, I'm selling some NES games on eBay right now ... Dragon Warrior III (Game & Box): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138195471 Chubby Cherub (Game): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138198010 Duck Tales 2 (Game): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138200276 Tombs & Treasures (Game): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138505299 Casino Kid & Casino Kid 2 (Two Games): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138506712 Mario is Missing! (Game): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138508657 Wheel of Fortune (Game, Box, Manual): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138511036 Firehawk/Ultimate Stuntman/Captain Comic (Three Games): http://www.ebay.com/itm/281138515854 I've always been someone who loved collecting NES games so I could play them. Hopefully whomever buys the games will enjoy them like I did! The auctions all end in less than 3 days! (7/25/13)

I got inspired when I saw "King of Kong" and decided that I could probably get a decent time on the game for Maniac Mansion once I learned the trick that lets you get past the Purple Tentacle guard in the lab. I was going to try for Shadowgate until I learned about the Glasses trick. I don't remember how many times I practiced, but probably I would spend 1-2 hours a week over the course of maybe a month? You did inspire me to go and add a few annotations to the video since I never got around to doing that, and I wasn't able to commentate on what I was doing while I was playing game. Bernard is awesome.

Didn't Warrior end up suing them over the DVD because it violated the settlement of their 2000 lawsuit (which in turn may have dragged on from 1996) where WWE and Warrior agreed to "stop disparaging each other in the media"? I think Warrior ended up having to pay $20k in lawyer fees when his 2006 case was thrown out in Arizona.

This was an awesome interview. Like it was mentioned it covers his time in Calgary, OVW - his adoration for Andre, his attitude (and how it's changed), his future, that time the cage door wouldn't come off, riding with Yokozuna and much more. This was very good stuff.

And unlike other sports, there is no single "draft day" for WWE. They're constantly hiring new developmental talent or letting people go. I think wrestling fans, in general, are just exceptionally active and involved in cataloging wrestling. Plus wrestling has such an international reach as compared to things like American Football or International Rugby or Cricket. (When I was putting together my thoughts on pro wrestling analytics, I noted there was no less than six other "database/search engine" websites that I use (besides Wikipedia) for pro-wrestling birth/death/height/weight/age/hometown stats:wrestlingdata.com, profightdb.com, genickbruch.com, cagematch.net, prowrestling.wikia.com, luchawiki.com).

Terry and Dory Funk, with Bruiser Brody's boots, Yokohama, November 23, 1999 Abdullah the Butcher vs. Necro Butcher, NWA Southwest, North Richland Hills, Texas

Glad it peaked your interest! Since it's just for rated singles matches over three stars, his pool of entries in the dataset based on Dave's ratings just missed the cut-off (he had 9 matches and I had set the cut-off at ten). As you probably guessed, the analysis isn't kind to Mr. Wight. Big Show (3.19) vs. Sheamus (3.26): 2 matches (3.38 average) = Big Show went up, Sheamus went up Big Show (3.19) vs. Undertaker (3.73): 2 matches (3.38 average) = Big Show went up, Undertaker went down Kurt Angle (3.72) vs. Big Show (3.25): 1 matches (3.00 average) = Big Show went up, Kurt Angle went down Mark Henry (3.25) vs. Big Show (3.22): 1 matches (3.25 average) = Big Show went up, Henry stayed even The Giant (3.25) vs. Ric Flair (3.74): 1 matches (3.00 average) = Giant went down, Flair went down The Giant (3.22) vs. Sting (3.61): 1 matches (3.25 average) = Giant went down, Sting went down Brock Lesnar (3.86) vs. Big Show (3.22): 1 matches (3.25 average) = Big Show went up, Lesnar went down Feud Points: -2.68 over 7 feuds = -0.38 points per feud. Match-weighted points: -2.93 over 9 matches = -0.33 points per match. On average, Big Show's opponents dropped -0.35 points when they had a rated singles match with him. So the only match where Big Show "raised" his opponent above their average was Sheamus. -2.68/7 = -0.38 points per feud The silver lining is that when you add in "multi-person singles matches" (which includes things like MITB ladder matches or Elimination Chambers), his numbers become benign: -0.02 per feud, -0.04 per match. Multi-person singles matches includes a host of matches involving him that are much higher on average (3.53 stars) than the other singles matches (3.23 stars). The Giant/Big Show Multi-man Matches 4/6/97 Lex Luger vs. The Giant vs. Stevie Ray vs. Booker T ***1/4 7/15/12 John Cena vs. Chris Jericho vs. Big Show vs. Kane vs. The Miz (Ladder) ***3/4 2/19/12 Daniel Bryan vs. Wade Barrett vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show vs. Santino Marella vs. Great Khali (Elimination Chamber) ***1/2 2/20/11 Edge vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Big Show vs. Kane vs. Wade Barrett (Elimination Chamber) ****1/4 7/18/10 Kane vs. Big Show vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Matt Hardy vs. Christian vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Cody Rhodes (Ladder) **** 11/22/09 Undertaker vs. Big Show vs. Chris Jericho *** 6/15/09 Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. Big Show vs. John Cena ***1/2 4/5/09 Edge vs. Big Show vs. John Cena ***1/4 2/15/09 Edge vs. Triple H vs. Undertaker vs. Big Show vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Kozlov (Elimination Chamber) ****1/4 2/15/04 Kurt Angle vs. John Cena vs. Big Show *** 7/27/03 Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show ***3/4 4/2/00 Triple H vs. Mick Foley vs. Rock vs. Big Show *** 9/26/99 Triple H vs. Kane vs. Mankind vs. Rock vs. Big Show vs. Davey Boy Smith ***1/2 I'm still trying to validate the methodology I'm using as meaningful (regardless of the source of data, I'm curious whether this is really the right approach) as well as how to layer-in the multi-person matches (perhaps by controlling better so each match is only counted once and not many, many times.) As for the Kane/Booker T bit, there was four matches in the dataset with both men which was a 3.875 average rating so like any other silly pro wrestling analytic, let's make of that what we want to believe! 7/22/01 Booker T/Diamond Dallas Page/ Bubba Ray Dudley/D-Von Dudley/Rhyno vs. Steve Austin/Kurt Angle/Chris Jericho/Undertaker/Kane ***1/2 11/18/01 Rock/Chris Jericho/Undertaker/Kane/Big Show vs. Steve Austin/Kurt Angle/Rob Van Dam/Booker T/Shane McMahon (Elimination) ****1/2 9/22/02 Kane/Goldust/Booker T/Bubba Ray Dudley vs. Test/William Regal/Lance Storm/Christian ***1/4 11/17/02 Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho vs. Kane vs. Booker T (Elimination Chamber) ****1/4

I organized my collection of NES games yesterday ( http://bit.ly/14bKp4J ) so I could sell a couple. I also decided to do a quick rank of quality vs year released: (The blue line is because someone else asked me about NES Console sales by year which took awhile to find but eventually appeared). Personally my favorite games (outside of the common stuff like Tecmo Super Bowl, Super Mario 3, Zeldas) are stuff like Bomberman II (great three-player mode), Dragon Warrior IV (probably the pinnacle of the NES), Destiny of an Emperor (helps that I was a big "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" fan; also this game makes every other RPG look like it's crawling!), Crystalis ( great action RPG), Palamedes (bizarre little Hot-B title that is a fun challenge involving dice), Maniac Mansion (here's a l speedrun on a real NES) and Micro Machines ("Eliminator Boat Duel" is a similarly fun two-player romp).

24 People had a lots of Feuds (10+) we could compare/contrast including a lot of the people that were being mentioned: Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Christian, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler, Eddy Guerrero, Edge, Jeff Hardy, John Cena, Kurt Angle, Matt Hardy, Mick Foley, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Ric Flair, Rob Van Dam, Rock, Shawn Michaels, Sheamus, Shelton Benjamin, Steve Austin, Triple H, Undertaker Significant Improvement Shawn Michaels: 34 singles feuds = +0.28 improvement to opponent's average rating Chris Benoit: 21 singles feuds = +0.27 improvement to opponent's average rating John Cena: 22 singles feuds = +0.20 improvement to opponent's average rating Mick Foley: 11 singles feuds = +0.17 improvement to opponent's average rating Some improvement Steve Austin: 13 singles feuds = 0.08 improvement to opponent's average rating Bret Hart: 20 singles feuds = 0.08 improvement to opponent's average rating Little improvement Edge: 23 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Rock: 13 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Shelton Benjamin: 10 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Chris Jericho: 27 singles feuds = 0.01 improvement to opponent's average rating Kurt Angle: 23 singles feuds = 0.01 improvement to opponent's average rating CM Punk: 18 singles feuds = 0 improvement to opponent's average rating Christian: 16 singles feuds = -0.02 change to opponent's average rating Rey Mysterio: 23 singles feuds = -0.03 change to opponent's average rating Eddy Guerrero: 10 singles feuds = -0.04 change to opponent's average rating Undertaker: 19 singles feuds = -0.04 change to opponent's average rating Dolph Ziggler: 12 singles feuds = -0.05 change to opponent's average rating Jeff Hardy: 12 singles feuds = -0.05 change to opponent's average rating Negative Effect Ric Flair: 10 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Triple H: 25 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Randy Orton: 24 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Rob Van Dam: 14 singles feuds = -0.1 change to opponent's average rating Significant Decrease Matt Hardy: 10 singles feuds = -0.13 change to opponent's average rating Sheamus: 11 singles feuds = -0.26 change to opponent's average rating Again, since all of these ratings/points are based on Dave's star ratings, this could also be linked to any bias he may have against any given wrestler. Additionally, with whom a wrestler is programmed certainly would play a big role in the quality of their various feuds. Further discussion on ranking the people with only a few singles feuds... I tried this with people who had less singles feuds (less than ten), and the results were interesting but I'm not certain the low match counts are playing a role in the results. I am not reading heavily into this. The positive influences among the other people were: Ricky Steamboat (0.32), Daniel Bryan (0.31), Ultimate Warrior (0.24), Curt Hennig (0.2), Randy Savage (0.19), Brock Lesnar (0.12) Flat influences were: John Morrison (0.05), Finlay (0), Owen Hart (-0.01), Tajiri (-0.01), Alberto Del Rio (-0.03) Negative influences were: Shane McMahon (-0.07), Scott Hall (-0.07), Kofi Kingston (-0.08), Evan Bourne (-0.14), Billy Kidman (-0.15) More negative were: Bradshaw (-0.21), Batista (-0.22), Hulk Hogan (-0.26), Umaga (-0.27), Big Show (-0.27), Sean Waltman (-0.27), MVP (-0.3), Vader (-0.3), Miz (-0.36), Jeff Jarrett (-0.37), Extremely negative: Booker T (-0.48), Ken Shamrock (-0.49), Kane (-0.52) Again, Warrior's results were surprising, but I think they're tied to the low feud count among rated matches (suggesting the need to possibly normalize for total feuds / rated feuds or something to that effect.) I put together an update to this analysis with WCW/WWF/ECW results: http://bit.ly/15HTkaD

Jerry Lynn also had some great stuff in ECW: he probably gave Justin Credible, RVD and Steve Corino their best matches and he held his own when he was in with Tajiri & Super Crazy.

I think we're still waiting for Rey Mysterio Jr's 2010 one too...

Cereal.

That also surprised me. Here's what I saw: Matt had 17 singles matches and averaged 3.38 stars: 3 against Edge, 2 against Ken Kennedy, 2 against Rey Mysterio, 2 against Jeff Hardy, 2 against Kidman, 2 against Finlay, and once apiece against Morrison, Bourne, Shelton and Helms. The average listed in () is all their singles match average not including matches against the opponent in the same line. * Edge (3.71) vs Matt Hardy (3.3) = 3.75 average; Edge improved +0.04 while Matt improved +0.45 * Ken Kennedy (3.4) vs Matt Hardy (3.4) = 3.25 average; Kennedy went down -0.15 while Matt dipped -0.15 * Matt Hardy (3.35) vs Rey Mysterio (3.52) = 3.63 average; Matt improved +0.28 while Rey went up +0.10 * Jeff Hardy (3.62) vs Matt Hardy (3.4) = 3.25 average; Jeff went down -0.37 and Matt went down -0.15 * Billy Kidman (3.25) vs Matt Hardy (3.42) = 3.13 average; Kidman went down -0.13 and Matt went down -0.29 * Finlay (3.58) vs Matt Hardy (3.4) = 3.25 average; Finlay went down -0.33 and Matt went down -0.15 * John Morrison (3.57) vs Matt Hardy (3.39) = 3.25 average; Morrison went down -0.32 and Matt went down -0.14 * Evan Bourne (3.42) vs Matt Hardy (3.38) = 3.5 average; Bourne went up +0.08 and Matt went up +0.13 * Matt Hardy (3.39) vs Shelton Benjamin (3.66) = 3.25 average; Matt went down -0.14 and Shelton went down -0.41 * Hurricane Helms (3.08) vs Matt Hardy (3.39) = 3.25 average; Helms went up +.17 while Matt went down -0.14 My unweighted methodology was just adding the points of the change of the opponent = -1.31 / 10 feuds = -0.13 star rating decrease per feud when Matt Hardy was matched with an opponent. (Weighting by matches is -0.12.) This is certainly far from a perfect dataset - it's one person's ratings and it implies that Dave is rating the same number of matches for all people. In fact, wasn't Dave having Bryan do Smackdown! reviews for awhile? Last time I looked, I noticed the number of non-PPV televised matches he rated had decreased dramtically post-2000. So, when Matt was getting great, it's strongly possible that Dave just didn't even rate those matches.

Wasn't it on both Nature Boy Ric Flair: The Definitive Collection disc 3 and WWE: The History of the Intercontinental Championship (2008) ?

An insightful person on Twitter suggested that I refine my star analysis by looking at who seems to significantly bring people's star ratings up whenever they wrestle. Again, normal singles matches are the easier way to look at this. Here's how I looked at it (Methodology discussion) 24 People had a lots of Feuds (10+) we could compare/contrast including a lot of the people that were being mentioned: Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Christian, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler, Eddy Guerrero, Edge, Jeff Hardy, John Cena, Kurt Angle, Matt Hardy, Mick Foley, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Ric Flair, Rob Van Dam, Rock, Shawn Michaels, Sheamus, Shelton Benjamin, Steve Austin, Triple H, Undertaker Significant Improvement Shawn Michaels: 34 singles feuds = +0.28 improvement to opponent's average rating Chris Benoit: 21 singles feuds = +0.27 improvement to opponent's average rating John Cena: 22 singles feuds = +0.20 improvement to opponent's average rating Mick Foley: 11 singles feuds = +0.17 improvement to opponent's average rating Some improvement Steve Austin: 13 singles feuds = 0.08 improvement to opponent's average rating Bret Hart: 20 singles feuds = 0.08 improvement to opponent's average rating Little improvement Edge: 23 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Rock: 13 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Shelton Benjamin: 10 singles feuds = 0.03 improvement to opponent's average rating Chris Jericho: 27 singles feuds = 0.01 improvement to opponent's average rating Kurt Angle: 23 singles feuds = 0.01 improvement to opponent's average rating CM Punk: 18 singles feuds = 0 improvement to opponent's average rating Christian: 16 singles feuds = -0.02 change to opponent's average rating Rey Mysterio: 23 singles feuds = -0.03 change to opponent's average rating Eddy Guerrero: 10 singles feuds = -0.04 change to opponent's average rating Undertaker: 19 singles feuds = -0.04 change to opponent's average rating Dolph Ziggler: 12 singles feuds = -0.05 change to opponent's average rating Jeff Hardy: 12 singles feuds = -0.05 change to opponent's average rating Negative Effect Ric Flair: 10 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Triple H: 25 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Randy Orton: 24 singles feuds = -0.09 change to opponent's average rating Rob Van Dam: 14 singles feuds = -0.1 change to opponent's average rating Significant Decrease Matt Hardy: 10 singles feuds = -0.13 change to opponent's average rating Sheamus: 11 singles feuds = -0.26 change to opponent's average rating Again, since all of these ratings/points are based on Dave's star ratings, this could also be linked to any bias he may have against any given wrestler. Additionally, with whom a wrestler is programmed certainly would play a big role in the quality of their various feuds. Further discussion on ranking the people with only a few singles feuds... I tried this with people who had less singles feuds (less than ten), and the results were interesting but I'm not certain the low match counts are playing a role in the results. I am not reading heavily into this. The positive influences among the other people were: Ricky Steamboat (0.32), Daniel Bryan (0.31), Ultimate Warrior (0.24), Curt Hennig (0.2), Randy Savage (0.19), Brock Lesnar (0.12) Flat influences were: John Morrison (0.05), Finlay (0), Owen Hart (-0.01), Tajiri (-0.01), Alberto Del Rio (-0.03) Negative influences were: Shane McMahon (-0.07), Scott Hall (-0.07), Kofi Kingston (-0.08), Evan Bourne (-0.14), Billy Kidman (-0.15) More negative were: Bradshaw (-0.21), Batista (-0.22), Hulk Hogan (-0.26), Umaga (-0.27), Big Show (-0.27), Sean Waltman (-0.27), MVP (-0.3), Vader (-0.3), Miz (-0.36), Jeff Jarrett (-0.37), Extremely negative: Booker T (-0.48), Ken Shamrock (-0.49), Kane (-0.52) Again, Warrior's results were surprising, but I think they're tied to the low feud count among rated matches (suggesting the need to possibly normalize for total feuds / rated feuds or something to that effect.)

This is what I wrote originally (May 23 2013)

For the "who was involved in the most great matches of their opponents", I am going to nominate Shawn Michaels, at least on a purely WWF basis. Bret Hart is a very close #2 with Jericho & Cena as alternates. Here's what I did - I took the Wrestling Observer star list for WWF and isolated which match had the highest star rating for each wrestler. (For instance, Brian Christopher was part of the 2/7/00 RAW ten-man that got 4 1/4 stars which was his highest entry on the list. If they had more than one match with the same rating, I flagged them all - i.e. Bret Hart/Austin and Bret/Owen were both rated five stars.) Then I looked at who was in these matches with those people. Who was in the ring when their opponent had their highest rated match Shawn Michaels: 33 matches (11 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 18 tag matches) Chris Jericho: 26 matches (5 singles, 6 multi-man singles, 15 tag matches) Edge: 23 matches (1 singles, 112 tag matches) Chris Benoit: 23 matches (4 singles, 3 multi-man singles, 16 tag matches) Christian: 19 matches (4 singles, 6 multi-man singles, 9 tag matches) Jeff Hardy: 18 matches (1 singles, 3 multi-man singles, 14 tag matches) Rey Mysterio Jr: 18 matches (6 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 8 tag matches) Matt Hardy: 18 matches (1 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 13 tag matches) Kane: 18 matches (18 tag matches) Bret Hart: 17 matches (10 singles, 1 multi-man singles, 6 tag matches) John Cena: 14 matches (8 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 2 tag matches) Triple H: 13 matches (1 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 8 tag matches) Shelton Benjamin: 12 matches (4 multi-man singles, 8 tag matches) Steve Austin: 12 matches (5 singles, 2 multi-man singles, 5 tag matches) Kurt Angle: 12 matches (1 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 7 tag matches) Big Show: 10 matches (1 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 5 tag matches) Bubba Ray Dudley: 10 matches (10 tag matches) Marty Jannetty: 10 matches (10 tag matches) Randy Orton: 10 matches (4 multi-man singles, 6 tag matches) Kofi Kingston: 10 matches (1 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 5 tag matches) Owen Hart: 9 matches (2 singles, 7 tag matches) Undertaker: 9 matches (2 singles, 4 multi-man singles, 3 tag matches) John Morrison: 8 matches (1 singles, 2 multi-man singles, 5 tag matches) Davey Boy Smith: 8 matches (8 tag matches) D-Von Dudley: 8 matches (8 tag matches) Miz: 7 matches (1 singles, 3 multi-man singles, 3 tag matches) Dolph Ziggler: 7 matches (2 singles, 3 multi-man singles, 2 tag matches) Randy Savage: 7 matches (5 singles, 2 tag matches) Sean Waltman: 7 matches (1 singles, 6 tag matches) Daniel Bryan: 7 matches (1 singles, 3 multi-man singles, 3 tag matches) Rob Van Dam: 7 matches (2 singles, 1 multi-man singles, 4 tag matches) Eddy Guerrero: 7 matches (7 tag matches) Finlay: 7 matches (3 multi-man singles, 4 tag matches) I'm going to focus in one "best singles matches" since it's just two people in the ring. Using all of the WWF matches in the dataset regardless of type, HBK was the in highest rated singles match for eleven opponents: Marty Jannetty, Foley, Angle, Jarrett, Nash, Shelton Benjamin, Paul Diamond, Sid, Vince McMahon, Scott Hall & Undertaker. 7/19/93 Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty ****3/4 9/22/96 Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind ****3/4 4/3/05 Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle ****3/4 7/23/95 Shawn Michaels vs. Jeff Jarrett ****1/2 4/28/96 Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel (No Holds Barred) ****1/2 5/2/05 Shelton Benjamin vs. Shawn Michaels ****1/2 4/1/91 Shawn Michaels vs. Kato **** 11/17/96 Sid vs. Shawn Michaels ***3/4 4/2/06 Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon (No Holds Barred) ***1/2 Additionally, Shawn had two five-star matches that were his highest rated matches as well as his opponent's: against Taker & Hall. 10/5/97 Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker (Hell in the Cell) ***** 3/20/94 Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon (Ladder) ***** With the same criteria, Bret Hart was in ten singles matches where his opponent had their best WWF match: Davey Boy, Hennig, Lawler, Hakushi, Carl Ouellet, Bam Bam, Backlund, Patriot, Austin, Owen. 12/17/95 Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith ****3/4 6/13/93 Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect ****1/4 8/30/93 Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler **** 7/24/95 Bret Hart vs. Hakushi **** 9/24/95 Bret Hart vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte **** 6/13/93 Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow ***3/4 7/3/94 Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund ***1/2 9/7/97 Bret Hart vs. Patriot ***1/4 Additionally, Bret Hart two five-star matches (his highest rated) were against Austin & Owen, and both were their best matches. 8/29/94 Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (Cage) ***** 3/23/97 Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (Submission) ***** John Cena was in 8 singles matches that were their opponent's highlight against Brock Lesnar, JBL, Umaga, Lashley, Ziggler, Sabu, Dupree and CM Punk. 4/29/12 John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar (Extreme Rules) ****1/2 5/22/05 John Cena vs. John Bradshaw Layfield (I Quit) ****1/4 1/27/07 John Cena vs. Umaga (Last Man Standing) **** 7/22/07 John Cena vs. Bobby Lashley **** 12/16/12 John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler (Ladder) **** 6/25/06 John Cena vs. Sabu (Lumberjack) ***1/4 5/16/04 John Cena vs. Rene Dupree *** 7/17/11 John Cena vs. CM Punk ***** (This was both Punk & Cena's highest rated match) Further details: You can certainly argue that Dave's star ratings are not definitive and only counting the match that was rated 4.25 stars instead of the 4.0 stars for one guy while another opponent's 3 star match counts as their "best bout" is very subjective. It could be altered to be "# of opponent matches that were 4+ stars" (in terms of singles it's Michaels, Angle, Benoit, Edge, Jericho, Cena, HHH, Undertaker, Austin, Hart, Rock). My methodology above seems to under-represent Kurt Angle who I think is a better singles wrestler than these numbers seem to suggest. However, HBK's longevity and good matches with many people speak a lot of volume that at least Dave thinks he a hell of a wrestler. I know when I did my "visualization of who wrestled who" map both HBK and Bret Hart nodes are huge (hehheh*hugenodes*heheh) because they worked with so many different people. Lastly, this is just for WWF stars so people with great WCW highlights (Eddy, Rey) are undercounted for certain with this methodology. Likewise for those that had good indy careers (CM Punk) or TNA careers (Angle). Or anyone in the pre-PPV star era (Flair, especially).

There's an old message board for my college improv troupe. A long time ago (2004ish), I posted a plug for a local wrestling federation where I was working as a masked goof (El Cmar). The board basically died in the mid-2000s and basically had one post a year to welcome the new members. I was going through old bookmarks and landed on that today and there has been one new message posted in November 2009 by "chamrick" Chris Hamrick Shoot Interview « Thread Started on Nov 18, 2009, 11:34am » Hi everyone, I just finished my shoot interview! It went very well. It is 4 hours long, and it has 4 matches on it! I'm sure to get heat for some of my opinions, but, that's what a shoot is, right ? The matches are:Hamrick vs Jeff Lewis. Hamrick vs Chris Candido (The reason this match is on here, is because it is probably the funniest matches I have ever had, plus, he was my friend!) Hamrick & Smothers vs Jimmy Jacobs & John McChesney Crimson Dragon vs AJ Styles vs Jorge Estrada. The dvd is $25.00 plus S/H. If anyone is interested, please send me an email at [email protected] Thank you for your time Chris BAFFLING. Somehow, my post about pro wrestling must have confused the Hamrickbot.

Nothing concrete. I really want to finish it this year. All of the PPV research that we were doing over at prowrestlingonly really inspired me so I can hopefully do some analysis on that. I'm doing some of the more tedious work this week (cross-referencing age/debut/height/weight) so I look at average age in a fed / average number of years since their debut (experience is the term I'd like to use, but somehow 10 year vet today vs 10 year vet 1989 just doesn't seem comparable).

If anyone cares... I wrote 2,100 words (thanks wordcount!) about Pro Wrestling Analysis (i.e. what i call the win-loss tabulating, the buyrate regressions and other junk I enjoy doing): http://bit.ly/1aINWuT Basically, it covers what the biggest challenges I've noticed are and how there isn't really a clearing house for all the good analysis that's out there (beyond various message board topics).

I thought you were just going to write, "VEAL".

Watch old VHS tapes of wrestling and review it. Maybe even old Upstate NY Indy footage.