Matt D

If I'm going to double post something, at least it's something I believe.

As befits the Dolph Ziggler of Lucha.

Batman.

If not for all this XFL stupidity, I'd want Vince to go nuts over this and try to buy MSG.

Thanks for asking. 1.) He is, though the Hall of Pain run meant that he was at least somewhat found. Given the overall community's workfate fetish which blinds them to the value of softer skills, he still doesn't get enough credit for his earlier stuff (you know, like the 03 match vs Goldberg). What I say below, however, will be more of a holistic overview of Henry as a whole. 2.) It's mainly due to his use of negative space, meaning what he does between executing and taking moves. While so many others of his generation and the generation that followed rush from one spot to the next to get all their stuff in, Henry's maybe the best of this century in reacting to action. He'll jaw with the ref, interact with the crowd, throw derision at his opponent, portray frustration over a two-count, thereby overlaying a level of meaning and resonance to pretty much everything that happens in his matches that makes them richer and weightier than that of his peers. 3.) Add in the fact that his offense is as credible as anyone's, that he's one of the best ever at knowing exactly how much to give within the specific point of the match to make his opponent look good while protecting himself and the worth of his presence, and the almost superhuman strength and he brings a lot to the table. 4.) Easily better than Shawn Michaels who actually has a number of similar tools/understanding but either uses them to hamper his opponent, in hissy fits of rage, or simply doesn't have the believable acting chops to pull off what he's trying to do. I'll wholly admit that, in some of Shawn's Rockers work, his failings in the areas where Henry has success are probably due to a lack of size-based privilege. Henry's able to have a level of easy confidence where Shawn was forced into early insecurity.

Crossposting from the photo thread: WWE.com does ridiculous things all the time, including weird nostalgia driven photoshoots, but this one might top it all: https://www.wwe.com/shows/extremerules/2018/gallery/wwe-ecw-superstar-impersonations-photos#fid-40238486 Now I wish they had done this for Clash of Champions and had English and Rusev cosplay as JJ and Blanchard or whatever.

Regal had a real shot in 08 I think.

I thought some of the execution was a bit wonky but it's very hard to complain.

Is he done after this?

I guess it's more that I think Ditko would be pissed off by the whole exercise than anything else. There are a lot of people (movie studios included) just tossing Dr. Strange and Spider-Man up there.

To be fair, the most frustrating part of growing up in the 80s was not realizing that you would someday have to deal with a new round of brattish punks who discover the internet and how fun it is to argue petulantly without purpose on it until they grow out of it in an endless cycle every few years.

Am I the only one that finds the public Ditko tributes weird and vaguely icky? Especially but not just the corporate ones?

Excellent question. Let's look at it purely in ring. First of all, no one could possibly be better at being Flair than Flair. In fact, that's pretty much all that Flair was ever good at. He was so good at being Flair and Flair was so universally accepted as the pinnacle to be that he never honed his craft to try to be better. It meant that he accepted lapses and holes in his game that almost anyone else might have tried to fill. There was no need. He was considered the point of comparison that every other strove to meet. So long was that was the case, there was no reason to be better. That said, Bockwinkel is almost always better than Flair, because he did not have those gaps or lapses. He was much better at working the same sort of travelling heel champion match and create longer, more engaging narratives where there wasn't huge swaths of entertaining but meaningless work (instead there was entertaining and meaningful work). Where I'm not sure that Bock is better than Flair is in being Flair. There are two major opponents (three really, but the third is a trick) where Bock would wrestle what I consider to be Flair-esque matches, giving massive amounts to his opponent, mainly bumping and stooging, pulling it out with a screw job or a banana peel roll up, not really forcing a narrative because he's never in control long enough to do so: Gagne, Hogan (and the third one is the Flair match which is much more of a Flair match than a Bock match, all the more hollow). These are, in my mind, the weakest matches in the Bockwinkel canon. Bock is better than Flair 90% of the time. Flair at his best is better than Bock as Flair. Flair not at his best? That's probably a wash.