Name The Big Men Better Than Mark Henry

[DylanWaco]

Mark Henry surpassed Brody during the Sexual Chocolate period.

 

I am still sticking with Vader (though believe it or not in some ways I think Henry is a smarter worker) and Blackwell as the only two I wouldn't definitely rate higher.  I would take Henry over Show by a hair.  Andre is the toughest call of all to me because of footage issues.  I have zero problem with those who say he should definitely be above Henry, but I'm not sure I could do it.  In any event after reading through the thread I'm certain he would be in my top five, maybe as high as three.  

[Matt D]

I'm glad we're going to get to see some more of Babyface Henry right now. I still could go for a year of plentiful Henry/Christian tag work. 

[FLIK]

This seems to be more about fat guys than tall guys, so Bruiser Brody doesn't count, I'm guessing?

 

Do you think he's better then Henry?  I'd have named him myself but didn't think he fit the listed criteria. 

 

If you are on board, I believe we may literally be the only 2 ppl left within this little pocket of fandom that are still fans of his. 

[Hoffman]

Do you think he's better then Henry?  I'd have named him myself but didn't think he fit the listed criteria. 

 

If you are on board, I believe we may literally be the only 2 ppl left within this little pocket of fandom that are still fans of his. 

 

I'm from St. Louis and grew up on Wrestling at the Chase, so Brody is without equal and could do no wrong in my eyes, past present and future.  And he'll always be King Kong to me, never Bruiser.

 

But I'm one of the folks who always equate "big man" with "fat man," so Brody, Hansen, Gordy, and even Ernie Ladd wouldn't cross my mind in the discussion (I'll concede Ladd as a true big man, though).

 

Big Daddy was mentioned earlier, but I'd say the quintessential UK big man has to be Giant Haystacks.  He just seemed smarter and more talented than Daddy, had a bit of agility in his prime, and he never came off as a bad guy - just a regular bloke completely disgusted and bewildered by Daddy's popularity.

[piranesi]

I'm from St. Louis and grew up on Wrestling at the Chase, so Brody is without equal and could do no wrong in my eyes, past present and future.  And he'll always be King Kong to me, never Bruiser.

 

 

 

King Kong Brody was everything to me as a kid. 

[FLIK]

.....is Kevin Steen fat enough to be in this discussion yet?

 

 

 

 

[DylanWaco]

Irrelevant, because he's not good enough

[Matt D]

Someone other than me should mention Hashimoto. I don't know nearly enough. Would he be worth talking about? Does he count? Etc?

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Irrelevant, because he's not good enough

Hahahaha fuck

[Johnny Sorrow]

Ok. So I already put this in the catch-all thread, but it needs to be in here. Incredible interview covering everything and everyone from Owen to Cesaro. He talks about studying Bam Bam and Vader, driving Yokozuna around, hanging up on Vince, etc etc etc. At around the 57 minute mark he mentions that he wants to be known as one of the 10 best big men of all time. I wish he could see us throwing his name around in the top 5.

Between this and Sam Roberts interview with Orton, I think we can agree that shoot interviews should be done by professional radio guys and not the awful clowns like RF, Highspots, etc.

[The Natural]

I think Show is easily better than Henry. His matches with Mayweather, Taker, Lesnar, Del Rio, Sheamus, and Bryan are all better than Henry's best work.I'd say Umaga deserves consideration too, although his peak might have been too short due to his untimely death. Still, his matches with Cena and Jeff Hardy were better than Henry's best, and his killing of Santino was pretty underrated too.

 

Bugger. Can't believe I forgot about Brock Lesnar when listing Big Show's best opponents.

 

I'm in agreement with you on Umaga. Liked all his matches with Jeff Hardy while the Last Man Standing match with John Cena at the 2007 Royal Rumble is one of John Cena's best ever matches and one of the best matches from 2000-2009.

[Cristobal]

What makes me sad about this thread is that wherever Henry ends up on our collective lists, it'll be lower than he should be because of the injuries he's had, but more importantly the tremendously bad TIMING of those injuries.

[Go2Sleep]

Question for Dylan (or anyone else): What do you think are the best Mark Henry matches?

 

I think his character work has been excellent for the last several years and he's been very consistent in the ring, but I've been struggling to think of matches that really stand out. For all the other guys that have been brought up, a few great matches came to mind instantly. Does Henry have anything that would be in anyone's top 10 or even a WWE top 10 in a given year? I remember he had some higher-end matches with Rey in about 2006, but that's about it.

[Clayton Jones]

In the end I think Big Show's high end matches give him the edge over Henry for me, nobody has mentioned him VS Sheamus from last October, which is one of the better WWE PPV matches I've seen in the past few years. And on a normal day I don't care either way about Sheamus. But man Show brought out the absolute best in him.

 

As for the question of Henry's best matches, he had a great run in ECW in '08 with multiple matches against Matt Hardy and Finlay that would rank among the best I've seen from him. Just some of the first that come to mind, other people here will be more qualified than me to keep going.

[DylanWaco]

Question for Dylan (or anyone else): What do you think are the best Mark Henry matches?

 

I think his character work has been excellent for the last several years and he's been very consistent in the ring, but I've been struggling to think of matches that really stand out. For all the other guys that have been brought up, a few great matches came to mind instantly. Does Henry have anything that would be in anyone's top 10 or even a WWE top 10 in a given year? I remember he had some higher-end matches with Rey in about 2006, but that's about it.

 

 

I would need to go back and watch a ton of 06 and 08 Henry before I could be really sure on this.  One thing that hurts Henry some is that I think with the exception of his 2011 run a lot his best matches were on weekly tv shows.  For example all the Rey matches are at minimum very good.  I watched two of them recently and thought they were both great matches.  But 06 was  loaded year in the WWE and while I could see an argument for both of them as top ten WWE matches of the year, they weren't on ppv, and didn't really have hugely memorable angles/storylines driving them so they don't stand out as much.  08 ECW was tremendous and easily the best wrestling on tv anywhere in the world.  Henry was a huge part of that and given how weak most of the rest of WWE tv was that year, I'd say that Henry would have a shot of having a couple of the best WWE matches from that year, but again I'd have to go back and do the leg work.  

 

Answering your question more particularly, I thought Punk v. Henry was the best Raw match last year and probably a top ten WWE match of the year.  In 2011 I thought Henry was one of the two best in ring wrestlers on earth and the best over all guy in wrestling.  Again I thought Bryan/Henry in the Cage was one of the better WWE tv matches of the year and perhaps a top ten match.  The best Sheamus and Show matches were also very possibly top ten WWE matches.  This year I think the match with Cena from the ppv is at worst the best singles ppv match of the year so far.  Without going back and looking at a match list the only WWE match I'm positive I would have above it is Regal v. Ohno from NXT and it feels odd even calling that a WWE match.  

[Cole Miner]

Question for Dylan (or anyone else): What do you think are the best Mark Henry matches?

 

One of my favorites was a Smackdown battle royal in 06. The match had a few things going against it. Being a battle royal obviously. Angle being a major focus. Turned out to be a fun battle royal and Henry is what makes it work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuG6RuohVMA

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

The thing I remember best about that, is that at the end you can see Kurt is a fucking milisecond away from screwing up the finish. It all works out but I specifically remember Meltz saying "WE WERE SECONDS AWAY FROM MARK HENRY: WORLD HEAVYWEGHT CHAMPION, FOLKS" which is ironic IMO because Mark Henry's World Heavyweight Championship run is way fucking better than any Kurt title run since his first.

 

So basically fuck you Meltzer.

[Big Fresh]

King Kong Brody was everything to me as a kid.

Brody just means do much more to those of us in St. Louis, I guess, because I'm almost offended by those who don't worship him.

[Brian Fowler]

Brody had an absolutely amazing aura as an out of control wild man that felt 100% legit, and carried him past the fact that he was a terrible wrestler.

[jm29195]

I would need to go back and watch a ton of 06 and 08 Henry before I could be really sure on this.  One thing that hurts Henry some is that I think with the exception of his 2011 run a lot his best matches were on weekly tv shows.  For example all the Rey matches are at minimum very good.  I watched two of them recently and thought they were both great matches.  But 06 was  loaded year in the WWE and while I could see an argument for both of them as top ten WWE matches of the year, they weren't on ppv, and didn't really have hugely memorable angles/storylines driving them so they don't stand out as much.  08 ECW was tremendous and easily the best wrestling on tv anywhere in the world.  Henry was a huge part of that and given how weak most of the rest of WWE tv was that year, I'd say that Henry would have a shot of having a couple of the best WWE matches from that year, but again I'd have to go back and do the leg work.  

 

Answering your question more particularly, I thought Punk v. Henry was the best Raw match last year and probably a top ten WWE match of the year.  In 2011 I thought Henry was one of the two best in ring wrestlers on earth and the best over all guy in wrestling.  Again I thought Bryan/Henry in the Cage was one of the better WWE tv matches of the year and perhaps a top ten match.  The best Sheamus and Show matches were also very possibly top ten WWE matches.  This year I think the match with Cena from the ppv is at worst the best singles ppv match of the year so far.  Without going back and looking at a match list the only WWE match I'm positive I would have above it is Regal v. Ohno from NXT and it feels odd even calling that a WWE match.  

I would certainly but a Goodhelmet Mark Henry comp if one was released!

 

Previous people have mentioned them but I have to say the Rey matches from January 2006 onwards were the first Henry matches that I saw that made me think he was really coming into himself as super heavyweight monster. However looking back, there were other times in 2002/03/04 where he shone, in particular, vs Brock on Smackdown in September 2002, vs Goldberg in October 2003, a tag match vs Hurricane and Rosey on RAW centered around the bearhug at around the same time,vs Benoit in January, I think, 2004. Also loved his path of destruction just prior to injury in 2006 where he took Burchill, Benoit, and Albright I think - Judgment Day 2006 vs Angle was also much better than his Rumble match in the same year,,,

[Big Rob]

Obviously not a great match, but I remember a really fun squash of Tyson Dux from one episode of heat back around 2004 time. He's a pretty great squash wrestler in general, but I have fond, if a little foggy, memories of this one.

[J.T.]

We should analyze this worker by worker and match by match and embed a poll for voting.

 

I propose we begin the MIZZARK VS. THE WORLD thread series in the grand tradition of LONCE VS. ~? from the old board (RIP).

 

I await Naylor's commentary that attempts to convice me that Mark Henry is better than Vader. John Studd,  Ernie Ladd. or Gorilla Monsoon..

[Curt McGirt]

Didn't we already do a poll of Hash vs. Vader where Vader won? I think that was all super-heavyweights leading up to them in the final. 

 

Anyway, Will is right, Andre has to be in and not just because his '70s/early '80s work is absolutely fantastic but because he pretty much invented the formula for how to wrestle when you're supersized. 

 

I'm still waiting for my never-to-arrive Fat Boy Issue of DVDVR btw

[Matt D]

Is anyone better than Henry at knowing when to slow things down to jaw at the ref/crowd/etc. I think he works in-match verbal taunts in better than anyone.

[Tromatagon]

Well, it is what he does.