(Also Not March Madness): SECRET SANTO March 2020

[Spontaneous]

On 3/2/2020 at 8:25 PM, Curt McGirt said:

EDIT: Blind spots would be a lot of classic '90s WCW actually, JCP, Rock'n'Rolls/Midnights, Southern stuff that a lot of people take for granted.

It kinda looks like most of your blind spots are my blind spots as well but I have seen some WCW. You said classic WCW, I take it you mean early 90's? I have a few ideas.

[Octopus]

Welp, I typed a nice thing but accidentally deleted it. So gonna try and re type this and find the links.

———

Hey @gordi, I was researching a bit of comedy wrestling for you and stumbled across Les Kellett. Trying to find his matches, in the back of my head I knew his name sounded familiar. Of course, after watching on to see if I should send you it I realized why the name came to me so easily. You were already recommended him. D’oh! So I figure I’ll do what @Matt D did for you and give you three links to choose from. We should call it the Gordi Special.

1. Les Kellett vs Leon Arris

 

Good solid family friendly fun.

 

2. Brock Lesnar vs Ric Flair 

 

Not exactly a comedy match, but whenever old man Flair takes on an athletic larger opponent, I smile. Especially when they’re willing to look silly and bump for him. Good. Solid. Family. Friendly. Fun.

 

3. Vader & Son vs The Matthews Brothers w/ Mr Feeney

 

Because you mentioned Vader. GOOD. SOLID. FAMILY. FRIENDLY. FUN.

[The Man Known as Dan]

For @OctopusCinema, I wasn’t sure what direction to go, so I stuck with my RoH roots

 

[SirSmUgly]

@AxB I looked back through the thread, but didn't see your areas where you need some more viewing. I saw what you are okay with/like. I kicked around a few late-'80, early-'90s tag team match ideas, but then I crossed my fingers and hoped that you hadn't already seen this:

 

Midnights/Fantastics is one of the greatest feuds ever, full-stop, and their run against each other in the NWA produced the best of their matches (naturally, since it was the third promotion chronologically in which they feuded, IIRC, so they had lots of work with one another).

If you've seen this match, let me know, and I can pick something else. If you haven't, I judge this to be one of the best matches ever, singles or tag or whatever configuration of wrestlers that you can come up with. It's a bit longer, though - about 27 minutes. I think it's more than worth it, but just a warning. 

 

[AxB]

I have not previously seen that match. Thanks!

[Ace]

For Matt D, I'll give Steiners vs. Doc & Gordy, Beach Blast '92

 

[Matt D]

This is another one I haven't seen in years and I have a much better, more complete understanding of Doc and Gordy now than I did then. Interested to see what I think now. Thanks.

[NikoBaltimore]

So for @Goodear looking at your "Youtube and a prayer" note in the initial post I'm going to bring up one that...well...features a Fallen Angel.  But if you take out a few minutes for entrances you get 25 minutes of a legendary match that helped put TNA on the map for a time.  Not sure if you've seen it before, but even if you did hope a re-watch does you good.  Heck, with my dumb luck for all I know somebody reviewed this here already.  But if this works for you then here you go.  And @Matt D if this was reviewed already I'll find something else.  I''ll double check the thread when I can but work's been insane yet again.

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by NikoBaltimore

[Curt McGirt]

On 3/22/2020 at 10:34 AM, Six String Orchestra said:

It kinda looks like most of your blind spots are my blind spots as well but I have seen some WCW. You said classic WCW, I take it you mean early 90's? I have a few ideas.

Yeah, I started watching in the Goldberg era. If it isn't on a WWE DVD or is particularly famous it's a shot in the dark as to whether I've seen it or not. 

Since we have the same blind spot, why not this? I was reminded of Eddie from that cursed Benoit doc and this is him pre-rudo IIRC. It's another one of those WCW random booking situations where they want to look all international and booked a Japan vs. USA tournament just because they could. 

 

[Spontaneous]

Sounds good, I'm binging a ton of old WCW right now. I think anyone will like this match from Starrcade 93, WCW Champion Vader defends vs Ric Flair!

 

[Goodear]

@NikoBaltimore here's something that will fit into a busy schedule.

 

 

[Spontaneous]

Eddie Guerrero vs Shinjiro Otani, Starrcade 1995

I actually ended up watching the entire show this is from. This is by far the match of the night. I'm only vaguely familiar with Otani but of course I've seen tons of Eddie matches over the years. I don't like doing move by move recaps. The only real lead in for this match appears to be the "World Cup of Wrestling" featuring NJPW vs WCW matches.

Both wrestlers look crisp through out the match. I expected this match to be one of the better of the 7 World Cup matches at this Starrcade given that Eddie has previous experience in Japan and Otani actually appears to care which can't be said for most of the other wrestlers on the card. I felt they had excellent chemistry and Otani actually got people to boo him and care about Eddie's comebacks. Dusty Rhodes is terrible on commentary here and drags the match down somewhat. He seems disinterested in the entire World Cup during the show,  at least Heenan gives him some verbal jabs once in a while. Heenan and Schiavone do a good job of focusing on the actual match however. Heenan should really have been the one championing the NJPW guys, he did more on commentary to actually get over the NJPW contingent than Sonny Onoo did at ringside 7 different matches.

Match actually only goes slightly under 15 minutes, I would like to have seen what 5 more minutes could have added. There was some good chemistry here and the crowd got into it as the match progressed. The match somewhat suddenly ends with Otani and Eddie exchanging roll ups where Otani manages to hang onto the third exchange and win. Fortunately this match had no outside interference or wacky rules like Benoit vs Liger and Johnny B Badd vs Masa Saito. It was goofy at the end to see all the WCW wrestlers parade out with the trophy. I mean, B Badd won by DQ after getting tossed over the top rope. Aside from Liger-Benoit, the rest of the World Cup matches are a snooze fest. I'd really recommend anyone who hasn't seen this match check it out. The rest of this Starrcade can be safely avoided. I've been watching a lot of NWA and WCW on the network lately due to the stay at home orders. Starrcade is supposed to be the big show of the year yet constantly has multiple matches end in outside interference, DQ, count out or just no ending. I can see the seeds of why WCW dying here early on. It is very unsatisfying to see Otani vs Guerrero give a more enjoyable bout than Flair vs Luger vs Sting and Flair vs Savage. One was for a meaningless world cup and the others for the world title.

Thanks for @Curt McGirt for the recommendation, Eddie Guerrero is always worth a watch and Otani is excellent in his own right.

[Matt D]

I love serious businessman Heenan.

[Curt McGirt]

Ric Flair vs. Vader (Starrcade '93)

You know, I said I didn't watch WCW until the Goldberg era, but I remember this match due to the advertising it got on TV and in print. It seemed like a big deal, that Flair was putting his career on the line against this guy who pretty much epitomizes the Wrestling Monster. When Vader showed up in the WWF I was all-in on him from the jump. However, even though I knew about this match, I'd still never seen it until now. 

And of course it's pretty damn good. The emotion is built in because it's going down in Charlotte, Flair's adopted hometown. Michael Buffer is out to do the announcements and Flair has his game face on; Vader is out with Harley who's growling away at Flair and sporting a fine mullet from his curly locks. Jesse is announcing with Tony and it reminds me how disappointing is that Jesse is cut out of the WCW and WWF matches on WWE DVD sets due to his feud with McMahon over money. His commentary is great and always welcome. Match itself is methodical, with Vader basically mugging Flair the whole time, and Flair managing to escape when Vader misses a highspot. He almost always comes back immediately with a short lariat and gives Ric absolutely no time to breathe. The whole time he's also yelling at him saying he's not man enough. Harley of course gets his licks in too. Finally though, after the crowd is almost silent watching the beating he's taking, Flair (whos chops and punches have been mostly no-sold) finally puts fists to Vader and drops him to a knee which makes the building erupt. By now his mouth is busted from Leon's vicious shots. Flair takes him outside and pops him with Jesse's plastic chair while Randy Anderson is finagling with Harley. He starts working the leg, gets the Figure Four but Vader gets the ropes; while he's doing that Harley decides to go for a flying headbutt off the top and hits Vader instead. Anderson then tosses Harley out on the ramp! Crowd (and myself) pops big for that. Vader has missed the Vader Bomb and the moonsault so now he's out of tricks. Flair goes back for the Figure Four and it doesn't work, but he manages to take out Vader's knee from behind and does a kind of sloppy rollup to get his shoulders down for the three and the title, and surprisingly kind of hightails it to the back, though he celebrates on the ramp briefly. We go to the back in a minute and Vader is tearing apart the dressing room, punching the lockers and yelling "I WANT IT BACK!!!" Flair meanwhile has his family with him and is emotional. Sting and Steamboat both come back to congratulate him as well to really babyface Ric. 

Lots of emotion in this one. Flair really played the underdog here and Vader came off as the world destroyer that he was. IIRC in his book Flair said this one was really special to him because he had his whole family there, and take in mind this is before Reid died from an OD, he got remarried for the tenth time, and that Charlotte looks to be all of six or seven years old. Now I'm gonna go watch the Thundercage match they had from SuperBrawl IV because apparently I haven't seen that either.

[Curt McGirt]

Thundercage was okay too though it was overly gimmicked in how it transpired. Bossman was the ref and the cage was to keep Harley out. Of course, Bossman gets cuffed to the cage, Harley gets inside and locks everybody else out. Flair makes a big comeback and beats on Vader and Harley, Bossman manages to break the cuffs and calls for the bell as Vader's in the Figure Four. Arn and Steamboat are on the outside and ask Doug Dellinger who is finally showing up with the bolt cutters "where were you?" This felt really short but the crowd was feeling it, right down to the old school "OOOO!"s for every big punch Flair hit. Really surprised nobody juiced here. 

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

Les Kellett vs Leon Arras

So I am watching this match, and it's driving me nuts: I am sure that this is the first time I have ever seen this match, but I could  swear that I know Leon Arras from somewhere. Maybe from when I went to Scotland years and years ago with my family and watched wrestling on TV with my cousins? No... I don't think so. Is it just the Yorkshire accent? No...  it's definitely this particular accent, and this particular big balding head. Finally, I paused the match and did a quick YouTube search. Holy S**t! Leon Arras is the chess-playing guy who told the joke in the pub scene in American Werewolf in London:

Not only that, he was also Mr. Sugden in Ken Loach's Kes!! What a great character, and what a truly great movie!

Arras (or, actually, Brian Glover) was also Mr. Rottweiler in Bottom and the voice of the Tetley Tea ads...

What's that? Oh, yeah. The match:

The fans love Kellett and despise Arras here. The first three rounds are pretty reminiscent of the Flair vs Lesnar match that OctopusCinema also posted for me to watch, in that Kellett seems to be getting crowd sympathy for being a beloved veteran who is working against a much larger man while also working as "the dirtiest player in the game" who knows "every trick in the book" and isn't above pulling all of them out to gain the upper hand against his larger opponent.

For the first two and a half rounds, Arras generally plays fair but he often taunts both Kellett and the crowd. Arras seems to be the King of Catch-Phrase Wrestling Comedy. In particular, he just hammers on  "Ow 'bout that, then?" every time he does anything remotely impressive, and it is very interesting to see how the crowd's reaction to that phrase changes over the course of the match. The dynamic here seems to be that Arras is a little bit of a show-off but the crafty Kellett keeps coming out on top. 

Arras sneers that Kellett will never get the best of him, then Kellett immediately gets the best of him... and the crowd pops.

Arras traps Kellett in a facelock, but Kellett pulls his arm down and yells, "He's choking me!"... and the crowd cracks up.

Arras yells "Let's see how strong you are, Kelly Boy!" and Kellett immediately wins the test of strength... and the crowd pops.

Can you guess what happens when Arras yells "You'll never make a monkey out of me," and can you guess how the crowd reacts?

The fans are great here, just eating it up and reacting with joy every time Kellet outsmarts the bigger man. It comes as a shock, then, when the tables are turned and Arras outsmarts Kellett to win the first fall. The crowd don't like that at all.

There are some pretty great comedy spots in this one, including an all-time classic revolving around Kellett causing Arras to bite his own tongue, and the single best best "measure him up and kick him in the back" spot in wrestling history (late in the match).

They do a call-back to the "hit your opponent but sell like he hit you"  spot that worked so well for Kellett against Johnny South... but this time referee Max Ward is wise to it and it's Kellett that gets the public warning. I marked out for that.

Kellett catches Arras in a very cool variation of the Figure Four, but the bigger man escapes. Kellett also does the Nigel/Moxley rebound spot in this match, but it doesn't lead to a pinfall here. Instead, Arras starts to genuinely heel it up, using the bandage on his elbow to rake Kellett's eyes again and again in an ever-escalating British version of the classic "hide the foreign object from the ref" trope. A badly worn-down Kellett does a little bit of Drunken Master-style bobbing and weaving that got a huge laugh out of me. Arras knocks Kellett out of the ring, and in a very cool spot several members of the audience lift him back in.

There is another wonderful inversion and subversion of the "turn about is fair play" trope in this match (following the above-mentioned kick to the back) that earns the equalizing fall for Kellett. 

We then get a more classic-style "turn about is fair play" spot after Kellett snatches the bandage from Arras' arm. Arras subsequently loses his cool and in a finish that is somewhat reminiscent of the final fall of the Johnny South match, Kellett once again takes advantage of an enraged and charging bull of an opponent to steal the winning pinfall. 

So that's the third Les Kellett match I have seen, and it's the third one that has kept me utterly entertained from bell to bell. 

Honestly, if the next person who draws my name decides to give me Kellett vs Bobby Barnes, Mel Stuart, or Steve Haggerty I won't mind at all. Though, a nice old-fashioned hoss fight might make an enjoyable change of pace, too.  

Edited March 26, 2020 by gordi

[Matt D]

On 3/23/2020 at 12:24 AM, Ace said:

For Matt D, I'll give Steiners vs. Doc & Gordy, Beach Blast '92

 

I haven't seen this one in years, so it was interesting to see now while I'm in the midst of all of the this French stuff and after having seen so much Doc in Japan handhelds and Doc and Gordy in Houston, etc. 

As a kid, the Kip Allen Frey to Bill Watts transition was the first real "booker" change I had experienced, and it was very jarring at the time. I didn't understand who Doc and Gordy were and why they'd come in so quickly and so impactfully. I didn't get why Brad Armstrong was in the Brian Pillman role as Light Heavyweight Champ. I didn't get why the Dangerous Alliance were getting downplayed so quickly. It's hard to imagine some of this stuff from a kid's perspective now but that had basically been the only WCW I had known as I started watching at the very end of the Herd era and early-mid 91 WCW was so weird that any transition would have felt normal. 

It's definitely an interesting match. A thirty minute draw to introduce Williams/Gordy, basically using a PPV main event to set up the already taped Clash match and the NWA tag tournamnet which was a pretty unique way to do things in 1992 but Bill Watts was going to be Bill Watts. Lots of believable, probably actual, mat wrestling to start in more of an amateur style than a pro wrestling style. Nothing was tricked out. Nothing really got a pop. They just looked for leverage and powered each other around. Three unique heat segments. No tags that were really all that hot despite long stretches of fairly effective heat. The Steiners up against the clock as much as Gordy/Williams at the end even though they were the champions and really only had pride on the line for a last second win relative to a draw. 

It was really fascinating to look at Scott vs Rick as FIP. Rick's initial working from underneath had him hitting a ton of hope spots, really at almost every opportunity, and he did it very well. You always had the sense that he was about to come back and Doc and Gordy really had to work to keep him down. Scott, on the other hand, was much more focused on drawing sympathy; he had the tool of the damaged leg to help him, but it was really his full body doing the work. Ultimately that made the way he just crawled across the ring while in a crab to get the tag a little anti-climactic. I thought that was to set up the finish tease (where Gordy hit the super power slam on Rick but wasn't the legal man) and the third heat (where Rick still fought back but this time was much more labored about it), but that hot tag was a near afterthought to the tick-down of the clock, especially with so little on the line for the Steiners winning. 

Couple of other notes:

• Gordy stood out as the more dynamic, larger than life character of the two. It's funny because in these HHs I've been watching, it's Doc that has an almost Lesnar-ian presence.
• I've heard much, much worse Ross/Ventura pairings. They worked well together here, in part due to Ross being equally for both sides so Ventura didn't have to play hard heel and was able to look at this in a more clinical manner. That doesn't mean that Ventura isn't great at going hard heel, because he is, but he was never good paired with Ross that way. I don't think Ventura helped with one of the hot tags because he called it into question when it wasn't actually in question. Ross saying Rick had a degree in Education gave Ventura a good straight line but probably was ill-advised. Ross was always the worst at making wrestling seem less important than college sports instead of using them to enhance.
• The opening wrestling was definitely good, but it wasn't showy enough. I think we've seen enough shootstyle/lucha/catch/etc. to know that to make it really entertaining and not just realistic, one person has to provide openings, and no one seemed willing to do so.

Very good match that never wore out its welcome though, and one that is a really good showcase of the different things Rick and Scott could bring to the table while working from underneath. 

[Curt McGirt]

3 hours ago, gordi said:

Though, a nice old-fashioned hoss fight might make an enjoyable change of pace, too.  

You better watch out, somebody might give you a Big Daddy match haha

[SirSmUgly]

Ethan Allen vs. Luke Jacobs, Tetsujin is Dead 2019

The shaky cam shots were nauseating early, but I eventually sort of drowned it out. 

There is some early mat exchange/feeling out stuff, but this gets worked a bit more like a pro wrestling fight, even early, where there is basically a spinebuster/punch-flurry spot. These dudes look alike and are fighting out of the same team, so forgive me for a lack of names. Maroon trunks takes advantage of a missed kick to go into a leg bar/heel hook transition that black trunks works out of into a slap exchange, which is transitioned into a trap suplex.

After the reset, there's a strike exchange that leads into black trunks kicking maroon right in the face, followed up shortly after by another soccer kick right to the face that maroon tries to fight out of with strikes. Basically, the match here is the bigger dude in black trunks working on top as maroon tries to get out from underneath with flurries of offense. Maroon takes advantage an exchange to move into an armbar that black trunks basically Rampage Jackson-powerbombs his way out of. 

Both get up again to neutral and have another slap exchange that goes into a kick exchange. Maroon tries to back to the armbar and then transitions into a double-underhook suplex, but black eventually powers up while maroon has him in a headlock. Black tries to get to the ropes for a break, gets chickenwinged as he puts his arm out, and then gets a rope break with his teeth, which looks a bit silly, but gets the crowd going because everyone is showing FIGHTING SPIRIT~

Maroon is hurt and tired and takes his tape off as his corner man gives him some emotional support; then, he struggles up and we get another strike exchange. We're at like four of these now, and while the crowd is still hot for them, I'm good. Maroon tries to go in for the kill, gets a brainbuster for his troubles, and stumbles up into a lariat that puts him down, where black trunks goes for the armbar and gets the tap.

This was too beholden to pro wrestling tropes to be a good complete work. Clean strikes that would be match-winners in a shoot fight were basically shrugged off, and the mat work was mediocre. There wasn't enough realistic-feeling struggle there on the mat, though I appreciate the immediate tap once the armbar got applied, but then, why were there WWE-style struggle spots for the other stuff that should have gotten an immediate tap if locked on? There wasn't consistency there. 

As a series of spots (like the finishing run and the armbar --> double-underhook suplex), this was a fun match, though. Suplexes have a whole lot of weight when guys aren't just popping them off every five minutes - only the Steiners can really get away with a suplex-a-minute and still have those suplexes feel like they all have gravity. As a complete package, though, it was inconsistent and disjointed, and honestly, you can only have so many "fired-up strike exchanges" before I'm like, man, who gives a fuck anymore?

As with last week's RINGS match, it was cool to watch, but I'm not sure that I'd want to watch more of this style, though I'd be open to watching either of these guys wrestle again in general. 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Smelly McUgly

[Goodear]

On 3/23/2020 at 2:38 PM, NikoBaltimore said:

So for @Goodear looking at your "Youtube and a prayer" note in the initial post I'm going to bring up one that...well...features a Fallen Angel.  But if you take out a few minutes for entrances you get 25 minutes of a legendary match that helped put TNA on the map for a time.  Not sure if you've seen it before, but even if you did hope a re-watch does you good. 

Thanks!  I had not watched this before and welcomed the opportunity to watch it.  I'm not really a fan of three ways for a multitude of reasons, mostly because they tend to fail at creating a narrative through line and become a bit of a spot jumble. This is unfortunately one of those times. Daniels is nominally the heel in this but none of his mannerisms inform that.  Watching this, he does nothing to draw a negative reaction outside of a very obvious heel move that comes and goes without a significant change to the match.  You are left feeling as though the crowd did not care about the outcome and only the journey of great spots executed well. This is obviously a style of watching wrestling that has come into vogue in the last few years and while crowds generally enjoy the ride, they don't seem to care deeply about the destination.  It makes wrestling more like a roller coaster, where once the ride ends, the only thing to do is to get back on it and ride again. And then with different people.  And longer.  And then with bigger spots and kick outs. 

And that's how you get Kenny Omega.

I'm being harsh. 

All the spots are good spots.  All the execution is on point.  The pacing is quite good in that you don't get bored and the time goes by quickly,  There's a neat thing where Daniels frankensteiners AJ onto Joe and AJ takes Joe over. The interesting thing is Daniels' reaction to this since he didn't see what happened and is perplexed by aftermath.  That being said, despite the reputation of this match, I don't see it as being a stand out example of the rather disposable style. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who didn't like this sort of thing but recognize what it did well. 

***

[NikoBaltimore]

It's been quite awhile since I saw this but in "2020 eyes" I can see why this wouldn't be your cup of tea.  But then if we have to look at it in "2020 eyes" then that calls into question just how timeless matches like this are.  And stuff like this would take me down a wormhole that I'm hoping doesn't "ruin" matches I fondly remember at the time.  But I may need to go back and watch it but in 2005 stuff like this was mind-blowing.

I haven't forgotten about my review but will put it up later on.

Edited March 27, 2020 by NikoBaltimore

[AxB]

The Midnight Express (c) vs The Fantastics for the NWA United States Tag Team Titles

There are two things that made me think that as well as this match comes across through the magic of television (and computers), it was probably much better if you'd actually been in the building live. Firstly, the crowd was really hot for everything. One of the Fantastics does a back elbow off a cross corner whip and the audience is screaming out of their minds at the awesomeness of it. Secondly, there's a lot of commercial breaks in it, and sometimes they come at times when you'd really think a decent director would stay with the action. Like when someone has a pin cover and the ref just counted Two, for example. At least show the three count or kickout before cutting away from the action.

But I digress. It's interesting how this era of tag team wrestling is really looked at through Rock n Roll Express tinted glasses as being about heel beatdowns and babyfaces desperately struggling to keep their heads above water, making hope spots and getting cut off. Because this match isn't really like that. The babyfaces are solidly in control for the whole first half of the match, and the heels' attempts to turn it around are constantly thwarted (which makes sense, in terms of their familiarity and not falling into the same trap twice). And it's very much what constituted high energy aerial offence in this era, with dropkicks and the old school 'sit on one shoulder' flying headscissors (although a Fantastic does pull of a Huracanrana later on, which was unexpected). Meanwhile the heels are at sixes and sevens and struggle to find their way in.

Eventually, they get control. But even then, especially to begin with, they struggle to keep it. The hope spots are frequent, and in many cases are more Hope Sequences, rather than one move and a cut off. Gradually the babyface wears down. Gradually the heels get to establish and maintain control. At one point the guy waiting for the tag drops off the apron and chases skinny Jim Cornette around the ring, and they don't even do the 'He reaches his corner, but there's no-one to tag' spot that we see all the time now.

But then when he gets the hot tag, the house afire segment gets cut off quickly and we go straight into heel beatdown two. He gets tossed out of the ring and dropped throat first on the guard rail, and once he's back inside, he's trapped in a neutral corner and pummelled. You know who has good punches? Bobby Eaton. Stan has his fancy Karate pose kicks, but Bobby's punches look more likely to actually do real damage. Then they tease a referee stoppage with the guy all bloody and unable to stand, and the Midnights celebrating another successful defence before it gets restarted and the babyfaces do an illegal double team behind the ref's back to get the surprise roll up and the title win. And the fans are going mental.

If you watched this when it happened (1986, I think?), you probably would think it was one of the greatest matches of all time. By the standards of the era, it's an epic in length and pace, incredibly heated, and everyone knows their role and plays it to a tee. To 2020 eyes, those moves that were cutting edge at the time (hmmm... would a 1960s wrestler have watched this at the time and said 'those kids need to slow it down, all this fancy flying around at a million miles an hour is going to kill the business') seem olde time now. The standards have shifted. If this is the style of wrestling you like, this is the match you'll love. Possibly it is the apex of it's era. But if you do a compare and contrast to The Young Bucks vs Omega & Page from AEW Revolution (which aside from the fact that that's an all babyface match, and this is faces vs heels, they are the same types of matches), I'd say the 2020 version has more moves, better moves, better execution of moves, better selling of moves, better long term selling (hear me out; The opening portions of this match when the pace was at it's slowest, the Fantastics were all armbars and hammerlocks. At no point after that did either Midnight show any signs of any arm damage whatsoever. Whereas in Bucks vs Omega/Page they did sell early limb work late), and also had a hot crowd fully invested in the outcome. So on balance, I would say that, in as much as comparing two separate eras is comparing apples to a different type of apples they don't grow any more, I would say that the apex of tag wrestling 2020 is of a higher quality than the apex of tag wrestling 1986.

Still, different strokes.

[Goodear]

4 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

It's been quite awhile since I saw this but in "2020 eyes" I can see why this wouldn't be your cup of tea.  But then if we have to look at it in "2020 eyes" then that calls into question just how timeless matches like this are.  And stuff like this would take me down a wormhole that I'm hoping doesn't "ruin" matches I fondly remember at the time.  But I may need to go back and watch it but in 2005 stuff like this was mind-blowing.

I haven't forgotten about my review but will put it up later on.

I don't think it's outdated so much as it is very much in today's popular style.  You're very likely to see something very much like this on an episode of AEW on a weekly basis.  So while you could say it was ahead of its time, that time is now (insert John Cena trumpets).  

[Goodear]

On 3/22/2020 at 1:31 PM, OctopusCinema said:

3. Vader & Son vs The Matthews Brothers w/ Mr Feeney

 

Because you mentioned Vader. GOOD. SOLID. FAMILY. FRIENDLY. FUN.

For being an obvious television 'wrestling' match which includes a lot of jokey stuff, this actually does a nice, quick job of demonstrating some fundamental six man tag team psychology.  Weakest heel starts against the weakest face and it escalates through every tag until the biggest heel ends up face to face with Mr. Feeney.  This is a very basic storytelling point that milks the interactions so all the faces get shine and all the heels (except the first) get heat by picking on the weaker face. And your weakest heel is likely the Buddy Roberts or Tully Blanchard piece of garbage so they draw heat in a different way anyway.

And no, I'm not joking.

[The Man Known as Dan]

I just want to say that the phrase “with 2020 glasses” Is amusing because for some it’s “wrestling is so much better now so this old stuff pales in comparison” and for others it’s “Ive seen how far into the abyss wrestling has fallen which makes these matches feel that much better”

 

Watched Patera vs Backlund, will rewatch and review after work.