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AUG 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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4 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I'm a Stan Hansen Stan (SHS, feel free to use that and thank me or damn me later), but I've never seen a Stan Hansen match that I haven't enjoyed on some level. At best, it's an amazing match of someone trying to take down a redneck Godzilla. At worst, it's just Stan Hansen clotheslining the shit out of someone so that he can win enough money to drink shit beer and his big fat wife and 9 kids can eat Spaghetti-Os.

Yeah, even the disappointing Jumbo matches aren't bad, they just don't live up to the hype I had for two of my all time favourites.

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1 minute ago, Jiji said:

Yeah, even the disappointing Jumbo matches aren't bad, they just don't live up to the hype I had for two of my all time favourites.

It's funny because Hansen isn't my favorite wrestler of all-time. However, I feel like whenever I watch him there's at least one thing that makes me think I didn't totally waste my time watching that match. He could wrestle some guy like Tom McGee and I'd go, "well at least Hansen gave him a really cool powerbomb and lariated him hard enough to make him shit his pants."

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7 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I've never seen a bad Fantastics match. Granted I haven't done a lot of deep dives into their stuff but they were a team that was so good at the formula, that even a "bad" match of theirs always came across as decent enough to me because of how good they were.

I watched the match @Jiji left, and it's not bad, just disjointed, which is how I feel about AJ tag structure. This is coming from someone with limited exposure to it, so take that as a statement borne from foggy ignorance. 

I think it comes down to my very strong bias for JCP tag match structure, though. It might just be that I'm subconsciously foisting expectations on these 1980s and early-1990s AJ tag matches that said matches aren't trying to fulfill.

Edited by Smelly McUgly
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1 minute ago, Smelly McUgly said:

I watched the match @Jiji left, and it's not bad, just disjointed, which is how I feel about AJ tag structure. This is coming from someone with limited exposure to it, so take that as a statement borne from foggy ignorance. 

I think it comes down to my very strong bias for JCP tag match structure, though. It might just be that I'm subconsciously foisting expectations on these 1980s and early-1990s AJ tag matches that said matches aren't trying to fulfill.

Fair enough. I grew up on the JCP structure as well and it's kind of tough to judge how good other matches are when that's your basis. 

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This question might stretch past the month but what's the hardest match to actually put a star rating on? I think something like Brock/Cena from Summerslam is extremely hard to rate. In terms of "holy shit did I just see that!", it's a 5 star. In terms of "ok, how did it fit into formula of a good match? and sitting through it while it's actually going on without knowing the endgame", it's like a 3 star match b/c it's just Brock throwing Cena around for 15 minutes.

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2 hours ago, Infinit said:

There are both Morton's and Ruth's Chris in Canada....you just have to come to the cultured part ??

You elected Doug Ford. I don't think you get to claim the cultured moral high ground these days.

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The Randy Savage/Ultimate Warrior retirement match.

It's ALLLLLLL show, and it works perfectly. It's a five-star match in terms of characterization and telling a story, but it's like two stars for the wrestling part of the work itself.

Going back to a statement I made a few days back, this match next to the Steamboat match at WM III and the Hogan match at WM V kind of make a shorthand case for why I think Savage is top-three. You can line them up on a spectrum from "workrate heavy" to "all show" with the Hogan match as the midpoint between the two, and they're all really fucking great and Savage is really fucking great in them. He could do it all. He could do the matwork and the big character work that plays to the back of the arena. Shawn Michaels wishes that he had a tenth of Savage's ability to get the big emotional moments over that WWE ME style asks workers to sometimes do. 

Edited by Smelly McUgly
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French Trampoline Match

The Bock vs Zbyszko match that's only a few minutes long

The Santo rudo turn match

Powers and Glory vs Rockers from Summerslam

Generally matches that are either too exhibitiony or ones that have a lot of angle to them.

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If you can't rate a match in comparison to what it was there to accomplish than I don't think you should rate it at all..

It's like movies to me. The Conjuring can be rated high, just because it's horror doesn't lessen what it set out to do and accomplish. 

A showy match can be just as great as something heavy on psychology or counter wrestling etc.

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Jericho is probably on the phone complaining. 

Smart business decision too, as an AEW person on the cover will likely move more units than a WWE or Japanese guy would. 

Edited by odessasteps
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Apropos of nothing, "Ruth's Chris Steakhouse" is a weird fucking name. It's the only large restaurant chain whose name I'm not even sure how to parse. Best I can figure out it's supposed to be a steakhouse owned by somebody named Ruth serving the meat of somebody named Chris.

 

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On 8/26/2020 at 12:46 AM, Niners Fan in CT said:

So I was watching something the other day that put a huge smile on my face.  Twin Towers vs. Mega Powers we all know the story,  The Luster carried an injured Liz to the back and left Macho to fend for himself, etc.. 

But what I had totally forgot. After Macho beats him down in the medical room, Brutus fucking Beefcake showed up to save Hogan and Macho just obliterates him before turning his attention back to Hulk.  Awesome. 

A big part of me wishes Dibiase would have teamed with Savage instead of Zeus. I know why they used Zeus but damn Dibiase and Savage would have been fire. 

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40 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

If you can't rate a match in comparison to what it was there to accomplish than I don't think you should rate it at all..

It's like movies to me. The Conjuring can be rated high, just because it's horror doesn't lessen what it set out to do and accomplish. 

A showy match can be just as great as something heavy on psychology or counter wrestling etc.

You always have to keep purpose in mind. What were they trying to accomplish? Did they do it. But that's not the be all/end all in a comparative sense. Different purposes have different levels of difficulty and different opportunities. 

But keep it in mind.

For instance, you should absolutely hold purpose against the Road Wild Benoit vs Malenko match because they wrestled like the crowd wasn't there instead of finding some way to marry their act with the unique crowd they were in front of. 

You should hold it against Johnny Polo vs Marty Jannetty because the whole point was to add heat for Jannetty/Kid vs Quebecers by having Polo be a chickenshit heel manager trying to wrestle and instead they went all out and had a spotfest.

You should give credit to Race vs Martel in Portland because even though Race gives Martel WAY too much for it to be a really compelling match, that was to put over Martel, new to the crowd, as a big star, since he was going to be one of the lead babyfaces for the rest of the year. It means the match isn't nearly as good as it would have been if Race took more of it, but it really accomplished what it set out to do.

I'll let someone else engage on the rest (but the direction I'd go would be ...."Geez, that movie had great special effects but a really shitty story." And then you'd go "Sometimes I'm in the mood for that." and then I'd go "Sure, but in a comparative sense..." and add in "There are plenty of movies that have both..." and I don't think we need to do that.) 

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I think until the next leap in special effects happens i will be pretty tired of it, I mean we saw better special effects in some cases twenty years ago with the Lord of the Rings in comparison to some of what we are seeing today. I was always a big mark for practical effects anyway so let's see more of that. 

How does this tie into wrestling? Well.. I'm done with dives. I'm done with 2.9 kkickouts. I'm done on the apron is the hardest part of the ring. If you are doing that in 2020 I might hold it against you lol. I think some matches deserve to be criticized for leaning into current trends.

Let's get back to basics of psychology and storytelling..

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BTW, I did start on my AJPW watching tonight. Takano/Tenta vs Tenryu/Kawada and Malenkos vs Kabuki/Fuchi. Takano/Tenta were a hell of a monster team and the match had a really good finish. Malenkos did a lot of interesting things (with Dean having more flash) but since I wanted the match to be Fuchi/Kabuki beating and stretching the hell out of Dean, the fact the Malenkos took 3/4ths of it wasn't so hot. 

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