NintendoLogic
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Posts posted by NintendoLogic
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3 hours ago, Spontaneous said:
Hasn't Meltzer himself said he rates matches based upon his likes/preferences? If you like what he likes, use his ratings to see what you'd like?
Although, I can't think of any awards show that isn't always just kindling for endless arguments.
He's actually said the exact opposite. He says he's given high ratings to matches he personally hated, the Taker/Foley HIAC and the Omega/Moxley lights out match being perhaps the most prominent examples.
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For a complete change of pace, here's Kobashi working a thoroughly Americanized title match and bloodying up that weasel Ogawa. My second-favorite GHC title match behind Kobashi/Takayama.
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The only renaming I want to see is for Worst Match of the Year to be renamed the Bray Wyatt Award.
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This match is a prime example of what I'm talking about. When Neidhart is the legal man, he supplies nothing but generic big man offense. And it's not like he does anything special on the apron. In fact, there are a couple of spots that look like clear setups for him to interfere, but he either runs in late or doesn't run it at all because he's asleep at the switch. It forces Bret to practically wrestle for two. This is actually one of my favorite matches of all time, so it being so awesome despite Anvil's contributions (or lack thereof) is a testament to how great Bret was even then. I will grant that Neidhart turns in a much better performance in the Killer Bees match (another one of my all-time favorites).
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59 minutes ago, Hagan said:
Also, and this needs to be said, the age of consent in Japan is 13 years old. I may be speaking out of my understanding of Japanese culture but would they have the same moral opprobrium towards Scurll over the age issue as we do in the United States?
Note: I'm not getting into issues of consent/non-consent which are irrelevant to age but they may look at the Scurll allegation and see it as an unfortunate scandal but nothing disqualifying.
I mean, you can buy used schoolgirls' panties from vending machines in Japan. So probably not.
Anyway, I've seen my fair share of Hart Foundation matches and rank a few of them among my favorite matches of all time, and I consider the idea that Neidhart contributed at least much to the team as Bret to be thoroughly worthy of derision. More often than not, he was either actively detracting from matches or clearly being hidden so he wouldn't drag things down too much.
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6/9/95 as 1995 MOTY is probably the closest thing to a universal consensus as exists among serious wrestling fans. But just as somebody had to face the 1927 Yankees in the World Series and the 1985 Bears in the Super Bowl, somebody has to challenge it for the throne. And there are plenty of matches from 1995 that would be strong contenders in most years. For example, the you have the best singles match of Taue's career:
The second-best Misawa/Kawada Triple Crown match:
Outside of All Japan, you have my pick for the best title match in the history of the WWWA red belt.
I think that last match in particular would be right up the SC crew's alley. It's almost like a joshi version of Battlarts.
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Here's what I wrote about the All Japan tag a few months ago:
"The story here is Ogawa’s attempt to prove he can hang with the big boys. He makes no pretense of being able to go toe-to-toe with Kobashi and Akiyama. Instead, his gameplan is centered around baiting them into making mistakes so he can catch them with one of his trademark sneaky flash pins. He’s also not above going for his opponent’s eyes. And if all else fails, he has Misawa as the ultimate insurance policy. I love the Misawa/Ogawa pairing because they basically work like an American heel tag team. One sequence in particular is a textbook example of high-end American-style heel work. Akiyama tries to fight his way out of the corner, but Ogawa cuts him off with an eye rake. Misawa then stomps on him from the apron while the referee is admonishing Ogawa. That’s in addition to all their kickass Midnight Express-esque double-team offense. I guess they figured that Misawa being such an icon and Ogawa such a natural underdog gave them carte blanche to heel it up. With all that said, this absolutely did not need to go 30 minutes. With the story they were going for, 20 would have more than sufficed. I also thought the closing stretch was a bit too competitive. But the crowd popped huge for all of Ogawa’s rollups, so what do I know?"
I would add that I thought Kobashi did a great job as a Fuchi-esque dungeon master. I especially loved his abdominal stretch on Ogawa. This is only my third-favorite Burning tag of 1999, but it's still a worthy selection. With Phil as a gatekeeper, though, most All Japan matches are going to be fighting an uphill battle.
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If you like Austin in 2001 and can bring yourself to watch Benoit matches, Austin/HHH vs. Jericho/Benoit (aka the torn quad match) is even better. I revisited it recently as part of my rewatching project, and it definitely holds up as one of the top handful of tag matches in company history as well as almost certainly being the greatest match in Raw history. And I'll reiterate my Angle/Austin suggestion.
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On 3/26/2020 at 12:27 PM, gordi said:
I was referring to how Nagata's arm work led to Murakami being unable to keep his last-desperate-chance sleeper applied. It's been a good while since I've seen that match but I can still remember being impressed by that particular bit of story-telling.
I just rewatched the end to see if I missed something, but I didn't pick up on anything like you were referring to. Murakami does apply a sleeper after Kantaro Hoshino distracts Nagata on the apron, but Nagata breaks it by going after Murakami's legs. And shortly afterward, Murakami throws punches with his injured arm with no apparent difficulty. The end comes when Nagata counters a judo-style takedown with a German suplex and finishes Murakami off with exploders.
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I decided to rewatch Nagata/Murakami due to gordi's comments because I had no recollection of it being a body part psychology match at all. Upon rewatching, I'm still not quite sure what he's referring to. Nagata does work over Murakami's arm a bit, but it's a pretty minor part of the match and it doesn't play into the finish. Perhaps we're thinking of different matches? Regardless, even though it wouldn't be my pick (I'd go with Misawa/Takayama in what was a pretty weak year overall), I wouldn't argue against someone else picking it. It's the kind of match that sticks with you because it's so unique.
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@EricR, Nagata/Murakami is on Youtube, but it's an unlisted video. I'll PM you the link.
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I saw a cute little dog almost get run over today. My dog and I were coming back from a walk, and the folks in the house at the intersection of the street I live on had their dogs (two papillons and a mutt of some kind) in their front yard. Right when were about to turn the corner to head home, two yorkie-type dogs came running out the door of a house on the other side of the intersection and ran over to greet the papillons. The lady who owned them came over to retrieve them and was able to grab one of them, but the other one kept running away from her. It then started running back to its house right when a car was coming down the cross street. Thankfully, the car was able to stop just in time, because my day would have been pretty well ruined otherwise.
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Let me put it this way: Kudo vs. Toyoda is the greatest match I never want to see again.
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Looks like Cornette's career just went up like the Challenger.
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I take it the all-time MOTY project is on indefinite hiatus?
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I'm surprised no one's mentioned Brock/Punk yet. For my money, it's not only the best match of 2013, it's the best match of the decade.
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I will go to my grave maintaining that Nakamura vs. Ibushi from the 2013 G1 is better than their Wrestle Kingdom match.
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1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said:
I'm surprised, given how tough a time they had selling tickets this year.
Houston is a much stronger wrestling market than Phoenix. With WWE seemingly doing everything it can to drive away fans, it may be one of the few cities they can do a decent number for the Rumble by the time January 2020 rolls around.
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15 years ago today:
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I rewatched the ONS match. Eddie did seem somewhat gotten to by the ECW mutants chanting at Bischoff and company. There were also reports that he was upset about having to put Benoit over clean. Or maybe he just wasn't physically capable of going all-out that night. Either way, there's no way it can be classified as a great Eddie performance. I didn't see a wrestler doing everything he could to win the attention of a distracted crowd. If anything, the opposite was true. He seemed to be going out of his way to slow the match to a crawl. Benoit was by far the more explosive of the two. And there were moments where Eddie was indisputably off, like with his sell of a Benoit clothesline late in the match. In the end, when he was in the crossface, he seemed to be tapping out of boredom rather than pain. He literally apologized to Benoit in the ring after the match (you can see him mouthing "I owe you one"), so he evidently felt the same way about his performance.
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Is that Bossman match the one where he hits Misawa with his nightstick?
Eddie in 2005 is an interesting case. When he was on, he was in a class by himself, but he didn't seem to be able to consistently reach those heights. And it wasn't just a matter of him picking his spots, as some of his most high-profile matches from that year (vs. Rey at Wrestlemania, vs. Benoit at One Night Stand) were letdowns. We know now that his body was rapidly failing him, so it could be that there were some days where he was just wasn't physically capable of bringing it. That handheld is from right after Wrestlemania, so Eddie was still a total babyface (albeit of the lie, cheat, steal variety) at that point. They began teasing dissension between the two in the middle of April, and the actual turn came in May.
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My point is that "He couldn't have been great when he was young because he wasn't great when he was old" is a pretty weak argument. There may be some wrestlers who consistently perform at a high level well into their 40s and 50s, but there are also plenty, including some of the greatest of all time, who fall off a cliff when age and injuries catch up to them. Not to mention all the guys who die or retire before they reach that point. On that note, Patterson is a curious counterexample given that he had been retired for several years when he was 46, which is how old Stevens was at the time of that Robinson match. There's not a lot of Stevens footage out there, and almost none of it is from his prime. You're extrapolating from an extremely small sample size.
Here's some prime Stevens footage where he looks like a proto-Flair. I wouldn't call him an all-time great based on this alone, but he does seem like someone whose overall body of work would hold up pretty well if we had access to it.
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There's no way Kenta Kobashi could've been an all-time great. I watched one of his matches from 2012 and he looked terrible.
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A couple of years ago, I asked who the first wrestler to tape his fists outside of gimmick matches was and speculated that it might have been Abdullah the Butcher or Terry Funk. After looking into it further, I think it might have actually been Stan Stasiak, as a gimmick to get over his heart punch.
MARCH 2021 Discussion of Wrestling.
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING
Posted
Randy Orton: How dare Soulja Boy call WWE fake
Also Randy Orton: