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MAY 2022 Pro Wrestling Discussion


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7 hours ago, twiztor said:

top 15ish (in no oarticular order except the Macho Man being #1. also this is all off the top of my head so is subject to change)

Randy Savage

Ultimo Dragon

Jushin Liger

Stevie Richards

Samoa Joe

Chris Jericho

Shawn Michaels

Christian

Owen Hart

Eddie Guerrero

Bryan Danielson

Steve Corino

Raven

Chris Benoit

Kanyon

honorary mention: the Repo Man and mountie gimmicks. not the performers, or their matches, i just love those ridiculous gimmicks.

Love this list, especially the Steve Corino nod. He nearly made mine, but I wasn't sure that buying every ECW PPV VHS from their last couple of years was enough to go on. Phenomenally entertaining wrestler though. Kanyon probably would have made mine if I'd seen more than a fraction of his career, Owen and Christian were also very close.

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My 15 favourites. Today, specifically. In order of how much joy they spark in my heart. ?

1 - Giant Baba

2 - Bryan

3 - Ishii

4 - Eddie Kingston

5 - Terry Funk

6 - Andre

7 - Asian Cooger

8 - Ebessan

9 - Super Porky/Brazo de Plata

10 - Alexander Otsuka

11 - MiSu

12 - Kana-chan

13 - Lulu Pencil

14 - Masanobu Kurisu

15 - Les Kellett

The "watching their matches makes my heart leap with joy, but then thinking about them makes me sad" list would include Misawa, Eddie, Owen, and a couple dozen others.

 "15 Greatest" would be way harder. Plus my list would be objectively wrong, and also mostly 80s and 90s AJPW guys and maybe I'd rank Shinobu Kandori over Hokuto and Taue over Kobashi or something... plus no luchadores. Unless you count Eddie Guerrero.

Bryan, Funk, and Andre would make both lists...

Hm.

Maybe:

Bryan

Funk

Jumbo/Tenryu tied for third ?

Fujiwara

Andre

Baba

Misawa

Kawada

Kandori

Jaguar

Liger

Bret

Eddie

Hashimoto

Taue

 

But... So many genuinely great wrestlers still not listed... impossible.

 "Favourites" is definitely more fun! And even that list would be different tomorrow.

 

Edited by Gordlow
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Random train of thought bullshit from the last bit of wrestling I watched, feel free to scroll on by if it's not your bag.

I watched two matches from Survivor Series 1987!

First, can't they clean this shit up a bit?  I know it's 35 years old (FUUUUUCK THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANCIENT) and it's 4:3 but you're telling me they can't digitally clean up the picture and make it sharper for my big motherhonkin' Samsung TV that I kind of hate?  I gotta believe there's software that does this automatically now.  We can create a passable virtual Luke Skywalker but we can't clean up old wrestling footage that is on a modern streaming platform?  Fuck you!

So I watched the IC level match and the tag match.  I skipped the ladies' bout because I cannot deal with 80s WWF women's wrestling.  Here are some notes:

10 guys in the first match and only four are dead (Savage, Bass, Herc, Harley)?  I call that a win.  Is Ron Bass Jr. still wrestling?  I saw him on a few late Covid era Paradigm Pro shows and thought he was okay, albeit with a very weird build.  He definitely looked like a badass unpolished shitkicker in a few UWFI rules matches.

80s WWF was so cartoony with its heel and face logic.  We're 19 months out from Jake trying to squash Steamboat's brain with a DDT on the cement and we're a year out from Savage crushing his larynx with a ring bell.  Both led to months-long blood feuds.  And now they're all teaming together.  And it's not like Jake and Macho did some sweet introspective soul searching and realized how horrible their actions were.  Honky Tonk was just an asshole to both and then they became faces.  So two hate-filled feuds in roughly a year and a half and now they're all buds. 

Speaking of Steamboat, it's striking how short his hottest WWF run was.  He came in before Mania 1, heated up after Mania 2, won the IC title at Mania 3, lost it in two months because he dared to want time off for the birth of his kid, apparently was sat out June-November 1987, wrestled this show, puttered around until March, jobbed in Mania 4, and that was it.  So really his big run was about one hot year and that was all.  Damn.

Jake was so fucking over, by the way.  The crowd goes crazy when he tries for the DDT, then their souls collectively leave their bodies when he finally hits it.  Jesus.

Not really a lot else to say about the midcarders' Survivor Series match.  It ends with Honky vs three guys who have reason to hate him (Savage, Jake, Steamboat) and he walks out for the countout loss.  You could do that in the 80s and the fans would be fine with it just to see the faces get their hands raised.

I also watched the tag match, as mentioned.  I thought this was the famous match where the Rougeaus were eliminated early and the Bulldogs went out late so Jacques and Raymond could GTFO before Davey and Dynamite got to the dressing room but, checking wikipedia, it looks like that's next year's show.  Still, their eliminations were like 20 minutes apart so you can understand my confusion.

Holy fuck Bill Eadie does next to nothing as Ax.  Nothing but clubbering forearms and clubbering axhandles as far as the eye can see.  Speaking of which, pretty good job protecting the team you're building as the next tag champs by having them go out on a DQ.

Weirdly booked match as the top two babyface teams (Strikeforce, the current champs, and the Bulldogs) are eliminated earlier and two heatless babyface teams, the Bees and the Young Stallions, are left to finish out the match.  I guess Tito dropped the fall to the Harts to start a house show program?  But yeah, we get four on two, advantage babyfaces, and the babyfaces still cheat to win with the Bees' masked gimmick.  Fucking bizarre.

That was it.  Maybe I'll watch the main later.  Yay.

Edited by Technico Support
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I'm looking at my list I posted yesterday, and it changed already outside of about 4-5.  I have my top tier, but the rest is flowing depending on the day and my mood and that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Like today, I just want to watch old Eliminators v anyone matches because The Eliminators were one of my favorite tag teams of all time.  That's the best thing about having so many time periods, territories, promotions.  You really could make a "Favorites" of each individual one and it would't be wrong.

 

Except for the fact that I will go to my grave saying that R-Truth is one of the best comedic wrestlers of all time, criminally underrated when he played it straight and probably one of the most entertaining people to ever step in the ring.  R-Truth is absolutely a constant.

 

 I think i made this post just to talk positively about R-Truth, lol

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1 hour ago, hammerva said:

So apparently Ric Flair wants to die in the ring.  And pro wrestling is more than willing to let it happen

I'm assuming it's being held in Tennessee because pro wrestling is off the books there? Because Flair literally has a pacemaker installed and I imagine no state boxing/wrestling commissioner with half a brain would want that man's death on his/her hands.

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I always feel compelled to add “best at what they did” guys to my GOAT list, because listing 10 main eventers is easy and it’s more interesting to me to look at wins above replacement up and down the card.

“Opening match at a house show” acts: New Age Outlaws, The New Day

Midcard heel glue guys:  Regal, Tully, Miz

10 minute TV match wizards: Dustin Rhodes, Christian

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Also a random thing, but it was on some recent pods:

You know who was awesome? 1996 Paul Wight. That was my shit right there. 

I mention this because “Giant didn’t know how to work like a big man when he first got to WWF” has been said so many times that even Wight himself believes it. But fuck all that, early 1996 WCW champion The Giant beating Flair and Sting clean and nipping up and choke slamming dudes to hell was the best Wight ever was, save MAYBE the 2008 run. 

 

Edited by For Great Justice
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The Giant had fun television matches as early as late 1995 He has a fun TV match with Scott Norton on 12/4/95 Nitro where he's somewhat flummoxed by Norton's power, but still figures out how to have MORE power. Then, two weeks later, he has a match against Savage which is textbook working like a big man on his part. 

 

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Whose music makes me the most excited to see them, is how I based my criteria for these 15 gentlemen:

Jericho, Rock, Regal, Finlay, Eddie, Taker, Bryan, Bret, Austin, Steamboat, HBK, Rey, Punk, Christian, Joe.

Angle, Lawler and Kingston all close-by too. 

Kingston, Moriarty, MJF, Garcia, Allin are likely candidates for my list 10 years from now. Maybe Cesaro too if he gets a good run over the next few years without the WWE restraints on him. Like Miro and others it will take a while I think for him to get the stink off him and get into a decent groove. 

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3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

 

I watched two matches from Survivor Series 1987!

 

I was there! My brother and I were wandering around during intermission when Honky popped up right in front of us to cut a promo challenging Hulk Hogan for the WWF title after running away from his top three IC title challengers. It was glorious, although we were also distracted by a huge fight that was going on in the upper deck.

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I was having this conversation with a friend the other day, as far as my top ten of all time. The only thing I can confirm is that Bret and Foley are always #1 and #2 (flopping depending on how the day is going). Everyone else is subject to change depending on what I watched last.

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I have a hard time watching Foley now because of how many head shots and concrete bumps he takes. Don't ask me why that's my limit; bumping is bad on the body in general. But there's something about how he takes bumps and shots that make me enjoy him way less than I did before.

I watched the Cactus/Sting Beach Blast match and Cactus/Payne vs. Nasties match recently and in both, I found myself thinking too much about some of the spots and how crazy they were to really enjoy them. It's like how I never want to see Mankind/Taker HIAC ever again because it's just hard to watch now. 

I'm getting soft in my old age. 

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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4 hours ago, Technico Support said:

 

Speaking of Steamboat, it's striking how short his hottest WWF run was.  He came in before Mania 1, heated up after Mania 2, won the IC title at Mania 3, lost it in two months because he dared to want time off for the birth of his kid, apparently was sat out June-November 1987, wrestled this show, puttered around until March, jobbed in Mania 4, and that was it.  So really his big run was about one hot year and that was all.  Damn.

 

That's really interesting because for years he was my favorite wrestler based solely off that run. I never actually caught any of his WCW run.

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On 5/15/2022 at 11:12 AM, A_K said:

I don't know what PWG is, but just checked some stuff out and that's pretty harsh on AEW. AEW production values aren't that far from WWE's now in my opinion (some of the virtual/augmented reality stuff aside). Everything about TNA production was awful, not least the grainy quality of the image. TNA at the time was the equivalent of taking some well known DJs who can still sell tickets and putting them in a field with a shit sound system then trying to compete on a like-for-like basis with a Vegas superclub. It was just ruinous for everyone involved in that project, except those who limped back to WWE and could be rehabilitated.

I can't speak for everyone but TNA always seemed to want to APE WWE despite having a working agreement with ROH. Comparing AEW to PWG isn't as much about production values as using that template as a house style and just leaning into the product being different . Personally I felt SPIKE TV run TNA had decent production if a little heavy on the lasters

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Kurt Angle
AJ Styles
Rob Van Dam
Randy Savage
Monty Brown (guilty pleasure)
The Rock
Mick Foley
Big Bossman (another guilty pleasure)
Eddie Kingston
Raven
Brodie Lee
Samoa Joe
Riho
Ninja Mack
Vader

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2 minutes ago, Krone Meltzer said:

Kurt Angle
AJ Styles
Rob Van Dam
Randy Savage
Monty Brown (guilty pleasure)
The Rock
Mick Foley
Big Bossman (another guilty pleasure)
Eddie Kingston
Raven
Brodie Lee
Samoa Joe
Riho
Ninja Mack
Vader

Bossman is way less of a guilty pleasure than RVD and Angle. Don't let anyone shame you over him.

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Bossman's best stuff is in that mid-'90s WCW run, IMO. Lots of very good TV matches as Guardian Angel and Big Bubba Rogers. 

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