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Post by Cap on Apr 25, 2019 6:16:32 GMT -5
I was just looking at my top 20 today (doing a brief write-up on my whole list). I realized I only had one match from the past two decades in it and thought I am clearly being unfair in some ways to everything post 2000.
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Post by superstarsleeze on Apr 25, 2019 12:56:37 GMT -5
Black Terry...Horace...passe...anyone can throw a unique wrestler on a list, but who is the only one who had their #1 fall outside the Top 100...yep I am the cool one. Rest of you are just a bunch of hive-minded hipsters. jk, jk love you all! Elliot, re: Super Tiger vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara finishing at #43, you can thank me by name, brutha. The more of the list I see, the more I realize I have impeccable taste in pro wrestling. Lol Re: Conor & JoeG, yeah Conor your thoughts would apply to most groups of fans, but the PWO crowd is going to lean heavily in All Japan, Shoot Style, 80s US and classic Lucha. The fact Omega had multiple matches in the Top 100 does surprise me.
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Post by Kadaveri on Apr 25, 2019 12:57:19 GMT -5
I do genuinely believe that the amount of top-tier matches has declined post-2000. That's not because of 'modern' wrestling being necessarily worse. It's simply because with the death of the US territories, British promotions and the mess created from the collapse of Joshi and the AJPW split, there's simply far less infrastructure to create great wrestlers, feuds and matches. Like WWE is never going to produce quality at the rate it, Jim Crockett, Mid-South, Continental, Memphis, AWA etc... all did combined when they were all thriving.
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Post by Kadaveri on Apr 25, 2019 13:10:02 GMT -5
Hey Sleeze - I have watched the Flair vs. Morton match but didn't seen any of the build, I'd like to see it in context to better reconsider it. Could you point me to the right YouTube links/episodes on the WWE Network, or wherever I could find this stuff? Thanks.
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Post by superstarsleeze on Apr 25, 2019 13:19:10 GMT -5
High priority is
1. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 4/12/86) 2. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (Incomplete) (Pro 5/17/86) 3. Grinding Morton's face into the concrete...I dont know what episode it is on. I think it is on Worldwide.
Here is a full list of what should be seen:
Ric Flair + Ricky Morton (Worldwide 4/12/86)
Arn Anderson & Ric Flair Interview (Worldwide 4/12/86)
Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 4/12/86)
Ric Flair Interviews (x2) (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 4/19/86)
Ron Garvin Interview / Ricky Morton + Ric Flair (Worldwide 4/26/86)
Four Horsemen Interview (4/26/86)
Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (Clipped) (Handheld 4/86)
Ric Flair Interview (Worlwide 5/3/86)
Interviews: Ric Flair Interview; Arn Anderson (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 5/3/86)
Ric Flair vs. Tony Zane / Arn Anderson & Ric Flair Interview ( World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night5/3/86)
Interviews: JJ Dillon; Ric Flair (Worlwide 5/10/86)
Ric Flair Interview ( World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 5/10/86)
Ric Flair Interview (Pro 5/17/86)
Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (Incomplete) (Pro 5/17/86)
Interviews: Ric Flair; Tully Blanchard; Arn Anderson; Ric Flair (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 5/17/86)
Interviews: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard; Ric Flair (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 5/24/86)
Rock N Roll Express + Four Horsemen Recap (Pro 5/31/86)
Ric Flair Interview (Pro 5/31/86)
Interviews: Ric Flair; Arn Anderson; Rock N Roll Express; Ric Flair (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 5/31/86)
Four Horsemen Interview (WorldWide 6/7/86)
Interviews: Arn & Tully; Ric Flair (x2) (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 6/7/86)
Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair / Arn Anderson Interview / Four Horsemen Interview (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night6/7/86)
Interviews: Ric Flair; Tully Blanchard (Pro 6/14/86)
Ric Flair Interview (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 6/14/86)
Ric Flair vs. Robert Gibson (WPW 6/16/86)
Interviews: Ric Flair; Tully Blanchard (Worldwide 6/21/86)
Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard & Ric Flair vs. Italian Stallion, Rocky Kernodle & Todd Champion (Worldwide 6/21/86)
Four Horsemen Interview (6/21/86)
Four Horsemen Interview (Worldwide 6/28/86)
Ric Flair Interview (World Championship Wrestling,Saturday Night 6/28/86)
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Post by Cap on Apr 25, 2019 14:59:00 GMT -5
Regarding the issue of post-2000s wrestling. Obviously there is a tastes and generational issue here. Even though I was only 6 at the end of the 80s (where most of my U.S. matches come from and wasn't watching joshi or lucha or AJPW much in the 90s... I can't help but think some of the more overarching shifts inform what I like and - more to the point - what I think great wrestling looks like. I would bet there are plenty of fans that would look at my list or our collective lists and think we have lost our marbles.
I caught that Morton/Flair match. I feel like I had seen it ages ago, but this was a great refresher. I am generally familiar with contours of their feud. The payoff was pretty clear, especially dueling nose work. Its definitely a classic, really worth considering. I am not ready to commit that it will be on the list next year, but I want to give it a gander after I have some time away from the project for a bit. Right now, I have just been watching so many high end matches from the last two months of the project and then getting inspired to watch stuff as we put together the list that wrestling is starting to look like its either "all time great" or "not" and I don't want to get in that funk.
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Post by elliott on Apr 25, 2019 15:00:05 GMT -5
I was just looking at my top 20 today (doing a brief write-up on my whole list). I realized I only had one match from the past two decades in it and thought I am clearly being unfair in some ways to everything post 2000. Have you ever seen Chris Hero vs Ikuto Hidaka from 3/13/10 Evolve 2?
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Post by Cap on Apr 25, 2019 15:08:57 GMT -5
So I just dropped 40-31 and I have to say I am delighted at how well Fujiwara vs Takada did. That might be too low on my list. It is such a joy to watch.
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Post by Cap on Apr 25, 2019 15:16:42 GMT -5
I was just looking at my top 20 today (doing a brief write-up on my whole list). I realized I only had one match from the past two decades in it and thought I am clearly being unfair in some ways to everything post 2000. Have you ever seen Chris Hero vs Ikuto Hidaka from 3/13/10 Evolve 2? Probably not sense it happened.
There are lots of post 2000 matches I really like, they tend to fall more in the tier right outside the list. I need to go back and look at some of them right up against compatible 80s and 90s matches especially. Like, for example. I think Dragon vs Gibson for the ROH title is criminally underrated. I watched it right after watching some 70s NWA title stuff and it felt it was great in that same way. I rated it ****3/4 and maybe that is where it belongs in my mind, but I want to watch that and a number of other great modern matches and really think about what the differences are and if I stand by them or if I am putting something artificial up.
It sounds so nitpicky and pointless to flesh it all out, but this is just how I think generally (analyze and over-analyze for the sake of the thought experiment) and how I like to look at wrestling right now. I think it will probably take 3-4 years of this project before I am relatively confident in my list (maybe I will never be). I just feel like each "draft" I will notice another angle I want to look at it from until I have fewer and fewer and fewer. This year I changed a lot of my ratings to match sort of how I was looking at greatness in this project. I have a list of matches I want to rewatch to see where they should really be in that divide between 4.75 and 5, because I am probably not going to have many - if any sub 5 star matches next time around. I gotta look at those high end 4.75 and ask myself are they really not as good as my low end 5s and if they aren't, what moves? The rating isn't important, but sort of parsing that out for the purpose of the list is fun and helps me make sense of this project.
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Post by elliott on Apr 25, 2019 15:59:31 GMT -5
I'd be interested in your thoughts on Hero vs Hidaka. It was the only US indy match I ended up ranking. My 101-150 was full of the 90s AJPW and post 2000 stuff that missed my final 100. My biggest problem is that I had matches in the 50s I wanted to rank in the top 5. The way I built my list was to separate the nominees out like this: Top 5 Candidates Top 10 Candidates Top 20 Candidates Top 50 Candidates Top 75 Candidates Top 100 Candidates Not Really candidates And I went down the list match by match and asked "Could I see ranking this as a top 5, top 10 etc" and placed each match. That's how I built the initial rough drafts I started out with. In the end my top 150 matches or so all came from the Top 5, Top 10, Top 20 placements. So if I ranked something 80th or 90th, I at one point was looking at it as a top 20 or so match. My first 14 matches are all tied for #1. My next 30 are tied for #2. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way when you're forced to make a list but that's closer to how it really is for me. That's the big problem I had with making a Top 100 matches list. Too many matches, not enough numbers. If nothing else, I have learned that whatever match I would rank as the 2584th best match of all time is actually a fucking awesome match because there has been a ton of awesome wrestling.
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Post by KB8 on Apr 25, 2019 16:46:09 GMT -5
Hot damn, I knew it was beloved by pretty much the entire universe, but it’s sort of cool knowing I’m not the only one who thinks the 1/86 Jumbo/Tenryu v Choshu/Yatsu match is better than anything from the Pillars/90s All Japan. I think it would’ve ended up as my highest 2v2 tag, period.
I totally blanked on Aja/Hotta still being on the board. What a cool, semi-obscure top 40 inclusion. I really should watch it again because I think it knocked my socks off whenever I last saw it (like ten years ago now).
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Post by elliott on Apr 25, 2019 16:51:27 GMT -5
Cap, where can I find that dragon Gibson roh title match?
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Post by superstarsleeze on Apr 25, 2019 17:19:21 GMT -5
So I just dropped 40-31 and I have to say I am delighted at how well Fujiwara vs Takada did. That might be too low on my list. It is such a joy to watch. You know you all don't have to be bashful...you can just come out and say how good my list is! 😋😋 I mean a lot of it does have to do with the fact I didn't rewatch All Japan in time but I don't envision either Fujiwara match falling out of my Top 20.
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Post by elliott on Apr 25, 2019 19:21:42 GMT -5
You forgot Wargames 87 sleeze
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Post by bossrock on Apr 25, 2019 19:58:38 GMT -5
Regarding the issue of post-2000s wrestling. Obviously there is a tastes and generational issue here. Even though I was only 6 at the end of the 80s (where most of my U.S. matches come from and wasn't watching joshi or lucha or AJPW much in the 90s... I can't help but think some of the more overarching shifts inform what I like and - more to the point - what I think great wrestling looks like. I would bet there are plenty of fans that would look at my list or our collective lists and think we have lost our marbles. I caught that Morton/Flair match. I feel like I had seen it ages ago, but this was a great refresher. I am generally familiar with contours of their feud. The payoff was pretty clear, especially dueling nose work. Its definitely a classic, really worth considering. I am not ready to commit that it will be on the list next year, but I want to give it a gander after I have some time away from the project for a bit. Right now, I have just been watching so many high end matches from the last two months of the project and then getting inspired to watch stuff as we put together the list that wrestling is starting to look like its either "all time great" or "not" and I don't want to get in that funk. I was basically the opposite, and I think the reason I still enjoy a lot of modern wrestling is because I didn't really start watching until the early 2000's. For the longest time all I really knew of wrestling was WWE and TNA. I had heard of ROH but I didn't have the means to watch it. It really wasn't until the last 3 years or so that I got into NJPW and got introduced to 90's AJPW. And it wasn't until doing this project that I took a look at shoot style and promotions like WWC.
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