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Official DVD/Match/Show Discussion Thread

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#1 ·
#4,684 ·
HHH's top 5 PPV matches:

1) vs. Foley RR00
2) vs. Rock BL00
3) vs. Batista Vengeance 05
4) vs. Jericho FL00
5) vs. HBK SS02
 
#4,686 ·
See I don't even think there's that much intensity or hate in the Austin match, especially that dreadful opening fall which just reduces the match's potential right from the off. Its not worked nearly as frantic and chaotic as this sort of match should be, had HHH been portrayed as a chickenshit looking to retain a title or just claim a win over Austin it might have worked...but we were expected to believe he hated Austin just as much and was set about beating him to a bloody mess. Seeing them work something that resembled a #1 contender's match with some haphazard selling from Austin and bi-polar bodypart work from HHH was just incredibly stange, especially when you watch brawls from Mid South and Memphis and slowly understand how to work a brawl that operates on pure hatred between both competitors.

The drab and tame opening fall then means they have to amp up the violence, or they risk losing the crowd and therefore before you know it there's an insane amount of weapon use and big spots that should have been saved for the closing fall because they're desperately now trying to get across 'THE HATE' and its just not working. By the final fall you've got steel chair shots to the head being sold like a bodyslam and the crowd is noticeably quiet, the pacing was just all off and they left themselves too much to do in that second fall and shot their load in terms of big spots and weapons.

I understand why its popular because the storyline despite reaching absurd levels by Survivor Series was engrossing and pitted two of the biggest stars in the company in a mega blowoff match. However if you go and watch even the 15th best Jerry Lawler brawl from the 80s you can't help but see how tame and ineffective this match is by comparison. Everything about it was a mess and it just goes to show that apart from a few select matches, the whole choreographed and WWE style spectacle very rarely leads to great hate filled brawls.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Jericho LMS match however is HHH's best performance, and the best LMS in company history. Rather than having a bunch of telegraphed spots and repetitive referee counts, HHH just methodically weakens Jericho throughout and targets one specific part of the body to keep him grounded and be unable to answer the ten count, it perfectly fit HHH's character and Jericho does an excellent job in working from the bottom and making his comeback the major focus of the match. I also adored how a lot of the time the referee would only begin counting when both men were down, rather than having a heel/face just stand there and let their opponent be counted down both men just tried to murder each other throughout and more often than not this led to both men being incapacitated and having to answer the count. The finish is also pitch perfect, HHH gets up just in time to make you hate him and feel like the luckiest SOB in the arena, and then promptly collapses to further rile the crowd up as they realise for all intensive purposes he shouldn't have been able to get up and answer the count.

Royal Rumble 2000 is his best match, and the LMS his career performance for me.
 
#4,687 ·
Like Kurt Angle's match structuring, those 2 matches MAKE NO SENSE :p.
Both of those matches were entertaining, intense, had great psychology... most of Angle's matches weren't psychology fests, but were entertaining and classic in their own right....

I can't help but wonder what matches you feel are classics if those two "make no sense"
 
#4,688 ·
I still have Cena/Umaga as the best LMS ever, with Jericho/HHH a very close second.
 
#4,689 ·
Both the Austin and HBK matches were a mess imo. Its like they didn't know what kind of match they wanted to wrestle. Is it about hate and revenge? Winning? Showing off? They kinda tried to do different things during the same match and none of it fit together or made sense and it ended up just... a mess lol. I like the HBK match more because despite its problems I still marked the fuck out for HBK's return and victory :p.
 
#4,692 · (Edited)
Entertaining doesn't make for an automatically great match. Austin and HHH wrestled a completely tameless and tepid opening fall, complete with moves and sequences which resembled your average WWF match at the time. It should have been a wild and uncontrolled brawl, rather than tame and ineffective bodypart work. Personally I think the 2/3 falls format killed it tbh, since it forced them to basically plot around each fall and meant that they had to overcompensate in the second fall for the lackluster opening, which is a shame because many Lucha brawls have occurred under a 2/3 falls format and worked perfectly.

HHH/HBK is just hurt by Michaels being bi-polar, half the time they're trying to convince me he's past his prime and giving me cause for concern to see if he can win the match, the next minute he's a bloody psycho trying to murder HHH. I've said it before on here when talking about the match, but they essentially worked the beginning of a feud and a feud ender into two halfs of a match. If the whole match had been about HBK making his comeback the sole focus of the match and winning only for HHH to then do the post-match assault, then I most likely would have enjoyed it more. And of course them then having some blood soaked epic a few months later with Michaels now being entirely focused on hurting HHH, rather than trying to prove he still had it in him could have made for a good match (though Bad Blood 2004 doesn't give me great confidence that a drawn out bloody 'EPIC' between them would have been up to much).

I can see why both matches have their fans, but both are incredibly flawed in their execution. And as for Angle, he doesn't necessarily 'suck', but rather he alienates a certain section of fans who watch matches for performances, character work and smartly worked matches. I have no qualms with the popularity he receives for his work, even if I think a lot of his incredibly flawed. What infuriates me more is that people cannot process the idea he may have faults and issues which divide wrestling fans, you don't have to agree with these so called issues but to try and pretend they don't exist serves little purpose on a discussion forum.

If people love Angle, super. Good for you because he's obviously meeting your requirements for a 'good match', for others however will vary as what impresses most can irritate others, and therefore there's always going to be debates about wrestlers whether they be Flair, Austin, Funk, Lawler, Eddie, Mysterio, Cena, Angle, HHH, HBK etc because no two fans are the same.


*waves*

Damn, not a great night for me in here. Everyone loving matches I find many, MANY faults with :p.
Hi.
 
#4,693 ·
Both the Austin and HBK matches were a mess imo. Its like they didn't know what kind of match they wanted to wrestle. Is it about hate and revenge? Winning? Showing off? They kinda tried to do different things during the same match and none of it fit together or made sense and it ended up just... a mess lol. I like the HBK match more because despite its problems I still marked the fuck out for HBK's return and victory :p.
I'm confused on how people judge matches. I'm guessing guys are looking too deep into it maybe?

The HBK/HHH match started from the concept of the friend who had rose to the top once the guy who "carried" him left the company due to injury. When HBK returns, he was there to be support for HHH, but HHH didnt want HBK to take his spotlight, thus giving him the pedigree and taking him out. HBK's road back to Summerslam was about gaining his revenge against HHH for taking him out. The biggest question in that match was whether or not HBK could keep up with HHH, since he'd been 4 years removed from the ring. When you go into the fact that it was "unsanctioned" and a street fight, it further drives home the point of the fact that this would be a brutal brawl, bloody, etc..... HBK's showing off in the match? Just a reminder that's he still as good as he was before, thus answering the question of whether he still had it. Him winning proved that he was still as good as he always was, and he's gained revenge over the friend who was, in many ways, still jealous of him. HHH's attack at the end just provided HHH with the last laugh. The action in this match was fast paced, to the point, the psychology was great, and I can't see how someone says this match makes no sense.

Austin/HHH is a different story though. The whole idea was just a blowoff to the feud. It was designed to show the brutal nature of this feud and the ending to a year plus long rivalry. The 3 Stages of Hell was a match where both guys were supposed to take each other out, make each other pay for the years of hell amongst each other. The match was hard htting
 
#4,695 ·
At the end of the day, it's all personal preference.
I guess that's the case. But I think people are looking far too into wrestling lol. It's more about entertainment and putting the best show possible in this business. I've been a fan for 20 plus years and talked with thousands of wrestling fans, especially through our radio podcast(www.blogtalkradio.com/wrestlingheads) and this is the FIRST place I've ever heard people talk about these particular wrestlers and these matches as being extremely flawed.

Im just curious as to what matches people think AREN'T flawed?
 
#4,696 ·
Its not about thinking too deep in the slightest, whilst some people watch purely for the characters and the entertainment others watch for entirely different reasons. People see classic matches from the territory days and see the brilliance in storytelling and simplistic wrestling and then struggle to comprehend how modern day matches have evolved into something entirely different.

Citing flaws in both matches doesn't make them flawed, it just serves to demonstrate the difference in opinion in what people constitute to be a great match. What I enjoy you may well find boring, simplistic, un-entertaining and no matter how much I disagree with you I cannot conclusively illustrate you to be wrong.

The key is to accept these opinions and argue why what we consider flaws you consider to be beneficial to the match, rather than attempting to comprehend how someone can form this particular opinion.

Just my two cents.
 
#4,697 ·
Triple H PPV Matches : The List (Top Two)

2. vs Shawn Michaels vs Chris Benoit WM XX
1. vs Cactus Jack RR 00

Need I say more ? Number one is self explanatory, while number 2 is the greatest triple threat match and second greatest main event in Wrestlemania history IMO. RR 00 is Foley's best match , whilst the Wrestlemania triple threat is Benoit's best match with the WWE and a top 5 HBK match.

This was ALOT of fun to do. So much fun that I wanted to start another project immediately after I finished this one... So I'm going to finally reveal what I've been up to lately : Ranking every single WWE Championship match in PPV history. There are currently 232, but I've only got 130 matches to review ( majority are rewatches ) and I've been going CRAZY at this lately. I'm going to figure out alot during this ; I'm also going to rank the title reigns based on match quality at the end as well... This is going to be a BIG one.
 
#4,698 ·
Citing flaws in both matches doesn't make them flawed, it just serves to demonstrate the difference in opinion in what people constitute to be a great match. What I enjoy you may well find boring, simplistic, un-entertaining and no matter how much I disagree with you I cannot conclusively illustrate you to be wrong.
Yep, personal preference. I appreciate reading posts from Segunda, Cal and others that point out the structure or lack of structure in Kurt Angle match or a multi-man ladder match that I may love to pieces. It would be so boring if we all had the same tastes for every single acclaimed match, especially on the mainstream level. My eyes have been opened to so many other wrestlers and matches because of these posters and while my preferences haven't changed much over the years I will read a good write-up (positive or negative) on a match any day.
 
#4,699 ·
Its not about thinking too deep in the slightest, whilst some people watch purely for the characters and the entertainment others watch for entirely different reasons. People see classic matches from the territory days and see the brilliance in storytelling and simplistic wrestling and then struggle to comprehend how modern day matches have evolved into something entirely different.

Citing flaws in both matches doesn't make them flawed, it just serves to demonstrate the difference in opinion in what people constitute to be a great match. What I enjoy you may well find boring, simplistic, un-entertaining and no matter how much I disagree with you I cannot conclusively illustrate you to be wrong.

The key is to accept these opinions and argue why what we consider flaws you consider to be beneficial to the match, rather than attempting to comprehend how someone can form this particular opinion.

Just my two cents.
Your reference to modern day matches... just makes me confused a little bit. I've watched matches from the territory days. I enjoyed a lot of these matches. I can see the difference in a Flair/Race, Flair/Rhodes from a HHH/HBK, Austin/Rock, etc.... and that's where I get confused.

I like the idea of understanding the psyche of other wrestling fans. I like to look at this business from as many angles as possible. So, that's my reason for asking quite a few times, what matches do you guys consider as not being flawed, just to gain perspective on your opinion. That's the beauty of wrestling and being a fan
 
#4,700 ·
Well what I consider not to be flawed is incredibly broad, do you mean PPV epics? TV matches? Sub ten minute sprints?

There really is no devolution of a good/great match. I'm not saying Kurt Angle needs to wrestle like a carbon copy of Ric Flair, but that doesn't mean he can't take the intrinsic elements of Flair's work (storytelling, build to big spots, adding depth and meaning to sequences/sections of a match) and incorporate them into his own work. When Angle is put against an opponent who won't play by his rules and will impose their own pacing and work to exentuate Angle's strengths the results are usually excellent, see Austin v Angle Summerslam 2001, Angle v Taker Smackdown 2003 and Angle v Taker No Way Out 2006. Not that I'm implying Angle is merely along for the ride in each of those matches, more-so that there's a sense of struggle and intricate details that add to my enjoyment of the match rather than a sprint heavy match with little redeeming qualities.

As far as some of my favourite matches go:

Eddie Guerrero v Rey Mysterio Smackdown 06/23/05 and Great American Bash 2005
Stone Cold Steve Austin v Kurt Angle Summerslam 2001
Bob Backlund v Greg Valentine 1979
Sgt Slaughter v Iron Shiek Boot Camp Match
Chris Benoit v Finlay Smackdown 05/05/06, Judgement Day 2006
Chris Benoit v William Regal Brian Pillman Memorial Show 2000, Velocity 2005, No Mercy 2006
Sting v Vader Superbrawl III Strap Match
WAR GAMES 1992
Dustin Rhodes v Vader 1992 & 1994
Terry Funk v Jerry Lawler NO DQ 1981
Ted Dibiase v Jim Duggan Mid South Coal Miner's Glove on a Pole Tuxedo Steel Cage Match (no match with that name should be as good as it is)
Ric Flair v Ricky Steamboat COTC, Chi Town Rumble, Landover and Philadelphia House Shows 1989
Ric Flair v Kerry Von Erich Hawaii (1985?)
Tully Blanchard v Ron Garvin 1986
Ric Flair v Barry Windham 1987
Dick Murdoch v Barry Windham
Cicloncito Ramirez v Damiancito El Guerrero CMLL 1997 & their trios match in October 1997
El Satanico v Gran Cochisse 1984
Atlantis v Blue Panther 1991
El Dandy v ***** Casas 1992
El Dandy v Javier Llanes 1994
John Cena v CM Punk Money In The Bank 2011
Misawa/Kobashi v Kawada/Taue 1993 and 1995
Misawa v Kobashi 1/20/97
Kawada v Taue 1991 and 1993
Kawada v Hansen 1993
Hansen v Funk 1983
Funks v Hansen & Brody 1983
Funks v Abdullah and Shiek 1977 and 1979
Kobashi v Honda 2003
Kobashi v Takayama 2004
Lawler v Dundee 1983 and 1985 LLT
Lawler v Mantell 1982 series
Gilert Cestra v Billy Cantazarro 1950-1960
Marty Jones v Fit Finlay 1984 WOS
Steve Grey v Clive Myers 1977
HBK/Mankind Mind Games 1996 (ending aside)
Danielson vMcGuinness Driven, Unified, 6 Year Anniversary Show (2007, 2006, 2008)
Danielson v Strong Vendetta & Supercard of Honour
Finlay v Regal Uncensored 1996
Steamboat v Rude Iron Man Match 1992
Dustin Rhodes v Bunkhouse Buck 1994
Rock n Roll Express v Midnight Express 1990
Southern Boys v Midnight Express 1990

I could go on, I really could. But that should do for now.

That being said I don't see what providing some of my favourite matches (and I haven't even truly scratched the surface there) really indicates, that's not a conclusive set of great matches no matter how hard I recommend them.
 
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