2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

I saw Repo Man in that gimmicks montage, laughed like hell seeing the "man's man" again.

Too bad there was no love for my man Salvatore Sincere:

 

But he wasn't even a jobber to the stars.

 

Actual thread related post - Jericho was interviewed on The Nerdist podcast on Jan. 14. Not a whole lot of wrestling chat, except that apparently "Leapin'" Lanny Pofo was always rumored to be able to suck his own dick.

 

Speaking of the Poffo fam, checked out the WWE's three-disc Randy Savage DVD and was a bit underwhelmed with the legendary match with Steamboat at WMIII. Not as great as I recall, but the commentary from Monsoon and Ventura is spot on.

Some great interviews too.

 

Better always to watch Savage-Steamboat with four or six other matches from those years, late 1985, 1986, early 1987. It still holds up well, but for the time, it was and still is incredible. I watch it every couple months on YouTube. Everything about it is perfect:

 

Yeah, maybe I'm just too used to the stuff they do now. There were no major bumps, Steamboat was trying to get pins with shitass moves like the sunset flip. Great athleticism by both guys, didn't see that too much then or now.

 

You also have to take into context the timeperiod of when Savage/Steamboat took place. You mostly had these big guys pushing each other around, then all of a sudden, that match took place, and it was like, "holy shit!"

First time I ever saw it on the Colisseum Videos, I remember rewinding my VCR (hah!) several times when Savage took the big flip over the top rope. Looked incredible to me.

Of course, compared to today, the match is very good, but doesn't seem as special. But that's the great thing about wrestling. It evolves. Hurricanrana/Frankensteiners and moonsaults were shocking in 1989. Now, half the wrestlers in the world can do them.

One of my favorite unique moments is watching the Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask match from MSG in '82. There's one spot where Dynamite is out of the ring, TM looks like he's about to dive on him, then Dynamite moves and TM basically does a 619 back in the ring. The MSG crowd went nuts, because they'd never seen anything like that before. They were used to seeing big guys exchanging bearhugs and headlocks and Backlund chickenwinging the latest contender.

 

Out of these four wrestlers, who do you think is more deserving of the Hall of Fame:

-Ultimate Warrior
-Macho Man
-Owen Hart
-Bruno Sammartino

Yes, I know the reasons behind why Bruno doesn't want to go in to the Hall of Fame.

Thoughts?

 

Bruno and it ain't even close. He carried the company for 15 years.

Followed by Savage, then Warrior, then Owen.

 

"Most deserving," and not "most likely"?
Tough call between Sammartino and Savage. I'll go with Savage, just because I think he did more to make wrestling what it is today than Sammartino did. Savage was relevant in both WWE and WCW, the second-biggest star of the 1980s, and a model for a lot of today's wrestlers in what he was able to do in the ring. The Steamboat-Savage match from WM III still resonates so much because it's really the blueprint for a modern match.
Sammartino, for all his accomplishments, was simply from the wrong era. Everything before Hogan is prehistory in wrestling terms. Hell, some of my earliest memories are of watching Backlund defend the title in house shows broadcast from the Spectrum in Philly, and Sammartino was ancient history by then. He's obviously one of the guys who built the business, but not one of the ones who propelled it into the stratosphere.

 

I've heard the reasons why Savage isn't in but why is Bruno not in?

 

Bruno and Savage are easy picks, but both aren't in for political reasons, which is why the WWE Hall of Fame is a joke.

The Ultimate Idiot/Anabolic Warrior wouldn't make my Hall of Fame anywhere. Flash in the pan, for one, and I adhere to Major League Baseball rules when determining Hall of Famers.