best

Best pre-Rock Rocky Maivia Match?

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Hey Scott. I've been watching a lot of wrestling on Youtube lately and realized that I haven't really run across any pre- The Rock era Rocky Maivia matches. Would  you or any of the other readers recommend anything from Rocky Maivia or even the Flex Kavana days?


​No, he was pretty terrible in that era.  He was a guy who looked like a star and who was a project of the top people, but he didn't really develop into a good worker until the NOD era.  I'd call the HHH match where he won the IC title pretty decent and I recall the match where he lost the title to Owen Hart being not bad, but nothing else really stands out for him. ​

PTBN Reaction Show: ROH Best In the World 2015…and more

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Will and Dylan Hales (Wrestling Culture) discuss the latest PPV offering from ROH. We discuss the character work of Dalton Castle, the awesome year from Roderick Strong, the questionable booking of Moose and the advantages and disadvantages of making Jay Lethal your top title holder. We also discuss our disappointment in the tag title match. Where does Jay Briscoe go from here? All this and more!

PTBN Reaction Show: ROH Best In the World 2015

Also from this week…

In our What If series, we discussed potential King of the Ring winners in year that no PPV tournament occurred: PTBN’s Wrestling What If… King of the Ring Winners

In our Rewind podcast series, we revisited King of the Ring 1994: Place to Be Network Rewind Series: WWF King of the Ring 1994

Kevin Kelly was joined by Dr. Tom Prichard to pay tribute to the late, great Dusty Rhodes: The Kevin Kelly Show Episode 37 – A Tribute to the American Dream

Best of the Worst

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Hi Scott As lists appear to be all the rage around here, I thought I’d send one for when you’re in a masochistic mood. What would you consider to be the best (or least horrible) match in the following categories: 1) Undertaker-Kane
2) Cena-Orton
3) HHH-Orton
4) Undertaker prior to 1996
5) Flair after 2001
6) Big Show
7) Kane
8) Khali
9) ‘Hollywood’ Hogan in WCW
10) Vince
11) Dusty
12) Miz Cheers

Good morning, and welcome to Day 2 of the post-dated extravaganza.  As you read this, it’s currently Victoria Day here in Canada, during which we celebrate the life and career of Lisa Varon.  It’s a very specific stat holiday.  OK, a list, that’s just terrific.  Thanks heaps. 1.  The first one at WM14 is still my favorite of a bad lot. 2.  The Iron Man match, complete with Orton trying to murder Cena like a cartoon supervillain via exploding pyro table.  It’s not a great match technically and fails on a lot of levels, but I can appreciate the sentiment. 3.  The last man standing match they had at that PPV where HHH wrestled 14 times after Cena was injured.  You know, that one. 4.  I gotta go with him squashing the shit out of Jake Roberts at WM8.  Really kicked off the babyface formula for him that worked incredibly well for years to come.  I was about to throw Bret v. UT from Rumble 96 in your face, but then I realized you technically asked for “prior” to 96 and thus that one is just outside qualification.  5.  The HHH cage match at Taboo Tuesday.  6.  In general?  He’s had some good matches.  I’ll go with the stunningly great series against Lesnar in 2003, for example, when Show was wearing pants for some reason.  Runner up would be his Hogan impression against Kurt Angle at Backlash 2000 for sheer entertainment value.    7.  Kane’s also had his share of good matches.  He was on a really impressive run from 2001-2004, in particular, before the unmasking.  Discounting MITB and such, gotta go with the Kurt Angle miracle match featuring Mirror Universe Angle as my favorite.  Close second would be the IC title match with Albert that almost hit **** somehow.  8.  Now you’re just fucking with me.  His initial series against Undertaker wasn’t terrible.  9.  Probably one of the Flair matches, because Ric could get ***1/2 out of him in his sleep.  The Luger title change on Nitro was hella-exciting but total horseshit as a match. 10.  Street Fight with Shane at WM17! 11.  Dusty actually had lots of great matches when he gave enough of a shit in the ring.  Unfortunately by the time he was on the national stage with Crockett, that time had long passed.  I’ve seen more than a few really good ones with Harley Race from the 70s in Florida, so I’d go with that.  12.  Cena actually got a really good one out of him after their shit WM match, I think.  I’ll go with the safe choice, however, and say the Daniel Bryan US title change match, unless someone can think of a really epic **** Miz singles match that I’m blocking out of my mind.  

Lesnar: best ever businessman in This Business?

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Hey Scott,


Is Brock Lesnar the smartest businessman in the history of the industry? Given his current payouts, the way he's always done whatever the hell he want, I think it's a given. Even when it's not been especially good for business (New Japan) he's held the main title and gone over. The argument is made that Lesnar would lay down for anyone, yet he rarely does.

Best,
Ioan Morris

I still feel like Hogan is, for maintaining that level of money day in and day out for nearly a decade even when all he had to offer was smoke and mirrors.  Brock made some really dumb business decisions for a while there, whereas Hulk would still be a multimillionaire many times over if not for his divorce and assorted lawsuit issues.  Hulk managed to convince WCW to pay him 25% of PPVs that he wasn't even on!  You have to respect that a little.  

Best Wrestlemania matches at Paste Magazine

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Scott,

Would love for the blog regulars to come tell us how awful our picks are for this list of the best Wrestlemania matches. I lobbied hard for the WM 27 8-man but no dice.

​It's no Bret-Austin, but it's close.  No love for Lawler v. Cole either?  COME ON.​

Second Best WM

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There has been a lot of talk on the blog in the last day or two about the worst WrestleMania.  If we take the opposite of that and say that WM 17 is the best (which I think would be very hard to argue against), what do you think is the second best WM?  I personally think it’s WM 19.  What say you?
Daring choice with 19!  I’d go with 20 myself but I can see why that one would lose points now. 

Best women’s matches of all time

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I saw you ranked last night's women's match as four stars.  I certainly wouldn't disagree. 

So is that the first time you've given a women's match four stars?  I said the match from the last NXT special (Charlotte/Banks) was the best women's match I've ever seen.  Last night may have topped it.

-Will  

​I also gave Trish Stratus v. Lita from RAW that rating (upon second viewing years later) and I think I gave one or two of the Jumping Bomb Angels matches that rating as well.  I belive Stephanie v. Trish was shockingly great as well.  But really, this shows how amazing that Sasha Banks has become and how effective their development system for the women really is.  Unfortunately it's a total waste once they get to the main roster and have to do shitty skits with Jerry Springer and the Bella twins instead of wrestling.  ​

The Royal Rumble home to the best title matches?

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Scott,

The Royal Rumble the most prestigious battle royal ever devised but what about the title matches that take place on the show, there have been some true classics.

Angle vs Benoit from 2003 and Cena vs Umaga from 2007 instantly spring to mind as being the best but do you have any other favourite title matches which took place at the Rumble?

Thanks.

​I'm pretty fond of the Randy Orton v. Jeff Harvey match where they got me to buy into the "Elevation of Jeffrey Nero" storyline and then were like "Psych! We're gonna keep pushing Orton instead for a while".  Even if the usual RKO Outta Nowhere finish was a letdown, it was still a good match.  I think there was also a hell of a World title match between Undertaker and Rey Mysterio on that show, featuring Taker ragdolling Rey all over the ring in what was actually a fresh matchup for once.  
Also, HHH v. Scott Steiner.  Duh.  ​

The Best and Worst Royal Rumble Matches

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There's a Royal Rumble on Sunday. Good time to look back on the past. Paste has ranked the best and worst Rumble matches. What do you think?

​Swap out 1998's desperation booking of three Mick Foley aliases and a bunch of tag teams and swap in 2010's CM Punk storytelling and you've got a winning list.  I'd maybe go with 2007 over 2008 just because the last 10 minutes with Shawn v. Undertaker were nearly a ****1/2 classic on their own, but it's a fair opinion.  Nothing touches 1992 regardless, and 95/96 are clearly two of the worst.  ​

Best wrestlemania main event build

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Scott, how would you rank the main events of wrestlemania as far as which had the best build, money drawn is not a factor, just from a storyline perspective, what was the best?

Well, which one are we still talking about 25 years later?  MEGAPOWERS EXPLODE, motherfuckers.  Everything about wrestling done exactly right at exactly the right time.  Except Savage was so ridiculously hot as a heel that they should have delayed the Hogan win until Summerslam, but that's picking nits as far as the storyline goes.  
Hogan-Andre was tremendous as well.  Last gasp of the giant and Hogan cementing himself as an all-time legend, blah blah blah.  
Flair-Savage "She was mine before she was yours" had me dying to order the show, so throw that one in there too.  
In short, they used to know how to promote shit.  And now, fuck them.  

Best Survivor Series match post 2000

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Hi Scott,

You recently mentioned that you enjoyed the Survivor Series matches from 87. Is there anything more modern that you may have also enjoyed?

Thanks.


​I literally couldn't name a single Survivor Series match past 2002, outside of "the one where Shawn Michaels superkicks Mike Knox and then shrugs with confusion"​.  It just doesn't mean anything to me as an event anymore.  

Best ECW tv matches

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Hey Scott,

Long time reader. May have read almost all of your material. Curious about ECW Hardcore tv and any other tv matches. Watched ECW exposed 1 and 2, which are very good by the way. It was mentioned that Malenko and Guerrero had a 2/3 falls farewell match. Could there be some hidden gems and **** plus matches? Any plans to review Hardcore tv after Raw and Nitro?

ECW is a really hard TV show to review because it's not typically a show that builds to anything, and is frequently just bits and pieces of the bigger arena shows cut into hour long pieces.  It wasn't until the PPV era that it started to become more serialized.  Plus I hate ECW, so there's that.  

Best traditional Survivor Series match?

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This year's match looks good on paper, and I wonder if it could be a classic if given proper time, say an hour?


Is there a defacto "best" traditional Survivor Series match? The one that always comes to mind is the ten team match from 1987. Has that one been topped from a workrate standpoint? Yes, I realize that Doink, Dink, Wink, and Pink and HBK and his Knights would like to have a word with me.

Oh yeah, for sure I'd go with either the 87 or 88 tag team ones.  The 88 one had the better storyline with the Fuji turn that made Demolition into actual money-drawing babyfaces, but the 87 one had an incredible pace and the all-star lineup of 80s tag teams.  Tough call for sure.  

Maggle Cole – Best of all time (?!!)

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Hi Scott,


Although it's just JBL's opinion, it still speaks very loud for how Michael Cole is viewed by his peers in the company:

JBL: "I do think Maggle is the best play by play guy WWE has ever had."  

I personally think he's pretty bad at this point, but I understand the pressure he has.  But I would never EVER confuse him as the best ever.  Ugh.  He wasn't half bad during the 2001-2005 Taz era.  Taz is another story though.

Your thoughts on Cole as best ever?

thanks,  Anthony V., NY, NY


Am I being trolled here?  

Best Matches

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Hey Scott,

 
Lightning round
 
What are the best Singles' matches you can think of for the following guys, some of the best B+ players of the 80s and 90s? (Let's limit it to North America)
 
Tito Santana
Rick Martel
Dynamite Kid
Greg Valentine
Big Bossman
Ted Dibiase (Sr.)
Dustin Rhodes
Shane Douglas
Paul Orndorff
Jeff Jarrett
 
Thanks

Tito:  IC title match against Hennig on SNME.
Martel:  AWA World title match against Stan Hansen, maybe?
Kid:  The match with Tiger Mask, duh.
Valentine:  I know he's had some really good ones with Flair, but for ones I've seen the cage match with Tito.
Bossman:  The cage match with Hogan.
Dibiase:  Probably the famous one against Dr. Death from Mid South.
Dustin:  That match he had with Vader on the Clash?
Douglas:  His stirring victory over Shawn Michaels at IYH3.
Orndorff:  He had some really good ones with Steamboat near the end, I'll go with one of them.
Jarrett:  The Shawn match at IYH2 where he dropped the IC title.

Best Under 5 Minute Matches

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I saw your comment in the review of the Nitro about how the Flair/Pillman match, how it was as good as it could be for 5:24, which led me to wonder, what are the best under 5 minute matches ever? 
 
First one, just for a pure mark out moment has to be Honky Tonk Man/Ultimate Warrior…

My favorite is still 1-2-3 Kid v. Owen Hart from King of the Ring 94.  And yes, Warrior-Honky was classic, of course.  

Best Opinion

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Hey Scott,
                    Longtime yada yada, yada.  Simple question for you and the blog. Of the rash of signees: Steen, KENTA, Devitt, and Willie Mack….which one(s) do you think have the best shot of reaching Punk/Bryan level (indy darling makes good) or Hero/Cabana (can't do nothing wit ya) and back to the indies??
 

​Steen:  Totally depends on how they use him and if he buys into the system.  I don't know how much of a place there is for a brawler on the main roster, but variety is good and he's certainly a different worker.  He'll need a lot of time in the NXT system, though.

Hideo Itami:  They really want him to go far, for international money reasons and because this is really HHH's baby, so he'll do a bit of time in NXT and then probably get a shot on RAW.  He can absolutely do it all in the ring and if he can get his promos to an acceptable level, they'll have something there.

Prince Devitt:  He's the dark horse choice here, and as a super-asshole heel he could be really, really big.  He's another one where he's not giving up big NJPW money to rot in NXT, so expect to see him sooner rather than later.  

Willie Mack:  Never heard of him until he got signed and indy geeks started creaming over him, so I have no idea.  Couldn't even pick him out of a police lineup.  

Were I to guess I would say Devitt will be the next CM Punk level guy, but then I thought Adam Rose would work well on RAW too and they managed to fuck that up, so take any predictions with several shakers of salt.  ​