Tim Cooke

"It has to be NES. Saying "N.E.S" outloud is just lame." I have NEVER EVER heard anyone pronounce it NES or SNESZ. Then again, this is coming from a See You in Toledo. Tim

Not sure how Morishima will face Joe in the UK on March 5 since there is a Budokan show on March 4.

I think Fawlty Towers is really the best place to start if you are new to British TV Comedy. My favorites from the last 10 years: The Office Phoenix Nights Peep Show Brass Eye The Day Today Second tier is: Extras I'm Alan Partridge Knowing me, Knowing You The League of Gentlemen 15 Storeys High

I'm glad the FBI guy is getting frustrated. The season premiere was the worst episode in the shows run for me, partially because there were new rules now that they were on the outside and also because this FBI guy comes in and is figuring out Michael like he has been following him forever. But they have been slowly picking up since, with last night being some absolute great TV.

Just like the show, it looks like responses in this thread will be few and far between. So sad, since the show is easily the best series of TV I have ever seen.

Orton oozes heel charisma a lot more naturally than Danielson. His backstage antics prove that. Orton vs. Rey from 4/7/06 Smackdown is a good example of his heel schtick. I think Danielson is obviously better all around, but Orton is fine when he is in with guys who know how to work. Tim

"The dueling chants aren't dueling however. They're the furthest thing from it." Incredible. Having been to numerous ROH shows where the dueling chants WERE INDEED DUELING and one's where they weren't, I don't understand how you can determine it from watching a tape. Even if you watch every match on every ROH release, I just don't get it. And this is coming from someone who has been critical of ROH crowds (maybe one of the first). But being there live for 4/12/03 London vs. Danielson, there was LEGIT passion. The NYC bus trip LOVED London to death while the others were behind the foundation of the company in Danielson. Eventually the dueling chants became masturbatory in some matches but even when masturbatory, they were mainly used to get the crowd back into a match after a dead period. Tim

Jumbo Tsuruta

12/19/99 - Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett (WCW) 12/07/02 - Bryan Danielson vs. Paul London (ROH) 04/12/03 - Bryan Danielson vs. Paul London (ROH) 06/24/04 - Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries (ROH) 08/07/04 - Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries (ROH) 10/02/04 - Low Ki vs. Jay Lethal (ROH) 10/02/04 - Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe (ROH) 07/23/05 - AJ Styles vs. Jimmy Rave (ROH) 10/02/05 - Kobashi/Homicide vs. Joe/Ki (ROH) 12/03/05 - Steel Cage Warfare - Generation Next vs. Embassy (ROH) Tim

Best PPV since WM 17 or Greed. Opener was fun, more in the "you push guys strong on TV for 5 weeks and they will get over" kind of way. Benoit/Finlay was incredible. Best match they have ever had against each other. Booker/Lashley started slow and picked up really well. Henry/Angle was much better than expected since Angle didn't throw Henry all over the ring. Rey/JBL rocked. Would have been an easy MOTN if not for Benoit/Finlay. I just wish Rey could have had the blood coming out from his mask a little bit easier. Tim

In addition to Coffin's list, check out the 7/31/84 Hanson/Baba match. Compare the Baba mat work in that match to the 1969 Destroyer match. 1969 Baba mat work is all about pro wrestling holds. 1984 Baba mat work is a mixture of pro wrestling and the UWF style that was just getting underway. Baba breaks out the crossarmbreaker at least twice in this match (as well as in their other excellent 2/4/82 match). As for the Hawk comments on Misawa/Kawada, I did at least smile at the insane comments. So it was worth something...

Touching on a few points: * Mike is right about the length problems Gibson has. Watch his 5/1/04 Velocity match with Rey Misterio Jr. Now Rey Jr. is obviously fantastically great, but Noble does his end perfectly too. About 11 1/2 minutes aired on TV (match probably went 14-15 total) and it worked so well. The match also has one of my favorite sequences ever as Noble whips Rey into the ropes, Rey springboards off the second rope into a flying crossbody (one of his signature spots) into a cover, which Noble rolls through and locks on a cross armbreaker for a great near submission after he spent most of his time working Rey's arm. But those longer ROH matches have WAY WAY WAY too many of those double KO/clap clap clap spots which are second on my most annoyed list in wrestling behind someone lazily locking on a figure four headscissors (Tenyru, Ki). * Noble's strength involves him working over an arm. He has signature spots (dropkick arm into turnbuckle) along with basic kneedrops, leg drops on the arm. I have also seen him work the leg and neck effectivly. * In 2005 as ROH wanted to differenciate itself from TNA, you saw a lot less out and out spot fest for slower matches taking their time building to the finish. That's all well and good in theory, but unless the guys in the ring can make it work, it will results in finisher/finisher/finisher sequences or double KO's numerous times. This happened a lot in Gibson's matches. * I am a big fan of Noble, have been since he debuted on Saturday Night in October 1999. He was easily the best cruiserweight in WCW in Jan-Feb 2001. His tombstone piledriver is so brutal looking though you know it is safe since he does a last second clamping of the knees to protect the guys head. Even his dumbed down HWA work so the WWF guys could teach those "Power Plant" guys how to work is fun. I think Noble best excels in fast paced sprints, specifically in tags. Watch his early 2001 WCW work to see that. But best wrestler in ROH? Certainly not for me. Tim

"1. He cuts some of the worst promos on the entire indy circuit." I haven't seen many compelling Indy promos at all. Outside of Joe and Danielson, it is usually the guys like Cornette, etc. who come from a different era that cut the promos. If this was the WWE, I could see this being valid. "2. Forget having good or bad facial expressions. His facial expressions NEVER change." Misawa, Taue, Baba. They must not be good either. I will agree *shocking* that during the Gen Next heel run, he wrestled as a face instead of a heel. "3. His work is horribly contrived (the cartwheel out of the Boston Crab is the beginning of a long list)..." Where to begin? I can write out a long response but then again, this is coming from someone who likes Derek Frazier, enjoys XPW, and likes crappy indy flyers. "4. He has NO charisma." Ask numerous people and they will say Bryan Danielson doesn't either, even though he is one of the more charismatic guys in wrestling right now. He doesn't glow like the Rock when he comes out but during the match, he brings plenty to his role in the match. "He is the only guy I can think of to have a bad match with Azriel this year." Azriel had some stinkers this year. His early 2005 tag work with Dixie opposite Deranged, Izzy, Cloudy, Cheech was good but almost every other singles or tag match I have seen him in has been fast forward material. Tim

Christ. Danielson has more charisma than 99% of Indy guys and 90% of WWE guys. What are you watching? And Barbar not getting Strong puts a smile on my face. Tim

You want to go out of your way to see the following: 9/17 Danielson vs. Gibson 10/1 Kobashi vs. Joe 10/2 Kobashi/Homicide vs. Joe/Ki 10/15 Danielson vs. Corino 10/29 Danielson vs. Strong 11/5 FULL SHOW with Daniels/Joe, Danielson/Strong, and Gen Next vs. Embassy 8 man tag 11/19 Daniels vs. Danielson 12/3 FULL SHOW with Joe/Lethal, Danielson/Romero, Homicide/Corino, and Steel Cage Warfare 12/17 Danielson/Marifuji and Ki/Kenta

Check out their 2/27/87 match from Worldwide. Much better than this, which I also liked. Rick Rude was perfect in working with such over babyfaces like the RnR Express. This is an amazing match and would easily make my top5 under 10 minute matches of all time. Streetfight rules, without garbage like ECW and WWF (and Russo WCW) would produce. Lots of crowd heat to, for an average mid card match. This should be WAY higher. Top 20. Pillman/Windham make Shane Douglas look great and then beat him up with all sorts of great moves, cheating, etc. Should be much higher again. The US prototype of Veteran vs. Up and Coming Youngster. Fuck HHH/Taka for a match that is supposed to elevate a younger, lower ranked opponent. I like this so much more than their 11/18/95 WCWSN re-match. I also think their 10/20/97 Nitro match is better than the 11/18 match. Those were the days... Bah. Their 4/12/86 match that aired on World Pro Wrestling in Japan (and easily available) blows this away. Also blows away the WrestleWar 1990 match. More later if I have time. Nice list, enjoy it having explanations instead of just being a numerical list. Tim

Where did you hear this?

10. They aried them all in 2 weeks. It re-airs weekly starting Tuesday, January 10, 2006.

Awesome show with enough lose ends to make for a Season Two if they decide. Fans of 24, Shield, The Wire, Prison Break, etc. will really dig this show.

On the ROH web site clip, it was portrayed as a worked-shoot. Not on tape. Professional Wrestling entails guys fighting to win a match, not to try to kill their opponents (unless the feud is built up to the point where they hate each other so much). So while punching an opponent could knock them out, the basic rule of most matches that aren't "Last Man Standing" or UWF style is to wear your opponent down for a pinfall or submission. So in this match, Strong throws such a strong forearm that he briefly knocks Danielson out. Strong doesn't even realize what he did and can't capitalize because Danielson is dead weight. He comes to a few seconds later and realizes that Strong, the guy he has been toying with the whole match, actually KO'ed him for a few seconds. This pisses him off (his whole title reign is based around the fact that he is better than everyone else, by a wide margin) and he catches Strong off guard with the cross armbreaker (which is hit from a non-traditional stance). Danielson is yelling at Strong after the match because he is still pissed, even though he won. Throughout the rest of the match, if he had been trying for an armbar, Strong would have been blocking it and going against it during every attempt, thus why it worked here. The problem was the way it was portrayed in the newswire and then on the web site. I agree there. But on tape and in the storylines, it is portrayed as almost another version of the "You don't potato Stan Hanson angle" that AJPW ran in the late 80's. This wasn't Vince Russo's "Goldberg just walked away from the powerbomb." Tim

Not you, King Chucharacha was who I was responding to. Tim

Did you even watch the whole match? The finish is built to throughout. Danielson spends early portions of the match working on Strong's arm.

Meant Joe using tiger driver for the first time, bad writing on my part. Other than the snap suplex and the powerbomb from Styles, the only time he was able to get things together was when he was running around. The sequence where he does his signature rope running sequence which ended with a dropkick on Joe, his dive to the outside, his ducking and weaving sequence all show that story. Even West and Tenay comment on that during this portion. Every time Styles starts to make a comeback, it is based on him being quicker than Joe, though Joe would cut him off after most of them (key exceptions being the kick/slap segment). If Styles was beating respect into him, he sure has the shittiest offense ever to be playing that role. Tim

Watched Joe/Styles last night. I went in hearing Vader/Sting comparisons and lots of Joe brutalizing Styles. It was a good match, maybe the best I have seen in TNA. But there are way too many things that bothered me to call this the best AJ match ever (Rave/Styles ROH streetfight from July 2005 is my favorite Styles match). Why is Styles snap suplexing Joe less than a minute in? It's obvious the story was power vs. speed. Why in the flying fuck is Styles powerbombing Joe? I know it is a spot AJ uses against Joe in past matches (2203 ROH, 2005 PWG) but he shouldn't be powerbombing Joe, even if the story wasn't power vs. speed. Styles kicking out at one definetly wasn't a "no selling" thing. In fact, I don't mind that first one. But when Joe goes and debuts a tiger driver for the first time in TNA, Styles shouldn't be kicking out at 1 for that. What I did like was Joe's 4 minute stretch early on when he just killed Styles. I also liked Styles running away and ducking the strikes, though it didn't lead to the best possible climax with Styles decking Joe to the mat. I also thought the comebacks were cut off nicely for the most part. Structure wise, same problems with all Styles matches. He refuses to do a 3 piece volume to a match. Instead it is: - Styles attacks Joe for 2 minutes - Joe kills Styles for 4 minutes - Styles BACK on offense - Back and forth to the finish. Tim

Was this better than Rave/Styles 7/23 ROH? Kicking out after 1 on a powerbomb so late in the match makes me leery.