Reel in Place

  vs Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio (WWE 4/21/2005) This is MNM's main roster debut, and it's for the tag titles. We start with Eddie taking it to Nitro before he tags in Rey. Quick tags from Eddy and Rey early, butting off the ring and working over Nitro. Mercury eventually tags in; he can't quite keep up with Eddie, but he is able to get Eddie into the MNM corner, and the numbers game takes its toll. MNM takes over, and much the same way the earlier parts of the match played out, it is quick tags and cutting off the ring. Mercury slows things down with an abdominal stretch. Eddie fights out, hits a backbreaker, and tags in Rey. We've seen it before, but the Rey hot tag is always great; his offense is purpose-built for this kind of thing. Rey goes for the cover and Nitro has to come in and break up the fall, which allows for MNM to get some double-team offense in on Rey before Eddie can intervene. Eddie gets back in there, and Eddie and Rey work together to get the ...

  vs The Fantastics (WCW 4/29/1995) This is interesting because Eaton has a real history with The Fantastics, having gone up against them with Stan Lane in 1988 in a feud that pretty much defines that year of JCP TV. This is 1995; however, Fulton and Rodgers aren't quite what they used to be. Fulton and Regal start things off, and boy I don't like Regal. I've read all of the accolades, watched all the matches, and when he does his make dumb faces in minor holds act, I hate it. This match is about The Blue Bloods working over Rogers. They do a fine job of it. This is a short TV match; the whole match is just building to Fulton getting in there. In 1988, this would have worked, this would have worked at Techwood Drive, but it's 1995, this is Center Stage, and Bobby Fulton is 7 years older. He hits a bunch of suplexes, he and Rogers hit a few double-team moves, but as the referee is shepherding Rogers back to the corner, Fulton attempts a pin. With the referee's back t...

  vs Blue Panther & Volodor (AAA 11/28/93) Right off the rip, and I suppose this might be the expectation, man, Eddy and Barr are a great heel team and going up against Blue Panther, who is being mobbed by fans walking to the ring, these guys don't have to do a ton to get the crowd invested. I think the structure is a bit lacking because of that, there are heat segments and a shine, but nothing is really all that defined or prolonged. At some point, Eddy sells a backbreaker by scotting on his knees halfway across the ring; a great stooging hell move. Things really start to pick up when Art Barr rips off Volodor's mask, puts it on to go over and punch Panther, and throws it to Eddy to put back on Volodor to avoid the DQ. With his mask back on, Volodor is back up and fighting off both. Just when it seems that Volodor's turned the tide, Blue Panther decks Volodor. Eddy hits a sort of bridging SOS for the win. Not a great match, but boy does this seem like a great heel team...

Villano I,  Villano IV, & Villano V vs Kung Fu, Mascara Sagrada, Popitekus (EMLL 4/13/1990) The team of Mascara Sagrada, Popitekus, and Kung Fu is a bit of a mish-mash, but I actually think they form a pretty decent team here. The first fall has a little bit of everything and ends with the technicos getting the first pin. Mascara Sagrada and Villano I work the mat for the majority of the second fall, Kung Fu and Popitekus enter the fray only to get pinned by Villanos, and we are on our way to the third fall. The third fall has its moments, like Mascara Sagrada calling out Villano I or Popitekus doing a tope suicida, but it also has its misses, like Popiteku selling a kick that missed by a foot and a groin shot off a missed leapfrog leading being the finish. Some good, some bad, a pretty decent trios match, all things considered.  Villano I,  Villano IV, & Villano V vs Los Mercenarios Americanos (Tijuana 7/19/1991) This is Mask vs Mask, Perro Aguayo is roaming arou...

  vs The Fabulous Ones 10/18/1984 Bockwinkel starts off isolating Kiern in the corner, and he and Saito work him over for the early parts of the match. Gene Kiniski is the special guest referee, and he's already on Bock's case. Despite Bockwinkel's best effort, Kiern can crawl over and tag in Stan Lane. Lane is out for revenge, smashing Saito's head into the turnbuckle, side-kicking everybody. He tags back in Kiern so he can get his pound of flesh. The Fabs take over from here, first Bockwinkel and then Saito, both of whom don't take too well to having the tables turned, and you can see the frustration on both.  When Bockwinkel gets in there, he's going to do anything to turn the tide, and so when he gets the chance, he gouges Lane's eyes, and then rakes them with his boot laces. Everything seems to be going in Bockwinkel and Saito's favor, but Saito gets a bit overeager, and Stan Lane schoolboys him for the win. A very solid performance from Saito, espe...

  vs Bob Holly & 123 Kid (4/3/1995) This is pretty much an Owen Hart singles match with Bob Holly with a tag match built around it. The 123 Kid starts it with Owen, and tags in occasionally, and Yoko is mixed in sparingly, but it is really about Owen and Holly. It's not a very good tag match for that reason, and it is really only an ok singles match. vs The Allied Powers (7/23/1995) I thought this was really good. I'm a sucker for good weeble-wobble selling, and Yokozuna does it so well. The crowd goes nuts when Luger and Davey get Yoko up for a backbody drop, and they are pretty much there for everything in the closing stretch. Owen bumps big when Yoko needs a break. I really dug this a lot.  vs Razor Ramon & Savio Vega (8/7/1995) There are a few good sections here: Yoko and Razor in the beginning, Owen and Razor in the middle, and parts of Savio and Yoko at the end. There isn't a lot tying those sections together, and so despite some good stuff, this doesn't f...

I've watched 100 matches for this project thus far and figured it would be a good time to check in on where things stand. Ovbiously, I've written about the teams and the matches in the individual posts, so this is just going to be a ranking and a tier system of the 20 teams so far. In 100 more matches, we'll check back again and update.  Great Tag Teams Akira Taue & Jumbo Tsuruta The Funks The Highflyers Very Good Tag Teams Demolition Rey Mysterio Jr. & Billy Kidman Money Inc. AMW Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar Pretty Good Tag Teams Faces of Fear Nightmares The Rat Pack Los Brazos Dynamic Duo Marcus Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio Good Tag Teams Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas Genichiro Tenru & Ashura Hara Brian Pillman & The Z-Man The Lightning Express Teams I Don't Like Sabu and RVD LCO

  vs Blackjack Lanza & Bobby Duncum (AWA 7/7/1977) Greg Gagne is kicking ass to open this match, and then he tags in Brunzell. Already, I gotta say, this seems like a great team, and this is a match from 1977, which I would guess is before they're peak. Brunzell has Duncum in a hammerlock for a good bit, before tagging in Gagne, who goes back to working the arm, this time with an old-school pro wrestling armbar. Brunzell gets back and continues working the arm. Duncum is finally able to get the tag in Lanza, but Brunzell is all over him and works over Blackjack's arm for good measure. Lanza struggles for a bit, but is finally able to whip Brunzell into the corner and tag Duncum back in. Duncum and then Lanza work over Gagne for a bit before Brunzell is able to tag in. Brunzell is game for a bit, but Lanza and Duncum take back control fairly quickly. Things go back forth for a bit. At one point, Greg Gagne is spamming superkicks like this is PWG, but things are still mostly ...

vs Bam Bam Bigelow & Sandman (ECW 1/24/1998) This is supposed to be RVD vs Bam Bam, but Sabu gets involved, and Bam Bam doesn't have a partner. He asks Taz to be his partner, but Taz says fuck a lot and gets attacked by Brakkus. RVD says nobody is dumb enough to team with Bigelow, which brings out Sandman. He comes to the ring, attempts to drink a beer, but gets attacked, and we are off. A lot of brawling, a few weapons shots, then Lance Storm and Chris Candido hit the ring. Shortly after that, Shane Douglas is out there, too. In the melee, Sabu puts Sandman through a table, Bigelow fights off the 3 on 1 assault, and is able enough to powerbomb Sabu, and climbs the rope to hit a flying headbutt on Sabu, but somehow kinda hits Sandman, and in such a way that Sabu gets up, hits Bigelow with a cane, Sandman with a ladder, and Sabu gets the pin. This whole thing is a total mess.  vs Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney (ECW 7/3/1998) This is just guys doing stuff for 8 minutes. RVD does ...

 vs Hollywood Blondes (Memphis 11/10/1984) This is a pretty good TV tag match. Tim Horner was such a good tag team wrestler; his offense looked good, he could sell, he could fire up. Armstrong is fine, but I'm starting to become a big Tim Horner guy. Nothing about this match really stands out, but it is entertaining. Eventually, Ron Garvin hits the ring, and the whole thing gets thrown out.  vs Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev (JCP 10/26/1986) This is worked exactly how you would draw it up. Horner and Armstrong show promise early, but get cut off by the Russians, who then proceed to isolate and punish Horner for a bit portion of the match. Darsow gets a large portion of that, and despite being able to do it more effectively in Demolition, he really isn't up to it here in a way that makes the match exciting. Ivan carries his end of the load, though. Armstrong finally gets the tag and some in on fire, and it looks like Armstrong is going to pin Ivan for the titles, but nanose...

  vs Abdullah the Butcher & The Sheik (AJPW 12/13/1979) Man, is this violent. Guys are stabbing and getting stabbed. Guys are bleeding, being bled on, punching each other in the head wound.  Even Dory gets dragged into the fray. Somehow, amongst all of that, there is also a pretty standard tag match, where Terry gets worked over and makes a hot tag ot Dory Jr. Spoiler, but this is easily the best match of this set of 5 and a very, very solid match for 1979.  vs Tommy Rogers & El Gran Apollo (Georgia 1/2/1982) This is pretty much a squash. They give a fair bit to Tommy Rogers and a little bit to Apollo, but this is pretty much non-competitive. I don't know what you can really take away from a match like this other than The Funks do a couple of cool things. Terry hits a good elbow drop, the Dory uppercuts look good, as does the butterfly suplex. That's about it.  vs Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen (AJPW 4/22/1983) Brody and Hansen eat up a lot of this match, as...

vs Brian Pillman & Steve Austin (10/25/1992) This is the marquee matchup for Steamboat and Douglas. They get some time and have a fairly decent match. Steamboat gets a segment in control, then Douglas, then Steamboat takes a beating, then Douglas takes a beating. Things get a bit lawless, and in the chaos, Pillman throws Douglas over the top rope, and the Hollywood Blondes get DQ'd. I think this is actually a bit disappointing. They get plenty of time, and they don't do anything of note, and the finish doesn't do them any favors.  vs Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton (11/7/1992) Steamboat starts this off, but unlike a lot of the other matches of this team, this isn't about Steamboat selling for big portions of the bout, nor is it about Steamboat having to essentially save Douglas. Things are pretty back and forth. Steamboat does take a bit of a beating toward the end, and Shane is able to get a hot tag and clean house. Brian Pillman hits the ring as it looks like Dougl...

  vs Kerry Von Erich & Mike Von Erich (WCCW 11/26/1984) I went back and rewatched this like 5 times, because none of it really stood out, besides a few minor things: Mike Von Erich is bad, it is what it is, there's not a whole lot you can do with him, he can't even really sell compellingly. The Von Erich, by design, eat up a lot of any match they're in, so anything like this is going to have a certain ceiling on it. Chris Adams looks really good beating up Kerry. Outside of those things, this is a match, and I think so much of this team's resume being against the Von Erichs is going to put them at a disadvantage. vs The Great Kabuki & Scott Casey (WCCW 5/5/1985) Two matches in, and I'm starting to think Gino Hernandez is a guy whose reputation exceeds what you see in the footage. I just don't see it, in the ring anyway. On the other hand, Chris Adams is great. He is compelling in the ring, his stuff looks good, and he can get beaten up when it's call...

vs Raven & Saturn (WCW 4/5/1999)  This is all action early, big moves, mostly with Rey on the receiving end. Kidman gets a tag and attempts to turn the tide, they have some limited success, but eventually Kidman takes a belly-to-belly from the ring to the outside. From that point, Saturn and Raven really take it to Kidman, drop toe hold on a chair, bug top rope splash, but somehow Kidman reverses a Raven powerbomb and tags in Rey. Mysterio comes in with fire, but Raven kicks him in the junk when Rey attempts a broncobuster. Things quickly become lawless, and to add to the chaos, the ref gets bumped, and Malenko and Benoit hit the ring, attack Saturn, and Kidman gets the pin. This is pretty good. A lot of the big moves don't really seem to register, but it is short, and I guess over the course of five minutes, you can't expect much attrition.  vs ICP (WCW 8/23/1999) I didn't expect this to be good. It isn't. ICP will bump, not in a way that's always convincing or...

  We are in Toronto, last time we were in Boston. This is a TLC, so theoretically, the deck is stacked against Cena, and so is the crowd. The previous match saw Edge win by hitting Cena with a foreign object, so you can see why the elevated stipulation, plus Edge has now defended the title against Cena twice and won, so if Cena's going to get another shot, it is on Edge's terms. I've sort of been lukewarm on these matches, especially because they have this reputation of making Cena, or being Cena's best feud, and up to this point, I'd say JBL did more for Cena in one night than Edge has done for him.  So, of course, we're going to get a lot of plunder here, a lot of setting up of spots here, that's par for the course, but in a tag match, or especially a three-way tag match, you have a lot going on while someone is setting up some big spot. In a singles match, things have to stop to a certain degree. It changes the flow, but I think both guys do a good job of...

This is 3 years overdue, but I saw it in my drafts and figured I'd finish putting this together. It has been a while since I filled out this ballot, and my thoughts on the results are mostly based on going back and looking at what I tweeted at the time, but I think there are two things that my ballot reflects that the list doesn't. The first is the sort of modern C and D shows like Main Event and 205 Live, which no one else really factored in. The second is pre-Hogan WWF, chiefly including Ernie Ladd, the 3 Wisemen, and Tony Garea. I would love to watch more of that stuff, because I really liked the All-Star Wrestling I watched, and generally feel that era is incredibly underrepresented.  Wrestlers I was the high voter on: Mustafa Ali My Vote: 81 Finished: 249 Buddy Murphy My Vote: 80 Finished: 245 Ilja Dragunov My Vote: 79 Finished: 218 Nikki Bella My Vote: 72 Finished: 170 Lou Albano My Vote: 64 Finished: 169 John Cena My Vote: 1 Finished: 4 Wrestlers I was the low voter on: ...

vs The Hollywood Bondes (6/5/1993) Bagwell starts things off, and Austin and Pillman don't let him do much of anything.We go to commercial, and when we come back, we see Bagwell got dropped on the steel railing, and Bagwell is escorted to the back. Scorpio has to wrestle the rest of the match himself, and he does his best, but he can't offer up much more than occasional offense. Scorpio starts fighting back, and hits a big corckscrew senton on Austin, and it looks like it is over. Pillman comes off the top with a move of his own, to break up the pin. He kinda sorta clips the ref, who throws out the match. In the aftermath Flair and Arn hit the ring and we move on with our lives.  vs The Wrecking Crew (4/10/1993) A bit too much of Bagweel working the mat for my test in the beginning parts of this. When Scorpio tags in, he seems keen to work on the mat, also, which is not exactly what I want out of Scorpio either. Things only really pick up when The Wrecking Crew gets in there; t...

  vs Minnesota Wrecking Crew II (WCW 4/15/1990) This is pretty basic get the face team over stuff. Pillman sells for a great big chunk of this; Zenk tags in and is just perfunctory. Pillman can sell well enough to keep up his end, and Zenk can do a little hot tag offense, but it doesn't really rise above tepid. Pillman tags back in and gets the win. It is what it is.  vs The Galaxians (WCW 4/21/1990) The Galaxians don't offer much here other than to bump around and showcase Pillman and Zenk. Pillman really shines, his offense looks good, and he is convincing as a fan favorite. Zenk, on the other hand, well, it seems like he's going through the motions and doing all of the stuff he was supposed to do, and not in a way that is at all convincing.  vs Samu & Outlaw Deaton (5/4/1990) Jim Cornette hired Samu and Deaton to injure Pillman or Zenk in advance of a match with the Midnight Express. For most of this, Samu and Deaton don't really wrestle like that; they just sort...

vs The Rock N Roll Express (Memphis 1/13/1985) There's a bit of stereo offense and stereo stooging, early in this match, which is never really going to win me over. After the Nightmares pout on the outside, things are tentative. Eventually, Wayne tosses Robert Gibson to the outside, where Danny Davis is waiting and when Gibson is rolled back in the ring, Wayne takes over and The Nightmares are in control. They work over Gibson for a while, until Ricky Morton gets the tag and he is on fire. Things seem to be going the Rock N Rolls way, but Jimmy Hart throws his care in the ring, and Morton gets crumpled. Ken Wayne goes to the top rope, but misses a flying headbutt, and Morton and Gibson get the win.  vs Steve Armstrong & Tommy Rich (Continental 6/17/1985) Rich and Armstrong hit the ring and are all over The Nightmares. Wayne and Davis do a great job of stooging and bumping around in the opening part of this. We got to commercial, and when we come back Rich and Armstrong are stil...