I'm replying one more time to set the record straight. Childishly going back and forth takes out a lot of the enjoyment of Wrasslin GAF for me, and I'm sure it probably annoys others as well. That being said...
That argument makes no sense. You are 13 years old?
The "magical reach" it takes for a 13 year old to become knowledgable about 90's Japanese Wrestling is almost exactly the same as the "magical reach" it would take to become knowledgable about 90s Bret Hart.
No, I'm 26...and what I am saying is that the 13-year old version of me was just getting used to internet access, much less the knowledge to go to IRC or newsgroups and download cards off the internet.
I thought I was ahead of the pack when the public access channel started to show ECW.
and sorry, but the bolded is WAY off-base. If you polled your fellow Wrassle-GAF folks, I'm sure they'll agree with me. Japanese wrestling was nowhere close to available as WWE/WCW wrestling to teenagers in North America in the 90's.
Pristine_Condition said:
Since you have nothing to base your opinions on but tapes or YouTube, you could just as easily have picked up tapes or watched YouTube matches of Japan in the 90s as you watch Bret's stuff. Instead of going out and doing that though,
Back in the 90's when I was at my most markiest,
YouTube didn't exist.
Pristine_Condition said:
you reply to my post with basically just "I don't know any of those Japanese guys, (who happen to be legends) but you are wrong anyway."
Go back and re-read what I posted. I basically put myself in the same boat as the person you replied to: I freely and respectfully admit that my knowledge of 90's Japanese wrestling is limited, and explain why I think people would vote Bret so highly in that poll. I never said you were wrong, there.
Pristine_Condition said:
And you don't need to speak a word of Japanese to understand every single second of a great Puroresu match. All you need to understand is athleticism, and heart, and determination, and pain.
The referee in Japanese matches even does all his counts in English. And most of the moves are English words just with a Japanese pronunciation. "Power Bomb" becomes something like "Powabomba," and a "Lariat" (clothesline) becomes "Lariatooooo!" for example. "Pro Wrestling" is "Puroresu.
Thanks for the lesson...I know that now, though.
Pristine_Condition said:
Carry it to what? Second place to Nitro?
I specifically said "carried the WWF." To me, Bret's peak was before the Monday Night Wars even existed, before WCW actually drew more ratings than the WWF.
Pristine_Condition said:
Being wrong, or being Canadian? Because that's all I can think of...
That's being as dense as you're claiming me to be.
Pristine_Condition said:
Well, there simply never ever was a time in the 90s when Bret Hart was better than Misawa, Liger, Austin, and Kobashi.
To people who knew of the WWF/WCW/(ECW) only, this was absolutely true. Austin was just becoming The Ringmaster after Bret was coming off of holding the championship several times. It was Austin refusing to submit to The Sharpshooter that made him seem so damn
legit to a lot of viewers.
Pristine_Condition said:
There may have been a year or two in the early-mid 90s when he was better than one or even two of those guys, but never on top of all of them. And by the late 90's, forget about it.
That I will wholeheartedly agree with...past the Montreal Screwjob, Bret just didn't fit in with WCW, much less the Attitude Era (even though it was his profanity-laced tirade near his exit in the WWF that symbolized the beginning to me).
Pristine_Condition said:
That's when Austin, Rock, Benoit, Jericho and Guerrero were all ON FIRE, and Misawa was still steamrolling too.
So no...he never was the best. And sadly, his chances to be the best were permanently snuffed when Goldberg tried to kick his face off.
I'll agree to disagree.
Pristine_Condition said:
I wasn't trying to be condescending. I was just saying that if you have zero knowledge of Japanese wrestling in the 90s, that's the wrestling equivalent of saying you have no knowledge of Nirvana's "Nevermind" album in the 90's.
You're not doing it right.
First you said that not knowing Japanese wrestling was like not knowing the Attitude Era...which is precisely where almost all of the WWF fanbase was coming from at the time.
Pristine_Condition said:
It's not condescending. It's true. Wrestling was at an extremely high level in Japan in the 90s. Not knowing about it, you are really missing out on some of the greatest wrestling ever...that's all I'm trying to say. If you are a wrestling fan discussing this period in time, it is absolutely essential to be familiar with it.
You got all offended and took it as an insult. It wasn't meant as such. It was meant as an encouragement to go out and find some of the best wrestling you'll ever see.
Damn, I can't imagine going without seeing Misawa v. Kawada's series all the way up until the 1999 match. That'd be sad.
And accusing me of being ignorant? How's that?
I will admit that I still don't have a respectable knowledge of Japanese wrestling. I do want to know more, and I believe you when you say it's the best wrestling you've watched.
That being said, WWF and WCW at the time was the best wrestling to me, it's what gave me the memories that keep me coming back to it, long after I ditched it because I was growing up.
I didn't really want to muddle the Wrasslin thread with a flame war, I just wanted to defend the people who voted Bret highly on the poll. It's not because he had a clever and cocky catchphrase, it's because he represents a time that I remember fondly, was a wrestler who told some of the best stories in-ring for me. I can absolutely understand why a portion of others would feel the same way.
I have no disrespect for Japanese wrestling. I even appreciate the deathmatch stuff Bootaaay posts (even the vomit-inducing, pins-in-cranium matches). I do often click on a lot of the links to classic matches from a different culture.
...it's just that when I was growing up and quite the mark at the time (like 92-98), we didn't have the Internet like that, much less the bandwidth/knowledge to watch Japanese wrestling. To expect people to be heavy into that _at the time_ is a little over the top. I'm not saying the super heavy fans and IRC/newsgroup folks didn't exist, I'm just admitting that I was a part of the fanbase that watched WWF/WCW in the 90's (early 90's, especially) on TV.
It'd be gracious to think that even 95% of WWE fans back in the 90's had that interest or ability to watch Japanese wrestling at the time, I know I'm not the only one. All I had to do was flip a channel on Mondays and Thursdays, and I had Raw/Nitro and Thunder/Smackdown (plus the other assorted shows on Saturdays and such).
It's not like I have a bias
against Japanese wrestling. I feel that openly admitting I didn't watch it is just being honest and respectful to the discussion. I'm not saying I hated it or that it was bad, I'm saying that I can't form an honest opinion on it because it was nowhere near as prevalent or easy to access as it is now, nor am I as knowledgeable about it as I am American wrestling.
That's why I said your statement made no sense. Not watching Japanese wrestling and having quite the knowledge of the Attitude Era is
precisely where I'm coming from. I also owned Nevermind, too.
