I thought about making the subject, "What antidan444 does while bored at work."

In any case, I thought a pseudo-historical review of good WWE PPV matches might make for a good long-term thread. I'm basically scouring archives to find all WWE PPV matches that received at least three stars (although in some cases, I disagree with the rating ... more on this when I post a Hogan main event someday soon). I intend to post 3-4 matches in this thread per week, so it will be kind of a slow-developing thread but as time goes on, I believe this could become a good resource.

So, without further ado ...

WRESTLEMANIA (1985)
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York
* Nothing good to see here! I mean, it’s nostalgic and obviously historic, but holy mother of God did the actual wrestling suck balls.

THE WRESTLING CLASSIC (1985)
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Chicago
* Nothing good to see here! The tournament-style card was the forerunner to the WWE Title Tournament at Wrestlemania IV, but every match here was extremely short and not good.

WRESTLEMANIA 2 (1986)
Location (for the match below): Rosemont Horizon, Chicago
Other locations were Nassau Coliseum in New York and the Los Angeles Sports Arena

WWE Tag Titles: The Dream Team (C) vs. The British Bulldogs




* It's only fitting that the first WWE PPV match selected was a tag team match. Tag team wrestling was in its heyday in the 1980s and of the 17 matches I've chosen from the 80s, eight of them prominently feature tag teams, either in straight tag matches, six-man tags or elimination-style matches. Your best chance to see quality wrestling on a WWE PPV in the 80s usually came in tag team matches. Dynamite is simply ahead of his time... what I would give to put him in a time capsule so his career could span 1995-2005 or so. Beefcake is clearly the fourth wheel here as Valentine carries most of the work against the Bulldogs, but Beefcake hits an unusual hammerlock powerbomb type of move on Davey Boy that was pretty sweet, too. The mat's like a trampoline (unusually so for the WWE) so the power moves get a little added visual punch. The finish comes out of nowhere and wasn't really up to the standards of the rest of the match, but that's a minor gripe. I'd give this three solid stars now, and probably would have given it four back then.

THE BIG EVENT (1986)
Location: Exhibition Stadium, Toronto

WWE Title: Hulk Hogan (C) vs. Paul Orndorff




* I'd never heard of this event until starting my research. Holy crap, the crowd is massive! Clearly Hogan and Toronto have always had a special connection (Toronto has traditionally been a pretty good wrestling town, too). I always liked Orndorff and believe he's a little underrated historically. This match starts hot! Love the intensity in the first two minutes. It slows down for a couple minutes before Orndorff hits a suplex outside the ring. Orndorff also hits a sweet elbow to knock Hogan off the apron. It goes downhill from there. I laughed out loud at Hogan's wretched sell job of an Orndorff uppercut to the throat. The finish is nonsensical (Orndorff DQ'd for contact with referee that Hogan caused with a running knee). I put this match on the list because I saw it reviewed as three stars ... I'd give it two. Still, what a crowd.

NOTE: There were two other matches that got three-plus stars by reviewers: The Snake Pit Match between Jake Roberts and Ricky Steamboat, and a tag match pitting The Rougeau Brothers against The Dream Team. I have been unable to get video that works for either match (the Snake Pit match is supposedly on dailymotion but does not load. I also have a crap computer so the issue may be on my end.)

WRESTLEMANIA III (1987)
Location: Silverdome, Detroit

IC Title: Randy Savage (C) vs. Ricky Steamboat



* As if I can write anything about this match that hasn't already been said. This was easily the best WWE PPV match to this point and would be for a number of years.

Also, just for historical purposes, I have to put this:

WWE Title: Hulk Hogan (C) vs. Andre The Giant

Rougeaus v Dream Team was solid. Hot crowd, decent action. Makes zero sense that Dream Team goes over in their breakup match though.

SURVIVOR SERIES (1987)
Location: Richfield (Ohio) Coliseum

Tag Team Survivor Match: Demolition, The Islanders, The Hart Foundation, The New Dream Team & The Bolsheviks vs. Strike Force, The Rougeau Brothers, The British Bulldogs, The Young Stallions & The Killer Bees



* This is a pretty good example of just how loaded the WWE’s tag team scene was in the late 80s. The disadvantage to having 20 guys in one match: It’s total hell for the cameramen. The advantage: Everyone can go full-tilt and stay fresh with constant tags, which makes this a very up-tempo match and fun to watch. Tito Santana hits a sweet “Flying Jalopena” for the first fall. Haku was such a badass. Dynamite (who was pretty legit tough) hit him with as hard a chop as he could muster and it didn’t even make Haku flinch. Jim Neidhart and Haku wipe out Jimmy Powers with a forearm drop/pseudo powerbomb combo that gets ... a zero count? What? Powers forgot he’s a JTTS. (Jobber To The Stars ... I’m going old-school on my lingo. Word.) Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo take turns throwing a young Paul Roma around (Bravo actually lifts an unintentionally sandbagging Roma, who mistimed his leap, like he’s a featherweight ... pretty impressive). Bret Hart finally gets in (he may have been the last guy to see action) and drills his old pal Dynamite with a vicious piledriver. Haku continues to have Powers’ number (duh) with a sick dropkick. Watching this match makes me think Haku went 50-100 spots too low in all of our drafts. Roma eliminates Valentine with a sweet sunset flip from the top as Valentine tried to put Powers in the figure four. It goes a little downhill from there with a couple hokey finishes, but still, it’s fast-paced and entertaining. I’d give it 3 1/2 stars.

ROYAL RUMBLE (1988)
Location: Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario
* Nothing good to see here! The first Rumble was won by Jim Duggan. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Nice Dan looking forward to this

The Big Event and 1988 Royal Rumble were not pay per view or closed circuit events.

Yeah, the '88 Rumble was on USA Network, if I remember right. Not that that makes it any more watchable.

I'm curious to see if any singles matches from 1988 make this list. Can't think of a single one.

Good god was the work rate bad in 80s WWF...and at the same they were putting companies with 'better wrestling' out of business left and right.

OK, you nits ... I'm going off this list of events.

There's two. Neither will blow your socks off.

For the record, I'm busy with work and moving tonight/this weekend so it may be a few days. As I said, expect _slow_ progress on this.

No rush obviously. I like the thread so far though.

WRESTLEMANIA IV (1988)
Location: Trump Plaza, Atlantic City



NOTE: All three matches below are included in this video, which is the event in its entirety. I have posted where to go on the video to see the matches.

WWE Title Tournament First Round: Greg Valentine vs. Ricky Steamboat

*Go to 41:30 on the video. This match garnered three stars from reviewers (for the record I’m using 411 website reviews). I haven’t seen it until now, as I’m writing this. As far as first-round matchups went, Valentine/Steamboat had to be one most expected to be pretty solid. Supposedly, Steamboat wanted to face Savage here to pay back the favor from the previous year, but got denied. Not that Steamboat needed it, but bringing your infant son to the ring with you is one way for a babyface to get a cheap pop. There’s a terrible botch (probably a miscommunication) as Valentine falls backward before Steamboat can get in position for a rollup. Valentine hits a nice counter reverse atomic drop followed by a stiff clothesline. Steamboat hits a series of nasty chops to floor Valentine, and later they have a nice back-and-forth exchange (with Valentine once again flopping in a spot Steamboat isn’t expecting it, causing another minor mixup). Valentine’s selling is pretty bad overall here. Valentine gets the fall when he reverses Steamboat’s crossbody from the top, rolling through for the pin. I don’t think I’m buying three stars here, I’ll go 2.5, maybe 2.75.

WWE Title Tournament Quarterfinal: Greg Valentine vs. Randy Savage

*Go to 2:11:15 on the video. This match also got three stars from one reviewer who called it “as good a 6-minute match as you’ll see.” Call me skeptical (and I know of one coming up shortly in the chronology that will definitely be better).
(Six minutes later.)
... Um. OK. That was ... not three stars. I’m not sure there was a single thing in that match I was impressed with. True North had it right, 1988 WWE PPV singles matches blew.

WWE Title Tournament Final: Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage

*Go to 3:17:00 on the video. I only put this in the thread for historical purposes. So technically, I had three singles matches from 1988, not two, except none of them probably deserved it. Yikes. At least there were some decent tag matches later in the year.

here's an easier list to through for stars instead of searching through 411 posts:
http://starratingslist.blogspot.ca/2...6-present.html

Meh, I know Meltzer's "the man" for these things (and rightfully so) but I'm not going to base this thread on just one guy's opinion (no matter who the one guy is). I'll probably go through at least 2-3 ratings sources on each PPV.

Thanks for that link, though. I will make use of it.

I can't believe that, in a year where the best worker in the company had the belt for nearly the entire year, there wasn't one good singles match on PPV.

And here's how much times have changed -- Savage held the belt for a full calendar year, and didn't have one single successful PPV title defence.

Work? Screw work!

SUMMERSLAM (1988)
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York

The British Bulldogs vs. The Rougeau Brothers



* Sorry for the poor video quality here. Most reviews I read had this as the best match of Summerslam (a couple had the Hart Foundation/Demolition title match ranked higher ... you can be the judge as I’ve posted them both). The non-finish to this match seemed to be the only negative. Davey Boy does a sweet counter to a monkey flip, using a half-twist to land on his feet ... I don’t think I’ve seen that before. The Rougeaus do some nice heel work to get the upper hand on Davey, and then at the 10-minute mark when Dynamite gets in, the crowd pops big and Dynamite goes ape for a minute, which was fun. This was pretty close to the end of Dynamite’s career, his body was pretty close to shot. The Rougeaus get the upperhand again and do a pretty nasty double-team gutbuster on him, looked like it legit hurt. Thought it was weird when Davey Boy gets the hot tag (which wasn’t as hot as it should have been, as Dynamite had just chopped down Rougeau and made the tag easily) and immediately misses a dropkick. Then there was a minor botch on an irish whip, but Davey makes up for it by pressing a Rougeau overhead and dropping him onto the top rope. Those rope bumps always make me cringe. Davey then presses Dynamite into a flying headbutt on a Rougeau, but the ref is distracted and the time limit hits. This definitely earned its three stars, I could even see it getting 3.5 but that might be a push. Still a quality match worthy of being on this list.

WWE Tag Titles: Demolition (C) vs. Hart Foundation

Dailymotion video

* While these teams’ tag title match at Summerslam 1990 is widely considered the best match between them (for good reason), this match is viewed as a bit of a lost gem by some. It’s pretty standard fare until Bret winds up with his arm stuck between the top two ropes and Demolition works it over. Bret hits a nice running clothesline, then after his first tag is missed by the ref (stupid blind refs!), Bret gets a foot up in the corner and makes a tag that is seen. After Anvil cleans house, Bret slingshots him from the inside to the outside for a flying shoulderblock that was the high point. A big powerslam gets a near-fall and the crowd is hot. An irish-whip shoulderblock to the gut keeps things rolling. Finally, while Fuji distracts the ref, a megaphone to Bret’s back ends things. I really enjoyed the last 2-3 minutes, very well done. Three stars easy. Whether it’s better than Rougeaus/Bulldogs, that’s a tough call. I think I like this match just a smidge more.

<3<3<3 dynamite kid

That 20-man tag is such a rushed mess, and it was still half an hour. So much nonsense going on, but it was great.

I just found this and it's working:

Steamboat/Roberts Snake Pit match

Haven't watched it yet so no comments.

Great idea for a thread. 1989 should produce a few matches, especially from SummerSlam.

Better than I expected. I don't remember any Roberts singles match being anywhere near this good. Great job by Steamboat to get the maximum out of Roberts.

Watch the Savage/Roberts IC title match from Saturday Night's Main Event in 1986, it's really good as well. It's on the Best of SNME DVD set. Jake was a pretty underrated worker in his prime.

I'll check it out. I've seen some stuff from Jake from 80-85 before he was in the WWF and thought he was better athletically than he was in the 90s but not that good. He had very good ring psychology though; he knew how to put together a match that fans who didn't put an enormous emphasis on athletics would enjoy and DDP basically credits Jake with teaching him how to get over.

roberts was great, i wasn't really able to appreciate his work as a kid

modern day equivalent would be someone like raven imo