Your tournament bracket for WBM's greatest wrestling matches of all time.

A quick rundown:
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1. By popular demand, the losers of the semifinals are facing off in a matchup to determine third and fourth place in the tournament.

2. Voting window will be 48 hours.

2. Voters must have 100 posts on 2p2 (these posts can be on any forum; whatever. I just don't want gimmicks swinging the vote is all). These polls will be public, and if I see unfamiliar names I'll check them out to see if they're legit. If you have fewer than 100 posts, ask for approval before voting. I might grant it; no promises, but I might. If you fire off a vote without asking first, your vote is disqualified regardless.

3. Voters are strongly asked to have watched both matches at least at some point before casting a vote. These matches are all awesome, so I'm not asking you to do something that sucks.

4. Advocacy for the side you take is perfectly welcome and even encouraged. And if the occasional hot Alison Brie gif slips in, I don't think that will hurt anyone either.

5. I will just post the links to the videos in my write-ups, because (a) too many embeds slows page-loading down for lots of people and (b) some matches are only available on DailyMotion, and I'm not sure that those can be embedded.
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***TOURNAMENT FINALS***

#1 SEED: RIC FLAIR VS. RICKY STEAMBOAT (WRESTLEWAR ’89)

Whole match: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...ature=view_all
(Get it while it’s hot. These links are still live; they seem to only really be obsessed with zapping the Clash of the Champions 2/3 falls match. Thanks once again to Chargers in 09.)



Path to the Final Four:
Defeated Magnum TA v. Tully Blanchard (Starrcade '85), 11-1
Defeated Flair v. Savage (WrestleMania VIII), 6-3
Defeated Bret v. HBK (WrestleMania XII), 9-3
Defeated HBK v. Undertaker (WrestleMania XXV), 13-12
Defeated Savage v. Steamboat (WrestleMania III), 15-9

The third and final match in the most brilliant trilogy in wrestling history. Enjoy.

VERSUS

#1 SEED: BRET HART VS. STEVE AUSTIN (WRESTLEMANIA 13)

Whole match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9UoP59dHMM



Path to the Final Four:
Defeated Angle v. Benoit (Raw 2001), 12-0
Defeated HBK v. Cena (Raw 2007), 12-0
Defeated Royal Rumble 1992, 16-0
Defeated Bret v. Bulldog (SummerSlam '92), 30-0
Defeated Bret v. Owen (WrestleMania X), 23-9

It took until the semifinals for Bret v. Austin to even surrender a vote. Sick run it has going on.

Bret Hart, a big-time babyface for the last decade in the WWF, was losing popularity while Steve Austin was gaining it. A star was officially born in this one as there was absolutely no better way to launch Austin all the way to the top of the company. The match is great, the story-telling is brilliant, and this is one of the finest matches of either of their Hall of Fame careers.

I imagine I'm going down with a sinking ship, but I prefer Steamboat/Flair by a little bit.

Either result is perfectly justified though.

If I were to rate the match just for the match I'd put this as Flair vs Steamboat. However, I've been counting what happens in the aftermath of the matches. In Austin/Bret we get a whole new attitude change for the company, the brilliant Hart Foundation angle, and the start of legendary SCSA which spanned a good 4.5 years. In Flair/Steamboat we got the epic Flair vs Funk feud and Steamboat kinda tapered off with a feud against Luger then had a contract dispute and was out of the NWA 2 months after the match. All that being said I'm voting for Austin vs Bret.

Was a tough choice for me, but I'm going Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94.

lol'ed but I'm sorry the correct answer is Misawa/Kobashi vs Kawada/Taue on 6/9/95

I don't think there was much doubt Austin/Hart was gonna win at the start of this thing. But man it's just beating up on the competition. Lol @ me for liking their Survivor Series match more, but add in the angles that resulted before and after this Submission match encounter and it's just too hard to pick against it. Flair/Steamboat obv great match, but I mean Austin/Hart was insane. Hart really is the in ring GOAT imo. He carried ****ing Deisel to a great match ffs

Well, HBK also carried Diesel to a great match. I'd have to put him above Bret in the ring for total body of work. With that said, if we just compared their respective best two matches then Bret might have the edge.

One of the greatest troll post in 2+2 history. There's no way that someone can honestly think Bret Hart was better in the ring then HBK. And to say that he's the greatest in ring wrestler of all time is just crazy.

I'm not sure that Dylan has the credentials to declare craziness of other posters on such things, since my scientific power ranking formula only had him ranked as the 35th best voter in this tournament.

Meh, I was planning on rewatching both and voting as objectively as I could, but after seeing the ridiculous margin I just had to throw a vote in for Flair/Steamboat.

im with Dylan to an even further degree. I'm madly biased to the next generation, but Bret Hart doesnt do a lot for me. I can really appreciate some of his great matches like owen and austin but if I had to make a list of 20 guys i want in their prime to be in my awesome new fed, his name probably doesnt make it onto that list. Theres nobody that you can go "Prime Bret vs Prime X" and i just mark out and have to see it.

To be fair: Savage and Steamboat are in the same category for me, so haters gonna hate :P. I voted Bret/Austin

I do think Bret was much much better than HBK in the ring. Just my opinion, but probably biased because I can't stand Shawn Michaels. Personally I'd rather watch a Bret match than a Michaels match but w/e Bret shipped this thing BOOM

Love Angle, he'd be in teh top 10 of my Fed if i was making one. HBK would be too. Bret just doesn't do anything really for me. Heres my argument really:

What does bret do that other ppl don't do? I feel like watching a match with pretty much any of the technically sound guys is the exact same as watching a bret match except arguably worse because he does nothing particularly out of the norm at all. Like take any Chris Benoit match (a guy i dont even really like very much as a wrestler), and tell me that Chris Benoit couldn't have easily done every single Bret match no problem. I think theres a good argument to be made that Angle or Jericho or HBK or any number of guys could do every match Bret has done as well or better than Bret. But I don't think you can argue that Bret v Lesnar or Bret v Taker @ WM25 wouldve been better than those guys matches.

Keep in mind that argument is only on the technical wrestling side. When you make it about overall personality and promo skills and charisma and aura, its obvious that Bret isnt anywhere near any other top echelon wrestlers. It annoys me that people who watched during the golden era attribute qualities to wrestlers from that era that they didnt have just because they were the best of that kind from that era.

Example being that Bret was one of the technical bests when wrestling was an overall smaller industry with a smaller pool of wrestlers, so ppl call him a technical god, but im not unsure that Shelton Benjamin or Kofi Kingston could do a lot of Brets matches tbh, and those guys get no credit.

As an industry grows, the quality of the people within it grow because the more legit the industry is, the more talented people will join it. The overall average quality of wrestlers today in the ring is much higher than in previous generations and if you are getting all nostalgic about the 80s, go rewatch a bunchhhh of Savage and Flair and Bret matches and watch them make all kinds of awful mistakes and look terrible doing it. They were good for their time, they are garbage in comparison to even the terrible PG era of now in all ways, so dont throw them on a pedastal just cause they are old. People do it with everything

/end rant

/quickly unend rant

Just wanted to add that there are great matches from the golden era, where those guys put on excellent shows and 5* matches, but my comments referred to them as overall performers from beginning to end of their careers including all the ****ty matches nobody remembers.


/reend rant

While it's true that guys like Kofi or Shelton Benjamin or some random indy guy no one's heard of might be able to pull off crisper moves then Bret Hart, it's different because Bret Hart made you want to care about him.

He was the total package (sorry Lex), he was charismatic, he was technically sound, he was big enough body size wise that it was believable that he could beat the giants in wrestling and he just always told a great story in his matches. (and his punching and taking of punches was realistic, at least in that Austin match I just watched).

Voted for Bret/Austin

Bret was the GOAT storyteller in a business that, at its core, is all about how well you can tell a story.

Yeah, in terms of story-telling I do think Bret does edge out HBK. His highs are a tad bit higher than HBK's, and I do like his story-telling better as well.

With that said, HBK's longevity is ****ing ridiculous and I'd still give it to his body of work over Bret's overall.

no tebow-like comeback from steamboat/flair; austin/brett for the win!!!

punk-cena

I'm so glad that Punk-Cena didn't cast a pall on these proceedings.

WBM has officially crowned their pick for greatest wrestling match of all time.

Hats off to...

First Place:


Second Place:


Third Place:

I just watched the Flair/Steamboat match in its entirety, and I really don't get it. It wasn't awful, but it was a series of chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, ended with what was effectively a small package or sunset flip roll up. Not a bad match, but second greatest of all time?