What is your "cup of tea" wrasslin match?

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

What do you look for in a wrestling match to make it perfect for you?

Some people love that really technical ROH sort of style, that is sort of a smarky style that is great to watch, but also, a little too smarky.

Some people love the showmanship of the WWE, and if understood and done well, that is an art within itself (See: Shawn Michaels, Undertaker and Randy Orton for example)

Some people look for death defying bumps.

There's also "Japanese Strong style" or w/e Josh Matthews always talks about, and that too is a great style to watch.

Whatever, you get my point... I guess it's sort of a grey area it's hard to truly define genres, and there's also different eras which incorporate different styles.

Honestly, my favourite style is probably that hardass stampede wrestling influenced style. I'm not necesarilly fond of how it leaves the gus who wrestle the style, but it pretty much incorporates everything. You have the showmanship, the high flying, the strong style, the storytelling etc.

When the guys actually seem like they're involved in an athletic competition, and there appears to be some sort of struggle, and it's not like they're just setting up for spots. Pretty much, watch any Chris Benoit match and you get what I'm saying. Also watch any Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle match etc and any prime Bret Hart match.

Everything looks really fluent, and like they should be doing what they're doing. The punches look like they hurt, the moves have meaning and it doesn't look like they're doing a dance. I don't like watching a match and it's like they do spots for the sake that it's a wrestling spot.

That's what I also loved about Stan Hansen, he didn't really do spots, he just beat the hell out of people and got the hell beaten out of him... it wasn't a dance, it was a fight. And fuck was he quick for a big man.

I find a big problem with a lot of the guys who are marks for themselves, is all they want to do is not necesarilly a BIG spot, but they wanna do stuff that makes them look like they're the next coming of wrestling jesus, instead of just working a realistic match.

I don't necesarilly love high flying when it's just a lot of flashy twirls and flips. That's why I like Christian, cuz he has the ability to flip around like a gymnast, but his high flying is more in your face. Like his jump from the 2nd turnbuckle to outside of the ring is a very bruising high risk move, as opposed to just doing a 450 clusterskullfuck diving headbutt for no reason.

I'd say my favourite era and style of matches was between 1997-2006. '02 took a dip in work rate I'd say, but once Angle and Benoit really got going after Benoit fully recovered from his neck surgery the level of athleticism in matches was insane. I don't think it's wise to work that style as far as health goes, but good god damn was it fun to watch. Every move counted.

Wow I wrote a lot.