OT- Bill Simmons shines again with Wrestlemania column

Submitted by Wolverine In Exile on

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100330

once again, Bill Simmons proves why he's the best MSM columnist out there.... his latest is a recap of his night watching Wrestlemania 26. He recounts it from his perspective, adds lots of humor in the form of mocking, but ultimately his respect for pro wrestling shines through. I'll admit I'm a 32 yr old man who grew up during the classic 80's era of pro wrestling, re-introduced himself to the sport in the late 90's / early 2000's era of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, etc. I haven't followed it for a couple years now, but reading Simmons's column and about Shawn Michaels retirement makes me want to throw on Monday Night Raw next week.

Quick list-- best wrestlers of the late 90's era:
1) Shawn Michaels
2) Kevin Nash (early NWO Kevin Nash)
3) Stone Cold Steve Austin
4) The Rock
5) Mick Foley / Dude Love / Mankind / Cactus Jack

Sorry, I like Triple H, but I just thought that 1-5 were a better combo of ring skills and mic skills. Undertaker was always TOO dominant for my taste, but his steel cage match against Mick Foley where he threw Foley off the top of the cage through the announcer table is still the best match I've ever seen. Mad props to UM alum Big Poppa Pump.

Wolverine In Exile

March 30th, 2010 at 11:01 PM ^

Joe Louis Arena, British Bulldogs vs. Hart Foundation for the tag titles. Davy Boy Smith gets hit with Jimmy Hart's megaphone, Bret Hart pins him with Jim Neidhart laughing the entire time, and as my dad explained to me afterwards with me in tears in the car, why do you think Davy Boy got up right way and walked out instead of getting carted out with a broken nose and blood streaming down his face?

Crushed for multiple days. Recovered in time to witness Wrestlemania 3 in person.

Wolverine In Exile

March 30th, 2010 at 11:05 PM ^

but I was watching the show the night he ditched the black Hollywood gimmick and returned to The Hulkster Red & Gold, Rick Derringer 'Real American' persona... I'll admit, I shed a tear of happiness and felt the world was returning to normal a little.

Wolverine In Exile

March 30th, 2010 at 11:15 PM ^

when Hulk went heel with the Hollywood gimmick, it probably was the most inspired booking in the history of wrestling (possible exception was the Stone Cold vs. Mr McMahon feud). But once WCW folded and the NWO was a running joke, time was right for Hulk to switch back to the good guy and come full circle as he moved toward the end of his headliner career.

Wolverine In Exile

March 30th, 2010 at 11:19 PM ^

wrestler of the late 90's era, but while Jericho was slightly behind Benoit in skill, he surpassed Benoit with a better persona as a pro wrestler. If Benoit had any type of ring persona, he would have been top card headliner in any league, but since you had to be a wrestling INSIDERZ too understand how good Benoit was, he suffered. The matches with him and Jericho in WCW were some of the best technical matches on TV.

Tater

March 30th, 2010 at 11:28 PM ^

I went to WM III and had a great time. The Hogan-Andre match was the most "historic" because Andre "put Hogan over," but the Savage-Steamboat match was the best match I ever saw, at least until ladder matches were "invented" a few years later. It had a reputation among fans as a "best-ever" match, too.

What I liked the most about Savage-Steamboat is that it was a precursor to the "modern" era of wrestling, where there is a lot more action and there are a lot less "rest holds." If you watch most matches from that era, they are boring compared to those of today. The Savage-Steamboat match would still fit into any PPV today as one of the best matches, even considering today's pace.

GOBLUE4EVR

March 31st, 2010 at 9:56 AM ^

side note to the savage/steamboat match... vince had them practicing their match for weeks leading up to WMIII... vince wanted to make sure that he had to great matches on that card and not just one... vince was also afraid that the hogan/giant match wouldn't be that great because he never knew which andre he was going to get... i saw in a interview with vince where he said that andre had a habbit of changing the out come of matches if the other wrestler did something that he didn't like in the ring... andre knew that was "putting over"/losing to hogan that night going in, but vince was worried that it might not end up that way... so thats why he had savage and steamboat practice...

BradyBeatsBama

March 31st, 2010 at 12:51 AM ^

How can Shawn Michaels be the #1 wrestler of the LATE 90'S when he really didn't wrestle in the late 90's. He was hurt, and his last match that was in the "late 90's" was his WM 14 match against Stone Cold. That was March of 1998. He missed the next few years due to back injury. Pretty weak. It's Stone Cold and the Rock and everyone else doesn't come close.

BTW, Bret is the greatest ever.

Maize and Blue…

March 31st, 2010 at 7:42 AM ^

just for the fact that he stuck to his word and never wrestled for McMahon. He would have been a great addition to the WWF/WWE, but his dislike of McMahon probably kept from making big (bigger) dollars.
Though his wrestling career was short did anyone make a bigger impact then Goldberg in such a short time? He got so big so quick that Vince even resorted to mocking him since he was WCW to start.

GOBLUE4EVR

March 31st, 2010 at 9:46 AM ^

the whole "he kept his word" thing is over played... i laugh at the fact that when WWF/WWE bought out WCW that sting didn't make the jump even though he would have made more money and would have been able to settle some debates over who is/was the greatest wrestler of all time... but instead he decided to go to a new promotion in TNA whose MO was to push the line more so then WWE at the time... now TNA is slowly turning into WCW 2 by bringing in: bishoff, scott hall, x-pac/syxx-pac/syxx/the kid/123 kid, and hogan...

GOBLUE4EVR

March 31st, 2010 at 1:54 PM ^

for not fully explaining it... at WCW they let bishoff and hogan run everything... hogan would bring in all of his buddies and give them special treatment and not put over any of the younger wrestlers... that is the reason why jerhico, malenko, saturn, benoit, eddie guerrero and others left WCW... hall, nash, sean waltman, savage, steiner, etc... got away with whatever they wanted... when these guys wrestled for the wwf/wwe vince ran a much tighter ship then WCW and they didn't get away with backstage politics as much as they did with WCW... vince has never had a fear of letting someone walk away no matter how much they help another promotion...

hisurfernmi

March 31st, 2010 at 12:55 AM ^

His Ladder match with Shawn Michaels was the greatest wrestling match of all time. That would be the one and only wrestling match i'd ever want to watch again.

Geaux_Blue

March 31st, 2010 at 1:42 PM ^

Hey Yo! I'ma let you finish but any number of the Hell in a Cells were the greatest matches of all time.

PS: Razor Ramon was unstoppable in one of the WWF games on SNES. the one with Doink and Kevin Nash... Bret Hart. Not the In Your House arcade bullshit. It might have been Royal Rumble or something. Damn that game was the shit.

Geaux_Blue

March 31st, 2010 at 3:33 AM ^

when ppv came through as scrambled shit but you could hear the audio fine. so i would listen to PPVs. and for some bizarre reason i thought, during the Montreal Screwjob "one's gonna win the match with the other's finishing move." and then it happened.

it's like a redneck meme:
where were you when bret hart got screwed over?

exmtroj

March 31st, 2010 at 1:17 AM ^

Diamond Dallas Page, baby. The Diamond-Cutter straight owned people. Great rivalry with Randy Savage, too. Also, the black-and-white Sting that used to come down from the rafters in his trench coat and school dudes with the baseball bat.

Ty Butterfield

March 31st, 2010 at 1:18 AM ^

I know this thread was sort of about wrestling. HOWEVA, I do agree with the OP that Bill Simmons is a great columnist. He is pretty much the only reason I still visit the ESPN website. I always enjoy his columns partly because they are peppered with pop culture references. I really truly do laugh out loud when I am reading one of his mailbags or columns. The best Simmons column I ever read was when he wrote about the 10 year anniversary of the OJ Simpson verdict. Just a great column about a truly interesting event. If anyone is interested here is the link.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040611

WreckingCrew

March 31st, 2010 at 1:59 AM ^

Couldn't agree more, and I loved this column. I thought this was classic Simmons. He had gotten away from this kind of writing for a while, particularly when he was working on his book. But he seems to be back in full form, and the wait on the book was worth it. I would advise anyone and everyone to pick up a copy.

shoes untied

March 31st, 2010 at 1:49 AM ^

The man is a genius. I hope ESPN is paying him well. I love how he basically admits that he didn't need to make this a work thing but it saved him from buying and saved him from the wrath of his wife. His is so funny. Everything he writes it amazing. I listen to his podcast every time there is a new one...
/man crush

WolverineBoston

March 31st, 2010 at 7:45 AM ^

Simmons has turned into an assclown. I've been reading his stuff for literally over 15 years since back when he was AOL only on Digital City Boston.

As he's progressed in his career, he's become a shell of his former self. He's turned into basically everything he used to hate: living in LA, celebrity, media whore, etc.

bronxblue

March 31st, 2010 at 9:31 AM ^

I wouldn't say that he sold out, but he has started to name-drop far more than he used to. My guess is that as the world has become littered with bloggers with similar writing styles and takes as him (in part because they emulate his style), he has felt more and more inclined to rely on the "access" elements his fame provides over the others. Before, he was one of the few MSM guys who wrote in this barstool sort of way, but now you literally have hundreds of sites that utilize the same sports/pop culture style. He clearly isn't as good as he once was, but I think this column reminds people of how good he can be.

Geaux_Blue

March 31st, 2010 at 3:36 AM ^

anyone remember Saturday morning wrestling when Papa Shango cursed Ultimate Warrior and UW started fake vomiting EVERYWHERE? most insane shit everrrrrrr

and man was i glad to be old enough to ask "what the fuuuuuuuck" during Undertaker's "Ministry of Darkness" days? like when he raised Stephanie McMahon on a cross while she screamed and he rolled his eyes back and Minion danced around like a douche? that was a dark day for the WWF...

pdgoblue25

March 31st, 2010 at 9:27 AM ^

I was 8 years old, and my Dad took my friends and I to Richfield colliseum, the main event was The Ultimate Warrior vs. The Undertaker. Here's a question, who didn't have the poster of Sable with the painted on hands??

GVBlue86

March 31st, 2010 at 9:34 AM ^

I basically worshipped Stone Cold. He gave me chills multiple times like when he would say "Austin 3:16 says I just whipped yur ASS!!". One of my favorite and most nerdy moments as a fan was when Vince's wife hired him as something like Vice Pres. of WWF and he was gonna screw Vince once again! His music came on as she announced it was him and I was fist pumping and cheering in my basement...alone.
When he was done and the John Cenas of the world came in I lost interest. I also had to secretly watch because my parents wouldn't let me otherwise.

rb4kb8

March 31st, 2010 at 10:33 AM ^

by Chris Jericho in WWF... or WWE .. or whatever it was back then. They'd been running the countdown clock and he comes in and interrupts the Rock.. making for the funniest 10 minutes I'd ever seen on wrestling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBvsRKmZWH0

It's not the same without guys like the Rock, Foley and Stone Cold.... even the way McMahon and his son and daughter played parts.

Search4Meaning

March 31st, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^

The soap opera of ring entertainment catering to the lowest common denominator!

This would be more appropriate on an Ohio State blog where they would debate it for years.

bronxblue

March 31st, 2010 at 11:39 AM ^

Those ECW matches between Malenko and Benoit were crazy. I have a DVD with one of their matches, and even today you can just see how in-tune they were and how, when you are not trying to out pop the next guy, a good match can be just with two guys working a storyline in the ring.

jsquigg

March 31st, 2010 at 2:44 PM ^

All I remember is how the WCW was about the product in the ring while the WWF/WWE was about gimmicks....or at least that's what they told everyone. I was a moderate wrestling fan who's favorite time was during the WCW vs. NWO days (one of the best wrestling video games as well) and I liked Sting.