Welcome to the biggest CAGE in the world

[7.0] "In the interest of fairness, this was a good match. It's a far cry from the generational classic I was told it was. Both of these clowns represent the worst aspects of pro wrestling not counting criminal activity, but they did work well together and it was a much better match than I expected and the build up was leading to. It's not in any reasonable conversation for one of the best main events in WM history. If it's a top 20 type of ranking then this would be 15 or lower. It's a good match but the entire weekend was filled with such horrible wrestling that this looks like an all timer. People need to look up recency bias and accept it."

[] "WWE excels at whitewashing shitty people. Frankly I'm surprised Vince didn't return at mania to begin an image rehab tour. Brock being glazed is expected but fans should know better."

[10.0] "Here is an important piece of a critical AWA rivalry, arguably the #1 rivalry of the whole promotion. On one side you've got Verne Gagne, owner and promoter of AWA, the very first AWA champion way back in 1960(! ), one of the most enduringly popular babyfaces of the promotion and at this time a 9 time former champion. Good to own the promotion I suppose, though in fairness Verne has always been beloved by the AWA fans every time I've seen him. On the other side, the legend, the GOAT contender, #1 all time heel ace of AWA, Nick Bockwinkel himself. And of course an essential piece of this scene is that the incomparable Bobby "the Brain" Heenan is at ringside to support his longtime client Bock! This is extra exciting for me, years ago I did a massive watch project on Heenan and saw every bit of his work on tape that I could find, but I never saw this one for whatever reason so it's awesome to see a new (to me) Heenan performance. It takes place in front of a hot Chicago crowd and the recording seems to have possibly made for Japanese broadcast? Both guys were known in Japan, and on this same show were AJPW guys like Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta, and Genichiro Tenryu, so it's very likely they were on hand to record everything, for which I am eternally grateful almost 50(! ) years later. These guys fought dozens of times in various settings through the 70s up until Verne's retirement in '81, but of all their matches on tape I think this is my favorite I have seen so far. Verne is 53 and Bock is already 45, and they're so good here that it makes you wonder how much their legend might grow if we had reliable footage of their earlier work. Bock was in the midst of his first world title run, which impressively lasted almost 5 whole years, but Verne was always on his tail to take the title back. Verne plays the part of the surly veteran here and dominates a good portion of the match, beating on Bock to the cheers of the crowd and in particular busting up his hands effectively to hamper him from fighting back with strikes or his typically great technical work. It's a very good story, it makes a lot of sense and the crowd is very much into it. Bock gets to do some awesome selling as well, and whenever he sneaks his attacks in it's always done organically with effective forethought, Bock was always one of the smartest wrestlers in the game and knows just where to slip in offense for maximum effect even though Verne spends a lot of time blitzing him and putting him on the defensive. Bock holds on with more and more desperation but it looks like he's really about to lose the title, and so we go to the time honored booking tactic of the DQ as Heenan comes in and blatantly punches Verne to allow Bock to escape with the belt. It's a cheap ending to be sure but I pretty well expected it for the era, and the execution of the match overall was so good I can't really complain much. It also leads to a great post match where Verne absolutely clobbers Heenan from pillar to post, he gets to do some of his world class bumping and also bleeds all over which sends the crowd home happy despite the title not changing hands. It's just great stuff that's very much up my alley, a high quality masterclass in so many respects."