Make me love Chris Benoit

I don't think he's a bad talker so much as he has no setting between off and high. Like, most of the time he sounds wooden and bland but when he manages to get fired up about something (eg his STRUGGLE and SACRAFICE for the WORLD HEVVYWEEGHT CHEMPIONSHEP), he can be pretty intense and convincing, if a bit unimaginative.

Psychology/story-telling and that is the stuff I'm least perceptive about. I do think a lot of his recent RAW matches have tended to be a bit of a parade of chops, German suplexes and headbutts. Do you rate Kurt Angle? I don't see how he's much better psychology-wise (especially when he just busts the ankle lock out of nowhere at the end of a match having not worked the leg at all), but I still enjoy both of their matches more often than not. Some of the earlier Benoit stuff I've seen, eg vs Regal or Bret Hart, had what I'd call good psychology, but I guess more than anything he has this Flair-like thing where his general demeanour and movement just look really calculated and convincing.

Also re psychology - against Orton at Summerslam he took two really stupidly painful looking bumps on his neck, which made the RKO finish seem more credible. I guess it may have been motivated as much by wanting to look dead hard on the way out.

Oh, you hate the Germans don't you.

Uh, top rope tombstone in Japan!

But saying he doesn't know ring psychology is mentalism. That's like Bret Hart's recent comments, in which he claimed that Flair wasn't a good wrestler because he doesn't know psychology.

Benoit and Bret are very similar workers (not a surprise, I suppose, considering they were both trained by Stu). Both have a very "realistic" way of selling. They NEVER oversell a la Shawn or Curt Hennig or Steamboat, they don't do anything unnecessary like the Flair Flop, and they rarely showboat. Most of the newer guys don't work that way anymore, so his style might seem boring to some because he relies less on flash and highspots.

Benoit consistently makes lesser workers look good. He carried the likes of Batista (before he got good), Albert (who was never good), and Big Show to good matches. He did it my selling his ass off, timing his comebacks perfectly, and generally making it look like he slogged through hell to get through the match.

Benoit beats the piss out of people. That's great to see. Nobody else in the WWE makes wrestling look so real.

His moveset is vast, he can wrestle almost every style you care to name, he can resort to highspots and big bumps when he has to.

Having said all this, the IWC's collective jizzing over Benoit goes way too far. He's a fantastic worker, but Angle and Jericho (and even Austin, when he was fully healthy) are his equal or close to it, except those other three guys have the charisma and promo ability to match their in-ring ability.

Essentially, given Benoit's personality detrement, he'd HAVE to be one of the greatest workers ever in order to get as far as he has.

All this time, very few feuds with high-level opponents who can work, and yet he's stayed motivated in the ring. I respect the hell out of Jericho. But I grant that for the last couple of months, despite being involved in decent storylines for ones, his in-ring work has been a bit sluggish. But when he gets in there with decent opponents such as Benoit or Rock, he tears the house down, with matches that are anything but formulaic.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003560001-2005042323,00.html

I'll spare ILE the revive:
http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/onion/home/elements/4351/timeline1.jpg

Pour one out

I actually fondly remember where I was when Anna Nicole died!