vintown

Apparently my writing for this site is not that good

Vince — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:00:59 +0000

Someone linked me to this site called “I Write Like” which analyzes your writing and tells you who you write like. I took a couple of posts from Miller Park Drunk and plugged them in there and it said that I wrote like J.D. Salinger. That’s acceptable. He only writes about adolescents, I write like a 13 year old on that site. Makes sense. I think he’s pretty good, I’ll take it.

Then I took a post from here and it said that I wrote like… I don’t even want to admit this really. It was the last post I did on here, the one about being friends and moving and all of that. I put that post in there and it said that I wrote like Stephenie Meyer. The same Stephenie Meyer who wrote the Twilight series. Seriously.

This couldn’t be right, I thought. Something is clearly wrong here. So I took the next oldest post that I wrote and it said that I wrote like… Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code.

Maybe it’s time that I step it up a notch with these blog posts.

(Or that site is complete garbage.)Similar Posts:

We become such worse friends as we get older

Vince — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:25:45 +0000

I cleaned my room today. I don’t really like cleaning my room. Now don’t get me wrong I love having a clean room. Having a clean room is something that is important to me. It’s just that whenever I clean my room I inevitably find something that reminds me of someone, some place, some thing that I didn’t really want to think about. Today is no exception. Today, I found this picture:

This photo reminds me of a lot of things. It reminds me of the time I thought it was a good idea to shave a line in my left eyebrow because I thought it looked cool (like Spike). It reminds me of Muska, my crazy ass dog with a mole on his nose that we named after skater Chad Muska during my brief “I think I want to start skateboarding” phase. Was he tied up in the backyard here? Was he in the house getting into something, chewing up something? Was he doing that crazy howl he used to do that drove the old neighbors crazy? Maybe he was playing in the yard with Shannon, my big (like 250 pounds) black friend from Philadelphia who defied stereotypes by spending way too much time playing video games. Was he at the house? Was he on his way over? It was probably a Saturday. We’re probably grilling out. Our neighbors seemed cool. It reminds me of Tacoma and this house we lived in. There was so much fun we had there, but when I look at this picture mostly it just reminds me of the photographer and the guy cutting my hair.

Katy, my girlfriend from high school, the first person I ever loved who quit school because she didn’t want to lose me and came to live in Alabama and then went back to school because I came with her. I liked her a lot. She was the perfect person for me at that point in my life. I really screwed up that relationship.

Then there’s John, her best friend from college who became my best friend when I moved there. He was probably one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known in my life. He was so easy going and always willing to help a friend. We had a lot of fun and we were friends from the first day I arrived. He was a really great guy. It’s really no wonder she started dating him after me. I would have done the same thing. (Just to show how unfair life is John died in a car accident. He was driving and his car flipped over. There were four people in the car and everyone else lived. Life sucks like that.)

All of this is from a life so long ago I can barely remember it. I can barely remember me. When I moved to Tacoma with Katy, I did it because I was ready for a fresh start. That Vin that people knew from 15-19? He was gone. He was a punk and I didn’t want to be like that anymore. I wanted to be a new Vin, a Seattle-Vin. I did my best, I probably failed, but I tried to make it work. I tried to be a different person, a better person and I wasn’t about to let the past hold me back. It seemed like a great plan.

Then we broke up and that Vin, Seattle-Vin, the Vin you see in this picture was gone and soon so were the friends and the dog. I started over again because that’s what I do and the next Vin was not someone I am a big fan of. Some bad stuff happened because I deserved it. I had a few good times, but I have forgotten most all of them by now. That whole time in Alabama seems like a week to me when in reality it was nearly four years. It was never who I felt I was and I felt like doing something else.

So I did and then I did again and now we’re here. At a place where everyone I know calls me Vince because that’s how I introduced myself to them. It’s nice here and I am happier now than I’ve ever been. I don’t get as stressed out as I used to. I never get angry. I’m sure part of this is age and the acceptance that everything is never going to be perfect, but it’s also the life I’ve made. I have the son, the Brewers and some really great friends. Some of the best I’ve ever had, probably the best I’ve ever had. It’s nice.

Which brings me back to the beginning, a time before this picture was taken, to the people that I left behind. To the friends that I felt that I needed to move on from. I never had anything against them, I never will. I just felt like it was time to go and I felt like that particular part of my life was part of my past. One of the friends didn’t accept that and held on. We stayed friends through my post-Alabama days. His girlfriend introduced me to the girl who would become my son’s mother. I owe a lot to them for that. I never would have had Hawaiian-Vin without that. I never would have Dad-Vince without that. Still, I would best describe him and everyone else as my “old friends”. It’s just the way it is.

When he told me he was marrying the girl who introduced me to my son’s mother I said I would be there. I wanted to be there because they meant a lot to me at one point. They still do, but when the day of the wedding came I didn’t show up. It’s probably the douchiest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I feel terrible about it, but in the end I know why I did it. I’m not that person anymore and for me to spend a day with a bunch of people who are a part of my past and nobody who is a part of my present just wasn’t worth it to me. I probably should have went. It was stupid and selfish and I feel like a douchebag because of it, but I know why I did it. The past isn’t important to me.

Except when it is. Because when I look at this picture it reminds me of a different time and what things were like then. It makes me happy, it makes me sad. These memories are important to me. They helped make me who I am today. Seattle-Vin is a big part of me. It’s just not me anymore. I hope that makes sense.Similar Posts:

Nolan loves cheese on his pasta

Vince — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:55:37 +0000

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So much for that

Vince — Fri, 21 May 2010 05:53:38 +0000

In my last post I wrote about my blogging “career” and how that wasn’t really what I wanted to do for a job. I wrote it and I meant it, but then I thought about it some more and I realized how stupid I sounded. Basically what I was saying was “I am good at this, but I don’t want to make money doing it because it’s not my career goal.” And I am good at it too. I’ve completely self-marketed the website and so far this month I have around 10,000 unique visitors. That’s pretty good and for me not to want to monetize that is pretty stupid, even for me. So I decided to take the jump and join a blog network.

So as of… now I guess, Miller Park Drunk is a member of the Yardbarker Network. They will handle all of my advertising, leave me alone to do my own thing and when I write something good that hits on a popular topic it could be carried on the front page of MSN or FoxSports. So, yeah, pretty sweet deal. If I want to have a hit article that’s featured on the main page of one of those sites I might have to change my ways a little bit, maybe stop making so many rape jokes, but that’s okay and I think it will be worth it in the long run. It’s always better to be funny without that stuff (so they say) so why not give it a try?

If it doesn’t work out, no big deal. If it does, let’s see what else we can do. I’ve been thinking about starting a Milwaukee Bucks blog for next season, I could do that too. Maybe a Seahawks blog as well? How about a wrestling blog? Actually, no on that one because I’d have to start watching it again to do that. (Yes, I am already over that phase.) Maybe I should take Phil Ivey Rules, start updating it again and add it to the network. Anything is possible, really. I am good at this and I should embrace it. So that’s what I am going to start doing.Similar Posts:

An interesting time at the ballpark

Vince — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:45:47 +0000

Last Sunday I worked during the day and came home. Like I often do when I get home I checked my email, checked facebook and checked out my Miller Park Drunk twitter account. I saw that one of my friends on twitter, wezen-ball a real clever baseball blog, had an extra ticket to Sunday’s Brewers game, but had no one to go with. Now, I’d never met him before, but I thought we had a decent rapport from our online interactions (and his girlfriend is one of MPD’s biggest fans) and I figured it’d be a good experience so I asked him if he wanted me to come with. Three hours later I was meeting him outside of Miller Park and we were on our way to our seats for the Milwaukee Brewers vs Philadelphia Phillies game.

I have to say that I had a really good time. He was really intelligent and I was able to talk to him about certain baseball related topics that I wouldn’t be able to talk about with most of my friends. (This isn’t meant as a dis on my friends, of course, but there are some things that only guys who are big enough nerds to blog about baseball for fun would understand.) We also did a fair share of talking about blogging and what it’s like, and what you get out of it. During the game he checked his twitter account and came to find out that one of the contributors from Yahoo’s Big League Stew (my favorite baseball blog), Answer Dave, was at the game and because of wezen-ball’s popularity he wanted to leave the press box to come and sit with us. And he did.

For the next two innings we talked about everything from “off the record” things players have told him to the press box to writing on the internet and what it means to just talking baseball. I made a few good jokes and everyone was having a really good time. He tried to talk Larry into getting a press pass and doing interviews, which I agreed that he should do. Then he said “I don’t know if something called “Miller Park Drunk” would have a good chance of getting a pass though,” which I agreed with because it’s an understatement to say the least. (I’m not getting the pass for the title alone, I’m surprised I’m allowed in the park based on some of the content). That’s just not what that site is, but it really got me thinking about it.

On the one hand I don’t want to be that guy, but on the other you can’t help but feel a little jealous. I’m a good writer and my site has a strong following, but I could never get that sort of access. I have no doubt in my mind that if I made a new site, say “Brew Crew Bill’s Brewers Site” and just wrote about the Brewers in a non-offensive way and never made negative comments about people that I could be that person. I could get press passes and maybe I could end up getting a job with one of the baseball blogs on the internet that pay people. That is not wholly unbelievable, but I honestly think that is not something I want to do. I don’t want to be the guy from Big League Stew despite the fact that I think he has a pretty awesome job and is a really cool guy because I’d rather be Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan aka Michael Schur, creator of Parks & Recreation. I think blogging about baseball is fun and I like to do it, but I have never thought that me writing a blog about the Brewers was going to lead to me becoming a baseball writer because I never wanted to be a baseball writer. I remain, stubbornly, stuck on my film and television writing goals.

Still, it was a really great time and sort of an eye-opening experience that despite what we may think sitting at home writing stuff on the internet that it actually does matter to some people and that people do like it. Since starting Miller Park Drunk I’ve made some ad money, but what really sticks out to me is the tickets I’ve gotten for free and the t-shirts I’ve gotten for free or even just the emails I’ve gotten from people telling me how much they liked it. To me that’s worth it and that’s enough to validate what I am doing. Could I continue and take it to the next level? Probably, but that’s not in my plans right now. Days like Sunday are why I do this.Similar Posts:

Movie ideas

Vince — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:21:28 +0000

I’ve made no secret that I wanted to be a screenwriter before. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do as long as I can remember and I have a lot of ideas. The problem with my ideas though is that they are all movies I would want to see. Most of the movies that I end up loving are ones that don’t make millions and millions of dollars. I have been trying to change my thought process of late to think of the kind of movies that Hollywood actually buys and makes into movies and the kind of movies that become hits. This is actually a really difficult exercise.

I came up with one idea, called “When We’re 30 (or 40)” (or “The Marriage Pact”). It’s about a guy and a girl who are best friends in high school or college and after one breaks up with their girlfriend/boyfriend the two of them make a pact that if they don’t find anyone by a certain age that they will get married. Well, what if when they got to be that age one of them actually tried to take the other up on it. What would happen then? My thought process was that this is a familiar idea among people. I think it was on Friends and I know I have seen it somewhere else before too. Also, romantic comedies are cheap and one seemingly comes out every single week for the entire year. Some are good, most are bad, but almost all of them turn a profit. It speaks to the entire point of movie theaters in the first place, so people have a place to take their dates. Now, the problem with this idea is that I would never want to write this movie because I would never want to see this movie and even if I did write it I would be viewed as a bad writer because this movie probably wouldn’t be that good. It would most definitely star Kate Hudson and she is incapable of making a good movie. Still, I think I am on the right track with thinking about the kind of movies that are actually made in Hollywood.

What I am trying to do now is think of something more “high-concept”. A BIG idea, if you will. When I think high-concept I think about Brian K Vaughn selling a spec script for a million dollars after a bidding war. It was an incredible idea that went something like this:

In “Roundtable,” Vaughan tries out yet another tweak on the oft-revised King Arthur legend. His spin, more “Ghostbusters” than “Excalibur,” revolves around Merlin assembling a bunch of modern-day knights to battle a resurrected ancient evil, only to discover that today’s knights are all washed-up athletes, cowardly scientists or Academy Award-winning actors.

It a pretty basic concept (”think modern day King Arthur story”), but it’s really genius when you get down to it. (You can read a script review here.) Current real life knighted people include: Sean Connery, Elton John, Bono, Mick Jagger, Ian McKellan and golfer Nick Faldo. Put swords in the hands of those guys and you aren’t really striking fear into anybody except Republicans. It’s got a strong comedy potential, surely has good action and it has a certain level of familiarity because of Merlin and the Knights of the Roundtable. It’s a really great idea and if you really want to get screenplay technical about it, it’s a “four quadrant picture” meaning it hits all four marketing quadrants (men over 25, men under 25, women over 25, women under 25.). I think if it ever gets made it will be a huge hit. I love the idea and I wish I could think of something like it. Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to keep thinking.Similar Posts:

i should write something here.

Vince — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:57:53 +0000

haven’t done that in awhile.

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I need to complain about Glee for a second

Vince — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 05:33:18 +0000

SPOILERS FOR SEASON ONE EPISODE 14 “Hell-O”

The “spring season” or the second half of Glee season one started tonight and it really kind of pissed me off. I mean, the humor was still there and the songs were good but the decisions they made with the characters just completely baffled me. The more I’ve heard about the show during it’s hiatus, the more I worried that it had serious “jump the shark” potential (I really hate that term, btw). Sometimes a show can become a victim of it’s own popularity, you know? Tonight’s episode didn’t do much to quell my fears and here is why.

The first half of the season was built on the following major points:

The glee club’s quest for sectionals and Sue Sylvester’s quest to destroy to the glee club.
Mrs. Schuster lying about being pregnant and thus keeping Will from leaving her to get with Emma, the girl the audience knows is right for Will and really wants him to be with.
Quinn being pregnant with Puck’s baby, but convincing Finn that the baby is his. Finn then stays with Quinn despite his obvious attraction to Rachel.

The first half of the season ended with sectionals. The glee club won their sectional, Sue tried to sabotage them but got caught and suspended, Will found out about his wife’s lie and left her for Emma (who also left Mr. Tanaka to be with Will) and Finn found out that the baby was Puck’s, Puck and Quinn got together as did Rachel and Finn got together. Everyone was happy and the audience got all the payoffs that it wanted. They built the season around the audience wanting these things to happen and then paid them off tremendously. Sure, the pregnancy stuff was pretty stupid but in the end we got what we wanted. It was a good ending and some could argue that they didn’t have anywhere to go from there. A good writing staff would have found new angles and worked off of those. Maybe found a new foe for Sue (like a student she wanted to destroy instead of the whole Glee club program), played with relationship stories with Rachel/Finn and Will/Emma and built towards regionals. Did they do any of this? No.

Instead they hit the reset button. The show opened with Sue Sylvester getting her job back and within like two scenes she is back trying to destroy the glee club. Then ty broke up Rachel and Finn and put a pretty sizable wedge in their relationship. They’ve stopped and started so many times with these two (in just 14 episodes) that it’s going to be really hard to get people to care about them getting back together if they ever go there again. Basically, in just 14 episodes they Ross and Rachel’d them. Not a good move (just ask Scrubs). They also broke up Emma and Will because Will wasn’t ready. (Earlier they even teased dissension with Puck/Quinn. I mean, why? Can no one be happy except the black girl and the gay kid, who are only really happy because they get no screen time? I don’t get it.) It makes sense story-wise, but it really felt forced here. And why did they have to do all three of these things in the first episode? Couldn’t they have given them a couple happy episodes before breaking them up? It’s ridiculous. The one thing they did do right was introduce the “big bad” (to use a Buffy term) of the rest of the year, the opposing school and it’s evil teacher and star, but overall I was not a big fan of this episode.

Everything they did made sense, I guess, and you could argue that they didn’t really betray their characters, but I thought this was some pretty lazy writing. They didn’t know what to do with these people next so they are just going to have them do what they did before again, but in a different way. I don’t get it.Similar Posts:

My biggest problem

Vince — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:02:01 +0000

I had one of those nights the other night where you put on some music and think about your entire life. It was pretty intense and I think I figured out some stuff that I hadn’t really thought about because it bothered me. During my thinking I came to a strong realization that I have a big problem that makes me the way I am and causes many of the troubles in my life. You see my biggest problem is that I have seen way too many movies and I have always expected my life to turn out like one. I’ve never really understood why people didn’t see things the way I saw them and do the right thing in the end, the reason of course being is that life isn’t a movie and people just aren’t like that.

For instance, something I’ve always tried to be was a good friends and a good brother. Now, my brothers don’t give a shit about me. They have their wives and their kids and I never hear from them unless I’m like on the phone with my mom and they are also in the room with her and she forces them to talk to me. This shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. I live a thousand plus miles away from both of them and I really don’t have anything to talk about them really, but it always bothers me. When I went through some hard times in the past couple years surrounding the birth of my son, they weren’t there. Now, the argument can be made either way that they should or shouldn’t have been there but the truth is it shouldn’t bother me as much as it did/does. The reason it does is because if this were a movie, they would be there for me. Look at like, Boyz N the Hood. In that movie Ricky is the good kid that is excellent at football who is trying to get out of the ghetto and his brother Doughboy is the drug dealer with the rap sheet. They have nothing in common and fight throughout the movie, but when someone comes after Ricky? Doughboy is right there. It’s his brother, he loves his brother and nobody is going to mess with his brother. That’s how I try to be to my family and to my friends.

The more and more I think about it though, nobody is really there for me like that and me “being there” for them doesn’t really make much of a difference either. This isn’t even the most insane my-life-is-a-movie thought I have. Sometimes I think that the day will come when I look back and someone yells to me “you can’t just leave them there!” and I will dramatically turn around, coming back to save the day. I think someone is going to tell me that “I’m their only hope” and I’ll have to help them. Hell, I’m still waiting for a guy to be outside my window with a boombox. I think that this stuff is going to happen, even though I know that it’s all ridiculous. I am ridiculous and I need to stop doing it, but the truth is I won’t ever stop doing it. The day I stop picturing my life as a movie is the day I stop being me and I really hope that day never comes. I’m just starting to like that guy.Similar Posts:

Let’s talk some more wrestling

Vince — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:23:07 +0000

This is the kind of post that is probably only interesting to me, but the kind I feel that i have to write because it has been weighing heavily on my mind. In the past few weeks I have been watching Raw every week and Smackdown, TNA and NXT whenever I get the chance. Been playing way too much TEW. I’ve read the Dynamite Kid’s book, I’ve read Bret Hart’s book. I’ve also re-subscribed to F4WOnline and been reading the Wrestling Observer like the bible. What can I say? I’m an obsessive person. At a friends house for Wrestlemania I suddenly realized something that I’ve never really thought about before and that’s that I know more about wrestling than I know about just about anything else. I can remember the days when I could say the complete ECW title histories off the top of my head, the main event to every Wrestlemania (which I could probably still do, really) and all sorts of random, useless stuff like that. A lot of that has faded, but a whole lot more of it hasn’t. I don’t think I’m being facetious when I say that I know more about wrestling than anyone I know. I’m definitely not bragging, but it’s just something that is. I don’t know what made me realize this, but maybe it was seeing Bret Hart back on Raw for the first time since 1997 that did it.

In 1997 I got kicked out of high school (because I was clearly an incredible bad ass both then and now) and I took the added free time I had to have an e-mail wrestling newsletter, website and hotline. (Hilariously, we thought the newsletter was more important than the website.) When the Bret Hart to WCW story first broke I was in such shock that I did a profanity laced tirade about how Bret would NEVER go to WCW and that he was WWF for life. (It’s funny in retrospect because of how wrong I was, but also because I know now that my thoughts mirrored Bret’s thoughts except there was nothing he could really do about it. Vince didn’t want him. (btw, the fact that my newsletter and hotline were never archived is probably one of the top five greatest achievements of my life. 15 year old wrestling journalist was not a good look for me.)) I also had a pretty successful tape trading business. At one point in 1998 I owned EVERY WWF pay-per-view ever as well as every single ECW show and 75% of WCW PPVs. I had boxes and boxes of VHS tapes and would dub and sell them to people (1 for $5, 3 for $12). At one point in 1998 I flew, by myself, to Philadelphia to watch an ECW show. I was 16. It was a strange time.

Back then I can remember chatting with people about wrestling all the time. I made a lot of friends online at that time, one of whom I correspond with almost daily to this day and another who I still keep in contact with through facebook. (Both at some point wrote for my newsletter.) We used to talk about stuff like “what’s your favorite show?” and “who’s your favorite wrestler?” Stuff that I haven’t thought about in a really long time and stuff that for some reason, I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. To me, it’s a really interesting question with the addition of hindsight. So without anyone really caring except for me, here’s the answers to a few pertinent questions.

What is your favorite show of all time?

Wrestlemania X

I decided to start myself off with a softball question because no matter what happens this has always been and will always be my favorite show. It’s the first PPV I can remember telling me dad that we HAD to watch. It had one of my favorite buildups of all time and it had two of my favorite matches of all time, Bret Hart vs Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon in a ladder match. As a kid it was great to see my favorite wrestler at the time, Razor Ramon, get the big win in the big match. As an adult it still stands up as one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen. It also has one of the great all-time endings to a big show as Bret Hart ends Yokozuna’s long reign as champion and the entire roster comes out to celebrate with him. Great show, heavy dose of nostalgia, great matches that still hold up and a great ending. Not sure this one will ever be topped.

As for second place? Wrestlemania X-7. While the ending still bothers me to this day, Austin and The Rock had a really awesome main event with some of the most amazing crowd heat I can ever remember. From a wrestling quality standpoint this is the best show of all time as nearly every match was ****+ stars, but in my opinion that ending is what killed the wrestling boom. Nobody wanted a heel Austin and a heel Austin aligned with Vince was one of the worst ideas of all time. Still, a hell of a show.

Who is your favorite wrestler of all time?

This is a tough one. I mean, I don’t even know how to judge this. By in-ring? By mark-out factor? By amount of t-shirts owned? It’s a question that is probably asked a million times by wrestling fans all over the world and that’s why it surprises me so much that I really don’t know. I can remember when Triple H was my favorite wrestler (I even named my newsletter “The Pedigree” after his finisher). I can remember being an insane mark for The Sandman, going so far as to regularly break beer cans on my head after finishing them. John Cena is probably single handedly responsible for getting me back into wrestling in 2007 (and Benoit is single handedly responsible for getting me out of it. Fucker.) I’ve said The Rock and Steve Austin’s catchphrases literally thousands of times and I’ve seen more matches involving Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels than any other two wrestlers.

I think that I have to go with Chris Jericho though. In the end, he’s been my guy for the longest and he’s one of those guys that I would just really want to hang with. His WWE debut is the stuff of legends.

Technically speaking, he has his flaws and he couldn’t dream of having anywhere near the charisma that a Rock or Cena has, but overall he is the total package. I’ve been watching him since 1997 and he’s reinvented himself so many times and just became better and better at being a wrestling character. It’s a shame that Vince doesn’t see him for the asset he truly is because he is probably the best true heel in the business right now and the evolutionary Ric Flair, which is kind of amazing when you think about it. His only real flaw is that he doesn’t have a defining match, but that’s okay because I’ve never gotten sick of being a Chris Jericho fan and I can’t imagine I ever will.

What is your favorite match of all-time?

I found myself writing this post and putting things like “greatest matches of all time” multiple times and I kept having to delete those references. It’s insane to think how many of those I could really put in there. If I were to be asked “What are some of my favorite matches?”, I could probably list 30 off the top of my head with another 20+ coming from when I think about it. There are so many matches that I’ve seen and so many that I love. Do I go with something like Kenta Kobashi vs Samoa Joe from ROH? That is a total fight and one of the most “real” wrestling matches I’ve ever seen. They beat the holy hell out of eachother and it tells a great story. That’s important. Is it something like Bret Hart vs Owen Hart? A perfectly executed match that really surprised you? Because I think that’s really important. The element of surprise, the difference between watching something live and watching it when you don’t know what the outcome is going to be is huge to me. Being surprised as a wrestling fan is a really great feeling. Think about Mankind vs the Undertaker, Hell in a Cell. That wasn’t a good match, but if you were watching it live and you saw Mankind fly off that cage you thought it was the most amazing thing you’d ever seen. I know I did. I guess that it could even be something like Hogan vs The Rock (which I am not a big fan of actually), something where the crowd completely takes it over. Crowd reactions in wrestling are the key. A great crowd can make a good match, great and a great match legendary. That stuff matters. There is just so much stuff out there that I love and so much stuff that I have seen literally hundreds of times. It’s hard for me to pick just one thing.

(Now would be a good time to point out that there is one match that for a long time was my actual favorite match and that match was Jericho/Benoit vs HHH/Austin for the tag titles on Raw. That was awesome. Unfortunately Benoit killed his wife and kid and I don’t want to ever see his face again.)

To help me narrow this down I decided to make a list of criteria that my favorite match must have.

I must have seen it live. It’s one thing to hear something is great, then watch it and agree. It’s another to watch something great live and know for yourself. This also helps out with the next part.
I must not have known who was going to win. I love Razor Ramon/Shawn Michaels from Wrestlemania X, but there was no way Razor was losing that match. Same with Rey Mysterio/Eddy Guerrero Mask vs Hair. WCW wouldn’t be stupid enough to take his mask away. There are lots of great formula matches, we need something more here.
It must tell a story. All the great matches do this. This is actually just my excuse to rant about the Young Bucks and the Dragon Gate USA style. I love athletic moves. I love 450 splashes, moonsaults and everything else. That stuff is great, but when I decided to check out a Dragon Gate USA show because of the excellent reviews it’s been getting I absolutely hated it. There was so much shit where it was completely obvious that they planned it out like “wouldn’t it be cool if we did this? and then we could do this!” to the point that some of the stuff seemed so fake and pre-planned that it barely resembled a match to me. The sad thing is that this is what’s cool with the kids these days. I don’t get it.
It must have crowd heat. A great match can involve two young guys on the undercard, but a truly epic match features two main eventers with the crowd going insane for everything that happens.

That being said, I think we have the following finalists:

Bret Hart vs Steve Austin I Quit Match, Wrestlemania 13. This is one of my favorite matches of all time for a lot of reasons. For one, it’s a straight up fight with two guys who hate eachother beating the crap out of eachother. Second, it’s two of my favorite guys of all time in a match that completely stole the show at Wrestlemania. Third, it features the greatest double turn in wrestling history as when the match started Bret was the good guy and Austin was the bad guy and when it was over, their roles reversed. Pretty amazing stuff. I actually didn’t see this one live and I put it on the list, that’s how good it is.
Kurt Angle vs Shawn Michaels, Wrestlemania 21. This match is kind of forgotten because Kurt Angle has kind of been forgotten, but it’s really a great match. The reason I put it on this list is because I didn’t know who was going to win and it actually passed the “Star Trek” test. A couple months ago I was watching the new Star Trek movie and towards the end when stuff started getting intense I stood up to watch the rest. Watching this one live, it got so crazy with the near finishes that I actually stood up for the end. That’s an awesome match.
Dean Malenko vs Ultimo Dragon, Clash of the Champions January 1997. (Or their match from Starrcade 1996.) This is probably the match that gave birth to the modern wrestling watching Vince because after watching this my interest in main eventers like Scott Hall and Kevin Nash waned and my interest in great wrestlers grew exponentially.
Ultimate Warrior vs Randy Savage Retirement Match, Wrestlemania VII. This one probably doesn’t have any right to be on the list. For one, I saw it on video about ten years after it went down. Two, I hate the Ultimate Warrior, but there is something about this match that always sticks out in my mind. When I watched it I didn’t know who was going to win (because despite being a retirement match I’d seen the loser wrestle about 100 times since) and there was a lot of drama towards the end. Really though, the match is great but the post-match is probably the greatest thing the WWE has ever done. It made me cry. It literally made me cry. Oh, Elizabeth how I love you so.
Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker, Wrestlemania 26. Surprised? Honestly, I am too. When I was making up the list of criteria for my favorite match this one kept popping out. Before the show and right up until the match started The Undertaker winning and extending the streak seemed like an inevitability, but once the match started they really made you believe that there was a chance that the streak would end. I can remember actually saying out loud “how is he going to beat him?” because honestly, I didn’t know and for wrestling to do that to me at 27 is pretty amazing really.
Samoa Joe vs Kenta Kobashi. This plays. After watching this match Samoa Joe immediately became my favorite wrestler and seemed destined for stardom. (Good job with that one TNA.)
Raven and Stevie Richards vs The Pitbulls, Double Tables. This is another one that plays despite me seeing it on tape delay. I didn’t know the victor before hand, so it plays. This is probably the most perfectly overbooked mess that I have ever seen. Overlapping angles, tons of interference, really crazy spots and some really cool stuff from Raven make this a winner. Best match in ECW history, by far.

I’m sure I’m forgetting about 15 more, but that seems like a decent list (even if I only saw half of them live). If I had to choose one, I think I’ll have to go with….

Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle. Seems about right.

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