The Joy of Discovery: An Ode to the List

Remember when expertise was hard earned?

Listen, I don’t want to be one of those old dudes complaining about kids today—but, let me tell you, kids today just don’t understand how good they have it. As a 40-something child of the 1970s, I was blessed to be born on the cusp of this new world we all live in, a world packed to bursting with a constant stream of information, siphoned off social spaces and instant access to anything you want to watch, listen to, or read.

I like to say I was raised by wolves, on my own every day and evening until my parents made their cursory evening appearances and we all went on about our separate lives. It was a world with no cellular phones, no internet, and endless possibilities.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, as you do in troubled times, and it occurred to me that anyone born after, say, the year 2000, has no idea what we went through anytime we took up a new interest. Today anyone who is curious about joining a new niche can easily try it on for size. The entire world is curated to make this possible, the media available within seconds or minutes so anyone who wants can dive as deep as they can stand without pause.

With the mere click of a few keystrokes, you can pose as an authority and immediately drain a community of its knowledge and hard-earned wisdom. We become cyber vampires, on the hunt for belonging and status. The internet is filled with specialty Twitters, Reddits, Wikipedia and, as a result, instant experts abound, the pipeline from newb to stan increasingly and startlingly shorter as the years pass.

Take, for example, pro wrestling. I remember distinctly coming back to Kristina’s dorm room one night in college. We were on the devil’s time and up to no good, I have no doubt of it. Somehow the TV got turned on, in the olden days before there were 397 channels, and we clicked our way to a wavy UHF channel with questionable video quality (a harbinger of things to come as a wrestling tape trader)

And there was Sabu.

I had grown up a wrestling fan but, like so many, abandoned it in my teenage years in pursuit of getting laid and other more pressing interests. I had watched a lot of wrestling, first on the “Superstation” WTBS where Tony Schiavone would scream they were out of time just as things started to get good and later on VHS tapes rented from a local joint because the Blockbuster only had dreadful Yankee wrestling. I’d watch the Night of the Skywalkers or Lords of the Ring again and again, gaping at the likes of Ric Flair, the Midnight Express and the incomparable Dusty Rhodes.

This shit? This was something different, the raw energy of a punk rock band fused with the kind of daring and lack of self-preservation that would later come to define the Jackass era. I was instantly hooked, craving wrestling the way others craved pictures of feet or rock cocaine, desire obliterating good sense and reason, dignity a forgotten relic of a time before I’d seen a man leap from the top rope and crash through a table.

This was my thing. I knew it instantly. But….now what? Were there other matches, promotions and wrestlers that could make you feel like this? It was a question not easily answered.

In those early days, just finding the path was a significant challenge. Walking it, the endless search for matches and tapes, was another matter entirely. That’s a discussion for another time. First, before the trips to the post office and heading to Radio Shack to buy the cords you needed to MacGyver two VCR’s together, you had to know what to look for in the first place.

The internet, home then to Bianca’s Smut Shack, AOL and Usenet, was hardly the repository of knowledge it would later become. There was no Cagematch MatchGuide, no SmartMarks, not even a Death Valley Driver Video Review yet. Finding your way was no small task. It took personal, direct curation to truly mine the hidden gems of this sport. Many of the most glittery treasures, it turns out, we’d have to uncover ourselves in time through projects like the DVDVRMB 80’s List and other collective efforts to separate the great art from the seemingly endless dross.

For many of us, the first tentative steps into pro wrestling as a hobby was the Jeff Bowdren list of the 100 best matches of the 1980s from the 1989 Wrestling Observer Yearbook. Eventually these books would be re-printed, digitized and widely available. At the dawn of the internet age, however, old Observers were like Holy Grails, the wisdom of our elders stapled together in 16 discursive, editor-less pages. Thank God for Herb Kunze, the king of wrestling tidbits, who typed up the Bowdren list for public consumption.

A fan dating back to the 1970s, Bowdren had caught the wrestling bug big time. He’d traveled all over the South to catch matches that mattered and was among the earliest tape traders, a past time that brought him into Dave Meltzer’s circle. At the time, there were few better perched to compile a list like this. It was a valiant attempt to curate the best matches of the decade and an invaluable guide to which matches were worth the time and effort to rediscover.

“I tried to pick the top 20 in order,” Bowdren wrote, “but before that have 80 matches listed in no particular order. Where ever possible (or in other words, if Dave Meltzer or myself remembers), I'll list the date and site of the matches. Almost all of these matches are available on videotape and any true wrestling fan owes it to themselves to at least try and witness them.”

For Bowdren and Meltzer, the list was a final word, the culmination of a decade’s fandom. For us, it was just the beginning, a toe in the water of the endless, vast ocean of wrestling joy. We’d eventually re-do Bowdren’s list, democratizing the decisions at the Death Valley Driver board and expanding the effort. It wasn’t enough to do the best 100 matches. We’d, instead, do the 100 best matches from each promotion. The result was an unprecedented exchange of footage, the last great gasp for physical media as the digital age emerged.

But it all started with this list, presented for your enjoyment:

Jeff Bowdren's Top 100 Matches of the 1980s (bottom 80 unordered)

04/81 - Wayne Ferris & Kevin Sullivan vs. Bill Dundee & Dream Machine
04/21/81 - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter
12/12/81 - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. Dory & Terry Funk
09/02/82 - Satoru Sayama vs. Dynamite Kid
12/13/82 - Stan Hansen & Bruiser Brody vs. Terry & Dory Funk
03/12/83 - Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood
vs. Don Kernodle & Sgt. Slaughter
06/83 - Jerry Lawler vs. Jim Dundee
04/03/83 - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu
07/04/83 - Freebirds vs. von Erichs
08/31/83 - Dory & Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy
12/08/83 - Riki Choshu & Animal Hamaguchi & Yoshiaki Yatsu
vs. Akira Maeda & Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura
04/19/84 - Nobuhiko Takada vs. Toshiaki Yatsu
05/14/84 - Eddie Gilbert & Tommy Rich vs. Koko Ware & Norvell Austin
06/16/84 - Sgt. Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik
07/04/84 - Freebirds vs. von Erichs
07/05/84 - Dynamite Kid vs. Cobra
07/23/84 - Satoru Sayama & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Maeda & Fujiwara
08/02/84 - Cobra vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi
11/22/84 - Terry Gordy vs. Killer Khan
11/27/84 - Ricky Steamboat vs. Tully Blanchard
12/05/84 - Satoru Sayama vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara
12/08/84 - Tiger Mask vs. Pirata Morgan
05/85 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka
01/04/85 - Ric Flair vs. Bruiser Brody
01/25/85 - Ric Flair vs. Kerry von Erich
06/01/85 - Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor
09/16/85 - Antonio Inoki vs. Bruiser Brody
10/27/85 - Ric Flair vs. Butch Reed
11/11/85 - Jim Duggan vs. Buzz Sawyer
11/26/85 - Magnum T.A. vs. Tully Blanchard
12/31/85 - Ted DiBiase vs. Dick Murdoch
04/86 - Midnight Express vs. R'N'R Express
10/86 - Bull Nakano & Condor Saito vs. Dump Matsumoto & Yasuko Ishiguro
03/20/86 - Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Jumping Bomb Angels
04/07/86 - Fantastics vs. Sheepherders
07/31/86 - Riki Choshu vs. Killer Khan
08/31/86 - Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose & Doug Somers
09/06/86 - Owen Hart & Ben Bassarab vs. Viet Cong Express
10/06/86 - Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Bull Nakano & Condor Saito
10/09/86 - Akira Maeda vs. Don Nakaya Neilsen
11/07/86 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Dump Matsumoto
11/21/86 - Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig
11/24/86 - Nobuhiko Takada & Shiro Koshinaka
vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Keiji Muto
12/02/86 - Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Tsuruta & Tenryu
01/04/87 - Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Yumi Ogura & Kazue Nagahori
02/05/87 - Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shiro Koshinaka
03/20/87 - Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Keiji Muto & Shiro Koshinaka
03/29/87 - Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage
04/27/87 - Antonio Inoki vs. Masa Saito
05/25/87 - Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada
vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Toshiaki Fujiwara
06/01/87 - Terry Taylor & Eddie Gilbert vs. Sting & Shane Douglas
07/04/87 - Ric Flair & Tully Blanchard & Lex Luger & Arn Anderson
& J.J.Dillon vs. Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff & Road Warriors
& Paul Ellering
07/18/87 - Negro Casas vs. El Hijo Del Santo
09/01/87 - Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada
vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Toshiaki Fujiwara
12/05/87 - Chigusa Nagayo & Yumiko Hotta & Mika Suzuki & Yachiyo Hirata
& Mika Takahashi & ? vs. Lioness Asuka & Mika Komatsu
& Kazue Nagahori & Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Etsuko Mita
& Sachiko Makamura
12/11/87 - Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara
02/04/88 - Nobuhiko Takada vs. Hiro Hase
02/05/88 - Hiro Hase vs. Keiichi Yamada
03/09/88 - Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Mask
03/27/88 - Ric Flair vs. Sting
03/27/88 - Midnight Express vs. Fantastics
04/26/88 - Midnight Express vs. Fantastics
06/10/88 - Owen Hart vs. Keiichi Yamada
06/24/88 - Owen Hart vs. Shiro Koshinaka
07/19/88 - Foot Loose vs. Shinichi Nakano & Shinji Takano
07/22/88 - Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage
07/31/88 - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Don Nakaya Neilsen
08/08/88 - Antonio Inoki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami
08/28/88 - Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara
vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Jumbo Tsuruta
09/20/88 - Foot Loose vs. Shinichi Nakano & Shinji Takano
10/28/88 - Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu
12/26/88 - Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger
02/16/89 - Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson vs. Rockers
03/18/89 - Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat
06/05/89 - Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu
07/13/89 - Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano
07/22/89 - Ricky Steamboat vs. Lex Luger
07/23/89 - Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk
09/20/89 - Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano

Top 20 (ordered):

20. 07/01/84 - Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami & Cobra
vs. Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith & David Shultz
19. 81 - Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton vs. Masa Fuchi & Atsushi Onita
18. 12/16/88 - Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy
vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada
17. 03/22/85 - Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Duggan
16. 06/21/85 - Tiger Mask (Misawa) vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi
15. 01/20/87 - Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham
14. 11/15/89 - Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk
13. 03/24/86 - Bill Dundee & Buddy Landel vs. Jerry Lawler & Dutch Mantell
12. 04/02/89 - Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat
11. 08/05/82 - Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask
10. 08/19/87 - Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami & Akira Maeda & Kengo Kimura
& Super Strong Machine vs. Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi
& Keiji Muto & Kantaro Hoshino & Yoshiaki Fujiwara
9. 06/12/86 - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Akira Maeda
8. 02/26/87 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka
7. 02/14/86 - Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham
6. 01/28/86 - Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu
vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu
5. 12/25/82 - Ric Flair vs. Kerry von Erich
4. 02/20/89 - Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat
3. 08/22/85 - Lioness Asuka vs. Jaguar Yokota
2. 04/21/83 - Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask
1. 05/07/89 - Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat