My Best Run?

[WWFChilli]

OK, this is the first in a new little series of topics I plan on putting up here on the forum. Hopefully this will kick off a discussion over what the best run in a wrestlers career was and to start off we start with a forum favorite.

 

 

X-Pac, Mr. Sean fecking Waltman. One of the best WWE style wrestlers of his day and probably still is. Waltman had a lot of runs in 'da bidness'. He had his GWF run in the early 90's followed by his WWF run as the 'Insert Whatever here' Kid, before becoming the workhorse of the nWo. This was followed by a return to WWF and in my opinion his best career run. Late 1998-Summer 1999.

 

I'm going to include this as one run. Pretty much when DX became fully-fledged faces around June 1998, Pac and the lads were over like rover. It also seemed to really spark something in Waltman's work as he had just come back from an injured neck from his WCW run. He had a number of good matches with the Nation lads (most notably a great little match with Owen Hart at the 1998 KOTR event) before he moved in with D-Lo Brown to have an absolutely cracking series of matches. D-Lo and Pac were a wonderful couple, they produced some crackers on TV as well as at Fully Loaded and Judgment Day 1998. Pac also showed his worth higher up the car working his shit with the Rock (which included a match at Capital Carnage where Pac looked right at home with the Great One).

 

X-Pac Vs Owen Hart

X-Pac Vs D-Lo Brown

 

Waltman then had an even better run when it came to personal effort in early 1999 when he was paired with Shane O'Mac. Shane's matches were and have always been a bit mental but also a bit of a laugh, the matches with Pac were what helped get the rich kid Shane gimmick really over. X-Pac wasn't exactly the Dusty common man against a rich prick but the angle was more based on a non-wrestler holding a title while a really hard working grafter was robbed of a title he had earned. The Wrestlemania XV match was a stunning piece of work when you look at Shane being a complete non-wrestler at the time and Pac producing a one-man show to make Shane look so good that people thought he made a bigger effort than he did. There were gimmicks all over the shop in that match but Pac's performance stood out like a star.

 

 

 

Then came the tag team with Kane and what was for me the finest run of X-Pac. The association with Kane was a total charm, Kane the big red freak who was slowly adjusting to being a face and X-Pac complimented him brilliantly as an odd-couple tag team. X-Pac was so over and the crowd really wanted Kane to have a friend and gain some form of acceptance (this was back when Kane's back story wasn't as blurgh as it became). It was an awesome angle and it could have kept going a bit longer sadly the bookers had other plans and involved this woman.

 

 

 

UGH! TERRI POWER... The Diva who I most thought could have done an Aileen Wurnos got in on the act and X-Pac also turned heel which in my opinion, KILLED Pac's momentum dead. I don't think I ever really enjoyed X-Pac after this. I loved his work, always have done and always will. But this is where his best run ended for me. He had his X-Factor and nWo V.2 runs as well as a stunning little run in TNA but this was X-Pac's finest run for me.

 

The floor is open lads!

[Rosler28]

when he was feuding with shane mcmahon over the european title

[NEWM]

It's hard to argue with the OP, but for arguments sake, I'll go for the 93-96 WWF run. He had some absolutely GLORIOUS matches in that time, and was the Clique-approved litmus test for who was shite/good in the whole company. Douglas failed that one, and look what happened to him. Probably the best short match of all time with Owen Hart at KOTR 94, the original run with Razor that got him started, and insanely brilliant match with Bret Hart which totally holds up as a *****er to this day (and in piss easy fashion too, it's an unbelievable match), and his three consecutive electric Survivor Series opening match displays leap to the front of my mind. Well those, and his fucking PJs at Wrestlemania XI, but you can't have everything.

 

He had a worldy with Shawn Michaels early-96 on Raw too, bit of a lost classic that one. Put in an amazing shift with Bob Holly at the Rumble 95 as well. God, there's fucking hundreds. The 1-2-3 Kid was bastard ace.

[tiger_rick]

Definitely the 1-2-3 Kid until he turned heel. Outstading storyline with Ramon, great underdog tag matches and some cracking matches once he was established. His body of work is pretty great overall and the DX stuff was great as a group but individually, I'd definitely go with that early stuff.

 

vs. Razor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghoAFLkFqPo

vs. Razor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZEFrJjOIrE

vs. Dibiase -

vs. Quebecers - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30vTJ4ycchg

vs. HBK & Diesel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYiRCQLFBg

vs. Owen (KOTR) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1XueVsn2s4

vs. Bret Hart - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pT1-H6GeeI

(part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY0XJETxKgg

vs. Yoko -

 

Just found this too, Heel 1-2-3 Kid vs. Jeff Hardy -

[EdgarTheSlouch]

Just found this too, Heel 1-2-3 Kid vs. Jeff Hardy -

 

He wasnt a heel at the time tho. Wouldnt be for more than a year

[neil is brill]

vs. Owen (KOTR) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1XueVsn2s4

 

I don't have a great deal to add to everything tiger_rick said but 1-2-3 Kid takes the baseball slide at the start of this match like a champ.

[Reznor]

It's his first WWF face run for me, from summer '93 to autumn '95. As a couple of previous posts have highlighted, he was unique and fresh in the WWF at the time and had so many good, exciting matches. He was likeable and absolutely perfect in his role as the sympathetic high-flying underdog.

 

Almost without exception, if he was in a match it was at least pretty good and it was usually the Kid who made it such. As well as what's already been mentioned, he's had real good matches also with Marty Jannetty, Hakushi, Pat Tanaka, HBK (in 93), and Owen Hart (on RAW a couple of months after the KOTR sprint) to name but a few. Also, being probably the lowest ranked babyface on the roster, his squashes were often fun as they were more competitive than most. Similarly, when he was basically being squashed by a monster, he still made it about as good as it could've been - see his matches v Yoko or Bam Bam for example. Then there's his work in the tag ranks, which covers some of his best stuff - there's his team with Jannetty vs the Quebecers and the Headshrinkers, and with Razor vs Quebecers, Gunns, Owen/Yoko, HBK/Diesel etc. He also had some odd matches teaming with Virgil, Aldo and Horowitz which were quite fun. As NEWM says though, the Hitman match has to be the pinnacle.

 

I know loads of folk love it, but I wasn't as fond of him in '99. Like a lot of the Attitude Era, it was more about the storylines than the wrestling, and knowing him from 3 or 4 years earlier, I just wanted him to be like the Kid again. I do remember enjoying his Unforgiven match with Jericho though, and WM15, Double J hair vs hair, and HHH at Backlash were good fun too.

[HarmonicGenerator]

It's not really his best, but it's worthy of a mention - his 2005 TNA run as Sean Waltman was a minor revelation after a couple of years in the wilderness - cracking matches with AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn, as well as a really fun Clockwork Orange House Of Fun Match with Raven, stand out as some of the best matches TNA were putting on at the time.

[SCARFACE]

I think it may have been mentioned his fued with Shane'o'mac. But i would consider that few months was some of his best work he was ever part of in the WWF. But... And some of you may disagree. I honestly thought Shane carried him through the whole storyline. In my opinion, Shane made the storyline entertaining. It may have been written that way, but I was around 10 years old when the fued happened and I aint watched it back

[Teq]

EASILY his 1-2-3 Kid run. He was one of the best workers in the company straight off the bat, having ridiculously great matches like the Bret match and terribly underrated stuff like his tag title win with Marty against The Quebecers. Classic underdog with a tonne of high end matches and still lots of gems that don't get much love like the Action Zone match with Bam Bam and the All-American Wrestling match with Marty from '93 to name two I'm a big fan of. The Razor feud was great stuff and a great way to bring him in.

 

I loved X-Pac, but he was so great as the ultimate underdog and had a far better body of work.

 

Waltman was/is fucking awesome.

[Burchill's Buddy]

It's not really his best, but it's worthy of a mention - his 2005 TNA run as Sean Waltman was a minor revelation after a couple of years in the wilderness - cracking matches with AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn, as well as a really fun Clockwork Orange House Of Fun Match with Raven, stand out as some of the best matches TNA were putting on at the time.

If we're talking purely his best matches then I'd go with this. His match with Lynn, who I was such a silly mark for at the time, was awesome. If we're talking his best WWE run then I'd go with his feud with Shane over the European title.

[Loki]

I'd echo the love for that TNA run. There wasn't much to it apart from really good matches with world class opponents, but really that's what he's good at isn't it?

 

The guy still has one run left in him for the WWE though surely - nowadays he's the same sort of size as World Champs like CM Punk, so his size is no longer an issue. They're looking for veterans, how about him?

[Teq]

It's not really his best, but it's worthy of a mention - his 2005 TNA run as Sean Waltman was a minor revelation after a couple of years in the wilderness - cracking matches with AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn, as well as a really fun Clockwork Orange House Of Fun Match with Raven, stand out as some of the best matches TNA were putting on at the time.

If we're talking purely his best matches then I'd go with this. His match with Lynn, who I was such a silly mark for at the time, was awesome. If we're talking his best WWE run then I'd go with his feud with Shane over the European title.

 

I can't see the case for his TNA run having better matches than his '93-'96 stint at all.

[Burchill's Buddy]

It's not really his best, but it's worthy of a mention - his 2005 TNA run as Sean Waltman was a minor revelation after a couple of years in the wilderness - cracking matches with AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn, as well as a really fun Clockwork Orange House Of Fun Match with Raven, stand out as some of the best matches TNA were putting on at the time.

If we're talking purely his best matches then I'd go with this. His match with Lynn, who I was such a silly mark for at the time, was awesome. If we're talking his best WWE run then I'd go with his feud with Shane over the European title.

 

I can't see the case for his TNA run having better matches than his '93-'96 stint at all.

I guess for me it was just the difference between potential and experience. Don't get me wrong he was great in his 93-96 stint but he was still quite raw compared to the very polished matches of his TNA run.

[Walton17]

I remember thinking he still looked quality in 2010, in that tag team cage match vs eric young, rvd, hardy.