The Thread Killer

Exactly. For the record, if you read Larry Matysik's biography of Brody which is co-authored by Brody's wife Barbara, neither of them are even remotely critical of Carlos Colon or implicate him in any way for the murder. Quite the opposite, Barbara mentions how supportive Carlos Colon and his family were of her at the time. That book goes into more detail about those murders than anybody ever has before, including details from Barbara Goodish which had never been released before. If Brody's wife and Larry Matysik, (who was probably his closest friend in the industry) don't accuse Carlos Colon of being behind Brody's murder, seeing as they were closer to Brody and the situation than anybody? I'd wager the theories about Carlos Colon are a bunch of B.S.

You can't really be this obtuse, Jingus. Yes, Chris Benoit was the only person I considered when I decided not to rank Chris Benoit. I was going to consider Neil Armstrong, but it seemed somehow pointless. I keep saying why I won't rank Benoit, and you keep building strawmen. You seem obsessed with naming as many wrestlers (and now you've moved on to non-wrestling celebrities) who have done immoral or illegal things. You must think there is a certain number you'll get to, and I'll suddenly decide that Chris Benoit murdering his wife and child doesn't bother me so much, after all. You say you "just don't understand" the idea of disqualifying anyone for anything they did in their personal life. You say you don't see a point in drawing any line at all. I do understand the reason for disqualifying Chris Benoit from being considered the Greatest Wrestler Ever. I do see a point in drawing a line. And clearly, I am not the only person who feels that way. It's unfortunate that this bothers you. It bothers me (somewhat) that there are people who are going to rank him, but I understand that some people want to separate the wrestler from his actions outside the ring, so they can still enjoy his work, or as some sort of coping mechanism. To each their own, I suppose. If you honestly can't understand why somebody would not want to celebrate the accomplishments of a man who murdered his wife and child, then I don't know what to tell you. It just proves that you and I are very different people, but that is hardly news, I think.

I am curious about this as well. I think maybe the WWE Network might have helped The Hammer, since he appears to have worked hard and brought it pretty much every time he worked and thanks to the network there is a lot of footage with him out there now. His hard work and consistency is one of the reasons I voted for him

Hmmm. Somebody had Scorpio as their #1 pick? I never would have guessed that. I lost Kerry, Dusty and Garvin from my list today, but at least they all made the Top 100.

I'm not pretending it's ALL in the same ballpark. But I listed a dozen other wrestlers who have ended human lives, and I'm sure there are others whom I missed or who simply weren't caught. (Just from my personal circle of indy acquaintances: I know one convicted murderer, one bank robber, multiple statutory rapists, multiple domestic abusers, and countless drug dealers.) Yes, Benoit is probably the single worst example of a wrestler doing something hideous; but there's plenty of other examples of other guys doing incredibly evil, morally unforgivable things. Yet practically nobody seems to seriously suggest that we shouldn't vote for any of those other guys based on moral grounds. ... My point, which you have continually refused to acknowledge, is that Benoit is not the only crazy person in the history of wrestling. There have been other murderers, other maniacs, other criminals. Benoit's arguably the worst for the sheer monstrousness of his acts at the time of his death, sure. But there are others. And how do you measure that stuff? Take the example of Hardbody Harrison, who kept at least eight (probably more) women as literal slaves and perpetual rape victims, locked up in houses he owned for years. That is astonishingly evil. Is enslaving eight people that much less-evil than killing two people? How do you quantify it at all? I'm not making a single excuse for what Benoit did. I'm not on the "well, he was insane/concussed enough that we can't blame him" bandwagon. Right until his death, this guy kept performing a wide variety of complex tasks which indicate that his ability to comprehend the real world was largely intact. I'm simply saying that the wrestling business is so unbelievably full of sleazy shit that Benoit isn't as much of an unique outlier as many people like to portray him. As I said earlier, I personally know a wrestler who is now in prison for murder and a whole collection of other guys who've committed "lesser" crimes. The business is SO much scummier than most fans have any idea about. I refuse to acknowledge your "point" because you have no point that I can see...at least no decipherable one. I will not vote for Chris Benoit because he killed his wife and child, and I do not believe in giving credit, attention or respect to a person who killed his wife and child. You have brought up a plethora of names and cases, and reminded us repeatedly that we have no idea how scummy wrestling really is. You know a bunch of wrestlers who are criminals and bad people. Of course Hardbody Harrison is a scumbag. Of course Larry Sweeney's suicide was tragic. But that has literally nothing to do with my refusal to vote for Benoit as the Greatest Wrestler Ever. You're constructing a strawman argument and then getting upset when nobody buys into it, or if they tell you it makes no sense. If it makes you feel better, I will concede your point. Wrestling is a dirty business and it is full of dirty people, and you know a lot of them and none of us really have any idea how bad it really is. As part of conceding to your point, I am going to contact Grimmas and ask him to take Hardbody Harrison off my ballot as my #1 pick. Because you see, I had no idea that Chris Benoit wasn't the only bad person in wrestling. Oh dammit, I had Jimmy Snuka as #2, and Jose Gonzalez as #3. And look there at #4...Larry Sweeney. I'm not sure what his commiting suicide has to do with this argument, but you brought him up, so he'd better come off my ballot too. You say Chris Benoit was not as unique as people like to portray him. I say he is the only person who at one point in time might have had a serious chance of winning this vote, to then murder his wife and child, therefore eliminating him from contention in my eyes.

You have now been witness to "The Jingus Effect." Righteous indignation based on non-existent logic.

I understand mental illness extremely well for reasons both professional and personal. I understand what you are saying Grimmas, and I respect the compassion that motivates your opinion, however I do not agree with you for two reasons. Firstly, Nancy Benoit filed for divorce three years before the murders due to alleged domestic abuse. There is ample evidence to suggest that Chris Benoit was a domestic abuser before these murders occurred, based on things Nancy Benoit told friends and family members in the years prior to the murders. In other words, he was predisposed to domestic violence. Secondly, Chris Benoit knew he was suffering from depression, since he was taking medication for it. However, he was also willingly and knowingly taking Testosterone at the same time. Anybody with even a fleeting familiarity with Testosterone will tell you that it causes increased aggression. Chris Benoit had to know this, yet he continued to take it. Not every person with CTE is predisposed towards aggression and murder. I feel these two facts make him morally responsible for the murder of his wife and child. There has been an interesting debate in psychiatric circles over the past couple of decades regarding people who are suffering from schizophrenia. It has been proven that people who are schizophrenic, even those who are severely paranoid, can be aware of the fact that they are suffering from an illness. The debate is regarding the responsibility the individual should bear for insuring they take their prescribed medication that would eliminate or lessen their symptoms. And if a person who is suffering from schizophrenia knowingly and willingly refuses to take their medication, are they then legally responsible for their behavior and any crimes they might commit in an alleged psychotic episode? I believe people with mental illnesses have every right to lead normal lives in society just like everybody else. I think that claiming they have no moral responsibility for their actions is insulting them, not protecting them. Just because a person is mentally ill, it doesn't mean they can't differentiate between right and wrong. Just as you are morally responsible if you drink alcohol and drive a car, you are morally responsible if you know you suffer from a mental illness, but then refuse to get that illness treated or ingest substances which will exacerbate the symptoms of your illness. I concede that Chris Benoit was mentally ill when he killed his wife and son. However, I feel that he was a domestic abuser prior to his psychotic episode, and that he is also morally responsible for his behavior leading up to that episode. I am not willing to absolve him of all responsibility for his actions. I understand the opinion of those who do, but I respectfully disagree.

That would be because there is no logical point being made.

Outstanding. Thank you so much for this.

Along those lines, joeg mentions Pat Patterson. Patterson (to the best of my knowledge) was accused of two things - sexual harassment, and child molestation. Some people have claimed that guys like Steve Lombardi, Virgil and one of the guys in La Resistance got or kept their jobs by doing sexual favors for Patterson. There has never been any proof of this, and I have never been convinced that some of those rumors weren't due to the fact that Patterson was openly gay in an incredibly homophobic industry. Bottom line is, he was never charged with anything. The sexual molestation charges were proven to be untrue. Billy Graham talks about this at length in his autobiography. Those allegations were fabricated but taken seriously because of allegations of a similar nature against Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips at the exact same time. I do not believe Pat Patterson is a child molester and I'm not entirely convinced he's guilty of sexual harassment either. Even though nobody cares what people say about a guy on a messageboard on the internet, I don't think it's fair to lump a guy like Patterson in when talking about Benoit. It's not in the same ballpark...it's not even the same game.

Exactly. I assume what overbooked meant was moral "disconnect" because I do have moral discontent from the Benoit murders, hence my argument. Either way, the argument that you can't enjoy virtually any match if you don't emotionally distance yourself from the product due to the industry's moral issues and early deaths, makes no sense. Wrestling is scripted and predetermined unlike a sporting event. However, Pro Wrestling requires the fan to buy into the story and eventual outcome as part of that process - especially in North America where the emphasis is on the story. Does that not require emotional investment of some kind? Or should I watch every match with the attitude: "Most wrestlers are morally questionable people, many of whom die early - therefore I am going to emotionally disconnect myself from this match and only view it on an analytical level?"

Ditto. I've heard some really, really sleazy stories. So what? I can't stand moral relativism. Firstly, even if every allegation against other wrestlers in this thread is true, that doesn't make what Benoit did any less morally wrong, or him any more deserving of any type of acclaim. If the world made any logical sense, when you murder your wife and son, you forfeit respect and admiration in the eyes of society. For example, Paul Bernardo recently wrote and self published a novel. It might turn out to be the greatest written book since War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, but I'll never know because I have no intention of reading it. Why? Because people like that don't deserve attention, respect or admiration. Should people honestly be expected to judge the "artistic" work of somebody who is that morally reprehensible? Is that really the argument some people are making here, that we should be able to emotionally detach ourselves and judge the work without considering the source? Secondly, I am puzzled by the idea of lumping all wrong doing into one big category. On one end we have guys like Carlos Colon and Pat Patterson, who might not have even done anything wrong at all...there are just rumors and allegations. On the other end, we have guys like Benoit, Snuka and Jose Gonzalez who have been pretty much proven to have committed the act of murder - although Gonzalez was acquitted and Snuka has not yet been found guilty. Are people honestly making the argument that all wrestlers are sleazy to some degree, and since that is the case, we as fans are in no position to judge them or differentiate the levels of sleaze, therefore they should all be judged based solely on their wrestling abilities alone? Alleged sexual harassment, DUI, murder...all the same thing. Who are we to judge? Since we can't say one is worse than the other, may as well forget all of them! There aren't two sides to this argument. There isn't an argument. Killing your wife and son is a bad thing to do, and if you do it you don't deserve any respect of any kind. Period.

One thing that has always bothered me is wrestling fans who smugly state "I can still watch Chris Benoit's matches objectively" as if that is some sort of accomplishment, or that it makes them in some way superior to people who chose not to. Chris Benoit brutally murdered his own wife and son. This is a fact. As much as I love Pro Wrestling, I can't take any enjoyment from anything done by a person who murdered a child. It makes me uncomfortable, and to be perfectly blunt, I don't really give a shit where he might rank on a list of other wrestlers. What he did makes him a person I don't want to look at or give any attention to. He's not on my list because he is unworthy of any form of respect or discussion, in my opinion. He gave up his claim to any sort of acclaim when he murdered his family.

That is an absolutely ridiculous statement which has virtually no basis in reality. Misawa ignored his doctor's advice, and died in the ring due to an unavoidable injury. Colon (in partnership with Victor Jovica) at worst, is alleged to have pressured his employee Jose Gonzales (who he most likely did not know was homicidal due to mental illness brought on by the recent death of his 6 year old daughter) into "dealing with" Bruiser Brody. There is virtually no proof that Colon had any idea whatsoever that Gonzalez would kill Brody, and Brody's family and friends don't claim that Colon or Jovica had anything to do with it. Any allegations to the contrary are pure speculation with no foundation in fact. Chris Benoit murdered his wife and son. How you can draw any sort of comparison between those three incidents and claim they are in any way similar is quite frankly, baffling. All three incidents involve death, I suppose. That's about it.

Andre had a long history of being un-cooperative with guys who pissed him off or who he didn't like for whatever reason. I don't think many people who have been following wrestling for any amount of time -- by which I mean heard more than 4-5 shoots interviews with guys from that era -- seriously have an image of Andre as a gentle giant. I saw a hilarious interview with Sabu where somebody asked him about Andre and his response was "Fuck that guy. He was an asshole." The interviewer was shocked and pointed out all the people who thought Andre was great to be around, and this and that. Sabu pointed out that because Andre used to work for his Uncle, he saw the guy a million times growing up, and Andre apparently treated people like shit and pushed them around. Sabu claimed that Andre treated other wrestlers (who he liked) okay, but he treated staff at the arenas and other people like total shit. If I am not mistaken, Heenan talks about the same thing in his second book, the fact that Andre hated being around people because they always stared at him and bothered him, and he generally treated people pretty poorly unless you were one of his close friends.

Fuck me, for the level of analysis this project has spawned this post might be the most airhead simplification I have ever read. My post outlined clearly why this particular chop exchange, in this particular contest, at this particular time, was a spot done for specific reasons, for escalation, to convey defiance and guts, to add a sense of epic exhaustion and whip the crowd into a frenzy. I am not saying it was brilliant, I am saying it had a purpose and was not done out of a lack of creativity or idleness. If you can't see the different between that exchange, and a WWE main event based around punch exchanges that have no rhyme or rhythm, serve little purpose except to kill time and are inherently lazy...well, there is zero point in having a discussion on the subject. I am not saying either viewpoint is correct, but saying this is a simple case of double standards is utterly reductionist, since the two examples are so vastly different. Kobashi/Sasaki is a match that builds, has varies sections, has bombs and moonsaults and suplexes character work and structure - the chop exchange is a small, memorable part of it. How can you possibly compare it to a situation where the strike exchanges are the entire match? I actually quite liked the Kobashi/Sasaki match - for what it was. But the million chops were a bit goofy, no? Similar to the Joe vs. Kobashi match. In a sense, these matches reminded me of Rock/Hogan, in that the molten reaction from the crowd played a massive part in the match itself. If the fans had sat on their hands, I think that match would have been viewed and remembered totally different. I love Kenta Kobashi, and I have him ranked in my Top 10, but I remember thinking at the time of the Kobashi/Sasaki match that if only we could have seen 1993 Kobashi against 2000 Sasaki, we would have been seeing an entirely different match with entirely different psychology. Kobashi HAD to do the match with a thousand chops. Let's be honest, by 2005 Kobashi was pretty much a shell of his former self, and he could barely walk to the ring or even hang his arms at his side, let alone do what he used to be able to do in the ring. The fact that Kobashi was still able to pull out the odd classic at that point in his career was, to me, a testament to his love of Pro Wrestling, his hard work, and his unwillingness to walk away from the sport. I agree with your post regarding the psychology behind the "chop-fest" but I also maintain he had little choice but to resort to that style - he had little else in the tank at that point. I think he should be commended for structuring a big match like that around his physical limitations.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity. Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

I get that but a little harshness is part of the deal. I don't see it verging into incivility very often. And the tone is so much gentler than it was in earlier days of internet wrestling discussion. I remember reading the Smarkschoice threads and my god there were some vicious exchanges. This. No one has told anyone in seriousness to drink bleach in this thread. No one has started a separate thread suggesting that a specific poster has a mental illness. If someone mentions a poster that hasn't been around in a while, no one else has responded that they hope they are somewhere in a hospital bed dying of AIDS. All of those things happened as part of the 2006 countdown. Michael Elgin hasn't appeared on the list yet, has he? Because if he does, then I reserve the right to... Okay, not really. I have now lost 39 of the names from my Top 100, before we have reached the Top 100. Today's eliminations were not kind to my list.

I'm still getting over the shock of the revelation that Adam Rose has used drugs. This is coming out of left field, I need to lie down with a cold cloth on my head. Nothing in the world makes sense anymore.

I dunno, BIRPITHORAAF is surprisingly easy to say. Thank you so much. I just laughed so hard Dr. Pepper went up my nose.

This X 1000. I have been a Motorhead fan my entire life. When I saw the documentary "Lemmy" I realized that Trips was as big a fan as I. And Trips did a ton for Lemmy and Motorhead. And Lemmy loved Trips. And with apologies to Austin Aries, Lemmy was the Greatest Person Who Ever Lived. So if Triple H loved Motorhead, and Lemmy loved Trips, there is no possible way Trips can be all bad. Lemmy really was one of the most real, authentic people ever. Seeing Lemmy and Trips talk about each other in various interviews, and seeing Trips give his eulogy at Lemmy's funeral made me like Trips a lot more as a human being. Does that mean Trips deserved to be in the Top 100? No. But it was interesting to me. And if you don't like Motorhead and you don't understand Lemmy? Well, I don't mean to be judgmental, but you deserve to get some sort of open sores all over your body which continue to worsen until you eventually expire in agony. And your last words should be "I was wrong about Lemmy. Please play "Killed By Death" at my funeral." There, I said it.

I'm suing Michael Hayes for that picture and I'm naming Grimmas as an accomplice for causing me mental pain and anguish. It's going to take a lot of therapy and medication to get that image out of my brain. Screw you guys.

At this point, I am becoming convinced there is going to be nuclear Armageddon. After which, Keith Richards will buy and continue to run TNA.

in fact... can we still turn in ballots for tag team? Please in fact... can we still turn in ballots for tag team? Please That would be awesome. I was too focused on the singles to really take a crack at tag teams. in fact... can we still turn in ballots for tag team? Please That would be awesome. I was too focused on the singles to really take a crack at tag teams. Thirded. And... Andrei Kopylov got 4 votes ? Wow. That's quite amazing. RINGS fans somewhere. I would like to...uh...fourth this request. If the Tag Ballot is being put off until May, can we still vote on it, please?

I voted for the Sheik based primarily on his work with Abdullah against The Funks in Japan, and on a more peripheral level based on some of his other brawls in Japan throughout the years. He pretty much single-handedly ruled Toronto from 70-78, headlining every Maple Leaf Gardens show and having some semi-historic matches with Andre The Giant as well. Of course, he also owned Detroit (literally) for years as well. He influenced countless "garbage wrestlers" who came afterward. Of course, he couldn't wrestle for shit, he wouldn't do a job to save his life, and he was a delusional weirdo outside the ring (insisting his own family refer to him as The Sheik, including his wife.) The Breaking Kayfabe shoot with Sabu sheds some interesting light on his famous uncle, and the book I have linked in my signature also goes as far behind the curtain with The Sheik as anybody was ever going to get. If I recall correctly, I had The Sheik in my bottom 20 on my list. I readily agree there are plenty of valid arguments for him not being on anybody's list, but for my money he was influential, memorable and despite the imitators there will never be another like him. I just couldn't leave him off my list, for sentimental reasons if nothing else.