Jingus

Some of those could be questioned. Like, Duggan's Mid-South highs were certainly better than Brody's best available work, but most of his WWF and WCW work was downright awful and at least as bad (if not worse) as anything Brody ever did.

As for people who still defend him: there's plenty, they just don't tend to hang around here or DVDVR or any of the other usual uber-hardcore gathering places. If you go out and talk to lifelong non-internet fans, you'll still find a shitload who think the dude was awesome. I agree with that. I'm usually not a mark for The Look, but Brody's look was so awesome that I think it could make you feel like you were watching a better wrestler than the one you actually saw. And back in the kayfabe days, "no-selling and no-bumping" wasn't something that most fans typically gave a shit about. It just made him look like that much more of a beast when he would maul guys at will. Plus, for a crazed brawler type, he did cut some surprisingly decent promos. He tended to have a self-aware sort of intelligence to his mic work which was unusual; I still vividly remember one where he essentially mocked himself for looking like a quintessential wrestler, with the goofy hair and scarred face and everything.

I know what you mean. People working in a media industry simply have different standards than fans of that industry. I've never known a single solitary wrestler who didn't practically worship Jerry Lynn, but lots of smarks today aren't too high on him. Or, to use a another example: check out the once-a-decade Sight & Sound top ten lists for movies. (These are the fellows who hyped Citizen Kane into being the greatest movie of all time.) They do two different polls: one with film critics, and another with veteran directors. And every time, the two lists don't match. At best, only half the lists overlap. The directors keep voting for Raging Bull, the first two Godfather movies, Bicycle Thieves, and various others which never show up on the critics' list. Meanwhile, the critics insist that 2001, Tokyo Story, The Searchers, and Battleship Potemkin are among the definitive GOATs, while the directors mostly ignore those. Which list is right? Both and neither, of course. Working in a business fundamentally changes your views on that business, giving you a different point of view from the outside customer. And what the experts think is the greatest thing ever doesn't necessarily match the tastes of the consuming public. I saw that interview, it was fantastic. Brody was still using kayfabe vocabulary to explain everything, but he essentially just shot straight about a ton of topics, including being a babyface in one territory but a heel in another. EDIT: for what it's worth, I still like Brody about half the time. As long as he's in there with someone he's willing to sell for, it's fine. You know that you're almost never getting a clean finish unless it's "Brody squashes and pins the other guy", but fuck-finishes and no-contests were mostly the rule of the day in the places, times, and card positions he worked. And while he was no Fujiwara on the mat, when someone forced him to do matwork (like Flair, who pretty much made Brody insert himself into the Touring Flair Formula) he was at least competent at it.

It's not a legit account, dude. I know, but the quotes are legit. I've heard a couple of those sayings directly from Ricky himself, and several others from interviews and anecdotes.

Lots of fine choice quotes there. And wow, but he really hates Kevin Nash. I've long been a staunch detractor of Big Sexy myself, but Morton acts like Nash fucked every one of his wives.

6'2"? Really? Maybe I just saw him in too many matches against the Wraths of the world. But still, he was the rare example of a guy who was so slender that it hurt my suspension of disbelief to think that he could supposedly fight all these muscle-bound behemoths. As for Knobbs: if I were forced to give a single compliment to Vampiro, it would be at least that it didn't seem like he was on a mad quest to be recklessly stiff with almost every younger guy who ever got in the ring with him. Knobbs wasn't just dangerously sloppy, he often looked like he really was actively trying to injure his opponent.

Another vote for Mark Henry. I've done this argument to death on here so I won't bother getting detailed, but he never seemed to be anything but another big lumbering monster and there's plenty of dudes who do that much better. As long as we're going after the "admittedly good hands whom I inexplicably dislike" category: Alex Wright. He bored me to death as a babyface, and inspired channel-changing heat as an annoying obnoxious heel. It especially didn't help that he just always looked too damn small to me, short and skinny. That would be fine if he was in the cruiserweight division, but he was usually going hold-for-hold with much bigger guys. Even compared to other relatively little guys with technical gimmicks, like Malenko or Danielson, Wright just looked like he was too puny to put up much of a fight against his often-towering opponents. There isn't anyone left who still likes Vampiro, is there? Back in the dying days of WCW he was a minor internet darling, which I assume must be because he had an interesting look and was one of the few young guys in latter-day WCW who were allowed to have competitive feuds with the established stars. Over at TSM we had a We Watch Shitty WCW Club which was exactly what it sounds like, and those viewings really exposed Vamp as being a fucking useless botchamaniac. Duggan and Konnan and Knobbs also went into the same Least Valuable Player pile, but even back in 2000 you rarely saw anyone who liked those guys, while Vampiro somehow had an actual fanbase.

I like both Jumbo and Tenryu better as the bitter old asskickers they became in the 90s. (Admittedly, the "grumpy veteran who lives to stretch youngsters" archetype is pretty much my favorite sort of Japanese wrestler.) I agree with some of the others who found their earlier work to be relatively bland. They're both good, especially Jumbo, but often there seemed to be a certain spark of personality missing. Once they became surly old bastards, they're both among my favorites.

From everything I've heard about Inoki, that's probably not even in the top ten craziest things he's ever done. Anyone else remember when he convinced some government to buy an island because he seriously thought they'd find buried pirate treasure there?

I thought I read somewhere that Gibson was actually getting paid more than Morton, at least later on in their careers. The reasoning being that Gibson could afford to hold out for more money, whereas Morton didn't have that luxury. I don't know if it's true anymore, but for a while Gibson was getting paid more, but it was because he was working as a trainer in OVW and was getting booked through the WWE office, which was charging a lot more than Morton was asking. Also, I think Gibson saved his money better. Morton always had to pay a ton of child support, which is why he still works even the tiniest of indy shows on a regular basis.

I disagree with this. On this board, the longevity is always attached to great matches or the idea that a guy should have hung it up a long time ago. I wasn't accusing anyone here of doing that, just noting that I've seen people do that on occasion.

One thing that bugs me is when people point to longevity by itself, without further context, as if it's supposed to impress us that this guy has simply hung around that long. By that metric, Abdullah and Moolah and Gypsy Joe are the greatest wrestlers of all time.

There's several different luchadores I could mention, but that's less about them as individuals and mostly from my general coolness towards that style. I just don't get it on an instinctive level, the way I get other styles that I like. And even then, there's fellows like Mysterio or La Parka whom I absolutely love. Another vote for Koshinaka. Never did anything for me, and I really hated the ass-centric offense. That kind of bullshit is annoying enough in a comedy match, but the times when the "hip attack" is treated like a serious move are something that nearly enrage me. Fuck all that. I kinda like Raven, kinda. I like that kind of smoke-&-mirrors style. He was one of the least athletically talented guys to ever become a relatively big star in that era, and I always appreciated how he stretched his meager ability to its absolute furthest limit and papered over the holes with hardcore bullshit that I enjoyed more often than not. And he was able to draw legit heel heat from the ECW arena crowd, which is not a terribly common thing. Does anyone rate Gary Hart highly as a manager? His promos were okay, but out at ringside he was absolutely goddamn worthless. He wouldn't sell anything, the World Champion would punch him in the face and Gary would just stand there snarling like he's supposed to be an ultimate badass. I've seen enough people call Justin Credible underrated in revisiting old ECW that I could probably name him here. He's one of those guys who never technically did anything wrong per se, but his entire act left me cold. Always felt like a guy who was cosplaying at being a top heel, as opposed to the real thing. Along the same lines is Davey Boy Smith. (Not to the same extent, Credible never had a match that was even close to Summerslam '92, but in the same ballpark.) Technically sound, but about 80% of the time he damn near bored me to sleep as a singles wrestler.

I did. We all agree that most people and most matches blow it off. That doesn't mean everyone does. John An example that comes to mind is any time that someone works Stan Hansen's lariat arm to the point where he can't make a cover after hitting his finish, instead just crumpling to the mat in agony. Doesn't happen very often, but it's exactly what ohtani's asking for here. Also: pretty much anyone who has an arm-based submission for a finisher, you can argue that they're softening their opponent up for the hold.

But there is an old stereotype in cities about them traditionally having service jobs where they kowtow to white people. Laundry services, delivery boys, etcetera. When he said that, truthfully the very first thing I thought of was Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. And it's no wonder that the company was so eager to make nice with Blue Meanie after that beatdown, considering that you can hear Bradshaw ordering beer after beer after beer, all night long. They've got some balls, releasing a special feature which essentially proves that they sent JBL into the ring while intoxicated and then he legit hurt a guy.

I wasn't talking about rating them, just noting the differences in how wrestlers change or don't, over time. And yeah, I personally would definitely consider Steamboat as a top candidate, he's maybe my favorite wrestler ever. I'd rather watch his matches than just about anyone else named here, with only Funk and Hansen and Kobashi coming close. What about Kawada? He kinda fits that paradigm. His general shtick changed less than any of the other 4.5 Gods (for purposes of comparison, I'm counting Taue and Akiyuma as both 75% of a deity). Changing from "Footloose" Kawada to "Kick Your Fucking Face Off" Kawada was much less of a transition than, say, Tiger Mask II changing into what Misawa eventually became. It's arguable that his evolution was nothing more than the sort of thing that every young rookie does when they're trying to hammer out their own style, and he didn't change much at all once he found his groove. All he did was adapt to the style that everyone else was changing (and of the Big 3, Kawada was the last guy to finally give in to the temptation of crowd-popping headdrops and counter-intuitive selling; he rarely did that stuff whenever matched against someone who wasn't well known for it). Misawa became the unflappable stoic (not to mention a promoter), Kobashi turned into Cripple McChoppy, Akiyuma went from being a punching bag to being a grumpy old veteran himself. Taue was the only guy in this class who changed as little as Kawada, and few people would argue that Taue was the greater of the two.

Yeah, except for the racism where he keeps insisting that Tanaka is his doorman. But yeah, him making fun of 2.99999999999999!!!! is pretty fun.

Agreed on the "doing =/= teaching" sentiments. There's this assumption that some people always have, that if you're really good at doing something, you should have no problem with teaching it to others. Which is flatly untrue. And there's plenty of guys who wouldn't necessarily be good at doing something, but are excellent at imparting the theory of that thing to others. Most of you guys have never set foot inside a ring, but there's plenty of sages on this board who could do a much better job of explaining what's important in wrestling than lots of actual great wrestlers. Take Bobby Eaton, for example: one of the best to ever lace up the boots, yet he relied so much on instinct and personal talent that he's infamously bad at trying to sit down and explain why he does what he does.

Flair has changed somewhat over time. Not nearly as much as a guy like Funk or others who went through complete persona overhauls, but the evolution is there. Compare him to guys like, say, Abdullah or RVD who seem literally incapable of doing anything but the exact same stuff, decade after decade. Of course, there are greats who never change at all. Some like Steamboat or Andre or Regal were pretty consistent in sticking to their particular gimmicks and style throughout the years, and I certainly don't think it hurt their work.

Nice writeup, Dylan. You know what was the greatest mannerism I ever saw him do? In the middle of one of the most overhyped matches ever, the King Of The Deathmatch '95 tournament final. When the "ring explosion" happens, it's so pathetic that it legitimately looks like the kind of fireworks you'd buy at a gas station. Terry was clearly planning on this being his biggest highspot of the night. When it all goes poof, he has the PERFECT expression. It communicates: "...what the fuck was that?! I am SO sorry, fans. This was supposed to be freakin' awesome, and it turned out to be embarrassing Botchamania fodder. I had no control over this, and I am just as deeply disappointed as you are." And he does it all with no more than a perplexed look and a shrug, with his hands stretching out to the crowd in an almost pleading manner. After the crowd saw him do that, they stopped booing and you could literally hear them instantly forgive that bullshit and they got right back into the match.

Nah, this ain't WKO.

Ditch already covered the most common reasons. Incredibly versatile, good as a face or a heel or a tweener, good at playing a dignified elder statesman or a bloodthirsty lunatic. Maybe the greatest brawler ever. Got over everywhere he went, and oh man did he go everywhere. Even the dumbest bullshit like Chainsaw Charlie, which should have never ever worked, somehow connected with the fans. And finally, Terry's always been a very giving wrestler. Sure, he tends to do that "kick out at 3.1" deal, but how many other world champions from that era are consistently willing to take a ridiculous beating to make the other guy look good and put over pretty much anyone they ask him to? That's important to me. I've got no use for a selfish wrestler who elevates himself by sabotaging everyone else, no matter how much money they draw in the process. And for the record, I don't call him THE g.o.a.t., I don't call any one guy that. I'm far too much of a stereotypical Libra to ever have just one favorite anything. But Terry would definitely be in my top 10.

It seems like it's impacting your impression of him, unless you haven't had a chance to see more of his technical work in Japan. That's part of my point. By most accounts, Terry wrestled rather like a more energetic and aggressive version of Dory when he was younger. How many matches do we even have of Terry from before he was already World Champion?

The 619 itself is fine. It's a knockout kick, and he usually follows it up with some top-rope move afterwards. Perfectly acceptable finishing combo. What's not acceptable is how easily guys just fall right into perfect position for the move. I hate that, when stuff happens in a guy's matches which rarely happens in other matches, simply because they've got to Get Their Shit In. Similar to "why does nobody ever catch a thrown chair unless the thrower is Rob Van Dam?" or "gee, people sure do seem to accidentally hurt their knees around Ric Flair shockingly often". Why the heck do "technical wrestlers" like Bret or Angle tend to spend at least half of the match on punching, kicking, and stomping? It's a jarring disconnect between the person's in-ring gimmick and in-ring performance. I love Rock, but much of his offense looks like shit. Awful sharpshooter, look-ma-no-hands suplexes, and "punches" which aren't even punches! He's just slapping the other guy in the neck, open-handed, a thousand times in a row! Oh GOD yes. What the hell is that?! It sounds a little like Foley's constant muttering in tongues, except it sounds like he's not doing it on purpose and maybe doesn't even realize he's doing it. Or at least dropped those awful-looking punches afterwards. Especially since the punches are said to actually hurt like hell. Being in the mount has gotta be the worst, most awkward position for attempting to throw worked strikes.

A couple of people have alluded to one huge problem whenever we try to rate Funk: simple lack of footage from the earlier days of his career. Except for older All Japan matches, most of we've seen from Funk is when he's already doing his "crazy old man" gimmick, or at least "crazy middle-aged man". This guy debuted in 1965, remember. How many of his NWA title defenses ever made tape, let alone the stuff he did as a young man before that? It would be kind of as if we were forced to rate Flair or Lawler with nothing but the last twenty years of work, because we're missing a huge chunk of the guy's career, literally thousands of matches.