Timbo Slice

Was it SUWA? I bet it was SUWA.

Nakamura's entrance got leaked and it looks pretty great.

The problem with that thinking is that they'd let Roman do something similar, when in reality, they were getting their asses whooped so much that they basically just let a lot of guys do whatever at the time Rock is talking about. They don't have that crutch to lean on here. And this is way worse than what Cena was getting. Cena's won over a lot of folks that used to hate him over the years, and the whole brooding thing from Roman doesn't work considering Cena's entire gimmick was him being outspoken. There are basically zero things in the environment WWE has created that would allow Reigns to have his Rocky Maivia transformation.

Loss' point is the one that sticks with me, as my point is that if you take fan growth as an indication of buying into acts over time, the Cena comparisons don't hold water. He was a complete exception because he had the type of personality that still lent itself to guys buying in even if they didn't like the push. Reigns has not proven that so far, and the growth of fans who don't buy it is much greater than the casual fans who do. In a sense, they're cannibalizing their own growth by sticking to antiquated processes.

I am in like Flint. And I am damn tired.

My point is that they are only going to be able to do that for so long. I understand there are more house shows than live TV shows and merchandise plays a big part, but they really do risk falling even further down now that that "vocal minority" bullshit is becoming more and more of a majority. Those types of fans aren't going to go away, and as we've seen it's only grown in the last few years.

I should be shocked that they're going off house show reaction and not the more public reaction, but I'm not.

Yeah, what Steven said.

I'm not going to talk down anyone's list at all. Going through this thing, I had about 200 guys on my initial list that I could have included, and I had an incredibly tough time getting down to 100, and like I said previously, there are gonna be times where my consistency lacked in spots more than others. Steven and I already know we are gonna have disagreements, but at the same time, my "optimism" for this is discovering what people find in high regard when it comes to wrestling. This was a discovery project for me and whether my list is "right" or not, I did the best I could putting it together and am stoked to see people's lists who are much, MUCH different than mine.

Beyond stoked for his debut. Weird to say that a monster heel deserves a shot like that but he definitely does. Absolutely outstanding.

That's a great point and one that frankly seems inherent to a lot of my selections.

Also, the whole big setting for matches thing for me isn't a blanket thing that swallows up how I rank all wrestlers. There are a few wrestlers on here that didn't perform on the big stages that I have in my top 50 because from a personal enjoyment standpoint, I enjoyed their matches to such a degree that putting them any further down my list wouldn't have made sense to me. I tried to have as much consistency throughout the process as possible, but some things slipped through the cracks or personal preferences overruled.

To Dylan's point, throughout the project, my proclivity to making selections was towards big matches in big settings. Yeah, I'm a whore for setting, and I personally get caught up in big matches to the point where in the middle, where I was having a tough time figuring out order, I was really just counting great matches in my head to figure it out. I totally understand the point you're making, though, and it was one of the more difficult things I dealt with in the selection process. In the end, for my sanity, I went with with my initial preferences for selection, which I think is reflected in my list (although there will be missteps, and I'm already anticipating a few to begin the next show). To Parv's point (Ha), I think Ted was a good character in the WWF and he did some good work, but it hasn't stayed with me over time like other guys have. Kerry was a surprise to me when I watched some Texas stuff, and I understand your counterpoint to the post injury point I made. My thought is that before that happened, he had more high end stuff in the time before the injury and more standout stuff, although I know there are plenty of people who prefer Ted's Mid-South stuff. He was also a victim of my race to watch more footage, and Mid-South, as I mentioned, was one of my blind spots, along with some Memphis, some Texas, and World of Sport.

HA. Holy crap. I just realized the reasoning for who I picked #1 overall directly contradicts the argument I just made about Santo and Casas. Looks like I have to rethink this whole placement thing.

I'm definitely in that "Great Match" area with Santo, especially given I just saw the two matches considered quite possibly his best recently as a reminder of what I thought of him when I first watched lucha. I love Casas and he also is going to rank high on my list, but at the same time, and my personal tiebreaker on a lot of these close calls was done this way, if I had a connection with someone and it resonated with me more than the other guy, that's who went above the other. Casas really does have a great match case, though, and the work he's doing into his 50s is in the Lawler/Tenryu/Funk range, and might be better than all of them. I'll have to come up with more sound reasoning when I explain the pick, so I hope I can do that in a way that conveys my feelings more than just "I liked him more than the other guy," but in the end, it might be the simplest and most pertinent answer.

I originally had him off thinking he was too current, but he's been good since 97 and that's a long time. Especially when you compare him to someone like Ted DiBiase. This is awesome for reasons explained in the PWSS pod to come.

Yeah, that's a way better tiebreaker.

Deciding between placing him or Casas above each other is so mind-numbingly difficult that I might actually have to flip a coin. And then figure out how high I can put the winner, because I seriously can't figure out how I would put either of them below 8, yet here I am having to do so.

It's been spoiled that Stan Hansen is going in. Probably get an announcement on Monday.

So I had 82 that were easy picks for me and 18 spots to fill after that. 20 got the shaft. Alexander Otsuka Jack Brisco (Didn't get to see enough of him) Carlos Colon (Didn't get to see enough of him) Harley Race Buddy Rogers (Didn't get to see enough of him) Bruno Sammartino Koji Kanemoto Little Guido Matt Hardy Mistico Naoki Sano Rick Rude Owen Hart Sheamus Shinsuke Nakamura Tamon Honda Villano IV Wahoo McDaniel Yoshiaki Yatsu Yoshihiro Takayama Interestingly enough, I don't know who was really the last one cut (either Rude or Brisco, but a lot had to do with me messing up my spreadsheet), but it was Dump Matsumoto before I found an incorrect entry in my list. Also, thinking back as I went through the list again to make sure I didn't overlook someone, it's weird to see who ended up staying on through the process and who were easy tosses (Somehow Christian was an easy toss for me, as was Kensuke Sasaki) but that was mainly because I didn't think of them as Top 100 material right away, and I don't think they had enough to make a late run when I was messing around with lucha, as four guys in particular ended up making my ballot for good in the last week. Most likely taking spots from Rude, Brisco, Takayama and Race. Mistico sticking around for as long as he did was a mystery to me, but his peak run was a vivid memoryand got me back into lucha. Same with Villano IV, as the longer it goes past, the Panther apuestas match looks like an all-time great match with an absolutely killer stretch run, but he didn't have enough for me like III did. Honda was extremely enjoyable, but not enough, and Sheamus, Hardy and Guido were all right there in the run for sneaking on the bottom of my list just because their work was so tight, but the lucha guys really started breaking up the ability to get guys like them on the list. Now I actually have to rank THIS 100, which will be a chore. The tag rankings, where I got to my Top 25 pretty easily, took way less time. Final cuts there were The Shield, The Freebirds, Cody & Goldust, The Jumping Bomb Angels, London & Kendrick and Jumbo & Taue, with The Shield and The Freebirds the closest to making it.

So I got to more Dandy and he feels like a top half guy for me. He might be the best blowoff match worker in the history of lucha libre. He might also be the best mat worker I've ever seen in lucha, which is saying something. Just incredible timing, great punches, great fire, he's the guy who has blown up my original idea for this list. Probably the biggest variant of the entire project for me so far, either him or Kandori.

Made the "mistake" of watching the big time lucha I could before the deadline and he's definitely gonna be on my list. An absolutely fantastic rudo, with the Dandy apuestas match in 1990 being one of the best matches of the style I've ever seen. I haven't seen enough of him to think he'd be in the top half, but he definitely makes it on there as a late entry. Makes me wish I went back and watched more lucha within the timeframe, but such is life.

Recency bias be damned, but him having the type of run he's having right now considering his peak was damn near a decade ago really does make an impact for me. He was one of those guys that was a personal favorite pick for me where he would be in my bottom five, but I think now I feel better about him being in the lower part of my list.

Tejano Kahn made my ballot.

The UWF 2.0 stuff with him might push you over the top on him a bit, but I agree with the idea that considering the style, he's not a slam dunk top-notch worker. I personally have him on my list due to my weighing his performances in big matches, and the presence like you talked about, but he wasn't a shoe-in, and the more lucha I watch as we come down the stretch, I might see him slide off.