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What's your scope when forming your list? Are you considering matches you've seen live that didn't make tape, or are you limiting your scope to footage that was recorded and accessible? I haven't seen huge amounts of live wrestling in my life so it's not something that would weigh heavily for me, but I'd be curious to hear from someone like Dylan or Phil, both of whom have seen so many live shows, along with anyone else who fits that description. And on that topic, are there any wrestlers that are vastly better or worse watching them in person compared to videotape? Also along those lines, how do you factor lucha libre wrestlers seeing themselves as arena workers first and foremost, with many of the vets even hating that their matches were recorded as the Galavision boom took hold in the late 80s. Compare that to something like WWE, where guys are actually instructed to ignore the live crowd and play to the hard camera. When comparing ranking for guys who mainly made their case in WWE to those who worked CMLL, for example, how do you sort that out? Has a CMLL guy that has had a match that translates well to tape done something more impressive than a WWE worker doing the same? Do guys who worked heavily in companies with good production have some advantages since we're mostly (or entirely?) judging wrestlers on how their work looks on video? I know one of my favorite things about shoot style, for example, is the up close filming and lack of announcing, which means you can often hear the in-ring struggle more, which gets the style over as something more physical. It's easy to just say "Well, they are working a more physical style" and be right more than you'd be wrong, but then I watch something like the Hart Foundation-Rockers 2/3 falls match where the ring ropes broke. In that match, the lack of the usual saccharine WWF production/announcing meant that the action inside the ring was more audible and thus came across more physical. I enjoyed it far more than I would have if it had aired on Saturday Night's Main Event. For me, I prefer a great CMLL match to a great WWE match more often than not, mainly because working to the hard camera is too overtly manipulative for my tastes. But if a great match is a great match is a great match, I guess it doesn't matter so much. In some ways, I think glossy production is antithetical to good wrestling, but I know WWE often gets praised for their production values, so I'm looking forward to the differing views on this.

I think that's a victim of every person who took the creative reigns for WCW wanting to "relaunch" and build to a title win, but none of them could keep power long enough to pay off a chase.

Which is why he liked the Mid Atlantic territory, loved his summers in Florida watching that territory, and spoke highly of Georgia. He was in Texas at its peak, and has praised the era for decades while admitting the flaws/errors/fuckton of dope. He loved WattsLand. On the flip side, he didn't care for the Alabama promotion, though it wasn't widely traded. And he was up-and-down on Memphis. 4 that he loved/praised. One that he was mixed about. One he generally ignored. That's before getting into SMW that he liked before it started to fade/fall. Dave's pretty okay with southern wrestling. He had other issues with Memphis. Also, Dave covered Jarrett Promotions to the bitter end, after a decade of poor houses and long after they ceased being relevant. That's more than he does for groups that do decent business today that he actually likes. If anything, Dave has favoritism *toward* the Memphis style. His continued coverage of it throughout the 1990s bears that out.

I've always seen lucha as being about mood first and foremost. I tend to take a big picture view when thinking about good wrestling anyway, so that suits me. In so many cases, trios matches are morality plays, so I am usually looking at how well they pull that off. There is often a fable element to it all. In general it strikes me as more cinematic than American or Japanese wrestling, which is something different from calling it theatrical, which is more how I'd describe Memphis or WWE. I mention this because I don't see the overtone of sport so much in lucha libre, which means a different sensibility when it comes to psychology. I'll expand on this more when I'm not on my phone.

Is there some logical reason HHH's title on TV isn't his title? If it's just that COO is more easily understandable to those watching at home, I get that. I'm just curious what type of thought went into what title to give his character. And does Stephanie have a title on TV?

Within the NWO, I think Hogan, Hall and Nash all did it, and maybe some others.

Thanks to OJ for addressing the message instead of the messenger. I wish that was how it was all the time.

Vince McMahon HHH Stephanie McMahon Kevin Dunn

Even as late as 1989, when the idea was floated around to turn Muta babyface, most on the WCW booking committee at the time were adamant that a Japanese wrestler could NEVER get cheered in the U.S. because of Pearl Harbor. Even the smart people in wrestling are often out to lunch on cultural issues.

There was some overlap, but it was minimal. It was more that any angles on the syndicated shows (Worldwide and Pro) were rarely acknowledged outside of Worldwide or Pro. Plus, any angles shot on Pro weren't mentioned on Worldwide, or vice versa. It seems like it's making life unnecessarily difficult for a booker and destroying any semblance of kayfabe for people like me who had TBS and got both Worldwide and Pro in my market. I think Ricky Morton turned on Dustin Rhodes three separate times to join the York Foundation. I guess they had a weird assumption that most fans only watched one of the shows in syndication OR the TBS shows. And even the TBS shows didn't have great back-and-forth continuity among each other.

This is something I have only learned in the past few years, but at the time, WCW treated each syndicated show like its own territory, which seems like a really dumb practice on paper. So the non-cable angle was Eaton turning, but the cable TV angle was just Bobby Eaton telling Sting at the Clash that he had plenty of time to get back to the building. The non-cable angle was never acknowledged on cable. Mind boggling stuff, huh?

From the March 23, 1998, with Dave discussing the Hogan-Savage cage match at Uncensored '98: I demand moral outrage from Dave Meltzer. Or someone, anyone. It's only fair.

I was advocating pretty hard for the Flair matches in the threads at the time, but yeah, I was almost a lone voice. I wish I knew who my followers were so I could use them for my personal gain

I had Flair-Taylor at #1 on my Mid South ballot, which I guess shouldn't surprise anyone. But I like epics, and most of the Mid South stuff (not all) felt more like hot TV matches than long, classic matches that just slow build and slow build and slow build to a hot finishing stretch. I realize those types of matches aren't as fashionable anymore, but I still prefer them to anything else. And I think that even gets to the heart of a lot of the Flair fatigue. There are outliers like Bockwinkel-Hennig, but there is generally speaking less value put on having compelling matches that go an hour than there used to be. Flair made his case in a time when people really cared about being able to go long. It doesn't seem like as much of a value anymore. That's probably good in some ways, because we've moved on from the idea that long matches are always great. But I'd still take a great long match over a great short one just because I want to feel like I've been taken on a ride.

I remember very much thinking the opposite was true for the Mid South set. In fact, in real time, people who were trucking along at a quick pace seemed to slow way down when confronted with long Flair matches, and were less enthusiastic about watching than they had been to that point. So if he skewed high, I personally don't think it was familiarity bias at work, because people didn't seem too excited about watching his matches when they came along. I wish the threads still existed so I could link to them to support that.

Liz was originally envisioned to be a cunning and manipulative woman in the mold of the show Dallas, similar to how Woman was later portrayed. They soon decided that presenting her as the demure one as a contrast to Savage being such a loose cannon was a better dynamic. Anyway, I think the name "Miss Elizabeth" was left over from the original plans for how to present her.

I would say that there is probably a compromise rating based on that -- nowhere near #1, but a strong enough rating to show respect for what she did while acknowledging that it's not your cup of tea.

I was just curious. I'm not sure "interested" is the right word to describe how I'd feel about navigating Toyota's 2000s at some point, but if they fell into my lap, I wouldn't run away from them, for the curiosity if nothing else. I know she got praise for how she worked at Joshimania a few years ago, but at best, it sounds like she has been really uneven for the past 15 years.

Do you think she did it in the matches I referenced? That was my point of reference: Manami Toyota vs Shinobu Kandori (08/23/98) Manami Toyota vs Kyoko Inoue (12/08/99) I haven't seen a match from here that took place more recently than the 12/8 match.

Hogan should have had a reduced role by the end of 1998. But I don't think that comes down to him. I think it comes down to Eric Bischoff being unable to see past him. The way Hogan's contract was structured, it didn't make sense for him to be anything but the undisputed #1 guy. He was by far the highest paid guy. He had full creative control. He even got 25% of PPV revenue. I believe I've read before that in his best year in WCW he made somewhere in the $6-8 million range. And the truth is that up until 1999, he earned every penny he made. Hogan signed a new deal in early 1998 for all the same perks he always had. And ultimately, I think that's one thing that did them in. He could still draw in 1998, but the warning signs were there and he was also overexposed. A look at the Torches at the time show that he knew this as well as anyone but WCW paid him so much money per appearance that he couldn't help but go with it. A lot of times, while frustrating to those of us who followed things closely, Hogan's selfishness either didn't hurt business or actually helped it because what was good for Hogan was good for WCW. When that stopped being the case in 1999, he was a handicap. They could have blown off the NWO completely at the end of 1997 and started putting him in a strong position just below the top picture in 1998 and that would have probably made him valuable longer and also at least postponed the decline a little longer, sure, but it wasn't detrimental right away. It took a long time for these things to catch up.

Perhaps WWE wrestlers could devote a full month to the dangers of threads like this.

Here's the irony on Toyota: she's in the greatest match that I've ever seen. She wasn't a negative in it, and was quite good. She wasn't the best worker in it, and maybe one could argue she was #4 out of 4. But it's a bit like saying Kobashi or Taue were #4 in El Super Clasico... I mean, WTF... they all were freaking great. I've seen a lot of Toyota matches that I thought were really good at the time. On multiple re-watches over the years, Dream Rush has never dropped from it's lofty spot on my list. That makes me think that the stuff of her's that I thought was really good at the time isn't likely to have me thinking it's * or ** stuff now. On the other hand, as the decade went on, it struck me that Aja was better. It's likely that if I went on a massive AJW watching binge that Aja's stuff that I thought was "solid" would rate higher for me now. Same goes for Bull. In turn, there's something about the joy and emotion that Kyoko brought to pro wrestling that makes me think that even if some flaws stand out more now than at the time, she's still going to put a smile on my face and I'll enjoy her work. So I don't know where I'd have Toyota. For all my criticism, she was at her best an effective worker who got fans going. I was in the building maybe a half dozen times when I watched her (and others) get a crowd going, so it's not just the magic of tape or people watching at home projecting. She's not a lot of our cups of tea anymore, but she wasn't horrible. I made a case for Toyota as a top 10 pick in the GWE folder and I'd really be interested in hearing your response to that.

It doesn't necessarily matter, but with a career babyface like Steamboat, you can point to lots of very different matches against a wide variety of opponents over a long period of time. I'm looking for some semblance of what variety means for Sami Zayn, which is why I was asking.

Everyone should also submit a ballad. I will call mine "You're My Greatest Ever".