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I usually get pretty lost with all the music and movie analogies that get thrown around but this is something I can get behind. It also says something especially in Top Chef when one of the contestants seems to use the same ingredient. While I do think someone like Hansen gives varying performances at times, I do think there is some validity to someone like Matt's argument that he also uses his version of a "scallop" as the base for all of his matches. This is an interesting analogy to wrestling. As Childs mentions, one of the things that typically gets credit on Top Chef from the judges is stepping outside to comfort zone. The show often forces people out of that comfort zone. There is one exception that stands out in my mind: Rick Bayless in Top Chef Masters Season 1. He sticks to his strength, Mexican food. He kind of flips things on it's head by taking the judges out of their comfort zone by showing them the wide range of Mexican food/tastes that they've never experianced before. He could take any challenge, any ingrediant and pull something from his knowledge base of the cusine and make something to blow the judges mind. I think we all give credit to wrestlers who are versatile, who show different things. But it's possible for someone to master a style so well, and within that style be "broad", that the person might be a reasonable high end candidate. I give Terry Funk credit for being terrific in working holds when a match calls for it, not just in applying the holds well, but working them, adding accents, pushing/pulling his opponent to work as well, and engaging the fans. But doesn't Terry really need that to be a high end worker? Perhaps not.

Before they got to Warrior, it was the Hogan-DDP Celebrities Matches: Bash at the Beach 98 - San Diego, CA - Cox Arena - July 12, 1998 * WCW World Champion Bill Goldberg pinned Curt Hennig at 3:51 with the spear and Jackhammer after kicking out of the Hennig Plex; Goldberg's record: 112-0 * Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman (w/ the Disciple) defeated Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone at 23:45 when Hogan pinned Page Road Wild 98 - Sturgis, SD - Sturgis Rally & Race - August 8, 1998 * WCW World Champion Bill Goldberg won a 9-man battle at 7:57 (Giant, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Konnan, Curt Hennig, Sting, Scott Norton, Lex Luger) * Diamond Dallas Page & Jay Leno (w/ Kevin Eubanks) defeated Hulk Hogan (w/ the Disciple) & Eric Bischoff (w/ Elizabeth) at 14:32 The Celeb matches did record buys, if I recall correctly. They also were likely locked into them, and there was the Eric egofuck payoff as well. They didn't have a lot lined up for Goldberg because who wanted to be sacrificed at that alter. It should have been Nash and Hall, probably Hall first. But Nash, Hall and Hogan were all in bed with Eric. It was easy for everyone to duck it. I think we all agree they could have done better. Hogan was as usual smart: he moved himself away from Goldberg, got his own programs, and they did well. The Warrior one didn't do great, but you could see the thinking there: Hogan vs Piper and Hogan vs Savage did strong nostalgia money. Hogan-Warrior happened once, with no heel. Hogan worked his own programs, they did business, and Goldberg was left to his own programs that weren't super interesting. I wouldn't say Hogan was faultless. But it probably was more like Caesar: a lot of stabs, Nash got the killer one, and Hogan played people generally well... perhaps up until the finger point, which wasn't smart to go along with.

From the bolding, I think he means that Hogan didn't bury Goldberg in 1998. He put him over for the title. Nash and others buried Goldberg at Starcade. I'm trying to remember, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the talk at the time was that Hogan agreed to put over Goldberg with the understanding he'd get the win back. Someone would have to check the WON's. As a side note, folks should go look at the booking/results of Starcade 1998 if they want a headache. Didn't Nash have the book at this point? Good lord what a trainwreck.

Rate doesn't mean "good" or "bad". If the rate your heart is beating is too high, it doesn't mean "good". Oil leaking at a high rate out of a car is bad, as would be an air leak in a tire with a nail in it. There are a lot of low rates that are fine, and high rates that are bad. A high work rate doesn't always mean it's good. Chris Daniels and Kaynon doing your turn, my turn spots with limited selling, minimal, and just ripping away isn't likely to most people's "good" unless they like that stuff. A lower work rate doesn't always mean "bad". Someone might be methodical, but lays out a good storyline, slow build, has good spots picking things up but then takes it back down and does stuff at a lesser beat than say Tamura vs Han on the mat doesn't mean it's "bad". Work rate is just a term like Bumps, Selling, Spots, Storyline, Face In Peril, etc. Someone can take great bumps, but it doesn't mean he's a great worker. Someone like Hansen isn't exactly a noted bump machine, and more of a "splat" guy when splatting out of the ring. That doesn't mean that he's a lesser worker than say Shawn Michaels. That's all Work Rate is: another descriptive term to capture an element of work. * * * * * I wasn't speaking to you like a moron. I didn't say you were dead wrong or off your rocker or any of the things that I'm pretty sure you've seen me toss at people that I think are morons. I was following up on Goodear, Childs and your statements on work and trying to explain what it originally meant, and that over time it's gotten twisted. My first post using Hardcore as another term that got twisted. In the follow up to you, I was trying to lay out that Work and Work Rate aren't the same thing. Your original definition of Work Rate encompassed all ("everything") of the performance of a wrestler, without any note on Rate. Your definition added an element of Good/Bad, which it really isn't either. I'm sorry if you felt insulted. I was simply trying to write clearly, as my first longer post tossed a lot of stuff out, the Work Rate explanation got buried after the Hardcore one, and it wasn't super explicit.

Pro wrestling fans didn't really give a shit about Brock and Kurt being "legit". They were hardly the only amatuer wrestlers who went pro after Jack Brisco. They got over on their "pro wrestling" ability. Did Brock have extra cha-ching after his UFC days? Who knows. I'd argue that Brock had a better idea of how to get over from his time in UFC, and found a WWE that was on some level willing to let him work in a way that made him standout. Timing on some level was important there, as were workers (Cena and Trip initially and Taker later) who were willing to let him doing his thing. Whatever positives or negatives one thinks of Cena, he does have a bit of Misawa-like streak of letting an opponent do what ever he wants in addition to getting his own shit in. He certainly was at a level where he didn't have to work that first match like that. Of course we all hated Trip beating him at Mania, and arguably he only really took off by beating Taker. Legit really means far less to wrestling fans that some people want to make it out to be. Wrestling fans know it's fake shit.

That would be "work". What Rodman in the Hogan & Rodman vs DDP & Malone match. What he does is "work", even when half asleep / passed out in the corner. Work Rate has the extra word in it: Rate. Hogan, DDP, Rodman and Malone were all "working" in that match. Some of them just happened to be working at a higher Rate. In turn, there were other matches on the card. Everyone was working. Not everyone was at the same Rate. People didn't come up with the term "work rate" in wrestling to define something that they already had a word for: Work. It was a term to describe an aspect of the work.

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.

the "not all equal" was Dylan's point. I was touching on the other half of his point: who else. My picture is of a wrestler who won a major long standing mainstream award. I was being a bit of a wise ass about it. Though... on some level... that match likely shared storytelling and narrative concepts similar to stuff we all praise. It was more than a bit batshit crazy and not my cup of tea. But... well...

Agreed. The GWE, the Yearbooks, Vince & Hogan vs The World, Jerome's "WCW Death March", and on and on. There are a lot of good projects that folks have wandered into. I have no idea what gave Jerome the nutty idea to drive himself crazy with the WCW stuff, but if was fucking brilliant. I've forgotten what drove Kris and me into the Vince & Hogan thing, but once into it we went off the deep end in trying to get across what we thought was a really freaking important historical point (several frankly as it went on), that at times had a mixed up confusion that was a-killing us by the time we went off. With the GWE, people have been tossing around the idea of a new version for years, but something lit a fire under Will and Loss and Grimmas, and off it went. A lot of good stuff. A lot of stuff is the same old same old, which you're always going to get. But there's been a crapload of good stuff. My head hurts wandering off for a week or a month, coming back and seeing all the threads in the subfourm with new stuff, so I end up hunting and peaking on wrestlers that interest me, and typically find something that gets me thinking, and some times writing. So... yeah... good.

Has anyone anywhere said this is what we're going on? Work rate is a terrible 'statistic' that should die in a fire regardless. It literally rewards a lack of selling, pacing and storytelling so there can be more moves. Its doesn't even successfully define its parameters. UGH. Workrate doesn't have to be the dreaded MOVES~! Flair has a high work rate with "spots", some of which are moves, and others are getting arm dragged, others getting shoved down by the ref, tossed off the top, calling someone "FATBOY!" in the crowd, etc. For a 50s-60s mat work based match, Destroyer-Baba had very good work rate for a long, 60 minute type match. They did it by working in the holds, picking things up at quicker beats rather than laying in them for long stretches, adding accents to the holds, etc. The 7/78 Backlund-Inoki had a better work rate over 60 minutes than the 1975 Race-Baba did over 30 minutes. Your die hard UWF-style fans would point to, though not in exact terms, the work rate of Fujiwara or Han or Tamura as compared to their belief that Takada would lay around in shit. They have different ways of saying it, perhaps not even grasping that they are because the concept of work rate is so EVIL~! among us now. But when you talk about Fujiwara constantly working gambits, looking for counters, doing nasty little shit, feeding his opponent, etc... you're talking about work rate. Our problem is that "work rate" similar to "hardcore" got bastardized. Hardcore doesn't mean fucking tables, ladders, chairs and all that nonsense. You can whip out the Japanese Wrestling Journal and see its writer using the term for stuff like Jumbo vs Tenryu. Flair and Garvin slapping and chopping the shit out of each other was a hardcore match. The MX working an intense match with the R'n'R was a hardcore match. But thanks to those ECW motherfuckers (Paul E, the wrestlers and the Bingo Hall Idiots all alike), the word got bastardized into little more than a bullshit phrase. Work rate was the same. It's original wrestling meaning is the same damn thing as its soccer meaning: activity vs inactivity. Selling is activity. Laying on your ass like fucking Don Muraco doing *nothing* while a hold is being applied, along with being freaking Pedro Morales applying the hold doing nothing to work it... that's inactivity. Some folks might not like Backlund doing the "rowing" spot on Muraco's arm in the Texas Death Match, but (i) it's working the hold rather than just applying and laying in an armbar looking off into space, (ii) it's forcing Don to sell it, (iii) the spot is a form of work rate, and (iv) the crowd was actually eating this shit up. But at some point, people came to think of work rate as being all that junior stuff, all that indy stuff, all those big MOVES~! and... People were fucking idiots about it. The 07/24/95 Misawa vs Kawada has better workrate than the 7/95 Shawn vs Jeffey that happened one day earlier, and not just because of MOVES~! It also has better pacing, better selling and a better storyline. We all kind of got that concept back in 1995 when talking about work rate. The last 20 years have fucked up the concept.

Rather than simply quote the whole thing, I just want to see that this is a really good post: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/31028-rick-rude-vs-ted-dibiase/?p=5706476

I'm mixed on this. When I did an NBA Top 50 earlier this year, I had Kobe ranked #7. My Lakers Fans friends would tell you that I'm the biggest Kobe Hating Lakers Fan that there is. I appreciate the 5 titles he helped the team win, cutting the gap to the Celtics to 1 title (or 0 titles depending on how one counts). But there's never been a Laker player that has annoyed the fuck out of me as much as Kobe, not even that looney Billy Thompson in the 80s. But... I can't take my personal hate for Kobe, and for the fashion in which he chose to play (rather than play the way I wanted him to), and say that he isn't a Top 50 player. It's even stronger than that: I couldn't put together a list that didn't have him in the Top 20 without basically copping to "I Know Not A Damn Thing About Hoops". I probably could explain away not having him in the Top 10, but even there I didn't think I would be honest. Love the titles he's won us. Have enjoyed some thrilling times. Just hate him as a player/worker/performer. But... Looking at my list, I left off some guys who made/make other people's Top 50 such as George Gervin and Allen Iverson. Why? I largely hate pure gunners who could give a shit about their teammates and who don't really win much at all. Gervin won nothing, and had a decent chance to make a Final but he specifically choked out in a big quarter. AI did make a Final, but it was out of a shitty East that the horrible Nets won the next two years. It's a big bias that I have, growing up hating guys like World B Free. So... I'm mixed about the concept. If I were to do a ballot, someone like Kobashi would be my own personal Kobe. There are parts of him that I liked quite a bit, such as up to 1993... possible extending to May 1994. After that he increasingly annoyed me. I like Shaqsawa and Duncwada better. But it would be pretty impossible for me not to have Kobashi somewhere on the list, and likely somewhere fairly high. The annoyance that I have for Kobashi is similar to the annoyance that I have for Flair, with the slight difference that I loath putting on most any Flair match now, while I'll pop in something with Kobashi through the mid-90s fairly easy. But they both were extremely effective workers, and the stuff that annoys me often entertained the fans, they have a big body of work, yadder, yadder... Kobashi like Flair would be in the top quarter of the list. In contrast, Toyota annoyed the fuck out of me as well. It's possible that I would draw the line on a "gunner" like her, and toss her off the list like I did with Iverson. In a sense, Toyota didn't "win" anything as the promotion started its decline with her on top, and her one trip to the "Final" (Monday Night Sensation) was set up by Aja and interpromotional matches that made it easy for Toyota. If I didn't care for the Beatles, they'd strike me as closer to Kobe/Kobashi/Flair than Iverson/Toyota: there's just too much there, from a variety of angles if one wishes to dismiss the "quality" one, to dismiss them off a Top 100/50 list.

Exactly. This is mild stuff. tOA had worse, be it regulars including myself or the semi-regular run-ins by the Bob.com Crew for flame wars. There was worse on the variety of sites CTC posted on, for a name out of the past. DVDVR had worse. I remember worse WrestlingClassics where Mask or Naulty would shutdown conversations because one of their sacred cows (either wrestlers or posters) was getting taken to the woodsheed. This is mild.

I'm kind of stupified that Jack Brisco is a "discovery". I get that Dory Jr is a "re-evalution" rather than a discovery. People pimped his as a great worker back in the 70s and well into the 80s. Then assholes like me and Jewett started talking about Dory being as boring as all fuck in the ring and having wise ass ways of expressing it. So now the work Parv has done can get people looking at him in a different way from those who think/thought he was boring as all fuck. But Brisco? Come on. At the same time those of us said that Dory was putting us to sleep in stuff like his match with Brisco, we were putting over Brisco as the far better worker. Then put over him carry Jumbo to a good match when Jumbo was young. Then put him over for having a terrific match with Jumbo when Jumbo was more grown up. Then put him over for having matches with Baba that ran circles around the boring ass draw with Dory that we all blamed on Dory. And on and on. Pimping wrestlers didn't start this year, or last year, or just on this board. Guys like you and me and Dylan and a host of people here go back online more than a decade and a half, some of us 20 years. Let's not pretend that fire keeps getting constantly discovered for EVERYONE that's talked about.

That doesn't have the great first half of the sentence rambling about démagogie and dispersion:

People can also use the time to run other intensive polls. SC did the WWF/WWE Matches poll shortly after, and it was entertaining for everyone. There also are the DVDVR 80s polls.

There's a thread about submitting ballots here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32100-everyone-should-submit-a-ballot Bottom line: Grimmas (who is running the project) and a load of other posters encouraged anyone who wanted to submit a ballot to do so. On the flip side, there's nothing wrong with *not* doing a ballot while still talking about various candidates. Loss has his reasons, which are perfectly fine. But it's still useful for others to have Loss post about various workers when he feels the urge. I think that's the same for other posters who might not submit a ballot, but enjoy the discussion of various wrestlers.

It's staggering how much more abrasive people were back in 2006. Perhaps not in the GWE discussion, which I remember to be relatively light. But in damn near anythings along those lines. Folks went hammer and tong in the WWE Matches poll. Folks went harsh in damn near everything. Hell, our arguments *hear* 2-4 years ago were far harsher than this thread or other GWE/Microscope discussions. As far as taking this version of the GWE seriously... as an outsider on it, let me just say that the poster are taking it REALLY FUCKING SERIOUSLY. They're putting a shitload of thought into it. More than most of these projects tend to get. To the degree that I look at any numbers (as in several dozen) of these threads and think to myself: "Thank god I don't have to invest time in watching a bunch of Osamu Nishimura, Hector Garza, Masanobu Kurisu, Alex Wright and Naomichi Marufuji matches. I'd never have time for Inspector Lewis and Champions League if I did." That's not a knock on the guys who are investing a bunch of time watching Nishimura, Garza, Kurisu, Wright and Marufuji. It's a reflection on me, and that I don't have the passion / obsession / drive / desire / time to invest in the depth of a project like this anymore. Great for the guys who do as your fandom is rocking. So folks don't agree on everything? Big fucking deal. That's always going to be the case. Ponder the first creatures to move up out of the seas onto dry land, stand upright and say: "You know, I think Aja Kong is a better worker than Manami Toyota. And while we're at it, Stan Hansen worked circles around Bruiser Brody, who kind of blew." Those S.O.B.'s were swimming upstream to their deaths with the big ass grizzly bears of Entrenched Consensus pawing away at them. But... They didn't give a shit. They might not convince the Masters of The Old Consensus, who they really had no fucks to give about after a while. They wanted to toss out what they felt, and see if other folks felt the same way. Result? Within a decade of the first time I saw someone toss out that Hansen was a better worker than Brody, that was a firmly held view by folks when GWE 1.0 happened. There always were a fair number of people who also thought Brody kinda sorta maybe blew chunks... a lot of chunks. Aja vs Toyota? There might be a split on that. On the other hand, anyone who comes along today and thinks that Aja was a better worker has a far easier time of it than we did back in the day. So... There always will be differences. Some of them will be heated. Some of them will be more philosophical, which seems to be the case with everyone in this thread except for Parv. Which happens sometimes: I know that I've been out the on the opposite side of some point where it's been largely JDW vs The World. But seriously, differences are always going to happen.

Who said he worked like a seasoned pro? What people have said for decades is that he looked really good for a rookie. You'll also run into some problems with the July match: there are identical matches online that are listed as the January and July match. It's probably best to find the July match at Ditch's joint, if he put it up.

The cardio argument would be interesting if Ric was always the stronger wrestler at the end of matches. I'm not entirely sure that's the case in the core of his career. Faces tend to kick his ass late in matches.

With Rings, you can get someone knowledgeable about the promotion to point out the ones that are worked and the ones that are shoots. It's fairly straight forward. Pancrase is a different beast. It's a matter of extracting the works out of what is otherwise a shooting promotion. It's a harder process, and one in the end not terribly worthwhile other than to remove from certain fighters "MMA Record" fights that aren't really pure fights.

I was pondering answering that, but see that someone else beat me to it... I'll give Rey his due, he got over, he drew, he made lots of money, and he did all that against the odds. That would be the uses of him.

I think it's a mark both that the match didn't have a finish, and also that Kawada couldn't get a succeful defense. Doc got one right before Kawada's reign, against Kobashi.