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People = more than one poster There really have been multiple posters who have said both of these things in posts: 1. Flair's the boring choice 2. I want to be different I suspect a number of people have said the first. The majority of top contenders for any poll like this tend to be boring choices. I'm not so sure that people are then lining up with #2.

The time for that was back in 1999/2000 before the years wasted with his other website, but... Yes. Didn't Dave say what he and Wade did were different? The differences would have been complimentary at the time. Very. There are things they overlapped on, and those were the days of some of Wade's best reporting (Death of WCW where he was better sourced than anyone). But there were things that Wade was stronger in (organiztion, content deliver, editing, bringing in others to provide content / differing views, vision, Interviews, etc) and things that Dave was strong in (in depth rambling, historical pieces, obits, MMA if you like MMA, Japan, etc). Those things compliment each other. Dave and Wade are on civil terms last I heard. Dave and Bruce are great friends, and of course Bruce and Wade are great friends despite driving each other nuts on their podcasts.

Longevity is why I have Tim at #4, similar to Cap at #3. Tim's peak is very high. He's a back-to-back MVP who probably should have been the MVP every year from 2001-2005. We're not talking about Kevin McHale peak (which was plenty high). It's someone who at his best was one of the very best. Then you throw in the longevity, and it's an amazing career. Jabbar was the best player in the NBA for roughly 11 years: from his rookie season through 1980. There might be a season where Walton was the best, or Moses was the best, but Jabbar then simply was the second best. If you're 1-1-2-1 in a stretch, you still are the best player in the league. Akin to Lebron-Durrant in 2013: sure, give Durrant the MVP... but we all know that Bron was still the best. There are guys like Karl Malone or John Stockton who have great longevity arguments for being ranked high. But those guys weren't, at their best, at the level Duncan or Magic were at their best. Malone got a pair of b.s. MVPs, but we all know he wasn't at the highest end at his peak. Duncan was.

Game 7 2014? Duncan turned 38 during the 2014 playoffs. At 38, Bird was three years into his retirement. Obviously you'd rather have Duncan. You'd rather have 38 year old Duncan over 32-35 year old Bird as well. That's the problem with Bird vs the Guys Above him: he never was the same again after the injury at the age of 32. Peak Bird is why he's as high as he is, at least on my list. But the guys ahead of him (Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Magic Johnson) beat him up in longevity and it's not like they're shabby in terms of peak. They were all extremely great multiple-time MVP players. The Lakers and Spurs played 5 post season series between 1999 & 2004. 1999 vs Lakers 29-11-3-2 Tim 24-13-1-2 Shaq 2001 vs Lakers 27-13-3-1 Shaq 23-12-4-4 Tim 2002 vs Lakers 21-12-3-3 Shaq 29-17-5-3 Tim 2003 vs Lakers 25-14-4-3 Shaq 28-12-5-1 Tim 2004 vs Lakers 23-15-2-4 Shaq 21-12-3-2 Tim Overall 24-14-2-3 Shaq 26-13-4-2 Tim There were some dominating series, and quite a few dominating performances by Tim in just those series. The difference between the teams? Overall, the Lakers were better in terms of talent every season. But Shaq happened to specifically have a guy who put up 28-6-5: Kobe. There were plenty of other series where he was dominant: 1999 vs Knicks: 27-14-2-2 2001 vs Mavs: 27-17-4-2 2003 vs Mavs: 28-17-6-3 2003 vs Nets: 24-17-5-5 2004 vs Suns: 28-14-3-2 2007 vs Suns: 27-14-1-4 And perhaps his best came when the Spurs happened to come up short: 2006 vs Mavs 32-12-4-3 Tim 27-13-2-0 Dirk People might want to piint to him not averaging 30+ in a bunch of series. My thought would be to look up how many series Magic averaged 30+ in. Like Magic, Tim's "dominance" went beyond simply scoring. If one watched him regularly, it was there on display. The irony in that statement is that Tim wasn't a monster scorer. He certainly wasn't Kobe or Jordan. Tim carried teams with his total game. After all, he was they guy who put up this: 1997-98 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 1998-99 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 1999-00 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2000-01 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2001-02 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2002-03 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2003-04 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2004-05 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2005-06 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2006-07 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2007-08 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2008-09 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2009-10 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2012-13 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2014-15 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) We're talking about in his prime being a Top 5 rebounder (10 times) and shot blocker (7 times), and I suspect if one asked Will (who watched his entire career game after game), he'd probably say that shot blocking and rebounding weren't even the best aspects of his great defensive game. Help defense, seal offs, footwork, communication... that he was still a great defensive paint player at the age of 39 this year in this playoffs should given people an understanding of just how sublime he was at 25-28. Bird had Parrish & McHale with him every single title he won. McHale was a developing bench guy for the first title (10-4), but he was an outstanding player for the next two (18-7 & 21-8). Parrish was 19-10 & 19-11 for the first two, and "down" the last one to 16-10 when they had Walton chipping in 8-7 off the bench backing up Parrish & McHale. Poor Larry had 41-23-6-4 out of the PF & Center spots a night that season. At PG, he had Tiny Archbald for the first title, and then Dennis Johnson the final two. That's a pair of Hall of Famers when they still had pep in their step. In contrast, one can look at the 1999 & 2003 Spurs and pretty much cringe at the level of talent around Duncan. History treats the 2003 team kind, but the reality is what I mentioned: Manu and Tony weren't that great yet, and drove Pop nuts as often as they pleased him. The 1999 team had a falling apart Robinson. Were they good "teams"? Yes. Pop got more out of the talent then other coaches would have. In turn, Duncan got more out of them by being the anchor to the defense on offense and defense. Kobe is as competetive as any of those guys. Athletically as gifted as any of them. It only gets you so far in the rankings. I like Bird. Great player. I think I'm treating him with a lot of respect at #6 (soon to be #7 when Bron passes him).

I think what I love about Yohe is straight out of his Top 4: 1-Bill Russell This is a guy who played from 1957-1969, who Steve watched when he was a pre-teen through his high school and Viet Nam years. 2-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Cap played from 1970-1989, with Yohe watching him from his Nam days into his late 30s. He's basically a few years younger than Cap. 3-Michal Jordan Played 1985-1998, so this is Steve watching a guy from his mid-30s to later 40s. 4-Lebron James Has played from 2004-2015, so you have someone Steve has watched from his mid-50s now into his mid-60s, and will watch into his 70s. Steve's list covers guys he's watched across close to 60 years, and here he is willing to put someone who he's watched in his mid-50s through mid-60s above loads of guys he grew up watching and loved (Baylor & West), or were iconic at the time (Wilt & Big O), or guys who played in probably the peak of his fandom in the 80s (Magic and Bird). There's no doubt that Steve like all of us bring bias when doing such a list. But I always am truly amazed by how willing he is to put over people across all eras, from his youth to the present. We often get sentimental about the stars were grew up with. Steve is as well if we picked apart his list, but less so that one would think.

I put Can-Ams vs Kobashi & Kikuchi as high on the list, if not at the top, of Most Fun To Watch. Best... I think we're probably in the same boat on Dream Rush.

Song contests? Aren't they a wrestling website? No kidding. Dave has got to update his model. The editorial standards aren't strong in the newsletter either, but people forgive that because he writes such a huge amount each week. But that kind of thing can destroy Dave's rep over time even if he has nothing to do with it. Whether it's him or someone else, someone should be screening everything that goes on the site against a set of consistent standards. Just imagine if that site was run like an actual news enterprise. Dave probably would had been better off if he joined with the Torch's website instead of with f4weekly. The time for that was back in 1999/2000 before the years wasted with his other website, but... Yes.

Based on his ratings, Loss liked 1992 more than 1991: 1991 1 - 4.75 2 - 4.50 3 - 4.25 6 - 4.00 5 - 3.75 4 - 3.50 7 - 3.25 1992 1 - 4.75 4 - 4.50 6 - 4.25 5 - 4.00 8 - 3.75 5 - 3.50 2 - 3.25 The yearbooks didn't do the decade in chron order, so Loss happened to watch 1992 first: 1990: Oct-30-2012 (first AJPW of the set discussed) 1991: Jan-19-2013 1992: Jul-07-2011 So seeing the same Jumbo & Co. vs Misawa & Co. for two years probably didn't impact him like it did us at the time. In turn, 1991 was "last" for him, so maybe it was a bit tiresome by that point. Don't recall if he talked about it in the comments, but there were so many AJPW matches he talked about it's easy for it to get lost. On the other hand... When we compiled the old star ratings list, Meltzer was similar in 1992 over 1991: The ****+ breakdown (5-4.75-4.5-4.25-4) was: 1991: 1-1-5-8-16 1992: 3-2-7-7-13 1992 is a little light on "fresh" things. Misawa-Kawada for the Triple Crown and Kobashi-Kikuchi winning the All Asia Tag at the fresh things that stand out. If you've been watching the TV every week since 1990, there's not a lot of new folks dropping in that are super interesting like you'd get in prior years. Jun at the end of the year. The State Patrol come in for a match with the Can-Ams for the All Asia which was actually watchable what aired. It was a good year at the time, just a little long of tooth with one of the rivalries while the gaijin are largely the same guys doing some of the same stuff. One could get heavily focused on Stan's last real run with a singles belt in the company as a way to prep for 1993 Stan: 01/10/92 Hansen vs Taue (aired 01/12/92) 01/24/92 Hansen vs Kikuchi (02/02/92) 01/28/92 Hansen vs Tsuruta (Triple Crown) (02/09/92) 03/04/92 Hansen vs Misawa (Triple Crown) *** (03/08/92) 03/27/92 Hansen vs Kobashi (Carny) ***3/4 (03/29/92) 04/02/92 Hansen vs Spivey (Carny) (04/12/92) 04/06/92 Hansen vs Kawada (Carny) **** (04/19/92) 04/14/92 Hansen vs Williams (Carny) (04/26/92) 04/17/92 Hansen vs Misawa (Carny Final) **** (05/03/92) 06/05/92 Hansen vs Kawada (Triple Crown) ***1/2 (06/21/92) 07/08/92 Hansen vs Kobashi ***1/2 (07/19/92) 07/31/92 Hansen vs Taue ***1/2 (Triple Crown) (08/16/92) 08/22/92 Hansen vs Misawa (Triple Crown) *** (08/30/92) WON ratings ***+ ratings listed There's some good stuff in there. None of it gets to the high end level of 1993, but they make for comps to the next year.

If you're sticking with one, you probably want to stick with the WWF one. That had the longer history in New Japan, tying into Fujinami. It also would get defended again in the US in the WWF.

I think one of the funny-odd things about Bird were those first four seasons: Eastern Conference Champions 1980 Philadelphia 76ers (4-1 over Celtics) 1981 Boston Celtics (4-3 over 76ers) 1982 Philadelphia 76ers (4-3 over Celtics) 1983 Philadelphia 76ers (Celtics were swept by the Bucks in the ECSF) People like to remember the 1981 series because the 76ers blew the 3-1 lead, but they tend to forget that Doc vs Bird in the ECF was 2-1 before Doc got Moses. Then the Celtics ducked the match up in the fourth season. The Celtics in those four seasons were far from impressive. That's before taking into consideration that they won the 1981 title over the 40-42 team in the Finals thanks to the West melting down in the post season. The 1984-87 Celtics were impressive. Though I'm not sold that coming out of the East in those years was as impressive as coming out of the West in the 2000s and 2010s. They went through Shaqkobe in 1999 as well, sweeping them. They did have some issues with the Lakers from 2000-2004 losing in 2001, 2002 & 2004 while winning in 2003. But those transitional Duncan Spurs really weren't that great behind him. That they still won 53, 58, 58, 60 & 57 games in those years in the West is mind blowing and a sign of just how good Peak Duncan was in carrying them. Look at the 2004 Spurs: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2004.html That is not yet a great team as Tony and Manu hadn't yet taken the leap. Yet they went 57-25 in the West. Tim basically gets very little credit for how pedestrian his teammates were in those years, yet they kept winning. That they won it all in 2003 is pretty mind bending if you look at the roster. I'd take Peak Bird over Peak Duncan, but Peak Duncan was a helluva played and pretty underrated. With Larry you get 1980-1988 as pre-peak and peak, 9 years. Timmy would be 1998-2007, which is 10 years. The thing with Tim is that you get another 8 years where the first few remained a very strong post-peak, and then the "fading" Duncan remained a foundational player on a very good team that was good enough to bag another title. It's just an amazing run. I can't put him above Jabbar, who had an even longer and better pre-peak and peak, and then the same post-peak where he was a key player on some terrific teams. He really only faded in the last two years.

Yohe is 65+ and grew up watching Baylor and West when the Lakers first showed up in Los Angeles. He admitted that perhaps he was jumping the gun by having him that high. But he also thought he's been clearly the best player in the NBA from 2008/2009 to 2013/2014. There aren't many players who were clearly the best in the NBA for six seasons, and I think in Steve's mind the only ones are the folks he has ahead of Lebron: Russell, Jabbar and Jordan. There is a certain logic to that. He also places more weight in Mikan's dominance (5 titles in 6 years or 6 titles in 7 years depending on how you count it). Jag and I discount him because of (i) the era of Narrow Key & No Shot Clock helped him, and (ii) The Lack of Black Players. We agree he has to be in the Top 50 somewhere, but rate him way down. He would have been exposed in Russell's era.

Brody --> Jumbo on 08/31/83. 07/26/83 Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta --> Tiger Jeet Singh & Umanosuke Ueda 08/01/83 Tiger Jeet Singh & Umanosuke Ueda --> Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta Yeah... that's a lot of fun. There's the UN Title: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/japan/alljapan/un.html Jumbo's last defense is 06/18/83 against Ted. After the fake tourney, Ted then has defenses against Tenryu on 10/14/83 (pin) & 10/23/83 (DCOR). Then the nonsense of getting it over onto David, then David dropping dead, and the Tenryu-Steamer match in 2/84. Clearly they wanted Tenryu to "chase" the title before being given it. You probably could book something better than that.... Ted DiBiase Killer Brooks The Great Kabuki Ciclon Negro Bruiser Brody One Man Gang Mike Doggendorf (10/21 - 11/3) Harley Race (10/26 - 10/31) Brody is above that level. Race arrives too late, and he's NWA Champ anyway. Could toss Ted, Gang, Brooks, Kabuki, Tenryu and maybe Hara into something. * * * * * The other title is of course the NWA Title. Ric in June, and Harley in October. Just one defense each, against Jumbo which are out there on TV. * * * * * There was the Jr Title: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/japan/alljapan/int-j.html Chavo mixed in a few defenses: 06/08/83 NWA Int'l Junior Title: Chavo Guerrero vs Mighty Inoue 06/12/83 NWA Int'l Junior Title: Chavo Guerrero vs Masanobu Fuchi 08/31/83 NWA Int'l Junior Title: Chavo Guerrero vs Masanobu Fuchi Pretty light. They got it off him quickly the next year to Inoue.

http://www.wrestling-titles.com/japan/newjapan WWF Jr Title http://www.wrestling-titles.com/japan/newjapan/wwf-j.html NWA Jr. Title http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/nwa-j.html They existed through 10/85. The IWGP Jr. replaced them the following year. Tigeryama is the double champ when the year begins. They weren't defended "together" in 1983, but instead in separate defenses. Looking back to 1982 when they got the NWA Jr. Title, it looks like the only time they were defended together was the 11/04/82 match with Kobayashi, so it was kind of an ultra rare thing. Here's 1983 for some feeling of they use of them: 01/06/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi 02/03/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Gran Hamada 02/07/83 WWF Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Black Tiger 02/08/83 WWF Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi 03/10/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Miles Zrno 04/21/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid (vacated after along with WWF) 06/02/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (decision bout) 06/12/83 WWF Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Fishman (decision bout) 06/14/83 WWF Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi 07/07/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Isamu Teranishi 08/04/83 NWA Jr Title: Tiger Mask vs Isamu Teranishi Tiger then had his issues and was done with wrestling until joining UWF 1.0. They came back here: 11/03/83 NWA Jr Title: The Cobra vs Davey Boy Smith 02/07/84 WWF Jr Title: Dynamite Kid vs The Cobra, Davey Boy Smith * * * * * WWF International Title was Fujinami --> Choshu --> Fujinami. http://www.wrestling-titles.com/japan/newjapan/wwf-in-h.html Not sure the start date you're going with. * * * * * The old North American Tag Titles had been put to bed in 1981 at the same time the NWF Title was. There wouldn't be a tag title until the WWF International Tag in 05/24/85. Hisa's site would have a page on the. It had a handful of matches in 1985, then the IWGP Tag Title replaced it after the Tag League that year. * * * * * No Backlund defenses in 1983. I don't think he made a tour. * * * * * So not the most thrilling title promotion in terms of booking. Of course Ishin Gundan in its early days.

At the time, Dustin's push when he and Dusty came to WCW in 1991 annoyed the hell out of me. Booker's Son, at a time when Dusty was one of the Anti-Flair's and Ric ended up leaving WCW that year... just annoying. Not a big fan of nepotism in general, and seeing it coming from Dusty pissed off the Flair Fan in me. In hindsight, Dustin busted his ass to become a good worker. I would have preferred if had gotten to WCW earlier while his dad was in the WWF and gotten pushed as Dusty's Son rather than Dusty being the one to push him. But it doesn't take away from the fact that a good deal of the Dustin's work in that pre-WCW-Hogan Era ages well. I've always loved and pimped the Austin & Larry vs Barry & Dustin match, and it's hardly the only one that rocks.

As far as nutty fans not being a negative, but at times a wonderful thing: These folks were ECW Fans before there was ECW with their glorious fun in participative watching of a movie they loved while a big chunk of the country thought not only was the movie not any good, but that they were kooky fans. Did they give a shit? No. Suspect there are a few of here who saw at least one midnight showing of this and were blown away by the fun the regulars and long-timers were having with it. * * * * * Again, I offered up something else that was (i) a form of expression, where (ii) narratives are being built, (iii) stories are being told, and (iv) craft is on display. My guess is that the vast majority of people in the world don't think the vast majority of it's "expression" is art. Of course we also just finished the NBA where all four of those things occurred over the course of the 82 game season and the four rounds of the playoffs. Art?

I believe that's what I said, with something even less big as the NFL: Boy Band / Teen Idols. There's nothing wrong with being an obsessive nutty hardcore fan of What Ever. There are loads of Niches and subniches of hardcore fandom. They're all doing the same shit we're doing. I'm sure we can find SciFi / Fantasy sites and boads doing the same GWE equiv several times over. Music boards do the same thing, and go on benders every time Rolling Stone or some other group of "experts" rolls out a new "Greatest X" list. We get it in movies once a decade when Sight & Sound comes out with the poll... and then hundreds of times in between around the web when folks do various list (AFI, Entertainment Weekly, etc). Really has nothing to do with "mainstream". It has to do with a genre of entertainment that has passionate fans like pro wrestling... okay, passionate and nutty fans like pro wrestling. Both largely don't care what other people thing of the genre they a fan of: they just give a shit that *they* and their fell fans dig the stuff and eat it up. You can think it a silly analogy, but they take their fandom as seriously as we do ours. :/ Of course. Kinda like... Boy Band fans. Admitting that we're hardcore obsessive nutty fans isn't dismissive. It celebrates our fandom. Do you really think that the Brown Coats think it's dismissive to call them obsessive nutty hardcore fans of Firefly? No. Their obsessive nutty hardcore fandom got a $40M movie made that at least provided one avenue of closure to their beloved show. They're nutty fans and damn proud of it. Being nuts about something isn't always a bad thing. That we've had nutty fans of wrestlers like Lawler, The Destroyer, Colon, Fujiwara and all those British wrestlers has been a massive positive to expanding the base of what (at least in our own nutty subgenre of a subgenre of a genre) is considered a Great Worker. The people who have obsessively pushed those guys, and countless others, have been a great thing.

Matt, I obviously value pro wrestling. I've written a metric ton of nonsense about it over the years all over the place, including here. I also value what's written here, and what's done here. Who would write 6000+ words to recommend just a *series* worth of matches to the Yearbook project if they didn't (i) value the work that was being done on it, or (ii) want to make sure Will & Loss had an idea of what was behind the recommendations? http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2180 On the flip side, that is something that anyone with a bit of honest self awareness would cop to being an idiotic obsessive hardcore fan thing to do. You can simply list the matches, Will & Loss would figure it out, and enough with that. It's what I and others did with countless other matches on the set (or that were left on the cutting room floor). Why? Who knows. It's what we all do from time to time. We watch something. It strikes us in a certain way. We toss out a ton of stuff. It's frankly borderline nuts, but we have the passion for it and out it goes. We *value* it. Not just watching the shit, but talking about it, and if, anyone is again honest with themselves, can be best defined as tossing out "What I Think About It". We wouldn't be tossing this stuff up, or writing letters to the WON, or blogging, or creating websites, or doing podcasts if we didn't actually have a high sense of value on the worth of our own opinions. And frankly, that's borderline nuts our parts... wonderfully nuts. We'd think it's nutty if there was a site like this dedicated to Boy Bands / Teen Idols and they were doing a GWE equiv going to the lengths we do. Within their world, it would be perfectly sane, they'd be having fun with it... or the Donny Osmond Fans would be feuding with the David Cassidy Fans while the Michael Jackson Fans would be laughing at both. It would be glorious... and nutty as all hell. Good lord, they may even have people running around talking about being the Enlightenment of Boy Bands / Teen Idols discussions. This is *our* nutty niche of fandom: pro wrestling hardcore fandom. PWO is one of many places where the niche gets together, and ironically the various places tend to think the others are kind of nuts. People here like to take a dump on The Board, but its the same thing: a collection of glorious obsessive hardcore fans of wrestling who are more than a bit idiotically nutty. I've said this now at least three times: don't take my lack of calling pro wrestling "art" to fail to have great value in pro wrestling, nor should one take me pointing out quite honestly that we are one nutty bunch of fans to fail to have great value for the conversations that happen here.

I've enjoyed that pretty much every aspect of the Love story has gone in opposite directions. The Dubs kept players who helped them win, which Love in their player probably would have been a headache because of his defense and oddball / inconsistent defense. The Cavs traded away someone who would have been the perfect long term compliment to Lebron as a wing, letting Bron shift more over time to Point Power Forward. Said player also would have been on a rookie contract, freeing up tons of money. In his place the got a player who didn't fit in, and who will likely leave for nothing. The Wovles botched the Rubio-Love contracts seven ways to Sunday, then screwed up their leverage on trade possibilities, and then damn near were going to be left without a suitor to get a building block player in return. They got extremely lucky that Bron went to Cleveland, decided he wanted to play with Love, wanted to win Now far more than he publicly talked about, and was incredibly short sighted on what he could do with Wiggins as his sidekick/protege. The Wolves are still a largely stupid team, including Flip. They got lucky that Wiggins fell in their lap. On the flip side... they're likely to botch that. All of this has been funny. My laughter will likely end if Love signs with the Lakers and I'm stuck watching him defend 82 games a year. My nightmare is Okafor+Love = Two Bigs Who Can't Defend. Two years of tanking isn't worth that.

We're wrestling fans. Ones who've spent countless hours watching it and talking about it and spending money on it. We value wrestling. Hell, we value it more than the vast majority of things that are art. Declaring something *not* to be art has nothing to do with Value. I tend to think the Wrestling Is Art is the hardcore equiv of the old Wrestling Is Sport for old school fans and Wrestling Is Mainstream for other fans. People needed to feel wrestling was sport to legitimize, mostly to themselves, their fandom which the vast majority of the country thinks is fake stupidity. People like Meltzer felt the need to push the Wrestling Is Mainstream narrative to justify the countless hours they've spent in this seedy niche form of entertainment, or in Dave's case building his livelihood and (at the time) life around. For a lot of us, it didn't matter whether wrestling was sport or whether it was mainstream. It didn't change our fandom, or our consumption of the product.

Yep. I'm trying to remember the one released in the 80s or early 90s that was painful to read. It seemed like someone who turned their thesis into a book. There were some kernels of things in it, but as a whole it's the type of thing that had hardcores rolling their eyes.

- wikipedia Who was the better artist: Jamie Gillis or Ric Flair? Now that I think of it, I seem to recall someone in that old thread using Gillis "work" and "physiology" as a comp to wrestling work and psyc. Wasn't me... I'm pretty sure it was Idol. I would have used Ginger Lynn.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say: "Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X." There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement. The earlier statement was that Wrestling Is Art. That statement gives the impression that All Wrestling Is Art, not just the stuff we think is *****+++ classics. Drawing on that paralell, it's not just that The Devil In Mrs. Jones Is Art, but that All Porn Is Art, including MILF Hunter. My point has never been that there are times when pro wrestling has artistic elements, nor that there's certainly some porn that has as well. It's just that if one wants to the world of pro wrestling is an art world, then we can apply that to the vast world of porn. I think you're fixating on the idea of "Art" in this case as high art, which is fine, but it's a different definition than what I presented in my post. I added the link to the New Statesman piece to try and imply that it's not an out-of-left-field discussion -- it is something that has been talked about in mainstream media -- but that piece does actually come to different conclusions about Art with a capital A that I don't agree with, so I probably should have skipped the link altogether or clarified my position further. No, I'm not fixating on the idea that all art is high art. My point is that if you're calling Ian Rose vs Axel Rose art (or Art) or some backyard wrestlers art (or Art), then you're also saying golden showers porn and Japanese tentacle porn is art. Now I'm not going to say that some master of golden showers porn or Japanese tentacle porn didn't create something artistic. Neither are my thing, so I haven't spent time sifting through them to make a judgement call on the great artistic achievements in those niches. I'm also certain that with enough blow up his nose, some idiot golden showers director did think he was crafting some great piece of sexual artwork. Just that if we're willing to say that Wrestling is Art, then extend it to Porn and ponder what that that applies. Side note: as most here who have read what I've written over the decades know, I'm hardly a prude on the notion of porn. I've riffed on it often, and would admit to being a consumer of it over the years like being a consumer of pro wrestling. But like 99.99% of porn consumers, even those who might appreciate artistic elements, I don't consumer porn as art. I suspect that 99.99% holds for Wrestling as well. It's really only hardcore idiots like us circle jerking on message boards about the depth and greatness of pro wrestling who'd even think to toss the term out. Well... and "scholars" who try to write up pro wrestling in papers, most of which tend to be really bad when read by hardcores like us.

The 80's Celtics were put together this way: Larry Bird - the Celtics were willing to take a flyer that they would be able to sign him prior to the next draft even though he stayed in college. They were right. Tiny Archibald - coming off an injury, the Celtics fleeced the Clippers. Robert Parrish: fleeced the Warriors out of Parrish with the Joe Barry Car(es)roll draft pick. Kevin McHale: fleeced the Warriors out of the McHale draft pick with the Joe Barry Car(es)roll draft pick. One of the greatest fleece job trades in NBA history. Dennis Johnson: Just a stunning fleece job trade where PHX (much like Seattle before them) just wanted to get rid of him. The irony is that the "trouble maker" DJ became one of the great "teammates" in the league once he got to Boston. Danny Ainge: the Celtics got him with the 8th pick of the 2nd round because Danny was playing baseball. In the event that he flopped at baseball, the Celtics were taking a flyer. There's a lot of bullshit about the genius of Red. Some of the above was luck. But a lot of it was that other teams were stupid.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say: "Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X." There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement. The earlier statement was that Wrestling Is Art. That statement gives the impression that All Wrestling Is Art, not just the stuff we think is *****+++ classics. Drawing on that paralell, it's not just that The Devil In Mrs. Jones Is Art, but that All Porn Is Art, including MILF Hunter. My point has never been that there are times when pro wrestling has artistic elements, nor that there's certainly some porn that has as well. It's just that if one wants to the world of pro wrestling is an art world, then we can apply that to the vast world of porn.