jdw

This is a cool new gimmick you're rolling out in several threads: swear off posting about a subject ever again, only come back into it within a few hours.

The Mark Nulty Memorial Forum

That's a concept that goes back to the middle of the last decade: 20. El Hijo Del Santo 32. Blue Panther 38. Negro Casas 67. El Dandy 89. Satanico 92. Psicosis 94. Atlantis If you'd done the same poll in 1999, I'm not sure if any of those guys finish above Psic. Maybe Santito. Maybe you get lucky and have enough people like CubsFan and Jose participating super actively in 1999 discussion threads to put people over. By 2006, the conversation had radically changed. AAA was taking major hits, and Panther got points for being the "mat" guy of AAA, not one of the spot workers. Just think about how far the conversation had come by 2006 that not just Dandy > Psic, but Satanico > Psic. Those other guys above him have quite a bit more accessibility for folks getting into Lucha, while Satanico-luv is usually a sign of someone who has gone whole hog for Lucha. Now some of that was Dandy & Satanico being joined a bit at the hip due to their classic feud. But still... For all the shit the 2006 list took, it really did give a lot of evidence of where some discussions were headed, and where it already had been. My guess is that we'll look back at this one the same way: there's a lot of shit folks can (and certainly already have) slung at it, but it does reflect where the discussion has gone over the past decade, and some we'll see that it reflects where it's going on some things.

I'm not going to reject out of hand the Puroresu = "product of American cultural imperialism" concept. That's even while admitting that when seeing Dylan toss it in the "Me" post that my first thought was, "Dylan's talking wacky nonsense here". It's certainly something worth giving more thought to. I'd also hate to see that the "giving more thought to" aspect is *just* a bunch of gaijin, even those living over there or folks who have been watching it for decades, hashing out what someone else's wrestling is. There would be more value in it if we had the modern equivs of Hisa, and several of them, joining the discussion. I'm not sure how we'd get that lucky, though. That said... The concept of Puroresu = "product of American cultural imperialism" = Puroresu Super Accessable is, for anyone who has been around puroresu discussions over the past several decades, an interesting one... odd one... not sure what to make of it one. Dylan has been around long enough to see "Puro Snobs" tossed at folks who would talk about puroresu (and also talk about US and Lucha as well) but the mainstream likes of Keller or Mitchell, or even folks on message boards. My experiance was that a high percentage of those folks really never found puroresu to be as accessible as some might think. The reasons could be several, from the lack of "angles" to the "it's a different language" to "they're not the guys I grew up watching" to... whatever. But there was resistance to it just as the Anti-American Cultural Imperialism folks might think there is for Lucha. To as high of a degree as there is resistance for Lucha? I would agree "not to that degree", but certainly enough to be noticeable. I'd go further and point to another think that Dylan was around to see at the time: ECW & ECW Fans. You were around to see those hardcore sheet fans / online fans say things such as "Japan and Lucha are Dave's discoveries... but ECW is ours". I wouldn't say it was a rejection of Japan or Lucha, but a differentiation and a vastly more accessible love they had for their own ECW product. Which of course anyone who knows anything about ECW also finds ironic since Paul was kind of asking Dave who he should bring in, and some of those Japan and Lucha based guys like Benoit, Eddy, Rey and Psic were among the folks. And of course ECW Fans loved them when they came to do their shit in the Bingo Hall. So while I believe it's worth thinking a good deal about the aspects of Puroresu = "product of American cultural imperialism", I do think we need to recall that's it's not like USA = 100, Puro = 95, Joshi = 80, British = 10 and Lucha = 1 on the 1-100 scale of accessibility. When Dave was taking crap for covering MMA in the mid-90s, he would joke about having taken the same crap for devoting space to Japanese wrestling in the 80s and early 90s... let along that Mexican stuff. If it's more accessible in the middle of the last decade and now, it wasa long rolling of the ball up the hill when we get outside our little niches within a niche of a niche. Any of us who have been around a long time recall discussions on Puro with non-puro fans back then that aren't terribly different than what folks have with non-Lucha fans.

I wouldn't disagree with that at all. But... What the Spurs did to the Thunder was one of the more amazing butt kickings I've seen by a top team on another top team... which is an interesting theme of the season, since there have been a number of these. I suspect Will would agree that was damn near perfection of there, and he's seen all the amazing games of the Spurs over this 20 year run. The Dubs are a historic team coming off a near-historic season last year, so I've following them all year and am pretty committed to watching all their playoff games. Add in the Rockets are an insane Russo-style team, and Steph getting hurt, it was an oddly compelling mess of a series. Yohe enjoys following the Clippers despite being a Lakers fan, so I was forcing him to watch that complete trainwreck of a series with the Blazers. Loads of bad basketball, but oddly compelling once you're locked in... like a carwreck. There hasn't been anything like the Clippers-Spurs of last season, but that really was a once in a generation (if even that) type of a first round series between two true title contenders. But it has been a strange start to the post season after an amazing regular season. Hmm... need to get back on topic before I get yelled at...

Not so sure that is the case. Perhaps the PWO of the future if a large number of the non-PWO voters stick around and become part of the community. But make up a list of all the #1 voters, and ponder how many aren't regular posters here (or haven't been outside of the GWE), along with all the ???, and there's a not insignificant number of folks who haven't been members of the community over the past 2 years, or 10 years. Not saying that's a bad things. Will and Loss have talked about broadening the PWO community, and making it an inclusive site. This is smart as there are always some of us over the years who wander off, and you need to regularly put more water into the pool to make up for what comes out. But it's not realistic to stretch it to be representative of what the community has been. All the members of the PWO community that cared enough or could be bothered to vote, voted. Loss, and others that made the decision to let non-members vote was a good one. Otherwise, PWO would end up like the North Korea of all wrestling boards, toA. I'd love for all of the non-members that voted to become members, possibly replacing those who are too elitist to be bothered with such things. That's what I said, with the exception of the "too elitist" nonsense. I said it was a good/smart thing that Will and Charles opened up the vote. I also said that in the end the list didn't represent what the PWO community was at the start of the project. But it could be representative of the PWO community if those new voters stick around, which also would be a good thing. As far as voting, I've explained to anyone who has asked over the past two years why: #1 - Time I would rather watch things like Clippers vs Blazers, Spurs vs Thunder, Dubs vs Blazers, Drakes vs Pacers, United vs Leicester, City vs Sunderland, and Barca vs Betis this Fri-Sun. OJ up above talked about 3 hours a week. There's 16 hours from Friday night through Sunday night, plus chunks of the TNT post game shows, and the MSNBC EPL pre-game/post game shows, which takes that up over 20 hours. Is it elitist that at the age of 50 that I'd rather watch 20 hours of sports on a weekend, a large chunk of it with friends, then pro wrestling which I obsessed about from the age of 20-40? Or spend another 20 hours on Mon-Thu also watching sports stuff, like prior NBA playoff games and post-game shows, Champions League, the NFL draft, Sports Center, etc? Kind of non-elitists, given the number of folks who watch sports in the country and around the world. That doesn't even get into watching a Midsomer Murders movie, re-watching Cap 2 in advance of Cap 3 this coming weekend, going to a couple of school plays, etc. It's a bit ironic the be tagged as an elitist for not having the time to devote to what is an elitist niche project and poll because I enjoy spending time on stuff that is mainstream Americana (or mainstream in other counties). #2 - Lists Dylan actually touched on being more list-loving in the 00s than he is now. I was past that point back at the time of the original GWE project, which I participated in some of the the discussions but skipped the ballot: I was more interested in the discussion than The List. I don't really care what number got placed next to Hansen. I cared more about what people were talking about with him. Same goes this time around. Don't really care where Hansen placed. I was/am more interested in Dylan (and others) talking about Hansen's matches with Colon, going and taking a look at them online, and seeing whether I was seeing things the same as they were (I did). When watching them, the concept of 6, 3, 7, 2 or 1 never was part of what I was thinking about. It was more on, "Damn this is a fun match", "Hansen is really good", and "Colon is better than his rep". Those are take aways that interest me more at this point, or things that folks toss out, rather than worrying about a number. Similar to not worrying about a star rating for those matches: don't care. I was a big list guy in the 90s, and in the 80s, and in the 70s. I'm less so now, which has been the case for over a decade, especially in things that I've been hardcore about. Wrestling lists? More interested in discussion. Baseball lists? Much more interested in discussions. The exception might be the all-time basketball list. The discussion on it was underdeveloped until the last decade. As it was getting a bit more developed, it overlapped with the careers of the likes of Duncan, Kobe & Lebron who would certainly end their careers high on the list, along with some other speculative potential high placers like Durrant and now Curry. That "list" is fresher than say a baseball project, which has been bouncing around since I was a kid in the 70s, and then elevated to a higher level by folks like Bill James in the mid-80s (with the likes of the Historical Abstract). I actually was a bit bored by James' last "full" listing in the early 00s, and his more recent variations of lists (which he does in tournaments) haven't been less interesting in terms of results than in terms of discussion or comments of players. So one is elitist for being bored of an elite baseball historian/number cruncher's lists? I kind of thing that's the opposite of what you're thinking. The reality of this project, and this site, is that our niche within a niche within a niche *is* an Elite board and community. The 10K who show up at Raw tonight aren't spending their time on projects like this. If they're doing a list, they're knocking it off with less time that we here spend on a single candidate who ends up getting left off our lists. Folks who spend 2 years on a project like this are by definition hardcore elite fans. Which is bitching since we've all been hardcore like that at points in our lives, but you might to be a little more honest with yourself and look in the mirror to find the elitist. I get that you have a bug up your ass about me. That's cool. But usually when you project nonsense like this on me, it ends up being just that: nonsense.

It's more than a bit odd.

Not so sure that is the case. Perhaps the PWO of the future if a large number of the non-PWO voters stick around and become part of the community. But make up a list of all the #1 voters, and ponder how many aren't regular posters here (or haven't been outside of the GWE), along with all the ???, and there's a not insignificant number of folks who haven't been members of the community over the past 2 years, or 10 years. Not saying that's a bad things. Will and Loss have talked about broadening the PWO community, and making it an inclusive site. This is smart as there are always some of us over the years who wander off, and you need to regularly put more water into the pool to make up for what comes out. But it's not realistic to stretch it to be representative of what the community has been.

Just on their work in All Japan? Just for AJPW, I'd go Jumbo, Kawada, Kobashi, Misawa, Hansen, Tenryu then Taue. I'd agree that there is a a perfectly reasonable argument to rate Hansen above Jumbo for their overall careers given the additional points he gets for good work in New Japan, the AWA (though Jumbo has a pair of AWA matches that I like the hell out of), PR and even the WWF.

Yeah, that's the storyline I remember - win the title or retire. I don't know if Jerry has talked about it in his book, but it's not the type of storyline you typically run to end up not getting the thing. I do recall they had the match in Memphis which Jerry didn't win. I seem to recall that the match with Lawler was right around the time the Flair & Andersons angle with Dusty happened to set up Starcade, and it's tough to have Flair do a quicky title changes right as you're playing into the biggest JCP show of all-time up to that point. Dave may have talked about it in the WON... in the back of my head there something that Jerry kind of got screwed or felt screwed.

Interesting. The idea I have of early ROH is two bland guys in MMA shorts and kickpads doing AJ cosplay for 45 minutes while the crowd is doing dual chants. Maybe I'm completely off on this, and in this case well, one of these days, why not. I didn't know TNA audience were responsible for "this is awesome" chants. Damn them then. Damn, and here I was recalling ECW Fans for inventing it, since they claimed at the time to have invented all audience related things.

Kawada Fan: "It was Kawada's turn to go over in the GWE!" Baba-san: "He isn't ready. Misawa is the ace, and Jumbo is jobbing to him as well."

Headroppy backlash has been going on since the end of the 90s, and the hammy character complaints go back even earlier. Kobashi has proven to be more than a bit like Flair: the decade (or in Kobashi's case two decades) of criticism hasn't sunk him. For anyone who thinks that criticism has had much impact on Flair or Kobashi, it's best for one to take a look at Toyota. She's gotten the criticism for as long as Kobashi, and far harder than Flair since she never has had the volume of supporters than Flair has. Well, at least not since the older joshi stronghold forums of the internet died. Over the past decade the criticism reached a tipping point, along with criticism of her entire genre with her as the post child of the criticism. There she is dropping from #29 to #85.

Flair isn't some random Top 10 guys, Loss. He's the dude who has been thought to be the GoaT for 30 years. Not "a" GoaT candidate - THE GOAT. That an extremely small circle of goofy fans back in 2006 put Jumbo #1 and some other guys ahead of Flair didn't mean that the mass of hardcores didn't think he was the GoaT is we took a real accurate sampling around hardcore fandom. We were a niche within a niche of a niche. So we've seen some in our niche trying to prop Flair back up towards #1, and churned out a lot of positive praise over the past decade (let's be honest - limiting this discussion to 18 months is missing 8.5 years of a regular ongoing conversation folks have had). Others in our niche didn't think he was, so pointed out why. Still others were fascinated by the concept that you can't possibly be critical of Flair without folks getting a bug up their ass about it, so hopped in to point out criticism of Flair. Not really trolling of Flair, but I'm sure folks would see it that way... just as Shawn Fans like Alverez thought anyone criticizing Shawn was a trolling asshole or just a dumb fuck who didn't get Shawn's greatness. I'm sure you recall those discussions. Flair's not the only one who was propped up, but in the case of Lawler or Fujiwara or Tenryu, not one who doesn't think they're #1 really gives a shit enough about to spend time pointing out why they aren't. Why? Because Lawler and Tenryu and Fujiwara never have been #1 before. Flair was the GoaT for 20 years before the original GWE, and still was the GoaT despite 30-50 yahoos like us having a ballot where he wasn't it. Then because of those yahoos, Jumbo had the milestone around his neck this time around, and got taken to the woodshed by folks.

Good point.

Not sure if it ever made tape, but I thought he did do one tour. His match from this card aired on Classics: http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=78501 If it appears on the original NTV broadcast, it was cut down so extreme that Dan didn't list it on his 1985 set and just had the double main event. This was in a stretch (mostly coving 1985) were G+ rolled out a few matches that didn't air on NTV originally, but must have been taped and left in the can. I don't see his match from the only other TV taping he worked making original TV: http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=106153 Tigersawa vs Kobayashi and Tsuruta & Tenryu vs Choshu & Yatsu are the matches on his list, and given the time would have eaten up most of the show. If something was cut to air small bite, it would have been the semi rather than the Lawler match. It would be an interesting story for why he did the tour. Tagged with Valiant in every match, Saito & Kahn were the only players of note they faced, and that was short. Was 1985 the year where Lawler thought he was going to get a cup of coffee with the NWA Title? Not sure why Baba would book him in that specific period, especially with Ishingundan just jumping and having a bloated roster.

Flair was the once-and-future #1. Jumbo was the reigning #1. Of course they were going to be scrutinized and debated. No one picks apart random wrestler #77, unless someone is trying to pimp him up and there's some resistance to it, as is the case with Dory or Backlund, etc. If I were still a Flair Fan, I would be worried when people stopped giving a shit enough about Flair to scrutinize and debate him. He then slips into being Ty Cobb or Stan Musial, someone who is "yeah, sure... he's one of the best somewhere up there" rather than people doing the hardcore analysis they do on Ruth, Mays, Bonds, Wagner and digging deep into the Negro League players like we do with Lucha workers, and with even less to go by. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with being Stan Musial. That might be some of the irony: the folks who are seen as hating on Flair don't really hate him. They just happen to think he's the Stan Musial of pro wrestling. Which hardcore sabermetric and historical baseball fans know is really, really, really great... off the charts great. If Flair is that, it's a fucking massive compliment. But it's not really what Flair Fans aspire for the level of Flair to rise to. It would be flippant to say that they find it an insult that Flair is Musial, but... it's not wildly of base.

I wasn't the first to say Bryan was going in the HOF. My part in the prior discussions was simply trying to get across those that thought he wouldn't get voted in the obvious: dudes and dudettes who win multiple Worker of the Year Awards *all* go in. Which Dylan in those thread acknowledged was something that would get him in. Some of those thread were before he got his big WWE push, so there were more people at the time who were on the fence about him going in just based on his work. But plenty of people thought he would make it given how HOF voting went in prior years.

This is old news. He had an Observer Award named after him. He's in. You recall that I said several years back that he was going to eventually go in simply from winning the Worker Award the number of times he did.

I agree with this. I've found all of his Flair matches, going back to the UN Title one, to be disappointing to weak to laughable at times. I like the Jumbo-Kerry more than any Flair-Jumbo or Flair-Kerry match, while admitting that I like a typical Flair-Kerry more than Flair-Jumbo.

Considering Bryan is ending up in the Top 10 of the Greatest Workers Who Ever Lived, it would appear we can skip the discussion of him as a WON HOF candidate this year.

Shouldn't make the top 10 because he just wasn't that good. If only he'd done more flips and head drops. This sounds like the Wrestling Classics guys who hated Rey because he did lots of flippy floppy stuff. That's not me though because I had Rey in my top 10 and also had Matt Sydal on my list. And I'm sure the Classics guy probably loved Bobby Eaton coming off the top rope with the elbow.

Imagine if Casas had asked for a few final tours in NJPW over the last few years? I'm going to assume without evidence that he gets to #17. I got to see Negro work in an NJPW ring live. So maybe that's why I rate him highly.

Shouldn't make the top 10 because he just wasn't that good. If only he'd done more flips and head drops. This sounds like the Wrestling Classics guys who hated Rey because he did lots of flippy floppy stuff.

Mainstream hardcore fans were niche fetishists. It's a bit like one snob looking down his nose at another snob.