Dylan Waco

I could buy that rating for Rush v. Lethal. In real time I thought both of those matches were just a hair below MOTYC level which seems to be your view too. That said, the more I thought about Rush v. Lethal the more I liked it at least in the sense of the story told. I do agree that Strong v. Rush would have been epic, but I think Rush v. Lethal would make my MOTYC list if I was the type to do those. What was the other 4 star match on the show? Cole v. ACH?

It's escape the cage

But he did exactly the right things at exactly the right times for the context. He really did. He's the most efficient wrestler I've ever seen. So what gives?I really haven't watched much Strongbow at all. Hit me with some recs that are on youtube.I'll point you again to the 1973 match at MSG vs. Fuji. It's on youtube. What positive inputs does Jay bring?

I guess my struggle time and time again with this is the very idea of Chief Jay Strongbow and why more people don't champion him. I'd be much more receptive to it if people could find a way to square "context" with also thinking he sucks. The arguments I made for him and Putski were not just facetious piss-takes of "The Matt D view", they put forward arguments that Johnny and others have tried to articulate before about the importance of time and place, and doing the right thing for the context. I realise this is on the extreme end of things, but one way to test ideas is to push at the limits. As an Aristotelian I search (perhaps in vain) for the Golden Mean.

I'd be more sympathetic to that approach if Bret's career and life weren't what they were and if the guys peak was clearly longer than say Brian Pillman's - it wasn't. To Parv's comment the point wasn't to use that as an example to illustrate the flaws of Flar, but rather to point to a pretty clear example where factors other than just a matches quality could be examined to make judgments about a wrestlers performance. Number of snowflakes does not tell us much about performance in and of itself, and say working for card placement to take one other example strikes me as a method some could use to analyze a worker that I would struggle to find objectionable.

Cortez made my list. Very happy he did as well as he did.

I could have left Bret off my list entirely, and really don't see any criteria where I could buy him as a number one contender that wasn't almost exclusively wedded to "emotional connection." On the broader subject and speaking to Loss' post I wrote a very long post that gave more examples than Inoki and HHH and spoke to some other things relevant to Loss' questions that seems to have been avoided like the plague. I think it might get at the heart of some of the differences here, maybe not. But worth looking at if you haven't already

I'd do it only if I can rearrange my ballot to drop AJPW and Flair to offset Parv's anti-Lucha bias

It also feels "wrong" to say that Inoki was not one of the all-time greats given his almost god-like status in wrestling lore and history. He has the intangibles factor and a big chin, whereas Hunter has woeful 20-minute promos and a big nose. He's not at Inoki's level necessarily, but HHH is widely loved and revered

Shocked El-P wasn't the high vote on Raven I didn't even consider Sasha, but oddly I have no problem with her placing here. If nothing else she feels like a historically significant worker in an era of mass insignificance.

My 95 was Embry. Shocked he made it this far and was on so many ballots. I honestly thought he'd be lucky to appear on a half dozen. I nearly talked myself into including Stan Lane, on the basis that he appeared 3 times on my tag team ballot. I never really thought of him as an all time great, and still don't, but that is impressive. Keirn is a guy who I don't watch for years at a time, then watch a bunch at once, and remember how great he was in his prime. Crazy good wrestler, though I didn't rank him.

150 ballots is likely to help those like Brody, Dory, TM, et.

I had Kobashi WAYYYY higher than Bret on my list. I think Bret as a top five pick is completely indefensible via the criteria I used, and I'm deeply suspicious of the idea that he'd be top five on any list that favored a criteria which didn't heavily adjust for circumstance and also put massive stock in the importance of peak (while also rating Bret's peak FAR higher than I would). So I am actually on Parv's side in the sense that I think Kobashi is a much better wrestler. I am also on Parv's side in the sense that I don't really think it's wrong to point to the amount of matches as an obvious determining factor in this case, because it's one where the gap between the two parties is very large (and I'm not sure I see Steven arguing that point). That said I don't think great matches are the be all, end all. I don't even think good matches are the be all, end all. And I also think that context is really critical at times, and that gets really lost if the focus is solely on "was this match good." The example I always point to here is a comparison between the way Nick Bockwinkel worked Jake Milliman, and the way Ric Flair worked George South. I think watched in isolation it would be almost impossible to argue that the Bock v. Milliman match was better. It was completely devoid of drama, had little meat to it, and wasn't long enough to exhibit anything in way of build, deep psychology, super highspots, et. By contrast Flair v. South (or least least my memory of it) had many of those things and was extremely dramatic to be watching it live as a child. I thought South was going to beat the World Champion and was losing my shit! It worked on me! But why the fuck was the World Champion playing "just barely escape!" with a literal jobber who I had never seen win a television match? It made zero sense. In the past when I have brought this up some have conceded this point and argued that the Bock v. Milliman match was better without even seeing it. But I literally cannot imagine anyone thinking it was a "better" match given how we tend to evaluate things. It was a smarter and more logical match. None of this is to argue that I think Bock is better than Flair, and I swear I'm not just picking on Flair (I've made a similar context criticism about a Rey v. Eddie match from 2004 that I think is great in isolation). The point is that this is an instance where I would be hard pressed to argue against Flair v. South being better as a match, while I also thinking that Bockwinkel's performance was better than Flair's. I'll freely concede that others may disagree if they have a different view about what the goal of a champion or one of the matches in question was, but that is my takeaway. Are these sort of things anomalies? I don't really think so. I think they come up far more often than you'd think. Having said that I also think it's ridiculous to just throw out the idea that volume of good and great matches doesn't matter. It most certainly does. I don't even object to that idea that it should be the most significant metric (I'm not sure it is to me really, but also not positive it isn't). But I do object to the idea of the GWE as a math problem, and I do object to the idea that the number of snowflakes placed at the end of a match review can tell us all we need to know about the level of the individual performances involved. On the Kobashi and Shawn comparison, I'm actually mystified that Parv would find it problematic but perhaps it a comparison that would force him to self-reflect a bit too much. No Shawn's lame gimmick isn't (entirely) comparable to Kobashi's. And I obviously don't think Shawn was influenced by Kobashi in the way that he was by Flair or Hennig or even Buddy Rose. But in certain ways that I find very transparent I think they are remarkably similar workers - Both of them clearly wanted to be great workers. Note that I did not say great wrestlers. To me Kobashi and Shawn are guys who wear their effort and desire to be the best on their sleeves. This observation is one I know Loss and Childs share with me as it regards Kobashi, and I think there is ample reason to believe that the "showstoppa! Mr. Wrestlemania!" monikers affixed to Shawn were to a large degree expressions of how he viewed himself. I would note that this is NOT a characteristic that I feel was all that common at the time of each man's peak (it is probably more common now, though maybe less so than we might think) - While Shawn was certainly a more pinballish bumper, I feel both guys were willing to destroy their bodies, and take unhealthy levels of punishment in the interest of having "epic" matches. I literally cannot imagine a world where "self conscious epic" could be applied to something like Shawn v. Taker and not say Kobashi v. Misawa from 6/99 which might be the most overt case of a guy destroying himself to get over something as being big time, next level wrestling that I've ever seen. - I think both guys were prone to bloat in their matches. This is something that people will not necessarily agree with me on, but I would note that the dynamic stretch runs of Kobashi and Michaels feel distinct from that of their peers, even if Kobashi's are more compelling because of the fact that he was so much better offensively. - Most importantly both guys are extremely theatrical sellers, who I think cross the line into out right hysterics at times. Parv is an admitted offense mark so I get why he would like Kobashi much more than Michaels, but for the life of me I can't see how someone could hate Michaels and love Kobashi. The selling and comebacks of both guys strike me as cheapseat emoting on steroids, whether it be Kobashi crying/hamming it up or Michaels blubbering/hamming it up. Kobashi's comebacks are often times more nuanced than Shawn's, but I don't think that's uniformly the case, and if anything Kobashi is an even MORE melodramatic guy than Shawn. I think Kobashi is a much, much, much better wrestler than Michaels, but I think the parallels are fairly obvious. With Cena I think there is an extent to which it is true that the matches are his case, but I also think his adaptability and understanding of how to work to opponent and context is being radically undersold. Yes his execution is often poor, and his worst handful of selling performances are pretty egregious, but I also think he's had some all time selling performances, and he's actually managed to make his poor execution something akin to a net positive by virtue of the fact that his "never give up" schtick seems to apply to his moveset and the way he approaches his matches. He comes across as a guy who will legit try anything, even if it is beyond his abilities, in order to get the job done. I find it hard to believe that is a coincidence, but even if it's not intentional it's something I think is easy to read into his performances and that is more than good enough for me. On the general subject of thread I think it depends on where you set the mark for great matches and how you quantify the term "a lot." I suppose Jericho had a lot of great matches but I don't think he was great. I don't think Inoki or Mutoh were great, but I could probably name 20 matches from each guy I thought were great. Atlantis has been in a lot of matches I'd probably call great, but I don't see him as a great worker though there is a degree to which I see this as an issue on my end and not his. Tiger Mask has actually been in a lot of matches I'd call great or near great, and while I'm higher on him than many realize, I'd be hard pressed to call him a great wrestler and I'm not sure he ever was. A guy like Jeff Hardy has probably been in a sneaky number of great maches, but I don't think he was great even though I think he had greatness in him (if that makes sense). I can kind of go back and fourth on whether or not I think Sabu was great, right now thinking that he was great in his own way, but that his greatness was largely about his ability to make anything seem interesting and special, and less about the actual final result even if I think he had a fair number of great matches. Sting had an all time great series and if pressed I could probably come up with ten other matches of his I thought were great or close to it but I don't see him as a guy who was great. I'd be willing to bet that a guy with a career as long as Kane would have a shockingly long list of great or near great matches if we went back and watched everything obsessively. Aside from Bix no one thinks he's great. If you count tags Kofi Kingston has probably been in over a dozen matches I think are great at minimum. I'm not a Kofi Kingston fan. Again this largely depends on what you define as great, how high your standards are for that term, the meaning of "a lot," et., et., et. Not trying to be Clintonian here, but the meaning of these things is really central to the question.

Listened to it all at work tonight. I recorded part one of my GWE rundown today and it was funny to hear certain arguments I made made on this show. Look forward to the plagiarism accusation . Was pleasantly surprised by many rankings, confused by others, but loved listening to the discussion all the same. I thought the Bryan talk was excellent, was really happy Childs repped Puerto Rico, and thought the discussions on the four pillars ruled even when I didn't entirely agree. Great show(s).

I know he didn't include them here, but interested on your thoughts on Moose v. Roddy and Rush v. Lethal from Supercard of Honor Night 1. I thought both were clearly better than Sydal v. O'Reilly, though I think my brother(s?) disagree with me. Maybe?

I will say that I thought Sydal was incredible for a couple of years. I didn't consider him, but the idea that he's a dismal performer is something I can't really buy into

I don't think there is anyway to arrive at a fixed criteria for something like this that wouldn't absolutely destroy the entire point of the project in the first place. That's not to say I can't appreciate the value of something like BIGLAV for Parv, and I actually ended up applying a more fixed criteria than I would have guessed myself, but to me this is a humanities project, not a science one.

I actually find lucha more entertaining to watch on a critical level because of the ways in which it is distinct. To me I have to turn off my brain far more to enjoy something like certain 90's AJPW matches because I can't shake the feeling that a lot of the bomb throwing and placement of big spots would be brutally eviscerated by it's biggest supporters (and perhaps even myself) if the exact same things were happening in say a U.S. indie match. To me lucha is a style about escalation. The best lucha bouts - and this goes for title matches, trios, and stakes matches - are matches that take advantage of the lucha tropes to build to the biggest moments. I think the 2/3 falls enhances this, and the dive trains work in this context too both as transitions and moments when the matches really kick into another gear and/or reach their peak depending on the build of the match. Even things like the three-on-one rudo beatdowns I feel are usually designed to enable a spectacular technico comeback. The best lucha matches have an internal logic to them between falls, though it's less obvious than "here's some limbwork, sell it later," so I can see how this wouldn't be immediately obvious someone overwhelmed by the site of a bunch of masked guys hitting the mat. I've said this before but I actually love the fact that any spot in lucha can be a finish and that submissions are treated as fatalities when they are truly sunk in. I'm not going to sit here and argue that I find lucha more realistic than other sorts of wrestling (though I don't find it inherently less realistic), but I do think near falls in lucha almost always mean more, especially in the third fall of title matches. I will say that I do think lucha is probably a lost cause for Parv. To me the way he speaks about it ("general sense of chaos") is not exactly something that lends itself to being understood, even if he genuinely wants to. Japanese wrestling is to a large degree a byproduct of American cultural imperialism, whereas lucha is it's own form that I guess some people will never "get." Even though I used to fall into that camp I really don't want to concede that point, but I guess I have to.

Much of this thread ignores the context of where the term Great Match Theory came from. I understand why it's being ignored mind you, but as the person who coined the term the specificity of the debate that led to it being given its name is critical. In other words, read the horror of the Bret v Flair feud in the Microscope.

At work, but I think this is an absolute truism supported by all the available evidence to the point where I view your outrage as deliberately feigned nonsense. If you are serious I'll respond to it more directly when I get home.* *post deliberately delivered in Parvian tone

Other than my number 1 in not going to be the high vote on anyone. Absolutely amazed that my 95 is still on the board.

I'm mildly surprised Ron Simmons got any votes at all.

Kobashi is Shawn Michaels with better offense and opponents. I ranked him well in my mind, but I scoff at the idea that 25 for him is some grave injustice. That said Bret isn't even close to a top 5 guy and I had Kobashi way higher than him

Jesse's best matches are indeed East-West tags. On Rave, I'm one of the few people who religiously followed Rampage when he worked/booked for them and I rewatched tons of Wildside and ROH for this project. If he hadn't held up tremendously in those settings he wouldn't have made my list even with him being awesome the last couple of years and him being an incredibly great live wrestler. As it was he made my list pretty easily.

Venturas best matches were better