Dylan Waco

Love Spike even though I didn't have him on my ballot. He was one of many ECW guys who I would have liked to include but didn't. In some ways Red was my hardest cut. He was going to be my 99 for a long time, but the late Joshi and WOS watches hurt him. I still regret leading him off. A rare wrestler who was innovative in a good way early and transformed himself into one of the better traditional build workers on the indies.

Sadly no. I was at 58 and the Supershow. Also did the two ROH shows, the Funk BBQ (which had an ACW show going on throughout it), TexasMania, WrestleMania and Raw.

I know Pete didn't like Riddles post-match selling, but I'd have Riddle v Willians at at least the same level as the 6-man, and maybe just a hair below Sabre v Hero. I've seen four Riddke matches live this year, and match-to-match he's the best live wrestler I've seen. I think he'd have 3 matches in my top 10 of the year so far.

I'll talk more about it soon enough, but the WWNLive Mercury Rising show is the best pro wrestling card I've ever attended

Dean voting for Rufus got a pop out of me

Really interested to see what you rank from the Mercury Rising show. You know I'm not a stars guy, but there were 6 matches on that show I would probably have had at 3.5 stars are better, and three matches that felt like legit MOTYCs (for totally different reasons) from my front row seat.

I love the guy. Thought he was better than Kawada in Footloose and right there with the top guys in AJPW at end end of the 80s. I never got around to tail end FMW which is the only reason I didn't rank him. He's probably the one guy in this first run where I feel like he was really slept on and deserved better. But I didn't have him on my ballot, so it's hard to bitch. Really happy Hamrick and Whipwreck got votes. It hurt to leave them off. Tempers was my 100 at my point.

I almost voted Haward. Kind of wish I had.

I'll explain why later, but I left off Billy Robinson and The Destroyer. No Race, Shawn, Murdoch, Dibiase, Hase, Takada, Marty Jones, Atlantis, or Tully either. Maybe more I'm forgetting.

I actually have a lot to say about this, but I'm about to be without Wi-Fi for the rest of the night, and then I'll be in Dallas for nearly a week. But what I would say is that while I like some sort of non-formulaic aspects of certain styles (for example the fact that any move can be a finish in lucha or shootstyle), in general I don't think I would ever have been a fan, nor would I still be a fan today without formula. And I say this as a sports guy, who was never into comics or superheroes, or anything like that at all.

To my eyes the biggest difference between Dundee and Dutch is that Dundee has a LOT more volume. I do think that Dundee is an extremely versatile worker, who was very adept on the mat as well as brawls. He was also a great tag worker and great studio worker of course. What hurts him is that he really doesn't have any classics outside of matches involving Lawler (I'd listen to argument for the Scaffold match with Koko, but I'm not sure I'd buy it), which makes you wonder a bit. He was clearly a great wrestler with a very broad skill set - great punches, strong mat worker, good highspots, great Memphis timing, et. - but he lacked a second or third dance partner who he could really paint the town red with. I like him a lot, and he ranked well on my list, but he's hair below the true elite.

Haha. In all seriousness I like Jack and Jerry as a team too

Which ones? The good ones. The ones from Delaware

No matter how high you rate Cena I won't critique it. The ONLY thing keeping him out of my absolute, tip top tier was duration of quality. In ten years he could be my number 1.

On the tag ballot it's possible I'll be the high voter on the Briscoes

I know someone who has Foley really, really high. I was discussing Hero today with my brothers, and I could honestly see him as high as 30. I have him nowhere near that level, but I think I could construct a sane argument I would buy for him in the top third.

I need to do a countdown with someone. To make this relevant to Cena, I ended up having him really high. And almost had him "you have got to be fucking kidding me" high.

I have Grey pretty high, but I won't be the high voter

Early FMW is great. I learned that I don't think the "peak v. longevity" debate really works in my mind the way it does with other people and I prefer to analyze based on "duration of quality." I learned that consistency matters a ton when you watch as much as I do. Maybe more than it should, but it's a criteria that I value and I think a large part of that has to do with viewing habits. I learned that variety/variation means something radically different to different people, but that I tend value it on both ends (ability to have matches with a wide variety of people and ability to play a variety of roles/work a variety of styles), and that I probably value it more than most. I learned that there is a HUGELY MASSIVE difference between immersive viewing and cherry picking, whereas I had previously thought the difference was merely a big one. I also don't know that I like either of those terms for what I'm describing. I learned that I will always value the things I see as my babies (AWA, SMW, ECW) more than most and it has effected the way I see certain people in part because it feels more complete. This certainly has a psychological component to it even though I tried to objective. Having said this, in talking to my brothers about their ballots today I was shocked to see that at least some of my babies did better for them than they did with me. I learned that I (and everyone really) am much more heavily influenced by outside factors, and in particular constructed narratives that emerge during a given time and place than I might care to admit. I tried to correct for this and think a bit more about this down the stretch when I looked at certain performers on other core values I had and couldn't figure out why my instinct wasn't to rate them higher. The results were interesting and will possibly shock some people. I learned that I really don't like writing match reviews anymore. This is sad to me, but it's something I slowly came to over the course of the project. I just hate the idea of not going on to the next match which will help me appreciate the wrestler or promotion or whatever I'm focusing on more because I have to stop to write a paragraph or two that no one will ever read because their aren't snowflakes following it. Building on that same theme I learned that I get WAY more enjoyment out of discussing wrestlers than matches at least in the context of a "best ever" type of project. This also makes me a bit sad as I think that I'm clearly on the margins here, and as the discussion seems to shift more and more to matches, my involvement in the community will likely shrink exponentially. I learned that the process Steven and I came up with worked pretty well, but probably could have been better. I don't regret the idea of nominations, but do wonder if the three match rule had a real point at the end of the day even if it came from the right place. I learned that the tag team ballot being paired with GWE was a bad idea for me personally both because I think it merited it's own day in the sun, I think 25 was too few, and I think it effected the rankings of my singles ballot subconsciously as I found myself tossing out many tag workers I might have more seriously considered if I wasn't already rating the team highly. I learned that the vaunted All Japan style of the 90s does not QUITE hold up to me. I say not quite, because I still see the greatness in it, still love much of it, and still ranked all of it's major practitioners well on my ballot. That said many of the matches felt bloated to me, often times I found myself thinking "if a guy did that today people would crucify them for doing too much" and there were personal quirks of the workers (well...really one) that irked me a great deal and hurt matches. I learned that wrestlers who felt unique in a place and time get extra points with me when I do these sort of comparisons. This includes not just guys who had great runs, but guys who did interesting and different things from those around them. I learned that "super indie" style ages way better for me than I ever would have guessed. Not my favorite by any means, but I reject Parv's critique of it's authenticity or lack thereof. Many of the most painful cuts for me were people who came out of this scene. Similarly I came to believe that "aping the greats" is MUCH more prevalent throughout history and that Parv's point on homage v. tradition is an interesting one, but one I think speaks more to a generational divide than any actual real difference. I learned that I don't really like ranking wrestlers if I don't have a good idea of how they were in their "home promotion." This led to some very controversial omissions, including the one that I must regret, even if I can justify it as something that had to be done on those grounds. Not something I learned, but I do regret not watching older FMW, more Minchinoku Pro, or NWA Classics. It bothers me that people like Fuyuki, Lothario, and Taka were left off my list because of stuff I could have watched and didn't. I learned that I think of tag teams differently than people do, in the sense that I don't see a "real" team if I think of your career and the tag team doesn't spring to mind as one of the first few things. This may lead to some people being surprised by my tag list. I learned that on the issue of the generational divide I'm an old man with young man sympathies, whereas coming into this I saw myself as a young man, with old man sympathies. I learned that I will really miss this project, and while I'm happy it seems to have worked out so great, it does feel like the end of an era for me as a fan. I have drifted more and more into focusing on the modern product over the last two years for a variety of reasons, and I don't see this trend ending even if my interest in WWE is nearing all time lows (it's not 2003 Raw level bad yet). Though I feel compelled to submit a Greatest Match Ever ballot if Sam goes through with it almost as an act of reciprocation for people who participated here with major reservations, the idea of it does not interest me in the least, and it's likely I'll just cobble together a ballot without watching much of anything and send it in when it's due.

The only people who I can think of where I might be the high voter are Carlos Colon and Invader I and with Boricua submitting a ballot I wouldn't bet on either one of those to be honest. MAYBE Hoshino, Smothers, or Eric Embry, but I really doubt it.

I came close to not voting for Jumbo but ultimately did as I mentioned in the other thread. My most controversial omissions weren't really people who would be considered top tier guys other than their most hardcore advocates and even then I'm not sure.

I actually liked Paul London a ton on rewatch and badly wanted to include him but didn't. Glad someone ranked him well. I can see a case for him at 70.

I ended up having him way, way higher than I thought I would but as I was doing head-to-heads with him and other wrestlers I kept convincing myself that he had the stronger argument. Consistency is pretty clearly his weakest point, and it's one of the things I have found I most look for it, so it was odd to me to see him where I had him in the end. But as I looked at the guys around him I couldn't argue against it. Being able to make me give a shit about his character AND deliver great matches at least a half dozen times in major feuds/storylines over this ten year period is a massive plus to me given where wrestling is right now.

Speaking for myself, I ended up including Jumbo on my list, but I do have him MUCH lower than I expect most too. Ultimately I felt it would be more "wrong" to my sensibilities to leave him off than it would be to include him despite my disgust for the idea of watching him wrestle. I did this because of the handful of core values that I tended to put the most value in when constructing my list, he was fairly strong in all of them. I can't let go of the notion that a truly great wrestler should be able to connect and he anti-connects with me, but I also don't think my inclusion of him was bowing to canon so much as it was admitting that Jumbo is the exception - a great wrestler who I never want to watch wrestle again as long as I live. Having said I do think canonical pressure effects everyone to varying degrees. Sometimes it's as simple as choosing to watch a favored style/promotion or another, other times it's giving repeat chances to people you instinctively don't care for that you never would for a random person with no reputation. But the pressure is there.

I think many more voters were roughly in line with that thinking than you'd think. That said I do think searching for greatness in things you don't think are great because you were told they are great is something that has to be guarded against. I'm not accusing you or Loss of that, but I do think for many people that is how your approach comes across. For my own part I couldn't vote for anyone for what I regarded as the wrong reasons (namely peer or canonical pressure that didn't fit with what I had seen). This meant a handful of controversial omissions, but I'd rather have left them out then included them and not be able to justify them on my own terms.