Dylan Waco

I actually have gotten access to a fair amount of 80's stuff. I'll start taking a look at it tomorrow

I say yes. Would I prefer that people watch outside of their comfort zone? Yes. Do I think the process is important? Yes. But part of this is that it gives us a glimpse of where this community is in this place and time. And that means if you want to submit a ballot you should

I think the idea that Hansen hasn't been scrutinized is bizarre. Matt D's critique of him was probably the most detailed critique I've seen anyone make of a number one contender not named Flair. To me Memphis is by the numbers but certainly not bad. I've barely seen the WWWF stuff so I don't have a fixed opinion on it. I struggle with the idea that the AWA should be seen as anything other than a massive positive. I don't know that I saw him have a single bad match there, and he had legitimate great ones v. green as grass Vader, young babyface Curt Hennig, and waning days of physical usefulness Blackwell. The Bock match is very good and probably couldn't have been much better. I'll buy the Martel stuff as disappointing, though it's hard to render major judgment there because of the nature of the feud. I don't see the Slaughter feud as disappointing really - yes they don't have a true all time classic, but I think the matches range from good to bordeline great. There are criticisms you can throw at Hansen, just as you can throw them at any wrestler. But we may not agree on those criticism or how much they should be considered in a ranking like this. That's not giving anyone a pass.

I'll post mine at some point after results are in. I suspect others will too. Not sure if Steven has plans to make public all the lists without the names attached or not, but the form does allow people to be anonymous if they like, and I'd hate to undermine that trust.

I remember lots of people at that time calling him the most underrated and under-utilised guy around. Equivalent to how fans think about Cesaro now I'd say. Smart fans have always had "their" guys to harp on. People wanted WCW to sideline Hogan and co to push the likes of Dean on top. I'm not saying you are wrong because you aren't, but he was also criticized much more heavily online after the initial Cruiserweight run than his peers.

Bumping this because Jimmy Redman promised a big case for Shawn and if you are going to do big cases for Kofi, you gotta deliver for Michaels. I would note that this isn't just me trying to hold someones feet to the fire for the sake of it. I'm doing my tag team ballot early (I'll probably be done with it today) and I am going to have The Rockers very, very high. Even higher than I would have guessed and I've always been a big fan of their's. As such I'm creating a crack of space for the idea of Shawn on my list where I had previously dismissed him. You have your work cut out for you Jimmy, but make the case.

Can you see yourself going top 50 with him? I have him fairly high (in comparison to the consensus of him being a guy that could make the bottom of a list). I haven't thought a ton about him in comparison to other guys, but it's not impossible. I think in terms of being able to build a match he's better than a lot of guys who might have him beat on volume.

I'm not sure what you have access to. A lot of my favorite Scorp stuff is on FanCam. That said I love the match v. Douglas from A Matter of Respect 96. Might be interesting to watch it back to back with Scorp v. RVD from Matter of Respect 98 (I think it was on that show), to see him pre and post Flash Funk. I like both of those a lot.

With Dean and a lot of people I do think they were overrated at a point, but their ultimate fates have less to do with a narrative or over or underratdness than it does the fact that I've seen way more and a lot more has happened since 2006. If you look at Dean as a cruiserweight/junior he never stacked up with the elites of his era, but he did have a lot of television match volume relative to many of the guys that came before him or even worked at the same point of him. His strongest case compared to his peers is "showed up on tv a lot and had solid to good matches." But no one ever really argued Dean at the level of Ohtani, Sasuke, Liger, Benoit, Eddie, or even someone like Ultimo. At the time their may have been people who would have argued him over a Taka or El Samurai, but even that was something that was far from a sure thing, and maybe even something he would have lost out on among people who were watching all of that stuff at the time and the years immediately after. Dean gets some points with some people for being an innovator of some sort, or maybe a better way to put it would be a "first to the door" kind of cruiserweight. I have no problem with him being dumped into that group in the states, but I do think his alleged influence is overstated. While the Dean/Eddie roll up trading sequence is something some of the early indie stuff adopted, I tend to think that style evolved more out of Tajiri/Crazy type of stuff and that is certainly the narrative that is often spun by the people who worked in and created that style. More to the point I think the other "first to do the door" guys of his era were stronger and the subsequent first to the door indie talents have stronger arguments as well. Styles, Bryan, Ki, for example all strike me as easily better. I'd probably have him above Christopher Daniels, but the fact that I'd even have to think about it isn't good for Dean. Really someone like a Paul London has a case every bit as strong as Dean's at minimum - I'd argue him above by a fairly substantial margin - the only real advantage for Dean being that his peak was during the Monday Night Wars. If you want to view Dean as a mid-card talent, who had strong television matches, I'd concede that up to a point, but I'm not sure he rates well at all in regards to others in that comparison either. Perhaps comparing him to the widely loved Arn Anderson isn't fair but it's a comparison that's there and not favorable to Dean. If you pull away for whatever reason and compare him to someone like a Christian or Matt Hardy I honestly think Dean fails there too. He doesn't have the volume of memorable matches, I don't think his individual performances are as good as, I don't think his psychology is as sound, et. Really there is no angle with Dean that I could take where I think I could argue for him to make my ballot. I could keep looking for ins and I just don't think I'd find one. Too many other wrestlers were better and more impressive, even in the areas where he excelled.

I'm not rating him because their are easily 100 wrestlers better than him.

I agree that he's underrated, but not sure about the ECW line. Not many of the top ECW wrestlers will do well. Possibly no more than 1 or 2.

I'm just excited to see Christian ahead of Bryan on Matt's final list

So I really want to give the giants of 80s Joshi a chance if nothing else. I have no clue what is online and what isn't. But if people can point me to the top matches and performances of Asuka, Jaguar, Nagayo, Sato, et. do it now. I will consider giving time to Joshi from the 90s or current era as well, but the 80's is more of a hole for me because I haven't watched any of that in a decade or longer.

Nominated him in hopes I could con Phil into voting for him. Of all the guys who have worked random Memphis/Nashville loop indies and quasi-territories over the last fifteen years I think the best of the bunch have been Lawler (duh), Kid Kash, and King. Excluding Lawler, I could probably be convinced that the most impressive individual performances belong to Kash, but he hasn't popped up on tape nearly as much as King and I don't think he's nearly nearly as good a babyface in that setting as King is. Having said that King is really best as a heel. The blonde haired black guy who trolls unreconstructed rednecks by look, action and impulse is something that would probably work on a cheap heat level no matter what, but King dials it up to ten. He has the facial expressions, timing, and punches you want from a guy brought up in the Memphis region, and can really bring it with the big bumps when the situation calls for it. There was a two and a half year period or so where he was turning up a lot on YouTube and pretty much every time delivering with a fun bout, and occasionally something great (love his brawls with Frankie Tucker). If you dip into his back catalog he's got a long run of this stuff, though it's far from fully documented. I have no clue how he was in OVW but I would love to find out. He is also an excellent tag team wrestler, and the Derrick King Enterprises tag team with Drew Haskins is one of the two or three most underrated teams of millennium so far. It's hard to tell if King is limited or not. He works the style that he has to in the setting he's in and does it very well. That the absence of a big slate of great matches would be the big criticisms of him. I won't vote for him, but Phil, SLL, someone....take the bait?

Do not forget about him voters! If you haven't seen him seek him out. On another note if people have links to the Akiyama and Takayama matches DM with them ASAP. I'll probably have more to say about him in the next few days, but I wouldn't be shocked if I was the high voter on him

This is a weird observation, but I think I like Sasuke best during his athletic peak when he was working spotfests. To me he was the best of that era of juniors guys at just turning it up to ten and going. I'm not saying he couldn't build a match, I'm saying that I think I preferred him when he would just go ballistic with dives and other insane shit for fifteenish minutes. I tend to think his best Ultimo match is like this to take one example. It's an odd observation because I don't think the J-Cup classics are like that really, and I don't think old man Sasuke is like that all the time either, even though some of the old man stuff that really stands out is him taking insane bumps in crazy matches. I always sort of shrug my shoulders at the thought of including him on a list like this, but I'm not sure I can leave him off in good conscience the more I think about it.

Checking in on Liger after a few days where I've watched a lot of his work. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that his matches are never boring or bad. Ever. I'm sure I could find them if I looked, but he tends to go home early if he's not going to really kick into another gear, and when he does kick into another gear it also comes across as a good match at minimum. The Hashimoto match is great. I love the 98 Kanemoto match and think Liger is the better guy in it. I think he was a very good Sasuke opponent and the semi-final of the 94 J-Cup holds up shockingly well. The 92 El Samurai match doesn't hold up that well and I think probably most closely speaks to the flaws OJ pointed to, but I don't think it was a bad match. The two biggest takeaways from me with Liger are that I really like him as the clear king of juniors fucking with young punks, and I if anything I think old man Liger may be underrated. On these two points I would say that I absolutely loved the Liger v. Naniwa and Liger v. Delph matches, thought they had great psychology, great drama, and really great Liger performances in terms of giving and taking, pacing, body language, and helping to make those beneath him look great without hurting his status in the slightest. On the old man front, stuff like the Billy Ken Kid match from 07, the Steve Anthony match from last year, the Danielson match, et. are really, really good Liger performances. I'm not saying he looks like peak Liger, but the point is that he still had greatness in him in all of those matches. I haven't rewatched the Sano matches in part because I know I think those are great, but I may go back to those before I make a final decision on where to place him. I want to see Liger v. Togo again too, but I'm not sure if it's online. That said, even though I think OJ has made same fair observations about bad things that Liger does at times, I don't see them as pervasive traits of his. He's a flawed wrestler like all other wrestlers, but probably less flawed in many respects than other people who are considered for the top spot. He could fall anywhere - and I do mean anywhere - in my top fifteen.

I haven't even started my list.

I think Kanemoto is maybe the most puzzling of the Japanese juniors I'm considering because while he has an aura to him that makes everyone of his matches watchable and exciting, he probably annoys me as much as any wrestler I can think of who I honestly think is great. This is less evident in his old man work, where I have generally loved him and I've seen him as a guy who adapted well to a changed scene. Having said that going back and watching some pre-05 Kanemoto in the last few days he feels like a guy who may have been a driving force in changing the scene in ways I don't really like. Perhaps it's match selection but I've seen lots of "fighting spirit" no sell spots that felt ill timed out of him...in theory. Except they kind of work for him. It's bizarre and I find myself at a loss as that sort of stuff usually irks me to no end. I did love the 98 Liger match flaws and all, the Rutten match was really good for what it was, and I loved the Nishimura match. I'd like to see the Wagner match and the 99 Liger matches before I close the book on him. On the bubble, leaning yes.

I don't know about career narratives, but I have watched a lot of Bryan's indie run in recent days and it holds up really, really well. I have been a bit of critic with him in the past, in part because I think he's largely evaded the sort of critical appraisal others have gotten and I like to hold peoples feet to the fire. That said his stuff holds up well. He's not a flawless wrestler by any means, but when you go back and watch something like him v. Low Ki from 2001 it seems obvious that he is already a great wrestler then. Not a good wrestler. A great one. Similarly I've been impressed by the range of wrestlers I've seen him have impressive matches with over the years, and the fact that does seem to adjust at least in little ways to place, setting, time and opponent. I do think he's got a bit more formula to him then some want to admit, but I've never hated formula myself. Having said that when you watch him work Styles and then watch him work Liger you could can see that the approach is different. I was especially impressed by the way he worked in the four way elimination match from Rampage Pro I watched against Rave, Matthews and J-Rod, as he was giving without looking weak in a place where he probably could have eaten everyone alive. I'm not at all sure where he will rate for me at this point, but the more I rewatch the less difficulty I have with him as a top tier guy.

I watched a few of his matches I hadn't seen the other night, and after seeing them I'm fairly confident he's going to squeeze into one of my last few spots. I was really impressed the Fred Yehi match from 2012 that I watched because this was very early in Fred's career and yet the match was really good, maybe even great. They went over 20 minutes and at no point would you have guessed the age or experience level of either guy. Very good stuff. Then I watched a four way match from Rampage back in 2010 with him v. Jimmy Rave v. J-Rod v. Daniel Bryan and it was pretty amazing, especially the last section with Matthews v. Bryan. Really great stuff, with Matthews not looking out of place at all against a world class talent. Watching it really convinced me that Matthews could have or could go now to one of the "name" indies and immediately fit in and be one of the top guys there. Probably the most underrated regularly working indie guy in the World over the last ten years.

This is my favorite wrestling piece of 2016 so far. Everyone should read it.

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