Dylan Waco

This probably will come across as overkill to some, but since we have threads for the 90's and 00's and we have several 80's sets released this could at minimum be a good resource/central hub of sorts. I know people will disagree with this, but I actually don't think there is a CLEAR winner here. Top Ten Contenders: Ric Flair Jerry Lawler Bill Dundee Buddy Rose Ricky Steamboat Nick Bockwinkel Curt Hennig Rick Martel Sgt. Slaughter Barry Windham Tully Blanchard Bob Backlund Randy Savage Terry Funk Ricky Morton Bobby Eaton Harley Race Dick Murdoch Arn Anderson Greg Valentine Tito Santana Tommy Rogers Dutch Mantell Ted Dibiase Off the top of my head those are guys where if I saw there name in someone's top ten I wouldn't find it surprising at all. I actually think you could make a case for some other guys (Chris Adams, Tommy Rich,Michael Hayes, Ron Garvin, Dusty, Hogan, Buzz Sawyer, Dr. Death, Jerry Blackwell, Dennis Condrey, Wahoo, and probably others I'm forgetting) but the point is that is a pretty hefty list of guys that would not look odd at all in a top ten. And again I don't think there is an obvious number one, though I acknowledge that most people would default to Flair (for the record I'm to the point where I would strongly consider leaping Lawler over Flair).

I liked the presentation an awful lot on the ppv and that is coming from someone who hates HHH and generally has little interest in ever seeing him again. Liked the presentation even more on Monday Night.

The set up made this if it's the one I'm thinking of where they did a random lottery drawing for the title shot backstage. From memory Trip did a good job selling fear of Kishi when he was announced and the locker room letting out a collective "oh shit, The Game is fucked" type vibe when he was announced was a cool moment.

I think Benoit v. Finlay from Judgment Day is a great match as was the SD match from the same week. Those are two of maybe a half dozen Benoit matches that I wouldn't have to think twice about calling great. Rey would be my number one, though I could see an argument for Danielson and wouldn't even contest it. I really think Finlay has an interesting case to be three. Yes he's only got four years in the decade, but during that period he was perhaps the most consistent week-to-week wrestler I've ever seen. He was given absolute dog shit to work with at times and still had good/solid matches with everyone. That on top of stuff like the Hardy, Rey, Benoit matches which I would label great helps him. He was unique as hell which makes him stand out more than most from the era. I could see Cena as three also as he was a true big match worker at his peak and I think going back to 03 you can find a surprisingly deep volume of good matches. The best stuff, like the Orton SummerSlam match, the Shawn matches, the Umaga match from RR07, the Edge TLC are all things I think stack up well with the best stuff from the decade. Not sure he is a rock solid candidate for 3 or not, but Matt Hardy strikes me as an almost definite top ten guy.

Going from memory I think Regal's best year was 94 though I could be mixing and matching stuff. I know that was the year of the Larry matches and I liked those a lot.

Finlay is not a bad pick from 98, but I haven't watched much of his tv run in a long time. Trying to remember what happened, what year with the FBI gimmick, but maybe Guido and Smothers would be top five that year too. Really a weak year for U.S. wrestling.

What is bad about that match? I love Arn, but that laps any 92 singles match he had to make the obvious comparison. It sounds nuts, but i think Juvy was probably the best guy in 98.

I don't count promos as a part of "working" in the general sense and likely never will. In ring I'm no sure how much of 90's Rock had of note. 99 no one in the WWF had a good year. 96 he debuted late and was given the lame babyface act. 98 would have been his best in ring year and it doesn't compare favorably to other guys. I could see him on my top 100, but he's not a top ten contender.

There was a thread on Classics recently with people rating the top guys from 77-86 which honestly felt like a pretty fair metric in a weird way. Having said that I have no problem with looking at the 90's. There is never going to be a perfect way to look at things and this makes for an interesting discussion. I may actually try and throw together a "working" list as in the last five years I've dug through tons of WWF and WCW for the SC projects and watched all the SMW and ECW for those sets. USWA is something I am real weak on, and I am spotty on other indies, but it could be a decent resource for me when I catch up on that stuff or go back to view more things later.

What do people think of Scorpio as a sleeper number two pick? I'm guessing the default for most people would be Shawn or Benoit, but I think Scorp's best stuff from the decade stacks up very well with there's. Watching the ECW footage he never came across as phoning it in to me and he had more "next level" performances than anyone including Tajiri who I am obviously very high on. The knocks on him would be that his Flash Funk run - while not awful - was uneventful in every way. And it's arguable that he had fewer stand out matches in 94-95 ECW than he should have with some of the guys that were around him (though I never saw him in a bad match from this period). He may not have been better in the particulars than Benoit, but I'd say he had better mechanics than Shawn. I also thought he was better in Shawn's hyped "best year" of 96 than Shawn was. Benoit was probably more consistent, but he lacks the matches that really knock me on my ass as a fan and always has.

You've read all the WON's in the 80s, right? I don't think Hulk's work was talked about then as complimentary as I have in the past half decade. What took the 1987 Worst Match Award? John It's not 1987. I've been around the net roughly as long as you have. Since I've been around smart circles knock on Hogan has NEVER been "Hogan was ineffective," or "Hogan didn't get desired reactions," or "Fans were not buying Hogan's shit." I have literally NEVER seen anything like that in fifteen years of traveling in these circles. Lots of dismissive shit about how he couldn't wrestle, how he sucked in the ring, how he was a jerk, et. But Hogan as Ineffective Joke is something I think is probably pretty fucking rare in modern times. Something you MIGHT find on the far fringes of Classics or some place like that, but I tend to think that in this day and age it is the rough equivalent of Pro Wrestling Smart Fan Bigfoot.

Who disputed that Hogan was effective in the sense you mean? I can't imagine that is something that needed to be pointed out

I don't know the answer to that and it may be a debate worth having but I think it applies on the other end too. Calling Hogan "effective" for example strikes me as a massive cop out/"hedging" on your part. Why not just call him "good?" Why pretend that there is some sort of gap between "good" and "effective?" A lot of it is just in the words we use. Hyperbole is common on the net, but that doesn't explain everything. Sometimes people are just playing with a much broader "range" for what is and isn't high end. Sometimes people just think things are better than I do.

I agree with pretty much all of this, right down to not giving a shit if I ever see another Bret match or not. I was bored at work today and sketched out a list to see if I could get to a hundred names that I think were safely "good" for both the 90's and the 80's in the U.S. I hit the numbers, but the big difference is that with 80's names there were a lot more guys who immediately jumped off the page to me as "top tier" type of guys. With the 90's it gets real thin, real quick. I don't believe this means 90's wrestling was "bad," but it is sort of odd that there are so few definitive U.S. workers from the period.

There is nothing wrong with looking at great matches but I don't think they are all the be all and end all. You have to look at a broader sample to get a real feel for a wrestler. Rising to the occasion matters and should get you extra points but there is something to be said for consistency. I understand OJ's point about peak years but at a point you hit a wall with it. I think Tajiri in 99 was the best wrestler in the World based on his ECW work. Without putting too much thought into it I would put that single peak year very high up on a list of peak years from any wrestler working for a U.S. based promotion in the 90's. But it seems crazy to put Tajiri above someone like Mick Foley or Shawn Michaels or Terry Funk, none of whom in my view had a single year in the 90's as good as Tajiri's 99 but had a lot of good matches over the course of the decade. On the esoteric v. established debate, I think far too much is put into worrying about lifting obscurity into superiority. The great matches are going to stand on their own two legs no matter what. Just because I think Vader v. Dustin from the Clash or Regal v. Larry Z from WCWSN are legitimately great matches, doesn't mean that I don't think Bret v. Owen or Shawn v. Foley are great. Overall the ideal worker is someone who you want to have a combination of all of the above. Great matches. Fun/good/possibly even great "obscure" matches. Consistency. A strong peak. That is what Bret is the front runner in the 90's. He is one of the few guys who has all of the above PLUS the longevity spanning the whole decade.

My biggest problem with Steamboat is it feels like he had that nice run in WCW and then he was done by mid 1994. I feel like someone who worked the entire decade or further into the decade deserves more consideration than someone who didn't even make the halfway point. I would tend to think Bret Hart, Vader and maybe Chris Candido would be the closest to a consensus top 3 that you would get on here. Maybe Tracy Smothers and Arn Anderson as well. After watching all the SMW and ECW no way in hell I would have Candido in my top ten. I like the guy, but there just isn't anything there to justify it. And this is coming from someone who had assumed he would be "the find" of both projects.

Another thing worth mentioning with Smothers is that he was very good as both a face and a heel, in tags and singles, in comedy and serious matches, in workrate matches and in brawls, et. Really he has an extremely diverse body of work.

Found this great collection of Rings results on Classics posted by Steve Yohe: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=7;t=000441 Interesting figures. I think in some ways it helps the case for Volk Han (who I am higher on than most) and in other ways it hurts him. It helps him from the perspective that RINGS attendance figures are WAY better than I had remembered. He was also a very good drawing opponent for Maeda and for most of his run he appeared to be positioned as the number 2 guy under Maeda. The big negative is that he was clearly never the ace, as Tamura looks to have taken over for Maeda in some respects in that regard. He was also down the card on the two biggest cards in the history of the promotion. Kind of a random thing to review but when I saw it I figured I'd take a look around. Han interests me as a candidate more than most.

I think most people agree that Bret Hart is one. The question now is who fills out the top ten and that's where Arn, Ricky, et. come in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWe4VctcXB8 J.T. Smiths' triumphant return to the ECW Arena v. Rich/Smothers/Guido/Sal E

Nero v. Black Ant

Oh I am AWARE that there are others. My point is that I assume that is the match we are talking about because typically that is the match that is hyped

I assume we are talking about Fall Brawl

I think Arn is the best promo in wrestling history aside from possibly Cornette, so you aren't going to sell me on that. And I love Flair promos. Arn v. Flair is a fine match for what it is, but I don't even think it is Arn's best singles match THAT YEAR. That would be the Alex Wright match from Slamboree. It MIGHT be a top three Arn match from 95 - the match teaming with Vader v. Stars N Stripes from tv is also safely better. Does Arn have anything like Savage from Mania or Vader from Starrcade? Doubtful in the sense that those were both spectacle matches and Arn was never booked that way. Does he have performances that I think are on the level of those matches and matches that I think are better? Sure. The WCWSN 2/3 Falls match from I believe May of 92 immediately comes to mind. To me that is a GREAT Arn performance, though I haven't watched it in a couple of years. I think at WORST Arn's best stuff is comparable to Flair's best stuff. And he has less embarrassing stuff.

Flair has down periods and was clearly on the downslide for virtually the entire decade. You cannot say that for Arn. Arn's TV title reign was, at the time, less thrilling than one would have hoped for going in. Perhaps that ages well, though I wonder if it ages "solid" like a decent amount of underappreciated stuff does (say like decent Tito Santana matches) or ages Great! like say Rude vs Warrior at SummerSlam does where you're left thinking this is a shitload better than it was given credit at the time for being. It was a year and a half with the belt, and I just don't remember anything sticking out as terribly awesome. Was there anything like say the Garvin vs Blanchard syndiction match in 1986 that lept out in the past half decade as something folks went batshit for? Up above had the "what was he doing in 93-94", which is another two years. 1996 had some time out for the surgery, and I'm trying to remember how much of his stuff was GREAT~! that year, or just typical solid Arn stuff. That's kind of Arn: a really solid worker. A king of grinding out good and entertaining matches. But there aren't a ton of times even in his excellent matches where he stands out as say Tully did in the Garvin match above, or Tully opposite Steamber at Starcade '84 (which is a pretty fucking great match that probably would end up in the Top 10 of the WWF 80's if it happened in the WWF). I like Arn a lot. But if we're pimping him that high up as a worker, you might as well drag his name over into the WON HOF thread and start pimping him there. John "that high up as a worker?" I'm saying he was an extremely, solid and consistent worker from 90-95. Really you could extend that back from 85-95. On the tv title run I remember liking a lot of it in the "this is a quality tv match" sense. There are no Blanchard v. Garvin's but that is not surprising. Having watched the NJPW and AJPW Sets recently there are VERY few matches from either I would put decisively above that match - and those are sets I love with tons of matches I have zero problem calling "great." 93 I'd have to think about, though I remember loving him in the Bluegrass Brawl match, and a couple of Regal and Windham singles matches. 94 had the Studd Stable stuff where I thought Arn was great in the role he was placed in. There are VERY few guys I would put into the Observer HoF discussion on work alone - in fact possibly none. Arn however doesn't even rise to the level of guys who are on the bubble because of work alone. Having said that I don't see any blackholes for him during his 90's career, or really at all. Arn is one of the more consistent hands I can think of.