Dylan Waco

Morrison wasn't and still isn't on my radar. That said, that's one of the better arguments I've seen someone make for including a somewhat off the radar pick. And if I do a tag ballot I can't see leaving MNM off the more I think about it. Perhaps the Miz/Morrison team being the clear peak of Miz's career is more telling than we might think

One of those guys I'd love to go back and reexplore, but I don't even know where to begin. I remember watching a couple random matches of his about 18 months ago or so and thinking he came off really sharp in them. Could be a fun WCW tv match worker at times, which goes farther with me than it probably does with most people. Still unless someone is rattling off a big list of go too matches, I can't see him coming near my top 100.

More a guy I would like to vote for, then a guy I feel compelled to have on my ballot, and the space I have for "like to's" is going to be very limited. Big fan of Gang, but he lacks the handful of truly great matches that I ideally want out of a guy who put in his time during the pre-over saturation era. It seems weird to say, but if he had more matches I liked a lot in ECW I think I'd be more inclined to vote for him because I could sort of fake a volume argument for him. All that said, as a guy playing a role he was really good at it. I'd rate him above Bigelow at first thought, though I'd have him behind Yokozuna who is another "like to" guy who probably will fall short.

Hoping to post my full thoughts on this with my ballot this week. More than any year previously, I think this year really illustrates the flaw in the way some of these awards are worded and understood.

Can't do this for a few days, but if people are interested I could put up a "Best of the Southern Indies" post.

Write more about wrestling. I love doing the audio, but I want to produce at least twice as much written content as I did this year. Get my GWE ballot on in time without going nuts. Talk at least a couple of the better Southern indies into releasing their shows via some sort of VOD service.

I attended 11 shows in total this year, 9 of which were indie shows. I technically got paid to write about wrestling. Kinda.

I wish the book had endnotes or footnotes, but that's the historian in me. I liked it better than the NWA book in terms of flow and organization, though it had less material that I think was super insightful on the grand scale. I also think it would have been better served being two books, and you could argue it's sort of mistitled. That said as a whole it is a book I would strongly encourage people to buy and read. It really serves to debunk many of the popular myths about the business, and does an excellent job illustrating the centrality of television to the nationalization of pro wrestling.

Only absolute certainties are Colon and Invader 1. I don't view anyone else from PR as someone I could put in my top 80. There are others from there who I will consider, and then people like Embry who's cases are enhanced by their work in PR

I have Invader 1 and Colon neck and neck. Invader was a very good t.v. worker, and probably has a higher volume of good matches. I actually think his selling is substantially better than Colon's, and his comebacks are probably just as good if not better too. That said Colon has the all timer feuds, and it's hard not to give extra points for having an excellent series of matches with someone like Ayala. Very torn between those two.

Very tough to find a balance on him. I think a lot of what he did was genius in some ways (in large part because it was simple), I think he's a much more influential worker than people give him credit for (if that is something that matters, paging Loss....), and his ability to carry high level/strong in ring quality feuds against such a wide variety of often limited opponents really impresses me. On the other hand it does hurt him in my eyes a bit that he had barely any television presence at all. It may have been smart booking, but the absence of him in the studio setting, really makes him tougher to peg when you are comparing him to guys with a wide range of big and "little" good matches in their resume. Will easily make my ballot, but I'm not sure I will have him over Invader #1 for PR guys.

I actually think there is a sense in which mic work is relevant when discussing in ring work. For example Arn Anderson kind of looks like a high school match teacher, but he convinces you he is a badass by talking, and then can back it up in the ring. If you take the mic work away from Arn is the character he injects into his matches as clear and interesting? Probably not. That said I'm not consciously thinking "Arn is a top five mic worker, so I'm bumping him up the list." He will do well on my list because his work on the mic was backed up by his performances in the ring.

I'm ranking in ring work. I've never considered anything else.

Discuss Here.

Discuss Here.

Fight the fight brother. Also PM me when you get a chance.

If couldn't have a good match with Tracy Smothers during that period you were awful

Why is it offensive or wrong for me to speculate that rvd might be sexually attracted to Brock or Roman, when he suggested that sexual attraction to Sasha or Bayley are the only reasons anyone would enjoy the match? I'm simply treating his critique seriously and asking if sex as a motivating factor behind what someone likes in their wrestling goes both ways.

I would do a Fujinami show for sure

Are we sure rvd wasn't just saying that he really wants to fuck Brock or Roman or both?

God damn you, I really don't want to have to watch that awful DK v. TM match again.

My brothers and I spent tonight watching Regins/Brock and the Sasha trilogy (v. Becky and the two Bayley matches). We barely talked about the matches while watching them and went around the room ranking them when it was over. Dustin ranked the matches in this order from top-to-bottom 1. Sasha v. Bayley Brooklyn 2. Sasha v. Bayley Iron Man 3. Brock v. Reigns 4. Sasha v. Becky Devon went 1. Sasha v. Bayley Iron Man 2. Sasha v. Becky 3. Sasha v. Bayley Brooklyn 4. Brock v. Reigns I went 1. Sasha v. Bayley Iron Man 2. Sasha v. Bayley Brooklyn 3. Sasha v. Becky 4. Brock v. Reigns To me what makes the Iron Man match the best is the psychology of the match and the fact both characters were their truest selves. Sasha was the bratty entitlement queen, who is legitimately skilled, but more than willing to cheat, get vicious, mock, and even troll a child. Bayley is the ultimate babyface, from her one legged hopscotch into the ring, to the way she sells nervousness at every moment, to her timing of comebacks. So much of what they did in the match was either a direct callback spot to the previous match, or something that played off of other themes or spots that had come up in previous NXT women's matches. It was a match that rewarded the viewer for following along week-to-week, or even special-to-special, and in the end it felt like both a coronation of Bayley as the new face of the brand, and the perfect way for the old face to exit the stage. Yes, it was ambitious match, but it was one that I thought lived up to it's goal which is something that seems to happen much less often than it should these days. I will say in an ideal world the circumstances of the Brooklyn and Iron Man matches would have been combined, i.e. the Brooklyn show comes last, they have the blow off in that big arena, and only one kayfabe busting post-match ceremony. I will also freely admit that both the first Bayley v. Sasha match and the Sasha v. Becky match had better execution, though the sloppiness of the Iron Man is much milder on rewatch than it felt in real time (and even then I didn't think it really hurt the match). Devoid of any context I could see an argument that the best of the bunch is actually Becky v. Sasha which had great dueling armwork, excellent build, and a very fitting finish. That said I don't think the heel v. face dynamic was nearly as strongly defined, I felt it could have used a little more time, and it clearly felt the least "main event" of the bunch. I have nothing bad to say about Reigns v. Lesnar at all. It's a brilliant match in a lot of ways. Watching it back it makes me laugh that anyone could think Reigns was being carried, as his bumping, selling, and timing were every bit as important as Brock's and if someone is going to make a comment about anyone looking gassed in the match, Reigns wouldn't be the first choice. It felt like a big time match, they laid in their shots, the story told was excellent, the build to the big Roman comeback, the way Lesnar sold during that comeback, et. all great. I don't even mind the finish at all. That said, it was very much "Brock has another great Brock Match." It did not seem distinct from the other Brock classics, though I would argue it's the second best after the original Cena return match. In that sense it was very predictable. I also thought the F5 spot at the beginning was by far the most questionable spot in any of the four matches I watched with my brother's tonight as Brock didn't even go for a cover and instead just sort of walked around after the fact. I'm not saying it didn't fit the moment, but from a psychology perspective it's less than ideal. I do wonder if Brock's bleeding has less effect now because he's done it several times so it feels less special, but I don't really think that effected my view of the match. In the end the biggest difference is one of emotional investment. I am not completely invested in Becky, but I am very invested in Bayley and Sasha in large part because of the way they play their roles and invest themselves in their characters. Brock? Eh, he's awesome, he has a real vibe to him, I'm pumped to see him live in the coming months, but he's not a CHARACTER I really give two fucks about. I don't know if it's that he's not around enough, or what but I just don't care that much about Brock the wrestling personality. Similarly, I am arguably Reigns biggest advocate when it comes to in ring work, but as a character he was already severely damaged to the point of absurdity back then. It's only gotten worse since which doesn't help. Granted Sasha hasn't exactly been presented well on the main roster, but within the universe in which those matches took place she was a goddess. All of this said, I think all four matches are REALLY close. I think any of the four could be fourth and any of the four could be first and it wouldn't look strange or ridiculous to me at all. There are a couple of other WWE matches I should probably rewatch, but I doubt very seriously that I would rate anything in the WWE this year above those four matches.

Someone get me that match

You know - I don't think I ever saw Necro v Dragon

Hansen 80s tags are probably the least of his case. That said would like Matt to compare Bret Hart's 80s tags to Hansen's