Dylan Waco

I'd do something like this.

Sorry, meant Street v. Breaks.

Streets best match is the match v Saint from WOS. And that is great .

If we are talking favorites my pick has to be Buddy Rose and Doug Somers. They were only together for about a year, and came around as the AWA was really collapsing, but they are still one of the great teams of all time. Their feud with The Rockers is every bit as good as the Midnights v. RnR's and Fantastics feuds, and the 8/30/86 match from Vegas is one of the all time classic tag matches in the history of pro wrestling. The dynamic of the team was absolutely outstanding as you had the scummiest of all scrubs "Pretty Boy" Doug Somers, with the annoyingly athletic (but not as athletic as he thought he was) fat ass "Playboy" Buddy Rose, decked out in robes, with skeezy as fuck Sherri Martel treating them like the sexiest men on Earth. Both guys were excellent bumpers and stooges, but also really good working on top. I've seen every taped match in the teams existence and not a one of them was less than good. They aren't the best team of all time because they weren't around long enough, but there is no team I would rather watch.

It's true

I can think of 10 better Young Bucks matches this year. Name them

I absolutely love the Invader 1 v. Hercules Ayala studio match. Actually there are two of them, one is pretty good, but the other is absolutely tremendous stuff. I'll see if I can find it and post the link here.

I saw a bit of it at the beginning, but none after that point. I thought it was a tremendous match to be honest.

I've seen him on house shows. He's not any different. Very capable of having good matches, but not particularly engaging at all.

He's a 3rd generation wrestler and a lot of people respect his dad and grandad and see Orton as keeper of tradition flame.

Disappointed Matt hasn't nominated Bobby Bass yet

All the old timers love Orton for obvious reasons

Parv on Dibiase from The Microscope: He's a booker's dream and likely a number #1-4 draft pick for any booker active during the 80s for that reason. You don't take him over Savage, Hogan or Flair if you're a booker, but you probably take him over almost everyone else. That's why in 1987 he was the cherry pick from UWF. Anyone who thinks a booker would take a Greg Valentine over Ted even in 1983 is in dream world. If you lined up all of the promotors of the period and ask them "Who would you rather take?", it's Ted every day and if people reading this are honest with themselves they know it. I feel this really deserves a response because while I think it is not an unimportant point, I disagree with both the particulars and what I THINK the implication is. First the particulars - I don't think every booker on Earth would take 83 Dibiase over 83 Valentine. There are two reasons I don't think that. The first is that bookers are looking for different things at different times (more on that later). The second is that bookers and promoters DID have a choice between Ted and Valentine in 83. Valentine worked in a very strong promotion for the bulk of the year. So did Ted. But there is no evidence I know of to make me believe that Crockett would have chosen Ted over Valentine for the Piper feud. In fact Ted had little to no track record in Mid-Atlantic, and there is really no reason to believe that he would have been considered a hot commodity there other than personal bias and/or looking at things through the lens of eventual national promotional success. There is also no reason to believe Valentine would have been chosen over Ted in Mid-South. In fact it's almost unfathomable. Having said all of that what is more important to me is what I think the implication is - i.e. if you are in demand, and/or your value is perceived as a being stronger to promoters, you must be a better wrestler. And I just don't think that is true, at least not in the sense that most of us seem to be using to evaluate wrestlers for this project. I'm not even talking about my general objection to the idea that wrestling is a meritocracy here. Instead I want to emphasize the importance of context. Using the Valentine v. Dibiase comparison, I think you could make an argument that if you were building a national promotion Dibiase would be a stronger pick than Valentine in 83 not so much because he was more versatile per se, but because he was better looking. Valentine is one of the ugliest wrestlers I can think of, Teddy had a sharp look. If I am trying to get my show nationally syndicated I am taking Ted's mug over Greg's every day. Having said that in 1983 if you are giving me a draft pick for a national promotion you can make an argument that the best pick is Kerry Von Erich. Great look, good in ring talent who has made it work against a huge variety of opponents, a natural charisma and rock star vibe, et. A true wrestler of his time, with an appeal that could extend well beyond the scope of just wrestling fans. Of course Kerry had one major problem - he was a massive drug addict. So with Kerry his biggest positives and negatives have little to do with his in ring performances. Of course if you are talking about the actually existing world at the time of regional promotions, some with vague designs on national and/or broader penetration the idea of who you would "draft" changes yet again. Need, context, regional identity, long term goals, et. have as much to do with this as anything. And the look, reputation, size, et. of a wrestler probably has as much (or even more) to do with the perceived value of someone than there ability to have a good match. Now I may have read Parv's point wrong and don't want to put words in his mouth. It's possible that he was making a more general point about the value of Ted, and wasn't meaning to imply what I read into it. And if that is the case this can be thrown in the trash. But this seemed to fit with the discussion that was being had in this thread so I thought it was worth throwing out there.

There is a point I want to argue here about Parv's draft pick argument but I don't want to make it about Ted since he seems exhausted with/upset by the prospect of discussing him further. I think I may drop that into a thread in the GWE forum and link it here later.

The only two people on this list I am absolutely positive I will rate are Cena and Bryan and I will have both reasonably high. I am pretty close to saying Styles is an absolute yes too, but I want to see how he closes out this year. The rest of this list is filled with people I could see strong arguments for and strong arguments against. A lot of these guys are people I WANT to vote for, but there is only so much room for people like that on a ballot and they are competing with hundreds of people from earlier eras where we have the full perspective and scope of their careers to look at. I will say if any of the other people make my list it's like to be someone like Sheamus, Cesaro, Red or The Briscoes, and none of those guys is going to be higher than bottom twenty (and honestly even that may be pushing it).

I would actually be interested to see Parv's thoughts on Otto. He was a big star/ace in his own universe, and had a certain aura about him with those crowds that added to his matches. There are probably guys with as little or less footage available in full that Parv seems to be advocating for, and Otto on paper strikes me as the sort of guy who he might be impressed by.

There is a Trauma I too.

The problem is he was really un-over after the Miz feud. Because they killed him dead. He should have won the Andre Battle Royal. If not that he should have beat Miz. If not that they should have had him do the Cena open challenge gimmick and have a strong tv match which he has done with Cena before. Instead they deliberately murdered him.

They have to do a Kane v. Rollins singles match at this point. Honestly it should have been on this show and the other three guys should be in a triple threat to determine the number one contender.

Ascension v. MetaPowers was inoffensive and really over. Feel bad for Sandow though. Probably wasn't destined to be a big star, but they could have done something with him considering how over he had gotten himself.

Stardust v. R-Truth was a "live crowd" sort of opener and served it's purpose. Unobjectionable.

No one is touting Rude as furiously as you tout Ted. Rude was heavily, heavily flawed. I am not a big fan of young Rude, though I did like the team with Manny. I liked him in the WWE as a character, and he had some fun matches, but only a couple of great ones. I LOVED him in 92, and he was in the match that I voted the best WCW match ever that year (v. STeamboat at Beach Blast). He won't make my top 100 I don't think, and I REALLY love his peak. Ted? I am going to watch some Mid-South stuff soon. I've seen some of it, but not all of it. But he's got a lot of ground to make up to get into the discussion for being someone I would call a "key worker" of the 80's.

I predict the show will have several good matches and somehow still feel boring.

I'm saying if I were rating a top twenty guys of the 80's I doubt Dibiase makes it.

Not trolling. I just don't think Ted was one of the key workers of the 80's, at least not in the sense of that term I would use. Not sure who I'd take here. Probably Dibiase, but I'd rather watch 92 Rude than any Ted run.