Dylan Waco

I am planning on writing a long full length article sometime in the next month on the process/art of list making and Jumbo will be a person I talk about some in that piece. For now I will just say that I am beginning to struggle more and more with how to rank someone like Jumbo. On the one hand I agree with the consensus argument that Jumbo was a great pro wrestler. While some of his highly pimped matches I think are pretty overrated, you can say that for almost any great worker, and he has plenty of matches and performances that I think are clearly outstanding. On the other hand I just cannot stand watching him wrestle at all. To a degree this gets into the "my favorite" v. "the best" debate, but it goes a bit beyond that because my reaction to Jumbo is a sort of visceral contempt at this stage. I react to his presence in a match the same way Cena-haters claim they do with one difference - where most Cena haters will still watch Cena work, I have gotten to the point where I will avoid a Jumbo match at all costs. This is not an exaggeration. I watch tons and tons of wrestling, probably as much or more than anyone on this forum. I have watched lots of shit for the purposes of this project. I don't think I have watched a single Jumbo match for it and have actively avoided watching matches of his that have come up in playlists and sets that I have been watching for the purpose of this project. This presents two problems. The first is that it is pretty damn hard to reevaluate/assess a wrestler relative to others when you aren't watching him. That said I have watched tons of Jumbo in the past so I find this to be more of a minor problem than a major one. The far worse problem is that over time I struggle more and more with the notion that someone can actually be great if I'd rather wash dishes, do the laundry, hit my testicles with a hammer, than watch him wrestle. One can make the "be objective!" argument all they want, but the fact remains that there are probably a thousand wrestlers I'd rather watch work than him. There are other people I am sick of to one degree or another, but with Jumbo it's not that I'm sick of him - I cannot even stand the idea of watching him. And it's increasingly hard for me to believe that I should ignore that reality when rating him relative to others. As for the point Parv makes at the end of his post above, I don't necessarily think Jumbo phoning it in (cue JDW coming in to argue against Jumbo being lazy) on house shows is more important than the great matches, but in a head-to-head assessment against other all time greats I find the argument that it shouldn't matter at all less than persuasive. Ideally you have someone has lots of great matches and is super consistent. If not I suppose you try to strike a balance when assessing people who excel more in one area than the other.

Kind of want you to watch some Chicky Starr Parv. Interested to see what you would think of him as a heat generator.

Nominating Wing Kanemura via the 90's forum stuff.

There are a couple of matches on that show that look horrifyingly bad (Elgin v. Tanahashi and Naito v. Lethal). The flipside of that is that ACH v. Nakamura should be great, and the main event could be as well if they go full blown workrate sprint with it. The rest of the card is a hodgepodge of weird and bizarre match ups that could go either way.

This is an interesting project, but it presents some real problems. For starters the brew of criteria itself is problematic. I don't really take issue with any of the listed criteria, but the issue any time you engage with something like this is going to be how much weight do you put on what? For instance Parv's argument for Flair every year is one that I think is very defensible if you are arguing that in ring performance is the dominant criteria. Hell I think you can make a case for Flair most years even if you see in ring performance as a co-equal with the other categories. Having said that I struggle with the notion that in ring performance should mean even half of what drawing power does when you are talking about who should be champion. And from that perspective I think Hogan should win in almost every year listed so far. Of course the other big question is if the goal of this project is to say who an ideal champ would have been in a given year, or who was the MVP of given years, or who would have had the most potential to break out and have a great run in a given year..or any number of other things? Are the voters in this on the same page with what the goal is? I'm not sure how they can be. There is also the issue of how you treat the success of regional stars in a discussion like this. For example I think you could make a real case for JYD in 83. I'm not saying I'd take him over Hogan, but it's not a completely outlandish thing to suggest depending on what the goal of the project is, and how much you weight certain pieces of the criteria. But I get the feeling JYD wouldn't have been considered much if at all because he was theoretically regional. Same with Lawler who allegedly came close to getting major title reigns at points during this period (and actually did in the AWA to the extent that was a major title at the time he won it), to say nothing of someone like Carlos Colon who I doubt would even be on the radar at all for this despite the fact that operating under the established metrics there are years where he is arguably as good a pick as anyone (and yes I agree that Colon was never going to be a national star in the continental U.S., but that's also not part of the criteria). Finally there is the question of whether or not the analysis is meant to indicate the relative value of someone coming into the year in question, or whether or not the exercise is purely about analyzing what they did in the year in question. This is key to me because if you look at Hennig objectively in 1990 based on what we know looking back at his 1990 I think he is a remarkably bad pick - possibly not even one of the ten best options available in a landscape that is admittedly thin on obvious picks. Having said all of this it is an interesting project and the only pick I strongly disagree with is Hennig. I'd want to look at things more closely but if I were taking the approach of "who would you crown based on what they did in 1989 and the potential they exhibited" I might go with Luger. If I was basing it purely on what the person did in 1990 I still might go with Luger but there are other candidates worth thinking about.

Lacks the big time feel that Jay has on his own, but at least over the last few years I feel he's been the slightly better worker at least in tags. Completely crazed bumper, with a unique charisma, who had a hot tag formula that was so dynamic Daniel Bryan lifted it and used it to become the biggest star in wrestling. I can't see rating one Briscoe without rating the other, so I'll either strike them both, or place them both.

One half of my favorite act in the history of indie wrestling. Watching him and Mark evolve from crazy spot monkey children, into deranged rednecks that work a hybrid style has been a real joy. I prefer him teaming with Mark, but he does have a real bad ass, "this guy is legitimately dangerous" vibe that makes him stand out as a singles guy as well. That makes it all the more funny that probably his most famous singles match was the mauling he suffered at the hands of Joe. Lots of tag matches I have really loved over the course of the years, and some damn fine singles matches make him someone I will consider from the indie scene.

Discuss Here.

More inclined to include him than Wolfie. One of wrestling's all time great slimeball's. Really good brawler, great tag wrestling, master of schtick, underrated high spot worker, as good as projecting his character into a match as anyone I've ever seen. Feels like his performances without Wolfie are better than Wolfie's performances without him too. Should probably watch some of his XCW matches, or whatever else I can track down, but I like the idea of having him in my top 100.

PG-13 are one of my favorite tag teams of all time. Probably top ten to be honest. Wolfie is the lesser of the guys in that group, but he was a guy who was really good at disguising his height and working small, and he put in some great performances over the years. Probably not enough to include him, but I would be lying if I said he wasn't at least a blip on my radar.

Absolutely awesome old man brawler. In the last three or four years or so he's been in several of my favorite brawls during that stretch, including the 2/25 Todo X Todo tag which is my one of my favorite matches of all time (and he is the best guy in that match). I enjoy him as maestroish mat worker too, though I'd prefer to see him throw hands and bleed. That said I really need to go back and watch his best stuff from earlier periods. What 90's matches of his are worth tracking down? Someone give me guidance? I want to rate this guy, but I'm not sure if the meat is there or not.

Now I am sure that on paper this will seem like an odd one, but after listening to the Naylor/Wes/KrisZ Exile on Badstreet episode on the indie boom period, I decided to rewatch some of his stuff. He was a guy I loved at the time, in fact in some ways he jumped out at me more than any of the other early indie performers as he felt completely different, unique and revolutionary. I remember my brothers (and myself) going completely nuts watching him and Ki do their Kung Fu routine and thinking he was going to be the next big thing in wrestling. Anyway I watched back a bunch of his TNA matches from 02/03 and it is actually kind of incredible how well it holds up. All the big spots, the timing, the crazy impact of his bumps, the way he can switch speeds, the fact that he always seemed to have one more even bigger spot in his back pocket at all times, all of it holds up. On top of that the matches all ranged from good-to-great. I saw him work Low Ki, Kid Kash, AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn and Jimmy Yang and he managed to do different, fresh and interesting things in all of the matches. I was especially amazed at how well the matches were paced, as Red came across as spotty but not spotfesty if that makes sense. Anyhow after watching those matches back I started to think about Red as a superior version of Tiger Mask, and a poor man's version of Rey Mysterio. A superior TM in that he was a dynamic and influential high flyer - except Red was actually a very good wrestler. Like Rey in that he was a guy who got a leg injury, got older and then reinvented himself as a guy who would build his matches around selling and building to a few big, well timed, spots. I'm not saying Red is a lock or even close to that. But he's an interesting guy to watch back and think about.

Discuss Here.

Discuss Here.

Discuss Here.

Discuss Here.

I feel like this is a guy where the person who nominated him needs to make the case. I am huge on Walker, thought he had an incredibly great 2013 (top ten guy in the World in my view, borderline top five), but there are Southern indie guys I'd rate over or equal to him, who aren't nominated, and I don't think I would nominate. I am sympathetic to the idea of representing the underrepresented Southern indie scene with one of my last few picks, but not sure I can do it at the end of the day. And I would need someone to make the case for Walker.

Watching him in recent years makes me want to explore his "prime" more. I was always sort of dismissive of him years ago, thinking he was good, but not a real standout performer. What is interesting is that there was a real contingent of people who thought he was excellent, and one of the better juniors in wrestling during a period when juniors were thought highly of. As such I was in the real minority at the time in some circles I travel in (or at least this is how I remember it). As an "old man" he's had some fun, and even borderline great matches in recent years. Yes he didn't to fade into the scenery in New Japan multi-man tags but that is common. When given more of a chance in K-Dojo, or opposite Tajiri, et he has delivered far beyond what you might expect. I've been most impressed by his matwork and sense of struggle, both of which standout a ton in the context of modern Japanese wrestling. I'd really like any Taka advocates to suggest possible singles matches for me to go back and watch. I'm not opposed to rewatching some of the MPro multi-mans, but I don't think those performances are likely to put him on my ballot. He is going to sink or swim on individual performances.

My review written some time ago: I thought this was pretty great. I had absolutely no expectations coming in which may have helped this, but they had me from the jump as Abby is wearing an executioner hood and ambushes Jovica at the bell busting him open. Jovica works the whole match covered in blood, but the most amazing thing about this is how much Abby gives him. Abby takes a couple of really awesome slow mo bumps in this, and even spills out to the floor at one point. I loved the transitions here as Abby was on the defensive a ton, but would come back with a well placed boot, or a shot with the fork, or cut off Jovica trying to get to the corners by falling to the floor. Jovica for his part made great use of the chain, whipping the shit out of Abby with it, chocking him, smashing him in the face with it, et. You could argue that the attempts at the end of the match were a little "your turn, my turn" but I really bought them and Abby sprinting with forearms to keep Jovica down ruled. I also loved the finish with Abby almost getting to the fourth corner, when Jovica pulls the chain up and wallops him in the nuts and then runs around to smack all four corners. This was some good shit right here.

Thanks for the link Jerry. I enjoyed both matches and they provide us with a good glimpse of what Saito could do in a studio setting. I have to say I found the Keirn match extremely frustrating as it felt like a squash with Keirn on top, which probably makes sense from a storyline perspective, but runs counter to how I view Saito as a mat worker. In any event the bouts are well worth watching.

Was thinking about him today because a match between him and Ken Shamrock in TNA came up in my YouTube recommends side bar and I watched it. Match wasn't any good really, but the point is that I watched it because it seemed really novel and interesting in a way that was extremely attractive to me. And it occurred to me that that is really the story of Sabu as a whole. I will watch Sabu work just about anyone because it seems interesting on paper. His mere presence in a match will rope me into watching it AND being excited about it even though I rarely think the match that results is great. That is a really impressive trait for a wrestler to have, and even though I don't think he is one of the 100 best wrestlers ever, that sort of intangible is so rare that it makes me want to include him on my ballot.

Wanted to bump this to put this Abby v. Jovica match on the radar: This is by far the best Jovica match I've ever seen and probably one of the top three or four Abby matches I've ever seen. For those who are considering him it's worth giving this one a look.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1b9qc4_el-hijo-del-santo-villano-iv-vs-angel-blanco-jr-el-hijo-del-solitario-todo-x-el-todo-2-25-12_sport

Watch the 9/88 NJPW elimination match. Saito is incredible in it as I recall. He was also great in the 87 match with Kimura and the Riki Choshu & Masa Saito vs. George Takano & Super Strong Machine tag from March of 89. I also loved that Martel match. I think it was in my top 20 for the AWA. Do you have that Keirn match Parv? I've looked for it since you guys reviewed it to no avail.

Nominating Wolfie D Jamie Dundee Amazing Red