Dylan Waco

I am toying with idea of him as my number 100. Yes I could probably find 100 guys who I think were better, but I have a soft spot for Mikey in large part because I think he embodied ECW. He basically had a reluctant backyarder gimmick, and somehow was able to make it work for over six years straight, with some variations here or there, but still keeping a lot of the standards (sloppy offense that actually fit his character, crazy bumping, way better than normal selling for ECW, et). A lot of his best matches are lesser known, and/or fancams, but he had singles matches with Sabu, Richards, and Candido that I absolutely loved, and some really good tag performances too.

His peak was as his Wiskowski in Portland in the late 70's into 1980. At that point I think he was an outstanding worker, and his match with Buddy v. Piper and Martel from 1980 is one of my favorite tag matches of all time, and my MOTY from 1980. I thought he was awesome in the AWA too, but I will grant that he doesn't have the home run match you would want. In some respects I found him to be the Finlay of the AWA in the sense that he never got the chance to really deliver on a big stage, but I thought he was really good at making the most out of what he was given. I love that Bock match, I was higher on the Buck match than anyone, and the Derrick Dukes match we didn't include for VQ reasons would have made my top fifty for that set. Also he really was the best squash match worker by far of anyone we watched for that set. He had a match with Dennis Stamp that I loved enough to nominate and kind of regret not using a personal pick on. Not a lock, but I could see him on my ballot

Worth noting that Will and I used to absolutely loathe each other. Now we just have contempt for each other

Honestly this thread makes me want to take a break from the board

Yes, i'm clearly the only one digging their heels in when it comes to this beaten to death topic. C'mon, Dylan. The tone you've taken speaks for itself. You can't complain about the elitist, close minded thinking of others, when you consistently post things dense with elitism and close mindedness.

Joe you have taken the hardest line in this thread, absolutely no nuance and you are complaining about the perceived elitism of your ideological opponents. That is not a winning strategy for debate

Mikey Whipwreck is someone I'm nominally considering for my number 100 spot, so I suppose he needs a thread. There are more than three reviews of his in the 90's folder. Ed Wiskowski/Col. Debeers needs/gets a thread via virtue of the 80's project

If I were looking to make criticisms of Martel, I'd point out that he really lost a ton as a heel and for all the good/really great matches I've seen him in, I can't recall a single really good brawl. The closest is probably the Zhukov cage match, but even that isn't quite what I mean. The flipside of that is you can argue it made no sense to turn a guy who looked like that heel, and I'm not sure you have to have a great brawl under your belt to be an upper half guy as long as your resume is dense in other ways. From 80-86 I don't think there were too many guys in the world better than Martel, and that was a period with a lot of all time great level guys in their prime. Offhand I think you could argue him as high as five in English speaking North America after Buddy Rose, Flair, Lawler and Bockwinkel.

Shows a lack of ability to adapt to old age in a way fitting his PCP-fueled character

Also Savage should lose points for going back and marrying his high school sweetheart years later, instead of carrying on a series of abusive relationships, based on serial cheating, rampant alcoholism and drug abuse.

Needs more stock defensive spots thrown into matches at random to be seen as a truly elite worker

This is gonna be a long, long project

Flair did reinvent himself eventually as a garbage match worker and was quite good at it. Of course that was always going to have a short shelf life and was somewhat dependent on the idea of Flair as a washed up, crazy old guy, but still.

Hogan wouldn't make my list, but I think id rate him over Dusty.

My second favorite Japanese wrestler if all time. Top 30 Alan?

Not saying you are wrong OJ, but have you seen the 70s Fujinami that's available? I think you'd like it

Curious - which Evolution-era Flair matches would you compare favorably to Martel v. Tito in the AWF?

Terry in 2010 is probably the best individual year I've seen out of anyone in recent memory. He had some great stuff in the years right before that that made tape and some great stuff in the couple years after, but has dried up some in the last eighteen months or so. Still a guy with a year as great as Terry's 2010 will make my ballot somewhere

I can't tell if you are kidding

As many of you know I am a guy who has argued for several years now that the actual volume of good/quality matches has never been higher than it is now. I stand by that point, but still think Joe's point is completely insane. No match from 1987 would even make the top thirty or forty matches from the last year or two? 1987 was a year after most of the territories had died and/or were on their ass and I still think that's bullshit. Carlos Colon and Stan Hansen had multiple matches that year better than any match I've seen from any promotion on Earth this year - and there are a lot of matches from this year that I have really loved. Now it's true that Colon and Hansen weren't running the ropes at the speed of a more workrate indie guy, and weren't doing tope con hilo's as transition spots, but I have never, ever judged quality of wrestling based on what people could do, but rather what they did do and how well it worked. Does anyone really think Kawada would have been a better wrestler if he regularly used a 450 to the floor, or that Flair's stock would be higher if he was doing a capoeria gimmick? I don't begrudge anyone for judging wrestling solely based on the prettiness and/or athletic impressiveness of spots, but that's not why I watch wrestling, and if that is the argument you are making you can't turn around and complain if someone makes analogies to gymnastic floor exercise routines.

Agree on the Nishimura match from 2006 which I love. Also love his match from IWA-PR v. El Lobo from 2001. Finlay match from a couple of years ago is great. Last year he had some incredible matches with Nishimura and Shinya Ishikawa. That's just off the top of my head with little thought

He gets in for me for two reasons - 1. He was at least arguably the best worker in the world for two consecutive years (99 and 00). I might feel differently if I watch lucha and BatBat from that period, but no one else from anywhere in the world I would have ahead of him. On top of it during this period he was unbelievably consistent, never having bad matches even on ECW house shows where plenty of other guys took the night off and/or he was booked against guys who weren't easy to work with. 2. Despite not getting a ton of chances, I think his non-ECW career is both consistent and interesting in ways you might not think. Even in recent years he's had some incredible matches both against vets and against half trained rookies. I do wish he had a bigger number of clear classics, but he has plenty of random matches that I love

Saito is a bubble guy. What helps him to me is that he was very versatile and in some ways was the most Japanese export to the States. What hurts him some to me is that I can't point to any period where I think he was clearly a top five guy in any promotion he was in.

Watch any singles matches with Martel, Hennig and Dynamite from Portland.

Perhaps not the right place for this, but would anyone consider Satomura for this thing?