Childs

Interesting. The No. 1 is a clear No. 1.

No way on the average. The top tier guys will beat that easily.

Agreed, and I'm puzzled by it because almost all of the talk has been in the other direction.

The Tamura comp is fantastic.

I'm compartmentalizing with that. But yeah.

I can't help but feel disappointed by that Tamura placement. He's just flat better than at least 20 guys who will go above him.

I had them pretty close together. I do think Ohtani was better in the '90s. Maybe not cooler but better. He has no second act to stand up to Togo's finishing burst of greatness, but I ended up liking his heavyweight stuff a lot more than I expected. He might have been more consistent in the aughts, though some of that is an opportunity/footage issue. Pretty much a pick 'em for me.

Relative to Angle, I don't mind if Shawn hangs around for a bit. Far greater career and demonstrated grasp of pro wrestling.

I'm one who likes later Blue Panther more than prime Blue Panther. He missed my ballot because we have almost none of him from the UWA and because a lot of his '90s stuff was uninspiring relative to the best work of his peers. I find him overrated as a mat worker, but I dug the shit out of his mask losing performance and his work against Casas. Those matches showed his fire and his ability to flat out fight. He was in my 100 most of the way and just missed in the end.

My favorite thing about this so far is that you guys did let yourselves go off on interesting tangents without worrying about run time. I'm thinking particularly of the Virus conversation regarding different standards of stardom in different countries. It's also interesting how different your ballots are in the 35-50 range. It sort of re-hammered home how much I wish I could have voted for 150-200 wrestlers.

Look at Ishikawa's average ranking--very telling as to how highly regarded he is among people who've spent time with the style. Would that he could find Kurt Angle somewhere and drill him in the chin with a straight right.

I honestly don't think there's a single "great" Hansen/Misawa match, which is one of the biggest goddamn mysteries of all time. Two incredible workers that simply do not mesh. This is a tired old saw. They meshed fine, and Hansen played a huge role in getting Misawa over as the new ace. Hansen hit higher peaks against Kobashi and Kawada, but those were some of the greatest matches of all time.

He was widely regarded as such in 2014 and 2015. If not the best, certainly one of the top five.

I love how often people play the "You're a Canadian" card on Steven.

Ooh, psyched for that one.

I'm not clear how he broke down doors. Did he do anything that Bret or Shawn or Benoit or Eddie or Angle didn't do? I don't think Jericho was awful by any means, and Loss' arguments for him ring true to me intellectually. But I have never felt swept away by a Jericho match. Well, maybe the Rey matches, but almost never. I'm always very aware with him that I'm watching a guy giving a wrestling performance. His obsession with counters is part of that as is the disconnect between his ambition and his athleticism. I'd make some of the same criticisms about Punk, but Punk had more great matches.

Hogan represents the wholesome, moralistic, respectable facade of the 80s. Flair represents the sleazy, money hungry, decadent truth. The beauty (well, horror) of Hogan is that he represented the truth and the lies of the Reagan era in one outsized package.

The one key difference between him and Undertaker is that he got himself massively over in both AWA and Japan, before the Vince production machine really kicked in.

Don't let your sons grow up to start Ric Flair threads.

Wish Tajiri had held on past a few others, but that's a hell of a placement for him all in all.

Did we lose anything from having it be long? Voter turnout was high, interest never seemed to lag and people are having a blast with the rollout.

This was a good time for Doc to drop. He was my 100 but the criticisms for him are pretty similar to those for Rude.

And Mutoh

I'm having good luck with my vendettas today so Rude and Mutoh, I'm looking at you. Time to go. Love the Ravishing One but he's gone far enough on one great year and creating a miracle with Warrior. Mutoh's best is certainly GWE worthy but if you care about consistency at all, it's hard to think he should go any higher.

I've read Matt on Eadie many times but he pulled it all together for an impressive testimonial to his guy at the end of this show. Also thought Stacey delivered a smart defense of Jeff Hardy.