Childs

I watched the Hayes match after listening to Matt's podcast with Jimmy and what tremendous fun it was. Veidor delivered a world-class portrayal of rising frustration, and the finish, executed just when a disqualification seemed imminent, was thrilling. Veidor, Roach and Roberts are in a whole different class than most of the wrestlers falling around them in the poll. Makes me wish that I had voted for more of them, not that it would have made much difference.

I cannot watch that match without falling asleep. I don't know if it's great or not, because I've never seen more than 15 minutes of it.

Some poster should join the board as "Insane Anon."

I thought Ian would do a little better than that, though I never really considered him.

If you're suggesting Kobashi had no personality and wasn't clearly a babyface, that's just crazy. It's hard to imagine a wrestler who worked in bigger, brighter strokes.

I do find that I watch Lucha with essentially a different brain. I choose not to get hung up on structural shit that would drive me nuts in a U.S. match. But I adjust my mindset for lots of different styles. I don't judge a shootstyle match in the same way I would a Crockett match from 1986 or either in the same way I would a British match from 1975. I can't imagine watching wrestling with a universal set of expectations. I think I'd enjoy a lot of stuff a lot less. But there are styles that I just can't vibe with--Dragon Gate, a lot of main event Joshi from the '90s. It happens.

I don't think people are scared to speak up about not vibing with lucha. It's been a constant discussion point throughout this process. Have people really called you an idiot for not getting into it? Maybe a few, but that hasn't struck me as the dominant tone. OJ has certainly been a constructive conversation partner for you on the subject. As far as substantive debate, at some point you either accept the rhythm and peculiarities of Lucha or you don't. If you watch classic examples of the style and they don't hit your wrestling sweet spot, no amount of arguing is going to change that. Just like I'm not going to talk you into loving Choshu-Fujinami. You saw what I see in that series--the intensity and struggle over basic moves. But it didn't speak to you the way it does to me. So be it.

I think there will be more. I have 2 British guys in my top 13 and they're not any of the above names. It's not Rocco either who I'm guessing is going to make the list as well. I agree that we'll see some high average votes. I just wonder if, as OJ suggested, they'll be diluted by the sheer volume.

I worry about the placements of the British workers, because they just don't seem likely to appear on the majority of ballots. I expect Breaks to make the top 100, but I'm not confident about any of the others (not talking Regal, Finlay or Robinson). I thought hard about Roberts. He would have made my 150 easily.

Not a fan of that news.

Hero delivered a masterful performance in the ZSJ match. I loved the way he controlled the pace, and the moves he hit in the finishing sequence were just sick. The crowd didn't seem ready for the match to end when it did but goddamn that was emphatic. I might like this chunky indie boss phase more than any other period of his career. Sabre was also good in the match. At this point, I like him better working as an underdog than as an even-steven technical master.

I don't think the booking is bad, but I don't get the sense they have a consistent audience, which hurts the heat when they try to run angles. At the height of Gabe's ROH, you always got the sense fans were locked into the product, whether through live attendance or buying DVDs. So if they started an angle in Philly, they could pick it up two weeks later in Chicago without a massive disconnect. Evolve doesn't run as often, and the fans in Florida don't necessarily seem to pick up where the fans in New York left off. There's a band of hardcores like us, watching a bunch of the shows VOD, but that audience isn't necessarily represented at the live events. I'm thinking about something like the Caleb Konley challenge to Thatcher, which they built to for months but which seemed to go over like a wet fart in the building. There wasn't anything wrong with the storyline. Something like that probably would have generated real heat in Gabe's ROH. But with Evolve, if fans aren't into the match in front of them, the storyline doesn't seem to matter much.

Go back to setting up your work camps.

Why would you conflate the issue of awful out of ring actions with people talking about what a shitty wrestler Joey Ryan is? No one is upset on a world travesty scale. So why cast it as if it's any more than a wrestling argument?

Silver King and Cruz beat Andre the Giant, Greg Valentine, Tito Santana, Yuki Ishikawa, Ron Garvin and Buddy Rose among others in 2006.

It's not like you wipe out the vote by disagreeing with it. Arguing merits is part of the fun of this thing.

It was Tim Noel. He talked about it in one of these threads.

I also don't have any problem with the Kana matches. She's just a badass throwing down with other badasses--a Kill Bill fight scene come to life or something.

Agree completely. I was annoyed that he ranked ahead of anyone. In November, Phil and I watched him tease unwanted groping as, you guessed it, a babyface spot. Bleh.

I found Baba much more graceful in stepping back to his secondary legend role. He wasn't as good an athlete as Inoki, but he accepted his limitations and remained effective in modest doses. To be fair, Inoki's 2/6/86 match with Fujiwara was better than anything Baba did in the decade.

I'm generally a fan of his '70s work as well, but for me, the '80s Inoki vs. '90s Fujinami comparison doesn't quite work because Inoki remained the dominant figure in the promotion for so much of his decline phase. And aging ace was not a role he wore well, especially if viewed week to week. I take your point, and it's something I might think about in more detail when/if we do this again. But I'm not comfortable dismissing the '80s as a minor part of his biography. The '90s? Sure. But not the '80s.

Did you go to Evolve 59, Dylan? Feel like I've seen the least chatter about that one, and it's not On Demand yet.

KENTA is a good guess but will probably go a fair bit higher than 325.

After all this Jericho crap, it's sort of shocking to see AJ in there with someone who can go.

I'm stunned at the 151. I have no idea what that means for the results, but I'm certainly intrigued to find out.