Childs

The bottom line is that they never, never bought into him as their top guy. An elite hand who could be thrown into a main event whenever? Sure. But never a made guy, not even after the all-time Wrestlemania moment.

I don't remember there being a lot. I know we put the match in which he blew out his knee on as an extra. I looked back and there was a tag match with him and Steamboat nominated, but not with a lot of enthusiasm. Actually, I went back and looked, and there were some Onita singles on the G+ Classics discs we reviewed. I didn't like them much at the time and particularly didn't like his work. Not sure if I'd feel differently now.

He still knows what to do, but the body has no snap left.

I mean good lord, I'm not looking to agree with Vince, but who could blame him for taking one look at this guy and thinking geek squad?

I haven't watched NXT much this year, but calling Kross "monstrous" when we just watched WALTER two matches ago is laughable.

I happened to watch Onita and Aoyagi from 1989 FMW today and it was a great reminder of how quickly Onita mastered being a dirtbag superstar. Just nuclear heat. He did not need the death match trappings, even though he would go on to make very good use of them.

Great post. If we could generate similar breakdowns for a lot of the candidates, that would be a terrific legacy for this run of GWE.

The Santana series from 1984 and 1985 is some of the best WWF stuff ever. His matches against Flair from Mid-Atlantic were quite good as were some of his battles with Wahoo McDaniel and Dick Slater. He's got the Garvin slugfests from late in his WWF run. There's a cage match against Carlos Colon from Puerto Rico. For anyone interested in more detailed Valentine talk, this thread is for you:

I would not say that about Hansen. The 1991-1994 run might have been the best of his career, so it seems ridiculous to say it wasn't his prime, even if it wasn't his physical peak. Would we say 1989 wasn't in Flair's prime because he was a better athlete in 1984? It seems like a useless semantical rabbit hole to go down.

I have a difficult time evaluating Cesaro, because I haven't been a week-to-week WWE watcher in a long time. I have a broad sense that he's elevated a lot of crap material, but I don't have a good idea how much or what that means. He's a great physical talent and never bad, but I remember people calling him the best in the world around 2014/2015, and I don't know why. I'm not even saying he wasn't; I just don't have a distinct image of him or the company from that time. Hero has meant more to me at all points of their respective careers, even as a guy pulling interesting matches out of a dead-end run in NXT UK. His 2016 was an indy monument and will carry more weight with me than anything Cesaro has done. I wouldn't describe Hero as consistent, exactly, but he's always found his way back to relevance. I find his spotty journey more interesting than the rock-solid resume Cesaro has built in a company I don't care about. That doesn't seem like the fairest way to compare gifted contemporaries, but I'm not sure how to get away from it.

Santana was certainly better in the WWF.

It is an interesting comparison, because Gordy was revered as a generational talent within the industry, but his matches don't really live up to that, with a few exceptions. That said, I see him as no more than a mild disappointment, with a strong record as a tag worker and a key role in one of the great territorial feuds. Orton has largely squandered one of the great silver-platter careers in wrestling history. He's clearly gifted and has been treated as a top guy by the dominant company for close to two decades, but he has so little memorable work to show for it. He's steered into being boring as shit.

This feels more like I'm picking between styles than judging the wrestlers, who were both close to the best at what they did. So I voted for Rey, but I'm sure I would have picked Bret at other points in my fandom. I do think Rey's career is weightier at this point, so you'd have to rate Bret's peak significantly better to go with him.

Saint was overrated at one point because he was the bridge to classic British wrestling for a subset of American fans. He put up some brilliant performances but couldn't match the depth or consistency of his best peers. He probably won't make my list. Casas, despite ranking below the tippy-top tier of luchadores for me, is a lock for the upper half. So this was an easy one.

I assumed they meant in Brock's second run. But yeah, that Eddie match is glorious. He and Rey had a good one as well.

I'm not sure I've seen a Brad Armstrong performance that was better than very good. He's not someone I'd consider for a top 100. I'm not as high on Cesaro as some, but he's managed to remain interesting for 15 years despite Vince's lack of interest in him, and he has some great efforts on his docket. So this feels like a walkover.

I remember thinking that Balor match was much better than I expected going in (Balor has never done a thing for me), but I haven't watched it since the night it aired.

For all my Hansen love, I don't disagree with your point at all. Tenryu produced many, many more interesting moments against random opponents. I do believe he worked with a generous spirit and that it played a significant part in his longevity. These were my No. 1 and No. 3 wrestlers in 2016, so there's not a lot to separate them. I could see Tenryu turning the tables on Stan in 2026, but I'm not ready to rule.

For me, it's Greco, who's Volk Han-like in his hit percentage when you look at his whole career. He was a great athlete who actually used his athleticism to do interesting stuff every time he was in there. Meanwhile, I find Okada uninteresting even in a lot of his "great" matches. You can certainly make a volume case for him, and it's hard to deny his talent for laying out elaborate finishes that pop the crowd. But there's no question which guy I'd rather watch, even if it's an esoteric preference.

You guys have nailed the dynamic here; it's the natural vs. the self-made man. Owen was a beautiful wrestler to watch and had a few cool runs. I'd take the Mania match with Bret over any Punk match. He popped off some random gems against guys like Vader and Shamrock and had the fun tag team with Yokozuna. But I can't say he had a great career. I do think Punk squeezed more production out of his lesser tools, crazy as that seems to say.

I feel like in our little circle, the renewed interest in New Japan goes back farther than the resurgence of the modern product. All Japan was regarded as the king coming off the '90s run with NOAH as an extension of that. But I saw the tide shift even with the two DVDVR sets we did, where the NJPW one seemed to generate more interest for a lot of people because of the variety. That flowed naturally into a desire to take fresh looks at '90s NJPW, which had been so much less acclaimed. I'm not dismissing the impact of NJPW's recent pre-eminence for a lot of fans. That's an interesting theory; I have to remind myself that for a lot of people, the '90s are ancient history.

I voted for Brock. Buzz is a guy who's usually struck me as awesome in theory, disappointing in practice. He was this legit lunatic with freaky athleticism for his body type, but aside from a few stellar matches in Mid-South and Georgia, I don't see a ton of meat to his career. He was never as good as Brock was in his first run, and though I don't want to get into another debate with Matt about Brock's later run, his best matches from that stretch feel more special to me than Buzz's greatest hits.

A slight positive for me actually. I liked him dropping his counter-fu bullshit after the awful series with Styles and embracing his bloated faux rock stardom. It seems things have gone off the rails lately in AEW, but he had a solid few years there.

I just remember my instinctive distaste when you asked me if I voted for Jericho during our overnight marathon GWE pod. I would never have that reaction to Barry Windham.

I understand your point, especially as it pertains to Lucha, but it's not practical to ask voters to develop deep understandings of hundreds of candidates. Even those who've watched a shit ton of wrestling over the last 20-30 years have to pick their spots. "Show me a list of matches" is an imperfect approach and should not be the endpoint of a discussion, but if you view it as a jumping-off point, it's still valuable for people who are coming fresh to a candidate. I appreciate OJ's approach to Lucha recs, which has always been to include the trios leading up to the title or apuestas match.