Childs

I don't think 45 vs. 35 matters as far as his taped output, which is on the low side compared to other top 20 guys. The absent footage looms larger because he had such a long career and we're missing what we presume to be his physical peak. But it's not the volume of what's missing that matters to me in the ranking; it's the volume of what we have. And when I compare him to a Flair or a Tenryu or a Hansen, he's lower on output. I agree he's one of the most complete candidates in terms of demonstrated skill, and he's a top 20-guy for me, just not the No. 1 contender he probably would have been if we had a more complete accounting of his career.

Every time someone generalizes about the board like this, a small part of Loss' soul cries out.

Question, Matt: If a guy convinces you he has a skill, do you care at all if he demonstrates it 100 times as opposed to 50 times?

I basically agree with everything Matt says about Bock, and it's astonishing he wrestled the majority of the matches that make his case after he turned 45. With all due respect to Tenryu and a few of the great maestro luchadores, nobody had a greater post-45 career than Bock. Given his intelligence and base skills, I'd be shocked if he wasn't at least a very good worker for 15 years before that. But I can't give him full credit for footage that isn't there, and it keeps him from being a No. 1 contender for me. He and Satanico are the two most frustrating cases that way, maybe Billy Robinson too. I know they were just as skilled as the guys I have in the top few spots. I suspect their output was comparable as well. But there's too much unknown for me to nudge them above comparable talents.

As MoS said in his original post, the comparison is interesting not because they're the same but because they're the two best guys who have made the majority of their cases since 2000. As the responses have indicated, a lot of people have them close to one another, so the supposition seems to hold. I have Bryan six spots higher (something about that number, huh?) but the difference is essentially that I like his style a little more than I like Rey's style. He demonstrated a bit more range and I'd take his top 20 or top 50 matches above Rey's top 20 or 50. But Rey was about as effective at what he did as he possibly could have been and probably had more matches that were at least good. Rey had hundreds of good matches that made tape. That might sound easy for a great wrestler, but it really isn't.

As an offshoot to this discussion, does every voter here have a "Jumbo?" For me, it's Toyota. I'm happy to call her remarkable but can't bring myself to call her great, largely because I dread her work. I'm not ranking her.

Inoki is a strong candidate if you care only about the highs in a wrestler's career. But I believe in punishing for negatives, especially if those negatives are persistent and well-represented even during the wrestler's peak years.

That is true, but Dylan admits to thinking Jumbo is great, he is just someone who he doesn't enjoy watching. My point is if he acknowledges his greatness he should rank him based on that greatness, despite his personal feelings. I'm not a huge lucha fan, so I'm probably not going to spend much time watching Negro Casas or El Dandy, but they're both on my list. They wrestle in a style that I either am not a big fan of or don't understand, but that doesn't take away the fact that they are great at it. I hear you, and it's a genuinely tricky question that a lot of us have pounded on in various forms throughout the process. I really really do hate watching Inoki, like he fucking sucks, but can anyone really look in the mirror and say he wasn't "great"? This is a serious question at the heart of this. With Inoki? Sure. Inoki was pretty hateful to watch week to week, and his great mound of lazy, selfish performances outweighs his smaller mound of great ones. Now, you'd have to be an idiot to argue against him as one of the most important stars in wrestling history. But that's not what we're doing here.

The real sports comparisons don't work in this case. We know Tom Brady is great because he puts up superb numbers and wins a ton of games. We don't have to judge him based on aesthetic preferences.

I'm more bothered by subjective dismissals of consensus greats when they're not backed by any analytical rigor. But if you've done the work, and lord knows Dylan has as much as any of us, then vote your bliss.

I don't think he gets an easy ride on Memphis as much as it was just a short run that wasn't significant to his career. His AWA work certainly got a good look from a lot of people so I'm not sure how he got off easy there. Either people liked his stuff or they didn't. Your point is best taken on WWF and really on his '70s work in general, which wasn't as good as his '80s and '90s.

He's looking like a "next 25" guy for me. He was a strikingly precocious worker in his early indy days and a heck of a TV worker in his 1-2-3 Kid run, but I haven't found anything he did after that compelling. His highs weren't quite high enough to make up for the letdown that was the second half of his career.

You won't find a bigger Tenryu fan than me, but I'm surprised how many people were stirred by his performance in that Okada match. He looked like he could barely move. At one point, Okada essentially had to power bomb himself. Honestly, I found it depressing.

Solid, tonight was even better.

He's not holding back in the singles matches; he's wrestling incredibly hard. He's just building the match in a different way. Matwork is not a shackle for chrissakes.

The Lawler/Idol cage match is one other you might want to take a look at.

Faster? Yes. But I agree with GOTNW that it was more a matter of format than the injection of a single wrestler. None of this is meant to knock Yatsu, who was really good. I just don't see him as a game changer.

I really do think you're overstating Yatsu's impact because of your apathy to Choshu-Fujinami. That series was something special, both to contemporary viewers and to those who watched for the DVDVR project. If Yatsu elevates your interest in everything he's in, that's great and deserves to be reflected in your rankings. But recognize it as a matter of personal taste.

Tenryu is your Japanese equivalent in that he wrestled just about everyone who mattered from a 30-year span. I've always thought of that as a cool thing about his career and something that distinguishes him from his peers. On Bryan, we don't have the perspective to situate him historically, so the comparison to Flair on that front feels fuzzy. His resume of opponents might well feel weightier in 10 years.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything in wrestling more than that gauntlet. People used to treat it as a batch of individual matches, so I'd never read much about it as a total experience when I sat down to review it for the DVDVR project. And I just sat there with my mouth open at how brilliantly they paid off everything happening in the promotion. Nothing quite like it as a mix of performance and booking.

Make sure to watch his '04 G1 match with Nishimura if you haven't.

As Yamada he was a pretty good worker from around '86 onwards. Certainly better than when he first adopted the costume in '89. People remember the Sano matches, but that transition period was ugly. So you might start his peak earlier and finish it in '04.That was one of the revelations of the NJ set for me -- how good Liger was before he put on the costume.

Togo will definitely be on my list based on the combo of his vintage M-Pro stuff and his brilliant end-of-career run, when he really might have been the best wrestler in the world. What I haven't figured out is how good he was in the stretch between those poles. I mean, I assume he was at least good in 2007 or 2004, but I don't know and it's not something anyone seems to discuss.

I have him No. 24 and third among pure luchadores.

You like showmanship more than intense grappling so none of that seems surprising. I've been watching a lot of Saint lately, trying to figure out what to do with him. He was a huge talent but goofed around an awful lot. Based on his top matches, he should be a no brainer. Still not sure where I fall on him.