Childs

Sounds perfect.

I don't think it's a hit exactly--more just a reality check that, as good as Finlay was early in his career and then late, he was pretty far from that for a big chunk in the middle.

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Yep, I have Arn No. 37 and Tully No. 92 on my working list.

Really? I've mostly heard people talk it up as one of the best matches in Starcade history and by far the best reason to watch the '84 show.

CCR was as good as anybody for two years and that was it. That's not Dibiase.

Christgau has liked plenty of rap albums including the first Wu Tang record. He's made an honest effort to engage with rap for 30-plus years. I often disagree with him and he's curtly dismissed plenty of albums I love, but I wouldn't call the man a philistine.

Yeah, I have Barry a good bit higher. He was just better than Ted at most aspects of pro wrestling--more exciting offense, more inspiring as a babyface, more badass as a heel, better tag wrestler, longer list of great matches. I give Ted credit for greater consistency and for effectively anchoring a promotion. He'd probably benefit if we had more footage from his earlier days. But I've just never seen Ted work at the level of Barry at his best, and that would be a difficult gap to close.

I do, but I'm honestly not sure how many people will leave him off. Some, obviously. I've got him at 62 on my working list.

The argument was never that he shouldn't get credit for his AJPW work. It was that he looked like a second-tier talent compared to the best guys, and it reinforced the idea of him as a guy who'd fall into the back half of a GWE list rather than contending for the top 20 or 30. I don't even think you'd disagree with that.

Andre is one of the trickiest guys to rank for me. I was legitimately blown away by his best New Japan work--not just the unmatched spectacle of the Hansen match but his world-class selling against Khan and his wonderful character touches against Inoki. I had the same feeling a few months ago with the release of his NWA title challenge against Race. It was like, "Wow, I didn't know Andre could do that." And yet there's little question he wrestled hundreds of boring, throwaway matches for Vince. I have no question he had it in him to be an all-time great wrestler. I'm just not sure he was an all-time great wrestler most of the time. I like his peak performances too much to leave him off. But his volume of great work isn't enough to push him into my top half.

I've always had a so-what reaction to the criticism of his "meta-heel" run. It felt like people trying to hammer him into preconceived boxes while ignoring the simple reality that he was hugely over playing the character. He anchored a fairly hot promotion playing the character. If that run doesn't work for someone's particular aesthetic sensibility, that's fine. But it never bothered me, and I have trouble seeing it as a broad negative. I do think he fell into a little rut going long for the sake of going long. In fact, I prefer '07 Danielson to '06 Danielson largely because he streamlined. But I don't think going pointlessly long was a huge problem for him for the majority of his career. It strikes me as the kind of modest flaw you can find with any of the top candidates. Bryan meant a great deal to my wrestling fandom. He wasn't the first worker to excite me as I began to dive deeper around 2005, but he was the one who connected with me most powerfully. I bought countless DVDs and attended dozens of shows specifically to watch him wrestle, and I rarely regretted the effort or expense. He gave me a reason to care about WWE in a way I had not probably since childhood. If all of that means I look past some of his flaws, well, so be it. He got me re-invested in being a wrestling fan, and that counts for a whole lot.

I bet someone has him higher than No. 4 and I think he has a good shot to be top 10 overall.

Marufuji is an all-action guy whose offense looks like shit. He came off as so unworthy of going toe-to-toe with Minoru Suzuki that what was supposed to be the climactic NOAH match of 2015 fell completely flat. At least KENTA, at his best, succeeds as a tough little bastard. I would much rather watch him battle Suzuki for the soul of a promotion.

Again, there is no discrepancy. Parv juxtaposed two votes that were based on entirely different questions. Believing Jumbo participated in many of the best All-Japan matches of the '80s is not now and never was equivalent to believing he was the best wrestler of the '80s. Once we get the GWE results, if Jumbo is No. 12 as opposed to the commanding No. 1 he was for Smarkschoice, we can debate why. But for now, this strain of debate is based on a shoddy premise.

There's no disparity. It is entirely possible to believe Jumbo was in a bunch of the best All-Japan matches of the 80s but that he did not have a better decade than Flair or Fujinami or Lawler. Those are simply not contradictory concepts. I think Jumbo was great. I have him No. 6 overall and would have him top 5 for the eighties. But I voted for Flair as I'm guessing you might also.

I hadn't seen that match but just went and watched it. Hard to deny that Satanico can still work an effective match after 40+years, and that's impressive in its own right. The matwork was crisp and hardfought. They didn't really escalate in the way I'd want from a MOTYC, but it was tight, engaging work. Panther has more left in the tank than Dandy. I guess I could see praising it at the MOTY level if maestros lucha is your favorite style. Anyway, I'm going to stop picking at Satanico now, because he was a masterful worker in his prime, has aged well and can comfortably stand with any wrestler in history.

His return to the indies is one of my favorite things in 2016 wrestling.

I understand changing the spelling of words to reduce the number of characters. But why "hurrd," Marty? Why?

I generally skim play by play. I want to know a few key things you liked or didn't like about the match, backed up by some description. If it's an exceptional match, I want to know if you think it ranks with the best of the year or best ever. And I want to know how your thoughts about the match play into your overall thoughts about the promotion or wrestlers involved. I generally like your reviews, Parv, because you're willing to disagree on sacred cows and you back up your thoughts.. Regarding the ones above, you could have trimmed a little play by play from the Kawada-Hase review, but it didn't drag too much. You connected each of your descriptions of the action to broader thoughts about the wrestlers, which is what I'm generally looking for. I liked the Funk reviews better in their original form. The edited versions above feel a little slight for a thread trying to expand our collective understanding of Dory.

I love Satanico. He will be my highest ranked luchadore. But I think it's an exaggeration to say he's been cranking out a few MOTYCs a year. Those Dandy matches were fine, but they very much struck me as exhibitions between old men who used to be great wrestlers.

The weird thing about Vince is he can be quite a rational actor, especially when he's wearing his CEO hat. I think Loss tweeted the other day that his greatest achievement is running wrestling as a business at a level no one else has approached. For example, we've seen him be incredibly disciplined about trimming costs when that's what the business needs. I don't know how you reconcile that with the culture he's established on the creative side of things. He's a fascinating figure

Couldn't agree more. I think they've lost their way. It's just not hard for me to see why they're able to convince themselves otherwise, especially given that they exist in a closed loop.

I was actually surprised to see no one has nominated Quackenbush.

He did beat the machine. He did shatter the glass ceiling. He was a top guy and would have continued to be a top guy. Setting the bar for success at Austin-level supernova just doesn't make sense to me.