Childs

I hope we get Brock for years to come, because really, there's no one like him.

Nikki Bella--asskicker. Who'd have thunk it?

Preshow match and Usos-Mizdow were both enjoyable, so undercard is exceeding expectations.

I've been watching a ton of Garvin matches for no particular reason, and man does his work hold up well. You might not think of him as a mat guy, and he certainly didn't do anything intricate in that realm. But the working holds portions of his matches were effective because he always, always conveyed aggression. He was probably an underappreciated athlete as well--strong despite a modest physique, able to go hard throughout long matches and coordinated enough to nail difficult timing spots. It's really a shame he was defined as a failed NWA champ for a lot of people, because he was one of Flair's absolute best opponents, and the heat for their matches was tremendous. You can see how much Garvin and Flair pushed each other, and you know Flair loved that. I'd also reiterate that everyone should check out those Montreal matches with him and Jimmy vs. the Rougeaus, which showcase Ronnie as a flat-out great brawler. Wish we had more of him from the '70s and early '80s. The competition for top 50 is thick, but he's got a real shot for me. I'd put him even higher on a list of most rewatchable wrestlers.

If it was as simple as that, New Japan would have just continued the death spiral it was in four or five years ago.

Factual question for those who might know: Why has wrestling been relegated to such awful time slots in Japan? I know that problem originated long before the live product declined in popularity. Is it due to a relative lack of channels? Is there simply no equivalent in Japan to a broad-platform cable network such as USA? Was wrestling initially shoved aside by more popular programming? I'm asking because the time slot problem is always treated as irrevocable. And I'm curious why that's the case.

The "hot" perception is also a relativity thing, right? New Japan is at least a company that's expanding and making aggressive business decisions, just a few years after people were deeply worried about the future of wrestling in Japan. But I agree with OJ about our poor grip of the context. As much Japanese wrestling as I've watched, I don't have a great sense of where it fits in the country's pop culture and how that place compares to 1995 or 1985 or 1965 (less popular obviously, but it's hard to grasp the nuances from the outside). I'm also not sure how NJPW's place in Japan compares to WWE's place here.

Nakamura-Ibushi was a blast--perfect combination of spectacular and violent. They've now had two matches I like better than any iteration of Tanahashi-Okada.

Definitely more noise to filter through. And yes, you're probably seeing more content overlap as individual publications try to manage costs in ways they didn't when we were all rolling fat. The Baltimore Sun now owns the Annapolis paper and the Carroll County paper, which means they're using our stuff instead of producing their own. We don't have a national staff anymore; instead, we pull content from the LA Times and Chicago Tribune, which are in the same chain. That's not great for the industry, because there are fewer decent-paying jobs and fewer well-trained people covering stories. But there are a lot of factors pushing in the other direction, including the aforementioned research tools and the explosion of web-based publications, some of which are quite good.

I read work that fits this description almost daily. You're talking about an idealized past that never existed. There was some great work and a lot of slipshod work 50 years ago. There's some great work and a lot of slipshod work now. Journalists are rushed now. Journalists were rushed then. But honestly, the idea that a media consumer in 1964 had access to more good work than a media consumer in 2014 is absurd.

I feel like I'm the journalism scold here, but this is dead wrong. The standard is actually higher now, largely because the web has made research so much easier. If I'm writing about an unfamiliar subject today, I can learn the basic history in a few hours. The guy doing my job in 1965 had to rely much more on his own memory or the memories of a few others. The pressure to churn crap was always there. We just have better tools to churn it now. There are scads of problems with the modern media landscape, some of which you mentioned. But there's plenty of good stuff out there and it's, on average, better informed than the equivalent work of 50 years ago.

How many ballots did you end up getting?

Is the Summerslam match really getting MOTY love? I'd call it a great spectacle that turned into a retrospective disappointment with the follow-up. It seems insane to call it one of the worst matches of the year given how successfully it created the desired effect in the moment. But a classic match? No. I don't quite agree with the idea of NOC negating Summerslam. But WWE really did blow a potentially classic series by running the rematch so quickly and failing to do any special storytelling around Cena searching for new ways to handle Brock. I mean, haven't any of their writers seen Rocky III? This shit isn't that hard. I actually think that when I look back on 2014, their handling of the Summerslam aftermath will go down as my biggest disappointment. They have yet to recapture my interest since, though I imagine that'll change with the Rumble.

It does but not the English commentary version.

I really don't want to push this argument forward, but it's driving me crazy the way some of you are framing the discussion. I don't think anyone here is saying Dave would have undercut his entire reputation by taking an announcing gig for New Japan. I know that was never my argument. I made the much narrower point that taking the job would have undercut his ability to cover the most important show of the year for the second biggest wrestling company in the world. And that would've struck me as an odd decision for a veteran, respected reporter. Using the Ebert parallel, I don't think the Chicago Sun-Times would have been cool with him taking a significant supporting role in a film and then reviewing that film. Ebert was a little different because he was a pure critic, but I still don't think that's a line he would've crossed. I can't find any evidence that he reviewed Abby Singer, for example. Do you all honestly think that if A.O. Scott of the New York Times took a role in the next Captain America movie, the Times would be totally cool with him reviewing that film and writing about its business performance? That's crazy talk. It's just not accepted practice in the profession. Of course, anyone who writes criticism has favorites. But there's a significant distance between that and having a financial relationship with the people you cover. I'm actually surprised that's a controversial point. But admittedly, I live inside the journalism bubble. So it's illuminating to read alternate views.

I think his credibility covering that particular story would be lessened, yes.

Exactly. So taking a one-off kayfabe commentary gig would suddenly invalidate that and impugn his credibility? It's ludicrous. It really isn't ludicrous to say a reporter would harm his credibility by taking a paying promotional gig for a company he covers. Again, this is really basic ethical stuff in journalism. What if Dave took the job and then a wrestler died or was seriously injured on 1/4 because of some promotional negligence by NJPW? You'd have the most respected reporter in wrestling suddenly unfit to cover a major story on the second biggest wrestling promotion in the world. Is that scenario unlikely? Sure, but those are the kinds of instances we guard against by not creating the appearance of conflict. Now, Dave didn't pursue the job, so this is all theoretical. And it's certainly not anything to get heated about. But as someone who has to deal with these kinds of issues in everyday life, I find the line here to be clear.

Dave has always asked to be taken seriously as a reporter. Someone who wants to be taken seriously as a reporter should not take a paying gig from one of the major companies he covers. Sorry, that's journalism ethics 101.

I know what you mean; wore me down eventually as well. It will be a long time before I voluntarily watch another NOAH main event tag, for example.

I'm going to submit one.

But you still haven't explained how you'll weigh it. Is card placement something you'll actually factor in comparing workers? If so, how?

I have found myself increasingly unmotivated to get through the end of '98 as the Nitro and Raw segments have strayed further and further from emphasizing good wrestling. Anybody else have that problem?

I don't want to put words in Parv's mouth, but I think he's arguing that main eventers don't simply stumble into those opportunities. They earn them by being great. And as a corollary, he's arguing that most wrestlers who were truly great earned strong card placements. So practically, it's rare to find career lower-card workers with strong cases for this list. Broadly, I agree with that line of thinking, though it has its limits, given the number of stiffs who've been thrown into main events over the years.

I'd say it's a bit disingenuous to make Arn the poster boy for midcarders, because he enjoyed a level of visibility and success in his career that most midcarders could only dream of. Horseman, Flair's sidekick, greatest tag wrestler ever, never slid down the card like Tito or Greg, and so on. Arn is a bad example of a midcarder. It's not disingenuous. I'm asking you how far you'd go in weighing card placement as a factor. Again, I'm on board with the idea that greatness generally correlates with strong card placement. But it's not a 1-for-1 correlation. Sid was always higher on the card than Regal, but I can't imagine many would argue Sid was better. So I'm asking you, as the guy who has stirred this pot, to explain how you'll factor card placement.

Let me twist the question back to you a little. Would you automatically rank Harley above Arn because Harley was NWA champ and Arn was never a true main eventer?