JerryvonKramer

I don't see any circumstances in which Arn is not in my top 30 in the world from 86-96. On some of the others, I really don't think Rude is good before 89. Baba starts 69 because of footage issues, ditto Dory. For some of those guys it is "I can point to footage of them in this year being demonstrably world class wrestlers". I've seen the Bruno match from 67 and it bored me to tears. Eddie and Benoit I started in WCW and need to think about that more. Honestly I'm not sure I'd pick either for a top 30 earlier than that. But I'd be happy to hear cases. In my mind they are "tremendously promising" before the dates I picked. Point taken on Ole too, I went back and forth on that and may have made the wrong call. His score is low anyway, but removing that would put him at 13 and rank bottom. Maybe that is right. I'm willing to listen to arguments for lengthening or shortening particular peaks. I was happy to give Misawa till 03. I'm not happy to shorten Arn's because I do believe he was an elite world class worker in every single one of those years.

I'm kinda with brain on that, as you'll hear on the next few WTBBP.

It's nominally top 30 in the world OJ. And Breaks should do well based on his base rating, intangibles, peak and variety, although he might finish lower than a free form list. I am struggling to get Jumbo up with Funk and Flair though, and this could be an issue.

Well I'm not sure how to be more transparent than this. The great matches ratings come from reviews I've done all over the place and in audio form, and I take a "great match" to be ****1/2+ And almost every match I have given ****3/4 or more (see top 100 list) will almost certainly have great psychology.

Matt, psychology is weighted more than offense and selling because Great Matches is a metric and you can't really have lots of great matches with no psychology (whereas you can without the other two), so it is de facto factored in more.

Well this is really the question. Hamaguchi, Murdoch and Mil / Dos are stretch cases on the border. And my thought is probably to cut it at 18 and give Jumbo 9/10. However, consistency is pretty key here. I will likely give Kawada the bone of the Gary Allbright match, despite the fact I didn't see what the fuss was about and thought it was average at best. But it's still "memorable". Kawada vs. Allbright is about as low as I'm prepared to set that bar. In that same bucket I'd have stuff like DiBiase vs. Virgil (very memorable, very over, not great matches), and so on. I'm kinda thinking Hamaguchi, Murdoch and Mil / Dos matches are below that for Jumbo. Tenryu's match with Mil would likely make the cut. Hope that makes sense. These are difficult margin calls.

Match did make the set and finished 100th in the voting. I was running a search on my ratings for "Animal" and it's listed as Higo Hamaguch, lol Okay it was on the set. I gave it a **1/2, but think it is "memorable". Could be replaced with .... Dick Murdoch, Mil Mascaras, and Dos Caras. Mil / Dos would go together. Murdoch matches personally put me to sleep, but if it can get him to 20 maybe?

Refining the Ability to work different styles and roles category. - As with all other categories, this is a rating out of 10. - Workers get a +1 score for each different style or role they can perform capping out at 10 Some examples of different roles: + 1 ability to work face / heel (where worker is typically the other one) [Note: you can't get +2 for working face AND heel, it is expected that every guy would work one or the other, the +1 is recognition of the ability to work both) + 1/2/3 ability to get over in multiple markets [Note: 3 = MANY markets, 2 = a few markets, 1 = 2 markets -- for example, Hansen would get a 2 here (WWF, GCW, Japan, PR), whereas Funk would get a 3 (Amarillo, South West, JCP, WWF, WCW, Florida, PR, Japan -- and yes, this gives a natural advantage to NWA champions, my counter to that is: they were NWA champions) + 1 ability to work brawls / technical matches (where worker is typically technically grounded in one style or the other) + 1 ability to work gimmick matches + 1 ability to be an effective tagteam / singles wrestler (where worker is typically associated with the other) + 1 ability to be ace / champion / carry a promotion [this is a little gimmie to recognise the importance of aces / champions in wrestling, this is where a Bret Hart can pull back against a Bobby Eaton] + 1 ability to carry lesser opponents + 1 ability to adapt to opponent's style I am about to start the somewhat ridiculous task of going back through every guy and listing these out. I think that should boost some of the ratings here for different guys. We'll see more 7s and 8s I think. Refining the Variety category. I think here, we need something more concrete. And again this involves painstaking "working out". Elliott's concerns about arbitrariness are real and I share them. I want to try to eliminate any sense of that by showing the workings for EVERY number. With "Variety", the real question is "how many matches / feuds need to count for a 10?" and, more importantly, "where do we set the bar?" I think everyone would agree Flair is a perfect 10 in this category, let me go on Flair and see where we stop: 1. Steamboat, 2. Race, 3. Lawler, 4. Kerry von Erich, 5. Jumbo, 6. Martel, 7. DiBiase, 8. Dusty, 9. Windham, 10. Wahoo, 11. Bockwinkel, 12. Magnum TA, 13. Garvin, 14. Morton, 15. Taylor, 16. Luger, 17. Funk, 18. Sting, 19. Savage, 20. Tenryu [... 21. Hogan, 22. Vader, 23. Eaton, 24. Pillman, 25. Arn, 26. Mr. Perfect, 27. Foley, 28. Shawn etc. etc. etc. WOOOOOO! I love you Ric! #mark4life lol] Okay, we reached 20 different guys who had very good to great matches and / or memorable feuds with him. And without really stretching. So let's say 20 is the mark for a perfect 10? Let's see how Jumbo goes ... 1. Dory Funk Jr, 2. Brisco, 3. Terry Funk, 4. Race, 5. Baba, 6. Kimura, 7. Billy Robinson, 8. Bockwinkel, 9. Slater, 10. Flair, 11. Kerry von Erich, 12. Martel, 13. Choshu / Yatsu, 14. Hansen / DiBiase, 15. Hamaguchi, 16. Williams / Gordy, 17. Tenryu, 18. Kawada, 19. Misawa (+ Kobashi / Kikuchi). Okay, I'm capping out at 19 and after that feels like a stretch. So based on that, is Jumbo a perfect 10 or a 9? Feels like he should be a 9 actually, on the basis that with Flair we might have kept going even further? Let's try Funk: 1. Jack / Jerry Brisco, 2. Race, 3. Jumbo, 4. Giant Baba, 5. The Sheik, 6. Abdullah the Butcher, 7. Bockwinkel, 8. Lawler, 9. Hansen, 10. Brody, 11. Colon, 12. Hogan, 13. JYD, 14. Martel, 15. Steamboat, 16. Flair, 17. Eddie Gilbert, 18. Cactus Jack, 19. Sabu, 20. Onita Less of a canter than Flair but he got there. Okay, 20 is the perfect 10 barrier. So let's go like this: 20+ opponents = 10 18-19 opponents = 9 16-7 opponents = 8 14-5 opponents = 7 12-3 opponents = 6 10-11 opponents = 5 8-9 opponents = 4 6-7 opponents = 3 3-5 opponents = 2 1-2 opponents = 1 I think that is a fair curve. The key idea he is "how are are we stretching?" You can see with the above that with Flair is was totally relaxed and easy, we could keep going. With Jumbo much beyond that 19 mark is a stretch, the most questionable inclusion is the Hamaguchi match from 1986, which I enjoyed and which jdw has pimped for years, but which didn't make the AJPW 80s set (for example). With Funk, we were stretching a bit less, but much beyond 20 and we might be reaching a little bit. Okay, I will begin going through every guy in this way. What the hell have I got myself in for!

I think Harley basically invented the modern style of wrestling Loss. You don't see guys throwing suplex variations before him and you don't see guys bumping huge or missing moves from the top rope. There is a dramatic increase in all of these things when Race becomes champ in both the US and in Japan. Along with a general increase in workrate across the board. It is less obvious than with DK, where you can see copycats. It is a much more deeply embedded thing. That's basically why I'd give Harley a perfect 10 for influence. It's almost like Chuck Berry picking up an electric guitar. Guys just didn't work like that before Race. Ray Stevens was a big bumper from what we hear, but I don't think he was a suplex machine. I've seen a pretty wide sampling of early 70s footage and the only guy who works like that at all is Pat Patterson in the glimpses we see from San Francisco. And also to an extent Billy Robinson. But Patterson and Robinson didn't work all the places Harley did. I've mentioned this many times on the board but it's one of those things I can never get any discussion out of.

Loss, influence in that sense, what you might call "historical importance" is not part of my criteria and has never been for any project I've done like this, including films, music, etc. I don't give extra points for "doing it first". Tod Browning's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi is so influential it changed the very face of Halloween forever, your image of Dracula is that film's image of it, it's Lugosi. It doesn't change the fact that the film is creaky even by 1931 standards. Browning's Freaks (1932), on the other hand, banned for many years and much less influential than Dracula, I consider to be a masterpiece. Dracula doesn't get extra points for being influential and Freaks doesn't get extra points for being controversial. I just don't judge stuff that way. As it happens, in the case of DK, it seems I'm a lot higher on his New Japan matches than a lot of people here, and he'll probably rank just based on the criteria I've got. But to me "influence" is in the same sort of bucket as drawing. It is external to the in-ring work. It also gets us into some weird and grey areas. Dory Funk Jr's resume of guys he's trained is amazing. So how can we calculate his influence on the wrestling we see in the US and Japan? It's less obvious than DK's influence on Chris Benoit, but who knows where we are finding shades of Dory even now. The influence of a guy like Harley Race on the modern wrestling style is absolutely incalculable. Do you see how many perfect 10s we'd be creating? And if Harley is a perfect 10 for influence, what does it make DK?

I'm a little shocked that the idea of WCW 1992 being good is surprising. For my money, the greatest year in that company's history -- not from a box office or even booking / storyline point of view, but purely from in-ring. I mean their roster was just PHENOMENAL. Personally, it's probably my favourite year of any promotion. 1989 NWA, 1989 All Japan and possibly one of the years from the mid-90s of All Japan might be "better", but Dangerous Alliance, Rude vs. Steamboat, Pillman vs. Liger, War Games ... forget about it. I love that period. Kip Allen Frey is my hero.

I think I'm going to make that change now because his overall rating seems a bit low. As things stand, that change has actually put him above Hansen.

I missed this yesterday, and yeah, it's an issue. Rick Rude, for example, has had a "freebie" year in 1991. In general, however, I've been on the side of being generouos. Flair gets to 94, not 89, as some would have -- and I've start from 78 because based on garbage tape footage there is no way he wasn't "one of the best in the world" in that year, Steamboat ditto. Likewise, I started Jumbo in 73 (in which he does have at least two great matches I can think of, rather than 75). So while guys might get a "leg up" from missing years being included in their range, it should shake out with the fact that most of the time I've not gone for a "hard peak" but rather "period in which this guy was really relevant as a world-class talent". The only one I think I might have been too harsh with on that rating is Misawa. Seems like he might deserve later than 1998. My test cases for peak are really Funk -- I've cut him off in 1989 and not included his ECW/FMW years -- and Flair, who I've cut off in 1994 and not included 95-6 during which he was still doing entertaining stuff and having decent matches (Arn, Savage, Kevin Green stuff) but, it seems to me, is clearly a step or two below. Misawa was probably better than that or ECW Funk in 1999 and early 00s no? Somone needs to help me out there, late 90s and early 00s Japan is one of my darker areas. For me Bret Hart is one of the best offensive wrestlers in US history. The way he works a heat sequence, the way he nails a backbreaker. The way he's able to make every single move "count" as part of an offensive gameplan. There is a question over where "offense" ends and where psychology begins, but with Bret it is impossible to separate them. Misawa is also clearly one of the best offensive wrestlers of all-time. Is he "better than Bret" at offense? Well, on the one hand Bret doesn't have the Tiger Driver '91 or any move that sick looking -- but this is reflected in Misawa's "+1 for innovation". On the other hand, Bret is crisper than Misawa and never looks like he's going to kill someone by dropping them on their neck (hence +1 for execution). Six of one, half a dozen of the other. When it comes to the base, I don't see a huge amount to differentiate Bret and Misawa beyond the selling rating. In general a 3/3 in any of those means "one of the best in that category ever". And yes, it does look like there's a lot of 3/3s floating around but hey it's GWE. And, yes, I really do think Ted DiBiase is one of the greatest at bumping and selling ever to lace them up. And I really do think Bobby Eaton is a perfect 10 when it comes to his core skills. But in a way, that's kind of why this has been an interesting exercise, it has made me realise those things. I'm not sure I would have thought about Eaton actually being a better wrestler in terms of his core basic skills than Jumbo, Funk, Flair and Hansen before doing this. But I can't see any way to argue against it. Can anyone honestly say Eaton is not a 3/3 in all three caterogies? And would you begrudge him the +1 for innovation? In terms of raw mechanical talent, Eaton might well be a top 5 guy of all time. Therein also lies the reason for the other 5 cateogries. If the scores stay like this, Eaton will rank over Hart, yes. I am planning to do some major retweaking soon though, because two categories -- Ability to work different styles / roles and Variety -- aren't sitting right with me. As in, how I've arrived at the number feels too arbitrary and I need to actually list it out for each and every guy. Seems ridiculous and painstaking, but I don't think I can be happy with those numbers unless I can see some of the detail behind them. WWF guys, it seems to me, will get a boost in the variety category. But I need to work on fine-tuning the criteria for both of them. For Different Styles, it might be something like: +1 ability to work brawls +1 ability to work gimmick matches +1 ability to get over in 4+ different markets +1 ability to work face +1 ability to work heel etc. etc.

For me Hansen can't be a 3/3 when people like Steamboat exist. He's not quite all-time best level for selling. Angle I may need to think about, he strikes me as a very good and athletic bumper, on the level of a Curt Hennig, who I can't imagine giving any less than 3/3, he's just not good at long term selling which I factored into psychology rating. Selling is bumping and getting across pain, injuries and so on. Long-term selling plays more into psychology, at least in terms of how I rate it. Intangibles comprise character work, aura, and other such things, including stooging. Arn's rating of 7 reflects his amazing stooging ability. See Clash 17. This is not selling. Which footage are you referencing here. The Garvin I've seen who popped up didn't seem like the Garvin of the 80s to me. I could change that if you point me to something I've missed though. Thinking of anyone specific? I guess one of my assumptions here is that to be "greatest of all time" you have to excel in every area not just one or two. Both are important to me. For the top reaches, I want wrestlers who combine the weight of a lot of good performances with the height of some transcendent ones. This is what the variety category is sort of trying to factor. That takes into account the gamut from good and very good to great. It also includes "memorable feuds", by which I mean in-ring feuds. However, before I get too far deep into this, I think it might need to be quantified for each and every guy. Again, painstaking, but I want that category to feel less arbitrary. As an example, I gave DiBiase a 5 for variety. If I had to list that out, what would it look like? Patterson Freebirds JYD Duggan Brad Armstrong Magnum TA Flair Murdoch Jumbo / Tenryu Choshu / Yatsu Savage Bret Virgil Steiner Bros I can go about 14 deep before I'm stretching. What I'm not sure on yet is whether that deserves more or less than 5. And I'm not yet sure on where exactly to set the bar. For example, the stuff with Freebirds and Virgil were both more memorable than the All Japan tags, but ... Those matches were "better". You see the issue. My thought is towards being lenient on it for every guy. However, I want to quantify it exactly. I think a lot of the current variety ratings will change as a result of doing that. You can also see how this rating differs from the great match metric.

I do actually encourage such questioning over specific ratings because one of the whole purposes of this is to kind of force myself to think about all six criteria in relation to each and every guy. The numbers are set in stone and are all subject to change. And I'm more than open to be persuaded on any given score. With Andre specifically, I feel like I've seen an awful lot of MSG appearances where he was just kind of there. He did have a fantastic aura, there's no question, but on a scale where Funk is a 9, I felt Andre should be a notch down from that. I don't know if Andre had that "makes everything feel like bigger deal" vibe even though he was undoubtedly a massive deal in and of himself. As an aside, I've found the variety rating currently feels like the most arbitrary and I might need to come up wth a scale for it: 20+ memorable great opponents / feuds = 10 18-19= 9 And so on. That was one area where various WWF champions seemed to really benefit. And obviously it has hurt the 90s AJPW Crew. Different roles could actually do with some ironing out too. I'm trying to figure out how to factor that consistently.

Rick Rude Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 2/3 = 7 Intangibles 7 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 89-92 = 3 years = 2 Ability to work different styles / roles 0 Variety 3 24 Jack Brisco Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 +1 (for selling of holds) = 9 Intangibles 2 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 71-83 = 12 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 5 31 Harley Race Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 2/3 = 8 Intangibles 3 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 73-84 = 11 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 6 31 Giant Baba Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 1/3 1/3 3/3 = 5 Intangibles 5 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 69-79 = 10 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 7 32 The Sheik Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 0/3 1/3 2/3 (+1 for mastery of foreign object) = 4 Intangibles 6 Great matches 2 Length of Peak [never one of best in world] = 0 Ability to work different styles / roles 0 Variety 4 16 Billy Robinson Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for innovation) = 10 Intangibles 3 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 70-80 = 10 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 6 34 Lex Luger Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 1/3 = 5 Intangibles 4 Great matches 3 Length of Peak 88-91 = 3 years = 2 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 3 21 Tully Blanchard Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 1/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for slingshot suplex) = 8 Intangibles 6 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 85-89 = 4 years = 3 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 5 29 Ron Garvin Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 2/3 (+1 for being a such a stiff bastard) = 7 Intangibles 2 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 82-87 = 5 years = 3 Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 3 22 Wahoo McDaniel Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 1/3 2/3 (+1 for CHOPS) = 6 Intangibles 3 Great matches 4 Length of Peak 74-86 = 12 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 3 24 Ole Anderson Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 0/3 3/3 = 5 Intangibles 3 Great matches 2 Length of Peak 75-85 = 10 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 2 19 Ricky Steamboat Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for arm drag) = 9 Intangibles 4 Great matches 9 Length of Peak 78-94 = 16 years = 9 Ability to work different styles / roles 0 Variety 5 36 Barry Windham Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for float-over suplex) = 10 Intangibles 1 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 85-93 = 8 years = 5 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 3 34 Ivan Koloff Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 2/3 = 6 Intangibles 3 Great matches 2 Length of Peak 69-85 = 16 years = 9 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 4 28 Vader Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 2/3 2/3 (+1 for stiffness) = 7 Intangibles 6 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 86-96 = 10 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 5 33 Eddie Guerrero Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 2/3 = 8 Intangibles 5 Great matches 4 Length of Peak 94-05 = 11 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 7 Variety 6 37 Chris Benoit Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 = 9 Intangibles 0 Great matches 4 Length of Peak 94-07 = 13 years = 8 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 5 27 Dick Murdoch Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 = 8 Intangibles 4 Great matches 4 Length of Peak 75-87 = 12 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 4 31 Butch Reed Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 2/3 = 6 Intangibles 2 Great matches 3 Length of Peak 82-86 = 4 years = 3 Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 3 19 Andre Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 0/3 1/3 3/3 = 4 Intangibles 8 Great matches 3 Length of Peak 74-83 = 9 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 5 27 Bob Backlund Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 1/3 1/3 (+1 for atomic piledriver) = 6 Intangibles 1 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 77-84 = 7 years = 5 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 8 31 Hulk Hogan Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 0/3 2/3 2/3 = 4 Intangibles 10 Great matches 2 Length of Peak [never one of best in world] = 0 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 8 28 Bruno Sammartino Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 1/3 1/3 2/3 = 4 Intangibles 10 Great matches 1 Length of Peak [never one of best in world] = 0 Ability to work different styles / roles 0 Variety 8 23 Randy Savage Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 = 8 Intangibles 9 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 85-92 = 7 years = 5 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 6 38 Steve Austin Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 1/3 2/3 2/3 = 5 Intangibles 10 Great matches 3 Length of Peak 92-01 = 9 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 5 33 Kurt Angle Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 1/3 = 7 Intangibles 5 Great matches 3 Length of Peak 98-06 = 8 years = 5 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 6 29 Stan Hansen Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 2/3 2/3 (+1 for stiffness) = 8 Intangibles 8 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 79-93 = 13 years = 8 Ability to work different styles / roles 1 Variety 7 40 Jumbo Tsuruta Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for hitting ever move like a finisher) = 10 Intangibles 6 Great matches 10 Length of Peak 73-92 = 19 years = 10 Ability to work different styles / roles 5 Variety 9 50 Generico Tenryu Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 = 8 Intangibles 7 Great matches 9 Length of Peak 84-02 = 18 years = 10 Ability to work different styles / roles 5 Variety 9 48 Yoshiaki Yatsu Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 2/3 = 8 Intangibles 2 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 84-90 = 6 years = 4 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 5 28 Nick Bockwinkel Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 (+1 for "most logical wrestler of all time") = 9 Intangibles 8 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 74-86 = 12 years = 7 Ability to work different styles / roles 6 Variety 8 45 I'll stop here, maybe more later. The most legitimately shocking aspect of this so far is that currently Hansen is not in the top 5. He's really hurt by that Ability to Work Different Styles rating. Oh and Jumbo is currently #3, that is also a shock.

As I'm doing this it is clear I need a ... Legnth of peak conversion chart. This is going to cause me to have to re-calibrate all of ones I've done so far. 17 years+ = 10 15-16 years = 9 13-14 years = 8 11-12 years = 7 9-10 years = 6 7-8 years = 5 6-7 years = 4 4-5 years = 3 2-3 years = 2 1 year = 1 This changes a lot of ratings. See below. Criteria for that is "someone who would likely make a top 30 list of workers in the world during the period active". Flair Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 2/3 +1 (for stamina) = 8 Intangibles 10 Great Matches 10 Length of Peak 78-94 = 16 years = 9 Ability to work different styles / roles 7 Variety 10 54 Misawa Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 +1 (for innovation) = 10 Intangibles 6 Great matches 10 Length of Peak 90-03 = 13 years = 8 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 3 40 Bret Hart Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 2/3 3/3 +1 (for execution) = 9 Intangibles 4 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 91-97 = 6 years = 4 Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 4 27 Arn Anderson Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 3/3 (+1 for spinebuster) = 8 Intangibles 7 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 86-96 = 10 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 5 34 Ted DiBiase Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 2/3 (+1 for scoop powerslam) = 8 Intangibles 6 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 82-88 = 6 years = 4 Ability to work different styles / roles 6 Variety 5 29 Bobby Eaton Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 +1 (for innovation) = 10 Intangibles 2 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 83-92 = 9 years = 6 Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 4 30 Dory Funk Jr. Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 1/3 3/3 +1 (for counter wrestling) = 7 Intangibles 0 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 6 (69-79) Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 7 29 Terry Funk Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 = 8 Intangibles 9 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 74-89 = 15 years = 9 Ability to work different styles / roles 10 Variety 10 54

Hopefully this doesn't happen. And these early test cases are going to set a kind of unspoken anchor for my ratings. For example, I'm already going to bump Arn and Ted up to 8/10s for their base based on exceptional moves each of them do, and this sets a certain precedent. I am going to do another batch now. It's fun.

Yes, I think so, seems to be working out well. The only thing I'm debating with myself is whether Arn and Ted's base ratings are too low, because both seem like they should be 8 /10s to me. Should Arn be a 3/3 for selling or should he get a +1 for this awesome spinebuster? Should Ted get a +1 for his scoop Powerslam? I have veered on the side of being stingy with the +1s, but I wonder in their cases whether they should get +1s for having "the best in the business" of their respective moves? I don't think Arn should be a 9/10 though. Also, the ability to work different styles / roles rating is one of the more difficult to allocate. So even though he worked face, heel, tags, various different title runs, Dory got a 1/10 there because he was basically exactly the same in every setting and never really adapted his style to fit the changing environments. The 3/10 for Misawa recognises his Tiger Mask 2 run. The 4/10 for Bret recognises his heel and tag runs. The 6/10 for DiBiase recognises his face runs, All Japan work, the wide variety of different stip matches he worked, and the fact he got over in at least four different markets (GCW, WWF, MSW, AJPW). But now I look at it, Dory got over in pretty much every market in the world at some point or other, so maybe his rating should go up? That is the hardest number to come up with. In fact, recognising his brawling skills, maybe Dory should be at least a 2/10 there. Think I will change it to reflect. That means he's now a 29. And as things stand would finish above DiBiase and Bret. But that could change if I bump Ted's base rating as discussed. There will be a lot of fine tuning.

For fun, I've done the Funk Brothers too: Dory Funk Jr. Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 1/3 3/3 +1 (for counter wrestling) = 7 Intangibles 0 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 6 (69-79) Ability to work different styles / roles 2 Variety 7 29 Terry Funk Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 3/3 = 8 Intangibles 9 Great matches 8 Length of Peak 8 (74-89) Ability to work different styles / roles 10 Variety 10 53

Just had a little go at doing this in practice using some of my faves: Flair Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 2/3 +1 (for stamina) = 8 Intangibles 10 Great Matches 10 Length of Peak 8 (78-94) Ability to work different styles / roles 7 Variety 10 53 Misawa Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 +1 (for innovation) = 10 Intangibles 6 Great matches 10 Length of Peak 6 (90-98) Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 3 38 Bret Hart Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 2/3 3/3 +1 (for execution) = 9 Intangibles 4 Great matches 7 Length of Peak 5 (91-97) Ability to work different styles / roles 4 Variety 4 28 Arn Anderson Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 2/3 3/3 (+1 for spinebuster) = 8 Intangibles 7 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 6 (86-96) Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 5 34 Ted DiBiase Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 2/3 3/3 2/3 (+1 for scoop powerslam) = 8 Intangibles 6 Great matches 6 Length of Peak 5 (82-88) Ability to work different styles / roles 6 Variety 5 30 Bobby Eaton Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 3/3 3/3 3/3 +1 (for innovation) = 10 Intangibles 2 Great matches 5 Length of Peak 6 (83-92) Ability to work different styles / roles 3 Variety 4 30 Not saying these ratings are final, but it gives you some idea at how it might work. A score in the lower 30s is likely a top half finish, a score in the upper 30s likely top 20 and 40+ looking top 5 bound. Once I have them all down in this format I can think really hard and tweak. Like should Arn or Ted be higher in any of the in-ring ratings? Should the variety rating go up or down for each of them? And so on and so forth. It is a little painstaking, but I'd rather do it this way than leave it vague and / or hidden.

I think Arn would have been considered "one of the best workers in the world" basically for most of his career. Never best worker in the world, but always extremely highly rated. You just need look at an old WON to see that. In my estimation -- which is what counts here -- Arn would be a top ten guy in the world for a good chunk of his run. I'm not sure what his rating will be there, he had ten years of which he was a world class talent for most of it. So about 5/10. Not an exact science, but about right considering Flair himself will likely get about a 8/10 himself on that scale (taking it from 78-94, I'm a bit more lenient than Loss there). That will be the hardest scale to get points in. Rick Rude has a score of 1/10 there, for example. Your point on Morton, Steamer etc is taken, and yes they will score low in that category of versatility. But Steamer is going to be 10/10 or 9/10 in at least two categories and will score decently in others. When it all shakes out, I think he'll fall about right where I'd have him anyway. Morton is a different case but then if his case is inherently limited and I value strength across the board, it is right for Morton to fall a bit. But y'know I always had Eaton a lot higher than Morton anyway, so these numbers are only making judgement calls I was making anyway more clear. If it ends up with Morton around 60-70 so be it, it's "fair" by the criteria I'm using. I'm lower on Rey than a lot of people too.

I do like some of the Bulldogs tags from 85, especially vs. Dream Team.

10/31/79 is the stand out, a lot better than the two 1980 matches that made the AJ set. There seems to be one from 1975 that wasn't on my Harley comp so I might have to review that soon. 12/9/75

Also like him less when he doesn't have the red pants.