JerryvonKramer

Correct Childs, I honestly think Harley Race was a better consistent opponent for Baba. In fact, he might be my pick thinking about it.

I know people will sigh but Dory did legit have very good matches with both. Although in the case of Baba, mostly tags (but many great ones).

Watching NJPW stuff and I don't see how I'll be able to leave this guy out of my 100. In general, I have not liked Tiger Mask who definitely won't be making my list. But DK, my god he was good. Can't not rank him I think.

This guy has taken a quantum leap forward in my estimation from recent New Japan watching, think he was tremendous.

For me and my list it is true. Jerry Lawler's punch gives him a maximum of a +1 in my way of thinking, even if it is really the best punch there is. Whereas for someone like Will, it carries a much greater weight. Guys who are basing their case purely on one or two categories are going to suffer as a result. But that's something I'm personally happy with. I want my Greatest Ever to be strong in all six. And my list will reflect that. This was one of the reasons I made the model, I was unhappy with what I considered to be inconsistencies in my own rankings. This could have some weird consequences though, I have no idea what will happen when I try to out guys like Shawn Michaels through it. A guy like that will probably end up higher than he might otherwise.

Loss, the intangibles rating is less to do with stardom or real world success and more to do with aura, character, and things like that. Flair is an undoubted 10/10 in that category as are Hogan and Inoki. But where it will shake out is in other categories. Hogan, for example, was at no point in his career considered one of the best workers in the world, and so for Longevity he'd actually get a rating of 0/10. Seems harsh but that's where you'll get big gaps emerging. Dusty, for example, would be a 10/10 in intangibles category and I'm not sure if I see him breaking 3/10 for any other factor. So if his overall score ends up as 25/60, he probably won't rank.

I wish people would think of Funks vs. Abby / Sheik as a trilogy rather than 77/79, I really believe that 78 one is the diamond there. My problem with trying to assess this is that I just hate Inoki. I don't even have Destroyer match with him all that high. Preferred Baba bouts with Brisco, Dory and Robinson to any of their matches with Inoki. Inoki is one of my least fave ever. I'd probably pick Hansen just because he has one of the few Inoki matches I've ever rated highly with him. I don't think of Hansen when I think of Baba rivals though.

In the past week two things happened. First, I listened again to Wrestling Culture #50 where Dylan and Dave ran through their top 50s back in 2013. Dave Musgrave's list in particular kind of gave me a burst of renewed enthusiasm and has sort of jolted me out of the funk I was in a couple of months ago. I can now see what everyone was telling me about it being more about the personal journey etc. etc., and on reflection I got too caught up on some little things and couldn't see the woods for the trees. So I think I am going to put in a list. It would be a waste not to. But I also feel much more relaxed about the whole thing in general. So a thanks to Dave and Dylan from 2013 for, somehow, putting my mind at ease about it. The second thing that happened is that I happened to have a game of Top Trumps. And that triggered an idea I've been thinking about sub-consciously for a while. One of the things that has bothered me when coming up with my own list is some of the arbitrariness with which I'm making decisions, is this guy here because he's the best or just because I happen to love him? Why is this guy at 44 and this guy at 45? Etc. Beyond the top 10 it all felt like a bit of a crapshoot, especially the lower down the list I got. I wanted to devise a system that could normalise comparisons on a six-factor model. I have called this scale BIGLAV. What is BIGLAV? It stands for: Base ability (in ring) Intangibles Great matches Length of peak Ability to work different styles and roles Variety of opponents and memorable feuds My idea is that every single guy I have in consideration will be put through BIGLAV. A rating out of 10 will be applied in each category. And then all six figures are added together to get a final score out of 60. And these scores will be used to order my top 100 from highest to lowest. In the case of a tie, see notes. Let me go into each of these six catergories in some more detail: Base ability:this is a composite of a guy's base in-ring talent. An example of a 10 would be Barry Windham. Intangibles: this is a composite of a guy's non-mechanical abilities comprising character work, charisma, crowd control, and "aura" / X-factor. An example of a 10 would be Riki Choshu. Great matches: this is a count of the number of great matches this wrestler has had normalised to a ten-point scale. An example of a 10 would be Misawa. Length of peak: this is a measure of the total number of years that the guy might realistically be considered one of the best workers in the world normalised to a ten-point scale. An example of a 10 would be Jumbo Tsuruta who was arguably one of the top workers in the world every year from 1973 to 1992, a 19-year period. Length of peak conversion chart. 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 Ability to work different styles and roles: this is a composite rating for the ability to work in a variety of different settings, work different styles of matches, or take on different roles within matches or indeed promotions. An example of a 10 would be Terry Funk. - 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 babyface / heel +1 ability to work singles matches / tags +1 ability to carry a promotion / work as ace +1 ability to work as travelling champion [basic +1 bump for the 5 NWA champs] +1 ability to brawl / work technical matches +1 ability to work gimmick matches +1 ability to work [a different style] +1 ability to work a different gimmick +3 ability to get over in multiple markets Variety of opponents and memorable feuds: this is a rating for the variety of different opponents with whom the wrestler had great matches or memorable programs. An example of a 10 would be Ric Flair. 30+ opponents = 10 26-29 opponents = 9 21-25 opponents = 8 16-19 opponents = 7 12-5 opponents = 6 10-11 opponents = 5 8-9 opponents = 4 6-7 opponents = 3 3-5 opponents = 2 1-2 opponents = 1 Notes: - This is in no way an attempt to be objective, since many of the ratings are in themselves inherently subjective; it is simply a tool to help me rank my picks - Base ability comprises three smaller scores on a three-point-scale for selling, offense, psychology, with a discretionary 10th point given out for exceptional things. So for Ric Flair, for example, I'd give 3/3 for selling, 2/3 for offense, 2/3 for psychology plus a discretionary 1 for his incredible stamina. This would make his base ability score 8/10. Lawler would probably get a discretionary +1 for his punch. - Ties in overall score will likely be decided on higher base ability score in the first instance. Say for example Barry Windham, who is a perfect 10 in that category, ties overall with someone else on the same score but with a lower base ability score, Windham wins. This is because the question is "who is better?" And all other things being equal it comes down to the base ability. - In the event that that the base score is the same in the tie, the second tiebreaker is Great Matches. - In the event of a tie beyond the second tiebreaker, I will step in to make a margin call. - If I can't come up with all six numbers for a given guy, I either haven't seen enough or don't know enough about him and if I can fix that in time for the deadline, he cannot rank.

"You could make an argument that [stan Hansen] is the greatest opponent for both Inoki AND Baba" - Dylan, 2011, Wrestling Culture #2 My immediate thought here is that while you COULD make an argument, in both cases it's probably someone else. But then it got me thinkinig ... well who are the greatest opponents of each? For Baba, I think you can make arguments for: 1. The Destroyer 2. Jack Brisco 3. Billy Robinson 4. Dory Funk Jr. 5. Abdullah the Butcher 6. Harley Race 7. Bruno? For Inoki ... 1. The Destroyer 2. Dory Funk Jr. 3. Andre 4. Abdullah the Butcher 5. Billy Robinson? 6. Johnny Powers? 7. Riki Choshu? 8. Vader? Anyone glaring missing? How would people assess the cases of each?

As an aside, my fave one of these ever is Bill Watts vs. Jack Brisco. Watts is so funny.

On TM vs.DK my main issue was disjointedness, especially with the stops and restarts. But I thought the work was strong enough to paper over structural issues.

I'd go back and watch the Kobayashi match instead, blow away good I thought and best Tiger Mask match I've seen.

New Japan 4.1 Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan (12/9/82) We saw a few Hogan vs. Andre matches on Titans and they were very disappointing. Let's see how this compares. Should be interesting, Hogan is babyface here I believe since Andre was pure heel. I kinda wish he'd have been heel for his whole career, he was so good at it. Andre is very dominant and works a ground game. Crowd pops huge for a clothesline on Hogan's comeback. But we end with an all too predictable count out. It was interesting to see Andre as kind of the "ring general" in the match, and this was better than their WWF matches, but not by much. After the match, Hogan slams Andre which he had done at least 100 times before. He also juices. Post-match we get a fiesty brawl. ** New Japan 4.2 Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi (1/6/83) On the one hand, I am thrilled with Kobayashi's Elvis hair, on the other I'm very disappointed by the lack of red pants. Naturally, I am not thrilled to be seeing another Tiger Mask match, even if this has been one of his better opponents so far. Thinking about it, in terms of his general look, he has a passing resemblance to Kenta Kobashi. Opening exchanges are really cool here. Kobayashi's leg sweep is awesome. As a general observation, I think the New Japan crowds are more chirpy than the All Japan crowds of this period. More chanting and stuff. This was a great match, fast-paced, well-executed, great action, exciting, told a good story, there is absolutely nothing not to like here and I think this is one of the very best matches on this set to this point. Better than the Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid match from 1/28/82. This would likely make my top 100 matches of all time based on the rating I'm about to drop. If you haven't seen this one, recommendation to go out of your way to seek it out. ****3/4 New Japan 4.3 Gran Hamada, Kantaro Hoshino & Tiger Mask vs. Missionaries De La Muerte (1/14/83) I am not that familiar with MDM or Hoshino. Hamada has cropped up in a number of different settings and has never looked more nor less than "solid" to my eyes. There were a lot of things I did not care for here: the miscommunication spots from the MDM were egregious, excessive and altogether over done. Just way too much of that. To make things worse, Tiger Mask was at his most choreographed-looking here, which compound those Lucha trios elements of which I'll never be a fan. On the plus side, all of the MDM's offense, when they were hitting their opponents as opposed to each other, looked kick ass and was well executed. But I actively didn't enjoy this. * New Japan 4.4 Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi & Gran Hamada (2/10/83) This was worked a million miles an hour and I've been digging the hell out of Kobayashi, he's been a revelation to me on this set. For some reason, everything Tiger Mask does looks more swank when he's around. Business really picks up when they try to rip off the mask. This had great action and was super heated for what it was. ***1/2 New Japan 4.5 Antonio Inoki & Kengo Kimura vs. Adrian Adonis & Bob Orton Jr. (3/4/83) Inoki in the match = anticipation -10 Bob Orton Jr in the match = anticipation +10 So we are batting a 0.0 average going into this one. Adonis has probably gained about 50-60lbs since we saw him on Titans in 1982 working for WWF. In practice, this worked out absolutely perfectly. As in, if I had booked this match, I would have wanted it worked EXACTLY like this. Namely: a southern tag with Kimura as FIP absolutely getting his ass kicked by Adonis and Orton busting out their state of the art offense as Inoki gets increasingly pissed off in the corner. When it is time for Inoki, the heels and Adonis in particular bump like madmen for him, making him look appropriately like a super man. But this is all about the heels on offense. I absolutely LOVED it. Wicked finish too. ****1/2 New Japan 4.6 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/3/83) I believe this is the first time I'm seeing Choshu on this set. They start out on the mat for an extended portion but it is worked at a pretty fast tick and the crowd is just mental. It's a real cliche to say it but you just know when Riki Choshu is in the building. I thought this had a lot of energy, the matwork wasn't brilliant but it did have a certain intensity. I enjoyed the escalation of violence here and the finish was hot. Hopefully a good omen for things to come from this feud. Choshu's crew with Saito there just look bad ass as all fuckery too. ***3/4 New Japan 4.7 Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (4/21/83) Here we go again, have had one tremendous match from these two and a bunch of more disappointing stuff. I believe this is actually the "famous" match that was pimped for so many years. And one of the very first that got the Dave Meltzer five-star rating. Honestly, I thought the work in this match was fantastic. They cut a frantic pace, hatred, violence, intensity, spots galore, and all in all I did not feel it's running time. Tremendous match up and at least as good as 1/28/82. Yes, it tends towards spotiness and may not have the best psychology ever, but my view is that that is more than compensated for by the levels of intensity on display. And both guys really really work their arses off. I rate this on about the same level as my favourite Steiners tags. ****1/2

I think Blue Pants was probably as over as anyone that night, or indeed entire weekend.

Housekeeping Memphis d3 ****1/2 Jerry Lawler vs. Nick Bockwinkel (10/25/82) **** Jerry Lawler vs. Nick Bockwinkel (No DQ) (11/8/82) Ronnie Garvin vs. Lanny Poffo (ICW 1982/83) ***3/4 New York Dolls vs. Steve Regal & Spike Huber (10/4/82) Bill Dundee vs. Adrian Street, Miss Linda & Jim Cornette (Lumberjack Strap Match) (2/6/83) Jerry Lawler vs. Nick Bockwinkel (10/18/82) ***1/2 Ronnie Garvin vs. Randy Savage (Cage Match) (ICW 1982/83) *** Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Jacques Rougeau & Terry Taylor (1/1/83) Bill Dundee & Bobby Fulton vs. Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar (11/15/82) **1/2 Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Dutch Mantell & Terry Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton, Sweet Brown Sugar, Rick McGraw & Sabu (12/4/82) ** Fabulous Ones vs. The New York Dolls (2/3 Falls) (11/13/82) Bill Dundee & Jerry Lawler vs. Adrian Street & Apocalypse (11/27/82) DUD Jackie Fargo vs. Jimmy Hart (11/8/82)

For me it has that same video gamey quality that a lot of modern WWE has. I mean you are playing Final Fantasy or Tekken or whatever rather than an American game, but it still feels (and looks) like a game. Ignore me though, I'm a known curmudgeon who hates the kids.

It's hardly an "old school" mentality. It's not an issue in New Japan or CMLL or Lucha Underground.From the little I've seen of modern New Japan, I think it is definitely an issue there.

Memphis 3.5 Jackie Fargo vs. Jimmy Hart (11/8/82) I don't think I can recall seeing Hart in a one on one match before. This should be interesting. Well, it wasn't really. All schtick as can be expected. Fun I guess, but not my sort of thing. DUD Memphis 3.6 Fabulous Ones vs. The New York Dolls (2/3 Falls) (11/13/82) Only Vince would be obnoxious enough to think "Florida ... Everglades ... Skinner!" I think it's pretty easy to forget about that run by Keirn when seeing him in the territories. One advantage of sticking to formula pretty rigidly is that the occasions on which it is broken, stand out. Here they start your standard southern tag, but then all hell breaks loose after Hart hits Keirn with his cane. We get some juice and some neat brawling, but the finishes are awful here. Double DQ for the first fall, DQ for the second fall. Weird. An instance where the finish does hurt the match significantly. ** Memphis 3.7 Bill Dundee & Bobby Fulton vs. Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar (11/15/82) I always think Sweet Brown Sugar sounds like it should be a girl's name. Early clash here between future rivals Eaton and Fulton. Eaton's punches are already excellent here, and it seems like he learned from Dundee. Eaton is also already tremendous at stooging. It's 1982 and the guy is already awesome. Sugar holds his end up too. Possibly a teensy bit too much schtick here for my tastes, but it's an enjoyable match. Dundee has never failed to impress me and looked great. Fulton was pretty green here and it showed but honestly I thought Eaton carried this. *** Completely ridiculous skit now featuring Apocalpyse! Holy hell, what the fuck! LOL Reading around and Apocalypse was apparently "The Hippie" Mike Boyette who was a minor star for Gulf Coast in the 1970s before being basically a jobber for Watts in the 80s. But here he is in this absurd mercenary gimmick. Ha ha ha. Memphis 3.8 Bill Dundee & Jerry Lawler vs. Adrian Street & Apocalypse (11/27/82) Street is in full glam mode here. Apocalypse is quite a big guy. Cornette is there as a manager along with Linda of course. Street is from the Forrest of Dean where I had my wedding. Street's forearms look great here, as do his uppercuts. Lawler mocks Street with some general prancing. I'm not a schtick guy it has to be said. Russell name checks Billy Robinson. Style seems to have got more schtick heavy here in 1982 as compared with what we've seen in 80-81, where we got more wrestling I thought. Another dq finish for first two falls, which go in quick succession. Dundee: "That to me is like a fat joke: if you're fat you don't laugh at one!" Ha ha Dundee and Lawler do double full arm drag and twists on Apocalypse. He comes back on Dundee. Lawler in as FIP. Comes back. Finish extremely lazy as Lawler just rolls him up for the win as Street is distracted. Post match Street hits Linda, which I've never been keen on. Never quite got going this. ** Memphis 3.9 Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Dutch Mantell & Terry Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton, Sweet Brown Sugar, Rick McGraw & Sabu (12/4/82) No, it's not that Sabu, it's a guy also known as Cocoa Samoa who worked Portland and Central States some. This was fun but not much more than that. I liked some of McGraw's offense and very surprising to see a guy like him stand out in this company. Eaton continues to impress. A little underwhelmed by Lawler in a lot of these tags. **1/2 Memphis 3.10 Ronnie Garvin vs. Lanny Poffo (ICW 1982/83) This has Lanny himself on commentary, which is quite funny because he still has his Genius voice. Garvin kicks the shit out of Poffo here, just abuses him. This is definitely more towards my tastes than a lot of the things I've been seeing on this disc so far. I love seeing heels get a real heat sequence and I love Ronnie Garvin so hardly a surprise that I loved this. Pretty surprised to see this finish as low as 65 in the final DVDR voting results. I would have been a high vote for sure. I definitely preferred this to some of the Mantell matches that finished top 10. Poffo, for his part, was great. Sold all of Garvin's stiff and was surprisingly snug when he had to dish it out. Garvin was a great heel, willing to show ass, and juice and make Poffo look great in the comeback. Fantastic performance from him. I was surprised by how good this was and how low the voters were on it. **** Memphis 3.11 Ronnie Garvin vs. Randy Savage (Cage Match) (ICW 1982/83) I actually preferred the Lanny match to this. It started slow, and they used the cage well. Both Garvin and Savage were really good, but something missing for me. There's blood and violence, but this isn't up there with the best Garvin or the best Savage stuff for me. Like, I'd without doubt put DiBiase vs Savage MSG cage match over this one. I did dig Savage's ring attire though, interesting to see how close he was already to his 1986 WWF incarnation. Disappointing. ***1/2 Memphis 3.12 Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Jacques Rougeau & Terry Taylor (1/1/83) Completely random to see Jacques Rougeau here, without his brother and tagging with Terry Taylor. Once again though this was the Bobby Eaton show, and honestly Sugar has looked pretty impressive as part of this tag team. They are pretty kick ass working the heat and the easy highlight of the match is a sweet double team spot where Eaton catapults Rougeau into a power slam by Sugar. The MX-style innovative offense is already there. Faces were just there really, but I thought this was super fun. *** Memphis 3.13 Bill Dundee vs. Adrian Street, Miss Linda & Jim Cornette (Lumberjack Strap Match) (2/6/83) This is really well worked, Dundee is three on one, and even though two of his opponents are a woman and Jim Cornette you always feel like Dundee is up against it fighting the odds. They work this very smartly with it being more or less a Street vs. Dundee match with comedy and chicanery going on around it. Once Dundee gets his hands on Cornette, he gives him a real pasting too. But it is really building to Dundee getting his hands on Linda. This has probably been the best Street has looked on this set so far, intimate house show environment, heated and stiff work with a little bit of everything thrown into the mix. Dundee was fantastic as the fired up babyface here. This was so much better than it had any right to be. ***3/4 Absolutely FANTASTIC footage to close out the disc with Lawler beating Bock for the world title and Bockwinkel just freaking out and ranting. Brilliant performance from Bock where he mixes in poor loser, poor sportsmanship, smug intellectual superiority complex, anti-Southern classism and all round dickishness. How awesome is Bockwinkel! Love how much he's whining about a small technicality, he's a brilliant heel. Some of the other extras are great too, but that rant from Bock is the pick of them.

Self-aware post-modern wrestling can never be as good as the old school for this exact reason.

I didn't like the post match hug bit much either.

Progress and safety etc are boring. Objectively, yes nicer, safer, everyone kept more happy. But I don't really give a shit about that.

Well kayfabe is dead and that's one of the many reasons that modern wrestling sucks ass, but y'know I don't want to bring the thread down.

I wonder what happened backstage to the kid DiBiase made cry with the basketball skit. Do you think they gave him the money?

Watching 1985 Crockett the other night one of the most overused phrases in promos was "I'll tell ya this" or "I'll just say this one thing"