JerryvonKramer

I misremembered it slightly, here's a quotation in full straight from the book:

Can you say any more? I did a ton of Destroyer reviews but never posted them. They are still on my iPad notebook. Thought he had great character work but was a bit boring.

Hogan. WCW. 1994. Do I need to say any more?

For me it's less body type and more working style. I'll give Rey his due, he got over, he drew, he made lots of money, and he did all that against the odds. I just don't like his style much. Does have matches of his I enjoy too, but I'm also super low on some of his greatest hits. Rey will probably rank for me, but nowhere near top 30.

Hey, what happened to the pluralism we all signed up for?

I'm with Wade as the de facto babyface here. But even kidding aside, I think he's touching on some of the reasons I've never been high on Rey either. Unless a guy like that is going to have a career like Ricky Morton, I don't know what other uses there are. I bet people here are high on Spike Dudley too, but the guy is too small for what I look for in my wrestling. Liger just on build alone is more believable in what he does. I can't make the adjustments necessary to believe in Rey. 619 says it all really, It's like there is wrestling reality and then there's Rey match reality. You won't see me being high on guys like Jeff Hardy either. For similar reasons.

Thanks dude. Also thanks for making me think of Will as the Ole Anderson of PWO.

I'm glad that people have been willing to come out and say they are high on that match and why. Didn't do anything for me, but that's all you can ask for.

Rising: Race - after hating much of his NWA title run, he's looked a lot better in 1982 and in the new footage on NWA classics. DiBiase - only in the sense that after thinking I'd completely made up my mind where he'd fall, new stuff came out on NWA classics as well as in skk dt's uploads. Kobashi - if Steamobat and Martel were the true heirs to Brisco, to me Kobashi is the true heir to those guys. The complete babyface. Wahoo - also helped by NWA classics. Gino Hernandez - the revelation of NWA classics. Taue - really really impressive in 95 Barry Windham - watching Battle of the Belts 2 again reminded me how good he was again and how young. Sort of guy that can slip through not having seen him in a while. Brock - still impresses every time I see him Falling Tiger Mask - I've not posted all my NJ reviews yet, but I pretty much never want to see him again. Chris Benoit - I'm not a guy who cares about what he did relative to his candicacy, but I've really not enjoyed his matches from my forays into late 90s / 00s. Eddie Gurrero - seemed to have moments of falling back to often on go to spots when I was watching his stuff a while back, when this started, Eddie might have been a top 10 guy for me, but now he's top 30. Kawada - in the sense that I was thinking of him as a 1-5 guy and now I'm thinking more of him as a 6-10 guy. Kurt Angle - go go go criticisms are real and difficult to ignore watching his stuff.

Should note that I don't really have that list of questions in hand, I've come up with them post-hoc. Theory often comes after practice, more making sense of what we do after the fact, rather than dictating it, if that makes any sense. And "Those things matter. Except when they don't" is something I'd co-sign.

- My only contribution to this is the story from Terry Funk's book about Dory having a really gnarled and mis-shapen penis because he was stung on it as a kid by a bee. He tells of a time where Dory Jr. got in trouble for something on the ranch, where of course Dory Sr. had a lot of orphan and disadvantaged kids staying (inclunding Dick Murdoch), and their father made Dory Jr. strip off in front of everyone to show his weird gnarled little cock. Anyway, that's one story that really stuck with me from that book and being just bizarre.

My impression watching All Japan from 70s-90s has been that there are no faces and heels as such, just guys who are cheered more. Stan Hansen gets pops for example, even though he's clearly "a heel", he's not booed. The only exceptions seem to be Abdullah the Butcher and The Sheik. Choshu was cheered vs. Jumbo, Tenryu was cheered vs. Jumbo, Jumbo was cheered vs. Misawa, Kawada was cheered vs. Misawa. It's just that in each of those cases, the ace was cheered more most of the time. That's why I see something like the Jumbo vs. Tenryu feud as being about a clash of VALUES as opposed to good vs. evil. This analogy is a bit off, but the Japanese crowds are a bit more like the crowd at Wimbledon. Like at Wimbledon, the crowds are polite, you'll never hear tennis players getting actively booed, the crowd is respectful. But it's CLEAR that they love Roger Federer, any British player, underdogs, etc. etc. It's also clear that they don't like the Williams sisters that much. It just comes down to who gets the louder pops and bigger reactions, but they'll even cheer the players they don't like "respectfully".

Don't really see how saying talent vs. output is a factor that everyone is going to have to consider is insisting on a single truth.

bkord - you've just made this an instant purchase for me, I literally just bought it off amazon. How many times have we imagined those guys playing cards like that. Amazing! Expect a Titans review soon.

This is actually something I think about a lot with Kandori/Hokuto, because there's so much inference from the previous injuries that Hokuto has had that a lot of people just assumed that was the story (although I think it might have been confirmed later on about the specific moves Hokuto sold big stemming from past injuries), but I wonder just how much is what we infer as opposed to what was actually presented. That can also be the difference between really getting into a match or not, I feel. I think any interpretation of a match's story is valid if it's supported by what's going on in the ring or the match's context. The distinction between what's inferred and what's presented seems like a false dichotomy as there's no definitive authority on what a match set out to do. Even the workers themselves could easily be bullshitting on what was planned and what was improvised. Right, which is why I'm against the idea of "intention" being a real criticism of anyone. Intention can't really matter because we never really know, and even if we did, I'm not sure it matters anyway. See also: Barthes, Roland, 'Death of the Author' (1967).* * Not being faciecious here, but anyone who hasn't read his essay on wrestling should do so, it's a classic: http://web.mit.edu/21l.432/www/readings/Barthes_WorldOfWrestling.pdf

Elliott, it comes down to talent vs. Output. Will give you two concrete examples. Ted DiBiase is the first. Everyone knows I'm a Ted guy. He was hyped as one of the best workers of the 80s, top 3-5 in the US, loved by Meltzer, respected in the business, a guy who can bump, sell, feed, great timing, smooth as hell, great execution, great punches, could brawl, work technical, etc. Etc. A ring general who was rated so highly that the greatest minds in this business consistently put him in positions where he had to try to get something against a more limited opponent he was trying to get over ... Hogan (79, 88), JYD, Duggan, Hercules, Dusty, Virgil, and so on and so on. I rate Ted highly, but the argument I come against again and again is "where are his great matches?" Talent vs. Output. Ergo we get the scenario where guys are trying to prove that Big Boss Man was "better" than him in WWF. Akira Taue is the second example. On paper, he is not a guy with the skills of a DiBiase. He's awkward, his execution is often sloppy-looking, he just doesn't have that same level of smoothness and sense of control to his work that a classic ring general like DiBiase has. And yet, Taue has been in more great matches than about 95% of wrestlers that have ever lived. Talent vs. Output. You might call this the Taue conundrum. Who is better Taue or DiBiase? Well if you were starting a promotion and wanted a worker to build things around, DiBiase has the sorts of tools you'd want. But Taue was in more great matches. So who is better? Do you see? It becomes easier to see why "career" matters the lower down the list you go. If DiBiase had a different career, let's say he became NWA champ or went to Crockett instead of WWF in 87, and could point to a list like Flair's, the conversation would be different. DiBiase had the potential to have a career like that, but it's not the career he had. There is no way that a single person taking part in this process isn't taking that into consideration ranking various guys. The Dibiase complex, the Taue conundrum.

Rude will be on my list based 80% on his 92 and about 18% for 89 and 2% for tagging with Manny.

I don't disagree with that. And if someone thinks literally all of Kawada's matches were great, then sure, there's no way around it. And same with any other guy. For me, I think it's clear Jumbo and Flair are best in the category of variety of great matches vs. Different opponents over time. That's for me. Maybe for you, it's someone else. If you want to argue over specifics then it is what it is. I am going to review matches of his and other top tier candidates against randoms in the next few weeks.

1. Ability to have great matches vs. a wide variety of different opponents over time. This is what I was talking about re: Flair / Jumbo. I think they are the 10/10s for versatility defined this way. 2. Ability to work effectively in different roles and styles. This is something else. Although I do value this. Jumbo was able to work in at least three different roles in his career and completely mastered at least two different styles. Flair could work different types of matches / stips albeit within largely the same style. Funk is high in this category because he was such an effective superstar babyface in All Japan, while being a heel for most of the rest of his career, and he also has I'd say three or four diffent type of heel characters that are variations on the basic Terry Funk model. He was also NWA champ, hardcore legend, etc. So he's probably the 10/10 for versatility as defined in this second way.

Let's not get nit picky though, since the point being made is very obvious and you even said you agree with it.

"Noted delusional Jumbo mark"? This is where we've come to? Fair point though re: those matches.

When I review matches, these are the sorts of questions I am answering: - Am I enjoying this? Why? / Why not? - What particular moments did I like / not like? - What is the story being told in this match? - How well is that story being told? - What is the structure of this match? Is it your basic tried-and-tested shine-heat-comeback-finish or something else? If something else, how effective is that structure? - How well are guys executing their moves? - What about the selling on display? - And the bumping? - How much stiffness / intensity is there in the action? - What about the character work? - Are the crowd into it? - What about the length of the match? Too short? Too long? - How do they fill the time? Is that work compelling? - What are the transitions in this match and how smoothly did they get from point A to point B? - Was I able to get emotionally invested into this? There are other specific questions too that might come up depending on the match, but I think these are ones I almost always ask.

Dylan - are all years created equal?

Agreed. Talent in practice matters more than just having the talent. But whether they realize it or not, everyone has already agreed to that in terms of how they are ranking guys anyway. Yeah, I don't even know what people are arguing about now, so gonna leave it.

If the career thing is arbitrary, then everyone should have Barry Windham in their top 10.