JerryvonKramer

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've come into a match expecting it to be at that level. Can't imagine why that would be the expectation for Hansen in AWA. Hansen + Slaughter should equal greatness. It didn't. Not to me. I was lower on the Curt match than many of you, but then I'm lower on babyface Curt than many of you. But I did have Vader vs. Leon White at ****3/4 and his matches vs. Blackwell and Bock at ****1/2 It was more that the Slaughter matches didn't live up to what I'd hoped. Slaughter's propensity to work all-time classic brawls plus Hansen's propensity for awesome violence leads one to hope for something like that, but they didn't really deliver it.

Disappointing for me because it produced 4-star matches as opposed to the 5-star matches I was hoping for.

Like the idea of one territorial pick. How about a package deal where the territory comes with certain guys? WWF comes with Monsoon and Chief Jay Strongbow. Central States comes with Harley Race. GCW comes with Ole Anderson, etc. i.e. if they were part of the office, they aren't in the draft.

Chad, see my list here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/28578-jumbo-tsuruta/page-6&do=findComment&comment=5665915 I think the fact that it's difficult to point to a #2 opponent for Jumbo is testament to the wide variety of different guys he was able to have good matches with. Who else can say they had ****+ matches with both of the Funks, Brisco, Race, Slater, Flair, Bock, and Kerry Von Erich? And then a ton of tag matches as well. The clustering argument can not really be used against Jumbo.

Yeah I'm getting more persuaded by that idea now.

Don't remind me ...

Likewise, I wouldn't be against real promotions. I just think it will be much harder to simulate with a draft mechanic. And people might be faced with scenarios that look ridiculously unrealistic on paper after the draft. Happy to go with the flow though.

Two backups on different drives?

We would have to come up with a list of workers who were active in 1983 who might be realistically hired. What this would mean is that certain guys would have to be "region locked". If you're a Mexican-based promotion, you could pick up Gran Hamada, but I don't see a lot of US guys going down there. For this reason, it might be better to keep it North America with a list of guys who were active in North America. Which means you might be able to draft Mr Saito or Jumbo Tsuruta or Yatsu, but not Giant Baba.

Or you could go the other way, of course, but my thinking goc is that if you do that, all you end up doing is trying to recreate the existing territory. If I'm WCCW, I need the von Erichs, if I'm WWF I need Backlund or Bruno or try to make a grab for Hogan, etc. I think reality acts as a weird kind of limiter there.

I think we run with real talent but fictional promotions. JVK Productions (JVP) Grimmas Championship Wrestling (GCW) And so on. Will be too confusing and look too weird with real territories. As in, if you're WWF, a guy like Tommy Rich loses value because you start asking "would he get over in New York", etc. Completely changes the context.

Right now, when I'm up to 1993 in my AJ watching, it's Jumbo and easily. Ask me again when I've finished with the 90s. It's going to be very very hard for Misawa to topple Jumbo, but it's not impossible. I think ultimately, Jumbo will win because he worked over 3-4 different eras and excelled in every style, whereas Misawa it seems to me only mastered one style. Jumbo had great matches against every NWA champion of the 1970s in both singles and tags, I've not yet seen his matches with Robinson or The Destroyer. He was great in the early 80s vs. Flair. He was great in the late 80s first vs. Choshu / Yatsu, then vs. Tenryu and co. He was great as Grumpy Jumbo in the early 90s vs. Misawa and co. Four eras, four styles, four distinct sets of opponents, and he was great vs. all of them. And this is without taking little things like his AWA matches into account. At the moment Jumbo for quality and quantity and variety of oppoonents over time is the only guy I see as being comparible to Ric Flair. So that's why they are my #1 and #2 (final order still to be determined). Misawa has a very good chance of breaking into my top 5 and even my top 3. But it's going to take an unbelievable run from 94 to 2000 to break top 2. Chad has Misawa as #1 and Chad is a guy whose views I respect and we agree fairly often, so that's one major reason I'm not ruling it out. I'm also aware that the 95 match with Kawada is frequently heralded as the GOAT match.

I'm going to review those Styles matches El-McKell listed soon. Styles is one of the 00s guys I'm making a priority of.

I just came across this: From Barnett's Australian WCW in 1968. Here's the Lars Anderson match I did commentary on: I need to see if I can obtain the lost footage again to see what else there is. I'm not saying you should base a case on this stuff, but rather to point out that the 1979 isn't ALL there is and we do actually get a glimpse of him in his prime. ---- Dylan, for me the Alley Fight vs. Slaughter is an all-time classic (5-stars, and for me comparible to Magnum vs. Tully or Funks vs. Shiek/Abby '78). I love the way that entire feud plays out, but the MSG match is something else. He has good to very good matches with Ted DiBiase, Bob Backlund and Ken Patera. He is still good in 1980-81, but wrestling less frequently due to commentating. I wouldn't fault anyone for not having him in their 100 though, I just can't in good conscious leave him out because I rate his work in the ring, his core skills, too much. He's a guy a lot of the current roster could learn a lot from in terms of performance -- everyone talks about him as a great mind for the business and as a finish man, but they could learn a thing or two from him about how to make things count in a match. Some guys with more "modern sensibilities" might not like aspects of the "cartooniness" of some of his performance. But I'd expect guys with views like that to be lower on Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Jack Brisco, Rick Martel, Ricky Steamboat and others from that era who played to the cheap seats. I like "big" performance. Wrestling isn't theatre, it's pantomime. It's why I even have time for Mr. Perfect bumping.

I don't think so. If you go only on great matches or whatever, I don't think Patterson makes your list. He's probably going to be in my 80-100 "guys I really want to vote for" range. He's going to be below guys who have more footage but who were likely inferior workers, but you can only infer so much from 8mm silent footage and clips. He was semi-retired during the Slaughter stuff, so that's all there is, and so there's a lot hanging on that 79, and while he's MVP for the year, it's not like a Rude in 92 year.

For some reason there seems to be less Terry as NWA champ on tape than Dory or Brisco or Race in the late 70s. I've struggled to find many 70s Terry matches, but he's looked fantastic in everything I've seen, including in clips vs Brisco, Race and The Sheik. There is footage of Hansen in WWF late 70s and again in 81, but I think generally that Terry's US work is stronger overall.

I'd agree with that goc, and it's a little bump in Ivan Koloff's case too.

He has stuff in San Francisco footage, and some smatterings in LA. Unfortunately, when my hard disk died, I lost that footage. But he looked fantastic in what I saw ... I uploaded one vs Lars Anderson and did my own commentary. I think during 1979 we get enough of a picture of him to know that he was a phenomenal worker. Played to the cheap seats, expressive, great at bumping and stooging. He seems just like that in earlier footage. He was a great heel. But then vs Slaughter we see him as a great babyface, fired up, heart and spirit, blood and guts. And again in the SF footage you can see this. Patterson worked both face and heel there. He could wrestle and he could brawl. And unlike Ray Stevens, where the footage doesn't backup the rep, here it does. There is probably as much footage of Patterson on tape as there is of Jack Brisco. It's not a much as we'd like but enough to make a call, I think. And he had cool hair.

Needs more attention, looking at people's lists he looks like he's being lost In the shuffle.

83 is best

Sure, put me down, as long as the year is "of interest" to me, you know what that means.

Teri Funku and Dori Funku Junia. OJ is that legit? If so awesome.

Really surprised to see Sid votes here. I honestly think the guy was garbage. Just a really bad worker who couldn't even be carried. Even worse, he had a weird knack of getting face heat as a heel and never tried to do anything about that. Happened in 1989, and again in 1992, and again in 1996. Does that say that he was a natural born babyface or that he was bad at his role and bad at generating the right kind of heat? I tend towards the latter. Crappy worker. And he almost put Brian Pillman out of wrestling through his sloppiness.

The Funks The Funks! Terry-ah Funk-ah Doryeee-ah Funk-ah Juni-ah THE FUNKS!!!!

I have it listed as 4 3/4, feel there are times when the Roadies are wandering around looking for things to do, so that's the minus 1/4.