JerryvonKramer

I re-iterate, SUPERSTAR GRAHAM??!!!! Did people not see that this was actually Greatest Wrestler Ever and not worst wrestler ever? EIGHT votes? There is no excusing this.

Superstar Graham, a wrestler so bad we named the "worst worker of the night" award after him on Where the Big Boys Play, has finished at #310 over ... LOADS of worker who are demonstrably better. What the flying fuck? This is Superstar Graham here, yeah? 8 ballots and a #42 vote?

Valentine vs. Wahoo popped out immediately. But this is super exciting. I'm also intrigued by this: Bruno vs Superstar Graham: WWWF World Title Match from Maryland (COMMENTATOR? VINCE SR? I recognize voice from MSG; Gordon Solie? Not sure.) Titans boys - we may have to do a special review of this, partly because of the curiosity around the commentator. It could be WILLIE GILZENBERG!!!

Interesting to hear that as a criticism, because I have thought he has a lot of motion in his matches (more than Greg, for example), and works with what I'd call aggression and intensity. Over the course of GWE, I came to realise actually that he's remarkably similar to Ric Flair as a worker in many ways, even down to having signiture bumps.

But ... but ... he's ... fat. And Scott Keith didn't like him. And he's fat!

Did you rank DiBiase, Marty? You and Kelly didn't mention him. Kelly told me he had him like #28.

You didn't vote for OMG?

Heenan literally worked a full-time house show schedule in the AWA, wrestling on almost every show he appeared on in addition to managing at least one other match. He had almost 100 matches every year in WWF from 1984 to 90. I think 88 or 89 has time out for neck injury. Do you mean combined from '84 to '90? Because I'm not seeing anything close to 100 matches a year for Heenan on Cagematch or WrestlingData. Maxes out around 25-30 each year with some far less. Seems like I misremembered these numbers. Still, he worked in the ring way more than one might expect.

Wondering who is going to have the most "no nonsense" list. Two metrics: 1. Highest placed avatar of shame 2. Most #no of ballot in final 100 I still haven't had a single guy come out.

Remember we looked into it. Fuji also worked a huge amount of in-ring dates in the same time-frame.

Heenan literally worked a full-time house show schedule in the AWA, wrestling on almost every show he appeared on in addition to managing at least one other match. He had almost 100 matches every year in WWF from 1984 to 90. I think 88 or 89 has time out for neck injury.

An argument could be made that GWE month started on March 10th!

If you ever get the chance try to track down Gary Cubeta's series of interviews with his son because they were great. The Sheik has become a fave of mine but just doesn't have the footage -- I watched most of what there was.

Is that her in your avatar El-P? (would)

Hold on, where is brainfollower's vote?

Kelly's #8:

Marty turns face again with the Cena rant. Absurd ranking but I'll forgive it for the promo.

There's a lot more to it. No wrestler has ever made me as embarrassed to be a fan. I think he arguably has more downright cringe moments than David Brent does in the entirety of The Office.

I honestly don't get this. How does the curtain call effect his reputation as a performer? I don't dispute the claims that Michaels was a giant dick, but if you're using that as a catch-all for discrediting his candidacy for the GWE then I'm at a total loss as to what we're even trying to accomplish with it. Not that I wasn't more than a little confused to begin with. Because it massively exposed the business and took place in the middle of the ring and therefore was actually part of what fans saw? I hold Shawn directly responsible for many turns for the worse that wrestling too. WWE Main event style, breaking kayfabe, worked shoot promos, and so on. Also, unprofessionalism is and should be held against other candidates. Bruiser Brody, for example, or Mil Mascaras. Those guys were dicks and that dickishness did affect their work and it IS held against them. I hold unprofessionalism against Shawn. He was #48 on my list I think.

And here's the counter for every single thing he said.

Heel turn

!!!!

After basically shouting at Kelly to ensure he got this up before he went to bed, I then somehow fell asleep after 1:36. So still three hours to go. A few things so far: - I really liked Marty's take on Morton vs. Flair. Just a great mini-review of that match. He has some memorable turns of phrase. - Another good soundbite was him talking about the "five pillars" and Akiyama. I think off the strength of that, if and when we ever get to AJ excite season 2, I might push for a special to watch that whole debut episode of NOAH you talk about. Sounds of tremendous interest to me. - Kelly's #17 is pretty shocking to me, even knowing him and his tastes as well as I do. That vote is so high for that guy that if it was anonymous it might trigger as House of Un-GWE Activities investigation!

I'm not going to mention anything because people get annoyed when I criticise things, but here's the thing, Parv: you don't seem to like it when people criticise Flair, Jumbo, Kobashi or Hase, so why should people criticise Casas or Satanico? I'm not trying to attack your integrity or anything, but I don't really buy when you say it's me not lucha. Whenever you talk about lucha, I always think "oh, it's how he feels about jazz or prog-rock." What I really want to know is whether you like jazz vocalists and whether you like Brian Uno. Because I honestly think it's lucha not you. Did you mean Brian Eno? I don't mind Brian Eno. I like Bessie Smith a good bit, and can listen to Sinatra and that sort of thing (though that stuff not my fave). I was fond of the Norah Jones album a few years back. I also like Back at the Chicken Shack as I've mentioned before, and stuff like Weather Report. When I say "Jazz", what I mean is Bitches Brew, and that general cacophy of random trumpets. I mean this: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zuxwr To me, that shit is whack and it doesn't matter if I live to be 102, I'll think it is pretentious and masterbatory crap. Even when I was in New Orleans, a group of them went to a famous Jazz Club called "The Spotted Cat", and I chose to walk back to the hotel. There was just no way. Anyway, I have criticised Flair, Jumbo, Kobashi and Hase plenty of times myself, and have let lots and lots of criticisms fly without comment; the times I've reacted have been when I think the criticisms are not justified, or else when I see people trotting out extremely lazy criticisms that I feel we've dealt with many times before. In the case of Flair specifically, I was motivated to do the series because it felt like he was taking it from all angles and I hated seeing Ric torn down to build up so many others. I mean shit he spent his whole career making other people and putting them over, he has to put over every other fuck in the GWE too? No, I wasn't going to let it happen. In the case of Jumbo it was more, "hold on, you guys all watched AJPW set and were high on this stuff, WHAT HAPPENED?". But I've admitted faults in all four of those guys and many other guys I like. I did admittedly get peeved during the Hase thread, but only cos it seemed so targetted. And I guess why I keep coming back to this is that I am trying to work out if lucha really is like jazz -- a hopeless case for me -- or more like something like hip-hop, which is a totally different beast to most of the other music I listen to with its own rules and world, but something I'm into on its own terms. The reason I still maintain hope is because of all the matches I've watched that I've rated highly. Yes, it's almost all Cota or Casas stuff with a few exceptions (I loved that one Eddie / Dream Machine tag and MS-1 vs. Chicana), but there's the slight suggestion that there might be more stuff along those lines out there. And now there is no GWE deadline to think about, I can just range a bit.

For those struggling to keep track of all the GWE shows, there is a convenient playlist here: https://soundcloud.com/jerryvonkramer/sets/greatest-wrestler-ever-month