Exposer

Quick thoughts: Corbin-Ziggler - This was good. Ziggler was annoying but I thought Corbin worked hard. The finish was dumb & the wrong guy won though. Ryback-Kalisto - Great match. Loved the near fall escalation from Kalisto's pin attempts & their were some awesome spots in this. Kalisto's lucky Ryback caught him on that springboard corkscrew plancha. Enzo/Cass-Vaudevillians- This was going good until the scary Enzo injury. I was terrified for a few minutes. The reports seem positive & I hope he's okay. KO-Zayn - Great match. Didn't like the cannonball/suplex/clothesline no selling spot, but the last few minutes were amazing. Loved the apron powerbomb tease & the finish. Cesaro-Miz - Great match. Cesaro's arm selling was iffy but I can live with that somewhat cause the guy has a superman gimmick. The interweaving booking with the Ko-Zayn brawl & madness leading to finish was awesome. I loved that for it's uniqueness. Plus, Miz is improving, a good heel, & should keep the belt for awhile longer. Jericho-Ambrose - Both guys aren't very good, especially Jericho, but I thought this match was structured well enough to where I though it was good. Liked Ambrose fighting out of the Walls of Jericho, the teased announce table payback spot, & the finish. Jericho was pretty bad in this though. His age is really showing. Charlotte-Natty - Match is decent but the least of their series. Liked Natty's leg selling but Charlotte looked pretty bad in the match. She's a good heel character but her execution & sloppiness is distracting at times. There was a lot of that in this match. The finish was of course terrible & stupid. Only good thing about was the continuity of Charles Robinson being the ref to screw Natty referencing 99 WCW Lil Naitch gimmick. AJ-Roman - Incredible match that is definitely my MOTY without the overbooking. The restarts hurt the flow & pissed me off. However, the work in this was so good that they brought me back in with the near falls down the stretch. Amazing performances from Roman & AJ. Overall, Payback was a very good show but was hurt with some silly overbooking throughout the card.

My predictions: Kalisto, Charlotte, Miz, Ambrose, Vaudevillians, Owens, Corbin, AJ by DQ when Gallows/Anderson attack him. Expect Balor to come out during beatdown & be "third man" with Gallows/Anderson. Expect Reigns to be beaten down too

I'm inspired by Dylan here to start this thread. There may be older threads similar to this but I'm not looking for them. I think it's unfortunate a lot of posters here don't keep up with modern wrestling. I understand it to a degree. Wrestling & it's landscape have indeed changed. I get the criticisms for finisher spamming & self-awareness in wresting today when it comes to the in-ring work but I think it's overblown. Stuff like production value & presentation I don't care about as much. Booking & promos I agree have fallen on the wayside but even the criticisms for these I believe are a bit overzealous. I'm also not a fan of the modern WWE discussion being pushed aside so to speak in a separate forum. I think it gets lost on this board because of it. There's still some solid traffic on today's WWE but I think it's too often willfully ignored. I guess what I'm getting at is I think it's disappointing that PWO doesn't follow modern wrestling as much. We can discuss past wrestling with just as much fervor while also keeping a close eye on the modern product with equally valuable analysis, discussion, & criticism. It's not just WWE that is ignored. New Japan, Mexico, US & British indies are all but forgotten. Pete's MOTYC thread is an excellent resource & one of the better threads on here. He keeps up with what's going on in the wrestling world today & shares his insights on the most quality stuff currently. I appreciate his This Week in Wrestling podcast as well as it covers all that happened at least in mainstream modern wrestling. I'd love to see more threads like that here. I don't find singular match threads & circular discussion of 80s & 90s wrestling as engaging anymore. That's my personal feelings on those subjects & I'm not saying those threads & discussions should go away. In fact, I still have much more to see & evaluate from wrestling's past. I just believe the pendulum has swung too far in favor of old wrestling here. I know some will say "old wrestling's better" but I find that a bit lazy without really trying to give the current product some attention. Even it it means just watching Lucha Underground like El-P or southern indies enthusiasm like Dylan I want to see more discussion on wrestling today. I'm willing to start some threads on Sounthern Indies, Midwest Indies, West Coast indies, British indies, or just a mega thread on all of them. The same goes for Mexico & Japan. I don't think it would be worthwhile without real participation & discussion though. Therefore, I'd love feedback from everyone here if they'd like to carry through with more modern wrestling talk. I'll never leave PWO because it truly is a great place for wrestling discussion but my presence here might be less so if there isn't an equal discussion for both old & new wrestling. I believe it'd be a better place for it

Not to mention his offense which is some of the worst around today. His punches, swinging DDT, & ZIg Zag finisher are all terrible. Plus, he now does the superkick at least a half dozen times in his matches. The Usos do it a lot too but at least they can sell & have great dives.

Stan Hansen Buddy Rose Rey Mysterio Jr. Mitsuharu Misawa Terry Funk Tatsumi Fujinami Yoshiaki Fujiwara Negro Casas El Satanico El Hijo del Santo Toshiaki Kawada Ric Flair Nick Bockwinkel Jumbo Tsuruta Kenta Kobashi Akira Taue Genichiro Tenryu El Dandy Daniel Bryan John Cena Jun Akiyama Ricky Steamboat Eddie Guerrero William Regal Dustin Rhodes AJ Styles Jushin Liger Jerry Lawler Jim Breaks Vader Curt Hennig Rick Martel Arn Anderson Ricky Morton Bobby Eaton Randy Savage Riki Choshu Kiyoshi Tamura Blue Panther Christian Bret Hart Barry Windham Carlos Colon Fit Finlay Virus Greg Valentine Chris Benoit Jerry Blackwell Akira Maeda Steve Austin Sgt. Slaughter Tito Santana Yuki Ishikawa Volk Han CM Punk Matt Hardy Low Ki Samoa Joe LA Park Mick Foley Akira Hokuto Brian Pillman Steve Grey Shinya Hashimoto Invader 1 Terry Rudge Shinobu Kandori Aja Kong Masa Fuchi Yoshihiro Tajiri Sangre Chicana Jon Cortez Alexander Otsuka Daisuke Ikeda Cesaro Negro Navarro Shawn Michaels Tsuyoshi Kikuchi Yoshinari Ogawa Yoshiaki Yatsu Sheamus Undertaker Brock Lesnar Masa Saito Marty Jannetty Jimmy Rave Marty Jones Bull Nakano Ace Rockwell Kyle Matthews Shaun Tempers Clive Myers Andre the Giant Hulk Hogan Sami Callihan Timothy Thatcher Too Cold Scorpio Juventud Guerrera Mocho Cota Tank Enjoy

I've learned that I have a lot more wrestling to watch. I've learned that I love ranking wrestler's & comparing wrestlers more than ranking or comparing matches. Although, I'd rather not do both for a really long time. I've learned that some people look at wrestling much differently than I do & vice versa. I've learned that it's pretty awesome to be a part of such a process like this one.

18 months is a long time to argue over a single list.

Not sure if it's true, but read a report on Twitter that WWE Network is only allowing one stream on one device per account at a time. Therefore, friends & family can no longer share accounts & stream at the same time.

Flair is winning this. Funk should.

Chad, a 10.23 average isn't bad for the 4th greatest wrestler of all-time (which is where I had him as well). 😋

Rey beating Kawada & Kobashi is awesome.

Great post Loss. I think a flaw with any list (especially one that has been done before with intense discussion & analysis) is that people almost inherently want change from each list to the next. A progression of change each time it's done. This means the "original" GOATs like Flair or Jumbo are going to be scrutinized the most. They've been #1 before. They've won before. The number one spot is naturally going to be the most talked about in a list like this. So when a new list is planned people are seeking out progression, change, or something new. They want the new list to be new & different from the previous one. I think it's a human flaw more than anything else. Personally, I wouldn't say I'm very critical of most wrestler's. I dislike no selling & moves that I think look stupid as fuck but that's about it. I haven't explored deep analysis of professional wrestler's yet. I admit I didn't really do that for this project. A lot of my placements for people were comparing what I liked & what I have seen then placing them accordingly. For example, I haven't seen nearly enough of 80s Flair or 80s Jumbo. I've seen many of the big time matches from both but also haven't seen other big time matches from them as well. They both finished in my top 15 I believe, but could have finished higher If I'd seen more footage. I'm hoping to explore critical analysis of wrestlers as the next stage of my fandom because I truly am not sure I've ever actually done that.

I'm going to say Lawler for two reasons. 1) I ranked him lower than a lot of people & I'm now realizing how significant my vote is. 2) I predicted he wouldn't make the top 10

I'll take a crack at it 1. Flair 2. Hansen 3. Misawa 4. Jumbo 5. Funk 6. Bryan 7. Kawada 8. Kobashi 9. Rey 10. Liger

There needs to be a brainwash machine created so Stacey can begin to love lucha brawls. Great post though. My rankings of Lawler & Liger are pretty low compared to a lot of people's rankings of them. I might contribute to both not making the top 10 or 15. That has everything to do with not seeing enough rather than not liking them. I don't rank on reputation. I guess my point is some may have ranked some folks lower because they hadn't seen enough. I did that with several names.

I'm shocked Casas made it as high as he did to be honest. I think it's foolish to think he ever would have gotten into the Top 20. I mean his placement is an absolute shame. Complete bullshit. But I expected it.

Buddy was almost my #1. I sort of regret he isn't now. He checks out on every category except longevity & even there he's pretty good. I think he's great every year from 77-87 in the footage we have. I also think he's ridiculously good in 89 Portland for an obese man. He's the best wrestler I've ever seen at his peak (79-83). He's an all-time bumper, can sell, has great offense, great tag worker (w/Wiskowski, Oliver, Sheepherders, Rogers, Somers), great mannerisms, great heel, great face, great promo, great in the main event (Portland, SF, AWA, WWF), great in mid card (AWA), & even good in the undercard (WWF). He has the great feuds (Adonis, Bastien, Youngblood, Miller, Piper, Hennig, Dynamite, Martel, Rockers) with all-time great matches (80 Portland tag w/Wiskowski vs Piper/Martel, Martel series, Hennig series, Rockers series). Buddy had it all.

Fair point. Although I ranked Pillman over Brock.

What do you recommend we do about it? Expose the voter. I'd just like to hear an argument for why someone ranked Brock Lesnar the #2 greatest wrestler of all-time. I'm curious.

I'm most satisfied with Dandy, Satanico, & Rose still hanging in there. I thought there was a chance they'd drop before #50.

That Brock #2 vote needs to be addressed. That's high to put it lightly.

Yep. I like Zayn & he'd probably make my top 150 but he's not better than Ki or Hero at all.

Well, I said I thought his peak was 02-10. So for me it's more than "a few good matches in 2007." For what it's worth, I think the Flair-Dusty matches aren't any good during Flair's peak. It's not the best comparison for "shit" during a peak because I don't like the stupid Dudley's stuff in 04 either but it's more to show Flair has stuff I don't like much at all in his peak too. Also, Taker finished in my 80s. I have Flair in my top 15.

If we want to be petty & selective. Let's be petty & selective. I'd say Taker's peak is 02-10 by the way.