Jimmy Redman

I find the constant moaning from people about how the list is too conservative or mainstream or whatever the fuck to be "disappointing". First of all, the attitude that if you voted for certain mainstream US guys you must not have participated as much or thought too hard about your ballot or watched lucha or even "read the threads" is such arrogant, elitist fucking bullshit. Countless people participated thoroughly and still voted for, say, Brock. I did. Others have already put their hands up, and I'm sure more could as well. No, we clearly weren't swayed by any of the arguments against him. No, that doesn't make us bad or mindless voters. Secondly, what did you expect? Like someone else said, we're voting for the greatest ever. We weren't voting for the wackiest, most non-conservative greatest ever. For a list like this, of course the usual suspects are going to be at the top. Especially with how many ballots came in; you get 150 people voting and no shit that relatively niche styles such as WoS, joshi, shootstyle are not going to be seen or voted on as much as mainstream US promotions. During this project it has been said over and over again, and apparently still needs to be repeated: the process is more important than the final results. The results are just a bunch of numbers tallied up, of course it's going to be all over the place. Y'all need to calm the fuck down with the disappointment shit. Don't be sad that Aja was only 49. Be happy that she made the Top 100. Be happy that she made 83 ballots, and that some of those people might not have known her from Adam when this project started, but have discovered her and liked her enough to rank her. Be happy about the discussion we got to have on her. Same with everyone else. Just fucking enjoy it man. It's supposed to be a fun thing, not the end of the world.

Yeah, to me the dynamic of Han the grappler vs strikers made for more interesting matches than a more well-rounded Han would have. That styles clash is the key, especially as a simple, easy to get story for we the shootstyle novices.

Robinson is one of the guys where I actually agree on the "if only we had more footage" line. He's a genuine shame of lost footage at this point. Still think Finlay needs to go, way moreso than Punk or Brock.

There's one thing I wanted to bring up on the podcast, but it felt like an unnecessary tangent in a situation that doesn't allow for that luxury, so I'll ask it here. Is it weird that I think the Kerry '84 match is way, WAY better than the Flair '83 match? Because I really do. The latter is a really good, really long NWA Title match that I could take or leave, but the Kerry match is amazing, a total war, and I think the only time in history that I've ever really, truly got into the Claw as a move. I need Parv to come in and tell me if I'm being contrarian or not.

Again, this is a review I wrote live, and it still feels as true now as it did then. "So, still in complete awe of Hell in a Cell. I feel like I need another warning label like last year: if you hated this match, skip well ahead because I’m going to be gushing for a while. What a monumental piece of pro wrestling. Bringing Jim f*cking Ross out to call it was awesome and I assume quite a triumph for those involved. Hunter enters through the mouth of a crazy dragon thing. Then Taker comes out in Wrestlemania Robe #3 and a BULLY RAY MOHAWK and somehow looks as badass as ever. And the Cell gets its own entrance music. This sh*t is so on. I think one of the things I liked best about it is how different a match it was from last year. I was sort of expecting it to go like how Shawn/Taker II played off I, with them hitting the same finishers in different combinations and heightening the escalation through using more finishers as big spots. Instead, they went the opposite direction, they largely brawled around and didn't really go for finishers aside from Hell’s Gate. I particularly noticed it when Taker finally hit a Chokeslam well into the match and everyone went nuts. They did a really good job of actually cutting down the finisher use while still building a sense of escalation over last year’s match. Shawn Michaels was phenomenal. There was always a fear in the back of my mind that he’d get in the way, but man, he added so much to this. From his pre-match promo and coming out dancing around all excited, he’s reveling in the fact that he holds the fate of the match in his hands. But by the time Hunter is murdering Taker and tells Shawn to ring the bell, suddenly, he realises that he doesn't want the fate of the match in his hands after all. He cant stand there and watch Taker die, but he cant pull the trigger on him either. He’s trapped. By the end he doesn't even want to watch. More than anything, I thought it was an incredible sell job of the physical danger and intensity of the match. He was flinching with every blow, he was desperate to stop one guy from killing the other, and by the end he was sitting there, literally in tears watching these guys destroy one another in the ring. Being there, that close to the action, while two men he respects so much do that to each other, it was literally too much to bear. A phenomenal f*cking job. So much awesome going on in this match. One of my favourite parts was early on, when Taker took that disgusting Spinebuster on the stairs, and then clamped on Hell’s Gate, but because he was on the stairs Hunter was still on his feet and had the leverage to pick him up for the powerbomb. Bam, already Taker’s winning shot from last year has been escaped from. At this point Hunter sort of thinks “F*ck this sh*t”, grabs a chair and, like last year, just beats the absolute SH*T out of Taker until he dies. Except this year you have Shawn there unable to handle it, or do anything about it. His desperate lunge when he turned around and realised that Hunter was about to DECAPITATE him was awesome. Taker ends up putting Shawn in Hell’s Gate and you’re legit not sure if he thought he was Hunter or if he was pissed that Shawn was considering ringing the bell. And, Holy Mother of F*CK, that Superkick-Pedigree combo KILLED ME TO DEATH. Just killed me. A motherf*cking AMAZING nearfall. And this year it was Shawn’s turn to sell it. He was out of this world fleeing to the corner and just sobbing, hands over his eyes, and you’re legit not sure if its because he was astonished that Taker kicked or angry that their plan didn't work or terrified that he’d just tried to screw a zombie and was already regretting it, or all of the above. Taker is laying there, forever, and you know he HAS TO sit up, we wait and wait, and finally BAM, he sits up and HUNTER TAKES A BUMP. Off the Sit Up. Beautiful. The second Pedigree also killed me. Shawn sold that one magnificently as well, just standing there in the corner with a look like he’d suddenly accepted the fact that Taker would never, ever die and Hunter’s fate was sealed. Hunter grabbing for the sledgehammer and Taker putting his foot on it was BADASS AS HELL. There’s also an amazing moment after chairshot revenge here where Shawn ponderously stands in the ring at the EXACT distance away from Taker for a Superkick. This was a split second in time at which, if he wanted to, he could have kicked Taker and followed through with a screwjob, but Shawn was already far, far past that point. He already knew what was happening and all he could do was stand there and witness it. And what was happening was the end. The same end that Shawn gave Flair, the same end that Taker gave Shawn, and the same end that Hunter tried to give Taker. Now it's his turn, and everything is eerily familiar. Hunter is making that pathetic crawl to his feet. Taker is telling him to stay down. He tries one last desperate lunge with the hammer. And, knowing it's all over, he’s still defiant until the end and forces Taker to finish him off for good. Hunter was boasting in the beginning that Taker was the one asking him to be finished off, and here he is eating his words and fulfilling his fate. The overarching moral of the story is that Undertaker is (forgive me) a phenom. He’s not a mortal man who has to be put down by his successor, he’s not human like his fellow old timers who are leaving it all out on the field one last time. He’s part of a group with Shawn, Hunter and Flair, an “era” if you will, but he never fell like they did in the end. The power of The Streak is greater than all of them, and it destroys the careers of its challengers and preserves the career of its owner in equal measure. He survives, and he survives through The Streak. And then the aftermath. Taker makes a gargantuan effort to get to his feet, because his entire reason for being was redemption over the stretcher job. He HAD TO walk out. But in the end, it's Shawn Michaels who has to pull him to his feet. And it would seem only fair if Taker got his revenge and had Hunter stretchered out, but Taker has no malice left, it's all over. He makes sure Hunter gets to his feet and they all walk out together, acknowledging that they all accomplished something here; the last hurrah of their “era”. This is the conclusion of a story literally five years in the making. I could honestly write pages and pages more on this match, but suffice to say, it was completely incredible, one of the best matches I’ve ever seen."

NB: I reviewed the Hunter/Takers live, and frankly nothing I come up with now is going to do them more justice so I'll just leave these here. (Funny how I wrote this five years ago and still came up with the exact same lines to describe the big kickouts in Taker/Shawn last week. I was already using the "Taker never gets enough credit" line as well.) "“FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS!” I don’t care who you are, coming out to Metallica is totally badass. I enjoyed that. As ordinary as most of the build was, the moment these two guys make their entrances you know that this sh*t is ON. Now, this match, I can see it dividing a lot of opinions already, but I’m erring on the side of IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. Utterly, utterly incredible. I LOVED THIS MATCH, just warning you. Right from the bell they tear it up, within minutes they take their first big bump through the Cole Mine, HHH rolls away but then Taker SITS UP and stares DEATH at Hunter; this sh*t is ON. The brawling outside was great, HHH taking the SUPER BACKDROP was insane, and then Undertaker DIVES ONTO HIS HEAD AGAIN which was insanely insane. This crazy bastard. Then they cap it off with the SPINEBUSTER THROUGH THE TABLE, another great spot. Taker turning this straight around into a BAMChokeslam was great too. As an aside, somewhere around here there was a “19 – 0” chant, which is pretty funny. Enjoyed the Snake Eyes into the AA Spinebuster, as well as the Last Ride tease and eventual completion. But what made this match was the second half. Hunter trying Pedigree after Pedigree, and when that didn’t work just up and going batsh*t INSANE with chairshots a la heel Austin, finishing off with a momentous headshot (and the blanket ban we’ve had for over a year means that this sure as hell meant something – it was protected but I was still like “Argh!”), all this was incredibly frightening, and I mean that it was frightening as a Streak fan. The Hunter Tombstone was inspired, after all that it was one of the best built nearfalls you ever saw because I was SH*TTING MYSELF. What an incredible moment that was. And even more to the point, Hunter’s reaction, scrambling away like he’d seen a ghost was, with no exaggeration, one of the best sell jobs of anything I’ve ever seen in wrestling. As an entire match spent building to that one single moment it was perfect work, because that KILLED me. So after throwing every single bomb he could think of, Hunter goes back to the Sledgehammer but gets caught in the HELLS GATE, and he survives it with all his HHHness and almost, almost gets the Sledgehammer shot in, but he fades and he eventually dies and has to tap. Watching it live, it was one of those matches where halfway through you think “This isn’t anything much” but by the end you’re going nuts screaming at the TV in shock. I felt the same way about the Shawn matches watching them live too. And don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t either of the Shawn matches, but as I said last week nothing else is either. This was an entirely different match, and I tell you it was some of the best storytelling I’ve ever seen. Literally that I’ve ever seen. And I can see the argument against it, sure; there were too many kickouts and it was all finishers and no transitions, and you knew it would be going in, I think. But I don’t think throwing bombs in itself can discount a story so brilliantly told; in this case, the bomb-throwing is what told the story. HHH went out there as the only guy in the world who didn’t know that he was losing, and he spent 30 minutes throwing everything he could possibly think of at this guy. He put him through a glass box, he put him through a table, he hit three Pedigrees. And when that didn’t work, he went evil and showed the remorselessness that Shawn said was the missing link Hunter needed to show in order to win. He MURDERED this guy with chairs, just killed him dead. So much so that there in the corner he almost looks disgusted with himself, but still determined to finish him off, and then as Taker staggers up and does this pathetically weak goozle, Hunter just pities him and says “stay down”, the exact same way that Taker himself pitied Shawn the year before. At this moment, just like he said on Raw, Hunter believes 100% that he is the Taker to Taker’s Shawn and he’s going to put him down right here and now. So he Tombstones him just for the poetry and KICK. OUT. MOTHER. F*CKER. F*ck you, Undertaker is a badass zombie cowboy, he will NOT be put down by anyone. So he’s on his back about to die and goes for his last shot – he Hells Gates him and squeezes the life out of him. Hunter wrestles perfectly and has this guy dead to rights with a Sledgehammer in tow, but he gets caught in a sub and thats the ball game. I absolutely loved that they went for such a different finish this time around. The post-match was chilling. Literally chilling. Hunter passed out and lost but he’d beaten Taker so badly during this match that he was up first. I just about refused to believe that Taker wasn’t legit hurt because, even now writing about it, the idea of Undertaker getting stretchered off is just unbelievable. I cannot believe it. So Undertaker won, yes, but at what price? He had to fight so hard to survive that he literally exhausted himself beyond repair. He was done. These two old legends threw an unbelievable amount of bombs at each other, completely tore each other apart, and now neither of them will ever be the same again. I say again, this was incredible stuff. All credit to Hunter, he was awesome here, and for the third year in a row Undertaker pulled off an astonishing sell job that he will never, ever get enough credit for. Phenomenally perfect storytelling. There aren’t enough adjectives in my literary arsenal."

I have the greatest wacky thrown-together tag team of Pat Roach and Kofi Kingston. WWE would call them Kof-Roach or something. Has anyone nailed a placement on the list? I had Baba at #63 and he came up at #63. Drink! I have 41 guys remaining now. 32 of my Top 50. Finlay is the guy I can't believe has made the Top 50 the most. He surely can't be long for the world. Dustin will score the highest placement from my bottom 25.

Jimmy Breaks is my first Top 10 guy to drop, and I will never forgive you 90-odd assholes who didn't vote for him for keeping him out of the top 50.

I have 46 left. I feel like I'm losing by being less goofy. Parv and co. are competing for who has the most conservative ballot. We're like the opposite.

If anyone makes one could they put it behind spoiler tags? I know it's not a secret, but I don't want to see all the names at once, it will kill the surprise somewhat.

Not that someone hasn't seen ANY Tamura, but maybe they've seen many Han matches, but the only Tamura they've seen is vs Han and that's not enough. That's what I mean.

I think it's exactly that. Han is the gateway, so people who haven't levelled up in shootstyle might not have got to enough Tamura yet. I know Han was on my ballot way before Tamura.

I do like Tamura and Han being so close together on the list. They are always linked in my mind, so it seems fitting. I had Han above Tamura. His uniqueness was probably a big factor.

This came up in another thread and my guess is Arn. Regal is also a decent shout. Maybe Rey. Kind of wonder if he'll get a #1 vote.

I did not write this blurb. Nor can I fully account for post-3am delirium. But it was a load off my mind. Lots of good and interesting points made by Matt here. And lots of me yelling at the clouds that are the prevalent opinions on modern WWE candidates. I think this is the longest one we've done yet as well.

In Part 5 of the Parejas Increibles Podcast, join Stacey (Jimmy Redman) and Matt D as they traverse 33-22 of their Greatest Wrestler Ever Lists. Make sure to stay to the very end for the definitive and lifechanging truth about The Undertaker. http://placetobenation.com/parejas-increibles-5-greatest-wrester-ever-part-5-33-22/

I actually see the Angle/Eddie matches as similar to the Shawn/Hunter matches, in that they have bad matches, but they also have more good matches that seemed to get drowned out by the bad for whatever reason. I think the WMXX match is awesome. Summerslam 2004 sucked, and the matches around that period aren't great (although their 2/3 Falls match from then...the first fall of that match is outstanding). They had a SD match in 2002 during the Six period that wasn't good, but they did have a SD match in 2005 that was really good. So it swings. Most people remember the bad stuff they did, whereas I actually remember the good ones more.

Whereas Angle moved up. Different group of voters, I suppose, is the obvious explanation. Also I think Panther was a known quantity in lucha already in 2006, whereas we've discovered different guys with new footage and a lot more luchadors are getting pimped. The competition for the lucha vote is much tougher.

Definitely true for me.

Very pumped that this has dropped, amazingly I had just caught up on the GWE podcasts.

Having the gimmick of ageing, delusional rock star who wears hideous outfits and thinks he's cool in order to put over younger guys is fine. Being so old and slow in the ring that you're blowing spots left and right to the point where you're making AJ Styles look sloppy (how the fuck do you make fucking AJ look sloppy?) and persisting with flawed match layouts is not fine. Nor are they the same thing. I'm fine with Jericho's current character, in fact it's the perfect role for him right now, and to be honest I don't think anyone here is really being taken in by the gimmick like a buncha marks. The character and the angles are fine. It's just that he can't deliver in the ring anymore. He can't keep up, he's blowing all kinds of shit which makes the other guy look bad too, and he has a funny way of "putting over" people that involves countering all of their moves and kicking out of their finishers. I believe that he's trying to put people over. I just don't think he's particularly good at it right now.

I like how NXT still maintains that rule of jobbing on your way out of the territory. It's like the one old school wrasslin' thing Vince can't let go, because WWE has always stuck to this, even when a guy got drafted from Raw to SD in the last decade he'd still do a clean job to someone on the way out. I can't decide who I'm looking forward to seeing killed next week more: Eva Marie or the Drifter.

No. it's been well established that Hogan kayfabe character was an asshole mistreating his friends and a whiny egomaniac bitch. There's a whole thread about this. Plus he was cheating his ass off and using shitty heel tactics (like scratching his opponent's back) despite being a colossus. It was so easy to agree with Jesse Ventura on color when he was pointing out how awful Hogan really was. That was a fucking great thread. Even as a huge Hogan fan, I need to find this thread. Sounds like a good read. I think it's this one: The Poor Sportsmanship of Hulk Hogan

I thought the first couple rollouts would blow my list apart but going into the Top 70, I still have 54 guys in play. Turns out I'm not as wacky as I thought. I have finally lost a guy from my Top 25 though.

I guess there's a point to be made there about how being that talented and versatile in an overall sense, plus marrying input and output isn't easy. It's sort of the inverse of the high peak argument, just being really, really good for your whole career, but I think both are equally impressive in their own way.