Jimmy Redman

I agree on Hogan in Japan. I think it was easy to convince oneself of it because WWF was cartoony and Japan was the land of real wrestling and Hogan "used more moves" there, but his matches there aren't anything special compared to either the good Japanese matches or the good Hogan in WWF matches.

I disagree on the first part, Sweet Chin Music was over enough as a knockout finisher that it gave Shawn a weapon to beat Taker with. Maybe not one, but the second superkick was a huge and believable nearfall. (I think that's a little hard to remember now knowing how much the kickouts escalated AFTER this point. But nobody ever kicked out of two superkicks in a match.) As a total aside, that is what makes the Shawn vs Orton "Superkick is Banned" match so utterly fascinating. You watch the match and you just start thinking "Yeah...how on earth IS Shawn going to win without the kick?" And you get the feeling that Shawn himself is wondering the exact same thing as it goes along. And frankly he doesn't come up with an answer. He goes through his finishing routine and then...has nothing to finish with. He's really at a loss as to how to win a different way. And at the finish, he finds himself in front of Orton and instinctively goes to kick and has to stop himself, and that hesitation allows Orton to RKO him. (I feel like it could also be a "he can't help himself" tie in if I thought about it) With Shawn's size and lack of real aggression, the superkick is his equalizer, the one silver bullet that can put anyone down at any time. And in the case of Taker the solution IS to just keep hitting it until it works. It's not the most poetic of escalations like Taker's bombs are, but Shawn just doesn't have that kind of moveset. The only other thing he can escalate with is high risk moves and jumping off things, but as we've covered, that tends to be a bad idea in this match. If his high risk moves had come off in this match, the outcome might have been different. We'll never know. I don't think having the two was too cute. But I think that's just a personal preference thing. Also I think that they were different kinds of moments. The skin the cat thing was cuter and more of a surprise thing. The finish was a little more...inevitable, to use that word. They were both beyond spent and Shawn going up top for one last ill-fated risk was him kind of succumbing to his fate. When Taker caught him the first time it was like "Woah that's cool!" But the second time it was like "Yep, I see, this is the end."

What I wonder about. And I've wondered about this my whole life. Remember I spend my days sitting in an English Department. Is why it is that the vast majority of people in the scenario you outline would come out with Kobashi on top. Yes, you might get an outlier, but it fascinates me how in mediums that are supposedly so subjective, you get the same judgements being made with really outstanding levels of regularity. Like I'm a Shakespeare guy, at no time in the 400 years since he died has there ever once been a general consensus that Ben Jonson was the better playwright. Like not once, even in periods of history in which you'd expect them to prefer a neater, more by-the-book, more moralistic writer like Jonson. You might get the occasional person who stumps for Jonson, but that person is an extreme outlier. No matter the age, no matter who the people are debating. You see interesting consensus picks in film criticism. There are various different canons, but across all of them you get certain picks that recur with such stunning regularity that you wonder if it really can be a totally subjective thing. Can it? In this process we've seen the #1 Scott Steiner pick. It was one of the true highlights of the whole deal. But why was it such a surprise? Why didn't a single person nominate El Gigante? Why did no one put Mike Rotunda as their #1 pick? I don't have the answers to these questions and I've said before, one day, maybe I might write a book about this exact thing, but until then I'll always wonder and will always hold out from accepting "subjective medium" as code for "anything goes" -- it's clear that anything doesn't go. It's clear that certain works, certain artists, certain workers have a habit of hitting lots of people in a way that certain others don't. If that didn't happen, we wouldn't even have the idea of "critical consensus". These are things I think that are overlooked or explained away too readily -- not just by you, but by relativists everywhere. It is a real phenomena. And the fact remains that in this sample size of 152, some guys will end up with 140+ votes and others with 0. It's just an accident of subjectivity? I hear all that and I don't even disagree with the idea of the critical consensus. BUT I think crucially I can acknowledge that without conceding that the critical consensus is any more "objective" than a critical outlier who can make a rational argument for someone over Shakespeare or Scott Steiner at #1 or anything in between. Both the consensus and the dissenter are subjective takes on the same subject, it's just that more people are swayed by or would agree with one case more than the other. Mainly I just think "objective" is entirely the wrong word and ruins things when it comes up. You can't have objectively right interpretations of art. It's not possible. The fact that more people would rank Kobashi higher is going to be borne out in the final results. You don't need everyone to agree to make that happen. The "critical consensus" in this case will be in Kobashi finishing however high he finishes in this poll. Hundreds higher than Magnum. But again I don't think that means someone couldn't have a reasonable argument to put Magnum higher. All views are valid, and yes, equally valid, if they can be defended.

I think those are all really good points. The thing about Shawn needing Undertaker to make a mistake is so true, it crossed my mind at one point but I forgot to add it to the narrative. But it is very true. I THINK, I could be wrong but I think it's actually a key talking point on commentary during Shawn/Taker II. So it's something that even WWE recognises in the matches at one point. It's fascinating that you bring up inevitability as well, because that is something that becomes increasingly apparent as you go along these matches. I never thought about it too much for the first match, but you're right in that Shawn not getting the countout is a moment where that really shines through. I like your read of the elbow too. I still like my own take better - I think because it plays into the overarching story of Taker's mortality that spans all the matches, I'm now going back and seeing the seeds planted even here - but it's certainly a valid one. And I agree about the tie in to it being a mistake that Shawn needed Taker to make. In a way it's like the big bomb throwing equivalent of letting a guy punch himself out and waiting for the wild haymaker that gives you your opening. It's also worth noting that pretty much NONE of the big risks taken in this match succeed. Shawn's moonsault to the floor is swatted away. Taker dives and kills himself. Taker misses the elbow. (Shawn hits his but that's basically a regular move for him) And Shawn going for the moonsault again is what ultimately did him in. This match gives weight to the words because the high risk moves were exactly that - high risk, high reward, low percentage plays - and they crashed and burned over and over. BUT they were in such a high stakes game, and both guys are so great and not giving an inch that they still found it necessary to take those kinds of risks. To try to shoot the moon.

Yeah Parv, when people say "subjectivity" it's not about "it's all my own opinion la la la" or a lack of scrutiny, which is what you always paint the argument as. It's when you get two guys theoretically putting Kobashi and Magnum through a BIGLAV system, and having Mag come out on top. Someone maybe thinking that Mag has better base ability, better intangibles, better variety, etc. even if Kobashi has a bigger list of matches. And he wouldn't be wrong or less "objective" for doing so. He's just someone who comes to different conclusions from looking at the same evidence you are. Someone who values slightly different things in a wrestler than you do. Someone who values a certain type of wrestler or wrestling more than another. Someone who simply doesn't rate the Kobashi matches as much as you do. (I'm repeating myself from the Kobashi/Bret debate but whatever) There's no objectivity because two people can look at the same evidence, even use ostensibly the same criteria, and come to wildly different conclusions. And neither is wrong or more wrong than the other. It's a subjective medium, everybody sees things with their own eyes.

Also WWE has guys who can teleport, control lightning and make fire appear with their minds. Not really too far away.

Co-sign. I popped huge for that. I've just realised that it should be the entrance music for this guy:

No Angle I get, a certain type of fan is going to rate him highly. Also, Cesaro hasn't dropped yet?? I assumed he was out already but I don't see him on the list. I still have 75 guys left as of #120. Less damage than I was expecting. My highest man to fall was my #32.

Wait Sting is still in play? How did he slip through the cracks?

So as it turns out this isn't spiteful so much as a response to the "self conscious epics" thread. One thing I want to do is dispel the notion that these guys are just kicking out of finishers for no reason other than pops and snowflakes. That there isn't a story involved in the same way that there is for, say, Misawa-Kobashi epics. I think that's completely insane, because the story informs literally everything Undertaker does between Wrestlemanias 25 and 28. And if you don't buy into the story, if you're not invested, that's fair enough, I can't make you. But it is absolutely there if you want to see it. These Streak matches, including this one, are the furthest thing from mindless kicking I can possibly think of. The transition to finisher kicking in this match may seem sudden and incongruous, but it really isn't if you think about it. It had been building for years. At WMXX Taker came back as the Deadman and dispatched Kane, and since then they began building The Streak from a cute little stat to something different, something important. It became its own selling point, "I want to beat The Streak" vs "I want to keep The Streak". Thus, the stakes were raised for Undertaker's Mania matches and his opponents lifted accordingly. Taker had to kick out of an RKO (a highly protected move) and Bob Orton's cast at WM21. He faced a monster heel in Henry at WM22 and was kind of lucky that he found himself in his own specialty match. Batista threw all kinds of shit at him, and Taker had to survive the spear, a huge table bump and kicked out of the Batista Bomb to win. Edge prepared for WM24 like it was the biggest match of his life - he had counters for ALL of Taker's moves, had Vickie and his goons doing run ins, there were ref bumps, cracking Taker's skull with the camera, Charles Robinson Sprinting, and two spears. Taker survived an unbelievable amount of bullshit AND wrestling skill from Edge to win here. Every year his challenger is more and more determined to be "the one", and comes up with more and more stuff that Taker has to endure in order to keep The Streak intact. And slowly but surely, The Streak had become the most prestigious and sought-after championship in WWE. And so we come to Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels is the Showstoppa, the Main Event, the Icon, the GOAT. Again, if you think that is all bullshit in reality I'm happy for you, but that's the story they're telling on TV, so play along. Being the GWE is Shawn's gimmick at this point, as is being Mr Wrestlemania, so combining those forces and aiming them squarely at Taker means that this is the biggest (kayfabe) threat to The Streak yet. That is how we got here folks, and that is how things have escalated enough to the point where kicking out of something even bigger than before was inevitable. Shawn is super ready for this match. He did all the big casket shenanigans in the build, they have an epic WWE video package, and he makes the big entrance coming down from heaven, dressed in all white. The light to Taker's darkness. His face is all business as Taker comes out and we get it on. And the first thing he does is chop the Undertaker. Shawn can't help himself, he's the Showstoppa and he's going to Shawn it up no matter what, and that includes throwing his ridiculous chops at the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. It's hubris, and he's incapable of doing anything else. What I liked it how they were sold, both by J.R. saying they're "more annoying than anything in the early going" (yes I can quote verbatim from this match) and by Taker, who absorbed most of them about as you'd expect but then OUCH, he'd get one really nasty one that actually stung and he'd sell it, giving a point to them after all. Another thing Shawn can't help is being an utter dick, and that peeks through in key moments as well - early on he tries the ol' "fake a knee injury" spot that kicked off a nine month feud with Jericho the year prior. Here Taker doesn't even entertain the notion, but it works to give Shawn a momentary advantage. The other time we see Dick Shawn is later on when Taker kills himself on the big dive and Shawn forces the referee to start counting him out. The final trademark Shawnism of the first half of the match is in the sheer amount of insane back bumps this guy takes. He spends a lot of the early going bumping around like a lunatic for Taker, and they're mostly in the form of big bombs to Shawn's back - press slams, side slams, the snake eyes-big boot combo - and Shawn EATS them like a champ. This is actually a period of the match where a lot of body parts get worked over momentarily - Shawn's back, then his arm to set up Old School, and then Taker's leg to set up the figure four - but nobody gets a real advantage (Taker visibly tests his knee afterwards and soon gets it working again) so clearly the time has come to step things up. The first big moment of the match is Taker's first attempt at a chokeslam, which gets countered into the crossface, which they work for a long time before Taker Takers Up and hits a sidewalk slam to get out (another BIG back bump for Shawn). Shawn throws the flying forearm and lays there forever, and you think to yourself "It's too early for him to be playing dead" but then he Kips Up and sells his motherfucking back. He's hurt. Maybe it was the kip up that did it and his hubris did him in...maybe it was all those big bumps he'd taken in this match and he wasn't playing dead for fun after all, he was buying time...maybe it was a lifetime of bumps and a bad back and he broke the camel's back, but whatever it was, he was hurting. He had this look on his face like...this is a weird analogy to spin off into, but I remember hearing Adam Gilchrist, who was an Australian cricketer, say that one day he was playing and he missed this one catch, a pretty regulation catch he'd taken a million times, and even though he was otherwise playing just fine, in that one moment he realised that he was getting old and he was not long for the world. He retired soon after. For me that was Shawn's moment, for 20+ years he was able to take punishment and still do the Kip Up and Shawn Up and be fine, but here it just...hurt. He was getting old, and he was not long for the world, and you can see why he retired a year later. But that's another kettle of beans and I digress. The next sequence is wicked cool: Taker goozles Shawn for the second time, Shawn escapes and goes for the superkick, Taker ducks out of the way so fast he TAKES A BUMP, Shawn grabs the legs but Taker immediately transitions into the gogoplata and Shawn frantically makes the ropes. It's worth noting that this was the first time EVER that anyone had escaped Hell's Gate, even by using the ropes, and not passed out or tapped to it. Escalation. Things are heating up and once again Taker's opponent is rising to the occasion and going above and beyond the call. And once again it takes more and more of a toll on Taker. They spill outside and sure Taker swats Shawn's moonsault attempt away like a badass, but he then collapses to the floor and sits there in a kind of despair that we don't ever see out of the Undertaker. He knows full well that this thing is getting harder and harder to defend every year. So he Sits Up back in the ring, but then he needs the help of the ropes to get to his feet. He goes for his one big risk-taker - the leap over the ropes - and he fucking SPIKES ON HIS HEAD TO DEATH. Holy fucking shit. It's one of those times where a real life unfortunate botch happens to play into the story perfectly, because not only is Taker facing tougher and tougher challenges, he's also getting older each year and getting closer to facing his own mortality, and you can see that creeping in with every moment of this segment. He usually nails the dive. This time, he ate it, right at a moment where he REALLY needed to pull it off. Shawn for his troubles saves what could be a match-killing moment by reacting to it so well and making such a production of the count, so that when Taker comes in at 9.99 the crowd audibly pops for the nearfall of Taker losing The Streak via countout. But this match must continue, and clearly we're entering another level. BAM Chokeslam! BAM Superkick! BAM Last Ride! The bombs are starting to drop, but even now they're still made to work for everything. Nobody ever walks right into anything, there's always counters and positioning and a struggle before it is finally hit. And once again Shawn is taking NUTSO bumps for this shit. He didn't just kick out of the Last Ride, he kicked out of the BIGGEST LAST RIDE OF ALL TIME. He was fucking airborne. But he's hanging in there, through the sheer determination to Be Shawn Michaels and to Beat The Streak, so Taker goes the extra mile. He climbs the ropes and attempts a flying elbow drop. He's resorting to MOVE STEALING. Taker hasn't stolen anyone's move since he was stuck in finisher spamfests with Kurt Angle as a biker. He's the fucking Deadman, he has a million bombs up his sleeve, why would he ever need to steal the move of some mortal peasant? Because he's fucking DESPERATE, that's why. He's been driven to an unprecedented level of desperation, and unsurprisingly, he misses. You start to get the sense that even flat on his back, Shawn is winning some kind of mental battle and has the momentum, which continues when he skins the cat but HE'S CAUGHT! TOMBSTONE! LIGHTS O-HE. KICKED. OUT. This whole moment was beautiful, from the crowd counting along "Three!" and then losing their shit when they realised, to Taker's FACE (we've all seen the GIF) to J.R. screaming "I just had an out of body experience!", which is a line so odd and absurd in the circumstances that it had to be a straight up shoot. J.R. was marking out bro! And once again the bar has been raised for a Streak match. This is Mr. Wrestlemania, the greatest alive. He's not going down without the most almighty of fights. It will take something special, something unprecedented. And that's exactly what we get in response, as Taker pulls down the straps. I could be wrong but I don't recall him ever doing this before. At this moment Taker needs the kind of power that only a wrestler pulling down his straps can give. Shawn is so great from here wrestling on fumes, hitting that sloppy DDT, making the excruciating crawl to the top rope (why make all that effort to climb to the top? Because he's Shawn Michaels Dammit! What else is he possibly going to do?), wobbling dangerously when he's up there before nailing the elbow (HE nails it, it's his move!) and then not even being able to Kip Up anymore, but just making another painstaking crawl to his feet using the ropes. Undertaker is somehow in even worse shape and takes an age to get up, stumbling around the ring and almost falling out before turning around into a sad, final, definitive Sweet Chin Music. KICK. OUT. MOTHER. FUCKER. Oh sorry, I forgot to mention that TAKER IS A FUCKING BADASS ZOMBIE and will not be killed. The Streak emboldens Taker's opponents but it also strengthens Taker's resolve as well, lifting him up to inhuman feats of strength and willing him to withstand anything in its defense. The cool thing about this next moment is that despite how pitiful each of them looked before the superkick, the kickout has reinvigorated them both and they FIRE UP. They lean on each other to stand themselves up, but not in a slow, overselling, overdramatic way, they're both clawing nastily at each other, pie-facing and jockeying for position before Shawn unleashes the most FURIOUS chop he has ever thrown in his entire life. They engage in this intense striking battle before Taker just levels him with a boot. And even so they KEEP fighting right until the bitter end, chopping and punching, positioning and reversing, countering and blocking, until Shawn tries once again to go to the top rope and take a risk, and once again it backfires as Taker catches him, BAM! TOMBSTONE NUMERO DUO, LIGHTS THE FUCK OUT. Goodnight nurse. As expected, Shawn was up for the challenge and presented Taker with his biggest fight yet. He went to ridiculous levels to try to end The Streak, absorbing all kinds of punishment, taking all kinds of bombs, dishing out plenty of his own, and even resorting to asshole tactics like trying to get Taker counted out after he KILLED HIMSELF. The Streak has become this mythological idea, bigger than any other title or reward in WWE, and people are now apparently willing to near kill themselves to get it. Which in turn means Taker needs to actually kill them dead in order to keep it. And kill them he does. He took all kinds of shit in this match and at times looked wildly and uncharacteristically desperate, but in the end, he's the fucking Undertaker and he prevailed. He can't not prevail at Wrestlemania. It would be the end of Taker as we know him. Yeah seriously, I don't know what the fuck match you assholes are watching but it can't be this one because this match is fucking glorious from beginning to end. Shawn is incredible in it, Taker is incredible in it. They keep it engaging from bell to bell, and build it and escalate it perfectly in keeping with the story of the match and the wider story of the Streak. All the big bombs make sense and they're always earned through the struggle. All of the big kickouts make sense and they're always timed perfectly. They sell bumps and damage, they sell big moves, they sell exhaustion, they sell desperation, they sell the emotional toll. I'm not really sure what else you could ask of them in terms of a vast, layered, epic main event match.

Marty! We're complaining about lucha, but man. Worst case only one WoS guy makes the 100.

I think the guys who are left are exactly the guys you'd have expected to be left when this began - Casas, Dandy, Santo, Satanico, Panther, Atlantis, Virus, etc., etc. As good as the likes of Perro Sr. and Black Terry are seen to be by their fans, they don't have the kind of reach to be on enough ballots to get them into the top.

I hate you so much for this. I voted for HHH, and never felt good about it. My thing with HHH is that he is probably the one guy who we can't look at fairly. I stopped watching wrestling for a few years, mostly because I thought HHH beating Booker T after a program that was based on thinly veiled racism was just too much for me to look past. I can't think of another wrestler who I think is good in the ring that I would rather watch less. Everything about him as a character, a promo, and a backstage politician makes my skin crawl. I don't think any of that should matter when it comes to his ability as an in-ring wrestler. He isn't the best guy ever, but I honestly think he is one of the best 100 in-ring wrestlers of all time. Fuck him, definitely FUCK TRUMP, and damn you for comparing me to those asshats. Yeah, we've all managed to remain relatively civil here and stay friends, but let's not start calling people Trump supporters. There's a line.

My last minute prediction for the #141 heartbreaker is Virus.

They don't call it that. They don't use weights for the women.

Speaking of all three, I am doing what some could consider my penance by watching all of the Undertaker matches again. (Although clearly not really a punishment for me) But if Hunter survives the night, I am happy to self-flagellate with any Hunter promo or match you please. It's only right.

I have discovered in my old age that I have Matt Hardy's jimmy legs. Maybe we're kindred spirits, although I do like to think that I have at least a decent amount of athleticism in me. My dodgy knees do help me own at the Weetbix box game though.

I mentioned this match and my reaction to it on the podcast, so I wanted to dig it up and post it here, mainly so I could read it again, but also to try to get across just how I feel about this match and why I love it so much. As I said, this might be my favourite thing I've ever written about wrestling. Not that it's the best writing I've ever done, but because I have never been happier writing about wrestling than I was in this moment. I can still clearly remember sitting at a terminal at uni pretending to do work and instead watching the match again and writing this out, and the pure, unbridled joy I felt as I was doing so.

They talk about Lita as a "former WWE Women's Champion" while she's presenting the belt, and then turn around and say "Charlotte is the first ever WWE Women's Champion!" They've had a Women's Champion for like all but six years of their entire company history.

Matt coming after Henry and Fuerza punctured my third kidney. Ouch.

I think he meant jackwebb's response...

"Charlotte is the first ever WWE Women's Champion!" is a new one.

When people say things like "the storytelling was key in Misawa/Kobashi, the kickouts just added to it as an expression of the story" I just...like, that is exactly how I would describe Shawn/Taker or Hunter/Taker. People acting like they were kicking out of moves in a vacuum is preposterous in the extreme to me. I think the only real difference is whether you as a viewer buy into the story and buy into them kicking out. If you do, it's a masterpiece. If you don't, it's bloated wanking. Lots of you don't care for Shawn/Taker so the kicking bothers you, but I don't think the excess in itself is any more or less excessive than something like Misawa/Kobashi or Davey/Elgin. I remember watching something like Kobashi/Akiyama 2004 and thinking it was ridiculously excessive and a kickout fest. I wasn't invested in any story that was there, so the kicking was all I saw.

My main takeaway from Part 1 is that the discussion on Foley was just about my favourite discussion on any one wrestler from any of the podcasts thus far. I thought the points you made about him were really insightful, and have even kind of helped me form my own arguments. Also thought the same about Jericho, you really touched on some good points, particularly about why he's such a strange and elusive candidate, seemingly coming off as both a good worker and bad worker at the same time.

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