Jimmy Redman

Is anyone going to vote for Sting? He feels like a guy that like, at least one person is going to vote for, you know? I sort of feel bad for Sting, in a way, in that I think he's better than he's often given credit for. He's a good babyface, sells well, makes big face comebacks. I see so much of him in Cena, except that I think Cena is clearly miles better. He has the classic Vader series, and some other good stuff with Flair, Regal, Foley, Steiners. His ring work in the Crow period is a clear weak spot. But, as has been mentioned, in TNA he was remarkably decent as Old Man Sting and had shockingly good matches with AJ, Roode and Hogan, of all people. I can't disagree with the point that was made in this thread about people being all about Old Man work when it is done in a fashionable environment like lucha, but not really bothering with it when it happens in TNA. Having said all that, I'm not really that high on Sting and certainly won't be voting for him. It's just weird that he's a guy that hasn't been talked about since 2014.

Matt (D) mentioning him as being on his bubble made me come here and realise I hadn't said my piece on Matt (Hardy) yet. With Matt it's definitely a case of great talent plus great output. I've already written a laundry list from late 00s TV, so just scroll up for that, although I might add to it to make a complete career rec list if I feel like it by the end of this post. He's just a ridiculously good, consistent TV worker. His peak was 2007-08 roughly, but really you can basically throw a dart at any match he had on TV from late 2005 to his 2010 release, and chances are it will be good at a bare minimum. He almost never has bad or disappointing matches. The only matches of his I can think of as being truly disappointing are the ones vs Jeff, which for obvious reasons just didn't work, despite their efforts. More than his consistency, is his ability as a TV worker to bring something...I feel like transcendent is too strong a word, but maybe resonant? Special? He has a knack of bringing that out of people. Even a random SD midcard match, or an ECW main event or something seems important, mainly due to the way Matt would work it, selling and selling and showing aggression and timing his spots right and more selling that raised the stakes and made you feel like you were watching...something. He and Ken Kennedy had a long match on SD in 2007, and that sounds ordinary on paper, but they went out there and beat the utter shit out of each other and made it into this great war. He and MVP began a midcard US Title feud on SD in mid 2007, and it sounds ordinary on paper, but their matches together were really great, really physical, wrestling contests, and during their whole feud they always made the title seem so important and like they were building an epic rivalry. Whenever he was the US or ECW Champion, he would have these title defenses and make everyone from Mark Henry to Evan Bourne seem like a real, legit challenger, and that holding onto the title was super important. I don't know how to fully express it, but it's like...the opposite of going through the motions, the opposite of the "here's where I hit my spots" hokeyness that modern WWE can fall into. Matt always managed to convey that he was in a wrestling match, fighting for his life, or his title, or his pride at least. He has the career matches of a few people - namely Kennedy, MVP and Hurricane I can think of - plus arguably Edge's best singles match. The Kane match at SS 2004 might be one of Kane's best singles matches too. If you care about range then he showed he has the range to play heel in 2003 with the Mattitude run, which was entertaining as hell and was a complete 180 from the babyface blowjob tag team worker he had been up until that point. The big Rey match in San Diego in June 2003 is great. I kind of want to go back and see what else is there from that cruiser run. This is all just as a singles, by the way, and not even getting into his amazing tag team work. The Hardyz argument is self-evident at this point, except to say that it's worth noting that Matt was the brains of the outfit and contributed a lot of the structure and traditional grounding of their matches, and also did his share of crazy offense, big bumps and Morton selling. He's great in gimmick matches, ladder matches and always comes up with creative spots, as well as trying to tie those spots together and, like in regular Hardyz matches, trying to keep the feet of the match on the ground, so to speak. Obviously mileage varies here on ladder matches and shit, but in modern WWE the ability to have exciting and compelling clusterfucks with furniture is a big plus, and he has one of the most impressive resumes of them. He has a lot of attributes as an individual that I think don't get discussed enough. For one thing, he has wicked punches. You all appreciate a good punch, and Matt has one of the best punches of the modern era. Watch the Kennedy match for Exhibit A. He's not a guy that you look at and on the surface think "man, that Matt Hardy really lays his shit in!" but if you watch him, he really does lay his shit in. He's an amazing seller. One of the best physical sellers I've seen, in the sense that he can convey how a move, or a strike, or a series of them can damage and impair him in a specific way, on a level above simple "argh I'm dying" selling. It's more than just being able to sell the leg when it gets worked over, I'm more thinking of when it's not an overt "work the leg" match, just a match in general. If he takes a tonne of shit on his back over the course of a match, he shows you that his back is hurting, he's hunched and clutching his ribs when he's trying to come back. If he takes a tonne of blows to the face or head, he shows you that he's groggy or his head is pounding or his nose might be broken. He really takes the time to feel the moves, thinking about where they impact on the body and selling that effect in a realistic way. And then when it IS a body part match, the same rings true, only the selling is amplified. Watch him vs MVP at GAB 2007. The story of the match is Matt coming in with a pre-existing concussion, and when he gets a head knock in the match he's clearly been concussed again. He sells this phenomenally well. You see it in every second of the match from that point, the fact that he's been knocked for a loop, that he's unsteady on his feet (slipping on the top rope at one point), that there are 9 different MVPs in his vision and he's trying to figure out which is the real one, that every boot or punch to his head feels like a fucking sledgehammer. And he's always fighting through this, trying to just will his way through it, because this is his big chance at the US Title on PPV (remember the part about him making everything seem super important?) but he's clearly being dragged down by this head injury, like an anchor wrapped around his ankles. He's an amazing seller. He also has an impeccable sense of timing, knowing how long to get shine, when to get his hope spots in, and when to come back, and his comeback is great and always pops the crowd. He has never won a match with the Side Effect in a 20+ year career, but every time he hits that shit people go nuts for the nearfall. He always knows EXACTLY when to hit it. I'll be going super high on him, maybe higher than anyone else actually. I'm not sure I'd have 10 modern WWE type guys over him.

I think there was talk of him doing one in OVW when he went there to retrain in 2002ish. Not on TV, and no footage of it exists.

I can't get around Ikeda and Ishikawa, but I do agree with you about the value of rewatch value. There are matches I can watch a hundred times before they lose anything, and that goes a long way with me.

George Kidd > Johnny Saint > Layla The natural evolution of things.

Yeah I'm curious about this also as I've been going off the index list.

I don't mean boring in the sense that he himself is slow or plodding or inactive. Just that...he bores me, personally. I think the Hogan matches are the most that I've ever enjoyed Harley. I like those.

In terms of "why has the tide turned on Harley", and this is more about fans at large and not so much people here, this may sound small, but I think a not insignificant factor is the match vs Flair at Starrcade 1983. In particular, how dull it is. That event and cage match is so mythologised in the WWE version of history (Flair's, WCW's, American wrestling's) and once it got released on WWE DVDs a lot of people finally saw the famed match and went...eh. A lot of that is Kiniski's fault, but all the same it doesn't do Harley any favours, and for a lot of people that is their first and only exposure to Race as a worker, and it leaves a lot to be desired. First impressions can be tough to overcome. I know it was for me. I've seen more Harley since then, and enjoyed some stuff, but mostly he reinforces my initial opinion of him, that he's just kind of boring and doesn't grab me at all.

This isn't his thread, but that is basically the perfect description of Emilio: the world's best #2 on the rudo team.

For people who are interested in this kind of thing, I want to note that when people my parents' age and older talk about wrestling, Australian wrestling I mean, there are a couple of names that are always mentioned: Mario Milano, Killer Kowalski, and Spiros Arion. In that order, I have to admit, but still he was an enduring star here during the glory days, above a lot of more recognizable (to us) names. He was my mum's favourite wrestler. That's definitely a +1.

Nope. He called Hunter the "doofus son in law", but the promo was far more directed at Vince, and the moment when Punk said something like "Here's this really big secret you need to know about Vince.." is when he was cut off. Hunter didn't get Punk's attention in promos until he became involved in the angle. They had many a shooty conversation on TV once he was, but I can't remember what, if any, sick burns Punk got in on him. The only line I remember specifically is about Steph having Hunter's balls in her purse. I remember Hunter calling Punk "skinny fat". But those conversations usually tended to revolve around the nature of pushes and politics so a lot of it was philosophical.

Peeps inhabiting my bubble at the moment: Yamada, Chiggy, Batista, Morrison, Ted, Hennig, Perrito, Masa Fuchi, Ibushi, Porky, Asuka, Masters...

The thing about modern WWE and it's million hours of TV is that it goes both ways. In the first place, it means that they've put Show in a lot of compromising and overlooked positions, where he's not booked "as he should be". But the flipside to that is that you also have those moments, every couple of years they remember that they have the fucking Big Show working for them and they do book him "as he should be", and the sheer volume of TV means that they add up to a handy resume, even though the ratio of that vs the other stuff is a lot smaller than it should be. He has good monster runs in 2012, 2008, 2006, 2003, etc... and also enough matches during those times - as well as isolated matches where he's treated like the giant he is by his opponent - to really show what he's capable of.

I agree with Parv that there's been a shift on thinking about AJ, but it has nothing to do with WWE and everything to do with his New Japan/freelancer run since leaving TNA. If AJ hadn't signed with WWE and was still in New Japan today, I don't think the talk would be any different.

Hunter is so nauseatingly terrible that he made me want to stop listening to Jon Moxley. I didn't even think that was physically possible. What an assbucket.

Yeah the first 18 months of the brand split was McMahonamania, but by the end of 2003, they were all off TV as regular characters, and in fact everyone, even Vince, almost wholly stayed off TV until late 2005 when they did that Raw special and Austin stunned them all. So that was a whole two year period with no McMahons anywhere. From that point they had regular runs - vs DX in 2006, Billionaire Vince in 2007, Vince/Shane/Hunter vs Orton in 2009, Vince vs Bret in 2010, Vince's involvement in the Summer of Punk in 2011, and now as The Authority since mid 2013. This is actually the longest sustained run on TV they've had since the Attitude Era.

This is all sadly true. Man, in hindsight one of the best things about SD during the period I loved it was that it usually had a babyface GM and there was no heel authority bullshit, just a guy who made matches when needed. That said, I loved Vickie's run too. She was entertaining but also more willing to show ass and get her comeuppance than the McMahons are, even though she's a woman. She'd go through cycles of being there, then getting an angle and being all over the show, to getting what for and moving back into a "just there" role until the next angle, and so on. Whereas with The Authority, they're all over the show week in, week out, with no reprieve, and it's been years on end now.

Liger was a guy I never really got until recently, but once it clicked and I started enjoying him he shot WAY up in my esteem very quickly. He should be in my Top 20 or so. One of my highest ranked Japanese guys for sure.

Should be.

On the subject of the 09 Chamber, I remember the 2011 SD Chamber being much the same - both in terms of structure in that they both have a long Edge/Rey finishing stretch, but also because Rey is far and away the best part of the match with his motherfucking insane bumping and selling. The man hurls himself and is hurled into every single part of the Chamber, just killing himself for this match. Like I said in the other thread, there's a really good TV match with JBL in April 2005, to go along with their 2006 feud. Also there's a kind of forgotten Rey/Eddie match that's on SD the first week of January 2005, which I think may have even been a week or so before they even started tagging together for the angle. It's a fun TV match and has one of my favourite 619 set ups ever. I'm smiling just thinking about it. I also happened to watch the Jericho feud recently, and it's super awesome and so holds up. Don't forget their match on SD on the 10th July, from memory I had it only behind the Bash match for quality. I also loved the Edge match from the same period, 5th June SD. Well basically any New SD Six match is going to do it for me, let's be honest. Rey was great in that period, and also great in the summer of 2011 as well, he was having a great TV match every week before having a great TV match every week was cool. Or even physically possible.

He deserves credit for having those ridiculously great bloodbaths with Eddie and Cena. Both are legitimate MOTDCs and not many generally-average workers have that kind of high end stuff on their resume. That said, he was generally quite average. He has a couple of really good Rey matches too. They had a banging TV match in 2005 like over a year before their actual feud. I think it was in April 2005 during a tournament, and it was the business. I can't really remember any other memorable singles matches apart from the garbage brawl with Finlay. I say this not as a knock on JBL at all, who is fine, but you mentioned modern guys, and I can probably think of a dozen modern WWE guys who haven't been nominated who I'd consider before JBL. But as Matt says, he absolutely gets a +1 for fighting Godzilla. Thank you for reminding me of one of my favourite skits in all of wrestling.

That's what I've always thought about it. It was gimmicked to break a little bit so they could get back in the ring, but it ended up caving under his weight. And on top of that, leaving the chair on the panel, allowing it to fall with him and hit him in the face was definitely an accident. Foley goes into it in his book and it makes sense, he clearly didn't want that to happen. "I wish he'd left it anywhere else."

No I think Ohtani has enough supporters. I know I'll be putting him quite high. He'll certainly drop though. I wouldn't be surprised if Harley Race dropped from #12 all the way off. He'll take a dive, just like DK. Benoit will probably take the biggest non-joshi dive, just because so many people will refuse to rank him altogether on principle. Luchadors, John Cena and Jimmy Breaks will be the big winners in this poll, I think.

I think Aja Kong and maybe Hokuto will make it on, but I wouldn't want to bet on any other women making it. Of the names you didn't bold, I can see Terry Gordy, Ultimo Dragon, Shiro Koshinaka and Toshiyo Yamada (I assume not emboldening her was an oversight) slipping out.

It just makes my heart sing that Trish Stratus is the 14th most discussed nominee.