El Boricua

You voted for Rick Steiner? Yeah, WTF ? Good worker for a few years in the late 80's/early 90's, then quickly became the worst Steiner then became a godawful worker. BIGLAV

Not necessarily a failure, but not really what I believe should be looked at for a list of this nature. Matches are outputs, wrestlers are inputs. With Leo Burke and El Mesias appearing that makes 15 of the wrestlers on my ballot that have dropped.

Heading into the top 300 I've had 13 of the wrestlers on my list already appear. I think only Dean and Mando may have more wrestlers that have dropped at this point in the countdown. Oddly enough, outside of the wrestlers where I've been the lone vote for them, i have not been the high vote for any of the others with more than one ballot placement (in almost all of those cases I have Dean to thank for that).

This. Absolutely all over the place. To put it in perspective, we had a total of 151 singles ballots. So far, I think the person revealed that has been on the most ballots has been on 12. That's not even 10% of the total ballots cast, so this is still very much in the small sample size section of the honorary mentions. Once we hit the range where the revealed wrestlers consistently are on 30-40 ballots we start heading into the more solid base size section of the rankings. But for now, I wouldn't take the ranking order of those revealed as nothing more than a quirk of small sample size.

I'm at 11 and we're still through the 360s with the reveal.

Already ten from my list have appeared and we're through 384. I wonder how many will still be left when we hit 100. Really enjoying the reveal process.

Hmm.... ??? can only mean one thing. It's this guy isn't it?

Agree :-) His hair is just like Eugene's on The Walking Dead... I'm looking at the Kitahara pic and instead of noticing the hair, all I could think was that it must have been cold when they took that pic.

When I think of Pat Roach, I always think:

I wouldn't worry about some "weird" votes (weird being a relative term to be honest), with a sample size of 151 ballots we're in the safe zone where a few outiers aren't really going to skew the rankings of this list notably. It'll be more noticeable in this portion of the honorable mentions, but the further we go, the less they will weigh on the rankings.

Who wants to tell Parv? Let him sleep. Let him have one last dream.

Six of my ballot picks have been listed and of those I have been the lone voter for four of them (Pierroth Jr., Invader 3, Super Medico and Shane Sewell) and one of two for the others (Chicky Starr and Fidel Sierra). There is someone on my ballot that I'm curious to see if he received any other ballot mentions, should find out in the next grouping probably.

I now regret not ranking Chicky higher only for him not getting a pic.I'll guess I'll remedy that here:

You are very welcome, so happy that you discovered Chicky thanks to the show. At his peak, the greatest heel in Puerto Rico wrestling history.

I'm the one that had Chicky at 100. For me, he was the perfect choice for that spot. Actually am glad he appeared on another ballot.

That's a shame. On the one hand, it would be nice if they counted, but on the other hand, that means that a few others that slipped through the cracks that would've gotten a vote if this last minute reprieve were enacted are SOL. JYD and Pedro Morales are two names that I would have probably put on my ballot if I had noticed they had not been nominated. No way to get those edited by the voters?

I have submitted my singles and tag ballots. I kinda feel like Frodo up there, but this is really only the end of the beginning for me.

Curious to see how much the final ballot tally will be.

Wow! That really is great in terms of sample size. Out of curiosity, how many tag ballots so far? I imagine it's much less, so hopefully more people will give it a go in turning a top 25 tag ballot.

We'll see, both Carlos Colon and Invader 1 will be on my ballot but haven't finalized all of the placements yet. Hoping to get this sorted out soon so I can have my ballot in by Saturday at the latest. Tag wise, i may be the high vote on the Sheepherders.

I'll listen to this during the next few days, but any plans for a tag list version?

Sgt. Slaughter

Yeah, the angle with Colon's wife is on YouTube: There's also one from fall of 87 where Ayala attacked Colon after throwing a net on him: The net angle goes before the barbed wire match, The attack at the awards is before the fire match. One key thing to keep in mind is that Colon vs. Ayala was basically the first time native vs native was the Universal title feud, so it had that traitor aspect to it. Also, keep in mind that Ayala applies his figure four inverted, meaning he places the leg underneath when applying it. It's sold as his new mystery hold and put over as devastating. One final detail about the barbed wire match, it's also figure four vs. figure four, where the only way to win is by applying and making your opponent submit to the figure four. As for the bump in the Slash vs. Banderas match, I had three reactions when I first saw it when it aired during the weekend TV. First was absolute shock that it happened (I'm talking mouth open, staring at the TV shock). Then, worry if the guy was okay. You could tell that he was supposed to land on the table but completely missed it, plus he landed right on his head. The article I linked to is in Spanish, but Slash mentions how fortunate he was that he didn't suffer a really bad injury (or worse). His specific comment was: "I thought I had landed on the table. I did not know I was knocked out. When I went to the locker room I told Savio, 'See what an SOB I am', and he told me to get ready to go to the hospital. I told him no, that I was fine. He then asked me if I knew where I was and I answered him in Indiana, so I think I was not all that well. If you look at the video you'll notice that I hit the ground with my head. I was a lucky kid that night. I could have died or have been paralyzed. I do not recommend to anyone doing that again." My third reaction, after the show ended, was turning to my brother and saying that there was no way anyone was going to boo him after that. Once they finished the Banderas feud they had to turn him because the crowd developed a respect for Slash after that bump and it was hard to boo him. I'd say check all of the Banderas matches if you want, it's more a random grab bag of what's on YouTube from his IWA years as to give an idea of how he was around that time. It's a shame there's not a lot more Puerto Rico stuff out there in circulation to really make recommendations, so it's basically find what's accessible. There's also his work in Mexico, along with some random matches from ECW, TNA and XSW out there.

Ricky Banderas was someone that took me a while to warm up to. During the first year of the IWA, he was basically the promotion's Rocky Maivia. His nickname at the time was "EL Patriota", which should give you an idea of how they were pushing him as the next great young Puerto Rican tecnico idol. But like Huracan Castillo JR., Miguel Perez Jr. and Ray Gonzales before him, he really started developing a personality when he turned heel. He was paired with Los Boricuas and the Starr Corporation, which definitely helped his development as heel. And then he started calling himself the messiah of wrestling, which eventually evolved into the more complete dark El Mesias persona. The chair became a part of his arsenal in helping give him a harder edge and he turned around that Rocky Maivia-itis he had going on at the beginning. A random selection of matches. vs. Apolo in 2000 after he betrayed Apolo and joined the Intocables stable: vs. the Kamikaze Clan in 2001: vs. Super crazy in 2001, Crazy is going after Ricky based on orders from Savio: Billed as the match of the century, in a rainstorm vs. Rey fenix: vs. Hannibal in 2005: 4 way vs. Chicnao, Apolo and Slash for the IWA World title: vs. Ray Gonzales in 2005: vs. monster Pain in 2015: And a video highlighting when he returned to aid his "Hermano in Dolor" Shane at the beginning of 2007. You can see how much the El Mesias persona had evolved at that point.

You guys have the correct order. The Texas Death Match is first, with the story going into it being that Hercules Ayala had been working on a new mysterious move and he ends up unveiling it. It's an inverted figure four (the leg applies the pressure from the bottom instead of the top). The barbed wire match is Aniversario 87, Feud reignites with the attack on Carlos Colon's wife, which leads to the fire match at Aniversario 88. Then the Loser leaves town match is Three Kings Day 1989. I was actually asked about the Slash vs. Banderas match this past week and I'm going to post some of the context of the match. The date is 10-18-2003 and the match took place at Cancha Pepin Cestero in Bayamon. It's basically the IWA's home arena. It's also Ricky Banderas' hometown. The week prior Ricky had been turfed from Savio Vega's La Compañía faction. There had been arguments brewing between Apolo and Ricky since both wanted to be the number one contender to Glamour Boy Shane's IWA World title. After several weeks of arguments and sabotaging each other, Savio had enough of it and called them to the ring saying that there was a rat in his organization. Ricky was the only one of the two to show up and Savio made a show of saying that the rat was Apolo and that he was kicking him out. All of a sudden, they start attacking Ricky and leave him laying. No one made the save since Ricky was a heel (despite the crowd chanting for Shane and Ray Gonzalez to make the save). Ricky was carted of on a stretcher to an ambulance. Later that night, Shane was wrestling Bison Smith and, when the match ended, Savio and company entered the ring to attack Shane. Various tecnicos came to try to help but the heels managed to contain them and continue the attack. After a while, an ambulance showed up in the arena and Ricky Banderas emerged and ran to the ring. He managed to get the better of David Flair, but was overwhelmed by the numbers. Eventually though, he and Victor the Bodyguard (who came in after Ricky to also try to make the save) managed to make a comeback and clear the ring. Ricky then grabbed a mic and told Savio that he had just opened the doors to his world and that he was coming after him. While the crowd cheered for Ricky to join the tecnicos, he left and headed back to the ambulance. Because of this, a match was signed for Ricky to face a mercenary on Savio's behalf. It ended up being Slash Venom, who was part of Savio's faction. At this time, Slash's gimmick was that his matches were under Extreme rules, so those are the rules this match is contested under. At around the 4 minute mark the ring announcer says that the match is anything goes, no DQ. Since Slash actually tries to pin Ricky outside of the ring at one point, I'm guessing that falls also counted anywhere with regards to anything goes. With regards to the end, Slash was legit out cold for like ten minutes. Savio's post-match attack on Ricky ended up busting his nose legitimately with the bat. Here's a video with some of the aftermath shown on TV: https://youtu.be/1ZnfSr8oLaM Slash was taken to a hospital (although he insisted he was fine despite not knowing where he was, he thought he was in Indiana when asked where he was) and Ricky needed stitches to close the wound he got. The following week (10/25) they're back in the Pepin Cestero, Ricky was in the ring when Slash Venom showed up in a wheelchair and with a neckbrace on after the fall from the previous week. He had been shown during that day's TV program in the wheelchair and telling Savio that he was ready to get back into things, with Savio blowing him off and telling him that he'll have to wait. After Slash showed up in the wheelchair, Savio also showed up and proceeded to insult Slash for not getting the job done, slapped him and pushed him to the ground. Ricky goes to protect Slash and wards off Savio. Then, to the absolute shock of everybody, Slash got up as if nothing had happened to him and proceeded to jump Ricky from behind. Slash and Ricky would feud for the next two months and it eventually involved Apolo and Vampiro. Here's a video with some highlights of the feud setting up their tag cage match: https://youtu.be/Irnjue1KQcg A few final notes. Slash eventually had to be turned face since crowds found it tough to boo him (after all ,who could boo such a tough son of a gun, there was definitely respect for him after that fall). He would be given the nickname El Hombre de Goma (the rubber man) because of this. The incident is still remembered among local wrestling fans. For the tenth anniversary of the incident, they actually published an interview with him on one of the local newspaper websites talking about the incident and Slash's remembrances of his time here. http://www.primeraho...shvenom-965262/ I'll try to post a little more about Ricky and some of the other PR work candidates between today and tomorrow,