MoS

IIRC, Vince wanted a heavyweight-only MMA league, because he was so far in the wrestling bubble that he thought only big strong men could draw in the casuals. That turned out to be pretty short-sighted; with the exception of when Brock was champion, the heavyweight division has been one of the lowest drawing divisions of the UFC.

This is weird, but I learnt that while I love fluid, smooth matwork sometimes, I do not love it all the time. To make it clear, I can watch Hansen brawl for 6 hours and not get tired. I can watch Breaks for an hour and love it, but probably not for more than that. I also realised that while I do not mind formula, I do hate repetitive spots, particularly if said wrestler is eating those spots. I have no issues with Lawler matches following a formula, and involving only punching and brawling, but after the fifth time I watched Flair get thrown off the top rope in the exact same way, it started to really annoy me. Not annoy me in the sense that "This match is horrible. 1 star!", but more like "Fucking hell, this takes it from 4 stars to 3.75/3.5 stars." Pre-comeback Shawn smokes post-comeback, and I have zero idea how so many people claim his 2nd run is better than the first. I fucking love Sara Del Rey, and I think she is criminally underrated. She is someone who understands selling and psychology really, really well.

I am curious to see how far Eddie will drop this time. Benoit I know is going to drop significantly, because of both his actions as well as him being considered, rightly or wrongly, the progenitor of the go-go-go no-selling style. Also, the juniors stuff has not aged well. Plus, he was ranked way too high as it is. But Eddie, at least in my mind, always liad more emphasis on selling and at least attempted more to have long-term storytelling in matches. I did not run around in these circles in 2006, but I did visit some websites back then, and mainly, people used to like Benoit more because he was stiffer and had more vicious offence. Those things have aged worse than Eddie's best attributes.

Is there any agreement on when he became an indisputably great worker? I know mileage varies on the quality of his WCW run, for example, but it is generally agreed that he was a great worker in those years. Was he considered one before that as well? He was pimped pretty heavily by Tenay in his first few matches in WCW.

I haven't seen Rey's pre-WCW stuff except a bunch of pimped AAA matches. What's the consensus on when he became a great wrestler or one of the best in the world?

^Co-signed on that. The organisation has been superb. Kudos to Grimmas, Loss and everyone else at the helm. This has been insanely fun. And for someone like me who is not so much knowledgeable about wrestling, this has been extremely educative too. When this thing started, I am pretty sure I had never heard of at least 30% of the wrestlers nominated.

It is the internet, and if someone really wanted to, they could cheat the system through some means. There is no point worrying about it too much. As it is, if someone goes to through great pains to affect a list about the 100 Greatest Wrestler Ever, done by a fringe board of an already niche entertainment form, that would honestly be more amusing than infuriating.

Of course "stuff I value" is favouritey. While judging an artform, any kind of analysis or judgment will have an element of favouritism, because the crteria used will depend on your personal preferences. You are giving bonus points for getting over in different territories and promotion, which is also stuff you subjectively value more. Hell, even while discussing sports, analysis veers towards your favourites, though to a lesser extent. The statistics for Messi and Ronaldo are right in front of everyone, yet people use them to come to different conclusions.

I assume you are talking about Bryan? And is the singles and doubles thing a baseball reference? I am Indian, do all I know about baseball is "the game that looks like Cricket, which has given birth to sex innuendos" haha.

I know Funk's most recognised heel run is in 1989 vs Flair, but his empty arena match against Lawler is his single best heel performance I have ever seen. I do not know if it is a controversial opinion, but I genuinely believe it.

Do you have an updated mastersheet for all wrestlers? Apologies if you have posted it already.

I understand the concern, but, for example, I do not post often - I have only 170 posts or so despite being a member for almost 3 years - because I either don't feel as if I have anything to add, as people more knowledgeable than myself say the things I feel and in a much better way, or because I am mostly always short of time, but I have been following the project and the discussions since the very beginning, and it is quite possible that a lot of people who will vote/make accounts to vote will have done the same. I do know a very good friend of mine who has been following the project and reading PWO for a very long time, but who was hesitant to create an account because he felt a bit underqualified as 99% of people have watched tons of more wrestling than he has. I know the feeling, because that is exactly what I used to feel and still do to some extent. Nevertheless, this project, and PWO in general, have got us to watch a lot of wrestling we would never have. And this project has also given him the final impetus to create an account and start posting. I feel that more than being a comprehensive list, the worth of the project is not only in the discussions it will spawn, but also in people who will start posting here. start discussing their favourite wrestling, as well as get introduced to new wrestling, like I have. So, to that end, I do believe the project should have open nominations.

They are almost certainly the two best wrestlers of the past 16 years. They are also perhaps the only 2 babyfaces in WWE in the last decade who have been loved and cheered across all demographics. Their biggest runs came as underdog scrappy babyfaces. Bryan has the advantage of being a very good and very over heel over Rey, but Rey was such a defining, transcendental babyface that it almost doesn't matter. For me, it is really tough. I rate the best Bryan matches above best Rey matches, but Rey delivered more consistent good quality matches. There was a 2-3 year span where he was actually having multiple good TV matches every week, and which still hold up, something which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it. On the whole though, I will have to go with Bryan by the slimmest of margins, purely because when he was on, and he was on most of the time, he got me invested and immersed in his matches in a way Rey didn't quite at that level. It is very close though.

Agreed with the first point, but as for the 2nd point, it can be easily explained that the announcers guessed that a pissed-off wrestler was going to put another one through the table, and they did not want the wrestler to get crippled for life, which is what those monitors could do, and therefore, they took initiative on their own to minimise injury.

One of the more bizarre ones for me is when Ambrose and Rollins started on top of te cell in their HitC match, Lawler said something like "Has anyone ever started a match on top of the cell before? Unprecedented!" It's Lawler, and not necessarily WWE, but given the fact that attitude's most famous match started that way, it was head-scratching.

Hunter certainly does not deserve 98-99, as he was very much mediocre. In 2002, he had like, a record of awful, horrible main events, so he was a legit contender for worst wrestler of the year. 2000-first half of 01 is the only period I can see giving him the peak rating. I genuinely think that in '00-'01, Rock was one of the 30 best wrestlers in the world too, fwiw.

The teenager in me needs you to increase Rock's score, even if it by one, just so that he beats Triple H. In all seriousness, if Triple H gets 98-02 as a peak, when in 02 he was legitimately one of the worst wrestlers in the world, Rock should get something like 99-03. Hollywood Heel Rock was genuinely amazing, and I would say he was easily one of the best wrestlers in the world at minimum for 2 years.

But is he over in the Russo sense, which can hurt the business long-term?

I don't know if this is necessarily an exaggeration, but old westlers talk as if every show they did had riots and other such hungama, and the heels would barely escape with their lives.

I had assumed that since Santo was active into his 60s, we did have a respectable amount of footage, even if a lot of it was post-prime. My mistake.

Didn't he also say he was considered for Metallica, but he rejected?

It's difficult to say. I would much rather watch a Bryan match than a Flair match, but Flair undoubtedly had an objectively better career. This will sound incredibly petty, but I might just rank Bryan above Flair because Flair was a total dick to him in the Summerslam panel that got J.R fired.

I wish I could nominate Dara Singh, since he is by far the most iconic post-war Indian wrestler, is in the WON HoF, and generated crowds of 50k+ back in the 50s when it was really rare. Unfortunately, I cannot find any footage of him that gives a clear idea of how he was as a wrestler. I will post my thoughts on what I saw. Dara Singh v. KingKong A 5-minute clipped version of what looks like a really heated match. The first thing you notice is how physically energetic Dara Singh is. He jumps into every move, every hold, and gives off a real physical charisma that is like proto-Goldberg. It also seems to be a relatively fast-paced match for its times, and I love the grunts of attrition Singh makes every time he makes a move. It is deep, it is dirty, it is gritty, and it is really good. While he is no Jim Breaks when it comes to fluidity of holds, there is a real snap to it that is nice to watch. Again, too short to understand the finer attributes, but he sells exhaustion and weariness really well - most probably because he is exhausted and weary - and it adds another layer to his fiery comebacks. All in all, I can see why he became a huge icon here, and make no mistake, his mainstream penetration and popularity here far surpasses any American in their home country, although there are obvious cultural differences there that also play their part. I will try to find more footage. I do know that he had matches with Thesz in India and England and Rikidozan in Japan that are considered legendary and memorable, but I haven't been able to find any footage of them.

The business we all know and love is undoubtedly the carniest, and it is awesome most of the times. What are your favourite blatant exaggerations spawned by wrestling promoters? One thing that strikes me first is "Bruno sold the MSG 197 times" talking point. I think the real number is close to 60. I do not even know how or why they settled on the 197 number. Might have made it an even 200.

Not arguing this nomination, but if we have one for Rikidozan, we have to have one for Santo Sr. as well, right, because arguably no wrestler has been more beloved and a bigger folk hero than Santo? Unless he has already been nominated; in that case, sorry.