W2BTD

Probably taking the temperature on Kurt.

I have no doubt that there are some people who take a glance at the ballot, mark a few names, send it back with very little thought, and don't think about it again until the next year. A lot of people probably don't even bother reading the rules or guidelines. I recall a brief conversation I had with Missy Hyatt on twitter where she was totally clueless on the procedure. Most wrestlers & former wrestlers probably fit into this category. There are probably voters who are relatively well informed who simply know exactly who they are voting for because they vote for the same people every year. So for them, they just need to decide on the new candidates, and if they see all of them as no brainers in either direction, I can see returning the ballot quickly. I'd guess that a pretty small percentage of people go through hardcore research/debate, and most of those people are likely the ones posting in places like this.

The superhero babyface who somehow overcomes insurmountable odds. This is essentially how Vince views himself.

Hawk no selling the piledriver was a fun spot that made perfect sense for the gimmick and enhanced the teams aura. No different than Samoan/island wrestlers over the years no selling headbutts. I can't imagine something like that working people up, but to each his own I guess.

fwiw, in casual conversations with hardcore modern puro fans, many view CIMA as a stronger candidate than Nakamura, and i'm not sure I disagree. Gun to my head today, I vote yes on Daniel Bryan Danielson, no on CIMA, Styles, Nak, & Orton. Orton is the only one where I can't be swayed, and it would take A LOT of swaying on Styles. I was one of the people who asked for CIMA to be put on the ballot, because I believe dave overlooked him when he first became eligible, and even if I don't vote for him, which I probably won't, he has a career worth examining. Dragon Gate will not blow anybody away with 10K gates (in fact, i'm not sure they have any), but it's a promotion that CIMA essentially built from the ground up as both the promoter, booker, and top star that eventually rose to where it sits today as the #2 promotion in Japan (and possibly #1 for a very brief time before the NJPW resurgence), doing steady in the black business. They regularly draw between 6k-9k for the big shows all over Japan, and pack Korakuen to the point that the building has faced safety issues and has asked them to sell less tickets, which is all very impressive in modern context, but may not be enough to impress voters in a historical context. As a worker, CIMA is undoubtedly considered an all time great in his style. Your mileage may vary on what you think of lucharesu, and particularly modern lucharesu, but for me personally I try to eliminate those feelings when I look at the HOF. As far as the influence box, he has continued the lineage of Ultimo Dragon & Hamada, one of whom is in the HOF, the other of which is off the ballot, but hey, go blame somebody else because I was a Hamada voter. Again, style biases aside, you won't find a more impressive roster of clean, impressive workers top to bottom. Wrestlers who spend enough time in the DG system always come out of it as better overall workers, with Matt Sydal, Ricochet, Neville/Pac, Flamita, as some of the top examples. Pac in particular made enormous strides in DG, as did Ricochet, as both were middling indie guys with raw potential who by working in the system and working the hard schedule with the other great workers emerged as elite level talents. The DG style influence can be found in nearly every major promotion in the world these days, and DG just keeps churning out good young wrestlers like Eita, T-Hawk, Kotoka, El Lindaman, Big R Shimizu, etc who will be the top names in DG over the next decade, and who will be the second gen of guys totally taught under CIMA's hand. His influence case is strong now, but will probably be more evident 6-10 years from now. His case will come down to what voters think of Dragon Gate's business, because most probably already have an opinion that isn't changing regarding his in ring. DG's business will probably surprise many who haven't paid attention, but it may not be strong enough to impress people in a historical context.

OK, this made me laugh out loud legit.

It is how you are presented in that TV time. Reigns is the most protected act in the company. Fans aren't stupid. They see through these things, and many of them (not all, but many vocal ones) aren't ready for this guy on top.

Not true. He does two things well. He sells, and he makes a fiery three move comeback that happens to be over (and it damn well should be, since he's been doing in in every match since he debuted). He's less than five years into his career. How can you argue that he isn't limited? Where is this wide variety of match styles that he has excelled in? He sells, sells, sells, apron dropkick, superman punch, spear. That's every Roman Reigns match. Ever. And that is very clearly by design because he's still green. Anything else would expose him. Go watch the Rollins match from RAW in January (the worst mach of the year until the Sasha/Nikki Bella match a few weeks ago). Go watch the bad singles matches vs Wyatt from January (particularly the one from Smackdown). They quickly realized how green he was, and all of his matches have been the same simple formula ever since. A heel turn would do him wonders. I think he can be a good worker. Right now he's a very carefully protected one. That isn't doing him any favors.

Of course the heel turn will never happen, and you can see Vince's fingerprints all over the guy. Vince clearly thinks he's the next big thing, as he's been ultra protected from Day 1, and Vince loves his Superman babyfaces which explains why every Reigns match is exactly the same.

It's clear they want to boo him. Figuring out why is actually irrelevant. If they want to boo him, turn him heel and let them boo him. Being an ass kicker heel is a quick path to becoming a big time face. Plus, he's still really green and limited as a worker, and desperately needs a long heel run to round out his in ring anyway. This is The Rock in 1996 all over again. He needs to go heel and work two years worth of matches that arent the same formula Superman comeback match that he's been working from day one as the guy who cleaned house with The Shield. They're doing a disservice to him as a worker just as much as with his push.

The Steen/Generico feud was the best feud in modern wrestling, which should count for something, and would have fit like a glove in any territory during the territory days. The Steen/Generico heel/face tag team was pretty great, too. They dropped that aspect of the team towards the end to set up the turn, but they had some killed matches vs teams like the Briscoes. I don't like ladder matches very much, but Owens is probably the best ladder match worker in the business. The Generico match is an all timer, the tag stuff was top notch, and I loved the Balor match.

Rollins was better in ROH than he is getting credit for here, and he's been way better this year than he gets credit for, but he's not a guy I would vote for in a project like this. I suspect he'll be a lock in a few years. The Rumble three way and the Cena Summer Slam match are two of the best WWE matches this year. If you're down on Rollins, you have to cut him a break, it was hard work carrying Roman for almost two years. The guy weighs nearly 300 lbs.

Jax Dane beat Tenzan for the NWA World Title tonight in San Antonio, and Tharpe says the match will be uploaded to NWA Classics.

Owens matches this year I have rated at **** or better 2/11 vs Zayn **** 2/18 vs Balor **** 5/31 vs Cena ****1/2 6/14 vs Cena ****1/2 7/4 vs Balor ****1/4 7/19 vs Cena **** 8/10 vs Orton & Cesaro **** 8/23 vs Balor ****1/2 8/24 vs Cesaro **** Nobody else in the company comes close to this output imo, and when you throw in the fact that he's easily the most compelling character in the company, he's my fairly easy pick for WWE WOTY.

He has a largely forgotten TNA run that wasn't good, too.

All I've seen is the Park stuff and Muertes. Probably for good reason. Is there another match that even approaches this stuff? I've only seen AAA stuff. I guess try some of that stuff from PR that Tim Evans just rec'd.

This guy flat out stinks outside of one LA Park match and the Muertes gimmick, which isn't even close to enough to get on my radar for something like this. Maybe i'm watching the wrong matches, but he comes off very lazy most of the time.

Owens has been the best and most compelling worker in WWE this year. Even as a Kevin Steen fan, and someone who thought he'd do well in WWE, even i'm a little shocked at how great he's been. An absolute lock for my list.

The Nakajima/KENTA series circa 2009 (including the tags and the awesome one hour plus Burning vs Kensuke Office elimination match) is one of the best in ring feuds I've ever seen with some of the best match to match psychology you'll ever see. I agree with InYourCase that Nakajima's high level output drops off the map in recent years. He went from "this guy has the potential to be a legitimate all time great" to being completely lost in the abyss of NOAH. I like almost every single Nakajima match I ever watch, but his upward trajectory just stops dead around 2010 or so.

I can't see any way they won't make it that high for me either. They are right there with The Fantastics & MX in my book as far as work but won't go quite as high due to not having as much footage. You and I have vastly different tastes on modern wrestling but I am glad that we are in agreement here. I'll probably be the high vote for The Fantastics, and if not for you the high vote for The Nightmares. I absolutely love that era of tag team wrestling in the United States, and I suspect most of my list will be made up of teams that peaked during the 80's in the U.S.

They'll easily crack my top ten.

Fans are sophisticated enough now to know the difference between in & out of character. This isn't 1973, I had zero problem with it. It was a good moment. You could justify it from a storyline POV anyway, since it was the culmination of the story of those four battling in Full Sail for so long, and now showing the world why they garnered so much buzz. Plus Sasha was pretty close to being a tweener in NXT lately anyway.

Fun show, everything landed, but not the show of the year. Based on the reports from the ROH show, it may not have even been the best show in Brooklyn last night.

I don't buy that Bryan "pretty clearly" has a bigger & wider output of great matches, and i'm saying this as someone who might have Bryan in his top 5 overall. Since 2012, Tanahashi's resume runs laps around Bryan's even when considering Bryan's great 2013. Tanahashi has had more high level matches in the last month than Bryan has had in the last two years, and that's not an exaggeration at all. Bryan's best year overall was 2006, and I would put that year up against any singular year of anybody else, ever. His only *great* WWE year was 2013. His first couple of years he was never given chances. Even in some of his better years, he was working WWE babyface formula which dragged down is stuff. Lately, he's obviously been banged up or not working at all. Both guys came up around the same time. Bryan has an edge in the early careers of each, but the gap isn't as wide as the Tanahashi edge over the last 4-5 years, which to me is huge. I like Bryan's WWE work, but in my view it doesn't touch his pre-WWE stuff. If I sat down and listed his Top 100 matches, I'd have a couple of Punk matches, Cena at SummerSlam, Bray at Rumble, the six man w/Ryback vs The Shield, and maybe a few other singles matches that i'm not remembering at the moment from his WWE work, with easily about 80-90 non WWE matches making up the rest of the list. 20 would probably be from 2006 alone. Bryan's best year was 2006, followed by 2009, so 2013, his best WWE year, might be third at best. During Bryan's WWE time, Tanahashi has been on a historical run of greatness. To me, this 10/24/04 Bryan Danielson vs Hiroshi Tanahashi match is better than all but a dozen or so of Bryan's WWE bouts, and this is't even one of Bryan or Tanahashi's more heavily hyped bouts. If nothing else, Bryan's individual performance here blows away his formula WWE stuff (as a face or heel), even if you disagree on the overall quality of the match being as high as I think it is. And this was the kind of stuff Bryan was churning out consistently pre-WWE. SO much of his WWE run was wasted teaming with Kane and doing goofy shtick while Tanahashi was peaking at the same time. And while Bryan appears to be done, or at least just about done, Tanahashi is coming off the best G1 of his career and is still among the best in the world. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18hky9_bryan-danielson-vs-hiroshi-tanahashi-njpw-10-24-04_sport It looks like I'm burying Bryan here, but i'm not. My intent is to illustrate why I think saying Bryan "pretty clearly" has a bigger & wider output of great matches is a pretty wild statement. I think Bryan vs Tanahashi is extremely close. Both will rank very high on my list.

It'll lean modern and it'll lean Japan, and I suspect it'll have more respect towards 2000's indie guys than WWE guys. Other than that, you'll probably be bored by the meat of it, because it'll be the same boring names like Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada, Muto, Hart, Michaels, Flair, Funk, #BigMike, and the rest of the pillars of this business.