DMJ

Most certainly on my list and I may even be the high voter on him. One of my favorite Foley matches that I think is a bit "slept on" is the 2-on-1 tag team match he has against the New Age Outlaws at SummerSlam 98'. Here's my blog write-up for a few years ago when I re-watched it for the first time since it probably aired: Mankind defends both WWE Tag Team Championship belts against the New Age Outlaws in the next match. This is another unexpected treat and unique match. Mankind's tag team partner was Kane, but as the Undertaker had said on Heat, Kane was not going to be appearing. After his legendary fall from the top of the cell at King of the Ring a few months prior, Mankind was basically a "tweener" - popular with the fans, sympathetic for his naivete and trusting nature, but clearly being manipulated by Vince McMahon into doing heel things. People talk about the Bloodline storyline being one of the best the WWE ever produced, but I'd nominate Mankind's work in 98' to be right there with what Roman and the Usos (and Zayn) have been doing. Anyway...the Outlaws come out to a big pop, but you can tell the audience is fully behind Foley too as they cheer for every one of his offensive maneuvers. I like how this was booked as Foley, the King of Hardcore, is able to hold his own at times but never really seems like he's going to win because, at almost every turn, the numbers game cuts him down. There are also some legit great spots in here - a proto-Conchairto by the Outlaws with cookie sheets, a great-looking swingin' neckbreaker on the concrete from Mick to Billy Gunn, an absolutely vicious Russian Leg Sweep from the Outlaws that sends the back of Mankind's skull into a steel dumpster, and a two-man powerbomb through a pair of chairs. This match works because the Outlaws get to look like serious ass-kickers (there's absolutely none of that lame Road Dogg dancing shtick here) that will do what it takes to win the championships and Mankind gets to prove how tough he is. The only thing that doesn't quite work for me is the post-match, though, again, to the WWE's credit, they didn't do what I expected by having the Outlaws praise Mankind for his toughness. Instead, after getting the pin, the Outlaws actually berate Mankind a bit and throw him into the dumpster (a very heelish move, but, again, DX weren't supposed to be lovable babyfaces, so it actually makes sense that they would gloat a bit and be obnoxious). Once Foley is in the dumpster, we get a surprise appearance from Kane, who emerges from within it and then strikes down Foley with a sledgehammer (we don't actually see Foley get struck by the way it is filmed). Its a cool visual and cleverly puts the heat onto Kane and off of the Outlaws. I'm on the fence over whether or not this is must-see, but, then again, this might be the most entertaining match the Outlaws were ever involved in from beginning to end. (4/5) With Foley, I feel like, sprinkled throughout his career are these little matches that shouldn't work or be memorable and then, fuck, did he just get a good match out of Van Hammer? And, maybe most impressively in 2025, while he does take ridiculous bumps, its not like he's eating up 20 minutes to make every match an epic. The match described above goes under 6 minutes. Sure, its loaded with crazy shit, but, to be fair, unlike so many modern guys who might do the same level of violence (or more) and spread it out over the course of 20 minutes, Foley's hardcore matches get incredible sympathy from the crowd and he consistently sells these big spots and, if you're going to do this sorta thing, wouldn't it be more realistic if the fight ended after 10 minutes? I know there are plenty of times Foley went long too, but if you're getting your head smashed into metal things repeatedly, and its 2-on-1, it makes sense that you're put down quickly. This same match today would needlessly go twice as long, feature twice as many unrealistic hope spots, and probably feature at least one overly-choreographed sequence instead of just being the best version of what it should be, a one-sided massacre with maybe a few glimmers of hope.

Here's the thing I don't get about the Karrion Kross work/shoot stuff: What's the endgame here? When they did a similar thing with Punk in 2011 with the Pipebomb Promo and him "leaving the company" with the WWE Championship after Money in the Bank, it was awesome because, well, CM Punk was awesome in 2011 (and John Cena also played his role really well as the reluctant "Corporate" guy who didn't want any favors from John Laurenaitis [an avatar for Vince]). It was a great storyline that they, unfortunately, bungled within a few weeks...but the point still stands, for a brief moment, it was very compelling TV and CM Punk solidified his place in the main event that summer. Then, a couple years later, they do the whole Danielson story with him being "held back" by the Authority. Again, it was a flawed storyline in many ways and I'm not even going to get into the fact that the WWE went kicking-and-screaming into even running in as the main event of Mania that year. The point is, it worked because Danielson was mega-over and was consistently backing it up with the best match on the card for months and months - tags, singles, gauntlets, whatever. But Kross...Kross is not as charismatic as Punk or as good a storyteller in the ring. He's obviously not on the level of Danielson. He's not a beloved comedy character like R-Truth (who people didn't want to see released but didn't necessarily want to see pushed either*). Kross is maybe a C+ worker on his best day and probably wouldn't even rank in the top 20 on the roster for charisma (and that's without including women, which would probably push him into the upper 30s). They've given him PLE matches and none have been anything above good. At least LA Knight has had a handful of matches where you can see why he got over. Kross' online support seems to be entirely based on the idea that he was "held down" more than any real argument of his merits as a worker. And, often times, when you do hear someone make the case for him, its a wrestling-version of whataboutism (such as, "But Jey Uso also sucks and he got to win the Rumble!" or "Solo Sikoa has been pushed even more and even longer and also has boring matches"). But at the end of the day, you can't really argue that Kross deserves more just because there are other guys who are boring, or "all entrance," or overexposed. So what's the endgame? Karrion Kross returns as some sort of unsigned vigilante to attack whoever? And it will lead to an eventual match where he will, if history means anything, once again put on a dull, forgettable 15-minute performance? I mean, if you're going to run this sort of angle, do it with someone whose actually good at wrestling. * The sentiment with Truth felt more like people saw the WWE boasting about all this revenue and record-breaking attendance but then got cheap when it was time to re-sign a guy that was really well-liked.

Welp...there goes the record viewership. Tripling the price of the PLEs will effectively price me out of watching them and I'm sure I'm not the only one*. I also think, as much as there are certainly people who watch a ton of major sports and also follow the WWE, there are probably lots of people like myself who really don't follow sports enough to subscribe to a sports-centric platform like ESPN. At least with Peacock, you got the Dick Wolf-iverse, some good movie releases (still need to watch Phoenician Scheme), and the occasional great original series (AP Bio, Killing It, Paul T. Goldman, Mr. Throwback, Laid). At $10.99/month, it was basically the same as the Network cost-wise too. Obviously, from a business standpoint, the WWE is making HUGE money with this deal, but personally, this will force me to pirate the PLEs and/or go back to being someone who really only follows WWE by reading results online (which is basically what my fandom amounted from 2006-2014, post-college [when my buddies and I watched the PPVs at BW3's] and pre-Network [when I couldn't afford to order more than maybe 1 show a year]). On the bright side, with the company continuing to dig deeper and deeper into its MAGA Era and recycling feuds and storylines that I don't care about, there has never been an easier time for me to fully call it quits on being a WWE viewer. I'll miss Rhea, IYO, and Gunther, but even among that group, IYO and Gunther are basically just padding their resumes at this point and there's probably dozens and dozens of matches of theirs I haven't seen that I can watch on YouTube from pre-WWE. And because Blehschmidt mentioned AEW, I'll say this: If I'm HBO/Tony Khan this morning, I'm getting on the phone this morning and hammering out a deal to put the AEW PPVs on HBO MAX. I do believe that the WWE Network/Peacock deal played a key role in the WWE's success over the past decade and some of it had to do with the sheer ease of becoming a fan that the Network (and later Peacock) afforded. Like I wrote above, pre-Network, I was not ordering PPVs (maybe 1 a year), watching the TV shows regularly, or going to live events. I followed mostly online. Then, they made it so I could get every PPV for $9.99/month and access their immense library. I still never became a regular TV viewer, but there's no question that it re-ignited my fandom and that, over the next decade, through just my subscriptions, they made over a thousand dollars from me (I know, I know, drop-in-the-bucket) where, pre-Network, they made closer to 0. They made it so simple and so affordable to follow the product. Following AEW is still a little cost prohibitive, requiring either cable or an HBO MAX subscription, and those only getting you the weekly TV and the library. The next step is the PPVs. You add those and, with the basic HBO MAX plan being $9.99 (ad-free being $16.99), and HBO MAX offering a shitload of other consumer-friendly and appealing programming that the ESPN platform can't and won't, there could be a mass migration of wrestling fans in 2026. I mean, when this transition happens, there are going to be a ton of wrestling fans who are going to be left high-and-dry and scared off by the $30/month price tag of an ESPN platform they can't justify subscribing to who might look at HBO MAX, with its lower cost and significantly broader content, and consider making the jump (or are already subscribed but don't follow AEW because the WWE is their "go to"). Throw in the PPVs, which are routinely stellar, and the pendulum swings where it will be easier and cheaper to be an AEW fan than a WWE fan. * Unless this new platform will be bundled with my Hulu? Like Disney+ is? As far as I know, I do not currently have ESPN+ as part of my bundle.

I haven't watched most of the shows yet, but...John Cena is back to being a face, right? Ignoring the optics of the Lesnar return, to me, the WWE Creative/HHH/The Rock/whoever only being able to get 6-7 months of content, which was, *at best,* forgettable but at times outright Wrestlecrap (Travis Scott, the R-Truth fiasco), out of JOHN CENA TURNING HEEL is about all one need's to know about the WWE's creative direction and storytelling in 2025. I mean, say what you will about an ethically bankrupt, racist, misogynist, sex trafficker like Vince McMahon but he at least knew a decade ago that Cena turning heel was a creative dead-end. I won't put too much blame on Cena himself - in fact, I wrote many times after Mania that Cena deserves some credit for taking a big swing and trying to work as a post-modern "meta" heel, even as he was actively striking out - but it does go to show, you can't really half-turn if your whole shtick, for 20 years, was being the ultimate babyface. Cena tried, unsuccessfully, to "play a heel" within the parameters of the show but then do absolutely none of the work to "live" that character outside of it and so the audience could only play their part at booing him up to a point. And maybe a smarter, more clever performer would've been able to find a tone that could made this dynamic fun and entertaining. He didn't. At least not for longer than the occasional promo. His "heel turn" simply didn't go far enough and it fizzled out around June or whenever Cody returned to unremarkable/nonexistent fanfare, "Main Event" Jey Uso (who does seem to open a lot of shows for being a "main eventer," right?) and Logan Paul were weirdly and unfittingly in Cena's orbit, and all anyone could talk about was how awful the company was for releasing a Cena-adjacent comedy midcarder. So Cena's big heel turn, a storyline that should've been epic, ended up being a total nothingburger. People Power. The Nexus Invasion. Cole vs. Lawler and the Anonymous GM. The Vince Paternity mystery. Y'know...stuff that people remember more for "What Could've Been..." rather than what happened. I don't think you needed this storyline to help "make" anyone or put a new star over either, but Cody Rhodes is less over than he was a year ago and Orton/Punk/Jey didn't really benefit longterm from their bit roles in this saga either. (And it is worth noting, if they did want to at least sorta get someone more over with this storyline, even in a loss, someone like LA Knight or Damien Priest standing up to Cena would've likely worked, but hey, at least we all got to see a recycled house show match as the main event of Backlash instead). So now we get the old babyface Cena back to finish his career...but who even cares? Who even "missed" the "old Cena"? How could anyone? Babyface Cena only left for 6 months, a forgettable blip in his career and likely to end up being the punchline of a joke in his eventual HOF Induction Speech one day, nothing more.

TMZ is reporting that Hulk Hogan passed away this morning, at age 71, from cardiac arrest. It is getting picked up more and more.

I'm not sure if there's a word for it, but maybe its just pure brainwashing (?) when you push enough revisionism that even the people who experienced it first-hand think that getting fed to bigger stars or punished by jobbing for months on end is all part of a "grand scheme" to get someone over. Triple H eating shit after the Curtain Call and losing to Warrior at WrestleMania XII has become part of his origin story when, really, if we're being 100% honest, Triple H got a fairly big push in early-to-mid-97' because the roster was absolute shit and he was one of the better, more reliable hands on it (look at the Rumble participants in 97' and try to find someone else you'd even bother pushing). Then he ended up being a great foil for Foley that year and, in 98', breaks out as a babyface against The Rock. But really, and I'm far from a Triple H fan, what got him from the lower card to the upper card in 98' was the classic mix of being in the right place (a WWE landscape that was bereft of other options) and, to his credit, a ton of hard work in late 96' through 97' on TV and the house show loop against practically every established guy on the roster (from Jake Roberts to Goldust to Owen to Austin to Shawn to Bret to Mero, Triple H worked them all). But its easier to retroactively glorify the losing someone does or the bad gimmick they were dealt (Drew McIntyre in 3MB) as some sort of "trial by fire" because that takes the heat off the company and makes the company look omniscient. And we'll see this play out with Austin Theory any day now, right?

Checked this out on YouTube as it is part of a joshi playlist I've been working my way through. I think the creator may even be a poster on here...? I enjoyed the heck out of this match and highly recommend it. The Bomb Angels come out swinging with two huge crossbodies to the floor, but the Crush Gals are not afraid to work a fast-paced match either and we get some real nifty mat-wrestling once they get back in the ring. Body slams, high knees, Nagayo and Asuka applying all sorts of holds to keep the champions on the mat - its all good stuff and some of it is performed with such remarkable speed it had me wondering if I was watching the match at the wrong rate. Yamazaki's running clotheslines are incredible. Other highlights include a brilliant Hart Attack-esque move by the Crush Gals, airplane spins, piledrivers galore, stiff strikes, rapid-fire counters, missile dropkicks, and a slew of nasty suplexes. Incredible match between two high-energy teams. There wasn't much extended selling and I could see the argument that there wasn't a clear structure - more "your turn/my turn" than a story built around an extended face-in-peril stretch or a babyface/babyface match where it starts respectfully and gets more and more heated - but when two evenly-matched teams do battle with this much intensity through three falls, it can still work. This worked for me big time. **** 1/2

Just finished Evolution... - Not a fan of Stephanie McMahon being on-screen at all. Her and her husband are trash people whose presence on these big PLEs makes me feel dirty for watching. - If you didn't watch this show, you missed one very good match (the tag team 4-way), one great match (the opener), and one instant WWE Match of the Year contender in the main event (tarnished only by the cash-in finish but, at this point, MITB cash-ins are a welcome respite after seeing so many recent WWE matches end with a mystery Samoan/pseudo-Samoan showing up, a cash-in tease, or Travis Scott showing up). Overall, I thought this was a really good event and it makes me a little sad that not every show can be like this because it was so clear how motivated the wrestlers were, how much fun the crowd was having, and even how loose Cole and Barrett were on commentary. There was considerably less shoehorning of Prime Energy shilling, for example. - I don't think the response to Flair was that crazy or unexpected or had that much to do with the Player's Tribune column. This crowd seemed very engaged and very supportive of the product, including NXT, and my understanding is that the Flair/Alexa Bliss babyface team has been featured quite a bit since Mania. She's a babyface now and she's partnering with Alexa, who has been super popular for awhile now. Also, based on the reaction to Vickie Guerrero, I don't think this was a "smart" crowd looking to boo anybody for off-screen reasons. I think this was a crowd that came to cheer for the stars/babyfaces (Becky Lynch also got cheered during her entrance and Jade Cargill got a much better reaction here than she got at Night of Champions) and the Flair name still means something, especially in Atlanta. Has there been some noticeable change in how people are talking about Charlotte online since Mania? Absolutely. And, yes, the online discourse does impact the live crowd reactions because there is no longer as huge a chasm between the "IWC", "smart" fans and the "smarks" and the "casuals" and whatever else type of fan like there was decades ago. But I really think this change is more a confluence of factors - the right tag partner in the right storyline competing in the right match in the right city - than it is some perfectly-plotted strategy to get Flair over as a babyface. The Tribune column helped, but I don't think it had the reach some folk are attributing to it. - I don't think I'm going to even bother with SNME. If anything, All In and Evolution reminded me that there is SO, SO much great wrestling to enjoy without feeling like I need to be a "completist" with the major shows. I've long given up on watching the weekly TV of any company, but I do tend to try to watch the major events (and I'd count SNMEs). I'm a pretty big Gunther fan, but I just don't really need to see another Goldberg match. I have zero interest in Seth Rollins and everyone in his vicinity (wake me up when Bron Breakker is actually doing something relevant?). LA Knight doesn't move the needle for me. Hearing that the big SummerSlam match is going to feature fucking Jelly Roll is just...so gross and lame and unappetizing and now I have no interest in Drew's story for the next 4 weeks. So, yeah, I'll probably just start cherry-picking matches and events based on the involvement of the actual wrestlers I like because, when WWE gets out of their own way and lets the wrestlers just do their thing, they still have some of the best talent in the world...but some of the booking and storylines and celebrity involvement is awful.

Just finished the show. Not much to say that hasn't been said. My biggest criticism is that it felt like what I assume a boxing or UFC show would be with a bunch of preliminary matches that wouldn't have been out-of-place on an episode of Collision before things picked up with the Bucks match and, from there, the show was fine-to-great. The Women's Gauntlet Match, which I didn't love, would've probably worked better had it not been the second Gauntlet match of the show and had it not happened in the middle of a 6-hour event. Ditto for the Tag Team Title match, which was fine, but, by that point, you kinda just don't need it. Every show needs bathroom breaks and filler so, if you start the show with the Tag Title Match, then do the Women's Gauntlet, then do Young Bucks, then do the Women's Match, and then end it with Okada/Omega and Page/Mox, I think you'd actually end up with an even better-received show overall (at least from the PPV-viewing crowd, the fans in attendance can come early for the Men's Gauntlet for the Buy-In/dark match). All three of the main events delivered. And, more than that, they were booked really well. Toni needed the W. Loved her getting it. When we eventually get the rematch, Mercedes can win and, hopefully, fans won't get in a tizzy about it. Because I can and want to watch those two fight over and over and over. Great, great match. Mone lost none of her aura, overness, or star power in a loss and Toni now feels fully cemented as a top, top act in all of wrestling, not just AEW. Smart move, TK, and kudos to Mercedes for a great performance too. If you had to choose one heel to win, Okada was the choice. The only criticisms I've seen/read have all basically said the same thing and I agree - it was a great match, but not a Best Match of All Time-level match. Well, yeah. But "Best Match of All-Time" is a really, really high bar so two guys, even at their peak, not being able to meet it every time they wrestle is a really stupid criticism. People rank the Steamboat/Flair matches too and not everyone even agrees on which one is best. Ditto for Bret and Austin. So, yeah, maybe this Okada/Omega match wouldn't be considered a Best Match of All Time-caliber match...but, dang, it was pretty fucking good anyway. Page/Mox wasn't a Best Match Ever-caliber match either (unless you're really into death matches), but you know what it did get right? The culmination of a story, which, to me, matters even more. Now, had the first 15 minutes of the match not been filled with crazy spots and lots of great action, I don't know if the final 15 would've been as great, but, yeah, those final 15-20 minutes were just perfect.

Well...4+ years later and I'm really considering her for the 95-100 range. Since 2021, despite time off, Bliss has gotten so reliably good that I find myself enjoying her work more often than not. Many posts above this, someone says she might be great as part of a tag team and, this past weekend, she was excellent teaming with Flair. It was a great match and she was the "glue" of it. Looking back, she's been consistently good in several multi-person matches over the years, specifically Elimination Chamber matches (2018, 2022, and 2025) and Money in the Bank matches (2018, 2021, and 2025). Generally speaking, I thought her matches against Charlotte, Nia, Mercedes, Rousey, and Bayley in 2017 and 2018 were all entertaining. More recently, she's had some good ones with Bianca Belair and Asuka. Speaking of Asuka, I thought their tag team in 2022 was solid. Ditto for the tag team with Nikki Cross. I'm not surprised that her and Flair have quickly gotten over with their storyline and were the stars of the tag match at Evolution. And, as for the Wyatt Family stuff, well...what is there to say about a gimmick that was once so promising and then, over time, turned into some of the worst segments and matches in wrestling history? And how much of that really is on Alexa anyway? On one hand, its unfortunate she will always have to carry around that doll and wear the Fiend-inspired coats and have to somehow make that work as part of a character with no supernatural elements. On the other hand, its a feather-in-her-cap that she was able to take that dogshit and not have it wreck her career because everyone else associated with the Bray Wyatt character has suffered from the link. If it were that easy to make lemonade out of those lemons (or a turkey dinner out of an albatross), we'd all be wearing "Mercy the Buzzard" tee-shirts with Dexter Lumis' face on them and they'd be selling Erick Rowan bunny ears by the truckloads. They're not. They're not going to. Nikki's ACH character was dumb, but her "Abby the Witch" character has replaced it as the worst thing she's done in WWE. And so, in a sense, if you're a Bray Wyatt superfan, you should probably be the BIGGEST Alexa Bliss fan. She's the only one left carrying on his true legacy of being a performer that brought smiles to millions of people's faces. And she's done that with poise and grace and by, hopefully, not having to be involved in any of the Wyatt Sicks garbage. With all that, and readily admitting that I often leave room in my top 100 - especially in those 90-100 spots - for personal favorites that I just really like to watch (this is where you might find John Tenta or Jimmy Golden), I think Alexa Bliss could make my list the same way that someone might put The Miz on their list.

Zayn has added plenty of things to his resume since 2016. * Obviously all the Bloodline stuff, but, if you're just looking for matches, the match against Roman Reigns at Elimination Chamber 2023 and then w/ Owens vs. The Usos at WrestleMania XXXIX. To be honest, those might even be the best matches of the entire storyline. * I rated the Streetfight tag match with Owens vs. Judgment Day from Backlash 2023 as one of the best matches of that year * The Gunther/Gable storyline, which I'll admit to not having seen every minute of (I'm not a weekly TV viewer), but I dug the match vs. Gunther at WrestleMania XL and vs. Gable at Clash at the Castle * The Johnny Knoxville match and storyline * Somewhat underrated ladder match vs. Styles and Jeff Hardy at Clash of the Champions 2020 * vs. Danielson at WrestleMania XXXVI (I really feel like Zayn and Danielson were among the best at altering and adapting to the Covid-era empty studio style, while too many wrestlers simply did their usual shtick and forgot that, without an audience, you really look like an idiot.)

Not a WWE guy, but a recent thread on Reddit made me wonder what could've happened to Perry Saturn had he left WCW sometime in 99' and returned to ECW. He was very much a guy that, back then, the "smart"/nascent "internet" fans enjoyed. Cool moves. Cool look. Him having matches that resulted in wearing a dress hurt his credibility and the "aura" he had as a silent killer in Raven's Flock. I feel like his career would've gone differently had he returned to ECW at some point in 99' or instead of being one of the Radicals (January 2000). It would've been very on-brand for ECW to have him make a return on one of their PPVs, tear apart a dress (to signify that the "old" Perry Saturn was back) and then get in the face of Taz or RVD or Sabu or whoever. There may have been "You Sold Out" chants, sure, but you can either play into that and have him as a heel or you can do something like have him save Tommy Dreamer to get him over as a returning hero who got sick of WCW's bullshit. I trust that Heyman, at the time, would've made it work in some way. Saturn vs. RVD, Saturn vs. Sabu, Saturn vs. Taz, Saturn vs. Tajiri, Saturn vs. New Jack, Saturn vs. Lance Storm, Saturn vs. Candido, Saturn vs. Mike Awesome...it's not like you have to think too hard to envision what he'd bring to the table in that landscape. And if he stays in ECW through 2000, I don't see how he's not booked to be ECW World Champion. I still don't think Vince ever "got" Saturn or saw him as worthy of a push, but coming in as his own man, having been ECW World Champion, might've led to at least an initial push similar to what Taz received as compared to Saturn sorta just instantly delegated to the lower card as the "lesser" of the Radicals. In the end, his career kinda went the way his career was likely to go, but I do think if Heyman had been guiding the Saturn character post-WCW, as opposed to Vince, he could've achieved more and not ended up doing comedy stuff with a mop.

I'm far from a Jericho superfan, but he's on my list and will probably remain in the top 50 despite how rough the past few years have been (to be honest, I'm not sure any of his AEW run, in terms of actual matches, has been better than "okay"). But...I've reviewed 120 Chris Jericho matches for my blog (Kwang The Blog) over the past decade and his resume is just too long to dismiss him. If he was getting carried all the time, that'd be one thing, but, no, he's had some good-to-great matches against Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, Triple H (another guy I often loathe), Eddie, Benoit, Batista, Christian, and gave Chyna her career match. They can't all be flukes. The longevity is there too. He was a dependable TV performer in WCW as a cruiser/TV Title guy and then was reliable for many years in the WWE on Raw and SD in singles, tags, up and down the card. As for his character work...its grating now and he's always had misfires ("Get It? Got it? Good!" comes to mind, as does the lame King Diamond face paint more recently) and I do think, based on his books and his podcast, he believes he is smarter and funnier than he really is. His band sucks...but "Judas" did get over. He's struck out a bunch, but he's hit plenty of homeruns. The stuff with Ralphus - mostly stolen from Spinal Tap, sure - was great. The huge list of moves when he feuded with Malenko? Classic. Calling out Goldberg. The Y2J countdown debut against The Rock. The Christian/Trish love triangle. Punching Shawn Michaels' wife in the face. The Festival of Friendship. The first Stadium Stampede (and, to be fair, he and MJF were the best part of the not-nearly-as-good second one). I actually liked some of the initial heel Inner Circle promos too and some of the segments with Don Callis. I don't think his peaks are high enough for him to be The Simpsons of pro-wrestling, a once-all-time-great show that, at some point, became heralded more for its longevity and ubiquitousness than its cleverness, but he's kinda like The Price is Right or General Hospital. When all is said and done, he's had too many iconic moments, too many great matches, and been too important of a figure in pro-wrestling to be left out of the story. I think that helps his case if you're at all trying to be objective. If he sucks so bad, if he's so lame, if he's such a bad worker, then...what explains the career he's had? His size? His look? Nepotism? If you had to write a history of American wrestling over the past 30-40 years, Chris Jericho's name is going to be in it and I don't think that's him just being in the right place at the right time. I think he built a case for the top 100 across those decades more than, say, someone who was "hot" for just 2-3 years. I really do think, though, that Jericho is *actually* obnoxious and has overstayed his welcome in AEW for so long that he really has made people forget that, a long time ago, his shtick was considered a breath of fresh air in WCW in 97'-98' and that, when he debuted in WWE, it was one of the biggest moments of the Attitude Era.

I hate to immediately reply, but why not - I do think, unless he turns it around, Cena's recent run will hurt him a bit on my list. I think his promos during this run have been great. He still has "it." But, man, his matches have been below average, not just compared to his better work, but compared to everyone else on the card. To me, this run has exposed him as not actually being a very "smart" worker who can accept his limitations and find an interesting and exciting way to work around them through better character work or new twists/adaptations in his game or telling interesting stories. Cena's "brilliant" method seems to be: work even slower and telegraph your spots even more as some sort of "meta" commentary on fan criticism and then finisher spamming. Its lazy and unoriginal. His best match this run, against Orton, was house show quality at best. I'm not saying John Cena won't make my list or that this run has meant he's dropping 10 spots - like you, I too generally see things in an additive way - but it does sorta factor in to whether he's a top 5, top 10, top 15, top 20, or top 30 guy. Its almost a curse of longevity for him too because we are watching him deteriorate physically, but we're also seeing that, finally given the opportunity to be a heel character (something that, supposedly, he'd wanted to do at other points in his career), it is only his promos that seem well thought-out and that, wrestling-wise, his big change-up was "I'll just lean into what the haters don't like about me." Meh.

I had the same conflict and, interestingly enough, Samoa Joe - and how to rank him - was just one example. I have similar thoughts about Dustin Rhodes. And then it got me thinking about Christian too. And then Terry Funk. On one hand, at his peak, I think Samoa Joe is awesome and, at his peak, I enjoy him more than Dustin and Christian, who I also love. That's just a personal preference for his style and his aura and his promos. But its hard for me to rank Joe above Christian because, as I make my way through the TNA PPVs, Samoa Joe doesn't just look less crisp, less explosive, etc. at times, he looks completely unmotivated. He's being booked like shit and his matches suck and I think there is very much a connection between those things. I don't think its just injury. I think he was unhappy and it came out in his work. For Dustin Rhodes, when he was bad, he was baaaaaad. Just out-and-out terrible, unwatchable dogshit. And it was probably drugs and drinking and an awful marriage/estrangement/divorce that played into all of that and I sympathize, but as a wrestling viewer, I can't sugarcoat terrible performances. Bad creative or not, when the bell rang, Dustin was not good. When he turned himself around, he got good again. Very good. Now, let's compare that to Christian and Terry Funk. Granted, I don't think either of them had to deal with bad booking/creative as bad as Joe and Dustin did at times (though, Terry Funk as "Chainsaw Charlie" was silly and that WCW run in 99/2000 was also ridiculous), but I think its fair to say that they each had times where they weren't being given strong pushes or great storylines to run with. And, despite this, I can't really recall a time when Christian was out-and-out terrible or not giving 100%. He always found a way to make his 8-minute matches good. Terry Funk in WCW in 2000 feuding with Crowbar and Norman Smiley is not good, but I don't remember watching it and thinking "Terry is half-assing it" as much as thinking "Even old ass Terry's best effort to make chicken salad out of chicken shit is not working." For me, Joe's case is hurt by that really bad stretch in TNA. The booking was bad. The storylines were shit. I know he was injured. But there were times when he didn't seem to give a shit and it showed. He didn't even try to make chicken salad out of his chickenshit. The cause of it - injury, drug issues, bad home life - is kinda inconsequential to me when I rank wrestlers like Dustin, Barry Windham, Scott Hall, or Jeff Hardy. Especially when you then go and consider that, despite the hard-living and behind-the-scenes dramas, Shawn and Eddie and "Perc" Angle were delivering great matches*. Or that Finlay was never treated as more than a low midcard act in the WWE but you'll still find some gold - no Leprechaun pun intended there - in a random SmackDown match against Rey Mysterio (or Bobby Lashley) because, when the bell rang, he got to dictate what the audience saw and he made sure the audience saw him be a badass. Even in an 8-minute losing effort. So as much as I do value peaks/ceilings more than lulls/basements, I also look for consistency. Its not like Joe was the only guy who got demoted in TNA in the late 00s. AJ Styles went from being the top guy in TNA when Hogan first showed up, the World Champion, to being buried as just another dude in Fortune feuding with EV2.0...but guess who was the saving grace of every boring, average-at-best match during that storyline? Guess who pulled something watchable out of Tommy Dreamer in 2010? Guess who didn't seem to lose a step as he watched D'Angelo Dinero, Rob Van Dam, and Ken Anderson get pushed to the main event over him? I can't unsee that. * I know people here aren't as high on Angle and Shawn, but I've always thought that was more of a style and presentation issue - that Angle doesn't work "the way an Olympic wrestler should," that Shawn upstages his opponents with showmanship rather than actually being a good wrestler, that they both worked "too fast," etc. - than it was indictment of their athleticism, ability, and raw talent.