funkdoc

I don't know if I feel similarly quite yet. Can you define "less privileged", naming specific wrestlers who you think are? trying to keep it short again: i would argue the most valuable type of privilege in general is one's reputation within the business, but reputation among the newsletters/smart fans is also important and especially so for a project like this. Lex Luger is a guy who was hurt pretty badly in both categories, although he doesn't have a particularly strong in-ring case for top 100 anyway so that's less of a loss. Mil Mascaras is probably a better example along those lines, but he also has the "legend" thing going for him which makes it trickier. the Barbarians and Tentas of the world are the kind of guys who suffer in category 2 but tend to be fine in 1. Dory is probably the strongest example of that, to give a different stylistic case. guys who do well in category 2 but not 1 are rarer, since a lot of popular smart-fan opinion is received wisdom from "insiders"...Taue is the best one i can come up with right now. Flair is, of course, the perfect 10 in both. i will again go back to the fact that the entire smart-fan canon is largely the product of one guy, as that's a major reason i'm so skeptical of it. there's always room for subjectivity in match analysis, and that's where your decisions re: benefit of the doubt inevitably factor in.

it's hard to respect traditional wisdom when you grew up on the likes of Moneyball and A People's History of the United States it's doubly hard to respect traditional wisdom when evaluating its sources in this particular business, and seeing how many of them are outright con men or at least non-analytical types (not a fan of "idiot savant") the tl;dr version of my solution to this is "judge each case on its own merits, but give the benefit of the doubt to those less privileged within the subculture". would like to hear more from others who feel somewhat similarly!

definitely feelin what you said about the HBK-Cena comparison. i've thought of Tanahashi as another member of that club who tends to take a lot of shit from people high on Cena. Tanahashi is much more clearly influenced by Shawn, yes, but they're all similar performers in some key ways

in fairness, Barb gets a good amount of love in other threads from the Grimmases and Matt D's of this forum. i also recall JvK having a guest on the early WTBBPs who gushed over him, so he may have that on the brain as well. also yea Jerry, Case is perhaps your biggest polar opposite here in wrestling tastes so i don't see a whole lot coming from you questioning him. not many bigger lovers of flippy wrestling on here! you seem to rail a lot against the "cult favorites" here like Barb & Tenta, but i'm not sure you realize how unlikely they are to make ballots. even the ballots of their biggest supporters! top 100 is an awfully high bar if you watch tons of wrestling. DiBiase is still a sure bet to make the overall top 100 here, while the guys you mock may not make more than 3 or 4 ballots. chill out yo~

yea, to speak more to what goc said, outside-the-ring issues contributed to some of Hansen's disappointing US matches. i think i posted about this elsewhere, but the Backlund feud had backstage politics factoring into it. and that directly impacted the match structure in at least one case (the MSG cage blowoff). it may be interesting to argue whether Hansen deserves blame for holding up Vince Sr. and leading to that, and if that's something you should factor into your GWE metrics.

this is the kind of induction i see most fans comparing to Rikishi or the Godfather, but there's plenty of meat to his career that isn't widely known. as Kris & Bix are fond of pointing out, he was one of Hogan's top 5 drawing opponents on the house-show circuit! definitely a worthy pick. it's interesting to look at how well-timed his babyface turn was, considering the big political craze of that time was "LAW & ORDER" "TOUGH ON CRIME" etc. i definitely think that played a part in him getting as over as he did.

Ronnie Garvin was another one who did, right? thought i heard that somewhere...

i assume this would just be a greatest-hits collection of youtube edits of his titantron vid

even besides misunderstanding what "variety" means in this context, i'll also add that the system gives a lot of credit to guys who could work the same way and get over anywhere. think vader here

2014 is an interesting period to reference because that may have been before we really knew how he would work out in NJPW. i distinctly remember a lot of "WTF?!?" reactions to him winning the IWGP title i feel like proving himself as the top heel in the world's #2 promotion was the main thing that washed off the TNA

i wonder if his lack of buzz around here doesn't have to do with his general negative rep among hardcore sheet readers these days. the scuzzy stories of him claiming he'd book guys in Michinoku Pro, that kind of stuff "Pat Tanaka is a special kind of fuckup" - Bix

i think a lot of the excitement for WWE doing stuff is simply from wanting a change in their stale formula. pushing women & cruiserweights are both examples of that, for sure! just look at the buzz around the idea of the brand split coming back also i think people look at how NXT "does indie wrestling better than the indies" and think WWE will work the same magic here

i thought the iron man (from...Boston?) was head & shoulders above all the other Flair-Bret matches, so that's my 2 cents if you're interested in digging

the thing with Flair is that the people who are "down" on him will still have him in their top 10-20 probably. that's higher than Matt's vote on Hansen... i say naitch takes this one

ah yea i forgot some of those names in the top 20 it's just that people here really don't talk about Liger, good or bad, so he's easy to forget. i know he still has his top-20 believers though also no way Psicosis makes the overall 100 this time, feels like he's gotten exposed in the eyes of those who watch tons of footage

it's his general reputation as a prima donna among workers & promoters Backlund goes in hard on him for not selling and such, which i'm sure is amusing to some here...

Owen Hart seems like a hugely obvious one JvK didn't bold Benoit/Eddie/Liger are guys who will stay in the overall 100, but may fall farther than anyone else in the old top 20.

i think people here are more likely to view modern WWE workers as products of the system, in every aspect of their in-ring behavior. you can point to Rusev blowing off selling the leg to do his video-game taunt before his finisher...that sort of thing would be seen as the worker's initiative in past generations, but nowadays that's just a part of the house style that people have to do. you could definitely argue that Brock is above following the rules and thus blame him more for it, though. he does have a big athletic edge over Hawk & Animal, and i think athleticism is especially important for that type of character. "explosiveness" may be the better word, i think Goldberg & Brock best embody that out of all those types.

if Kamala worked like he did in Mexico more often, i'd be down with this

i'd say Mr. Yamaguchi-San is def more egregious as far as that goes

Because Stephanie was a yucky girl at the height of wrestling fan misogyny. same thing i said when Katie Vick was brought up here, that angle was associated with her. she did have the screechy voice back then, to be fair also Shane was in RSPW's #3 match of the year for 1999! wonder how it placed in the observer...

a lot of those guys have more matches on tape than people think. i'm referring more to the Alan Sarjeants of the world here

yea there's rogers and a couple of the WOS guys i've seen get support

yep, what mick said this isn't all THAT new, there are stories of him taunting shawn with alcohol and such

Words. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that history buffs wouldn't be so interested in understanding the dynamics of the present, but i think there's just so much there and hardly anyone in this fandom is bringing it up. seems like this isn't the forum to do it, though, which is a shame to me because there could be so much potential given the knowledge you guys have. maybe i should do a blog post about this topic and link it in that subforum? Your content is interesting and it has nothing to do with us old dudes not caring about the "new reality". I think the problem is your blatant disregard for capital letters i appreciate your honesty! it's just a stylistic thing i naturally developed over the years, as i've hung out a lot on places like something awful and twitter where this is commonplace. i could see where it makes the longer posts harder to read though, so i should probably just do those normally.