BillThompson

As much great things as I've heard about Progress I haven't seen anything else sadly. For Sabre how about versus Lewis Girvan from IPW.

This is a topic I considered making earlier last week. I'm certain my top 100 will be very different come deadline time. Will post my working 100 sometime in the near future.

Does Faby Apache have enough volume to be nominated?

Pretty sure these are available on YouTube, Golden Magic versus 911 from IWRG Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Prince Devitt from This is Progress Koji Kanemoto vs. Kazushi Hashimoto from Big Japan I might return with more, but not really sure if these were the suggestions you're looking for.

As I said on Twitter, I really don't see where you're coming from Charles. I respect you, a lot, and you are one of the handful of people whose opinions on wrestling I actively seek out. But, on this issue I think you're so far off field that you've moved past the parking lot and into the Walmart five blocks away from the field. There are going to be gaps, there always will be. There are going to be large gaps at that. Take Super Dragon for instance, or PWG as a whole if you will. Dragon is a guy I will most likely end up nominating and he will end up in my top 100. PWG will be a focus for me moving forward because there are a lot of guys who have spent time there that I can see making my list. This may mean that I don't see some great matches that were pimped by Kunze, Keller, etc. That doesn't invalidate my list, just like it wouldn't invalidate those guys lists just because they haven't seen a lot of Dragon or PWG. I used the Roger Ebert analogy on Twitter and I think it holds true. I know for a fact that South Korea, Thailand, China, and pretty much any Asian country not named Japan represented large gaps in Ebert's film viewing. Is Ebert's opinion in the various Sight & Sound and AFI, etc. polls throughout the years diminished because of this fact? No, it's not, because he watched what he could watch and he delivered an informed opinion based on what he watched. That's what we are asking people to do for this project and if they do as such they are doing their part. There's too much great wrestling for us to see it all, so we prioritize and watch what we can. That's the way life is for wrestling fans, I'm not expecting Parv to watch everything I pimp as great, just like I'm sure Ohtani isn't expecting me to watch every British match he pimps as great. We'll all make efforts to watch a lot of great wrestling, but the gaps will remain. And that will hold true for now, five years from now, ten years from now, and so on and so forth into the future. No one can make you vote Charles, but I think you are creating standards that are impossible, foolhardy, and irrational. Even if we were given unlimited time to watch wrestling there's no way we could watch every match that everyone on this board (and the sources you also mentioned) considers great. So, like I said, we watch what we can and we deliver informed opinions based on that. This is a great project, with a clear destination and a process to get to said destination that is sound and true. Without your voice in the final vote I feel as if this project will suffer somewhat, but maybe that's just me.

See, I always thought Awesome looked really great executing his high spots. Consider him one of the great misses by WCW/WWF because he really was a terrific wrestler.

Yoko benefits greatly from the way I now think about wrestling versus the way I used to think about wrestling. 18-24 year old Bill dismissed Yoko without any thought. He wasn't any good, and when he was good it was guys like Bret bringing great out of him. Now, 33 year old Bill, watches Yoko and sees the things he does that help to make matches good or great. Yoko has a definite shot at my top 100 because while he may not have the great match resume, he does have the great performance resume.

I'll use Triple H versus Benoit from No Mercy '00 as a better example. That match is all Triple H, and the negative points I deducted from the match were due to the iffy selling of Benoit. But, it's still a great match and that's because Trips gives a great performance and carries an off his game Benoit along for the ride. Now, I do believe that Benoit deserves credit for being good in a great match, but the lion's share of the credit should go to Trips as he was the one carrying the match and the man responsible for the match being great.

Starting in 2000 I've noticed that when Triple H is given the first entrance in a match he often attacks his opponent as soon as they hit the ring; not letting them do their pre-match shtick. If Triple H is the second entrance though, he gets all his shtick in because the ref holds back Trips opponent from attacking him. It's little things like this that made it so easy to hate Trips for all the wrong reasons back in the day.

Ditto, I'm hoping this show somehow becomes available to the general public.

I really hope Kobashi's horrendous selling wasn't by design. That was really my only issue with the match, and the area where I felt like Kobashi looked considerably less polished than his peers. Otherwise he was fine, but he shrugs off a lot of leg work and immediately starts hitting a lot of leg based offense. I'm hoping as I move forward with Kobashi that his selling will improve, and I'm pretty sure it will, but in this match his lack of sustained selling brings the match down.

Maybe this deserves its own topic, maybe not. Either way, That match was 90% Honda. Which was completely fine. Not getting in the way of someone else's masterful performance is an important quality to have. This brings up an interesting point, basically how much credit are we giving guys just for being in great matches? Basically, are we giving guys credit simply for being in a match that is great? If Jeff Hardy (and I'm just using his name, not actually making any statement about him) is in a bunch of great matches, but in at least half of them it's not him who's great but the other guy/guys, how much do those matches count towards Hardy's GOAT status? AWA Leon White versus Hansen is another great example. Is that match really a feather in the cap of White? It's a match I've always heard talked about as being great because of Hansen, while White is fine, but not in the great realm. I've seen some bring this match up as an example of White having great matches well before he was Vader. But, if White wasn't really great, but only good in a great match how much credit does he deserve?

Something that I'm not sure has been touched on in this thread is how Lawler's twilight years add to his credentials. Post-2000 Lawler is a treat to watch in the ring. He's regularly the best part of the show he's on, showing how expertly he knows his limitations. He mixes in some flashier stuff now and then, but for the most part he sticks to working simple and making his opponents look great. Lawler was just outside my top 10 before I started watching his post-2000 stuff, but now he's in my top 5 and making a run for the number one spot.

Taue was polished in 1990? Misawa wasn't polished in 1990. In that one match, yeah, Misawa and Taue look far more polished than Kobashi. I'll see if that changes moving forward.

Emoting, or facials, are important depending on the guys character I think. If Dory is being presented as an emotionless technician then him not having an emotive presence isn't really the worst thing in the world. Still though, it really shouldn't be the case, because guys like Malenko and Thatcher are presented as tacticians and they still manage to show emotion on their face. I would say that a guy not showing in his face that he wants to be there, is angry, is hurt, etc. is definitely a flaw in his overall wrestling performance. And emoting is just as much a part of that performance as executing a move crisply.

A pro wrestling HoF that takes into account a guys run in mixed martial arts makes it even harder to ever take the thing seriously.

Just watched the big 05-26-1990 tag, and of the three young workers in that match I found Kobashi easily in third place behind Misawa and Taue. Maybe this will change going forward, and by no means does it mean Kobashi was bad. He was still great, just glaring flaws compared to the relatively polished Misawa and Taue.

I keep a running tally of every match I watch that I rate at **** or better. Other than that I go on recollection, and despite having a shoddy memory in other areas my memory is really good when it comes to pro wrestling, baseball, and movies.

It's on my Watch Later file on YouTube, hoping to get to it sometime soon.

So Shawn needed to be carried by superworkers like Sid and Kevin Nash? The only great Diesel match with Shawn was a gimmick match, and I don't think any of the Sid matches were any good. Some had great atmosphere, but as a complete package they weren't worth much.

Thanks Mick. Can't say I'll watch all of that, but I'll certainly try to track down some of those matches.

I don't think there was any lack of heat for the match. In the beginning the crowd was dead, which is understandable coming off of Steiner/Triple H. But, the long Angle and Benoit go the more the crowd gets into the match until by the end they've been taken from a deflated and destroyed crowd into one that is happy as pie to be watching wrestling again. A lot of that comes from the sense of escalation, which you don't think the match has, but I think is probably the number one factor in it being a great match.

Cool beans

I like Mark Henry. I really do. I believe he's done a ton of smart things to maximize his performances over the last 10 years. But the idea that his best approaches the best of Vader and Andre just strikes me as nutty. I mean please, make that case if it's there. But I just don't see his Vader-Sting series or his Andre-Khan from '82. To clarify, I don't think Henry is at the same level as Vader and Andre. But, he's closer to that grouping than Bam Bam and I don't scoff at Henry being in a best big man discussion whereas I don't see any reason that Bam Bam should be in such a discussion. Right now Henry is behind both Vader and Andre as far as big men go, but I need to see more Blackwell is see where he fits in that grouping.

As I said in the Bam Bam topic, I like Bam Bam. However, he's more of an untapped potential guy than anything else. Had all the tools but spent the majority of his career in middling territory because of booking, career choices, and an inability on his end to take all of his tools and apply them in such a way that he would live up to his potential. Henry is the opposite case, lots of skill, but I never saw that potential. However, Henry worked his ass off, and really honed his skills to the point where he brings so much to the table that he easily blows away Bam Bam. Henry is up there with Vader and Andre as one of the best big men ever, and I honestly don't see any argument for Bam Bam over Henry.