pol

Either you're being very disingenuous or have massively misunderstood the arguments being made.

What system did you propose? I definitely feel like this system rewards being on a large number of ballots too much, and I'm aware other kinds of ranking systems for this kind of thing exist, but I don't know anything about them.

My understanding (as told by GOTNW) is that Akiyama booked a lot of that stuff himself and never wanted to be cast in the ace role.

I don't view it solely as that, but it is a factor. I just can't pretend someone being great for two years and sucking for ten trumps, someone who was very good for twenty. What I don't get about the Taue v. Akiyama comparison is the idea that Taue's peak is clearly better to the point where it would negate all the other advantages Akiyama has. I can see the argument for Taue's peak being better (not sure I'd buy it, but I can see it), but so much better that it means Akiyama having a much longer run of greatness? I just can't buy it. For me, after a certain point, more years as a good-to-great wrestler feels like resume padding. I'm not sure I could say where that point is other than enough to show that you could be consistently great and weren't a flash in the pan/didn't burn out quickly. I don't see Akiyama's 23 years of good-to-great work as adding a great deal more to his case than Taue's 15. It still counts for something of course, and in the case of those two specific guys probably does give Akiyama the edge, but that's because—like yourself—I'm not entirely sold on Taue having the better peak. If I was I could totally see placing him higher.

I respect the perspective that places a premium on duration of quality, but for my personal taste it seems awfully dry to turn the idea of Greatness into whoever can rack up the most years as a good-to-great performer (I know this is reductive). I don't think it's unreasonable to care more about highs, and I can totally see someone preferring Taue's highs.

Keller might lack sources but Dave seems to have as many wrong scoops as right these days... probably more in fact.

You can watch pretty much any random ass tag with Akiyama and it will be good almost regardless of the other people in it (maybe not if those other people are 2016 Dory or Fuchi). Like, just from the past month I can throw out Akiyama/Gurukun Mask vs. Ultimo Dragon/Yohei Nakajima (3/21/16) and Zeus/SUSHI/Yohei Nakajima vs. Akiyama/Ultimo Dragon/Yuma Aoyagi (4/22/16)

One thought I had about Akiyama just the other day (while watching a random 10 minute 2016 AJPW house show 6 man) is that he might be the greatest non-Mexican 6/8 man tag worker ever. Just a great 'directing traffic' guy that lifts everything he's involved in.

can you stop

I don't have any real problem with Akiyama ranking below the other All Japan guys in the sense that I can see arguments for pretty much any order you can come up with, but it would've been nice to see some recognition for his ridiculous longevity compared to the others.

I think from the available evidence of people who have talked about things publicly we know that a lot of people are just generally down on lucha, Joshi, and shoot-style. WOS is a separate bag, but I'd be willing to bet that the number of people omitting certain folks from the other categories has as much to do with not liking those styles as it does with not watching any of it all because they never got to any of it. Again a fair (if depressing) point. As much as I would like people to work to overcome their style biases, I know that it took me hours upon hours of subjecting myself to stuff I wasn't really into until lucha and shoot style finally clicked for me, and it would be unfair to expect others to do the same. Wrestling is supposed to be fun after all, or so they tell us. And I don't want to imply that the only reason someone could possibly not like the stuff is because they don't get it; you can get it just fine and still not like it, although I do think some people are too quick to jump to "this is bad" rather than "I don't understand this".

I'm more concerned that the way CMLL books Hechicero is going to prevent him making the list in 10 years than that he wasn't nominated this go around

To put it another way, I think potentially niche US candidates like Buddy were clearly done less dirty due to being niche than luchadors, women or shoot-style workers. Stompers' post supports this, although obviously that's just one guy. Would be interesting to see if it's true of others too.

I would be far more sympathetic to this argument if the top 25 wasn't shaping up to be filled with Japanese wrestlers who peaked before 2006. Fair point, but I don't see that one as an injustice as far as "where are these guys ranking vs. where WOULD they rank if everyone had seen everything?" I think they would do well either way. I think there is something to the idea that if people familiarised themselves with new stuff for the purposes of the project, it was largely US stuff (which is supported by the number of people saying "I didn't have time to look at joshi/shoot style/lucha")

People pointing to individual examples of a luchador placing over a US favorite to show how 'not mainstream' the list is is getting pretty tedious. For what it's worth I think it's less a matter of "mainstream" and more of both US workers and workers that made their case in the last 10 years over-indexing (thanks Parv). Pointing out when X recent WWE candidate places below X luchador isn't really relevant when the question is less who they did or didn't beat and more "where did they place relative to where they should have placed if everyone was familiar with everything?" (Which I recognize is fraught with subjectivity.) Stompers' point about average vote vs. actual placement is interesting. Would be cool to see some more analysis of that once the whole list is out.

Imitating the Joe Lanza approach to discussion isn't a desirable quality, my dude.

Fujiwara's headbutts are great.

There's not that much WoS out there is there? As in, wouldn't it be viable to watch everything that's available if you were so inclined? I'm just asking for myself here, as when trying to get a feel for a particularly time/place I at least like to start out with the approach of trying to see as much as possible and work through it chronologically.

All this talk about how much impact the footage explosion did or didn't have seems odd to me, when the biggest factor at play seems to be the decision to push for a higher quantity of votes rather than a base of voters that mostly participated in the process. Whether that was a good idea or not is a total value judgement, but I think it's pretty clear that it influenced the results heavily. You have to remember that the footage explosion means less and less the further away you get from this little circle.

Always thought Han's lack of striking acumen was both a blessing and a curse when compared to Tamura. It hurt him a little in terms of projecting an image as a great fighter, but it also gave him a weakness to structure matches around. It's probably part of what made him so good at carrying guys who only knew how to kick.

Acting like shoot style is the only pro wrestling that attempted to convince its viewers it was real seems disingenuous. To take the opposite tack, I'm pretty sure most shoot style fans knew it was a work anyway.

I think Han is on Facebook somewhere.

Is Tamura the guy with the highest average vote so far?

I think Dave's new thing of being an asshole on Twitter is great. To each their own I guess. It was fine to complain about LU spoilers when he first started doing it. Once he made it clear he wasn't going to stop, well you're just an idiot if you keep listening and complaining.

I genuinely don't believe they are, I think they're just being rejected. We know that Benoit was probably very fucked in the head, but that's not criminally insane. Very fucked in the head commits straight-up murder all the time. The law and the study of the mind both have a wide gulf between fucked in the head, hit in the head, plain old crazy angry, drunk, high, cheated on, betrayed etc and non-culpable insane. The way he committed the crimes and behaved during that time shows he was at least rational enough to have known what he was doing and chosen not to do it. As a hard determinist I really struggle with the significance of this distinction to be honest.