GOTNW

I have no use for Cody Rhodes when he's not Goldust's hot tag. This way OK for the "two minute match that isn't a squash" that WWE insists on doing. It had a really amazing spot where Crews was on the apron and went for the dreaded shoulder block through the ropes and Stardust hit him with an awesome swinging neckbreaker that didn't mean anything.

I really liked Rusev in this one, the way he carried himself, his clubbing blows, the way he'd use his forearms early on to either choke Zayn or get out of his headlock. I don't like the idea of him doing so many kicks, the Superkick looks great but I'd rather he just threw people around even more than did Spinning Heel Kick or whatever. His Gutwrench Suplexes and Fallaway Slam looked amazing. Zayn continues to look perfectly fine but albeit not terribly impressive on the main roster. The "pull the top rope so the heel falls out of the ring" spot is probably my least favourite transition and Zayn's headlock looked bad but outside of that I thought this was a surprisingly strong TV match. Crowd was shit and didn't do it justice as you'd expect. Five stars for Lana throwing shoes at Zayn after the match. ***

Gallows is a much better fit for the WWE style than the New Japan one and Anderson might be as well. His goofy chop selling is much more fitting when chops are used as transitional spots than when Kojima is hitting him in the corner for a minute. I liked this a little more than AJ-Sheamus because control segments felt more memorable and important. Everything after the huge barricade bump was awesome, I especially loved an Uso busting out the lucha diagonal suicide dive. ***-***1/4

Fun TV match with both of these guys laying it in but lacking anything to make it stand out amongst the plethora of other decent to good TV matches. I'm liking Styles' knew additions to his move set (he apron knee, the sliding forearm etc.) and he took a sweet bump of the steel steps. As three starish as a three star match has ever been.

Always weird when it hits you stuff like that isn't common knowledge somewhere else. I'm fine with blading if I feel like wrestlers have put in enough violence into the match to earn it but watching the ref and the wrestler try to cover up the blading for two minutes after the wrestler hit the ringpost/steel steps/whatever can be pretty eye-rolling. Though in something like the Dandy-Santo hair match it added to the match to me because it was like "what's taking them so long" and Dandy just started bleeding everywhere and it looked so great. But even then they did an ok job of covering it up even if it did take a while.

Well obviously popular music is different than serious composition. If you're doing a best popular music act ever list you can basically do whatever the hell you want in my view, though I would be interested to see someone take a Scaruffi-esque approach of reviewing stuff as a critic and not a fan to wrestling. I do think there's a differentiation between "best popular acts" and "best acts in a certain genre that may be popular in recent times". The goal of most pop criticism is also to not alienate and satisfy its readers to ensure they continue paying attention to their opinion. Very similar to wrestling in that sense.

When I first saw Marufuji Superkicks, Chris Hero elbows etc. I thought they were the greatest thing ever. I mean how could they not be they made this great sound! It had to rule right? Eventually I started noticing they'd slap their thigh when in many cases there would be no reason to do so and the magic was quickly gone. In the case of someone like Hero it even annoyed me he would do that when his elbows would look perfectly good without the sound effect. This me brings me to my point-pro wrestling is about creating an illusion of competition. A thigh slap gets a pop, but it also looks really stupid when a Chris Hero punch missed its mark by a foot and makes a sound like a shotgun hit his opponent. And also everything sounding like a slap isn't realistic anyway. And what it's made me think about is that in modern wrestling I feel like there's an overliance on stuff that will *work* and get a pop without concern for how it's going to look in the long run. I'm not saying "it used to be better", it's something that was almost certainly always present. I do think it's worth asking where do people see the line between good formula and shallow props, when did one become the other for them etc.

What is your point here? Is it that because wrestling is not as diverse as music, the analogy about styles doesn't hold? My point is that if you're doing a greatest musician ever ballot and your list only includes popular acts from the past century your ballot is a joke.

Wrestling also isn't nearly as diverse as music. Besides music is only ever talked about in PWO through the prism of rock and sometimes electronic/rap/jazz etc. I think jdw may have brought up classical composers like one time but that's about it. Comparing the two is also pretty wacky since I assume most members are musically illiterate.

There are people who didn't stay in a bubble of watching only certain types of wrestlng and simply don't have those issues. I cannot fathom how someone who viewed such an ambitious process as a chore yet insisted on completely devoting themself to it could participate in it. No, I'm not big on most 80s US stuff. I still had Bockwinkel, Lawler, Dundee etc. on my list. I tried to give everyone a fair shake and check out as much stuff as possible. It's just a list. Not as serious as it's been made out to be. Discovering new wrestling was fun. Figuring out what exactly I value the most in wrestlers was fun. DEAN's list was fun. I don't see much good coming out of proclaiming someone is objectively wrong for not including someone or anyone who didn't feel comfortable with their gaps and the journey to fill them voting to fit in.

Maybe it's because of how into absurdism I am but I'm at a point where I genuinely love the McMahon family drama and watching Vince troll internet nerds brings me unadulterated joy. Loving Vince's segment so far and show sounds great.

Three hours.

I had Hansen at #31 on my ballot (which feels too high looking back as my gut instinct tells me the answer to whether I think he's better than Otsuka and Emilio Charles Jr. is an aggressive NO) and I want to elaborate on that since aside from Matt D he hasn't really been criticised much. I really love the idea of Stan Hansen. This half blind guy that just steamrolls over people, and, especially in the early 90s, will give the other guy shine but can also believably come back at any time. I can see how others would prefer him to Vader since he wouldn't go to his lengths in bumping and stooging. Hansen will beat the shit out of a guy and while appreciate that and think he can be great in some roles (especially the micromanaged All Japan 80s tags) I just don't buy him as an elite worker. I don't really find a lot of his control segments that interesting, it feels a lot like it's just start-stop-start-stop in that he will do something cool and then there will be kind of a weird pause and then he'll do something cool again. But I don't really see him as being good at connecting the dots, which is also probably why my favourite Hansen matches are vs. Terry Funk who can carry Hansen's control segments with his selling. I don't think he's as good as projecting himself when in control of the match as Hashimoto (or hell, even Kanemoto) and for insane spectacles of violence I get much more out of Futen stuff. Maybe I'll view him differently once I watch the Colon feud or his stuff in the US.

I think GWE has also been a tale of missed opportunities. We've seen some great things like elliot's Tamura C+a but the initial run of opening comparison threads like this was quickly replaced with the usual circle jerking. I realise some people have grown to hate comparing wrestlers through the project. I haven't. I have grown tired of the circle jerking and the debates about the same wrestlers repeating themselves. If anything, there is much more to explore by directly comparing wrestlers now that we've all gone through GWE hell and there are no more imaginary "stakes" at play. Now, to finally answer the question asked in the thread title. I ended up ranking Tenryu three spots higher. And I'm not sure it's really about longevity for me. I've seen a shitload of Tenryu and a shitload of Kawada. I would much rather watch Tenryu matches I haven't seen already and revisit Tenryu than I would do the same for Kawada. And I think it comes down to me just flat out liking Tenryu's character a lot more. Anything that has Tenryu in it is instantly more attractive to my mind. Kawada is more of a guy who has a lot of great matches over a long period of time which I felt like I needed to recognize and honestly I'm starting to think I had him too high. It may be a case of diminishing returns because I've seen so many wrestlers play the Kawada-esque badasses and while the little touches he would add to his matches are still enough to differentiate him as an elite worker I do think there are times where his apathy isn't just part of his character but also represents how hard he was trying, especially in his later years when he could be great if he tried, and there were still plenty of great performances of him sometimes you'd get stuff like his 30 minute draw from a Global League vs Takayama that was dogshit. I don't think Tenryu has anything like that. So it may just be a case of me phrasing consistency differently but I feel like even if Kawada was more consistent it would still be different. And it's incredibly annoying I can't properly phrase this ability to portray a character that can be inserted into a wide array of roled, matches etc. and the wrestler having a guarantee he will bring something interesting to the match even if it isn't his best night because that was kind of my main criteria and the thing I look for the most in wrestlers.

I would be fine with this if everyone was doing it. As it stand I actually regret voting for people I think are great but I don't personally care for much that didn't need my votes.

Amazing. I'm all for it but IDK where to even post it outside of my local board, WF (already there) and reddit and I can't lower myself to posting on reddit.

I think this was one of the final if not the final version of my list, I might have changed my bottom ten some but nothing significant: I don't regret much, it's how I felt at the time. Right now I'd have Santo higher (at #11). Angel Azteca would make it. Would swap Gotch for Inoki. AJ Styles was too high. Danielson too probably but not as much as Styles.

Throwing chairs around my home as a sign of protest.

Not sure exactly why I watched this but. Here we are. I don't know whether or not random crowd member was laughing at the early chop exchanges or something one of his lads said but the chop exchanges were indeed worthy of LOLing, luckily they don't build huge portions of the match around them. Ambrose busting out the Low Ki top elbows was cool. Owens has a good back elbow. Ambrose might have the worst Suicide Dive out of anyone who doesn't completely botch it. It just looks like crap. Holy shit Owens' Frog Splash is now a regular spot and looks amazing. IDK how else to talk about this kind of match where they just DO STUFF until the finish where they DO MORE STUFF and also faster. Match also includes the most hilarious Rebound Lariat ever. Average match of its kind.

You'll understand it fifty years from now when Loss' vision of every match and segment in the history of wrestling having its own thread on PWO comes to fruition.

I guess Social Outcasts is more catchy than "Guys we won't re-sign once their contract runs out". Another match that wasn't interesting nor did it make Crews look especially good. Him taking out Rose and........what's the other guys name, Axel, with a Moonsault off the apron was a cool spot almost instantly nullified by Heath Slater getting a close nearfal on him. Inefficient.

This is the kind of squash match I want to see, Fandngo gets a cuple of chops in and then Corbin just WRECKS him, kills him under a minute, throws him onto Ziggler, stomps Ziggler a little more, gets Fandango back in the ring and beats him, then killls Ziggler after the match once again. Let's call this kind of match that perfectly accomplishes what it set out to do relative five stars shall we? Sounds better than Matt D five stars.

It's hard to take WWE heels seriously when I'm laughing at their trash talk for three minutes. Look I know "Come on Ole" doesn't sound funny when you write it out on a message board but with Jericho's serious condenscending tone it was the most hilarious thing ever. If you're gonna talk about the inconsistency in wrestling physics Jericho's Triangle Springboard Dropkick is as good of an example as any, he takes a bump he shouldn't just to set something up. You know what WWE submission finishers would be a lot more dramatic if there weren't only two options guy almost instantly tapping out out or reaching the ropes. Whenever a guy starts crawling towards the ropes it's done, he's breaking the hold. Solid workrate match, maybe **3/4 but nothing I'll remember in a week.

I'm kind of surprised Flair only missed three ballots and that three ballots didn't have Terry Funk. I mean we've seen folks share their issues with Flair but I don't remember anyone ever doing that with Funk aside from the context of him being the GOAT.

Del Rio does the corner punches which are a face spot because he's too old and rich to care. Sheamus too with his apron blows. Lots of solid brawling but not really worked in a way that made me care. Wyatt was an unexpectedly awesome hot tag and him pointing to Reigns' spear made for a cool GIF. Barely above average.