GOTNW

The "wrestler x must be gay if he does anything other than super-masculine look at how heterosexual I am stuff" talk is the dirt worst. Equaling someone's sexual orientation to the mannerisms of their wrestling character is just.......I can't even begin to explain for how many reasons that bothers me. You're still dumb for not looking up his wikipedia page>personal life.

Because it's dumb and irrelevant.

You're dumb.

Devitt really is a plastic pro wrestler. The mold the likes of him and Seth Rollins come from is my absolute least favourite.

I watched Devitt-Joe after seeing a GIF of a bloody Joe that looked really cool. The first few minutes were really great and made me want to watch pro wrestling. When Joe realised he was bloodied up it was like a switch went off and everything Hashimoto taught him came back to him and he started ragdolling Devitt and it was just the best. And then they just. Kind of went back to the match they would've had. And. I'm over it. I'm not crazy over actual puro in 2016, let alone cosplay puro. They really should have called an audible and just brawled all over the place. The counter spots were fine for what they are, and even if I completely disagree with its use you can excuse the no-selling and the finish. It just didn't really matter to me by that point. I'm probably gonna watch some Sangre Chicana now. I want to see a crazy bloody brawl, not a match where they tease you with it and then retract to doing the kind of match I didn't want to watch in the first place.

Really the comparison with Cena feels like undermining what Cena has achieved. Bayley debuted 8 years ago. Cena was 8 years into his career in 2007. I'd say she has a long way to go.

I have no idea how good Bayley is at much stuff other than execution because we haven't seen her do anything other than rehersal pro wrestling and even then I was about as low on her stuff as anyone (mind you, I still thought a lot of it was good and didn't think much was bad).

That's it right? It rules as one would expect.

I would completely agree with this (though I will note I haven't seen Balor-Joe yet as I honestly can't convince myself to watch it. I just. don't care. don't want to.) Corbin looked much better than Aries though I am conflicted about the shoulder claw. Pol made as good of a defence of it as possible on twitter but still I think a Chinlock would've accomplished the same thing and the fans would have also recognized it as a real pro wrestling move. Nakamura-Zayn was great. American Alpha-Revival was really good but hit the glass ceiling of rehersal pro wrestling. A lot of great ideas in it, but the botch came at the worst time possible and instead of improvizing and prolonging the heat section to salvage it they just went according to plan. I really loved the ideas and how the match was laid out but I'm gonna need everyone involved to get a little better and get some more experience before I see the matches as great. I think Asuka looked way better than Bayley out there though Bayley was more over and the emotional connection she has to the fans really was at display when she passed out. And I'll give her credit she did a really great job of selling her lights going out. It was a good match but I'd kinda hoped for more. It did not make me regret voting against Bayley in MM.

If it was a list of favourites I'd vote him #1 on a good day. Can't comment on how much that is influenced by memes. You could argue he deserves credit for managing to create these huge, easily capturable moments that are perfect for his time. It's hard for me to think of a big Cena facial expression that couldn't be used as a reaction GIF. So. Just putting that out there.

To be fair it has made me want to rewatch Mid South stuff (I know you're quite high on that) because I really disliked that type of brawling when I was younger. I'm not sure how the two would compare. There is a lot of US stuff I'm kicking myself for not having had the time to watch (just like other places). I love Dustin/Goldust but couldn't rank him without taking a focused look at his WCW stuff. Not doing the Golden Era workers justice was a person failure. I'd like to dive into Ron Garvin and Tommy Rich and Wahoo and some others. I liked Eaton a lot from little I'd seen. But I know what I like and I don't see Savage, Steamboat, Windham etc. ever being these great wrestlers for me like they are other folks. I watched a Flair-Steamboat house show match from 1989 because I did love that feud when I watched it a few years ago, and, I don' think reading my review of it would be much easier for someone who likes it than me reading jdw's off the Akiyama-Kobashi 1998 one so why even bother? Watching Memphis has softened my stance on it, and has made me appreciate the charm of studio wrestling, but those do have different goals than the ones I'd watch when going through the ***** thread or the stuff that ranked highly on the DVDVR sets. Really the big exception I have is Bockwinkel and my theory on that is that is simply due to him growing up as a wrestler in a setting I prefer (50s/60s) and picking up good habits while also obviously being incredible. Funk and Hansen I feel did/would fit right into Memphis.

Sano has an incredibly long period of being an interesting worker to me. I don't know how much of his stuff before the Liger feud is available (I'd gladly take a look at it) but man. What an amazing feud it was. And you see Sano play both an incredible FIP in it, with Liger stomping on his head while women are screaming, do focused body work, work a batshit insane workrate match that totally holds up and dish out the punishment , bloody up Liger and work an amazing control segment in their 1990 match. The range he displays in that feud alone is astonishing. But then he goes off and works SWS (where he had a match against EL SATANICO how do you not love this guy) and UWFi and PWFG, then he returns to New Japan in the UWFi feud and has a match vs. Liger where he shrugs off a Liger dive because those work on shooters AND THEN gets back into the ring and dives onto Liger and, I don't think there's a better revenge spot in wrestling history, especially if you're thinking about Chosju superiority booking and New Japan's dominance in the feud while watching the match like I do. He then goes to NOAH and becomes my favourite bubble guy ever. I love all three Misawa matches, he had a great Kobashi GHC title defence, I remember a match from 2010-2011 against KENTA where he absolutely mauled him and it ruled, and even when he'd show up in 2013 he had maybe the best singles match of Mikey Nicholls' career. I loved his tag team with Takayama. The easiest criticism to throw his way wouls be that he was often lazy when he turned heavyweight but I don't care about that because I do legitimately love "I don't give a shit" actual one move wrestler Takuma Sano. Rolling Savate Kicks are the light and the truth praise be.

I included Dundee because I felt I enjoy Memphis too much to only rank Lawler, and also because, uhm....I like him a lot and he has great punches? I don't know what to say about him after all these gigantic posts. I also remember watching a match of his vs. Tommy Rich where they just wrestled, don't think a single strime was throw, and it was really, really good so RANGE~. That said looking at the DVDVR 80s set results I wonder why there is such a huge gap in how much Dutch Mantell (who probably would've made my list if I dove into his stuff enough) and him are revered.

I kind of had a last minute revelation with Lawler. I appreciated him more than I loved him which made the ranking difficult, and there were 8 matches of his I though were truly high end (3 vs Dundee, 3 vs Dutch, 2 vs Funk). I'd already finished my ballot and felt releaved, and decided to watch some Memphis because I find it an easy style to watch. And as I was going through the C+A Segunda Caida stuff and I kept watching and I kept watching and he'd start busting out lucha spots in a random studio tag match (seriously he did like a headscissors/armdrag spot what the hell) and was just super fun in everything I watched and then I watched a great match vs. Dundee from 1977 (well what was posted of it on dailymotion) and then there was a great match vs. Jerry Jarrett and then a great one vs. Jackie Fargo and his range and longevity really started sinking in and I edited my list twice to improve his ranking but at the end of the day after thinking about it hard but, not really long, I just accepted what I'd known all along, that I do strongly prefer lucha over Memphis and my rankings should reflect that. I'm not big on his heel WWF stuff, Schneider hyped the Goldust match as a lost great brawl but I didn't find it nearly as memorable as even Vader-Kane matches. I'm not sure what I'd think of his 2000s stuff if I were to further explor it and revisit it. I loved the Miz feud in real time, and he had shockingly good matches vs. Tazz, but then I remember his match vs. Steen a few years ago that got some praise that I found terrible and the Funk match from like last year where I gave up on trying to watch it like two minutes in.

On one of the ballot reveal podcasts (which has been really good so far though I estimate it will take me about a week to get through it) Tim called Punk a great in the moment wrestler and I really do think it's a great point, and it is something that I think is especially relevant for promotions in which he wrestled in whether it be ROH, IWA:MS or WWE. He has that unique ability to cause mass discussion by doing virtually anything. I was a huge proponent of his during his run, but looking back on it I feel like he is missing what I value the most in a wrestler. Sure, he has great matches, he managed to create an aura about him despite his plain looks, he managed to work through his sloppy offence and make it not matter even, but what I value the most in wrestlers, whether it's Hashimoto or El Hijo del Santo or Onita or Christian, is a certain idea about who they are. When I watch a Misawa match-even if it is a disappointing one-it never really diminishes my opinion of him because he still bring a lot of stuff I love to the table. It's not even so much consistency in how good their matches (and maybe even performances to a lesser degree) are is as much as consistency in consistently bringing who they are. This is not to say I'm opposed to wrestlers stepping out of their comfort zone and doing things that aren't usual for them but when I watch a great wrestler in a spot that is unusual for them I'd want them to perform like a different setting isn't a challenge, like they could likely be slotted there and fit right in. My problem with Punk is that he has a lot of bad stuff and just outright didn't care a lot of the time, and I can't look past there because there's nothing there for me to hold onto. And while initially I thought it may just be how much emphasis I put into offence, I looked into how much I value what guys like Cena and Christian (not saying he has bad offence btw) brough to the table, and just US TV workers in general, and I really have no problem leaving Punk off my list because of that. There isn't a saving grace for his best stuff and when his creative input wasn't as big (in WWE before the heel turn) he really couldn't transcend that with his ring work alone.

I can tell you it is not. I think it's either Terry Funk or just a consensus pick like Eddie Guerrero or Regal. Maybe Vader? But I kind of doubt it's him.

I'm not above ranking Santino (even highly) if he books and tapes a bunch of Yuki Ishikawa matches in return. And he has that inexplicably great Elimination Chamber performance from like 2012.

Han vs. Tamura has absolutely nothing to do with student vs. master. Pretty sure Tamura debuted before Volk Han unless there was a super underground russian wrestling fed in the 80s. Han was above Tamura in the pecking order so you could build your narrative on that. I don't think the first two matches have much narrative if any at all.

I think there are shoot styles matches Parv could love but I don't think Tamura will do the trick. I'd be very surprised if you didn't think Masakatsu Funaki vs Tatsuo Nakano from 7/24/1989 was a great match. It has terrific heat, clearly defined roles and uses shoot style as a medium for a great brawl more than it is a shoot style match. I think it will be extremely accessible even for you and all the backstory you need is that the short chubby guy is a huge underdog. I don't expect you to ever love shoot style as a whole but that match really is something special and the submissions are used more as epic nearfalls than they are as a means of struggle.

Ok. I'll respect that.

I don't know guys. I'm not not dismissing the option of me being a hostile asshole(though I'd hope no one would take my aggressive tone personally it is just arguing about fake fighting) but what exactly would you expect someone's reaction to be when someone shits on their #1? Thank you sunshine? I brought up stuff relevant to the match discussed and his reaction was "he's fat and would be a jobber in the US." I was hoping he'd defend his opinion of the match and performances in it. Yes, I can see he's making his way through the yearbooks, I have the "view new content" button as well. I don't see how that's of any relevance but feel free to explain. I commented quickly thinking the match was fresh in his mind and he could respond accordingly.

1.Funk 2.Hansen 3.Flair 4.Danielson 5.Tenryu 6.Kobashi 7.Liger 8.Misawa 9.Negro Casas 10.Mysterio Ted 83

In most matwork I enjoy (shoot stuff, lucha, wos etc.) submissions are a threat. My favourite is the shoot style, where ideally every hold can be a viable nearfall. That's really lacking in the NWA stuff. I can however enjoy the matwork itself without that threat, as I do with traditional New Japan style. Though New Japan does have some holds that are a threat what's more important to me is that the matwork is varied. With lucha the 2/3 falls format and a lack of nearfalls (though it isn't nearly as present as in WOS stuff) also really helps, but I do find the struggle to get to the bigger holds enjoying to watch. I can watch a long Lou Thesz headlock spot but the struggle and the intrigue of keeping the hold and trying to fight out of it isn't really preserved in 80s stuff.

At this rate in a couple of months I'm only going to take OJ's opinions on japanese wrestling seriously.

I don't even. What was so good about Rude's performance? I'm failing to see his genius in terrible camel clutches and chinlocks and that god awful missile dropkick. His cartoony selling was amusing but so what? That bit where he jumps over Hashimoto and then DDTs him is outright embarassing, and that anyone would actually defend Madusa's terrible interference is making my brain explode. Pulling someone's leg and then going "oh, I'm sorry" was some sub-Brie Bella level stuff. Rude did an solid job feeding Hashimoto I guess, but on the scale of "Hashimoto vs. an american opponent" this is below his matches vs. Steve Corino, Steven Corino and two unknown indy guys, Scott Norton and Jake Roberts and much closer to his matches vs. 1996 Ric Flair and Kevin Nash. "One move wrestler" is the type of terrible lazy criticism I really didn't expect to see here.