El McKell

Firstly, I will say I think you are absolutely correct that James Mason and Dean Allmark wrestle in a style that is a clear continuation of the British wrestling that came before them (no comment on the other wrestlers you've mentioned because I haven't seen them). And I think you're correct that Will Ospreay is a guy who epitomises what is now the pervasive (almost homogenous) international wrestling style shaped by an amalgamation of Dragon Gate and 90s AJPW 00s ROH and 10s PWG. But Zack Sabre Jr does not fit that bill, Zack Sabre Jr works a style that nobody else works, he is not a continuation of the British wrestling style that came before him (although he takes some influence from it) but he also definitely does not fit the bill of anything that has ever been trendy on US indies. And because this it the Ospreay thread, I do wanna say it may look like in the paragraph above that I think ZSJ is better than Ospreay. Or maybe just that I am saying Zack is better than Will in one specific way. But I am not saying that. I do not think it is any better to be the only one who does a particular thing, than to be the absolute best at something too many people do. And I don't doubt for a second that when it comes to that internationally pervasive wrestling style of the 2020s nobody does it better than Will Ospreay.

The people who are more likely than not going to be on my 2026 list who didn't make the cut for me in 2016 are (in order of likely ranking): Will Ospreay Walter Kenny Omega Nick Jackson Dump Matsumoto (someone who I really failed to appreciate last time, I just wanted the workrate matches from 80s Joshi at the time) Shingo Takagi Katsuyori Shibata Dax Harwood Tetsuya Naito Koji Kanemoto (As far as I recall he was a close call last time, one of the best wrestlers of the worst era of wrestling, the late 90s) Verne Gagne (Someone who stands out to me more than anyone in the 50s footage, I was wrong to think of him as less than Thesz in 2016) Jon Moxley Antonio Inoki (Carried by unbelievable charisma & great vibes) Matt Jackson Sgt Slaughter (I'm still not sure about this one, it might be too short of a peak?) The people who made my 2016 ballot who probably won't make it in 2026: Jeff Hardy Minoru Suzuki Owen Hart Davey Boy Smith Davey Richards Sting Bob Backlund Great Sasuke Yoshiaki Yatsu Cesaro Paul London Mistico Masato Tanaka Curt Hennig Kensuke Sasaki I really can't see any clear trend to either of these lists tbh, other than the obvious case for people who peaked since 2016. So I feel like I can't construct a narrative around it.

There's also one with Paco Ramirez, I've just uploaded it to YouTube for you here

That match with Steve Grey is here:

The UWF match MattD is referring to is this:

Is there a single good Ray Rougeau match that didn't involve Jacques? And if not is there any matches where he gives a clearly better performance than Jacques?

Two comments from the discord that are not related.

Here's that STF clip: AJW 1/4/92

I think everyone who buried him aggressively in this thread in 2016 has been vindicated by everything Shane did from wrestling The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 32 until the loser leaves town match against Kevin Owens 3 years later. He proved himself to be truly awful. The post that says he has better strikes than RVD is crazy. RVD doesn't throw good strikes, but nobody is worse at them than Shane McMahon, he somehow manages to potato everyone with punches that on camera look like they couldn't hurt a fly.

Obviously signing a TV deal with AMC is good for TNA from a popularity point of view as it gets more eyeballs on them. I think it's also a sign that Anthem might want to sell either TNA or AXS TV. It seems irrational to me if you run AXS TV to take TNA off the network while it's your highest rated show. If they want to sell TNA it makes sense to get it in a TV slot where they're getting paid real rights money, if you want to sell AXS TV it makes no sense to leave TNA there because once you no longer own AXS that TV situation doesn't help you at all.

This is not an argument in Warriors favour in the slightest. Everyone votes for who they think is best, we shouldn't avoid a pick because it might be thought of as a weird/bad pick. But this is not a case in favour of Warrior, it does not explain why you or anyone else would vote for him. If we're comparing these guys who's case mainly revolves around having a bunch of squashes, I don't think Warrior is some 'perfect version' of that. I think Goldberg is on the same level. I think when laying out this it's unfair to Goldberg to give Warrior credit for having the "most ludicrous" squashes when Goldberg squashes are usually much more entertaining (which should be the metric we use here) and when Warrior never had a squash as ludicrous as Goldberg vs La Parka anyway. "His look and mannerisms were the most insane." I love an Ultimate Warrior entrance but again I think "most insane" is choosing the criteria specifically to favour Warrior. Why can't we just ask the question which is cooler or which gets you more hyped up: Warrior sprinting down the aisle and shaking the ropes or Goldberg walking through pyro and breathing out the smoke? I also think Goldberg has just as many great matches as Warrior (and nothing so awful/unwatchable as Warrior vs Goldust or Warrior vs Hogan '98). Goldberg loses the promo comparison but not talking helped his aura.

I think this is a total understatement. Message boards on the internet are all dead (unless reddit counts), the fact that this place stayed active for so long is a testament to it being something special in some way. I hope that even if this place dies in the sense that nobody posts anymore that the archive of match threads is preserved, I think it's an invaluable resource, even with cagematch.net offering something similar.

I think it's interesting that this nostalgia match is actually better than any of the matches they had in the original ECW.

The match Elliot linked was this:

Some posts from the Discord on TNT/Savio Vega. Is anything he has on the Puerto Rico 80s set worth talking about?

How high are you going to go on Blue Panther? You ranked him pretty high last time around and I think you're saying you think he's one of the 5 best workers of the past decade, is Blue Panther a number one contender for you?

Will Ospreay is my prediction for person who jumps up the most places. And I think I’m gonna say Nick Jackson will be the highest ranking person who didn’t get any votes last time (of people who actually made a case since March 2016)

My take on The Sheik is that he basically sucks, but that's not universal it seems

I'm kinda shocked at how few thoughts there are on Magnum TA since the last poll, both here and on the discord