El McKell

On WCW editing down their PPVs to under 2 hours, I think Bill Watts has said something online the lines of the Turner Home Video people thought it'd help them in the rental market because short movies did better rental numbers than long movies. This annoyed him because WWF's longer VHSs were doing much better business than WCWs.

Don’t tempt me to make that list 😅

I didn't realise top 40 in the world was the same as in contention for best. It seems too broad, top 40 best in the world in a particular year has to been seen as fairly meaningless for a project for this. From 1980-2025 there are more than 1,800 spots.

Okay, while I agree that Adam Priest is not even close to a top 100 wrestler of all time. Nobody in the organising of this project ever intended for the list to be a list of most significant or most influential pro wrestlers. You are free to apply whatever criteria you believe constitutes greatness (as long as it's based on footage) but you shouldn't think for most people those things matter at all for their lists. "Indieriffic" or only wrestling in front of small crowds are not criticisms or negative points for most voters. But I do think that Adam Priest as a contender for best in the world in 2022 and 2025 is weird as hell. I don't know who's been saying this.

I'm probably gonna have AJ Styles in the 30s of my list. Probably my number two wrestler in the world both 2005 and 2015, with a very different appeal in both of those years. Plenty of other great stuff outside those years obviously, a huge highlight of early TNA shows in '02, absolutely jumps off the page there with both match quality and physical charisma (shame about the promos). I don't think he's retired for real though.

I don't think any Hart Foundation tags or Stampede matches or early NJPW or anything like this will change your view on Bret Hart, there aren't a bunch of classics. The best of Bret is singles matches in the 1990s, if you think the output isn't there from just that you need to accept that he's not a tippy-top wrestler for you or you need to watch more. There's a good chance you have seen all of the great matches I've listed below but if you've overlooked one or two check them out, they'll be better than any deep cuts from the 80s. If you have seen all of them, and you aren't willing to just accept where you are with Bret; pulling out random PPV or long TV matches from 1992-1997 you haven't seen is gonna probably be a use of your time than 80s stuff.

Here's that match, hope you enjoy it

The mortal locks for my top 10 are: · Bryan Danielson · Hiroshi Tanahashi · Kenta Kobashi · Ric Flair · Shawn Michaels And the people most seriously vying for the other 5 spots in my top 10 are · Akira Hokuto · Bret Hart · Kazuchika Okada · Jerry Lawler · Jumbo Tsuruta · Manami Toyota · Mitsuharu Misawa · Rey Mysterio Jr. · Toshiaki Kawada · Will Ospreay

Reading DMJ's summary of Rhea I can't help but notice that the vast majority of it is about star power and how she's presented by the company in the booking. The only allusion to her work is to talk about which matches are good (and that's important because someone analysing her work needs to be told what to watch). But I would love someone who is very familiar with Ripley to say something substantiative about her actual work. Because thinking about it, I don't know if I ever have heard anyone do that. What is she good at? What is she bad at? How is she similar or different to say Roman Reigns? Does she do very typical WWE style matches or does she work differently from their usual mold?

So that means all the people in the list below are in the Index of Nominees but are not actually nominated. Adnan Al-Kaissie Akira Nogami Alex Wright Baron Scicluna Bobby Bass Bull Pain Candy Okutsu Chic Cullen Damien Wayne Derrick King Doug Somers Gary Young George Wells Hido Huracan Castillo Jr. Jado Jonny Storm Kotaro Suzuki Rampage Brown Ranger Ross Ricky Santana Stan Stasiak Takashi Ishikawa Tiger Dalibar Singh/Gil Singh Todd Morton Togi Makabe Tommaso Ciampa Toru Tanaka Waldo von Erich If you are such a fan of 2000s NOAH that you wanna vote for Kotaro Suzuki or such a fan of NXT melodrama faces that you wanna vote for Tommaso Ciampa, or such a fan of the 2007 Yuji Nagata match with all the blood that you wanna vote for Togi Makabe OR any of the jabronis in that list. Post In Their Threads! If you're a lurker who can't post in their threads but you are in the discord, then say something about them in there and I'll put in in their threads.

The Road Warriors were the biggest stars not yet nominated until just now. Honestly, I wouldn't rank either one of them but is there any case that can be made that Hawk isn't much better than Animal. Hawk cuts a great promo, looks better than Animal, is better at the mechanical execution of in ring wrestling, carries himself as just as much of a badass.

Confirmed deadline is May 5th. Ballot opens April 5th. All the nominations have to be in by March 5th.

Matt responding to being jokingly accused of being the shooter outside the building with “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I wasn’t at this show. I’ve never been to Boston!” Was so funny.

Just some short things: - His mouthing off to refs is some of the funniest stuff in wresting. - He is great at small technical details. Yesterday I watched this match and was shocked at how great of a babyface in peril The Destroyer was.

People in the discord are working on that. The deadline for voting will likely be either May 5th or April 19th. With voting opening about 4 weeks in advance of the deadline Voting will be probably be through google forms.

When we talk about giving someone a "bridge" I don't it makes any sense to include the years when they weren't very good in their favour. The way to measure longevity to me is simply count up how many years they were great (draw your own line for what counts as great); it shouldn't matter if those years are consecutive or not, they happened either way. Giving someone these bridge years gives someone a benefit for their great years being non-consecutive. If wrestler A and wrestler B both have 8 great years, but for wrestler A those years are 2000-2004 & 2008-2010, but for wrestler B it's continuous from 2000-2007, we should not say wrestler A had more longevity as a great because they both became great at the same time and wrestler A was great after wrestler B was in decline.

Just felt like posting ancient video game Virtual Pro Wrestling ft Kenta Kobashi appearing in the trailer for Brendan Fraser film Rental Family.

I'd really like to discuss this point because I don't believe there are 10 wrestlers who clear this bar for me. Certainly no Kobashi or Misawa for the top 10 anyway. You say in your post that we can give Flair 1974-1994, but I don't think based on the footage we have that we can say Flair had more than 1 great match in the 1970s. I think based your criteria we'd have to start Flair at '81 at the earliest. Rey Mysterio Jr has been given as great example of longevity in this thread and I think even if I give a generous definition of great match, and say it doesn't have to be a great match at every single big time show. I'm getting only 19 years for Rey Mysterio Jr. Those being 1994-1998, 2002-2007, 2009-2011, 2016-2019 & 2022. If I was strictly enforcing what you actually said he wouldn't even get to that number.

That feels like a sarcastic question to deride these present day workers. But I think if we had a time machine, Benoit vs Okada and Benoit vs Ospreay would be excellent matches. In terms of pace, how much stuff happens per minute of match, Benoit probably does more than Okada. I think an Okada match would benefit from Benoit propensity for making the moment to moment stuff feel like it has an actual narrative, and a Benoit match would benefit from the unbelievably exciting final few minutes of matches that Okada can put together.

Okay but he hasn't been on a single thing uploaded to the WCW or WWE vault channels yet. Hours and hours of footage and he hasn't appeared. Don't you think that the best evidence he won't be on the vault youtube channels is that he's never on the vault youtube channels.

Okay so I think the input vs output thing that highflyflow is hinting at is something I want to write a post about. I think both ways of approaching it have pretty clear weaknesses and also that we don't have a clearly better way of looking at these things. I think first and foremost wrestling is entertainment and therefore the best at entertaining is the best wrestler. The best at entertaining me should be number one on my list & the best on a collective list should be the best at entertaining wrestling fans in general. If we're gauging who is the best at this task and we have to choose between inputs and outputs to measure that, the outputs have the very obvious weakness that some wrestlers have had more opportunities than others. To take John Cena as an example he has had loads of big matches against great wrestlers & this helps his output, if you're inclined to penalise someone for bad content he has been put in high profile scenarios where anyone would have a shitty match (just a few weeks apart in 2012 he had matches with Michael Cole & John Laurentius where what the company needed made it impossible to have matches people like us wouldn't hate). When comparing him with someone with far less footage like Lou Thesz it feels like we aren't measuring the same thing. If we try to measure him on this metric against Misawa, Misawa might look better because he doesn't have the lows, but he would if AJPW were booked by Vince McMahon. This might make you think inputs are the thing to measure, but I don't think that's any better. I think trying to look at inputs creates a different but equally serious issue. How do we know what inputs actually add to how entertaining a wrestler is? And how much weight they carry? When we decide on criteria like how they structure matches, what they do as a babyface, what they do as a heel, how they imbody their character, how believable is their work, how stiff are they, how athletic are they whatever. How do we determine that being "good" at these criteria is actually adding to the finished product? I see an example of this being a problem for me is William Regal. William Regal, executes everything perfectly, has incredible attention to detail, structures a match to communicate a clear narrative, always makes sure what he's doing makes sense for his character and works in the logic of trying to win the match. So he appears to have every input needed to be great. But the output is missing for me. I don't really enjoy his matches all that much. I cannot point to what he's missing, so if I grade on inputs he has everything I'd expect makes a great wrestler. But a great wrestler must be entertaining, Regal hasn't had an abundance of opportunities to succeed at this, but it's not like he has a dearth of them either. In the end I think I have to look more at output than input. But also be cognisant of the how much opportunity someone has had to give me good output. Did they work with high level performers, did they get pushed, did they get the right amount of time, how much footage is available etc.

Of course the booking of Cena's final run was a shitshow. But I don't think the final match and it's trappings were overall. I think Cena losing by submission was a really good idea in theory, but Cena kinda killed it by smiling and tapping out in such a casual manner, kinda felt like no selling the struggle we were just having. I think Cena starting the match with his signature comeback spots left him with very little he could do on offense from their, but he did the best I could expect after handicapping himself. The best stuff in the match was the long sleeper segment.

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.