Danish Dynamite

Completely disagreed. No way the average fan votes this high for Valentine, Garvin, Martel, Buddy Rose, El Dandy, etc.. How is Lawler still alive? Tamura made top 100. Come on... just because Brock made the list or some shit. I participated a ton and had Brock and Punk on my list too. 100% agree with Steven on this. I feel like I've really put serious work into this. But that hasn't made me come around on shoot. Just watching more BattlArts doesn't mean I'm going to like it more. Actually the ton of extra stuff from the US territories have made me rank stuff like Memphis, Mid-South, JCP etc. higher than I would two years ago. WoS certainly got on the map for me. The only thing I don't feel like I gave enough time to was joshi, so I only ended up with two women on my list. I'll say that two years of very intense watching as you say a shitload from all over the world has improved my liking of much, but also confirmed to me that my favorite styles are still North American, followed by the much praised Japanese eras and then lucha. I don't get the argument that the point of this project was to find out that what we've always loved was actually shit and that a whole new world of much better stuff revealed itself and we could all agree that this was "the best ever". I remember more than one saying at the outset that two years of watching one new style probably wouldn't be enough time for that to overtake what we've already spent 10, 15, 20 or more years watching as "all time great", but it might get it on the list. I'd rather say that if you have found something these last two years, that wasn't high on your radar before, and all of a sudden that produces a wrestler who's now your GWE, then it doesn't say as much about your viewing the last two years, but more about your lack of viewing previously... EDIT: But hey, don't listen to me. I'm one of the most boring of the conservative voters I guess. I have everyone except Benoit of the remaining 43 guys. None of my top 25 have fallen yet. And those revealed today, the 50-44, were all placed between 35 and 57 on my ballot... And I'm definetely not disappointed with the list, so I guess to you I didn't put serious work into this project ;-)

Completely valid point. On one hand you can always steer a vote closer to your own taste by eliminating people you know value different things. On the other hand this isn't about democracy, but about finding out what people who've actually taken some serious time to watch tons of footage and debate it would rank. But what should have made people qualified to vote then? Membership of the board? A minimum of 1000 posts (which neither you nor I have yet)? X number of match reviews written? I'm not asking to be snarky, I really am not decided myself. But my gut reaction from listening to the podcasts on people's top 100 tells me that a list compiled only by the hosts of those shows acutally wouldn't be that much different from what we end up having. A little, sure. But actually not radically. Sure, Shawn might be a little lower (but definetely still among the final 100). Angle would be nowhere near the 100 I think. And joshi in particular would be better represented (but possibly not as much as we think). I get people's reactions to the final list, I really do. But honestly, it's much, much more "serious" than I feared it would be, when the vote was opened up to everyone. I have a friend who strongly considered voting. I said, great, do it. Then I explained the amount of time we had all spent on it, and what footage I had seen to feel I could vote. He got a blank stare and said that he'd probably have 0 Japanese guys, 0 women, 0 lucha (except the Rey's and Eddie's he knows from WCW and WWE), 0 WoS, and too few guys from the territories. He's a 100% North American, big promotions 1985-2016 guy. I said "the board" welcomes all voters... He didn't vote...

Ditto. Loved the character. So I had him at #36, since I really loved some matches I've seen. Whereas he's too high or too low is something I'll only know once I'll have to revisit his career as a whole. One of the 00's guy that had *it*. Totally agree :-) ... I'm definetely not an easy sell on post 2000-WWE... John Cena impresses me. Other than that it's almost only the strong indy guys like Punk and Bryan who've made me watch. And like you, I love the Punk character, I have him at #35, and I have no clear idea of whether or not he'll go up or drop down the list for me when we're a few years down the line, revisit his stuff and have more perspective.

Totally agree with this! I like the fun lists with names I'd never even consider for a top 500. But what awards do we win by the final list being the most unpredictable or surprising list? Who are we trying to be cool for? That's part of why I love the reveal of all the rankings all the way down to the guys scoring 1 point. That's where we can debate and discover the guys of whom we only have three handheld matches from a barn in Tijuana. I love that they are being brought up and fought for. I love Will's podcasts with guys with the more surprising ballots. Totally! ... But with all the debate, talk, viewing of tons of wrestling, podcasts etc. etc. that comes with this board and thus the GWE vote, I'd almost find it a little bit of a waste of time if we couldn't to a certain extent predict most of the names in the top 100.

Good review of a good match :-) I think I agree with all of it. Over all I definetely think Bruno was the better guy of the two, but this match shows that Graham wasn't awful all the time at all. And what an awesome character he was in this period. Perfect contrast of character with these two. True heel vs. true face. Flashy arrogant fuck vs. working class hero.

Final look before the top 50. Dick Murdoch and Akira Hokuto dropped and weren't on my list. Both were pretty close though. Gun to my head, I would actually gladly drop a few names from the bottom 5 of my list for either or both of them... I did have Andre, and I had him in my top 50. I love Jimmy Redman's reasoning for him, plus grimmas strong support of old-man-Andre's ability as storyteller and to get everything out of almost nothing by that point. So with 50 names to go, I have 49. And I initially had Benoit around 85-ish which would have made it 50/50 for me. He was so close to the cut off point anyway, that the whole issue with him just made it too easy for me not to rank him. My top 25 is still intact. My two lowest rated guys who're still around are Shawn Michaels (91) and Mick Foley (85). Won't mind them dropping soon, but I share a lot of peoples concern that Michaels is gonna be quite high...

Yeah, this was too low for The Hammer to me. But I had him at #32, and I'm well aware that some will say that's way, way too high. I don't care. I think that's about fair for him. I know his PWO ranking shows he's increaed in awareness and popularity over the last decade or so, but I think there might be even more to come. Greg is awesome, but someone I really didn't like in the WWF when I was a kid and he started teamin with Honky Tonk Man. That's a big, bad stain on a stellar career. The Hammer rules :-)

Just checked out the list of Sporcle quizzes you've made. Holy hell :-) Well done! I'll gladly take a look at the categories you've placed people in, but I'm not at all an expert on the styles you say you need the most help with. Think you need to grab one of the regular posters on the board for that. There are some guys on here who seriously know their stuff :-D

I have all those three (Hennig, Martel and DiBiase) between #25-31 (Hennig lowest). They all had storylines, character work and matches in WWF I really liked, and I love, love, love their other stuff I have one of the other three you mention higher (take a wild guess which one...).

"I loved his work as Mr. Perfect which some are down on in a modern context. But seeing his AWA work was a revelation. Just an awesome wrestler." Dave Musgrave Agree with Dave on that statement :-) I'll gladly go against the stream and say I also loved his Mr. Perfect work. And AWA and Portland only made me enjoy the guy more. I had him a fair bit higher than his final placement, but I notice three bits of perfection about his stats and placement: 1: Way to go, Lisa Lewis! A #1 one vote for the perfect one. I was waaaay down at #31, but for a while I thought Curt would be the one where I was most likely to be a high voter. I now know I really wasn't even close to being that :-) 2: Curt Hennig appeared on excactly 100 ballots. Only a perfect guy could do that. (I'll look stupid when it turns out Shawn Michaels is also on 100 ballots excactly...) 3: His average ranking was 55.05... And he ends up as #55... That is absolutely perfect!

We live and learn On Jim Breaks: He's another one I need to thank the board and the podcasts for. I'd seen a fair amount of his work over the years, but never really focused on him in particular for any length of time. He's still climbing steadily up my list the deeper I look into his stuff. Maybe he's someone that will do even better next time? I could see his stock rising over the years.

Unless you're going to have counter-arguments why it isn't stupid you might as well not even bother responding. Really? Couldn't place you, but I remember "talking" Ric Flair with you now. I think you and I should smile, shake hands and just stop commenting on each other's posts.

Had Dundee at #51. Totally agree with what's been said on his offence and character work. I'm totally ok with someone not putting him on the list, but I'd imagine that you'd do that mostly if you haven't really seen his work or are down on the Memphis style. Would surprise me if someone really dug the Memphis stuff, but didn't like Dundee. If it's within your taste of wrestling, he seems as obvious an inclusion as Flair if you like North American wrestling in general, the pillars if you like AJPW 90's etc. Sure Lawler is obviously the guy from that territory, but to me there's no Memphis without Bill Dundee.

Someone actually listened to me! I'm excited! This is not sarcasm. I'm honestly excited. Sure it could be my problem, I can only attempt to articulate what that problem is because I'm working on speaking up more. I'm not just going "Mexicans! BLECH!" when I try to watch lucha because that seems exceptionally short sited and OMG so racist. I'm trying to tell you what my issues are and why they exist. I'm not trying to tell you that you should stop liking it. There are obviously people who love shoot stuff since they seem to think their guys are getting underrated, I just figured I would throw in from the other side of "I didn't rank him" since the conversation was somewhat one sided. Goodear: This and your previous posts on your issues with and thoughts on shoot have been a great read for me. I'm gonna give shoot another go based on recommends from the more balanced shoot fans on the board. But until rewatching the stuff, I'm still at the point where your posts have come closest to describing how I feel and actually pinpointing the reasons. Good job and thanks :-)

I'm not sure what you watched already. To me like I said, Takada's big UWF-I matches were my gate to shoot-style, as they were aesthetically in the vein of UWF, but much more pro-style at heart, with a sense of epicness, milking comebacks to the max and making the whole thing dramatic. Of course you could say the same about his big matches in the second UWF, although they were much more pure in term of style since he was working a lot against Maeda and Fujiwara. Those matches are terrific too. Cool :-) Thanks. I intend to basically start over on shoot.

Funny how you manage to negate any valid point you may or may not have, when you brush off the entire train of thought of someone else (who actually seemed to make good sense to me), by simply calling them stupid. That seems stupid to me.

And I hear that from a lot of guys whose oppinions I respect. (And I don't care for MMA at all either). But when trying to make any more sense of why I have such a hard time getting in to shoot, other than just saying "I feel bored", this explanation is pretty much the best I can come up with. Maybe some day I'll see the light and come join you on the shoot-side of life :-) I totally understand being bored by shoot-style, especially if you try Tamura, who's just the purest of the purists. I didn't get Tamura at first. It's only when I got to like shoot-style as a whole, including by the gate of big spectacle/pro-style mentality of Takada, that Tamura became my all-time favourite. What's the gateway to getting it? Or what would be your recommend as a starting point? I'm totally ready to give it another go (after I'm done catching up on joshi )

And I hear that from a lot of guys whose oppinions I respect. (And I don't care for MMA at all either). But when trying to make any more sense of why I have such a hard time getting in to shoot, other than just saying "I feel bored", this explanation is pretty much the best I can come up with. Maybe some day I'll see the light and come join you on the shoot-side of life :-)

I've had the same thought, and I agree with you. To me wrestling is storytelling, character work, entertainment, ring psychology and, yes, impressive in ring skills (which can be a number of different things). But it's not about making me believe it's "real" any more than movies are. I intentionally go along with the illusion. And I just loose too many of the aspects I like about wrestling, when shoot tries to make it feel real, even though I'm still very much aware that it isn't... Do or do not, as the little green man said... It's great that others love shoot, but I think this is what comes closest to explaining to me, why I often find shoot boring and why it just doesn't engage me. I won't stop giving it chances though, as I will still try to see the stuff people here are recommending.

Almost there with you... I only have two complaints about Brock (works too few matches and the overuse of suplexes (even though suplexes are fucking cool)), but my vote could have been used for somene who needed it more (and deserved it as much).

You accidentally included Bret on that list ;-) ... But I'm with you regarding the other two (even though I ranked them both).

I had Bret in my top 5. He was 9th in 2006. No way he is dropping in the bottom half of the ballot. Yeah, Bret is not dropping anytime soon, motherfuckers. I had him very high too, higher than in 2006. Hell yeah! Don't wanna see Bret for a few days yet :-)

If Owen had Bret's drive and mind, he'd be #1 on my list... or at least would have a shot. Spot on, both of you.

Agree. I had him at #48, and it does feel like a little personal bias played into that. Volk Han: Not on my list. Tried to see all I could of him, so I could get into shoot. Wish I'd spent it watching joshi instead. Samoa Joe: Close for me. At times he was in my bottom ten. Just missed out. Maybe the only highlight of TNA for me, and I really dug his ROH work. So I've "lost" 46 as far as I can see. 54 remaining with my #26 my highest drop so far... Either I should be very, very happy, or I should feel like the most boring voter of us all... Looking forward to Will's podcasts with the guys with the most "eccentric and fun" lists. Waiting by the phone for the call that puts me on the show that's broadcast to put old people to sleep...

I say it could include everything. Hollywood, TV, Asian cinema, European, anything. That's the territories I guess. Is theater shoot style then???