NotJayTabb

Really great post Dylan, makes me want to go back and revisit some of the Southern Comfort run in 1PW. I remember Steve Corino recalling his time as booker, and talking about how he needed someone to cover for a no-show in a singles match, and Hamrick volunteered despite having already wrestled a tag bout earlier - "I wish I had an entire locker room full of Chris Hamrick's". Also, I'm always a fan of wrestlers who understand how important it is to make time for kids, so I absolutely loved this:

I've got Big Dave placed somewhere between 95-115, so he's battling with 20 other guys for the final spots on my list. He was a guy who kept trying to improve himself when he didn't have to, when he was already a main eventer, which I appreciate, and he racked up a good resume of matches due to it. He grasped how to wrestle like an explosive power wrestler, yet could be a convincing seller too, especially when up against someone like Khali who was an equal or superior physical presence.

Yeah, that match made it onto the WWE's AWA release. Pretty fun little match once you realise it's essentially Robinson in a handicap match.

To back up Exposer's point, I nominated (and will rank) Tom Zenk, who almost everyone except me seems to hate. If I hadn't, then I wouldn't be submitting a list I felt entirely happy with.

Just watched the Togo/Mason match, and it really summed up to me why both are locks for my list. Just two consummate professionals, working to their audience and putting on a fun little match. The All Star crowd is a family crowd, mainly filled with kids, and both guys played up their parts perfectly. I loved the setting of the ring on a stage facing the audience, really made some of Togo's cheating more effective, like using some tape to choke Mason. Behind the back of the referee and right in the face of the audience. Loved the mat work, loved it when they both sped things up, loved it. Working through some of the SC Complete and Accurate Togo stuff has really reinforced him as a guy who could well make my top 30. That Togo will turn up somewhere like Argentina, face someone called Hip Hop Man in some fed I've never heard of, and put on a really fun compelling match is a really strong to his bow

The next month-and-a-half is going to be spent finalising who the final 100 is. My focus is really on lucha, 90's AJ and WoS. Maybe some territory stuff, all stuff I've dabbled in and want to pick the wheat from the chaff. From March 1st, it'll be watching the guys currently in my top 100 and tinkering with positions. I've got comps of Misawa, EHD Santo and Jarrett to get through which'll confirm their positions, and I've book marked the Segunda Caida Complete pages for Fujiwara, Togo, Lawler etc. The rest will be YouTubing guys, hunting for stuff I've not seen which might help decide the difficult questions (for example, do I place Mark Henry higher than Sean Waltman?), trying to iron out the last little details.

I find Ziggler's over-top-bumping really annoying and actively takes me out of a match. For example, I once saw him do a full 450 flip from a Zack Ryder monkey flip. I didn't watch that and think "Wow, look how powerful Zack Ryder's monkey flips are", I thought "Oh, that's a ludicrous bump to take for that move". It's not like Zack Ryder has ever been portrayed as having super-powerful monkey flips, so it puts all the attention on Ziggler rather than the guy doing the move. It's that Michaels/Hogan match spread out over an entire career.

I always hated DX. I was 15/16 when they were in their prime, and all I saw was a bunch of obnoxious arseholes. Nothing about Triple H ever struck me as cool either, he felt old before his time, like someone's dad thinking he was "down with the kids". It actually made me a big fan of the Nation, who were far more badass. Even before turning face, the Rock was far cooler than Triple H, and Mark Henry was a more convincing badass than any of DX. Even to this day, my casual friends don't trust me that Mark Henry turned great in the 00's because I've been talking about how awesome he was since 1998

Wasn't there some animosity on the part of Ross because Jesse was getting paid more than him, so that's why he kept no-selling him? Jesse's WCW run was still pretty decent, as he had really good chemistry with Schiavone. Tony was more willing to play along and understood his role in the team better than JR did.

When he was under contract, I always imagined a Danny Burch/Wade Barratt tag team of yobbo Brits would be a lot of fun. Fun match, first time they've let Burch get a little offence in on his squashes. Strange to see a match between two non-contracted guys on WWE programming.

I went to a show last year which had both Gabriel and Sydal on, and now they've both grown a beard and have lank, greasy hair, they look even more similar.

Ha, mentioning him as SIR Mo reminds me of his role in Survivor Series 1995, where he runs distraction to stop Taker getting his hands on King Mabel. As punishment, Taker chokeslams him, and Sir Mo rolls to the floor and runs off, totally no-selling the move. I remember thinking that was hilarious at the time. I might re-watch that tonight. Mo was still shit though.

When I think of Kurt selling, I think back to the Turning Point 2009 match with Desmond Wolfe where Desmond works over Angle's arm for the opening portion of the match. Angle's responds by hitting 6 consecutive German suplexes as his first offensive rally. Wolfe then goes back to the arm and I'm thinking "Man, you worked over his arm and he was still able to hurl you over his head without breaking the hold 6 times in a row - I don't buy that this arm work is going to hinder Angle in the slightest". Angle isn't going to make my list. My favourite match of his is the Jeff Jarrett match that was on that 4-disk Jarrett TNA release, and I see that as more of a feather in JJ's cap than Kurt's, as Jarrett forced him to slow down and wrestle a better match.

Having watched a lot of early 94 WWF recently, I've got to go for Mo from Men On A Mission. He's so shit! I mean, it makes sense that they wanted Mabel (young, enormous, agile) and that they wanted him in a tag team to cover his limitations while he improved, but Mo was so poor that Mabel had to be the workhorse of the team. I've seen Mo botching a small package before, and he exudes no star power: he's a squat portly lad with milky punches and zero charisma. Worse still, I watched the 94 Rumble over the weekend...and he's in it for over 20 minutes. Including a bit where all the other men in the Rumble gang up to eliminate Mabel, and Mo just stands watching gormlessly. He's so terrible, I hate him nearly as much as I hate Ziggler.

As people have said above, the DoD were a bit shit, but in hindsight were at least cartoonish fun. The other thing I like about them is that at least you know what their mission is and why they've come together: to destroy Hulkamania. I can appreciate that at least there was a purpose to them being put together. Compare that to the League of Nations or the Wyatts. Both stables are better in-ring workers than the DoD, but I've no idea why they exist as a stable. Why were Del Rio and Rusev supporting World Champ Sheamus when they should have been aiming for title matches against him? Somehow makes less sense than the DoD.

Smothers is someone who's gone from the outskirts of my list to comfortably sitting in the 80-90 slots. He's one of those guys who didn't really spring to mind when I first starting putting down names, but I'm very rarely let down by a Smothers match, and it's normally thanks to his presence. I really enjoy him as a lower card tag/singles worker in early 90's WCW, and I enjoy watching his indy work from IWA Mid South and 1PW from 15yrs later, and that's a testament to his consistency. In many respects, him getting so over in 1PW was a testament to his abilities, standing out and winning over a crowd who were sitting through over-inflated 4hr indy super shows every month. I'm going to steal a line from the Sabu thread, but Smothers is one of those guys who you can put against anyone, and I'm going to be intrigued.

Ha, it's worse than that...I live there

1. Try to attend 25 shows this year. I had the same goal for 2015, but a combination of my favourite indie stopping running (knocking a guaranteed 6 shows off my total) and clashes with other events saw me end up around the 20 mark. Going to have to hit up a few more "Friday night trainees in a Nottingham WMC" type shows 2. Write more. Last year was the most content I've put on my blog, so I'd like to keep the momentum going 3. Linked to the above, I want to up the pace on my watching 1992 WCW and 1994 Raws. I've also got a CHIKARA subscription, so I'm going to work through those from the beginning

Part of me wonders if the "boring" chants might be backlash over the hype that Sasha and Becky have been receiving. Using the figures above, there will be a lot of people who've never seen NXT, but have heard people chanting "We want Sasha" and wondered what all the fuss is about. Given the way WWE have long portrayed women's wrestling as filler, I can imagine some of the crowd writing it off as hipster contrarianism and going in with a "Go on, impress me" attitude, and when the match wasn't blow-away amazing, you get that reaction.

Why would we wait 10 years? He would be eligible in only 2 years from now if he was worthy of it. Only because this is in the GWE folder, and I believe the plan is to create another list in 10yrs, so I linked it to that. Certainly we'll be able to make a judgement on him in general in a couple of years

It's arguable that the first 2-3 years were the best years of Angle's career, always enjoyed him then. Danielson was pretty great a year or two into his career. Too early to say for sure at the moment, but isn't Chad Gable only a year into his career? He could be an answer when we run this process again in 10yrs

Always loved the Barbarian, can't believe I'd not considered him before this nomination. Totally believable beast of a wrestler, loved the way his big boot looked like it was taking guys heads off, and his flying headbutt was great too. If nothing else, this nomination is a good excuse to dig out the Barb compilation I bought a couple of years back. Has a reasonable shot at my 90-100's

Thanks man. Misawa is very much on my list of people I need to spend more time on. I've seen 10 of his matches in the last couple of months, and there's definitely something there that I like, but it's not quite clicked yet. It's that difference between trying something and knowing it's not going to be for you, and trying something and wanting to try more, even if you've not fallen in love with it yet. I had the same thing where I bought 4-5 Sonic Youth albums before it finally clicked and they became one of my favourite bands. I've bought a comp of Misawa's early career which will hopefully give me an insight into where he's come from, and will give me something to refer back to as I explore his career in more detail. In many respects, I see Bret as the Ken Barlow of wrestling. Though Vince would love to be able to book a feud quite as long-lasting, multi-layered and ratings grabbing as the 25yrs of Barlow/Baldwin. Also, don't get me started on my comparison of Flair's farewell match at Wrestlemania with Hilda Ogden departing with a singalong of "Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye" setting a national TV record :-)

Top 5 (in rough order) Bret Hart Stan Hansen Rey Mysterio Jr El Hijo Del Santo Jushin Liger 6-10 Contenders William Regal Terry Funk Toshiaki Kawada Randy Savage Ric Flair Bryan Danielson Negro Casas I've not got access right now to my spreadsheet with my current rough rankings, but I think you could add Fujiami, Windham, Steamboat, Eddie and Arn to get my top 20. There are still some gaps I want to try and fill before the submittal date - I'm just about to start on Bockwinkel and put in a proper shift to get to grips with a good number of the more feted Japanese guys. I've seen enough of the likes of Hashimoto and Fujiwara to currently have them in my top 100 list, but not enough to justify a higher ranking yet. I'm trying to put together as honest a list as possible, so I've got a shortlist of guys who I want to get a better feeling for, guys who I get the impression are "my kind" of wrestler but I've not seen enough of. If any of them make the step up to the top 20, even the top 10, is to be seen, but I want to make sure my list is one I'm sure of. Why I've got Bret as my current number one links in to the above. I know I'm likely to be the only person with him top, heck I know most people don't have him in their top 20, but throughout this process I've had him as a top 10 guy and as I've tried to figure out placings, I've not felt comfortable ranking anyone above him (Hansen is REAL close though, it'll probably go down to the wire between those two). I rate Bret highly in areas I care about: I think he's a great sympathetic seller, I love the way that Bret having an injury isn't just something that'll last a match or two, he'll still show the effects of it down the line. I think he's a great offensive wrestler, everything he does looks crisp and impactful. He threw great punches, always looked like he was putting in a real snap to his backbreakers and I always felt he threw the best dropkicks in wrestling. They may not have been as high or as graceful as other guys, but when he runs towards Yokozuna and leap at him feet first, it really looked like Bret was hurling his legs at him with all his might. I love his finishes and especially the way he'll reference things back to his previous matches. So he'll beat Bam Bam in a big match at KotR 93 with a victory roll, so he'll try the same move to beat Owen at WMX and this time it'll lead to his defeat. The victory roll isn't one of Bret's established finishers, but it's a move he's had success with before so he tries it again. Or the way the finish of SurSer96 calls back to WM8 when he uses the same move he did to beat Piper. Again, reversing a sleeper into a pin isn't a regular move he pulls out, but he's aware enough to know he's in trouble and to know that he's had success before with this counter. I love things that are aware of their own history and refer back to it - it's the same reason I love Coronation Street (terrible analogy I know, but it fits here) - and that's something Bret is so great at. For me, I'd rather watch a Bret match than anyone else (except maybe Hansen) and that's why I feel comfortable having him so high.

Bret will probably be my number 10 at the lowest. I've currently got Bret at no 1, so I think I'm going to be the high vote on him