JRGoldman

The great thing about Mondo's list is we've seen two names from it thus far, and I'm pretty sure I could give you a solid approximation of his top 10. That's really the most fun part about this for me; these lists are a window in to who we are as fans, what we value, what we neglect. I hope my list reflects my aesthetics. If it doesn't, if you can't tell who I am as a fan from reading it, than it's a failure, and I should reassess what I think I'm valuing and the process I used to come to these conclusions. Mondo's list tells me exactly who he is, and comes across as earnest and truthful. It's irrelevant that I disagree with it.

Kendrick at nine is not something I agree with, but I can see the narrative behind it. I'm more offended that five people have seen enough wrestling to name a hundred wrestlers and still think "Yeah, that Dolph Ziggler is top hundred material".

The best part of Les Kellett is that I can convince people it's actually Mark E Smith and keep all my hipster cred.

I shall wear my new avatar with pride.

I was the other vote on Toyoda. With each passing day, I get more and more excited for Survival Tobita. It's like a Cinderella run during March madness.

I think Arn, bobby Eaton and Buddy Rose will all be in the running for highest placement without a number one vote. Weirdly enough, I also think there is an outside chance that Kobashi could end up with no overall number one votes but end up in the top 10.

I'm sort of curious (not that I think we are anywhere close) as to when the first person who was ranked in 06 will come up.

Considering I nominated Tobita and caped for him a little, prepare to be astonished. He was on my ballot and I know that at least one other poster slotted him in at 100. Tobita will have at least three votes, which is sort of hysterical. Wow, that delights me no end. I knew you had nominated him but I remember thinking that perhaps you had nominated him to make the point about the wild diversity of wrestling as a medium but weren't necessarily going to actually vote for him. That's great. I have a feeling some people will accuse those of us who have voted for him as being somehow ironic but that couldn't be further from the truth. If anything its a somewhat ideological pick for me, ensuring that even the most off piste, D.I.Y, oddball extremes of the medium are acknowledged as just as valid as any other kind of style. Pushing that kind of criteria wont appeal to everyone, and I understand that, but that's fine. I won't deny that part of my nomination of him and eventual vote was to offer proof of a larger point, but I think my vote is valid. If someone asked me "what is so great about wrestling?" I wouldn't just show them great matches or great wrestlers, I'd try and show them each facet of this bizarre art that I love. Tobita is so bizarre and so different from what anyone would think about when they think about pro wrestling. To me, he has a spot. He pushes the form forward. That's all we can really ask as observers, critics and fans.

Considering I nominated Tobita and caped for him a little, prepare to be astonished. He was on my ballot and I know that at least one other poster slotted him in at 100. Tobita will have at least three votes, which is sort of hysterical.

I think that the variance in quality is a fair criticism of Necro Butcher, but I think that is also a fair criticism of a ton of other performers who will finish higher than him overall. There are a lot of wrestlers who have substantial down periods to their careers that are not discussed proportionally to the work that we view as transcendent.

Just submitted a singles ballot. I posted my list last week on wrestling with words. I'm sure I could watch more and continue to nitpick. I am content with what I put together.

1. Hansen 2. Flair 3. Funk 4. Bryan 5. Kawada 6. Misawa 7. Bock 8. Satanico 9. Buddy Rose 10. Rey Dibiase: 59 Edit: I switched 2 and 3 immediately after posting it because I'm a dum dum.

I know he had a heel run for a bit, but I think Santito will be very high on my ballot for his work as a face.

Couldn't you make a case that Bryan being viewed as "this generation's Flair" is more astounding considering the talent he had to work with? Flair, by your admission, had all time greats challenging him for the belt pretty consistently. His matches should and do reflect that. Bryan has a resume that is comparable while wrestling people like Arik Cannon and Jigsaw. I'm not sure you could say Bryan did more with less, but I think you could certainly argue that Bryan did slightly less with way less, if that makes sense. If degree of difficulty is part of a voter's criteria, Bryan should be heavily considered for a high ranking.

I think a person's enjoyment of Saint hinges on their enjoyment of the face vs. face dynamic. I understand being frustrated at Saint's constant "aw shucksing" as Dylan puts it, but I think Saint deserves credit for working consistently entertaining matches with a really odd dynamic that to me comes across as more believable than one person using random heel spots for the night. The presentation of WoS always struck me as heavily influenced by "real sports" and I buy Saint matches as him wrestling a friend, it getting competitive but still friendly, and them chatting and having a pint after, win or lose.

I don't want to start this insanely circular and terrible argument again, but didn't Flair finish 7th in the 2006 SC poll? Do you really feel as though he will climb multiple spots? If anything, we don't really have any new jaw dropping footage and his work after 06 was actively bad. I think it's reasonable to assume he might fall slightly, although he still seems like a lock for the top 10.

So I nominated him, and I guess I should try and explain why. As my list comes together, I'm realizing that being "objective" when it comes to this is virtually impossible. We don't need to rehash that conversation, but I've thought about this enough where I think everyone's list should in some way reflect who they are as a viewer. Survival Tobita is not someone I can honestly come in here and defend as a great wrestler. That would be disingenuous of me. What I can say is I think Tobita in some way defines an aspect of what makes wrestling great. If someone was to ask me to make a three hour long video of everything that is great about pro wrestling, Tobita would be on there ahead of so many people who have been given consideration in this project. I know in my brain that someone like Randy Orton or John Morrison is a better wrestler than him in the strictest sense of the word, but I would rather watch Tobita a hundred times out of a hundred if given the choice. I think that should count for something. Also, Elliott is right, there is a surprising amount of his stuff on youtube.

I came here to post something very similar, but I think this sums it up. He's basically Zack Sabre Jr but with unlimited resources and an affinity for Harley and Flair instead of Johnny Saint.

I think Dylan thought I was trolling on twitter, but I would like to nominate Survival Tobita. A lot of stuff has been lost due to the boards crashing so many times, but his WOTD thread from 2013 has a few archived reviews from the DVDVR crew: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1859-wrestler-of-the-day-survival-tobita/

I think people who weren't watching at the time don't get a clear sense of how over Kash was during that ECW run. When he would come out and just dive on everyone, people would go nuts. I don't know if that alone is enough to get him on my ballot, and I don't think I've as big a fan of his post Pitbull Indy stuff as Dylan and some others, but I don't think he should be written off entirely. I also think that he would have more support and consideration if people did not associate him with a Kid Rock tribute gimmick, which makes him seem like a fossil that was only over due to a pop culture reference.

I think if you place heavy value on highest quality matches or if you place heavy value at being the representative of a style, Callihan should be a lock for a list. I think he has a top 10 that stacks up to just about any of his peers, and while the style itself may be looked down upon, his death match work is miles better than any actual US death match worker.

A great promo, a great character, and a better than average worker. I'm not sure that those things add up being considered for a list of this nature, but maybe he deserves some discussion. Even if your list is going to have a lot of mid 2000s indy guys on it, I'm not sure what his argument is over any of his contemporaries that have been nominated.

I was thinking about this, and I don't have a really concise way to sum it up, but I think Casas is more interesting on paper than just about any wrestler I can think of. Like, if I came to this forum and someone talked about a fancam of Negro Casas vs. Sid Vicious, I would immediately want to watch it, and I would have no idea what to expect. Conversely, someone could talk about a fancam of Stan Hansen vs. Sid Vicious, and while I might be just as interested, I would have a pretty solid mental picture of what that match entails. That isn't to say that Hansen is a worse wrestler than Casas, or that the his match with Sid might automatically be worse. I just think it speaks to one of Casas' true strengths as a performer, which is his almost unheard of variety to go along with longevity that is quite literally unequaled. That might be in part why the supporters of Casas have a hard time summing him up like you would for a candidate like Hansen. As people like Matt D have said, Hansen is a tool, and once you have seen a subsection of Hansen's high end work in various places you can come to your own conclusions and not really feel as though you are missing much. You can watch a bunch of Casas recommendations and not even scratch the surface of who he was a performer.

I've seen Hamrick live at tiny Ohio Indy shows probably about a half dozen times, and he has always worked harder than he needed to and always bumped like an absolute loon. I don't know what that's worth in a project like this, but I do know that he's a wrestler I respect and admire for his efforts in front of 30 people in Dayton or wherever.

The locks I have that other people have mentioned already are: Casas, Santito, Satanico, El Dandy, Charles, Park, Sangre Chicana, Virus, Fuerza, Solar, Negro Navarro, Terry, Atlantis, Blue Panther, Pirata, and Rey. The two people I am pretty positive will make my list that have not gotten listed thus far are Porky and Cassandro.