JRGoldman

After seeing OJ's "Ranking the luchadores" thread in the microscope, I would like to nominate Cassandro. There don't seem to be many match reviews here, but there is a complete and accurate on Segunda Caida.

So last night and this morning, I went through every nominee thread. I thought with less than a year to go, it might be helpful for people to see lists of where some of the nominees stand. I sorted people in to various lists: number one contenders, top ten, top 25, and top 50. I only sorted wrestlers that someone actually suggested a placement on. I always put them in a group that was the highest possibility suggested. I thought this might engender some controversy and thus people revisiting threads that have been dormant for a bit. I also did not compile a list for wrestlers that some said were in competition for the lower half, spots 80-100, or spot 100. I think Dylan alone has suggested at least 30 people for spot 100. There are probably a bunch of people who will make the overall list that aren't listed here, but I just wanted to filter this using actual posts instead of my best guess for other people's intent. Anyway, this will hopefully get some new conversations going. Potential Number Ones: Satanico Negro Casas Hashimoto Terry Funk Fujiwara Bockwinkel Misawa Jumbo Bryan Hansen Lawler Kobashi Flair Dustin Volk Han Santito Potential Top 10: Tenryu Rey Toyota Kawada Zayn Savage Regal Billy Robinson Fujinami Dundee Bret Vader Liger Eaton Hokuto Yokota Stone Cold Eddy Guerrero Dusty Benoit PotentialTop 25: Buddy Rose Angle HBK Atlantis Steamboat Akiyama Taue Kenya Blue Panther Jack Brisco Jim Breaks Andre Tanahashi Choshu Tommy Rich Steve Grey Hase John Cena Ishikawa Dick Murdoch Sekimoto Finlay Morton Barry Windham Potential Top 50: Dory Funk Terry Ridge Pirata Morgan AJ Styles Onita Dynamite Kid Arn Anderson Ronnie Garvin Martel Tito Santana Harley Race Baba Jon Cortez Tully Aja Kong Johnny Saint Bull Nakano Foley Ohtani Dick Togo Dibiase Kyoko Inoue Virus I'm typing on a phone so please forgive any autocorrect bizarreness. For those of you counting, 16 workers have been put forth as a candidate for one overall, 20 for top ten, 24 for top twenty five, and 23 for top fifty. I hope people find this interesting and it gets some discussion going on candidates you see here and perhaps more importantly candidates you don't see listed.

I'm a big fan of that period of Indy wrestling and he might make my list, but I think he is hurt by never being the best guy in ROH. Danielson was great and you wanted Nigel to sort of transition from being the second best guy to the best guy, but he always seemed to end up getting leap frogged by people. I think he was clearly worse than Danielson and Joe during his Pure Title stuff, and then I think he was clearly worse than Morishima during his big chase for the title. That's a large part of why there was such backlash against him when he finally won the belt. Any reign from Joe on seemed like a coronation of sorts that this person was the best ROH had to offer from an in ring perspective, and Nigel seemed to fall short. I think when he won the belt, Morishima, Hero, Aries and Danielson were all putting on more interesting matches, and during his reign he was passed by Tyler Black. Even his stuff post pure title and pre world title, I thought Jimmy Rave was actually the driving force of their matches and really worked to get Nigel over (aside from leaning in and getting his jaw broken). Certainly if his peak had been longer and luck had been on his side, he would probably have a higher showing. I think he sort of got over in TNA, but I don't remember any stand out matches. If he had been able to go to WWE I think he would have some interesting mid card stuff for us to look over.

I don't think I'm as low on Shawn from an in ring stance as some of the people here, but he won't be top ten or anything like that for me. I will say that it takes a special performer for people from multiple generations to buy in to the "best ever" hype that the WWE machine has bestowed upon him. Like, there are plenty of performers that would have been rejected by the fans even with the same treatment and booking. so that's a plus for him in my eyes. That being said, until the "JBL's Slave" storyline, I thought Shawn was a consistently entertaining personality while on television. Zia Hiltey refers to the later period Shawn stuff as "Heartbreak Dad", and I think that sums it up, both negatively and positively. I mean, there are times when he is just so oppressively, obliviously uncool. But that being said, it's sort of charming that he still thinks he's the absolute tits. He's like your friends drunk dad who wanders in to the garage and wants to play with your punk band and you humor him so he'll go away sooner but it turns out he's actually still pretty awesome at guitar and your entire world view is sort of changed but not really. Anyway, it seems like many of the things that I'm saying in defense of Shawn are not things that actually took place in the ring because all of that is pretty well worn territory. He did have great PPV matches even late in to his career. He did sleep walk through random TV appearances. I don't even think you can say he matured that much as a worker or anything, he just started using his real life back issues as a sympathy crutch in ring, which is smart, but didn't necessarily make for great viewing, especially repeated viewing. Have people's opinions on the Jericho feud really changed drastically? I remember loving it at the time and it being pretty universally praised. I know opinions of both men have gone down since then, but I'm interested to see if the matches hold up. I'll have to watch them tomorrow.

This seems to boil down to people who are offended by the WWE's modern main event style, and thus are offended by Cena as the clearest extension of said style. those of us that can stomach this style or even care for it favor Cena. I fall pretty firmly in the latter camp, and I don't think it's very close as others have said. I think Cena's best match is better than Bret's, I think his top five are as a whole better than Bret's, and I think his peak as a worker has lasted longer. While no one here has used it as a criticism, I think that some of the things that Cena is docked for (like an over reliance on a specific finishing sequence) are things that Bret has also been guilty of. I think both guys were way more giving than most "aces", although Bret was giving almost out of necessity while with Cena it strikes me as a more conscious choice. I also don't think it's terribly fair to call Cena a "system quarterback", because it implies that anyone could have equal or roughly equivalent success in the same position and I don't think that is true at all. I actually think that it's so untrue that it has informed Cena's character over the past few years. Cena character wise is almost like an American late period Misawa, this grizzled vet who doesn't particularly want to be the ace anymore, but people still can't beat him even though he's slipping. Cena being able to layer that in to his usual formula made the Punk, Bryan and even Lesnar matches way better than they might have been in a vacuum.

I can't really speak to his TNA stuff as I haven't seen a lot of it, but I can put together a good list for his work in ROH: vs. Corino 8/16/03 (Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies) vs. Joe 4/23/04 (Reborn) w/ Low Ki vs. Joe and Lethal 5/7/05 (Manhattan Mayhem) vs. Necro Butcher 5/13/06 (Ring of Homicide) The ROH/CZW Cage of Death 7/15/06 vs. Danielson (Final Battle 06) I think that the Reborn match and all of Manhattan Mayhem show how important Cide was for ROH during this period, because of his aura. He was reliably the person that they could build overarching angles with beyond "dream match" stuff which was still a major part of ROH during the 03-06 time frame. You see this at it's peak later as well with the Cage of Death and chase for the title, which I think are still the closest ROH has come to a spectacle type atmosphere that you find at Mania and the like. There is a bunch of other good Homicide stuff, like him dragging a useless Colt Cabana to two solid garbage matches, the best of five series with Danielson, and a ton of really fun tags with Joe and with the Rottweilers. I think watching that gives a solid idea of Homicide as a day to day worker during this time frame, but I have presented some of his peaks for the company. I think it's interesting that during this period, Homicide never held a title (until the transitional reign in early 06-07) and I think it speaks to the fact that he made things seem really important without having to fight for a prize.

Morgan is such a great bully in the ring. He does so many petty little things that inform his character and it's wonderful. Obviously the spitting blood stuff is the big one, but he is nonchalant in his dickishness that I can't help but really hate him. He's like Bobby Eaton, who always looked like such a dumb jock douche bag that I never had trouble buying him as one. He does a ton of things to help get faces over after pin falls or on the apron, which I think is why he was so successful as a trios worker. I remember in a singles match against El Dandy where he throws him out of the ring and has completely dominated the match, but instead of celebrating or mugging or going to the outside he just paced and was breathing really heavy like he had all this adrenaline but didn't know what to do with it. It showed what a struggle everything was against Dandy even though he hadn't even gotten any offense in yet. To rate people in stuff like this we inevitably have to split hairs, and I think that Pirata does little things really well, which will help him against others who may have a better on paper resume.

I was going through some of the stuff Elliott posted which was awesome, and then I went back and watched some of Satanico's stuff on the 80s set. I'm sure this is pretty well worn territory, but holy shit you guys that 89 match against Chicana is just absolutely bonkers. There are so many matches that have the same basic premise of two guys wrestling or brawling, but it eventually devolves and one or both men must get desperate. I don't think I've ever seen said premise put forth so viscerally. Watching the third fall where they just were punching and kicking and wildly swinging limbs and trying to kill each other gave me that same pit in my stomach I got when I was a kid and saw two people actually fighting for the first time. Even half way through the stuff in this thread, I don't think Satanico can fall out of the top tier of luchadores, and will end up being very high on my ballot.

I think it's a major credit to AJ that even at his worst, he always managed to stay relevant and be in higher level matches. I guess the other side of that coin is that aside from 05 and this year, sometimes those higher level matches are probably scarcer than his fans would lead you to believe. To me, he is a really interesting candidate because I don't really feel as though AJ has been a top 3 worker in the states in any given year (I will revisit the recent stuff which has been admittedly very good). I'm sure that there will be a point on my ballot in which people start to not be in the running for best worker in any given year, and I think Styles will end up comparing favorably to some of those people. I just have no concrete idea of where on my ballot that might start happening. 50? 80? I don't know.

I think it comes down to how highly you value the Shield stuff and what you think his value was to that run. Personally I can't think of a Shield match in which I felt he was the best part in ring, and I think post Shield break up he has had much worse overall singles run than both Rollins and Reigns. I don't think he had matches on the Indies that stood out in any memorable way. To me, he seemed to get over because of how advanced he was as a promo. He had fine matches, but nothing stood out. It's like Punk's Indy career if you took away the Joe matches. Frankly, I don't think he compares favorably to his contemporaries. I would probably put Sami Callihan on a ballot before him, and it seems that most people here view Callihan as a fringe candidate at best.

I think it depends how highly you value peak performance. I think overall he is a problematic performer that was hurt by being too giving to junior contemporaries. His ROH run holds up as well as anyone. His work really fell off a cliff as his body betrayed him when he probably should have been reaching his peak, which probably colors our perception of him. I think his US Indy run during the height of that style probably merits a low spot on my ballot.

I think others have made this same point perhaps more eloquently, but Orton manages to have every quality that makes for a successful performer but has never had a run where one isn't lacking in some major way. When he has been good as a character (the IED heel comes to mind) his matches have been overwrought and boring. When he has a good in ring run, it's often with nothing at stake. Went through a stretch of terrible injury luck that undercut him a bunch. Probably gets the most unified live reactions in WWE but has never really been a draw. I don't mind him as much as some others I guess, but I think he's the very definition of the sum being less than the parts.

I didn't see him on the nominated list, so I'll nominate Takeshi Morishima. He has multiple threads reviewing his matches here, including vs. Misawa 3/2/08, vs. Misawa 3/5/06, and vs. Taue 12/4/05. He has a solid ROH run as well with the well regarded series against Danielson. I think he probably warrants discussion.