Mattsdmf

I think at this point, the only high vote I'll have on is my #1, Terry Funk. I'm really loving how this roll out is shaping up. A very diverse and surprising list in many ways.

I had Nobuhiko Takada at #95. One of my favorite all around workers and especially one of my all time early shoot style wrestlers.

MJF was #81. I had thought that MJF might have been too early in his career to vote but I thought about all that he has accomplished in his time, especially in AEW and it was undeniable. His top matches are amongst the very best matches I've seen in my life. He's so good at playing different roles but he's the ultimate heel. Especially nowadays where it's so hard to get genuine heat these days as the crowd so wants to cheer a good heel. He might get cheered here and there but he always finds a way to turn them against him. Virus is #53 for me. He was so amazing as a mini and then went on to have an extended career where he's wrestled a who's who in lucha. So incredibly sharp and crisp he is in the ring. An all timer in my book.

I wonder if Parv sees where DiBiase lands, he'll have a stroke.

I had 7 get knocked off. I'm at 93%.

Kerry Von Erich was #93 on my list. He was better than his rep was and he had a much fuller and memorable career than say Kevin did but Kevin was still good. Swerve Strickland was #46. He was always quite good since he first started showing up on TV but for me, it's his run in AEW that's ongoing that has solidified his case. He's great in the ring, has presence, can play all kinds of roles, and has so many really great matches and feuds. Villano III was at #97 for me. Most of his case imo was built around the famous Atlantis match in 2000 but he had great stuff littered all over his career. He's been an incredibly consistent working in my eyes.

Too Cold Scorpio: #71 on my list. I'm shocked how low he dropped on this compared to last year. That's really sad.

Finally got one of my wrestlers to land on the list: Yoshinari Ogawa was #96 for me. Interesting how he's lower from 2016 but up from 2006. He was a great tag partner for Misawa in 1999 and 2000 for AJPW but he really came into his own in NOAH. He was such a scrappy prick in those matches against Kobashi and Takayama. Tracy Smothers was my #92. While he wasn't a world beater, he's had such a varied and long career. He was able to get over in different places like Memphis, Smokey Mountain, ECW and IWA Mid-South. And the Smothers dance is worth a spot on the ballot for sure! Dax Harwood was my #99. Ultimately, it's been his run with Cash Wheeler in AEW that has fully cemented him as one of the all time great tag wrestlers up there with Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton who can also wrestle singles and get over. But most importantly, the amount of other worldly tag matches that he's been a part of since arriving in AEW in 2020 is what got him on this list. The more I want to type out, the more I think I put him too low on my list.

I relistened to the Where the Big Boys Play Top 100 the last couple days at work and listening to Parv being Parv for 5 hours was quite the task. It's really interesting how few of the old DVDVR/PWO guard has taken part in this. I'm really excited to see where the top results takes us. I'm sure a lot of it won't be surprising but I'm sure there's going to be a lot of shuffling. I remember so much of the discussion 10 years ago was "minimalist vs. maximalist" and that didn't seem to play a role in the discussions that I saw here.

None of my picks have come up yet but it's been very interesting watching what's been dropping so far.

That's cool! Hopefully I'll find it somehow.

I was about to make that joke. I'm relistening to the Where the Big Boys Play episodes of their Top 100 and reminds me how much nicer the discussions are without someone like Parv being involved. I don't think Chad has taken part in this which I always liked his opinions on wrestlers. Those 400 podcasts that were reactions to the 2016 list seem to be lost to the ether which is sad as I'd like to have listened to them again.

Despite I forgot a couple names, this is about as close as I could get for my ballot: Terry Funk Bryan Danielson Randy Savage Kenta Kobashi Negro Casas Ric Flair Mitsuharu Misawa El Hijo del Santo Stan Hansen Jushin Liger Blue Panther AJ Styles Jumbo Tsuruta Atlantis Toshiaki Kawada Eddie Guerrero Rey Mysterio Jr. Kazuchika Okada Bret Hart Aja Kong Jerry Lawler Chigusa Nagayo Akira Hokuto Kenny Omega El Dandy Shawn Michaels Steve Austin Jay Briscoe Genichiro Tenryu Jun Akiyama El Satanico Tatsumi Fujinami Yoshiaki Fujiwara Mistico Samoa Joe Buddy Rose Lioness Asuka Brock Lesnar Volk Han Chris Jericho Akira Taue CM Punk Ricky Steamboat Hiroshi Tanahashi Gunther Shane Strickland Kurt Angle Sami Zayn Mercedes Mone Vader Riki Choshu Adam Page Virus Shinya Hashimoto Nick Bockwinkel Shinsuke Nakamura Daisuke Ikeda Tully Blanchard Sangre Chicana L.A. Park Barry Windam Mick Foley Zack Sabre Jr. Jaguar Yokota Christian Cage Terry Gordy Arn Anderson Jon Moxley Curt Hennig Akira Maeda Too Cold Scorpio Dustin Rhodes Minoru Suzuki Bobby Eaton Ricky Morton Low Ki El Samurai Jack Brisco Antonio Inoki Devil Masami MJF Will Ospreay Sting Sabu Dory Funk Jr. Shinobu Kandori William Regal Kiyoshi Tamura Owen Hart Yuki Ishikawa Manami Toyota Tracy Smothers Kerry Von Erich Yoshihiro Takayama Nobuhiko Takada Yoshinari Ogawa Villano III Billy Robinson Dax Harwood Bull Nakano

The amount of crocodile tears I’ve read the last couple hours elsewhere on the net is incredibly disgusting. That said, I’m very curious how this will shape out in the next 6 months or so.

I don’t know why it took me so long to get into Dump as she’s everything I love about pro wrestling. Huge character, brawls and is metal as fuck! Makes me want to put on Judas Priest’s Hell Bent for Leather!

I was initially have John Cena at #100 because while he's not a big favorite of mine but he was in too many good to great matches to deny him and figured he'd be a good base. Now after thinking harder on it, I think he should be a bit higher than that and I think Magnum TA might be a better choice for that position. He had a much shorter run but he was so good at what he did so early into his career and had some all time great highlights to show for it.

I think it's safe for me to say, he's going to be my #1. It was between him and Terry Funk and the more I thought about it, Danielson seems to be a natural fit. He's had a lengthy run and has the advantage of his entire career to this point is on tape. Like Funk, I think he can do it all. He's shown that he's a wrestling machine and can do technical stuff all day long, but he can also be a firey babyface, a sadistic and cocky heel, a brawler, a great hot tag, the bully and the underdog. He was so good early on and only got better. I also think his WWE run also not just helped his case but also cemented it. I know for myself, I wasn't sure how he would do in the WWE as everyone doubted him when the news broke that he had signed with them. But not only did he end up fitting in, he excelled in that environment. I was gonna write up a very long post (which I probably will in the near future) about Danielson, but I do think this YouTube video is a great essay on him:

I'm planning to vote for Moxley. Probably in the bottom half of my ballot. He's in the middle of his peak IMO and it's really cool to see it progressing. I revisited a bunch of his WWE matches and think quite a few of them hold up (except for the infuriating camera work but that's a whole other issue). Depending on how the next few years go, he might even rise up my ballot. I really like his whole "mad dog" persona as my SO puts it and that he can work the mat as well. Been a big fan of his since he debuted with the Shield. I heard of him on the indies but didn't see anything of his from that era. I will be checking that stuff out as well.

Currently watching Dynamite and really enjoying it. I’m definitely interested in seeing a Young Bucks/ReDragon match at some point. That MJF promo was awesome and adds another emotional wrinkle to the feud. It’s really refreshing to have a feud running this long (3 months) and have very few matches but really be kept afloat by incredible promos. The Dog Collar match is my most anticipated match for the PPV. Currently watching The House of Black vs Death Triangle match and digging that. I don’t mind the addition of spookiness to my wrestling. Undertaker and the Ministry of Darkness was a big reason why I got into wrestling in the first place. Also add, I really like the wrestlers involved so I want to see where they go from there.

Something I was thinking about while working today. I have no interest in watching WrestleMania (really haven't in many years) but I do have a tradition of watching some kind of wrestling on the PPV nights especially on WrestleMania weekend. I thought about putting together a mixtape of sorts by making a WrestleMania-like card with stars who are in WWE at the moment but using matches from the past and doesn't have to necessarily have to be from WWE. For example: With Daniel Bryan, I've been tossing around his matches against Roderick Strong (ROH), Kofi Kingston (WWE) or Triple H (WWE). With AJ Styles, I could really thought the 3-way from TNA Unbreakable 2005 which also included Samoa Joe. With Rey Mysterio and Ricochet, I would choose their match from Lucha Underground. While making the list, I saw that the matches were almost a bit too "epic" heavy, so I'm trying to think of more fun matches or a spotfest match or so.

After only a couple weeks away from it, I got the itch to watch wrestling again but this time, I love watching IWA Mid-South shows from 2001-2003. It’s so fun watching some of the weekly Clarksville, IN shows as they would set up angles and matches that would carry on to the next small show and set up matches for the bigger shows. Particularly in 2003, they were building to a cage match between Ian Rotten and Bull Pain and instead of having them wrestle each other, they would either cut promos or Bull would just squash jobbers and call out Rotten. I really love the scuzzy look of the Clarksville building. Looks more like a run down garage then a community center. Also the crowds are fun. You have equal parts families and older folks who come to boo the heels and cheer the faces, the few who might want to see workrate and then the deathmatch vampires. Even though there’s less then 100 people at any given time, they still add to the atmosphere. Watching these shows reminded me how I really enjoyed the indie scene of the early to mid 2000s. And I wish I had gotten into IWA MS more back then other than watching a match compilation here and there.

I agree with the last 2 sentiments from Dav’oh and sek. I myself have been trying to chase that dragon of going back to watching wrestling the way I used to instead of analyzing it to death but once that genies out, it can’t go back. I’m reminded of an old film teacher of mine that warned students about his class as it’ll be analyzing films. Once you start looking at it through the lens of how it’s made, you can’t go back to mindlessly watching it. “This might ruin movies for you...” I think my whole hang up is just boredom (not in real life as work is busier than the holidays since retail is considered an essential industry) and burnout with wrestling. I tend to turn off stuff halfway through. I’m just gonna set it aside for the moment and focus on another hobby of mine like movies and reading books. The itch will return, it always does. I agree with sek in that the film and music industries are filled with degenerates like wrestling is. While I may not watch Roman Polanski or Woody Allen films, I might enjoy a film that have been produced by a monster *cough*Weinstein*cough*. Or this morning I was listening to Motley Crue’s first album and the singer Vince Neil had killed his friend in a car crash and put 2 people in a coma during a bender and only served 30 days in jail and a bit of community service because he was famous. That doesn’t even touch all of the sleazy stuff the band admits to in The Dirt. That being said, I would have to try not to think about it or I wouldn’t have a whole lot to watch or listen to if that’s the case.

I will say for me, all wrestling not just WWE is kind of joyless with the exception of AEW clips I see on YT. I don’t have cable so I can’t watch Dynamite. The last thing I got really excited about in wrestling was Lucha Underground. I might go back and watch my season 1-3 dvds that I got when I get the wrestling itch, whenever that will be.

That Jimmy Redman post is incredible and very close to how I feel about wrestling these days. About the only enjoyment I get from wrestling is reading this forum. I had decided to re-sign up for the Network just to watch the marquee matches for WrestleMania. The discussion threads here are very entertaining. That said, I started rewatching stuff on the Network and realized it’s really joyless and given how awful this whole situation is, I decided I really should stop supporting it and support something else. Sorry for rambling but Jimmy’s post made me want to throw my 2 cents in. I think I’ll give the allotted part of my streaming budget to either Shudder or be smart and save it in case the economy completely tanks the way it’s looking. I miss when wrestling was fun.

Speaking of metal, I love the shirts Rowan is always wearing every week. This week was a Blind Guardian shirt and one week was Amon Amarth.