El Dragon

I'm fairly confident Vader didn't get a 1 vote in 2006 as well. Meaning he's ranked 14-17 in 3 different polls, with over 600 ballots between them, while receiving zero No.1 votes. More so then any other wrestler ever, I think there is consensus on Vader's all time standing that is almost inarguable.

I said in the Discord that if Inoki beat Fujiwara in this I'd retire from online wrestling discourse because clearly there is nothing for me here because how straight up stupid that would be, and how I felt there was no way we'd be that dumb. But here we are, I guess. Let my final note be Antonio Inoki sucks, and y'all are crazy.

Thank God Regal at least beat Ospreay, even if I still find his placement is way way too low. Best utility player in wrestling history. Yes, I put him over Arn in that catagory.

The only time the word “good” was mentioned in the posts pushing for Strong was to dismiss the argument he was just a good wrestler. He’s clearly a great wrestler, to the point that trying to claim he isn’t just feels silly.

He finished 101, after correction

On top of this, I think his RoH run gets pretty massively slept on because he’s just surrounded by so many other great wrestlers, and he was great there, even if he wasn’t a Joe/Danielson level guy. His 05 is amazing, first as Aries policeman, getting his hands on Aries next challenger early to soften him up for him, to a breakout summer with the awesome Gibson match, and then the awesome Danielson matches. He’s also got 3 pretty legitimately great tag team runs with Evans, Aries, and O’Reilly on his belt too. Just a damn easy case to make for him if you know the resume. The matches/performances are clearly there, and among all the aura talk, this is still a list supposed to be about being great in ring.

Okay, gotta say, while Kingston/Jericho is great, claiming that A: It’s Kingstons best match in his career (It is really good, but probably outside his top 10) and B: claim Jericho “orchestrated it” in the middle of one of Jerichos worst runs of his career, and after Kingston was off great matches with Punk and Danielson, just rings really really hollow to me.

I think the voting process is fascinating because with so many votes it was very hard to tell what crowds would have major influence. For example, the crazy brawler route seems to have way more support then I thought possible: I had heard the hype for Abby and Dump and what not, but nowhere on my bingo card was Jun Kasai getting top 135 (and honestly it’s cool that he did) or Necro Butcher pushing hard for top 100. I do think the 2 sub groups that have really pushed this time (other then the obvious Joshi push) are the 00’s Indy boom guys and new Japan diehards. The 00’s Indy guys that are left do have something almost nobody from the 80’s have: 15-20 cases of documented good wrestling on tape. Even past those big 4, guys like Roddy, Briscoe, Sami, Owens and Claudio just have tons of great work available out there, so them moving up makes sense. Even Low-Ki I can see moving up due to how easy to access he is (just show someone him the red clip and how can you not want to see more). 2010’s New Japan is a more interesting one. We knew there would be plenty of support for the big 3(Okada, Tanahashi, Omega) and that the tier 2 guys (Naito and Ishii) were likely going to get in, the question was what I perceived as being the tier 3’s: Shibata, Suzuki, Ibushi, Nak. I think all 3 have some decent sized holes in their resumes (Shibata’s highs are great but the match to match consistency is iffy, Nak just spent a decade basically collecting a paycheck, Suzuki I feel is strongest but there are big gaps, and Ibushi is Ibushi, and I don’t know what else to say other then that). But now it looks like all 4 are getting on, when I honestly prefer Goto’s case to 3 of them. It was somewhat predictable, but I personally am a bit bummed about it.

I’ll go Sammartino, ZSJ, Mayu, The Rock, Jay Briscoe, and William Regal as last 6 out. The last 2 purely because if I’m right at least something positive will come of the travesty.

Dammit, Christian falling short again. My #12. Just consistent, quiet great work whenever he’s been around for almost 30 years, all undercut because Vince just decided he didn’t like how his face looked.

Abby, Thesz, Gordy, Williams all kicking around as well, though the last two might be more from japan.

The Martel drop might have broken me from defending the voters completely. The singular best babyface of the 80's for my money.

I was thinking about how reasonable I felt the 150-145 drops were and then in comes Finlay to break my god damned heart.

Well yeah, but my nostalgia is about driving up to Chicago watch RoH shows in the peak of the promotion. Nostalgia isn't an enemy imo, it's just reality. You can try to limit how much it affects you completely, but I don't think it's a bad thing unless your completely closing yourself off to liking things that are modern just because their modern.

Oh, it wasn't aimed at you at all, I thought your observation was pretty clearly just that, was just using your list as a means of explaining why I thought the case didn't hold water. I also don't think Hangman should be top 100 yet by any means, nor did I vote for him. I did vote PAC, but I don't think a 98 vote probably changed too much for him.