Reel

It’s pretty much all there on YouTube, people just have to watch it, it’s not that it isn’t available. I do think as OJ has mentioned it doesn’t really have a discourse, but it’s not a matter of being hard to find.

There's a full Johnny Valentine match that I was totally unaware of on this best of St. Louis Tape: Maybe by 2056 we'll have enough full matches for a substantial top 10 case.

Complaining about people complaining about people complaining

So, I was born in 1990, started watching wrestling as a little kid in 1993, Bret Hart is sort of the platonically great wrestler in my mind, in the way that Flair I assume is for a lot of people, and Cena for younger people. But yeah, he just really doesn’t have a resume to beat out the very tippy-top guys. If we are being very liberal, it’s what 91 to 99, which is being as kind as possible to him, and then the tag stuff and whatever we have from Stampede. I mean, shit, I could see an argument for Moxley, who I’ve said my piece on, having an argument as ranking higher.

So, is anyone brave enough to talk about Bret being way too high?

He and Dom had a good match with the Usos at Money in the Bank 21, there was a good 4 way with Owens, Rollins and Balor on Raw that year. There was a good one with Buddy Murphy on Raw in 2020, and an Andrade match from that year too.

I didn’t have Foley very high, but I do think he’s among a handful of wrestlers who have sort of invented a style that made themselves great wrestlers, and I think that’s a sort of admirable and impressive feat. Onita and Maeda in the same sort of boat.

Not my post, but I can say it because I've watched a lot of wrestling, and based on that wrestling, I ranked the 100 greatest wrestlers. I formed an opinion on a lot of wrestlers. This idea that 'well, I could see why you would vote for that person' only goes so far. I really can't see why you'd vote for a lot of wrestlers; there are only 100 slots. When 65% of people vote for a person I wouldn't put in my top 500, I don't think it's anything other than perfectly normal to say that person got too many votes.

Was he though? I didn’t think that at the time, and I don’t see that now.

I think his Bloodsport match with DBS Jr is proof that he doesn’t really have a clue about MMA or shootstyle, and you can tell about him entering a BJJ tournament all you want, but him trying to do a Shogun Rua spot in that match is one of the more embarrassing things I’ve ever seen.

Boy did I think that Moxley/Barnett match was an abomination

Absolutely gobsmacked Moxley still hasn’t dropped. I know people like him, but him outperforming both Shield guys by this margin is not something I saw coming.

Has there been some sort of grand re-evaluation of Mistico, or is it really just the last 4 years at the top of CMLL?

Ikeda and Ishikawa in Battlarts, outside of Ishikawa being positioned higher, are pretty equal in my mind. The differentiator for me between Ikeda and Ishikawa is what they did when they branched out. Ikeda went to NOAH and was OK. Ishikawa went to Canada and trained Santino's students and had better matches with trainees than pretty much Ikeda did in NOAH.

I mean, this is not exactly the case. Does Sakuraba mean more to the sport? Yes. Was there a point where Sakuraba was the best fighter in the world? Probably, I’d be interested in really looking at that argument. Is being UFC Heavyweight Champion a bigger accolade than anything Sakuraba actually accomplished in a sense? Almost undoubtedly yes.