Reel

I'd rank Walter higher than Drew, so I agree, but I'd say he is much more an exception that proves the rule rather than a template to replicate. I think Walter's offense is certainly more suited for his presentation than almost anyone in the modern era, and his getting people to buy into a chop being a finish is a credit to him, but he has plenty of matches working 50/50 with guys a lot smaller, it's just that they're structured better than most. Like a guy like Mark Haskins being competitive with Walter for example, is that any less egregious than Drew and a Zack Sabre, for example. On paper, I'd say no, it's just that Walter is better at putting the match together, and his offense is so physical and visible it lends itself to matches feeling more like a struggle than Claymores and DDTs.

The same criticism gets lobbed at Chris Hero, during pretty much exactly the same time period and against the same people, and I sort of agree, but at the same time, I feel like wrestling, especially indie wrestling, hasn't been the place where there are clear delineations of level and status for a long time, if ever, so how much can we blame Drew, or anyone else, for not fitting our idealized versions of wrestling when nearly every incentive is for them to have these 50/50, excessive, indie-rific matches.

I like Drew, and I think if he's going to a main event guy for the next 5 years, he'll have an opportunity to have some good matches and maybe have a shot at getting on the bottom of some ballots, but I don't know if there is any time in their respective runs were Sheamus hasn't been having better matches than Drew. Like, Drew's run on the indies where he got to do pretty much whatever he wanted had some good stuff, but it probably wasn't ever close to being as good as what Sheamus was doing on TV at the time.

Jericho has spent 25 years as the 7th best guy in every promotion he's in, whereas Windham had about 7 years where he could have been the best guy on the planet if he wanted to and a lot of years where he decidedly didn't. I don't find either particularly compelling for a high-end GWE case, but I'll probably vote for Barry and probably won't vote for Jericho.

Has to be Vader title change, right? Maybe the Luger Clash match. Other than that, is it the WrestleMania 13 6-man or is there some standout APA match I can't remember?

This point came up in the 2016 GWE podcasts, I think it is one of the Hales brothers' talking points, but I like it a lot so I'm going to borrow it for this thread. Foley because of his look and physical ability, basically invented a style outside of anything you would call traditionally good wrestling, where he could be a great wrestler. It's part of the reason, most of it really, that I think he's a tough guy to rank. He's got a lot of great matches and a ton of huge moments, but then I think back to what stands out about them and it stuff like the time one of the Nasty Boys hit him in the head with a shovel really hard. That's not to discount the way he constructs his matches, which is the real thing that separates him from guys who came later and tried to replicate his style, but the thing that makes most Foley match stand out is usually that he got hit real hard or hit something really hard. I think he'll probably make my top 100, but he's one of the guys who has a huge range of where he could fall.

I didn't really mean to shit on Deeb or Cap for nominating her. I am totally fine with nominating people you don't even plan to vote for, because in the process of how these discussions play out, they could gain steam and end up on ballots. I also think that nominating somebody because they've impressed you recently and want to check out more of their back catalog. I'm less fine with nominating people because it seems like they might deserve a vote in 5 years, but that's a personal thing more than a way I think this should go, so I'm still fine with that. This one, maybe because it was the most recent thread that fit this description, just seemed very emblematic of what I perceived as a trend of nominating people based on what is a small sample of recent matches in currently hyped promotions. So my comment is more of a comment on that trend. Here's a bit of an over simple hypothetical. If there was 1996 GWE, I'm sure Public Enemy would get votes, and for my small part in however this process plays out, I would like to argue against that kind of vote. I'm a big supporter of this process, so I don't want to dissuade anyone from nominating anyone, and I don't want anyone to think I'm coming after them for their picks.

i think were riding the aew wave a little too high if having 3 good matches there is enough for someone to say this person might be one of the 100 greatest wrestlers ever

I would say, for me anyway, for any of the stuff you mentioned: integrating his character, his offense, his selling, to matter, you have to have a certain amount of buy-in, that I just don't have because I don't like the presentation at all.

I liked Fire Ant, one of my favorite guys on the indies during his run, but I'm much more interested in GOOD wrestlers than FUN wrestlers, and OC is probably the most glaring example of a FUN wrestler ever.

I like Dom, I've seen pretty much his entire career from the very beginning. He was good pretty early, the ZSJ match from his first year was his first big opportunity, and he delivered in a tough spot for AIW that night. The Bishop match is one of my favorite moments in wrestling over the last few years, and he's good for a couple of matches I really like every year. But him being one of the best guys working indies right now is more indictment of current indie wrestling than a feather in his cap, and I can't really get behind "guy who is familiar with Kazushi Sakuraba" gimmick. 5 years is a long time, but he's gonna have to really hit another gear for me to seriously consider him.

Larry rules, and I think his reputation, at least generally, that he's some stalling Memphis heel to the Nth degree, is mostly bullshit and makes people write him off. He is good in 1970s WWWF, he has a good match with that sack of flour Stan Stasiak in 77, he's good in his tags with Garea after that, good in squashes with the likes of Rodz and Rivera, and the the Bruno feud is godhead. His Georgia stuff has some praise in this thread, which I haven't seen, but I'm sure it is at least good. He has the Bockwinkel feud, the stuff with Saito, good matches with Slaughter. The WCW run has standout stuff pre and post Dangerous Alliance, the Regal stuff of course, and even when he comes off the golf course to wrestle Scott Hall in 1997, he's still good. Criminally underrated in my view.

The 1997 MSG match against Cactus is the one that comes to mind for me.

Catching up on some current CMLL, and this isn't an all-timer or anywhere close and it's somehow sub-Real Player video quality, but Casas is still doing standout stuff in trios at 60 in an empty arena. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yEN4aTGgLaz6xtQC7NnfEiPy_fH47FpP/view?usp=sharing

The 2009 Elimination Chamber probably won't show up in a greatest Rey matches list, but he practically wills that match into being great. Also, he and Kidman have a couple of matches with Haas/Benjamin that I think are really great.

Working #1s: Daniel Bryan, Hijo del Santo, Tenryu, Flair, Funk Everybody Else: Kawada, Steamboat, Hashimoto, Misawa, Cena, Lesnar, Akiyama, Rey Mysterio, Fujiwara, Hansen, Chris Hero, Mariko Yoshida, Yuki Ishikawa

I nominated Megumi Fujii purely as a 100 candidate, and when I get down to finalizing my list if I'm not agonizing over my last few cuts, I'll probably put her there, but I think it's more likely that I have 150 people I'm considering and just try to get the 100 best on my ballot.

If Gulak was having the run of matches he is currently having on Main Event on a WCW C show in 1992 instead of modern WWE, he'd be on a lot more lists and I wouldn't be the first person posting in this thread.

Shawn is supposedly very hands-on with NXT:UK and if you watch that show, you don't really get any of the melodrama that you get with Gargano/Ciampa/Cole etc, even in the empty arena setting, where we have seen a lot more ACTING to replace the crowd, the Reigns/Uso stuff for example. So, I think it might be a case where Shawn likes that stuff, and guys like Gargano want to do that stuff too, and maybe we can blame Triple H for embracing that mode of storytelling, NXT is still his show afterall, so we see Shawn's fingerprints on that stuff. On the other hand, his other philosophies and views on wrestling manifest differently on other wrestlers and other shows. None of this matters for me, again if we were gonna blame wrestlers for negative influence, I'd dock Kawada 10 spots for every bad set of Kawada kicks I've seen on an indie show, but I do think that the "Shawn turned NXT into a weekly version of the Flair retirement match" thing is only partly true and only partly his doing.

if we're gonna dock Shawn for the NXT melodrama, should I leave Kobashi off my ballot for every horrible corner chop sequence from the last 20 years?

the rey escorpion match linked above should put him on everybody's list

he went from "awesome old guy taking stupid bumps on random shows" to "meme wrestler" very quickly

come for the banter, stay for the Fancy Dan appreciation

and then he ranked him at 51

again, i was only really impressed by her starting last year, but here's the stuff from 2020 I dug, all from seadling vs Yoshiko - Passion Accelerates vs ASUKA - Delivered to You vs Yoshiko - Closer to You with Tsukasa Fujimoto & Rina Yamashita vs Hiroyo Matsumoto, Yuu, & Ayame Sasamura - In Love with D with Tsukasa Fujimoto vs Yoshiko & Hiroyo Matsumoto - Seadlinnng: 5th Anniversary with Tsukasa Fujimoto vs Yuu & Ayame Sasamura - Grow Together with Tsukasa Fujimoto vs Yoshiko & Sareee - Shin-Kiba NIGHT