Quentin

Oh yeah totally, in complete agreement on all of that, especially that he’s good before then. His ROH work for some reason gets left out because he was more associated with TNA. I just said 2006 because that’s the last good TNA year and after I think TNA starts to go on a downswing and you see AJ’s role getting diminished.

Even without the WWE run, someone who was flirting with my top 10 the last time. Now with that run under his belt, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s a top 10 guy. The thing that may keep him from being a number 1 contender is the lack of emotion or heart to a lot of his best stuff that makes you either root for him or against him that may take a match to an all time level. But outside of this we’re talking an excellent TV worker in both WWE and TNA, one of the best gimmick match workers of all time, one of the most dazzling and innovative guys when it came to athletic spots but also in the vein of a Too Cold Scorpio, his stuff looked like it hurt too. And as he got older, took that athleticism and used it more selectively for bigger spots in the climax of matches. I would say he also has 2 years as WOTY in 2009, and maybe more controversially, 2005. I also wouldn’t bat an eye if anyone called him that for 2015 and 2016. A guy where the only real knock against him is that his prime got spent in TNA, but if you do the work and can sit through 2006-2014 TNA, you’ll see a guy that never stopped busting his ass. No matter how bad the product got, no matter how much they deemphasized him in favor of older names, the bad gimmicks, etc, AJ never stopped being AJ. He never stopped being the heart and soul of that company until the day he left.

Top half guy for me. He’s good in 2008, already has a great match under his belt by 2009, and by 2011-2012 he starts feeling like one of the best wrestlers in the world and that never stops, all the way up until now where 2017 through today he has a case for being the best wrestler on the planet. Elite tag team guy, all time great rivalry with David Starr, the best modern monster that wrestling has had and someone that thrives in those AMBITION settings too. I’ll come back here at various points with pre-2017 WALTER recommendations

Perrito is so so so fun, man. I’m not sure how high I could realistically see someone having him if he was to make a list but man the dude was such a ball of energy. Maybe a little inconsistent but one of the most charming guys of his generation. The footage we have him as a baby in 1995 and I think already his potential in his interactions with Juvie. Way more talented than maybe the totality of his career maybe shows, but one of the kinds of people who pop off the screen every single time.

Yeah, between being one of the most unique and innovative high flying guys of the boom, developing in to a really strong worker on the mat and then the great violent babyface moments that Phil mentioned, Slim has a shot for me. I would also mention the 2007 cage match with Patrick Bentley, I think that’s actually better than his war games performance. He’s fun in 2002 as a spot guy and was having legitimately great matches as recently as 2019. Slim has never failed in the “random match theory” of throwing on random matches of his and seeing how they impress me. A dude that honestly just got robbed, there’s no other way to put it.

The Fiend match is way better than it has any right to be and I would probably say it’s Bryan’s most impressive babyface match in WWE.

Going through the old pages, you highlighted “Bryan not selling for a year”. I’m assuming you meant the 2013 through Mania 30 run and I was curious why you classified it as not selling. It’s been 6 years so maybe your stance has changed since then but I’m fascinated by that. As a Bryan number 1 voter, I do think people saying Bryan should have a more critical lens on him is fair and I think if he’s gonna be a guy in play for the overall number 1, all possible critiques should be addressed.

HARASHIMA The face of DDT, best worker in company history and still arguably the best worker in the company. One of the best and most consistent wrestlers in Japan for at least 10-11 years that we have proof of. In the top tier of title match workers of the last decade along with fitting in great in any situation you want to plug him in to. Whether that’s having to be adept at comedy stuff, working young, spot heavier guys like Endo and Speedball, grappling with Sakaguchi and Shinya Aoki, or carrying someone like Soma Takao to a career match and at 46, shows no strong signs of slowing down. Didn’t get nominated last time but someone I had pegged for my 100 before realizing he didn’t have a thread. HARASHIMA vs Shinya Aoki: DDT Judgement 2/17/19 HARASHIMA vs KUDO: DDT Audience 5/31/15 HARASHIMA vs Kenny Omega: DDT Into The Fight 2/17/13

Hero is someone in play for me for the top 10. That might sound insane on paper, but he’s a guy you can really look at his career and chart the growth for. Maybe he’s not immediately great like Ki or Bryan at implementing all his ideas, but a solid base is there, along with likable quality to him that even the best guys to emerge from that period didn’t always have (and then he flips that on it’s head and becomes a really strong heel). You could argue that he was overly ambitious early on but I would counter with I find it very impressive that a guy like Hero could work matches going 20, 30, 40, even 60+ minutes so early on and not only are they not terrible, most of them remain engaging the whole way through and a few of them are really great. Everyone knows about how good he is in 2016, arguably the best wrestler in the world from December 2013 to January 2017. But like Sam here, as I go through this IWA MS stuff, eventually planning on getting to CHIKARA and whatever else, yeah he’s not the guys I mentioned before, he’s not peak Joe, he’s not even peak Aries or peak Nigel, but what you see is a guy that did his damndest to make sure whatever he did on the card stood out, no matter what he got asked to do. And that applies even to his last WWE stint being relegated to NXT UK and making the most of that, still looking he could be a wrestler of the year level guy if he got the chances.

I was a Bryan number 1 voter last time and that was with roughly 13-14 years of being an incredible wrestler and thriving in anything you could ever ask a wrestler to do and thriving when he wasn’t even meant to either at points. In the 6 years since then (3 really since he returned in 2018), he’s been the best or near the best in the company once again as both a heel and eventually a veteran babyface. Possible WWE MOTY in every year since he’s come back and there’s no sign at all of that ending any time soon, when he’s having a killer 2021, 20 years after the Ki match from King of Indies. Bryan number 1 is a lock for me.

I didn’t do all the digging I could on Jumbo when I turned in a ballot last time (I only jumped in during the fall of 2015 for GWE), but in the 5 years since then, he’s skyrocketed for me from being a middle of the pack guy on my last ballot to being a top 10 lock. I know more contemporary guys will probably get more thought now and deeper looks than in 2016 ie the Danielson’s and Hero’s of the world, even a Tanahashi. But I hope that by 2026, Jumbo doesn’t fall even further, just because analyzing him isn’t cool anymore 20 years after finishing number 1 in 2006. But maybe such a thing is kind of unavoidable.

Thanks, I had some other names I had written too but this should help my confidence in jumping in to it. Would definitely love something like this and think it would be super useful in making this as informative and fun as possible. Everyone has their own strong points and weak spots in viewing and I think embracing those would go a long way for everybody.

Glanced through this thread and saw some names I’ll make sure to remember but for the people who have made their way through the French stuff, who are the people to keep an eye on as potential inclusions for ballots? The little bit I’ve seen I’ve loved but I’m still having trouble having an approach on who to tackle first.

As far as working like a big man and really getting the most out of your size, I don't think anyone in the world is doing that better than Jonah Rock right now and the best examples of this are coming from PWG of all places

Brock and I are back, and more annoyed than ever. Listen to us talk about a lot of things in the modern wrestling fandom. https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/psychology-is-dead-the-art-of-annoyance