Frankensteiner

So so terrible...heartbreaking news.

Savage also had a good run with Bad News Brown at the end of the year. There are a couple of matches at Boston Garden and one at MSG in December. I would recommend them. The Harlem streetfight from Copps Coliseum the following year is the one that is most well remembered (probably because it made it onto a Coliseum Video release) but that was arguably the least of their matches.

Are you going to do the J-Crown tourney from 1996 also?

Superplex into a pop-up Pedigree into a reversal? Jesus. These guys make Kurt Angle look like Ricky Morton.

Charlotte selling frustration through facial expressions... I can't even describe how embarrassing that looked

Some of my favorites: AWA 1984-1987. Martel, Bockwinkel, Hennig, Rockers were on fire. Blackwell face turn, Slaughter coming in. WWF 1984; 1992-1995. '84 is a great year with classic feuds like Slaughter/Sheik, Greg/Tito, and Piper/Snuka. Although Hogan was champ, he almost seemed kind of marginalized by comparison. The late '92-mid '94 period may be my favorite ever in the promotion. Bret, Perfect, Doink, Jannetty, Owen, Shawn, Kid, Steiners, Yoko... NJPW 1986-1987, 1992-1996. The first UWF feud is incredible, and then Hashimoto's rise to prominence in the 90s with Hase and Muto also making their mark. RINGS 1996-1997. There are some incredible matches that came before and after, but I think they hit their peak in '96-'97 when Tamura first came in and Han was still in his prime. BattlARTS 1997-1999. BattlArts second run was cool too but this part of their first run was better when they had better crowds and atmosphere. Mid-South 1984-1987. The period when DiBiase came back in 84 to feud with Duggan to about March of 87 when the writing was on the wall. CMLL 1990-1992. Atlantis and Dandy are two of my favorites and this was their peak. WCCW 1982-1985.

I haven't listened to the show yet but watching the Backlund / Snuka match, I think this is the only attempt for Backlund trying to work a straight face vs face matchup in the WWF.

Here's a crazy idea. Why don't they try to find a guy who appeals to all segments of their audience? I don't know too much about the priorities for kids/casuals/families/women but would venture to guess anyone getting Reigns' level of push would do well among that group of fans. I don't know if you can say they were any more predisposed to like him than some other random wrestler prior to his monster push. Was he leading merch sales before they strapped a rocket to his ass? And how have the ratings been since he took over as champion (can probably go back to Survivor Series for that)? I haven't followed them so I'm curious if he's making a difference in that regard.

Here is my top 50. I'm like some other people here in that I lost the back half of my list after moving guys around late. I'm pretty happy with my top 14 but after that I'd just as soon re-rank everybody again. My biggest mistake was forgetting to include Satanico on my ballot. I would have placed him top 30. 1. Volk Han 2. Nick Bockwinkel 3. Bret Hart 4. Kiyoshi Tamura 5. Tatsumi Fujinami 6. Atlantis 7. Steve Grey 8. Randy Savage 9. Shinya Hashimoto 10. El Dandy 11. Genichiro Tenryu 12. Barry Windham 13. Marty Jones 14. Rick Martel 15. Eddie Guerrero 16. CM Punk 17. Mitsuharu Misawa 18. El Hijo del Santo 19. Curt Hennig 20. Jack Brisco 21. Billy Robinson 22. Jerry Lawler 23. Tito Santana 24. Brian Pillman 25. Kerry Von Erich 26. Sangre Chicana 27. La Fiera 28. Ricky Steamboat 29. Daniel Bryan 30. Jim Breaks 31. Jumbo Tsuruta 32. Ron Garvin 33. Jerry Blackwell 34. Vader 35. Jushin Liger 36. Rey Mysterio Jr. 37. Stan Hansen 38. Bob Backlund 39. Hiroshi Hase 40. Invader I 41. Yuki Ishikawa 42. Chris Adams 43. Greg Valentine 44. Naoki Sano 45. Terry Funk 46. Blue Panther 47. Dustin Rhodes 48. Christian 49. Mark Rocco 50. Sgt. Slaughter

Awesome job to those responsible for running the entire project. I enjoyed the whole thing even if I don't particularly agree with the results. I will be posting my ballot shortly and I hope other voters do the same. That aspect is as interesting to me as the cumulative results. I'd like to find out who's tastes align with mine and then I can use that to check out wrestler or match recommendations by those posters.

So now that Fujinami, Bret and Bockwinkel (my #5, #3, and #2 ranked wrestlers, respectively) have dropped, I can safely call everyone ranked ahead of them overrated. I had Eddie top 15, but in hindsight, I wish I had him lower since he's going to be more overrated than I thought. Same applies to Steamboat, Vader, and Mysterio. Of course I've beaten the Flair horse to death already. Given that 13 of my top 14 names have already placed, the results are going to be slightly disappointing.

I'm most shocked Regal is making it this high. I mean I ranked Regal and not Kobashi but I knew Kobashi would have his fans. By the way I voted, hoping Kobashi, Kawada, Regal, Flair, and Arn will be the next to fall out.

Oh I totally agree that Han couldn't have had the Vader match. Han's one of the few guys in wrestling I could come up with that I think is great that I just can't imagine meshing with Vader. I don't think that makes Volk less great at what he did, but I do think that it is something that separates Tamura from Han. I'm going to start a Volk Han Complete and Accurate soon and one thing I've been thinking about lately is Volk being a high spot based wrestler or a guy who excels in spotfests. Tamura was really great at milking drama and building to big moments and pacing his matches so there is a sense of escalation. I'm not sure Han is on his level in that regard so it is something I'll be on the lookout for. I know people always point to Han/Tamura as the best "pure shootstyle" but I really think Tamura vs Kohsaka is. Volk feels like the Billy Robinson to Tamura's Jack Brisco. Like when Fujiwara and Friends were creating shoot style and developing all the workers, someone like Tamura at his absolute peak would be the best they could hope for. Volk Han is awesome, but he was doing wacky shit that the Shoot-Style Founding Fathers weren't thinking of. I haven't really worked it out quite yet, but I've been thinking about it because I want to go back and give the Han Trilogy and Kohsaka match real reviews in my C&A and I'm thinking it might be best to talk about them all together and compare/contrast and that Billy Robinson to Jack Brisco line has been floating around in my head. I don't get why being able to have a match with Vader is any sort of criteria or benchmark for a shoot-style worker. It's like asking if Misawa could have a match with with Austin Idol that was as good as the Lawler/Idol cage match. I liked all the Vader matches in UWFi but they're a hybrid and it really wouldn't make sense for Han to work that kind of hybrid match-up in RINGS. Han did have excellent matches against Vrij, Tariel, and Hans Nyman. Those were the RINGS monster equivalents of Vader.

Agreed, and I'm puzzled by it because almost all of the talk has been in the other direction. The quick and dirty would be that Han had a longer prime even if Tamura peaked higher. It'll be interesting to see if Fujiwara ranks above them? I liked both Han and Tamura better than Fujiwara because the style during their prime was more interesting even if all 3 were masters of their style at one point or another. The best of RINGS is better than the high point of UWF or PWFG in my view. But Fujiwara has the pro-style crossover for his NJ work so my guess is he makes more ballots.

I had Tamura at #4 and he was my highest ranked Japanese-born wrestler. It's still pretty impressive that he ranked as high as he did while only making 55 ballots. The 3 placements before him had 80+. Makes me wonder if Tamura will ultimately be the wrestler with the highest average vote?

Why did you put him above Hijo del Santo? That seems like the easiest comparison and I don't see how you get Atlantis there. Not being dismissive (although I do disagree), I genuinely would like to hear why. The only point in your post I disagree with actually is about the matches with Blue Panther. I'd have them closer to ****, not up there with the best in history. The last time I watched the 1991 match I was surprised by how shoddy some of the third fall work was. For Santo, there's a couple of points regarding his prime. First, we don't really have a lot of footage of him prior to '92 outside of a few main matches. Then the AAA period is kinda disappointing where he's paired with Heavy Metal and Psicosis for what should be his absolute peak. Once he returns to CMLL, his best work was as a rudo against Casas. Footage is pretty extensive after that, but since he shows up in multiple places, sometimes his work tends to feel like Santo on tour or a greatest hits version. Mind you I voted Santo fairly high in my Top 20 so this is very much nitpicking between someone who I consider top 10 and top 20.

I would agree with peak Nash (the few instances that exist) being better than Hogan, Piper, and Dusty. Those guys were cartoons and I never bought into them. Dusty was a bad ass on promos but the magic was gone as soon as he stepped into the ring. One thing for Piper is that he has absolutely the best movie/acting output of any wrestler ever. The Rock disagrees with that last statement. I think Hell Comes to Frogtown and They Live are better than anything Rock has done.

Has anyone else watched the DX public workout that was put up in the DX Collection section? I think this is the first time this footage is available, although it's kind of a waste of time. Shawn gets out to start his promo in front of the crowd then gets pelted with something right in the face and just storms off. This leaves Triple H to improvise and stall until Austin hits the ring at the end and then Shawn suddenly re-appears for the beatdown and getting Austin tied up in the ropes. Probably only good for a representation of how far Shawn was ahead of Triple H in terms of presence and charisma.

Wanted to jump back to say a quick word on Atlantis. He was my highest ranked luchador and I don't really get why others don't see him on the same tier with Santo, Dandy, and Casas. He's got the footage and the longevity to make a case. His matches with Panther are amongst the best in lucha history, and the Emilio and Villano feuds are just a level below. Also a good selection of post-prime matches that only add to his case. Although outside of the Villano III match, he doesn't have the volume of bloody, violent apuesta matches of someone like Dandy or Santo. That probably hurts him relative to them and admittedly the mask matches against Mano Negra and Kung Fu weren't very memorable. But on the other hand I think it's a pretty difficult thing to pull off being a classic, masked technico for most of the prime of one's career and Atlantis achieved that probably better than anyone else.

I would agree with peak Nash (the few instances that exist) being better than Hogan, Piper, and Dusty. Those guys were cartoons and I never bought into them. Dusty was a bad ass on promos but the magic was gone as soon as he stepped into the ring. One thing for Piper is that he has absolutely the best movie/acting output of any wrestler ever.

In the end, I ended up ranking Flair. Not super high, but he was around the middle of my list. He did have too many matches that I thought were excellent to not include him, even if at the same time I consider him a contender for a list of guys with the highest volume of footage that I would never want to watch again. But seeing as how he made my list, I would have to consider him a great wrestler, even if it's not top-tier great.

That was my first time seeing that chop exchange. Now I'm more convinced I didn't make a mistake in not ranking Kobashi after watching that.

I guess Childs and OJ were right in saying that most of the WOS workers wouldn't be making the top 100. Grey is arguably the best babyface ever and I thought for sure he'd make it. Same goes for Marty Jones who dropped a few spots previous.

I guess I'd like to see this mythical long list of guys with long peaks and volumes upon volumes of great output. I'm sure I could be just as casually dismissive on their careers as well.