elliott

I'll have more to say after work tomorrow but I wanted to mention this because I forgot it once already. I think Misawa deserves a 10 for intangibles. He was definitely charismatic. You don't become the most popular wrestler in a country of 120million+ without charisma.

It's a blast! Two thumbs up!

Don't be as "generous as possible." Just be realistic. Was Misawa as a junior even one of the 50 best juniors ever? If no, does he really deserve a +1. Misawa "worked" the Tiger Mask II gimmick, but he wasn't nearly as successful or over as Sayama and I've never seen Misawa's run as Tiger Mask ever described as anything other than disappointment. Is anyone voting for Misawa as #1 putting a ton of weight into his Tiger Mask run? Misawa wasn't just the ace of a promotion. He is often cited by hardcore fans as the "Best" ace and his "promotion" is often pointed to as the absolute pinnacle of in ring work. And Misawa's time as the Ace is specifically pointed to as the absolute PEAK of the "best in ring promotion" of all time. It seems like that last point should mean more than his ability to put on a mask or his time as the 75th best junior heavyweight.

So the category is "Ability to work different styles & roles" where Abby scored +5 overall. +3 of which is "Ability to get over in multiple markets." And yet there you are saying that Abby's act is always the same. So what you're really doing is giving him: Ability to pass through customs and board a plane +3 So I also declare shenanigans.

So like 15 years ago I bought a Best of Super Dragon, tape with matches against guys like Excalibur in front of 13 people and I thought it was pretty fucking awesome. Then I literally did not think about him for 15 years until everyone started going crazy about the Necro Butcher match a few months back. So I eventually watched that and holy fucking shit was it amazing. So give me some specific recommendations. What are his absolute top tier best matches? What are some matches, hopefully online, that showcase his best traits? It is too late for him to make my list unless I watch like 10 more matches the level of the Necro Butcher match, but my interest is piqued.

I nominate Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/14633-shinya-hashimoto-junji-hirata-vs-masa-chono-hiroyoshi-tenzan-njpw-fighting-spirit-legend-061295/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/15011-shinya-hashimoto-junji-hirata-vs-masa-chono-hiroyoshi-tenzan-njpw-battle-final-121195/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/11144-shinya-hashimoto-junji-hirata-vs-yoji-anjo-yoshihiro-takayama-njpw-fighting-spirit-022596/ Also via AJ 80s Set & Yearbooks I nominate: Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara

This is the big question. I don't think you're overthinking it at all because I thought it too. Are we talking specific styles or compartmentalizing it down to specific things like bumping? That's kinda why I wanted people to offer up some examples just to see where everyone's head is at. For example I spent a lot of this project arguing in favor of Hansen who would usually be considered a "guy who does one thing exceptionally well" which falls under the broad term of "brawling." My argument was Hansen did a ton within that one trick to the point where he was extremely versatile within that "one thing he did exceptionally well." So it doesn't really matter to me that Hansen doesn't have a 60min NWA title match against Flair with a bunch of mat work. Hansen doesn't need that to be a #1 contender in my eyes. Same sort of thing with the shoot style masters. But if the "one thing being done exceptionally well" is broken down to something as specific as bumping or punching, it will still mean something but it will mean a less than being the best brawler or shoot style worker etc.

OJ, regardless of the pad size, this scene is possible on my island: While walking along the beach Elliott stumbles upon a beaten and bloodied stranger washed up on the shore. Not knowing the horrific ordeal this stranger has been through specifically, but understanding the fear of being lost at sea and washing up on a deserted island, Elliott rushes to the stranger to give assistance. When the beaten and bloodied stranger regains consciousness, Elliott attempts to communicate..." Elliott: "Who are you? Do you know your name?" Stranger: "My name? My name is Jerry von Kramer." Elliott: "You're safe now Jerry. It will be ok. There's not much to do here but I have a bunch of pro wrestling matches we can watch." JVK: "Do you have any Ted Dibiase matches?" Elliott: "No." JVK: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Jerry von Kramer dashes back out to sea.

Three Matches is NOT enough and rules are for suckers. So I had fun doing this. Pre 1980s Misc North America Lou Thesz vs Verne Gagne 1/25/52 Buddy Rogers vs Pat O’Connor 6/30/61 Mad Dog Vachon vs The Giant Jean Ferre Montreal 1972 Pre 1980s Misc Foreign The Destroyer vs Giant Baba 3/5/69 Andre the Giant vs Strong Kobayashi 5/6/72 Clive Myers vs Steve Grey 11/22/75 Memphis 70s Jerry Lawler vs Dr Frank Tupelo 1978 Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee 8/22/77 Jerry Lawer & Bill Dundee vs Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy 7/14/79 +prematch promos Memphis 80s Jerry Lawler vs Terry Funk Empty Arena 4/6/81 Jerry Lawler vs Austin Idol 4/27/87 Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee 12/30/85 Portland 70s Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper 2/3 Falls 5/12/79 Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper Lumberjack 5/19/79 Buddy Rose vs Adrian Adonis 9/8/79 Portland 80s Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs Rick Martel & Roddy Piper 2/3 Falls 8/2/80 Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper Loser Leaves Town 9/13/80 Buddy Rose vs Dynamite Kid 2/3 Falls 9/17/83 AWA 80s Bobby Heenan vs Lord Alfred Hayes 1/13/80 Hulk Hogan & High Flyers vs Ken Patera, Jesse Ventura & Bobby Heenan 3/13/83 Mad Dog Vachon & Baron von Raschke vs Crusher Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Kaissey Taped Fist Match 3/13/83 Mid South 80s Midnight Express vs Bill Watts & Stagger Lee 4/24/84 Rock n Roll Express vs Dirty White Boys 5/11/85 Buzz Sawyer vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan 11/11/85 World Class 80s Kerry von Erich vs Ric Flair 8/15/82 The Fabulous Freebirds vs The Von Erichs 7/4/83 Kerry von Erich vs Michael Hayes Loser Leaves Town Cage Match 11/24/83 Jim Crockett Promotions Sgt Slaughter & Don Kernodle vs Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood Final Conflict 3/12/83 Tully Blanchard vs Magnum TA “I Quit” Starrcard 11/28/85 The Four Horsemen & JJ Dillon vs Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, The Road Warriors & Paul Ellering “War Games” 7/4/87 WCW 80s Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat WrestleWar 5/7/89 Lex Luger vs Ricky Steamboat GAB 7/23/89 Ric Flair vs Terry Funk GAB 7/23/89 WCW 90s Midnight Express vs Rock n Roll Express WrestleWar 2/25/90 Ricky Steamboat & Dustin Rhodes vs Arn Anderson & Larry Z Clash of the Champions 11/19/91 Rick Rude vs Ricky Steamboat Iron Man Match Beach Blast 6/20/92 ECW 90s Terry Funk vs Sabu 12/26/93 Raven vs Tommy Dreamer + Lawler Angle + Taz vs Sabu 6/7/97 Jerry Lawler vs Tommy Dreamer Hardcore Heaven 8/17/97 ECW 00s Tajiri vs Super Crazy Mexican Death Match 1/15/00 Tajiri vs Steve Corino 5/14/00 Tajiri vs Psicosis 8/19/00 US Independents 90s Lightening Kid vs Jerry Lynn 10/90 Jerry Lawler vs Eddie Gilbert 11/9/90 El Hijo del Santo, Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs Negro Casas, Horace Boulder & Tim Patterson 5/16/92 US Independents 00s Shinya Hashimoto vs Steve Corino 10/13/01 Bryan Danielson vs Low-Ki ECWA Ricky Steamboat Special Ref 7/21/01 Necro Butcher vs Super Dragon PWG Battle of LA Date? WWE 80s Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Jim Duggan & Brutus Beefcake vs Honkey Tonk Man, Danny Davis, Harley Race, Hercules & Ron Bass Survivor Series 11/26/87 Andre the Giant, One Man Gang, King Kong Bundy, Rick Rude & Butch Reed vs Hulk Hogan, Bam Bam Bigelow, Paul Orndorff, Don Muraco & Ken Patera Survivor Series 11/26/87 Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage WrestleMania III 3/29/87 WWE 90s Randy Savage vs Ultimate Warrior WM VII 3/24/91 Bret Hart vs Roddy Piper WrestleMania VIII 4/5/92 Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Dude Love Over the Edge 5/31/98 WWE 00s The Rock vs Hulk Hogan WrestleMania XVIII 3/17/02 Eddy Guerrero vs JBL Judgment Day 5/16/04 The Big Show vs Floyd Mayweather WrestleMania 3/30/08 WWE 2010s John Cena vs Brock Lesnar Extreme Rules 4/29/12 William Regal vs Kassius Ohno NXT 4/10/13 John Cena vs Daniel Bryan SummerSlam 8/18/13 1970s All Japan Stan Hansen vs The Destroyer 10/30/75 Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk 6/11/76 Billy Robinson vs Giant Baba 7/24/76 All Japan 80s Stan Hansen vs Terry Funk 4/14/83 Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu 1/26/86 Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen 12/6/89 All Japan 90s Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi 7/27/93 Kenta Kobashi & Tsyuoshi Kikuchi vs Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas 2/25/92 Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 6/9/95 NJ/AJ/NOAH 2000s Shinya Hashimoto/Iizuka vs Ogawa/Murakami 1/4/00 Jushin Liger & Wataru Inoue vs Yoshinobu Kanemura & Tsyoshi Kikuchi 2/17/02 Toshiaki Kawada vs Genichiro Tenryu 10/28/00 New Japan 80s Stan Hansen vs Andre the Giant 9/23/81 Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami 6/12/86 Riki Choshu vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara 6/9/87 New Japan 90s Heavyweights Shinya Hashimoto vs Masa Chono G1 91 30min Draw Shinya Hashimoto vs Genichiro Tenryu 2/17/94 Shinya Hashimoto vs Nobuhiko Takada 4/29/96 New Japan 90s Juniors Jushin Liger vs Naoki Sano 1/31/90 Jushin Liger vs Dick Togo 6/17/96 Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Ohtani 2/9/97 Shoot Style 80s Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Super Tiger 12/5/84 Akira Maeda vs Nobuhiko Takada 11/10/88 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Kazuo Yamazaki 7/24/89 Shoot Style 90s Kiyoshi Tamura vs Vader 6/10/94 Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han 1/22/97 Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tsyuoshi Kohsaka 6/27/98 Joshi 80s Chigusa Nagayo vs Devil Masami 8/25/88 Dump Matsumoto vs Chigusa Nagayo Hair vs Hair 8/28/85 Dump Matsumoto vs Chigusa Nagayo Hair vs Hair 11/7/86 Joshi 90s Akira Hokutao & Shinobu Kandori vs Bull Nakano & Aja Kong 3/27/94 Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori 4/3/93 Aja Kong vs Dynamite Kansai 8/30/95 Japanese Indys 80s Riki Choshu vs Genichiro Tenryu 2/21/85 JPW Atsushi Onita vs Masashi Aoyagi 10/6/89 FMW Atsushi Onita vs Masashi Aoyagi 6/2/89 FMW SWS/WAR 90s Genichiro Tenry vs Ric Flair 9/15/92 Genichiro Tenryu vs Shinya Hashimoto 6/17/93 Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto FMW 90s Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs Masanobu Kurisu & Dragon Master Atsushi Onita vs Terry Funk 5/5/93 Hayabusa, Daisuke Ikeda, Hisakatsu Oya & Ricky Fuji vs Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa, Kintaro Kanemura & Gedo 6/19/98 Michinoku Pro 90s Great Sasuke, Tiger Mask IV & Shiryu vs Taka Michinoku, Super Delphin & Gran Naniwa 3/16/96 Jushin Liger, Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada vs Dick Togo, Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki 8/18/96 Gran Hamada, Super Delfin, Tiger Mask IV, Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji vs Dick Togo, Mens Teoh, Shiryu, Taka Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki These Days 10/10/96 BattlArts 90s Yuki Ishikawa vs Daisuke Ikeda 9/1/97 Yuki Ishikawa & Carl Greco vs Alexander Otsuka & Mohammed Yone 1/12/99 Alexander Otsuka vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga 11/9/99 Japan Indys 2000s Yuki Ishikawa vs Kazunari Murakami BattlArts 11/26/00 Yuki Ishikawa vs Daisuke Ikeda Futen 4/24/05 Yuki Ishikawa vs Carl Greco BattlArts 6/9/08 Lucha 80s Sangre Chicana vs MS-1 Hair vs Hair 9/23/83 Sangre Chicana vs Perro Aguayo 2/28/86 El Satanico vs Sangre Chicana 5/26/89 Lucha 90s El Satanico vs El Dandy 10/26/90 El Satanico, Emilio Charles Jr & Kamala vs Atlantis, El Dandy & Rayo de Jalisco Jr 8/3/91 Love Machine & Eddy Guerrero vs El Hijo del Santo & Octagon Hair vs Masks 11/16/94 Lucha 00s El Hijo del Santo vs La Parka Monterrey Bloodbath 12/23/01 La Park vs Dr Wagner Jr TXT 5/11/13 El Satanico, Mephisto & Averno vs Tarzan Boy, Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero & Mascara Magica Infierno en el Ring 9/28/01

Is this online? For the love of god is this match online???

Oh of course it isn't my only criteria. I'm considering all of the things you are from peak to longevity to variety of opponents, etc. If I ranked solely on "Ability to Work Different Styles and Roles" my list would look different than the one I will send in and in many cases guys I prefer would rank lower than guys I don't really like. If you are the best at a style or an important role, that definitely means something. But Funk was SO great at EVERYTHING the more I think about it the more I feel confident about Funk at #1. But peak, longevity, great matches, variety etc are all intertwined with his ability to be great at everything. So its not just because of his versatility. But it is at the same time. Anyway, I think the Jack of All Trades vs Doing One Thing Exceptionally Well argument isn't really about the GOAT Candidates just like Peak vs Longevity isn't really about the GOAT Candidates. Ideally the guys who are GOAT Candidates are going to all be great a lot of things, have high peaks and longevity. It is what makes them GOAT candidates. Peak/Longevity and Jack of All Trades vs One Thing come up more in how to rank the 2nd and 3rd tier guys. Also, for everyone, who are some of the first wrestlers you think of when you think of Jack of all Trades Wrestlers and Doing ONe thing Exceptionally Well Wrestlers?

I agree with this. I think this is actually a really great question and is like the evil long lost twin of the Peak vs Longevity debate because it is actually really important for a list like this but it doesn't get talked about nearly as much. Shit it took the whole project to get a proper thread! I hate to say it depends because I feel like I always say it, but it depends on a number of factors. it depends on what the one thing being done exceptionally well. Ricky Morton being "the greatest sympathy babyface tag team wrestler ever" is something absolutely agree with and means something to me. But lets say the argument is Robert Gibson is "the greatest waiting for the hot tag on the apron ever" it wouldn't mean as much. Now lets say the argument is Volk Han is "the greatest shoot style mat worker ever." That's going to mean something entirely different and I have to figure out what exactly. So figuring out what the "one thing" that is being done exceptionally well is the first important thing to hash out. It depends on how good the jack of all trades guy is at his trades. If its Chris Jericho or Bobby Eaton or Terry Funk, it will mean something different. I mean, I don't think Jericho is all that good and I get calling him a jack of all trades. It would be easier for a "doing one thing exceptionally well" wrestler to rank above a jack of all trades wrestler like Jericho than a jack of all trades wrestler like Eaton. Because Eaton was better at his trades. if the "does one thing exceptionally well" wrestler is Volk Han and the "one thing" is shoot style mat work, well that's a pretty hard thing to master. If it is close like Volk Han vs Bobby Eaton would be for me, I will probably lean towards Volk because while being really good/great at everything is awesome, mastering a style like shoot style is really impressive. HOWEVER, Terry Funk is the best "jack of all trades" wrestler ever and there is absolutely no "does one thing exceptionally well" wrestler I would rank above him. I have Funk #1 overall because of his versatility. So in the end, at the very top, I favor jack of all trades. I would argue the one thing Terry Funk does exceptionally well was being the best jack of all trades wrestler.

UGGGH. There is way too much stuff in here I wanted to respond to and I accidentally hit the back button and lost a huge post. And there were a few new posts since I started that huge post. Damn! My basic points.... Wrestlers/fans of the territory era often talk about how great it was that the territories existed because they made it easier to stay over. Once you wore out your welcome with the fans or promoters and weren't over anymore, you could go to the next market and start fresh. There's some chicken/egg potential there, but it is definitely worth thinking about. So following the logic that the territory system made it easier for wrestlers to stay fresh and stay over for years because they could leave when they started to get stale, Lawler sticking around Memphis forever and becoming God is really fucking hard and actually MUCH harder than traveling around. So hard that no one else really did it at the level Lawler did. So therefore Lawler +10 for not traveling around. Look at it another way. Lawler and Buddy Rose GOT to stay home. Those other dudes HAD to travel chasing the next big push because they weren't good enough/smart enough to figure out how to make a 5 year run work let alone a 40year run. I also agree with all the points about Tenryu's ability to get over in different places being reflected by WAR & SWS. But I also agree with Parv's desire to give him a +1 for that because he deserves some extra points for something kinda like that I'm just not sure how to phrase it concisely. So I'll phrase it in an overly wordy fashion Basically I view Tenryu as the Japanese version of Ric Flair. If you were a relevant native wrestler in Japan in the last 40 years, chances are you had a match with some point with Tenryu. Including tags: Baba, Inoki, Rusher Kimura, Jumbo, Fujinami, Choshu, Takada, Onita, Hashimoto, Muto, Chono, Hase, Koshinaka, Yatsu, Saito, Fujiwara, Yamazaki, Sasaki, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue, Akiyama, Takayama, Morishima, Tanahashi, Okada, Shiozaki etc If you want to add in Gaijin: Hansen, Terry Gordy, Funks, Flair, Hogan, Abdullah, Brody, The Road Warriors, British Bulldogs, Harley Race, Nick Bockwinkel, Ted Dibiase, Dick Murdoch, Mil Mascaras, THe Sheik, Ricky Steamboat, etc. So everyone important. except for Rikidozan, Maeda, Tamura and Volk Han. ANd FUCK do I want to watch Tenryu vs Maeda, Tamura & Han. And I actually don't remember a Vader match and surely I would remember a Tenryu/Vader match. For everyone I named there are a bunch of midcarders I didn't name too. Here are. 5 more real quick LIger, Aoyagi, Ishikawa, Hara, Tarzan Goto. I just realized I forgot about Dragon Gate and the Gran Hamada/Sasuke/ULtimo Dragon lucharesu type feds, but fuck that shit other than 90s Mpro anyway I feel like Tenryu is the Central Link (for lack of a better phrase) to all of Japanese Wrestling. For example, you could tell Jumbo Tsuruta's story without mentioning Shoot Style, Garbage Style, Japanese "Independent" Wrestling, etc. To tell the full Tenryu story, you have to (get to!) hit everything from Baba/Inoki to Jumbo Fujinami Choshu to Hash and Misawa to Onita and Takada etc etc. You could say a lot of these things about Flair with only the names being different. If you were a relevant star in 80s US/Japanese wrestling, and didn't have a match with Ric Flair at any point you probably weren't actually all that relevant a star. There are some obvious differences between the two but I started thinking about Tenryu as the Japanese Flair recently when it occurred to me that Tenryu had wrestled pretty much everyone but Rikidozan and Maeda and had footage of him against all of those people and how bonkers/awesome that is. Obviously it is on a smaller scale because Flair traveled the world and Tenryu was "traveling" to his 10,000th show in Tokyo when Tenryu "invaded" New Japan. So basically, while I think giving Tenryu a +1 for getting over in multiple places and listing WAR/SWS is questionable, I do encourage the urge to give Tenryu extra points. +1 for just being Tenryu +1 for running a promotion called "Wrestle and Romance" +1 for calling that promotion "WAR" These are all acceptable options for giving Tenryu extra points. Also one last little note about All Japan Budokan sellouts run, I recall reading in either the Misawa or Kobashi WON bios that All Japan actually sold out every single show they ran in Tokyo during the stretch they sold out all the budokan shows. It wasn't just the major shows that were selling out. It was every show in Tokyo. Thats pretty awesome if its true.

The matches that made the 80s set: Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Kenta Kobashi 7/15/89 #16 Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu 10/20/89 #81 Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Terry Gordy & Bill Irwin 11/19/89 #70 Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura 11/29/89 #7 Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu 12/6/89 #4 Looking at Lord Helmet's Hansen Comp, there's also Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu 7/11/89 Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Great Kabuki 9/30/89 What else exists? The Baba/Rusher and 89 tag league final are two of my favorite matches of all time, Hansen & Tenryu individually are two of my all time favorites, but yeah, there's no way they could rank.

Without going too super indepth... Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell have always been connected for me. I started listening to them around them same time in my early teens and never looked back. They've pretty much spent the last two decades at or near the top of my favorites list. The parallels are obvious. Anything you can say about Dylan, you can say about Joni. I view them as the female/male versions of each other. Their style, output, peak, longevity, etc is all basically the same with Dylan starting a little earlier and Joni's peak ending a little later. I think Joni wrote the two best albums of the Dylan/Towns/Joni trio with Court & Spark and Blue. Hejira doesn't get the knee jerk "Best Joni album" reaction the other two get from most fans, but the more I listen to it the more I think it is on that level. Hissing on Summer Lawns, For the Roses and Ladies of the Canyon compare well to the 2nd tier "best Dylan Albums." Joni's main disadvantage is that she is Canadian. I discovered Towns probably 5 years after I first started heavily listening to Dylan and Joni and he pretty much hopped right into contention with them. My immediate reaction upon first hearing Towns was "Oh, so he's like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash put together, yes this is for me." He's great for all of the same reasons as Dylan & Joni. When you first start listening to them the first thing that jumps out (at least it did for me) is the songwriting. They are all masterful songwriters. Best of the best. Able to play the roles of storyteller, comedian, realist, activist, etc with ease. When I first started reading about Towns, I learned Bob Dylan was a huge fan, had all of his albums and always wanted to collaborate. Which made perfect sense. Towns' best advantage is his worst disadvantage. He wasn't as prolific as Dylan or Joni both commercially and in terms of sheer output. Towns doesn't have as many songs/albums as Dylan or Joni. But he has the advantage of never putting out a shitty album. Literally every single one from For the Sake of the Song in 1968 to No Deeper Blue in 1994 was great. The only real negative I could come up with for Towns is that he didn't make more music. He made 10 studio albums and I genuinely think they all range from classic to great. I don't think any of them are just so so or mediocre. I can't say the same for Joni or Dylan. So they're all interconnected for me both in terms of their art and my personal experience with it. I'm like you (and most/all) Dylan fans in that I absolutely hate the "Dylan has a shitty voice" criticism. It isn't just lazy and dumb but for me it misses the point. His voice is great and part of the whole experience. I get that people don't like it. But it works for me and I view it as a positive. But if you asked me if I would rather listen to peak Joni Mitchell sing a song or Bob Dylan sing a song, I'm picking Joni 100 times out of a 100. Replace Joni with Towns and you're getting the same answer. I get thinking Dylan is the best. But I think Dylan, Joni & Towns are virtually the same artist in terms of their strengths. I think Towns has the "No bad albums" advantage over Dylan. Joni's absolute top tier 2 album peak is the best of the 3 and I think she compares well with Dylan in terms of depth of great albums. They'd all be in my top 10.

I just found this thread and figured I'd throw my two cents in. I love Bob Dylan. Have all of his studio albums, a bunch of live recording, Ive seen him live multiple times (as an old man, but still), have books written by him and about him etc etc etc. And I still say Towns van Zandt was better. And Joni Mitchell. There are a bunch of women who deserve to be mentioned. As far as hip hop, I consider Biggie to be insanely overrated. He's not someone I would even consider for a top 10 rappers list. KRS-One is the obvious parallel to Bob Dylan for lots of reasons.

Will Ferrell's interpretation of Ric Flair from East Bound and Down should put him in contention for the Flair role. Who should play Terry Funk?

Terry Funk in Road House isn't the answer in a world where Princess Bride exists, but fucking Terry Funk in Road House y'all.

Two more I wanted to mention are: 1. Raven vs Tommy Dreamer ECW that led to the angle where Jerry Lawler showed up in ECW. I don't like Raven or Dreamer and I'm pretty indifferent to ECW as a whole, but they knocked it out of the park with that angle. 2. The "I'd like to Talk to Tom" angle from Continental that had me going completely as a 31 year old watching it for the first time 27 years after it happened.

Mad Dog Vachon blading too deep against Crusher/Carpentier from Jan 1971

Kazuo Yamazaki might crack my top 50. I have a weird tendency to forget about him though.

I assume DEAN~ has all the copies. There is a good bit of Tobita on youtube actually.

I'm actually glad somebody nominated him. I love Survival Tobita. He's not making my list but if this was purely "favorites" he'd rank easily. The rematch against Ken the Box where Ken can't climb into the ring because he's a bunch of boxes ranks highly on the list of "greatest things to ever happen in recorded history" wrestling or otherwise.