elliott

If not Flair, then Who!? I couldn't resist. But to answer your question, I think they definitely would be considered aces. They dominated world championships for years.

A lot of my top 20 is going to be filled with aces. Lawler, Flair, Jumbo, Fujinami, Buddy Rose, Misawa, Bockwinkel, etc. Lucha is tough to call anyone an Ace but Santo always felt like an ace to me and he will definitely be top 20. Will is right that being an ace doesn't guarantee anything but the guys who were the best at it are all strong candidates for #1 overall. Really other than Hansen or Terry Funk, everyone I would consider for my top spot was the ace of a promotion. Who is your (meaning everyone's) favorite ace and why?

I would start here http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWHistory.html

One thing that I've noticed watching 80s sets and just a shit ton of Hansen in general is how awesome he is as an opponent for big/fat guys/monsters/freak shows. He has really good to all time classic level matches with Andre, Baba, Blackwell, Leon White, Vader, and if you want to call Hogan a big guy (I would) you can add him to the list too. Those guys are all monsters or big guys in different ways and Hansen had really great matches with all of them and was taking a different approach to each match.

There should be a "very enthused for the place to be nation reaction show" option. I just hope Johnny Sorrow isn't too drunk to participate like last year's Mania.

It was like the Hogan, Austin, Rock intro at WM 30. "Good to be back at the Silverdome."

I'll be honest I haven't seriously thought about Jumbo/Taue and Misawa/Kawada as teams in like 10 years. I just wanted to get this back on track. I haven't reached early 90s AJ on my list of things to revisit for this project. Thinking about them more today, I feel like when I get around to it, Jumbo and Taue will probably stand out for me because grumpy old Jumbo was one of my absolute favorites when I watched all this stuff back in the day. So I was probably too quick to say they might not make my list. Childs made a really interesting point about Misawa/Kawada being great individual talents but not ever really establishing a clear identity (they're the OKC Thunder of Wrestling?) and that's something I'll be on the lookout for when I finish up the 80s and move onto the 90s stuff. Jumbo/Taue do have a built in identity advantage with the teacher/student dynamic. Parv mentioned they probably won't make his Top 25 because they were too short lived. That got me wondering what people generally see as too short of a run to consider for their list? Jumbo and Taue were regular partners for 2 1/2ish years. Another question I wanted to toss out, who do people view as the best working Mentor/Student tag teams?

I love Jumbo and Taue. But there's definitely a chance they won't make my list. Of the major Japanese teams they definitely rank behind Kawada/Taue, Misawa/Kobashi, Jumbo/Tenryu, Choshu/Yatsu, and Footloose, at a minimum. I could see myself putting Kroffat/Furnas ahead of Jumbo/Taue. And that's without even getting into the 80s US Tag Scene. I was curious, since a lot of fans like us grew up digging heels, does anyone out there prefer Jumbo and Taue to Misawa and Kawada as a team?

Late 70s-early 80s Fujinami maybe? Just in the ability to have really good and different matches with a diverse set of opponents while incorporating little bits of different styles of wrestling and making them his own. It's been a long time since I've watched Otsuka and I'm watching early 80s Fujinami in bulk for the first time these days. So this may be off. I imagine you've rewatched some Ikeda and Ishikawa while revisiting Otsuka. Any thoughts on how they look compared to Otsuka?

Selling, psychology, structure, etc etc etc But more importantly...now I wish instead of Kurt Angle vs Shane McMahon it was Shane vs Toshiaki Kawada.

So basically HHH ran him down and then got the better of him when it came to brawling. Really? I enjoyed Sting using the bat as if it were a sword.

It is very rare that I watch WWE live and this is actually the first time I've seen Cody as Stardust. My immediate reaction is "Oh, he's addicted to LSD and Dustin is going to beat him into rehab. Got it."

As long as Will is on to yell at you when you put Mike Rotunda at #50 I think revisiting smark opinion from the late 80s (Bowdren list) or early 00's (dvdvr lists) would be interesting. I imagine there is a small handful of people around here who voted in those dvdvr polls back in the day. Selfishly, I'd prefer if you guys tackled the Bowdren list because I've been watching a ton of 80s stuff lately. Maybe even Meltzer's list of 5star matches could be done? I'd love to hear Steven and Charles talk about a Davey Richards match.

You guys should do the Jeff Bowdren top 100 80s matches. Or review the old dvdvr Top matches of the 1990s poll. Or the top 10-15 matches from each of the 80s sets. Something like that. The point is, don't stop. These podcasts have been awesome.

Is Fishman a viable WON HOF candidate? He's someone I would definitely like to learn more about after reading OJ's Lucha History thread. Obviously there are a lot of Lucha guys already on the ballot that deserve to go in but I'm curious if Fishman is someone who should be looked at in the future? That is if the ballot ever clears up.

Holy fucking shit. What is this and where can I see the entire thing?

A Gordy list would go like: was he the best/a top seller in the world/country/promotion. How long was he the best/a top seller in the world/country/promotion. Was he the best/a top seller in his weight class. Did he have a number of memorable performances selling? Did he sell effectively to put over angles? Was he a good seller before his prime/after his prime? Was he a top seller in a tag team setting. Was his selling influential/innovative? Etc etc. It isn't perfect but the idea of the Gordy list is to give a big picture look. You would have to do one for each category. Whiich would be tedious to say the least

My Internet is fucked up right now and posting via phone sucks. But I would say there would be a good bit of overlap near the top of my lists for best peak and greatest overall. Part of what makes guys like Hansen, Flair, Lawler, Jumbo, Satanico etc my greatest of all time workers is that they have longevity and the highest peaks. If I did a top 100 matches of all time it would be dominated by guys like Flair, Lawler etc. The top 3 would be different though. I would put Sangre Chicana #1 overall easily for the MS-1 and Perro matches. Hokuto would be #2 for the tag with Kandori against Aja and Bull. The Destroyer would be #3 for the draw with Baba. After that it would be the usual suspects. Choshu would take a huge jump just looking at peak.

Since the Freebirds are nominated, I wanted to jump outside the traditional tag team box and nominate the Infernales. If we had more footage probably all of the versions could be nominated but I'll go with Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan version. Reviews in the 80s Lucha forum. I wanted to nominate another group that isn't a traditional tag team. I love what I've seen so far from The Sheiks (Jerry Blackwell, Ken Patera, Sheik Adnan al-Kaissie) and I could see them doing really well if/when I see more footage.

I started watching the AWA set and it has been a lot of fun. I finished disc 1 and have made it to Blackwell/Sheik vs Baron/Mad Dog taped fist match. I recently got all of the 80s sets except for Lucha and was struggling to pick which one to start first. I went with AWA for a few reasons 1. I have seen less AWA than all the other sets. I've basically seen the Buddy Rose stuff, Bockwinkel/Hennig, Bockwinkel/Hogan, Hansen's run and a few Lawler matches. But I'd never seen Blackwell before, very few High Flyers, I can't remember ever closely watching a Baron or Mad Dog match. I've seen Martel in WWF and Portland against Buddy Rose but I haven't seen any of the AWA matches. 2. I had the lowest expectations for AWA than the others. I don't mean I'm expecting the AWA set to suck. I'm actually expecting it to be really good and fun. But I KNOW I love Memphis. I have Part 1 of the Lawler Mega Set and almost all of it. I have the Freebirds vs Von Erichs set that I've watched all the way through and I KNOW I'll love Texas. I've seen more than enough Jumbo, Tenryu, Hansen, Fujinami, Choshu etc to know that I'll love the Japan sets. So the unknown allure of the AWA set played a big part for me deciding to start on this set. So far I'm really loving it. Heenan vs Hayes was a total blast. High Flyers vs Pre Strike Force Strike Force is a really great match especially with the greatest dropkick ever. I loved the Blackwell/Sheik vs Flyers Cage match. All the Bockwinkel matches have been fun. The fucking crowds are incredible. Really fun stuff so far. I'm glad I started with this one.

I love the interactions between Andre and Sangre Chicana. I'm obviously a big Chicana fan and I love Andre too. I thought Sangre posturing and looking Andre up and down and then running away in fear was really entertaining stuff. I'm also a mark for all the big guy comedy spots they worked in the match. Match wise it isn't great but I found it to be a lot of fun. I like it more than the Canek matches for sure. I'll be honest on the Mascaras 6 man, every time I've watched it I just can't look away from Chicana. He is Choshu like in his charisma in and I just can't look away. I will rewatch that one and try to focus on the other guys in the match. It is possible my Chicana love, the great crowd, close up camera angle, etc just works for me as this awesome spectacle.

I really wanted to be blown away by Solitario vs Wagner Jr. I thought it was excellent but it just didn't hit the level I wanted it to (although I did like it way more the 2nd time than the first). I will definitely give it a rewatch. I could easily see myself putting Perro vs Sangre at #1. After running through the entire set the first time I watched the MS-1 match and at the end of it I thought "that's the best match I've ever seen" then I immediately watched the Perro match and at the end of it thought "Ok that's the best match I've ever seen." Not exactly science. But watching them side by side I could go either way. The only things I"m certain about is the two Chicana matches will be 1 & 2 in some order and Satanico vs Cochise will be #3. Where I run into trouble with rankings is the trios matches. They're basically all good-great matches with most of them being very good to great. The ones that stand out for me so far are definitely the ones that are part of a feud or just the Infernales matches in general. What did you think of the Chicana/Mascaras trios match? That one definitely stands out to me for their interactions. I'm probably seriously overrating it but it is one of my favorite matches on the set. It just hits the sweet spot for me. It was similar to the Andre match in that Sangre Chicana is playing the perfect foil against the major world wide star but since it isn't Andre, they can work a more competitive match with brawling and comedy mixed in.