tim

Number one for me. Like Santito he could go on the mat, have a crazy brawl and turn up the workrate. But he's also incredibly charismatic in a way very, very few wrestlers have ever been. He's a guy who will add awesome touches to a match -- one little example that always comes to mind for me is in the famous 80s match vs. Santo, where he has Santo on the apron and runs him into the ringpost, and almost launches himself over the ropes, selling how much force he had used to ram Santo into the post. I appreciate stuff like that a lot. Tons of great matches, brawls, technical battles, trios, modern juniors-style lucha stuff. Still going strong in 2014. Won the WKO100 just last year. Plus he's really got an intangible quality about him that makes everything he does more interesting and compelling.

Chicana is gonna be one of the big cases on how much stock you put into a guy who has relatively little footage but often looks like a total all time great. Personally, I lean toward peak over longevitiy, how good you were at your best over consistency, how good the footage is over how much of it there is. Chicana on the 80s set was out of control great. Some of the best punches in wrestling, awesome seller, super charismatic and really knew how to milk big moments. And somehow, just about the best I've ever seen at taking a beating. I think I could watch Sangre Chicana get his ass kicked around Arena Mexico all day. I could never leave him out of a top 50.

Footage is the only issue with Satanico, and considering that given that limitation he has so many great matches, I don't consider it much of a negative at all. Truly brilliant worker, the kind of guy who will be doing awesome, interesting stuff in just about every single match. Can go on the mat, can brawl, tons of charisma, tons of personality. He was the real star of the 80s lucha set to me. Tons of great matches and in those matches his individual performances made him look like the absolute best in the world. Top 10 lock.

One guy who will be conspicuously absent from my ballot. I just don't ever find him that interesting. Even when I watch a Bret match that I like, I come out thinking that it had a good lay out, competently worked overall ... but rarely will I be able to recall anything interesting Bret did in the match.

Awesome show, loved everything about it. Well, except the Mojo match, but I was busy putting my laundry in the dryer for that and I missed the whole thing so it wasn't even long. Better than any WWE PPV this year except Wrestlemania.

That hair match was a ton of fun. Simple stuff but well done and the crowd was totally into it. Awesome pre and post match. I'm terrified of what the idiotic writers and Vince would do the them on the main show.

Top 20 lock. A guy who I could easily see in someone's top 10. Super-fun flier in his early days, but to me the bulk of his candidacy rests on his WWE work. Incredible wrestler who continually adopted to his different roles in the company and his deteriorating physical ability. Wily Rey vs. big men is one of my favorite match types of all time. Had plenty of fun workrate stuff, including the 2009 Jericho series which, work-wise, might be the best thing Jericho's ever been involved in. A huge number of awesome TV match. Even during his recent, very short, return, he was a solid worker with a great sense for timing. 2002-present, one of the smartest workers of all time.

You're running this project and you've probably put in some thought to this process, so I don't want to come across petulent or anything. But I want to say that I don't see how the nomination process is productive. For the SC poll, people just made threads for guys they wanted to talk about, and talked about them in those threads. The looking for three match reviews thing seems kind of like busy work and I'm not sure what value it brings. I mean, I want to make a thread for Tomoaki Honma. Will be be on my list? Maybe not. Is he a good candidate for a top 100 of all time? Maybe not. But I think he's an interesting case who I'd like to discuss. Why do I need to dig through the archives of PWO for three match reviews and wait for someone else to make a thread? I don't want to come across like I'm just whining or anything and it's your project and your rules in the end, just giving my thoughts.

I'll tell you the paper I REALLY want. A sociological explanation of the different behavior of wrestling crowds. Why are wrestling crowds more tepid today than they used to be? Why are northeast cities more rowdy than the South? Why are places like Chicago and NYC so much more "smarky" even though the rise of the internet should have equalized the smarkiness of wrestling crowds nation wide? I want theory, history, demographics on this.

Sad stuff. I'm not too familiar with him, didn't watch WCW in 2000/2001 and stopped watching for 2002/2003, but I remember when I first got online in 2001 when WCW was still around people were absolutely raving about him as a future star.

Agreed. But given the disposition of the people on this forum, and other people who would be likely to come in and vote on this, I don't think this is anything that needs to be formally codified or something. It's an issue that solves itself in that the majority of people voting will WANT to do this and would consider it a natural part of voting.

In my fantasy booking, Bryan wins the Rumble and they run Ambrose/Lesnar as the title match. I really think they NEED to run Ambrose/Lesnar before Lesnar drops the belt. But as much as I want to see Bryan return to win the Rumble, a Rumble win for Bryan really being something that needs to happen after last year, I wouldn't complain about Bryan/Lesnar at RR one bit considering the rumors that it's going to be in Philadelphia. In which case I'd definitely be going.

I really think Punk is a very strong candidate. Copy and paste of what I wrote about him on another forum: To me there's a difference between quantitative criteria and qualitative criteria. Quantitatively, Punk doesn't make it. Not a big star, much less of a draw than Cena, not much mainstream buzz, etc. Not a good enough worker to get in on that. But Punk has an importance to wrestling that goes beyond the numbers. First of all, his participation in what is easily the golden age of US indie wrestling is a big deal to me, and I think it should go strongly in his favor. It didn't put a lot of butts in seats or make many people rich but it was a very considerable 'artistic' flourishing and he was one of the three or four biggest parts of it. It created a lot of buzz, excitement and quality and was very, very noticeably better than the scene that came before or after it. That would be a big factor in me voting in Danielson as well, which I would also do. Joe has taken too much of a nosedive for that to save him though. Plus his impact on the WWE. He was the indie darling that made it, that's a big deal. Maybe not quantitatively, maybe a guy like Batista has a bigger footprint as a draw, but Batista as a main eventer doesn't MEAN as much to wrestling as a whole than Punk as a main eventer. He defied odds, got himself over and in a pretty real way opened to doors for a lot of guys who might be future big names in WWE, or are current big names. Bryan, Cesaro, Rollins, Ambrose. Maybe others in the future. If it weren't Punk maybe it would have been someone else, but maybe not. Punk's ascent to the main event was a HUGE deal at the time. Maybe not to casual fans watching on TV but definitely to smart fans and definitely for wrestling as a whole.

Feudian slip, Matt? I'm sure we all feel that way sometimes. As much criticism as there is for Okada's Rainmaker schtick with the extended reversals, I usually like it. I think it actually gives a layer of meaning to the move: it's very easy to counter/avoid, but a killshot when it does hit. Compared to, just to keep it in the same promotion, Nakamura's Boma Ye which he hits from all angles with relative ease but takes several shots to keep someone down. I also do appreciate how against a big rival like Tanahashi they will tweak the sequence each time and have Okada eventually connecting out of different angles. The only thing I wish is that he would actually make his opponents duck rather than often aiming over their heads. I don't mind routine sequences at all, if they're good. I do think a really great wrestler would find ways to tweak them and counter them now and again, but not too often so that the deviations from the norm feel like big deals when they do happen.

Yeah, people do seem to forget that. Show was over as fuck the first couple weeks of that angle, teasing going agaisnt the Authority. It was really great. Then they demasculated him, added a stupid and over-wrough financial angle to the story and gave us tedious weeks of Show doing the Authority's bidding and crying about it. WWE has a truly unbelievable ability to ruin anything good they stumble upon.

If this happens I can only assume Vince is trolling fans by seeing how bad he can make the product. It's just about the worst choice on the roster. Show has no momentum, a failed main event run last year, not particularly over, got squashed by Brock at the Rumble ... there are plenty of guys they could have taken last month and this month to build up to make a good challenger. I think people would get excited over a Sheamus/Brock match, even though Sheamus doesn't have a ton of momentum. Cesaro of course but his push has been utterly botched. Ziggler is still massively over despite being ignored for a year.

The thing is though, I'd want to include guys like Bruno Sammartino and possibly even a Dusty Rhodes or someone like that on my list, and what made those guys great does not strictly come down to "work". I think if people are going to include someone like Riki Choshu on their list, at least a part of it would be his undoubted charisma and aura, the way he carried himself. So does that mean that it's "fair" to take those aspects of Choshu into consideration? What I'm saying is that making a rule like this puts a guy like him at an advantage because we're sort of taking his non-work aspects into consideration while crippling the main strengths of a guy like Dusty. I don't think charisma and presence are non-work aspects. A charismatic wrestler is more compelling and interesting in the ring. It's not something I think is terribly distant from, say, "execution." Charisma and presence is directly tied to ring-work in a way that promos are not. This is something a guy like Dusty can benefit from, too. Surely how awesome a big run of elbow-based offense from Dusty can be has a lot to do with his charisma and personality, as totally separate from his promos. Anyone can do wild taunts and follow it up with an elbow to the head, not everyone will make it interesting. I'd feel pretty strongly that promos and stuff like that shouldn't be included in the criteria, because in that case we're talking about a list that measures something TOTALLY different than the 2006 list.

Since the 2006 poll is being evoked in this discussion I think this should run like that one did: basically, greatest WORKERS of all time. It's enough of an "objective" criterion so it doesn't end up just being a list of favorites but is subjective enough that the barrier to entry is low and you don't need to have a great deal of historical/business knowledge. If this is meant to be something of a "successor" poll to 2006, it should be on work and work only. I'd definitely participate. I first stumbled on Smarkschoice some time in 2005 when this project was first being discussed, even submitted a top 50. I could probably find it but I don't really want to! Edit: WKO had a half-hearted effort at this 2 years ago, which at least resulted in a couple good threads to read: http://z11.invisionfree.com/wrestling_ko/index.php?showforum=81

Jerry Lawler getting the ring to announce Michael Sam followed by Damien Sandow coming out dressed like him to a chorus of forced chortles from Michael Cole doesn't sound remote to me at all.

The reason it's important to watch sports live is because it matters who wins or loses.

Cool to see someone else loving this match. I'd never heard of it before and this is one that really jumped out at me when I did my bulk watch for this. Hell of a spectacle, Murakami was just out of control.

Watts and the oil glut!

Was he watching RAW tonight? I could see how it could result in a lapse of sanity.

wwe truly deserve to be hit with a big number of unsubscribers

this raw is beyond bad