ohtani's jacket

I think you've explained your reasoning well. Anybody who's followed your podcasts or the written pieces you've done will know that you're generally consistent when it comes to these sort of projects, but as the type of voter you refer to throughout, allow me to say a few words. I participated in a 70s music poll where my list was full of nothing but funk, soul and jazz records with outlaw country being the only other genre represented. No, I tell a lie, there were blues records on it too, and a bit of MPB (mostly Jorge Ben), but I ended up voting for an outlaw country album as No.1 on top of a plethora of funk and soul. I ignored all of the classic 70s rock albums for the simple reason that I hadn't heard them. Instead, I went down all sorts of obscure routes and had a whale of a time. When we did the 60s poll, my ballot was so jazz heavy that you might as well have retitled it "The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of the 60s," but man did I explore every corner of jazz on that one. Again, I ignored all of the famous 60s albums. It's only been this year that I've listened to all those records; off my own back and not for the purpose of any poll. If I ever participate in another 60s or 70s music poll perhaps I'd produce a more balanced ballot, but I'm basically the kind of voter you dislike. If I were voting on the best films of the 40s, I could never, ever, bring myself to vote Kane as No.1. I'd rather put it at 50 and find 49 other films to vote for, or not vote for it at all; that's how bad I am. So, a couple of points: * The same picks always finish high regardless of voters like me. The top 10 in this poll will invariably involve some combination of Flair, Funk, Hansen, Jumbo, etc. regardless of whether people like me vote just as The Godfather always wins, and Strangelove and Vertigo, and so on and so on. * Not everybody approaches these things by starting with the classics and branching out just as not everybody has the stamina to go through the a wrestler's entire back catalogue the way you do. I admire what you do, but people go down rabbit holes; they get into stuff. There are positives in people watching something new or different for the first time even if they don't hit all the must-sees before the ballot's due. Maybe they'll get to them next time, or maybe they'll do what I always do after a film poll -- check out the highest ranked stuff that wasn't on my ballot. * Matt's point about it being a snapshot is really a comparison being how tastes have changed between 2006 and now. It's a snapshot of the last 10 years just as the Smarkschoice poll was a snapshot of how people felt in 2006 and the years leading up to that. There are certainly some of us who are beyond the point of discovering a few of the workers you've been adamant about so far, but the workers who are going to fall furthest on the ballot are easy to predict due to trends on here and DVDVR since the original poll took place, and really it has more to do with a natural process of voters who took part the first time disappearing or moving on to other things than a deliberate, conscious rejection of the norm. * From my own point of view, it always bothers me when there's a music poll and a few token picks like Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder do well. Or a film poll where there's maybe a Kurosawa film or a Herzog film here or there. I understand why people might have a ballot full of punk or rock albums and a few Motown records here and there, but there's a drawback to focusing so heavily on the classics. If the people on this forum had only focused on the classics in the past five or six years, and gone round and round in circles on the stuff where the groundwork was already laid for us, there's dozens of workers who we wouldn't be discussing this time. * "Who would I rather watch now?", to me, is a legitimate tiebreaker for two guys I wouldn't give a moment's thought to otherwise. This idea that Rude and Dibiase are there as these two noted workers and I'm supposed to be ever conscious of how they rank in relation to one another is something I can't relate to. I enjoyed Rude during the WCW poll we did, but that feeling's gone. I dug the Dibiase/Magnum TA matches I watched recently, but I'm not going to pick a match at random to watch from either guy and the way I feel about either of them at any one time is not fixed. Objectively, I could weigh their careers up against each other the way you'd like me to, but what's the point in doing that if I'm not excited about voting for either? That's taking your sprouts analogy to an extreme. I realise you care more about the process than whether folks vote for one guy or the other, but I don't think you're paying enough respect to people defining their own personal tastes and putting their own personal spin on what is essentially their hobby. * And finally, I don't like the Sight and Sound analogy because what we do is nowhere near established as S&S. We're not even two lists into attempting to be the S&S of wrestling criticism. There's a long way to go before an analogy like that can be made, IMO. By which I mean S&S being some kind of bible as opposed to a list that's made once every 10 years.

Parv, I'm philosophically opposed to the adherence to canon and have long since moved beyond Sight and Sound as a guide to what to watch, but as a seasoned voter in these polls from Smarkschoice to DVDVR let me say this: the enjoyment you get out of these polls can only be personal. The measure of your satisfaction should be how many discoveries you've made since the project was announced not what the final outcome will be and how in line with your thinking it is. I know how frustrating it is to feel like you're the only one who's making an effort or taking the poll seriously, but you wouldn't have signed up for it in the first place if you didn't like polls and didn't like ranking things. If you go the GWE loses one of its pillars. You've been committed to the project more than just about anyone. I think it's a waste of your discoveries thus far not to vote. For every comment you receive in this thread there will be a guy who checks out Jack Brisco, or someone else, because of your hard work. Instead of worrying about canon, why not count the small victories?

He may have had the misfortune of being born as Toshiaki Kawada and not Ric Flair or Jumbo Tsuruta (he says tongue in cheek), but I felt inclined to watch some Kawada. I started with the 1/26/93 match with Akiyama. The quality of Akiyama's rookie work seems overstated to me. I'm not gonna come on here and say it was bad or anything, but when people say he looked like a seasoned pro I have to raise my eyebrow a bit. I thought he looked as green and nervous as any other rookie in this. Like most rookies, he was comfortable on the defensive role and sold with a fair amount of conviction, but offensively he was still finding his way and you could see the clogs working over time trying to keep up with the play. It must be hard being exposed for all the world to see on offence and he clung to the dropkick like a security blanket. Kawada was a bit too passive for my liking. It was only really when Akiyama messed with Kawada's shoulder that he felt the full brunt of Kawada's kicks. Otherwise it seemed like Kawada was working smart rather than hard. I liked him trying to grind Akiyama's mush into the canvas, but there wasn't much to write home about. Meltzer's rating felt spot on (*** 1/4) I think I'll watch the July match next.

Dylan and Childs inspired me to finally watch some Nishimura. What a beautiful match that Fujinami bout was. I had this notion that Nishimura was a latter day version of someone like Osamu Kido, but clearly he was a lot more expressive than that. I thought he sold exceptionally well during the bout and was fantastic, but what a phenomenal performance from Fujinami. If he'd worked that way more often in the 90s and 00s he'd be a dead set contender for the top 10. It almost reminded me of a Japanese maestros bout. In fact, the bout I kept thinking of was the IWRG Dandy vs. Navarro bout, though the Japanese pair were much much more physical. And what an amazing finish. One of the best sold submission reversals you'll come across. Great match. I felt lucky to watch it it was so special.

i guess I'll put these here: Axel Dieter vs. Adrian Street (Hannover 1981) This struck me as a sort of halfway point between Street's American work and the WoS footage we have of him, though admittedly I don't know what he was like in the halls during his WoS run. He was treated as a complete comedy act here and spent more time mucking around with the ref than he did wrestling. Dieter was never going to give him much due to the size difference between them, but it would have been nice to have seen a bit more of Adrian's grappling skill. I wouldn't say "dirt" has surface on Dieter since he died, but people have brought up the comments Dynamite made about him in his book and his son has been ferociously defending him on an online forum. I can only imagine what sort of prick you would have to be for Dynamite Kid to think you're a prick, but from an in-ring perspective Dieter hardly broke a sweat in this squash. Axel Dieter vs. Chris Colt (Hannover 1980) Chris Colt's gimmick seemed to be that he was in no fit state to wrestle. At first, he looked as inebriated as an wrestler I've seen. He could barely stand and had difficulty taking off his shirt and lifting his boots to have them checked. The ref had this real "WTF?" look on his face while Colt swayed to his theme music like a guy trying to find his way home after a night on the turps. Then the bell rang and he snapped into action. Between rounds he'd rock out to the music then he'd be back at it with smooth bumps and fluid movements. Dieter just sort of stood back in his corner and didn't break a sweat again. Axel Dieter vs. Amet Chong (Hannover 1980) Another night, another walk in the park. I'm so used to long Dieter tournament bouts that it's a surprise to see how many nights he had off. One thing I'll say for this is that Chong looked awful in his WoS bouts but was much better here. Fodder for Dieter, but better than his WoS nightmares.

It seemed unlikely to me that Breaks and Wright ever fought since they were different weight classes, but looking through the WoS results I was surprised to learn Wright only appeared on TV a dozen or so times from '69-72. That's far less than I would have expected.

I think I've come around on everyone I used to hate except for maybe John Naylor. THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 33 Colonel Brody vs. Ray Steele (7/22/87) Y'know, it's like of hard to believe Brody is a South African military colonel when he cuts a promo with a Northerner's accent. Brody was an extremely limited worker who barely sought controversy with his gimmick, but Steele being such a straight shooter tried to keep this one true and work your standard British heavyweight contest. Needless to say, Brody couldn't really keep up, certainly not to the extent of Pat Roach or Gil Singh. The defining moment in the match came when ref was trying to fix the turnbuckle padding and Steele was posted into him. He fell backwards into Steele's arms like a damsel in distress then popped up as though nothing had happened and DQ'ed like Hebner style. Immediately afterward he collapsed and had to be carted out while Steele wandered about the ring in astonishment. Suffice to say, if ref bumps aren't part of your wrestling culture then your refs won't be good at them. You could have almost interpreted it as heel ref shtick due to the poor theatrics. Colonel Brody vs. Ray Steele (8/19/87) This was a special 10 minute return bout that could only be won on a knockout. Walton gave away the finish by reminding viewers that countouts were also a form of knockout, so naturally Brody took a spill to the outside and that was that. Shitty return match. Battle Royal (3/25/87) This was a super heavyweight Battle Royal with Giant Haystacks, Scrubber Daly, King Kendo, Pat Roach, Colonel Brody, King Kong Kirk, Tarzan Johnny Wilson, and little Terry Rudge all occupying the same tiny ring. It was horribly worked, but there was a whole lotta beef in there. Dave Lawrence vs. Saxon Brooks (11/3/82) This was surprisingly good. Brooks was a judoka who never really went anywhere and was still quite green at this point, but his judo moves looked really cool especially against a lighter man, and Lawrence looked like a real little dynamo but only appeared on TV a handful of times. Fun bout.

Steve Grey vs. Ritchie Brooks (6/11/86) This was the bout where Brooks upset Grey to earn a shot at his British Lightweight Championship. Only the scoring action was shown and it was a bit of a disappointment really. Brooks' upset was nothing special, especially compared to some of the other WoS boilovers. The crowd weren't in sync with it and no-one seemed to particularly care, which suggests the workers' timing was off. One of the few times I've been disappointed in a Grey bout (or clip, I should say), but he made up for it with an outstanding title defence.

I also remember liking the Vader match. The Owen matches are good, and I even remember some decent stuff around the time he was IC level feuding with Val Venis and the like. In fact, I don't remember him really being bad. His career just stalled after Michaels buried him.

Do you really think Steve Williams had something left in the WWF that would have added to his career? Something outside of some Al Issacs fueled rumour about him being Vince's corporate champ and the latest in a long line of guy meant to be brought in to feud with Austin. Nobody cared about del Rio let alone his finisher. A gimmick isn't relevant to how good a pro-wrestler is? You're not high on any wrestler because of how well they played their gimmick? If Sakuraba's MMA career isn't relevant to his NJPW run then how come he has a quasi-shooter gimmick and keeps getting put in quasi-shoot style feuds? It doesn't mean a great deal to me how conscious people are of it, but if Shibata has a shooter gimmick then Sakuraba's past has to be just a tiny weeny bit relevant. You don't think Angle had a weight of expectation on him because he was an Olympic gold medalist? People didn't want him to be an outstanding pro-wrestler because of his amateur credentials? Really? They didn't think he'd be like Brisco, Hodge, etc? My point really is that it would be something I would be mindful of. For example, Angle's matwork is disappointing to me since he was a legitimately great amateur. It's in small details like that where it matters. Now that I think about it, I actually think it's bullshit for me to think that such and such a luchador trained under Diablo Velasco and therefore he's legit, or this guy trained under Karl Gotch, or this guy under Riley, and therefore they're well schooled and yet MMA doesn't count. I don't think it's the be all and end all, but it's part of the parcel.

I don't mean to single Parv out, but this, to me, was the attitude of a lot of people who got into AJPW in the early 00s prior to the GWE voting in 2006. I know MJH has made the argument many times that there were clear heel/face roles, but that it in itself illustrates the fact it as a talking point. I think evil prevailing over good in the '96 RWTL is a big call. Kawada and Taue may have done things to Misawa and Akiyama that were disrespectful and downright nasty, but evil? Anyway, on my last major viewing of All Japan, Misawa was the best of the lot. His selling was sublime and the way he'd manage the superiority of the ace coupled with extreme vulnerably when he was nearly beaten showed far great range than the other roles on display.

Because shoot style workers were trying to do something just a little bit different from standard pro-wrestling. I don't give two shits that Brock was a WWE wrestler who fought some MMA fights and returned to WWE, but I do think Koshinaka and Tamura's shoot fights are interesting along with Funaki, Sakuraba and even a guy like Minoru Suzuki, although in his case he has a later period pro-style career that's arguably stronger than all but Tamura's worked shoot career. In any event, I only ever presented it as something I would keep in mind and that was in reaction to Dylan's question.

On one hand, I've got people telling me that careers are just as important as how good a worker a guy was, and on the other I've got someone telling me career narratives don't exist. Steve Williams and Alberto Del Rio didn't have significant MMA careers. Why are you trying to pretend they did? Anyone who thinks Sakuraba's present NJPW work isn't shaped by his PRIDE run is kidding themselves .Apparently, he had a big pause in his pro-wrestling career and the PRIDE/MMA stuff never happened. Give me a break. I don't really have any interest in a long, drawn out argument about what MMA was in Japan in relation to pro-wrestling since it barely exists anymore in the same way that shoot style barely exists, but I believe my original point was it was something I would keep in mind in regard to candidates such as Sakuraba. Funaki and Tamura if I were to vote, which I'm not. Others can draw a line in the sand if they like.

If there was a single person on the face of the earth who thought his pro-wrestling career was good.

Not all of Finlay's WoS work is bad. The first three years or so are amazing. Before he adopted the whole green and white shamrock look with the mullet and moustache, he was a phenomenal worker and I'd argue his tag team with Skull Murphy is good enough that he'd make a list of unexpectedly great tag wrestlers. When WoS is cancelled and wrestling becomes a stand alone show, and Finlay starts doing dates with both All-Star and Joint Promotions with Paula in his corner, that's when the quality drops off.

Grappling, shooting, you can use whatever verb you think fits best. The Shamrock shoot is more similar to Tamura's longer works than it is dissimilar. There's an interesting compare and contrast that can be made with the Kohsaka work. I would recommend anyone looking to get into Tamura to watch the Tamura shoot. It's not like anyone's going to vote for him because of the Shamrock fight. But it's more meaningful to what Tamura was about than watching him face Vader.

I probably wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would compare his MMA career to his early UWF-I and Kingdom work as well as his later New Japan return. I wouldn't vote for him solely on the basis that I think his PRIDE fights were great up until the Silva massacres, but I do think his MMA career informs his pro-style work. It's hard for me to watch his early shoot style stuff and not think of the what he accomplished in MMA, and likewise it's hard to watch his present day matches without thinking of the beatings he took in his later MMA fights. It's all part of his career narrative and the fact you should ignore it or dismiss it because a shoot style wrestler went one step further and had a shoot is something I'll never fathom.

I'm sure there was an element of digging the cool heels, but when you find a heel worker so sympathetic that you watch matches from their POV that is not standard pro-wrestling storytelling. Maybe heel fans do it all the time, but I can't remember seeing it when people discuss US wrestling, for example. Have you ever seen anybody talk about Tully vs. Magnum from the POV of Tully, or Dibiase vs. Duggan from the POV of Ted? It doesn't seem to happen.

It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Doesn't bother me. It gives some insight into how good a grappler he truly was and you can also use it to judge how good/realistic his worked shoots were.

People always knew Kawada was the heel from 5/93 on. We talked about it all the time online, that Misawa and Kobashi and Jun were the faces, and that Kawada and Taue were the heels. Knowing he's the heel and viewing him as one are two different things. Kawada was an internet darling the same way Benoit was. People watched the big AJPW matches from his POV. They didn't (at least in my experience) watch the matches from the POV of Misawa, or Misawa and Kobashi, overcoming the dastardly heels. It was viewed more along the lines of a sporting rivalry such as Borg/McEnroe, Sampras/Agassi, or what have you, and I stress ]i]what have you]/i] as I don't want to go round and round in circles about analogies. One of the talking points about AJPW used to be whether the heel/face roles were the same as in US wrestling. MJH argued many times in the past that there were clearly defined heel/face roles. Others didn't see that as they were caught up in the chase narrative. That's the way I remember it. I may be wrong, but I think there's a history of internet fans not really viewing Japanese workers as heels but rather as favourites whether it's Akira Hokuto, Mayumi Ozaki, Genichiro Tenryu or indeed Toshiaki Kawada. All of those workers were heroes to online fans and whatever heel/face dynamic there was in Japan or in the matches was meaningless.

I would take the famous Funaki/Rutten match into account if I were voting. I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. I wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would take his PRIDE matches into account.

The career thing should make ranking wrestlers a piece of cake. If I want to vote for: Adrian Adonis Adrian Street AJ Styles Aja Kong Alan Sarjeant then it's obvious that I would rank them in this order: Aja Kong AJ Styles Adrian Adonis Adrian Street Alan Sarjeant The only interesting thing about careers is when people form an argument about them -- eg. this guy's career is overrated, this guy's is underrated, here's an unexplored part of so and so's career. Otherwise it's just towing the line and that's boring.

I think the appeal of Casas is that he was an outrageous, flamboyant character who walked the thinnest of lines between being legitimately tough and effeminate as hell. It's not spoken about much, but Casas is about as close to an exotico worker as you can get without being an exotico and for that type of wrestler to come in and completely rule Arena Mexico is a testament to his genius. Probably the most impressive thing about Casas is the way he waltzed into Arena Mexico in 1992 and took head of place at the cathedral. It was brash and audacious and something few others could have done. Satanico is more of a wrestler's wrestler. He has a better build for wrestling (bigger neck and shoulders), better grappling technique, more knowledgeable wrestling skill, and just a more solid worker all-round. He was better on the mat than Casas and had better offence. Casas is an excellent worker, but his mechanics have never been as good as others. What sets him apart is his showmanship. No matter how brilliant Satanico might be, there's no way he could match Casas for flair. In fact, I'd almost draw a parallel between Satanico the genius guitarist and Casas the flamboyant front man. That's not to say that Satanico doesn't have charisma of his own. He certainly does, but it's based on him being an excellent wrestler and not because of how extroverted he is. I think their great matches cancel each other out to a certain degree. Satanico has the Cochisse match and Casas has the Dandy match. Satanico has the Dandy feud and Casas has the Satanico feud. Satanico has the Morgan hair match and Casas has the Fiera match. One advantage Satanico has is that he was part of an all-time great trios team in Los Infernales whereas Casas' best trios work was in the lead-up to singles matches. Casas probably has longevity on his side even if I'm not a huge fan of his work post 1999. I always favoured Satanico in the past, but my respect for Casas is ever growing. It's a tough call. The way I would decide it is this -- if you offered me Satanico's entire match output or Casas' which would I take? The answer is Satanico's.

I'm sure there were people who were sympathetic towards Kawada for the simple reason that they liked him or they wanted to see him overcome Misawa. After all, a huge part of the Japanese psyche is in appreciating the fight in the underdog or the guy who is hopelessly outmatched. But at no point do I think people thought Misawa was a dick the way people dislike Man United, the Lakers, Duke or the Giants in Japan. The audience that went nuts for Misawa upsetting the apple cart against Jumbo didn't suddenly turn on him because he had a rival in the form of Kawada. Misawa may have been a dick at points. From all accounts, he didn't really like Kawada, but the narrative that was spun around Kawada when I first got into Japanese wrestling was that his feud against Misawa was a chase and I don't think that's quite true.

Agreed. Talent in practice matters more than just having the talent. But whether they realize it or not, everyone has already agreed to that in terms of how they are ranking guys anyway. Everyone in the top 100 is bound to have talent. Talent in practice for the majority of people relates to matches and performances and not careers.