Grimmas

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Ok, I will take your point Bret was phoning it in on house shows. I'm not going to penalize him for that, but if that comes down to a tie breaker it would hurt him.

I'm not using old man Flair against him, though. Who was working hard on those shows during that period?

It exists on tape for WWF guys. The majority of guys it does not. I have no idea what Jack Brisco, Jumbo, etc.. look like in a small town in a minor show.

I think saying someone phoned it in on lesser shows is a big negative on someone, negates the fact that most wrestlers we don't have those lesser shows on tape. It seems like an unfair handicap. I have no problem with someone giving extra points for working hard on lesser shows and for someone to break a tie breaking for being lazy on lesser shows, but it seems strange as an overall negative.

Predictable is great if it is somebody you want to see. This should not be an issue if they have a babyface people want to win the title.

Bret gets value for smart in the ring and finishes, because look at the others in the WWF at the same time who both had Vince, Patterson and the WWF office. None of them are anywhere near his level or even stand out as particularly good at it. You don't think Savage was a great finish guy? I think if you thought about this for a bit you'd find there are a lot of great finishes to WWF matches in the period that Bret was active 85-97. What are the great finishes?

It's not grading a curve, it's just not the focus. Not all great wrestlers have the same opportunities to have great matches. Nobody had the chance Flair had to travel everywhere in main events with as much time as he wanted it and for it all to be taped. The AJ guys got chances for huge matches against each other over and over. Bret had way lesser opponents and when he did get a good opponent he had a great match. Heck he had great matches with shitty opponents too. It's really a balancing act for me. In essence though, I value the performance over the end result. Bret gets value for smart in the ring and finishes, because look at the others in the WWF at the same time who both had Vince, Patterson and the WWF office. None of them are anywhere near his level or even stand out as particularly good at it.

It's difficult, because great matches obviously matter, however I focus more on how great someone is at wrestling, not as much as how many great matches they had. That being said Bock is 11-15 due to lack of footage. Also I connect more with the above guys than Bock. Bret may be the best finish man, smartest at putting a match together and little touches, top echelon seller and on offense and has 3 matches in my top 25 of all-time at least. Flair has the great matches, but is not on Bret's level for intelligence in ring. Jumbo has the great matches, but outside of 90-92 I don't connect with him.

Posted two months ago: Time for a new update: 1. Stan Hansen (1) 2. Negro Casas (3) 3. Jerry Lawler (2) 4. Terry Funk (4) 5. Toshiaki Kawada (5) 6. Bret Hart (10) 7. Ric Flair (7) 8. Rey Mysterio Jr. (8) 9. Jumbo Tsuruta (6) 10. Jushin Liger (9) No newcomers to the list, but some movement.

People are doing a good job of swaying me to move Bret up my list. All that was said above is things that make him great, but one of my favourite aspects is his attempt to make things make sense in the context of wrestling. The two biggest examples to me are Bret in 1995 doing a table spot and taking an Asai Moonsault. A normal person taking an Asai Moonsault has to stand around and look like an idiot waiting to get hit by a move. When Bret is facing Hakushi at IYH he brawls with Hakushi's manager and turns around at the last second to take the move. Just a little little thing that gives everything a more wrestling sense of realism. As for the tables, that was getting big in ECW in 1995. However most people have to set it up and it looks kind of phoney. Bret is facing Diesel at Survivor Series and the way he takes a table spot is to get knocked off the apron to go through the table. Made that spot more memorable than 99% of table spots before and since. This aspects really build up his case in my book. He's a very smart wrestler.

Bret will probably be my number 10 at the lowest.

So... anybody who doesn't speak English is just completely handicapped? There is no way Jumbo or Liger or Kawada could be anywhere near the top 50. Nor could Negro Casas, El Hijo del Santo or Satanico.

Seems to be mostly international girls that worked Shimmer.

I went from The Wrestling Classic until No Holds Barred and got these number of shows they had matches on: Hogan: 11 Savage: 11 Hercules: 10 That is out of 11 ppvs. Hogan and Savage wrestled on every single ppv in the 1980s. Hercules missed on The Wrestling Classic, so that is why he is one down. Pretty irrelevant data given the difference in ppv schedules then versus now. Really relevant when someone claims Hercules was on more ppvs than Savage/Hogan.

I went from The Wrestling Classic until No Holds Barred and got these number of shows they had matches on: Hogan: 11 Savage: 11 Hercules: 10 That is out of 11 ppvs. Hogan and Savage wrestled on every single ppv in the 1980s. Hercules missed on The Wrestling Classic, so that is why he is one down.

On the PWO-PTBN Roundtable of the 100 greatest matches on the Network, I think the concensus was that it was the perfect attitude era match, but we all had it around 4 stars or so. Nobody was at 5.

I really need a barometer on what you think a five star match is. How many five star matches have their been this year to you?

The World Title never used to be on TV in the WWF, just the IC and Tag Titles in the 80's. Only having title matches on the Network would make sense to me.

Of course! Tim and I have a few shows planned out already.