Hollinger.

I'm half fucking with you, Parv. I enjoy the Backlund as Terminator stuff, and think most of the freakishly strong bumpkin that will grind you to death stuff works. But I do agree with you about a lot of the structure issues with his default template matches. Going back to the same hold over and over, the one move comebacks, it's all there. I just haven't spent as much time watching the week to week stuff from the company during that period as you have, so it's never been something that irritated me more than just being forgettable. And I know that goes against part of the argument that I made in the Flair thread about the average matches mattering as much as the great matches, but I'm not arguing Backlund as a top 10 guy. He'll probably fall around the top of the back half of my list, without having made an actual preliminary list yet.

Jesus, I miss Cook. Wonder what he's doing these days.

This is an interesting question. Are you looking at working with other top-level guys as a plus or minus? On one hand, working with top talent should make for better matches and angles if you are going in with a great promo guy. On the other hand, I think we need to consider if an opponent is considered a top level talent because the original worker elevated them to that point. For example, do people consider Akira Taue a top level talent when discussing Misawa's case as a great? Is Taue considered a great because he worked with Misawa or is he a great period? This seems like an endless loop of a question. There is no right answer to any of these questions from my POV. They are all just discussion points. But all things being equal between two great workers, I would usually pick the worker who made it happen with lesser talent over the worker who had the benefit of working with other all-time greats. Others may look at it differently. Yeah, I don't look at that as a question that means one guy is better than another because of the answer. To me, it's important to ask because it's another angle to examine someone's work from. If the answer is yes, it's worth asking "Is he in a lot of great matches because of the people he was working against? How did he fare versus lesser workers?" If the answer is no, it's worth asking "Is he not thought of as great because of his spot on the card or the promotions he worked? How did he fare versus guys who are considered great?" The reasons are going to be different in every case. It's not a matter of a guy getting extra points because of a yes/no answer.

Another issue with the Great Matches argument is that the average matches are just as important to the discussion. When you're talking top 10 of all time, everyone in consideration is going to have a lengthy list of great matches. And while there's subjectivity involved in discussing them, you're talking about stuff that a majority of people can look at and agree it's great. To me, the separation starts to come further down the list. Just sticking to guys frequently mentioned in this thread, if you toss me six hour DVDs of 2.5-3 star matches from Flair, Hansen, Funk and Lawler, Flair is probably the disc I'm least interested in watching. He's probably at the back end of my top 10, and no doubt one of the greatest of all time, but the other three are far more interesting to me with their "typical" performances. That's probably incoherent and half-baked, but I'm at work and trying to juggle my thoughts intermittently with other things.

But this is all true. Why should he pretend it's not?

The crowd at the show was pretty upset about it, too. Lot of booing when they were pulled out, and more when they were made to put on t-shirts. Nobody was going to do anything to cause a disturbance at the show. Several of them (Macho, Jake, Volkoff) are long time local workers. They've been doing this when RAW comes to town for several shows now. Very disappointing, as they're always really popular with the fans, taking pictures outside before the show and hanging out at the bars downtown.

I've had several pleasant interactions with Colt. I know a lot of workers who don't like him because he isn't the type to sit around in the back and bullshit like most bigger names that come around. He's not the fraternizing type, which is very different than most guys in the business. With him, as long as there's an opportunity for him to be out making money, that's his priority. I've never seen any bitterness from him. I've seen him be a dick to people who are hanging around him and potentially keeping him from interacting with people who might spend money, but that's about it. Once the fans are cleared out, or if you've got him in a one on one environment, he's a good guy. At least that's my experience from working with him at several shows.

Hugh Morrus has stepped down from his role, according to Hugh Morrus.

That Thatcher/Williams match from 35 is actually really good. I haven't seen 36, but 35 is a really good show all around.

eyyyyyyyyy maybe ixnay on the talk about the ompscay and the illway.

Am I the only one that thinks Rusev is going over at Mania? I'm seeing a cheapened win at Fastlane to get heat and get everyone bitching that Cena won't lose clean and he's getting his win back at Wrestlemania, then they have Rusev go over clean and he's suddenly a made man to program against Reigns down the line. I could be wrong.

There's absolutely no chance of it happening, but there would be an easy solution to one of their biggest problems if they'd be open minded enough. Roman brings in his Samoan buddy to help him out at Fast Lane. Reigns goes over and gets Brock at Mania, and Bryan gets a match against Joe on the big stage. They get what the want, and the fans are satisfied.

Any chance of someone putting together DVD sets of the best stuff from the 70s that's available? It'd be nice to have everything compiled and made available, especially for a project like this. It seems like the 80s sets are losing steam, and I'd hate to see that kind of archiving project die out. The voting/ranking process has always felt far less important to me than the fact that a group of knowledgeable people were ensuring that the history of wrestling isn't forgotten, and is made relatively easy to get ahold of.

Darnielle talks about wrestling quite a bit on his tumblr. He seems to be a pretty hardcore fan.

I love Roy Nelson like he's family.

Baby Brock would make sense with everyone else that's on the cover of that Wrestlemania program. Giving the rub to Rusev at Mania on the way out would be lovely.

That's a weird way to spell Bludy Moan.

And I think it goes without saying that you'd have to grade out guys at their available peak, because otherwise there are too many variables over time. I think looking at this as scouting makes it easier than trying to assign video game attributes.

I don't know if anyone wants to put the work in, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to set up a site for a community grading project for something like this. (Paging Mookie Harrington!) A page for each worker with a radio button poll for each of the 18 (or 24, if you use Will's suggestions) tools for each worker. I don't know how the Football Manager ratings systems work, but I think something more akin to the 20-80 scouting scale used by baseball scouts to grade player tools would work best: 80 - Legitimate argument for #1 (reason for 80-20 instead of 100-0 is that there is room for argument over guys graded at 80, but that it really doesn't make a difference because the skill is world class.) 75 - Tool is excellent, but not obvious #1. Your #2-3 guys. Elite, but there has been better. 70 - Top 5 65 - In baseball, a 65 grade on a tool is All-Star level. Will be recognized as one of the best. 60 - Plus level tool. Something the player does better than most, but isn't going to make them a star. 55 - Above average... 50 - Average. If you're playing in the big leagues, it's expected that most of your tools hit this baseline. 45 - Platoon level... there's skill, but a flaw. In terms of wrestling, I guess the comparison would be a tool that wasn't necessarily used often, but there are notable instances where it was used well. 40 - Bench player. Basic competency. Below average, but won't actively hurt you. 35 - Emergency Call Up. Can maybe fake it, but you don't want to rely on it. 30 - Organizational filler. Lousy skill. 25 - Actively bad. Bad enough that it diminishes other tools. 20 - Absence of any skill. The worst of the worst. Obviously, there would have to be some determination of how these things would map over to wrestling tools (and perhaps some of the tools would need to be looked at to see if they could even be graded), but I think it could be done. In something like this, most guys under consideration would have to be pretty extraordinary in several tools for anything to grade out as below 45-40. Something to think about.

Jerry Lynn and Stevie Richards are at the top of my list for dudes I've hung out with. World class gentlemen.

Well that seems awfully convenient. Other than all the downloading that looks to be involved.

A big blindspot for me in my watching is Japanese wrestling post-1999. Where do I start looking for recommendations as far as what I NEED to see? Has anyone put together good promotional compilations for the 2000s? Or, since I know you kids love to watch shit on your computer these days, a list of youtube links? Or even just a list I can search for? I know there's a ton of stuff on Youtube, but I don't see much rhyme or reason to what some of these channels are uploading. Who's put together the modern history of NJPW? Or the entire history of NOAH? Or wherever flippy dudes are working these days? Sorry if this is a weird request. I know there's a ton of stuff out there that I could just dive into, but I start getting anxious about these kinds of things if I don't go into it organized and with an agenda.

Maybe that Hollinger guy will be the new ring announcer.