soup23

Patera was my third soldier to fall. I'm a little surprised he finished below some of the other guys I have on my list. Who besides Patera and Lothario, im adding columns to our list with actual results.

Its not about the input of the words put into the jabs but the output of the sentences. Are there any comedians that have a lot of great jokes but aren't great comedians?

Does anyone still have their top 100 still in tack? I have only had three drop if my calculations are correct.

Bill Eadie high vote MattD: Chad - "Sounds about right":

Pretty rough roll out of wrestlers today that I don't care for much at all.

I was confused at first and thought it was being asked for the PWO-PTBN pod group to come up with a consensus top 100 together to which I was ready to remove my profile.

That many ballots for Raven... huh

This was a marathon to plow through but honestly one of my favorite podcasts of all time. Both Loss and Childs have an uncanny ability at times to make these snapshot statements that totally encompass how I feel on certain things in one moment. One of those was the desire of Kobashi to have a classic every time out. The other involved Ricky Morton being a heart throb based on his selling. Just a magnificent discussion that it felt like we were all allowed to secretly eavesdrop in on.

Interested where Case and other DG proponents had Shingo after Alan ranked him 14th. Even though I don't connect to the DG style much overall, Shingo is even below that in my eyes and his championship matches in general have seemed extremely bloated and nonsensical in my eyes.

Bret was a big fish in a hugely diluted pond that was US and Canada wrestling in 92-97. I stack Kobashi being a guy with huge crowd appeal from a young lion to the day he retired in 2013 as a better testament to his connection to the crowd. Bret certainly has good matches with lesser talent but also has mediocre to mundane matches with really good talent which weighs into the house show effect with him. I again hate playing the what if game. Bret had plenty of matches with good workers as a tag wrestler and singles star. Bret did have a chance to have a showcase match in 1992 vs. Shawn Michaels. This match headlined a PPV and was given 26 minutes. Most at best call it very good. Name a Kobashi performance on the big stage where he was that flat for a huge performance making opportunity. Even the excessive Kobashi matches have pretty great heat. 1. Not all opportunities are created equal -- you're not going to get a lot of heat in a rapidly declining period for the company with a newly hotshotted champion and challenger in Bret and Shawn, respectively. (Also, that's one pair of finishes that didn't come up in the List of Great Bret Finishes -- Bret catching Shawn off the top for the sharpshooter and win in '92, then teasing that same spot as the finish in the '96 Iron Man match, only to see Shawn persevere and hold on until the time limit.) 2. If you're considering 1992 Shawn Michaels to be a great worker, I'd be very interested to see a further elaboration of that idea, especially since I put forward Shawn as a serious answer to the question posed by the thread topic. 3. On the other end of the spectrum, Kobashi had a lot of wind at his back with Baba's booking, as well as quality of opposition, throughout the 90s in All Japan. When did he face a situation like Bret's Survivor Series '92? How did he respond? I think a lot of the talk about "projection" and what-ifs is being misread (and maybe misrepresented) as an acknowledgement in contextual differences in opportunity. For me, it's not really about awarding extra credit to Bret or someone like Buddy Rose based on what they could have done in a hypothetical situation. It's about recognizing what they actually did in the context that they were dealt -- which includes identifying great opportunities that were squandered, mind you -- and then assessing and examining what someone like Kobashi or (yes) Flair did in a more fertile environment. Rather than jump on top of another sports analogy grenade (Bret Hart is actually Warren Moon!), I'll point to a concept in sports analysis that influenced my critical processes for this list: value over replacement. In baseball, there's been enough statistical rigor and research done to identify a rough output from a level of talent known as "replacement level" -- basically, the idea that any freely available player from the minors or independent leagues can be brought onto a major league baseball team and provide approximately value through hitting/defense/whatever. This level of output can vary based on the context of a given league - there was much more offense in the 2000s than in the 1960s for a number of reasons (legitimate and otherwise) and, thus, the expectations for a replacement level player as well as a great player are raised and quantified in conjunction to match that. As a result, if you're arguing about whether a player from the 2000s is more deserving of being a Hall of Famer than a player from the 1960s, you can't just do a nose-to-nose statistical comparison between the two and leave it at that; you have to make an adjustment on context and understand that thirty home runs in the 2000s doesn't mean as much as thirty home runs in the 1960s, even if they both put the same amount of runs on the scoreboard. So, yeah, there are a few things that I think Kobashi does better than Bret Hart, but I measure that observation with a caveat that I believe Kobashi had more valuable opportunities to not only demonstrate those skills, but use them to create a great match with a great opponent. (And, from here, we could probably sidebar for hours on the notion of what makes a great match, which is another key contextual difference that makes it sort of useless to just fling lists of matches at each other in my book.) In my eyes, the replacement level in 1990s WWF is different enough to warrant a deeper examination of what Bret was able to accomplish beyond a simple skimming of matches that met criteria for greatness that 1990s WWF had comparatively little interest in chasing. If you're only looking at the great matches, I'm not going to say that the approach is inherently wrong, but I would posit that it might be making less of an adjustment for context than I would personally prefer. How many 80s NWA wrestlers made your ballot? How high did the four pillars rank? And how curious is it that wrestlers from those two eras mysteriously seem to show up on so many people's lists? Ask old school baseball fans about Sandy Koufax some time. I think having something fresh like Bret vs. Shawn in the landscape of 1992 US wrestling would be a great opportunity for them to prove their worth. I liken it to Kawada vs. Kobashi headlining Budokan in October 1993. That was a fresh first time match up and Kobashi had not had much experience headlining the big show. They even had a weird working match for the first half that was counteractive to their feud throughout the year up to that point. Then, the second half was an awesome display of them finding their legs and delivering an exhilarating finish. Kobashi obviously faced higher levels of opponents in the 1990's. It is silly to argue otherwise. However, compared to his peers he had a better feud with Akiyama and Hase than Kawada and Misawa (minus 2/27/00 Misawa/Akiyama match). I think Bret was given ample opportunities that he squandered. Going through the 1994 yearbook, he never felt like the ace champion you would have hoped when he was given a lengthy reign. Coming off of a screwjob, he really missed the mark in WCW and just became a face in the crowd in a rapidly quick fashion. Context was something that I did weigh in compiling my list. Bock will be some peoples' #1, he finished top 20 for me with a huge emphasis on context. As far as stuff on tape, I have probably seen as many great Bret matches as Bock but I thought Bock was a much more compelling ace and better babyface in the tail end of his AWA run.

Bret was a big fish in a hugely diluted pond that was US and Canada wrestling in 92-97. I stack Kobashi being a guy with huge crowd appeal from a young lion to the day he retired in 2013 as a better testament to his connection to the crowd. Bret certainly has good matches with lesser talent but also has mediocre to mundane matches with really good talent which weighs into the house show effect with him. I again hate playing the what if game. Bret had plenty of matches with good workers as a tag wrestler and singles star. Bret did have a chance to have a showcase match in 1992 vs. Shawn Michaels. This match headlined a PPV and was given 26 minutes. Most at best call it very good. Name a Kobashi performance on the big stage where he was that flat for a huge performance making opportunity. Even the excessive Kobashi matches have pretty great heat. Kobashi never wrestled hbk in 92 in a WWF ring. If Kobashi would have, it would have been *****

Bret was a big fish in a hugely diluted pond that was US and Canada wrestling in 92-97. I stack Kobashi being a guy with huge crowd appeal from a young lion to the day he retired in 2013 as a better testament to his connection to the crowd. Bret certainly has good matches with lesser talent but also has mediocre to mundane matches with really good talent which weighs into the house show effect with him. I again hate playing the what if game. Bret had plenty of matches with good workers as a tag wrestler and singles star. Bret did have a chance to have a showcase match in 1992 vs. Shawn Michaels. This match headlined a PPV and was given 26 minutes. Most at best call it very good. Name a Kobashi performance on the big stage where he was that flat for a huge performance making opportunity. Even the excessive Kobashi matches have pretty great heat.

I also still disagree with a notion that rolling out great matches in lists form was effective for me in determining my list. The past two days have had arguments that great match theory has been debunked as a metric to use. I think that is incredibly insulting to those that do value great matches as a strong metric of determination. This isn't a list where if you had the highest number of great matches, you won, but having a long list and in Kobashi's case, a substantially larger list than Bret is a strong reason why I had one guy in my 40's and the other at #2. I have yet to be compelled on why this is being treated as inherently wrong by some members of the board.

I think the key to this discussion from my list ranking was that there isn't some set number of great matches that made me stop and say someone was getting on my list. Sorry David Von Erich, you only have 9 great matches and the minimal requirement is 10 was not a phrase I ever thought of. In comparison of Bret vs. Kobashi in isolation, I feel Kobashi is stronger offensively, a much better babyface that had universal crowd affection for a sustained period of time longer than Bret, better face in peril, better comebacks, and better selling. I think Bret is a great worker but do have trouble viewing him as a top 10 candidate. I would have the same qualms if someone put DiBiase in their top 10.

Kobashi: w/ Jumbo vs. Tenryu/Hansen 7/15/89 w/ Joe Malenk vs. Can Am Express 10/11/89 Masa Fuchi/Great Kabuki/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Akira Taue/Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi 5/26/90 Kenta Kobashi/Toshiaki Kawada/Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue/Masa Fuchi/Jumbo Tsuruta 10/19/90 Kenta Kobashi/Toshiaki Kawada/Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Masa Fuchi/Akira Taue 4/20/91 Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Toshiaki Kawada vs Jumbo Tsuruta, Masa Fuchi & Akira Taue (AJPW 01/24/92) Masa Fuchi/Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi 5/22/92 Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 9/4/91) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Kenta Kobashi 2/27/92 Kikuchi/Kobashi vs. Furnas/Krofatt 5/25/92 Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (AJPW 06/05/92) Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi & Giant Baba (AJPW 11/27/92) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 7/29/93) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJ 6/1/93) vs. Dr. Death 8/31/93 Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa (AJ 7/2/93) vs. Kawada 10/23/93 Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi (AJ 10/2/93) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 4/16/93) Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa (AJ 6/3/93) Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat vs Kenta Kobashi & Satoru Asako (AJPW 08/20/93) Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Jun Akiyama & Yoshinari Ogawa (AJ 1/24/93) Terry Gordy vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 5/29/93) 12/3/93 tag Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJ 11/25/94) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJ 7/22/94) Steve Williams vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 4/15/94) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJ 12/10/94) Steve Williams vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 9/3/94) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 4/10/94) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 5/21/94) January 1995 draw vs. Kawada Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 03/04/95) Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue (AJPW 03/21/95) Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/13/95) 6/9/95 vs. Akira Taue 7/24/95 Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 10/15/95) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 9/5/96) Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue (AJ 7/24/96) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 3/31/96) Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJ 5/24/96) Draw vs. Kawada 10/96 vs. Misawa 1/20/97 Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 10/21/97) Kenta Kobashi vs. Hiroshi Hase (AJPW 8/26/97) Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW Carnival 4/19/97) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 10/31/98) (*****) Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 6/12/98) (*****) Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (AJPW 7/24/98) (****3/4) Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs. Stan Hansen & Vader (AJPW 12/5/98) (****1/2) Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue (AJPW 9/11/98) (****1/4) Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (AJPW 4/11/98) (****1/4) Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (AJPW 6/5/98) (****1/4) Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW 10/11/98) (****) Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW 3/6/99) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 6/11/99) Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (AJPW 4/4/99) Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 1/7/99) Vader vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW Carnival Final 4/16/99) Mitsuharu Misawa & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 6/4/99) w/ Akiyama vs. Misawa/Ogawa 10/99 vs. Omori Carny Final 2000 vs. Takayama 5/25/00 That is 64 matches up to the NOAH split.

4 or 5 was really low, but I think 20 isn't that far off for me. Again, I may be a tough grader but I do consider a great match to be **** or above. Perfect 91 and Piper at WM 8 would be just below that metric for me. A quick listing off the top of my head: vs. Steamboat Boston Garden match vs. Rockers 10/30/90 vs. Perfect SummerSlam 91 vs. Davey SSLam 92 vs. Flair Iron Man Match vs. Lawler/Doink SummerSlam vs. Perfect KOTR 93 vs. Yoko MSG 8/93 Cage match vs. Owen Mania 10 vs. Kid July 94 Raw vs. Backlund Survivor Series 94 vs. Diesel Survivor Series 95 vs. Davey IYH 5 vs. HBK Mania 12 vs. Austin Survivor Series 96 vs. Austin Mania 13 vs. Austin IYH vs. Taker One Night Only Canadian Stampede Main Event vs. HBK Survivor Series vs. Flair Souled Out 98 vs. Benoit 10/4/99 So 22 matches, a few I am sure I have forgotten but probably caps at 30 at the absolute high mark. I also think for certain matches I may be lower on like vs. Piper, that is counteracted with the stuff like the Rockers 90 tag and Souled Out match which I am usually high on compared to others. We have about 14 years of Bret's career on tape so that is about an average of 2 great matches per year.

Johnny Ace - Few Great tag matches but nothing else. Ace clearly #4 role in most of those matches Ogawa - Tons of great matches and has a good bit of props around here as a great worker, made my top 100 as a result HHH - Ran through his list earlier and not that impressive list of matches for me, for someone like Scott Criscuolo he does have a laundry list and Scott would have had him in his top 100 Undertaker - Ditto HHH Dynamite Kid - Not a bad choice here but I do think Dynamite is more labeled as excessive and overated to a degree than as a bad worker. He didn't make my top 100 but was in contention. I havent seen the Portland stuff but based on the Bulldog and New Japan run, he doesn't have a huge amount of great matches. Gary Albright - Honestly only has 3-4 matches of his I can think off hand as great in my eyes Mil Masacaras - Ditto Albright Inoki - Not a terrible case here. He does have a good handful of great matches but again I would wager to guess it would be in the range of 20 for me. That still isnt a lot of great output for someone that we have a wide range of tape for. Killer Khan - Has a few SUPER matches and not much else. Still got votes. Furnas - Another good case, a good many great matches and I do think Furnas is a good worker but not a great one. Would be interested if he would make my top 200. David Von Erich - A few great matches and six mans, not much else but I don't like Texas Takada- If you like the matches, you think fairly highly on Takada, he made Loss' list and was in my 125, if you think the matches are overated and bloated, you don't think they are great and therefore didn't rank Takada

not the only example of Kobashi being excessive. It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling.

Dont see the Burning Hammer as excessive at all when it has only been used a handful of times and been the finish each time.

HHH is someone that has a lot of great matches in some eyes and therefore ranks accordingly. To someone like myself and most on this board, he has very few great matches (****+ for me) over his career and therefore doesn't rank well. **** HHH Matches for me after looking at the list of Meltzer ratings that were presented: vs. Rock SummerSlam 1998 vs. Rock Judgement Day 2000 vs. Cactus Jack Royal Rumble 2000 vs. Jericho Fully Loaded 2000 Armageddon 2000 HIAC vs. Benoit and HBK WM 20 vs. Batista Vengeance 2005 vs. Flair Taboo Tuesday 2005 vs. Orton NO Mercy 2007 vs. Taker WM 27 vs. Bryan Mania 30 Extreme Rules Shield vs. Evolution Those are the only ones I could think of right off hand. Twelve matches over a 18 year career isn't that extraordinary and even if I blanked on a few, I doubt he would hit an average of one great match a year. That to me is not a case of someone built on "great match theory." I do think Backlund and Cena are closer to a legitimate argument that can be made.

Bill Thompson not being the high vote on Thatcher followed by Musgrave not being the high vote on Burke was a surprise.

I think Okada winning in 2012 along with easier access to the PPV's meant more eyes on the product and a really easy jumping in point similar to Misawa and Co rise in 2012. Dave started watching and really praising the second half of the shows as being littered with **** matches. The ripple effect took off from there.

Didn't realize Kohsaka ranked so highly last time. Was there any reason for that? Was U-Style watched really heavily at the time or something. He just seemed like someone that didn't have a lot of buzz behind him but he really impressed me watching the 1990's stuff.

Legit shocked that Loss didn't rank Nakano and Childs did after their joshi debates on the 1990 and 1991 recap shows.

That stream of consciousness in one sitting is something i am excited to explore the deeper I get into the podcast. I remember a very deep conversation about wwe booking me and Loss had on the eve of Rumble 2015 that was after we recorded the Top 100 Matches you Should See before you die podcast that was really strong at the time but it was so late in the night, it feels like a hazy memory now.