soup23

This feels like an all -emcompassing statement that doesn't quite sit right with me. On the confines of we all know what we are doing do you mean, each person has a criteria they have formulated as to how they are voting, or do you mean collectively, we all know what the purpose of the process is. If it is the latter, I would strongly disagree. If it is the former, that is one of the other fundamental issues I have had increasingly over the length of the project. Will's criteria has been publicly stated that his 100 guys has been mapped out more or less and it will take a LOT for someone to enter that. Granted, Will has watched a lot of wrestling but I disagree with this notion and the fact that he is fine just hand waving eras like joshi that he doesn't find entertaining on a personal level. Furthermore, someone can lambast myself for relying on great match theory as a metric I will use when compiling my list. The crux comes in what can be criticized and what can't. The Everyone should turn in a ballot notion is a good one and does create an all inclusive atmosphere. Yet, the next reply after this from El-P talks about people watching matches. I haven't seen anyone do an analysis of Rude's 1992 to see where it holds up. The only evidence we have in this thread is Dylan talking about the WCW he participated in. How much are we relying on fuzzy memories. This is a prickly path though because you get into the area of what will then be the arbitrary cut off of when I feel confident rating someone based on footage I have seen 5-10 years ago. This does create anguish for me that I can't get past. Chad, you just did a podcast in which you listed your top 100 matches of all time. It wasn't meant to be your definitive list until the end of days, and you made that clear upfront. But you obviously put real thought into it, and a lot of people on here enjoyed it. How's this any different? Why the anguish? I think a lot goes into the semantics argument. This has been established as a project that will occur at every ten years. While i did put thought in my top 100, I did have some ease in saying to myself, "I haven't watched the New Japan 84 Gauntlet after my self-imposed, arbitrary date of 2011 so it is fine being off the list for now." With this list, fairly or not it is a reflection of where I rank the top 100 wrestlers and I won't have a chance to rectify or edit that for a long period of time. This makes everything more finite and does cause me to dwell over how much stock I should put into rewatching or discovering new workers in order to accurately place them in my top 100. I will use Akira Hokuto as an example. I do believe any list with Rude in their top 100 will be largely based on his 1992. I largely remember that being a great year. The key word in that is largely remember though. I haven't analyzed his tv stuff or PPV stuff in many years. Maybe the 20+ in this thread that voted for Rude have, but I don't see evidence of that on this board or in any other median. As much as I disagree at times with OJ's analysis on matches, he does the work and I can see where he is coming from when he gauges someone like Tenryu. Based on this thread, I am left to surmise that memories of a long time ago are the main evidence pointing towards the ranking of Rude. To get back to Hokuto, as I near the end of 93 in the yearbook, she has undoubtedly had a great year. However, is that year alone GWE ranking worthy? That is something I am looking at analyzing by collecting my thoughts on the other footage I have seen of her semi-recently. Beyond all of that, is the yearbook footage alone enough to accurately gauge? That is a fair criticism that can be leveled against me. The other point where anguish comes in is where I may be forced to not vote for any workers because my confidence level is so low that I can accurately gauge. We just got through the WON HOF season debate on how people will willy nilly vote in regions they have no business voting for where the net result of YES vote for Perro Agayuo is a NO vote for everyone else in the region. Likewise, Will hand waving joshi or me doing the same with Joint Promotions turns into a NO vote for all of those individuals when you cull all the points for the wrestlers. This justifiably or not does create a sense of anguish in myself that Steve Grey was a few spots lower just because I didn't have the time to watch the footage to judge him.

This feels like an all -emcompassing statement that doesn't quite sit right with me. On the confines of we all know what we are doing do you mean, each person has a criteria they have formulated as to how they are voting, or do you mean collectively, we all know what the purpose of the process is. If it is the latter, I would strongly disagree. If it is the former, that is one of the other fundamental issues I have had increasingly over the length of the project. Will's criteria has been publicly stated that his 100 guys has been mapped out more or less and it will take a LOT for someone to enter that. Granted, Will has watched a lot of wrestling but I disagree with this notion and the fact that he is fine just hand waving eras like joshi that he doesn't find entertaining on a personal level. Furthermore, someone can lambast myself for relying on great match theory as a metric I will use when compiling my list. The crux comes in what can be criticized and what can't. The Everyone should turn in a ballot notion is a good one and does create an all inclusive atmosphere. Yet, the next reply after this from El-P talks about people watching matches. I haven't seen anyone do an analysis of Rude's 1992 to see where it holds up. The only evidence we have in this thread is Dylan talking about the WCW he participated in. How much are we relying on fuzzy memories. This is a prickly path though because you get into the area of what will then be the arbitrary cut off of when I feel confident rating someone based on footage I have seen 5-10 years ago. This does create anguish for me that I can't get past.

One of those “only in IWA” three way dances. Smothers is classic in his entrance flicking off everyone and riling up the crowd to the extreme while dancing a bit. Ian has the weight that Mean Mitch Page gains in the next year. Smothers jumps him when he enters the ring and before Sabu can come out. This is really clever as it gets the crowd to chant for Sabu. They tumble to the outside and here is Sabu beating on both men and throwing chairs at Smother’s head. Smothers dancing to the crowd chants never gets old. Smothers and Ian are again on the outside and Smothers gets irish whipped into the chairs. Ian follows him allowing Sabu to hit a triple jump dive onto both of them. Sabu does look like he is on his game so far. Smothers gives some nasty rabbit punches to Rotten on his knees on the outside. Smothers smacks Rotten with some sort of weapon and Ian is busted open. A light tube shot follows for good measure. Tracy turns his attention to Sabu and lays him on a table at ringside. Tracy goes up to the top but gets crotched allowing Sabu to give him a jumping leg sweep where Tracy hits his jaw on the chair on the way down. Ian’s eye looks nasty and Tracy starts working it over by punching it. The crowd informs Tracy that he does in fact suck dick. Tracy does a jig along with the chant. Ian has a fan and busts it right over Tracy’s head. Tracy is unphased and returns with a chairshot and him and Sabu take turns trying to pin Ian. Tracy pounding on that eye is sick. Tracy gives Sabu a DDT onto a chair and he has really been a force of nature in this match being the main antagonist for both Ian and Sabu throughout. The pace has been relentless and this has failed into many three way tropes of one guy standing around. Ian is pissed and hurls Tracy into the wooden scaffold that holds the stage where the camera is set up. Tracy takes out another row of chairs and the House of Hardcore is in disarray. Sabu and Ian square off for a second before Tracy fires back and smashes a huge light tube cluster over Ian. He then responds by peppering that injured eye. What a dick. Tracy grabs some Mustard! And squirts that on Ian and we pretty much are in Tupelo now. Ian hits a brutal chairshot on Tracy and gives him another to his back for good measure. Tracy is finally knocked out for a bit and we have some Ian and Sabu interaction. Sabu hits a legdrop inside the ring for a nearfall. Here comes that bastard Tracy though who won’t stay down. Triple jump moonsault is hit to perfection by Sabu who has really impressed and not overshadowed this match at all while still being a key component. Tracy gives Sabu some back heel kicks in succession and Ian goes for a chair shot but can’t see Tracy due to the blurred vision from the injured eye. That is awesome. He swings again and knocks out referred Brent Blades. Sabu leg drops Ian through the table on the outside and Tracy baseball slides Sabu out and then football charges him into the crowd. Seizing the opportunity, Tracy rolls Ian in and hits a back forearm off the top and a Van Dominator type spot to pick up the win and end twelve minutes of action. “You still Suck!” the crowd chants with the other half shouting “dick”. The only spot of the match that I didn’t like was the finish but this was exactly what you want of a big star coming in, delivering an impressive performance where he hits his spots cleanly, but also doesn’t take away from the main storyline going on in the promotion between the two guys that will still be there next week. This was a complete blast to watch. Ian grabs the microphone and challenges Tracy to a falls count anywhere match Wednesday night which I am so sad we don’t have on tape. They give spirited semi-shooty promos to each other. Tracy gets in the last word spouting some Tennessee proud. Ian says some things about Tracy stint in Memphis and ends with the battle cry, “if you aint hardcore, you aint shit”. ***1/4

15 minutes of awesome action. These two give such good contrasts of each other that it works within the confines of shoot style. Ikeda has his kicks but man when those are neutralized by Ishikawa's sick leg work, that brings everything into question. A wonderful feud for the 1990's. ****

D-Lo Brown vs. Jarrett isn't much of an IC program. Stiller takes his beating well on the celebrity wrestling scale.

Rock comedy stuff is conflicting for me. It certainly works but also feels so extremely different from some of the stuff happening in the main event feuds.

This was really strong and I do wish it would have had more long term effect as it feels like the perfect capper to this feud. In fact, if we haven't seen Vince until the WM 17 chair stuff, this would probably be remembered much better. The heat was insane and it was Austin getting one more over on Vince but Vince still being defiant.

Shane talks a lot about a guy that he claims should be put out to pasture.

Hervey was so fucking bad here. He made me want laughing Bischoff back in the booth. George is wearing a lime green dress as an homage to Debra the night before. She gets abducted by Rodman and Savage goes nuts.

Hervey is back. Its a WTBBP miracle. Hervey looks sleezy as ever here.

Showtime Sting was annoying as hell. He is once again gullible as he is able to team with Hogan going forward.

Hogan vs. Nash feels so odd giving what happened at the first of the year but I guess we will go with it. Sting and Hogan teaming up again could be a novelty but they are united against a dog team in Sid, Rick Steiner, and Nash.

A lot going on here and it feels like the end of the era a bit but of course that was forgotten in a couple of months. Taker gets busted open but Austin is after the match due to Taker hitting him with a chair. They have a pretty spirited brawl afterward. I thought it was interesting to see XPac mixed in here. HHH also immediately attacks Austin setting up the SUmmerSlam program.

Acolytes look pretty decisive beating three guys. It was nice seeing Hayes in PPW earlier in the year so this doesn't look so obscure. I thought the action here was fine but the tag division felt very stagnate right now.

Austin was busted open during Heat so he vows revenge by busting up Taker before the match. I guess this is the Jarrett vs. Austin program we are going to get.

Quick switch back to Jarrett as he wins back the IC title here with an assist from Gangrel. That lime green bikini outfit from Debra showed it was summertime in the WWF.

Stiller is a fan of the puppies.

Crazy to see how much in this show they used Heat to really push what was the direction going forward between the countdown and this promo. It is a good, shoot style promo with HHH getting aggressive and looking like a main event player.

So this begins. I remember knowing somehow who this was for exactly and being super excited to see how Jericho would fare in the WWF.

Striker and Edge doing some smarky commentary as we get house show clips of Edge winning the IC title. This was one of the last times I can remember a championship changing hands on a house show.

One of the better Taz promos we have heard and he is a really good promo. He justifies his reasoning for choking out Tajiri and it is fairly grim stuff. This is the edge Taz needs to have as ECW champion.

Gertner has come a long way from being the awkward ring announcer doing a 7 minute solo promo but this didn't really hit me in any way besides someone trying to make himself laugh and get some shock value reaction with the JFK Jr. stuff.

Dundee has some choice words for Flair and then wins a match in 10 seconds. Afterwards, the beat down continues. KAW is really awful and even the promos that would be ok in other promotions suffer here because of the rinky dink nature of the production.

I liked the promo by RIp but it does still feel mid card and I struggle with OVW's identity overall. Hopefully they will improve with the Cornette regime fully under them now.

Kind of a cluster for the big angle and the production at this point in OVW look older and dated than SMW did. I am having trouble getting into the clips we have seen so far.