Death From Above

Let's spin this somehow to say Jerry called Scott Steiner a "flippy dipshit" and watch what happens.

I had him at #86. I do think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about the value of "aura" some guys have like Scott Steiner, Brock Lesnar, in a different way a guy like Abdullah the Butcher. And yes, even that vile Bruiser Brody.

I am not going to tell Scott Steiner he doesn't deserve the vote because Scott Steiner legitimately scares me. I am a grown man. I am afraid of Scott Steiner, professional wrestler.

I forgot about that Michael Hayes photo. That fucking Michael Hayes photo. I am dead. I have died.

Also if we're going to do Mechanics vs. Output in an endless loop, Rusev is a better Sasaki in every possible way, which is basically why I voted for him.

I'm now recognizing a lot from when I did the music poll on DVDVR: We've reached the point where people overreact with shock to the obvious re: how voting works. I am very pleased by the choice of Scott Hall photo.

It's pretty much posts like this that make people anti-lucha, just sayin'. It became cool to call Japanese fans out for this attitude 15 years ago. The pendulum will swing.

Cota sounds like the kind of character I really regret not knowing about. But that's exactly what makes this list worthwhile to me is the fun of those kind of things.

Yoshida was tough to figure out where to rank for me exactly, because there are other Joshi stars that had longer peaks (and I'm not big at all on her early work), but I never really considered not having her in there. Yamazaki might be the best really bland wrestler, if that makes any sense.

I've been over this before, but if one has access to all the 1990-1994 TV from ALl and New japan one of the things that really stands out is that at the start of the decade, Chono might be the most "trusted" heavyweight in New Japan week to week. What I mean is he's the one guy they could throw out there with just about anybody and be guaranteed a good match that filled 10-15 minutes whether he was working with vets like Choshu, his own peers in Hashimoto, guys "below" him like Super Strong Machine, random foreigners like Norton or Mike Enos/Wayne Bloom etc. He's really absolutely outstanding in that period, as good as anybody. Also both a great singles and tag guy in that period. Reliably as good as anyone in the company in that stretch. He could work with a variety of opponents and was probably my favourite worker in terms of grasping how to handle TV matches in New Japan in that period. He really falls apart-post injury. Badly. I didn't vote for him because there's just too many years that he's a shadow of what he could have been, but the idea he's some kind of joke candidate is absolute stone cold nonsense if one takes a brief peak and values it more than an overall average.

I still have nightmares about Konnan vs. nWo black and white leader Stevie Ray.

I'm sure this is true for many, but if I'd had a "second hundred" for some godforsaken reason, the vast majority of it has fallen at this point. So many workers that I like but couldn't quite bring myself to vote for have gone down. People I didn't vote for but I'm happy enough someone else did. Sasha Banks has a legitimate case as being the best current wrestler in the WWE over the last 6 months. I'm not really sure how that could be called a fad pick if people are able to justify picking some wrestler from the 1960's based off a 10 match sample.

It's bugged me from the beginning. I'm not going to spend one second explaining to a fellow adult that I can understand their position and still disagree with it at the same time.

Based on what, exactly? Yeah, this sort of hot take nonsense about the flavour of the day in what constitutes a correct vote is why I'm glad there was an anonymous option.

It's funny, when I started watching WWE again ZIggler was literally the frist guy that jumped out at me. Then he had the exact same "good tv match" next week. Then the week after that. Then the week after. Sell the shoulder. The shoulder. Shoulder. Should. Should stop.

She's kind of a weird case in that she's obviously a great talent, but so many of her most famous matches are against far more famous workers that were her contemporaries. For whatever reason she was never quite as big a star as a lot of those, despite working several pretty key main events in her era. But I don't think anyone really questions that she was a very good worker.

I'm looking over my ballot and I'm honestly not sure now that other than Rusev as a lone vote at #98 that I'll have any high votes whatsoever other than obviously at #1.

People are really sleeping on Super Delphin, whose finisher is literally teabagging people, having a vote as the 11th greatest wrestler of all time. I love this list.

I think the main thing I've been reminded of is something I have commented on to a couple people on twitter and it bears repeating here. This project has reminded me that I feel genuinely sorry for people that simply dismiss professional wrestling out of hand, people who will never understand the incredible depth and variety of styles and ideas it represents. Pro wrestling really does have something for everybody.

I don't think Tenzan is all that great although I still might take him over Kojima because bad Kojima is seriously bad Japanese Wrestling Eating Itself stuff.

The Trish Stratus/Stephanie McMahon match built around the gimmick of Regal being unsure who to interfere on behalf of, Vince's daughter or girlfriend, is a big guilty pleasure. Never considered voting for her, though.

When a post starts with "This is the weirdest pic of Fuyuki I could find", I become afraid.

So what you're saying is we shouldn't actually be concerned with the result of ???, we should just focus on the tools that brought us to ???

You guys were right. The Genius really IS a better poet than Raven.

RUSEV MATCHKA (This won't last long, I feel naked without my Onita avatar.)