El-P

Doesn't that contradict your criteria for the GWE then ? To me it's the opposite. I don't care if the build was shit if at the end I get a great pro-wrestling match. The pay-off is the match. The pro-wrestling is the match. All the rest is just a way to make me want to watch the match. It's commercials. Dusty's case as part of making my list is non-existent even including the promos and in-ring charisma. Because the matches aren't very good or interesting to me. That doesn't mean I don't understand his case, but when I see a great Dusty promo, the issue I have is that I'm gonna have to watch an actual match. That goes with many other from the same era like Piper for instance. Yeah, great promo. I don't need to see the match, thanks. That was the double-edge sword of SMW : super fun angle & promo territory, but the pay-off in the ring was very often subpar to say the least.

If I can figure a nice top 20, I'll be happy about it.

What do you prefer ? Awesome promo work leading to a so-so match or so-so promo work leading to an awesome match ? You know where I stand. Of course, awesome promo work leading to awesome match is better overall, but if I can't judge the promo work because I don't speak the language (here I am talking in circles now), the only thing I can judge is the "awesome match" part of it. So, for the sake of equity, I'd better ignore the promo work altogether.

That's too much of a psychological approach to me. Which is also why I don't need the promos. Matches should work in and out of themselves. You don't need a promo to set up a spot that will work. Pro-wrestling isn't rocket science. It works within its own flux of movement. Just has to flow well and everything is fine. Sure, they did set up the spot *during the match*, but really whether they cut promos beforehand or not is irrelevant, anyone is able to get what is happening when it does ie Nash bumping off Rey's dropkick despite the fact it's not "realistic".

That would be funny as hell actually. And really, Nash did bump off Rey's dropkick, which is not *that* much realistic when you think about it.

Hum... I would disagree with this, because it dangerously goes toward "big guys should only work that way" and "small guys only should work that way", which we have debated the other week. To me there's no "should" in how to judge the work, because the "should" is only in the eyes of the beholder. It only works in a constructive and positive way in the case of "should not but actually does", as in Brian Cage for instance, whose appeal comes from the fact he doesn't look like someone who can do the stuff he does (to keep it with the "body" idea, but it also works in many other ways).

That's understood.

It's also a showing that the current audience cares about matches more than personalities. Which in a way is much more democratic, because it's not about worshipping the Star, anyone can get the "This is Awesome" chant, from the bottom up to the top of the card (in front of 200 people or a stadium of 100.000 also). Yes, much more democratic.

Ok, that makes sense.

Agreed. Sable had great genetics, but she worked her ass off to look like she did, and had the right "adds-on" to boot. So she did work to get the reaction she got. And she got huge reactions. What does that say about her as a pro-wrestler though ?

I never want to hear any complaint about "This is awesome" chants nor finisher spamming then. The only crowd which really tells me something about the work is a bored audience who suddenly gets involved. I always use the same exemple : Raven vs Saturn at that WCW PPV in 98. Crowd couldn't care less at the beginning, dead silent. They were going insane at the end. The genius of Raven's dog & pony show. He got them from 0 to 10. If the crowd is already at 10 because of the status of the workers, it tells me nothing (unless the workers in question *loses* them, in which case, that sucks)

That's fair enough I guess. Still, you can't fairly judge promos in a language you don't understand. I know I can't. I can infer him or her is a good promo, but usually there's a confirmation bias involved.

But maybe they are and you don't know because they're not working the super intense, super expressive style Hokuto does. You just can't know. Maybe Hokuto in English would come off super forced and overbearing, and the fact the crowd reacts doesn't tell me much because I don't trust captive crowds to tell me anything.

Totally agree about the bolded part, like I said before. But promos to me is not part of the match itself. And to me pro-wrestling is still about having pro-wrestling matches and that's why I watch pro-wrestling and that's what it's all about in the end.

We don't ? Most of them are totally shitty actors, there's nothing else to look for.

Subtitles. And a movie dialogue is not a pro-wrestling promo.

Or maybe you say that because you already know that she was a great wrestler and you've got a confirmation bias. You can't judge the "how" if you don't understand the language, because the "how" is also part of the expression of the language. Of course you can see the intensity of things, but for instance, maybe Onita was a shit promo and his melodramatic stuff in English or French would make me laugh my ass off.

Do you speak Japanese, Spanish, French ? Because if you don't, you just can't judge that element. You can gauge that Akira Hokuto was pretty much great at cutting promos, but you can't really judge. We can pretend that promo matter less in Japan, yet Choshu or Takada's great charisma and personality on the mic surely played a part in how they were received by audiences and why crowds reacted to them the way they did (and why they became such big draws). But as I don't speak Japanese, I can't judge their actual promo ability.

I don't remember, was he still working with AJ when he got back to WWE with Shinzaki or was he settled in the US by then and just served as the WWF interpreter/contact for Shinzaki ?

I had watched the LLPW stuff from the early 90's. It's not very interesting because LLPW had not a very good roster compared to the two other promotions. I mean, there was some cool workers and veterans, but having to watch Eagle Sawaii & Rumi Kazama a lot is not something fun at all. Clearly the main events got good when the interpromotional stuff kicked in. And Kandori was so made for this. Her early work for sure I'd be interested in watching. Megumi Kudo surely deserves a comeback too, she was a fascinating worker. And of course, Yoshida, the marvels of all marvels.

Of course Ozaki. Oz was awesome. You want to watch JWP Oz, not really GAEA Oz (although in the second part of the 90's she was still excellent there playing mentor to her Oz Academy students, some terrific stuff then).

That is true. But even then, Kandori's stuff didn't look like Chiggy or Lioness' UWF influenced stuff, which then stemmed the excellent Yamada and the crappy Hotta. In a way she was like post-comeback Minoru Suzuki, as he's absolutely not representative of what shootstyle used to be (of course he was when he was younger because he worked the regular style then) and really has his own thing going (which is part of why he's so fun to watch usually). Haven't watched it in 20 years I guess, but from memory it was the kind of "statement" match I really enjoy, the statement here being "We're gonna go so hard and so fast for so long until the point we're gonna shoot exhaust ourselves yet still try to go as fast and hard as humanly possible". These women were something else.

Considering how great a team the North was, giving Ethan Page a really good guy to team again is the best option. Could be really good. BTW, did Tony Khan actually bought the rights to "Where is My Mind" ? If so, I want more of this, and Orange Cassidy is de facto the coolest pro-wrestler ever.

Oh, yeah, totally agree, I thought the exact same thing, and I guess that's why he's more tempted to dig into Kandori first actually. I don't expect Matt to go crazy for Toyota or Kyoko. Although everyone should, because they are awesome, Toyota being the apex of absolute go-go-go workers, I don't think there have been anybody even close before or after. Kyoko from memory is a little bit different, although clearly also rooted in the ultimate "We can outworkrate the best men, you patriarcal society !" (and succeeding) mentality.

Oh yeah. As much as I thought last week's promo by QT was a mess, this week's angle was terrific, as was its execution. The rest of the show ruled too. When even Cesar Bononi looks the best he ever did, you know that's a W.