El-P

The use of "but" makes it a preterition of sorts. But anyway, on the contrary, I'm feeling like I was doing with Buddy exactly the same thing as I did with AJ Styles and one or two others, which is giving them a positive benefit of the doubt. Since what I saw of Buddy was excellent against Hennig in the early 80's (don't remember the year) and since he was great in the AWA, I ranked him with the idea that he might have been just as good in-between. However, I couldn't get him higher because I really don't know. Buddy could get dramatically up, or not. Same for AJ

I did. And I did adress why. Familiar with the AWA stuff and the Hennig feud in Portland. Basically : not seen enough for him to go higher. I'll be honest, I've heard so much hardcore pimping of Buddy Rose Portland years, that I have a hard time believing it can live up to such a hype at this point. I'll only know if/when I'll check it out. Yep. I had Austin at #61. Really enjoyed his entire WCW stint, it's actually his WWF Attitude Era years that hurt him. Basically, nothing stands out after his injury except the Foley matches (and the Taker SummerSlam match), then he has ons of bad stuff (like mostly everybody else) until he comes back and has maybe his best year ever in 2001. I just need to see his rookie USWA feud against Chris Adams. I basically squeezed Adams on my list of the strength of it. Austin is green as hell during it but you can see what he could potentially be. Damn, maybe I could have squeezed Adams because of it too. His 80's Texas stuff just wasn't enough. EDIT : violence against women... I dunno, if it's only the heel doing it, well, it's "acceptable".

I did. And I did adress why. Familiar with the AWA stuff and the Hennig feud in Portland. Basically : not seen enough for him to go higher. I'll be honest, I've heard so much hardcore pimping of Buddy Rose Portland years, that I have a hard time believing it can live up to such a hype at this point. I'll only know if/when I'll check it out. I'm not saying this is what happened, but do you feel like you're punishing Rose because of his vocal fanbase? It seems like your viewpoint on this is inherently contrarian. It's like picking apart a movie just to be different from all your friends. And here we have the first Godwin point of this thread with the infamous "contrarian" bullshit. If I was trying to be contrarian, I would not have voted for Lawler or Rose at all, I would not have put Fujiwara higher than where he ended up (#27 on my list), I would not have voted for Rey in my Top 20 (I did despite my disdain for the 619), I would not have voted for anyone from the 00's (as a relic from the 90's that I'm supposed to be too) and I would probably have put a bunch of woman in my top 10, Ric Flair around #80 and Bockwinkle at #1 on the strenght of only his past 45 work. That's being contrarian.

I did. And I did adress why. Familiar with the AWA stuff and the Hennig feud in Portland. Basically : not seen enough for him to go higher. I'll be honest, I've heard so much hardcore pimping of Buddy Rose Portland years, that I have a hard time believing it can live up to such a hype at this point. I'll only know if/when I'll check it out. Yep. I had Austin at #61. Really enjoyed his entire WCW stint, it's actually his WWF Attitude Era years that hurt him. Basically, nothing stands out after his injury except the Foley matches (and the Taker SummerSlam match), then he has ons of bad stuff (like mostly everybody else) until he comes back and has maybe his best year ever in 2001. I just need to see his rookie USWA feud against Chris Adams.

PPV 45 TNA : The company with the idiotic concepts. And this week we have two of them , plus the ruining of another gimmick match. First idiotic concept : the Asylum Alliance tournament to determine a N°1 contender for the tag belts. Damn, they determine N°1 contender every week. The concept is making makeshift tag team to prevent the gang mentality. Basically, the first half of Battlebowl, which gives us two shitty matches to begin with, including a mixed tag, of course, Kid Kash & Trinity (who is still abused, which negates everything about the big angle a few weeks ago) vs David Young & Tracy. Sloppy indy spot work + women abuse. And the Black Scorpion, well actually the mystery luchador challenging Kid Kash. To spice up things, we get a qualifying match to the Asylum Alliance Tournament. But with regular tag team. "Does that make logic ?". At least that means a solid AMW vs AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown match, although heatless and with a screwjob finish, but the work itself was good, as expected. They’re totally wasting AJ Styles in this stuff though. Second idiotic concept : the Hard Ten tournament. Garbage match with a scoring system. Each weapon shot gives you one point, gotta have ten and a two points advance to win. Going through a table is five points apparently. Sanders vs Brian Lee tried their hands at it. Total garbage and made no sense whatsoever. I hope they give up on this shit quickly. More creative booking with XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Justin Credible, Amazing Red & Slash. Sounds like a WAR tournament trio. Babyfaces (well, I guess since Red is part of the team) with the number advantage, yeah, that always works to get sympathy. Match is really good though, Red as a face in peril of course and Daniels simply being great. Then Raven attacks Red, because he wants Jarrett so he’ll take some innocent victims out. Okay. But didn’t Raven lost clean after Jarrett kicked out of his finisher twice already despite having his brain bashed in while handcuffed ? What a whiner. Ruining the Clockwork Orange House of Fun : having Sandman vs Sonny Siaki aka the most boring worker since Mike Rotundo in a slo-mo garbage match with Raven refusing to play referee like he should, leading to no-finish-at-all and a giant clusterfuck with Amazing Red trying twice to put Raven through a table. Doesn’t make any sense ? No, indeed. Thankfully, the opener, a four-way elimination to determine a N°1 contender (yeah ! that's a fresh idea !) for the X-title between CM Punk, Kid Romeo, Jason Cross & Paul London was actually pretty good if booked ass-backward with Punk being the first eliminated despite obviously displaying the most star potential already. But good spotfest at least. Forgot to mention that for a few weeks now, Erik Watts mentions the fact that « Eric from WCW, The Eric from WCW, is coming to TNA to be Director of Operations ». Wasn’t Bischoff in WWE at that time anyway ? Anyway, Watts was right, but a few years too early. Oh, and Goldylocks is shown in a cellphone store acting like a hysterical bitch breaking up her phone and shit. I have no idea either. This company = a joke. 2003/05/21 CM Punk vs Kid Romeo vs Jason Cross vs Paul London 2003/05/21 AMW vs AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown 2003/05/21 XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Justin Credible, Amazing Red & Slash

Between the pic of Shawn and Windham's, we've reached a new level of Pro Wrestling is Gay. Pretty awesome. Hard to recognize it's the same guy under the Blackjack hat. Windham was my #40, and it almost feels too low in retrospect, considering how much I love WIndham. I guess I had to be objective. I'm one who even loves Blackjack Windham and his WCW work teaming with Curt Hennig. I also consider peak Windham (86-88 maybe ?) better than Flair. Yeah, "what could have been" sounds right. One of the most graceful wrestler ever this side of Misawa. Great in every role he was put in. Love me some Stalker.

Wouldn't it be 25-11 ?

That's amazing ! And Taue is the firts guy who got at the exact spot I had him too #26 ! As far as Akiyama not getting higher, you just have to blame me. I *forgot* to vote for Akiyama. And it's obvious he would have made it higher than Taue on my list. So yeah, Mea Culpa Maxima.

Santo was already above Shawn Michaels in 2006. But Santo is lower this time. While Micheals is higher. What Santo has added since 2006: Mostly some cool stuff in TxT and England. What Shawn has added since 2006: 12 **** matches from Meltzer amongst a whole lot of other crap. And that's the power of MAINSTREAM. (it is turning into a running gag)

Bret & Arn are the two guys I'm rooting for the most now. Kinda surprised Austin hasn't dropped yet.

Santo was already above Shawn Michaels in 2006. But Santo is lower this time. While Micheals is higher.

Yep. All good news.

Not surprised Eaton is dropping now, although I agree Morton should be above him (Eaton was one spot behind him on my list, at #33), as the mid-90's work of Eaton is nothing special anymore. I like the Blue Bloods, but Eaton never really geled with Regal. He was also part of that godawful tag team with Steve Keirn, whereas Morton was carrying SMW on his back with really good matches and promos. Maybe the early part of Eaton's career, teaming with Koko in Memphis, can gie him the edge though. No question Eaton is one of the greatest tag wrestler ever. His solo stint in WCW too is a bit underrated I'd say.

Ran Yu-Yu also was thought highly of at this point. I have no idea, I know she was indeed really good in the late 90's already. She was "the other Tomoko" of the JWP young fab fours.

Raven was the closest thing to a real star they had. Make sense. I think the unreliable years were way behind him at this point. PPV 44 The main event of XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown was good until the final screw-job finish by Gilberti, who fucked up his own finisher. Not as strong a match as the previous week though. Rest of the show ? Complete shit. Screw-jobs and runs-in every time around. Every match including undercard stuff worked the same fake dramatic way with a thousand nearfalls, which makes everything seem the same and undramatic. SEX all over the card with « complete chaos » every fifteen minutes. Tracy doing a PMS gimmick (fake subserviant woman and actual bitch supposed to be an empowered woman through sexual means... or something) and beating up Kid Kash. Shitty X-division triple threat match with Lynn vs Red vs Sabin with awkward and nonsensical spot galore and shit swerve at the end with XXX costing Red his title and Sabin joining SEX. Way to devalue the X title. Continuation of the « trouble in AMW » angle nobody wants to see. Ron Killings & Konnan are babyface or heels ? Dunno. Women abuse with Trinity being « given » to SEX by Kash. Gilberti was all over the show, as he's pushed as the N°1 contender for the NWA title. Feel the cred ? Most hilarious statement : Jeff Jarrett making an analogy with Stunning Steve becoming Stone Cold and Mean Mark becoming the Undertaker. Yeah. Disco Inferno is the next breakout megastar of TNA. That company is a complete and utter joke. 2003/05/10 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels)

Back in the early 00's, people following NEO would argue that Yoshiko Tamura was one of the best active worker. I wonder what I'd think of this if I revisited that dark period of joshi. I loved The Bloody too. Greatest worker no one knows about (that being said, I have no idea what I'd think about her today).

John Cena, one of the greatest wrestler ever if you like shaky execution, soft looking spots, robotic moves, entirely pre-planned epics, trading and kicking out of finishers, five-knucle shuffles and a babyface who does schoolyard jokes and never cares when he's losing a title. That being said, I loved the way he dealt with hostile crowds and his ridiculous entrances at Mania. I feel Cena is a guy who's been both helped a lot by working in the modern era (production, über-push) but also hurt quite a bit by it (would probably had been much more fun if he had been allowed more freedom, as he had *it* anyway and really good instinct it seems). No idea if he'd make my top 200, as I really dislike the 00's WWE style, and he's the absolute ace at this style, for better or worse. (Cena probably comes off a lot worse than I wanted him to, I enjoy him more than it would seem)

Does Goldust work in a mainstream company? Yes. Goldust is highly regarded among mainstream fans? No. Claiming this is a ballot where mainstream fans highly influenced it seems silly to me. *facepalm* Did I ever mention that a bunch of hidden mainstream fans had submitted ballots to influence the poll ? I don't think I did. I'm just noticing that guys from the US maintream companies (NWA/JCP // WCW // WWE) are doing better this time around at the expense of more "niche" styles. Which is why I'm calling this list "more conservtaive". *That's all* If that's too hard to understand or if people get rubbed the wrong way about it, too fucking bad. I don't know what else to say, really.

Goldust is as much a mainstream US guy as Michaels. (funny how some people just don't understand something super simple) Holy shit, those two pics of Michaels. I'm amazed that Michaels actually gained spots since last time. For all the criticism he gets around here, most of it valid, he still managed to win more than ten spots. I guess all because of a bunch of self-conscious epics at Mania against Cena & Taker. Post 2002 Michaels seems to be some of the most divisive body of work ever, either you love it, either you hate it. Haven't seen all of it, although quite a bit of the big matches, and although I do think there's some to love, much of it isn't worthy of the high praise it gets. Do we need to mention again that the "Sorry, I love you" match with Flair is one of the most ridiculous overacted melodramamatch ever, and a staple of awful modern WWE manufactured "Mania Moments" ? Well, I had Micheals at #78.

Ah, the infamous "Robert Gibson was actually playing Ricky Morton" argument. That was not his most glorious hour to say the least.

Settle down a bit, Goc. Don't be so fucking sensitive, it's not about you at all, ya know. I never said people didn't watch new footage, I never said all the US mainstream guys were awful either (although guys like Hogan/Piper/Dusty have no business making a Top 100 workers ever considering who's left behind). I said that US mainstream was gaining a lot of spots, and that tons of great wrestlers weren't represented or were losing spots because of this, and that it was a sign of a more conservative list than in 2006 which was more all over the place in term of styles. Anyway, I had Rocky Morton at #32 (the closest from the actual result so far !). Apart from the classic matches in the 80's, it's really the past his prime years that made me vote for him that high. Watching him in WCW looking better than 90% of the roster, turning into an effective dick heel in an undercard stable that Loss loves so much. And the again in SMW, where he carried so much feuds by his great promos and delivering in the ring to boot (as opposed to say, Jake the Snake), even making Unabomb watchable. Dustin was my #24. Great peak in WCW, just a natural talent (pun intended). Going through WCW TV, it was so obvious how good this guy was and how fucked he got by Flair hanging on to his spot and Hogan showing up. Huge Goldust fan too, so there. His comebacks in the 00's where he looked better each time makes him one of the best past 40 workers ever probbaly, although never featured in any position to show up "great workers of the decade" like Cena and Orton and Edge. The only black hole in his career is the late WCW stint and TNA Black Reign stuff.

Well let me tell you my friend, if you like Japanese women in one-piece bathing suits screaming, are you in for a treat. Ok. Wanna make some snarky comments about guys in their underwear, wearing mask and slapping each others chests now ?

To kill time before the Top 30, I made a little research. I counted the US mainstream guys in both lists thus far. I let on the side the guys who made their case more in Japan than the US (Hansen, Gordy, even Ultimo Dragon although his WCW years were important I believe), classic guys (the oldest US mainstream guy would be Race) and territory guys (Lawler, Kerry, Rose). In 2006, I counted roughly 35 names in the top 100 that I would consider being part of "US mainstream" (body of work in NWA, WWF, WCW mostly) We're already at 30 in 2016, and 30 names are still to come. So I think in the end, the difference will be pretty important as I don't think we"ll see much of "niche" candidates anymore at this point. Let's see. Maybe I'm off on this.

Well, I figured Benoit would show up around these spots. I had him at #31 myself. Way too good to drop lower, he was just an amazing worker was so long, although I've been down on some of his early Japan stuff for almost 15 years now. But his WCW work. The Sullivan feud. The Eddie match on Nitro. The Raven & DDP program. The Booker T miracle. It's not like he was working only with world's beater over there. He wasn't as good once he hit WWE, as he was forced into their style and got bad habits out of it (working too much with Angle maybe ?) but still, what a pro-wrestler.

I refuse for people to think of El Dandy like that. Someone used it as a comment, but I cut it out. I want that association to go away. Come on now. It will never go away. Better bask in its glory. I loved El Dandy in 2006 after watching a bunch of his matches. Couldn't in good conscience vote for him again since, apart from his WCW stint, haven't watched/rewatch anything. Yeah, I fucked the luchadors over. But I do love Lucha Underground.