El-P

THANKS. I voted for Andre after waching a bunch of younger Dre, but in all honesty, I think we all got totally carried away by pimping how good he was. Well, he was that good, but not a Top 100 candidate either. iI's just the best giant ever…. except he's not. I had Baba at #80. One of the smartest wrestler I've seen, just a pleasure to watch. That being said, Andre is not the one I kinda regret voting for.

Joshi slaughter. I don't know how much Phil's line about LCO being the female Public Enemy has stuck as far as a change in acclaim, but Takako Inoue (as El-P has bitched over and over) wasn't nominated either and she wasn't part of the team, just part of the same AJW generation. LCO are the fucking best. Check the '90s yearbook forums for a sampler. I really should have found a way to make a ballot, she'd probably have gotten a Mando-esque vote out of me. Schneider was saying the same dumb shit about LCO 17 years ago FWIW. Yeah, Joshi slaughter, plain and simple. Seeing a great fuking wrestler like Bull Nakano drop so low in the top 100 is a symptom of this. Saying she isn't a great match worker is totally wrong. She had a bunch of epics. She was my #17. And since my favourites are dropping now, Tamura, of course, my #5. It's not surprise the two guys from my top ten wo have dropped are two shoot-style workers. The Croatian Devail said Tamura was Beethoven. Pretty much. Tamura vs Kohsaka for 30 mn is the apex of pro-wrestling from an aesthetic poit of view. The most beautiful match I've ever seen. (Yoshida vs Fukawa being the female counterpart)

Don't think she was nominated. There are *tons* of joshi worker as good or way better than tons of people making the list . It just fell out of fashion. If anything, Mita should be part of the tag team poll as LCO, although since I didn't turn a ballot for this, I don't expect them (that's her and Shimoda for those not familiar with joshi) to do that well.

Didn't vote for Slaughter this time around. I think I did in 2006. Not too sure why. His greatest matches are terrific. Not much post-prime work though, but his peak is excellent. I probably should have voted for Sarge again.

Keiji Mutoh, the greatest laziest wrestler ever. Could be awesome. When he didn't give a fuck, he really didn't give a fuck. Kept himself relevant in the 00's. Shinjiro Ohtani. Greatest peak of a junior wrestler ever ? And he could work with the UWF-I guys like no one else. Underrated heavy career probably. My #86 and #76.

Sad, and sweet, and touching. And by the by, he uses "politically incorrect" in a really great and incisive way--to mean doing right by the "wrong" person, no matter the risk to your job or who in power it irritates. Yes. Beautiful piece by Foley.

Me too at this point. Especially since Raven deserved a much higher spot from me. I should have had Nash at 100. Hey, maybe his TNA years will convince me to do it for 2026… probably not. Now I'm just sitting back and enjoying people getting mad a Kurt Angle making it this far. I didn't even vote for the guy, but I feel kinda vindicated. Now you know how I feel about Hogan/Piper/Dusty making the top 100 people.

Ishikawa is like Ikeda, a victim of me never diving deep into Battlarts. I had other priorities at that time, and I never got back into it later on. It's pretty much a given I would have rated both of them.

I wish this kind of respect and gratitude had been extended to Chyna in life, particularly from the McMahons and Triple H. Too little, too late now, unfortunately. :\ I'm glad I didn't have to say this, but yeah. Considering how she was treated after the breakup, if you believe her version of course, and with the disdain she got from the HHH remarks about the HoF… Especially when she has been very instrumental in helping him get over at the next level.

I believe Pillman had been injured early in 95, but I may be wrong. Or he was just getting too frustrated by the booking which made him no favors for the last year. But yeah, he wasn't as great as he was from 89 to 93.

Probably, and that's one really good thing about the current scene. That's why I find it ridiculous and immature when old-timers are sobbing because the current guys like to "play X-box" and don't got shit in each others bags and drug-rape female fans (sorry, RATS).

PPV 41 Lead-in PPV before the big Jarrett / Raven match, and the final angle was disapointing. First off, Jarrett comes off like a complete scumbag beating on Alexis like she’s just another warm body. Twice in the same show, with garbage weapons. Especially on a show where the hottest new heel is all about mistreating his former girlfirend because he’s a jealous prick. Plus we get Eric Watts thrown in. At least the whole second generation stable seems to be done, Watts is just a goof now, and it’s not clear what is his purpose. Anyway, the whole ECW team joigns Raven at the end, wraps Jarrett in a straightjacket and barbwire and… well, ok they are ECW guys, but what about the Raven vs Sandman feud ? I wonder how Raven will explain that… Talking ECW, New Jack, Sandman & Saturn vs Brian Lee, Slash & Mike Awesome was quite the garbage match, with barbwire on the ropes a la PR and New Jack busting sickles and staple gun and shit. He and Slah exchange bloodcells. Awesome remembers he debuted in FMW by talking the painfull bumps. Guys going through tables. Well if you go that route, might as well go all the way. Looked like an old school japanese sleaze garbage match, so I actually enjoyed the insanity. Justin Credible shows up again and has an impromptu match against Slash, who really earns his money. Justin looked pretty good, although his outfit is even worse than during his ECW days. What’s with the giant… stuff hanging on out of one back pocket ? So yeah, the big undercard match was Kash vs Trinity, preceded with a promo segment that turned into a slapfest. Huge reaction for that. Yeah, less is more. As far as the match went, it was as good as it could be, with some sloppiness obviously and awkward moments, but they made it work. Trinity took one hell of a beating. Too bad the ending involved SEX again, it kinda ruined the feeling, but Kid Kash is made as a scumbag heel. AJ Styles is still paired against Gilberti, this time teaming up with D-Lo against Sanders too in a fine opener, but he really should be used better than this. D-Lo, well, D-Lo ain’t a star, no other way to twist it. And then two really good matches, XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW, although it was only Storm for a good part of the match. I guess they were teasing a Harris turn with the old « fake beating in the back » angle, but nope. This pairing gets better everytime. They still tease disension in AMW, with Storm acting bitchy that time. Can’t they just get along ? Main event was really good too, Amazing Red vs Jerry Lynn in a pure babyface match. Red looked a bit banged up and wasn’t as quick or precise as usual, but it didn’t keep the match from building to a hot finish. I like how Lynn’s opponents do counter his stupid guillotine move from time to time, nice attention to detail here. Also, Lynn really doesn’t approach this kind of match the way he would against straight heels, he’s not using much punches for instance. Since Konnan was talking about minorities and shit on color, we get a screwjob finish with Ron Killings attacking Lynn. Isn’t this the third time Killings turns in like four weeks ? I guess we get a heel minority faction soon, which is kinda ironic when you think about it. Some good stuff with the tag team and X divisions, a nice payoff to the Kid Kash heel turn (although SEX involvement sucks). As an old ECW fan, I don’t mind to see this Team Extreme having bloodletting, it gives a different flavor to the show. Basically, the stuff that really doesn’t fly at this point is SEX (what are they trying to accomplish ?), although Gilberti has been pretty good on the mic, and sadly Jarrett who’s an awful babyface champion. Raven has totally carried the feud and made it seem like a big deal. Overall, the product is much better than just a month before, there seems to have much more focus despite the surprise appearances every week, lot of them not even showing up again (Viscera, Mike Barton). I actually look forward to PPV 42. Maybe I shouldn’t. 2003/04/23 New Jack, Sandman & Saturn vs Brian Lee, Slash & Mike Awesome 2003/04/23 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW 2003/04/23 Amazing Red vs Jerry Lynn

I'd agree with that though. Throw a great punch and have it sold like shit, the result is shit. Throw a shitty punch and have it sold beautifully, and the punch looks pretty good after all.

You can't be sure how hard a guy is hitting. Terry Funk's punches, if you believe Mick Foley, are apparently fucking rough. As far as inspiring the imagination, it sure works with Lawler considering how much people make shit about how creative he was in multiple ways of using his punches when he fact he was just... punching. (but hey, Parv's stuff about Flair's chops is pretty unreal too, so you see, people hitting very hard also inspire imagination)

Can't say this is surprising, but I thought she had been doing better teaching in Japan these last few years ? Well, this is a prety sad story, she's a girl who pretty much had it tough since childhood and she apparently extremely smart. Didn't she speak like four of five languages or something ? The way her life spiraled out of control after she got fired from WWF, from the most petty reasons, is an amazing trainwreck. I was a fan of the character until she became an actual worker, which she sucked at. But the whole amazon woman bodyguard was pretty fun and played a big part in getting Hunter over in the first place. I guess she could have dropped dead anytime in the last 10 years it wouldn't have been surprising news. Another sad casualty of pro-wrestling. Word. French ex-porn actress and feminist Ovidie talks about "social tatoo" for the people working in the porn industry. You just never can get away from it even if you did one scene, it follows you all your life. Coupled with the slut-shaming culture, this can get pretty ugly especially for girls doing it for all the wrong reasons, like Chyna or Tammy did.

A few years back I got into watching old Hogan matches. I enjoyed a great many of them especially the blood feuds and the hot sprints. But honest to God, watching Hogan is like staying home from work sick and getting into the daytime soaps. If you keep watching them for long enough at least one of the storylines is gonna get you hooked. You'll come back for more all right, and by the end of the week you might even convince yourself that they're really well written, but if you have any sense you'll go back to work the following week and forget the whole thing ever happened. Apologies to Hogan and soap fans. Awesome. Really enjoy you going through the names BTW. Keep doing what you're doing !

I really have't seen/watched any Dick Togo since my last MPro tape in early 00 or something. That's the only reason he doesn't get rated. Togo was a great worker. The WWF did its best to ruin him. Just picture Togo in 1998 against Rey in WCW. Damn.

Pillman. My WCW watch saw his stock rise a lot. #43. Excellent in pretty much any role he was put in. The most underrated worker of the early 90's. The injuries killed his career and at the end his life, he had so upward potential still by early 1995. The Loose Cannon had some really good moments, but overall it was the weakest part of his career even as a character, too forced and the shooty stuff led nowhere and had a terrible influence on someone like Russo. But anyway, love Pillman the worker.

When an obvious joke goes over the head of someone like that, it's really telling...

I would agree with peak Nash (the few instances that exist) being better than Hogan, Piper, and Dusty. Those guys were cartoons and I never bought into them. Dusty was a bad ass on promos but the magic was gone as soon as he stepped into the ring. One thing for Piper is that he has absolutely the best movie/acting output of any wrestler ever. The Rock disagrees with that last statement.

You've giving out cred points now ? You think I gave two fucks about whatever "cred" ? Seriously now. And by the way, when is Hogan gonna finally drop ?

To me Piper had zero great match to his resume, it's as simple as that. A bunch of really good stuff with really strong workers (Bret, Valentine, hum... that's it). And his stuff looked shitty most of the time, even in his prime. Piper was all talk and no game. As far as Nash goes, he was much better than he gets credit for. Funny that in this days of minimalistic work being approved over "movez", Kevin Nash has not been recognized as one damn efficient big man worker. If Lawler "hid an imaginary foreign object for ten minutes" routine is considered great work, Nash framing an elbow and leaning on the ropes onto his way to mega-contracts and getting himself over like a madman on Nitro should be considered state of the art too. These days, even fucking Kamala gets more credits. Just hilarious.

Yes. You'll be able to handle it or you want a Temesta ?

You're just flat out creating revisionist history now No, I'm just stating what I think of these workers. No match from Dusty, Hogan or Piper get close to the matches Nash had with Bret & Shawn in 95/96. It's that simple. Don't use big words around me.

I should have rated Kevin Nash, really. He's better than Dusty, Piper or Hogan. Talk about getting the most out of the least and still have some great matches with great workers, which is something none of the other three ever managed to do.