Matt D

It definitely wasn't what she said. That's a more springboardy thingee. You'll note very earnest discussion of Christian afterwards so if it is a troll, it's one with a lot of heart, dammit.

For everyone's sake, I'll promise not to say another word about Angle so long as he doesn't end up one slot over Buddy Rose or something insane like that. I just had to get it out of my system. It's out. I'm good. We're good.

I'm not a big fan of the SNME one. I'd need to see the Main Event one again. But I don't think it was all that hard to get a perfectly decent match out of Warrior by even 89 or so. He had a lot of raw tools that someone good could utilize and surprisingly for someone so nuts and potentially egotistical, didn't seem to have strong views about pro wrestling should be (as opposed to someone who thought that selling instead of hitting more spots was an absolute sin, for instance).

(I wouldn't want to see the Undertaker/Sid bodybag matches from 91 again, actually. I'd rather see the few good Angle matches over those. I have my limits).

Warrior was pretty good at following directions. The only guy I can think of that's talented in the least who couldn't get a pretty good match out of Warrior at least once was Dibiase. (But I like the Andre/Warrior WON WMOTY match too, so hey).

He regressed and became worse than crap wrestlers. He was actively bad when others were just passively bad. One is far more offensive than the other.

Or they just limit it to facebook posts.

I'd watch any 1991 Undertaker match over any Angle match ever, even the 2-4 good ones. But then, I really kind of like 1991 Undertaker.

It's too bad there wasn't a master list of nominees. That would have really helped things, especially if it had links.

We're comparing two of the absolute worst wrestlers of the 21th century. You got to dig deep to compare.

It's better to have less tools and know how to use what you got to have mediocre matches than have more tools and use them the wrong fucking way to ruin matches. HHH knows how to use the tools he has to have bloated, terrible matches. I still think that's better than Angle occasionally lucking into something that doesn't completely suck while using his tools to piss all over things that have every reason to be really good.

Which makes it even more tragic that he knows better but still has shit matches most of the time anyway. That makes him worse in my eyes. At least Angle is doing what his fans want from him. I don't think Angle keeps the fans in mind. I think he just does the only thing he knows how to do. He's got one gear and it's "moron." HHH has one gear... asshole. Absolutely, and we're heel fans. We'll take self-obsessed asshole over idiot with really great athleticism anyday. We'd just take 500 other people over either of them first.

Which makes it even more tragic that he knows better but still has shit matches most of the time anyway. That makes him worse in my eyes. At least Angle is doing what his fans want from him. I don't think Angle keeps the fans in mind. I think he just does the only thing he knows how to do. He's got one gear and it's "moron."

Hey, good showing for Piper. Anyone who knocks him can't do so without seeing his Portland run. But that's not the entirety of his case.

HHH knows enough about wrestling to have the Bryan match. Angle would have fucked that up something fierce.

Well yeah, absolutely. I don't think there's been anyone in 200 picks or so I wouldn't take over Angle, including HHH.

I kind of like Tanahashi as a poor man's Taichi in CMLL when it comes to punchable Japanese foreign rudos. Taichi just owns the punchability a little more.

I blame Kris for Kerry making the list.

Tanahashi being on over 32% of the ballots was surprising to me.

I hope Hogan is next now (I think he'll be much higher though).

There's also some level of availability of footage too, with Cesaro especially, over Hero. It's a hell of a lot easier for me to watch 200 Cesaro matches than 200 Hero matches. Totally agree. From what I have watched of Hero I would still rank Cesaro a good bit higher. But I will admit that I'm only at 6-7 Hero matches, som I'm in no way dismissing his case. He might well be as good as some here claim. Matt, footage availability is a valid point. I think it's interesting in this case, as the harder to find footage for Hero is what makes his case, while that same footage is a probably a detriment to Cesaro's, as his ROH/CZW runs are largely underwhelming and he is completely overshadowed by Hero in the KoW tag team stuff. It's interesting to me that Cesaro's work in NXT/WWE is far superior to his indy work, but Hero's NXT work wasn't nearly as good as his indy work (save for the Regal stuff). Is it harder to have good matches under road agents, time limits, creative restraints? Or is it just not applicable here at all?

There's also some level of availability of footage too, with Cesaro especially, over Hero. It's a hell of a lot easier for me to watch 200 Cesaro matches than 200 Hero matches.

It's funny because I've come to really appreciate the talent in most of my guilty pleasures over the years so I don't consider them that anymore. But one thing that does come to mind is the Parejas Increibles tournament. The matches are five minutes and goofy, disposable, but the idea of, I don't know, Panther and Casas teaming, or Kraneo and Porky. it's just so much fun.

I've had a lot of fun with this. Some of the most fun has been watching things online with people, and I imagine that technology is going to only improve as time goes on. Hopefully eight years from now, there's 30 of us in a chatroom watching a match together now and again, something like that.