Matt D

We just jumped big to 68 ballots for Waltman.

The sprint match with Bock, too, is pretty much the antithesis for the old idea of what Larry was.

Today is the day that hope dies.

Flair, the choice of anonymity.

Today will be the worst.

Man I wish Larry could have stalled just a little bit longer.

Shawn's Elbow is part of his finishing sequence. That's something I struggle with when it comes to the match. Shawn just doesn't have the weapon in his arsenal to take Taker down. Yes, him flooring him with superkicks was part of the build but he never had to hold him down for three with them, certainly not at Wrestlemania. Shawn had never been able to pin Taker. On the other hand, Taker has the escalation of moves. Chokeslam -> Last Ride -> Tombstone. All Michaels had, really, was Superkick -> Kip up, Elbow, Superkick. But even then, that's just not ENOUGH escalation. That's, in part, why the countout moment is so important. I had an issue with the caught cat skin/moonsault. I think one of those two was just a little too cute. Having one was okay. Having two was problematic. I think that's endemic of a bigger problem when it comes to matches like these (self aware epics or whatever). It's very hard to find the line and the natural inclination is always for complexity over simplicity. There are points where I think it works (the Choke - block, kick-block, chokeslam, and the sunset flip attempt on the Last Ride before Taker hits it), but when it doesn't work or when a simpler choice would improve upon it, it sticks out badly.

Well, yeah, the major difference is in his run prior to the UFC. But I don't think that's the only difference. I don't think he's religiously against selling, for one. In some ways, I liken current Brock more to Hansen at his worst, just without a lot of the positives.

We can just find and replace on Brock Lesnar if we have to. I feel very differently about Angle and Brock, though I don't think either should be in the top 100.

I won't react to Angle, for the sake of my own sanity and yours. Anything else, though, I'll react to.

My top two would be Gino vs Valentine and that 8-man (with that Jose vs Gino shortly thereafter if it's not one we've gotten already!)

This is the last list you mean, right Bruce? Most of these have gone up, some haven't. EDIT: I bolded the ones I THINK We haven't seen yet but I'm not sure about some of them. Pete would know better.

People value different things. That's something very clear from this process.

A blast. It's about 16 minutes of action, 2/3 falls, a beautiful shine, two FIPs, the double refs smartly used by the heels since they'd draw back and let Slater or Rich draw them away, a super athletic Tully and Gino, a super fiery Rich and Slater, hot tags that are generally earned, and a finish that did a great job of justifying why Slater brought Rich into Houston to even the odds. I wish it had just a few more minutes for the shine and just a few more on both FIPs; that holds it back from being a classic, but the world is a just a little bit of a better place for people being able to see it for the first time in 35 years.

Understood. But I believe by this point its been pretty openly stated by many people that they considered other aspects and yet there's still this sense of "how did guy X make it this high" when it's clear guy X got ranked by a lot of people for being an all-time legend. My head scratching is more about people who are still shocked that those names are doing well. (And by "all time legend" I mean someone like Hogan, who may not have the most sparkling in-ring career but who transcends that in a way that makes him great in certain people's eyes.) I think that's blurring the lines though because a lot of people who voted for wrestling-only, voted for Hogan for his in-ring footage. That's absolutely true with Andre. It's true with Piper. It's true with Dusty. It's true with Sting, as we've heard in the last few pages. That's part of why I like to hear the explanations, because I'm working out what all of this means. I want to hear if people voted for HHH just because he had too many good matches to ignore or because of specific elements in those matches and what those elements are. Yes, it's your opinion, but I want to understand that opinion.

Once again, I think a lot of the answers to your questions go back to the discussion or lack thereof on certain categories. Often times, when someone's come forward to defend their pick, after they were asked to, people were happy that they did and satisfied with their answers. I KNOW why Parv put Dory where he did. I know how Loss feels about Chigusa. People know how I feel about Eadie or Mark Henry. So it's frustrating when a wrestler comes up that there was a lot of discussion for and there's dissonance or just an outright mystery. As for the "worker" thing, I think generally people consider the word "worker" interchangeable with wrestler. As it being in-ring vs promos and everything else, that was something that came up a few times in the process, and it does lead to a few voters' preferences, which, if explained, will lead to a gif from Parv of someone shrugging. It wasn't around work-rate but I think there is a wide majority of people who voted that felt it was about wrestling and available footage. Evidence.

I wonder what this says about you.

It's not about Malenko being voted for so much as it's about there not being enough discussion about him (and the discussion that was there not moving the needle), so that it came as a surprise. If he was someone who was going to end up so high, relatively, then we should have probably talked a lot more about him and people should have come to his defense more thoroughly, etc and then it could have been a debate that may or may not have swayed people one way or another. But apparently this was an issue back in 2006.

And I'm going to say that this, along with Hogan, Dusty, etc, is much more about workrate not being the end all king that it was ten years ago. There's value in a different sort of babyface performances than Steamboat in Savage vs Steamboat and that's more appreciated now. Sting is not on my list, mind you.

Malenko did fall 34 spots from 2006 though. If I recall correctly, the 2006 countdown was also full of people feeling vexed that the results did not match the discussion. So perhaps it's just endemic to this process. Falling 34 spots feels more like a natural response to the bigger pool, etc. He didn't keep up relatively, but he didn't fall on his own merits or lack thereof or any real reevaluation that seemed to matter.

Placements aside, 101-200 was much more interesting than 100 will be in that regard. It will be a very interesting top 200 list though.

Scarlet-Left wins I think. He's got the most interesting list but is still entirely earnest about it.

We all have gaps. (I'm not one to talk). It's just that more people have that one than anything else, it seems.

I just like my wrestlers I picked and want them to do as well as possible. Do you think it's possible people are taking things a lot more seriously than us at this point? There are a few things I'm frustrated with. I get what's going on with lucha and even 5 or 6 in the top 100 will be a good thing, but the fact that WoS is down to 2 people left and likely only one of them making the top 100, an entire subgenre of wrestling, one with a ton of footage online for free, and so much of it so excellent and engaging, especially when we're in the midst of a revival that draws so much from it. That just seems messed up to me. In general, we're just having fun, but I do think there's something not unreasonable to my previous post.

I think some of the griping and frustration is that there is a sense that the last 18 months of discussion was for "nothing," when results pop up that aren't representative of the discussion in the Nominees thread at all. It does make for a better, broader more credible list in some ways. Something like Malenko, though, where there was so much discussion over the last few years pulling him down from his pillar and barely any defense of him and that barely registering or mattering. There is a sense of "Well, what was the point if this was just going to be the result anyway," full of people who were obviously unfamiliar with the discussion or at the very least unmoved by it. It only bothers me so far, but I can see how it could really bother someone else who was thoroughly engaged for months upon months in this.