Matt D

I imagine it's more of a surprise to most who voted for him that he didn't do better. The list that we're dealing with is becoming apparent. Mantell was a late removal from my list. He came very close.

I have a feeling I'm on such a different wavelength than most of you that my explanation won't mean much, but... When I made my list I had a hard time separating who I "liked to watch" and who I "thought was the best". It's not like baseball where there are pure stats to go off when saying this guy hit more homers than this guy but did so during a period where the pitching was worse and etc... So even if I look at someone like Flair (who I ranked just below Boss) and know that he's regarded as one of the best and brings a lot to the table, if I'd rather watch a Bossman match, than Bossman is "better".I can't step outside myself and go "Well Flair is liked more by people that have watched a lot more than me so he is a greater wrestler". Again, it's one of the reasons I didn't feel comfortable ranking Japanese guys despite watching hundreds of matches from those promotions. I wouldn't know where to rank Kobashi or Misawa without being completely influenced by what others think of them. And watching that stuff is like eating my vegetables. I do it because I know the classics are good to have watched, but I don't typically like them as much as appreciate them. He was super effective as both a face and a heel. Even though he was already Big Bubba in WCW when I started watching (mid-90s), I knew he had been Big Bossman in WWF and was SHOCKED to eventually find out he started out as a heel before that early 90s run. And that turn angle with Dibiase is a high point of character development for that era. Up there with the Savage/Hogan/Liz turn. His bumping was fantastic, not just as a big man, but as a wrestler. And for a guy with his physique, he was astounding in getting the most he could out of his character, a master of facial and body expressions. Id rather watch his reactions during his matches than most wrestlers actions. I'd rather watch him in anything, be it a 2 minute squash or 25 minute slog than every other wrestler except the 9 above him on my list. All the guys I've been the high vote on so far (Ouillet, Cabana, Jacques, Steiner, Steen, and Bossman) are all guys I'd drop almost anything to watch a highly pimped match of. I'm actually very sympathetic to that rationale. Thanks for stepping up and explaining.

Elgin and Edwards received negative votes.

Nothing on Cota?

What happens to the guy with the least?

Bruce, it's been a while here but if you put up a few matches from that list all at once, we'll forgive you really quickly.

Better WWF run than Dibiase!

He was on my list but boy do I ever want to hear Beast's rationale.

I know we've been bouncing in and out of wrestlers here, but this might be worth cycling into a Microscope post or a more general one about body types and what not.

I guess the point is that looking like an athlete doesn't really matter when it comes to pro wrestling so much as being able to stand out and make waves. Owens look is more of a positive than a negative, I'd think, even if the roster isn't quite as homogeneous as it was in 2008 or whenever. And this is generally regardless of how I think of him quality-wise, of which i'll just say i didn't vote for him (But did for Blackwell).

I'm sure somewhere Tanaka is happy he beat JBL at least.

We could form a great grumpy old man tag-team El-P. Me in a top hat, you in a Napolean outfit. "The Roaring Twenties." Apparently you can feud with Childs and myself as "You Maryland Pedants."

The original nugget.

Dundee lives on, right?

Fiera can't be long for the world, though. He hasn't already gone, right? Sangre Chicana too, at this rate. And Black Terry. The lucha guys are doomed save for the top notch ones.

PWO is a big enough community where it wouldn't be uncommon for one group to scream the former while another screams the latter. Now if somebody is being a hypocrite.... name names!!!! I'm not even sure I'd classify someone changing their mind to be hypocritical in this scenario. When people were pleading for ballots, it was generally directed at PWO posters who had contributed to the project from the start but were having doubts about their lists or their ability to quantify "great". I don't think too many people who were saying "everyone should turn in a list" were saying it thinking that a bunch of people would submit anonymously. That being said, it doesn't matter and in my opinion has added a lot to the who reveal process. I think it has too, and we're only going to get more gloriously hostile and violent as this goes on.

Also, OJ, you are the best, total pioneer, but I love the fact that you think I'm going to be able to pronounce anything. Like, for Hokuto, my brain freezes and I suddenly think to myself "oh crap, is it Hokuto or Hokotu!" and I know the answer, but it's some kind of radio block or something. I might tell the embarrassing Misawa pronunciation story when Stacey gets to him.

One of my few big regrets from the lost podcasts with Stacey is that we spent a lot more time talking about Psicosis and also about how you can go back to watch those old AAA matches with an eye that it doesn't SEEM like a lot of people were watching them with (with Phil #1 and Phil #2 probably an exception) and Psicosis' personality shines. He strongly defied my expectations in a good way when I went back to see those in the last few years. i was sad he didn't make my list.

My money's on Kris.

I think I have 28 gone so far, including 4 of my top 50.

I wonder how high Christian can get.

I'm sure people have seen this but the second segment of the show is Joe giving Invader I the Wrestler of the Month award.

Who's this Chris Powell chap again?

I thought you were going for a Bad picture of someone. That's every Edge match right there.