Matt D

I hate the idea of RVD so high. I love the idea of the pictures: Super Porky squishing RVD and then Buddy celebrating about it.

You are clearly a person of surpassing taste and quality. I will wear my new avatar with pride. George gets big points from me for basically inventing the act that gave us Flair, and to a lesser extent Bockwinkel, and hence all of their imitators. Every time I see a George match I see a spot I wish someone would steal today. Plus I once saw him hit the mother of all piledrivers on some match on ESPN Classic back in the 90s I haven't been able to find since. Amazing worker who would have gotten over any place, any time. That's a pretty compelling argument in a tiny paragraph, actually. Not the sort of direction I'd go, but you pass the gauntlet.

But couldn't that understanding help shape the criteria in new and different and interesting ways? Help shape the definition of greatness? Come on, meet me half way? Just admit the possibility.

Why? Because of a narrow definition of greatness that follows from a very specific tradition? It's a question that's been worth raising throughout this process, over and over, and over again. I think it's very cool that you're reaching a point where you're very close to asking it, Parv, or at least of admitting that it's possibly worth asking.

It's more of an issue for someone with just a few opportunities for great matches, well used, and a whole lot of opportunities to show his qualities in other ways. That could rank higher than someone with many more great matches that may feel similar or not come off as challenging or who shows flaws in other ways etc. It's a complex puzzle looking at wrestlers over a career of matches where they are called upon to do so many things.

I'll watch more Titans era stuff as we go. I think that what Parv is talking about IS far more championed IN GENERAL than it was ten years ago. I don't think that people are inconsistent. I just think they haven't gotten to all footage yet. If you want to see me walking along those lines about something different you can look at the articles I wrote to go along with your podcast where I was trying to get at matches in a different sort of way.

It's been a long time since I was the high vote on any one, but there you go. I had enough to decide that Cortez was really damn good.

Don't blame me, OJ. I had Solar on my list.

Mascaras is more technically sound, but not enough so to move the needle given his other flaws and the fact that he doesn't use that to a positive end enough. So much of him is the aura, and Wagner's charisma is hugely over the top. His charisma is so intense that he can barely constrain it and doesn't realize when he should, and it overtakes matches. I'd take, in this instance, too much of that over not enough of Mascaras. Wagner has once in a lifetime elements to him. Mascaras plays someone who's supposed to have once in a life time elements on TV and in magazines, and not very well at that.

I didn't have Wagner, Jr. but he's still better than Mascaras.

When Alberto is on, he is on. It's just rarer than one would like. I thought one of the best moments of the last year was when he showed up at the top of the stage to interfere in the Mundo ironman match, and a lot of that was the emotion Alberto was portraying. Lucha Underground is so thoroughly produced that it could have been staged in some ways, but it was a crazy fist pumping moment and there aren't a ton of those in modern pro wrestling. I can't think of many wrestlers with such a gap between peaks and valleys within the same time period as him.

"GWE: it's upsetting."

You guys are just making that match up, right? There's no way it could have actually happened.

This is us getting along.

I'm confident that if I could go to the UK and had two hours to watch Lucha with Parv, I could get him over the hump.

I could see a few people going high on Goldberg for whatever reason but he had a lot of votes for someone with a lot of three minute matches. And I like three minute matches.

If he did it in 96, it'd give me a headache though.

I'm going to repeat my feelings: Great matches are a starting point. No, an "Entry Point" and not at all the only one, but it is a useful one.* *I like the Parv that tries to rationalize how many opportunities the Flair Flip presents than the one who makes lists.

This makes me think the ideas we have about what makes a great match are something we need to explore too, because I think Bad Match Theorists (for lack of a better term, but it also makes me laugh ) sort of assume that those on the other side think matches that aren't sprawling epics aiming for MOTY status are a waste of time. That's not true at all. I think it's a worthwhile question because I can think of a lot of great matches where it being that probably wasn't the primary objective. In fact, in most cases, those are probably the best matches of them all. "The goal" is interesting too, because I don't really care what the objective is as much as what the outcome is. And again, I prefer to talk about it as good matches, not great matches. And I feel like shifting the conversation where we're using good matches as a barometer is far less alienating. Yes? No? See, I'd lean towards Great Performances or Right Performances. Or "Right Performances that are done with Greatness." But I'm less comfortable with matches than you are. I think we can look at both good matches and at performances, ESPECIALLY in a post-GWE world. We have to live with the peace.

FUCKING EXACTLY! Steven, I know your back is against the wall here, but I don't think we can jump to that. It's an honest question. I know my answer, or I think I do, but there are a lot of distracting corollaries here, like drawing and what not. I think that every match has a purpose, and that purpose can be achieved with a level of greatness, and the output therein can be great as well. But that's not going to lead to a great match through the conventional definition of "great match." It'll almost always lead to a great performance though. Certain people DID have the job to have what we consider great matches, and in general, those people had great matches far more often. Someone like Kobashi, in this case, had a job to go out there and put on what we consider to be great matches on a nightly basis. He was given the canvas, the time, the opponents, the mandate, the structure, clean finishes, the ability to escalate, no one getting in his way. That was his job. Other people had different jobs, and maybe those people accomplished those jobs, within different limitations, just as greatly. It's a starting point to me. What did he do with his opportunity, how far did he work with it, what did he learn from it. How was he great within the great match? How was someone else great or not in a match that didn't have the same opportunities. There's a lot more going on here. It's not about what wrestler had the most opportunities. It's about what every wrestler does with every opportunity. One with great matches just gets more an earlier and deeper look.

Is putting on great matches really the goal?

just a bit for now. I'm on my phone here. I'll say this. The general issue is looking at what makes the matches great and trying to find patterns and factoring in different situations especially when a wrestler's job was to be great in a way that results in something other than snowflakes. Great matches are a starting point, and one to be examined closely and weighed heavily but they are just one of many. Great matches are just one thing that matters. And in a comparative setting like GWE, the deconstruction and analysis of the greatness matters more than the greatness itself. Great matches are beacons in the darkness. The understanding of the greatness is everything.

Charles is a true friend, and as my friend, my only feelings towards him are those of gladness that he will be able to experience the joy of the matches in question for the first time. That is all.

"Ok" is a massive upgrade over how old-man Cota was viewed back in the day, but that apuesta match in particular I didn't really care for. The people back in the day sure had a narrow-minded view of what lucha could be. Reading some of the WONs from the time are painful.

I wonder if I'm the high vote on Cota.