Matt D

Last chance for anyone to knock Virus down my list. He's stupidly high right now.

Do you have him over Rey?

A couple of weeks out from the end of this and I just don't see the argument for Santo being better than either Casas or Satanico. I'm not even sure if I understand it (Will's autograph notwithstanding). One thing I'd be curious would be if anyone who's relatively new to lucha, over the last few years, even if a lot has been seen, would put Santo other either of them. Santo's an awesome middle ground between grace and righteous violence. He portrays the image of fighting out of a Gory special, for instance, that struggle, better than anyone in wrestling history; it's a triumphant moment when he sits up and with very few wrestlers can you use the word "triumphant" with in a non-ironic way. I think he can garner sympathy extremely well, and do a lot of other things competently. He's in my top twenty, but I don't see him as close to either Satanico or Casas. I guess he's slightly more primal while they are both definitely more rounded, but it's not like they're not primal as well. Satanico is the best bad guy in wrestling history, just spewing over the top malevolent glee and Casas is a god damn trickster god. If Satanico is Mephistopheles, then Casas is either Puck or Old Stick depending on what era of his career you're looking at, and both of them are just awesome when the crowd is behind them. I don't think I'm going to have Santo over Rey, even. He's more dynamic but 2000s Rey has that same sort of connection with the crowd with so much more creativity in match layout and we have the footage to see that on a weekly basis. Like I said, still top 20, but sometimes I wonder if you sort of had to be there with Santo.

"People care about TNA" was probably not the message to take from that.

I have my criticisms of his tag work, even. He's making my list, but he's about sixty spots lower than Stan Hansen.

It was a minor miracle (and maybe a mistake) that he didn't just end up on NXT in the first place. If there weren't so many main roster injuries, he probably would have.

Someone should have made Parv do a BIGLAV on Richards.

Isn't the deal with Ziggler that they tell him to work a certain way and he doesn't?

I'm a little torn as him shifting who he did in when it was a blank space was actually a good moment, one that followed some of the narratives presented by the show over the years, really, almost a validation of the person in question sorts. Now that it just wasn't Dustin placed twice, it's a little less of a fun thing. It'd be one thing if he was replacing #94 or something. It's pretty damning where it actually is, especially given the overall dissatisfaction he showed for some of the placements. I am biased though. To be honest, if he's going to go as far as he did, then I'd actually prefer Parv to take his BIGLAV list as a starting point, a guide, and then use it to help him reshuffle things and spend the next two weeks following his heart.

In case of a tie towards the top we'll bully someone else into making a ballot.

Sheamus is another candidate hugely helped for me by the amount of footage we have so as to make me feel more confident about just how good he is. He's someone that we just have so much of in the last seven years that it makes him easy to fully grasp. He's at the very end of my list but I value week to week TV matches almost as much as anyone here, I think, and he's one of the first people to come to mind in that regard. Still, if I suddenly decide, in the next week, that I've fully wrapped my head around someone like Keith Haward or Negro Navarro completely and that they absolutely need to be on my list, he's going to be one of the first casualties.

I think it was a conscious effort by Bryan (or the agents or Vince or whatever) in order to streamline his act a bit for a more general consumption. That said, I think it made for worse matches on a weekly basis.

That sounds like a blast. Tell me that you have the Spoiler vs Jack Brisco match from two weeks later too, though.

A mystery opponent!

I'm not sure I should write more about Buddy at this stage. But: 1.) We have week to week long (15+) match studio footage in front of the same crowd against different opponents in different situations for over a year of his prime. That feels extremely rare to me. It's something I wish we had for every candidate. Footage is the single most important thing with this project, I think, and it's out there for anyone to see right now. That's amazing. How awesome would it be to have that for 1979 Flair or Funk or Hansen or whoever? Even with Lawler, we end up with bits and pieces with a lot of missing footage. 2.) In that footage, it's astounding how well he balances functional needs and being wildly entertaining. I'm going to put my 1979 Buddy piece at the end that talks about those different roles, but he's so dynamic and entertaining and is able to balance vulnerability with the potential to be dangerous and competent better than anyone in wrestling history. I'm understating it. Buddy HAS great matches, but watching him week to week is where the genius really can be found, and I can't convince you of this and frankly, you don't have time to do it now. A Portland set would and will help because you'll see the greatness, but the absolute brilliance is in how he was a territorial ace, endlessly creative and innovative, focused with his eye on the big picture at every point, and still hitting all of the little things with insane athleticism and one of the most earnest and memorable characters ever. He's the only person of his era that worked for the sake of history. He was recording the show every night in 1979 because he wanted to keep it forever and it shows. I can't use words to explain it. You have to see it.

Pete would have made a terrible Ken Shamrock anyway.

Parv discovers he has a heart and my #2 and #3 suffer. Figures.

Is this a double turn with Johnny?

OJ, can you point to some Iron Fist matches you think are particularly weak?

I have Bryan criticisms (He'll still do fine on my ballot in the same way Hansen will do fine because there's a lot of brilliance and a lot of good matches). I just don't have time to flesh them out. I'd need to watch a lot more and write up a lot more than I have time for right now. There's just a lot of disparate footage and I just never got around to it. I can criticize elements of a Claudio match or the Kamala match or some of his 2013-2014 selling, but I can't get all the way around it to make more endemic criticisms right now. That's a regret. It also has me feeling that even if he's ten+ below where a lot of you will have him on my ballot, he's still too high.

Hechicero has performances I love. Hechicero has performances I don't like. I much prefer him as a rudo. A lot of the pre-CMLL indy matches we have of him are as a local hero tecnico. That's just an awkward fit for me.

The only advantage in a LMS match is that Ambrose could be built up as never-say-die. I think it'd end up being pretty tedious though for the reason goc stated.

I bet Bill Apter would return an e-mail.

La Sombra is someone who I think was really quite good by 2010 or so and also had a good last couple of years, in two wildly different roles. If he thrives in NXT, he's someone that I could see having a case even in just a few years. That's a big if though.

I love it when bets come into play.