Matt D

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.

Well "rest of the way" is another way of saying "rest of the matches." I was trying to find the post where I wanted to find more context for some Satanico match in 84 by watching the matches that led up to it right when the lucha set came out. High comedy.

I have Villano III on my list right now, but I'm tempted to go back and omit him. He's one of those frustrating people where I think should be better than I have him, maybe even by 50 slots or more (which is huge), but based just on the footage I've been able to see, is actually too high. There are only a few people on my list like that (Patterson is one, though not as extreme on one and far more extreme on the other; Ladd is another). It feels like a token inclusion right now, or a handicapped best guess.

I like the resolution most of all. It's like the Grinch's heart growing. Also great, was Chad's "oh boy" after the commercial break.

A crab is something pretty common for people to go to in this era, that's true. The reason why I brought it up as I did was that it's a reversal and not a spot. It involves the other wrestler actively doing something instead of passively having something done to him, or something happening by chance or in passing. I've watched well over a hundred of these matches in the last six months and the crab takes me out of the match more than almost anything else I've seen in the midst of the really good stuff. It's not that I think it's actively bad or that much more egregious than anything else. It just happened to break the chain of engagement a couple of times in his matches in the same way the Kidman power bomb always does. I think the issue, like Childs mentioned, was that Walton points it out too much. Given the congeniality in the match, I actually half had the sense vs Clay Thomson that Clay was putting it on him almost as a kayfabe favor so he could let his pal show off to the crowd.

Looking at my list, I've got Condrey above a lot of guys and he's had no discussion. Is he rating for anyone else?

Boscik is at the very of my list and I can't imagine him leaving it. He's everything I ever wanted out of Dean Malenko mixed with a Hungarian Toby Jones.

I'm leaning against him. He's an absolute wizard but I just don't feel like I've seen enough for him to pass the confidence test. I'm going to keep watching more of him over the next week, so we'll see if I can wrap my head around him the rest of the way.

Been meaning to ask: is his Boston Crab escape the WoS version of trying to power bomb Kidman?