DVDVR 90s voting vs. DVDVR 80s voting

[goodhelmet]

Part of what I like about the current DVDVR 80s project v the 90s one, is that you have essentially a curated exhibit that then is judged (which I think has the power to create consensus opinions instead of merely reflecting back already held ones).

TOM K made this comment in the Meltzer thread and as the steward of the current project, I am very interested in the idea of which process is better for forming a concensus.

 

In a way, you can even compare this to the 2 very different ways in which the Observer does its Hall of Fame and MOTYs. The 1990s project is more like the format used to select the MOTYs. People write in their match of the years and then the numbers are added up but not every match is considered. The Hall of Fame is set up so that you choose from a predetermined list on what you feel is most worthy (similar to the 80s sets) although the nagging issue of a lack of exposure to certain wrestlers can hamper their chances.

 

I was very critical of the WWF project when it began so I am not above criticism when it comes to changing my mind or whatever. I know jdw does not like the current model and his opinions on the process are archived somewhere so I am not interested in opening up that argument again. I am also not interested in praise for the DVDs themselves (but thank you for those). What I am really looking for is an opinion on which project really reflects the ideal or does neither reflect an ideal from those who participated in both projects?

[Dylan Waco]

The DVDVR 90's project was not far enough removed from the decade to tell us much really. It would be like running a best of the 00's now. Not saying it had no value and as a voter I took it seriously. But look at the results. I am lazy as shit, but with the FanCams available I doubt the ECW list would be even close to the same to take an obvious example of something I know a lot about. WCW was slanted heavily toward the cruiserweights and not so heavily toward the greatness that was the pre-Hogan years of 92 and 94. WWF I don't remember a lot about the results and I honestly I feel like it probably wouldn't change as much as the other two, but even still the bias' were there and without the footage being distributed there was always a question of what was actually being watched by the voters. Even the Smarkschoice polls, which were really solid efforts by Ray and others, suffered dramatically from the fact that there were matches that not everyone could watch for one reason or another (not online, couldn't dl from a certain site, in some cases couldn't find the bout on youtube, et.).

 

I understand that there are always matches that are going to be borderline cut from the current sets, and I will learn how tough that can be first hand when I am fighting for Steve O/Brad Rheingans v. Road Warriors over the objection of Kris and yourself in a few months time and will have to decide whether to drop a personal pick on it. But that is what the Errata sets are for (think 8/8/88 uproar that will be rectified for example), and even if there was no Errata set planned I would still rather have a contentious match cut by committee from consideration, then two or three guys vote for a great match in a fifty plus voter poll that no one else even bothers to watch.

[shoe]

The thing I like more about the 80's vs. the 90's is that with the way we are viewing the sets now is it makes us reconsider opinions that we held as more as fact. Take Tiger Mask vs Dynamite as an example. Most people would view this series as being overly pimped after watching it on the NJ set. It allows popular opinions to be looked at under a microscope. It was said countless times how amazing their matches with one another were that people took that opinion as fact.

 

Look at the DVDVR 90's set. SMW is hardly represented on the ballot. I have seen a lot of SMW and their are a lot of great wrestling there. On the 90's ballot you saw a lot of Omega, and stuff like that on the indy section. SMW wasn't exposed as it is now. Most people at the time were looking for the next cool thing to watch.In the 90's I wanted a more highspot promotion. Omega fit the bill, and I bet other voters probaly felt the same way. My tastes have changed in 10 years, so the way the voting is done now is better. Their is no way Steamboat/Flair 94 or Hart/Benoit would be in the top matches in the history of WCW in the 90's if it was set up like the 80's DVDVR sets.

[ohtani's jacket]

The 90s lists represented what the consensus was at the time. Even if people had been given tapes to watch, I don't think they would've been as comprehensive as the 80s sets because of the format. VHS limited how much wrestling most of us had seen and would've made it tougher to collect the footage together, so I don't think it could've been handled differently. As far as I recall, the voting wasn't that big a deal. There wasn't a big viewing period like there are for internet polls these days, where everybody watches as much as they can for six months. Looking at the results, they simply need to be redone as opposed to be some kind of failure.

 

The beauty of the 80s sets is that every voter gets the footage. That eliminates the type of ballots where the voter didn't make an effort to track down matches. I don't see the problem in voting for a collection of matches chosen by a committee, since most people are unlikely to have that much footage of a promotion in their possession. I could understand a huge fan of a certain promotion wanting to vote for matches that didn't make the cut, but it's unlikely that anyone else would. It will be interesting to see what people make of the results in ten years time. The results may date (as the 90s results have), but I doubt there will be as many gaps as the 90s poll.

 

I do think they're a bit long, however, which makes it difficult for people to finish the discs and meet the deadline. I can understand why the sets are the length they are, but aside from having fun with the bottom rung of matches I hated, I had a hard time ranking the sixty or so matches that aren't good enough to crack a top 100. I suppose other voters had some of those matches in their top 100, however.

 

The bottom line is that if you asked people to send in a ballot of their top 100 Memphis matches (or however many), you'd get a handful of ballots and some pretty crappy results. It might work for WWF or Crockett, and perhaps for All Japan and New Japan to a lesser extent, but the results would've been more or less what the consensus was five or ten years ago. The irony these days is that there's more footage available than ever before, but viewing has dropped off from where it was when I first came online. People simply aren't going to know about great matches unless there's a pimping and viewing period and all the matches are a click away. The sets deal with that nicely.

 

I remember when the idea of a DVDVR Best of the 80s poll was first floated. It's come a long way from those humble beginnings. I kind of wish the sets were more popular in the sense of a great number of voters, but I guess that can't be helped. Anyway, if I were you I would have no reservations about which is the better way.

[FLIK]

The 1990s project is more like the format used to select the MOTYs. People write in their match of the years and then the numbers are added up but not every match is considered. The Hall of Fame is set up so that you choose from a predetermined list on what you feel is most worthy (similar to the 80s sets)

Both have their pluses & minuses.

If I had to choose I think the way the 80's project is done is better. Love the fact that you're forced to actually watch the footage before voting as otherwise people have a tendancy to skip over things for diffrent reasons. That said it would be nice to atleast have a little freedom to vote for something you feel strongly about that may not have gotten selected. Maybe in an ideal world it would be nice if the 2 methods were combined.

[jdw]

I was very critical of the WWF project when it began so I am not above criticism when it comes to changing my mind or whatever. I know jdw does not like the current model and his opinions on the process are archived somewhere so I am not interested in opening up that argument again. I am also not interested in praise for the DVDs themselves (but thank you for those). What I am really looking for is an opinion on which project really reflects the ideal or does neither reflect an ideal from those who participated in both projects?

I'm not violently ill over the process. Not to reopen the prior discussions, but simply give context in case anyone wonders what your referencing, I think my two issues/suggestions would be:

 

* I'm not a fan of having to vote for all 100 / 150 / 175 / 200

 

I think the sets are terrific, and putting a lot of matches out there is a big positive. Just think that using them to create a ballot of 50 or 75 (roughly half of the number on the set) is more useful. Figuring out what is #136 and what's #137 on a ballot isn't terribly useful on a ballot. Leaving something off a ballot is a tougher call. I suspect that Will and others who put together the sets know this: leaving stuff off the sets are the toughest calls.

 

* I think people should be able to include X number of wild cards

 

If you happen to think Bob-Muraco is better than the Hogan-Muraco's that made the WWF set, and happen to think it's one of the best 75 matches of the decade in the WWF, you should be able to add it as a "write in". It's hard to argue that having good matches that might have been missed end up on the final results isn't a Good Thing.

 

I've never argued that that X number should be 20 or 50 to turn the thing into a wide open wild, wild west. But a small 5-10 which could be used for matches that a voter passionately thinks are really good is a positive.

 

Again, the sets are great, and the process has improved. Quibbles are minor, and go to rigidity.

 

John

[Ditch]

I think the '90s votes needed time more than anything. Between certain matches losing their allure over time, certain styles and periods having been overlooked, and the ungodly amount of footage that simply hadn't been watched (or in some cases released), there's no way that the votes could have been comprehensive if done in 2000. Or, in all probability, even two or three years later.

 

The '80s sets are good, and I doubt that any matches left off (after the WWF re-do) are Top 100 of the decade caliber. The '80s committees aren't a unimind and there is enough variance of opinion that, realistically, matches that would be seen as great by a larger number of people won't be ignored. I would prefer it if people were allowed to have less-comprehensive ballots that still require watching everything, for instance top 100 for the NJ and AJ sets. One thing I'll add about nominations/wild cards is that I was allowed to give input on the AJ set. Not sure it had much effect, but ultimately Will & Co. will listen to people who are willing to put in a decent amount of effort.

 

I've done my darndest to address flaws I see in both with the votes I've run at Purotopia. There's such a fine line to walk between having open nominations and having too many nominees; having a somewhat unstructured process with making sure all the hidden gems are found; not forcing people to watch every nominee while making sure they watch all the important stuff. Dealing with '90s All Japan and '00s Japan is quite a bit easier than the '80s, since both are heavily discussed over the years and there's less worry about things being overlooked, and enough time has passed. Having the initial (albeit vague) "yes/no" voting as an initial stage helps tremendously when it comes to making sure the best stuff gets watched, and in separating the wheat from the chaff. The difference between recent puro and, say, the '80s territories is night and day. The same system won't work for both.

 

It's interesting to think about where things will be in 5 years. Will, do you think the '80s sets and votes will still be going on? Is there a plan for how a Best Of The Decade set and vote would be handled? Etc. I know for my part, I'm planning to go through '90s Japan when '00s Japan is finished in 2-3 years.

[FLIK]

with making sure all the hidden gems are found; not forcing people to watch every nominee while making sure they watch all the important stuff.

Always thought that was a major flaw in the purotopia voting myself.

Take 2003 for example, with the yes/no thing you get some matches recieving as many as 14 votes but also a large amount with like 3 or 4. And looking over the list of stuff that does get nominated, you're left with things leaning very heavily towards the major promotions & usual suspects. Like the non NOAH/NJ/Z1/AJ/Tory nominations combines for a whoping 7 or 8 matches.

 

To me that shows that a lot of people are either not watching stuff for the vote or if they are they can't be bothered to discuss it and that a lot of stuff gets over looked.

 

If you happen to think Bob-Muraco is better than the Hogan-Muraco's that made the WWF set, and happen to think it's one of the best 75 matches of the decade in the WWF, you should be able to add it as a "write in". It's hard to argue that having good matches that might have been missed end up on the final results isn't a Good Thing.

 

I've never argued that that X number should be 20 or 50 to turn the thing into a wide open wild, wild west. But a small 5-10 which could be used for matches that a voter passionately thinks are really good is a positive.

Agree, pretty much was thinking a similar idea would be great.

[Ditch]

I think with 2003 you're unlikely to find broad support for indy scene matches or joshi. I watched the various matches you pointed out, some were fine and some just weren't my thing but none of them are going to compete with what NOAH was rolling out. It's been seven years. If there were hidden gems, and I'm talking the sort of matches that would be on multiple best-of-the-decade ballots, I think we'd have heard about them. For 2003 I bought shows from AJ, NJ, NOAH, Z1, Toryumon, T2P, Osaka Pro, Fuyuki Army, MPro, DDT, KDojo, Big Japan, WEW and U-Style. Add to it the amount that's been put online from other sources and there was a TON to work with. As for the 'some matches only got a couple votes' thing, several voters don't do the yes/no votes, and few do them comprehensively (especially on the 'no' vote end). It was pretty clear between comments, yes/no votes and the ballots that the nominees were watched by all or nearly all of voters.

 

And on top of that we'll still have the leftovers vote. I continue to find shows I'd previously overlooked in the Lynch catalog, and who knows what more will be capped by others, for instance you.

 

Other than PUNQ, I don't think anyone has the time or patience to watch absolutely everything from '00s Japan. However, most people who care enough to do the votes watch at least a sampling of styles and wrestlers. Plenty of things are uploaded by myself or Ray (KAWADA) that don't get nominated but do get seen. It isn't a perfect system but I think it's about the best we're going to get.

[Loss]

I think the reason it's a requirement to rank everything is that it's hard to trust the voters to watch the entire set otherwise. I agree that no one really has interest in seeing what ranked #136 on the Mid South set, for example, but if someone is only ranking the top 50 matches on a set, what's to say they never took the time to watch anything else on the set because they didn't like how something looked on paper?

 

Forcing everyone to rank everything they watch makes them think about every single match that was included for whatever reason. My fear is that if you didn't require that, you'd just get yet another list of usual suspect matches.

[Bix]

When we did the '90s polls, the tape trading community was too small and too focused on recent footage and big shows/home videos, as opposed to now where a ridiculous amount of footage easily available, so it's hard to compare the two types of polls in terms of effectiveness.

 

The WCW list was something that people thought was surprisingly bad at the time and aged even worse. The Owen tribute at #2 is something that you can sort of understand for when the poll took place (recent, emotional, generally considered a fantastic match at the time, and felt like the last "real" WCW match with Russo taking over right after) but looks bizarre in hindsight, especially as the only match from a weekly TV show in the top 20 (which no Clash matches made it to). Horsemen-Raven/Saturn at #9 owed to being recent and a throwback. The rest of the list features the usual suspects of pimped PPV matches that everyone talked about back then.

 

NJPW was big event juniors heavy and would be completely different now. Japan indy I have no idea with so much more footage but could at least see some of the top matches staying up there, but even then, it should've been divided more. AJPW was nothing shocking, just the usual suspects. A lot more early '90s would be on a newer list but I suspect there would be more similarities than most lists. US indy was discussed above. Japan women I have no idea. ECW I figure would be topped by Douglas-Scorpio now but I have no idea how the rest would go aside from the stuff you expect to keep aging badly. WWF would probably change the least since it would still be PPV-focused. Lucha would change a lot (no way would the Cibernetico be #1) and be split into CMLL, AAA, and maybe an "other" for some combination UWA, Promo Azteca, Tijuana, IWRG, WWA, WIN, SoCal indies etc.

 

In terms of the changing the process, we all had a feeling that without distributing footage ourselves then a lot of matches wouldn't get votes they deserved, lots of people would vote of memories from many years ago without rewatching, and some people would blindly vote for matches based on their reputation. I'm pretty sure some of this was also based on experience from previous projects. Only voting for matches on the set and forcing a full, numbered list (which, given the increasing size of the set, has gotten more cumbersome) was a way of guaranteeing people were actually watching the matches. Maybe what should be done is that mookieghana can set up a spreadsheet where you assign each match a rating, the matches get sorted, and than you can tweak your final decisions after it sorts your matches by how you rated them on a 5 star or 100% scale or whatever.

 

As far as leaving stuff off that deserved to go on, has not really been an issue post-WWF set IMO. Tastes will vary, yes, but in most cases, aside from the occasional brainfart (Flair-Reed was the only one...right?) I don't think anything was left off that should've gone on. Starting with Other Japan Men, outside of the Flair-Reed issue, have there been any real complaints about missing matches aside from the Tiger Mask stuff that was going to be contentious anyway?

 

The Smarkschoice polls worked relatively well because of the small sample size, but too many matches were missing online and enough people don't like watching extended matches/shows/movies on their PCs that I don't think it works on a larger scale.

 

The WWF set was a flawed proof of concept. It'll be redone in some form, but it was worth doing to weed out the problems and show that it was worth doing. "Other Japan Men" was a great second set/first set of the new official canon because it was relatively easy to collate.

[FLIK]

I think with 2003 you're unlikely to find broad support for indy scene matches or joshi.

Yes & no.

I got a lot of great feed back to some of the stuff I capped for the 2000 poll but very few of the people that enjoyed it actually bothered to vote so in the end it was sort of a wasted effort.

 

It's been seven years. If there were hidden gems, and I'm talking the sort of matches that would be on multiple best-of-the-decade ballots, I think we'd have heard about them.

Not really, there's always that type of stuff out thear.

The Bull/Devil match from 93 Floyd brought up a few weeks back is a good example. Meltzer gave it like 5* and you mentioned you'd never even heard of it.

 

Japan women I have no idea

Would probably change quite a bit with a # of the top 20 falling off and those that remained switching order.

[smkelly]

* I think people should be able to include X number of wild cards

 

If you happen to think Bob-Muraco is better than the Hogan-Muraco's that made the WWF set, and happen to think it's one of the best 75 matches of the decade in the WWF, you should be able to add it as a "write in". It's hard to argue that having good matches that might have been missed end up on the final results isn't a Good Thing.

I originally agreed with this idea, but having spent more time contemplating it, it wouldn't really work. I mean, if you're the only person to vote for the match, and vote it ridiculously high (like #1) than the results will look funky (like in the Smarkschoice WCW poll). I guess it all boils down to how many points a #1 ranked match gets compared to ten people voting on something else with different votes.

 

Some of the more recent polls done exhibit something that I have meant to question. I don't have the hard data in front of me, but on one poll (non-DVDVR) one match had like seven 1st place votes, but didn't end up #1 overall...a match that had like five #1 votes ended up winning it.

 

How does DVDVR break down the numbers? Is it something like: 1st place vote = 50 points, but is multiplied if the same match gets more #1 votes?

 

The AJPW poll didn't change that much IIRC from when Ditch led the second poll. I think with a promotion like AJ, especially in the 90s, the "usual suspects" isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I were to lead an AJ 90s poll, and had a ballot where the golden four (6-3-94, 6-9-95, 12-6-96, and 1-20-97) were at the bottom of the ballot…I can’t say I’d take that ballot very seriously. It’s like voting Rip Rogers vs. Terry Taylor in WCW #1. It just doesn’t compute, man.

 

But I agree with the sentiments on WCW, to a degree. The thing that would likely end up happening is Benoit matches missing from the top twenty, which would be a slight injustice, because his WCW work was pretty solid for the time. It didn’t really affect the Smarkschoice poll all that much, but between here and there is a vastly different crowd of fans. Personally, I’d vote the Owen Tribute match likely higher than most, but that’s because I’ve loved the match since the day it aired.

[Ditch]

AJPW was nothing shocking, just the usual suspects. A lot more early '90s would be on a newer list but I suspect there would be more similarities than most lists.

This was proven with the one I did a few years ago. A couple early '90s matches moved up, some late '90s singles matches moved down, the mid-90s matches stayed about the same. Nothing much was really 'discovered', and I keep plugging away with buying '90s AJ discs without finding anything blow-away great. JDW's big pimp list holds up really well in that he either voted for or covered just about every match worth mentioning. Considering how soon it was after the end of the decade, that's saying something.

 

edit: Argh, beaten!

 

The Bull/Devil match from 93 Floyd brought up a few weeks back is a good example. Meltzer gave it like 5* and you mentioned you'd never even heard of it.

That actually goes with what I was saying. People know what matches Meltzer gave 4* to in the '00s, whereas Bull vs Devil seems to have been forgotten about despite getting the full monty at the time. Matches get much more widely spread around and discussed with the formation of the IWC.

 

One more point: the people voting in the early '00s polls all vote in the 'current' polls. Look at the results from '08 and '09, with loads of stuff from indies and small shows. They aren't ignoring those things from past years.

[smkelly]

In terms of the changing the process, we all had a feeling that without distributing footage ourselves then a lot of matches wouldn't get votes they deserved, lots of people would vote of memories from many years ago without rewatching, and some people would blindly vote for matches based on their reputation. I'm pretty sure some of this was also based on experience from previous projects. Only voting for matches on the set and forcing a full, numbered list (which, given the increasing size of the set, has gotten more cumbersome) was a way of guaranteeing people were actually watching the matches. Maybe what should be done is that mookieghana can set up a spreadsheet where you assign each match a rating, the matches get sorted, and than you can tweak your final decisions after it sorts your matches by how you rated them on a 5 star or 100% scale or whatever.

I have an idea on the process.

 

If these are legit concerns that the DVDVR crew has (people blindly voting, etc) than the requirements of voting should be that a poster has to comment on each match in the set. It would make for more discussion, and the likelihood of someone chiming in on 150 different topics and not actually watching the footage is probably extremely low, if not impossible.

 

If the DVDVR forums had the organizational methods that this forum does, it would be an easy way to set it up, and for archiving reasons as well. What I mean by that is, since Phil makes topics for every match, each set/territory should have their own sub-forum. I’ve never run a message board before, but I can’t envision that task being that difficult (is it?). It is organized then, and I wouldn’t have to use the lame search function that is very temperamental.

 

As far as leaving stuff off that deserved to go on, has not really been an issue post-WWF set IMO. Tastes will vary, yes, but in most cases, aside from the occasional brainfart (Flair-Reed was the only one...right?) I don't think anything was left off that should've gone on. Starting with Other Japan Men, outside of the Flair-Reed issue, have there been any real complaints about missing matches aside from the Tiger Mask stuff that was going to be contentious anyway?

8-8-88 comes to mind.

[Ditch]

Commenting on each match is a worse idea than voting on each and it would scare a lot of people off. Enforcing it would be a nightmare and the marginal comments would be very repetitive.

 

I think the 8/8/88 broadway is a match that could have been top 50, would have struggled to reach the top 20, and would not make an impact in a world-level vote for the '80s. Just too many flaws. Plus it might end up on a leftovers set anyway. An example of something I think should have been on the set, but isn't a deal-breaker at all.

[tomk]

TOM K made this comment in the Meltzer thread and as the steward of the current project, I am very interested in the idea of which process is better for forming a concensus.

Different lists do different things.

My point was the kind of mass aggregated opinion lists (like the WON awards, the DVDVR 90s polls, the Smarkschoice polls) simply reflect back what is already the consensus opinion. If you have a good sense of the IWC opinions you can pretty accurately guess the outcomes. They can be usefull to tell you "Hey this is pretty much what the smark community thought at moment A." But that's pretty much all they tell you. The 90s matches which placed in the Smarkschoice best of WCW poll were different and in different order than the DVDVR 90s poll. WCW 90s is something that has been re-examined and argued on the web abunch between the time the two polls came out. I'm hoping after goodhelmet's WCW b sides projects, there will be another set of revisited thoughts on the 90s. There is alot less difference between the results ofwhere 90s WWF matches landed on the Smarkschoice WWF poll and where they landed on the DVDVR one. 90s WWF isn't something that people have revisited with any real care. But you could have pretty much guessed where everything was going to land on those polls too. You pretty much know what is considered contemporary cannon and that type of poll just reinforces it.

 

Ditch's puro polls (which are the model that was used for the 90s WWF set) are similar but have odd aditional problems (where contentious matches fall and the non contentious and possibly less interesting slip through).

 

I really like goodhelmets 90s set and the polls around them because instead of reflecting cannon back (telling us what we already know) they have the potential for creating cannon.

 

As to the question of wild cards. I think the goodhelmet system makes discussing wildcard matches that didn't make the set easier and not harder. It's pretty easy postset to go "Hey these were the matches that made the top 20 out of 150 on New Japan set. Here is a match that I think is as good as any of those top 20 matches. Lets discuss it's strengths and weaknesses as a match"...It is alot easier to make that argument than to make the argument on a Smarkchoice poll : "Hey this match that nobody but me voted for (watched) didn't get enough love". A lot easier to discuss matches that didn't make the cut ina curated set than it is to argue about matches that didn't get votes in an un-curated set. And there will eventually be an errata set for things that were left off, if Will thinks the discussion those matches raised have merit.Again this is easier to do when it isn't just everyone having a wildcard option.

[Dylan Waco]

Forced commenting would never work for a variety of reasons not the least of which is there is no way we can "punish" these people. The worst that could be done is banishment from the board, but I'm not going to piss off people buying Will's sets just because they don't participate in these projects. Without the revenue stream Will gets from these things future projects aren't possible or worth his time.

 

I have no problem with the voting system as is. Loss made a good point about why every match is required to be ranked, but beyond that I can't really think of a good reason NOT to rate all the matches. If the argument is "well only 86 of these matches are matches I really liked and the rest were just filler/ok/whatever" then it's not all that important what order you rate the bottom 64 anyhow. I wouldn't encourage people to just randomly toss them into slots, but I fail to see why it really matters that much ESPECIALLY if you think the lower end is filled with marginal/irrelevant stuff.

 

The Wild Cards idea is something that is theatrically sound but the problem is it falls apart pretty quickly when you consider the problems that come with it. If these committees were consistently missing large numbers of matches it would be one thing, but the fact is that only a couple of matches can be pointed to at all outside of the WWF Set which everyone had backed away from as a mulligan. The Errata Set will fill in the gaps and Will and the others involved have all shown themselves to be open to suggestions as Ditch has pointed out. Wild Cards would complicate the simplicity of the ballot, undermine the "everyone has seen it' principle, allow for potential troll votes disguised as eccentricities, and ultimately to little effect as it is unlikely that enough "write-ins" for any one candidate would launch it into the top half of any ballot. Without an Errata Set I would consider it more reasonable - with an Errata Set it just seems like a way for folks to chip away at the integrity of the projects (not saying that is jdw's intent at all).

 

Speaking as someone who is watching stuff for the AWA Set now, I can say that if anything I nominate too much. I error on the side of "yes" and not "no." Also I will nominate a match that I don't like that much if it strikes me as something that would have a core constituency that might like it more than I did. I get the feeling others do the same thing.

[Bix]

In terms of the changing the process, we all had a feeling that without distributing footage ourselves then a lot of matches wouldn't get votes they deserved, lots of people would vote of memories from many years ago without rewatching, and some people would blindly vote for matches based on their reputation. I'm pretty sure some of this was also based on experience from previous projects. Only voting for matches on the set and forcing a full, numbered list (which, given the increasing size of the set, has gotten more cumbersome) was a way of guaranteeing people were actually watching the matches. Maybe what should be done is that mookieghana can set up a spreadsheet where you assign each match a rating, the matches get sorted, and than you can tweak your final decisions after it sorts your matches by how you rated them on a 5 star or 100% scale or whatever.

I have an idea on the process.

 

If these are legit concerns that the DVDVR crew has (people blindly voting, etc) than the requirements of voting should be that a poster has to comment on each match in the set. It would make for more discussion, and the likelihood of someone chiming in on 150 different topics and not actually watching the footage is probably extremely low, if not impossible.

 

If the DVDVR forums had the organizational methods that this forum does, it would be an easy way to set it up, and for archiving reasons as well. What I mean by that is, since Phil makes topics for every match, each set/territory should have their own sub-forum. I’ve never run a message board before, but I can’t envision that task being that difficult (is it?). It is organized then, and I wouldn’t have to use the lame search function that is very temperamental.

It's not a bad idea, but I feel like there'd have to be some other way to do it. This would require making mookie or someone else have to track every person who got the set in every match thread. plus I get the feeling a lot of people hold back on posting because they're afraid they don't have enough constructive thoughts to post.

 

As far as leaving stuff off that deserved to go on, has not really been an issue post-WWF set IMO. Tastes will vary, yes, but in most cases, aside from the occasional brainfart (Flair-Reed was the only one...right?) I don't think anything was left off that should've gone on. Starting with Other Japan Men, outside of the Flair-Reed issue, have there been any real complaints about missing matches aside from the Tiger Mask stuff that was going to be contentious anyway?

8-8-88 comes to mind.

Forgot that one. It should've gotten the historical matches they weren't crazy about treatment.

 

At any rate, there will be the errata set(s?) at the end, anyway.

[jdw]

When we did the '90s polls, the tape trading community was too small and too focused on recent footage and big shows/home videos, as opposed to now where a ridiculous amount of footage easily available, so it's hard to compare the two types of polls in terms of effectiveness.

I agree on this.

 

 

The WCW list was something that people thought was surprisingly bad at the time and aged even worse. The Owen tribute at #2 is something that you can sort of understand for when the poll took place (recent, emotional, generally considered a fantastic match at the time, and felt like the last "real" WCW match with Russo taking over right after) but looks bizarre in hindsight, especially as the only match from a weekly TV show in the top 20 (which no Clash matches made it to). Horsemen-Raven/Saturn at #9 owed to being recent and a throwback. The rest of the list features the usual suspects of pimped PPV matches that everyone talked about back then.

One thing to remember about the 90s voting is that expanded as it went along:

 

24 AJPW

22 NJPW

20 Joshi

7 Indy

29 Japan Indy

10 Lucha

22 ECW

44 WWF

---------

107 WCW

 

If I recall correctly, there was some pimping with SKeith for the WCW poll? WWF was about what one would expect given the numbers for AJPW/NJPW/Joshi and Japan Indy (which was th DVDVR rage at the time). But WCW was a massive jump.

 

The other ones largely represented DVDVR Poster Consensus at the time, while the WCW probably tapped into a wider base of fans. Won't touch whether that's was good or bad.

 

 

NJPW was big event juniors heavy and would be completely different now.

Very much agree with that, though it would depend on how wide the voter base is. You do see in the 1996 discussions that the juniors stuff is still generally liked. This is one of those where it may be high on some ballots, and down at the bottom of the junior haters... and I'm not sure when you get that level of deviation whether you're getting anything useful out of it.

 

 

Japan indy I have no idea with so much more footage but could at least see some of the top matches staying up there, but even then, it should've been divided more.

Probably would radically change: 1990 UWF and the entire PWF promotion. Ctrl+F "fujiwara" on this page:

 

http://www.deathvalleydriver.com/Bestof90s...ndyresults.html

 

We all know that if there's a redo that's not going to pull a "No Matches Found".

 

It's very Juniors intensive... don't know how well that would age with the voters.

 

 

AJPW was nothing shocking, just the usual suspects. A lot more early '90s would be on a newer list but I suspect there would be more similarities than most lists.

Top probably would probably be mostly Usual Suspects. If it's going 150 deep with a Set, there would be quite a bit more variety and probably see stuff that consistently gets "middle of the pack" votes do well. There were no Kawada vs Taue matches on the list. Suspect that would change. Agree that more early 90 would be on the list. Also suspect that there is a fair amount of stuff that aired in full on Sammy that didn't get watched at the time, such as the 1996-99 Tag Leagues, along with the 1997-99 Carny's.

 

I know Ditch ran this again several years back, and wouldn't encourage anyone to do it again anytime soon. But if the 80's Project turns into a 90s Project once the long and winding road is done in several years, it would be interesting to revist the 90s of AJPW and NJPW after folks had seeing the 80s for those promotions.

 

 

Japan women I have no idea.

My guess is that JWP would get some high slots. Perhaps a very different batch of AJW matches would move up, while others slide down. I would be surprised if Toyota is still in 9 of the top 20 matches, and would suspect Hokuto moves up from just 3 out of the 20.

 

There is so much more that is available that wasn't seen during those votes. So many commercial tapes, all the different promotions... this would a big project.

 

WWF would probably change the least since it would still be PPV-focused.

10 of the top 20 being Bret matches, #2-4-5-6 being Shawn matches. One wonders how much that would change.

 

 

Lucha would change a lot (no way would the Cibernetico be #1) and be split into CMLL, AAA, and maybe an "other" for some combination UWA, Promo Azteca, Tijuana, IWRG, WWA, WIN, SoCal indies etc.

Lucha would change insanely. Probably the most interesting set/sets.

 

As far as leaving stuff off that deserved to go on, has not really been an issue post-WWF set IMO. Tastes will vary, yes, but in most cases, aside from the occasional brainfart (Flair-Reed was the only one...right?) I don't think anything was left off that should've gone on. Starting with Other Japan Men, outside of the Flair-Reed issue, have there been any real complaints about missing matches aside from the Tiger Mask stuff that was going to be contentious anyway?

I think there were some who wanted to be able to vote for Inoki-Fujinami. And from a "famous" standpoint, I tend to think you need to include certain matches that reach a certain level of fame. In the past, I haven't been a huge fan of Hogan-Andre. Don't know what I'll think of them when watching them coming up, as they're in the que. Still... there kind of needs to be a number of "This one was so famous we need to put it on even if it comes in #150" matches. Hogan-Andre at Mania pretty much is that. If it's not on the set, and you have someone like WP who loves it and wants to vote for it... I don't think it's bad.

 

Fujinami-Inoki... perhaps not the Hogan-Andre of NJPW in the 80s, but pretty damn big.

 

The WWF set was a flawed proof of concept. It'll be redone in some form, but it was worth doing to weed out the problems and show that it was worth doing.

For all the knocks of the WWF set, and admitting that I was one to knock, it was excellent as a starting point. It got people into the project. It got people thinking about the project. Got people thinking about WWF in the 80s, which was pretty low on all of our radars. And help people think about ways to improve things down the road.

 

The first car didn't go 0-60 in 4 seconds. Building the first car a important first step. The WWF set got the ball off the ground, and there'd be no project without it. You done good.

 

John

[jdw]

I originally agreed with this idea, but having spent more time contemplating it, it wouldn't really work. I mean, if you're the only person to vote for the match, and vote it ridiculously high (like #1) than the results will look funky (like in the Smarkschoice WCW poll). I guess it all boils down to how many points a #1 ranked match gets compared to ten people voting on something else with different votes.

There are so many people voting for matches that even an isolated #1 votes getting 100-175 points doesn't make much of an impact. 175+7 (175 for 1st plus the bonus points) would have had Inoki-Fujinami finish Dead Last. By a mile.

 

Still, it would have been On The List. In fact, the "Sub 175" could be turned into the Write In Section. And in that one, 183 points might have come in #1 among the write-ins. There's value in that: these are matches that people thought highly enough to write in on, and here's how they ranked among those 10-15 matches. Usually worth taking a look at. The voter could be crackpot, or may have a point.

 

I know it's not going to happen in the 80s project. Simply toss it out there as something to consider if it morphs into a 90s project in 5 years. We are likely to see a wider degree of what people like at that point, since it's what a lot of people on the DVDVR cut their teeth on... and opinion has changed over time.

 

John

[tomk]

Alot of what we are doing at segundacaida, is a result of us looking at the results of the Japanese indies poll and seeing it as being filled with holes. At the start of the 80s project we discussed what we would do if we ever restarted the nineties. I think the thought for US indies was that we should just divide Us indies into geographic regions ( counting ECW as Northeastern indy even if they had matches in Florida). The thought for non-joshi Japanese indies was to split them into Sons of Hamada (lucharesu feds), sons of Tenryu (SWS, WAR and if their was anything that we thought belonged from Pro Wrestling Crusaders type prostyle indies) sons of Fujiwara/Maeda ( shootstyle feds and even here we were concerned as there was only one UWFi and one RINGS match that made the Japanese indies top 20 and perhaps UWFi and RINGS should n't be in same category) and sons of Onita (garbage feds).

 

We've now watched everything from PWFG, and have started into Maeda's UWF, Hamada's UWF, MPRo, and WAR. I think we have the SWS and RINGs on the way.

 

Will has done a PWFG set that people should get, he will be doing a Tenryu set, and a Sano set eventually.

 

Revisiting Japanese indies is something that is being done with some care.

[Ditch]

I agree that there's plenty more to be done with '90s All Japan. The vote I ran was only top 50 and I was very harsh on adding marginal matches to the nomination pile. You'd get plenty of different selections with either a mega-set (I think 200 matches would be a minimum), year-by-year, or what have you. Just looking at something like January-April 1990, there isn't anything that would have a prayer of being a top 20 consideration by anyone, but there's also plenty that deserve widespread attention as quality professional wrestling.

Ditch's puro polls (which are the model that was used for the 90s WWF set) are similar but have odd aditional problems (where contentious matches fall and the non contentious and possibly less interesting slip through).

-The WWF '80s set process wasn't that much like the way I run things, but even so, the polls I do wouldn't be appropriate for the '80s for reasons I've mentioned.

 

-I'm not sure what the rest of that means. 'Non contentious' and 'less interesting' slip through? Um... maybe? I'll just offer an example from the NJ set of that Andre vs Hoshino tag from '85. That sort of match would not end up getting much play in one of my purotopia votes. But that isn't the *goal* of the votes. The '80s sets are deep-dives that cover the best matches and other interesting highlights from each promotion. That task was daunting enough for something like '80s New Japan; each year of '00s Japan would take a similar amount of effort because of how many promotions there were/are. The purotopia votes are about narrowing down to 30 matches per year that are worth considering for a 'best of the decade' vote. Yet they absolutely create new viewpoints or 'canon'. I mean just look at the 2008 and 2009 results, almost nothing in those top tens got WON hype, and that's for when the matches were fresh and IWC consensus would be strongest!

 

I very much agree that "other Japan" for the '90s should be split up quite a bit. Way too much to have under one roof.

[jdw]

I think the reason it's a requirement to rank everything is that it's hard to trust the voters to watch the entire set otherwise. I agree that no one really has interest in seeing what ranked #136 on the Mid South set, for example, but if someone is only ranking the top 50 matches on a set, what's to say they never took the time to watch anything else on the set because they didn't like how something looked on paper?

 

Forcing everyone to rank everything they watch makes them think about every single match that was included for whatever reason. My fear is that if you didn't require that, you'd just get yet another list of usual suspect matches.

I suspect that all of us have faked our way through somethings in life. In this case, it's extremely easy to do because there's a thread on literally every match. If you see that 8 out of 8 poster that you respect/agree with usually hate the match, while one person you think is wrong all the time loves it, you can fake it.

 

"Oh god no, not another match between X and Y. Looks like people on the board think this is worse than their other two, which I hated. Damn... Phil really hates this match. I'll just stick this down there in the 135-150 range with the others..."

 

I understand the thought process in thinking it forces everyone to do it... but we're also all smart enough to know that people are going to watch it all if they want, and there are going to be people taking short cuts because they don't have time.

 

John

[jdw]

Alot of what we are doing at segundacaida, is a result of us looking at the results of the Japanese indies poll and seeing it as being filled with holes. At the start of the 80s project we discussed what we would do if we ever restarted the nineties. I think the thought for US indies was that we should just divide Us indies into geographic regions ( counting ECW as Northeastern indy even if they had matches in Florida). The thought for non-joshi Japanese indies was to split them into Sons of Hamada (lucharesu feds), sons of Tenryu (SWS, WAR and if their was anything that we thought belonged from Pro Wrestling Crusaders type prostyle indies) sons of Fujiwara/Maeda ( shootstyle feds and even here we were concerned as there was only one UWFi and one RINGS match that made the Japanese indies top 20 and perhaps UWFi and RINGS should n't be in same category) and sons of Onita (garbage feds).

This is pretty interesting. It is a bit hard to drop UWF-spawn into a bucket with Onita-spawn. But it does make for some smaller sets.

 

You also have juniors stuff across MPro and WAR and FMW that stylitically isn't that different from one another, and the WAR and FMW jr's having a bit more in common with MPro than they do SWS/WAR heavies. Heck, there are those Big Japan jr's as well. There's also that mophing period where Hayabusa moves out of the juniors into some garbage then moves into FMW doing their mutated less-garbagey main events as the decade went on. When we think of garbage, we think of the death matches and the over the top stuff.

 

Don't know if it's a promotion thing, or match-by-match thing, or...

 

ECW gets tossed into big bucket, with Eddy-Dean right next to the Rottens. In a sense that's the way it is in Japan. I would think the one clear exception would be UWF-spawn since there is no blur there except when they work in other promotions like NJ and WAR.

 

 

Revisiting Japanese indies is something that is being done with some care.

Looks to be. It and joshi are probably the two most interesting eventual 90s revists as the Usual Suspect will likely be greatly expanded and/or tossed to the curb.

 

John