Serious Greatest of All Time Candidates

[cheapshot]

There seems to be a distinct lack of UK based workers, such as Terry Rudge for example that I'd argue should be in the mix for discussion.

[Childs]

There seems to be a distinct lack of UK based workers, such as Terry Rudge for example that I'd argue should be in the mix for discussion.

Not enough people have seen their stuff. Maybe that will change with the interest in UK workers as WON Hall of Fame candidates and with the eventual release of the DVDVR Euro set. Ohtani's Jacket has done excellent work laying the foundation for discussion.

 

I definitely see guys like Steve Grey and Jim Breaks as candidates for the upper reaches of GOAT lists.

[ohtani's jacket]

There seems to be a distinct lack of UK based workers, such as Terry Rudge for example that I'd argue should be in the mix for discussion.

The trouble with the UK workers is footage. With guys like McManus and Breaks we have 25 odd matches spread out over two decades, but for some of the biggest names we have less than 10 matches and in some cases only one or two. The guy with the best body of work is Steve Grey, but nobody's ever going to think of Steve Grey as the greatest of all time. The best we can hope for is that he compares favorably to guys like Martel, Hennig and Santana. Personally, I think he's one of the all time great babyfaces, but time will tell if others agree with me. Terry is a tough one as once he got really good (in the early 80s) he spent a lot of time in Germany and other territories and was only on television sporadically. His German stuff is by and large better than his WoS stuff because he got to go longer, but again we're talking about limited handheld footage.

[Matt D]

Isn't another problem with UK workers the nature of the UK wrestling industry? It's tough to prove anyone's a "draw," no? That sort of means everything has to be work and historical significance. You can't make a Ken Patera argument for a lot of these guys, basically.

[ohtani's jacket]

There's not a lot of attendance figures for British shows, at least not that I know of. We don't even have solid attendance figures for the big Royal Albert Hall shows. It's fairly obvious who the stars were, but it's unclear how they drew in relation to each other. John Lister or the Wrestling Heritage guys may have a better idea than me.