Serious Greatest of All Time Candidates

[Dylan Waco]

Just to clarify a few things:

 

(First to Loss on the "movements") I'll admit to being dismissive and skeptical of mass changing of opinions. When after years of being well-received but hardly revered, suddenly Fujiwara is proclaimed as an all-time great (when, unlike Lawler, the footage was always there), I think it's only natural to be hesitant towards it. And when it comes to Fujiwara and Lawler in particular, they fit perfectly in line with certain trends. Both are very stripped down, very "carny", very simple, etc... there's nothing wrong in that, of course, and I think both did deserve re-appraisals and deserve more popularity and plaudits than they'd got previously.

 

I just don't buy either as a GOAT candidate at all. "Great" on occasion (I love the Fujiwara/Sayama matches; ditto the higher-pimped Lawler/Dundee stuff etc...), generally good-at-worst and often very good. Ultimately, I think Lawler was an over-achiever and too limited to be a true all-time great. Perhaps if he'd had a run with the NWA belt or something, and there was a chance to see him in Japan/etc... he'd've added certain things (the punches get tiresome for me, sorry). I like him plenty, but I just don't see a Top 5 US wrestler there. On Fujiwara there are times when I really like him, like the Sayama matches and there's an upset over Maeda circa 1990 I really liked even years ago, but other times he bores me (vs. Yamazaki/vs. Takada). Like Lawler there's a lot of charm and charisma, etc... but I don't see a GOAT guy.

I have to ask, how did you find AJPW? How did you get into it? Did you randomly stumble upon it or was it pimped to you, you watched it and agreed with the praise it was getting?

 

I find it interesting that the "movements"/"trends" folks never explain how it is that they came to develop their own canon of sacred cows - who more often than not turn out to be the usual suspects.

 

Make no mistake. I think Kawada especially has a very strong case for GOAT. I would not argue with anyone who rated him or Misawa as the best ever. But I don't get why the motives of others are questioned. Kawada, Misawa, et. weren't always the unquestioned Gods of work either.

[Dylan Waco]

Random side question for Dan: If PRIDE was pro wrestling, how would you rate Fedor, Sakuraba, et in a GOAT pro wrestler discussion?

[Ditch]

The All Japan '90s crew, or let's say early '90s Liger, were received as being top-of-the-line workers within a couple years of hitting their prime. Granted in the '90s it was among a smaller community of people who traded tapes and read WON, but still. Whereas there was at least *some* Fujiwara floating around and he never got a whiff of such praise until recently. That's the difference. I think it's a matter of his work not getting nearly as much attention from consensus-makers like Meltzer, and thus not being widely seen, but there is a pretty clear distinction. It's really uncommon for a wrestler in the modern era to go from 'good hand/capable worker' to getting GOAT praise long after the fact.

[El-P]

Random side question for Dan: If PRIDE was pro wrestling, how would you rate Fedor, Sakuraba, et in a GOAT pro wrestler discussion?

You're way snarkier than I am Dylan. I refrained myself from asking Dan if Sakuraba was a GOAT candidate due to his "work" (read : MMA fights) in PRIDE since he was a good "pure shoot-style" midcarder in UWF-i.

[Dylan Waco]

The All Japan '90s crew, or let's say early '90s Liger, were received as being top-of-the-line workers within a couple years of hitting their prime. Granted in the '90s it was among a smaller community of people who traded tapes and read WON, but still. Whereas there was at least *some* Fujiwara floating around and he never got a whiff of such praise until recently. That's the difference. I think it's a matter of his work not getting nearly as much attention from consensus-makers like Meltzer, and thus not being widely seen, but there is a pretty clear distinction. It's really uncommon for a wrestler in the modern era to go from 'good hand/capable worker' to getting GOAT praise long after the fact.

 

That's my point.

 

Many of the same people who seem to be reflexively opposed to the notion of Lawler as a GOAT candidate and are skeptical about the motivations behind his "new found praise" wouldn't know dick all about the AJPW guys if it wasn't for "conensus-makers" like Meltzer. I have said this many times before, but it was jdw writing in the Torch that really got me into AJPW. Does that make me someone who was hopping onto a "movement" or a "trend?"

[Dylan Waco]

Random side question for Dan: If PRIDE was pro wrestling, how would you rate Fedor, Sakuraba, et in a GOAT pro wrestler discussion?

You're way snarkier than I am Dylan. I refrained myself from asking Dan if Sakuraba was a GOAT candidate due to his "work" (read : MMA fights) in PRIDE since he was a good "pure shoot-style" midcarder in UWF-i.

 

Not trying to be snarky really. I actually think it's a legitimate question.

[Ditch]

It occurs to me that Jumbo-as-GOAT was much the same as Fujiwara/Lawler. Somewhat against-the-grain, based heavily on previously unseen/ignored footage, and many years after the fact.

[Dylan Waco]

I think Jumbo is very comparable to Fujiwara in terms of how they were pimped online and how their stock rose as GOAT candidates as a result. Different people doing the pimping but the same general deal.

[MJH]

Yeah, like Ditch said, the difference is the AJPW guys were revered at the time. Lawler wasn't considered a top US worker in the '70s/'80s, and was never considered (as far as I know) for the NWA Title, nor got extensive work overseas which between them are solid barometers as to how he was perceived. I didn't hear much of anything in the way of pimping Fujiwara until, what, 2006? I'm not saying it automatically makes it less valid, of course, but there's a pretty strong difference there.

[Dylan Waco]

So how did you find AJPW?

 

Also worth noting that there were some of us who were pimping Lawler, Dundee, Dutch, et. YEARS ago.

[El-P]

Not trying to be snarky really. I actually think it's a legitimate question.

Really ? Dave would love that one.

I have another question. What if Sakuraba had lost these fights ?

[Loss]

Yeah, like Ditch said, the difference is the AJPW guys were revered at the time. Lawler wasn't considered a top US worker in the '70s/'80s, and was never considered (as far as I know) for the NWA Title, nor got extensive work overseas which between them are solid barometers as to how he was perceived. I didn't hear much of anything in the way of pimping Fujiwara until, what, 2006? I'm not saying it automatically makes it less valid, of course, but there's a pretty strong difference there.

If you read WONs at the time, Lawler was absolutely considered one of the top wrestlers in the business in the 80s. He was also supposed to win the NWA title in 1985, which ended up not happening after being built for a year in Memphis. Dave has been praising him as long as he has been doing the WON. He was also in the first class of HOF inductees and was Jim Cornette's pick for GOAT in a shoot interview nearly 20 years ago. And if he was saying it publicly at that point, I would imagine the idea existed long before that. But Cornette is someone who, whether you agree with him on Lawler, understands what saying something like that means, and he's definitely familiar enough with wrestling to say that from a place of knowledge.

 

Lawler as great is not at all a new idea. A revived idea perhaps, but the wrestling fan devotees who watched wrestling the way we do in the 1980s (and probably earlier) considered Lawler to be pretty great.

[MJH]

I'm not seeing the correlation between Jumbo and Fujiwara. Jumbo was pimped pretty much as soon as people were watching Japanese wrestling overseas. The whole "Jumbo was lazy" debate was only raging because in the '80s Meltzer was really high on him. Fujiwara was essentially ignored/forgotten for years.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not seeing the correlation between Jumbo and Fujiwara. Jumbo was pimped pretty much as soon as people were watching Japanese wrestling overseas. The whole "Jumbo was lazy" debate was only raging because in the '80s Meltzer was really high on him. Fujiwara was essentially ignored/forgotten for years.

The Jumbo as GOAT candidate talk did not start until the 99-00 era IRRC. I know for a fact that was not a prevalent viewpoint when I first started posting online. In fact I know of no one who made this argument when I first started to get really into the newsletter/online thing in 95-96.

[El-P]

I'm not seeing the correlation between Jumbo and Fujiwara. Jumbo was pimped pretty much as soon as people were watching Japanese wrestling overseas. The whole "Jumbo was lazy" debate was only raging because in the '80s Meltzer was really high on him. Fujiwara was essentially ignored/forgotten for years.

The Jumbo as GOAT candidate talk did not start until the 99-00 era IRRC. I know for a fact that was not a prevalent viewpoint when I first started posting online. In fact I know of no one who made this argument when I first started to get really into the newsletter/online thing in 95-96.

 

I don't know where you got that impression. From what I remember, Jumbo was already considered one of the greatest worker ever when I first stumble onto internet wrestling community. That was in early 98. And it was not a new thing from what I understood. From day one I always got the feel that Jumbo was accepted as being the Man, whomever I talked to, which prompted me to get the most famous Jumbo matches from the early 90's and late 80's right off the bat. I guess it just got confirmed as more footage from the 80's showed up, but to say Jumbo was not pimped as a GOAT before 99-00 just sounds wrong to me.

[Dylan Waco]

Who were you talking to you? I started posting on rspw and then 1bob board. Went from there to a1w, DVDVR, Classics, and tOA (where I was mostly a lurker). I really don't remember Jumbo being talked up as a GOAT in the early days of the net. I don't remember it EVER coming up at 1bob either and I stopped posting there sometime in 99 or 00 IIRC. I don't remember "Jumbo was the greatest ever" popping up until the Kawada Appreciation FanZone era of the old a1w board which I believe was in 00 sometime.

[El-P]

If you read WONs at the time, Lawler was absolutely considered one of the top wrestlers in the business in the 80s. He was also supposed to win the NWA title in 1985, which ended up not happening after being built for a year in Memphis. Dave has been praising him as long as he has been doing the WON. He was also in the first class of HOF inductees and was Jim Cornette's pick for GOAT in a shoot interview nearly 20 years ago. And if he was saying it publicly at that point, I would imagine the idea existed long before that. But Cornette is someone who, whether you agree with him on Lawler, understands what saying something like that means, and he's definitely familiar enough with wrestling to say that from a place of knowledge.

I guess Lawler got forgotten in the 90's then, and his WWF years when he became a joke in the ring surely didn't help. The fact that territory footage was both not the most popular thing and not the easiest thing to get your hand on back then contribued to bury him in the ashes of wrestling history while Flair still being active and on the forefront of major national company kept him in the public eye. I think the fact Lawler was never bigger than a territorial star (and one that would travel to boot) didn't help his case either.

I warmed up to Lawler although I'm not sure where I would put him against the other great US workers. The über punching makes him a bit tricky though, I have to be in the right mood to watch him.

 

Lawler as great is not at all a new idea. A revived idea perhaps, but the wrestling fan devotees who watched wrestling the way we do in the 1980s (and probably earlier) considered Lawler to be pretty great.

That said, people who watched wrestling the way we do in the 80's also thought Ted DiBiase was this awesome worker and Bruiser Brody was this great brawler.

[El-P]

Who were you talking to you? I started posting on rspw and then 1bob board. Went from there to a1w, DVDVR, Classics, and tOA (where I was mostly a lurker). I really don't remember Jumbo being talked up as a GOAT in the early days of the net. I don't remember it EVER coming up at 1bob either and I stopped posting there sometime in 99 or 00 IIRC. I don't remember "Jumbo was the greatest ever" popping up until the Kawada Appreciation FanZone era of the old a1w board which I believe was in 00 sometime.

Several boards which have long gone now, DVDVR, tOA, and private discussions with the Quebrada bunch. As soon as I got online, the four names I learned who were pimped as these awesome wrestlers were Liger (which I knew because I had access to some NJ earlier in the decade), Misawa, Kawada and Jumbo.

[jdw]

Make no mistake. I think Kawada especially has a very strong case for GOAT. I would not argue with anyone who rated him or Misawa as the best ever. But I don't get why the motives of others are questioned. Kawada, Misawa, et. weren't always the unquestioned Gods of work either.

Misawa may have cracked a Top 10 list as early as 1985 roughly a year after he put on the mask and started appearing on TV regularly. He had a stretch where he stagnated under the mask, at least as far as hardcores caring a great deal about him, after he moved quickly up into the heavyweight division. But he was pretty much back in the Top 10 when the mask game off, and stayed there for the rest of the 90s barring injury time.

 

Kawada, if I recall correctly, was getting Top 10 run (are very close to it) in 1988 with the Footloose and teaming with Tenryu after Hara got booted. He was an anchor in the Top 10 starting in 1990, and the upper end of it by the next year... and was there the rest of the decade when healthy.

 

In a sense they are similar to Shawn and Liger: they were seen by some as getting up to a certain level and then chugging along year after year after year. Some higher than others, but up there.

 

Benoit and Eddy fit in here as well when they were/are talked in GOAT levels.

 

That's a rather normal path for GOATdom in most genres: up at the top for a while, at a certain point people wondering "maybe this guy is the best ever _____." Think of the sports you follow, or even entertainment, and that's a common way it happens.

 

As a said note, I think we can all look into the future and see that this is the fashion that Bryan Danielson / Dragon / Daniel Bryan will end up in GOAT discussions. He's been a thought of as an excellent worker since 2001, and topped the old DVDVR poll by 2003. Five straight Most Outstanding Awards, and at the age of 30 is getting a regular push in the WWF. There really aren't any other workers making their mark among WON opinion makers / voters to that degree. Unless someone else comes up and sustains a run like he did, Bryan almost by default will end up in the discussion. Not saying it's right, simply predicting it as following that same path to GOAT discussions that most have followed.

 

The other common type: Rocket Launcher Up The Ass version of that. Kobashi and Angle were that type.

 

Kobashi debuted in 1988, and got positive vibes as soon as he ended up on TV. He just wasn't on TV much. Didn't appear until 1989 if I recall correctly, and was in perhaps a dozen matches. There was a push, but it wasn't yet a star worker making push. But the next year with Misawa & Kawada opposite Jumbo, the buzz got big. But 1991, there was "best in the world" talk... a lot... massive. "Rookie Off TV" to "Good Looking Young Worker" to "This Kid Can *Really* Work" to "Is He Now The Best In The World" pretty close to his *3rd* anniversary. Angle was similar. Owen was someone who was on a similar path for hardcores at the time, but that first WWF run snuffed it out.

 

That's a rared path to GOATdom. I don't recall when the talk of "Angle May End Up The Best Ever" started popping up, perhaps because I was one of the folks laughing at that notion. Blocked it out of the mind, or something like that. With Kobashi it was during 1993... maybe there are some examples of it in 1992, but for sure by 1993 there was some talk.

 

Lawler and Fujiwara don't fit into either of those.

 

I would have to think of any sports analogy that would fit them. You might find it at lower levels of a position:

 

Everyone thought X was the best Catcher of All-Time, and if not him Y or Z... but when better analysis came along and could weed through the noise of the stats to the true signal, it turned out the G was maybe the best. While G might have been thought of as good, and bagged a few all star games, he wasn't even a Hall of Famer. Wow... this is a major shift.

 

Hall of Famer in the sense that Jerry isn't in the HOF for his work, and wasn't really thought at that time to be a "Hall of Fame Worker" akin to say Steamboat (who no one at the time was thinking of as a GOAT Worker).

 

I can't think of that in Baseball. At every position, the GOAT is either a Usual Suspect or one of the people who were thought of in the same range. Who knows if the best MLB catcher is Bench or Berra... but they've both been in the discussion for ages. Or if Pizza's offense is so wide and clear the best ever at Catcher that it renders the defensive part moot... well, it's not like people weren't talking about Piazza being the best hitting catcher of all-time *during* his career. You get that at every position. People can point to nutty stuff like Ripken getting named the best SS in a fan poll when it's obviously Wagner... but it's not like Wagner hasn't been one of the candidates for GOAT SS since forever.

 

Basketball? Bill Simmons did a #1 best seller where the meat of it was a GOAT List. When we got to the Top 12, was there anyone in there who hadn't been talked about for GOATiness a hell of a lot before? No.

 

Hockey? Someone who knows hockey would have to jump in, but if someone said Orr and not Wayne was the GOAT, would that exactly be new? Gordy?

 

In futbol, if someone said Alfredo Di Stéfano was the GOAT rather than Pele or Maradona or Cruijff... this isn't new. Even if someone was delusional and said Zidane was the GOAT, the guy did when a trio of POY, two major Copas and runner up in another... I really hate the guy, but it's not like he wasn't seen by some as the Best In The World (delusionally) several times in his career.

 

I can't think of a sports equiv to Lawler and Fujiwara.

 

It's possible that music might have some. Velvet Underground has a rather hardcore following of folks who argue that they are GOAT. The thing is, I could swear that I've seen examples of the Meltzer and us of the era who pimped the shit out of them.

 

Robert Christgau: The Velvet Underground

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist....vet+underground

 

There's the Meltzer of Music from that era... and he thought The Velvets were great shit.

 

That said, there probably are other clearer examples, more likely in the Blues, where posthumus GOATdom has been handed down on rethink / re-discovery. Posthumus in the sense that Lawler and Fujiwara's GOATiness is being forwarded after their careers were long effectively over.

 

Again, and as always: I'm not defending those positions of the past. Some of them aren't mind, and some of them that were mine certainly have the ability to draw cringes from me when facing them now.

 

 

It occurs to me that Jumbo-as-GOAT was much the same as Fujiwara/Lawler. Somewhat against-the-grain, based heavily on previously unseen/ignored footage, and many years after the fact.

I think Jumbo is very comparable to Fujiwara in terms of how they were pimped online and how their stock rose as GOAT candidates as a result. Different people doing the pimping but the same general deal.

I think the difference is that in 1990 & 1991, there were people saying Jumbo might be the best worker in the business. At Jerry and Fujiwara's "peak" within the newsletter years, no one had them that high or were arguing for them to be that high.

 

Jerry got a lot of positive talk for mic work, psych and working his crowd. Fujiwara... not as much. Jumbo got praise in 1990 & 1991 by some for being "better than Flair" at a time when Flair was still winning WOTY (1990 & 1992) and people were still thinking he was the best worker in the world (check out his Most Outstanding placements in 1990 and 1991).

 

Jumbo went from "this guy was an all-time great worker" when he got sick in 1992 to "this guy may be the best worker of all-time".

 

Jerry and Fujiwara started from a lower level. They aren't the 180 that Backlund is. But the gap from what Jerry and especially Fujiwara were thought of to how some see them now is vastly wider than the gap that Jumbo moved.

 

They are pretty unique. Moreso because they were in plain sight, and even the fans of their styles / promotions weren't pimping them at the time to the levels that folks now are. The folks who've led the charge should pat themselves on the back: they've done a rather amazing thing.

 

 

John

[jdw]

So how did you find AJPW?

Co-worker with a copy of the 1988 Tag Leauge final night from a Japanese Video Store. Then being taken by him to it, setting up an account, and renting the tapes every week / two weeks.

 

This was before I subbed to the WON.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

So how did you find AJPW?

Co-worker with a copy of the 1988 Tag Leauge final night from a Japanese Video Store. Then being taken by him to it, setting up an account, and renting the tapes every week / two weeks.

 

This was before I subbed to the WON.

 

John

 

That is a cool and (I would guess) unusual story.

 

Agree that Jumbo's ascension came from a further along starting point than Fujiwara, though I still think it is a situation where certain people who were good at making a case, made a case. People watched the footage and said "I can buy that." That is a lot different than the suggestion that people are just going along to get along with a new "movement" or whatever.

 

Lawler's ascension I think is trickier. Lawler always had his fans but Memphis was much more of a niche when I first popped up online than it is now. I remember arguing that Lawler, Dundee, Dutch, Budro, et were some of the better guys of the 80's back in 99. There were people who agreed with this, but there was no group pushing the notion that he was a top guy. When I did my own personal top 100 at a1w a decade ago I am pretty sure I had Dundee in my top forty and Lawler in my top twenty. This was the time of the Jumbo "boom" and I had him at 18 or so. A lot more attention was focused on the fact that Jumbo was "so low" rather than Lawler being that high.

 

My point is that I think with Lawler there were always fans of the Memphis style that regarded him as an all timer, or near that level. The difference is they weren't organized (that's a terrible word here but I can't think of a better one) and Memphis was not a high priority in that era as most everyone seemed to focus their energy on NJPW Juniors, AJPW, Joshi and the stuff coming out of the Monday Night Wars.

 

I suspect Lawler has benefited not just by the new footage, but also by the fact that people who enjoy his work are more vocal about it now, more focused in pushing it as top stuff, and also the fact that post-Monday Night War era certain fans became encouraged to go out and seek other stuff with Vince being the only game in town.

[Loss]

Just to clarify a few things:

 

(First to Loss on the "movements") I'll admit to being dismissive and skeptical of mass changing of opinions.

I just wanted to come back to this one more time because this was one point I forgot about before. Mass changing of opinions coincides with footage availability. That's the common thread. The reason there is a mass change at one time is because most people discussing it are seeing it at the same time for the first time.

 

It's not "Hmmm, let's declare Fujiwara awesome and everyone will agree" ...

[jdw]

The Jumbo as GOAT candidate talk did not start until the 99-00 era IRRC. I know for a fact that was not a prevalent viewpoint when I first started posting online. In fact I know of no one who made this argument when I first started to get really into the newsletter/online thing in 95-96.

This is a tricky one because there was only one GOAT at the time among harcores:

 

Ric Flair

 

There were some older fans who pointed to their own favorites, or who just didn't Flair was the best every so didn't agree while not really offering up a clear alternate candidate for #1. Yohe would be an example of someone who didn't think Flair was the GOAT, but wasn't in the early-to-mid 90s saying alternative wrestler X is GOAT. You'd get other people offering up the "better in his peak" argument for someone like Dynamite, then quickly admitting that his career blew up extremely short to be the real GOAT.

 

You'd get other GOATs like Lou but that was as GOAT "wrestler" rather than "worker". There just wasn't any strong alternative position.

 

I think it one goes back to the that WON book of wrestlers that Dave did in 1986, you'll see the phrase "one of the best of all time" tossed around a few times, and for several different types of things. But Flair tended to get a special variation of it:

 

Considered by some/many to be the best wrestler/worker/performer in the history of the business.

 

The "one" tended to get dropped out, removing Flair from a list of guys and instead putting him up at #1, and if not that, a really strong candidate for it... while no one else got quite the same tag.

 

As I touched on in the prior post, it was only as Flair started declining (at least to the point where even his boosters finally had to admit he was declining) that folks started looking at people who might challenge him for GOAT if they kept doing what they were doing. Kobashi got that "he might end up" run in 1993 because people were thinking his 1993 was better than Flair's 1989... and Kobashi was 27 at the time rather than 40/41. Jumbo had just run to 40+ as a top worker, so people even cautiously projecting Kobashi out were thinking "HOLY SHIT!!!!" Even a little banged up in 1993, I don't think anyone was projecting how banged up he would get. Still... he did end up getting GOATy consideration as his career went on.

 

So that's one major reason why there was no Jumbo talk when he was active: he was parallel to The One True GOAT among hardcores.

 

The second reason is that Jumbo's career is in thirds: 70s Jumbo, 80s Jumbo, Grumpy Old Jumbo. The 70s was much like Flair's: it didn't (or barely) exist on tape. Unlike Dave and old Mid Atlantic folks banging the drum for the greatness of Ric (and all things Mid Atlantic) from the 70s, there wasn't much to go on for Jumbo. There was the regular refrain of "he took to it like a duck to water" in terms of how quickly he learned it. But the WON didn't have vocal readers from Japan like it did from just about every territory in the US. In turn, the 80s was a mixed bag on how it was written... see all the other discussions about Jumbo in the 80s.

 

All that said, when he was done there was talk that Jumbo was one of the all-time great workers. It was simply ill defined, had a large hole, and there already was TOTGOAT and we should accept no False GOATS. That was the same boat as the other "one of the best workers/performers" of all-time at that point.

 

The one exception to that would be Jaguar, who Dave tended to write up in the 80s and every early 90s the same way he wrote up Flair "considered the best womens worker of all-time", or words to that effect.

 

Did Jumbo move from "one of the..." to a candidate for "the..." after AJPW Classics came out and started circulating more? Yes, no doubt. It was a general time when people started to wonder whether Flair really was the GOAT, and if not him than who. And in contrast to the sort of ill defined Flair Alternatives tossed around in th 80s and early 90s, people were more direct in pointing to other people and arguing why.

 

 

John

[Bix]

Dylan is definitely right about when Jumbo as GOAT became a big online consensus. It was basically Jumbo dies -> people start to watch whatever Jumbo they may have had laying around -> Jumbo Legend set comes out -> People go nuts over it, especially the '70s matches with Race and Rusher -> People go after whatever they can find on AJPW Classics tapes, plus the previous Jumbo comm. set, the Tenryu feud comp (which was missing matches), etc -> People go even more nuts over the Terry Funk, Kerry Von Erich, etc. matches along with everything else, and with the impressive body of work over such a long time, he gets pimped as GOAT.

 

To add to all of the other Lawler points you have to remember that even though Memphis was known for great brawls, the tape collecting veered towards the regular TV and the great angles/promos a lot of the time. Not as many people were watching the available house show footage and trying to dig up more. Jeff Lynch's US list, which had a decent amount of quality house show stuff, was barely looked at, and you had to dig all over the place for more.

[jdw]

Who were you talking to you? I started posting on rspw and then 1bob board. Went from there to a1w, DVDVR, Classics, and tOA (where I was mostly a lurker). I really don't remember Jumbo being talked up as a GOAT in the early days of the net. I don't remember it EVER coming up at 1bob either and I stopped posting there sometime in 99 or 00 IIRC. I don't remember "Jumbo was the greatest ever" popping up until the Kawada Appreciation FanZone era of the old a1w board which I believe was in 00 sometime.

That is probably around the right time, though more than just the KAFZ. tOA and I think Wrestling Classics. Again, I think the start of it was in a sense going back to the "If not Flair, then Who?" question. It really is in that period when almost all of who we think of now as a Usual Suspect started bubbling up: 3/4 of the Four Corners, Jumbo, Terry, Bock, Joshi workers, etc. There was a generation of fans who got in via the WWF and had it stay their core who advocated Shawn, but folks tended to be pretty brutal to that and the notion was marginalized. His return, the new era of Shawn Luv and the rise of Lawler/Fujiwara, several luchadors and some European Luv have expanded it since then.

 

John