Serious Greatest of All Time Candidates

[Ditch]

Since people with 'rising stock' is the gist of the topic, Tenryu should be someone in the hunt. As of the big Smarkschoice vote he was on 80% of ballots but only got a single top 5 vote and ended up in 21st place. I'd put him in the same general category as Steamboat, Vader and Mysterio: well-liked but not at the highest level.

 

With the resurgence of SWS/WAR-era Tenryu, and the anticipation of the AJ '80s set, Tenryu seems like someone who would get a lot of top 5 consideration. I think he stacks up darn well in comparison to Jumbo. While Jumbo was a better athlete and a better technician, Tenryu had good matches in a wider variety of settings and with far more opponents. He wrestled at a high level for longer, and granted that's mostly because Jumbo got hepatitis, but Tenryu aged better than all but a small number of wrestlers. I think his body of work absolutely creams the likes of Liger, Bret Hart and Takada.

 

Certainly there were flaws, and he barely changed a thing from '85 on, so it's not air-tight or anything. But there's a case to be made, one that wasn't being made a few years ago.

[Childs]

I will be interested to see if a strong Jumbo vs. Tenryu debate gets going as people work through the '80s set. For me, Jumbo was unquestionably better from the beginning of their respective careers until Tenryu turned on him in 1987. Tenryu equaled or surpassed Jumbo in '88 and '89, when his style and spirit really drove the main event scene, despite his old partner's continued technical superiority. Jumbo regained the lead from 1990 through mid-1992 with his brilliant stuff against the next generation. But then Tenryu took the next 18 years (and counting) with his ability to persist as a top guy in various promotions, against a wide range of opponents. Of course, that's just the career bulk analysis. I'm more interested to see if people come away from the set thinking one guy's peak was clearly better than the other's. I've watched it all, and I'm still not sure.

[jdw]

Also on the KAFZ thing, I didn't mean to imply that the a1w folks were the primary Jumbo pimps. In fact most of the arguments there were originally centered around who was better between Misawa and Kawada.

And a lot of Kawda-Kobashi... a LOT.

 

On the other hand, it was a pretty incestuous group of int'l fans at the time. Frank and I posted on DVDVR. I posted on A1 and had probably some of my longest puroresu thread of the period there. Lots of the folks at TSM and SC who talked about puroresu were strongly influenced by us and the DVDVR folks, or folks influenced by us/DVDVR.

 

There were subniche's such as joshi, which took off more in where ever Quebrada Mike made his home base... want to say Highspots boards before it became just a store, but something like that. Garbage had a certain love at the DVDVR and also where ever Zach and Bahou made their homes.

 

But All Japan... jesus, we still get *blamed* for opinions we hammered to death back in 1996-2001, even some that predated us in the Newsletters but folks want to throw at us.

 

 

I think ultimately tOA was really the home of the Jumbo Boom, with a1w being sort of "neutral" board where the idea seemed to spread pretty quickly.

Jumbo Luv was around for along time. One can go back to DVDVR's before he died and before Legend to see his stuff getting talked about, and Dean putting him over.

 

Again, it's something that for years we got *blamed* for: overpushing Jumbo, Destroyer and later Backlund.

 

Think about it: when there is just a One True GOAT, how does someone else become a GOAT Candidate?

 

By being compared to the OTGOAT, and having the OTGOAT picked apart.

 

Who in that era was going to put over Jumbo while contrasting him with Flair, pointing out where Flair was weaker bit by bit?

 

That's what Frank had a masters degree in. If it was a topic that you happened to agree with, he did it better than anyone else. If you didn't or went in on the other side, well... you remember those.

 

Jumbo was a guy he effectively banged the drum on for about as long as I knew him and he started getting stuff from Lynch. Hell, he was making Terry > Flair and Harley > Flair comments for a long time as well.

 

Did it spread out at some point? Perhaps. But it strikes me a bit like saying something in 2005 elevated the 12/06/96 Tag Final up into discussion of all-time great matches. Then you look at what's being said and it's pretty much what was being said earlier... such as in December of 1996. People even dating the push of that match to the 90's Poll and the Pimping Post would be missing a half decade of it being talked about and pushed, and not just by one person but by a fair number of people in what was still a small circle of fans.

 

When Dylan says "tOA was really the home of the Jumbo Boom", I don't even want to take a share of that. I'd been pushing Grumpy Old Jumbo since coming online, but the getting of stuff from the 70s & 80s and then writing about it and putting over the entire career was Frank. He went there pretty fast.

 

John

[jdw]

I've been lurking in this thread and it is a tremendous thread but a name that hasn't been mentioned at least I don't think it has been here but is a name that if you talk to guys that was around from the 50's - 70's is Ray "The Crippler" Stevens.

 

Stevens is a case where we have basically ZERO footage of him in his prime and from all the stories you hear he was just this fantastic worker who could do it all. Flair, Heenan, Bock, and lots of others have called him the greatest but us as fans of the last 30 years really have nothing but his later career to reflect on.

I almost mentioned Stevens because he is catch all pick for a lot of those old timers. I know Heenan in particular always beat the drum for him. The big problem with Stevens is not just footage though - it's that of the matches that are out there we don't even really have anything that we can point to that shows flashes of his greatness. With a guy like Johnny Valentine who was widely touted in certain net circles a decade a go there wasn't much, but there was a taste for what made him so awesome in so many peoples eyes. Stevens looks *good* in some of the AWA stuff from his post-prime but there aren't really the flashes of greatness you would expect from a GOAT. Then again much of that is WAY past his physical prime.

 

You and I have been in some discussions on this over the years, including that "flashes of greatness" point. It's really hard to find them. We're not even looking for him putting on a ****1/2 match. But even a broken down wrestler can have flashes of really smart work in there that you go, "Damn... that's nice."

 

Example: there were people putting over things Lawler has done in his recent stretch. Jerry isn't doing moonsaults. His body isn't what it once was. But he's able to still do things that you go, "Yeah... that's how he could have gotten those Memphis fans going."

 

With Stevens... I'm just not finding them.

 

I guess the contrast would be Patterson, who obviously was younger and less a wreck. But take his match with Inoki. It's not a "great" match, and we've all seen plenty of better Inoki matches. It's not a terribly high tech match, and I could see some who don't care for the style of the era getting bored with it. I find it to be pretty solid for the most part, and there are plenty of flashes where you see that Patterson could do some good things.

 

I think we've talked about it in the past with KHawk. He's been able to say there are some Stevens matches out there that are better than others, but if I recall correctly has agreed that it's hard to flashes where you see the all-time great worker that people are talkin about. I hope I'm not misapplying wht KHawk said, but that's the general recollection.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

Since people with 'rising stock' is the gist of the topic, Tenryu should be someone in the hunt. As of the big Smarkschoice vote he was on 80% of ballots but only got a single top 5 vote and ended up in 21st place. I'd put him in the same general category as Steamboat, Vader and Mysterio: well-liked but not at the highest level.

 

With the resurgence of SWS/WAR-era Tenryu, and the anticipation of the AJ '80s set, Tenryu seems like someone who would get a lot of top 5 consideration. I think he stacks up darn well in comparison to Jumbo. While Jumbo was a better athlete and a better technician, Tenryu had good matches in a wider variety of settings and with far more opponents. He wrestled at a high level for longer, and granted that's mostly because Jumbo got hepatitis, but Tenryu aged better than all but a small number of wrestlers. I think his body of work absolutely creams the likes of Liger, Bret Hart and Takada.

 

Certainly there were flaws, and he barely changed a thing from '85 on, so it's not air-tight or anything. But there's a case to be made, one that wasn't being made a few years ago.

I think Tenryu's stock is already rising with a lot of folks and when Will's Tenryu set drops I think there is potential for it to explode. I would argue that you could ALREADY make a reasoned argument for Tenryu as the GOAT for most of the reasons you already listed. I don't think it's out of the question that Tenryu could be "the new Jumbo" as in the default GOAT for those who are willing to defy the Flair paradigm.

 

Having said that I want to stress that I don't want to make this a self fulfilling prophecy and that is why the AJPW 80's set is going to be maybe the most interesting one yet, as Jumbo v. Tenryu (and to a lesser degree Funk, Hansen, Misawa, and Kawada) are all going to be analyzed with a fresh eye.

[Phil Schneider]

One thing that has blown me away while watching the WAR is how good Tenryu is at working compelling, exciting matches with overmatched opponents. He had great singles matches with Kitihara and Anjoh where I totally bought into the possibility of an upset, even though there was rationally no way that Tenryu would lose.

[Childs]

That was a strength pre-WAR as well. He brought tremendous intensity to tags in which he was the biggest star by far. I'm thinking in particular of a match from '89 in which Tenta and Shunji Takano were the opponents, but there were plenty of others. It was like Tenryu just couldn't stand to be in a bad or boring tag match. Jumbo, by contrast, was often content to stay in the background of matches like that. Not a knock on him; it's just that Tenryu's effort in those kinds of matches is a real positive for his case.

[El-P]

I'm all for a "Tenryu was awesome" trend. I always thought Tenryu was way underrated and that he was clearly one of the greatest workers ever, with an amazing longevity and diversity. I never understood why he was not considered a great worker for so long. He never was a great mechanic, but he had so many other great things in his work.

[Dylan Waco]

Phil was probably going to plug this later and may have already but unless I missed it, over at Segunda Caida he has started a complete and accurate project for Lawler specifically to address the GOAT contender status of the King.

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2011/03/c...ing-lawler.html

[jdw]

Having said that I want to stress that I don't want to make this a self fulfilling prophecy...

Don't worry. I already made the prophecy on these boards a while back.

 

John

[Childs]

I'm all for a "Tenryu was awesome" trend. I always thought Tenryu was way underrated and that he was clearly one of the greatest workers ever, with an amazing longevity and diversity. I never understood why he was not considered a great worker for so long. He never was a great mechanic, but he had so many other great things in his work.

JDW and others can probably speak to the issue of Tenryu perception over time, but I've always gotten the sense that his physical awkwardness was a big part of it. It's a less pronounced issue than with Baba or Taue, but he did not come off as a natural athlete. The constant contrast to Jumbo probably didn't help on that front. To his credit, Tenryu turned his lack of grace into an advantage, building a style that emphasized effort and desire to inflict damage from any and all angles. He was like the Rocky Marciano to Jumbo's Ali.

[El-P]

physical awkwardness

Two words : sumo wrestler. Sumo wrestlers usually have an odd way to move in contrast to what we're used to in pro-wrestling. Taue was the same way.

[Victator]

Can we get some links to videos of the Lawler matches? I

[jdw]

JDW and others can probably speak to the issue of Tenryu perception over time

Going in real time:

 

Pre-1984: not much love for Tenryu

1985-89: Tenryu was a newsletter darling

1990-92: Tenryu fell off

1993+: New Japan feud did him well in the newsletters

 

My observation is that he's had a decent level of love each year since 1993. One would have to go back and look at the DVDVR rankings after he returned to All Japan, but I recall by 2002 people were going bonkers for his current work. And before the return to All Japan, people had loved his run in New Japan at the end of the prior decade.

 

So it's not "new" or a "revelation". Even the "rethinking" of his 1985-89 stuff isn't. I believe that at the end of 1988, Dave had him the #1 worker in the world coming out of the Tag League. If not that, it was #2. There was a reason why Dave was pushing for Flair-Tenryu so much.

 

Tenryu > Jumbo is the "old" thinking. A bit like if people think the Bobby Eaton or the MX looking great in the Crockett/Turner poll: it would reaffirm the old.

 

I tend to think that of people want to work themselves up into thinking he's been underappriciated, it's because they haven't really been paying attention. The love has been there longer than anyone here has watched puroresu, and online for more than a decade. Look at the DVDVR 90s poll NJPW. We all admit it was a junior-centric set of results, so we need to look at it in a bit of context. Tenryu was in the #2 heavyweight singles match, and two others in the Top 20 NJPW heavy singles. When you look at the non-junior tags, he's in the first one after the Usual Suspect: a trio of Steiner matches, the 11/01/90 title change, and the Vader/Bigelow vs Hase/Mutoh bleed-o-rama. Then a Tenryu match.

 

He didn't do well in the Japan Indy poll, which is very odd in hindsight since literally the *only* people pimping WAR Lumpy Heavyweights (tm Dean) were the DVDVR Gang. That just might be a timing thing: Junior Love (i.e. MPro) + the peak of DVDVR BattlARTS Love + the peak of DVDVR Big Japan Death Match Love. Perhaps that diverted people who were otherwise Tenryu Fans and had watched all that WAR Lumpy Heavy stuff from getting Tenryu's great stuff outside of New Japan in the 90s onto the Indy ballot.

 

Anyway...

 

I predicted there will be a wave of Tenryu Luv when the 80s AJPW set comes out. I predict there will also be a lot of "No one ever talked about how great Tenryu was" comment, making it a bit of a Bobby Ewing in the Shower moment to ignore the past quarter century of Tenryu Luv.

 

"It's like it never happened."

-Arn Andersen

 

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

There may have been "Tenryu luv" but I think the bulk of it was pre-net. Not saying he hasn't had his fans over the years but I don't remember any contingent beating the drum from him as GOAT the way people have for Flair, Jumbo, Kawada, Misawa or even Liger.

[Ditch]

Again, I compare it to Vader or Steamboat: widely/universally loved but one notch from the top 5/10 types in how high he would be praised. Tenryu's run in early '00s All Japan was much acclaimed and helped ensure the respect of people like me who were new to the scene. Same with his '04 NJ and '05 NOAH runs. The underappreciation is more about people rating him high enough, as opposed to people not rating him (ie. Fujiwara). I want to say that in the Smarkschoice poll I had him around 10th-12th... he'd be top 6 for sure now. That sort of thing.

[jdw]

Nah. Lots of Tenryu Luv on the net.

 

This is old stuff that I think folks are forgetting. I don't because Frank was damn near an Anti-Tenryu Island against an ocean of Tenryu Luv, and I was always entertained by his writing on Tenryu. Hell, I took grief for simply not thinking Tenryu-Hash in 1998 was as good as nearly everyone else thought it was.

 

Unlike Jumbo, there weren't many who followed Frank's lead on Tenryu... other than some jokes about his sloppiness, spottiness and the enzugiri (I can't remember if it was Jag or Frank that had a funny name for it). In fact, quite the opposite: folks dug in on Tenryu like the did when Frank was punting Lawler around.

 

It's really old stuff. Would be like saying there's been no love online for Sano. We'd have to go back to 1995 online on rsp-w for a lack of Sano love online, and maybe 1992 before the WAR-NJPW feud for lack of Tenryu love online. I suspect that once he showed up in New Japan and Dave started spinkling the snowflakes for Tenryu again, it was okay to go back to loving him.

 

GOAT is a different beast, and his GOATiness always goes back to the argument made above: longevity rather than peak. That one was already being made when he was in the Top 5 of several DVDVR 500 polls after turning 50. Variations were already being made of it back when he had the well loved match with Hash: "This fucker is 48!?! Was Flair this good at 48!?!?" By the time he was getting ranked Top 5 in the world at the age of *53* by the DVDVR gang, it was a decade since Jumbo had retired... and GOAT was getting touched on because the "longevity" was really kicking in at that point. I would not at all not at all be surprised that if we had access to all of the GWE stuff from SC that Tenryu vs Jumbo was already a fully formed argument at that point. Considering Jumbo won the GWE in that very poll, anyone making a Tenyu vs Jumbo case was effectively making a Tenryu GOAT argument. Similar to the original Jumbo vs Flair discussions: if one get to the point that Jumbo = Flair or Jumbo > Flair, then you're making a case for Jumbo being a Serious GOAT Candidate.

 

Sorry if I'm running this down... it's old, I've heard it before. That's why I predicted Tenryu would be the "revelation" of the set: because he isn't, he hasn't been, Jumbo-Tenryu isn't new, but lots of folks are looking for a revelation so it's the beyond obvious one.

 

Think "90s Shawn Michaels is a revelation" and "I don't know why no one ever said Shawn was better than Bret in the 90s before... how did they miss this?!?!"

 

John

[jdw]

Again, I compare it to Vader or Steamboat: widely/universally loved but one notch from the top 5/10 types in how high he would be praised. Tenryu's run in early '00s All Japan was much acclaimed and helped ensure the respect of people like me who were new to the scene.

He was a 53 year old who was ranked #4 in two DVDVR Top 500 polls (#1 and #2 in Japan in those two polls) when you were new to the scene. That's "Holy Shit!" stuff: 50+ years old, and The Best In Japan. I don't know about you, but if someone (or in this case a group of people) are pimping to me that someone in their 50s is The Best, it makes me wonder just how off the charts they were when they were at their peak.

 

That was November 2002 and May 2003... Eight Years Ago. I hope that folks aren't trying to claim that it took 8 years for folks to make the leap from "He Might Be The Best In The World At 53" to "That's Some Hell Of A Longevity, He Was Great Before He Got To 53, By God He's One Of The Best All-Time!"

 

 

Same with his '04 NJ and '05 NOAH runs. The underappreciation is more about people rating him high enough, as opposed to people not rating him (ie. Fujiwara). I want to say that in the Smarkschoice poll I had him around 10th-12th... he'd be top 6 for sure now. That sort of thing.

#10-12 in the SC poll was extremely high. Everyone above him was Usual Suspects. Recall where The One True GOAT placed. If you had him #10, you didn't have him very far behind where Flair ended up in the final results.

 

Tenryu isn't an out of nowhere worker. He's far from a revelation. Literally the only place that people could point to being "new" as far as Tenryu being thought of as Great~! by someone would be if:

 

* a bunch of his 70s and early 80s stuff came out and people started saying he was better than Jumbo and Flair back then

 

* people start saying he was having high end MOTYC in WAR/SWS in 1990-92

 

That would be new.

 

What they're pointing to now is what people have pointed to contemporaneously for the last quarter century. It's not even that people are starting to put the pieces together this year or last: they have been for more than a decade, as each year got added onto his birthday.

 

I think people feel the need to either "find" something, or think that they're doing something "new", or that they're hitting undiscovered country... all the time. It's okay to be closer to:

 

"You know, those folks back in 1985-89 who thought Tenryu was great had it right."

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

My point was poorly worded.

 

My point is Tenryu was not a guy that batted around as a serious GOAT in online circles at any point I can recall until VERY recently.

 

Jumbo certainly was. Misawa was. Kawada was. Flair obviously was. Liger was.

[KrisZ]

Tenryu from about 78-81 was working here in the territories going from Shire, Amarillo, Georgia, JCP, with some others like Texas & Florida sprinkled in between. Tenryu looked good for his experience in the GCW TV matches he had and I haven't seen any of his JCP work where he teamed with Mr. Fuji but once he returned to All-Japan in 1982 and specifically 1983 is when you could see how good Tenryu was and how great he could be.

[jdw]

Dylan: the comp to Jumbo was being made during the GWE. People were making it in terms favorable to Tenryu, it nearly exactly the same terms you and others offered them up here. Jumbo won the GWE poll, and it wasn't a terrible surprise. Tenryu being comped favorably to Jumbo, exactly as he is now, was a tacit GOAT argument. A serious one, since he was being favorably comped with The Soon-To-Be New GOAT.

 

That was four years ago. That's not recent: it's the last major GOATage, and frankly the one that "offically" shattered the stranglehold (and yes, I'm being cheeky) GOAT domination of Flair by not only putting Jumbo ahead of him, but a number of others.

 

GWE:

 

1. Jumbo Tsuruta

2. Toshiaki Kawada

3. Chris Benoit

4. Jushin Liger

5. Kenta Kobashi

6. Eddie Guerrero

7. Mitsuharu Misawa

8. Ric Flair

9. Bret Hart

10. Stan Hansen

 

11. Terry Funk

12. Harley Race

13. Ricky Steamboat

14. Dynamite Kid

15. Akira Hokuto

16. Steve Austin

17. Vader

18. Aja Kong

19. Nobuhiko Takada

20. El Hijo Del Santo

21. Genichiro Tenryu

22. Rey Mysterio Jr.

23. Jaguar Yokota

24. Shinya Hashimoto

25. The Destroyer

26. Akira Taue

27. Shinjiro Ohtani

28. Barry Windham

29. Manami Toyota

30. Giant Baba

 

41. Jerry Lawler

58. Tatsumi Fujinami

119. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

 

Look at the Japanese guys ahead of Tenryu:

 

Jumbo. The Four Corners at the very peak of their hardcore love (christ... Taue is at freaking #26, and people think it's "new" to think Taue was a king). Liger before the full backlash against juniors. Hokuto back when people still had Joshi memories. Takada.

 

And not that you're talking about people calling Takada a serious GOAT Candidate, and I'm sure you'd point to this poll and the discussion at the time, as a place where people were pimping him.

 

Tenryu was 2 slots back, with the #1 Luchador of the poll between them.

 

Again, it wasn't even new then. The arguments in support of Tenryu made in the GWE had been made since folks started losing their shit over him in 2003-2005.

 

John

[jdw]

Tenryu from about 78-81 was working here in the territories going from Shire, Amarillo, Georgia, JCP, with some others like Texas & Florida sprinkled in between. Tenryu looked good for his experience in the GCW TV matches he had and I haven't seen any of his JCP work where he teamed with Mr. Fuji but once he returned to All-Japan in 1982 and specifically 1983 is when you could see how good Tenryu was and how great he could be.

But you're not saying that "Good Tenryu" in the early 80s was > to Flair and Jumbo.

 

*That* would be something new and a revelation.

 

Childs comments earlier in the thread are probably closer to what people thought at the time:

 

"For me, Jumbo was unquestionably better from the beginning of their respective careers until Tenryu turned on him in 1987."

-Childs

 

Though in the WON it would be 1985 rather than 1987, and they would have been Shocked! that anyone didn't think Tenryu passed Jumbo by when Choshu jumped rather than after and *opposite* Jumbo.

 

Okay... I'm largely having fun at the momnt as I need to leave work.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

Finlay was pimped as the best in the World in 06 by the same group of people, at a comparable age, in an era in the States that was comparable to - if not superior to Japan when Tenryu was pimped as a top dog. I doubt very much that even the most hardcore fans would make the leap to say "Finlay was GOAT!" based upon that. Black Terry and Negro Navarro have been pimped as the best two wrestlers on Earth over the last two years at a comparable age to Tenryu, in a company that is being pimped by that same group of people as one of the better runs of Lucha in recent memory. I don't see anyone saying Navarro and Terry must be GOAT contenders because they are so awesome now, imagine what they were then. Now obviously Tenryu has a deeper well to dig from than Finlay does, but that's not the point (I can't speak to Navarro and Terry as I only recently starting following Lucha). The point is that old man being called top of the line is not an indication that people would call them GOAT or even GOAT candidates. In fact as I recall a lot of Tenryu talk at the time was centered around how Tenryu had "gotten better with age." There are people who have made the same point with Finlay though I don't know that that is a real talking point. I doubt Phil or DEAN were saying this but it was an opinion I saw expressed. I also have no recollection of people arguing for Tenryu over Jumbo during the GWE deal.

 

I can't think of anyone who was touting Tenryu as GOAT or even a serious GOAT contender until fairly recently. Not saying it wasn't done, but that if it was it was done in a back handed way or indirectly or totally off my radar. It would not shock me if it was something that was considered in 89, but I really don't see any evidence of an organized block touting him the way there was for certain Joshi gals, the AJPW three, Jumbo, Flair, or even Dynamite in the old days.

 

I also don't know of anyone who is really claiming that Tenryu is a "discovery" so much as a rediscovery. There is an attempt to popularize WAR I would say and that WILL be a discovery to many people but that is a separate matter.

 

Tenryu is not Fujiwara who sort of came out of nowhere to enter into the discussion but I don't think anyone has or would argue that.

[KrisZ]

What made Tenryu in the 85-86 years was the feud he had with Choshu as their matches were superior to the ones Jumbo had which at that time was a big revelation. Jumbo still had great matches with Hansen and was terrific in the tags with Tenryu against Choshu/Yatsu but the fact that he couldn't have a definitive singles match against the hottest wrestler in the country while Tenryu had 6/22/85 and 9/3/86 to brag about. Tenryu had great momentum going into 1987 and once the trigger was pulled on his turn, he had basically already surpassed Jumbo as a worker which for sure was no knock on Jumbo but it is a testament to how great Tenryu was.

[Dylan Waco]

Dylan: the comp to Jumbo was being made during the GWE. People were making it in terms favorable to Tenryu, it nearly exactly the same terms you and others offered them up here. Jumbo won the GWE poll, and it wasn't a terrible surprise. Tenryu being comped favorably to Jumbo, exactly as he is now, was a tacit GOAT argument. A serious one, since he was being favorably comped with The Soon-To-Be New GOAT.

 

That was four years ago. That's not recent: it's the last major GOATage, and frankly the one that "offically" shattered the stranglehold (and yes, I'm being cheeky) GOAT domination of Flair by not only putting Jumbo ahead of him, but a number of others.

 

GWE:

 

1. Jumbo Tsuruta

2. Toshiaki Kawada

3. Chris Benoit

4. Jushin Liger

5. Kenta Kobashi

6. Eddie Guerrero

7. Mitsuharu Misawa

8. Ric Flair

9. Bret Hart

10. Stan Hansen

 

11. Terry Funk

12. Harley Race

13. Ricky Steamboat

14. Dynamite Kid

15. Akira Hokuto

16. Steve Austin

17. Vader

18. Aja Kong

19. Nobuhiko Takada

20. El Hijo Del Santo

21. Genichiro Tenryu

22. Rey Mysterio Jr.

23. Jaguar Yokota

24. Shinya Hashimoto

25. The Destroyer

26. Akira Taue

27. Shinjiro Ohtani

28. Barry Windham

29. Manami Toyota

30. Giant Baba

 

41. Jerry Lawler

58. Tatsumi Fujinami

119. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

 

Look at the Japanese guys ahead of Tenryu:

 

Jumbo. The Four Corners at the very peak of their hardcore love (christ... Taue is at freaking #26, and people think it's "new" to think Taue was a king). Liger before the full backlash against juniors. Hokuto back when people still had Joshi memories. Takada.

 

And not that you're talking about people calling Takada a serious GOAT Candidate, and I'm sure you'd point to this poll and the discussion at the time, as a place where people were pimping him.

 

Tenryu was 2 slots back, with the #1 Luchador of the poll between them.

 

Again, it wasn't even new then. The arguments in support of Tenryu made in the GWE had been made since folks started losing their shit over him in 2003-2005.

 

John

I think this proves my point and not yours.

 

Tenryu at top 8 Japanese wrestler of all time is something I imagine would have always been a common theme going back to 89. That isn't really saying much. It's a totally unsurprising result by any measure and indicates the Steamboat/Vader leveling that Ditch mentioned. I.E. "one of the all time greats" but not really a contender for "greatest of all time." That people may have made arguments in favor of Tenryu over Jumbo (I literally don't remember) ultimately means nothing if it wasn't a large group of people and/or more closely reflected in the results. Bringing up Santo's placing is almost irrelevant as the poll was extremely slanted against Luchadores with people like myself voting for no Luchadores out of pure ignorance.

 

The people who finished above Tenryu were not just obvious GOATCs, but also some of the "second stringers." Bret was a second stringer. Dynamite by this point arguably was. Race was. Vader and Steamboat certainly were. Austin was.

 

Tenryu was lumped in exactly where you would expect him to be lumped in - with the guys who were a step down from the absolute pinnacle. That is how he had been regarded for years for the most part and it was reflected in the results.

 

Finishing 21 in a GWE poll is not bad by any stretch, but I don't think being mixed in with the Vader's and Steamboats of the World is an indication that he was seen as a series GOATC at the time. As Ditch noted he got ONE top five vote in a poll with almost fifty voters. That's telling.