Your own Criteria

[JerryvonKramer]

There's certainly quite a lot of Pat O'Connor.

[Graham Crackers]

How much footage has to exist for you to consider someone for your top 100? Is there enough Destroyer or Pat O'Connor out there? What about the 80s Lucha stars?

I don't think that's a question that should have an answer that is set in stone but it's definitely something to discuss. We talked about it a bit on WKO: http://z11.invisionfree.com/wrestling_ko/index.php?showtopic=5206

[Jimmy Redman]

For me personally, however much footage there is of the Destroyer, that is exactly how much footage I need to consider him. I love Destroyer.

 

I think if there's enough footage for you to come to a conclusion about how great a wrestler they were or are, it's enough. Whether a lack of footage prevents someone from climbing past a certain level is another story, but I think if you think that much of them even from a small sample, there's no reason why you shouldn't put them on your list. Reality is we have more footage of some people than others. That's life. You have to judge on what there is.

[Grimmas]

I think I am settling in to think of this as the greatest wrestlers for artistic reasons. So, to me, everything somebody does counts. How they did commercially doesn't.

 

I think looking at it like this is going to move Onita up my list.

[NintendoLogic]

I think "great match" is being defined too narrowly here. A match doesn't have to be a 30-minute main event epic to be great. There are plenty of matches that go less than half that that I would consider great. Given that, I think lack of great matches is absolutely something that should be held against someone.

[Shining Wiz]

I've been debating the value of role players in my head. The thread for Haku mentions how he managed to be a mid card gatekeeper/jobber to the stars for years, but always seemed like a threat to win even though he rarely did. This got me thinking, if you're the best in your role, do you deserve consideration here? What about someone who was always a jobber, but was a jobber because they were FANTASTIC at taking a beating and making the star look like a million bucks, even they were more likely a $5 performer?

[Goodear]

Just as a basic question, is there anyone primarily known as a TNA talent that is worth considering like a James Storm or Bobby Roode? Is Gail Kim their best candidate?

[Matt D]

I could see Aries getting in the bottom of some people's ballots?

[BillThompson]

I could see Samoa Joe making it as well.

[Loss]

I think "great match" is being defined too narrowly here. A match doesn't have to be a 30-minute main event epic to be great. There are plenty of matches that go less than half that that I would consider great. Given that, I think lack of great matches is absolutely something that should be held against someone.

 

This is very well said. An undercard 7-minute match can be pretty awesome too. Barry Windham and Brian Pillman weren't really put in that epic main event spot at SuperBrawl I, nor were they given as much time as you'd think they would need on paper to work up to their potential. Yet they still produced something strong that people look back on fondly. Regal's short TV matches will get a lot of credit from me too. Look at Akiyama vs Taue on 1/20/97. Undercard booking and limited time to go all out doesn't always work against the idea of having a great match. There's nothing wrong with not doing it, but is a career's worth of not doing it anything worth celebration? Maybe not deserving of scorn, but deserving of praise?

[Matt D]

Who's the best wrestler never to have a "Great match" by that criteria? Haku, for instance, has, at the least, some heel Islanders stuff (the singles match vs Martel is an awesome TV match), the cage match vs Slaughter/Blackwell (ranked extremely high on the AWA best of the 80s), and maybe Survivor Series 89, and probably quite a bit that aren't on the top of my head. I think those count by the criteria just posted.

[Loss]

By what criteria? I want to answer the question, but I want to make sure I understand it properly first.

[Matt D]

The criteria being listed here in the last few posts, mainly.

[Matt D]

To add to that (and I've been in and out this afternoon, so some replies have been shorter than I would have liked), I do think there are some people that think a match can't be great unless it's also big. People have different definitions for that term (and probably for "big" as well).

[Jimmy Redman]

Just as a basic question, is there anyone primarily known as a TNA talent that is worth considering like a James Storm or Bobby Roode? Is Gail Kim their best candidate?

 

I'd say it would be AJ Styles, although I don't know how much support he'd get from anyone else. Might nominate him actually.

[goodhelmet]

What is wild is that TNA actually hurts some wrestlers such as Samoa Joe.

[Lee Casebolt]

Trying to reconcile the various perspectives here - all of which have merit to some degree or another - I finally boiled it down to this. How excited am I by the prospect of something new coming to light from a given wrestler? If someone digs up a match with Arn Anderson, Randy Savage, or Nick Bockwinkel in a territory I didn't know they worked or against an opponent I didn't know they faced or otherwise in a new and different situation, I am way excited. If there's a new Kamala match... somewhat less so.

[TravJ1979]

I've been trying to properly define my criteria before diving too far in to this. I certainly know that I don't want to just watch pimped/great matches from a particular wrestler. For example, you can't fairly judge Flair just on matches with Steamboat. You also have to judge his matches with the El Gigante's of the world to see if his *work* still holds up against far less talented workers. Words like 'longevity', 'diversity', and 'consistency' keep popping up as things to base my criteria on.

 

Longevity - A lot of wrestlers have long careers, but how many are like, Terry Funk, who has great matches in no less than four decades?

 

Diversity - If I am critiquing Wrestler A, I want to watch matches of his/hers that paint a larger picture. I want to see him/her wrestle a large spectrum of styles and opponents to see how adaptable he is. This would also preferably be over a decent span of years.

 

Consistency - This would cover both those who try hard each time out vs, guys who phone it in for any variety of reasons as well as guys who have a long career, but it goes to hell after awhile.

[MJH]

More than most, perhaps, I emphasise peak over longevity. As I mentioned in either his thread or the "working #1" thread, Kawada is mine because at his best I think he's the greatest wrestler I've ever seen; the three All Japan guys are 1-3 because over a 4/5 year spell they were hitting an unparalleled level of work. Longevity will factor in, absolutely, but if I was a playwright, say, I'd rather have Hamlet and Lear and nothing else over forty, I don't know, Juno and the Paycock(s) spread over thirty years, y'know?

 

I also value exceptional strengths higher than I do weaknesses: I understand - and agree with - most Toyota criticism... but... I also think she's one of the best offensive wrestlers ever, a hell of a hot tag, and a phenomenal face-in-peril (absolutely one of the best). She has too many superlative qualities where, if I was to have some strict methodology whereby I broke every wrestler down across say ten categories, scored each out of ten, and worked out the average for their overall "score", there're a couple of categories where she's 10+ and even if her said average was 5 I'd take her over someone who's 7 across the board because those couple of 10+s count stronger.

[Jimmy Redman]

I just saw this in the Davey Boy thread, the idea of "did he ever carry any lesser workers?" It's a trait that if often bandied about when talking about great wrestlers, carry jobs and wrestling a broomstick and etc.

 

So how important to you is evidence of being able to carry a lesser worker? Is it a mark against someone if they haven't, even if they're otherwise great? Is it a big plus if they have, or have done with multiple guys? Is it just a minor, tie-breaker thing? Do you hold it against someone if he was always or usually the "lesser" guy in great matches? Or is the output more important, and if a guy has great matches, they must be great?

Now that I've typed that all out, it sort of sounds like another way of saying "Great matches or great performances?"

[fishbaugh]

Coming up with my criteria is proving to be difficult -- might be as difficult as actually doing the rankings.

 

First, I need to decide on a cutoff date for who to consider. I'm leaning towards nothing after 2006, as I think a decade needs to pass before I'm comfortable reevaluating it. But that feels kind of silly, and means people like Bryan won't make my list, which kind of defeats the purpose of the project!

 

Then I need to decide what relative value to give spots on the card, roles played, and such. Can I justify voting a consistent hand with no timeless work over a inconsistent performer with moments of greatness?

 

And what about the relative value of promotions and points in time? Does being on top in a small territory compare to being an upper mid-career in a national promotion? I need to come up with my own MLE adjustments, but that seems like crazy overkill and would take a lot of the fun out of the project.

 

Too much too think about!

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm asking everyone on the board how much they value ...

 

Facials

 

Ha ha, look at that.

 

 

Anyway, how important are facial expressions to you? I really value them and they are very nice to have, but I do think some people are unreasonably marked down if they don't have great ones.

 

Case in point:

 

The opening arm work on Dory Funk is actually pretty good and Dory takes some nice bumps but he has the shittiest facials I've ever seen in wrestling. He looks absolutely bored by everything that is going on.

So the guy might have been one of the greatest NWA champions, and may have a load of great matches to his name, but his FACE looked bored.

 

What to do?

 

I'm just picking this out as a sort of hidden or "under-the-radar" criteria, because facials aren't really something that people went heavy on in this thread, but clearly they are important in how certain guys are perceived.

 

To what extent can someone's facial expressions boost or lower someone's ranking for you?

 

This sounds like I'm being really facetious but I'm not I'm being deadly serious. And now "facetious" sounds like a bad pun. Ha ha.

[Matt D]

I think emoting is a better way to put it.

[BillThompson]

Emoting, or facials, are important depending on the guys character I think. If Dory is being presented as an emotionless technician then him not having an emotive presence isn't really the worst thing in the world. Still though, it really shouldn't be the case, because guys like Malenko and Thatcher are presented as tacticians and they still manage to show emotion on their face. I would say that a guy not showing in his face that he wants to be there, is angry, is hurt, etc. is definitely a flaw in his overall wrestling performance. And emoting is just as much a part of that performance as executing a move crisply.

[WingedEagle]

I love a good facial. I think its often one of the more effective ways, either on its own, or often in combination with other mechanisms to sell. But its not at all something I insist upon. I may point to someone's lack of facials as a catch-all for their failure to effectively sell any damage as its occurring. Its a fantastic communication device and can certainly enhance a match but isn't necessary to get it over the hump.

 

Last night I watched a PG-13 match from the '93 yearbook and absolutely loved their facials and basically every heel antic and stooge spot they put on throughout the match. But on the whole the match really didn't do much for me because the action was pretty dry and seemed designed simply to lead to Wolfie & Ice's heel performances rather than the heel performances being part of the action. On the other hand, look at a guy like Misawa who will very often have the same facial expression for much of a match. The man's been part of more classics than most, partly because of how he stood out in contrast to his peers and the character he played, *and* because of when he would drop some other worldly selling or aggression facials.