Daniel Bryan

[MoS]

As far as Matt's criticism of his selling goes, I think his selling is much better when he is a heel. I think a part of his selling as a face in WWE is due to the very patterned and stylized babyface comebacks of the style. Not excusing Bryan's role in it, but I also think he has risen above the style more than pretty much everyone there. 

[Kadaveri]

I'm not penalising Daniel Bryan for "Hulking Up" babyface selling in WWE when that's how literally every single top babyface has wrestled in that company since long before Bryan even arrived. It's clearly something that they are instructed to do from on high, and Bryan's done as well as anyone at getting the best out of the confines of that style.

Imo it's fair to penalise a match for something like that, but it doesn't mean the wrestler is making a mistake.

[Matt D]

I'm not in a position to revisit footage here yet, but if Bryan has a very clear path to #1, it means more questions should be asked about his work than almost anyone. That was the case with Flair in 2016 and he still won the thing, but he won it having ran quite the gauntlet first. That's Bryan's future here. Celebrate him, yes, but poke at him from every direction. And if he comes out on top, then he'll certainly have deserved it.

[Kadaveri]

Oh yeah I completely endorse asking the questions and poking holes in his case. I think you'll also find that Bryan (and Flair actually) generally has answers too.

[elliott]

Much of the generalized talk surrounding Bryan has been "great for 20 years, best in the world for 20 years" or some form of that. I would like to respectfully request at some point over the next 5 years someone go year by year and tell us what Bryan was up to each year and what are the key matches to watch. Additionally,  run through the other candidates for best in the world each year and what they did and compare it to Bryan.

I know that seems like a big ask, but theres 5 years in the project and as the odds on favorite for this thing, I really dont think its asking too much.  Plus he missed those couple of years to injury. He wasnt the best in the world in 2001. So we're already down to 17 years to look at.

I'd like to get a sense of how much he was actually the best in the world and who his top competition was each year. I keep hearing Bryan's the best for 20 years but I thought people were really high on mid 00s Kobashi, what about Joe's run, what about Eddys run? I'm sure some folks now might point to a Meiko Satomura year here and there? Dont people think the modern NJPW guys are like the greatest ever? AJ was talked up over Bryan for their careers in 2016. 

I know the "best for 20 years" is a cumulative point. But I'd like someone to walk us through each individual year to see if he was the best 15 times or 5 times. It could be an interesting exploration. 

I understand if this comes off as trolling, but I'm genuinely not familiar enough with the modern scene to do a comprehensive year by year breakdown. If I have to do one for the 80s and 90s in return I will

[Makai Club #1]

The thing is Daniel Bryan is that I have very little desire to rewatch his most of that ROH run. If I watch a random ROH event, I'll see one and like the match but in no way am I seeking out a Daniel Bryan going 60 minutes with Roderick Strong, no way. Same with that 75 minute Austin Aries match, and I'm insanely high on Aries (who I might actually prefer when you strickly look at their ROH run). 

Watchability has to be a factor here. How much are you willing to watch of a certain candidate? The value that brings for your time? And sadly I'm just not willing to sit down and watch a ton of long Daniel Bryan matches, except maybe the ones against Nigel McGuinness, Morishima and a few select others. But I will watch someone like Nick Bockwinkel over and over again. It doesn't mean Daniel Bryan isn't a top candidate for this but it puts a ceiling on him for me personally. 

[Kadaveri]

5 hours ago, elliott said:

Much of the generalized talk surrounding Bryan has been "great for 20 years, best in the world for 20 years" or some form of that. I would like to respectfully request at some point over the next 5 years someone go year by year and tell us what Bryan was up to each year and what are the key matches to watch. Additionally,  run through the other candidates for best in the world each year and what they did and compare it to Bryan.

I know that seems like a big ask, but theres 5 years in the project and as the odds on favorite for this thing, I really dont think its asking too much.  Plus he missed those couple of years to injury. He wasnt the best in the world in 2001. So we're already down to 17 years to look at.

I'd like to get a sense of how much he was actually the best in the world and who his top competition was each year. I keep hearing Bryan's the best for 20 years but I thought people were really high on mid 00s Kobashi, what about Joe's run, what about Eddys run? I'm sure some folks now might point to a Meiko Satomura year here and there? Dont people think the modern NJPW guys are like the greatest ever? AJ was talked up over Bryan for their careers in 2016. 

I know the "best for 20 years" is a cumulative point. But I'd like someone to walk us through each individual year to see if he was the best 15 times or 5 times. It could be an interesting exploration. 

I understand if this comes off as trolling, but I'm genuinely not familiar enough with the modern scene to do a comprehensive year by year breakdown. If I have to do one for the 80s and 90s in return I will

I am committed to doing something like this. Don't expect a reply for quite while though.

Him being "best in the world for 20 years", is a totality thing. I'll write up some more concrete conclusions at a (much) later date, but right now I'll confidently say that apart from when he was out in 2016-17, I don't think there's a single year from 2001-21 when Daniel Bryan wasn't a great worker delivering classic matches. In his best years he's #1, in his "worst" years he's probably still Top 20 or something.

Right now, and for the past few months when I started properly thinking about GME, the only candidates I'm seriously considering for #1 are Bryan, Stan Hansen and Kenta Kobashi. If Bryan were to retire today, I'm not sure what order I'd rank them. The thing which really drove me to 'predict' Bryan's gonna be my number one by 2026 was actually his fantastic match at Fastlane with Roman Reigns, adding 2021 to make 19 individual years now where he's had, imo, a 4.5 Star or better match. Kobashi and Hansen's cases are finished. Bryan is still adding to his already incredible portfolio, and I don't have any reason to think he won't keep adding to it going right to 2026 if he doesn't retire.

I'm also not convinced there's a single year where Meiko Satomura had a better year than a non-injured Daniel Bryan, and she'll make my Top 100.

[SmartMark15]

Daniel Bryan is my working #1 and while there's a few people that I'm looking to dig into further, I highly doubt anyone's going to be able to shake him from that spot. The immense versatility and longevity he has in his career is his strongest suit and I felt so strongly about it that I made this video last year detailing my thoughts on Bryan's case for GWE. It might be a helpful starting point for those looking to join in on the discussion that either have questions/doubts or aren't familiar enough with his work of yet.

 

[Jmare007]

@elliott I'm sure other folk will do the heavy work of doing the year by year cases but instead of giving you a list right now of why he was a BITW candidate I'll give you a list of years were I think he wasn't, just so you can get more grounded expectations.

2014: 4 months of work before out with injury, enough good and great stuff to at least say "if his neck didn't give out, he could've have a case".

2015: Basically 3 months of work before he had to retire due to concussions. He still had good matches with the likes of Luke Harper and even Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler but his year never really get going to even try to hypothesize like with 2014.

2016: retired

2017: retired:

Also, 2001 he might not be "best in the world" but for sure it's a year that makes his case stronger as he's a damn rookie and is putting out classics already. So that year shouldn't be dismissed or skipped if anyone wants to do a deep dive on his work.

I'm actually kinda interested in a case for 2003. There's the London match and he still puts other good matches in ROH but he barely works there (5 matches) so if he has an argument, it would be because of his New Japan (were it's basically a bunch of tag matches) and England runs. How much of that do we have available on tape?

 

 

While we are in a year by year breakdown, 2009 and 2010 are also interesting years to me. I felt he had become kind of stale in 09' as a singles performer in ROH, but signing with WWE meant he had that farewell tour in ROH that turned it around for him. His case is mainly done in other promotions though, like his appearances in Chikara, PWG, AAW and wxW.

2010 is a prime example of his versatility, imo. Not only is he able to  stand out in WWE despite being presented as a loser and a geek/nerd on TV but him getting "kinda fired" (that's such a curious time) leads to a short and awesome indy run with him working a fuck ton of places and doing EVOLVE, AMBITION and DGUSA were he does shit he wasn't doing in WWE to great results.

 

[Childs]

2 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

@elliott

I'm actually kinda interested in a case for 2003. There's the London match and he still puts other good matches in ROH but he barely works there (5 matches) so if he has an argument, it would be because of his New Japan (were it's basically a bunch of tag matches) and England runs. How much of that do we have available on tape?

A lot of his New Japan stuff is on tape. Might have to take a look at that sometime during this project, just to see how he fit in a very different role. I feel like I've also seen a few of those British matches against Doug Williams and Robbie Brookside, though I don't remember where. I'm comfortable saying he was a great wrestler in 2003 based on his ROH matches against London and Styles, but I don't think it will go down as one of his banner years. 

[Quentin]

I would actually give Bryan’s 2015 for how long we have him more credit. Obviously no chance of him being the WOTY, but the time we have of him, he’s pretty great and he came back not missing a beat. It wound up being a pretty strong WWE year in general, but there’s no reason to think that if he isn’t forced to retire, he’s not right there in the mix for the top of the heap based off the trajectory he had. Even the matches being saddled with 2015 Big Show and Kane are as good as you could realistically hope for and he has some incredible performances like the Smackdown tag gauntlet and the FastLane match with an unproven Roman Reigns.

[Boss Rock]

As lame as the Kane feud was, their Extreme Rules match was way better than it had any right to be. 

[Jmare007]

2 hours ago, Quentin said:

I would actually give Bryan’s 2015 for how long we have him more credit. Obviously no chance of him being the WOTY, but the time we have of him, he’s pretty great and he came back not missing a beat. It wound up being a pretty strong WWE year in general, but there’s no reason to think that if he isn’t forced to retire, he’s not right there in the mix for the top of the heap based off the trajectory he had. Even the matches being saddled with 2015 Big Show and Kane are as good as you could realistically hope for and he has some incredible performances like the Smackdown tag gauntlet and the FastLane match with an unproven Roman Reigns.

You are right, for some reason I was placing in my mind that the tag gauntlet and Fastlane matches in 2014 and not 2015. Those two matches are easily his best performances that year.

[AstroBoy]

When I think of Bryan, in some way what sticks out to me most is the Brock match.  After getting thrown around and getting the crowd to totally buy in that he might be dead, the monster reaction he got from that first upkick to Brock to start showing a flash of hope.  His ability to get THAT kind of reaction out of so little should totally serve as an example of just how special he is at molding the best moments out of the situations he was presented with.  I haven't watched the ROH stuff in a long time but Bryan is a possible number one for me.

[MoS]

Did Bryan ever work extensively in Mexico?

[elliott]

Oops I didn't hit send when I tried to reply  to Kadaveri earlier. Thanks to Jmare for breaking down years where he's not a real candidate! That helps! 

Quote

I am committed to doing something like this. Don't expect a reply for quite while though.

You sir, are a scholar & a gentlemen. Absolutely no rush whatsoever. We have plenty of time. 

 

Quote

 

Him being "best in the world for 20 years", is a totality thing. I'll write up some more concrete conclusions at a (much) later date, but right now I'll confidently say that apart from when he was out in 2016-17, I don't think there's a single year from 2001-21 when Daniel Bryan wasn't a great worker delivering classic matches. In his best years he's #1, in his "worst" years he's probably still Top 20 or something.

 

This is more of what I would expect than him being the runaway #1 every year. And a career like this is certainly admirable, praiseworthy and would definitely put you in the discussion for the GOAT. I guess the next step would be to look at 20 year stretches from other wrestlers and compare it to Bryan. How does Bryan from 2001-present compare to Jumbo from 1972 to 1992. That sort of thing. 

 

Quote

I'm also not convinced there's a single year where Meiko Satomura had a better year than a non-injured Daniel Bryan, and she'll make my Top 100.

 

Surely she was better from 1999-2001 at worst, no? That's another thing I'm interested in. When did Bryan really become the favorite for best in the world. Not a candidate. The favorite. I know everyone loves his 2001 and he's an amazing wrestler in his 3rd year. Incredible. I was watching that stuff in as close to real time as possible and loved it back then. But people are gonna say he's definitively better than Tenryu, Satomura, Satanico, Yuki Ishikawa, Steve Austin, Hijo del Santo, Negro Casas in 2001? In January 2005 would people have predicted Bryan was going to be the best wrestler in the world for 2005, or would they have predicted Samoa Joe? 

The best comparison I can make is from basketball. Is Bryan a Tim Duncan (perennial All Star & MVP Candidate, always in the mix for best player alive but always has real competition for the throne) or is Bryan a Michael Jordan  (Just straight up better than everyone else with no real contenders)? Which years was he in that Jordan mode of just hilariously better than everyone else? What are his Tim Duncan years where he's maybe still the best guy on the planet but its not  definitive and there are real arguments for someone else? Sometimes as someone approaching his case from the outside it reads like he's head and shoulders above everyone from his generation for the entire 20 years but then I'll see people talk about Samoa Joe's 04-05 or Cena's 07 or Akiyama's cumulative run, or the modern NJPW or Sasha?

Again just want to be clear, I'm not trying to be contrarian, I'm just trying to take Bryan seriously as a #1 candidate and approaching his candidacy as someone who didn't watch the bulk of his career in real time. 

[Boss Rock]

I think probably 2005 or 2006 is when Bryan was first getting serious #1 in the world consideration. FWIW, he won Most Outstanding in the Observer Newsletter Awards 2006-2010.

[Kadaveri]

6 minutes ago, elliott said:

Surely she was better from 1999-2001 at worst, no?

Yeah sorry I had a complete brain fade there because I kept thinking in "2001-21" terms. Meiko is absolutely better in 1999 and 2000.

2001 I have Bryan above her. I may change my mind on this if I deep dive GAEA more, but at the moment Meiko's BITW case for 2001 is almost entirely down to two great matches with Akira Hokuto and Aja Kong. Now they're not carry jobs, but she was still very clearly the less important worker in those matches. In fact I think she kind of annoys me in the Aja match with her constant spamming of the Death Valley Bomb for nearfalls, which is totally her habit and not Aja's.

Bryan's 2001 is when he first got buzz (I'm too young to have witnessed that in real time but the narrative checks out) but his matches with Low Ki, which are both very innovative and hold up incredibly well to this day (a lot of indie stuff from that era totally doesn't). He's working a shoot-style influenced more mat-based style, but gets it to fit within the classic narrative structure of the American wrestling those audiences are used to do (if that makes sense) to produce something that appears really unique and new to them, but isn't too foreign that it doesn't get over well because the fans don't really know what's happening. On the individual performance level, I think that's a higher level of achievement than Meiko wrestling great matches with far more experienced all time great workers that are well within their typical style. Plus it's not just the Low Ki matches. I'd also point to his performance at the King Of The Indies tournament (he was the standout) where he has really good (I can't remember quite how good these matches were now so I'm being cautious) matches with Brian Kendrick and Doug Williams in the same day but they are two very different matches. He's great already in a more limited way, but one of the best things about following Bryan's career is never seems to really get worse at anything. He's always expanding his horizons, learning from mistakes, incorporating new styles into what he can do. I'm looking forward to do this year by year, but this'll do for the Meiko comparison. Of course the real BITW in 2001 was Steve Austin by miles anyway.

[elliott]

Honestly having lived through it at the time, I'd have put Low-Ki ahead of Bryan in 2001. Bryan may have been less likely to do dumb stuff, but he also wasn't the presence yet that Low Ki was. Remembering back to 2001 as a teenager my thought with Bryan was along the lines of "Holy shit, this nerd is awesome." WIth Low Ki it was like "Oh my god this could change everything." Bryan had a higher floor and Ki had a higher ceiling, but they were always best together. That's sort my 20 year old memories on 2000-02 indies. I've revisisted some Low-Ki stuff from that era and it holds up better than I expect so I'm looking forward to revisiting that era of Bryan as well. The 01-02 Bryan stuff I've revisited in recent years is just the famous Low Ki matches and those hold up incredibly well in my view. 

How do the Spanky matches hold up? Low Ki vs Homicide for example are awesome matches in the early 00s. I guess Spanky would be Bryan's equivalent rival? 

[Quentin]

I would say 2006-2007 is when Bryan becomes that type of guy you’re referring to Elliott, and is very safely that in 2008. 1999-2004 you could say a variety of people were realistically having better years like all those folks you named for 2001, even among contemporaries there’s never a point where he’s CLEARLY above let’s say Joe or Ki until later on. That being said, from 2001 I’d still definitely take him in a top 50 guy in the world, MAYBE top 60 and in 2002 he improved that position by quite a bit.

A lot of 2003-2004 for Bryan is spent being an undercard guy in New Japan while Joe is getting in to his legendary run. 2003 is harder to justify for him unless you’re really high on the New Japan but he has a MOTYC with Paul London that’s as good as most of the best stuff from the year. 2004 I would say is his best year to that point for him, 5 years in. 2005 is a great year for him and maybe when the tide starts to turn and the “Bryan is the BITW” contingent starts to come alive, but you still have Joe, AJ, KENTA and others being in the mix. I feel pretty safe calling him top 5 in the world at that point though. After that, I personally feel 2006-2009 is pretty clear for him but someone like Chris Hero is coming in to his own, John Cena’s legendary 2007, Hiroshi Tanahashi’s run during this stretch, KENTA’s strong 2009 could have a claim argued. But really once Joe is full drowning in TNA and that next wave of guys is still figuring things out, Bryan was pretty clearly thought of as the best in the world.

2010-2011 is weird with the firing/rehiring but the indie work when he’s gone from WWE is mostly fantastic and he looks like he’s among the elite workers in the world still. 2011 is weird because he’s stuck on SmackDown doing the most he can being given scraps for most of the year but you watch him and still see a guy that you could still rank as a top 40-50 guy that year, but the likes of Claudio and Hero are at the top during those years. 2012-2013 he’s fantastic but you could argue for quite a few people like Negro Casas, Tanahashi, Okada, CM Punk, LA Park, El Generico, WALTER but again he’s not dropping out of the top 10 during that time period.

2014-2015 is extremely limited with the injuries but the work we do have is great and gets all time miracles out of people with the time he did have. Not enough to be in strong consideration for any year but I fully believe that in good health, Bryan continues to be a top 20 guy in the world at minimum even with AJ Styles, Chris Hero, Roderick Strong, Timothy Thatcher, Zack Sabre Jr, Biff Busick, etc coming in to prominence.

From 2018 to now, even with the limited work he has done performing on sort of a part time schedule, he reinvents himself again and has a heel run that not only has maybe the best matches between him and AJ Styles or a stellar Brock Lesnar match that I think warrant him as a top 20-30 guy at least, the culmination of that reign is making a career mid carder in Kofi Kingston the hottest thing going in to WrestleMania 35 in 2019 and having one of the best babyface title wins in wrestling history. The rest of his 2019 leaves something to be desired but he makes another non sense tag team work with Erick Rowan, he has a great match with Adam Cole on the SmackDown when the talent was stuck in Saudi Arabia and he’s still delivering when given chances on TV. 2020 he has the excellent match with Drew Gulak and all time miracle performance against The Fiend. Through the transition to no crowds, one of the few people in the WORLD who wasn’t severely effected by this change when it came to his wrestling. The best wrestler in the world that year is either Shingo or one of the AEW guys like Darby, Moxley or Omega, but I don’t think Bryan drops in any major way. Again not the best wrestler in the world hands down but comfortably would make a top 50. And now in 2021, he’s been off to a fantastic start with all his TV stuff being awesome and the Reigns match being fantastic. Who knows what the future will hold after Mania, but right now I’d say he’s in contention for WOTY. 

So yeah I think the Duncan analogy is apt. The biggest Bryan fans will even tell you it’s not like 1984-1985 Michael Jordan coming and sweeping everyone off their feet. It’s a guy who was really good immediately and kept improving and improving at a rapid pace and then you look up and say “oh yeah, MVP for him isn’t crazy”.

[elliott]

@Quentin that is a fantastic write up and the exact sort of thing I was looking for. Thank you! 

[Jmare007]

@elliott@Quentin I get what you guys are saying but I don't think any wrestler on the planet has a "Jordan" case, at least I can say that confidently from 1988 to 2021 (I don't want to say before that because I'm mostly limited to territories and Japan before 88').

No matter what n°1 GWE contender you pick you will always end up in a "Duncan" case discussion because there's always a run from another wrestler from another promotion/country that can be put head to head against that n°1 contender. Specially in a setting like this one when we share and debate with so many different people whose tastes vary greatly.

Like, to me, Bryan absolutely runs with BITW from 2006 to 2010 and I could make a case from 2012 to 2014, and from 2018 till now. But I can't say that shit with complete confidence because of course there's other wrestlers that you can make cases for each of those years too, the fact that Bryan still wins in my view doesn't make it a Jordan case. And neither should make it for any other wrestler too, imo. 

 

As for the question of when does Bryan becomes a wrestler always mentioned in BITW discussions by a big group of people, it's from 2006 till this day, I think.

[Quentin]

I agree, I was just going with the structure with which Elliott framed his question, because for someone who's maybe not as high on Bryan as we are or may have some gaps in viewing, the "20 years of being great" could be something you want some clarification on. I can admit as a adamant Bryan number 1 guy that some of that can be a little intense so that analogy might be a more digestible way to view it.

As Mania was going on, I went looking for Bryan stuff from the early 00s and realized that ECCW comp of him on YouTube. May do reviews for the matches here but no one hold me to that.

 

[Microstatistics]

Easy contender for best US wrestler and probably the pick for wrestler of the century. A true student of the game, to use that cliche. I feel his biggest flaw was his insufficient ability to put things together cogently in his matches. If he had converted several of his 30+ minute "epics" from mid-2000s ROH into 15 minute compact and coherent pieces of work, not only would he have finished #1 for me, he might have ran away with that spot. There is a lot of neat stuff in those matches but it's all bits and pieces here and there and holistically means very little. Nevertheless, he still has a tremendous amount of in ring successes and should be a strong Top 10 contender.

[Cap]

As Bryan is my working #1. Quentin's write-up is a good one and  I like the Duncan/Jordan analogy.

 

I don't think his case is really going to be built on "being the best for 20 years" so much as it will be built on all the more nuanced things that make that the catch-all way folks talk about him.  As some of pointed out, its a totality thing. He probably wouldn't be my #1 every year for the last 20, but in years he wrestled he also probably wouldn't be lower than 10 in any given year.  He is a high floor wrestler who has a lot of folks best matches (or at least one of their top hand full of matches. He scores highly in elevating others (he had bangers with Wyatt twice as both hillbilly messiah AND the Fiend for christ sake). His success in the WWE is really - to me - the biggest line on his resume for something like this.  Not only does he have good to elite matches with - off the top of my head - Cena, Reigns, Punk, Sheamus, Wyatt, HHH, Orton, Styles, Brock, and Kingston, but he also has TWO great mania main event triple threats (high degree of difficulty) and was in a successful tag team with Kane that actually was fun to watch. This is all while not really being the kind of guy one associates with success in the WWE. This latter point was truer in the early part of his career, but even as more of his peers got there, Bryan is relatively small and does not have the same overt charisma. He is exceptionally likable, has become a great promo, and maybe his unique brand of charisma helped him ultimately, but he was far from crowned in advance. His work in ring is what got him over in a company that conventional wisdom up to his arrival said he wouldn't get over and has kept him as the center of attention. Bryan is also the guy they put in when they need to elevate something, get some momentum, or ensure a quality match. I think you can see that in the patterns of how they use him and when they add him to things.

I think you have to add this to him being good from the start.  I personally think very highly of his ROH run and other indie runs and I think it all holds up better than I assumed it would. However, his greatest sin in my eyes is probably doing too much or having excessively long matches at points in his career, but I see those as 1) still quite enjoyable and 2) part of a much broader trend in indie wrestling at the time where all the top wrestlers were experimenting with style and genre a lot and trying out new things to set them and the entire indie scene apart.  I suppose that is always the case with indie wrestling, but the 2000 indie scene still has a different feel to it in terms of the way folks were explicitly pulling from different places and times in wrestling history. In turn, I see it more as a symptom of the time than a knock on Bryan. most of those don't do a ton to BUILD his case, but they also just don't drag it down much because I still find a lot to enjoy. I have used this analogy before. The first few years and maybe even like the first 6 or so years of Bryan's career feel like his first album. They are rough around the edges, far from polished, but you can see him, his personality, and his vision in them. I often look at wrestling this way to be honest. Even in what I consider to be a "great match". It might have "flaws", but I relate to it or I see something in it that is exciting and compelling. At the risk of getting too cliche, it has soul.  That is why I think Bryan v Ki is such a great rivalry in 2001-2 that produces - for me - legit some of the best matches ever. I'm not sure I could make a compelling case on a second by second basis as to why those hold up with more commonly accepted great matches, but there is an intangible in them that I think comes from them being in the "first album" stage of their career. Those matches also just happen to have a little more balance to them so they stand out even among his other early classics.  

The question itself sort of stacks the deck against an answer. I know (or think) Elliott isn't intending to say he has to be THE best for all 20 years, but proving the shorthand praise (which is what "he has been the best for 20 years" is) will never be really possible. Yeah, some folks are going to think Kobashi or Joe beat him in some years, some with think Eddie topped him for a year or two, and some will have the NJPW crew ahead of him in the more recent past, but I'm not sure those are going to be the same groups of people. Jmare007's point about taste is omnipresent here as well. Again, this doesn't mean I wont try to make the argument in more detail down the road, but to be perfectly redundant at this point haha, my gut tells me it will wind up sounding a little more like "when was he not rightfully in the conversation and look at the variety of ways he found himself in that conversation?"

That is a little stream-of-conciousness-y. I intended on writing a short paragraph and... well... but it is all to say that I think his case will be built on a more micro level that, once built and you take a step back from, produces a really quality case for #1.