Roddy Piper

[Matt D]

It's hard to say since Parv undervalues workmanship.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's hard to say since Parv undervalues workmanship.

Eh? What does this mean? What's "workmanship"?

[Matt D]

I should have said "Goodhandmanship" but I can't make that sound like a thing.

[JerryvonKramer]

I still have no idea what you're on about.

[BillThompson]

He's saying that you're a guy who is only mainly interested in top level guys, not in guys who made careers out of being great hands in the ring. Maybe it's not true, but you do seem to be easily dismissive of anyone who isn't a top of the card guy.

[JerryvonKramer]

I've argued for Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton.

 

Depends on how low down the card you want to go. Doug Somers was a good hand, I don't see him being nominated.

 

I thought Edge / Jericho / Christian / Matt Hardy were all main eventers at various times no?

[benjaminkicks]

I like Piper, but rarely has he wowed me in the ring. Most likely won't make my list.

 

I would put Christian and Jericho above him, as I think both will find a place somewhere on my list. Edge above him too, probably, just based on the number of matches of his I enjoy, though I'm not sure if Edge will be making my list.

 

I'm not very familiar with any of Matt Hardy's singles work, so I can't really speak to him. I hadn't even considered him for a project like this, but there's enough defenders of him around here that I might have to watch some of his stuff.

[El McKell]

I thought Edge / Jericho / Christian / Matt Hardy were all main eventers at various times no?

Jericho and Edge definitely were. Matt Hardy has never gone on last at a PPV and Christian did just once in a 7 man clusterfuck ladder match. Matt Hardy and Christian at their respective peaks were upper-midcard guys who were nomially world champions, but with a belt that wasn't the top belt.

[DR Ackermann]

Christian was a main eventer in TNA

[JazeUSA]

He made Bret Hart a star at Wrestlemania 8, classic feud w/ Adonis, decent stuff with Rick Rude, he IMO is one of the top 5 heels of all time, how is he not in everyone's top 100?

[El-P]

Because he wasn't very good in the ring, really. Was part of a few really terrific matches, and a bunch of good ones. And was actively awful also past his prime.

[Cap]

Piper always confused me. He showed flashes in matches, but would never string anything together for very long. I always thought his sort of controled chaos style would have served him well in Japan. He could be stiff, take shots, and his pacing and spacing reminded me more of crazy Brawles from NJPW and All Japan in the early 80s, that real fight chaos. As much as I really want to like his work I always feel like my mind wants to rate him on fantasy booking and a few matches and I ignore the vast majority of his in ring career.

[MJH]

He's a little like Jake to me... I love him... until the bell rings. Piper has a few matches I really like (which Jake doesn't), but not enough for a list like this. Characters? Top 10. Promos? Ditto. Matches/ring work? Not so much.

[W2BTD]

RE: Piper in WCW

 

How much weight do you guys put on the tail end of a career where a guy is clearly miles past his prime? For me, I barely consider it at all. It would be like knocking Willie Mays or Johnny Unitas down a peg because of what they did with the Mets & Chargers. Who cares?

[WingedEagle]

RE: Piper in WCW

 

How much weight do you guys put on the tail end of a career where a guy is clearly miles past his prime? For me, I barely consider it at all. It would be like knocking Willie Mays or Johnny Unitas down a peg because of what they did with the Mets & Chargers. Who cares?

 

I'm in the same camp, its completely meaningless. Doesn't impact my evaluation whatsoever.

[Matt D]

RE: Piper in WCW

 

How much weight do you guys put on the tail end of a career where a guy is clearly miles past his prime? For me, I barely consider it at all. It would be like knocking Willie Mays or Johnny Unitas down a peg because of what they did with the Mets & Chargers. Who cares?

 

I don't think we need to go around this circle again, but no one who cares about the latter part of a wrestler's career thinks about it in sports terms, except for MAYBE in the sense of that great journeyman catcher, Jake Taylor, but even that... y'know, fiction.

[WingedEagle]

Yes, some people do.

[Matt D]

Generally, I think the people who DON'T care are the ones who put it in those terms. That was my argument, so if the person's framing it that way, then he's missing the point and sort of raising a strawman.

[W2BTD]

I'm not judging. I'm asking how people weight it. The "Who cares?" at the end of my post was meant to describe how I look at it.

[Matt D]

And I was disagreeing with the fact that you went to a sports comparison with it when that's not really accurate.

[El-P]

RE: Piper in WCW

 

How much weight do you guys put on the tail end of a career where a guy is clearly miles past his prime? For me, I barely consider it at all.

 

Because some people miles past their prime still deliver good or even better stuff. Piper was godawful, and he was not that old either. So yeah. But really, even isolated peak Piper would have no shot, so in the end, it makes no difference whatsoever to me.

[Danish Dynamite]

I wish his wcw stuff didn't influence me, but it does. I had some years of not watching that much, so only saw that part of his career later. And I'm very conscious of my view of in-ring Piper is negatively affected by those years. Fortunately the last decade has also revealed Portland and other early Roddy stuff, so he's still solidly on my list. In-ring to me is also character, audience interaction, story telling and more, and this poll isn't "Greatest mat wrestler of all time". A good fight, great entertainment and the ability to make me want to watch him against almost anybody has to weigh heavily as well for me.

[funkdoc]

i think the issue with late-career piper was that he was still hugely involved in main-event programs, delivering shitty matches and patch adams references

 

most guys at that stage of their career aren't pushed that hard on national TV

[DR Ackermann]

There have been plenty of wrestlers who made valuable contributions at that age. There have been older main event players and older wrestlers who were still good at his age. Piper was only 42 in 1996.

[W2BTD]

There have been plenty of wrestlers who made valuable contributions at that age. There have been older main event players and older wrestlers who were still good at his age. Piper was only 42 in 1996.

 

Sure. And any & all positive contributions are feathers in the cap of a resume, regardless of age.

 

But to me, when a guy is clearly washed up, whether he's 42, 52, 62 when it happens, I have a hard time counting it against him all that much.

 

I do think funkdoc makes a valid point that in the case of Piper, he was still being pushed hard, so yeah, I can see people counting the WCW run as a negative if they thought it was bad. With that said, I look at late Misawa (or Kobashi, for that matter), where he could barely move, and none of that stuff means a thing to me, and he was pushed hard until the day he died.