Bam Bam Bigelow

[Shining Wiz]

 

he's definitely not talking about you.

 

You might be right, but the idea that you can't possibly think Bigelow is great unless you haven't seen wall to wall Tenta or Blackwell just strikes me as closed minded. I don't think thinking Bigelow being better than somebody like Blackwell is some wacky offbeat opinion. One thing some of you guys have to keep in mind, is that some of these guys being mentioned here, particularly Tenta & Henry, are much higher regarded around these parts than in most other circles. And that's not because people haven't watched those guys wrestle. People just like different shit.

 

 

I'm noticing this (though with a touch less stank on the comments than Ditch put on it) a fair bit in these threads. I think I mentioned it in the KENTA thread, regarding how there appears to be a certain level of group think or mob mentality regarding the opinions of certain wrestlers. I've noticed in several other threads as well. My fandom has existed entirely outside of the bubble of places like PWO, and I think my opinions of who and what I like are going to be pretty different than many floating around here. Not that either is good or bad, just different. What is bad is the dismissal and degredation of people's opinions when they're not in line with the group consensus.

 

I will now step off my soapbox. and go back to being casually hardcore.

[Loss]

It wasn't meant as a huge dig to anyone. It was meant more to describe types who go to wrestling sites for news who don't watch or think about old wrestling unless they grew up on it. There's nothing wrong at all with being that type of fan. We're not "better" than anyone because we've watched more wrestling than many fans. We've just watched more wrestling.

[Loss]

I should also add that when I see statements like "PWO is all about scrutiny", it bothers me. I don't take it as a compliment and I wonder if I've created a monster. PWO is supposed to be a wrestling message board, not a collection of self-described wrestling academics who have come up with The True And Right Way To Watch Wrestling. And hey, I love those types and they are welcome at the board, but that doesn't mean that anyone who looks at wrestling in a much more relaxed way doesn't have a place here. Posters can be here for whatever reasons they want, and I do appreciate the additional scrutiny that comes with topics sometimes. I participate in it too. But I don't like the idea of saying that's what this board is about.

[BigBadMick]

I should also add that when I see statements like "PWO is all about scrutiny", it bothers me. I don't take it as a compliment and I wonder if I've created a monster. PWO is supposed to be a wrestling message board, not a collection of self-described wrestling academics who have come up with The True And Right Way To Watch Wrestling. And hey, I love those types and they are welcome at the board, but that doesn't mean that anyone who looks at wrestling in a much more relaxed way doesn't have a place here. Posters can be here for whatever reasons they want, and I do appreciate the additional scrutiny that comes with topics sometimes. I participate in it too. But I don't like the idea of saying that's what this board is about.

Have to admit, I took a deep breath before championing Kurt Angle.....

[Dylan Waco]

I think it's bizarre to make appeals to the broader popularity of a wrestler and then complain about groupthink.

[Shining Wiz]

I think it's bizarre to make appeals to the broader popularity of a wrestler and then complain about groupthink.

 

Food for thought.

[Loss]

Hey, I actually agree with the point being made about Bigelow not looking so good after finding a broader basis for comparisons. 100% agree, in fact. I just don't like it being tied to a referendum on the board itself.

[Matt D]

Sorry, Charles, but you created a monster. It's the best damn monster on the internet though. There are a hundred places to talk about wrestling. What makes this place special is the extremely high level of discourse, relatively. A lot of that is the scrutiny and people backing up what they say. PWO offers the community way more because of it.

 

You split the wrestling atom and the genie probably isn't going back into the bottle. Sorry. That said, we all like different things and most of us can find interesting ways to interact with each other despite that.

[Shining Wiz]

For the record, I have no problem with the level of thought that goes into wrestling around here. I've enjoyed it....main reason I've been as active since joining when I had expected to not be. And the group think I referred to isn't necessarily wrong or even all that bad, just something I've noticed in terms of the ups and downs in opinions. I just didn't like the dismissive tone. Then again, may have just read that in on my own.

 

Either way, moral of the story - good board, good peoples, good thoughts, good reads.

[Dylan Waco]

I think there can be a dismissive tone, but I also think people can be really sensitive/reactionary when confronted with an opinion that challenges an assumption. I know I am like this to a degree, and used to be even more so.

[Shining Wiz]

I think there can be a dismissive tone, but I also think people can be really sensitive/reactionary when confronted with an opinion that challenges an assumption. I know I am like this to a degree, and used to be even more so.

 

How DARE you call me sensitive!

 

I am offended, sir!

[Matt D]

We also took a long time and pages and pages of conversations over years to get to our opinions.

[JerryvonKramer]

Well, shit, I didn't realise that my comment would cause all this.

 

I just think that "Bigelow is the number 2 best big man ever" is one of those received opinions that seldom gets challenged. Ditch might have come off as being snarky or whatever with his "haven't heard of Jerry Blackwell" comment, but let's face it, we know what he's talking about.

 

It's not elitism, it's just the brutal fact of it. jdw said it correctly, the vast majority of fans out there don't venture beyond WWF/E and don't care to. You run this poll in some places and Shawn Michaels is your number 1 and you don't have Misawa, Kawada and co listed at all. Why? Because the guys don't know anything about Japanese wrestling.

 

I have no problem saying that at all, because it's just true. I don't know where this defensiveness is coming from.

[Lee Casebolt]

Bigelow isn't top 100 by any measure other than size. Will even 10 relevantly good Bigelow matches get mentioned? And are those 10 going to be SO GOOD as to get him in over someone with, say, 50 good matches? Or 10 actively great matches? The case is "he was pretty athletic for a 400 pounder and sometimes he tried, unlike [generic lazy fatass, e.g. Mike Shaw]." That isn't very compelling.

 

John Tenta has a superior body of work if you include his All Japan and UWFi appearances. Bigelow struggles to make a superheavyweight top 10. Vader, Henry, Blackwell, Tenta, Andre, Bossman, Hansen (at his fattest). Big Show?

 

 

Show is ten times the wrestler Bigelow is. More if you include his character work.

[NintendoLogic]

It's one thing to make an evidence-based argument that goes against conventional wisdom. It's another thing entirely to act as if one's views are objectively correct and the only possible reasons for disagreement are ignorance or bad faith. This board is great for the former, but it can also lapse into the latter, like with the "WON HOF voters were blinded by Angle's medals" argument.

[Dylan Waco]

The HOF voters were blinded by Angle's medals argument predates the existence of this board

[NintendoLogic]

Regardless of its provenance, it's an argument that appears all the time on this board.

[Ditch]

Most wrestling fans in 2014 have no idea about Bigelow. There was probably a substantial portion of Monday Night War-era fans who weren't especially familiar with him. Bigelow's supporters are going to tend to be people who are at least *somewhat* hardcore; they understand what workrate is and know Bigelow has brought the goods at times. Yet I don't think he's going to get much consideration from those of us who have gradually been absorbing more and more wrestling content, spanning decades and continents. In the early 2000s it was sooooo much harder to see everything compared to now. VHS tapes were more expensive than DVDs; online footage was scarce and cruddy.

 

It was a lot easier to make the case for Bigelow as top 100 all-time in the mid-2000s. It isn't now. When I say "PWO is all about scrutiny", I damn sure am not referring to groupthink. The SC poll had virtually everyone voting Jumbo #1 and Kawada #2; no way will we see that kind of uniformity here. Depending on how many people would participate, I bet easily 100 wrestlers would get into someone's top 10 today.

 

'Scrutiny' is about challenging statements and opinions that might not hold up, trying to be as objective as possible in a very subjective area. Drawing from the '80s footage, the yearbooks, random online videos, and the stuff that "everyone" has seen.

 

As much as anything it isn't saying that Bigelow sucked and his matches were crap. It's saying that now we have a good sense of other wrestlers who were better, but their work wasn't as widely shared/seen. For example, Bigelow placed ahead of Yatsu, Tajiri, Blackwell, and Ikeda who are all mortal locks to finish well ahead of Bigelow this time around. Tajiri just flat out should have been higher in 2006 and I'm not sure why he didn't do better, but for the other three exposure is the #1 factor. But hell, I can see Bigelow over Ikeda for some; Ikeda was middling in NOAH and Battlarts style isn't for everyone. Lucha isn't my cup of tea; those guys get screwed when someone like me is weighing in. Ideally, individual quirks like that balance out.

 

I think it's easy to find 100 wrestlers better than Bigelow, based on reasonably objective standards. It takes more to make a top 100 case than it used to, rather than Bigelow's merits being lower in absolute terms.

 

Sorry if I came across like a jerk or something.

[Loss]

You didn't come across as a jerk. It's more that it concerns me if we're alienating people from PWO just because of the wrestlers they happen to like.

[Matt D]

Regardless of its provenance, it's an argument that appears all the time on this board.

 

And it speaks to almost everything we know from any interaction we've ever had/read/etc. with old wrestlers? No one's saying that there aren't other factors to it, just that it's really believable that one chunk of the voting base would vote for him to make themselves feel more credible. It's an argument that comes from somewhere and isn't just raised to be pissy.

 

As for the broader argument, I had no concern at all about the way this poll was going to shake out even before we thought about inviting other people, because there is such difference in what people think here already. Even something like "Kurt Angle sucks" is disagreed by a guy like Bill who falls in line with someone like me on a lot of other things. Honestly, if we open it up more, it all means a lot less to me. I'm not saying the people here are more "qualified" but instead that it at least means something. Even the ones who disagree with others here are part of an ongoing narrative and argument that's lasted for years. You bring in random people who have opinions on wrestling but that haven't gone through this churn and the poll is no longer defined anymore. It becomes about as credible as a CNN poll. I know the voter base here, and even the guys who I disagree with wildly like W2BTD care enough about this to put the thought in. I don't see how opening it up makes it better. Broader, maybe, but it dilutes the meaning because we suddenly no longer know or understand the voter base. The numbers don't mean as much. It becomes "here's what the 150 people at PWO and a bunch of random people on the internet think." It'd be one thing if we were drawing in people to increase our expertise, but instead, we're taking the two years to try to deepen and broaden our own expertise.

[Alan4L]

Bam Bam & Vader vs The Steiners and Bam Bam vs. RVD are two of my fave Bam Bam matches that I don't think were mentioned here.

 

I haven't watched a ton of ECW house shows for instance but between his WWE run, the Windham match, a good amount of his Japanese and ECW matches, I think I have a good enough feel for him. He's not overflowing with ****3/4 matches like a Bryan Danielson, but he was a really unique, fun wrestler who I'd always enjoy watching. My list is most likely going to feature alot of those guys peppered in amongst the "hundreds of GREAT matches" guys just because I don't want to make it solely a quantity focused exercise. Whether Bammer will be one of thse guys I'd find a spot for I'm not sure. He'd be competing with the Tajiri's of the world for me.

[BillThompson]

Definite no for me. I enjoy Bam Bam, but the greatness just isn't there for him. He spent too much of his career coasting by, and there are plenty of better big man workers who deserve consideration before him.

[bradhindsight]

Grimmas - maybe this is best for a separate microscope thread but I'd love to unpack the Mark Henry vs. Bam Bam talking point. I'd like to read your thoughts on Henry having a better career and being a better performer than Bam Bam. Is this putting a heavy emphasis on Henry from 2010-2014 (which I enjoy as well) or am I missing stuff from '96-'09 that are underrated?

[elliott]

Probably #1 on the didn't live up to their potential list. Bam Bam was right there with Randy Savage, Sting & Bret Hart as one of my first favorite wrestlers as a kid. Big fat dude with tattoos on his head that could do cartwheels? Thats fucking awesome. He's in a few of matches I absolutely love and you could make a killer 3 hour Bigelow play list. But it starts to get thin pretty quickly after that. Love Bammer, but I just don't see him anywhere near a top 100.

[Marksman]

5 hours ago, elliott said:

Probably #1 on the didn't live up to their potential list.

This is my feeling, too. I think 90s me doing a top 100 would have him super-high, because I loved him at that point. But with so many other great wrestlers I've seen since then, I don't think he holds up.