Grimmas Posted October 15, 2014 Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 In the final results, is everyone who garnered a vote going to be listed as in the 440-some odd wrestlers in the smarks poll or are we just publishing the Top 100? I was thinking a top 100, with the rest listed with votes at the end. Kind of like, this top 100 is important and here is the rest and this is somewhat interesting as well. Will Chris/Mookie be helping out with this? We've talked. If everyone agrees to it, I would also like a lovely PDF document containing every single voter's personal top 100s. We'll see about that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravJ1979 Posted October 15, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 I have no problem posting my Top 100 when the time comes. Maybe we can devote a thread to individual lists and Parv can PDF to his heart's desire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted October 26, 2014 Report Share Posted October 26, 2014 I think we should be careful before completely dismissing other people's choices just because they are way higher than our own. I know for a fact I am the only person who rated King Kong Bundy vs. Jerry Lawler #1 on the Memphis set. Probably the only person who even put it in their top 10. It wasn't a strategic vote. It was genuinely the match I got the most enjoyment out of on the set, even if it wasn't the "best" match and so I ranked it as #1. There is not going to be some objective board wide consensus on who is #1, or which 10 guys truly belong in the top 10, etc etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 2, 2014 Report Share Posted November 2, 2014 For consensus picks? Well it's very unlikely I'll rate Shawn. I'm not viscerally opposed to his inclusion at all,but I do think he gets the benefit of every doubt from a wide subsection of hardcore fandom, so he doesn't need that coming from me as well. When I see people talking about him as a number one pick, or a top ten guy, and then I look at his output I just think "no fucking way," so I'm not going to make room for him in a bottom twenty or so that is likely to be filled with guys I consider every bit as good (or better) than him, but who may have gotten fewer chances. Not calling you out Dylan, but this seemed a bit gamey to me. However, I do sort of know what you mean. Shawn doesn't *need* your vote. Or mine. Whereas there are going to be some guys, especially ones from more slept on periods or promotions or from more niche styles who are going to get every vote they can get. Viewed from a certain perspective, you are countering an "unfair" advantage that a guy like Shawn has with a semi-strategic vote. I say "semi-strategic" because I also have no doubt that you don't see him as a lock top 100 guy anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted November 2, 2014 Report Share Posted November 2, 2014 To that extent it's impossible to remove all semblances of "strategic voting." Ranking your top 100 is going to have hair splitting and personal biases coloring the list. Slipping a personal favorite who has a case into the list in the 90s is a world away from putting only joshi workers in your top 10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted November 2, 2014 Report Share Posted November 2, 2014 I have actually deliberately stayed out of this thread up until this point because I have a position on this that won't be popular, but here it is - anyone who says they won't be strategic voting to at least some degree is either A. a liar, B. kidding themselves, or C. has a very narrow definition of what strategic voting is. Don't get me wrong. For most voters I don't I think there is a ton of calculation along the lines of "X will be getting four first place votes, but I don't really think he's a top ten guy so I'm going to drop him from number 24 on my ballot to number 62 to offset those others." That sort of thing probably does happen here or there, but I think it's reasonably rare, and I think weighted voting can incentivize more honest voting at least in the upper quarter. Having said that I think that especially after you get out of what I call the upper tier, there is a lot of stuff that I would call strategic voting. For example voting for Ernie Ladd because he might have been great and he was ahead of his time as a heel is a strategic vote in my view, even if you throw him a bone at one hundred. What you are saying is "this guy should be recognized in some way, so even though I can't quite justify it the way I would ideally like to, I want to see his name on the sheet at the end of the day." To me that is strategic in a sense. On Shawn and being a top 100 guy of all time...to me it really comes down to the post-prime and how you view it. Some people don't even consider it a post-prime. They consider it a second prime and think it makes Shawn an upper tier guy. If I'm being honest it hurts him in my eyes. So much of it I regarded as either tired, silly or mediocre at the time, and I have no desire to rewatch any of it. I do think he was a great young tag worker, and very good/occasionally great from 94-97. That's enough to put him on my bubble, but if I"m having to choose between him and another bubble guy the post-prime hurts him, especially because I know that others put so much stock in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benbeeach Posted November 18, 2014 Report Share Posted November 18, 2014 No one can see everything, everyone takes breaks at the time they take breaks for the reasons they take breaks. But it does give me cause to pause when people say things like "I'm going to to have to dive into this Misawa guy and the four corners" or "i'm probably not a lucha guy" I know 99% of the board knows what the hell they're talking about/looking at whether they've seen certain stuff or not, and certainly wouldn't want to out and out question the integrity of anyone's list (in two years), but it would be weird to me making a greatest basketball players list where Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were question marks, but those Adrian Dantley and Rick Fox threads had 70 plus replies.A guy like Jumbo, or Santito isn't going to need help with strategic voting, but I, for example can name 15 luchadors off the top of my head better than someone like Tully Blanchard, quite easily, and I love Tully. I can see situations like that where people can consciously, unconsciously, subconsciously try and shape their list to better reflect what they think the aggregate list could would and should look like in there eyes as a whole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 It completely depends on how you define strategic. You can go as broad as I don't like lucha, so I won't watch any, therefore I won't vote for any. That is a strategic vote in a sense, and things like that will happen with most people from World of Sport, Shoot Style, Memphis to lucha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I can categorically rule out voting for any shoot style workers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 It's tricky, because we have our priorities and we have our proclivities but those don't come from a vacuum. We value the things we value and we're probably going to spend more time focusing on wrestlers that appeal to those values. I don't know if that's strategic so much as it represents what we think makes for greatness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 If it means anything, I'm not voting for shoot style workers for any strategic reason, but because I'm philosophically opposed to the style and don't consider it to be what pro wrestling is about. Nothing to do with the old "Parv hates matwork" idea either, I'll be voting for 70s US and World of Sport guys, and even for some Lucha guys. I'll likely vote for a few Joshi workers once I've worked through Loss's picks. Hell there's a good chance I'll vote for John Cena who represents an era I'm known to despise -- but shoot style can go do one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 Well shit, now I have to strategically put Ikeda and Ishikawa higher than I would have to make up for Parv's bad choice in excluding them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I haven't seen a ton of Volk Han yet, but in what I HAVE seen, I wouldn't say that Parv's statement was accurate. It felt like pro wrestling to me. They built a story. Instead of letting an opponent bodyslam you, a limb was left opened so a hold could be switched instead. It's not a 1 to 1 but it was a lot closer than I was expecting actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I've absolutely hated UWF in 1990. I will watch two Volk Han matches to decide if I'm going to change my view on this. Also, I'm being open about what I'm prepared to exclude, probably a lot of guys are going to exclude a ton of 70s workers or whoever else. They'll just do it silently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 If it means anything, I'm not voting for shoot style workers for any strategic reason, but because I'm philosophically opposed to the style and don't consider it to be what pro wrestling is about. Nothing to do with the old "Parv hates matwork" idea either, I'll be voting for 70s US and World of Sport guys, and even for some Lucha guys. I'll likely vote for a few Joshi workers once I've worked through Loss's picks. Hell there's a good chance I'll vote for John Cena who represents an era I'm known to despise -- but shoot style can go do one. Some would call that strategic though, I think that is Dylan's point. Strategic in a way that you don't like the style and are opposed to it, so Volk Han is not getting your vote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I personally just don't think shoot style is important enough a strand in wrestling history to give strategic consideration to. If I was putting together my top 100 music albums, I wouldn't think twice about leaving off Death Metal entirely or about not seeking out any Death Metal. It's just not a very important genre in the overall scheme of things. I don't like jazz either, but jazz is important and I gave jazz the time, I gave Miles Davis and John Coltrane the time. I still came out not liking it, I don't get it, but I put in the time. Death metal doesn't deserve my time. I've said this before -- and make no mistake about it -- I'm researching the 70s guys precisely because they were NWA champions who had reputations as being the best workers in the world, precisely because they are important and canonical figures in wrestling history. This is my approach. It would be my approach in a literary list. It would be my approach in a music list. It would be my approach in a film list. If you think shoot style is more important than what I'm giving it credit for, make the case, tell me why I'm wrong. Why does Volk Han deserve more of my time than Buddy Rodgers or Lou Thesz? Or John Cena? etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 He has shorter matches so it's less of an overall cost? I know that's why I've seen some of his stuff so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillThompson Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I personally just don't think shoot style is important enough a strand in wrestling history to give strategic consideration to. If I was putting together my top 100 music albums, I wouldn't think twice about leaving off Death Metal entirely or about not seeking out any Death Metal. It's just not a very important genre in the overall scheme of things. I don't like jazz either, but jazz is important and I gave jazz the time, I gave Miles Davis and John Coltrane the time. I still came out not liking it, I don't get it, but I put in the time. Death metal doesn't deserve my time. I've said this before -- and make no mistake about it -- I'm researching the 70s guys precisely because they were NWA champions who had reputations as being the best workers in the world, precisely because they are important and canonical figures in wrestling history. This is my approach. It would be my approach in a literary list. It would be my approach in a music list. It would be my approach in a film list. If you think shoot style is more important than what I'm giving it credit for, make the case, tell me why I'm wrong. Why does Volk Han deserve more of my time than Buddy Rodgers or Lou Thesz? Or John Cena? etc. For me importance carries very little value. I'm all about looking for high quality, whether that be in music, film, or wrestling. Something is great if it's great, not because it was important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 The risk of being too open with your biases/positions on something as sweeping as a style is that it could lead to people saying "eh fuck Jack Brisco and Dibiase. While I'm at it, Flair is a Parv favorite, I'm dropping him to 94 to offset Parv being Parv." It's one of the reasons I try not to completely reject any style or era out of hand when thinking about a project like this, even if I know there is no way I'll vote for certain people on those grounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 Fine, but importance and quality aren't mutually exclusive Bill. Take Citizen Kane, it's only considered important precisely because it has been critically acclaimed for over 70 years now. Shakespeare is only important because he's been considered the greatest or one of the greatest writers for centuries. So I'll qualify it with "importance derived from critical acclaim". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 Also I am with Dylan in that I am against strategic voting based on personalities or anything like that. I don't really care about anyone else's list for the purposes of making my list. Although I am INTERESTED in other people's lists. There is a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 Fine, but importance and quality aren't mutually exclusive Bill. Take Citizen Kane, it's only considered important precisely because it has been critically acclaimed for over 70 years now. Shakespeare is only important because he's been considered the greatest or one of the greatest writers for centuries. So I'll qualify it with "importance derived from critical acclaim". I want to say more about this because it has knock on consequences. Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones, etc. have all been hyped to the moon by "critical acclaim", and this fact makes them "important". But that fact also has importance for artists since them. Any promising singer/songwriter for the past 40 years has had to live with Dylan comparisons and the "new Bob Dylan" kiss of death. Any blues rock band lives in the shadow of and created by the Stones. There is no getting around this. In wrestling we also have figues like this. Although the analogy isn't a 1:1, no NWA champ can escape the influence of Lou Thesz. US heels AFTER Harley Race and Ric Flair to some extent are working with the legacy of Race and Flair. These are reasons enough to consider them. It's critical acclaim that leads to importance that leads to actively shaping the landscape of the field. Let me go back to what Bill said: For me importance carries very little value. I'm all about looking for high quality, whether that be in music, film, or wrestling. Something is great if it's great, not because it was important. Hmmmm. But what happens when the VERY CATEGORIES of "greatness" are formed and defined by previous works? Shakespeare is a great writer. He also invented some of the very formulas by which you judge what makes a work good or bad. For some people he's still the absolute standard by which to judge those things. You can't therefore make this hard distinction between "importance" on the one hand and "quality" on the other. It's more complicated. And "importance" derives from critical acclaim which presumably derives from "quality". ... Back to Volk Han. It really seems to me that that whole strand of wrestling could be lopped off and cast out. It has no bearing on anything else. It's in its own bubble and its net result is ... something that isn't wrestling at all. Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Ric Flair, Lou Thesz, the Funks -- these are guys whose legacies are built into the very fabric of what happens in a pro wrestling match. They deserve consideration for a top 100 simply because of who they are. I'll argue that all day long. I am a defender of the idea of a canon, and I don't believe we can do away with canons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I am okay with this argument in one specific way. Inclusive consideration. If someone is generally considered critically over time a greatest of all time, then he should be looked at. Once looked at, he can be placed or dismissed. It shouldn't necessarily be used to exclude people however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillThompson Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 I think you're kidding yourself if you think shootstyle has little or no importance/influence on the rest of wrestling. So much of that style has found its way into every type of wrestling, even as high up as the WWF/E. Sure, the argument could be made that a lot of that is due to MMA, but I don't buy that as shootsyle in pro wrestling has always been its own thing within the medium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 Same arguments Parv used above have been applied to hogan era WWF, Lucha, et for years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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