Left Out in the Cold - Who will NOT make your list?

[Childs]

 

 

No women will make my list. I personally think it's silly to rank men & women together.

Why?

 

Just curios if you were doing greatest actors or musicians would it include women? What about figure skaters or dancers?

 

Even sports. Say, greatest track and field stars would include women on it. I'm confused by your statement there.

 

I have to agree with W2BTD here, no woman will make my list either, I personally feel that the women should have there own top 25 category like the tag teams but that's just my opinion, its just silly imo to try to compare Akiro Hokuto, MadUSA, or Sherri Martel to Rick Martel, Roddy Piper or AJ Styles, maybe its just me, maybe I'm not as open minded as some but either way it's just not gonna happen for me

 

 

I'll just say that for me, comparing Martel and Hokuto is no more a stretch than comparing Volk Han and Rey Mysterio Jr. or Atsushi Onita and Johnny Saint. The stylistic spectrum is vast, women or no women.

[Timbo Slice]

Not including women wrestlers when a vast majority of them influenced their male counterparts in something like this is really odd to me. Almost screams exclusion. Just because there hasn't been any female wrestling that has touched what the Japanese women were doing over 20 years ago in recent times doesn't mean they shouldn't be included.

[Matt D]

Personally I have a way easier time comparing The Glamour Girls and The Rougeaus than Atlantis and Bam Bam Bigelow.

[Jimmy Redman]

Yeah, that. I'm not sure what makes female wrestlers so far out there when we're comparing luchadors to garbage workers to WWE main eventers to British workers to 50s stars to puro guys to minis to...to...

 

I've never understood why some guys seem to have this hang up about female wrestling. In this and in the other "you must be grading on a pretty big curve!" thread. They're just wrestlers. Smaller, skinnier wrestlers with longer hair (but not always) and bigger tits (again not always). So, just smaller, skinnier wrestlers. Don't overthink it.

[W2BTD]

There is no hang up. I just don't think they are as good as men at this, and none of them would have a prayer of making my top 100 anyway. As such, I think it's unfair and a disservice to compare them to men. It isn't a level playing field in my view. Men are better athletes, stronger, more physical, and more believable in a physical setting. These are all valuable components to pro wrestling, and most of the time it is too much for most female wrestlers to overcome in comparison to men especially when dealing with the elite of the elite in a project like this.

 

There are plenty of quality female wrestlers. I'd have no problem ranking them among other females. Ranking them with men is no less silly to me than trying to rank Cheryl Miller with men's basketball players, or Serena Williams with men's tennis players. Neither would rate in the top several thousand if we are being fair and not using a curve or handicapping. I understand wrestling is slightly different, but for what I look for in wrestling women just don't rate with men, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise just for the sake of coming off progressive or whatever (not that anybody made that accusation, but just to be preemptive).

[tim]

For all the reasons someone might not like joshi, and it's fair enough to not like it and not want to rank any joshi wrestlers, I don't know if a lack of athleticism and physicality is reasonably one of them.

[Grimmas]

For all the reasons someone might not like joshi, and it's fair enough to not like it and not want to rank any joshi wrestlers, I don't know if a lack of athleticism and physicality is reasonably one of them.

 

Not liking Joshi and not wanting to rank them makes sense to me.

 

Saying you won't rank woman because they aren't as athletic or fast as men just baffles me.

[concrete1992]

Gonna have to move this to the strategic voting cause I've officially decided to lowball Joe's favorites in favor of Aja Kong.

[JazeUSA]

Yeah I have no problem with women's wrestling, but I have not ever once been influenced or inspired by a female worker but again that's just me, I personally do not enjoy watching women beat the tar out of one another like they do in Japan, its just not my thing & not for me, so I can't include it in my list, but I'm sure I'm the minority but that's okay too, but I 100% give the female workers the respect they deserve for being athletic, that's not my issue at all, I just personally do not like it

[El-P]

Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, Jaguar Yokota, Devil Masami, Chigusa Nagayo, Megumi Kudo, Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida and many many others work circles around so many men wrestlers it's not even funny. It's really sad they have been kinda brushed aside because of a stylistic backlash.

[Jimmy Redman]

There is no hang up. I just don't think they are as good as men at this, and none of them would have a prayer of making my top 100 anyway. As such, I think it's unfair and a disservice to compare them to men. It isn't a level playing field in my view. Men are better athletes, stronger, more physical, and more believable in a physical setting. These are all valuable components to pro wrestling, and most of the time it is too much for most female wrestlers to overcome in comparison to men especially when dealing with the elite of the elite in a project like this.

 

There are plenty of quality female wrestlers. I'd have no problem ranking them among other females. Ranking them with men is no less silly to me than trying to rank Cheryl Miller with men's basketball players, or Serena Williams with men's tennis players. Neither would rate in the top several thousand if we are being fair and not using a curve or handicapping. I understand wrestling is slightly different, but for what I look for in wrestling women just don't rate with men, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise just for the sake of coming off progressive or whatever (not that anybody made that accusation, but just to be preemptive).

 

I get looking at the nominated female wrestlers and not ranking them in your 100. I get that for the kind of wrestling you prefer you can't get next to joshi or other female wrestling.

 

What I don't get is the, for lack of a better word, segregation.

 

Like, with placing a premium on athleticism there must be other types of wrestlers that don't fit what you think good wrestling is and wouldn't rank them. Fat guys? Memphis guys? I'm sure you've gone into this, but I dunno. But say, for the sake of argument, that you think all fat man wrestlers are terrible because they're fat and they can't compete athletically with your guys. Would you just look at Bigelow, Henry, Blackwell individually and say "Nope, he's a fat guy, won't make my list." Or would you say "Fat wrestlers can't compete athletically so therefore I can't even compare them to the rest of the wrestling population and they need their own sub-group where I only rank them against each other, and not other kinds of wrestlers, because they're too clearly inferior to even be in the same conversation."

[W2BTD]

Ironically I used to really like joshi a lot in the 90's. This isn't some sort of joshi style thing.

 

I think men are better at pro wrestling than women, and greatly prefer watching men's matches. It really isn't any deeper than that. There are female wrestlers I enjoy, none would sniff a top 100 anyway, so this is a moot point.

[Jimmy Redman]

If you'd said that in the first place instead of "I can only rank women against other women", I'd have no problem. That's all I take issue with.

 

But let's leave it.

[pol]

It's funny to see this conversation given Meltzer's attitude to the Japanese women in the 90s was "they're better than even the best of the men, but that's not a fair comparison because of course 120 pound women are going to be able to go faster for longer than any man."

[pol]

I think if it just happens to be the case that no women would make your top 100 then fine, but when you start to get into weird reasoning about why it's not fair to compare them you're off in sexist territory. For any complaint raised about women workers in this thread there are plenty of exceptions. As for them being inferior athletes; well first we have to pin down what is meant by "athleticism" to begin with because, as Meltzer attested to, the 90s women worked a much faster style than their male contemporaries. If your problem is a lack of believable physicality (which is something I struggle with with someone like Toyota, so I get where the complaint is coming from), there's workers like Nakano, Kong, Toyoda, Kansai... and honestly even some of the smaller framed women were no less believable than small framed men... Chigusa is worlds apart from someone like Toyota in that regard.

 

Taste is taste and I have absolutely no problem with anyone simply not rating women wrestlers due to stylistic preferences. But if you make your argument on the basis of physicality and believability and then turn around and rave about super choreographed Dragon Gate matches while dismissing, out of hand, workers like Aja Kong and Bull Nakano then it does make me wonder if maybe your taste is predicated on some pretty sketchy attitudes towards women.

[Jimmy Redman]

Yeah, Joe's position strikes me as weird because he admits to loving impressive athleticism, faster pace and spots, and joshi is basically Dragon Gate on speed. He's the last guy I'd expect to dismiss the girls on account of athleticism, since they tend to work a style, or at least a pace, that he should prefer. But there you go.

[W2BTD]

Let's try this again. Here is what I said:

 

"Men are better athletes, stronger, more physical, and more believable in a physical setting. These are all valuable components to pro wrestling, and most of the time it is too much for most female wrestlers to overcome in comparison to men especially when dealing with the elite of the elite in a project like this."

 

"There are plenty of quality female wrestlers. I'd have no problem ranking them among other females. Ranking them with men is no less silly to me than trying to rank Cheryl Miller with men's basketball players, or Serena Williams with men's tennis players. Neither would rate in the top several thousand if we are being fair and not using a curve or handicapping. I understand wrestling is slightly different, but for what I look for in wrestling women just don't rate with men, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise just for the sake of coming off progressive or whatever"

 

 

If you disagree with the bold, fine. That is how I feel. That is why I stopped watching joshi, which I used to watch pretty frequently in its heyday. That is why when I sample modern joshi, I struggle to get into it. I find men deliver what I am looking for in wrestling better than women, so I prefer watching men. If that makes me sexist, so be it. Again, I have no interest in being progressive just for the sake of being progressive. I think men are better than women at pro wrestling, and I won't pretend otherwise to avoid being called names.

 

To me, what would be incredible sexist, would be to somehow shoehorn women into the rankings with the men when I don't feel they can be compared, by forcing myself to judge them on some sort of curve of handicapped scale. I'd have no problem doing an apples to apples women's list (actually, if I am being completely honest, I probably wouldn't do that either, due to lack of interest, but I assume you get the point), but again, as explained in the second paragraph, I find that no less silly than ranking women in other sports to their male counterparts.

 

If you were to rank Cheryl Miller or Serena Williams with men in their sports, what you are really doing is ranking them based on what they've done vs other women against what the men have done vs other men, which to me is eye rolling levels of silliness, because the women simply aren't on the same level as the men, which is why they are segregated to begin with. That's why I just chuckle at Bill's nonsense from earlier in the thread. He's overthinking. Serena Williams would get killed by any professional male, and a lot of high level amateurs. It would be insulting & dishonest to rank her ahead of men based on relative skill. If you are truly ranking the top tennis players based on how good they are - period - Williams doesn't rate with thousands of men. If that's sexist, go argue with science & mother nature, not me.

 

Back to wrestling, which is worked. To pol: "Well first we have to pin down what is meant by "athleticism" to begin with"...seriously? I'm not trying to be condescending, even though it will come off that way, but if you are attempting to argue that men & women are on even close to level playing fields here, I can't waste my time with that. Sorry. But if you are looking for an explanation of what I mean by athleticism, see below.

 

I think the disconnect here might be with speed, which is continually being brought up. Athleticism as it relates to wrestling is more than just speed or "flipz" or spots. Strength, explosiveness, agility, coordination, balance, timing, adaptability, power, etc. All of these components are very important not only in sports, but also in building pro wrestling matches. Not to mention things like raw physicality, which you can mention all of the big, tough, females you want who bring that to the table, but they bring it to the table in comparison with other women, just like Serena Williams brings her skillset to the table in comparison to other women. Men are better athletes than women, and if you guys or Meltzer or anybody else has a problem with that statement, well, take it up with how nature works.

 

This is not to say that all men are automatically better than all women at pro wrestling, but I still personally find it silly to rank them together. Maybe you don't. Fine. If you notice, i'm not lobbying for anybody not to do so. I just said that I wouldn't. Then I was pressed to explain why, so I did. If it makes it easier to label me a sexist, fine, I have no problem with that because I know where i'm coming from with this, which is no different than examining it from an athletic perspective like any other sport. Worked or not, athletic components matter to me a lot. I don't grade on curves, and never will. I may think Cheeleader Melissa is a better wrestler than some shitty middle aged Memphis brawler or Japanese garbage worker or something, but I can come up with literally hundreds of men with minimal effort that work her style that I think blow her away if we are judging on the same scale. So to me it's insulting to rank her with the best men just because she's a great woman. And I don't think it's insulting at all to rank her against other women exclusively where I feel the comparisons are more fair, or to say something like "she's a great female wrestler, one of the best in the world". Because she is.

[Grimmas]

If I were to ask you to rank the WWE roster, what would you do? Keep Divas and Men and Minis separate?

 

Maybe, you put Khali above Natalya? Where does El Torito fit? I'm curious.

 

By the way, this is the break down of the hockey hall of fame:

 

"As of 2013, 259 players (including three women), 101 builders and 15 on-ice officials have been inducted into the Hall of Fame."

 

Could these three women compete in the NHL? Probably not, but they are represented in a list compiling the greatest hockey players of all-time.

[W2BTD]

If I were to ask you to rank the WWE roster, what would you do? Keep Divas and Men and Minis separate?

 

Maybe, you put Khali above Natalya? Where does El Torito fit? I'm curious.

 

By the way, this is the break down of the hockey hall of fame:

 

"As of 2013, 259 players (including three women), 101 builders and 15 on-ice officials have been inducted into the Hall of Fame."

 

Could these three women compete in the NHL? Probably not, but they are represented in a list compiling the greatest hockey players of all-time.

 

 

 

I'd rank them separately, but if I were forced to rank them together all of the women would be near the bottom, and ahead of very few men. Khali for sure below most of the women aside from probably Eva Marie or Rosa Mendes. I don't know what that accomplishes other than to shit on the women for no good reason, when they could be fairly compared to each other instead.

 

Same with the minis, I would prefer to rank them among themselves.

 

As far as the hockey, same deal as my basketball & tennis examples. It would be so silly to rank any female hockey player on a list of all time greats with men. That has nothing to do with whether there are great female hockey players or HOF worthy female hockey players. But they aren't better hockey players than the men. I'm simply not interested in weighing relative skill. And again, this doesn't directly correlate to a worked sport, other people brought real sports into it so here we are.

[W2BTD]

Also, dragging WWE women into this is a dangerous game. Most of them wouldn't be able to sniff a job with that company (let alone be anywhere near TV) if they were men at the exact same skill level. Let's be real. They aren't held to the same standards as the men. Note that I said "most", before i'm pilfered with examples, but even the elite ones are behind the skill curve of plenty of men who will never be hired.

[Grimmas]

Also, dragging WWE women into this is a dangerous game. Most of them wouldn't be able to sniff a job with that company (let alone be anywhere near TV) if they were men at the exact same skill level. Let's be real. They aren't held to the same standards as the men. Note that I said "most", before i'm pilfered with examples, but even the elite ones are behind the skill curve of plenty of men who will never be hired.

So, when pushed you would be able to rank them together and you would have some men behind some women?

 

What this boils down to is that no women would make your top 100, because there are a 100 better men. Please stick to that, and not to the weird you can't rank them together and they are not as athletic. That just sounds way worse, whether you intend that or not.

[Grimmas]

Listverse's top 10 athletes of the London Games

 

10) Missy Franklin

9) David Rudisha

8) Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price

7) Felix Sanchez

6) Oscar Pistorius

5) Ben Ainslie

4) Wu Minxia

3) Sir Chris Hoy

2) Michael Phelps

1) Usain Bolt

 

Sports Grid's Top 5, Dead or Alive: The Best Olympic Athletes of All Time

5) Jim Thorpe

4) Dara Torres

3) Michael Phelps

2) Usain Bolt

1) Carl Lewis

 

Total Pro Sports' 9 Greatest Canadian Athletes of All Time

9) Donovan Bailey

8) Ferguson Jenkins

7) Nancy Greene

6) Gordie Howe

5) Ben Johnson

4) Steve Nash

3) Bobby Orr

2) Lionel Conacher

1) Wayne Gretzky

[W2BTD]

 

Also, dragging WWE women into this is a dangerous game. Most of them wouldn't be able to sniff a job with that company (let alone be anywhere near TV) if they were men at the exact same skill level. Let's be real. They aren't held to the same standards as the men. Note that I said "most", before i'm pilfered with examples, but even the elite ones are behind the skill curve of plenty of men who will never be hired.

So, when pushed you would be able to rank them together and you would have some men behind some women?

 

What this boils down to is that no women would make your top 100, because there are a 100 better men. Please stick to that, and not to the weird you can't rank them together and they are not as athletic. That just sounds way worse, whether you intend that or not.

 

 

 

You are twisting my point. People asked for the reason, I gave it. The athletic components are too much to overcome and give the men a huge advantage.

 

Listverse's top 10 athletes of the London Games

 

10) Missy Franklin

9) David Rudisha

8) Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price

7) Felix Sanchez

6) Oscar Pistorius

5) Ben Ainslie

4) Wu Minxia

3) Sir Chris Hoy

2) Michael Phelps

1) Usain Bolt

 

Sports Grid's Top 5, Dead or Alive: The Best Olympic Athletes of All Time

5) Jim Thorpe

4) Dara Torres

3) Michael Phelps

2) Usain Bolt

1) Carl Lewis

 

Total Pro Sports' 9 Greatest Canadian Athletes of All Time

9) Donovan Bailey

8) Ferguson Jenkins

7) Nancy Greene

6) Gordie Howe

5) Ben Johnson

4) Steve Nash

3) Bobby Orr

2) Lionel Conacher

1) Wayne Gretzky

 

These lists are based on achievements & relative skill, which is fine. I've already said i'm not personally interested in considering relative skill in things like this. Bill is.

 

I have no idea who Nancy Greene is, but I can guarantee you she is an inferior athlete to Donovan Bailey and several thousand other male Canadians.

 

Oscar Pistorious has no legs. I mean, c'mon. These lists are cute, but not not rooted in reality unless we are talking accomplishments & achievements.

[fxnj]

I'd have a much easier time taking the anti-joshi arguments seriously if the guys would actually analyze pimped matches and point out how men do things so much better instead of hiding behind bad sports analogies. I mean I really don't see right now how you can watch Hokuto/Kandori from Dreamslam with Hokuto getting busted from eating a pile driver on a real table and come away thinking people rating it as a brutal and dramatic match are only doing so on some weird sliding scale.

[funkdoc]

i think that's the point, joe: you are rather unusual in your lack of interest in relative skill. comparing just raw athleticism is boring to a lot of us, and this entire project is one of relative skill for many. i go back to the point of comparing shootstyle to deathmatch wrestling - how can you fairly do that with any metric besides relative skill?

 

personally, i could kinda maybe see comparing men & women in your way if the women wrestle men frequently (like lufisto IIRC?). but strength and physicality and such are completely different when it's women vs. women, i think. you hear a lot about bull & aja being the "female vader", and i don't see how them lacking vader's size & power would matter when they didn't wrestle men.