[GWE] Intrinsic values for GWE candidates

[JerryvonKramer]

Ted is just one example, so I don't want to get too caught up on him, but the point of this exercise was to get away from "great matches" as the only metric for judging someone.

 

If the question is "where are the great matches?", for Ted after 1988 there are none.

 

If the questions become "how well did he execute a suplex or scoop power slam?" "How well did he take the bump over the top rope?", "how solid were his fundamentals?" "How well did he throw a punch?" Then a different picture emerges.

 

It's a picture that "great matches" doesn't and can't give you. And then you see a guy like Ted in a different -- and to my mind, more accurate -- light. Why "more accurate"? Because a guy with the skils that he had would be a top tier draft pick for any active promotor in that time frame, and accordingly he was thought of as one of the very best wrestlers in the world. He was still a great wrestler after 88, just one who happened to be having **1/2 matches with Virgil and Jake Roberts.

 

This is not all about Ted though, but any wrestler at any time who had great skills as a ring general. "Great matches" is a reductive metric and doesn't give the full picture.

[dawho5]

That much I can understand. I just don't care for the idea of trying to put numbers to a bunch of categories, no matter how much thought is put into it, to sum up how a wrestler performs. It seems just as reductive as "great matches" while covering different ground for guys like DiBiase or Masanobu Fuchi. They are both clearly great ring generals who any promotion would be happy to have around, but were only involved in a handful of great matches with the majority of their career spent doing unimportant things. Having some way of qualifying their credentials seems like a worthwhile idea, but I look at wrestling as something better felt than analyzed and put in order. So the idea of finding a scientific way to fit the less mainstream candidates into the top 100 just doesn't appeal to me.

[Hollinger.]

I don't know if anyone wants to put the work in, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to set up a site for a community grading project for something like this. (Paging Mookie Harrington!) A page for each worker with a radio button poll for each of the 18 (or 24, if you use Will's suggestions) tools for each worker.

 

I don't know how the Football Manager ratings systems work, but I think something more akin to the 20-80 scouting scale used by baseball scouts to grade player tools would work best:

 

80 - Legitimate argument for #1 (reason for 80-20 instead of 100-0 is that there is room for argument over guys graded at 80, but that it really doesn't make a difference because the skill is world class.)

75 - Tool is excellent, but not obvious #1. Your #2-3 guys. Elite, but there has been better.

70 - Top 5

65 - In baseball, a 65 grade on a tool is All-Star level. Will be recognized as one of the best.

60 - Plus level tool. Something the player does better than most, but isn't going to make them a star.

55 - Above average...

50 - Average. If you're playing in the big leagues, it's expected that most of your tools hit this baseline.

45 - Platoon level... there's skill, but a flaw. In terms of wrestling, I guess the comparison would be a tool that wasn't necessarily used often, but there are notable instances where it was used well.

40 - Bench player. Basic competency. Below average, but won't actively hurt you.

35 - Emergency Call Up. Can maybe fake it, but you don't want to rely on it.

30 - Organizational filler. Lousy skill.

25 - Actively bad. Bad enough that it diminishes other tools.

20 - Absence of any skill. The worst of the worst.

Obviously, there would have to be some determination of how these things would map over to wrestling tools (and perhaps some of the tools would need to be looked at to see if they could even be graded), but I think it could be done. In something like this, most guys under consideration would have to be pretty extraordinary in several tools for anything to grade out as below 45-40.

Something to think about.

[Hollinger.]

And I think it goes without saying that you'd have to grade out guys at their available peak, because otherwise there are too many variables over time. I think looking at this as scouting makes it easier than trying to assign video game attributes.

[Dylan Waco]

Musgrave and I are going to do a show on the method and madness of ranking wrestlers for lists like this soon. Will probably be some talk of this thread and the GWE in general, though more of the focus will probably be on lists/ballots for modern wrestling projects (FSM50, WKO100, et).