Rick Rude vs. Ted Dibiase

[BillThompson]

To me, there's no point in doing it every year. It would take all the fun and the point of this process away. This is a cool project that I am dedicated to, but would not want to spend my entire wrestling time working on. In fact, I am looking forward to this being over just so that I can focus more on different aspects of wrestling. Every 10 years or 5 years makes sense.

 

For me it's like taking a deep breath. We spend a period of time intent on this project, deep in focus. Then we get 5-10 years to breathe and to allow the results of our work to stand on their own. After we've ingested enough new wrestling, and had some time off, we start the process anew. Doing it year after year removes most of that, which lessens the process in my eyes.

[DR Ackermann]

Agreed. It gives time to reflect and try to "prove" or "disprove" whatever results we come up with, whether to ourselves or to each other. Doing it every year would make it much more arbitrary and less important.

[jdw]

People can also use the time to run other intensive polls. SC did the WWF/WWE Matches poll shortly after, and it was entertaining for everyone. There also are the DVDVR 80s polls.

[Loss]

I would absolutely love to do some match ranking projects.

[benjaminkicks]

I'm not going to answer that, and think I am probably no longer going to submit. I do not think the process is being taken seriously enough and, in effect, am out. Will continue to review matches, but am not turning in a ballot.

This is disappointing to me, because I enjoy reading your stuff and would've really liked to see your final ballot.

 

That said, I don't know where you're coming from with "the process isn't being taken seriously enough". I would like to see you expand on why you feel that way.

 

I've been reading pretty much everything in the GWE section over the last year, and I don't get the sense that people aren't taking it seriously at all. There's a ton of people watching all sorts of stuff, analyzing it, debating about it, and generally spending a bunch of time on the project. I haven't seen anyone "not putting in the work". It's been a lot of fun for me just reading what everyone has to say, while also doing my own legwork to produce a ballot.

 

I honestly don't understand what else you would want people to do.

[dawho5]

Busy topic today.

 

Parv: If you don't want to vote for any reason, don't vote. But don't let how other people view the project sway that answer. Yes, this project will reflect the views of everyone who votes. That doesn't mean it isn't a personal project for every one of them. They may have a different approach or different standards than you do, but that doesn't mean they are any less serious about it.

 

Loss: I've talked with you about this and I respect your decision. If "everyone should vote if they want to" is a valid argument I think that the opposite should also be true. If you don't want to vote, there should be no pressure forcing you to.

 

This argument about peak vs. career, memory vs. rewatching, everyone's different standards being a problem, and any other nitpicking about the process is necessary. It makes people think about how they are approaching the project. But at the same time we tend to carry our own views to far and try to force them on people. I've been guilty of it myself in the past and I can promise you it will happen again despite my not wanting it to. So I think it is important that we bring things like that up and have arguments about them. But know when to leave it alone because it's going in a bad direction.

[goc]

All these replies are well and good, but they are glossing over the way that Parv continues to treat those who disagree with him. This board is supposed to be built on the idea of exchanging ideas, bouncing theories off of one another, and sharing our opinions of wrestlers, promotions, eras, and wrestling in general. For the most part this is accomplished, and we all like the little community we have here. However I know there are people who have left, been run off, or stopped posting suddenly because of the way their opinions are treated by one person, that person being Parv.

I agree with the overall message of your whole post, mainly that Parv has been increasingly ridiculous about this stuff over the past month or so, but I if someone is going to get run off a message board over one person being dismissive who cares? I mean if you can't just ignore the people you don't like on a message board, or just annoy and/or mock them in return, you're probably better off not being on a message board in general.

 

There are a few posters on here who irritate the hell out of me sometimes but I mostly don't want anyone to just get off the board altogether except with maybe one possible exception. Besides, there is always the board's very own ignore feature that can be put to good use.

 

Personally, my biggest overall gripe with this new fit from Parv is that it's come after I've already written his caricature out of my fantasy Southwest and thus can't even really put all this great material to good use for Lord Alfred Hayes promos.

[GOTNW]

 

What's the downside of yearly check-ins? Most of the heavy work will be done for 2016. It'll just be shifting things around per what you've seen and where the discussion has gone in the 12 months after.

What would be the upside of a yearly top 100 poll?

 

 

I think 3-5 would be ideal. Enough time for the landscape to change but not that drastically.

[Matt D]

I think that we're all watching quite a bit, all the time. The ballots wouldn't move much from year to year, but that'd make it easier on us, but we'd be ever getting closer to seeing everything. It'd help encompass any projects that happen during the year. There's a lot more work in 5 years than there is in one year. In my mind, though, it's more about how we change over time, with younger people seeing more and more and with the older people constantly updating their viewpoints. I think it'd be relatively little effort and a good way to check in where we are every year and to help sum up our years' watching.

[kjh]

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken." - Oliver Cromwell on August 5, 1650, but still good advice 365 years later.

 

I personally think that the poll is improved by a diversity of opinion, which is why I would like to see Parv (and Loss) still submit a ballot, just like anybody else who has put time and effort into the project and have seen a ton of wrestling like Bill Thompson, Case Lowe, Sammy D, Good Will from Texas, Alan4L, Dylan Hales and far too many more to mention by name. The results will be better for it.

[Jimmy Redman]

The ballots wouldn't move much from year to year,

 

This to me is the main reason why I don't feel it's necessary to do it every year.

 

The 2016 poll is going to look vastly different to the 2006 poll in any number of ways. Different people will be voting or not voting, and the same people will have watched more stuff and developed new opinions. It's a stark, visible "snapshot", as we've come to call it, of what we're all thinking "now", as opposed to "ten years ago". And I use those last two quotes deliberately because the 2006 poll wasn't really just a poll on how people felt in March 2006 (or whenever exactly they did the poll in 2006) but it was how people felt about their cumulative wrestling watching up until that point. And this poll isn't just what people happen to feel in March 2016, but it will be how their feelings have cumulatively changed since March 2006 (or for new voters, their cumulative wrestling watching up until that point). It's not just a date in time but a period of time that they represent. The 2006 poll reflects the feelings and biases and fashions of that mid-2000s period, the same way this poll will reflect our current mid-2010s fashions.

 

If we do another poll in 2017 will it be fundamentally different to the 2016 one? I doubt it. Individual voters will watch more stuff and change their ballots a bit, people will drop in and out, but largely it won't change as drastically as between 2006-2016. So what, really, is this "snapshot" of 2017 going to say? Much the same thing as the 2016 one did, only the 2016 one was researched and participated in so much more intensely - and there's another point. I don't see how people are going to put THIS much effort into their ballot every year. And as has been said over and over, the journey for this thing is arguably more important than the destination. Everyone has been scrambling for what will be over 18 months to study for this poll. We can't do this over and over again every year. So yearly polls will only quicken, and thus lessen, the process of researching and watching that goes into making a ballot. And this conversation is coming off the back of people seemingly uncomfortable with people's level of commitment and research as is!

 

This is a weird analogy, but this reminds me of that TV doco where they have a group of people they're studying, and they catch up with them every ten years - when they're 20 years old, 30, 40, 50, etc., and see what they've been doing and how their lives have changed. And it's the same kind of thing, the key is that after a period of ten years you can look back and see how wildly some things have changed in that time, and all the living that went into getting you from A to B, even if it isn't apparently on a daily, or even yearly, basis. If you examine them every year, you lose that perspective. To me it's the same kind of thing here. Doing a poll every year just lessens the impact the ten yearly polls have. You'll lose those big sweeping changes, those shifts in philosophy, those trends, because it's a lot harder to see them when you're looking in the mirror every morning.

 

I think yearly changes would only be noticeable and relevant on a personal level. As you say it would basically be a reflection of what you've been watching in the last year. And hell if you want to sit down and write out your GOAT list every year, nobody is stopping you, and I'm sure people would be interested in seeing it, myself included. But I don't think that calls for a collective vote every year.

[Grimmas]

 

The ballots wouldn't move much from year to year,

 

This to me is the main reason why I don't feel it's necessary to do it every year.

 

The 2016 poll is going to look vastly different to the 2006 poll in any number of ways. Different people will be voting or not voting, and the same people will have watched more stuff and developed new opinions. It's a stark, visible "snapshot", as we've come to call it, of what we're all thinking "now", as opposed to "ten years ago". And I use those last two quotes deliberately because the 2006 poll wasn't really just a poll on how people felt in March 2006 (or whenever exactly they did the poll in 2006) but it was how people felt about their cumulative wrestling watching up until that point. And this poll isn't just what people happen to feel in March 2016, but it will be how their feelings have cumulatively changed since March 2006 (or for new voters, their cumulative wrestling watching up until that point). It's not just a date in time but a period of time that they represent. The 2006 poll reflects the feelings and biases and fashions of that mid-2000s period, the same way this poll will reflect our current mid-2010s fashions.

 

If we do another poll in 2017 will it be fundamentally different to the 2016 one? I doubt it. Individual voters will watch more stuff and change their ballots a bit, people will drop in and out, but largely it won't change as drastically as between 2006-2016. So what, really, is this "snapshot" of 2017 going to say? Much the same thing as the 2016 one did, only the 2016 one was researched and participated in so much more intensely - and there's another point. I don't see how people are going to put THIS much effort into their ballot every year. And as has been said over and over, the journey for this thing is arguably more important than the destination. Everyone has been scrambling for what will be over 18 months to study for this poll. We can't do this over and over again every year. So yearly polls will only quicken, and thus lessen, the process of researching and watching that goes into making a ballot. And this conversation is coming off the back of people seemingly uncomfortable with people's level of commitment and research as is!

 

This is a weird analogy, but this reminds me of that TV doco where they have a group of people they're studying, and they catch up with them every ten years - when they're 20 years old, 30, 40, 50, etc., and see what they've been doing and how their lives have changed. And it's the same kind of thing, the key is that after a period of ten years you can look back and see how wildly some things have changed in that time, and all the living that went into getting you from A to B, even if it isn't apparently on a daily, or even yearly, basis. If you examine them every year, you lose that perspective. To me it's the same kind of thing here. Doing a poll every year just lessens the impact the ten yearly polls have. You'll lose those big sweeping changes, those shifts in philosophy, those trends, because it's a lot harder to see them when you're looking in the mirror every morning.

 

I think yearly changes would only be noticeable and relevant on a personal level. As you say it would basically be a reflection of what you've been watching in the last year. And hell if you want to sit down and write out your GOAT list every year, nobody is stopping you, and I'm sure people would be interested in seeing it, myself included. But I don't think that calls for a collective vote every year.

 

Absolutely my thoughts. Lays out my argument very well.

 

Also I love how people are using wrestler snapshot in this thread.

[funkdoc]

count me in as another poster who's been increasingly turned off by parv's attitude as of late, even beyond this. sorry, but artistic criticism is an area where the postmodernists got it right - objectivity is an impossible goal for human beings. enforcing a single consistent standard ain't gonna work here, bud~

 

like, i've watched .001% of the amount of wrestling anyone else here has this year, but this almost has me tempted to submit a ballot. watch me have jinsei shinzaki in my top 100 because japanese monks are fuckin rad as hell m8

[Beast]

Yeah this is shit.

 

If you're going to be upset over others' opinions being different (even if less "informed"), you shouldn't be doing a cooperative GWE list anyways. Just print out your own personal list and hang it up as "The Definitive GWE List so says "whoever".

 

I don't know any behind the scenes stuff, but I hate that anyone would skip participating because it's not perfect.

[Graham Crackers]

I can also get behind the desire to do more match ranking projects. I miss the more active 80s Project discussions from before DVDVR went batshit.

[W2BTD]

I won't rank Rude or Dibiase.

 

You'd have to make this a Top 1000 before I'd even consider Lawler, and he'll be #1 on a few ballots.

 

Isn't that the beauty of the project?

[goc]

I won't rank Rude or Dibiase.

 

You'd have to make this a Top 1000 before I'd even consider Lawler, and he'll be #1 on a few ballots.

 

Isn't that the beauty of the project?

I really want to hate you sometimes but you've managed to create a shield by being a Nightmares fan so at least they'll be on another tag ballot besides my own.

[El-P]

watch me have jinsei shinzaki in my top 100 because japanese monks are fuckin rad as hell m8

 

Hey, Shinzaki made my top 100 in 2006 for this exact reason.

 

And gotta +1 everything Redman said (and put very well) about doing a yearly poll. I'll add it would be the best way to kill that kind of project because after one year or two, people just won't care anymore. Every ten years is perfect.

[JerryvonKramer]

Now that everyone has had a chance to voice their condemnation and talk about how opinions and subjectivity really matter (which I don't recall disputing) can we put this to bed? I wanted Sight and Sound, what we're getting is a Smash Hits Poll. It is what it is. And to answer Dylan, yes I will stay out of GWE. Seems like everyone will be happier for it.

[El-P]

 

[cheapshot]

I'm a little shocked and disappointed reading all this.

 

I think people should take a break over the weekend, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

[dawho5]

I tend to agree. I think Parv has a very unique way of looking at things even within a community like PWO. I hate the idea that he won't be submitting a ballot because he disagrees with other people's process for putting together a list. My hope is that this is about something else and cooler heads do prevail by March of next year.

 

To Parv I would say that very often we have to get past our preconceived notions of what a thing is and deal with the reality of it. It's rarely easy but usually ends up far more rewarding for the experience.

[concrete1992]

I went from finding Parv's comments silly to thinking he really shouldn't submit a ballot. Granted I think the way he is going about it has pushed me to believe he shouldn't interact with ANYONE on a message board. Not submitting a ballot because one doesn't feel others are giving it the proper care is simply wrong in my eyes. It is slap in the face to those who have committed time to this project.

 

Why bother do the project, amirite? We all haven't put enough thought into it.

 

It is disappointing that someone with a valid reason, Loss, wasted their defense on someone who didn't deserve any of it.

[JerryvonKramer]

This all seems to be getting a bit much, as well as a little personal. I didn't say that no people were taking things seriously and it is self-evident for those who have.

 

Dylan asked why I might announce that I'm no longer going to take part instead of doing it quietly. It is closer to your stance on Colon or top lucha guys for WON HoF, than to the thing you ate referencing. As in, I did wish to voice my protest before stepping out.

 

The nature of that protest still seems not to have been grasped. Various people calling me a dick think it's because I can't handle disagreement. That of not the case

 

It comes down to what the project of trying to do. Matt D outlined in this thread what he thinks it is, and from responses it seems that's what people want it to be. For me that's more shallow, more swingy, more flavour of the month and ultimately more arbitrary and less meaningful than what I'd hoped this would be. When people don't have Lawler in their top 1000, that's not really a project I signed up for or really want to be a part of. I'm one guy, it means nothing. All it means is that the project is not what I wanted ot to be.

 

I said my piece, I took flak and heat amd whatever. Polite request to draw line under it. We can all move on.

[cheapshot]

When people don't have Lawler in their top 1000, that's not really a project I signed up for or really want to be a part of. I'm one guy, it means nothing.

 

My word Parv! Really?!