Trish Stratus

[thebrainfollower]

Yeah that is definitely it. Trish did have a few great matches given the limitations of WWE (keep in mind she was never allowed to have a singles matches over 12 minutes in her career) and worked hard night in and night out to make things that should have been a disaster work.

 

Given the sexism, the insane announcing, the fact that she was initially seen as a fitness model who had nothing to offer but huge tits, the way divas matches were treated and dealt with back than and the fact that she basically worked 8 opponents who knew what they were doing and 12 people who would barely qualify as wrestlers, the fact that's she's 5'4 120bs and once she became a wrestler dropped even her fitness model muscle to protect her body, the fact that she had to lobby and beg Vince for a whole year to get that 2004 heel turn, being eaten up by Chyna (Lita and Jazz def did this to her too at times but not on purpose) I mean come on. If this list were North American workers who overcame insane handicaps to produce night in and night out decent quality work she wouldn't be ON my list she'd be top 10.

[JerryvonKramer]

If I put Trish through my BIGLAV system and completely accepted brain's arguments giving her 20 "memorable" opponents to cap out the variety score at 10, and let's say the full 10 for intangibles ...

 

She would cap out at something like 24, which as things stand, would put her ahead of people like The Sheik, Ole Anderson, Butch Reed, Lex Luger, and Ron Garvin and on par with Wahoo McDaniel, and Rick Rude.

 

This is in a scenario where she scores 0 for Great Matches, 0 for Longeivty of peak (on the basis of never being a top 30 worker) and very lowly in terms of the Base skills and Ability to work different roles.

 

So, in other words, if Brain can persuade me that she's a perfect 10 in both Intangibles and Variety, she has every chance of making it in my list.

 

The de facto rejection of Trish shows how strongly some people are leaning on the Basic skills metric and the Great Matches metric. They might not think about it in those terms, but it seems to be the case.

[Childs]

The de facto rejection of Trish shows how strongly some people are leaning on the Basic skills metric and the Great Matches metric. They might not think about it in those terms, but it seems to be the case.

 

Yeah, I'm willing to own that. I'm not voting for someone who never once made me think, "Ooh, he/she is a great wrestler." No amount of context could overcome that.

[thebrainfollower]

Jerry she didn't have 20 MEMORABLE opponents. She had 19 singles opponents PERIOD in her career. I don't hold that against her as that was all she was allowed to wrestle and she got something good out of half of them and decent ones out of some who weren't even wrestlers for cripes sakes If we add men however she had memorable and good exchanges with Vince McMahon, Jericho, Christian, the Rock, Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero (who actually sold her bulldog when Chyna refused to do so pre match, I kid you not).

 

As for your other metrics Jerry.......

 

I would argue she had four great matches in her career. In a career of about 30 PPV matches and less than 100 TV ones that's not too bad actually.

 

As to peak...........she had a 6 and a half year career. She was THE top star of the women's division, booked and treated totally differently than the men's for 4 and a half of those years. Take into account you DO have to adjust for North American women having bodies that force shorter careers. Even Sherri Martel never worked full time as a wrestler as long as Trish. Gail Kim seems to be the max at 12 years and I'd argue she's very overrated. Trish had a longer career than Magnum TA though. But I get she wasn't a top 30 worker in those years compared to all the men worldwide.

 

I'm more willing to rate her higher based on none of that being her fault or even possible given where she chose to work at that time. Before you knock her on that, she grew up on WWF and that was really all she knew, so wanting to be the top there as opposed to Japan is understandable at least.

 

Ability to work different roles? She gets a high score easily there Jerry. Watch her work wimpy cowardly heel in 2000, up and coming babyface in 2001, top champ in 02 and 03 completely reinvent herself in 2004 as a vicious nasty psychopath heel and mega bully and then AGAIN when turning face. You could plug her into ANY role within her size to do (you couldn't book Ric Flair as a giant either) and she hit it out of the park. Watch all the matches I am reviewing to see how she could adjust her role.

 

On your system she gets

 

Basic Skills - 4 - sold well did almost everything she tried really well and had a good logical varied moveset that often worked into the psych of the match.

 

Length of Peak - 4 - Adjusting for length of women's careers. Like adjusting for race in college I am willing to do this.

 

Intangibles - Promo, look, work ethic, overcoming impossible deck stacked, yeah I give her a 10. Also she did the fitness model thing to pay for medical school and based her body on 80's and 90's comic book women, because she was a huge fan of those superheroines. Never (at least that anyone's reported) used sex or had an affair with a wrestler. Instead stayed with her high school sweetheart (not a great looking guy just an average joe) her whole life and left her career behind at her peak to marry him because she felt he waited long enough and now just posts on FB about her great her son is. I don't give her points for that stuff but in a business filled with scumbags and heroes who have let so many of us down, maybe I SHOULD.

 

Variety - 6. Had really good stuff with 40% of her opponents. Had a good match with EVERY trained wrestler who was not just a model trying to wrestle she ever faced. That wasn't that many people but that's the numbers of her division working against her IMO.

 

Great Matches - 2 - Had 4 matches I'd call great out of about 100 I've seen.

 

Ability to work different roles - measly wimp you wanna see get hers (Fully Loaded 2000), up and coming model trying to learn to wrestle, Sting role as the person using passion and moves to compete with the best, women's best wrestler and babyface star, nasty vicious heel, smarter as heck heel women's champ and finally the Cena role for her last year. Check at excelling at all of those. Give her an 8 here.

 

Using your score I rate her a 34. Where would that put her on your list?

[Phil Schneider]

Six and half year career has to discount her completely. Someone would have to be the among the top five best in the world without question for three or four of those years for someone with a six and half year career to sniff a list. I can't think of anyone who comes close outside of maybe Volk Han, and I don't think Han is going to make my list. Of course Han is one of the greatest mat wrestlers of all time and basically headlined a promotion with multiple classic matches. Trish was better then Victoria at six minute piss break matches. A half a decade of solid 5 minute matches to kill time while people got beer. somehow making you one of the best 100 wrestlers in history seem totally bonkers to me.

[JerryvonKramer]

Brain:

 

Basic (offense, selling, psychology) 0/3 0/3 1/3 +1 (for amazing ass) = 2

Intangibles 10

Great Matches 0

Length of Peak 0

 

+1 ability to work heel

+1 ability to carry women's division

 

Ability to work different styles / roles = 2

 

If she only worked 19 different wrestlers period, you'd have to work out how many of them are actually worthy of inclusion. And then normalise it out of 10 based on the conversion scale in my thread.

 

Based on what you've said she's on about ...

 

Variety = 10 opponents = 5

 

So being super generous, she's on about 19.

 

34 would put her above Bret Hart, which is obviously silly.

[JerryvonKramer]

Brain, on a side note, are you going to rank Bobby Heenan?

[Phil Schneider]

Intangibles 10? So she is as great as Ric Flair or Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan or Negro Casas or Jerry Lawler at character work?

[JerryvonKramer]

I was being ridiculously generous to see what her highest possible score could be.

[thebrainfollower]

Okay now your metric has me lost. Do you consider Giant Gonzalez a 0 in terms of in ring work? She's certainly a heck of a lot better than him. If you mean 0 as the worst for the people ON this list and 10 for the best then I give her a 2.

 

Ah you meant STYLES and not roles. Okay in ability to work styles I'd give her a 3. Those are two totally different things to me. She also worked REALLY nice hardcore matches against Victoria.

 

And No I guess she's not as good as Hulk Hogan and the rest at character work/intangibles. If they are a 10 she's a 7. And a solid seven at that for much of her career which is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

Again six and a half year career is the norm for women's wrestlers in North America. It's longer than either Magnum TA or the Rock's careers minus one match comebacks. She was THE top star of her division for 2/3 of her career. You can't realistically ask more than that. Are you seriously suggesting WWE would have a 120 lb 5'4 woman be their top star and world champion? No matter how good Trish was that was not and could not happen. So I guess it's a sort of affirmative action where I take all those negatives, look at how she overcame them and include her. To most of you being a WWE women's wrestler is an automatic DQ for inclusion on this list. It's NOT for me and she's on mine.

 

And I've rewatched the matches recently for the little things like was done for late Andre and Demolition. I doubt anyone else here has to be honest.

 

I guess I'm more willing to overlook a bad environment and MORE willing to credit someone who overcomes that than most of you. I have no problem with that or your willingness not to.

 

Reworking your numbers now that I understand them Jerry she gets a 24 for me.

[Grimmas]

Okay now your metric has me lost. Do you consider Giant Gonzalez a 0 in terms of in ring work? She's certainly a heck of a lot better than him. If you mean 0 as the worst for the people ON this list and 10 for the best then I give her a 2.

 

Ah you meant STYLES and not roles. Okay in ability to work styles I'd give her a 3. Those are two totally different things to me. She also worked REALLY nice hardcore matches against Victoria.

 

And No I guess she's not as good as Hulk Hogan and the rest at character work/intangibles. If they are a 10 she's a 7. And a solid seven at that for much of her career which is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

Again six and a half year career is the norm for women's wrestlers in North America. It's longer than either Magnum TA or the Rock's careers minus one match comebacks. She was THE top star of her division for 2/3 of her career. You can't realistically ask more than that. Are you seriously suggesting WWE would have a 120 lb 5'4 woman be their top star and world champion? No matter how good Trish was that was not and could not happen. So I guess it's a sort of affirmative action where I take all those negatives, look at how she overcame them and include her. To most of you being a WWE women's wrestler is an automatic DQ for inclusion on this list. It's NOT for me and she's on mine.

 

And I've rewatched the matches recently for the little things like was done for late Andre and Demolition. I doubt anyone else here has to be honest.

 

I guess I'm more willing to overlook a bad environment and MORE willing to credit someone who overcomes that than most of you. I have no problem with that or your willingness not to.

 

Reworking your numbers now that I understand them Jerry she gets a 24 for me.

The fact still remains her best match ever doesn't even hit 4 stars. How can that get someone onto a greatest wrestler ever list?

[Jimmy Redman]

Her best match is a five star match for me.

 

But hey, that's me.

[thebrainfollower]

I think she hit 4 stars twice and will go into why on the microscope when I get there.

[thebrainfollower]

What's her best match Jimmy in your view?

[thebrainfollower]

And Bobby is top 50. If this list were PERFORMERS who did wrestling in any capacity he'd be #1. My name has a meaning behind it.

[WingedEagle]

How great can a wrestler be if they never had an MVP season? Hell, an MVP month? This kind of over-inflation seems more damaging to her resume than attempting to put it in an objective context.

[InYourCase]

This just seems like such a stretch. Making room for an American woman, one who I don't feel has ever come close to the small peak of someone like Sasha Banks, is just ridiculous to me. And Sasha isn't sniffing my list. But she does everything better than Trish ever did, the only differenc being that Trish worked a handful of average TV matches for years and years. I'm stunned to see her get this much consideration. I'm not going to have an American woman on my list because I consider no American woman to be in the top 100 greatest wrestler's of all-time. If you pull a sexist card with me here, you're out of your fucking mind. Like I said earlier, she isn't even in the same universe as people that are on my bubble. Someone like Great Sasuke, for example. We can put him through Parv's system.

 

B -- Yeah, Sasuke was fundamentally much better than Trish. He was able to use a unique mix of speed, high-impact moves, and crazy bumps in his matches. Really good seller. Arguably the best M-Pro singles worker ever.

 

I -- not on the same level as someone like Choshu, but a unique figure in Puro. Excellent charisma, especially considering the fact that he's under a mask. A great ace.

 

G -- certainly more than Trish has. I'm partial to his 8/25/95 match with Dos Caras for a great individual performance and his effort in the 12/16/96 match, which helped make that the greatest M-Pro match ever. Trish's best stuff doesn't come close to the latter.

 

L -- 5 years? Admittedly I'm not completely the M-Pro expert that I wish I was. I would consider 1993-1998 to be his peak years.

 

A -- Sasuke has a SUPER short, yet fun in BattleArts. Totally different from what his usual deal was. Trish never showed that drastic of a change. Heel to face is one thing, M-Pro to shoot-style is an actual drastic change.

 

V -- similar to the Diva's division, Sasuke was sort of trapped in a bubble. That being said, I think he was more successful at working a variety of opponents. I hate Dos Caras. I think he's just terrible. Yet, one of my favorite Sasuke matches is against Dos Caras.

 

I'm sorry, but it's not even close. There are people like Barry Whindam that I don't like, but I can totally see why people will rank them highly, but Trish is just absurd, and this is coming from someone who will probably have 9 Dragon Gate guys on his list. I still don't get how people are considering her for this list.

[thebrainfollower]

I don't feel there's anything new here I haven't responded to. Trish gets about a 24 from me on Parv's system. That ain't changing. I don't see why it bothers some people that a few people are gonna put her on and more are considering her to be honest the amount it seems to but whatever, it's no big deal.

[InYourCase]

I don't feel there's anything new here I haven't responded to. Trish gets about a 24 from me on Parv's system. That ain't changing. I don't see why it bothers some people that a few people are gonna put her on and more are considering her to be honest the amount it seems to but whatever, it's no big deal.

 

It doesn't bother me. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[thebrainfollower]

Looking at my list today I may have a HUGE North American bias as that is my favorite style and what I grew up with.

 

Of my list only 25 people are Japanese and Mexican wrestlers (not counting Rey and Eddie and a few others who did as much if not more in the US to make my case for them than they did Japan or Mexico).

 

That might help explain this to you. Or it might not.

[GOTNW]

Six and half year career has to discount her completely. Someone would have to be the among the top five best in the world without question for three or four of those years for someone with a six and half year career to sniff a list. I can't think of anyone who comes close outside of maybe Volk Han, and I don't think Han is going to make my list. Of course Han is one of the greatest mat wrestlers of all time and basically headlined a promotion with multiple classic matches. Trish was better then Victoria at six minute piss break matches. A half a decade of solid 5 minute matches to kill time while people got beer. somehow making you one of the best 100 wrestlers in history seem totally bonkers to me.

I couldn't care less about Trish but you're gonna rank folks that have only a couple of matches on tape and not HAN?

[WingedEagle]

Looking at my list today I may have a HUGE North American bias as that is my favorite style and what I grew up with.

 

Of my list only 25 people are Japanese and Mexican wrestlers (not counting Rey and Eddie and a few others who did as much if not more in the US to make my case for them than they did Japan or Mexico).

 

That might help explain this to you. Or it might not.

 

I'm all for a North American bias if that's what you've watched and love. I just don't get ranking someone you think has only produced a couple really good matches. From what you've reviewed in the microscope thread it sounds like the basis is that she often prevented some models from having worst match ever candidates rather than argue that the matches were in fact good.

[thebrainfollower]

Well I deliberately started off with her lesser stuff against lesser opponents. I've covered only the Molly series in any detail and that's probably her 4th or 5th best feud in terms of quality. Given how unaware most of you are of her, I probably should have started off with the best stuff first and that's my bad.

[thebrainfollower]

It would be like trying to introduce Flair to someone and showing them the JYD and Evolution stuff first.

[Grimmas]

Well I deliberately started off with her lesser stuff against lesser opponents. I've covered only the Molly series in any detail and that's probably her 4th or 5th best feud in terms of quality. Given how unaware most of you are of her, I probably should have started off with the best stuff first and that's my bad.

Unaware? Most of us watched her entire career in real time.