Is The Undertaker in your top 100?

[Matt D]

Flair in 02 has the Arn moment. Arn should get a point for that.

[JerryvonKramer]

Between that, his little ECW appearance and his SMW appearance, Arn does a great line in unexpected cameos. Sadly no points for it though.

[El McKell]

If you want excuses to deduct Undertaker points you could remove the +1 for ability to work tags, because since when was Undertaker ever good in tags beside that one Shield match and at a stretch the SNME match w/Flair against Sid and Hogan. Unless that +1 is going to basically everyone who worked tag matches, then ignore me.

[JerryvonKramer]

Bizarrely, I was actually thinking of the Skyscrapers when I gave him that

[Coffey]

Today I learned that The Undertaker has a "1" in psychology. I like to picture wrestlers reading these lists... Reminds me of the C.M. Punk shoot when the one jabrone at the wrestling school said he was "like Shawn Michaels... only with more charisma."

 

I think instead of running every guy through your wrestling number grinder, JVK, you should first definitively reassess what those criteria actually represent/mean.

[Matt D]

Well I think the explanation is that he simply got better and put out years of good work. He was better in the last decade of his career than he was before, particularly in regards to having a lot of great matches.

I'd be hesitant on that explanation. I really enjoy the two matches with Hogan in 91. I've written about them here before (though years ago, so always, there's a caveat there). But they weren't supposed to be great matches. That wasn't his role on the card. So it's more of a case that we weren't put in a position to know how good he was because it wasn't his job to have the sort of matches that would have shown us until years later.

[JerryvonKramer]

Today I learned that The Undertaker has a "1" in psychology. I like to picture wrestlers reading these lists... Reminds me of the C.M. Punk shoot when the one jabrone at the wrestling school said he was "like Shawn Michaels... only with more charisma."

 

I think instead of running every guy through your wrestling number grinder, JVK, you should first definitively reassess what those criteria actually represent/mean.

You'd give him more?

 

Who else would? And why? I am more inclined to adjust the rating than to definitively reasses anything at this point. Counting down the days till this thing is over.

[thebrainfollower]

You haven't watched any WWF stuff non PPV in the past ten years Parv. Fair enough. But I though the whole point of this exercise was to try to be as objective as possible and watch watch watch what you haven't seen. For you modern WWE is a major gap. Therefore in order for me to view your poll as having the most value possible you need to catch up on that for people who have been nominated. Raw too not just PPV.

 

Likewise I needed to do a major catch up on lucha and am doing so. If there are any WWE wrestlers nominated you haven't seen or can recall a match of theirs in years, you should try and go back and watch them.

 

 

As for Undertaker he might have a crack at my top 50. I think he did good work even during his gimmicky years at getting crowds into his stuff and worked around the limitations of his character. I'm a big fan of people working around WWE imposed limitations.

 

Also to be blunt, who cares about the IWC "perception" of Taker from years back? Going there we would all have Brody in our top 30.

[thebrainfollower]

I'd def give UT higher marks on psychology. You do have to look at it through playing the character of an undead zombie, so his psych is going to be unique.

[JerryvonKramer]

Bear in mind I have the likes of Flair and Dibiase on 2/3 for psychology, it's a tough field. As in it isn't 1/3 in absolute terms but in GWE terms, whatever that means.

 

I might watch a few UT matches.

[Goodear]

 

Well I think the explanation is that he simply got better and put out years of good work. He was better in the last decade of his career than he was before, particularly in regards to having a lot of great matches.

I'd be hesitant on that explanation. I really enjoy the two matches with Hogan in 91. I've written about them here before (though years ago, so always, there's a caveat there). But they weren't supposed to be great matches. That wasn't his role on the card. So it's more of a case that we weren't put in a position to know how good he was because it wasn't his job to have the sort of matches that would have shown us until years later.

 

 

Undertaker serves again as a example of being a character first and having that drive his matches rather than being super focused on having the best match possible. People have this tendency to believe that if someone wasn't having workrate matches, then they were not capable of doing so rather than it being a actual choice to play with the medium. Early work as Mark Callous indicates at least a certain level of competency for a young guy but he was simply another guy in WCW. It wasn't until he came to WWE and started acting like a zombie that he was able to capture the audience. Why in the heck would he go back to a less successful formula just so he could become just another guy? Snowflakes don't make for good wrestlers regardless of what one might think. Roman Reigns has bunches of good matches, but his character is so empty, he hasn't connected with the adult audience regardless.

[Childs]

I find this whole line of thinking wrongheaded. For the purposes of this exercise, I really don't care if Taker was doing his job from 1991 to 1996. I care that he did little or nothing to suggest he was a great wrestler. I don't hold those years against him in the sense that I think he was awful. But I'm also not giving him credit for what he might have been capable of.

[Matt D]

It's less about rewarding him than it is about not punishing him.

[Childs]

As I said, I'm fine with that.

[Benbeeach]

I absolutely think The Undertaker is one of the 100 greatest ever. But again, the worker, and the wrestler, and all that encompasses don't always mean the same things. But I think Taker's high's are high enough that he shouldn't be summarily dismissed no matter what paradigm you're looking at this through. It's not like at his best Taker wasn't a good seller. (Especially given the gimmick, delicate lines) He had good, above average offense. Checks off the crazy old guy stunt show Funk and Flair boxes. Has had great matches at a sub Flair/Bockwinkel age.

He's beyond a net positive wrestler. Are there 10 WWE workers better?

[Loss]

 

 

Well I think the explanation is that he simply got better and put out years of good work. He was better in the last decade of his career than he was before, particularly in regards to having a lot of great matches.

I'd be hesitant on that explanation. I really enjoy the two matches with Hogan in 91. I've written about them here before (though years ago, so always, there's a caveat there). But they weren't supposed to be great matches. That wasn't his role on the card. So it's more of a case that we weren't put in a position to know how good he was because it wasn't his job to have the sort of matches that would have shown us until years later.

 

 

Undertaker serves again as a example of being a character first and having that drive his matches rather than being super focused on having the best match possible. People have this tendency to believe that if someone wasn't having workrate matches, then they were not capable of doing so rather than it being a actual choice to play with the medium. Early work as Mark Callous indicates at least a certain level of competency for a young guy but he was simply another guy in WCW. It wasn't until he came to WWE and started acting like a zombie that he was able to capture the audience. Why in the heck would he go back to a less successful formula just so he could become just another guy? Snowflakes don't make for good wrestlers regardless of what one might think. Roman Reigns has bunches of good matches, but his character is so empty, he hasn't connected with the adult audience regardless.

 

 

I feel like this point conflates the idea of having the best match possible with having a workrate match. A workrate match isn't necessarily the best match possible. But I think the better question is why it took Mick Foley coming in for Undertaker to finally start having good matches. The idea that he made a choice is certainly a valid one, but he made a choice to be a less interesting wrestler in order to get his character over. I don't think music critics would praise groups like Genesis or Heart for abandoning their initial sound for a more commercially appealing style. I wouldn't criticize him too much for it, but I don't think those years reflect in a *good* way on him.

 

You compare Undertaker to other attraction types like Kamala or Killer Khan and there is proof that guys doing similar gimmicks where workrate specials weren't the priority still had good, enjoyable matches.

[Eduardo]

I forgot how Dave phrased it, but I believe he was saying that Nick Bockwinkel would often share this idea of a "workrate match isn't necessarily the best match possible".

 

On a list of best in-right workers, I wouldn't have Undertaker on my list, but I still like the guy a lot, and it's no diss when thinking he's not in the top 100 workers, of available recorded footage, around the globe. Also if some see him as a top 100 guy, I can understand that, unlike other workers who I just wouldn't at all.

[Jimmy Redman]

I will say as a random thing, I was goaded into watching Taker vs Giant Gonzalez for some argument years ago, and I was kind of astonished at how good Taker's performance was in it. It's still a shitty match, but Taker clearly had his working boots on and was trying his best to play his part.

 

I mean, we talk about Taker being a stiff in the early years, but when you stand him next to an actual stiff, you can see that Taker was clearly capable of more and his was a conscious choice to work down to the gimmick. He didn't drag Gonzalez to a ***1/2 match, because he was never supposed to do that (and who knows if he could have), but he put in the best possible monster performance in a freakshow match, which was the parameters he was given.

 

Years later, after numerous character changes and the nature of WWE wrestling changing dramatically, he eventually was in a position to do that, and you have him having ***1/2 matches with Festus and Khali and whoever.

 

That's not to say he was as good in 1994 as he was in 2008, like I said I think he's been a better worker in the last decade than he ever was before that. But I think he showed signs of life in the early years, and I certainly don't hold them against him.