Where the Big Boys Play #81 - Top 100 Greatest Wrestlers Ever Special, Part 1: 100-41

[JerryvonKramer]

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-81-top-100-greatest-wrestlers-ever-special-part-1-100-41/



As part of the Greatest Wrestler Ever project on prowrestlingonly.com, Chad and Parv rank their top 100 wrestlers. In this first part, they run down from 100 to 41.

To see and take part in the project, visit: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/forum/777-greatest-wrestler-ever/

[WingedEagle]

PUMPED.

[shoe]

Do we get a detailed breakdown of Biglav for the slackers who are too busy to read Parv's long thread?

[soup23]

He gives you the cliffnotes Pete.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Hyped out my damn mind.

[PeteF3]

Damn straight I ranked Dory, Jr.

[Eegah]

Cant wait to listen guys. Will post thoughts, thanks in advance for all your hard work. Love it.

[Eegah]

Great stuff fellas as always. I enjoyed the variance of your respective lists, wont post any spoilers but some of the omissions surprised me and some of the guys who got love pleasantly surprised me. I will anxiously await part two, thanks for all the content and quality analysis!

[bradhindsight]

I would like to quickly respond to the defamation purported against me by my close, personal friend Chad.

 

First - I made the self-deprecating joke about him making up joshi names when we were talking about Dynamite Kansai (I'm sure she's very nice, and she's definitely real - and she made my list).

 

One of the goals of my list was to not exclude the best of different styles that I had not as closely followed. As part of my follow-up research, I watched and read more on each to be able to slot them into a tier I felt was respectable.

 

We had a nice conversation about Kiyoshi Tamura as well.

 

What a hatchet job. Jerk.

[Childs]

Fun listen guys. My list is pretty different from either of yours but between the two of you, you have almost all my picks.

[Matt D]

Parv stooging for his rogues gallery of wrestlers is the best part of this by far.

[WingedEagle]

Absolutely loved this. Made sitting in traffic a total blats. Enjoyed the contrast of your lists and how you both responded to those differences. Favorite part was Parv saying the name "Low Ki" as though Ki himself was in the room and just farted. Hilarious.

[Dylan Waco]

Really enjoyed this show. I think with any show like this there is always a tendency to focus on areas of disagreement, but one thing that I thought was really cool was that I heard a lot of guys pop up on both Chad and Parv's list who I either didn't expect to appear or where I thought "I'm really glad someone rated them because they are on my bubble and I'm not sure they are gonna make it."

 

It's an odd thing to point to but I thought it was interesting that I seemed to disagree with Chad about Hogan's peak. I like a lot of the stuff he mentioned from the 90's, but when I went back and watched Hogan's 84-87 WWF run a few years back I was blown away by how good I thought a lot of it was. I think the really strong performances dry up by 88, but in that first period I thought he was a very strong worker, and I'd personally put his best matches from that period over something like the Flair match Chad mentioned, which I enjoyed but didn't think was nearly as good.

 

One other thing that really struck me listening to this was the difference in tone between this show and the shows Parv and Chad did on their top matches. Where there was sort of a defeated tone to the way they talked about GWE here, I thought the tone surrounding the matches show was much more celebratory. Even accepting the difference in viewpoints about what is easier/more fun to rate (to me it's wrestlers by far, for Chad at least it's matches), I was kind of struck by this as I would have expected the same sort of feeling of incompleteness to have been at the forefront of the intro of both shows. I wonder if the difference was just that one was an "official" broader project and the other was more of a personal thing?

 

Parv's comments on consistency of performance being something missing in his BIGLAV calculations really struck me, because as I've gone through this process I've come to see that that is one of the traits I MOST value. While I wouldn't say it is the most important characteristic for me, it's something I often come back to, and I remain unpersuaded by the "if someone could be great when they wanted to they were" argument because there are too many obviously absurd conclusions that can be drawn from that.

 

I actually think listening to this show really brought out why consistency matters so much to me as well and that is the fact that I watch way more wrestling than even most people here. When you watch as much as I do being able to count on someone to deliver with every match you watch is something that has a lot more value than when you are watching greatest hits, or even singular runs or highlighted matches from specific years. Guys who don't let me down will be rewarded on my ballot and I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't be.

 

This and some other comments on the show also got me thinking about how viewing habits and context can effect how you view certain wrestlers. In particular I thought Chad's comments on both the AWA 80s project and how committee members on those projects might view things differently really stuck out to me. I say this because I think there is really a massive difference between watching whole catalogs of promotions, and watching selected matches in terms of how you view certain guys. Obviously there is no way anyone could be expected to watch the whole runs of every wrestler, but I do think having that more complete knowledge will improve the standing of certain guys (and maybe in some cases hurt the standings of certain guys). There is no question it also creates a feeling of ownership which may influence how a person feels about certain talents as well. It's an interesting dynamic.

 

I was a bit surprised to see Hase so high for some reason, and I really don't buy the idea of Tully as an all timer any more, but other than that there was nothing on this show I fiercely disagree with when it came to placement.

[The Chief]

As a faithful Where the Big Boys Play listener, I heard a few names on each of your lists that made me do a double take (because of your tastes) I think this podcast convinced me to submit a list

[soup23]

Really enjoyed this show. I think with any show like this there is always a tendency to focus on areas of disagreement, but one thing that I thought was really cool was that I heard a lot of guys pop up on both Chad and Parv's list who I either didn't expect to appear or where I thought "I'm really glad someone rated them because they are on my bubble and I'm not sure they are gonna make it."

 

It's an odd thing to point to but I thought it was interesting that I seemed to disagree with Chad about Hogan's peak. I like a lot of the stuff he mentioned from the 90's, but when I went back and watched Hogan's 84-87 WWF run a few years back I was blown away by how good I thought a lot of it was. I think the really strong performances dry up by 88, but in that first period I thought he was a very strong worker, and I'd personally put his best matches from that period over something like the Flair match Chad mentioned, which I enjoyed but didn't think was nearly as good.

 

One other thing that really struck me listening to this was the difference in tone between this show and the shows Parv and Chad did on their top matches. Where there was sort of a defeated tone to the way they talked about GWE here, I thought the tone surrounding the matches show was much more celebratory. Even accepting the difference in viewpoints about what is easier/more fun to rate (to me it's wrestlers by far, for Chad at least it's matches), I was kind of struck by this as I would have expected the same sort of feeling of incompleteness to have been at the forefront of the intro of both shows. I wonder if the difference was just that one was an "official" broader project and the other was more of a personal thing?

 

Parv's comments on consistency of performance being something missing in his BIGLAV calculations really struck me, because as I've gone through this process I've come to see that that is one of the traits I MOST value. While I wouldn't say it is the most important characteristic for me, it's something I often come back to, and I remain unpersuaded by the "if someone could be great when they wanted to they were" argument because there are too many obviously absurd conclusions that can be drawn from that.

 

I actually think listening to this show really brought out why consistency matters so much to me as well and that is the fact that I watch way more wrestling than even most people here. When you watch as much as I do being able to count on someone to deliver with every match you watch is something that has a lot more value than when you are watching greatest hits, or even singular runs or highlighted matches from specific years. Guys who don't let me down will be rewarded on my ballot and I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't be.

 

This and some other comments on the show also got me thinking about how viewing habits and context can effect how you view certain wrestlers. In particular I thought Chad's comments on both the AWA 80s project and how committee members on those projects might view things differently really stuck out to me. I say this because I think there is really a massive difference between watching whole catalogs of promotions, and watching selected matches in terms of how you view certain guys. Obviously there is no way anyone could be expected to watch the whole runs of every wrestler, but I do think having that more complete knowledge will improve the standing of certain guys (and maybe in some cases hurt the standings of certain guys). There is no question it also creates a feeling of ownership which may influence how a person feels about certain talents as well. It's an interesting dynamic.

 

I was a bit surprised to see Hase so high for some reason, and I really don't buy the idea of Tully as an all timer any more, but other than that there was nothing on this show I fiercely disagree with when it came to placement.

 

In regards to the tone issue, I can say that i felt "better" overall about my top 100 matches list than my GWE list when all was said and done. I think most of that is a personal hump that is very difficult to get over. I really struggle ranking workers overall and my list of 180 guys that was wittled down to 100 was full of people that I regretted not putting on my list. It was tough for me to decide whether El Samuari at 99 really deserved to be there in my eyes over someone like Butch Reed. There was certainly casualties in the Match list but having a set cut off point of not ranking anything I had watched pre 2011 was helpful in me instituting an artificial restraint on ranking stuff. It did leave off things like the 84 NJ Gauntlet which I watched in I guess 2010 and loved (watched this three nights ago again to get a gauge on some guys and man what an awesome match), but it helped in me setting a straight barrier. I didn't rank Buddy Rose and I feel I have seen a real good amount of Buddy. In some ways I liken it to how you used to talk about ranking lucha for the WON HOF Dylan. Overall, I do think this project was a success in whole and I hope that is conveyed by the podcast, but I also wanted to give an accurate portrayal that for myself, it was a failure in a lot of ways where I got uncharacteristically really angry over Parv giving someone too low a BIGLAV and other stuff that I'm usually to just pan off in general discussion of wrestling. Perhaps that is due to the definiteness of the list as there is certain things where you can look back at the 2006 and be perplexed at the overall ratings of certain workers. I think that presents a moment in time narrative that I am striving to see more as a positive instead of a negative. I have really enjoyed seeing some younger voices like Sammy, Case, Tanner, etc. jumping in and giving their thoughts even when I disagree overall with their conclusions.

 

Consistency was discussed a lot during the pod and it became clear as we were talking that it matters a whole lot to me as well. I am pretty punishing of workers who are inconsistent during their peak as a performer. I don't think I have an official cutoff date but Andre being lazy vs. Studd is much more of a negative in my eyes than Funk having a disorganized performance in 1998 or Flair doing his by the numbers routine around the same time. Even in my top 20, consistency hurts some workers from being around their contemporaries. I don't think Kawada is as consistent as Misawa and Kobashi for example so you will see them placed higher.

 

As encompassing as this project is, there is an emphasis with most of us to rank based on what you have really watched and dived into to a degree. I think BIGLAV actually is one of the systems that is pretty objective in regards to this as Parv ended up rating tons of workers he doesn't enjoy. For me, the last 5-7 years have been littered with 80's projects and yearbooks so that is a huge representation of the list. There will be some outliers like the indy guys and Destroyer but my list as a whole really reads as who I have been digging in the sets I have participated in. Also me going through the IWA stuff is why I threw a bone Ian's way at #100.

 

I hope you do submit a list Chief.

[shoe]

It's killing me that Biglav doesn't have consistency in it. Shows a major flaw in the system. Drink every time Parv says highlight package. I liked both lists. Very different.

[JerryvonKramer]

Thanks for all the comments. I think it's become clear that there should have been a "consistency" rating in BIGLAV and that it should have been a 7-factor model rather than a 6-factor model.

 

I do slightly regret that because it would have made a real difference to my list. Just looking down the bigger spreadsheet now and it would have boosted some people's scores, and probably that's where greatest hits candidates -- guys like Inoki -- fall off. And they would have if that 7th rating was there. You live and learn I guess. I am still happy with the model and stand by it, but I accept that tweak is probably needed.

 

It does throw up some questions in itself. Like, for example, I'm looking at Abdullah the Butcher's ratings in the spreadsheet and thinking "well, he was CONSISTENTLY Abby". I'm not sure how to rate guys like that for consistency. Arn is probably your perfect 10 there. I think Flair is pretty darn consistent too across the 80s as the many many many times Chad and I have given him MVP on this show would attest, less so in later years which begs the question of: do you do the consistency rating across their peak or across their whole career? Also, on a side note, after a week of watching Regal, I don't think he'd be a 10 or even an 8 for consistency. The idea that he is always good is probably overstated.

[WingedEagle]

You've got me thinking I should try my own rankings this way. We'll see if it happens as the deadline approaches.

[Childs]

As much fun as we had picking and poking at BIGLAV, I do think it was good for the overall process, not just for Parv.

[The Russian Daydream]

I'm putting off listening to this until I've completed my list. I wasn't going to do one but after reading Parv's BIGLAV thread I decided to give it a go. I really like the concept as a science guy it makes things far more quantifiable, so I'm working with an amended BIIGLAVS scheme, where the second 'I' is 'influence on the business and other wrestlers' and the 'S' is 'sustained consistency'. I also made each sub-category within 'ability to work different styles / roles' worth three marks. This gives a total out of 100 for each wrestler which should mean less tie on identical scores. I've not finished scoring my list yet though so I'll just see how it goes.

[Jimmy Redman]

This show was a blast and got me through 2 hours of mould scrubbing, so kudos for that.

 

One thing I feel I should say is that you mentioned not knowing how younger people are on Tully since he hasn't been talked about much, but I am pretty high on Tully and he'll do well on my list. Higher than yours, in fact. So there's one.

 

My other main takeaway is from early on in the show when Parv asked "Do you love everyone on your list Chad?" And it became clear as it went on and certain people were discussed that the answer was no, particularly for Parv given the nature of his system. I kept thinking about that every time a name would come up that Parv would just sigh at, and it made me realise that for me personally, when it comes down to it, I DO want to love everyone on my list. Wrestling is a labour of love for me, and the most fun I've had during this project has been talking about guys I truly love like Cena, Rey, Sheamus, even Kofi Kingston, or in discovering new people I can get excited about, like Akira Hokuto or Mark Rocco. I don't want to put anyone on my list where if I was doing a podcast, I'd sigh when their name came up. That really wouldn't be true to who I am as a wrestling fan.

[JerryvonKramer]

Thanks for listening Jimmy!

 

I guess the question is: do I want to be true to myself or true to the nature of a GWE list? If I'm true to myself, honestly, no one who wrestled after about 1997 would rank, period. My list would be pretty narrow and 100% in line with the 7-virtues list I wrote up. Although I will admit that when I listened back to this, the contrast between the guys I love and the guys I don't is pretty obvious. It is more energising to talk about stuff you love. But this list isn't about getting me energised or self-gratification or anything like that, it's about trying to establish who the GWE is, regardless of my personal tastes. For me the core of the project was about trying to see past personal biases and seeing what the kernel of each case was. In some areas (see lucha), I failed dismally, in others I made more headway.

[Jimmy Redman]

Sure.

 

Like, I'm not going to entirely love everyone on my list because I'm still going to rank a guy like Hunter, whom I hate a lot of the time. BUT the key for me is that there are times when I absolutely love him as well. When I look back at things like the Taker matches and read what I said about them at the time, I remember the feeling and remember all of the things that someone like Hunter is capable of when he's good. So I'm just choosing to focus on that and ignore how much he shits me when he's not doing good work. I'm kind of like you in that my "system" doesn't factor in negatives. I'm focusing on the positives when I rank people.

 

In practical terms I think it just means that as I finish the end of my ballot, I'm going to end up going for guys that I really, truly care about. I think I'd regret ranking a guy who I see as like a good worker but have no strong feelings about (or that I dislike) above someone whom I can really get excited about their case.

 

The difference between Ted DiBiase and Kofi Kingston, basically.

[JerryvonKramer]

[Jimmy Redman]

Thought you'd like that one.