What did you learn about your fandom from GWE?

[Scarlet-Left]

I lack the restraint/objectivity to be analytical about wrestling. I love wrestling, and I can be critical of it, but, when it comes to logically determining who is better than who, that all goes right out of the window.

 

Basically, for lack of a better term, I'm a mark. I'm a massive mark. I get sucked in and I can't rid myself of the story of wrestling. That's why I took Scott Hall off of my list. Whilst I, legitimately (?), thought he was good enough to make my ballot, I can't shake off the fact that I'm such a massive mark for Bret Hart; no Kliq on my list, no Hogan. I look at my list and see Zybszko so many places down from Lex Luger and I just have this tremendous feeling of it being so wrong but I can't change that because it'd unravel the web of lies my list is based on.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Chad spoke of personal failure. I cant help but commiserate. I am actually most disappointed in myself for not finding time to take part in the threads where such great discussion was being generated. I set forth that I wanted to go really depth in American and Japanese male pro wrestling rather than try to be too broad and found that I still didn't have time to complete those tasks (New Japan 80s was the casualty).

 

It will be down to the wire, but I should have a ballot in on Saturday night.

[anarchistxx]

Learned I will never get back into wrestling, sadly. Not properly. Kept meaning to watch mountains of stuff for this poll...ended up just smashing it in for a few weeks and even then I wasn't ever marking out by anything or getting especially excited. I fell out of wrestling as an obsessive, passionate fandom around 2006 and always assumed that one day when my time was less pressured it would return to being a major hobby for me. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it will ever happen now, which is a shame as it was a major, major part of my life between 2001/2002 and 2006/2007. I just can't invest in a particular promotion or watch stacks of stuff anymore. I did majorly review my old folders, notes, ratings, reviews and thoughts to help with ranking.

 

I'm actually more interested in wrestling as a business now. I'd rather read about the economic side of things, debate the rationale of why a particular person is getting pushed, talk about the booking and the scripting and the presentation. A thirty minute workrate match does very little for me by comparison.

 

In terms of the last decade, Daniel Bryan got me invested in WWE for his run in and around the top of the card, and the product between 2012 and 2014 was fun enough to follow, especially when The Shield rolled up. KENTA/Nakajima is the last series of wrestling matches that had me going crazy and that was fucking 2009.

[funkdoc]

i can totally relate to anarchistxx there, and plan on making a thread since my specific issues are different from those above.

 

i'm actually more interested in following the development of wrestling criticism than i am in watching the shows. that's my primary interest, but i like the business/political side as well. when i do enjoy wrestling, it's the real offbeat stuff that tends to be considered "objectively bad" - think early FMW with the martial artists who didn't know how to do a worked match.

[Dylan Waco]

Early FMW is great.

 

I learned that I don't think the "peak v. longevity" debate really works in my mind the way it does with other people and I prefer to analyze based on "duration of quality."

 

I learned that consistency matters a ton when you watch as much as I do. Maybe more than it should, but it's a criteria that I value and I think a large part of that has to do with viewing habits.

 

I learned that variety/variation means something radically different to different people, but that I tend value it on both ends (ability to have matches with a wide variety of people and ability to play a variety of roles/work a variety of styles), and that I probably value it more than most.

 

I learned that there is a HUGELY MASSIVE difference between immersive viewing and cherry picking, whereas I had previously thought the difference was merely a big one. I also don't know that I like either of those terms for what I'm describing.

 

I learned that I will always value the things I see as my babies (AWA, SMW, ECW) more than most and it has effected the way I see certain people in part because it feels more complete. This certainly has a psychological component to it even though I tried to objective. Having said this, in talking to my brothers about their ballots today I was shocked to see that at least some of my babies did better for them than they did with me.

 

I learned that I (and everyone really) am much more heavily influenced by outside factors, and in particular constructed narratives that emerge during a given time and place than I might care to admit. I tried to correct for this and think a bit more about this down the stretch when I looked at certain performers on other core values I had and couldn't figure out why my instinct wasn't to rate them higher. The results were interesting and will possibly shock some people.

 

I learned that I really don't like writing match reviews anymore. This is sad to me, but it's something I slowly came to over the course of the project. I just hate the idea of not going on to the next match which will help me appreciate the wrestler or promotion or whatever I'm focusing on more because I have to stop to write a paragraph or two that no one will ever read because their aren't snowflakes following it.

 

Building on that same theme I learned that I get WAY more enjoyment out of discussing wrestlers than matches at least in the context of a "best ever" type of project. This also makes me a bit sad as I think that I'm clearly on the margins here, and as the discussion seems to shift more and more to matches, my involvement in the community will likely shrink exponentially.

 

I learned that the process Steven and I came up with worked pretty well, but probably could have been better. I don't regret the idea of nominations, but do wonder if the three match rule had a real point at the end of the day even if it came from the right place.

 

I learned that the tag team ballot being paired with GWE was a bad idea for me personally both because I think it merited it's own day in the sun, I think 25 was too few, and I think it effected the rankings of my singles ballot subconsciously as I found myself tossing out many tag workers I might have more seriously considered if I wasn't already rating the team highly.

 

I learned that the vaunted All Japan style of the 90s does not QUITE hold up to me. I say not quite, because I still see the greatness in it, still love much of it, and still ranked all of it's major practitioners well on my ballot. That said many of the matches felt bloated to me, often times I found myself thinking "if a guy did that today people would crucify them for doing too much" and there were personal quirks of the workers (well...really one) that irked me a great deal and hurt matches.

 

I learned that wrestlers who felt unique in a place and time get extra points with me when I do these sort of comparisons. This includes not just guys who had great runs, but guys who did interesting and different things from those around them.

 

I learned that "super indie" style ages way better for me than I ever would have guessed. Not my favorite by any means, but I reject Parv's critique of it's authenticity or lack thereof. Many of the most painful cuts for me were people who came out of this scene.

 

Similarly I came to believe that "aping the greats" is MUCH more prevalent throughout history and that Parv's point on homage v. tradition is an interesting one, but one I think speaks more to a generational divide than any actual real difference.

 

I learned that I don't really like ranking wrestlers if I don't have a good idea of how they were in their "home promotion." This led to some very controversial omissions, including the one that I must regret, even if I can justify it as something that had to be done on those grounds.

 

Not something I learned, but I do regret not watching older FMW, more Minchinoku Pro, or NWA Classics. It bothers me that people like Fuyuki, Lothario, and Taka were left off my list because of stuff I could have watched and didn't.

 

I learned that I think of tag teams differently than people do, in the sense that I don't see a "real" team if I think of your career and the tag team doesn't spring to mind as one of the first few things. This may lead to some people being surprised by my tag list.

 

I learned that on the issue of the generational divide I'm an old man with young man sympathies, whereas coming into this I saw myself as a young man, with old man sympathies.

 

I learned that I will really miss this project, and while I'm happy it seems to have worked out so great, it does feel like the end of an era for me as a fan. I have drifted more and more into focusing on the modern product over the last two years for a variety of reasons, and I don't see this trend ending even if my interest in WWE is nearing all time lows (it's not 2003 Raw level bad yet). Though I feel compelled to submit a Greatest Match Ever ballot if Sam goes through with it almost as an act of reciprocation for people who participated here with major reservations, the idea of it does not interest me in the least, and it's likely I'll just cobble together a ballot without watching much of anything and send it in when it's due.

[JerryvonKramer]

Early FMW is great.

 

I learned that I don't think the "peak v. longevity" debate really works in my mind the way it does with other people and I prefer to analyze based on "duration of quality."

 

I learned that consistency matters a ton when you watch as much as I do. Maybe more than it should, but it's a criteria that I value and I think a large part of that has to do with viewing habits.

 

I learned that variety/variation means something radically different to different people, but that I tend value it on both ends (ability to have matches with a wide variety of people and ability to play a variety of roles/work a variety of styles), and that I probably value it more than most.

 

I learned that there is a HUGELY MASSIVE difference between immersive viewing and cherry picking, whereas I had previously thought the difference was merely a big one. I also don't know that I like either of those terms for what I'm describing.

 

I learned that I will always value the things I see as my babies (AWA, SMW, ECW) more than most and it has effected the way I see certain people in part because it feels more complete. This certainly has a psychological component to it even though I tried to objective. Having said this, in talking to my brothers about their ballots today I was shocked to see that at least some of my babies did better for them than they did with me.

 

I learned that I (and everyone really) am much more heavily influenced by outside factors, and in particular constructed narratives that emerge during a given time and place than I might care to admit. I tried to correct for this and think a bit more about this down the stretch when I looked at certain performers on other core values I had and couldn't figure out why my instinct wasn't to rate them higher. The results were interesting and will possibly shock some people.

 

I learned that I really don't like writing match reviews anymore. This is sad to me, but it's something I slowly came to over the course of the project. I just hate the idea of not going on to the next match which will help me appreciate the wrestler or promotion or whatever I'm focusing on more because I have to stop to write a paragraph or two that no one will ever read because their aren't snowflakes following it.

 

Building on that same theme I learned that I get WAY more enjoyment out of discussing wrestlers than matches at least in the context of a "best ever" type of project. This also makes me a bit sad as I think that I'm clearly on the margins here, and as the discussion seems to shift more and more to matches, my involvement in the community will likely shrink exponentially.

 

I learned that the process Steven and I came up with worked pretty well, but probably could have been better. I don't regret the idea of nominations, but do wonder if the three match rule had a real point at the end of the day even if it came from the right place.

 

I learned that the tag team ballot being paired with GWE was a bad idea for me personally both because I think it merited it's own day in the sun, I think 25 was too few, and I think it effected the rankings of my singles ballot subconsciously as I found myself tossing out many tag workers I might have more seriously considered if I wasn't already rating the team highly.

 

I learned that the vaunted All Japan style of the 90s does not QUITE hold up to me. I say not quite, because I still see the greatness in it, still love much of it, and still ranked all of it's major practitioners well on my ballot. That said many of the matches felt bloated to me, often times I found myself thinking "if a guy did that today people would crucify them for doing too much" and there were personal quirks of the workers (well...really one) that irked me a great deal and hurt matches.

 

I learned that wrestlers who felt unique in a place and time get extra points with me when I do these sort of comparisons. This includes not just guys who had great runs, but guys who did interesting and different things from those around them.

 

I learned that "super indie" style ages way better for me than I ever would have guessed. Not my favorite by any means, but I reject Parv's critique of it's authenticity or lack thereof. Many of the most painful cuts for me were people who came out of this scene.

 

Similarly I came to believe that "aping the greats" is MUCH more prevalent throughout history and that Parv's point on homage v. tradition is an interesting one, but one I think speaks more to a generational divide than any actual real difference.

 

I learned that I don't really like ranking wrestlers if I don't have a good idea of how they were in their "home promotion." This led to some very controversial omissions, including the one that I must regret, even if I can justify it as something that had to be done on those grounds.

 

Not something I learned, but I do regret not watching older FMW, more Minchinoku Pro, or NWA Classics. It bothers me that people like Fuyuki, Lothario, and Taka were left off my list because of stuff I could have watched and didn't.

 

I learned that I think of tag teams differently than people do, in the sense that I don't see a "real" team if I think of your career and the tag team doesn't spring to mind as one of the first few things. This may lead to some people being surprised by my tag list.

 

I learned that on the issue of the generational divide I'm an old man with young man sympathies, whereas coming into this I saw myself as a young man, with old man sympathies.

 

I learned that I will really miss this project, and while I'm happy it seems to have worked out so great, it does feel like the end of an era for me as a fan. I have drifted more and more into focusing on the modern product over the last two years for a variety of reasons, and I don't see this trend ending even if my interest in WWE is nearing all time lows (it's not 2003 Raw level bad yet). Though I feel compelled to submit a Greatest Match Ever ballot if Sam goes through with it almost as an act of reciprocation for people who participated here with major reservations, the idea of it does not interest me in the least, and it's likely I'll just cobble together a ballot without watching much of anything and send it in when it's due.

 

Really enjoyed reading that post!

[Loss]

This board will be 10 years old in January, 12 years if you count its predecessor. Dylan's "end of an era" talk make me sad, as he's been here for all of it and has been kind of a constant presence. Unfortunately, as was the case with the Smarkschoice poll in 2006, that type of finality is one of the side effects of such grandiose projects sometimes -- it does often mark the end of something. A list of the people who were around posting regularly in 2006 would read like a virtual graveyard. Many of them I'd love to see around and posting. Many of them I hope the door didn't hit on the way out. But it was an enjoyable time to be talking about wrestling, even though I think it's even better now -- interestingly, as I've lost interest in current wrestling, I think the discussion quality has continuously improved.

 

I have no plans to close shop or go anywhere, and so many of the things I've learned about myself in this project are so diametrically opposed to the things Dylan has learned. Still, in those opposite takes, there is some commonality.

 

I didn't mean for this post to sound like a eulogy, as I know Dylan is still going to be a wrestling fan and probably still be as prevalent as he ever was, just in a different way. But for history-inclined fans, it looks like we might be losing a really cool voice. In the past few years, we've gained some really cool voices too, and I'm sure in five years, I'll be trading barbs with people half my age who aren't even around right now about Ric Flair's signature spots. Some things never change. But I've grown to like you guys, and I do hope when the podcast bubble bursts (which it will), and when we are burned out on projects (which we will be) that there's still a sense of community here, and that many of you are still around.

 

If this project represents an end to some aspects of our wrestling fandom, let it represent the beginning of other parts of the experience.

[Matt D]

I do think a lot of the "Let's focus on matches," mindset right now is more about burnout than anything else. Matches are of a lesser scope, 'easier' in general if not in the specific. I do think the genie is out of the bottle though, and some of the questions we've raised in the last few years just aren't going anywhere (and neither, I'd bet, are some of the more standout voices).

 

There's been a lot of leveling up here over the last couple of years, and I think most of us have discovered new directions and possibilities we want to explore. A lot of us could only hit the tip of the iceberg when it came to certain styles or eras or genres, or even just new lenses to look at matches and wrestlers we're more familiar with.

 

I don't know. Maybe I'm fortunate in that there are whole areas I haven't seen much of and some people aren't so lucky (though even then, I can't wait for Dylan to start to go through the nwaclassics footage, for instance; stuff keeps showing up all over the net!), but this feels like just the start to me, not like an ending.

[Graham Crackers]

Another reason I'm excited about another DVDVR set is that I'm excited about a more focused communal viewing project. Even with the Lucha set being smaller it was still cool to see who was watching it and what they were into. I miss that kind of thing when it was at the scale of something like the AJPW set. The yearbooks look fun but I feel like the existence of a ballot and a deadline forced more debate.

[soup23]

I do think a lot of the "Let's focus on matches," mindset right now is more about burnout than anything else. Matches are of a lesser scope, 'easier' in general if not in the specific. I do think the genie is out of the bottle though, and some of the questions we've raised in the last few years just aren't going anywhere (and neither, I'd bet, are some of the more standout voices).

 

There's been a lot of leveling up here over the last couple of years, and I think most of us have discovered new directions and possibilities we want to explore. A lot of us could only hit the tip of the iceberg when it came to certain styles or eras or genres, or even just new lenses to look at matches and wrestlers we're more familiar with.

 

I don't know. Maybe I'm fortunate in that there are whole areas I haven't seen much of and some people aren't so lucky (though even then, I can't wait for Dylan to start to go through the nwaclassics footage, for instance; stuff keeps showing up all over the net!), but this feels like just the start to me, not like an ending.

 

New directions and possibilities is why I have talked to Loss privately about what I see the shift in wrestling discussion becoming more of a goodreads type environment with numerous subsets. When the Mid-South set was going on, I felt like I was really missing out being a lowly college student that was focusing on finishing school as early as possible and didn't have any disposable income. That sense of "everyone" congregating in my wrestling stratosphere has decreased dramatically in recent years. The yearbooks ending in the 90's really felt like a project I was able to pour into and hear other people's thoughts as they went through the journey with me. Those threads are evergreen to a degree which is nice, but the thrill of trying to beat PeteF in finishing 1990 is lost a bit. Now, I look at the people I communicate with on a semi-regular basis and see the PTB guys committed to WWE, Brad watching more ROH, Parv doing random dives on different guys and us coming together for WCW shows, Loss finding his place post 90's, MattD churning out tons of lucha reviews, and Dylan mainly focusing on the modern product with his reflections on twitter. It is a wide, expansive world and it makes me overwhelmed/disheartened on where I fit in. All of those avenues above have merit, but I can't see myself wanting to attach to a singular one.

 

This is why I went out and watched a good amount of IWA-MS shows from 2001 onward. I have reviews typed up for 20 shows and have slowly rolled them out on PTBN. The landscape in helping running the back end of a website has also made some artificial stakes about what my focus is. This is the only negative byproduct that has come out of PTBN and the friendships I have obtained from the creation of that site. My IWA-MS show reviews get a minuscule of the hits an article talking about Roman Reigns would receive. While PTBN is and was never viewed as a revenue opportunity, I do think it is a natural inclination for a person to hope that the writing they present is seen and viewed by as many individuals as possible to a certain extent. This really brings in the balance of how much time and effort I should commit to a passion project like the IWA-MS stuff. On the other hand, BAHU is a relic voice from the past but someone that still carries weight as an FMW "expert" and I commend him for carving out that niche a long time ago. It has helped Loss, me and others gain perspective while combing through the stuff like the tremendous 1999 FMW run. My hope is that if I did continue the IWA-MS stuff, someone would find it in 10 years and want to hear about an early CM Punk. I would be able to provide that retrospective coverage where then the viewer could decide which tract to take from that point forward. Back to PTBN and my point in life in general, it has become more about the friendships I've built than the actual coverage or articles that are getting posted. I do hope me and Parv can make it to Greed 2001 but that looks increasingly like it will be 2015 before that happens. I have no idea where life/interest in wrestling will be then.

 

This rambling mess has been me spilling some prevalent thoughts that I have had recently. WWE really has no interest for me right now and at this point it might be more severe than at any point in my life before. To steal VOW's gimmick, I was thinking of my interest in Shane vs. Taker on the way home the other day and I honestly am at a 1 on the excitement level. I understand others that are intrigued and have accepted that, but I am defeated when it comes to that product currently. Other things like Evolve interest me in current wrestling, but there is such a rush to find the next best thing and I do think it is weird to a degree that on Evolve reviews and other Japanese indy shows, individuals casually throw out ****1/2 on matches and then will have conclusions at the end that this was a pretty good show. The rush for the next big match or event can be contagious but also feel hollow at a point. Fred Yehi vs. Drew Gulak from Evolve 56 has been in my mind for a week since it happened. That is a match I wouldn't call a MOTYC but it is a match that needs to be evaluated and poured over to a degree. The art of a ***1/2 match being seen as a success on a card is evaporating. The VOW board is really good at generating some foreign discussion and has a mix of new voices, but one critique I would have is that a lot of individuals on there seem to be concerned on what is next. An example of that is the EVolve and ROH threads which are littered with excitement of upcoming matches that are announced and then those matches come and go with the same voices not mentioning what the end result or analysis was on the match that had them so hyped to begin with. I hope this doesn't come off as too much old man get off my lawn speech as I do genuinely think there is more "good" matches on tape in 2016 than at any other point, but I do think the past and some retrospection can be celebrated at times.

[goc]

Another reason I'm excited about another DVDVR set is that I'm excited about a more focused communal viewing project. Even with the Lucha set being smaller it was still cool to see who was watching it and what they were into. I miss that kind of thing when it was at the scale of something like the AJPW set. The yearbooks look fun but I feel like the existence of a ballot and a deadline forced more debate.

Definitely agree with this. I wish the lucha set would have had a lot more participation, hoping the next one does better.

[JerryvonKramer]

Another reason I'm excited about another DVDVR set is that I'm excited about a more focused communal viewing project. Even with the Lucha set being smaller it was still cool to see who was watching it and what they were into. I miss that kind of thing when it was at the scale of something like the AJPW set. The yearbooks look fun but I feel like the existence of a ballot and a deadline forced more debate.

Second this. I miss those days.

[Childs]

As others have stated elsewhere, the demise of the DVDVR board as we knew it was a huge factor in the '80s project losing momentum. I don't know if we can recapture that. Hope so.

[Loss]

If there was something I wish we could have done differently, it probably would have been back in 2006 to start more siloed projects immediately to prepare for the next poll -- Best WWE worker, Best WCW worker, etc. Or even something divided by eras, or any subcategory really. Then the decade project is the culmination of the smaller projects that have all been building to that moment. I do think something like that with matches would be a better approach if we're going to do it, or at least to go that route after doing an initial baseline poll that is wide open.

[fishbaugh]

The thing that will always stand in my way of being a more active participant in discussions on wrestling analysis is that I've yet to figure out how to fairly adjust my ratings/rankings across places/times/etc. My other love in life is baseball, and long before I was even aware of people like Bill James or Pete Palmer, I was making my own rudimentary and pathetic attempts at "normalizing" baseball players across eras so that I could reasonably compare them independent of when or where they played. Without some framework for normalization, the argument that Honus Wagner is a better player than Barry Larkin is total nonsense -- Honus Wager played against SOME of the best baseball players of his era who happened to be white and based in the middle or eastern portions of the US in a game that was barely formalized when he was a child within portions of the United States, while Barry Larkin was an elite player at the highest levels of a sport with international organizational structures designed to identify and develop the best possible baseball players from around the world from childhood on. Normalization allows me to adjust for this, while still coming the conclusion that Honus is the better player, DESPITE his environment and era. I'm able to do this because baseball isn't an art form, so I have things like statistics based on the millions of plate appearances across dozens of parks and thousands of players seasons to support abstractions such as "wins above replacement" that are context neutral. In wrestling, I'm stuck with my FEELINGS based heavily on little beyond context, and I'll never be fully comfortable with that as the fundamental basis for my analysis. I can't divorce what I LIKE from what is the most EFFECTIVE like I can do in sports, and for some reason that eats at me. On my ballot I had Kawada at #2, and if that was a ranking of all time great shortstops I could back it up with something more concrete than "he has lots of great matches and also I like his toothless facial expressions and also he staggers around when selling and I think that is how I would sell if I was a wrestler". Any attempt, however sincere, to try and remove CONTEXT and PREFERENCE from wrestling analysis will always be critically flawed in my eyes, and why I ultimately had to throw my hands up and put Randy Savage in my top 10 despite not being able to back up that vote with anything more substantial than "dude had sick robes and makes me care about what I'm watching".

 

I've put in the hours over the years to watch a lot of eras/promotions/workers, but I don't feel like I am capable of really going any deeper than "it worked for me" or "that was kind of boring" when it comes to my wrestling analysis. I'm aware of the capacity in others to divorce themselves of their preferences when making critical judgments of an art form, but I feel like it is something that will always be beyond me. What bugs me even more is that I'm not sure that TRYING to divorce my preferences from my analysis is worth anything to me, beyond feeling proud of myself that I can appreciate something I find boring, but still wishing I had the capability to do so! On the list of things I should feel ashamed about in my life, a flippant discounting of 2003 RoH really shouldn't be causing me this level of consternation!

[WingedEagle]

This board will be 10 years old in January, 12 years if you count its predecessor. Dylan's "end of an era" talk make me sad, as he's been here for all of it and has been kind of a constant presence. Unfortunately, as was the case with the Smarkschoice poll in 2006, that type of finality is one of the side effects of such grandiose projects sometimes -- it does often mark the end of something. A list of the people who were around posting regularly in 2006 would read like a virtual graveyard. Many of them I'd love to see around and posting. Many of them I hope the door didn't hit on the way out. But it was an enjoyable time to be talking about wrestling, even though I think it's even better now -- interestingly, as I've lost interest in current wrestling, I think the discussion quality has continuously improved.

 

I have no plans to close shop or go anywhere, and so many of the things I've learned about myself in this project are so diametrically opposed to the things Dylan has learned. Still, in those opposite takes, there is some commonality.

 

I didn't mean for this post to sound like a eulogy, as I know Dylan is still going to be a wrestling fan and probably still be as prevalent as he ever was, just in a different way. But for history-inclined fans, it looks like we might be losing a really cool voice. In the past few years, we've gained some really cool voices too, and I'm sure in five years, I'll be trading barbs with people half my age who aren't even around right now about Ric Flair's signature spots. Some things never change. But I've grown to like you guys, and I do hope when the podcast bubble bursts (which it will), and when we are burned out on projects (which we will be) that there's still a sense of community here, and that many of you are still around.

 

If this project represents an end to some aspects of our wrestling fandom, let it represent the beginning of other parts of the experience.

 

Quoting Loss's post here because (1) its his shop and (2) its tangential to my main point, which is that I hope this project wrapping up does not lead this part of the board to go dark. Putting together my list after the first 16-18 names or so wasn't very fun. To some extent it felt like a chore and I'm not quite sure I love how or why I ranked one person over another, but at the end of the day my list reflects what I love about wrestling.

 

I bring this up not to bring this down, but because the list itself is not what's important here but rather the process that has entailed watching, reading and thinking about wrestlers and work that I hadn't before. I don't see any reason why that has to stop now. There are wrestlers I've barely seen who I want to watch more. There are wrestlers I've seen dozens of matches and in some cases many, many more than that and still want to watch more. While I probably prefer thinking about matches more than wrestlers, this has been a phenomenal platform from which to expand my viewing. In many ways this has replaced the Microscope part of the board and I hope it doesn't become a ghost town tomorrow.

 

Our ballots are at best a snapshot as of a given time, and there' s no reason they can't and shouldn't be used as a springboard for more thought and discussion.

 

A few other things I found out about myself as a fan along the way, but that will have to wait until after Mania.

[ohtani's jacket]

I actually have a question about what's going to happen to this part of the board after the results are revealed. Is it going to be locked? Should we start using the Microscope, etc. to talk about candidates instead of the nominee threads?

[Loss]

I don't know yet. I'm open to ideas. Whatever makes the most people happy.

[goc]

Definitely don't think they should be locked.

[Jingus]

Yeah, the threads are here already, doesn't make sense to have to start all-new threads about every individual worker anytime we want to analyze them.

[Jimmy Redman]

Plus I feel like some wrestler-specific discussion might come from certain interesting results.

And some people have already said they'd carry on and keep it as an ongoing project, which if so I'd like to see happen in the threads.

[Tim Cooke]

I learned I value crowd heat a lot. A solidly worked match with great heat is often more satisfying to me than a great technical match that has no heat.

[Cap]

I didn't submit a ballot but I did watch a lot of wrestling over about 6 months with the goal of seeing how I felt about a ballot at the end. Ultimately I didn't do it because I wasn't happy with my own list. As much as anything I just didn't have time to sit down with my list of 150 or say and sort through them thoughtfully.

 

I learned...

 

I have lots of huge blind spots that I really want to fix.

 

I a sucker for blood. Blood can really make a good match great to me if it is implemented right.

 

I love when it feels like the wrestlers go off script or take chances on a whim.

 

I enjoy stiffness over move set almost every time.

 

I really highly value wrestlers that create moments, images that get stuck in my mind. When everything comes together for a second and creates something visually and audibly that I just lose myself in... that is my favorite thing in wrestling.

 

I learned there are certain guys that I enjoy more than most the types of matches they have tend to rate much higher for me than most. It helped me really get to the nuances of what I enjoy about work between moves, the relationship between character and work, and some of the above stuff about stiffness.

 

I learned that I like smart wrestlers a lot, people who are really conscious of their limitations and work to maximize their skills and more importantly use what they have to make EVERYONE in the match look better.

 

Finally, I learned I care a lot about how a character/persona is played out in someone's work (how they sell, how they move between the action, how they fire up, etc). I really like when the real meat and potatoes of a persona is built in the in-ring intricacies and the promos and walk outs and so on expand upon that. This is most prevalent when someone just never turns their character off in the ring. Everyone in my top 20 has that in spades.

[Lee Casebolt]

That I have no consistent standards. And that the 90s did not age well in my eyes.

[Parties]

1) We’re all self-selecting in terms of what we have/have not seen, or what we will never see for lack of available footage. Two different people could each have Fujiwara at #12 on their ballots. One is an longtime obsessive who’s seen everything and bought the dude's used cigar at auction. The other is a novice who’s only seen one-third of the Other Japan set and fell madly in love. Both are right for different reasons.

2) I am a “matches” guy for sure. (See the Viaje del Parties thread for this year's model.) I view wrestling as a series of performances between collaborators, in the same way that certain live albums are better than others. Making grand statements about who John Coltrane or Dick Murdoch is doesn’t interest me as much as chopping up the differences between renditions of “My Favorite Things” or the two big Murdoch-Butch Reed singles. To me the match is the work of art, because it’s the union of different forces coming together in real time. I find it more conversationally inclusive and satisfying to have watched the same match as others here, and to then assess if in watching the same action we saw things similarly or differently. Also: while I am 1000% doubtful toward the idea of “objective analysis” in pretty much anything, I do think that grounding wrestling conversation in match reviews/discussion helps keep us from going off on meandering rhetorical debates and vague “theories” about what wrestling should or shouldn’t be, otherwise known colloquially as “bullshit.”

3) Because I’m a “Great Match” guy, I honestly have little interest in squashes or the “consistency” of a worker having lots of good three-star TV matches. (Though I say that as a guy who thinks WWE TV should have more squashes and fewer repetitive main eventer vs. main eventer matches, so it really all depends on context and striking a balance.) Many workers on my list are where they are due to their 5-10 best performances. It’s not that there’s no merit to that other stuff, but I’m still at a point where I haven’t seen as much of the “peak” wrestling as some folks here, and as such I’ll always prefer to watch a highly touted potential classic over a solid day-at-the-office outing. Even from a worker I love. Someone like Lawler has hundreds of good matches that I’ve never seen, but I’d usually rather check out a Dome show main event or obscure lucha cult hero that I’ve never seen before. I don’t like the idea of having to see every episode of Portland TV in order to have a valid opinion about Piper, because most of us will never be in a position to espouse such authority (and because I’m totally jealous that some people really have seen it all, even if completist ideas of “seeing it all” are a slippery slope that never ends).

4) If anything a Greatest Matches Ever poll would to me be more exciting than GWE, though I also think it is more daunting, and that you’d have to perhaps approach nominations with a bit more consensus, a la the way Wrestling KO requires three “Yes” votes on a match before it’s placed on their “Best WWE” or “Best Japanese indies” lists for a given year. On the other hand: if you can quickly imagine a scene in which thousands of different matches get nominated over many regions/decades, the positive is that it empowers us all to choose stuff and have an extensive pool from which to work.

 

5) I am apprehensive about ranking anyone who’s still in the prime of their career (or even close to it). I got over it to some degree, and I think Phil provided great context for this in his podcast example of Jay Briscoe being a guy who’s now been good for about 13 years. As did Dylan in his assessment of Cesaro as having a really strong WOTY case for each of the last 4-5 years. Anyone who had that type of run in the 80s or 90s would be a shoo-in on most ballots. Very few on my own ballot are still working today, and I think that’s actually a flaw on my list rather than a positive. It seems harder to evaluate recent stuff in comparison to older stuff, as the business is so different and context counts.

6) I am a sucker for the “recency bias” of whoever I’m currently enamored with, but I think we all are and that you’d have to demonstrate seriously self-conscious restraint to really avoid it. I would go so far as to say that “recency bias” is completely inevitable, even toward workers you’ve been familiar with for quite some time.

7) Like everyone, I have other cultural biases that effect who/what I like. That’s not to say I resent particular companies/regions/groups of workers. But I sure as hell think that Tokyo in 1975 is a cooler place than Minneapolis in 1985, and that undeniably effects who I favor in wrestling.

8) This is also deeply connected to the ways in which camera work/video quality/production value effect my viewing, perhaps way moreso than most people here. I am absolutely more inclined to like something if it’s filmed well (or digitized well), or to tune out if stuck with a Kevin Dunn zoom lens or a grainy house show bootleg where you can’t make out the workers’ faces.

9) I was way less engaged by the tag poll than I was by the singles, through no fault of anyone. Yet I would say that I enjoy tag wrestling as much as I enjoy singles, and that in a Greatest Matches Ever poll, I would vote for just as many tags as I would singles (if not more). The problem is simply judging and ranking teams, especially with such variance in bodies of work. Many of the best tag outings are among people who didn’t tag consistently/lack a team identity. Misawa and Akiyama don’t really feel like a team, but their tag work together is better than everything the Rockers or Steiners ever accomplished. I like what I’ve seen out of Bobby Eaton and Koko Ware more than anything I’ve seen from either version of the Midnights, but there’s no way you can justifiably rank Eaton/Ware over either version of MX. In too many cases, there isn't enough raw material to evaluate.

10) There are many really smart people on here who evaluate wrestling quite differently than I do, and life is better if you choose to love them for it. I can mock the Tenta/Demolition advocates (and will!), but I’m still glad they’re out there, thinking the opposite of what I think. I share two of OJ’s ideas cited here: that my opinion of a match/worker is subject to total change from one year (or decade) to the next, and that there’s an endless amount of stuff out there that I still want to see. Miles to go before I sleep.