Pro-Wrestling Super Show #61 "Greatest Wrestler Ever: Our Lists, Part 1"

[Grimmas]

http://placetobenation.com/pro-wrestling-super-show-61-greatest-wrestler-ever-our-lists-part-1/

 

Steven and Tim are back to reveal the 100-51 slots in their GWE lists. Sit back and enjoy this epic!

 

Head on over to the PWO-PTBN Podcast Network

[elliott]

Awesome! Looking forward to this!

[soup23]

25 minutes of ground work

 

#100 Don Muraco..... turned off

 

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kidding, looking forward to devouring all of this

[Dylan Waco]

About half way through it and it's a really fun show but I do want to say that I think what Tim keeps pointing to when talking about some of Steven's more modern picks is less about peak matches and more about big stages and stronger build.

 

Now it may be that Tim really does think that 100-plus people have stronger high end matches than say a Cesaro or a Christian's best. But I do strongly suspect that it has less to do with the quality of the matches and more to do with how they were presented and where they were on shows. I say this not as a wild statement, but because I know Tim pretty damn well and have a really good idea of what his tastes are. My guess is that if the Cesaro v. Zayn stuff happened as a strong upper mid-card or even main event run on WWE ppvs he would see it as obvious all time stuff. The Christian peak stuff probably suffers even more because it was buried on a third tier show few paid attention to. That said, to my eyes Christian's best matches from that run are vastly better than something like Nagayo v. Masami which Tim touted earlier on the show. I'm not sure he would ever be in line with that BUT I do believe if the Feb. 2009 Christian v. Jack Swagger match had been a WWE World Title match on the Royal Rumble Tim would view it as a classic.

 

I will grant that this is all just my thoughts and it's pure guess work. But I do think the vastly superior booking, and more conservative television format of older wrestling creates an advantage that is based as much on perception and things outside of what occurs on the ring as anything that occurs in it. I'm not even say it's wrong, I just think it's there for many people, and I'm not sure "peak" is really the way to contextualize it.

[Grimmas]

25 minutes of ground work

 

#100 Don Muraco..... turned off

 

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kidding, looking forward to devouring all of this

Muraco might be off my list by the end of that show.

[soup23]

I have heard Pete say this before and it is something that I agree with that in current day, there is more good matches that occur and we can see on tape than at any other previous point in wrestling history, however, there isn't as many absolute top tier matches as in other eras. In compiling my GWE list, the second area is really tough to acomplish as I would consider that ****3/4 or above in a ranking. I only have around 100 matches in history that reach that level so someone like Christian and even a Tracy Smothers having a ton of stuff that is between ***1/2 and ****1/4 is a very good indication of how consistent and good they are as a worker overall in my eyes. It could be too much focus on the direct output but I do think with almost every candidate there is matches that can be considered nearly universally good that can justify the positioning on a list. An exception to that could be someone like Rufus Jones.

[WingedEagle]

Now it may be that Tim really does think that 100-plus people have stronger high end matches than say a Cesaro or a Christian's best. But I do strongly suspect that it has less to do with the quality of the matches and more to do with how they were presented and where they were on shows. I say this not as a wild statement, but because I know Tim pretty damn well and have a really good idea of what his tastes are. My guess is that if the Cesaro v. Zayn stuff happened as a strong upper mid-card or even main event run on WWE ppvs he would see it as obvious all time stuff. The Christian peak stuff probably suffers even more because it was buried on a third tier show few paid attention to. That said, to my eyes Christian's best matches from that run are vastly better than something like Nagayo v. Masami which Tim touted earlier on the show. I'm not sure he would ever be in line with that BUT I do believe if the Feb. 2009 Christian v. Jack Swagger match had been a WWE World Title match on the Royal Rumble Tim would view it as a classic.

 

 

This is all fair and probably accurate with respect to many voters, regardless of whether it is for Tim. Personally, there's no question that setting and all that goes into it -- build, booking, placement and other factors -- can help a match tremendously. That may be because of the time and leeway they're given, it may be because of the crowd reaction coming into the match that the can work with, or a host of other factors. But it definitely puts the random encounter at a disadvantage. These circumstances are by no means fatal and can certainly be overcome, even if it is a disadvantage. In some rare instances its probably a plus as the match that's delivered absolutely demolishes expectations.

 

But such is booking and the ups and downs of the business, right? Will add more to it later as right now I'm spending my wrestling time simply watching, but I'm very much a great match guy. If you have a ton of great matches you're going to do well on my rankings. If we could evaluate everyone with the same advantages in time, booking, card placement, tricks, etc. we could get closer to a level playing field, but there are still a number of what ifs that would come into play at that point. Just not sure there's a way to overcome that.

[Matt D]

I like you guys and all, but this thing is going to take me a week and a half to get through!

(I mean, I will, but yeah)

[Grimmas]

I like you guys and all, but this thing is going to take me a week and a half to get through!

(I mean, I will, but yeah)

4.5 hours is only half the list too.......

[Luchaundead]

 

I like you guys and all, but this thing is going to take me a week and a half to get through!

(I mean, I will, but yeah)

4.5 hours is only half the list too.......

 

 

 

I feel so bad for people that can't listen to podcasts all day during work

[JerryvonKramer]

I am in New Orleans and just spent the last hour or so having breakfast (nice!) and wandering around a few streets of the French Quarter listening to this. V. Enjoyable.

 

I laughed out loud after Steven and Tim spent a full 25 minutes talking about the time investment etc. of the project and then after it was all built up Steven's #100 was legit Don Muraco. LOL. Pretty funny pay off.

 

I'm 2 hours 16 in.

 

A few observations so far:

 

- For as much as you guys talked about me and Chad being focused so much on output rather than input, it feels like you have talked a lot about output so far.

 

- When Steven talked about Bossman I was interested to hear him distinguish between "favourite" and "actual merit". And then point to a bunch of output.

 

- I'm pretty interested to hear Tim's reasons for ranking Kerry over the likes of Ted. Kerry is like a Killer Khan squared in a way, total greatest hits candidate. You mentioned Lawler carried him at one point, which does beg the question: should one of the 100 greatest ever need to be carried? I'm saying this now because if the reason for Ted being low is his WWF run, where he was -- to many fans -- one of the greatest heels of all time, Kerry's lows are ... SO.MUCH.LOWER. I get that you've led on foregrounding personal preference, but you are laying out cases for each guy and that one was a head scratcher for me. Kerry didn't make my list, but I do like him a good bit and he has a lot of great matches.

 

- If I have enough time during this trip, as a thought experiment, I'm going to try to make a 100 using Steven's more "feel-y" sort of process just to see what it might have looked like. This show would be the reason for giving that a go. Won't be submitted or anything obviously, but removing all pretence of objectivity or anything, it might be at least amusing to see what it might have looked like. And even without making it yet, I know a lot Steven's faves would have made it.

 

Anyway, this has been one of the most relaxing and lovely mornings ever so far. I've enjoyed the first two hours a good bit, despite my very different take on what this project is about. Can't wait to listen through the next two hours and for part 2!

[Grimmas]

Thanks for the feedback Parv.

 

Yeah it's really difficult to not mention the feedback. I tried to focus my talk on selling, punches and what they did well. However I lost focus from time to time.

[Grimmas]

Thanks for the feedback Parv.

 

Yeah it's really difficult to not mention the feedback. I tried to focus my talk on selling, punches and what they did well. However I lost focus from time to time.

Also I want to hear your list based on observations and less based on a rigid system you created.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's funny y'know cos if you hear what I said about a lot of guys, I was talking about input not output. Bock springs to mind, but lots of others.

 

This is something else you find with critical discourse and different "schools and approaches": sometimes people are way closer than they appear and the differences are magnified, given labels and made more extreme than they really are. Nuance doesn't sell. But the truth is always in the nuance and most people are smart enough to see it.

[Childs]

I am in New Orleans and just spent the last hour or so having breakfast (nice!) and wandering around a few streets of the French Quarter listening to this. V. Enjoyable.

 

Make sure you eat at Cochon.

[soup23]

The amount of direct crossovers on this half was really surprising and a fun coincidence.

[Timbo Slice]

To Dylan's point, throughout the project, my proclivity to making selections was towards big matches in big settings. Yeah, I'm a whore for setting, and I personally get caught up in big matches to the point where in the middle, where I was having a tough time figuring out order, I was really just counting great matches in my head to figure it out. I totally understand the point you're making, though, and it was one of the more difficult things I dealt with in the selection process. In the end, for my sanity, I went with with my initial preferences for selection, which I think is reflected in my list (although there will be missteps, and I'm already anticipating a few to begin the next show).

 

To Parv's point (Ha), I think Ted was a good character in the WWF and he did some good work, but it hasn't stayed with me over time like other guys have. Kerry was a surprise to me when I watched some Texas stuff, and I understand your counterpoint to the post injury point I made. My thought is that before that happened, he had more high end stuff in the time before the injury and more standout stuff, although I know there are plenty of people who prefer Ted's Mid-South stuff. He was also a victim of my race to watch more footage, and Mid-South, as I mentioned, was one of my blind spots, along with some Memphis, some Texas, and World of Sport.

[Dylan Waco]

 

 

Now it may be that Tim really does think that 100-plus people have stronger high end matches than say a Cesaro or a Christian's best. But I do strongly suspect that it has less to do with the quality of the matches and more to do with how they were presented and where they were on shows. I say this not as a wild statement, but because I know Tim pretty damn well and have a really good idea of what his tastes are. My guess is that if the Cesaro v. Zayn stuff happened as a strong upper mid-card or even main event run on WWE ppvs he would see it as obvious all time stuff. The Christian peak stuff probably suffers even more because it was buried on a third tier show few paid attention to. That said, to my eyes Christian's best matches from that run are vastly better than something like Nagayo v. Masami which Tim touted earlier on the show. I'm not sure he would ever be in line with that BUT I do believe if the Feb. 2009 Christian v. Jack Swagger match had been a WWE World Title match on the Royal Rumble Tim would view it as a classic.

 

This is all fair and probably accurate with respect to many voters, regardless of whether it is for Tim. Personally, there's no question that setting and all that goes into it -- build, booking, placement and other factors -- can help a match tremendously. That may be because of the time and leeway they're given, it may be because of the crowd reaction coming into the match that the can work with, or a host of other factors. But it definitely puts the random encounter at a disadvantage. These circumstances are by no means fatal and can certainly be overcome, even if it is a disadvantage. In some rare instances its probably a plus as the match that's delivered absolutely demolishes expectations.

 

But such is booking and the ups and downs of the business, right? Will add more to it later as right now I'm spending my wrestling time simply watching, but I'm very much a great match guy. If you have a ton of great matches you're going to do well on my rankings. If we could evaluate everyone with the same advantages in time, booking, card placement, tricks, etc. we could get closer to a level playing field, but there are still a number of what ifs that would come into play at that point. Just not sure there's a way to overcome that.

Just so it's clear I'm not advocating for people to balance against booking advantage in their ratings all. My point is more that for many people the greatness or degree to which a match is great is based at least in part on things that are external to the match itself. The guys still have to execute of course, but I do think there is a fundamentally different way of looking at things at play at times that has little to do with what certain camps like in the actual work of a match. In general I think canon has a much bigger influence on all of us then we would like to admit and I think that is related to the discussion too.

 

For my part I think Christian had more great matches in 2009 than Brock has had in his entire comeback. I don't say this to be a contrarian either. As I mentioned in the WTBBP thread the volume of wrestling I watch has radically altered the things that I value and the way I approach wrestling for better or worse and it leads to conclusions like that.

[Timbo Slice]

Also, the whole big setting for matches thing for me isn't a blanket thing that swallows up how I rank all wrestlers. There are a few wrestlers on here that didn't perform on the big stages that I have in my top 50 because from a personal enjoyment standpoint, I enjoyed their matches to such a degree that putting them any further down my list wouldn't have made sense to me. I tried to have as much consistency throughout the process as possible, but some things slipped through the cracks or personal preferences overruled.

[Luchaundead]

About half way through it and it's a really fun show but I do want to say that I think what Tim keeps pointing to when talking about some of Steven's more modern picks is less about peak matches and more about big stages and stronger build.

 

Now it may be that Tim really does think that 100-plus people have stronger high end matches than say a Cesaro or a Christian's best. But I do strongly suspect that it has less to do with the quality of the matches and more to do with how they were presented and where they were on shows. I say this not as a wild statement, but because I know Tim pretty damn well and have a really good idea of what his tastes are. My guess is that if the Cesaro v. Zayn stuff happened as a strong upper mid-card or even main event run on WWE ppvs he would see it as obvious all time stuff. The Christian peak stuff probably suffers even more because it was buried on a third tier show few paid attention to. That said, to my eyes Christian's best matches from that run are vastly better than something like Nagayo v. Masami which Tim touted earlier on the show. I'm not sure he would ever be in line with that BUT I do believe if the Feb. 2009 Christian v. Jack Swagger match had been a WWE World Title match on the Royal Rumble Tim would view it as a classic.

 

I will grant that this is all just my thoughts and it's pure guess work. But I do think the vastly superior booking, and more conservative television format of older wrestling creates an advantage that is based as much on perception and things outside of what occurs on the ring as anything that occurs in it. I'm not even say it's wrong, I just think it's there for many people, and I'm not sure "peak" is really the way to contextualize it.

 

While I don't argue with your point, especially because I don't know Tim's taste, I would like to just point out that I don't think Cesaro v Zayn could have been presented as being any more important than it was, at the time it was pushed in a way that made it seem like the most important rivalry and matches to be happening in decades. I can easily see that because it was at a time when they only way to watch NXT was on HULU that people that weren't watching it regularly saw it as "that weird stuff happening on the internet" but really story wise it was treated as seriously epic. So the only way presentation of that could be a factor would be if you looked at is with a sigma of being internet exclusive FCW or something.

[JerryvonKramer]

Well, while walking miles in Nola -- which has an impressive grittiness about it -- and having a shrimp gumbo with corn bread and rice and beans with a root beer, I finally got to the end.

 

My main complaint is that part 2 isn't up already. Come on guys! That said, I was impressed that you managed to keep the energy up till the very end. And actually was struck by, lucha stuff aside, how similar Steven's list is in many ways to mine.

 

To Dylan's point, throughout the project, my proclivity to making selections was towards big matches in big settings. Yeah, I'm a whore for setting, and I personally get caught up in big matches to the point where in the middle, where I was having a tough time figuring out order, I was really just counting great matches in my head to figure it out. I totally understand the point you're making, though, and it was one of the more difficult things I dealt with in the selection process. In the end, for my sanity, I went with with my initial preferences for selection, which I think is reflected in my list (although there will be missteps, and I'm already anticipating a few to begin the next show).

To Parv's point (Ha), I think Ted was a good character in the WWF and he did some good work, but it hasn't stayed with me over time like other guys have. Kerry was a surprise to me when I watched some Texas stuff, and I understand your counterpoint to the post injury point I made. My thought is that before that happened, he had more high end stuff in the time before the injury and more standout stuff, although I know there are plenty of people who prefer Ted's Mid-South stuff. He was also a victim of my race to watch more footage, and Mid-South, as I mentioned, was one of my blind spots, along with some Memphis, some Texas, and World of Sport.

It kinda goes without saying that if you haven't seen the Mid-South stuff, that's basically Ted's case and all the other bits of his career are window dressing around it. I honestly can't fathom anyone who has seen that stuff recently ranking AWA Curt (as an example) over him. But it's all cool, the time for all those arguments was months ago, now it's just kinda nice to chill out. I'm hoping that you guys feel the same mixture of relief and easing off of tension that I did after you finish.

 

This period where we are going over lists and so on has been by far my favourite period of the whole GWE so far. It almost makes the whole thing worth it. Almost!

 

The run where you had like two or three guys in a row at the same number was pretty funny and a highlight.

 

One thing I'm a little interested in is how you both have Ricky Morton seemingly way above Bobby Eaton, one of those things I'd love to hear more on in part 2. I had Eaton like #22 or #23 and may we'll be the high vote on him but Morton wasn't far behind. To me their cases are quite similar but Eaton has better offense, which is the difference maker. I also recently watched his Memphis run and he was basically already great in 82-3 and the team with Koko Ware is one I can't imagine both of you not loving.

[Grimmas]

Parv,

 

Morton was a better seller. One of the greatest babyfaces of all-time. Sure Eaton had better offensive and was a great tag worker too, but his offense isn't like top 3 all-time while Morton was top 3 all-time in selling and gaining sympathy.

 

I also prefer Morton singles to Eaton singles. I think Morton was great longer. I don't see how they are that close.

[Woof]

Dylan's point about presentation has me wondering just what the effect of the old territory style "weekly booking" turning into a more sporadic "super booking" style has had not only on our perception of matches, but on the approach to those matches by the workers themselves.

Guys on the super indy circuit today (say Chris Hero for example) don't really get time to build to a match in the way the territory guys did. Hero on Evolve has to essentially deliver a 15-20 minute match on every show, without the benefit of weekly segments to incrimentally inch towards a match of that magnitude. He also can't go out and do a 2 minute match on a show that is purely about getting an angle over because the paying crowd for that show expects to see him in that longer match. So their goal with every match they wrestle is very different than say a Lawler, who could go out on TV and do whatever he needed with his match to get the story over, and even on occasion fuck around with his Coliseum matches, because that audience wouldn't really feel cheated knowing he'd be back in a week (and they would most likely be there too). If some fan paid explicitly to see Hero only to see him wrestle a total angle match and then deliver the payoff to a totally different audience somewhere else in the country, they'd be pretty pissed. So he wrestles accordingly. As a result what we get are a lot of really well wrestled matches that are excellent in a vacuum, but lack in the epic build that we as fans would prefer.

[Timbo Slice]

That's a great point and one that frankly seems inherent to a lot of my selections.

[JerryvonKramer]

Dylan's point about presentation has me wondering just what the effect of the old territory style "weekly booking" turning into a more sporadic "super booking" style has had not only on our perception of matches, but on the approach to those matches by the workers themselves.

Guys on the super indy circuit today (say Chris Hero for example) don't really get time to build to a match in the way the territory guys did. Hero on Evolve has to essentially deliver a 15-20 minute match on every show, without the benefit of weekly segments to incrimentally inch towards a match of that magnitude. He also can't go out and do a 2 minute match on a show that is purely about getting an angle over because the paying crowd for that show expects to see him in that longer match. So their goal with every match they wrestle is very different than say a Lawler, who could go out on TV and do whatever he needed with his match to get the story over, and even on occasion fuck around with his Coliseum matches, because that audience wouldn't really feel cheated knowing he'd be back in a week (and they would most likely be there too). If some fan paid explicitly to see Hero only to see him wrestle a total angle match and then deliver the payoff to a totally different audience somewhere else in the country, they'd be pretty pissed. So he wrestles accordingly. As a result what we get are a lot of really well wrestled matches that are excellent in a vacuum, but lack in the epic build that we as fans would prefer.

Why is the conclusion to all that not just "wrestling was way better then"?