Reactions to the Honorable Mention List Part One

[Matt D]

I am DYING to know who went 40 on Ultimo Guerrero. He's someone who has lots of fun tag matches in the early 00s and equally fun stuff against Satanico, and he's sort of a Triple H analog in that he's had big main event matches for the decade, and I thought about voting for him towards the very end, because he's obviously good at what he does, but you'd almost have to be religiously accepting of the idea of "ritual" in pro wrestling.

 

Not structure, not tools or tricks or even repetition, but actual ritual. So many of his matches are move for move the same when you hit a certain point, not in a Bret Five Moves of Doom sort of way or in a Cena comeback sort of way, or whatever, but in actual two-three minute stretches, and so much of the stuff (like his opponent running up to eat the reverse suplex from the top) involves the concept of fate. His opponent HAS to do that, because he is in an Ultimo Guerrero match. There's no choice. There is no free will.

 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a wrestler like him in that regard. It's intentional. There are parts of the crowd that eat it up. It's like fans singing along to Rocky Horror or something. You don't want to deviate from the mold. And there are years and years of this.

[Grimmas]

The thing about UG is that he does have that Atlantis match which is an all-timer for me. Put that with the tag work in the early 2000's and I can see the case.

[Matt D]

I can see the case for inclusion, especially if you can stretch your mind to accept the idea of rote and ritual as a valid form of pro wrestling (and that's a big stretch because even things you THINK are somewhat ritualistic like late 80s Hogan matches, really aren't to this same degree), but 40?

[van_Fair]

That Sami Callihan picture sums up my thoughts on two of the last three rankings.

[soup23]

What a wild thread to catch up on after you have been away a week. I really enjoyed the defense of Quack at #6.

[goc]

Someone like El Bracero is a right place, right time guy. He has had 3-4 Houston matches released by NWAClassics and was excellent in all of them. If this poll was two years from now, he probably wouldn't have even come to mind.

With more to go on I could have seen myself voting for El Bracero because I have been really impressed by the stuff on NWAClassics. It just wasn't enough to put him on my ballot.

[Matt D]

I can't wait for that Bracero vs Race match to drop.

[jpchicago23]

And another two drop from my list as Candido and Mark Briscoe are the latest casualties.

[NotJayTabb]

I've loved seeing all the unusual and unique placings on the rundown. Firstly, because I agree with the sentiment that it's important to have as many different voices take part in this as possible. With such a large number of voters, there's always going to be a number of people with unconventional views, and I think that makes this a richer, more diverse list. With having such a big number of voters, the consensus view will largely gravitate towards the more "conventional" names at the top, so I someone wants to vote B-Boy at #23, and that's their honest view, then I think that's great.

 

Also, it's made me feel more comfortable with my own list. Though I believe in every name on my ballot, I did kinda start to second-guess myself in the final weeks, especially on some of the positions that jarred with the regular view. Was I happy with Tom Zenk in my top 75? Should Super Delfin really be one spot higher than Kobashi? Is top 50 Jeff Jarrett too high? If I knew then what I know now about some positions, I still wouldn't change anything I've submitted (everyone is where they are based on my honest opinion), but I'd have felt more confident in the final stretches.

[GSR]

Sami Callihan ranking just ahead of Chris Candido? Something inside of me just died.

[RIPPA]

I had UG at 54 and was convinced I was going to be his high vote. (In fact he was one spot ahead of Rip Rogers - who was the OTHER guy I thought I would be high vote on)

 

Good to know Matt still has a cold, black heart

[Grimmas]

Sami Callihan ranking just ahead of Chris Candido? Something inside of me just died.

I can easily see the case for Callihan above Candido. Neither made my list though.

[Matt D]

I had UG at 54 and was convinced I was going to be his high vote. (In fact he was one spot ahead of Rip Rogers - who was the OTHER guy I thought I would be high vote on)

 

Good to know Matt still has a cold, black heart

 

I can see someone who values peak valuing 99-04 highly.

 

I'm not sure he's better than Rip Rogers though.

 

I made the mistake of watching another Volador/Sombra match last night (I should have known better), so maybe I'm just in a bad lucha mood.

[RIPPA]

If I remember my timeline correctly - I had just rewatched the UG/Rey Escorpion match right before doing my ballot so that (and awarding bonus credit for all the recent Titan matches) probably floated him up a little higher than if I had done the ballot maybe a week later

 

Rip was in my Top 50 for awhile - He was a victim when I realized I had forgotten someone and I shuffled folks around.

[El McKell]

I think Sami Callihan had really become something special in like 2013 before he went to WWE, but there's no way I could list him when he did nothing of note in WWE, hasn't been all that good since coming back to the indies and wasn't so great other than against Fit Finlay for much of his first indie run.

[Cap]

The lucha rankings have been interesting so far. A few names I kind of expected to see higher have already dropped. Seems like a lot of people were watching lucha just for this project, so I wonder if there will be a wider gap between the sort of top stars of lucha and the rest.

 

Or maybe this part of the list is just all over the place.

[The Russian Daydream]

I've loved seeing all the unusual and unique placings on the rundown. Firstly, because I agree with the sentiment that it's important to have as many different voices take part in this as possible. With such a large number of voters, there's always going to be a number of people with unconventional views, and I think that makes this a richer, more diverse list. With having such a big number of voters, the consensus view will largely gravitate towards the more "conventional" names at the top, so I someone wants to vote B-Boy at #23, and that's their honest view, then I think that's great.

 

Also, it's made me feel more comfortable with my own list. Though I believe in every name on my ballot, I did kinda start to second-guess myself in the final weeks, especially on some of the positions that jarred with the regular view. Was I happy with Tom Zenk in my top 75? Should Super Delfin really be one spot higher than Kobashi? Is top 50 Jeff Jarrett too high? If I knew then what I know now about some positions, I still wouldn't change anything I've submitted (everyone is where they are based on my honest opinion), but I'd have felt more confident in the final stretches.

I can identify with this. I'm relatively new to PWO and was a little anxious that my list might be the "wrong answer" as far as the community goes. Aside from some fairly gentle ribbing though, the eccentricities that have appeared so far have been largely celebrated for their diversity of opinion.

 

I've also been encouraged to see only two of my picks (The Original Sheik and Dave Taylor) have come up so far. Obviously my idea of what makes for great wrestling is relatively in line with the majority here and makes me very pleased to have finally discovered this corner of the internet.

[Grimmas]

 

Or maybe this part of the list is just all over the place.

This.

[bradhindsight]

Steve Keirn making just 4 ballots but getting over 200 points (with one of those ballots 94) means three guys really ranked him quite high.

[El Boricua]

 

 

Or maybe this part of the list is just all over the place.

This.

 

Absolutely all over the place. To put it in perspective, we had a total of 151 singles ballots. So far, I think the person revealed that has been on the most ballots has been on 12. That's not even 10% of the total ballots cast, so this is still very much in the small sample size section of the honorary mentions. Once we hit the range where the revealed wrestlers consistently are on 30-40 ballots we start heading into the more solid base size section of the rankings. But for now, I wouldn't take the ranking order of those revealed as nothing more than a quirk of small sample size.

[GOTNW]

Oh boy. Low vote on Ono. Before Jetlag starts throwing rocks at me for having him like 13 spots below Usuda I'll note it's probably his fault for not uploading stuff sooner. But I also have stuff other thant that I never got around to watching so.

[soup23]

Didn't realize Kohsaka ranked so highly last time. Was there any reason for that? Was U-Style watched really heavily at the time or something. He just seemed like someone that didn't have a lot of buzz behind him but he really impressed me watching the 1990's stuff.

[stomperspc]

I will be surprised if lucha is not better represented in the top 100 of this list than it was in the SC poll.

 

None of the heavy hitters have dropped so far. Honestly, none of the luchadores I expected to be fringe (in the top 175-ish) have fallen so far either. For the most part the ones that have showed up already were (rightly or wrongly) never serious candidates to sniff the top 100 of this poll. Like others have said, at this point the actual rankings are still just a lot of noise. #300 is not much different than #350.

 

FWIW, I would expect Atlantis (#94), Satanico (#89), and Dandy (#67) all to all do better in this poll over the SC poll. Atlantis has two years of high profile anniversary show mask matches helping him which might garner a few votes from people who are not necessarily major lucha fans. Satanico’s stock was helped by the 80’s project and 90’s Yearbooks. Same with Dandy (particularly the 90’s Yearbooks). Atlantis’ improvement might be small but I think Satanico finishes 75 or higher and Dandy *should* be in the top 50 at least. I’ll be very surprised if Casas lands outside the top 20 and he is a definite top 10 candidate (he finished 38^th in the SC poll). I also think Santo will improve some from his 20^th place finish but at the worst I expect him to stay about the same.

 

Virus received a single vote (from Rob Naylor) in the 2006 SC poll and I think he’s a definite top 50 candidate this time around.

 

So right there that are six luchadores that are pretty much locks for the top 100. Not counting Rey or Eddie, there were seven in the top 100 on the 2006 list. Blue Panther and Psicosis both made the top 100 in 2006 and I think both have a chance to do it again, particularly Panther. Where Panther goes will be interesting. I could see him comfortably in the top 100, at the back end, or missing it entirely. Beyond those guys are Villano III, Sangre Chicana, LA Park, Negro Navarro, Black Terry, Solar, Fuerza, Pirata Morgan, MS-1, Emilio Charles, and Perro Aguayo who are all still out there. Several of them could crack the top 200 and I think a few (Villano III, Parka, Navarro) have an outside chance at the top 100.

 

Maybe the poll ends up being unkind to the luchadores but I think it is too early to assume that will be the case.

[El Boricua]

Heading into the top 300 I've had 13 of the wrestlers on my list already appear. I think only Dean and Mando may have more wrestlers that have dropped at this point in the countdown. Oddly enough, outside of the wrestlers where I've been the lone vote for them, i have not been the high vote for any of the others with more than one ballot placement (in almost all of those cases I have Dean to thank for that).

[Cap]

 

 

 

Or maybe this part of the list is just all over the place.

This.

 

Absolutely all over the place. To put it in perspective, we had a total of 151 singles ballots. So far, I think the person revealed that has been on the most ballots has been on 12. That's not even 10% of the total ballots cast, so this is still very much in the small sample size section of the honorary mentions. Once we hit the range where the revealed wrestlers consistently are on 30-40 ballots we start heading into the more solid base size section of the rankings. But for now, I wouldn't take the ranking order of those revealed as nothing more than a quirk of small sample size.

 

Oh for sure, this is the vast majority of what we are seeing. There is no doubt of that. We will probably hit a few layers of consistency before it is all told and that will likely be seen in how the order within groupings plays out.

 

But, if you consider not being on a ballot as a sort of vote in and of itself, this swath of wrestlers can be grouped together as in some way meaningful. I remain somewhat interested in how Lucha plays out on this list. It is just the most interesting style to watch for on this list to me. From listening to podcasts and reading message boards its seemed to be one of the genres (among many) a lot of people were really trying to get into and watch so they could have a more well rounded and informed list. That could play out in a variety of ways or it could be imperceptible. Not actually saying that is what we are seeing here really.