Reactions to the Honorable Mention List Part One

[Dylan Waco]

Love Spike even though I didn't have him on my ballot. He was one of many ECW guys who I would have liked to include but didn't.

 

In some ways Red was my hardest cut. He was going to be my 99 for a long time, but the late Joshi and WOS watches hurt him. I still regret leading him off. A rare wrestler who was innovative in a good way early and transformed himself into one of the better traditional build workers on the indies.

[Scarlet-Left]

I regret nothing!

 

Scratch that, after this weekend, I feel physically sick whenever I check how high I have Chris Jericho...

[El McKell]

He has no respect for the craft. He's actually fairly talented, but his deliberate choice to shit on wrestling regularly is enough to keep him far away from this list.

This is the most interesting point about Joey Ryan in this discussion to me. While I would never consider Joey Ryan for a list like this, I think he basically sucks, I disagree pretty strongly with this post.

 

First of all, is he fairly talented? I don't think he's ever really any good at all when he's not doing his shtick, whether its in TNA or in some of the more serious PWG stuff. He certainly never could've stood out in the indies with just his wrestling, which is probably why he does all the dumb stuff, to stand out, create a niche and make money wrestling.

 

Then there's having no respect for the craft and shitting on wrestling. I don't understand how you can know that he doesn't respect wrestling just because he does comedy stuff that makes no logical sense and what does shitting on wrestling mean here? Is good wrestling somehow negatively affected by bad wrestling or wrestling that exposes the business? Because I totally disagree with that idea. Maybe you just meant it's somehow an insult to good wrestling to deliberately perform the way Ryan does, but I think that's silly too.

[Danish Dynamite]

To me the biggest upset so far is someone seemingly intelligent claiming to have dropped Flair from his top 5 all the way to #9, not because of anything Flair did or didn't do, but because he was annoyed by JvK's five-part podcast on him. Good thing I know it MUST be a joke, Elliot ;-) ... If anything, that series confirmed my position for him :-)

 

As for that penis-grabbing wrestling style... Holy hell that's stupid. But gotta love that someone lives it. I just wish I'd nominated the Gobbledygooker now...

[Jimmy Redman]

Of all the comedy in wrestling, I don't know why Joey Ryan is any more egregious than anything else.

[El McKell]

Well it prevents you from suspending your disbelief in a way that Johnny Saint curling up into a ball and then his opponent rolling him around in a futile attempt to get both shoulder on the mat doesn't.

But it's very difficult to argue that it's somehow worse than Kota Ibushi wrestling that blow up doll (although this was way funnier than anything Joey Ryan ever did) or the invisible grenade thing Chuck Taylor used to do.

[NotJayTabb]

I don't hate Ryan, but I don't think all comedy wrestlers are created equal. When I think of good comedy wrestlers, I think of someone like a Mad Man Manson, who did a lot of comedy schtick, but all with the purpose of frustrating his opponent and making them make mistakes that he'd capitalize on. Or Grado, where his comedy revolves around him being a slightly confused chubby chancer, but the character still fits into the world of wrestling. Things like slow motion wrestling, Ryan's penis routine or the entire output of Chuck Taylor feel more like the guy going "Look at how I can make fun of wrestling. Isn't it silly". That said, I quite like some of Ryan's schtick - him proposing to his girlfriend mid-match and then rolling her up in a small package when she said yes (because he needed the winners purse to pay for the ring) was pretty fun.

[overbooked]

I think it is worth differentiating comedy in wrestling matches and comedy wrestling. The former can work as it is generally within the internal logic of wrestling, offering light relief within a wider narrative. The latter is more of a problem to me as the comedy is the logic and the narrative.

 

Re: Joey Ryan. Is the issue his act, or is the issue actually that his act got mainstream coverage?

[JerryvonKramer]

To me the biggest upset so far is someone seemingly intelligent claiming to have dropped Flair from his top 5 all the way to #9, not because of anything Flair did or didn't do, but because he was annoyed by JvK's five-part podcast on him. Good thing I know it MUST be a joke, Elliot ;-) ... If anything, that series confirmed my position for him :-)

 

You know it's ironic, all the 100s of shows I've done, and I put such genuine love into those five, and I don't think I've ever had heat like that before (or actually even heat at all!). I find it funny really. I also think that Marty, Pete and Loss each put forward damn good cases for him in their respective parts. And it is also clear that Will "lost" the debate episode

 

I know elliot is joking too btw, a wind-up merchant.

 

--------------------------

 

In other news, I'm offering a reward for anyone who can get me the name of the OTHER Tom Zenk voter!

[NotJayTabb]

It think it's only going to get worse for you. Based on the list so far, I'm not totally convinced I'm the high voter on Barbarian either :-)

[Graham Crackers]

Trauma II made my list over number I due to his edge in matwork.

 

Hashi fell off my list along the way. If I'd turned in a top 150 I'd have had so many NOAH midcarders.

 

I'll be honest, had we not just wrapped up the Lucha set I probably wouldn't have ranked Hombre Bala but Los Bucaneros gave me more wrestling joy in the last two years than anyone else.

 

I wish I had more time to push Pequeno Pierroth. I think he is one of the most consistent week to week performers on TV in the last ten plus years.

[Loss]

To answer the above questions, the difference with Joey Ryan is that he works in a way that makes fun of wrestling. The key to me with comedy wrestling is doing something that serves the match first and the laugh second. Super Delphin calling for a timeout in a tag match and having the crowd rolling works because he was working the whole match like a Southern heel anyway. He's not pandering for the laugh, and breaking wrestling's customs to get it. As for knowing him personally, I don't need to know Joey Ryan personally to know that he has no desire to work in a way that thousands of guys have worked over a hundred years.

[KrisZ]

Joey is trying to make himself a star in different ways than any other wrestler lately and he has gotten tons of media that no other non WWE wrestler has. I think he is annoying but I can't knock his hustle

[concrete1992]

Joey Ryan became a star from riding the coattails of his talented partner and lucking out into a viral video. Do what you gotta do tbh.

 

Now this may have been suggested in the back pages here but is there any chances of Recommended Matches being added post-hoc or would that be too much work? I know a few people who didn't fill any of them out because the process itself already took a small chunk of time that they weren't too worried about it. I think that is helpful for people coming to the list from the outside or those who simply didn't pay them anymind in the process. But again, that might be too much work.

[Loss]

I say all this as I am watching and enjoying the hell out of Maxwell Chicago! His whole act is a tribute to the difficulties of being a pro wrestler, though.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I would think Joey would get some good will from being in the 'Legend of Chavo Guerrero' video. Actually, I saw him wrestle a couple of months ago against some local guy, and I thought it was the best match on the show, and I mean that as a compliment. They brawled into the crowd on top of doing the more standard indie-style stuff, and it was quite convincing. I can't stand his comedy stuff though. There was a video I saw of him not long ago where he gets out a bag of Gummi Bears as though it were a bad of thumb tacks, and the commentators and wrestlers are acting like it's some heinous act. That whole scene is just terrible to me. While rules are made to be broken in other forms of art, wrestling just wasn't meant to work on that level, in my opinion.

 

I'm loving this countdown already. I'm surprised Kuniaki Kobayashi dropped already, but I reckon he's the kind of guy who would do a lot better if people were submitting a top 150/200. Just not spectacular enough, I guess, to force his way into a top 100. I honestly can't remember if he made it onto my list or not. He and Fulton were both in my last 108, and while I know Fulton didn't make it into the 100, Kobayashi, who I cut initially, may have been a last minute add-on for me.

[jaedmc]

I would think Joey would get some good will from being in the 'Legend of Chavo Guerrero' video. Actually, I saw him wrestle a couple of months ago against some local guy, and I thought it was the best match on the show, and I mean that as a compliment. They brawled into the crowd on top of doing the more standard indie-style stuff, and it was quite convincing. I can't stand his comedy stuff though. There was a video I saw of him not long ago where he gets out a bag of Gummi Bears as though it were a bad of thumb tacks, and the commentators and wrestlers are acting like it's some heinous act. That whole scene is just terrible to me. While rules are made to be broken in other forms of art, wrestling just wasn't meant to work on that level, in my opinion.

 

It depends on the company as far as "breaking the rules" of wrestling. I loved HUSTLE and love DDT. They can do shit like that gummi bear thumb tacks. But if New Japan did that, or any local fed that the basis of its "wrestling physics" hinges closer to reality - it would have annoyed me.

 

That being said, Danshoku Dino is way better at wrestling than Joey Ryan, and technically he carried Ryan's junk in that match. So Joey Ryan getting a vote and Dino being left off the nomination list entirely is a bigger travesty.

[Stiva]

Spike was the first of mine to come up. I like little guys that bump around like lunatics and he's the first of my bottom 5 personal picks. I think he might have even been my 99, I can't remember.

[jaedmc]

I'm glad someone voted for Akitoshi Saito, I'm a huge fan of his and his team with Bison Smith is one of my favorites(I probably would have voted for them in the best tags). Kind of sad that he's the guy ranked behind Bob Sapp.

[Matt D]

Cerebro was a near miss for a personal pick but I thought his Santo match just wasn't what i wanted it to be.

 

Sierra was also a near miss. I really wanted to go with him but I just couldn't find room. Maybe I should have kept Wahoo off.

 

DEAN's list is awesome sounding.

[Loss]

Akitoshi Saito strikes me as one of those guys who has been around forever and quietly racked up an impressive resume, but has never really gotten his due.

[Eegah]

What a treat this grouping has been. We had a huge Bob Sapp fan voting.

[El McKell]

We had a huge Bob Sapp fan voting.

I really wanna see that anon's ballot.

[GOTNW]

 

We had a huge Bob Sapp fan voting.

I really wanna see that anon's ballot.

 

I have it saved it's a guy I talked into doing one at the last minute. It's my favourite one but I'll make you wait a bit to build suspense.

[Loss]

Paul Jones has looked really good in the 70s Mid Atlantic film footage. It's been hard for me to view him as a wrestler and not a manager, which has probably made me underrate him. I also love Kakihara, and thought he did a good job making his style work in a post-shoot style landscape.