Reactions to the Honorable Mention List, Part 3

[Scarlet-Left]

Wahoo McDaniel, Jaguar Yokota and Sting; all come off my list.

 

The next weekend's not going to be pleasant to me, is it?

[Beast]

Matt when so many voters were not PWOers, I'm not sure there are any lessons or conclusions to draw from the results and I say that expecting Flair will finish #1

 

I said months ago that the results won't mean much. Just enjoying the reveals.

 

This isn't just in response to you, but...

 

They mean a whole hell of a lot.

 

All of us are PWOers. All of us are likely in the top 1% of fans who are in the "know", meaning watch a variety of footage and dive into non-current stuff.

 

I don't buy into the hivemind arguement at all, but you can't say there's not a "hivemind" and then complain that people have different opinions than the podcast host family.

 

I like Bigelow. I like Malenko. Not as much as I used to, but they still made the second half of my list. That doesn't make my opinion less valid than someone who's discovered they "actually" are overrated.

 

It's perfectly fine to complain about a favorite falling too early, but the random people complaining about lack of voter quality is totally bull.

[JKWebb]

Sad to see Wahoo drop... I love him more and more the more I see... Really enjoyed his stuff on the AWA set... I've had somewhere around 20 fall now

[jaedmc]

The fact that Tajiri will move up nearly 200 spots, without doing a huge amount of anything since the original ballot, is cause for celebration.

[Matt D]

It's not about Malenko being voted for so much as it's about there not being enough discussion about him (and the discussion that was there not moving the needle), so that it came as a surprise. If he was someone who was going to end up so high, relatively, then we should have probably talked a lot more about him and people should have come to his defense more thoroughly, etc and then it could have been a debate that may or may not have swayed people one way or another. But apparently this was an issue back in 2006.

[Kil]

Finally Sting gets to beat Triple H.

[JerryvonKramer]

Beast, I don't believe a #20 vote on Gotch is based on footage watching. As one example.

[Eegah]

Now Dory down, no justice in the world. I need a hug.

[El Boricua]

Not going to lie, once I saw he was still in the running I was rooting for Sting to make the top 100. That's still an impressive placement.

[bradhindsight]

Dory at 112 is a great finish for him.

[Eegah]

Dory at 112 is a great finish for him.

Definitely is, especially with how down hes been viewed on the internet over time. Average vote of 57 shows the voters who did put him on really enjoyed him.

[JKWebb]

Finally Sting gets to beat Triple H.

Good spot for Sting... I remember Uncensored 97 when he dropped from the rafters... 20 or so high school dudes in my living room... We all danced around like hobbits at the end of Return of the King...

[Childs]

Dory was No. 69 in 2006, one spot below Tiger Mask. So that's a decent-sized drop. I guess I'm more surprised he finished as high as he did then, but that poll seemed to have more of a pro-legends bent.

[Beast]

Beast, I don't believe a #20 vote on Gotch is based on footage watching. As one example.

 

 

That type of thing excites me. That there is a fan who felt so sure that Gotch was a top 20 level talent that he had to put him up there. To a lesser extent with Thesz, O'Connor, and other guys from that era and before.

 

Even if this isn't going to stand as a "definitive" list due to the vast range of preparation people brought to it, I still think it means a lot for future discussion. I've said this before, but I'll be looking to the list to guide future viewing choices.

[Parties]

If you go back a couple months ago into the thread of Highly Touted Workers Who Won't Make Your List, one of the names I mentioned for myself was Malenko. At the time people dismissed it, saying that Malenko doesn't get much love here. But I believe on a podcast even Will discussed him as someone he was ranking or at least considering.

 

I don't say this as an attack or challenge, but to the people who voted for Sting: what got him on your list? Saying someone was pretty good in TNA and had a better Rollins match than expected doesn't seem like enough to me, though I get that he's been favorably viewed as a legend the last couple years. But what were the matches/performances that caused him to make so many ballots? The Flair stuff? Cactus? NWO stronghold? Voting on "ace" rep/star power? Childhood love? Sting was just never my guy, and even in youth I thought little of him, so I'm genuinely curious what people like about him, esp. since so much of the PWO podcast crew conversation of late has been around "Sting shouldn't be in the WON HOF, Sting was not a draw or a good worker", kind of treating him as a fallacy in comparison to the reevaluation of Luger, etc.

[Grimmas]

The 120-101 range is playing havok with my list. Sad to see Fuchi go, but glad he held onto his spot from 2006.

[Jetlag]

I didn't have Sting on my list but Sting is a ballsy wrestler who has some great matches with Vader, Regal and Foley where he was far from being carried. In fact he may be my favourite Vader opponent. I wouldn't have a problem at all if he made the Top 100.

[Parties]

I had Fuchi at #27 and thought I might be the high vote on him. Felt the same way about Navarro and Terry, but wasn't the highest on any of them. In ways both beautiful and ugly, the variance of rankings among such a large number of voters has been amazing to watch.

[WingedEagle]

Its a very short match, but I think his Clash performance against Rude in November '91 is one of his best. Absolutely dynamite selling the knee injury the whole way. You throw in (1) those type of selling performances here, (2) the Flair matches (Clash 1 likely overrated but subsequent matches I thought don't get enough love), (3) the Vader series, (4) Cactus, a (5) couple of terrific runs in War Games in '91 and '92 (6) along with slew of fun TV sprints that may not be classics but never overstayed their welcome, (7) an infrequent great big match and I see a case for a bottom of the ballot career if you dug him.

[WingedEagle]

Fuchi ranking a shamockery.

 

Need him & Oz to pair off in some intergender tags to break the hands of every voter.

[Parties]

I didn't have Sting on my list but Sting is a ballsy wrestler who has some great matches with Vader, Regal and Foley where he was far from being carried. In fact he may be my favourite Vader opponent. I wouldn't have a problem at all if he made the Top 100.

 

I would agree that he wasn't carried in those matches and totally forgot to mention the Vader feud, which is awesome.

It is interesting to think that I have a guy like Terry Rudge on my list and like him way more than I like Sting, but that if you put their five best matches side by side they would look more comparable in skill than I think they really are. Is there any good Sting after '95 when he really started to take a backseat to the other stars in terms of the way he was booked? The GAB '95 match with Meng is the latest thing I've seen of his that stands out.

[El-P]

Masa Fuchi was my #95. He really held on well, which is what he did his entire career. Always there, always solid, with a terrific peak as a complete asshole punking Kikuchi in Jumbo's trios.

[GOTNW]

My list is getting its ass kicked again. KENTA, Pirata Morgan AND Masanobu Fuchi? It's a cruel world.

[Goodear]

The only person I'm calling out on the Triple H vote is Goodear. He needs to explain himself. I'll give everyone else a pass.

 

You're not my dad!

 

You're not my dad

 

In the interest of full disclosure I attempt to watch stuff that I am actually going to like and I am incredibly cheap. As such, PPV main events that are one of the last things I watch so I tend to stay away from 30 minute Triple H 'epics' against guys like Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash or Undertaker (I also have never seen the Daniel Bryan match so it runs both ways). While this does leave an incomplete picture of a worker, the very nature of the project meant that would be true of virtually every wrestler ever because there are only so many hours in the day. So I put a lot more emphasis on week-to-week stuff than big events. In this regard, I assume that Triple H does better with commercial breaks and shorter amount of time.because I have never had the visceral reaction to him that others do. From that perspective, I find him to be a rather solid TV worker who was able to effectively give guys enough of a hope window before slamming it down on their heads. From a character perspective, I find the Max Landis view of him as being a self important schmuck who builds up his own self confidence so he can talk the talk without walking the walk to have merit as his character arc. I also found the Connecticut Blue blood gimmick to be an effective character for him with the Hog Pen match to actually being the highlight of that run as being surprisingly violent and satisfying. HIs IC Title run with the Rock worked for me as well and I enjoyed face D-X with X-Pac and the Outlaws as a grouping. I mean I realize he has flaws but so does everyone else including the people I ranked much higher and some people that are still coming on the countdown are actively worse by far.

[pol]

 

Matt when so many voters were not PWOers, I'm not sure there are any lessons or conclusions to draw from the results and I say that expecting Flair will finish #1

 

I said months ago that the results won't mean much. Just enjoying the reveals.

 

This isn't just in response to you, but...

 

They mean a whole hell of a lot.

 

All of us are PWOers. All of us are likely in the top 1% of fans who are in the "know", meaning watch a variety of footage and dive into non-current stuff.

 

I mean, I assume Parv was talking about anonymous voters who literally do not post here. Of course anyone here is a PWOer. This isn't a No True Scotsman thing.

 

I guess my hope was that the result would be an interesting list like the WKO100s, and it's seeming more like it's going to be a list more reflective of the consensus across the wider internet. Maybe that's too harsh—it's more like a hybrid of the PWO and wider internet takes.