Reactions to the Honorable Mention List, Part 3

[Exposer]

I don't mind having my opinion challenged. It has been before & has changed for that but I don't appreciate when I see people go to bat for wrestlers that they have explained clearly why they enjoy them & then someone tries to tear them down for it anyways. It's like some desperate attempt to change an opinion to fit there's.

[Matt D]

People value different things. That's something very clear from this process.

[Woof]

People value different things. That's something very clear from this process.

 

Right. Which is why I find it curious that certain people react to the results as if it's some great failing of the process. There are a lot of voices in the project coming from a lot of different angles. In the end what we get is an aproximation of what we are as a collective. I find the differences in thought process fascinating, not infuriating. I only wish I had come on board sooner and participated to a greater degree on the before discussion rather than the after discussion.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

We should create a new thread for discussion about "the process" or complaining about people who complain about certain wrestlers finishing where they do. That way we can keep this thread for reacting to the reveals and not let it get bogged down by all the other big picture stuff.

[Danish Dynamite]

I have questions.

 

Why is it that whenever someone votes high on a mainstream American worker there's this massive cry for them to defend their pick? Why doesn't that happen with any other genre?

 

Why is it that when modern workers rank high people start claiming "recency bias"? How is working in the modern era any less valid than having worked 30 years ago?

 

How come nobody is crying about the fact that Dragon Gate style workers all got shunted down to the bottom of the rankings or that there's almost no representation of hardcore style guys, like they're doing about the joshi, World of Sport, and other niche styles?

 

What exactly would be the point of seeing results for only select voters? Isn't that basically saying, "we're gonna keep weeding out the ballots we don't like until we get the results we want", which invalidates the whole purpose of doing such a project?

 

How come so many people react to certain nominees with "how can you vote him higher? he was a TERRIBLE worker!" when it was made quite clear by the people who started this that it was not necessarily a rankings of "workers"? Isn't it obvious at this point that some of us voted on an entirely different set of criteria than merely workrate?

 

How many of you who didn't grow up in the 80's are basing your opinions on a lot of those workers on the various yearbook projects? I mean, weren't those yearbooks meant to be mostly highlights, in which case you were spared seeing a lot of those guys' crap work?

 

In the end, what were people expecting this list to even mean? There were 100,000 wrestling fans crammed into a single stadium two weeks ago for ONE wrestling card. Do we really think that the opinions of the 150 of us who happened to discover this particular message board are really THAT much more valuable merely because we're a little extra nerdy about our fandom?

 

Yeah, these are more or less rhetorical questions and I'm not trying to piss anybody off. I'm just really kind of dumbfounded by some of the reaction of people in the reveal threads. There's been a lot of fun talk and some quality ball busting, which I'm all for. But man, there's been a lot of eyeroll material too. I love that I've found this little corner of the wrestling world that is full of such passionate and knowledgeable fans, and I'm looking forward to the many discoveries that await me as I continue to dig into the areas of wrestling I have missed up till now, BUT... I've been a fan for well over 30 years now and it never once occurred to me that my opinion on anything - no matter how well thought out or researched - is any more valid than anybody else. I kind of feel like some people round here need to be reminded of that. I'm sorry if my liking WWE guys skewed the results some of you wanted, but liking WWE guys doesn't mean I don't know wrestling. It just means we have different taste, and I pretty sure THAT is what these results are reflecting.

I totally understand where you're coming from. But it's not something people had a meeting on and decided. It's a lot of different peoples different tastes.

 

So the way the magic works is, if you feel something or someone needs to be talked up, you talk them up. Probably someone who agrees with you will back you up. Others will debate you. So instead of blaming "the community" for this or that, you add your voice and suddenly that is also represented in "the community".

[TheU_2001]

There goes KENTA, Sting, Dory, and Dean Malenko (forgot to mention him yesterday).

[bestintheworld3589]

Grimmas must be busy today b/c there hasn't been an update to the list since before noon.

[Gregor]

Why is it that whenever someone votes high on a mainstream American worker there's this massive cry for them to defend their pick? Why doesn't that happen with any other genre?

 

Why is it that when modern workers rank high people start claiming "recency bias"? How is working in the modern era any less valid than having worked 30 years ago?

 

How come nobody is crying about the fact that Dragon Gate style workers all got shunted down to the bottom of the rankings or that there's almost no representation of hardcore style guys, like they're doing about the joshi, World of Sport, and other niche styles?

 

What exactly would be the point of seeing results for only select voters? Isn't that basically saying, "we're gonna keep weeding out the ballots we don't like until we get the results we want", which invalidates the whole purpose of doing such a project?

Here's an example: Sting finished ahead of Pirata Morgan. Lucha fans generally rate Pirata as one of the best at that style. I'm sure that there will be some very high votes on Sting, but, in general, he's not thought of as an elite wrestler for the North American style. That's not just one of this board's quirky opinions; that was the prevailing opinion at places I remember reading before I came here. It's understandable that people who appreciate both styles would have trouble reconciling the idea of someone who excelled at one style ranking below someone who wasn't one of the very best at another. I agree with your point about hardcore wrestling and Dragon Gate, even though I'm not a fan of either, but I don't think that dismissing everything other than U.S. and New/All Japan as "niche" is fair.

 

I always thought of this as "ProWrestlingOnly.com's Top 100 Wrestlers" rather than "The Internet's Top 100 Wrestlers," so it kind of bummed me out that there were apparently a bunch of votes from people who don't actually post here.

 

(I didn't vote, so that last line wasn't me saying that my vote should have counted for more, by the way.)

[Childs]

Grimmas must be busy today b/c there hasn't been an update to the list since before noon.

He said he was stopping at 110, so no more today.

[DR Ackermann]

Grimmas must be busy today b/c there hasn't been an update to the list since before noon.

 

He released a timetable for the rest of the reveals. There won't be another one until tomorrow. The post is buried a few pages back in this thread.

 

Reveal schedule:

Sat, April 16: 119-110

Sun, April 17: 109-101

Mon, April 18: 100-91

Tue, April 19: 90-81

Wed, April 20: 80-71

Thu, April 21: 70-61

Fri, April 22: 60-51

Sat, April 23: 50-41

Sun, April 24: 40-31

Mon, April 25: 30-22

Tue, April 26: 21-16

Wed, April 27: 15-11

Thu, April 28: 10-6

Fri, April 29: 5-3

Sat, April 30: 2-1

[bestintheworld3589]

 

Grimmas must be busy today b/c there hasn't been an update to the list since before noon.

 

He released a timetable for the rest of the reveals. There won't be another one until tomorrow. The post is buried a few pages back in this thread.

 

Reveal schedule:

Sat, April 16: 119-110

Sun, April 17: 109-101

Mon, April 18: 100-91

Tue, April 19: 90-81

Wed, April 20: 80-71

Thu, April 21: 70-61

Fri, April 22: 60-51

Sat, April 23: 50-41

Sun, April 24: 40-31

Mon, April 25: 30-22

Tue, April 26: 21-16

Wed, April 27: 15-11

Thu, April 28: 10-6

Fri, April 29: 5

Sat, April 30: 2-1

 

Ah ok I didn't see him post that.

[JerryvonKramer]

It is often the end, but threads would be much better if it was the beginning.

Seems to me if you insist that "anything goes", if you dispense with the categories of evidence and burden of proof, if you dispense with any sense of a shared criteria, there isn't much left to say but "hey this was my pick, tell me yours."

[BAMptb]

We haven't even gotten to the top 100 yet! I'm not about to complain about how the list is going. Do you guys realize how much of an accomplishment it is for relatively new "discoveries" or against-the-grain type picks to even show up in the top 200? It's significant, not at all something that should make anyone feel like this project is a failure. It's a massive sign of success! Carlos Colon is still in this thing! Buddy Rose is still in this thing! Imagine either of those happening in 2006.

 

There have been thousands upon thousands of wrestlers in history. That the voters think a wrestler is one of the top 200 of all time is high, high praise. Keep perspective.

I give all the credit to Will, Dylan, and others on PWO for opening my eyes to Buddy Rose. So awesome. I hope he makes the top 50.

[Childs]

I've been trying to think of the right way to respond to Woof because he seems to be speaking for a sensitivity that exists for multiple people who are newer to the board.

 

Steven always wanted this to be a wide-open process with flexible criteria, and that's what we've got. Your vote counted as much as his or Dylan's or Will's or mine. You have just as much space and just as attentive an audience if you want to explain why one of your guys got shafted or why your favorite style is underappreciated.

 

But I'm not sure why you need to question the reactions of people who've been invested in this project from moment one and who've spent countless hours building cases for their guys in threads and on podcasts.

 

Is this a land of strong opinions? Of course it is. Do I think my ballot is better than yours? You're damn right I do. Does that in any way cancel out your votes or your platform to explain them? Nope.

 

We are going to end up with a top 100 that represents a broader consensus of hardcore fans rather than a consensus of the people who post here the most. And that's fine. That's what the process was designed to do. But you can't be shocked that the posters who form the core community here are having their say about the results.

[Timbo Slice]

 

It is often the end, but threads would be much better if it was the beginning.

Seems to me if you insist that "anything goes", if you dispense with the categories of evidence and burden of proof, if you dispense with any sense of a shared criteria, there isn't much left to say but "hey this was my pick, tell me yours."

 

Even with criteria, people would see it in different ways. Still trying to squeeze objectivity out of a subjective medium.

 

Child's last point is spot on.

[El Boricua]

I think in some cases it's not so much having a say (which should be part of the reveal process), it's that the tone in some cases can come of as being harsher than intended/needed (and I think it doesn't help that it's sometimes hard to pick up nuance of tone in writing).

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

It is often the end, but threads would be much better if it was the beginning.

 

Seems to me if you insist that "anything goes", if you dispense with the categories of evidence and burden of proof, if you dispense with any sense of a shared criteria, there isn't much left to say but "hey this was my pick, tell me yours."

Even with criteria, people would see it in different ways. Still trying to squeeze objectivity out of a subjective medium.

 

Child's last point is spot on.

You recorded a ten hour podcast giving reasons for each of your picks. If you remove any notion of objectivity from things, the entire concept of defending a pick or indeed of making an argument at all collapses.

 

In which case your podcast need only have been about ten minutes, not ten hours.

[Childs]

I think in some cases it's not so much having a say (which should be part of the reveal process), it's that the tone in some cases can come of as being harsher than intended/needed (and I think it doesn't help that it's sometimes hard to pick up nuance of tone in writing).

I get that but a little harshness is part of the deal. I don't see it verging into incivility very often. And the tone is so much gentler than it was in earlier days of internet wrestling discussion. I remember reading the Smarkschoice threads and my god there were some vicious exchanges.

[Woof]

...but I don't think that dismissing everything other than U.S. and New/All Japan as "niche" is fair.

 

I always thought of this as "ProWrestlingOnly.com's Top 100 Wrestlers" rather than "The Internet's Top 100 Wrestlers," so it kind of bummed me out that there were apparently a bunch of votes from people who don't actually post here.

 

 

But that's kind of my point. I'm not dismissing them as being niche, but when the reaction to certain mainstream names appearing high in the rankings is that it is a sign that some outsider votes have corrupted the process, it's basically saying, "if you don't recognize the greatness of these other genres then you're not really part of what we're about". Which is weird, because ranking somebody like Triple H is not, in and of itself, a sign that you're a mindless WWE mark.

 

If you look at the names that are left there are about 15 who would qualify as modern (2000 and beyond) WWE workers. Yet the general cry over the last 48 hours or so is that they're somehow over-represented. The simple math of it is that 100 names in the grand scheme of things is not a lot, so no single era or style is going to dominate.

 

For what it's worth, guys, I'm not upset or even annoyed. Nobody has attacked me personally and I'm not taking any of this personal. It's just that this reveal process has been a really curious social experiment in its own right and I'm fascinated by how people are reacting to it.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jaguar was my number one last time, but I'm pretty much indifferent to where she fell this time. Like the JWP girls she almost got over the hump.

 

I can see the case for Chigusa finishing ahead of her. After Jaguar retired, Chigusa took up the mantle of best woman in the business and was a great worker during that period. I think a lot of people think of the Crush Girls, and the schoolgirls, and the crying, and the stuff with Dump, but the impressive thing about Chigusa was how she morphed from a hyperactive young Joshi worker into a serious shoot-style inspired wrestler in the span of a few short years. Workers like Mariko Yoshida and Meiko Satomura would make the same transition years later but it took them much longer. In Chigusa's case, the spectre of early retirement was forever hanging over her. A rule that to this very day is like Logan's Run. Chigusa's Run was pretty great. I adore her matches with Leilani Kai, enjoyed watching her butt heads with Yukari Omori, instill life lessons in Akira Hokuto and duel with Itsuki Yamazaki. Even he matches with Asuka, which feature some of the most ridiculous selling in Joshi Puroresu history, are undeniably great to me. All Japan came really close to booking a Kandori/Chigusa match in 1989 and that's a match I would have loved to have seen. She packed a lot into a short run and her star shone brightly. I like some of her comeback stuff, but she jobbed left, right and centre until she set up GAEA and ruled the roost there. After a while, beating Chigusa lost its meaning but nobody wants to book a freelancer as stronger than their talent. I saw her live in 2004 and she left a huge impression on me even at that point of her career. All Joshi workers basically make the same appeals to the crowd, but few have the charisma of Chigusa even in her 40s. She was special.

[El-P]

Workers like Mariko Yoshida and Meiko Satomura would make the same transition years later but it took them much longer.

In case of Yoshida, she basically left Zenjo where she was doing the traditional go-go-go house style and when she debuted in ARSION she already had created her own style in which she trained the girls like Fukawa into. Didn't took her long at all.

[Coffey]

I agree that it's the tone. Especially if you're not around often, are newer or have thinner skin. Personally, I know most the people around here well enough now where I think it's funny.

 

I was the high vote on Scott Norton. My literal first reply to the discussion threads was about that...ha. I expected to take more shit for that one, honestly. I could see someone else taking it the wrong way if it were directed toward them or their pick as it can read like "hey, you're a fucking idiot" which will immediately make some people feel like they're being attacked, questioned & put them on the defensive though, ya know? Like the "OMG, you put him WHERE?" That's part of the fun for me though.

 

But at the end of the day, we're a bunch of fucking nerds arguing about pro-wrestling on an internet message forum. There's not a lot shit we're gonna be able to hold over one another's heads big picture wise.

[ohtani's jacket]

 

For what it's worth, guys, I'm not upset or even annoyed. Nobody has attacked me personally and I'm not taking any of this personal. It's just that this reveal process has been a really curious social experiment in its own right and I'm fascinated by how people are reacting to it.

 

 

 

I don't see how this differs from other list roll-outs. You'd get the same reactions to a Rolling Stone list, the AFI, Pitchfork, ESPN, you name it. Probably worse. I mean this is pretty tame compared to the arguments over the DVDVR 500 back in the day.

 

Having said that, while people were thrilled by the ballot turnout, a blind man could have seen this coming.

[Superstar Sleeze]

With Sting still being out there, and Luger dropping. Does this list trump all the polls over the years of who is better Sting or Luger. I believe the last poll was won by Luger. LOL

Shaking my head. Luger is so much better than Sting. Ridiculous.

 

Is it just me or HHH better than Angle? I can't believe he has a chance at the top 100.

[ohtani's jacket]

 

Workers like Mariko Yoshida and Meiko Satomura would make the same transition years later but it took them much longer.

In case of Yoshida, she basically left Zenjo where she was doing the traditional go-go-go house style and when she debuted in ARSION she already had created her own style in which she trained the girls like Fukawa into. Didn't took her long at all.

 

 

That was almost ten years into her career. Chigusa did it in half that time. Plus the metamorphosis occurred during the height of her popularity, which is even more remarkable. it's a dumb analogy but it's like a pop star going all experimental at the peak of their stardom.