Reactions to the Honorable Mention List, Part 3

[goc]

Endless chops are brilliant and lots of punches means laziness, got it.

[DR Ackermann]

More guys in the top 100 who didn't make it the last time around: Chicana, Fujiwara, Dundee, Andre, Buddy Rose, Valentine, Breaks, Ishikawa...this is going to be fun

[El-P]

Chicana, Fujiwara, Dundee, Andre, Buddy Rose, Valentine, Breaks, Ishikawa...

 

Voted for four of them. Could have voted for six from memories.

[The Thread Killer]

Too high a ranking for Low Ki. Such a self-serious ponce, and it hurts his work in the ring. I haven't yet seen the Mysterio match, but in terms of character I'll say that even when he was with the Rottweilers, he always came off to me as the type of kid in school who studied karate, had a pet snake, and would run away crying if anyone scuffed his sneakers in a fight. But I have no love for early ROH prior to Joe's reign of terror, so I get that he's acclaimed as a master of that style and era.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity.

 

Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Too high a ranking for Low Ki. Such a self-serious ponce, and it hurts his work in the ring. I haven't yet seen the Mysterio match, but in terms of character I'll say that even when he was with the Rottweilers, he always came off to me as the type of kid in school who studied karate, had a pet snake, and would run away crying if anyone scuffed his sneakers in a fight. But I have no love for early ROH prior to Joe's reign of terror, so I get that he's acclaimed as a master of that style and era.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity.

 

Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

 

If I regret something massively, it is ranking Low Ki.

[Danish Dynamite]

About tag workers suffering in the gwe vote: I really, really tried to separate the two. Never looked at them at the same time etc. But it's the old "what if?" train of thought if I have to think whether or not an Arn or Eaton etc would have done better for me as purely singles wrestlers. I actually don't think they would. And Yatsu primarily got on for me for tags. Rogers and Lane are the ones where I start doubting if I actually succeeded in not neglecting guys that mainly did tag work...

[DR Ackermann]

Dropoffs from the 2006 List

 

Adrian Adonis

Akira Maeda

Antonio Inoki

Chigusa Nagayo

Dan Kroffat

Dean Malenko

Devil Masami

Dory Funk Jr.

Dump Matsumoto

Dynamite Kansai

El Samurai

Great Sasuke

Jack Brisco

Kazuo Yamazaki

Kyoko Inoue

Lioness Asuka

Lou Thesz

Jaguar Yokota

Marc Rocco

Mariko Yoshida

Masahiro Chono

Mayumi Ozaki

Naoki Sano

Nobuhiko Takada

Psicosis

Shiro Koshinaka

TAKA Michinoku

The Rock

Tiger Mask

Tommy Rogers

Toshiyo Yamada

Ultimo Dragon

[anarchistxx]

Endless chops are brilliant and lots of punches means laziness, got it.

 

Fuck me, for the level of analysis this project has spawned this post might be the most airhead simplification I have ever read. My post outlined clearly why this particular chop exchange, in this particular contest, at this particular time, was a spot done for specific reasons, for escalation, to convey defiance and guts, to add a sense of epic exhaustion and whip the crowd into a frenzy. I am not saying it was brilliant, I am saying it had a purpose and was not done out of a lack of creativity or idleness.

 

If you can't see the different between that exchange, and a WWE main event based around punch exchanges that have no rhyme or rhythm, serve little purpose except to kill time and are inherently lazy...well, there is zero point in having a discussion on the subject.

 

I am not saying either viewpoint is correct, but saying this is a simple case of double standards is utterly reductionist, since the two examples are so vastly different. Kobashi/Sasaki is a match that builds, has varies sections, has bombs and moonsaults and suplexes character work and structure - the chop exchange is a small, memorable part of it. How can you possibly compare it to a situation where the strike exchanges are the entire match?

[Danish Dynamite]

 

 

Chicana, Fujiwara, Dundee, Andre, Buddy Rose, Valentine, Breaks, Ishikawa...

Voted for four of them. Could have voted for six from memories.

I hear ya. I voted for seven of them :-)

[JerryvonKramer]

Can I post this again please?

 

 

I've become addicted to that clip!

[GOTNW]

 

If it's a great punch, why would they need to throw a gazillion of them? It waters down the move's impact if you hit it a hundred times in a row and still never pin anyone with it anyway.

You could say the same thing for chops, elbows, lariats etc. Murakami, Tenryu and Dundee are just some of the guys I saw matches with punches. The punches aren't treated as nearfalls so them not finishing matches isn't a big flaw.

I don't think it's a matter of variety or even structure. Ohtani vs Murakami and WWF Attitude Era brawls don't differ that match if you were to write them out using play by play yet I think one is awesome and the other bores me to tears. Execution does matter, but often times (specifically in WWE) matches striving to look like out of control brawls almost can't work because how against the micromanaged norm that idea is.

[Childs]

 

 

Too high a ranking for Low Ki. Such a self-serious ponce, and it hurts his work in the ring. I haven't yet seen the Mysterio match, but in terms of character I'll say that even when he was with the Rottweilers, he always came off to me as the type of kid in school who studied karate, had a pet snake, and would run away crying if anyone scuffed his sneakers in a fight. But I have no love for early ROH prior to Joe's reign of terror, so I get that he's acclaimed as a master of that style and era.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity.

 

Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

If I regret something massively, it is ranking Low Ki.

Why? Highly skilled worker with several notable peaks and great matches 15 years apart. Unique aura in his context. He was a really easy pick for me.

[The Man in Blak]

 

One other factor for me (and I feel like a minority when it comes to this): professionalism. Maeda's incidents with Choshu and (especially) Andre played a non-negligible role in keeping him off my list as well.

Maeda being a professional is the only thing that kept him froom shoot KOing Andre's drunk ass. The Choshu shoot kick was an accident. If you watch the footage Maeda pats Choshu on the back to warn him he's going to kick him.

 

I won't dispute that Maeda was handed a bad situation. (It's something that I kept in mind for Andre too, who made my list, but ended up lower than I would have placed him otherwise.) I do think he took that bad situation and made it considerably worse, though.

 

Having said that, I didn't pick up on that detail from the tag with Choshu, so I'll rewatch and keep an eye out for it.

[goc]

I dunno, I just remember it as a bunch of chops and grimaces.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

 

Too high a ranking for Low Ki. Such a self-serious ponce, and it hurts his work in the ring. I haven't yet seen the Mysterio match, but in terms of character I'll say that even when he was with the Rottweilers, he always came off to me as the type of kid in school who studied karate, had a pet snake, and would run away crying if anyone scuffed his sneakers in a fight. But I have no love for early ROH prior to Joe's reign of terror, so I get that he's acclaimed as a master of that style and era.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity.

 

Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

 

If I regret something massively, it is ranking Low Ki.

 

Why? Highly skilled worker with several notable peaks and great matches 15 years apart. Unique aura in his context. He was a really easy pick for me.

 

He's someone I can admire / appreciate while having basically zero personal connection with anything he does. He might as well be a robot or a computer game character.

 

I really have no fondness for the era or type of wrestling he represents. He is a poster-boy for inauthentic wrestling.

 

I didn't use my list to make any grand statements, I used it to try to accurately reflect the 100 GWEs as I see it.

 

Low Ki is one of several workers I have a deep personal loathing for who made it on my list.

[Grimmas]

I ranked Flair, Parv ranked Low Ki. A lot of us tried to be objective and had to hold our noses to make these lists.

[Childs]

 

 

 

 

Too high a ranking for Low Ki. Such a self-serious ponce, and it hurts his work in the ring. I haven't yet seen the Mysterio match, but in terms of character I'll say that even when he was with the Rottweilers, he always came off to me as the type of kid in school who studied karate, had a pet snake, and would run away crying if anyone scuffed his sneakers in a fight. But I have no love for early ROH prior to Joe's reign of terror, so I get that he's acclaimed as a master of that style and era.

I was really shocked that Low Ki ranked as high as he did, and I say that as a fan of his work in early ROH, I never would have guessed he had the body of work to rank anywhere near that high. He is not on my list. But hey, I guess some people saw things I didn't, in terms of footage and longevity.

 

Also + 1 points for the usage of the phrase "self-serious ponce."

If I regret something massively, it is ranking Low Ki.

Why? Highly skilled worker with several notable peaks and great matches 15 years apart. Unique aura in his context. He was a really easy pick for me.

He's someone I can admire / appreciate while having basically zero personal connection with anything he does. He might as well be a robot or a computer game character.

 

I really have no fondness for the era or type of wrestling he represents. He is a poster-boy for inauthentic wrestling.

 

I didn't use my list to make any grand statements, I used it to try to accurately reflect the 100 GWEs as I see it.

 

Low Ki is one of several workers I have a deep personal loathing for who made it on my list.

That's interesting. I share a lot of your antipathy for "inauthentic" wrestling and yet I've never felt that way about Low Ki.

[GOTNW]

I have no idea what you're talking about with Maeda making it worse. He didn't do anything. Andre literally stopped co-operating in the middle of a pro wrestling match. What do you expect Maeda was gonna do, grab the mid and say "well folks I'm sorry to say this but pro wrestling is fake and Andre doesn't want to play with me anymore?". Doing a bunch of low kicks and some takedown attempts is something I really don't see as an attempted shoot, all it was was Maeda buying time and trying to stop the match and the illusion of competition from falling apart. If his low kicks fucked up Andre's knees, well, that's Andre's fault quite honestly. If he didn't want to work he could've just went home. Everything about that situation screams an Inoki power play designed to screw Maeda over (I believe the match, which would've been a pretty big deal at the time, wasn't even announced). Really all I see is people defending Andre when he doesn't warrant on based on the myth of him being a gentle giant or whatever (and everything I've heard from shoot interviews and such indicated that was far from the truth).

[JerryvonKramer]

I have no idea what you're talking about with Maeda making it worse. He didn't do anything. Andre literally stopped co-operating in the middle of a pro wrestling match. What do you expect Maeda was gonna do, grab the mid and say "well folks I'm sorry to say this but pro wrestling is fake and Andre doesn't want to play with me anymore?". Doing a bunch of low kicks and some takedown attempts is something I really don't see as an attempted shoot, all it was was Maeda buying time and trying to stop the match and the illusion of competition from falling apart. If his low kicks fucked up Andre's knees, well, that's Andre's fault quite honestly. If he didn't want to work he could've just went home. Everything about that situation screams an Inoki power play designed to screw Maeda over (I believe the match, which would've been a pretty big deal at the time, wasn't even announced). Really all I see is people defending Andre when he doesn't warrant on based on the myth of him a gentle giant or whatever (and everything I've heard from shoot interviews and such indicated that was far from the truth).

Andre had a long history of being un-cooperative with guys who pissed him off or who he didn't like for whatever reason.

 

I don't think many people who have been following wrestling for any amount of time -- by which I mean heard more than 4-5 shoots interviews with guys from that era -- seriously have an image of Andre as a gentle giant.

[The Thread Killer]

 

Endless chops are brilliant and lots of punches means laziness, got it.

 

Fuck me, for the level of analysis this project has spawned this post might be the most airhead simplification I have ever read. My post outlined clearly why this particular chop exchange, in this particular contest, at this particular time, was a spot done for specific reasons, for escalation, to convey defiance and guts, to add a sense of epic exhaustion and whip the crowd into a frenzy. I am not saying it was brilliant, I am saying it had a purpose and was not done out of a lack of creativity or idleness.

 

If you can't see the different between that exchange, and a WWE main event based around punch exchanges that have no rhyme or rhythm, serve little purpose except to kill time and are inherently lazy...well, there is zero point in having a discussion on the subject.

 

I am not saying either viewpoint is correct, but saying this is a simple case of double standards is utterly reductionist, since the two examples are so vastly different. Kobashi/Sasaki is a match that builds, has varies sections, has bombs and moonsaults and suplexes character work and structure - the chop exchange is a small, memorable part of it. How can you possibly compare it to a situation where the strike exchanges are the entire match?

 

 

I actually quite liked the Kobashi/Sasaki match - for what it was. But the million chops were a bit goofy, no? Similar to the Joe vs. Kobashi match. In a sense, these matches reminded me of Rock/Hogan, in that the molten reaction from the crowd played a massive part in the match itself. If the fans had sat on their hands, I think that match would have been viewed and remembered totally different.

 

I love Kenta Kobashi, and I have him ranked in my Top 10, but I remember thinking at the time of the Kobashi/Sasaki match that if only we could have seen 1993 Kobashi against 2000 Sasaki, we would have been seeing an entirely different match with entirely different psychology.

 

Kobashi HAD to do the match with a thousand chops. Let's be honest, by 2005 Kobashi was pretty much a shell of his former self, and he could barely walk to the ring or even hang his arms at his side, let alone do what he used to be able to do in the ring.

 

The fact that Kobashi was still able to pull out the odd classic at that point in his career was, to me, a testament to his love of Pro Wrestling, his hard work, and his unwillingness to walk away from the sport. I agree with your post regarding the psychology behind the "chop-fest" but I also maintain he had little choice but to resort to that style - he had little else in the tank at that point. I think he should be commended for structuring a big match like that around his physical limitations.

[The Man in Blak]

Doing a bunch of low kicks and some takedown attempts is something I really don't see as an attempted shoot, all it was was Maeda buying time and trying to stop the match and the illusion of competition from falling apart. If his low kicks fucked up Andre's knees, well, that's Andre's fault quite honestly. If he didn't want to work he could've just went home. Everything about that situation screams an Inoki power play designed to screw Maeda over (I believe the match, which would've been a pretty big deal at the time, wasn't even announced). Really all I see is people defending Andre when he doesn't warrant on based on the myth of him being a gentle giant or whatever (and everything I've heard from shoot interviews and such indicated that was far from the truth).

 

Eh. I didn't read Maeda's approach and going low as "buying time" as much as "okay, you giant jackass, let's have a real fight then." Maybe Maeda's reputation colored my perception there. Like I said, he's a guy I want to revisit. The urban legends (?) about it potentially being an Inoki power play are fascinating, though.

 

And, to be clear, I don't subscribe to the idea of Andre being a gentle giant either. There's no question that he shouldn't have come to the ring in the state he was in.

[The Thread Killer]

 

I have no idea what you're talking about with Maeda making it worse. He didn't do anything. Andre literally stopped co-operating in the middle of a pro wrestling match. What do you expect Maeda was gonna do, grab the mid and say "well folks I'm sorry to say this but pro wrestling is fake and Andre doesn't want to play with me anymore?". Doing a bunch of low kicks and some takedown attempts is something I really don't see as an attempted shoot, all it was was Maeda buying time and trying to stop the match and the illusion of competition from falling apart. If his low kicks fucked up Andre's knees, well, that's Andre's fault quite honestly. If he didn't want to work he could've just went home. Everything about that situation screams an Inoki power play designed to screw Maeda over (I believe the match, which would've been a pretty big deal at the time, wasn't even announced). Really all I see is people defending Andre when he doesn't warrant on based on the myth of him a gentle giant or whatever (and everything I've heard from shoot interviews and such indicated that was far from the truth).

Andre had a long history of being un-cooperative with guys who pissed him off or who he didn't like for whatever reason.

 

I don't think many people who have been following wrestling for any amount of time -- by which I mean heard more than 4-5 shoots interviews with guys from that era -- seriously have an image of Andre as a gentle giant.

 

 

I saw a hilarious interview with Sabu where somebody asked him about Andre and his response was "Fuck that guy. He was an asshole." The interviewer was shocked and pointed out all the people who thought Andre was great to be around, and this and that. Sabu pointed out that because Andre used to work for his Uncle, he saw the guy a million times growing up, and Andre apparently treated people like shit and pushed them around. Sabu claimed that Andre treated other wrestlers (who he liked) okay, but he treated staff at the arenas and other people like total shit. If I am not mistaken, Heenan talks about the same thing in his second book, the fact that Andre hated being around people because they always stared at him and bothered him, and he generally treated people pretty poorly unless you were one of his close friends.

[anarchistxx]

 

 

I actually quite liked the Kobashi/Sasaki match - for what it was. But the million chops were a bit goofy, no?

 

Yes, it can certainly be argued that the chops were goofy and overkill. It could also be argued that they were a memorable spectacle that escalated the match into an epic war.

 

The debate, though, was whether they were lazy and stemmed from a lack of creativity in the same way as a WWE main event match from 2000/2001, where the workers trade punches for twenty minutes until the mandatory near falls and run ins. The two situations aren't comparable at all. Whatever the reason for the ridiculous chop exchange, it wasn't laziness or to kill time.

[The Russian Daydream]

DAMN. Colon was SO CLOSE. That's the biggest gut punch to me of this whole exercise as of right now.

I didn't vote for him, but I had him on my own list at 106. Oddly then, I am a bit surprised he didn't make the final hundred. I only got into watching Puerto Rico quite recently but the more I have watched, the more I have grown to appreciate it. I think, if I was to re-do my list in a years time, I could easily see me having Colon (and a couple of others) a good way up my list.

[anarchistxx]

The exchange itself for anyone interested: