Reactions to the List: 100-51

[Loss]

Like Undertaker, most of the work was done for Hogan before the bell rang. All he had to do was be where he was supposed to be and not screw things up. Both had moments of being very good and even great sometimes. But their greatness overall seems to me to be largely the result of hype and positioning more than any skills or merits. There are exceptions, of course. There always are.

[Matt D]

Personally, I think Hogan's a much better candidate for the "There can be a middle ground between great and terrible" list. He did what he did almost as well as anyone. There are a lot of things he didn't do well. There are a number of things he actively did poorly, to hurt matches, especially outside of a few year prime. Some of his strengths also led to his weaknesses either due to the ability to get away with neglect or because they overshadowed other things. For years upon years, his strengths were overlooked due to a far too narrow view of wrestling by the pundits. He wasn't on my list, but I'm glad to see him on the main list and above someone like Dynamite, for what he represents. It'll be a list that rewards many different qualities and that's probably for the best.

[Danish Dynamite]

 

 

 

 

Folks bitch about SO MANY other wrestlers. Yet. Jericho has yet to drop.

 

I can sort of accept Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho because for almost two decades they have been considered incredible in ring wrestlers by the majority of the internet wrestling community. I don't agree personally, and nor do many people here, but they either speak to people or people have been conditioned to accept them as wonderful workers.

 

Whereas someone like Hogan has been pretty much accepted as a poor toaverage worker from all sides - even the praise tends to focus on his charisma and character and the way his big matches are structured. So it seems far more strange to see him so high.

 

Just, you know, two of the most important aspects of being a great pro wrestler.

 

Nothing big or anything.

 

 

Possibly, but if you take that train of thought you end up taking drawing power and merchandise sales into consideration. He was mediocre in ring, and for all his charisma there are very few of his feuds, interviews and/or segments that are worth revisiting. His charisma often raised his big matches into something greater than the sum of their parts, true.

 

Wait what? No I'm not. Charisma can be an in ring trait, just like athleticism. You can qualitatively judge both of them. Character work is far more important to me than hitting impressive spots cleanly or working really hard or whatever.

 

 

Totally agree! "Workrate" is important, yes, but we all define that differently, I think. A big, big part of wrestling (if not the actual main part, and then everything else is cherries on top) to me is the storytelling and character work. So I'm with Matt D here!

 

And the story surrounding a match and the character work has more than once made me rate a match higher. Lawler vs. Dundee gains several points for me from knowing the whole story and taking everything into account. So with the whole package I end up probably at the 5* level with some of their stuff. Ditto with Hansen vs. Colon. The whole package improves the individual match. Bruno vs. Larry. Greg vs. Tito. The Final Conflict. And so on and so on. Ditto with character and story within the individual match. Gun to the head, I'd say it's more important to me than impressive spots or the more traditional view of workrate. And if the story and character is not there or doesn't communicate to me, if the charisma is gone, then the matches suffer incredibly for me.

[Luchaundead]

What Hogan could do better than the vast majority of babyface workers ever was generate sympathy in heel heat segments enough that fans could be genuinely invested for a comeback and finish they mostly knew was coming.

 

Lawler will rightly be praised to the moon for that; but Hogan is right there with him for that specific skill.

 

As you say people knew what was coming and reacted in kind I'd say Hogans big pops towards the end was less about his work and more of a Pavlovian response does he really deserve credit for that as a worker? It shows that once the vast majority of the crowd got tired of it they turned on him so harshly it forced a heel turn if it was his skill as a sympathetic worker why couldn't he figure out a way to get the crowd behind him again?

[JerryvonKramer]

What was Hogan specifically doing to generate more sympathy than Ricky Morton? Than Steamboat? Because he garnered more sympathy doesn't mean he was better at generating it than other top babyfaces. I think Hogan was good in that respect but the reactions he got out was more than what he put in (in the ring at least),

That's where transcendent charisma comes into play.

[Childs]

Like Undertaker, most of the work was done for Hogan before the bell rang. All he had to do was be where he was supposed to be and not screw things up. Both had moments of being very good and even great sometimes. But their greatness overall seems to me to be largely the result of hype and positioning more than any skills or merits. There are exceptions, of course. There always are.

 

The one key difference between him and Undertaker is that he got himself massively over in both AWA and Japan, before the Vince production machine really kicked in.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

What Hogan could do better than the vast majority of babyface workers ever was generate sympathy in heel heat segments enough that fans could be genuinely invested for a comeback and finish they mostly knew was coming.

 

Lawler will rightly be praised to the moon for that; but Hogan is right there with him for that specific skill.

As you say people knew what was coming and reacted in kind I'd say Hogans big pops towards the end was less about his work and more of a Pavlovian response does he really deserve credit for that as a worker? It shows that once the vast majority of the crowd got tired of it they turned on him so harshly it forced a heel turn if it was his skill as a sympathetic worker why couldn't he figure out a way to get the crowd behind him again?

His case is made in AWA and 84-7. With 88-90 featuring strong work although also becoming more generic and complacent.

 

If you want to talk about Pavlovian responses though I'd point you to the sound of shattering glass.

[Tim Cooke]

 

Tanahashi didn't make my list but I think Paul does a good job covering why he isn't an absurd top 100 pick and actually probably belongs there if you don't let bias get in the way.

http://www.crossarmbreaker.com/88-hiroshi-tanahashi-86/

A bias that thinks he's not a good wrestler. That's not a bias.

 

 

No, a bias with regards to thinking one way without having actually gone through the material (in this case, matches) before making a conclusion. Conclusions don't matter if they aren't well informed. It's the old jdw line when responding to a "opinions can't be wrong." "It's my opinion that Andre the Giant was the greatest flying wrestler ever."

 

It does make me laugh when a LOT of the complaints about styles of wrestling and individual wrestlers are not present in Tanahashi's performances yet not discussed in depth, but most people tend to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. He's amazing (Meltzer, etc.) or he stinks, which is something I have definitely been guilty of in the past.

 

Like I said, I didn't have Tanahashi on my list and would be perfectly fine if I never saw another match of his, but there is validity in digging a little deeper.

[El McKell]

Hulkamania could only happen in the Reagan era. After the reality of civil rights, Vietnam and the sexual revolution, people just wanted to be told everything was fine and not to worry for a while. Hogan was transparently phony and insincere, but at least said and did all of the right things, which was all that mattered then.

This seems really smart and insightful but I feel like because I wasn't alive in the 80s I can't be sure that it's true.

[Danish Dynamite]

Ok... I was away for a day, and stupidly checked out this thread before THE LIST thread... And when you guys were debating Hansen and Flair I got seriously freaked out that something insane had happened ... Nothing that fucked though, thankfully...

 

82: Dr. Death. Didn't have him. Do like a lot os his stuff though.

81: Tajiri. Likewise.

80: Tito. My 76. Pretty close, I'm totally ok with that ranking.

79: Gordy. My 84. Also super ok.

78: Dynamite Kid. My 86. Looks like a good and fair day.

77: Rick Rude. My 42. I get the "short peak" argument, and I know I'm pretty high on the guy. But sure, his 91-92 stuff was as high as it gets in many ways. But I love his WWF run, 88-89 especially, but am also good with 90. So in my biased world that makes for 5 top flight years. Then I sneak in 93 as well, which I think is fair. And I close my eyes and say that his entrance in WWF began on strong note already in 87, and that his stuff with Manny before as well as a lot of his Texas stuff and the like was really fun, more up and down, but still really strong to me. That leaves me with 85-93, 9 to me really, really good years. Yup, I can justify that taking him to 42 for me

76: Hase. My number 60. I'm good with that. I think I might have gone a little overboard on him, because I saw a lot of his stuff leading up the ranking. I'm good with him at 76.

75: Hulk Hogan. My 96. Somewhere in between that seems fair to me. Good (to great) at his best, and that was a long enough stretch for me to rank him. And I do take working the crowd, charisma and personality in the ring into account. I totally see the case for not ranking him.

[Grimmas]

 

 

Tanahashi didn't make my list but I think Paul does a good job covering why he isn't an absurd top 100 pick and actually probably belongs there if you don't let bias get in the way.

http://www.crossarmbreaker.com/88-hiroshi-tanahashi-86/

A bias that thinks he's not a good wrestler. That's not a bias.

 

 

No, a bias with regards to thinking one way without having actually gone through the material (in this case, matches) before making a conclusion. Conclusions don't matter if they aren't well informed. It's the old jdw line when responding to a "opinions can't be wrong." "It's my opinion that Andre the Giant was the greatest flying wrestler ever."

 

It does make me laugh when a LOT of the complaints about styles of wrestling and individual wrestlers are not present in Tanahashi's performances yet not discussed in depth, but most people tend to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. He's amazing (Meltzer, etc.) or he stinks, which is something I have definitely been guilty of in the past.

 

Like I said, I didn't have Tanahashi on my list and would be perfectly fine if I never saw another match of his, but there is validity in digging a little deeper.

 

I have watched a TON of Tanahashi

[Danish Dynamite]

 

Hulkamania could only happen in the Reagan era. After the reality of civil rights, Vietnam and the sexual revolution, people just wanted to be told everything was fine and not to worry for a while. Hogan was transparently phony and insincere, but at least said and did all of the right things, which was all that mattered then.

This seems really smart and insightful but I feel like because I wasn't alive in the 80s I can't be sure that it's true.

 

 

Rambo changed from a Vietnam vet with a critical look at the whole war and turned into a pro-war cartoon that was only critical of not finishing the job. Rocky turned from a down on his luck bum, whose goal was to go the distance into a guy who wrapped himself in the flag and singlehandedly ended the cold war. Loss is absolutely right in his post.

[JerryvonKramer]

Hogan taking the Million Dollar Man's money and redistributing it to gamblers at Ceaser's Palace helped usher in the "Third Way" of the Clinton years. His support of Brutus Beefcake through his injuries, and indeed in general, demonstrated his commitment to welfare reform in practice.

[Timbo Slice]

So I'm in a spot where of the last 74, I have 67 (!!!) in play right now. Meaning no to me on Benoit, Jericho, Angle, Michaels, and 3 others. Alright then.

 

While Hogan's charisma can't be denied and he wasn't nearly as bad a worker as some have suggested, I just became so tired of him growing up I didn't even think of him anywhere near this project.

 

Loss' point about Hogan is fantastic and 100 percent correct. He's the worker that represents what dumb people think Springsteen was saying in "Born in the U.S.A."

[Tim Cooke]

 

 

 

Tanahashi didn't make my list but I think Paul does a good job covering why he isn't an absurd top 100 pick and actually probably belongs there if you don't let bias get in the way.

http://www.crossarmbreaker.com/88-hiroshi-tanahashi-86/

A bias that thinks he's not a good wrestler. That's not a bias.

 

 

No, a bias with regards to thinking one way without having actually gone through the material (in this case, matches) before making a conclusion. Conclusions don't matter if they aren't well informed. It's the old jdw line when responding to a "opinions can't be wrong." "It's my opinion that Andre the Giant was the greatest flying wrestler ever."

 

It does make me laugh when a LOT of the complaints about styles of wrestling and individual wrestlers are not present in Tanahashi's performances yet not discussed in depth, but most people tend to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. He's amazing (Meltzer, etc.) or he stinks, which is something I have definitely been guilty of in the past.

 

Like I said, I didn't have Tanahashi on my list and would be perfectly fine if I never saw another match of his, but there is validity in digging a little deeper.

 

I have watched a TON of Tanahashi

 

 

Never said you didn't but I also expect people with expert level knowledge on a subject to be well versed on it. I have watched five Dragon Gate matches in the last four years (three of which were just for Super Shisa). I know the style is not my cup of tea and can make a well informed argument about Toryumon and that style from 1999-2006 having seen most of it.

 

But having basically stopped watching in 2007, I can't give a good, informed opinion on the promotion in 2016 without having to go through everything.

[Grimmas]

Tim, fair assessment.

 

To be fair I am cherry picking the best Tanahashi and that doesn't work for me, because I don't think he's very good. However, maybe with watching every show he might stand out more as an elite all-timer.

[The Man in Blak]

I've got 62 out of the next 74. Ikeda, Virus, LA Park. Chicana, Scorpio, Garvin, Onita, Toyota, Undertaker, Tajiri, Santana, and Hase all fell off on the way to the Top 75. No top 25 losses for me, but six are gone from my top 50. (Ballot so far in spoilers below.)

 

 

 

29. Sangre Chicana (#95)
...
31. Jaguar Yokota (#114)
...
41. Chigusa Nagayo (#110)
...
46. Yoshihiro Tajiri (#81)
47. Shinobu Kandori (#146)
48. Naoki Sano (#126)
...
51. Manami Toyota (#85)
...
53. Atsushi Onita (#89)
54. L.A. Park (#96)
...
58. Virus (#99)
59. Dynamite Kansai (#125)
60. Yoshihiro Takayama (#123)
61. Yoji Anjoh (#214)
...
65. Too Cold Scorpio (#91)
66. Daisuke Ikeda (#100)
67. Carlos Colon (#103)
68. Devil Masami (#135)
...
71. Ron Garvin (#90)
72. Yoshinari Ogawa (#184)
...
74. Low Ki (#107)
75. Chris Hero (#104)
76. Emilio Charles Jr. (#193)
77. Jerry Blackwell (#118)
78. Sabu (#149)
...
81. Perro Aguayo (#140)
...
84. Tito Santana (#80)
85. Megumi Kudo (#195)
86. MS-1 (#192)
87. Antonio Inoki (#132)
...
90. Pirata Morgan (#117)
91. Hiroshi Hase (#76)
92. Mayumi Ozaki (#133)
93. Christian (#102)
94. Masaaki Mochizuki (#194)
95. Undertaker (#84)
96. Steve Grey (#108)
...
99. Wahoo McDaniel (#115)
100. Animal Hamaguchi (#375)

 

 

 

It's sort of weird (but good weird) that we still have Jack Brisco and Harley Race yet to come, along with Angle, Austin, Samoa Joe, Dick Togo, and Jericho. And how high can Jim Breaks go?

[Grimmas]

#73 is next. I expect some big discussion coming from that posting, so I will wait an hour. Get your Atlantis discussions going.

 

By the way, love that Atlantis is higher than 2006 and that he is one above Hogan.

[Dylan Waco]

To me Hogan is a guy who benefits from footage. I grew up in Flair country, as a Crockett Kid. Even in liking Hogan to a degree as a youth, he was never my favorite, and I always saw him as more "fake" than my guys. I never really embraced the idea of him as a good worker, but came to see him as cariable and capable shortly after the last SC poll.

 

What turned me around on him was watching a variety of Hogan from all over. When the good matches kept adding up I had no choice but to concede that it wasn't always his opponents. It couldn't be.

 

What did he bring? It's hard to say. I agree that in his best moments he was an excellent seller but those moments rarely lasted for an entire match, let alone years at a time. His comeback and fire was often great - and often hokey and absurd. He had great timing, and that was probably his most consistent trait, but his bad selling moments often undermined it. The charisma is undeniably an element but it's hard to quantify.

 

And yet I think from 79-87 or so there is far more good Hogan than bad, and quite a bit of great Hogan. And even after that there is an awful lot that is good or better. And this occurs opposite a wide variety of opponents. I find this impossible to deny.

 

I think the old Loss argument against him is the most compelling reason to exclude him, but at this point I find the idea that he was a poor worker to be an odd sort of denialism that doesn't match with reality as I know even if I can't fully explain why he was good.

 

I didn't vote for him.

[anarchistxx]

 

 

Hogan mediocre in the ring seems like a silly smark statement from the 90s.

 

Hogan incredible in the ring seems like a silly willfully revisionist super-smark statement from 2016.

 

He made the 2006 list, btw.

 

 

I know, I voted for him myself on that list. I was something of a WWE mark at the time and grew up on video tapes of his Wrestlemania matches. I still enjoy some of his work, and appreciate how he does less with more and uses his charisma to elevate things. But that doesn't change the fact he was poor on offence - very little of his stuff looks remotely dangerous - poor at selling believably, mediocre at carrying a match. He is another solid hand that feels too high up the list.

 

His WWF matches in the 80s are mostly overrated to me, a lot are just solid contests that benefited from the lack of athleticism and quality wrestling in the promotion for much of that period. He wrestled dozens of matches between 1997 and 2001 and brought very little to any of them. His run since 2003 can;t have helped his case. Haven't seen much of him from 1993-1996 but you don't see too much of it pimped heavily. I just don't see him as a top tier candidate.

 

It isn't that important, not as if he is top thirty or something and I actually quite like the guy, especially as a heel....just feels a little off him being considered a better worker than Hase or Toyota or even Rude.

[El-P]

Hogan #75 is a complete joke. Worst pendulum effect symptom thus far. He was a decent worker at best. The Hulk-up no-selling is the most idiotic and annoying thing ever. His offense looked like shit (scratching the back of his opponent) and he was a terrible babyface.

 

Plus, I'll say, as a pro-wrestling fan who never cared about Hogan, that most of his 80's fans were stupid american kids blinded by jingoism and triomphant Reaganian model of a society where heroes were steroid induced brain-deads fighting against "evil" foreigners while waving the flag in one hand and the bible in the other. The concept of Hulk Hogan is horrendous, that's why he was so perfect as Hollywood Hogan, because it was him being much closer to the actual truth.

 

Fuck Terry Bolea, I didn't became a fan because of him. I was a Warrior & Savage fan.

[anarchistxx]

 

 

Hogan was so charismatic in the ring that he redefined what a wrestling star could be.

This isn't the 'Most Influential Wrestler Ever' list though. Elvis Presley redefined what a rock star could be but his albums don't stand up next to Revolver or Blue or Blood On The Tracks or Dark Side Of The Moon.

Wouldn't you include Elvis on a list of 100 Greatest Rock Stars though?

 

 

Probably, but such a list would probably be judged on charisma, presence, impact, iconic status etc rather than the merits of their recorded output. I wouldn't include him on a list of Top 100 Music Artists.

[Grimmas]

A lot of talk of Hogan only being over due to "AMERICA!" and the time period.

 

Canada is not America and is pretty damn different. However, Hogan was super over there as well. Maybe even having a longer last appeal.

[El-P]

A lot of talk of Hogan only being over due to "AMERICA!" and the time period.

 

Canada is not America and is pretty damn different. However, Hogan was super over there as well. Maybe even having a longer last appeal.

 

All joking aside (although I was really not), of course Hogan had incredible presence and charisma, it seems idiotic to even have to point it out. He was a huge star in Japan before the WWF.

 

I did think the Warrior was just as over at Mania 8 though.

[Ricky Jackson]

Come on El P, you can badmouth him for a lot of things, but saying Hogan was a "terrible babyface" is like saying Charlie Chaplin was a terrible comedian. Although that may be a whacky French belief, I don't know.