Reactions to the List: 25-11

[The Russian Daydream]

Ouch! My top ten was looking ok until today and then I lost Bockwinkel (6), Tenryu (7), Tsuruta (8) and Hart (10) all in one swoop. A painful evening.

[stunning_grover]

Never realised before how many death metal bands jumped the shark in '93. Covenant, Heartwork, Elements, Individual Thought Patterns... yikes.

 

Great year for wrestling and death metal. Some people also really like At the Gates' album With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness. But, my favourite death metal album from 1993 is probably Heartwork (closely followed by Covenant and Individual Thought Patterns).

 

 

 

19. Arn Anderson

I have him at #35. I can understand he ended up this high with 144 votes. He's always been a favourite of the hardcore fans. I really like his tag team work.

18. Randy Savage

I have him at #22. I will totally listen to an argument for placing him in the top 3, because he was definitely great. Easy top 25 pick for sure.

17. Bret Hart

I have him at #21. He would have been even higher if this was a favourite wrestlers list. Interesting to see that Randy Savage (my #22) and Bret Hart (my #21) follow each other on the final results list too (#18 and #17 respectively).

16. Nick Bockwinkel

I have him at #40. He was THE man in the AWA. Even more so than Curt Hennig. Does that mean Bockwinkel was beyond perfection? I guess he was. Although, I guess "Narcissist" Lex Luger would claim he's the only man beyond perfection. (just kidding, of course... if you're familiar with 1993 WWF angles, you will probably get my reference... I must think I'm living in 1993 with all my 1993 references... by the way, speaking of Lex Luger, I didn't have him in my top 100, because I have him somewhere around #125 in my top 150)

15. Ricky Steamboat

I have him at #81. His 1989 feud with Ric Flair was amazing. Great seller. Great babyface.

14. Vader

I have him at #61. The Man They Call Vader received 148 votes. I wonder who the other two guys are with 148 votes. We'll find out soon, I guess.

13. Genichiro Tenryu

I have him at #7. Great longevity.

12. Eddy Guerrero

I have him at #58. Even though he's not my #1 anymore, I still really like his work (especially 1994-1997).

11. Jumbo Tsuruta

I forgot to vote for him. I noticed that some people were happy he didn't end up in the top 10... so I guess I didn't really need to vote for him anyway. But, all joking aside, he should have been in my top 25.

 

 

Three days to go...

91 wrestlers who are in my top 100 have appeared in the final results so far...

9 wrestlers of my top 100 haven't appeared in the final results yet... that means 1 of the 10 wrestlers still to come is not on my list (Daniel Bryan)

My list [overall ranking in brackets]

...

...

...

...

#5 Negro Casas [#22]

...

#7 Genichiro Tenryu [#13]

#8 Masa Fuchi [#111] (high vote: #8)

#9 Sangre Chicana [#95] (high vote: #9)

#10 Bull Nakano [#61]

#11 Dick Murdoch [#53]

#12 Dick Togo [#71] (high vote: #12)

#13 Satanico [#37]

#14 Chigusa Nagayo [#110]

#15 Fuerza Guerrera [#155] (high vote: #15)

#16 Giant Baba [#63]

...

#18 Manami Toyota [#89]

...

#20 Akira Taue [#26]

#21 Bret Hart [#17]

#22 Randy Savage [#18]

#23 Buddy Rose [#36]

#24 Dynamite Kid [#78]

#25 Harley Race [#45]

#26 Rick Martel [#43]

#27 L.A. Park [#96]

#28 Mr. Gannosuke [#277] (high vote: #28)

...

#30 Akira Hokuto [#52]

#31 Mayumi Ozaki [#133]

#32 Greg Valentine [#54]

#33 El Dandy [#35]

#34 Barry Windham [#25]

#35 Arn Anderson [#19]

#36 Jaguar Yokota [#114]

#37 Aja Kong [#49]

#38 Yoshiaki Fujiwara [#40]

#39 Owen Hart [#58]

#40 Nick Bockwinkel [#16]

#41 La Fiera [#164]

#42 El Hijo del Santo [#29]

#43 Ted DiBiase [#42]

#44 Tatsumi Fujinami [#20]

#45 Bobby Eaton [#28]

#46 Shinya Hashimoto [#23]

#47 Jun Akiyama [#27]

#48 El Samurai [#212] (high vote: #48)

#49 Kyoko Inoue [#217]

#50 Curt Hennig [#55]

#51 Sgt. Slaughter [#64]

#52 Ricky Morton [#33]

#53 Tsuyoshi Kikuchi [#148]

#54 Atlantis [#74]

#55 Great Sasuke [#116]

#56 Chris Benoit [#34]

#57 Yumi Ikeshita [#384]

#58 Eddy Guerrero [#12]

#59 Brian Pillman [#72]

#60 TAKA Michinoku [#180]

#61 Vader [#14]

#62 Shinobu Kandori [#146]

#63 Shinjiro Ohtani [#65]

#64 Steve Williams [#82]

#65 Dynamite Kansai [#125]

#66 Dan Kroffat [#254]

#67 Tully Blanchard [#44]

#68 Steve Austin [#24]

#69 Perro Aguayo [#140]

#70 Tito Santana [#80]

#71 Bison Kimura [#420]

#72 Devil Masami [#135]

#73 Cuty Suzuki [#385]

#74 Kerry Von Erich [#98]

#75 Dennis Condrey [#199]

#76 Pirata Morgan [#117]

#77 Super Astro [#283]

#78 Leo Burke [#296]

#79 Jinsei Shinzaki [#400]

#80 Hulk Hogan [#75]

#81 Ricky Steamboat [#15]

#82 Masato Tanaka [#175]

#83 Javier Cruz [#502] (high vote/only vote: #83)

#84 Mick Foley [#38]

#85 Psicosis [#183]

...

#87 Shawn Michaels [#31]

#88 Marty Jannetty [#272]

#89 Espectrito [#370]

#90 Masa Saito [#160]

#91 Sabu [#149]

#92 Scott Steiner [#162]

#93 Jacques Rougeau [#339]

#94 Andre the Giant [#51]

#95 Atsushi Onita [#89]

#96 Carlos Colon [#103]

#97 Roddy Piper [#83]

#98 Stan Lane [#260]

#99 Big Boss Man [#171]

#100 Ron Starr [#403]

[El Boricua]

 

 

Full disclosure: one reason I didn't submit a ballot was because I knew my ignorance of lucha and some other styles would result in shafting those workers.

 

Same. In beginning my dives into Lucha and Joshi and rewatching a lot of All Japan and some New Japan I realized I knew enough to know that I didn't know enough to be happy with my own list.

 

My list would have been more or less obsolete already as I have been continuing to watch Lucha this month. I could make cases for a hand full of wrestlers in each, but just not enough. If they remained full blind spots that would have been one thing, but I was too much in process of falling in love with some wrestlers and styles and not in enough to know what to do with them.

 

 

You've just described my dilemma as I went to make my ballot. And in the end, I decided to go the goodhelmet route. For me, I felt more comfortable including those I had a good handle on, while those that I still hadn't formed a solid opinion on where left off. Basically, I was more comfortable committing sins of omission on my ballot than including someone i was unsure of simply because they've been talked about or have the reputation. I mean, how do I know if my evaluation is due to them being new to me or if because of the small sample I watched just happened to be them at their best or no best. So I made that decision for my ballot.

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, after giving Owen, Dundee and Breaks some thought it's hard to get excited about this top 10.

[victory]

Eddie I had at 12 right where he actually landed. I had Jumbo at 10 and just missed by 1 spot.

[jdw]

As for 70s Bock, the answer is "not much." A lot of what we have is clipped. You can get a sense of him, one that mostly syncs up with the very complete later picture, but it's just a sense.

 

Stuff available from Japan, two of which are actually US matches that aires on Classics:

 

All Japan (Classics)

12/05/78 Nick Bockwinkel & Blackjack Lanza vs The Funk Brothers

12/09/78 Nick Bockwinkel & Blackjack Lanza vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta

12/13/78 Nick Bockwinkel vs. Jumbo Tsuruta

12/15/78 Nick Bockwinkel & Blackjack Lanza vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Tor Kamata

02/10/79 Nick Bockwinkel vs. Verne Gagne (Chicago)

02/14/79 Nick Bockwinkel vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (Honolulu)

IWE

11/04/74 Nick Bockwinkel vs Rusher Kimura (JIP/Digest)

11/20/74 Nick Bockwinkel vs Mighty Inoue (JIP/Digest)

11/21/74 Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens vs Rusher Kimura & The Great Kusatsu (JIP)

10/03/79 Nick Bockwinkel vs Ashura Hara

10/05/79 Nick Bockwinkle vs Rusher Kimura

10/06/79 Nick Bockwinkle & Lou Thesz vs Rusher Kimura & The Great Kusatsu

 

KHawk likely knows all of the US stuff that's available via the AWA (as well as what's popped up on WWE releases).

 

It's not unreasonable to expand that to 1980, since it's not like there's a great difference in Nick from 1979 to 1980. You get another trip to the Tag League, including singles matches (yes... in the middle of the Tag League) with Baba, Billy and Dory. The Billy and Dory ones were 30:00. Everyone loves the Billy one. The Dory one was a new find, and I'm not too sure how many people saw it before it got pulled down. I *think* some of our friends here grabbed it for preservation. Would be tragic if it was lost: 32:34 of youtube video time, which indicates that if it was JIP, it wasn't got much of it. Pretty sure that was new... don't ever recall seeing that on a Classics list, and if it the original TV version was in the US somewhere, it would be buried deep on an old collector's tape list.

 

Kevin is the expert on AWA/Bock, so he'd also know if that had been in circulation somewhere before.

[Cap]

 

 

 

Full disclosure: one reason I didn't submit a ballot was because I knew my ignorance of lucha and some other styles would result in shafting those workers.

 

Same. In beginning my dives into Lucha and Joshi and rewatching a lot of All Japan and some New Japan I realized I knew enough to know that I didn't know enough to be happy with my own list.

 

My list would have been more or less obsolete already as I have been continuing to watch Lucha this month. I could make cases for a hand full of wrestlers in each, but just not enough. If they remained full blind spots that would have been one thing, but I was too much in process of falling in love with some wrestlers and styles and not in enough to know what to do with them.

 

 

You've just described my dilemma as I went to make my ballot. And in the end, I decided to go the goodhelmet route. For me, I felt more comfortable including those I had a good handle on, while those that I still hadn't formed a solid opinion on where left off. Basically, I was more comfortable committing sins of omission on my ballot than including someone i was unsure of simply because they've been talked about or have the reputation. I mean, how do I know if my evaluation is due to them being new to me or if because of the small sample I watched just happened to be them at their best or no best. So I made that decision for my ballot.

 

Yeah, and I don't necessarily know that that will ever go away. Even if I dedicated all the time I could reasonably dedicate to watching wrestling without sacrificing time for work or family between now and 2026 (if there is even motivation for it 10 years from now), I can imagine I would still be feeling this way about one style/era/region or another. How many indy surges will there be world wide between now and then? How many footage discoveries will there be? What if someone unlocks a ton of that French catch stuff? It will always be a problem. For me, it was a combination of just not feeling like I had enough areas covered to feel good about my own list and having some things come up the weeks leading up to the balloting that kept me from spending the time really thinking over the list that moved me from coming to terms with my list, to just opting out and enjoying the reveal (a decision I am ultimately happy with).

[jdw]

 

 

Taue revisionism predates this board by a fair number of years. There may be posters here who came to Taue late and thought they'd split the atom, but there's nothing folks can possibly say about Taue that hasn't been said before. If someone had had a new idea about Taue during this project I would have spat on my drink and fallen ass over backward.

 

My only issue is I guess I haven't seen a match where he's the man so to speak. If anyone can point me to a match where he's carrying a lesser opponent to a great match I may revise my view on him.

 

 

His match with Yuji Nagata is as blatant a carry job of a badly inferior worker as you'll ever find in the history of pro wrestling.

 

 

Yeah... that match always made me Kawada was lucky to work with someone as great as Albright.

 

[jdw]

Mainstream hardcore fans>Niche fetishists

 

Mainstream hardcore fans were niche fetishists.

 

It's a bit like one snob looking down his nose at another snob.

[jdw]

 

 

Lawler will be at #11 because he never worked All Japan.

Shouldn't make the top 10 because he just wasn't that good.

 

If only he'd done more flips and head drops.

 

 

This sounds like the Wrestling Classics guys who hated Rey because he did lots of flippy floppy stuff.

[goc]

 

 

 

Lawler will be at #11 because he never worked All Japan.

Shouldn't make the top 10 because he just wasn't that good.

 

If only he'd done more flips and head drops.

 

 

This sounds like the Wrestling Classics guys who hated Rey because he did lots of flippy floppy stuff.

 

That's not me though because I had Rey in my top 10 and also had Matt Sydal on my list.

[jdw]

 

None of the eight wrestlers since Casas fell at #22 have beaten his average vote of 19.03. None of them have even broke an average vote of 20. None of those eight have even come close to his 52 top 10 votes. This is not meant as a complaint at all. I just find it interesting and it is clear now Casas did really, really well with just the lack of votes holding him back. Looks like he has a shot at top 10 in average vote.

 

Imagine if Casas had asked for a few final tours in NJPW over the last few years? I'm going to assume without evidence that he gets to #17.

 

 

I got to see Negro work in an NJPW ring live. So maybe that's why I rate him highly.

[jdw]

 

 

 

 

Lawler will be at #11 because he never worked All Japan.

Shouldn't make the top 10 because he just wasn't that good.

 

If only he'd done more flips and head drops.

 

 

This sounds like the Wrestling Classics guys who hated Rey because he did lots of flippy floppy stuff.

 

That's not me though because I had Rey in my top 10 and also had Matt Sydal on my list.

 

 

And I'm sure the Classics guy probably loved Bobby Eaton coming off the top rope with the elbow.

[jdw]

Considering Bryan is ending up in the Top 10 of the Greatest Workers Who Ever Lived, it would appear we can skip the discussion of him as a WON HOF candidate this year.

[Dylan Waco]

Considering Bryan is ending up in the Top 10 of the Greatest Workers Who Ever Lived, it would appear we can skip the discussion of him as a WON HOF candidate this year.

 

This is old news. He had an Observer Award named after him. He's in.

[El-P]

Anyone but Flair #1 would be nice.

[jdw]

 

Considering Bryan is ending up in the Top 10 of the Greatest Workers Who Ever Lived, it would appear we can skip the discussion of him as a WON HOF candidate this year.

 

This is old news. He had an Observer Award named after him. He's in.

 

 

You recall that I said several years back that he was going to eventually go in simply from winning the Worker Award the number of times he did.

[pol]

Can't help but laugh every time I see jdw has the last post in a thread and it's him pointing out how he said something years before anyone else.

[Parties]

Flair at #1 after all the back-and-forth handwringing is the ultimate Dusty Finish.

Just watched Flair-Jumbo '83 hour draw for the first time in years last night. Pretty solid! Almost as good as Mascaras-Tenryu the year prior.

[Microstatistics]

That Jumbo photo is the greatest one so far.

 

Disappointed Tenryu didn't make the top 10. Funny with the general backlash against Jumbo and the increase in Tenryu's stock, Jumbo still ranked ahead.

[MikeF]

Wound up with 4 out of the Top 10. Would've had 6 if Bockwinkel/Jumbo had snuck in. My #1 through #4 are all still left.

[Microstatistics]

That Jumbo photo is the greatest one so far.

 

Disappointed Tenryu didn't make the top 10. Funny with the general backlash against Jumbo and the increase in Tenryu's stock, Jumbo still ranked ahead.

Actually I am disappointed Jumbo didn't make it either. I get some of the criticisms but sometimes I feel his 1980-84 "down" period gets overplayed. Great in the 70s, tremendous in the early 90s and from what I have seen for the 80s in general, I would say he was definitely a Top 10 worker in the world for the 80s.

[MoS]

His relatively underwhelming 80s knocked him down from #1 to #3 in my list. I clearly underestimated the backlash against him.

[elliott]

Anyone but Flair #1 would be nice.

 

This project has become a real Sophie's Choice for me. On the one hand, I want Flair to be any position but #1 because I know JVK will be pissed.

 

Then I read El-P's 50,000th anti-Flair post and all I can think is how much I want Flair to be #1.

 

[El-P]

It's not that I'm anti-Flair, I had him at #20, he remains one of my all-time favourites, but I don't think he's the greatest wrestler ever. And more than anything, the fact that a progressive thinking board, sometimes to absurd degrees, in 2016, goes back to the old gospel of the 80's, to the most boring candidates of all after having Jumbo being called a boring candidate, is kinda disapointing to me. Like I said, although I wouldn't agree at all, Lawler #1 would be a more exciting result honestly. Anyone would be. I've said it pretty early in the countdown, apart from a few über-pimped names, this is mostly a return to the US mainstream and a pretty conservative list. (and yes, a bunch of AJ sacred cows are still in the top 10, but there's no way these names were gonna just disappear)