[GWE] PWO, The GWE, and Me

[Dylan Waco]

It's May 1, 2016, this is my 10,000th post here at PWO, and our long national nightmare is over. After over a year and half of sharing and watching footage, nominating candidates, discussing and debating their relative merits, and being amused and annoyed by the results the Pro Wrestling Only Greatest Wrestler Ever Project has concluded.

 

To me the end of the project is both satisfying and sad. More than that, these feelings of satisfaction and sadness have manifested themselves on both the macro and micro levels.

 

On the one hand I am very happy with my list. Looking over it today I was shocked by how little of it I would amend if I were to stick with the same sort of criteria I used to make it. I am also generally very pleased with the way the process worked, the efficiency of the countdown, the fact that people were exposed to a ton of different wrestlers and wrestling, and the overall placement of many different wrestlers who's final rank exceeded my expectations.

 

On the other hand the end of the GWE does feel like the end of an era to me, and more specifically the GWE has revealed to me that where I am in my fandom - both in terms of what I enjoy and what I want to discuss - may not be a good fit for Pro Wrestling Only.

 

As I write this I have just concluded recording a podcast with Dave Musgrave that is likely to get me into a ton of hot water with certain folks here. It is likely that some of my remarks will be seen as whining, others will be seen as trolling, and still others will be seen as me just being an asshole. With that in mind I wanted to write a bit about some of the things I touched on in that discussion here, as well as other takeaways I have from the Greatest Wrestler Ever Project.

 

Takeaway #1 - Relativism is relative

 

I did not really get deeply into this on the podcast, but one thing that I've found is that the subjective v. objective discussion, and the broader critique of relativism coming from some quarters during the process is something that wasn't as deeply examined as one might think. People generally took sides in that debate, and I think some real opportunities for counter-critique were missed. For example output advocates were probably not challenged enough on what sort of output was being counted (i.e. do all good matches count or just great matches? And if only great why not good?). Peakists were not seriously challenged on including years with major footage gaps in the category of a workers peak, and no real discussion took place that I'm aware of on why certain peak years with limited footage should seemingly have more value than strong post-peak years with far more footage that may have been qualitatively and quantitatively more impressive. Perhaps this speaks to my own biases, but I think in a sense the output/peak advocates were let off the hook easy by not having to more explicitly define their terms. Put another way, there may have been a critique available to the "subjectivists" about the deeply subjective value assignments involved in the creation of these categories (output/peak).

 

Takeaway #2 - Flair was always going to win, and it doesn't bother me, but I don't seriously consider him a top contender anymore

 

This is actually a sad takeaway for me, not because Flair won, but because I want to see him as a number one contender but I just can't. While I think there is something to the argument of the uniqueness of Flair's career, I think that can be applied to a litany of other performers, and in many cases I think it's more impressive (Rey Jr. to take one example). In watching and thinking about Flair I came away believing that he unquestionably holds up as an all time great, but I could not find a single playing field where I felt comfortable rating him number one. In part this speaks to my criteria (Variety/Adaptation, Duration of Quality, Consistency, and to a degree Uniqueness), but even thought experiments that I tried to run based on their core values (Output primacy, Peak primacy) left him on the outside looking in. Having said that the sheer volume of ballots, and the lack of a unifying counter-contender made Flair a rather obvious number one right out of the gate. Despite the fact that I can't seriously see an argument for him in that absolute top spot at this point I am okay with this.

 

Takeaway #3 - Narrative creation and popular narratives of many workers played a major role in the process

 

I have mentioned this before in regards to Akiyama and I think that is an excellent example, but I also believe you see something of this in the over all placement of a Bret Hart, or even Ric Flair. Pro wrestling is a business about working fans, and part of that work is the creation of narratives about the career trajectories and relative values of people in different promotions. As hardcore fans these narratives are also shaped by coverage and reporting, and a broader fan culture. I think one of the more easily identifiable schisms in this project was between those who bought into those narratives and in many cases added to them, and those who were more resistant to them, or at least willing to challenge them. Believe it or not, I am unsure which of these approaches is "right," but I do think that the idea of Bret Hart is more powerful than the idea of Christian and at least part of that explains where they ended up in the final results.

 

Takeaway #4 - The end results do not speak to a mainstream American bias, but rather a bias toward Americanized wrestling

 

This is the big one to me, and it has led to me exiting this process feeling extremely alienated from the broader community. I have discussed the specific problem I have with no luchador finishing in the top quadrant of the final list and won't repeat it here in the interest of time (it's after 4AM and I'm exhausted), but even extending beyond that the styles/promotions who's top workers failed to place in the upper portion of the top 100 were all those which were distinctive, unique, and at least to one degree or another operated outside of the established American wrestling context. American wrestling and it's closely related cousin (and product of American cultural imperialism) Japanese wrestling completely dominated the upper reaches of the list. As a champion of the "not all styles are created equal" talking point, and someone who gets that many people merely never got around to watching these things, my issue here is more personal than critically detached. While I do think the rejection of lucha in the upper tier is effectively a rejection of history, what is far more concerning to me is the taste of the final product which I was a co-organizer of. Rather than a final product that would reflect the vision I had hoped inclusiveness would lead to, the final product comes across to me as something with the an explicitly American supremacist flavor. Though this could be challenged by pointing to improvements from 2006, or rejected with a "so what?," the end result is me feeling as though I occupy a much different universe at this point in my fandom than at minimum a third of the voting base.

 

As a guy known for list making, and project driven wrestling habits, at this point the logical question to ask is "now that the GWE is over, what next?"

 

My immediate response is to say that despite the negative tone of the takeaways I discuss above, I do feel that there are many interesting discussions to be had coming out of the GWE. Discussions on the aforementioned Americanized wrestling bias (whether it exists, whether it matters, et), the late arriving talking point about Ric Flair being the "standard" for what great workers were since the advent of smart fan culture and how that effects the way we view him and discuss other wrestlers, and a more detailed look at the role feminism and other social justice movements may play in how we think about older, current and future wrestling, are all topics that feel fresh, interest me greatly, and are deserving of attention. Unfortunately the nature of this board (pro wrestling ONLY), and the over saturation of Flair, leave me doubtful that PWO is likely to be a productive place for any of these conversations to occur.

 

On top of that, the post-GWE landscape seems to be a world where the shift is toward a discussion of matches rather than workers. While I am genuinely happy for many friends here who seem to greatly prefer this, I must confess that I have less and less interest in this sort of thing as time goes on. Literally the only reason I would involve myself in a Greatest Matches poll at this point would be out of a sense of obligation, which is probably the absolute worst reason to contribute to a project like that. More specific match related projects (80s projects, other promotional based projects) also fail to interest me at this point in my fandom. The exception to this is modern wrestling - particularly modern independent wrestling - but I see little evidence that there is deep interest for that sort of discussion here.

 

None of this is meant as a long goodbye note. PWO is by far the best wrestling board on the net, I am proud to have been a part of it from day one, and I'm not going anywhere. But where Parv and others worry about the "corrosive" effects GWE may have had on the discourse here, I worry that the post-GWE PWO will be one that trends away from my interests.

 

Here's hoping I'm wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dawho5]

My personal feeling on the nature of American bias is a little different. I think that it's an earlier point in wrestling fandom than the more broad, all-inclusive view of things. If you haven't seen the volume of lucha, WoS, shootstyle, joshi, etc. in comparison to the mainstream U.S. wrestling then it's hard to feel comfortable ranking those people ahead of somebody you are able to quantify in relation to their contemporaries. Whereas you can look at somebody like Arn Anderson and know exactly where you want to put him because he's a guy that worked in an era where a lot of stuff was recorded and televised. So you as a fan know exactly where Arn sits for you in the pecking order because you've watched his matches for as long as you've been a wrestling fan and you know how he compares to Bobby Eaton or Flair or a ton of other wrestlers you can name. But if you watched maybe ten Casas, Santo, Blue Panther, Virus, etc. matches each, you may have a vague idea of where you want to put each in relation to one another. But is lucha something you're ready to put up in the top 10 or 20 yet? Would you feel comfortable, looking at the sheer volume of lucha you consumed for the project, ranking Casas above somebody like Arn when you know exactly why Arn belongs where he does? Sure Casas seems really great, but can a person truly justify putting him that high based on such a limited sampling when they've seen the length and breadth of the "mainstream" wrestlers careers? You would have to be an incredibly open minded voter to have that kind of mindset. And given the amount of emphasis that was put on being thorough and voting with some standards in mind, seems that might actually go against the spirit of the project.

 

I do agree with a lot of things you touch on, but I thought there needed to be some kind of counterpoint on that talking point. The bit about voting based on accepted perceptions of wrestlers seemed pretty spot on to me. But like you say, wrestling is a business based very heavily on perception and manipulation of it so that seems like a natural thing.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't have a problem with people voting on what they know. In 2006 we voted on what we knew as well. But we didn't have two years and digital media to know any better. I think the issue that some people have is that too many people voted on what they knew too late or didn't take full advantage of the viewing period.

[El-P]

How many people who voted in this poll are either American (by this I mean North-American) and/or from english speaking countries and/or from europe where US mainstream wrestling has basically been pro-wrestling for the last 30 years ?

[Beast]

If anything, your presence is more necessary than ever to act as a devil's advocate to the growing crowd you speak of.

 

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with things. You gotta take your number one vote ending up at number 2 on the main list as a big victory. I put Funk one spot higher than Flair myself and I wouldn't have dreamed of it beforehand if it wasn't for discussions you played a part in.

 

Hopefully, once the list stops being the new shiny toy everyone is focused on, guys less happy with it can move on and not let it negatively impact the way they view the entire board.

[KrisZ]

The one big takeaway I had from the whole procedure was seeing people talk about how they weren't voting for certain people or certain styles because they didn't like those styles.....if that was the case then you should not have voted in this period......if you were not able to put away your biases towards styles of wrestling or even certain people then your ballot caused more damage than good.

 

I've gone on record in the past of not really caring about Joshi as a style...it's not my thing....but I definitely appreciate all the workers of the style and I fully recognize how great they were and how important they were to the entire sport of wrestling. There was no way in hell I could've done a list without having some Joshi representation on the list even if it meant that some of my personal favorites didn't make it.

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

[WingedEagle]

I think your point about good vs. great matches in Takeaway #1 is a great one, although I'm not sure how people would go about reconciling it or if that's even necessary. But a greater understanding of how we all approached and weighed that would go a long way towards at least understanding what people value in their wrestling and how that carried over to the thought process in making their list. For example, I cared more about a wrestler's classic matches -- how many, how frequently, against whom -- then his good matches. That's not to disregard the latter, which certainly enter into the equation, but were not my base in most cases. Someone approaching it differently may end up with wildly different rankings and a number of the podcasts that came out of this process clarified that and made for fascinating listening and points to think about. I wouldn't always agree with these points, but they made total sense and it was great to understand where someone is coming from in a way that's just not possible from a quick blurb.

 

Why not just bombard this place with all the wrestling that interests you? Hopefully everybody takes the time to do that. My biggest issue there has always been opting to watch something else rather than hit pause and say something.

[Beast]

The one big takeaway I had from the whole procedure was seeing people talk about how they weren't voting for certain people or certain styles because they didn't like those styles.....if that was the case then you should not have voted in this period......if you were not able to put away your biases towards styles of wrestling or even certain people then your ballot caused more damage than good.

 

I've gone on record in the past of not really caring about Joshi as a style...it's not my thing....but I definitely appreciate all the workers of the style and I fully recognize how great they were and how important they were to the entire sport of wrestling. There was no way in hell I could've done a list without having some Joshi representation on the list even if it meant that some of my personal favorites didn't make it.

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

 

I don't understand this.

 

If I don't like Lucha, why would I rank Lucha wrestlers on a Greatest Wrestler Ever list? Am I supposed to realize Negro Casas is a top competitor even if I don't like his matches? And if I do like him, how do I rank him against wrestlers who I enjoy so much more? It's not baseball where there are stats that can act as objective reasoning why one person is better than another.

 

It's possible to like wrestlers that represent a style I don't go crazy over, but then it's like am I ranking Casas because people say he's great or because I personally think he's better than other people on my list? It's not a favorites list, but that has to play some part in it. As mentioned before, I didn't rank guys like Misawa and Kobashi because there's no way I could put them on my list without the reason being "Everyone says they are great, therefore they must be in my top 25". I wish I could have, but for this list I honestly couldn't do it. But I'll keep trying to explore new areas.

 

And saying people who didn't do that should have voted is BS and you know that. In that case, just get your 20 best wrestling buddies and make a niche list so you can show us all what it should have looked like.

 

I'm re-watching the entire summer of 1989 NWA on Youtube right now as the beginning of my follow-up journey to this list. Soon I'll be watching the Funk/Hansen matches and so on and so on. This list is going to influence my viewing habits for the next decade. If it doesn't have the same impact on some of you, it's all good. But let's not act like the list was a test of "real fandom" vs "lazy fandom".

 

Can't we all just get along?

[Jimmy Redman]

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

I don't think it was, actually. It was Greatest Wrestler Ever. Who you happen to think are the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time may not necessarily come from all possible styles of wrestling. To quote the man himself, "not all styles are created equal".

 

How many North American female wrestlers did you have on your list? Ultraviolent workers? Wrestlers from mainland Europe? South America? Puerto Rico?

 

What you'd call "the entire world of wrestling" is really just what you deem important and accessible enough to include. Different people have different cutoffs as to where that line is.

[SomethingSavage]

The one big takeaway I had from the whole procedure was seeing people talk about how they weren't voting for certain people or certain styles because they didn't like those styles.....if that was the case then you should not have voted in this period......if you were not able to put away your biases towards styles of wrestling or even certain people then your ballot caused more damage than good.

 

I've gone on record in the past of not really caring about Joshi as a style...it's not my thing....but I definitely appreciate all the workers of the style and I fully recognize how great they were and how important they were to the entire sport of wrestling. There was no way in hell I could've done a list without having some Joshi representation on the list even if it meant that some of my personal favorites didn't make it.

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

Yuck.

 

This line of thinking seems entirely too closed-minded for me.

 

I understand your stance on the subject. And that's fine. But it's kind of counterproductive to even TRY to apply those standards to this project in the first place.

 

If you want everyone to agree on everything, appreciate each style equally, and all come together to the exact same conclusion - then what was ever the purpose, really? Why not just draft up a list yourself, post it, and say this is what the hive agrees to acknowledge as the best? I just don't get it.

 

This was ALWAYS going to be an opinion-based deal. There's no way around it. People can pretend to have ZERO loyalties and no biases, but that's fantasy. The mind doesn't work that way. Sorry.

 

Also, while I appreciate all the hours upon hours of podcasts surrounding the GWE - this post here specifically illustrates why I enjoyed Will's most recent podcasts so much more than the usual lists. That's not to say any of the others weren't good or anything, because some of them actually WERE a blast. But I appreciated how Will deliberately pointed out that he didn't want to promote the idea that this place carried some kind of "hive mind" or "group think" stigma.

 

And I was absolutely on board to hear everything about the lists after that. I'd rather celebrate our difference of opinions than shame anyone who dares to think outside the box or not appreciate some style that "should" be appreciated. Ugh.

 

Considering all these things - my list likely would have rubbed some people the wrong way, I guess. But hey. I didn't submit one. And I suppose some of that was because I *did* feel like some of my picks would have reached outside the usual suspects.

 

So you're entirely welcome. I managed to keep my ballot from causing "more damage than good."

[Grimmas]

The problem wasn't that people ignored certain styles or areas of wrestling, it was that nobody ignored US wrestling at all.

[Loss]

I saw a ranking based entirely on average vote on Twitter. The whole mainstream bias argument would have mostly been avoided altogether had we taken that approach to rank wrestlers. It's not drastically different from the final list, but it is a bit more diverse for people who have turned that into an issue. That said, had we taken that approach and had that been known in advance, we'd have strategic voting out the wazoo, and I don't think we had as much of that as I worried we would.

 

I have lots to say about the original post and some of the responses and will reply with more later.

[Jimmy Redman]

The problem wasn't that people ignored certain styles or areas of wrestling, it was that nobody ignored US wrestling at all.

 

And I appreciate that this is kind of Dylan's point about imperialism, but I'd say the answer to that is, what else do you expect? How can you possibly avoid that?

 

Like El-P said, like 95% of us are North American or from Western, English speaking countries, who have grown up with American wrestling from the 80s-present and who view wrestling in general through that starting prism. We can't magically forget that we've seen all this mainstream US wrestling just because it means we can't be theoretically fair to all wrestling cultures equally.

 

To me it's another one of those impossible pipe dreams that we latch onto in the name of objectivity or fairness that just put a downer on the whole process, because it's a standard that can NEVER be lived up to.

 

EDIT: To be clear, I think Dylan's idea is an extremely interesting one and something that definitely should be explored. I had never stopped to think about things in those terms, but I do agree that the cultural imperialism exists, and it should be talked about as a branch of wrestling historiography that hasn't been fully explored yet. But I don't think its existence should suggest that the project was a failure or anything. The list was always going to be a reflection of us as the voter base, and for better or worse we are American (so to speak) wrestling fans, and we can't help but see the world through our own eyes. That's not a failure of this list or any list, really. Just a reality.

[KrisZ]

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

I don't think it was, actually. It was Greatest Wrestler Ever. Who you happen to think are the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time may not necessarily come from all possible styles of wrestling. To quote the man himself, "not all styles are created equal".

 

How many North American female wrestlers did you have on your list? Ultraviolent workers? Wrestlers from mainland Europe? South America? Puerto Rico?

 

What you'd call "the entire world of wrestling" is really just what you deem important and accessible enough to include. Different people have different cutoffs as to where that line is.

 

I had World of Sport, Puerto Rico, & Death Match wrestlers on my list which I went into detail talking about on the podcasts I did about it.

 

I understand where people don't like what I posted and everyone has their own beliefs in what they like and what they don't like. I'm just upset that people dismiss stuff they didn't "understand" or just didn't care.

[KrisZ]

 

The one big takeaway I had from the whole procedure was seeing people talk about how they weren't voting for certain people or certain styles because they didn't like those styles.....if that was the case then you should not have voted in this period......if you were not able to put away your biases towards styles of wrestling or even certain people then your ballot caused more damage than good.

 

I've gone on record in the past of not really caring about Joshi as a style...it's not my thing....but I definitely appreciate all the workers of the style and I fully recognize how great they were and how important they were to the entire sport of wrestling. There was no way in hell I could've done a list without having some Joshi representation on the list even if it meant that some of my personal favorites didn't make it.

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

 

I don't understand this.

 

If I don't like Lucha, why would I rank Lucha wrestlers on a Greatest Wrestler Ever list? Am I supposed to realize Negro Casas is a top competitor even if I don't like his matches? And if I do like him, how do I rank him against wrestlers who I enjoy so much more? It's not baseball where there are stats that can act as objective reasoning why one person is better than another.

 

It's possible to like wrestlers that represent a style I don't go crazy over, but then it's like am I ranking Casas because people say he's great or because I personally think he's better than other people on my list? It's not a favorites list, but that has to play some part in it. As mentioned before, I didn't rank guys like Misawa and Kobashi because there's no way I could put them on my list without the reason being "Everyone says they are great, therefore they must be in my top 25". I wish I could have, but for this list I honestly couldn't do it. But I'll keep trying to explore new areas.

 

And saying people who didn't do that should have voted is BS and you know that. In that case, just get your 20 best wrestling buddies and make a niche list so you can show us all what it should have looked like.

 

I'm re-watching the entire summer of 1989 NWA on Youtube right now as the beginning of my follow-up journey to this list. Soon I'll be watching the Funk/Hansen matches and so on and so on. This list is going to influence my viewing habits for the next decade. If it doesn't have the same impact on some of you, it's all good. But let's not act like the list was a test of "real fandom" vs "lazy fandom".

 

Can't we all just get along?

 

 

This should definitely be a point where another list like this in 10 years should be better and the fact that you are watching more stuff that you haven't seen because of it is what is the most important. We need more people to watch more stuff outside of their comfort zone to experience it.

 

Maybe I was abrasive in what I originally posted but shit I just get pissed off at people that totally dismiss whole styles of wrestling or any form of entertainment because they don't like or understand it.

[Jimmy Redman]

 

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

I don't think it was, actually. It was Greatest Wrestler Ever. Who you happen to think are the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time may not necessarily come from all possible styles of wrestling. To quote the man himself, "not all styles are created equal".

 

How many North American female wrestlers did you have on your list? Ultraviolent workers? Wrestlers from mainland Europe? South America? Puerto Rico?

 

What you'd call "the entire world of wrestling" is really just what you deem important and accessible enough to include. Different people have different cutoffs as to where that line is.

 

I had World of Sport, Puerto Rico, & Death Match wrestlers on my list which I went into detail talking about on the podcasts I did about it.

 

I understand where people don't like what I posted and everyone has their own beliefs in what they like and what they don't like. I'm just upset that people dismiss stuff they didn't "understand" or just didn't care.

 

 

I did listen to your podcast, I just couldn't remember specifically. My point remains the same. How much French or German wrestling did you consider for the project? Are they not just as much a valid area of the wrestling world than the others? If it was so important to include joshi, why not include North American women just as equally? Why not give quotas to all the different areas to make sure they're all adequately represented?

 

I'm being snippy here but you get my point. You drew a line about representation just like everyone else did. Everyone just had their own personal line.

 

Not to mention I am so not on board on the idea of being forced to represent any style or wrestler because you're "supposed to" when you don't care for it or understand it. If you can't see the greatness, how are you supposed to rank their greatness as some of the greatest ever?

[Loss]

I think the best we can hope for is that some people step outside their comfort zones and like some of what they see. That obviously happened with this project. But yeah, if you don't see it for yourself, you don't see it and I don't see how you can rank it. I ranked some wrestlers that don't necessarily excite me but where I watch them and their greatness is obvious, but I wouldn't vote for anything I can't see for myself.

[El-P]

I realized voting for Andre was maybe my way of representing France on the poll. Well, expect it really wasn't. But hey, that's one French guy on the top 100.

[KrisZ]

 

 

 

This wasn't a personal favorite list, it was a list that was supposed to encompass the entire world of wrestling and sadly in some cases it failed to achieve that goal.

 

I don't think it was, actually. It was Greatest Wrestler Ever. Who you happen to think are the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time may not necessarily come from all possible styles of wrestling. To quote the man himself, "not all styles are created equal".

 

How many North American female wrestlers did you have on your list? Ultraviolent workers? Wrestlers from mainland Europe? South America? Puerto Rico?

 

What you'd call "the entire world of wrestling" is really just what you deem important and accessible enough to include. Different people have different cutoffs as to where that line is.

 

I had World of Sport, Puerto Rico, & Death Match wrestlers on my list which I went into detail talking about on the podcasts I did about it.

 

I understand where people don't like what I posted and everyone has their own beliefs in what they like and what they don't like. I'm just upset that people dismiss stuff they didn't "understand" or just didn't care.

 

 

I did listen to your podcast, I just couldn't remember specifically. My point remains the same. How much French or German wrestling did you consider for the project? Are they not just as much a valid area of the wrestling world than the others? If it was so important to include joshi, why not include North American women just as equally? Why not give quotas to all the different areas to make sure they're all adequately represented?

 

I'm being snippy here but you get my point. You drew a line about representation just like everyone else did. Everyone just had their own personal line.

 

Not to mention I am so not on board on the idea of being forced to represent any style or wrestler because you're "supposed to" when you don't care for it or understand it. If you can't see the greatness, how are you supposed to rank their greatness as some of the greatest ever?

 

 

I understand where you are coming from but then if that is the case then the list should be Your 100 Personal Favorites List.

Regarding your point about French, German, etc some of that is because we don't have the proper amount of footage to go by to give an accurate representation of them under this criteria for this particular project which relied heavily on footage.

[The Man in Blak]

I think people should have voted with whatever criteria and exposure they wanted - the idea of a "purity test" for a given ballot is a poisonous one, regardless of the aesthetic philosophy that would set the baseline for such a thing. I see this exercise as an exploration on the journey to submit a ballot and, ideally, an ongoing exploration coming out of it.

 

What bothers me, though, is that the featured postscript on this entire exercise seemed pretty content to put a bow on all of this, complete with conservative dogwhistles like "silent majority" to imply that the matter is settled because we have "consensus" now, even though a minimal amount of examination and introspection reveals a number of unanswered questions and concerns.

 

I don't agree with everything Dylan has to say here -- I feel like a number of the points he was looking for in the input/output and subjective/objective discussions (which are not the same thing) were brought forward, albeit by some folks outside of the more well-known voices of the site -- but I feel like he's at least willing to examine and explore the implications of what the process and results mean for wrestling critique moving forward.

 

That's a welcome message to me and, to be frank, it's a message that seems more in line with the other consolations that have been offered to folks that have, at one point or another, been frustrated with GWE.

[TravJ1979]

I find it troubling that certain people here are insinuating that their personal ballots are 'better' than other's because their 'criteria' or 'scope' was better/all inclusive. The final list is a 100% fair aggregate of the community of PWO. Just because some of the more prolific members lists didn't reflect the final list 1:1 doesn't mean it is 'wrong'. This list is not wrong or right. It is not good or bad. The final list is what it is and nothing else -- A list. A few people need an ego check or else this entire board will end up a board full of you know who's.

 

This is never more apparent than after listening to some of the more well-known podcasters. They range from people who have a really difficult time admitting they are wrong about something they said up to people who make a decision and then dig in their heels to craft an argument to fit that decision after the fact no matter how ludicrous that idea is. This is PRO WRESTLING yet people fight to defend their opinion just as much as the big two polarizing topics: Religion and Politics. This is supposed to be fun. You make a statement, if somebody disagrees, let them disagree. It still doesn't change your opinion. At least, it shouldn't. If you let somebody here influence you enough to change your mind just by challenging you or disagreeing then that is just sad. No poster here is 'smarter' or more knowledgable then the next when it comes to pro wrestling. All of us are different ages and live in different areas which means we've seen more/less or different areas more than others. That's where the differences stop.

[Childs]

Kris with the unexpected heel run-in, spurring another subjectivity debate after the countdown wrapped. Dastardly!

[...TG]

I PM'd Grimmas yesterday after the #1 reveal, thanking him for the ridiculous amount of effort he put into the countdown. I also said that it was "good for the board". The tone of these postscripts and moreso, the discussions they've started, are making me rethink that.

 

Last night when I was reading Parv's #5 felt a bit absurd, talking about the "stakes" of GWE being too high. But reading this...I hope I'm wrong, because while the tone of discussion has been far more civil than the 2006 excerpts that Loss posted, I'm worried that GWE has been very corrosive to the community we have here.

[KrisZ]

I stayed away from all the stuff in the threads going over the list release for that reason and it all caught up to me after reading Dylan's great post.

 

Trav is right though we all get caught up in our own personal lists and beliefs it overshadows the fact that people like what they like and went that way with their list which what can you do, it's human nature.

 

I said on the podcast there is no real right or wrong and if everyone did have the same ballot it wouldn't be fun because then we would be communists.

[El-P]

The whole "corrosive" talking point is melodramatic bullshit, really.