Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

2026 Ideas


Grimmas

Recommended Posts

Starr is someone I'll consider for a lower end vote this time and that's largely because of the Puerto Rico footage, which I hadn't seen before the 2016 vote. Same for Abby, who I really wouldn't have even considered before but is someone I loved going through the Puerto Rico stuff. Invader 1 is an obvious lock.

Boricua is also dead on about that footage bolstering already strong cases. Hansen was already my #1 in 2016, and even if he doesn't end up as that in 2026, seeing the Hansen/Colon feud has pretty much made him a top 5 candidate for life. Puerto Rico Terry Funk is also my favourite Terry Funk, and even if the PR stuff alone isn't responsible for this, it's a huge reason why he was somehow stupidly just outside my top 10 last time but will be a real #1 contender this time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 627
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

On 4/7/2021 at 5:37 PM, elliott said:

Please let it  be real. I'm not putting up with him ruining another project for 5 years

I'm hardly his best friend but reading through this thread Parv is one of the rare people who have brought up some interesting points and observations about the project as a whole. Pretty much 90% of discussion is just naming workers and going "I'm gonna have wrestler x at  ranking y", and some of it in a pretty provoking manner where a fan of wrestler x could easily start a shitstorm that would derail the thread. His tone seems polite enough, and honestly, was one of the better behaved ones in *this* thread. Cultivate your own garden folks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the only shitstorm thus far in this thread happened because of his usual gatekeeping and patronizing tone.  There was a ton of interesting discussions (not talking about my own posting btw) prior to him quickly going back to his old habits. No reason to be well behaved with this kind of shit, really.

Anyway. The GWE is not about this. The podcast is up I see, so I guess it's official now. Well, see ya all in five years or something !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, MoS said:

It would also be great if people who know lucha can help newbies to get on the path to watch lucha in context.

I have pretty strong feelings that most of the traditional tools "newbies" have been given to understand lucha are faulty. My life does not work well for creating any sort of podcasts/video content/live video chat/etc. but I'm thinking about how to help here in a way that isn't patronizing or gatekeeping or whatever else, because I sympathize as I really struggled with it ten years ago.

@Kadaveri recently made an excellent gif-laden review, which isn't the sort of thing you can do often but might be something that could be done with a few matches to help connect some dots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing with lucha is odd. It's pretty much the last major style I really got into. I never really put much into it for I guess cosmetic reasons (one of which oddly enough was the crowd noise and announcing in Spanish). The "bizarre" pace of the 2/3 falls match did not click with me but the single matches surely caused no issue at all (there was some heavy pimping of single matches back for the 2006 poll and I voted for more luchadors then).

Then a few years ago I saw weekly CMLL was on Youtube. It became a habit to just watch the Friday Arena Mexico show and I was like hooked so easily. I really believe there's nothing hard at all to understand about lucha libre, but the talk of it being the "hardest style to get" that has been around for years and years (I blame both people who hated the style and some of the lucha purists who acted as gatekeepers) absolutely convinced many people (including me at one time) that it was and in the long run hurt the perception of it pretty badly.

The one thing that struck me with the whole trios 2/3 falls match is that if you find the pace to be a bit odd at first  (or the structure too systematical), just remove the idea that's it a 2/3 falls match and watch it as a simple match with dynamics going one way then another, and all of a sudden it's like the easiest pro-wrestling ever. It's no wonder Arena Mexico is basically a tourist attraction.

That being said, maybe it's just because I'm Latin.:lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's my ultimate suggestion anyway. Just watch it in context for a while and look for the patterns. It's a little counter-intuitive to what we're otherwise trained for. Eventually you figure out that the dives are a means to clear the ring for the finish instead of ends unto themselves. Eventually you get the idea that it's about overall momentum shifts (with a lot of symbolic action as opposed to literal action) as opposed to a hot tag. Eventually you get the idea that most trios matches are built around a central pairing and that the pairing isn't necessarily the captains. It's like a word problem with a lot of extraneous information. The information adds color (and wonder and joy) but you have to figure out what to cross out first so that you can figure out the math you're supposed to do, then you can add all the extraneous stuff back now that you have the equation worked out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

That's my ultimate suggestion anyway. Just watch it in context for a while and look for the patterns. It's a little counter-intuitive to what we're otherwise trained for. 

Yes, exactly. Which is why just watching the Friday shows on Youtube was such a breath of fresh air to me because I was like, I don't even know who 95% of these masked fellows are, I'm just watching to enjoy instead of trying to "figure out" something specific, and after a very short while it was just flowing naturally.

9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Eventually you figure out that the dives are a means to clear the ring for the finish instead of ends unto themselves.

Well.... I'm not sure I would go that far. ;) They absolutely are an ends in displaying that spirit of lucha libre and awe the crowd, and they are very important as a form. But yeah, they absolutely are a way also to make room from what's gonna take place inside the ring next, which is why : no tag needed, people (did you not listen to Mike Tenay on Nitro already people ?)

9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Eventually you get the idea that it's about overall momentum shifts as opposed to a hot tag. Eventually you get the idea that most trios matches are built around a central pairing and that the pairing isn't necessarily the captains.

Yep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've said this before, but a lot of the problem is that Tenay (and WCW in general) did way more than harm than good in promoting an actual understanding of (traditional 2/3 falls) lucha. We could unpack the why of that (90s sheets writers/readers emphasizing unhelpful things, short distilled TV matches that had completely different goals, etc)., but I doubt it's really necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's unfair to blame Tenay, who did his absolute best in the WCW US TV context, where they never ran a traditional lucha libre match (and why should they have ?). It may not have been "the real thing", but I'm pretty sure it was the gateway for many people to get interested in lucha libre. It sure was for me (although I really got into it way later, but the initial interest and curiosity came from there). Whatever works. Also, these guys came from AAA, which was not exactly traditional lucha libre to begin with (much more than it is now though). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

It's unfair to blame Tenay, who did his absolute best in the WCW US TV context, where they never ran a traditional lucha libre match (and why should they have ?). It may not have been "the real thing", but I'm pretty sure it was the gateway for many people to get interested in lucha libre. It sure was for me (although I really got into it way later, but the initial interest and curiosity came from there). Whatever works. Also, these guys came from AAA, which was not exactly traditional lucha libre to begin with (much more than it is now though). 

I don't necessarily blame him as a human being, but I do feel like the things he listed/focused on were a hindrance for me personally to understand lucha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You've got to remember he was not doing a course on lucha libre trios matches, he was trying to explain some basic stuff about the culture from the perspective of what was presented on a weekly US pro-wrestling show that pretty much never had any equivalent in term of looks and form, for the audience of a company built on Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair & Sting. Can't fault someone for not doing something he was not trying to accomplish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, GOTNW said:

I'm hardly his best friend but reading through this thread Parv is one of the rare people who have brought up some interesting points and observations about the project as a whole. Pretty much 90% of discussion is just naming workers and going "I'm gonna have wrestler x at  ranking y", and some of it in a pretty provoking manner where a fan of wrestler x could easily start a shitstorm that would derail the thread. His tone seems polite enough, and honestly, was one of the better behaved ones in *this* thread. Cultivate your own garden folks.

Parv is great. People just need a thicker skin. They also need to learn how to appreciate opposing viewpoints. You learn more from someone who challenges your ideas than someone who agrees with them. I guess people are pushing for polite discourse, and that's fine, but there are folks reading this thread and posting shit on Twitter. The same thing happened during the last poll. I would love to know the difference between Parv posting in this thread and the reactions on Twitter and wherever else. Perhaps the Twitter folks feel justified, but they're not being very inclusive. It seems like a bunch of posturing to me instead of arguing for what you believe in. As a resident hipster/boomer/gatekeeper, I wonder if people know how to argue for what they believe anymore. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

They also need to learn how to appreciate opposing viewpoints.

You mean the one thing he is absolutely unable to do himself because he is "objectively right" ? KEKW, as they say... 

The idea that someone needs help to "really get" Greg Valentine (or whomever else) is the most laughable shit ever. People can figure shit out by themselves. They don't need lectures. And they don't need to abide to whomever's narrow vision of pro-fucking-wrestling. And no, they don't need "thougher skin" (that's the shit you hear in other circles BTW).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, El-P said:

The thing with lucha is odd. It's pretty much the last major style I really got into. I never really put much into it for I guess cosmetic reasons (one of which oddly enough was the crowd noise and announcing in Spanish). The "bizarre" pace of the 2/3 falls match did not click with me but the single matches surely caused no issue at all (there was some heavy pimping of single matches back for the 2006 poll and I voted for more luchadors then).

 

That's always been my hurdle for getting into lucha. I'm south american and listening to the announcers is so off putting is legit hard for me to get into what's going on in the ring. They normally sound fake as fuck and a lot of them are worse than Michael Cole focusing on the most stupid stuff instead of helping tell the story or letting the ring action breathe and be the main thing. It's puzzling too because mexican announcers are incredible when it comes to sports in general, but somehow with wrestling it's a whole different thing.

 

Where's the podcast btw?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who is shitting on whom on Twitter? In any case, Twitter is a medium for shitposting. No one apart from JvK came into the main discussion thread and advocated for the voting pool to be limited to those "re-educated" by Phil Schneider. 

Like, do you know what happens at Phil's re-education camps? We were made to watch Low Ki matches Clockwork Orange style until we start saying that he is a great wrestler. Why would you ask young eligible voters to go through that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Jmare007 said:

That's always been my hurdle for getting into lucha. I'm south american and listening to the announcers is so off putting is legit hard for me to get into what's going on in the ring. They normally sound fake as fuck and a lot of them are worse than Michael Cole focusing on the most stupid stuff instead of helping tell the story or letting the ring action breathe and be the main thing. It's puzzling too because mexican announcers are incredible when it comes to sports in general, but somehow with wrestling it's a whole different thing

Wow, that's interesting. The fact you *understand* the language actually hurts. I would not have thought about that but it makes sense. I mean, Mauro legit kept me away from NXT for instance, whereas the same screaming guy probably would not have bothered me as much if I did not understand him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, concrete1992 said:

Everyone is yelling about thoughtful discussions and being kind to one another and I'm about to go to Canada and have a productive conversation with Grimmas to open up the dang threads.

To clarify, everything is open! Post like crazy everyone!

Just no new nominees for now, there is like 600 nominee threads all there, go wild!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, El Boricua said:

Even if you speak Spanish, the differences between Mexican Spanish vs Puerto Rican Spanish vs Colombian Spanish vs et al can be confusing particularly when the same words can have entirely different meanings in each place. Cadence as well, sometimes smugness.

Well, I've listened to Raymond Rougeau for years and I never got confused. It was all charmingly exotic to me. ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...