2026 Ideas

[Grimmas]

4 minutes ago, Loss said:

My point here is that I'm trying to break this notion of looking down a checklist of things and the wrestler has to tick off a series of boxes. Promos matter in some environments and don't in others. When it matters, it should count because it's part of the composite view we have of wrestlers. If you're looking for a single standard you can hold everyone to, that single standard is that they leverage everything available to them in their environment to do their job well.

I 100% agree with this notion.

[ohtani's jacket]

A lot of promos in Japan are cut in the ring and can be difficult to hear clearly. I think in the backstage interviews you can tell who is comfortable cutting a promo. That doesn't necessarily mean they're cutting an interesting promo, but it's clear who's confident. Having said that, sometimes shyness is endearing in those types of situations. The commentators are more interesting. I always got a kick out of the CMLL announcers but people who can speak Spanish often say they're talking rubbish. I used to love Akira Fukuzawa because he sounded like a Mr. Sparkly gag, but now I can barely stand him. 

[El-P]

1 minute ago, Loss said:

No. There are plenty of great non-English speaking wrestlers that I'd never defend as great promos. 

But maybe they are and you don't know because they're not working the super intense, super expressive style Hokuto does. You just can't know. Maybe Hokuto in English would come off super forced and overbearing, and the fact the crowd reacts doesn't tell me much because I don't trust captive crowds to tell me anything.

[El-P]

3 minutes ago, Loss said:

Promos are not part of the match itself. Promos are part of the performing job of a professional wrestler though. And I think every aspect of how wrestlers perform in front of audiences should be fair game.

That's fair enough I guess. Still, you can't fairly judge promos in a language you don't understand. I know I can't. I can infer him or her is a good promo, but usually there's a confirmation bias involved.

[Loss]

Lots of great American promos come across as super forced and overbearing too. See Savage, Randy or Piper, Roddy. They're both great at it still.

If you don't trust captive crowds to tell you anything, then that's our real divide, because I think they tell you everything. There are always outliers, but it's very rare that a match I personally enjoy falls flat with a live audience, or a match I hate is eaten up by a live audience.

[Matt D]

On this level, I don't know if Promos are any different from "having a great body," as in, we should give Animal similar credit for either using roids well or working hard in the gym and controlling his diet, as his body gets a certain reaction from the crowd. He's putting the work in one way or the other.

In both cases, however, it's about how he utilizes that reaction/capital in the ring.

[El-P]

Just now, Loss said:

If you don't trust captive crowds to tell you anything, then that's our real divide, because I think they tell you everything. There are always outliers, but it's very rare that a match I personally enjoy falls flat with a live audience, or a match I hate is eaten up by a live audience.

I never want to hear any complaint about "This is awesome" chants nor finisher spamming then.  

The only crowd which really tells me something about the work is a bored audience who suddenly gets involved. I always use the same exemple : Raven vs Saturn at that WCW PPV in 98. Crowd couldn't care less at the beginning, dead silent. They were going insane at the end. The genius of Raven's dog & pony show. He got them from 0 to 10. If the crowd is already at 10 because of the status of the workers, it tells me nothing (unless the workers in question *loses* them, in which case, that sucks)

[El-P]

3 minutes ago, Matt D said:

On this level, I don't know if Promos are any different from "having a great body," as in, we should give Animal similar credit for either using roids well or working hard in the gym and controlling his diet, as his body gets a certain reaction from the crowd. He's putting the work in one way or the other.

Agreed. Sable had great genetics, but she worked her ass off to look like she did, and had the right "adds-on" to boot. So she did work to get the reaction she got. And she got huge reactions. What does that say about her as a pro-wrestler though ?

[Loss]

Let me continue with the Hokuto example to explain where I'm coming from. She grabs the mic, she says something about Kandori, Kandori gets furious, they have to be separated. The crowd reaction increases. That's all I need to know to declare her a great promo. I'd say the same for American wrestling. When I'm judging a promo, I'm not judging their words, I'm judging conviction, delivery and impact. If they say something witty or memorable, that's a bonus, but that's not the inherent point of a wrestling promo. On the contrary, someone like HHH may get a reaction cutting a promo too, but I don't consider him a great promo, and it's not even because of what he says. He's the master at clever burials. It's because there's a phoniness in the delivery and he's full of try-hard.

There are environments where promos don't matter. It shouldn't be held against wrestlers that they aren't doing great ones in those cases. Also, there are environments where the wrestler's words to pre-condition an audience can make a good match great or a bad match worse. Ultimately, you judge them most on what they do in the ring. But if they're able to pre-condition an audience to respond to their match in a certain way, that's not a skill we should dismiss as unimportant in a project like this, especially when many people have built successful careers off of doing just that. In the end, the match still has to deliver too.

I don't think me considering promos would have a major impact outside the margins anyway. And it's not even just promos. I just don't like saying it's just "in-ring". How wrestlers make their entrance, how committed they are to their gimmick, how effective they are at working angles ... those are important aspects of performance too, and there are endless ways to demonstrate that. I'm focusing on promos to make my point, but my point is that all of that should matter.

[El-P]

Ok, that makes sense. 

[Loss]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

I never want to hear any complaint about "This is awesome" chants nor finisher spamming then.  

The only crowd which really tells me something about the work is a bored audience who suddenly gets involved. I always use the same exemple : Raven vs Saturn at that WCW PPV in 98. Crowd couldn't care less at the beginning, dead silent. They were going insane at the end. The genius of Raven's dog & pony show. He got them from 0 to 10. If the crowd is already at 10 because of the status of the workers, it tells me nothing (unless the workers in question *loses* them, in which case, that sucks)

"This is awesome" is a funny thing to bring up because to me it shows that people are reacting to the matches themselves and judging that instead of the individual wrestlers within them, and I've always argued that it makes more sense to rank matches than wrestlers, but few agreed with me. Yet "This is awesome" is the fanbase doing exactly that.

[Loss]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

Agreed. Sable had great genetics, but she worked her ass off to look like she did, and had the right "adds-on" to boot. She did work to get the reaction she got. And she got huge reactions. What does that say about her as a pro-wrestler ?

Not much. It's not a trade-off. I haven't once argued that if you're a great promo, you don't have to be great in the ring. It's one aspect of performing she could halfway do, but she couldn't do anything in the ring, so she doesn't even register in a project like this. To me, Greatest Wrestler Ever should be Best All Around.

[El-P]

4 minutes ago, Loss said:

"This is awesome" is a funny thing to bring up because to me it shows that people are reacting to the matches themselves and judging that instead of the individual wrestlers within them, and I've always argued that it makes more sense to rank matches than wrestlers, but few agreed with me. Yet "This is awesome" is the fanbase doing exactly that.

It's also a showing that the current audience cares about matches more than personalities. Which in a way is much more democratic, because it's not about worshipping the Star, anyone can get the "This is Awesome" chant, from the bottom up to the top of the card (in front of 200 people or a stadium of 100.000 also). Yes, much more democratic.

[El-P]

Just now, Loss said:

Not much. It's not a trade-off. I haven't once argued that if you're a great promo, you don't have to be great in the ring. It's one aspect of performing she could halfway do, but she couldn't do anything in the ring, so she doesn't even register in a project like this. To me, Greatest Wrestler Ever should be Best All Around.

That's understood. 

[Matt D]

If you're doing this, I honestly think you should give Hulk Hogan credit for keeping his body up or using roids well then. From your line of logic you've given at least. It's part of Hogan's job as a pro wrestler and part of his aura and part of how the crowd reacts to him. The difference may have even been part of what affected crowd reactions to him in 92-96.

To me, like I said, it's potential energy and kinetic energy. How do they use it once they get to the ring.

[Loss]

11 minutes ago, Matt D said:

On this level, I don't know if Promos are any different from "having a great body," as in, we should give Animal similar credit for either using roids well or working hard in the gym and controlling his diet, as his body gets a certain reaction from the crowd. He's putting the work in one way or the other.

In both cases, however, it's about how he utilizes that reaction/capital in the ring.

Everything a wrestler does in the context of performing is something they're pulling from a toolbox. Body alone wouldn't make anyone a serious contender on a list like this. Wrestling in a way that goes against that look would matter. I think we're saying the same thing.

[Matt D]

You have to be very nuanced about it. Bobby Eaton needs a similar amount of credit to Tully Blanchard in this, in as Tully was able to talk for himself and then parlay that into his ringwork but Eaton had Cornette talk for him but he was then able to parlay that into his ringwork. To me, these two things are pretty much equal, so long as they do an equally good job at parlaying.

[Loss]

1 minute ago, Matt D said:

If you're doing this, I honestly think you should give Hulk Hogan credit for keeping his body up or using roids well then. From your line of logic you've given at least. It's part of Hogan's job as a pro wrestler and part of his aura and part of how the crowd reacts to him. The difference may have even been part of what affected crowd reactions to him in 92-96.

To me, like I said, it's potential energy and kinetic energy. How do they use it once they get to the ring.

Hogan got much smaller in the early 90s and lost something. Sure. Other wrestlers have gone through changes in body type and adapted, whether it's junior to heavy or thinning down to become more mobile. Hogan struggled to keep his aura as his body changed because his body was so much of his gimmick. That's a valid criticism that should work against him on a project like this.

[Loss]

1 minute ago, Matt D said:

You have to be very nuanced about it. Bobby Eaton needs a similar amount of credit to Tully Blanchard in this, in as Tully was able to talk for himself and then parlay that into his ringwork but Eaton had Cornette talk for him but he was then able to parlay that into his ringwork. To me, these two things are pretty much equal, so long as they do an equally good job at parlaying.

Yes, it requires a ton of nuance. No disagreement there. I wouldn't hold that against Eaton because he was rarely in a role where he was expected to talk for himself and his failure to do so hurt what he was trying to do. (And at this point, I'd probably rate Tully higher anyway, but that's a different topic.)

[El-P]

8 minutes ago, Loss said:

 Wrestling in a way that goes against that look would matter.

Hum... I would disagree with this, because it dangerously goes toward "big guys should only work that way" and "small guys only should work that way", which we have debated the other week. To me there's no "should" in how to judge the work, because the "should" is only in the eyes of the beholder.

It only works in a constructive and positive way in the case of "should not but actually does", as in Brian Cage for instance, whose appeal comes from the fact he doesn't look like someone who can do the stuff he does (to keep it with the "body" idea, but it also works in many other ways). 

[Loss]

Of course it matters. Imagine Rey vs Nash and they do the double shoulderblock spot, but Nash bumps while Rey stands there and flexes. That would suck.

[Matt D]

1 minute ago, Loss said:

Hogan got much smaller in the early 90s and lost something. Sure. Other wrestlers have gone through changes in body type and adapted, whether it's junior to heavy or thinning down to become more mobile. Hogan struggled to keep his aura as his body changed because his body was so much of his gimmick. That's a valid criticism that should work against him on a project like this.

I agree there. But it's tricky to work in promos here. The comparison would be Hogan not adapting to a style of promo changing and thus being less over because of it? Or going from face to heel and not being able to cut promos as well and ... something? If you give him credit for the crowd being into him because of his promos, you should give him credit for the crowd being into him because of his body. It's not just a failure to adapt but him getting over in the first place. Taking points off for not being able to adapt in the ring is something I'm ok with. Penalizing or not penalizing is one thing. Doling out credit is entirely another.

 

3 minutes ago, Loss said:

Yes, it requires a ton of nuance. No disagreement there. I wouldn't hold that against Eaton because he was rarely in a role where he was expected to talk for himself and his failure to do so hurt what he was trying to do. (And at this point, I'd probably rate Tully higher anyway, but that's a different topic.)

The above sort of applies. It's not about "not holding back" but about giving credit.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't see the problem with including a wrestler on your list because you think they're a great promo. If your entire list is based on promos then maybe there's an issue, but c'mon, there will be lists based on who was the best technical wrestler,  the best brawler, the best bumper, the best high flyer, the best best all-rounder, the best punch... What does it matter if people focus on promos? 

[El-P]

8 minutes ago, Loss said:

Of course it matters. Imagine Rey vs Nash and they do the double shoulderblock spot, but Nash bumps while Rey stands there and flexes. That would suck.

That would be funny as hell actually. And really, Nash did bump off Rey's dropkick, which is not *that* much realistic when you think about it.

[Loss]

If it helps, I sort of imagine my own pre-submission process as a list of the 100 greatest wrestling *stars* ever, and then when you start drilling into the specifics, some people fall more down the list and others emerge. So Hogan starts at the top because of the reactions he was able to generate and how great he was at being Hulk Hogan. Then you start looking at times he struggled, times something didn't click, areas where he was weak as a performer, and some things work against him and some don't. Eventually he ends up where he should be. Some ranked above him do so because of some truly great skills shining, and some just win wars of attrition.