Vader vs Rey Jr

[elliott]

The best big man ever vs the best little man ever. Who ya got.?

[Grimmas]

Rey Jr. and I don't think it's that close.

Rey was just spectacular in the ring most of his career and eventually found a way to be one of the best sympathetic babyfaces in wrestling history. The size helps, but the way he worked really helped.

Vader is someone I find super cool. I really like him and like watching him work, however most times I watch him I feel something is missing. He's this bad ass huge monster who never felt dominate enough. I know selling for people makes a more fair match, and I know monster's can sell and it works (look at Tenta), but Vader maybe did it too much. 

Both are top 50 wrestlers, but I don't think think this one is as close as it may seem on paper.

[MoS]

Agreed with Grimmas. 

Vader is amazing. He had excellent matches in so many different promotions. But Rey did not just have excellent matches in many different promotions; he had such great matches, and got over so great, he basically changed their booking philosophy on how to book small guys, even if they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing it. It is 2021 and 30 years after he debuted, the man is going to headline a PPV again. 

I think Rey's transitions are better than Vader, and it is a particularly strong point of his. His selling is tremendous, and his offence is really nifty. The 619 would have been a terrible spot for any other wrestler, but Rey makes it work. He is great at tags and trios, amazing at incorporating storylines into his matches, and while Vader is extremely versatile himself, Rey's versatility is truly staggering. He can do spotfests, he can do serious world title matches, he can do hate-filled bloody brawls. Just a wrestling genius.

[elliott]

1 hour ago, MoS said:

Agreed with Grimmas. 

Vader is amazing. He had excellent matches in so many different promotions. But Rey did not just have excellent matches in many different promotions; he had such great matches, and got over so great, he basically changed their booking philosophy on how to book small guys, even if they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing it. It is 2021 and 30 years after he debuted, the man is going to headline a PPV again. 

I think Rey's transitions are better than Vader, and it is a particularly strong point of his. His selling is tremendous, and his offence is really nifty. The 619 would have been a terrible spot for any other wrestler, but Rey makes it work. He is great at tags and trios, amazing at incorporating storylines into his matches, and while Vader is extremely versatile himself, Rey's versatility is truly staggering. He can do spotfests, he can do serious world title matches, he can do hate-filled bloody brawls. Just a wrestling genius.

What are the hate filled bloody Rey jr brawls? Sign me up please. 

[Rah]

I've never seen Rey bleed but he takes a bollocking from Misterioso in their mask match. Then Nicho bleeds like a stuffed pig in their tag match against Los Villanos. You could also point to his mask/singles matches in the early 90s as examples of "brawling" but I always thought Rey was actively lost in those matches.

[Clayton Jones]

He was great in the title match VS JBL if we're just talking bloody matches that show Rey's range.

[Cap]

I actually think it is pretty close. Over on GME I took Vader in this comparison by a hair, but that was using our makeshift categories/point system (which is helpful for conversation, but considers a lot beyond the in ring stuff and is a far from a perfect system). Look at it in this context, I want to take Rey.... but I suspect these two will wind up somewhat close on my list.

[Boss Rock]

Both are really strong Random Match contenders. While I don't think it's entirely fair considering Vader's career was much shorter,  Rey has significantly more volume. I think I would take him on peaks as well as I've never loved the Vader-Sting series (even if Rey doesn't have the highest ceiling apart from a few matches).

[MoS]

I don't remember if he bled or not, but there are a couple of excellent brawls with Chavo Guerrero in 2010 apart from the JBL brawls of 2006, where he is excellent at showing hatred and just wants to hurt the opponent.

[El Dragon]

Possibly the two greatest wrestlers at having there role and that role always working forever and ever. The old narrative is that you could plug Vader anywhere and he’ll still just be Vader but the matches will always be real good always rang true. You could watch him literally anywhere as Vader doing Vader stuff and it’s gonna be an awesome good time and you’ll feel satisfied. And the same, really, could be said about Rey, but the key differences in Reys favor is 1. He was great for much much longer. He’s showing he’s still great in 2021 in the last few months with the stuff with Ziggler & Roode, and now the Reigns feud. He might hit that insane “30 years between great matches on tape” line some time in the non distant future, and that has to be added. And 2. Mixing up how he was great. Yes, he’s only been great as a babyface, but he started great as the actions high flier, and as his speed and athleticism stopped being elite he evolved into an all world “working from underneath” traditional babyface and has excelled in the role. I have to give it on Rey on those 2 notes.

[joeg]

Rey Jr. In 2016 Rey was like #12 on my list and I expect him to be higher 5 years from now. Vader was was somewhere in the 20s and I expect him to stay right around there. I think there's an argument that Vader had higher highs. But there's no argument for total body of work. Rey has had at least a half dozen 4 star matches every year since 1993. The top 4 or 5 Vader matches may be as good or better than the top 4 or 5 Rey matches, but Rey's average match and longevity just blow Vader out of the water. 

[Tim Cooke]

Maybe I need to move this to the Rey thread but I'm interested in how Rey doesn't make a list when 66% of the list is going to be Lucha guys.

[Rah]

45 minutes ago, Tim Cooke said:

Maybe I need to move this to the Rey thread but I'm interested in how Rey doesn't make a list when 66% of the list is going to be Lucha guys.

If you're solely watching lucha then I can kinda see the argument for Rey not placing - the peaks aren't that great (last decade's AAA?) and his longevity of being on top isn't that long if you factor in there's also quite a few years of him meddling about. If you're handed solely his Mexican work, you're not going to see Rey as this all-timer - so it's clearly an indictment on the "lack of footage" rather than Rey.

I don't get the point of "not overcoming" the WWE style, though. You can be an ardent hater of WWE's presentation of the face fighting monsters (Hogan/Cena) and yet still love Rey. He did all of that differently. The way he works down Mark Henry is vastly different to how he fights JBL or Khali. He also has the crisp cruiserweight spotfests (that he didn't quite master in the 90s AAA) and the hateful matches to his resume (still looking for blood, btw). He is leaps and bounds above everyone else as the best guy at what he does. I don't find it close, quite frankly.

[funkdoc]

i think it's more about buy-in - i could see someone being so put off by WWE's presentation/house style/etc. that they can't enjoy anything that comes out of that company.  Look at how little people cared about AJ Styles when he was stuck in TNA, compared to the immediate buzz he got after he left for the indies -> NJPW; his work wasn't any worse in TNA, but it's hard to get emotionally invested there when you can only think "LOLTNA"

[EnviousStupid]

Gonna go with Rey-Rey, but they're completely different cases and workers to compare. When I think of Rey, I'm thinking of a guy who put so much effort into working around and adapting to opponents of all statures. That's a stark contrast to who might as well be the platonic ideal of his archetype, whether he be in WCW, WWF, New Japan, All Japan, UWFi, Europe, you get the gist.

[MLB]

I went with Big Van Vader here (that said, Andre is the best big man ever). 

Rey's overrated around pWo, Eddy was better (I don't think it's even close).  Rey with the 619 and the bronco buster, meh. I think people remember Nash tossing him like a dart into the WCW production truck more than their actual match that Rey won. Let's be real, WWE put the world title on Rey and the fans revolted. Not that I dislike Mysterio at all, certainly a great fan favorite, yet I don't see all of the major matches like with Vader. 

I will grant that Rey is still performing at a high level, stayed in shape and relevant, whereas Vader's mediocre run in WWE and severe decline ("I'm a fat piece of shit!") hurts his overall GWE case for me.