Johnny Valentine vs Tony Nese

[Reel]

I'm really just using these two guys as examples for something I've been thinking about lately, so you can entirely disregard any particulars about either wrestler. The question is how much extrapolation and projecting are you willing to do for GWE? How much footage is enough to get an idea of a wrestler? How do we compare wrestlers from the current era, where almost every match they've ever had is on tape against wrestlers whose footage is limited?  

[Dav'oh]

I was going to do Killer Kowalski vs Volk Han, but was worried it would be seen as trolling. I think contemporaneous accounts and contemporaries' accounts, as well as the historical record in all its forms, can paint just as big a picture of someone as the video vault can, if not bigger. It's how much one trusts the sources, I guess.

We know Kowalski travelled every tent, barnyard, high-school gym, armory and town hall, getting over with a new audience every night after night after night after night. We know he graduated to worldwide heeldom, stardom and main-events, and there's enough footage of him (barely) to give us a glimpse as to what he did to convince every crowd he worked in front of that he was worth paying to see next time. I think we can say the same for Johnny Valentine (for the longest time - and I may be wrong here - it felt like Johnny was primarily known as "Greg's dad"; I think projects like this have turned that around). Volk preached to the choir once every two months on average. Johnny and Wladek are better wrestlers to me precisely because they were thrown in at the deep end every night and did triple fucking Lindys for nearly three decades apiece.

[ohtani's jacket]

Who is Tony Nese? Is he good?

[NotJayTabb]

He's a former 205 Live guy, who was never one of the 5 most interesting guys in the cruiserweight division at any time. He's perfectly ok.

[Reel]

4 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

I was going to do Killer Kowalski vs Volk Han, but was worried it would be seen as trolling. I think contemporaneous accounts and contemporaries' accounts, as well as the historical record in all its forms, can paint just as big a picture of someone as the video vault can, if not bigger. It's how much one trusts the sources, I guess.

I think there's a similar thing with Ray Stevens, who has a reputation amongst people who saw him in his prime as one of the best to ever do it, but little to no real footage to support that particular thesis. I don't really have a clue what to do with guys like that, like imagine if you had only heard about Randy Orton from his contemporaries, would that depiction match with how you feel having watched his entire career.

 

[Jetlag]

Based on the fact I am interested in 100% of available Johnny Valentine matches and 0% of available matches from Nese, I'd easily give it to Valentine.

25 minutes ago, Reel said:

I think there's a similar thing with Ray Stevens, who has a reputation amongst people who saw him in his prime as one of the best to ever do it, but little to no real footage to support that particular thesis. I don't really have a clue what to do with guys like that, like imagine if you had only heard about Randy Orton from his contemporaries, would that depiction match with how you feel having watched his entire career.

 

Not the best comparison since we have full of matches of Valentine on tape where he looks good. I would never vote on somebody based on hearsay though.

[Matt D]

2 hours ago, Reel said:

I think there's a similar thing with Ray Stevens, who has a reputation amongst people who saw him in his prime as one of the best to ever do it, but little to no real footage to support that particular thesis. I don't really have a clue what to do with guys like that, like imagine if you had only heard about Randy Orton from his contemporaries, would that depiction match with how you feel having watched his entire career.

 

The issue with Stevens is that the evidence we have not just "doesn't support" the thesis but actively works against it. And again, that's relative to the post-prime footage of a direct contemporary like Patterson which is usually tremendous.

[elliott]

How many complete Johnny Valentine matches do we have? 3 or 4? 

[El-P]

The answer to the last question asked is that if you're looking for a way to rationalize your approach, you just can't compare, period. I know I said pretty much the opposite during the discussions last Spring when the project started, but at some point you gotta draw a line, and there's no way if I want to be fair to myself that I'm gonna make an assessment on someone with so few matches available. So there, 180 on that point.

Same goes for people who only got clearly past-prime stuff, like Stevens. There's exactly no way to know how good he was during his, whatever can be said about his post-prime is that it wasn't that great and that's it, it says nothing else. Anything else is strictly attribution and confirmation biases (in one way of the other, positive or negative).

So there goes people with not enough footage to me. I mean, I won't be able to watch everything I would probably want to watch, so, some stuff is gonna get the axe anyway.

Tony Neese, for the very few I've seen, is really good. Looks like a young Tommy Dreamer who hit the gym a lot and without the charisma too.

[El McKell]

It's very difficult to compare these two guys, but to me that's entirely because we don't have enough footage of Johnny Valentine to know how good he is, I can't compare any wrestler to Johnny Valentine. If I don't have a couple of hours worth of complete matches I feel like any opinions I form are just total guesses.

[ohtani's jacket]

I personally feel like I've seen enough footage of Johnny Valentine to know what he was like as a worker. What I don't know is how many great Johnny Valentine matches there are. If I'm making a list based on good guys were, then Valentine is a lock. If I'm leaning more toward output, then he might make it on the end of the list as a personal pick. There are a lot of workers i love with even less footage than Valentine. I can't justify voting for someone we might have one or two matches from. Valentine I wouldn't feel guilty about.

In some cases, I don't need to see more. Do I really need to see more Londos to know that he was great? Or more Thesz? I mean, I would like to, but it's probably not going to happen. The fact that I already think they're great from a small sample size suggests that they were pretty freakin' good. It's possible that if we got more Valentine or Thesz footage that we'd discover that the average Valentine/Thesz match was nothing special, but that's true for pretty much every worker ever. I don't think it would lower my opinion of them that much. 

[elliott]

Ill ask again, How many complete Valentine matches exist? 

[Reel]

5 hours ago, elliott said:

Ill ask again, How many complete Valentine matches exist? 

3, I think. Bull Curry, the tag against Baba/Inoki, and the tag with Kroffat. I don't think any of the Florida stuff is full matches.