2016

At Smarkschoice, we had a no spoiler policy about revealing our exact placement of someone or posting our full ballots until after the countdown was complete. This kept the anticipation high and also aimed to reduce overly strategic or reactive balloting. I don't know that we need to go that far, but I do think at least refraining from revealing our rankings publicly until after the deadline is a good rule of thumb. Thoughts on that? EDIT: I just read the March Madness thread and think it's even more important to be spoiler free if people are betting on outcomes. EDIT 2: I misread that post and thought it was $10 a head to get in with the winner getting the pot. I…

Before we get the forum to vote in, we need everything cleaned up. I fixed the index to be in proper alpha order and removed nicknames/double names. We do know that there is two people who are nominated with threads, but are not in the index. People are looking, but we need them in the index before we can start voting. Same with teams, by the way. Haven't checked for missing, but will over the next few days. We are in the final stretch though, and the voting forum will be released shortly. Just have to clean up these small issues first.

WWF Tito Santana & Greg Valentine – Classic feud for the ages. Maybe the best WWF feud of all time. Need to at least be mentioned. Iron Sheik & Sgt. Slaughter – Another classic feud with a MOTDC to add to the resume. However, Sheik gets stuck with Volkoff and I need to see some more peak Sarge from that year. NWA Ric Flair – Classic matches with Steamboat, Kerry Von Erich, Race, Tenryu Ricky Steamboat – Classic matches with Flair; Tully feud; Looks like he had a ton of matches with Wahoo & Dick Slater. God, I gotta see those Wahoo matches. AWA Nick Bockwinkel – Great matches with Hennig, Martel, teaming with Saito TEXAS Kerry Von E…

In the Steamboat vs Bret thread I mentioned that I would have Martel above Steamboat. I think Martel is the best wrestling babyface in history. Thus he is above Steamboat, who is strictly a babyface candidate. Thinking about it, I have Rey Mysterio above both Martel and Steamboat, but I think there is other factors to Rey besides being a strictly babyface. I somehow look at guys in Japan/Mexico differently than in the US, as terms of roles. For me, probably Top 10: Rey Jr. Top 20: Martel Top 25: Steamboat Top 40: Tito Santana Top 40: Ricky Morton So, how are you ranking your babyface workers?

Who would you rate higher and why? I'd probably rate Steamboat higher because I think he peaked higher with the Flair series, because he was a better TV and house show worker and because he was elite for a much longer period of time. But I'd be willing to hear arguments for rating Bret higher too.

Shamelessly stealing the idea from Chad's thread, because that and Loss' post on the Joshi greatest hits made me realise that this is what I need for certain people that I want to cover my bases with. So for the following guys I'm asking for 5-10 of their best or most necessary matches to watch. Nothing is too obvious. I have seen things from all of them and liked them, but I don't really have a handle on what their greatest hits are, so it's hard to really get a sense of them overall or know where to place my focus down the home stretch. A sentence of context a la Loss would be marvellous. Jun Akiyama Shinya Hashimoto Shinjiro Ohtani El Satanico Negro Casas …

Would anyone who has seen more of these guys than I have consider them thread-worthy? I've at least heard them all called good at some point. Roy Welch Jesse Barr/Jimmy Jack Funk Bobby Jaggers I might add others later.

So.. there has been a few misses in the nomination process. Rikidozan, Kaz Hayashi, Robert Fuller and some golden age legends. The board has decided to open up nominations starting now till I wake up Sunday morning. On Sunday I will close nominations and post the forum to vote.

I came into this project fully expecting Misawa to be my #1 when all was said and done. I think it is so understated how well he anchored a promotion and had some of the greatest matches of all time. While Misawa is in contention, I have been considering Kobashi for the top spot more and more. A few years ago when Kobashi retired and Meltzer said he was the GOAT, I sort of scoffed and thought that was typical of someone that really favors action and excess. However, in watching the yearbooks, Kobashi really does go to the extremes of excess but I feel he doesn't cross that line very much. 10/31/98 is an example of him and Misawa skirting up to that line but not ever cross…

The "desert island matches" thread made me think of this and I believe it is something that should at least be brough up. Here's the thing-I have Daisuke Ikeda in my top 20. That's going to be weird to a decent chunk of people who haven't ever heard of him, but to the folks that have the biggest complaint I imagine would be both his work in NOAH that wasn't nearly as good as his Bat-Bat stuff, and also the amount of great matches he has. The first point I could simply counter with the oh so original-I don't care. It's not really any different to me than a wrestler slowing down in their post-peak or being unmotivated in a certain period of their career or whatever. Plus I …

These two have had insanely long great careers. They keep turning out great matches, no matter how old they get. There can be cases for these two as a number one guy. Who will be higher on your list and why?

Well basically. This is leap year. Still if you have anyone left that you want to get nominated now is the time. Cutoff is March 1.

Here are the rules for the poll. 1) The ballot is due the day of WrestleMania 32. 2) The nomination process will end on March 1, 2016. 3) You can only vote for nominated wrestlers. See nomination process. 4) The ballot will consist of 100 wrestlers (this may be negotiated to 50 or 100). Tag team Rules: 1) The ballot is due the day of WrestleMania 32. 2) The nomination process will end on March 1, 2016. 3) You can only vote for nominated tag teams. See nomination process. 4) The ballot will consist of 25 tag teams. 5) Tag Team ballot is optional.

I've bolded those I see who are in real danger of not making the collective 100 this time around. I'm wondering how many of those Joshi workers are going to be casualties. I just don't see many discussing them at all: 1. Jumbo Tsuruta – 4,594 points - 48 votes – 14 #1 votes - 35 top 5 votes - 40 top 10 votes - VHB This Is Workrate, Smoove Luv B, gordi, Mike Oles, ElPatoume, Ditch, Wolverine, Goodhelmet, wagnerpanther, Owen, Real Man’s man, Theseus, throughsilver, Famous Mortimer # 1 2. Toshiaki Kawada – 4,477 points - 48 votes – 7 #1 votes - 27 top 5 votes -36 top 10 votes - VHB Bozzaholic, Dangerous Dan, roro ur boat, JHM, Rainmaker, Monday Night Jericho, Ray …

It's October 1st, every month I'm going to track this just for fun. Month 1: 1. Ric Flair 173 replies 2. Daniel Bryan 63 replies 3. Bam Bam Bigelow 46 replies 4. Mitsuharu Misawa 43 replies 5. Jumbo Tsuruta 40 replies 6. Randy Savage 40 replies 7. Dick Murdoch 37 replies 8. Stan Hansen 35 replies 9. Haku/Meng 34 replies 10. Kurt Angle 32 replies Month 2: 1. Ric Flair - 178 replies (Last month: 1) 2. Shawn Michaels - 111 replies (NEW ENTRY!) 3. Daniel Bryan - 88 replies (Last month: 2) 4. John Cena - 81 replies (NEW ENTRY) 5. El Satanico - 60 replies (NEW ENTRY) 6. Stan Hansen - 57 re…

I realize we have had a bunch of threads like this tonight, but I'm genuinely curious about this. For me I know I'll have Cena and Styles (though of course that has nothing to do with his WWE run so far), and I'm virtually certain Cesaro will sneak his way onto the bottom portion. After that I'm either blanking, or there is no one else I can say for sure will make the cut.

He's an interesting case.

I am having so much trouble considering anyone who is currently in their prime, what about you folks? Daniel Bryan and CM Punk are both going to do better on this list now then when this process started, because their careers are over. Ranking people in prime just seems wrong to me. It feels like putting Angle in the HOF at or near his prime and then he started to suck. AJ will make it probably, because he's really at the tail end of his prime. However I can't take a Cesaro seriously for this. Am I way off here?

So there are Top 10 topics and "Who is in your 100" topics for the singles but no real discussion of tag teams so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on that since I'm only doing a tag team list. These are the teams that are pretty much locks to be on my list somewhere. Not really in any kind of order yet: The Rock N Roll Express The Fantastics The Midnight Express (Condrey & Eaton) The Midnight Express (Lane & Eaton) The Fabulous Ones The Nightmares Tully & Arn Doom The Rockers Hector/Chavo Guerrero The Hardys Need to watch more footage but I could see them getting on my list: MNM The High Flyers Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee Dr Death &a…

I don't mean it as a critique -- just trying to figure out if we're determining GWE primarily based on who has footage on YouTube and Dailymotion. And what kind of skewed lists do you think that might create?

The other one. Seems massively polarising. Doesn't have the same 'brought in a style that I hate' stigma as Angle, unless you credit/blame him entirely for self conscious epics. Do folks have a preference for pre- or post injury?

Just curious. John Cena and Daniel Bryan would both be on my list anyway, but they'll be higher than they would have been otherwise.

Now we're almost there and I've finally started to make a list, I'm having what I assume are universal list problems. The main one being that I have about 35 guys in my "bottom ten", and hardly anyone in the 60-90 slots. I think I find it easier to throw someone a bone at the bottom than to say "this guy is a Top 70 guy." Anyone else have this problem? Is there someone whom you have no idea where to rank them? Bret has a daily swing of like 20+ spots for me, for example. No idea still. What are everyone's ranking issues as we come down to it?

We should probably hammer this out before we start getting in ballots. This poll will be weighted with favour to the top 3, maybe even top 10. The question is how? Let's get some options out there and set up a vote. Dylan mentioned Laparde method.

Tim and I were discussing this and there are several options. 1) Do two podcasts with one going over 100-51 and another going over 50-1, then reveal online 2) Do a general podcast discussion on the results, focus on top 25 and reveal everything online 3) Do a podcast with just reactions and then reveal everything online 4) Something else How do you want your results?