pol

I guess this is the place to bring up the readiness with which people dismiss joshi due to stylistic elements that were a response to sexism. There's even the old Meltzer talking point of "women will only get over if they're better than the men." "Better" in Meltzerese meaning "do more stuff than".

They seem at least to be matching the talented guys up more often without ruining things by throwing Porky or Pierroth in there. Pierroth has been one of the most consistently awesome guys over the past year. I'll admit I've wondered if I've let the contempt others have for him colour my impression of him somewhat, but I'll still need a lot of convincing of this. From what I've seen he can be decent in brawls but frequently messes up anything more complex.

I really liked the Ultimo Guerrero vs. Bobby Lashley match from Elite. UG's refusal to stop playing to the crowd when he should he selling irritates me, but Lashley played off it really well with his "what the fuck is with this guy?" facials. UG was insanely over.

I try to watch the Friday show and Elite in full, live if I'm up. For the Monday and Tuesday shows I look at the cards and skip to anything that looks interesting.

They seem at least to be matching the talented guys up more often without ruining things by throwing Porky or Pierroth in there.

Yeah. I appreciated that it wasn't just a back-and-forth spotfest like their Aniversario 2014 match too, even though both are very good at that kind of match. There was an actual extended heat segment with hope spots, a comeback and a finishing stretch. Cavernario would be great regardless of age, but when you factor in how young he is it's borderline mindblowing. A lot of young guys have the spots and athleticism, but few have his skill at laying out a match, knowing when to ramp the action up or down, playing to the crowd, etc.

CMLL has been killing it this year. Almost every Friday show has been good with several good matches and outright bad stuff being a rarity. The Monday and Tuesday shows are more hit-or-miss but often have good stuff too. I've been thinking about starting a yearly list of great CMLL trios because it seems like it's mostly singles stuff that gets remembered at the end of the year. Off the top of my head, though: Maximo Sexy/Dragon Lee/Marco Corleone vs. Ultimo Guerrero/Terrible/Kamaitachi 02/06 Volador Jr./Dragon Lee/Stuka Jr. vs. Negro Casas/Gran Guerrero/Kamaitachi 02/19 Guerrero Maya Jr./Rey Cometa/Blue Panther vs. Hechicero/Kráneo/Ripper 04/01 Rey Cometa/Stuka Jr./Titán vs. Bárbaro Cavernario/Felino/Mr. Niebla 04/08

Volador Jr. is a horrible worker in a singles setting and drags everyone else down with him since he only ever works that one style of match, at least in recent times. It's not even that I hate spotfests, since I loved the Dragon Lee/Kamaitachi stuff and thought the recent Dorada/Cavernario (Puebla) and Dorada/Extreme Tiger (ELITE) matches were very good. He's just bad at the two things that make spotfests work; escalation and transitions.

I'm interested to see if the #1 will have the most #1 votes.

I would probably rank Misawa highest out of the All Japan guys. I see an unmatched level of thought in his approach to structuring matches. He expanded the boundaries of the artform and that counts for a lot to me, even if his longevity isn't as good as some of the others.

It's painfully awful... Anyway I'm guessing Bryan, Funk, Hansen, Misawa, Flair in that order. Solid top 5. What exactly are you proposing is the reason he ranked so highly? I'd like to think we're above this kind of bad-faith reasoning here. Nice guy, fun matches, never a threat. You think this is more likely than that people just disagree with you and think he is legitimately great?

What exactly are you proposing is the reason he ranked so highly? I'd like to think we're above this kind of bad-faith reasoning here.

The most recent episode was incredibly dry. I thought the 'treading water' feel would subside after Takeover but if anything it's gotten worse.

I'm not sure if I can hold it against a guy that he let his opponent do their thing. It depends on context, but I think that's something that can actually speak in a wrestler's favor even as it produces matches I dislike. That's how I felt about Minoru Suzuki's recent GHC title run, where as an invading heel it made sense, if he was going over, to at least let guys like Marufuji and Sugiura have their kind of shitty match for the NOAH fans that were into them.

Yeah, there's far too much trying to support or debunk various theses by pointing to individual placements going on.

All consensus favorites in the wider wrestling world. As much as I'd love to see the Casases and Satanicos of the world given the same scrutiny, I'm not sure it will ever happen.

Can't help but laugh every time I see jdw has the last post in a thread and it's him pointing out how he said something years before anyone else.

There appears to be a significant bias in favour of WWF/WCW guys who worked during the 80's and 90's. Four of the top 10 are going to be Japanese workers. Five of the top 10 are going to be guys who primarily worked Japan. Another top 10 finisher worked in the indies and WWE in the 2000s. Another worked Mexico, mid-90s WCW and 2000s WWE. Not sure I see a significant bias toward 80s and 90s WWF/WCW guys. Looking at placements in an absolute sense tells you nothing regarding biases. Need to consider where they are vs. where they would be if whatever adjustment was made. For example placement vs. average vote, in which I think many of those guys overperformed.

Could easily see Hansen taking first given he has both 90s All Japan and US terrorities pedigree, both of which seem to count for a lot.

Whether it's a real phenomenon is worth discussing, but kind of tangential to my point, I think. Which is that I see people expressing frustration with e.g. lucha underrepresentation, assuming this is a product of the number of votes from people who didn't participate fully, and being told in response "it's about the journey!" when they're already specifically talking about (the lack of participation in) the journey. "What you're complaining about isn't a real thing that actually happened" is a far more valid response.

Still confused about how encouraging people to vote that didn't participate in the process is justified by "it's about the journey". You'd think it would be the opposite if anything.

Never realised before how many death metal bands jumped the shark in '93. Covenant, Heartwork, Elements, Individual Thought Patterns... yikes.

I know the argument is that there's a middle ground, but personally I'll take a heretical, iconoclastic list over a conservative one almost no matter how ridiculous it is. I'm the anti-Parv I guess.

Would you prefer we all slavishly adhered to conventional wisdom?

"It's about the journey, not how many people voted" works both ways, you know.