Danish Dynamite

Haven't seen East of Eden. Re-read the book a few months ago during a Steinbeck binge. Is the film worth a watch? Yes!!!! Absolutely!!! Elia Kazan at close to the peak of his powers. And James Dean in possibly the greatest starring debut in movie history. Haven't read the book in years, but back then I read the book and saw the film within a few months, and I seem to remember the film capturing the book extremely well. The movie is a masterpiece of emotion. Some will find it a little dated, but it has so much to offer. And it was right at the forefront of the acting revolution of the early to mid 50's, and it shows.

I'm compartmentalizing with that. But yeah. Yup.

Baba at 63, he was my 61. Bull at 61, she was my 62. So I have to be pleased with those placements, but it's sad to see them go. ... Tamura fell for me with most shoot. Not my mocca. Wish I'd spent more time on joshi (then I'd have had more than two on my list) instead of shoot. Maybe I'll get the time soon to see more joshi, and maybe one day I'll "get" shoot.

This is one of those things I'm curious to what wrestlers, or types of wrestlers, we see having opinions either improved or lessen. Like what sort of acts that didn't do well on the list are we likely to see people talk about? I don't know, food for thought? Maybe not even that. Right? Like Blade Runner being slaughtered in 1982, now considered a classic. Who might be the "genius who wasn't acknowledged in his own time"? Will footage emerge to reveal someone we hadn't thought about to be a complete master, and who might that be? Which one or ones of the guys we revere today will be cast aside by 2026? As long as NWAClassics keeps going I think it could do a lot to help guys it's already boosted like Gino & Lothario. Hopefully we'll get enough Spoiler footage to get him in the discussion as well. Completely agree! Who knows what else might surface over the next ten years, but right now Classics really looks like it will help some extremely deserving names to build their case. The future of archive footage looks bright :-) Bruce Tharpe said he had offers from a few different people who own wrestling libraries (not sure who/what) after launching NWAClassics but he didn't have the time/money to do anything with that stuff when he still had so much work to do on the Houston footage. Hopefully Classics will keep growing and he'll later be in a position to add to it with different libraries. Fingers crossed!!!!

Nooooooo...... It had to happen, and realistically I didn't expect Sarge to end up higher. But he's by far my highest drop yet. Had him at 26. I get the arguments about relatively short peak. Maybe. But... We've all talked about the Patterson, Backlund and Iron Sheik matches. We know Final Conflict. There was really good mid 80's AWA stuff. The Desert Storm match was really good. But there's even more. Other really good early 80's WWWF and NWA matches. And I recently saw the Jumbo & Anton Gesink vs. Bobby Duncum & Bob Remus match from the late 70's. Remus was a good worker, bumper and entertainer even then. I guess Slaughter's stock has risen over the past years, and I know it's based on the greatest hits argument. But saying he's just a greatest hits guy is selling the man short.

This is one of those things I'm curious to what wrestlers, or types of wrestlers, we see having opinions either improved or lessen. Like what sort of acts that didn't do well on the list are we likely to see people talk about? I don't know, food for thought? Maybe not even that. Right? Like Blade Runner being slaughtered in 1982, now considered a classic. Who might be the "genius who wasn't acknowledged in his own time"? Will footage emerge to reveal someone we hadn't thought about to be a complete master, and who might that be? Which one or ones of the guys we revere today will be cast aside by 2026? As long as NWAClassics keeps going I think it could do a lot to help guys it's already boosted like Gino & Lothario. Hopefully we'll get enough Spoiler footage to get him in the discussion as well. Completely agree! Who knows what else might surface over the next ten years, but right now Classics really looks like it will help some extremely deserving names to build their case. The future of archive footage looks bright :-)

Where would someone rank if they had 5 matches, and only 5 matches. But a case could be made that they were all in the top 10 of best matches ever? At the very least in the top 10 of a single decade... James Dean could be another case for the same argument. Cazale was a supporting player in all five films, Dean was star in all three of his films. And he was Oscar nominated for two and would have been nominated for all three if it was possible (East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause competed in the same year, and actors can only be nominated once per category per year). Both were among the greats though.

Ah, cool :-) Like the Sporcle quizzes and this one will be fun when complete :-) Did you rank the major NWA 80's territories (Mid-Atlantic etc.) under territories? I think they could have their own. What about pre-Monday Night Wars WCW? (Like you have a bunch of pre-Monday Night Wars WWF categories).

Ohtani was close for me. Not close enough though. My best argument for that is the short period I found him really great. But he was so good at that time...

No, the Steiner-HHH match that preceded Angle-Benoit RR03 was a horrible match. I love the Benoit-Angle match. One of my all-time faves. I didn't post that list to try and convince people who hate Angle to change their mind. I posted it to answer the call from those who seem to think those of us who like him are pulling his career out of thin air. You don't have to agree that they're good matches. I'm not trying to change your minds. I'm just trying to get some acknowledgement that even though we may have a different take on the guy mine isn't built out of nothing. Your case definitely isn't built on nothing. I'm probably somewhere in between most of the board on Angle. Not as down on him as many. Not as high as many. But he definitely has a case.

I really considered Muta. Had primarily seen the highly recommended matches and major parts of his 80's US run. Liked that a good bit. Then I heard many argue he was inconsistent, so over the last 18 months I've tried to broaden my viewing of him. Too much didn't hold the same high level sadly. He just missed the list for me. I do think there's something to the point that "scratch the surface and watch the best stuff from a guy only" helps Muta more than the average guy, and doing the deep dive on him has a tendency to do the opposite. Sadly. But I'd actually forgotten that he hadn't dropped yet, so my main feeling at seeing him pop up now, is that I actually want to go back and watch his good stuff :-)

Ok... This one might be far fetched, might not be... Hulk Hogan = Sylvester Stallone... * Flag waving, Reagan era mega star in the mid 80's. * A ton of crap in the 90's and 00's. (Yoko match at WM9 = Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot???) * People tend to either forget or completely underrate what a good worker he could be (Rocky, First Blood and a few select other) * Stallone often casts himself, so it makes sense that he cast Hogan in Rocky 3... * Continuing that idea: No one would give Sly a big break, so he wrote a part for himself, that made him a superstar (Rocky). No one would give Hogan a big break (ie the AWA title), so Stallone wrote him a part, that made him a superstar (Thunderlips).... Maybe it's not that far fetched

Totally agree. Add Once Upon a Time in America and The Untouchables to the list of master works, and his performances in Awakenings, Cape Fear, The Mission, 1900, The Last Tycoon and many others to the list of good films, great performances...

Fuck! That's excactly it!!!! Good call!!

Too far between the peaks, but a shot at "best in the world" when at that peak. Moments of pure brilliance in the 70's. Often overlooked, but wins the more of his stellar work you see. Hmmm... I could see several wrestlers fit that description pretty well. Martin Sheen is totally underrated.

Yes. Citizen Kane is like Once Upon a Time in the West. Deeper understanding of the many, many layers in it will build appreciation. ... So Ebert's commentary is like listening to the best of the PWOP2BN podcasts? :-)

Not bad :-) ... O'Toole did have some major stinkers on his resume (Caligula, Supergirl a.o.), but I guess you'd call that "old man Flair" and then the last few years where O'Toole did stuff like Venus would be Flair's retirement match and some other ok stuff... I could see that. What about Flair = Jack Nicholson?

Keitel's movies maybe, but what about his performances? ... Anyway, love both Keitel and Arn. And I actually think Finlay might be a good comparrison too :-)

I know this might seem like an insane comparrison, but bear with me... Is Daniel Day-Lewis = Brock Lesnar? Works like once every four years and immediately gets the gold every time...

The Godfather is forever one of my absolute favorites, and could at any given day be anywhere from #1 to #5 on my list. Love it way, way more than Citizen Kane... But I gotta put them both in the top 100, just because... :-)

Harvey Keitel = Arn Anderson?

69: Blue Panther. My #77. Whoever said somewhere in this thread, that he is someone who is initially impressive, but the more lucha you see, he starts to drop slightly, expressed my thoughts. I'm not a lucha expert at all, but I quickly got into Panther. Now the initial enthusiasm has worn off a little. Still really like him, but he probably dropped ten spots the last months, and I don't quite know if that will continue in the future. 68: Kurt Angle. Oh, well. Really not as down on him as a lot here (not all, he was on 64 ballots after all...), but he's also not close to my list. Liked his first 2-3 years quite a bit. 67: Jack Brisco. My highest drop so far, I had him at #40. I think that's as high as the amount of footage I've had access to can take him. Have a feeling he'll rise with every new match I can get my hands on. Don't know what the limit might be on him, but I could easily see him 10-15 spots higher for me. I'm still really impressed and pleased he ended up as high as 67. 41 of my guys are gone with 59 still to go. So still 8 guys I haven't ranked, that still haven't dropped. Damn this reveal is fun

Thanks :-) Don't know if your view on Citizen Kane is unpopular. I think a lot of people feel that way. And I totally get how it can bore people, and how it can be hard to see it living up to the hype as the greatest movie ever. All movies would have a hard time living up to that, and any movie could disappoint someone, if it's sold as the greatest ever. ... But when viewed in comparrison to its contemporaries, Citizen Kane should be considered as undeniably decades ahead of its time, creating leaps in the artistic development of movies and the film language, and inspiring countless followers. It's one of the movies that must undeniably be called "great" and "important" from an "objective" point of view. Does it float everyones boat? Absolutely not, and the general taste might move further and further away from it. But few movies have ever changed the industry or the art form so radically. So including or not including Citizen Kane on a list of the greatest movies ever definetely says something about whether or not you try to rank from a perspective of importance, influence and impossible to deny greatness, or if you vote from your heart and based on your feelings more than anything else. To me, both are completely valid, with ranking movies as well as with wrestling. Not including Citizen Kane as one of the 100 greatest movies ever if ranking based on more than personal taste and personal feelings seems a little ridiculous. Hey, I think I'm making the same case here, that Parv made for Flair :-) EDIT: Oh, and spot on with the Hoffman Eddie comparison :-)

Agree 100% with everything you said! ... Can I be slightly morbid then and say, what about longevity? He might be a no brainer for #1 if he had 20 more years on his resume. ... Fuck, that was a tragic loss :-( Philip Seymour Hoffman was a genius!

This is one of those things I'm curious to what wrestlers, or types of wrestlers, we see having opinions either improved or lessen. Like what sort of acts that didn't do well on the list are we likely to see people talk about? I don't know, food for thought? Maybe not even that. Right? Like Blade Runner being slaughtered in 1982, now considered a classic. Who might be the "genius who wasn't acknowledged in his own time"? Will footage emerge to reveal someone we hadn't thought about to be a complete master, and who might that be? Which one or ones of the guys we revere today will be cast aside by 2026?