El-P

I feel like we sort of survived the whole process together. We always argued with one another, five years ago, three years ago, now. This was never a shiny happy agreeable place. But we treat each other with respect for the most part and we enjoy it. I think we will be stronger for having survived this. One day after the other. One day after the other...

This. It really isn't. There is no nice way to say this but people have been driven away from the reactions thread because they did not enjoy your complaining. Most of the posts -- and not just from you -- have been more about complaining about placement and harping on the weaknesses of the greats. Well, life's a bitch. Bitching and moaning was always part of the fun of the countdown, and I do think that although things were a lot more abrasive in 2006 from what I remember, people also took themselves, and the whole process, way less seriously. I mean, at some point, the whole "mainstream US" thing became a freaking running gag. People got driven away ? You mean, like Parv who couldn't grace us with his wisdom to the point of posting his reaction "essay" not-on-the-board ? What, we're not worthy ? Give me a freaking break. Tons of people haven't been driven away too. We bitched, we celebrated, we got absurd and pissed. Kinda like it should. The rest... literature...

The whole "corrosive" talking point is melodramatic bullshit, really.

SWJ ? What do you mean ? Like, saying Kamala was a racist gimmick ? Or that a babyface hitting a woman was wrong ? I haven't seen much SWJ creeping up to be honest. Pro-wrestling is a pretty low form of entertainment (sorry guys, it just is, doesn't mean I don't love it) with historically tons of awful things attached to it : bullying, racism, jingoism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, you name it. Yeah it would be great to see "the business", as they say, evolve, and I don't see what's wrong about talking about social issues inside the wrestling world and how they are presented and how we perceived them and how it influences our viewing experience. I mean, even when I was 14, I hated Jim Duggan's jingoist shit.

It's a mess, I'm telling you. #1 Jumbo Tsuruta #2 Stan Hansen #3 Terry Funk #4 Toshiaki Kawada #5 Kiyoshi Tamura #6 Genichiro Tenryu #7 Mitsuharu Misawa #8 Nobuhiko Takada #9 Jushin Liger #10 Nick Bockwinkle #11 Shinya Hashimoto #12 Kenta Kobashi #13 Arn Anderson #14 Bret Hart #15 Aja Kong #16 Mayumi Ozaki #17 Bull Nakano #18 Rey Misterio Jr. #19 Mariko Yoshida #20 Ric Flair #21 Vader #22 Ricky Steamboat #23 Daniel Bryan #24 Dustin Rhodes #25 Akira Hokuto #26 Akira Taue #27 Yoshiaki Fujiwara #28 AJ Styles #29 Shinsuke Nakamura #30 Naoki Sano #31 Chris Benoit #32 Ricky Morton #33 Bobby Eaton #34 Hiroshi Tanahashi #35 Bob Backlund #36 CM Punk #37 Volk Han #38 Brock Lesnar #39 Kazuo Yamazaki #40 Barry Windham #41 Tatsumi Fujinami #42 Hiroshi Hase #43 Brian Pillman #44 Eddie Guerrero #45 Mick Foley #46 2 Cold Scorpio #47 Randy Savage #48 Rick Martel #49 Mr. Gannosuke #50 Hayabusa #51 Jaguar Yokota #52 Kyoko Inoue #53 Akira Maeda #54 Manami Toyota #55 Shane Douglas #56 Owen Hart #57 Dan Kroffat #58 Azumi Hyuga #59 Mima Shimoda #60 Takako Inoue #61 Steve Austin #62 Shiro Koshinaka #63 Tommy Rogers #64 Masato Tanaka #65 Tully Blanchard #66 Curt Hennig #67 Tracey Smothers #68 Megumi Kudo #69 Sean Waltman
 #70 Sabu #71 Dynamite Kansai #72 Yoshihiro Tajiri #73 Steve Regal #74 Greg Valentine #75 Terry Gordy #76 Shinjiro Ohtani #77 Chris Jericho #78 Shawn Michaels #79 Riki Choshu #80 Giant Baba #81 Marty Jannetty #82 Buddy Rose #83 Dick Murdoch #84 Jerry Lawler #85 Chris Candido #86 Keiji Mutoh #87 TAKA Michinoku #88 Yumi Fukawa #89 Steve Williams #90 Cuty Suzuki #91 Tsuyoshi Khosaka #92 Jerry Lynn #93 Atsushi Onita #94 Savio Vega #95 Masa Fuchi #96 DDP #97 Jinsei Shinzaki #98 Dutch Mantell #99 Andre the Giant #100 Raven

How do you remember all of this ? I think I was still around when the Best of WWF/E matches poll happened. I know I was there during the first restart. I remember a Best WCW match poll in which I don't think I tool part in. I began posting here in 2008 so that timeframe makes sense.

I realized voting for Andre was maybe my way of representing France on the poll. Well, expect it really wasn't. But hey, that's one French guy on the top 100.

PPV 49 For their first Anniversary show, TNA managed to put on the worst show possible considering what was on paper. New entrance set so the show looks more like a second rate Thunder now. God Bless Lollipop. What could have been the show stealer, XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW, ended up being a rushed Nitro seven minutes match with the wrong team going over. It was still the best action on the show, but AMW not going over is kinda ridiculous. The X-division match between Chris Sabin & Paul London is exactly what I don’t care for, a bunch of spectacular moves and sequences with no rhyme or reason (London doing an amazing shooting star press of the apron two minutes into the match and it meant zilch), with a lot of contrived stuff. When you’re only doing moves that look special, nothing is actually special anymore. London really is your posterboy for 00’s indy guy. Booking had CM Punk, who wants to impress Raven, do a Raven impersonnation and screw London, so there goes your clean finishes in the « workrate » division. Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible could have been the savior of the undercard as they had really good stuff in ECW, but it was cut short with a terrible job by the ref, who looked inept. The six-man opener of Siaki, Heavy D. & David Young vs D-Lo, Kazarian & Sandman (who barely entered the ring) was decent but again, totally rushed. Because you see, you needed time for your 30 mn Vince Russo segment talking about WWE and shit. He looks ridiculous with that perm too. Anyway, Raven wants to beat him up (I feel your pain) but Shane Douglas jumps on him. Waste of time during which Sting makes his first appearance, closely followed by Jeff Jarrett so he can get the huge Sting pop too and pretend he's over. What a carny. And we get more Russo shooty bullshit before the main event as he introduces Sean Waltman (in street clothes) who supposedly said he would never work with him again. Wait ? Where ? When ? I guess in shoot interviews on the Internet. And the announcers have to act like it’s a known fact. Pathetic stuff. Jarrett & Sting vs Waltman & AJ Styles was pretty good before it got all clusterfucky with *more* Russo, Raven & Douglas run-ins, but Jarrett looked the worst of the four again, and yet still got the win. He can be glad daddy (who was interviewed by Tenay earlier to say basically nothing) got a promotion for him to play around. No wonder he and Dixie understood each other, there are two of the same. Sting is more over than anyone else since the beginning of the promotion and really brings on some legit star power. But I guess it was a one shot before he came in for good much later. A few decent stuff in the undercard like that funny parody interview with Konnan & Ron Killings as BG James played racist Mike Tenay. Wait, I thought they were supposed to be babyfaces ? And a good Trinity video package showing her stunt work, building her as the female ace of the promotion. Too bad she kinda sucks in the ring actually when she has do work an entire match, because she looked good here. And some awful stuff, a stupid Hard Ten (duh !) match with New Jack (who’s playing along Shark Boy these days) and Mike Sanders and an awful segment with Watts interviewing Kid Kash who got applause when he said he was beating his women. Fucking rednecks. And Goldylock in a cage backstage with Abyss, unexplained. And a terrible Saturn vs Kenzo Suzuki match with a swerve as Justin Credible screws his ECW partner. Suzuki sure looks good physically, but he’s just rough to watch, and Saturn really sucked here, blowing spots left and right. In other words, Vince Russo needs to go. Now. 2003/06/18 AMW vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) 2003/06/18 Jeff Jarrett & Sting vs AJ Styles & Sean Waltman

This, I couldn't agree more. I hate the Twitter "culture".

I never listened to any of these podcasts myself. No interaction or discussion possible. Of I listen to a podcast, I want Cornette, Sullivan or Austin to tell me some actual stories. Plus, the fact you couldn't discuss Flair in the infamous "Podcast Thread" if you had not spent the three hours listening to it, even if you were reacting to some written statements made about Flair was a huge turn off for me. How long did it take before the board went down. Wasn't some hacking involved too by a loony member, or did I just mix this with something completely different ? Seems so long ago, almost like another life (and really, it was, on more personal levels).

How many people who voted in this poll are either American (by this I mean North-American) and/or from english speaking countries and/or from europe where US mainstream wrestling has basically been pro-wrestling for the last 30 years ?

Of course not. Parv is an orthodox. BTW, the fact he didn't post his reaction to the GWE result over here is telling that pro-wrestling boards are a thing of the past. We're all relics. Today is all about podcast's and Twitterss and shit.

I love when old-timers randomly bring Mike Oles into the debates, knowingly that about 10% of us at best will know or remember about him. Should I drop the infamous "pro-wrestling as figure-skating" stuff now ? And you're right about Andre. He was really good when he was younger to the early 80's, but yeah, I just shouldn't have ranked him, even at #99. Raven is much better.

Of course, as I've used the term myself in that sense.

That Grim is a very patient man. Thanks for the hard work !

Yeah, about those "niche" picks. Takada was arguably the biggest draw in Japan at one point. Zenjo was packing Budokan during it's peak years. "Niche" is a patronizing term. Totally agree.

I'm not, considering where it was going. The fun thing now is that Flair fans won't be able to say shit about "being Fair to Flair" for the next ten years.

Ah ah ! To be the Man etc... Flair cheated. As always.

Ok. DROP THE BOMB !

Takako Inoue, obviously. My fault.

From what I get from shoot interviews, Adams was a cool and very funny guy in real life. While Clarke came off as an asshole with an unwarranted ego. In the ring though, Clarke wins hands down. I always wished he was pushed more than he was, I was a fan of Adam Bomb for fuck's sake. He had some really fun stuff in WCW when he was teaming with Kanyon. Then he got over again in 1998 when they gave him a streak on Nitro, only to have Nash squash him on the route to kill Goldberg. Kronik was an awful team though, they looked like two giant clowns on steroids.

Ah ah, the Batllart quote is pretty funny. And yeah, I'd also pop whenever Valentine had a random JTTS match on Nitro in 96. He should have gotten the TV title and feuded with Regal. Loved the robes and shit. And I would always imitate the Fink introducing the Hammer for whatever reason. "From Seattle, Washington. Greg. The Hammer. Valentiiiiiiiiiine." Classic.

Terry Funk's case was made everywhere.

I became a Ric Flair fan the minute he showed up on WWF T.V. Wait, rewind. At this time in France, we only had WWF TV. Wrestling was WWF. Two years earlier, when I went on vacation with my parents through Great Britain, I saw in a window shop a few wrestling toys. The logo was not WWF, much to my surprise. It was WCW. Logo sucked. And there were these guys with superhero names : Lex Luger, Sting and Ric Flair. back in 1991. When Eddie Carpentier announced that the following week, there would be the debut of "The real World's champion" Ric Flair, I was excited. That was the guy from the other federation. And he was the Real World Champion ? Eddie Carpentier, who I guess didn't care much about WWF corporate history, even said that Hogan was only the WWF champ while Flair was the true World champ. Well, he used to say Rick Martel had been the World champ to on TV. When Flair showed up, he looked like an old-school wrestler to me, yeah, even in 1991. The robe a-la Greg Valentine/Rick Rude, the matching color tights/kneepads/boots, the non bodybuilder body. And the promos, with French subtitled. I didn't get everything, but I was mesmerized. Royal Rumble 1992 was my very first "special event", as they said, showed on TV. I was pulling for Flair. I was a mark. And when Flair won, I popped like crazy. I never cared for Hogan. I wanted either Flair or Sid to win, but I was a Flair fan. The post-match promo was the greatest thing I ever heard. From there, I was done. I had no idea about the NWA legacy, the Steamboat feuds, the Four Horsemen, Dusty. All of this would came later on. Then in 1996, WWF TV was replaced by WCW Nitro. I was not happy. I was a WWF mark. I thought Rey was "too small" the first time I saw him. I thought Hogan and Savage looked old and that it was just WWF rehash. But Flair was there. And shit, he was with Liz, who was hotter than ever, and a heel. And this other Woman. I always loved glamour in pro-wrestling. Ric Flair was still *it*. And that Arn Anderson, who looked like an old math teacher, well, he was pretty good too after all. And yes, I was still a Ric Flair mark. And I became a Nitro fan quite quickly. I wanted Flair to jump to RAW in the spring of 1998. I wanted Flair vs Austin. Instead, we got the Attitude era and Vince McMahon winning the Royal Rumble. And Owen Hart dying. I stopped following WWF. WCW was my only hope for US wrestling, and Ric Flair although way passed his prime, was still Ric Flair. Wait ? The last hope ? Not really. By early 1997, I got the Internet and heard about that ECW promotion. The greatest thing ever. Violence, sex, blood, swearing. Revolutionary stuff that had never been done before. And there was a legend of pro-wrestling over there. Terry Funk. I read about Terry Funk on a french WWF Magazine, years earlier, during a WrestleMania recap. There was even a picture of that insane cowboy looking guy. And then he showed up at Royal Rumble 1997, that I watched on a Sky broadcast, my first PPV in English. And then I saw him on that Mania tape I bought (well, I bought the entire Mania collection released in 1997, 1 to 14) at Mania 2. The guy was fun. He looked insane indeed. And then I saw a bunch of ECW stuff on a German channel. And then more on a channel called Bravo, I believe. The joy of satellite TV. And I became a fan of Terry Funk in ECW. I knew about the history, so when I began buying tapes, I bought some old All Japan Tag Team League compilation from the 70's, and some FMW with the Onita match, and the IWA Deathmatch tournament (like everyone else, Terry Funk was Mick Foley's mentor, and I loved Mick Foley) and those 1989 NWA PPV's with the Flair matches. Every time, Funk was different, yet himself. And he was incredible to watch. Then he showed up in WWF as Chainsaw Charlie, then I bought more tapes, then wrestling videos started pop up on Internet. Terry was everywhere, old, young, bloody, heel, face, crazy, hilarious, Memphis, WCW. Terry was everywhere and Terry was the perfect pro-wrestler. Since then, I got a little bit tired of Ric Flair big match style.Not tired of Flair himself. Flair will always remained one of my all-time favourites. I never got tired of Terry Funk's match though. Probably because it was never the same, he could improvise like nobody's business, he was just insane and brillant. I voted Terry #3, but in all honesty, Terry Funk is probably my favourite pro-wrestler.

The post-Attitude, pre-Cena era of WWE sounds like the pits of boredom hell. PPV 48 For a Triple Threat match, Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles vs Raven was pretty good but the lack of heel/face dynamic really hurts everything. Raven is made out to be the biggest babyface of all without having turned really, since AJ & Jeff double team him for a while. Then it turns into a one on one match when Shane Douglas (finally !) attacks Raven and drags him away. Styles vs Jarrett was good but Jarrett has some annoying execution flaws like anticipating some moves way too early. And of course, Russo shows up and finally screws Jarrett (he tries to do the old « Who is he gonna hit ?» game but he’s so awful at anything he does that it was totally obvious). Nice, so now AJ Styles first title reign is thanks to Russo, who booked himself in the main event scene again. Rest of the show was terrible. Well, Chris Sabin vs Shark Boy was a pretty watchable little X-division match and Sandman & Devon Storm (in complete Crowbar costume) actually found a way to almost make the idiotic Hard Ten gimmick work. Almost. On the most terrible side of things, Kid Kash vs Trinity & Goldylocks (who’s a character I guess now that Scott Hudson debuted as the backstage interviewer) was not only awful but it also marks the debut of Abyss, whom from what I’ve seen is one of the stupidest garbage worker ever with a third rate gimmick. Well, his stock can only rise. Kid Kash wins BTW, so yeah, the woman abuser pig wins in the end. In the same « woman are sluts to be abused anyway » category, AMW vs David Young & Tracy was awful too. AMW were totally off, I guess not motivated by working a match which makes them and the whole tag team division look stupid. Tracy’s whole gimmick is talking bump and showing ass, litteraly I mean. Oh, and her big spot, which is basically Matt Borne’s bomb’s away, is called « The pie in the sky ». How classy. More PMS-like deal after the match with Nurse Veronica making a comeback. The only good segments on the undercard was a decent brawl between D-Lo Brown & Julio (not Dinero anymore, which is annoying since it makes him generic) and the Interrogators stuff with Justin Credible & Jerry Lynn, picking at each other until they just go at it. In other words, what I’m looking for now is Raven vs Shane Douglas and Justin Credible vs Jerry Lynn. Welcome to ECW 1999. Next week, for the first anniversary show : Sting. Really ? 2003/06/11 Raven vs AJ Styles vs Jeff Jarrett