El-P

Santo was already above Shawn Michaels in 2006. But Santo is lower this time. While Micheals is higher.

Yep. All good news.

Not surprised Eaton is dropping now, although I agree Morton should be above him (Eaton was one spot behind him on my list, at #33), as the mid-90's work of Eaton is nothing special anymore. I like the Blue Bloods, but Eaton never really geled with Regal. He was also part of that godawful tag team with Steve Keirn, whereas Morton was carrying SMW on his back with really good matches and promos. Maybe the early part of Eaton's career, teaming with Koko in Memphis, can gie him the edge though. No question Eaton is one of the greatest tag wrestler ever. His solo stint in WCW too is a bit underrated I'd say.

Ran Yu-Yu also was thought highly of at this point. I have no idea, I know she was indeed really good in the late 90's already. She was "the other Tomoko" of the JWP young fab fours.

Raven was the closest thing to a real star they had. Make sense. I think the unreliable years were way behind him at this point. PPV 44 The main event of XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown was good until the final screw-job finish by Gilberti, who fucked up his own finisher. Not as strong a match as the previous week though. Rest of the show ? Complete shit. Screw-jobs and runs-in every time around. Every match including undercard stuff worked the same fake dramatic way with a thousand nearfalls, which makes everything seem the same and undramatic. SEX all over the card with « complete chaos » every fifteen minutes. Tracy doing a PMS gimmick (fake subserviant woman and actual bitch supposed to be an empowered woman through sexual means... or something) and beating up Kid Kash. Shitty X-division triple threat match with Lynn vs Red vs Sabin with awkward and nonsensical spot galore and shit swerve at the end with XXX costing Red his title and Sabin joining SEX. Way to devalue the X title. Continuation of the « trouble in AMW » angle nobody wants to see. Ron Killings & Konnan are babyface or heels ? Dunno. Women abuse with Trinity being « given » to SEX by Kash. Gilberti was all over the show, as he's pushed as the N°1 contender for the NWA title. Feel the cred ? Most hilarious statement : Jeff Jarrett making an analogy with Stunning Steve becoming Stone Cold and Mean Mark becoming the Undertaker. Yeah. Disco Inferno is the next breakout megastar of TNA. That company is a complete and utter joke. 2003/05/10 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels)

Back in the early 00's, people following NEO would argue that Yoshiko Tamura was one of the best active worker. I wonder what I'd think of this if I revisited that dark period of joshi. I loved The Bloody too. Greatest worker no one knows about (that being said, I have no idea what I'd think about her today).

John Cena, one of the greatest wrestler ever if you like shaky execution, soft looking spots, robotic moves, entirely pre-planned epics, trading and kicking out of finishers, five-knucle shuffles and a babyface who does schoolyard jokes and never cares when he's losing a title. That being said, I loved the way he dealt with hostile crowds and his ridiculous entrances at Mania. I feel Cena is a guy who's been both helped a lot by working in the modern era (production, über-push) but also hurt quite a bit by it (would probably had been much more fun if he had been allowed more freedom, as he had *it* anyway and really good instinct it seems). No idea if he'd make my top 200, as I really dislike the 00's WWE style, and he's the absolute ace at this style, for better or worse. (Cena probably comes off a lot worse than I wanted him to, I enjoy him more than it would seem)

Does Goldust work in a mainstream company? Yes. Goldust is highly regarded among mainstream fans? No. Claiming this is a ballot where mainstream fans highly influenced it seems silly to me. *facepalm* Did I ever mention that a bunch of hidden mainstream fans had submitted ballots to influence the poll ? I don't think I did. I'm just noticing that guys from the US maintream companies (NWA/JCP // WCW // WWE) are doing better this time around at the expense of more "niche" styles. Which is why I'm calling this list "more conservtaive". *That's all* If that's too hard to understand or if people get rubbed the wrong way about it, too fucking bad. I don't know what else to say, really.

Goldust is as much a mainstream US guy as Michaels. (funny how some people just don't understand something super simple) Holy shit, those two pics of Michaels. I'm amazed that Michaels actually gained spots since last time. For all the criticism he gets around here, most of it valid, he still managed to win more than ten spots. I guess all because of a bunch of self-conscious epics at Mania against Cena & Taker. Post 2002 Michaels seems to be some of the most divisive body of work ever, either you love it, either you hate it. Haven't seen all of it, although quite a bit of the big matches, and although I do think there's some to love, much of it isn't worthy of the high praise it gets. Do we need to mention again that the "Sorry, I love you" match with Flair is one of the most ridiculous overacted melodramamatch ever, and a staple of awful modern WWE manufactured "Mania Moments" ? Well, I had Micheals at #78.

Ah, the infamous "Robert Gibson was actually playing Ricky Morton" argument. That was not his most glorious hour to say the least.

Settle down a bit, Goc. Don't be so fucking sensitive, it's not about you at all, ya know. I never said people didn't watch new footage, I never said all the US mainstream guys were awful either (although guys like Hogan/Piper/Dusty have no business making a Top 100 workers ever considering who's left behind). I said that US mainstream was gaining a lot of spots, and that tons of great wrestlers weren't represented or were losing spots because of this, and that it was a sign of a more conservative list than in 2006 which was more all over the place in term of styles. Anyway, I had Rocky Morton at #32 (the closest from the actual result so far !). Apart from the classic matches in the 80's, it's really the past his prime years that made me vote for him that high. Watching him in WCW looking better than 90% of the roster, turning into an effective dick heel in an undercard stable that Loss loves so much. And the again in SMW, where he carried so much feuds by his great promos and delivering in the ring to boot (as opposed to say, Jake the Snake), even making Unabomb watchable. Dustin was my #24. Great peak in WCW, just a natural talent (pun intended). Going through WCW TV, it was so obvious how good this guy was and how fucked he got by Flair hanging on to his spot and Hogan showing up. Huge Goldust fan too, so there. His comebacks in the 00's where he looked better each time makes him one of the best past 40 workers ever probbaly, although never featured in any position to show up "great workers of the decade" like Cena and Orton and Edge. The only black hole in his career is the late WCW stint and TNA Black Reign stuff.

Well let me tell you my friend, if you like Japanese women in one-piece bathing suits screaming, are you in for a treat. Ok. Wanna make some snarky comments about guys in their underwear, wearing mask and slapping each others chests now ?

To kill time before the Top 30, I made a little research. I counted the US mainstream guys in both lists thus far. I let on the side the guys who made their case more in Japan than the US (Hansen, Gordy, even Ultimo Dragon although his WCW years were important I believe), classic guys (the oldest US mainstream guy would be Race) and territory guys (Lawler, Kerry, Rose). In 2006, I counted roughly 35 names in the top 100 that I would consider being part of "US mainstream" (body of work in NWA, WWF, WCW mostly) We're already at 30 in 2016, and 30 names are still to come. So I think in the end, the difference will be pretty important as I don't think we"ll see much of "niche" candidates anymore at this point. Let's see. Maybe I'm off on this.

Well, I figured Benoit would show up around these spots. I had him at #31 myself. Way too good to drop lower, he was just an amazing worker was so long, although I've been down on some of his early Japan stuff for almost 15 years now. But his WCW work. The Sullivan feud. The Eddie match on Nitro. The Raven & DDP program. The Booker T miracle. It's not like he was working only with world's beater over there. He wasn't as good once he hit WWE, as he was forced into their style and got bad habits out of it (working too much with Angle maybe ?) but still, what a pro-wrestler.

I refuse for people to think of El Dandy like that. Someone used it as a comment, but I cut it out. I want that association to go away. Come on now. It will never go away. Better bask in its glory. I loved El Dandy in 2006 after watching a bunch of his matches. Couldn't in good conscience vote for him again since, apart from his WCW stint, haven't watched/rewatch anything. Yeah, I fucked the luchadors over. But I do love Lucha Underground.

Grim, you really should have put that damn Bret Hart quote for Dandy. Like it or not, that's one of the most iconic quote in pro-wrestling for nerds like us.

Seriously, a #36 ranking for a guy whose prime was in Portland in the late 70's early 80's and who, from your own account, doesn't have much in term of great matches (I've seen two, at least, counting one Rockers match in AWA). Being frustrated about that doesn't make any sense, really. It's all positive if you love the guy.

Buddy Rose has been one of the most pimped guys in the last few years, along with Fuji & Fuji and Lawler. I'm not surprised he did well. Still, in the end, I do think the category that will progress the most in the Top 100 is mainstream US guys.

Yeah, I was really thinking about Buddy Rose when I talked about mainstream US guys... Fucking Portland.

Had Buddy Rose at #87. Haven't seen enough to put him higher, but the Hennig feud and the AWA stuff is good enough for me to make him part of my Top 100.

Foley was my #45. Too much really good stuff in WCW and WWF plus his ECW stint that was incredible from a "character work" standpoint. Yeah, I know. There are still a few stuff that I'm really not a fan of though, the stupid potato match with Vader, the infamous Hell in the Cell match with Da Bump (who am I kidding, it's Shane O-Mac who's got the nod now), the awful chairshots match with Rock at the Rumble. Maybe he's a bit of a nostalgia pick.

That Timeline with Kevin Nash is what youd expect from him. Pretty funny at times. Not exactly deep as far as insight goes, but never boring. You can easily filter through Nash's bullshit, and he comes off like a guy you'd want to have a beer with. Love his Sullivan's impersonation the day after WM XIV.

Honestly, if his TNA work keeps on delivering like it did the first year, AJ could get dangerously close to my top 10. Eddie is not even close at this point.

Then maybe you should stop crying about how people didn't rate enough shoot style or joshi workers. No women or shoot-style workers in the top 39. If 5 luchadors are making it, then they didn't need my votes apparently. (well, depends what you call "luchadors", I'm guessing we're not talking about Eddie and Rey here)

And so credible in a shoot-style match too.