El-P

Way too many to think about one. However, Shane McMahon vs Undertaker was a disaster of epic proportion, all to get an idiotic New Jack spot. Just awful on every level.

I don't listen to podcasts. And that's a terrible news. Booo ! I don't remember how Hogan did last time. Probably not too good.

I was away when you made the announcement so I'm just seeing this. Best thoughts to you ! You'll have that fucking crab do the job ! Courage !

Goldberg, ah ah ah. The guy had like three really good matches in his career. Can we get rid of Hogan & HHH already BTW ?

Hey, I just selected one of his matches. The story about Russo wanting to put Gowen in SEX is pretty telling, indeed. What a moroon. PPV 31 Curt Hennig is dead. Boots, picture and ten count inside the ring. This was the most enjoyable show in a long while. Sure there was still a lot of crap, but also some legit good stuff, and some cool people showing up. Gotta put aside all the SEX stuff, which sucked as always, especially all the matches involving the Nazis Brothers, BJ James, Disco & Sanders. Bullet Bob is out, JJ Dillon is in, so we get more rambling about old WWF and WCW stuff no one gives a fuck about. Tenay interviews David Flair, yawn. Funny how Tenay always comes off as somewhat of an asshole in those segments. I’m actually getting used to the Sonny Siaki & Desire act, as at least Desire jumping in left and right gives the matches some sort of dynamic, plus she isn’t afraid to bump. Siaki is still the dullest Prince Iaukea ever. So of course, now he has to lose that belt. Damn. The match against Kid Kash was actually somewhat decent until the awful botched finish. No idea how Kash didn’t break his neck here. Damn, and he wins the X-title. Trinity didn’t even get to do a moonsault. AMW & Rock’n Roll Express had another decent match, with Ricky looking solid again. Chris Harris is clearly the lesser worker of the team aka the Robert, but he's good at executing impressive power spots. BTW it’s a tag-team tournament to face XXX for the lifted title. No brackets showed. Hello again WCW ! TNA was all about former WWF & WCW guys talking past issues, now it’s time for ECW to show up. Both the Sandman & Steve Corino in the same show. Corino cuts a really solid promo, old-school style, on Low-ki and they work a very japanese style, stiff back and forth match. Cool stuff, although it doesn’t quite get over that much (crowd is pretty apathetic during the whole show) and the DQ finish was stupid as hell. Sandman canes everyone in sight and Raven is disgusted that this guy follows him everywhere, so we get a really good garbage brawl by two old ECW favourites of mine. This just never gets old and it’s actually worked quite well. Raven is in the best shape of his life too. The post-match beatdown by SEX is useless, and Jarrett playing Steve Austin just doesn’t ring true at all. But Raven & & Low-ki vs Sandman & Corino in a post ECW match ? Yeah, I’m all for it. Finally, the debut of Paul London too, with whom Jerry Lynn has a cool little match at the end of a rather useless gauntlet elimination match with a bunch of jabronies. London looks so early 00’s indy it’s ridiculous. No idea why anyone thought that look was a good idea, it’s so dull. Anyway, post match sees Konnan cut an interesting promo on Lynn, going back to him « posturing » as a luchador in WCW. The SATS are with Konnan. Damn, this angle was kinda promising, hopefully they get actual good luchadors instead. And the funniest moment of the show, after Raven’s interview with Goldilocks talking about Sandman (which started a few seconds too late), a car shows up and AJ Styles takes a bit too long to get out and jump on Raven, who has the time to drop the line « Apparently AJ Styles can’t get out of a car ». Totally cracked me up. 2003/02/12 Steve Corino vs Low-ki 2003/02/12 Raven vs Sandman

I had Jannetty at #81. So many good comebacks during the 90's. He deserved a better career. Don't do drugs. Oh, and I pondered about putting him ahead of Michaels. In the end, he's below, but not by much.

I loved, LOVED Gannosuke. Rewatching all of FMW a few years ago, that love just got stronger. #49. Best FMW worker ever. On a larger stage, he would have overshadowed a lot of the main promotion heavys (New Japan, I'm looking at you, then AJ after Misawa & co departed) and would have got a lot bigger body of terrific matches. Still, he was indy sleaze at its most noble. Wonderful pro-wrestler. And he was part of that IWA Bathhouse deathmatch, which is the most absurd and awesome thing ever. Glad he got a super high vote too.

Yeah and ended up that high. Seems like an odd choice. I guess some people really do love APA. Simmons was pretty good in Doom. I dunno. Yeah. Odd choice. On a top 100 promo guy, Bullet Bob would have got a high spot from me.

Killer Khan = Great Match Theory.

I take that over a gazillion punches a match anyday.

Backlund has finished high on my list. Cena wasn't close to make it.

Blah. I watched a shitload of NJ from the 80's last year and Kosh was terrific. The Takada feud is classic. And in the 90's he was the miracle worker of turning shit into something fun, plus some usually strong performances on G1's.

Yeah, Cena is a great exemple. Although I don't think I would agree with the greatness of most "great" Cena matches, lot of them being WWE manufactured self-conscious epics with kicking out of finishers and such.

Another strong joshi worker bites the dust. Hyuga. From my memories from her early years as Tomoko Kuzumi + the beginning of Hyuga, she placed #58 in my list. Had I followed joshi in the 00's and beyond, from what I can tell, she would have gone much much higher. Terrific worker.

Nah. In 1999, yeah. But in 2006, us joshi pimps already were a (vocal) minority.

Yeah, that's very convincing. Ah, numbers... As a roleplay character creation, it would work pretty well though.

Yumiko Hotta. Surrounded by some of the greatest workers ever in a workrate environment at its peak

He was a good worker during the Varsity Club & Doom feud. Good worker. Some of the New Japan matches are overrated as hell (the very first one, who's the worst Sasaki & Hase match of the year), and those who aren't, well, some great japanese workers made those idiotic Steiners look like Gods. Rick was still good at this point though. The Sting & Luger match is a fun spotfest and wildly overrated. The Money Inc. stuff isn't very good. That cage match is awful. By the mid 90's Rick Steiner was already sloppy and lazy. By the late 90's he was one of the worst worker anywhere.

This is why great match theory sucks. Especially when the great matches aren't great.

You voted for Rick Steiner? Yeah, WTF ? Good worker for a few years in the late 80's/early 90's, then quickly became the worst Steiner then became a godawful worker. BIGLAV BULLSHIT

You voted for Rick Steiner? Yeah, WTF ? Good worker for a few years in the late 80's/early 90's, then quickly became the worst Steiner then became a godawful worker.

Chris Candido at #85 to me, and the drawing line to : okay, maybe not enough body of work to call them one of the top 100, but I want to represent them. Contrary to Dylan, Candido's stint in ECW made his stock rise with me. His SMW work, although he was green, was more positive to add to his resume. I also enjoyed his post ECW/WCW indy work, as random as it was. Of course, he doesn't have the great matches. His death was really a stupid tragedy. Kohsaka at #91, because he's half of my favourite match of all time. If I had a more complete overlook on his career, he may have been higher, or not represented at all. Probably higher.

PPV 30 Might as well just talk about what was good in that awful show. Amazing Red vs Sonny Siaki was the best X-division match in a while and for once Siaki showed a little bit of personnality, although still deeply into that ridiculous Rock cosplaying. I credit Red, who’s playing underdog so well it’s easy to have a good match against him. Then, XXX (Skipper & Low-Ki) vs Slash & Brian Lee was quite good too, with early brawling all over the place then developping into a very nice match, even better than the AMW two weeks before I’d say, before the shit finish double count which has a godawful execution to boot. Those refs just aren’t any good. Where do they come from ? So, Konnan does his own shoott-shooty post WCW interview and calls everyone in the wrestling business racists because they don’t want to push latinos. Funny, we’re in 2016 and WWE is still clueless about this factor, and it took 12 years before Lucha Underground. Konnan is a much better talker than wrestler so this was at least effective. A decent brawl between Raven & AJ Styles which makes you want to see that match. Zbyszko apparently acts on the behalf on Styles now, in some sort of a managerial role, which AJ really doesn't need. The rest… really, was crap. Awful Russo promos and angles with endless beatdown and Jarrett under a mask that everyone could see coming, Jerry Lynn having bad matches again thanks to David Flair & Sanders, BJ James vs Zach Gowen in a ridiculous freakshow that had no purpose (sorry, I just cant buy a one-legged wrestler, although he’s an amazing athlete), Trinity & Desire working a long and disastrous match. Trinity won with a moonsault. Just hard to watch even with the benefit of fast forward. And not enough Lollipop’s ass, really. 2003/02/05 Amazing Red vs Sonny Siaki 2003/02/05 XXX (Skipper & Low-ki) vs Slash & Brian Lee

She's kind of a weird case in that she's obviously a great talent, but so many of her most famous matches are against far more famous workers that were her contemporaries. For whatever reason she was never quite as big a star as a lot of those, despite working several pretty key main events in her era. But I don't think anyone really questions that she was a very good worker. When I did my Zenjo 92/93 watch (years ago now, but still), Yamada is someone that really lost stock. Previously I saw her as a great worker because of involvment in great matches. Simplistic approach. Watching the whole year of TV, she was just not as great as she seemed before. She was never the best worker in her best matches. Very good ? Yes. But not in the same league as her most famous contemporaries and a bunch of others from JWP or even Zenjo's undercard. Plus her post prime in GAEA is really uninteresting, but GAEA would do that to you for a lot of veterans. If I did some serious joshi watching this time around, I'm not sure I would have ranked her anymore, which I still did last time I believe. I like Tenta, but yeah, him getting 11 ballot is really a symptom of workrate relativism at this point. Superstar Graham and Warrior, well, this is just personality voting now.

Art Barr is our first... well, ok, no comment. I thought I would be the high vote for Shane Douglas. I had him at #55