Matt D

Looking at my list, I've got Condrey above a lot of guys and he's had no discussion. Is he rating for anyone else?

Boscik is at the very of my list and I can't imagine him leaving it. He's everything I ever wanted out of Dean Malenko mixed with a Hungarian Toby Jones.

I'm leaning against him. He's an absolute wizard but I just don't feel like I've seen enough for him to pass the confidence test. I'm going to keep watching more of him over the next week, so we'll see if I can wrap my head around him the rest of the way.

Been meaning to ask: is his Boston Crab escape the WoS version of trying to power bomb Kidman?

I have Ted over Curt. Put very quickly, Curt's highs are very high but his lows are lower than Dibiase's in my mind.

Better draw on top, Bossman or Brock?

Are you more frustrated by that or Inoki?

This is a match which took place very shortly after Martel entered the Portland territory. They used up their shot at the NWA champ on the new guy. They pushed that he demanded the match be on TV, and in the weeks that followed, that he demanded kids would get in free to a show, etc. They were obviously trying to get him over. The match was made him look strong in very specific ways. It's not some amazing stretch to think that Harley worked the match in the way that he did to help get Martel over, which meant giving him almost the entire first fall. I appreciate it if people think I am somehow creative or deeply analytical but most of the stuff I come up with really isn't rocket science. It's connecting a bunch of not so disparate dots.

On #2. It's perfectly okay for you to value different things than I do. THAT makes the discourse richer. It's art. (and let's double back in April and talk about how it's commercial art, maybe, because I think there's an interesting line in that direction).

We learn a lot. We watch a lot. We do our best. I understand if you feel like we can never get close. But I think we actually do a great job with it. I'm impressed each and every day that I'm on this message board by the discussions of the people around me, the history that they know, the context they bring in, the analysis they bring to bear. When they tell me to look for something, I very often see it. When I don't, or when I disagree, I argue. I have a lot of faith in my fellow posters, though, because they've earned it with their hard work.

It's because I don't actually look to do any of this, Parv. You've got it backwards. It came naturally from what I was watching. The lightbulb went off when I just happened to be watching every bit of TV and house show and big event we had in 89 WWF. I saw patterns and worked backwards from there. I'm still refining all of this from watching a lot of matches. I didn't come in with a thesis. I ended up absorbing a lot of data and making conclusions and that helped me make a lens to see more matches through and so on. In the AWA set, the wrestlers that jumped out at me were the wrestlers that jumped out at me. The things that pissed me off were the things that pissed me off.

To be fair, that's true with almost every match each and every one of has watched in this process. I've been on a purpose kick lately, because I think we undervalue the idea of "what is this match trying to achieve?" That's important, but so is context, both within the card and within the week/month/year. I still have no idea how anyone can answer this question for any match unless it is explicitly hammered home by commentary or some blatant, shout it from the rafters action in the ring. I'm not 100% sure how to respond to you. Obviously you think that wrestling is a far less nuanced, either intentionally or indirectly, art form than I do. I am honestly glad that you enjoy what you enjoy despite that. The best answer I can give you is that if you watch a lot of wrestling, you can see patterns. It's that if you learn about wrestling and about how cards built and were put together, you can come to see signs. Can you read things in that aren't there? Probably, which is why you don't just watch one or two or three or six matches for a process like this. You watch a lot and you try to see how two different wrestlers respond to a specific situations; you look at how a wrestler responds to two different situations. Can you ever KNOW? No. But you can think and you can feel. It's a manner of engaging with the text and making connections, which is the basis of almost all learning and understanding. As for a piss break? Yeah, that has a purpose and the question then becomes whether or not the wrestler did the best job he or she could in order to achieve the purpose of the match. How you weigh that relative to everything else is up to you, but I think it's ridiculous to penalize a wrestler for going out and cooling down the crowd if their job was to go out there and cool down the crowd. You don't have to reward them for it, but it's something to keep in mind for the sake of this project.

To be fair, that's true with almost every match each and every one of has watched in this process. I've been on a purpose kick lately, because I think we undervalue the idea of "what is this match trying to achieve?" That's important, but so is context, both within the card and within the week/month/year.

I have some 2002-3 in-person nostalgia for Joe killing people, so I'm being hesitant on that.He's someone that might get slotted in somewhere.

AJ is just making my list in the bottom quarter primarily on the last couple of years strengthening his case. Joe has a shot but I'm not sold. I'm not sure if I've ever seen that but I'll catch it later. Thanks for posting it.

Loss almost got Sting onto my list, but I can't justify it.

I'm high on Wiskowski but it's a footage issue to me. He wasn't around Portland as much as you think in that 79-82 period. Some of his work there is spectacular and the rest is solid but, it's not as much as I'd want. I was higher than anyone on the Bockwinkel draw in AWA, but I just don't think there's enough there. We get bits and pieces but there's enough that isn't as good as I'd like it to be that I would need more to really judge for sure.

Buzz is at the very end of my list right now and he's the guy who might not make it. In my own head, I have sort of a Brock Lesnar vibe with him, where he's so explosive and dynamic that I think I'm giving him more credit than I ought to as a total package for my list relative to the footage we have. It's making me want to fill the gaps with my imagination. We'll see. EDIT: He's gone. It's AJ Styles fault.

Just to close the circle here, in case anyone comes across this later, I made my counters in the Andre note, including writing up the very worst match that could be thrown at me in a manner that is fully consistent with the rest of my list. As for Blackwell, he's currently very close to dead center on my list.

Looking at my ballot, I feel strongly that he'd have a good shot at a 150 too. I'm not sure I can work him in the 100 though.

And here, a year and a half later, we have some doubt. I want to go extremely high on Virus, extremely. Over Atlantis. Over Blue Panther. Over Charles and Dandy. Maybe over Santo, Jr. We're talking #3 luchador on my list high, with one and two currently in my top five. The difference between him and people who I am trending far, far lower on like Solar I and Villano III is that we can watch him week to week very easily from 2010 or so on. I feel like I know exactly how good Virus is over the last six years or so. I feel like I have a very good sense of how good he was as a mini. The fact that he could play both roles is a huge deal to me. The fact that he has great high octane lightning matches, awesome indy maestro matches, excellent balanced title matches, is the glue in so many meaningless trios that are made considerably better by his presence, can coach and lead younger wrestlers like almost no one else... I'm extremely high on him. What I'm lacking, however, is a sense of how good he was as a lower-mid card tecnico for those missing years in the 00s. The only indicator I have is some evidence that people thought his rudo turn was long overdue.

I could honestly see someone go #1 with Breaks. He's someone I hadn't seen at all a couple of years ago and I haven't been disappointed once. He's so much of what I enjoy in wrestling, and there just aren't cracks in the act. Sure, we only have so much footage, but i never get the sense of "well, he was good in this and this situation, but he probably found himself in this situation now and again where it wouldn't hold up. We just don't have tape of that." When it comes to balancing footage issues, doubt is a huge factor, and I don't have any doubt when it comes to Breaks.

It's early and the DC Metro is shut so I got up 30 minutes early. Oh, yeah. I like his boots? Perro and Pirata will be pretty close on my list actually, but about 20 spots lower than they should.

Pirata is someone who never quite clicked with me. He'll make my list but lower than I feel like defending. I sort of blame VQ and camera work.

If it was Jim Duggan, he could have gotten them to chant USA though.