Matt D

The full Houston 1985-12-29 match is really good.

You see glimpses though. The 89 singles match with his pal Yatsu starts that way and it’s a big shocking moment (to Yatsu most of all) when Jumbo starts taking liberties out of nowhere because you can’t go home again and put that genie back.

I'm in a weird spot as Jumbo is "new" to me. I don't think he's going to crack my top 5 or anything but I don't have decades of baggage with him as someone like Dylan does. I wonder how much of that is the wrestling itself and how much is just the community. I don't think there's anyone here who's been here for more than a few years that wants to touch the idea of comparing Bret and Flair with a ten foot stick.

But did you?

One thing that felt very clear to me in watching all of their 87-89 encounters was that, while it varied in different venues, the fans were definitely behind Jumbo relative to Tenryu. There’s always a lot of Tenryu goading Jumbo (though sometimes that’s reversed) often to Yatsu’s frustration. While I like the match where Jumbo regains the title better (maybe more of a “me” match than one that belongs to them), the one where Tenryu wins really feels like their two philosophies of wrestling clashing.

Let’s not kill the magic here, guys.

Speaking of rare lucha apuestas matches: http://www.thecubsfan.com/cmll/2014/03/21/robin-hood-versus-shu-el-guerrero/ I reached out to cubs on this and he said that he never had permission to share it and he wasn't even sure if he still had it. It was on my mind for GWE reasons, not because either guy would necessarily rank but because my approach has SHU as an acronym and because I'm challenging people to really say that Goldberg was better than Robin Hood (let alone six other Brazos). I'd still like to see the thing someday though.

I'll look for myself but: might he have taken away from the purpose/point of the match if he stood out more in these trios? Could he have hurt the match by being "greater?"

@soup23 Can you give me some examples of these. I'd like to see them. Usually, even in trios matches where he's not at all the focus, I think that Casas is entertaining and engaging and serves a lot of purposes within the match. He almost always does something new or different in them too. I'm curious if that might just be when he's a rudo though.

Reading @elliott's very fun rundowns of his 2016 list and where he stands on them now, it's obvious he's going to somehow have 70 wrestlers in his top 25.

Yes, I think the word I used was “coward.” I might have just gone with “pandering” instead.

Honestly, this was my issue with him 5 years ago. Stacey and I discussed it on the PI GWE pod. She made a great case for him there, btw, and completely no-sold me on my late era Cena misgivings.

I thought it would be interesting if people checked in with their criteria/process/method here at the start of the cycle. This could be what they're looking for, how they're judging/rating wrestlers, how they're planning on going about things, etc. I'm going to focus a bit more on process/method/purpose here, though criteria is absolutely tied in. It's just a little harder to pin down for reasons you'll hopefully see, and this will already be a lot to cover. Also note that I say at the start of the cycle as this is a journey for all of us and we'll be honing things as we go over the next five years. Finally, while I'd encourage people to interact with one another, be curious and interested, point out holes constructively, etc., I don't think this is the right place for heavy combativeness. Our starting point here has to be that everyone is operating in good faith. So that brings us to where I am now: In judging/ranking a wrestler, I am focused primarily on two things: the wrestler's philosophy/understanding/mastery of the craft/art/performance/occupation/sport of pro wrestling and how well they accomplish/execute/manifest/deliver upon it. In order to judge that, I need to utilize footage to understand the wrestler as much as possible. This means I want to examine a wrestler throughout their career, in all sorts of situations, against all sorts of opponents. The more scenarios I have, the better I can see how a wrestler acts and reacts, and the better I can synergize what I see. Having multiple instances of the same situation is also useful because it reinforces what I'm seeing and allows me to look for slight variations. So yes, I want to see a wrestler in a great match, but I also want to see them in a squash match. I want to see them in their prime, but I also want to see them dealing with a physical limitation to see how they react and respond and adapt. I want to see them in their home territory, but I also want to see them in front of an unfamiliar crowd. I want to see them in singles, in tags, in gimmick matches, in short TV matches. I want to see them open a show and end a show. I want to see them as a face and a heel, against similar opponents and wildly different ones, against the same opponent multiple times if possible. Ideally I'll see everything there is to see, but as that's not possible, I'll be looking to cover as many situations as I can, and as many as i need to feel confident in what I'm doing. I'm trying to reach a Holistic Situational Understanding of a wrestler (which sounds better than Situational Holistic Understanding, even if that has a better, lucha-based acronym). Flaws/concerns/comments: Obviously, this is an arrogant approach to a degree. There are things we aren't going to know with most wrestlers, but it's all ultimately based on footage. Where I supplement with other knowledge, I still have to connect that to the footage. Maybe I'd be reading too much into things in that moment, but for my list, it's going to be consistent across all wrestlers. I'm taking everyone equally and trying to achieve the best understanding possible based on what can be seen in the footage. As for the arrogance of it, the idea that I can reach any understanding on any wrestler, first, that pushes me and drives me to do my best and to really think things through and do my home work. The journey matters more as we so often say. Second, my list will sometimes have someone ranked lower if I feel like I can't understand them as well due to lack of footage. They'll still be represented but that's an element. I don't necessarily need to understand every point of their career, but if I feel like I'm missing data points that I might have if footage existed, there might be a lower ceiling for them. They may be somewhat handicapped based on my limitations. This is not a "peak" approach or a "longevity" approach. Longevity gives me more data points to work off of. I'm not looking for who was the greatest wrestler for a short period of time. I'm looking who was the greatest wrestler ever based on the above approach and method. Likely, people who were brilliant for a short period of time because they were able to channel their physical gifts in their physical prime but were then not able to adapt will do worse on my list than those that were able to adapt, but that is, I think, consistent with the above. Along similar lines, some might say it undervalues execution. I'd argue otherwise as I'm focused on whether or not the wrestler could achieve their ends as much as I'm focused on the perceived value of those ends. It balances the two instead of focusing primarily on execution (or workrate or anything else). Both thought and action are represented. Great matches are important, but that's heavily based on opportunity and just one part of the equation. Overall greatness should happen across multiple situations, ALL situations if possible, even if constrained and contained. They're important but no more important than being effective in a TV studio or in front of a live crowd in an unfilmed setting relative to what they were tasked to achieve in that setting. Not every wrestler had the same career, so everything is taken into account. I'll have more data points in more situations for wrestlers who had more opportunities and that's going to allow me a more complete understanding. At the end of the day, we're not looking at What Ifs? but at the footage. I will say that "ability to perform well in big matches" is no more or less important than "ability to perform well in small matches" to me, so the idea of "one of the best big match workers ever" isn't going to automatically be more important than "one of the best ten minute tv workers ever." In some ways, the level of difficulty is higher with the latter. So that brings me to the elephant in the room on this (past the arrogance, so much arrogance): once I feel like I do understand two wrestlers as noted above, how do I rate one against the other? What's the actual criteria here? And that I'm still working on. It's not as simple as me agreeing with their philosophy/understanding/mastery of the craft/art/performance/occupation/sport of pro wrestling but it does align with what I think is the best/greatest of that. And that's something that can be developed and expanded upon over the next five years, which is why this post is more about process/method/mindset/goals than actual criteria. So, what do you got?

We've seen a bunch of new Kikuchi in the last few years actually: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/search/label/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

Enjoying the pairing, even if Pete isn't on board with Demos and there's maybe a bit too much Rockers love. Even if the Rockers were absolutely my favorite team as a kid. Marty at least, I need you to watch the Bret vs Backlund match here and compare it against the other two: e Bret

I'm the exception but I'll probably look at it at least. It's not about holding something against him either, just another inch towards the attempt at a total and absolute understanding of a wrestler that I need for my top 40 or whatever. I don't hold anyone else to my standards.

This is new footage for this round and I remember all of us really liking this: Also new footage: We also found the one GOOD Ted vs Tenryu match apparently:

I think the Houston matches made me more excited for babyface Dibiase, certainly, which isn't necessarily his traditional "case." It ends up being a bit of a wash. He's sort of like Hennig in that regard where the conventional wisdom case for him is the opposite of his actual case.

Rich had some new Houston footage too towards the end of the last voting period or shortly thereafter, like Rich/Slater vs Dynamic Duo, but we didn't get Rich vs Bockwinkel from this card, which is one of my major regrets of the footage: Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – March 26, 1982 The Grappler d. Tom Jones Hacksaw Duggan d. Terry Gibbs Tully Blanchard d. Frank Monte Wayne Farris fought Chavo Guerrero to a draw Dick Slater d. Bob Sweetan by DQ Canek d. Gino Hernandez AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel © d. Tommy Rich

I'm going off my memories at the time, to be fair, and you've probably rewatched this more recently than I have for yearbooks or what not, but my earnest memory is that the crowd was quite into Wrath, and that the repackaging had worked. I'm willing to watch a bunch of Robin Hood matches to explain why I think he's absolutely better than Goldberg but I'm not willing to go back and watch late summer-early fall 98 Wrath for the sake of this. I'll therefore admit the possibility I may be remembering incorrectly.

Wrath was going great until they fed him to Nash. Super over. High energy stuff. Real buzz. They fed him to Nash as a way to help justify Nash wrestling Goldberg. What if they fed Goldberg to someone four months in to build up some other match?

And the counterpoint is whether or not we'd even remember him relative to a guy like Emory Hale if he hadn't gotten one of the biggest pushes in wrestling history (even if he had more natural talent/charisma than Hale, sure). He'd just be the guy who stole Mongo's superbowl ring in that one angle and maybe jobbed to Hogan a couple of times in XWF before becoming a crummy shoot fighter. The what ifs play both ways if you're going to invoke them. What if a huge, athletic, big energy guy like John Nord (who I think is leaps and bounds better than Goldberg) got the same level of push in 91 when he was a similar age?

I could see someone using a 95-100 personal pick on Goldberg on the basis of a hundred fun squashes, a few good 90s matches and some high octane old man stuff (and maybe that one 02 Mark Henry match?), but I’m pretty sure I could find 100 lucha guys alone to put over him pretty easily. Like, is he really better at the craft of pro wrestling than the fourth best Alvarado family member of his generation (let's say Robin Hood)?

Think more about Bill Eadie instead.