Alright then, just make it a free for all, and have everyone choose their favourites providing no arguments or reasons. What terrific fun that will be.

 

I've got to say man, you're being a real downer about this entire project so far.

Alright then, just make it a free for all, and have everyone choose their favourites providing no arguments or reasons. What terrific fun that will be.

 

What I meant was if your argument isn't enticing then nobody will buy it.

What I'm saying is that there's no point re-evaluating footage or discussing nominees and whatnot if it's just people voting on their favourites. We could do that now. The whole idea of a process to me suggests some level of rigour and some level of people thinking about more than just who they like.

 

I agree that some arguments aren't going to persuade people. The main arguments, however, should be aimed at persuading people to check out footage for themselves to make a call.

Personally, I'm taking a pretty consistent and distinct set of criteria to a lot of wrestlers I haven't seen much of, especially ones that people will be arguing for, and then reevaluating the ones I do know well in a very strict manner. You just don't agree with my criteria.

 

Charles very succinctly defined the difference between this and the WON HOF is that the latter is about drawing and influence and on some level work and that this project is about aesthetics. You can do a numerical tally of WHO HAD THE GREATEST NUMBER OF GREAT MATCHES ON TAPE, but that's even less interesting to me than if we just picked all our favorites now. I'd much rather take a comprehensive qualitative approach (one that's consistent over all major candidates) than a quantitative one.

 

As long as people are open minded and consistent it'll be okay. For me, the matches and what happens within them are the primary sources that I draw my evidence from in order to generate conclusions. It means that maybe people won't have entirely shared criteria but as a community, given the knowledge and wealth of experience we bring to the table, I'm pretty confident that whatever list we come up with will be well worth the trouble of the next few years and going through this process.

I'm completely open to anyone making my list if they are nominated. I'll read the arguments and watch the footage and decide from there. I don't even have a number one picked out.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be discussion and re-evaluation, not at all. But wrestling, like any other art form, is inherently subjective. How can you objectively prove that Tenryu had more great matches than DiBiase? You can't. You can point to matches X, Y, and Z, but there's no guarantee that the other person will agree with your evaluation. Honestly, I feel like "objectivity" has the potential to be wielded as a cudgel to shut down debate.

You can't prove it but it will add a layer to the argumentation.

 

I think you can easily make an argument that Ted was a better worker than Tenryu. He was smoother. His execution was better. As a heel his charisma is more "obvious" (at least to Western eyes). He had better hair. And -- a la Matt D -- you can make that sort of thing, rather than "great matches" your main criteria, fine.

 

But if you are considering actual "great matches", Tenryu has too many to his name to ignore, and has the advantage over Ted of having more on tape and working for a longer period at a high level.

 

Now you could shift to trying to argue that the Tenryu matches vs. Jumbo or vs. Choshu/ Yatsu aren't that great or that lots of incidental Ted matches like those vs. Virgil or Dusty or whomever are actually "great". And, fine, it's technically possible to do that. But I feel it's quite a pedantic point to make. In the case of the Ted vs. Tenryu argument, the guy on the Ted side would really have his work cut out for him if he was going to do that.

 

My point was that there is a difference between "favourite" and "greatest". To me, nothing shuts down debate more than the idea that people are just going to go with their favourites and "oh well, who cares, it's all subjective at the end of the day isn't it, so there's no point in arguing yada yada".

Subjectivity breeds argument, it's objectivity that shuts argument down. Objectivity essentially means there is no argument, that their is quantifiable proof that Point A is correct and Point B is incorrect. Subjectivity means that Point A can be argued for, but can so Point B and there's never a clear winner in the argument because it's not an argument that can be won. The only reason I talk about wrestling as much as I do is because of how subjective it is, and that's why this project has already generated plenty of valuable discussion.

But if you are considering actual "great matches", Tenryu has too many to his name to ignore, and has the advantage over Ted of having more on tape and working for a longer period at a high level.

 

Then what is there to argue about? We're trying to find which guy has 17 matches that are great and which guy has only 16? That's how you're going to decide this? Isn't it far more important what makes those matches great than how many the person has?

So where is this argument going exactly? You're not going to pre-define anybody's criteria for voting, that's up to them. All that can be asked is that they are willing to watch the matches and decide based on that.

My general feeling is that it's all going to just work out. We'll do our stuff, like we always do, and we'll end up way more educated in the end and it'll be okay.

 

But if you are considering actual "great matches", Tenryu has too many to his name to ignore, and has the advantage over Ted of having more on tape and working for a longer period at a high level.

Then what is there to argue about? We're trying to find which guy has 17 matches that are great and which guy has only 16? That's how you're going to decide this? Isn't it far more important what makes those matches great than how many the person has?

 

I understand what you're saying, but I think there comes a point where the numbers of great matches are impossible to ignore.

 

Tenryu has a ton of them. You know who else does? Stan Hansen. Ric Flair. Jumbo Tsurta. And many others.

 

So then you can talk about what makes those matches great. Lots of great discussion can be had with guys on this tier a long the lines of a Jumbo vs. Tenryu discussion.

 

Ted can't post those sorts of numbers and, for my money, isn't quite competing in the same ball park. You can have much more interesting conversations comparing Ted to guys like Arn Anderson or Rick Rude or, hell, why not, even Ricky Steamboat. Those guys have a comparable number of great matches or great performances to Ted -- and that makes for a much more fruitful comparison. At least to my way of thinking.

 

It's not about precise numbers of "great matches", it's about ball parks.

 

Everyone will have their own criteria, just giving you mine.

 

I remain committed to my belief that the "it's all subjective anyway" line shuts down conversation rather than opens it up.

That's noted, and respected, but I'll be frustrated if I try to argue between something specific that one wrestler in your top tier did and something that a wrestler in the next tier did and you shut me down repeatedly by saying it doesn't matter since they're in different tiers. Just as I'm sure you'll be frustrated because to you it doesn't matter.

Alright then, just make it a free for all, and have everyone choose their favourites providing no arguments or reasons. What terrific fun that will be.

Shouldn't this be fun, first and foremost?

 

I do think Johnny that it's more fun to provide reasons than to say "I think this guy was great, and that's my opinion which I'm entitled to because it's all subjective so nerrr", which is in my view the antithesis of fun.

I think that one of the goals of this would have to be more folks who have seen a more varied set of wrestling matches from different areas of the world and can talk intelligently about them. Having fun watching a lot of wrestling would be another, going right along with the possibility of discovering a few wrestling styles you like more than you thought you would.. Making these kinds of lists also tends to make you look at what is important to you when you watch pro wrestling. I found that out during that last Ditch project. Not sure if I'll have the time to put into this, but I really want to.

I make some differentiation - I love a good Haku match more than anything I've seen out of lucha or joshi, but I'm not going to argue Haku over Manami Toyota or El Satanico any more than I'd argue Best of the Best (way fun) over The Godfather (not fun). My expectation is that after watching a few hundred hours of wrestling, and reading a few hundred thousand words about wrestling, often focused on wrestlers I have heretofore paid little if any attention, who my favorites are might change a bit.