Gouldie got a good brawl out of Brody and had the great Slater match. If we had the right footage, I could see a world where I could rank him over Bret. 

3 hours ago, Grimmas said:

On a Legends of the Ring, he was asked who the greatest Canadian wrestler was and he said Archie Gouldie, and then when someone tried to argue with him and say it was him, he didn't back down.

I saw a recent Q&A where he mentioned Mysterio as being better than himself too. 

High on my travel back in time to watch wrestling list (preferably live, because I'm assuming the tv was clipped to hell back then as well) would be the golden era of Stampede, 1960s-early 70s, with Gouldie, Sweet Daddy Siki, Abby and all the big angles and bloodbaths that sound so great based on recollections from those who were there 

Gouldie also has one of the very best wrestling promos I've ever seen - like, it's on my personal Mount Rushmore of promos - which is the famous empty arena Stampede father-son promo. It compares quite well to Bruno's equally transcendent empty arena interview promo in the Larry Z feud.

Thinking about going through the cagematch match guide and watching what is the most easily found that I either haven't seen or haven't seen in long enough to not really remember the details 

57 minutes ago, strobogo said:

Thinking about going through the cagematch match guide and watching what is the most easily found that I either haven't seen or haven't seen in long enough to not really remember the details 

The saturation of the matchguide since they opened up submissions last July (I'm definitely guilty of that, having taken a completist approach to catalog AJPW tape) might affect that. If so, I apologize for my part in it.

It's only 34000 matches bro what's the big deal

Just want to say that I'm very excited to see that GWE is happening again. As a lurker I thought the previous project was a blast, and I feel dangerously tempted to participate this go-round. The sheer amount of footage is daunting, but one match a day for five years....

6 minutes ago, kid dracula said:

Just want to say that I'm very excited to see that GWE is happening again. As a lurker I thought the previous project was a blast, and I feel dangerously tempted to participate this go-round. The sheer amount of footage is daunting, but one match a day for five years....

Join us! Also please don't feel like you need to watch every candidate. There is too much footage to tackle, nobody can do it all.

I've been poking my head in reading these threads now that GWE has started back up. It has piqued my interest, and hopefully might eventually get me back into watching wrestling with any regularity, like it did the first time. At the moment I'm not there, the only wrestling I can handle right now is SHIMMER (hence why I've largely ghosted y'all for a while) but five years is a long time.

In general I'm sure I will be able to mainly contribute as a voice on the (North American) women candidates. Obviously there will be a lot more this time around, and I definitely have the receipts to come up with cases and match recommendations and all the rest of it. There are also a lot of women that I find interesting as potential candidates and look forward to the opportunity to discuss their careers - already from my SHIMMER watching through 2007, I know there is a lot of unexplored (by me) territory in terms of women who have largely had careers on the indies or in TNA who really should be considered.

I also may fuck around and nominate Natalya just to try to build a case for her. Who can say.

 

 

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.

Dropping Curt Hennig from my list entirely is gonna do a lot of heavy lifting apparently. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it. Its gonna be

1. Terry Funk

2. 8 Way Tie

3. 30 Way Tie. 

I feel like I've sort of worked my way back to square 1 where instead of having a pretty clear idea of where I'd rank people, I'm back in the spot where I'm like "Barry Windham? He could be 25 or he could be 80!"

I've done a quick elliot-style run through of my own 2016 list and I'm getting a lot of "I fucking blew it with that one" as well. There are also so many picks in that 70-100 range that could just as easily fall off next time as make it, because there are about another 60 people that I could just as easily replace them with. It'll probably depend on how I'm feeling at the time, who I've watched recently enough, etc. 

I'll probably start running through mine later. 

2 hours ago, KB8 said:

I've done a quick elliot-style run through of my own 2016 list and I'm getting a lot of "I fucking blew it with that one" as well. There are also so many picks in that 70-100 range that could just as easily fall off next time as make it, because there are about another 60 people that I could just as easily replace them with. It'll probably depend on how I'm feeling at the time, who I've watched recently enough, etc. 

I'll probably start running through mine later. 

I will be too, I love these posts by Elliott and I will be going through my embarrassing list.

Are you taking influence into account? I see in threads people bring that up all the time, I hadn't thought to consider that, but maybe it's something worth pursuing?

I think influence is a plus but not a main factor for building a case, specially when it comes to a top 50 or 30 position.

Positive influence certainly does. If you were not only great at wrestling, but also elevated the wrestling around you to higher levels, how is that not an aspect of greatness?

52 minutes ago, Kadaveri said:

Positive influence certainly does. If you were not only great at wrestling, but also elevated the wrestling around you to higher levels, how is that not an aspect of greatness?

I just never thought about it before.  

Part of the issue I have is that humans are pattern seekers and we can attribute influence when it's really not there. Like it's easy to see Dynamite Kid influenced Chris Benoit, but if you see someone who works similarly how do you know they watched someone who watched that person or whatever. Could just be that two people developed the same stuff without influence, wrestling can only be done in so many ways.

I read an interesting blog post today from the rock critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, talking about his ballot for the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 albums ever. His position is basically that the critic's role in casting their ballot should be advocacy over accuracy. His #1 was Paul's Boutique, and he left the Beatles and Dylan off his list completely (even though he doesn't dispute their greatness or importance.)

Does anyone think this approach has any merit?

Here's the post, if anyone's interested: https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/rolling-stone-500-greatest-albums?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

19 minutes ago, kid dracula said:

I read an interesting blog post today from the rock critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, talking about his ballot for the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 albums ever. His position is basically that the critic's role in casting their ballot should be advocacy over accuracy. His #1 was Paul's Boutique, and he left the Beatles and Dylan off his list completely (even though he doesn't dispute their greatness or importance.)

Does anyone think this approach has any merit?

Here's the post, if anyone's interested: https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/rolling-stone-500-greatest-albums?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

 

No. I think people should rank what they think is the best in order as that is the whole point. 

23 minutes ago, elliott said:

 

No. I think people should rank what they think is the best in order as that is the whole point. 

It's a fine use for your 100 slot I guess? Though mine will probably be more punitive.

I'm sorry if that came across above as flippant, it wasn't meant to . And I don't want to dismiss the idea of advocacy. But our project is a little different than just some critic making a list and telling everyone what it is. Our project is more about the discussion. So the place for advocacy is in the actual threads. 

I also can't just ignore the fact that this dudes idea of advocacy is leaving off Bob Dylan but ranking 1st an album that sold 10 million copes. Its a bit like leaving Ric Flair off your list because of visibility/reputation/whatever insane reasoning that has nothing to do with greatness and then putting Chris Jericho #1. 

Queing my all women's GWE list in 3.. 2... 1

In that "reacclaiming the canon" is always going to be a concern on such projects, and that much like in GWE his vote was being averaged with many others, it's a novel approach. We already know that Ric Flair and Blonde On Blonde were pretty damn good and important.

2 hours ago, elliott said:

I'm sorry if that came across above as flippant, it wasn't meant to . And I don't want to dismiss the idea of advocacy. But our project is a little different than just some critic making a list and telling everyone what it is. Our project is more about the discussion. So the place for advocacy is in the actual threads. 

I also can't just ignore the fact that this dudes idea of advocacy is leaving off Bob Dylan but ranking 1st an album that sold 10 million copes. Its a bit like leaving Ric Flair off your list because of visibility/reputation/whatever insane reasoning that has nothing to do with greatness and then putting Chris Jericho #1. 

eh, classic-rockism is a real thing that i'd be glad to take down a peg if i get the chance, though i do agree i'd be a bit more on board if he put something like guyville at #1