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[GWE] Do you distinguish "greatest" from personal favorite?


Loss

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I've had this conversation with a few people. Everyone is of course entitled to make their ballot however they want, but I am trying to step outside of myself a little bit and not just list wrestlers in the order that I enjoy watching them. I think greatness encompasses something more than just what I like. If someone is great in the ring, whether I personally enjoy them or not, they should get a spot on my list. How does everyone else feel about this? Can anyone else point to admittedly great wrestlers that they just don't like?

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I try to distinguish a little. I like Hashimoto more than Kobashi, but I'll probably put Kobashi higher on my list. I won't vote for a wrestler I outright dislike watching, however. Toyota is the most obvious example. I know she was remarkable and connected with fans, but she wouldn't make a top 1000 list for me.

 

I think Loss tries harder to be objective than I do. I know Will is more comfortably subjective than either of us.

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Yeah, if I just can't stomach a wrestler, I'm not going to vote for him either. Personal biases are going to be there, and they should be, since it's not like there's a version of this list that can represent the all-knowing truth. It's just important to me to try to be fair, all while knowing it's impossible.

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The corollary here is greatest vs best. Is there a difference between those two words? I'm probably leaning towards no. My favorite wrestler isn't the one I think is the best, necessarily. I have a lot of nostalgia for certain wrestlers (Bret's a good example.). But I will probably go with the best, because otherwise, you're starting to bring in things like drawing and card placement and what not, which aren't part of this aesthetic exercise to me.

 

Rip Rogers is one of my favorite wrestlers. There are qualities he has that appeal to me strongly, and that I consider "great," and maybe those qualities will get him on my list, but I see things that he doesn't do as well as other people, things that I value, even if I might not like some of those other wrestlers as much.

 

I think what I won't do, is give someone a lot of credit for things I don't value. That's another better way to put some of this, I think. And I'm going back to Davey Richards. He does things that pleases his audience. He probably wrestles the right match for the crowd he's in front of. I probably would give him some level of credit for that, but it's sort of a tie-breaker thing. For people who are looking at greatest as something other than "Best by your criteria" how could you discount him or Sabu or RVD or someone who has that level of following and pleases the audience he's in front of? Likewise Hogan, who for much of his career did exactly what he was supposed to make the crowd happy.

 

I guess that's when some of you look at number of what you consider great matches?

 

I'm happier with my approach.

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It depends on how great I think my personal favourite is. I think Steve Grey is the best babyface I've seen and has the best body of work of any of the WoS wrestlers, and besides all that he's a personal favourite. I would gladly place him above any number of all-time greats. Fujiwara and Satanico will go higher than Hansen, for example, because I like them more. Where the issue comes in is at the fringes. I like Mocho Cota more than most wrestlers who have been nominated thus far, but voting for him feels a bit hipster. I'm a bit torn about it though as it pains me to vote for a guy like Kobashi who I just don't care about.

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I will have probably have Jumbo in the top 20 and I'm not really a fan of his at all. He's someone I'd really rather not watch but I can't deny how good he is. Flair is definitely not even close to being one of my favorites but I don't see how he could up outside of my top 15. On the other hand 3 of my absolute favorite guys are Tenryu, Hansen & Funk and I see them all as viable number 1s.

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What does it mean to distinguish between "greatest" and "favorite"? When people talk about "trying to be objective", it worries me that they really mean "slavishly deferring to consensus". I'm not trying to be a dick here, just wondering what criteria people use to determine a favorite vs. someone they consider "great". That distinction depends on having an idea of what constitutes good wrestling separate from what you personally enjoy in wrestling, and if you don't enjoy something, what reason is there to consider it good other than the consensus of others? I just don't see anyone saying "well I don't personally enjoy this wrestler but I'll have them in my list anyway' for anyone that isn't broadly agreed to be great.

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If you can acknowledge that someone is great at a style where that style just isn't your cup of tea personally, you know what I mean. There are plenty of people who have consensus backing where I just don't see anything there. I won't vote for them. I'm referring more to people who you can acknowledge did what they were trying to do well, but you just don't like what they were doing.

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If you can acknowledge that someone is great at a style where that style just isn't your cup of tea personally, you know what I mean. There are plenty of people who have consensus backing where I just don't see anything there. I won't vote for them. I'm referring more to people who you can acknowledge did what they were trying to do well, but you just don't like what they were doing.

 

I think it's difficult, but doable to suspense bias.

 

I do it all the time with music, where I like a lot of bands that are shitty.

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If you can acknowledge that someone is great at a style where that style just isn't your cup of tea personally, you know what I mean. There are plenty of people who have consensus backing where I just don't see anything there. I won't vote for them. I'm referring more to people who you can acknowledge did what they were trying to do well, but you just don't like what they were doing.

 

That makes sense. I guess it's a matter of whether you prioritize the craft or the art of wrestling when making a list. It's possible to appreciate the skilled craftsmanship of a worker that doesn't resonate with you artistically. If you do prioritize craft, though, I think it's incumbent on you to address the aforementioned "Davey Richards Problem". I guess one argument could be that working the best match for a super indy workrate crowd requires a far less skilled craftsman than working the best match for, say, an '80s Mid-South Coliseum crowd.

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It's my personal belief that objectivity has no merit in an artistic medium, because the art is inherently subjective and deserves to be viewed as such. I have no problem with others who view it differently, but when all is said and done I will vote the only way I think has merit for me, based on the subjective approach one must take to the artistic medium of professional wrestling.

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I wouldn't vote for Davey Richards because I don't see anything in Davey Richards. Manami Toyota I would vote for because I do see something there. She has tendencies I don't care for as a worker, but she has crafted too many great matches to ignore in spite of that. I'm not arguing that people should vote for wrestlers they loathe. All I'm saying is that if there is a critically acclaimed wrestler I don't like, I'm going to ask myself if it's just because I don't really care for that wrestler's in-ring style but it's one they were great at doing, or if it's more that I don't think they were good at wrestling at all. Davey Richards falls in the latter category for me. Manami Toyota falls in the former category.

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To me the difference is clear and obvious.

 

Ted DiBiase is my favourite wrestler. He's not my favourite because I think he's the best, I just so happen to really like him.

 

Same with Arn Anderson and quite a few others.

 

Who do I prefer, Ted DiBiase or Tenryu? Ted, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

Who is the better wrestler? Well, "objectively speaking", Tenryu's body of work supersedes Ted's and then some. I'd have a very hard time justifying to myself or anyone else that I or they should be ranking Ted above Tenryu.

 

I don't even *like* Tenryu before about 1988, but even by that time he was part of some of the best matches I've ever seen. So I have to give him his due.

 

Do you understand the distinction?

 

I don't think the words "subjective" and "objective" are very helpful here. I think it's more a case of "can you back the argument up?" What are the REASONS? What is the case?

 

I think that without that demand, the project loses value and meaning. We could all give our top 100 *favourite* wrestlers right now.

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Parv, as someone who has watched all of the 80s All Japan (not just Tenryu), I'll be really interested when you get to the Tenryu vs New Japan feud in 1992-1994. He brought Hara, Ishikawa, Fuyuki and others with him and while those guys had long since departed All Japan, the vibe was still All Japan vs New Japan. Tons of heat and loads of fun. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on all of that.

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Let me repeat this line again. Just in case you missed it the first time around.

 

I don't think the words "subjective" and "objective" are very helpful here. I think it's more a case of "can you back the argument up?" What are the REASONS? What is the case?

 

 

This isn't terribly helpful since you can provide an argument with reasons for just about anything, what with wrestling being fake and all. You could certainly make an argument for DiBiase's career output being better than Tenryu's.

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Let me repeat this line again. Just in case you missed it the first time around.

 

I don't think the words "subjective" and "objective" are very helpful here. I think it's more a case of "can you back the argument up?" What are the REASONS? What is the case?

 

 

This isn't terribly helpful since you can provide an argument with reasons for just about anything, what with wrestling being fake and all. You could certainly make an argument for DiBiase's career output being better than Tenryu's.

 

Making an argument and having anyone believe it are two different things.

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Let me repeat this line again. Just in case you missed it the first time around.

 

I don't think the words "subjective" and "objective" are very helpful here. I think it's more a case of "can you back the argument up?" What are the REASONS? What is the case?

 

 

This isn't terribly helpful since you can provide an argument with reasons for just about anything, what with wrestling being fake and all. You could certainly make an argument for DiBiase's career output being better than Tenryu's.

 

Making an argument and having anyone believe it are two different things.

 

 

Everyone is going to vote for whoever they want in the end. The arguments are going to be there for reasonable people to listen to and and perhaps be influenced by.

 

I think he was trying to point out that if you can make a coherent argument beyond, "X is the tits because YEAH!" for why you would include someone then you're probably not just being a tool.

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