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[GWE] Intrinsic values for GWE candidates


JerryvonKramer

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For example, I've rated Flair, Steamboat, Brisco, Race and Martel at 20 for selling which is saying that there are no better sellers than those in wrestling history. Agree? Yes? No?

 

 

I don't see how Brisco, Race or Martel are better than say Ricky Morton, Rey Mysterio or Mayumi Ozaki using your criteria for selling.

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For example, I've rated Flair, Steamboat, Brisco, Race and Martel at 20 for selling which is saying that there are no better sellers than those in wrestling history. Agree? Yes? No?

 

 

I don't see how Brisco, Race or Martel are better than say Ricky Morton, Rey Mysterio or Mayumi Ozaki using your criteria for selling.

 

I guess the "out" is that you could also rate all of them at 20. I don't think the idea is that they are the best ever and no one is AS GOOD, just that no one is better. I'm not sure how much I believe in this idea though because someone is always going to come along and argue the numbers. I'm sure that numbers on someone like Lawler would be highly contentious.

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OJ - I might have overrated Race, but I think Martel is a 20 for selling, especially when he's stuck in a hold. I am very high on Martel.

 

Might go back and slightly alter some of the ones I've done, because there are one or two too many 20s. However, people should remember that these are some of the best workers of all time, so ratings are going to be quite high.

 

EDIT: Brisco and Race altered slightly. Brisco now has a 1 for bleeding based on NL's info.

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Okay, time out. Did nobody else notice the bit about the intent of the thread partially being to start arguments about the numbers given? Because to me that was one of those "red flags" that might serve as a warning.

I don't think there is some sinister motive to troll people, swap the word arguments with discussion and it'd essentially mean the same thing.

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The idea was that people could make their own.

 

Also, people don't get up in arms about debating star ratings for matches, why is this so different? This thread is partly about challenging the dominant paradigm that "the match" is the only unit of analysis when judging wrestlers.

 

I also think that these are categories that people do look at when thinking about what makes a great, even if they don't attach numerical ratings.

 

There is ONE category I might have overlooked: character work. This might be covered by "expressiveness", but it is something we talk about a lot ... the Mocha Cota thread reminded me.

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In the interest of discussion, I have a few questions.

 

In matches with juniors/cruiserweights it becomes essential for somebody to be a base, even if that responsibility switches off at times. And there are big men who are great bases for smaller guys to fly around as well as big men who just don't get how. Where do the numbers account for this?

 

And something that factors into every match I've ever seen is adaptability. How do the wrestlers react to botches or unexpected crowd reactions? Can they get the crowd into the match when their usual tricks don't work? These are very important questions and don't seem to be covered in the numbers.

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There's no better sellers in history? There's five of them. You're telling me they're all not only perfect, but identically perfect, to the point that you can effectively summarize all five of them with the same single number?

I'm saying they are about on par. 20 doesn't mean "perfect", it means "best in the world".

 

I've been playing Football Manager since 1995 so maybe this makes more sense to me than some, or people are being deliberately obtuse. Either way, 20 more soon.

 

Okay, so they are identically "best in the world", to the point that you can effectively summarize all five of them with the same single number?

 

This makes perfect sense in the context of a game, where you need numbers to crunch in order to make things happen, but this is real life, and we're not robots. Honestly, I do find the idea of a tool like this for aggregating analysis about wrestlers and comparing them against each other interesting and potentially useful for a project such as this one. But I have no use for star ratings, and even less use for the numerical ratings here. It has to be backed by something more.

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14 more:

 

baba.png

backlund.png

bock.png

bruno.png

eaton.png

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EDIT: SSL - there's no getting around the fact that there are limits to what numerical ratings can give you, but it is also the most efficient way of short-hand comparison. The things that are "behind" anything that we do in GWE are the many many reviews from hours of footage we've watched in Microscope, Yearbooks and 80s projects. But it's also time-consuming to read 10,000s of words written by any of us.

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I'd also probably go much higher for high flying with Bobby Eaton. Being the best high flyer of the decade in your country should probably count for quite a bit. I saw that he was a 20 in stamina, but I think he was far more a great aerial wrestler than he was a great marathon wrestler.

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I like the pictures, but the numbers are way too arbitrary. Baba gets a 20 for matwork? Bret is an 8 for brawling? I don't get a lot of the stiffness rankings either. Why is Eaton so low for stiffness? I think it would be better if people were about to vote themselves instead of just being presented a bunch of numbers. The numbers as presented don't really make me want to argue the point. They just confuse or surprise me.

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I like the pictures, but the numbers are way too arbitrary. Baba gets a 20 for matwork? Bret is an 8 for brawling? I don't get a lot of the stiffness rankings either. Why is Eaton so low for stiffness? I think it would be better if people were about to vote themselves instead of just being presented a bunch of numbers. The numbers as presented don't really make me want to argue the point. They just confuse or surprise me.

I actually like this idea quite a lot, but I'm not sure what form a vote (or panel of voters) would take.

 

I have the template now and wouldn't mind re-making each profile with considered "community ratings" rather than those I came up with myself in 2 seconds, but I don't know how to bring about said ratings.

 

I mean I do have some reasons for some of the questions people have asked me (i.e. on Eaton's high-flying and stiffness, or on Bock's fire), but in a sense I'd prefer somehow for those inclined to provide or contribute to providing their own ratings. And if no one is inclined, so be it.

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SSL - there's no getting around the fact that there are limits to what numerical ratings can give you, but it is also the most efficient way of short-hand comparison. The things that are "behind" anything that we do in GWE are the many many reviews from hours of footage we've watched in Microscope, Yearbooks and 80s projects. But it's also time-consuming to read 10,000s of words written by any of us.

Efficient, sure, but are they effective? And are there no options beyond a single number and the entire body of written work that exists on a given wrestler?

 

Something along the lines of a Gordy List, perhaps?

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How would a Gordy List for this work? What would the questions be?

 

Is he good at selling?

 

Yes / No?

 

Sliding scale from very bad to very good?

 

You tell me.

This would probably merit a separate thread. If there's interest, I'll start one.

 

My point here is more that a tool like this would need to strike a balance between being informative but too overwhelming (trawling the Microscope, Yearbook, 80's Project threads, etc.), and being succinct but lacking information (numerical rating, yes/no, sliding scale). The amount of information that gets boiled down in your average well-written Gordy List seems about right to me.

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A Gordy list would go like: was he the best/a top seller in the world/country/promotion. How long was he the best/a top seller in the world/country/promotion. Was he the best/a top seller in his weight class. Did he have a number of memorable performances selling? Did he sell effectively to put over angles? Was he a good seller before his prime/after his prime? Was he a top seller in a tag team setting. Was his selling influential/innovative? Etc etc. It isn't perfect but the idea of the Gordy list is to give a big picture look. You would have to do one for each category. Whiich would be tedious to say the least :)

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I think there is a lot of merit to a tool like this when it comes to finding a snapshot of how you particularly rank a GWE candidate. Yes, there is additional nuance when it comes to ranking wrestlers against each other in the end, but this, at the very minimum, gives you a nice outline of how your tiers would look.

 

I don't understand the posts challenging certain ratings for different wrestlers. The point was to talk about the thought process and the hurdles or gaps one may find when using this methodology, not how Parv ranks two guys' psychology. Opinions, ya know?

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You should do a 4th category called career trajectory with the following categories...

 

Peak

Longevity

Consistency

Importance to promotion

Charisma

 

i think all of these are just as important to the topic as the things you listed. Hell, peak vs. longevity has dominated the discussion on this board for awhile. Take somebody like Inoki. If you watched his top 15 matches the way you watched Brisco, you might have him in the high teens in every category. Once you throw consistency in there, then you have to reassess the entire thing because he may be the most inconsistent performer in history. I included charisma because it is an intangible that may help you enjoy matches more when you have somebody like Jimmy Valiant who is technically a bad wrestler but is somebody who I am heavily invested in. Then you get Ricky Flair who is charismatic AND is a great wrestler. I thee in Importance to promotion because of the big debate in big matches and opportunities to have big epic matches vs. 10 minute TV matches like Regal. These things matter to people.

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I saw "Base Talent" as being a s

You should do a 4th category called career trajectory with the following categories...

 

Peak

Longevity

Consistency

Importance to promotion

Charisma

 

i think all of these are just as important to the topic as the things you listed. Hell, peak vs. longevity has dominated the discussion on this board for awhile. Take somebody like Inoki. If you watched his top 15 matches the way you watched Brisco, you might have him in the high teens in every category. Once you throw consistency in there, then you have to reassess the entire thing because he may be the most inconsistent performer in history. I included charisma because it is an intangible that may help you enjoy matches more when you have somebody like Jimmy Valiant who is technically a bad wrestler but is somebody who I am heavily invested in. Then you get Ricky Flair who is charismatic AND is a great wrestler. I thee in Importance to promotion because of the big debate in big matches and opportunities to have big epic matches vs. 10 minute TV matches like Regal. These things matter to people.

Yes, the idea of "base talent" was that it was the raw materials of what makes a worker.

 

The things you are talking about are output, which in my way of thinking are either "hidden stats" which can't be quantified (consistency, adaptability, etc.) or else actual matches. Or else they are intangibles. "Importance to the promotion" is after the fact and again getting away from the raw materials I was trying to capture. Not saying those things aren't important, of course they are, but we always talk about them.

 

We typically use the match as the standard unit of analysis, and think about careers in terms of matches where they put everything together. In this thread, I wanted to see if there was any value in discussing what workers are good at, rather than in terms of their career highlights.

 

Why? Because I've always maintained that if you take a worker like Ted DiBiase (just an example) he's better across the board than a guy like Big Bossman -- even if Bossman was having better matches in WWF. Ted's "base talent" stats are just better. And I think that should count for something.

 

However, everyone shit on this thread, so there's no point continuing that discussion.

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Again, it seems like an overly elaborate way of approaching a simple problem, Parv. DiBiase in the WWF wasn't supposed to come across as a great wrestler. I'd guess that most who have seen any of his pre-WWF work would agree he's very good at least and worthy of a top 100 pick. But once he gets the "Million Dollar Man" gimmick, essentially a spoiled brat rich kid but all grown up, DiBiase had to wrestle his matches a little differently. If he goes out and has great matches consistently and drags rookies and stiffs to career heights how does that play into his gimmick? There are times when it made for great vignettes and character work, but it put a lot of limitations on what DiBiase was going to be able to do in the ring. Otherwise he'd have been doing a long-term J.J. Dillon or Scotty Flamingo.

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