What did you learn about your fandom from GWE?

[WingedEagle]

Outstanding post with many truths and a nod to some of the subjectivity that will (and should) come into play here for everyone. I'm also very much a matches guy and can say with certainty that great matches influenced my ballot more than regular season consistency. There are some exceptions where a name ranked highly without a bulk of MOTYCs (looking at you, Arn & Regal), but they are notable outliers on my list.

[ohtani's jacket]

i keeping getting The Brains' Money Changes Everything stuck in my head when Parties compares the list to '06. Except it's more like Footage Changes Everything.

[NotJayTabb]

I think the main thing I've discovered from the project is simply how much I enjoy wrestling. At no point in the process has this felt like a chore to me, and having a good reason to sit down and evaluate guys I'd maybe not have gotten round to watching has made this so much fun. Discovering guys like Breaks, Ogawa and La Fiera, guys who I'm going to continue watching for my own enjoyment long after the full list is published, has made this project so worthwhile. I've mentioned in the past that back in 2010 my interest in wrestling was starting to wain, and that I'd started blogging to see if I could still be bothered with wrestling. Well, if that was like kindling keeping the fire alive, the GWE has been like adding a load of logs to the flame to keep it burning longer.

 

The other thing I've learned is how much more comfortable I am with my opinions than I used to be. My other peak time as a fan before now was in 2003/2004 just after I left university and had more disposable income to spend on wrestling tapes (and could justify spending £10 a tape on CZW shows), and had just started posting on the old Smart Marks forum. At that time, I wrote my first ever review of a show, a WWF CHV of Battle Royal at the Albert Hall. I watched that tape recently as part of GWE for the Flair/Santana & Barbarian/Davey Boy matches, and decided to look up my old review from the boneyards of the TSM forum. It was ghastly. Aside from being a block of boring play-by-play, there was no attempt to analyze the show or give opinions on the matches, it was just some Scott Keith level jokes about Earthquake being fat, Barbarian being a jobber and the Nasty Boys being rubbish. It was like I'd gone in there with this pre-conceived notion that "these are the guys I'm supposed to hate" and decided to try and appeal to other people, especially as I know I was always an Earthquake fan. I hated reading it. I know during the process I've taken some light-hearted stick from JvK about having the likes of Tom Zenk or Barbarian on my ballot, but I'm pleased that I'm comfortable enough as a fan to embrace these choices rather than lie to submit a more "acceptable" list.

[GOTNW]

I learned to trust my gut instinct and I've found it to be by far the best thing to go by. Rationalizing it has been incredibly gratifying.

[Death From Above]

I think the main thing I've been reminded of is something I have commented on to a couple people on twitter and it bears repeating here.

 

This project has reminded me that I feel genuinely sorry for people that simply dismiss professional wrestling out of hand, people who will never understand the incredible depth and variety of styles and ideas it represents. Pro wrestling really does have something for everybody.

[The Chief]

I learned that I really, really like Memphis wrestling. Im 33 so when I was a kid in NY, liking Memphis was the least coolest thing ever. That was the shitty wrestling that didn't get color page coverage in PWI. ECW was something you liked if you wanted to sound cool but not too mainstream. 5 years ago before I joined PWO I would have never ranked Lawler in my top 5 or Hickerson or Dirty White Boy, period. I wanna thank all you guys for organizing this and breaking down my viewing barriers.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I learned to trust my gut instinct and I've found it to be by far the best thing to go by. Rationalizing it has been incredibly gratifying.

You really are a Bond villian. 😆

[dkookypunk43]

I learned to trust my gut instinct and I've found it to be by far the best thing to go by. Rationalizing it has been incredibly gratifying.

I agree with this setiment a lot. The last 4-5 months have been about these four questions:

1) How does wrestler A compare to wrestler B in terms of consistency, match quality, amount of matches, and skill?

2) What do different variables mean towards what you enjoy overall?

3) Am I getting the full picture by watching only select matches?

4) What eras have I missed in my Fandom and trying to fill those gaps?

[JerryvonKramer]

I had a dream last night that I was talking to Will on Skype and was telling him how I thought that GWE was a really terrible and distorting prism through which to watch wrestling, and how I'm really relieved that we are almost done with it.

 

Then I woke up and thought "fuck me, I've spent too much time on the board recently". And then I immediately checked the board on my iPad. FML. Back to work tomorrow.

[Exposer]

I've learned that I have a lot more wrestling to watch.

 

I've learned that I love ranking wrestler's & comparing wrestlers more than ranking or comparing matches. Although, I'd rather not do both for a really long time.

 

I've learned that some people look at wrestling much differently than I do & vice versa.

 

I've learned that it's pretty awesome to be a part of such a process like this one.

[WingedEagle]

Glad this was bumped as I wanted to add a few things here. More to come when I stop watching this CHIKARA tag, have dinner & a drink and then catch Spurs/Thunder on tape. Long night ahead!

[Eegah]

I learned that there is so much pro wrestling to consume so Im excited to watch more. The two biggest vacancies on my list were World of Sport and Shoot Style. Both of these offer at their core things I value highly in pro wrestling so Im excited to consume as much as I can. The next journey has already started and Im excited to see what comes of that. This past week we watched Steve Grey matches for our little pro wrestling blog and it really got me excited. There is so much pro wrestling of varying styles that I feel extremely happy that it is in my life.

[Jimmy Redman]

Now that we're done and I'm done talking about GWE on the podcast, one thing that is abundantly clear to me is that for so many guys I can't properly articulate what I think their "case" is. In the sense that I feel like I listen to other people and they can lay out a scholarly, sober argument, based on lists of matches, longevity and consistency, and a list of tools and attributes. Whereas when it came to most guys on my list, what came to mind was something along the lines of "Remember that one thing he did in that random match? That was awesome! So you know...things like that."

 

How much of that is issues with speaking aloud, and how much of that is issues with how much I've watched of certain wrestlers I don't know. But even with Shawn Michaels, no matter how much I rambled on the board and on the pod, a coherent, "case" based case never came. All I can do is point to all the matches, point to all of the things I see, point to all of the things I think and feel when I watch him.

 

But in the end, I am totally fine with this. For all of the attempts to make this an intellectual exercise, to subject wrestlers to rigorous scrutiny and to rank them objectively, and believe me I love this board for it's high level of debate, and I love a good list as much as anyone...but at the end of the day that's not what wrestling is to me at all.

 

Wrestling is fun. It's entertainment, pure and unfettered. Sometimes it's enjoyable, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's interesting. but it always makes me feel something. Make me think something. It is personal, and it is visceral, and it is instinctual. And sometimes it can't be explained. Sometimes it just has to be experienced. To be enjoyed, to be felt.

 

Matt and I had trouble recording the second episode of Parejas Increibles. On the first attempt that never saw the light of day we spoke a little about our paths to online fandom. What I didn't mention to him, but thought a lot about afterwards when trying to improve my answer, was the kind of fan I was. I was a big contributor to a UK-based board called Talk Wrestling Online (name has since changed to Talk Whatever Online), and I had a reputation there of being quite a ridiculously happy WWE fan. And I was. Not in the sense of agreeing with the company or the booking per se, but just in sheer enjoyment of the shows. I'd watch the TV every week and write pages and pages on why every segment was awesome and every match was awesome and I loved everything so much. If you read my reviews you'd think Smackdown was the greatest show in the history of the earth. I wasn't kidding when I said I couldn't find anything I'd written on a Kofi Kingston match that wasn't me screaming incoherently about how awesome he was.

 

I was like the Johnny Sorrow of my world, except where Johnny makes a one-line run in on every show thread to say it was a fucking blast and leaves, I take about 3,000 words to explain why every single minute was a fucking blast. It was the most long-winded marking out in history.

 

I don't often post like that anymore. Sometimes it peeks through when I start using caps and swearing about how awesome NXT or whatever is, but this board is a lot more serious and I speak a lot more soberly here. And after I lost interest in wrestling itself, I am now a lot more dispassionate about wrestling than I used to be when I marked out every week. But at heart, that's who I am as a fan. That's who I always was as a fan, and even now when something really gets me, I still react in the same way.

 

To bring this around to GWE, it explains why a lot of "my" guys kept crawling further up my list. And this includes a lot of obvious WWE guys like Kofi, Trish, Sheamus, Taker, Cena, etc. but also a lot of different guys and newer discoveries like Rollerball Rocco, Breaks, Pat Roach, Stan, Kawada, Ogawa, Fuerza...it's not just about WWE because those kinds of guys give me that feeling just the same. But it's that feeling that gets me, that personal, inexplicable feeling of joy, of excitement, of fascination.

 

And when I was making my list, trying to place guys in order, it was those moments that got stuck in my mind. Any time Taker looked too high I'd think about how I felt watching the Wrestlemania matches. When I looked at the Harts, I'd think about how excited I was to get into Owen recently, and how I have literally never felt that from Bret, and Bret ended up 20 odd spots lower than him. When I thought about Big Show or Sheamus, I thought about the fact that I've never had as much fun as I did when I was reviewing their HIAC match. When I thought about my #100 spot, I thought about all of the times I'd lost my shit marking out for Kofi Kingston, how he always made me feel, how I coined the term "Greatest Man in the Entire World" as a regular catchphrase for my reviews because of him.

 

That kind of thing goes so much further with me than someone who might have a longer list of good matches if I wrote them out, or a better list of attributes on paper. I get why people look at things that way, why they want to be objective or fair or dispassionate. I admire the ambition, but to me the idea is bullshit, I accept that objectivity is a myth and embrace the passion, embrace the feeling. I can't un-feel the things I feel, and I can't un-think the things I think, and conversely I can't pretend to see things I simply don't.

 

And it's not about feelings winning out over the evidence or matches or a body of work. To me it's all the same thing, the feeling is IN the body of work. Ted has a lot of good matches, but so does Kofi Kingston, and one loses out to the other because only Kofi's list of matches makes my dick twitch.

 

So I guess my point is that I'm happy with my ballot, my "journey", my podcast cases, and how it all reflects me as a wrestling fan. It reflects what I think wrestling is and how I interact with it. Which is all one can hope for really.

[El-P]

That Grim is a very patient man. Thanks for the hard work !

[funkdoc]

Stacey, i think you didn't really need to make that kind of case for HBK because he's not the hardest figure to grasp. he's a walking referendum on melodrama & drawn-out theatrics & convincing offense - it's easy to see how he could be #1 for someone who marks out over #1 & 2 and doesn't care about #3.

 

basically you did fine and should stay in the podcast game

 

also thanks to Steven & Dylan & co. even if i didn't participate, i've loved following the years of discussion this project spawned!

[InYourCase]

I learned that goc and I don't agree on anything.

 

And that I value being the best you you can be more than almost anything. If you fill your role nicely, that goes a long way with me. Hansen to Rey to Spike Dudley - they are all great versions of themselves. There's probably a better way to phrase that and I just can't think of how to do it.

[dkookypunk43]

I'm going back and looking at the nomination threads and the podcasts and I feel that already I'm viewing things a bit differently.

 

I was recently on an upcoming release for a podcast called Is It Five Stars and the host Rob had me look at three 80s matches and I even learned as I watched each of the matches

 

I think my list was more subjective on where everyone else ranked the wrestlers rather than my own opinions for the most part and I regret that. I feel that I'm trying to fill so many gaps in a short time the two gaps that are still gaping holes are Joshi and WOS.

 

Overall I enjoyed the discussion this created and has opened my eyes to things I would have never seen or heard of.

[kewf1988]

Probably quite a bit, but a few things stand out.

 

1) Action: I like my wrestling to have lots of activity. My favorite wrestling has always been late 80s/90s All Japan. If I were to list my all time favorite matches (coming soon - maybe), this era would produce more than that of any other promotion. But that doesn't mean its the only way to provide bell to bell action. I'll watch Ric Flair or Dick Murdoch work a headlock for minutes on end, as long as they're active. Wrench the hold, grind a forearm, tap a foot to keep the blood flowing. Do something that holds my attention and forces me to engage and take note of the activity. A hammerlock can be problematic to some, but I'll happily watch it the proponent is throwing knees at the arm or back, angling for position and the recipient comes up selling the arm as a reward for my investment.

 

On the other hand, just because its a headlock, wristlock, hammerock, scorpion or some other hold applied for a stretch does not on the surface make it acceptable. If this kind of matwork reaches a stalemate where there's not any effort to secure, break or improve a hold (yes, all eyes on you New Japan) then my attention will be lost. The one big outlier her is lucha. Big fan of the bloody brawls and there are notable exceptions to this next statement, but a lot of the highly touted mat workers don't measure up very well for me. There is no doubt that they pull off creative and intricate matwork that is not at all laying around filling up the tank, but its a bit too cirque du soleil for me. Just takes cooperative to a new level. But what about juniors lying around waiting to take a big move off the top, you ask? Yeah, that works. I can buy that the accumulation of damage leaves someone in position to take a big move without defending themselves. But a lot of lucha leaves me asking why a wrestler lets his opponent get away with as much as he does on the mat.

 

More to come!

This.

 

I wasn't around to make a list (most of what I know is the US scene but that's in progress), but making one in my head, the people at the top would be those who have a lot of action in their matches, and also make me care about the result of their matches. That would be the likes of Benoit, Eddie, Rey, Angle, HBK, Cena, Christian, Jericho, Bryan, Punk, AJ, Joe, Daniels, Aries, MCMG, the Hardys, Roode, James Storm, Cesaro, Zayn, Owens, Bret, Flair, Steamboat, Hennig, Savage, Rude, Regal, Vader, Taker, Foley, Terry Funk, and Austin (I'd have a few females ranked high as well like Trish, Gail, Kong, Mickie, Sasha, Charlotte, Bayley, and Becky). There are plenty who are very technically sound, yet lack the ability to get me emotionally invested in their matches (Del Rio, Orton, Sheamus, etc. and a lot of the FCW prospects that were called up a few years ago), and most power wrestlers throughout the years have been content with just throwing people around and looking big (Khali, Kurrgan, Giant Gonzalez, Giant Silva, Harris Brothers, Van Hammer, The Wall, Tugboat, Dave Sullivan, Heidenreich, Snitsky, Mason Ryan, Nathan Jones, Rob Terry, etc.) because they can get away with that and get big pushes in a major promotion moreso than somebody who does high spots without telling a story (that's why high flyers who make it onto TV tend to be actually good most of the time).

 

High flying, technical wrestling (with in-ring charisma like Benoit and Bret or more all around charisma like Eddie and Flair), and good hardcore brawlers (like Foley) provide that action, and so do very good power wrestlers like Vader (great athleticism for his size yet still wrestles like a big guy should, great storyteller, and his offense looks like it hurts because he's very stiff in the ring). Top 100 workers should make you remember their best stuff and not forget it shortly after.

[Matt D]

Hey, you know what? We should make another (different) list, guys. Has one year been long enough to recover from the trauma? Think of all we learned!

[GOTNW]

Hey, you know what? We should make another (different) list, guys. Has one year been long enough to recover from the trauma? Think of all we learned!

"It's a stupid list about fake fighting, treat it like a fun project and a chance to learn about wrestling you don't know and not a competition in being a mark"

[Microstatistics]

Hey, you know what? We should make another (different) list, guys. Has one year been long enough to recover from the trauma? Think of all we learned!

 

The last point is key. A part of me wishes we could do GWE (or something similar or even different) again. I am much better prepared to make a list like that now than I was in 2015/16. Looking back, excluding the Top 7 or so, I don't like the ballot I had submitted at all. In hindsight, say what you will about the process, the final list and people's reactions, I found it to be very informative and it certainly expanded my knowledge of pro wrestling.

[Grimmas]

 

Hey, you know what? We should make another (different) list, guys. Has one year been long enough to recover from the trauma? Think of all we learned!

 

The last point is key. A part of me wishes we could do GWE (or something similar or even different) again. I am much better prepared to make a list like that now than I was in 2015/16. Looking back, excluding the Top 7 or so, I don't like the ballot I had submitted at all. In hindsight, say what you will about the process, the final list and people's reactions, I found it to be very informative and it certainly expanded my knowledge of pro wrestling.

 

You warmed my heart, thank you!

[Loss]

I almost broke my personal no GIF policy to post the one of Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes here.

[Matt D]

You can't handle my "Best Hot Tag" poll.

[elliott]

Matt, who was the best at working on the apron before the hot tag? Isn't that the real question.