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While I'm still uncertain if I'm going to be joining in with a list, due to a multitude of real life issues that have kept me from doing the research needed, I wanted to comment here because I honestly do not understand the mentality that 'all that matters is in-ring'. Promos are such an integral part of professional wrestling that to act as if the 'Greatest Wrestler Ever' could be a mute is the same as saying that the greatest peanut butter and jelly sandwich of all time could lack jelly.

 

If it was a legitimate athletic contest, I could see this point of view, but it's not, it's entertainment, it's spectacle, and being able to have a crowd in the palm of your hand with your words is just as important as being able to do it with your actions. For myself, I simply cannot divorce the two halves from the whole, and, like I've said, I don't understand anyone that can. It's like sex without foreplay.

 

No offense, I just don't understand it at all, and, honestly, I'm not sure it could even be explained to me, it's a completely foreign concept. I think it also goes back to what I want from my professional wrestling, which is pageantry and spectacle, stories and great matches.

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While I'm still uncertain if I'm going to be joining in with a list, due to a multitude of real life issues that have kept me from doing the research needed, I wanted to comment here because I honestly do not understand the mentality that 'all that matters is in-ring'. Promos are such an integral part of professional wrestling that to act as if the 'Greatest Wrestler Ever' could be a mute is the same as saying that the greatest peanut butter and jelly sandwich of all time could lack jelly.

 

If it was a legitimate athletic contest, I could see this point of view, but it's not, it's entertainment, it's spectacle, and being able to have a crowd in the palm of your hand with your words is just as important as being able to do it with your actions. For myself, I simply cannot divorce the two halves from the whole, and, like I've said, I don't understand anyone that can. It's like sex without foreplay.

 

No offense, I just don't understand it at all, and, honestly, I'm not sure it could even be explained to me, it's a completely foreign concept. I think it also goes back to what I want from my professional wrestling, which is pageantry and spectacle, stories and great matches.

So... anybody who doesn't speak English is just completely handicapped? There is no way Jumbo or Liger or Kawada could be anywhere near the top 50. Nor could Negro Casas, El Hijo del Santo or Satanico.

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While I'm still uncertain if I'm going to be joining in with a list, due to a multitude of real life issues that have kept me from doing the research needed, I wanted to comment here because I honestly do not understand the mentality that 'all that matters is in-ring'. Promos are such an integral part of professional wrestling that to act as if the 'Greatest Wrestler Ever' could be a mute is the same as saying that the greatest peanut butter and jelly sandwich of all time could lack jelly.

 

If it was a legitimate athletic contest, I could see this point of view, but it's not, it's entertainment, it's spectacle, and being able to have a crowd in the palm of your hand with your words is just as important as being able to do it with your actions. For myself, I simply cannot divorce the two halves from the whole, and, like I've said, I don't understand anyone that can. It's like sex without foreplay.

 

No offense, I just don't understand it at all, and, honestly, I'm not sure it could even be explained to me, it's a completely foreign concept. I think it also goes back to what I want from my professional wrestling, which is pageantry and spectacle, stories and great matches.

So... anybody who doesn't speak English is just completely handicapped? There is no way Jumbo or Liger or Kawada could be anywhere near the top 50. Nor could Negro Casas, El Hijo del Santo or Satanico.

 

 

That statement can just as easily be flipped the other way. Why should American workers, particularly WWF/E workers, have practically half of their work disregarded simply because Japan and Mexico don't tend to have as many promos? Are any of those names incapable of cutting a promo, or is it simply the fact that you don't understand them (and I don't either, for that matter)? Do you believe it's impossible, without knowing the language, to put in the work to see how the audiences reacted to any promos these guys did cut? Can you not judge, from the reaction of the crowds, possibly from reviews by native speakers, how these workers were perceived as interviews?

 

At the end of the day, each of the styles has it's strengths and weaknesses, and, while trying to find a 'fair' or 'equal' way to judge them may seem to a laudable goal to some, I don't really see it that way. Is it really 'fair' to focus on in-ring wrestling action when that is more heavily emphasized in Japan than in the US or Mexico? If you prize longevity of careers, would that not tend to favor lucha, with it's 'safer' style? Each wrestler should be judged on their merits and abilities within the style they worked, which, yes, makes comparisons across styles difficult, but not impossible.

 

I understand that many of you would like this list, and the process, to be as clinical as possible, but, without bringing back the 'wrestling as art' debate, which I know has been done again and again on this board, I honestly don't view that to be a 'good' thing. Sure, you can take the emotion out of it and judge it by clinical standards all you want, but I feel like you're losing the entire point of wrestling at that point.

 

Simply put, if you can't convey the emotion that is inherent in GREAT wrestling, both in your actions and in your words, then, in my opinion, you cannot be the 'GREATEST WRESTLER EVER'. Those workers are not handicapped, we simply need to put in the extra work needed to view them fairly.

 

Yeah, it's not so much to be dismissive of the value and importance of promos as it is trying to find a baseline that works for every wrestler in the history of the world.

 

i disagree with the argument that promos shouldn't be part of that baseline, and assert that, by removing promo ability from the equation, you are unfairly handicapping workers who spent the majority of their careers in promo heavy American promotions. In fact, by doing so, you're leaning the other way, giving unfair advantage to more in-ring intensive styles.

 

Like I said before, I just can't divorce the two, personally. Professional Wrestling is not just what happens bell to bell, in the ring. It's the storytelling that leads up to that, the ability to convey the emotion, to sell the struggle, to reach out to the fans. In some countries and styles that is done verbally, in others, it is through body language and actions, but both are equally important in terms of being a 'GREAT' wrestler. A wrestler can be technically perfect in the ring, but if he can't make you care, then he doesn't belong on a list.

 

I really enjoy these kinds of discussions, and I don't want anyone to think I'm belittling their position or anything. I respect where you guys are coming from, it's just a position I honestly just don't 'get'.

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I'm not counting in promos because that would make my list even more of a clusterfuck (and wouldn't change that much since I just don't like most american wrestling that much) but if I did I wouldn't look into words as much as I would the ability to communicate through body language. I speak almost no spanish but Satanico cutting a promo on Sangre Chicana after the title match that recently popped up is probably my favourite promo ever. He didn't say anything profound in it, "I'm a real wrestler, he's just a beast" is such a basic pro wrestling statement but the extend to which he made it work is unreal. Negro Casas yelling at Rush not to get too cocky just because he's young was amazing as well.

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Do you expect to vote for Dusty, Kris? To me, he's the classic case where I'd feel compelled to include him if I was weighing promo ability and star power. But no way he makes it with my ballot focused on in-ring.

Something like this always struck me as odd, because again, if the list was 100 greatest in-ring workers of all time, then fine I could totally see Dusty being off. But the idea that Dusty Rhodes in his entirety isn't one of the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time sounds bonkers. (And who knows, he might not be) Is Roderick Strong better at all the things pro-wrestling encompasses than Dusty Rhodes was? The entirety of the package does matter in some ways. It makes what were already murky, difficult lists, that much more difficult I know, but again pro-wrestling is spectacle and pomp and circumstance. Be honest with yourselves and ask yourself how a Savage or Austin realistically do on a list like this if you aren't factoring in promo's and extra stuff.

 

Even the in-ring work that we value so much, is enhanced by the total package. Nobody's top 10, 20, 25 matches are heatless affairs. The extra curricular doesn't summarily dismiss entire regions the way it's being made out to be either. Santo was a movie star. Luchadors cut promos all the time. Japanese wrestlers frequented the variety show circuit all the time. Jumbo's playing freaking super mario brothers in his thread. All that stuff matters, and helps their particular audiences form connections with them. The post match faux news conferences Japanese wrestlers have after title matches might mean diddly to us, but it doesn't mean they mean nothing as a whole.

 

What factoring in some larger scale, or seemingly ancillary criteria does, isn't so much make the list "unfair." It just makes it . . . hard. Inexact, surely, but this already was. If this was easy however all our lists would be done, and we'd have nothing to talk about. To wipe away xy and z criteria, I'm not entirely sure is being done as a service to the workers, as it is a, I don't want to say crutch, but an ease of use, quality of life tool for us the list makers.

 

I don't even think this necessarily changes the top 10, 20, 25 of most people's lists, because the idea that those workers weren't already getting graded as total packages is a farce. How could you not. Do I *know* for a fact Kenta Kobashi was some killer promo in his day? Not the faintest clue. But I know he was doing *something* to garner those kinds of reactions from the audience. If it was ALL ring work, which sounds unlikely, but possible, then more power to him, doesn't take away from his standing on the list as that's the most important criteria, but if it wasn't, thats ok too and I wouldn't dock him down any because the proof is right there.

 

I say all that to say this. I think everyone on the board is using matches (not necessarily great ones, and therein lies more murk) and ring work as the definitive tool of discernment. I think ring work and matches are a tool, big tool, probably biggest tool, in pro wrestlings overarching major goal, of getting us the audience to care about characters and stories. They're not mutually exclusive nor independent variables. If the project is left purposely vague by just being the 100 greatest wrestlers period, full stop, then all this needs to be taken into consideration.

 

....and Flair's probably the clear cut number 1.

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I do see where people are coming from with the objections. When I've defended Dibiase's WWF run before I've done it on grounds of him being involved in a lot of memorable stuff, even if he didn't have that many good matches after Savage.

 

I've argued that wrestling is about a lot more than just the matches, and that in the "grammar" of pro wrestling, feuds, angles, skits, and promos are as important as the match.

 

And if we were running a poll that factored in the total package, a guy like Ted would rocket up my list because of the sheer amount of awesome angles he was a part of (piledriven by Freebirds, JYD feud, Mr R feud, Duggan feud, Flair / Mudoch angle, Evil twin refs, basketball skit, having the million dollar belt made, Jake feud, Virgil feud, etc. etc.). If you factor it all in, there's a huge amount of awesome non-match material there and for me that would curb stomp many "work only" types, which includes most non-US guys.

 

But the criteria was very clear from the start that this wouldn't be a list along those lines. And as Matt D says, it's too late to change the parameters now.

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I think that's fair, especially at this point, a year plus into the project. My list would've been like 90% in-ring as well, with maybe 10 or so personal faves, or workers I "couldn't see not making the list" that would require some gerrymandering.

But I think it's good this thread exists and the questions have been asked. I like that Parv has a BIGLAV and other people have something similar. The universal criterion would be nice, but perhaps a pipe dream

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One thing I will say is that Dylan and to an extent ded are right that the non-match stuff totally affects how we view guys.

 

I'd be interested to know if the guys who are huge on Lawler would be as huge on him if the matches were exactly the same except 1) Lawler didn't talk and 2) Memphis TV was more like AWA TV where there was about one angle a year.

 

How much can you separate the Memphis love from a love of the tv? I think that's a valid question.

 

Edit: Will, for example, was never a fan of the late 80s / early 90s WWF TV, which I remain very fond of as my "first love". He thought it was cartoony and silly. He loves Memphis TV, on the other hand. I'm sure you'll see aspects of that preference for one TV show over the other in his list.

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I don't even think this necessarily changes the top 10, 20, 25 of most people's lists, because the idea that those workers weren't already getting graded as total packages is a farce. How could you not. Do I *know* for a fact Kenta Kobashi was some killer promo in his day? Not the faintest clue. But I know he was doing *something* to garner those kinds of reactions from the audience. If it was ALL ring work, which sounds unlikely, but possible, then more power to him, doesn't take away from his standing on the list as that's the most important criteria, but if it wasn't, thats ok too and I wouldn't dock him down any because the proof is right there.

I'll repeat my point-Kobashi was a terrible promo but he had amazing body language. Worked out just fine.

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I don't even think this necessarily changes the top 10, 20, 25 of most people's lists, because the idea that those workers weren't already getting graded as total packages is a farce. How could you not. Do I *know* for a fact Kenta Kobashi was some killer promo in his day? Not the faintest clue. But I know he was doing *something* to garner those kinds of reactions from the audience. If it was ALL ring work, which sounds unlikely, but possible, then more power to him, doesn't take away from his standing on the list as that's the most important criteria, but if it wasn't, thats ok too and I wouldn't dock him down any because the proof is right there.

I'll repeat my point-Kobashi was a terrible promo but he had amazing body language. Worked out just fine.

 

Whatever works

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One thing I will say is that Dylan and to an extent ded are right that the non-match stuff totally affects how we view guys.

 

I'd be interested to know if the guys who are huge on Lawler would be as huge on him if the matches were exactly the same except 1) Lawler didn't talk and 2) Memphis TV was more like AWA TV where there was about one angle a year.

 

How much can you separate the Memphis love from a love of the tv? I think that's a valid question.

 

Edit: Will, for example, was never a fan of the late 80s / early 90s WWF TV, which I remain very fond of as my "first love". He thought it was cartoony and silly. He loves Memphis TV, on the other hand. I'm sure you'll see aspects of that preference for one TV show over the other in his list.

 

If you look at my criteria list on why I have Lawler #1, not one of those involves out of the ring stuff. Selling, Bumping, Punching, Carrying Wrestlers and feuds that produced great matches. The feuds produced great matches. All in-ring stuff. The TV and the promos and the angles. That's the whipped cream and cherry on top.

 

There is also a huge difference between your love of 90s WWF and my love of Memphis. Besides Apter mags, I don't recall ever knowing about Memphis wrestling. There is no nostalgia or reminiscing to be had. No memories from my youth to make me pop. That is reserved for UWF and Crockett and even mid 80s WWF. My love of Memphis has come form the past ten years collecting and watching footage from a distance.

 

When it comes to a guy like lawler, there is no separating it, and I think it's foolish to even try

 

It's not foolish and it can be done. If you think Lawler is all character development and promos, I am not going to convince you otherwise. I have devoted enough time on podcasts and in projects trying to get people to see the Lawler love. Some get it. Others don't. I am perfectly fine with it.

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I'll have Lawler within the top ten and I'm with Will. It's all based on in ring stuff and I don't think I watched much, if any, Memphis until I was 27 or 28. Angles and promos and everything else are ammunition that a wrestler can use but it's how the wrestler uses them that matters for this. There are opportunities in any wresting match.

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When it comes to a guy like lawler, there is no separating it, and I think it's foolish to even try

It's not foolish and it can be done. If you think Lawler is all character development and promos, I am not going to convince you otherwise. I have devoted enough time on podcasts and in projects trying to get people to see the Lawler love. Some get it. Others don't. I am perfectly fine with it.

I didn't mean to say that jerry was some hamfisted worker who's charisma and mic skills carried him into good matches, but Memphis as a promotion/region/territory very much had its own distinct feel, in and out of the ring, largely, mostly of Jerry's imprint. In suffice that he is one of the better "total package" guys in the history of the business, I can't personally watch him and not think great feuds and promos and angles and extra curricular "stuff." I don't personally want to and I'm not sure that's how the stuff was intended to be viewed anyway. It's all extra gravy on an already stout resume. That sorta of thing doesn't detract from a Benoit or something (he's got plenty of his own little and gigantic asterixes) but it does ADD to a lawler. With some guys that extra stuff helped the work dots in the ring connect.

 

If people want to judge workers without that stuff, that's commendable and respect you for it. If it helps make things feel more objective than subjective by all means more power to you. With some workers it's easier to separate than others. If it helped make the ring work better, enhanced the story, got the crowd to pop during the match, then what's good for the goose is good for the gander I say.

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Strikes me as odd when we try to silo the impact of promos/influence and intangibles like “presence” and “star power” away from in-ring performance. While we can all understand that those are different abilities, it seems a denial to say that Arn Anderson’s promos don’t make us more appreciative of his ring work, and vice versa. (Note: I wrote that sentence before reading Dylan using Arn as a prime example of the same idea, which tells you how vital Arn’s promos were to his legacy as a top 100 worker.) Subconsciously, the two are inseparable and part of the total package.

I can understand why people say “I’m only considering in-ring”, and we know what they mean by it (I myself still consider it far and away the most important factor), but it seems wrong to say that promos and matches live in separate parts of our brains. Frankly it seems silly to even think that all voters would ever have the same “goalposts”, regardless of posted criteria. It certainly didn’t seem that way with the ’06 SC voters, a truly broad range of some of the smartest people who’ve ever written about wrestling alongside some of the dumbest.

Even workers using languages that you don’t speak still benefit from “aura”, “character”, “role” and the perception of who they are before and after the bell. We still interpret them through presumption and conclusion akin to what one takes away from a English language promo. If you love someone’s character, or their promos, you’ll find excuses to like their work. There are plenty of PTBN-approved workers who I think are good, but who I don’t consider great. In some of those cases, a love of the character/angles/style is clearly influencing the notion that So-and-So is an elite worker. Look at some of the workers who’ve been nominated so far: there’s a lot of character work getting people their own threads here. TomK once rightly said that subjectivity is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one.

Nor do I think most of us are going to view accounting for promos as suddenly turning this into “Who was the biggest star ever?” No one here’s voting for Rock, Hogan, Austin, etc. very high on their list, and even if there are outlier voters who think that way, the majority are smarter than that.

If someone says “Vader was so effective in his character” in a GWE thread, is that less egregious than saying “Vader was a great worker who also cut really apt promos for a monster heavyweight”?

TL;DR: Even in an “in-ring only” poll, it seems to me impossible for people to really vote that way.

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  • 4 weeks later...

If this project were re-named something other than Greatest Wrestler ever I don't think my problems or my strange approach to doing it (because I wouldn't participate) would be brought up.

 

But the thing is and no one's really addressed this head on, is that calling it Greatest Wrestler ever and limiting it to in ring work takes out part of what a wrestler needs and is expected to have in the largest and most successful market in wrestling history. By a mile. The people who do so either say "don't care" or argue there's no way to come up with ONE objective way to rate pro wrestlers so they just decided to pick "in ring work" because......well.............that's whats important to them. Or it's what they see as comparable everywhere.

 

But it's NOT. The expectations of audiences are different. The work schedule is massively different and that's just hugely important. Anyone who thinks the best Japanese guys could have had the same quality working 300 nights a year is flat out lying. So it's different and you have to adjust. I just can't help but feeling concerned that the adjustment is to rate what the very people making the list like. You're mostly not WWF fans. I am and Hogan will be in my top 20 because darn it the footage IS there to show him as one of the most important, if not the most important, wrestlers of all time.

 

But this is supposed to be a project of epic scale looking back over the history of what's available for knowledge of how good a wrestler was. Imagine if, for instance, a US historian poll about US Presidents decided that foreign policy was consistent and domestic policy was not. So therefore it considered foreign and ONLY foreign policy. You'd have a massive bias (and towards 20th century Presidents particularly) that would render the whole project totally useless. No historian worth his salt would participate. Yet that's a variation of what most of you are doing here.

 

And I'm not saying this to knock you. It's BECAUSE I respect the experts of PWO on pro wrestling as much as I respect say Arthur Schlesinger (Dated example, but one most of you will have heard of I bet) as a Presidential historian that this bothers me.

 

I dunno I doubt anyone will get what I'm trying to say. Most people think I'm nuts for putting someone like Trish Stratus, who I will contend was the best at what she did (women's wrestling in the US) of all time and therefore goes on the list, albeit towards the bottom. Maybe we're just speaking a different language. Though oddly I think Johnny Sorrow would get this and he's not participating which makes me think maybe it would be better if I just pulled out and left it at that. I'm not sure but this continues to disturb my senses as a historian (which I teach)

 

I will say this. I think there IS a happy medium. You should try to consider how important a wrestler is, how great their look, promo and ability to manipulate a crowd and you SHOULD try to include every style and genre that got over even if you hate it. I don't like lucha. I just don't. But Negro Casas and El Satanico are in my top 15 and most likely top 10. I am a WWF guy and only Bret Hart and Randy Savage have a shot at my top 10 (unless you count Flair, Lawler, Funk, etc, but I don't think anyone's putting them in for their WWF work). But to stop tooting my own horn, it's well over half US workers (about 65-70) or US based workers at least. So I'm probably failing at the very thing I'm trying to do with this list more than anyone.

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I understand your argument; I just don't think the project you're describing is really the one most of us embarked on. And it's foolish to expect people to expand it radically this late in the game. You might be right about the name not fitting the project. But speaking to your example, there wouldn't be anything wrong with ranking presidents by foreign policy accomplishments as long as there was some collective understanding of the intent. In fact, you might get a more meaningful ranking than you would broadening it out to the question of greatest overall.

 

I do think you've raised some valid questions about whether we should have been clearer on the intent from the jump. But the reality is your approach probably is an outlier, through no fault of your own.

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