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Which luchadores are you ranking?


Childs

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Parv has access to the DVDVR Lucha Nomination voting process to see criticisms of lucha matches. If he doesn't see criticism, then he isn't looking very hard.

 

This does seem like a weird critique Parv as an easy comparison to point to that shows that lucha is still pretty low on the discussion metric is to look at the DVDVR 80's poll. I can't exactly remember when the board crashed but even something like AWA, which has been lambasted historically as one of the worst territories had double the ballots. Ourselves were included in the AWA ballot but not the lucha one.

 

 

The board crashed during the AWA voting period. Incidentally, the lucha set sold way better than the AWA set. The membership of DVDVR along with the board crash killed the voting. Also, with the various holdups in creating a new 80s set, I never set a firm votinng deadline. Chris Harrington took the initiative to tally up the ballots he had. I had a ballot but didn't turn it in. Others I know also didn't turn in a ballot because we didn't know Chris was ready to just tally the votes.

 

 

I have Casas and Santo in my Top Ten. I considered turning in a ballot with nothing but luchadors and Memphis guys but created a normal ballot.

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Something that made it harder for me to get into lucha libre initially that I think would make a difference for most people is for CMLL audio to be better. Imagine watching that stuff and being able to clearly hear what the crowd is popping for.

100% with you here. Production values make way too much of a difference for me with my enjoyment of a match. I tend to dislike handhelds for the same reasons.

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I'm very close to just drawing a line and saying I just won't rate or rank any Lucha guys. A bit like how some people only vote in certain categories in WON HoF. I'm not qualified to.

 

One thing I'd ask though -- I guess of Grimmas or Dylan, whoever is collating final ballots -- is if the analytics could maybe drill down to produce some different 100s. As in:

 

- for people who voted US only

- for people who voted US and Japanese

- for people who voted Lucha and Japanese

- for people who voted Joshi, Lucha and Shoot style

etc. Etc.

 

I don't know if those analytics would be too hard to come up with or too hard to sort, but I think it would be some interesting granular detail and will serve to off-set those people who are only really voting in one or two categories.

 

Don't know how you'd do it, but just a thought. Maybe a check box at the top of the ballot of styles each votee is representing in their list?

 

Just think it would be cool to see like "of those people who voted for Lucha guys, Satanico finished #3" or whatever.

 

Hope others can see value in that proposal too.

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I know people are already crossing off styles but that seems like a way that could easily become a massive negative.

 

Take InYourCase for example who may only vote for one or two lucha guys but he feels Negro Casas is maybe in his Top 50. I feel, and I may be off-base which is fine and I am far from one of the more active contributors of PWO, that it feels less worth voting for someone like Casas when you know you can check a box that will remove you from people who feel more comfortable with lucha. In the overall list Casas gets hurt but in some granular list he might be helped.

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I am very likely to rank Joshi workers just based on what I've seen, I know I will.

 

There's a lot of hours of my life I've spent on trying in vain to get Lucha at this point and I don't like that vague feeling that I'm just pissing people off with it. Like, I don't like Jesus and Mary Chain much either, or the brand of noise pop they helped influence for the next twenty years, but I don't go on Jesus and Mary Chain forums talking about how much I think Psychocandy sucks and how much I see the muddy production as a form of cowardice, a lack of faith in the songs. I don't go on Noise Pop Central and talk about how I don't get it.

 

So time to stop I think.

 

I just can't in good faith rank Casas and Cota when I'm writing the rest of them off. Feels wrong. I also will not vote Jim Breaks if I don't watch a good bit more WoS before deadline. Just goes against my general ethos.

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More people will submit ballots without Joshi representation than without lucha representation in the end, I think. I wish neither would happen, but lucha won't be the genre hardest hit. Joshi may not be either, for that matter, just saying.

I assume a lot of people also won't rank British guys aside from Regal, Finlay and Robinson.
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I feel like there could be a couple of people who vote for Breaks and no one else from WoS.

I should explain that the reason I won't do this is because I hate fair-weather-ism. I need a more thorough-going look at WoS to get a measure of if he's really the only guy to come from there.

 

When we did the album thing a few years back, I was against guys voting on the couple of rap records they liked when they were little more than day-trippers, tourists. Hadn't done their rap homework. What can I say, I have a puritanical streak.

 

I can't vote in an area where I feel I haven't done my homework. I won't vote Hase unless I watch a good chunk of Hash, Liger, Muta, and other 90s NJ types as well. Just what I'm like.

 

Naturally, people can do what they like with their lists, but that's my own thing.

 

My opinion on Lucha really does mean jack shit, so an endorsement for Casas or Cota from me means absolutely nothing. Genuinely how I see it. I'd rather not give a meaningless endorsement.

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I feel like there could be a couple of people who vote for Breaks and no one else from WoS.

I should explain that the reason I won't do this is because I hate fair-weather-ism. I need a more thorough-going look at WoS to get a measure of if he's really the only guy to come from there.

 

When we did the album thing a few years back, I was against guys voting on the couple of rap records they liked when they were little more than day-trippers, tourists. Hadn't done their rap homework. What can I say, I have a puritanical streak.

 

I can't vote in an area where I feel I haven't done my homework. I won't vote Hase unless I watch a good chunk of Hash, Liger, Muta, and other 90s NJ types as well. Just what I'm like.

 

Naturally, people can do what they like with their lists, but that's my own thing.

 

My opinion on Lucha really does mean jack shit, so an endorsement for Casas or Cota from me means absolutely nothing. Genuinely how I see it. I'd rather not give a meaningless endorsement.

 

 

That's one way of looking at it, but I'd simply see it as you found Casas / Cota impressive enough to rank without speaking at all to your thoughts of lucha elsewhere.

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The way I feel is that, I don't need to have seen all the lucha to know that Negro Casas is great. The same way that I don't need to have seen all the World of Sport to know that Jim Breaks is great. The same way that I don't need to have seen all the American wrestling to know that Ric Flair is great.

 

I admire the ambition for completeness, but I also find it limiting in that it's virtually impossible to achieve. I thought the same about Loss' early worries about wanting to extend the deadline until he was comfortable that he'd seen enough of everything. Nobody will ever see enough of everything.

 

How much lucha, for example, would you need to see to feel comfortable about ranking guys? And whatever amount that is, isn't that still being unfair to the lucha that you haven't included? When would it ever be "enough"?

 

We're not ranking styles, we're ranking wrestlers. I feel like you can watch a wrestler, see what he can do, and be able to rank him for a poll without having seen every one of his peers. And at the end of the day we have to compare them to people outside their own little genre anyway. This isn't the WON HOF ballot, a vote for someone isn't necessarily a vote against everyone else in their world that you didn't rank. You're just saying hey, I think this guy is great.

 

That's just my take though, and like I said I do admire the desire to be thorough. In part because I just don't have that in me anymore.

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It's more out of respect to the guys who really dig Lucha. I feel me sticking Casas on my list is, in a way, disrespectful.

 

I say this as someone who got generally irritated by guys listing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasty in their top 100 albums of all time, when it had not long come out and then ignoring all the other great hip-hop albums because they weren't really rap fans but indie kids who just got caught up in the hype of that one album. Call it irrational, but I won't do the equivalent of that here.

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Would you have been mad if they had ranked Illmatic (or substitute whatever you think is the top rap album) and no other rap though?

 

I think your example is a little different. MBDTF would be kind of equivalent to ranking El Barbaro Cavernario or some other currently-hip luchador who has come along in recent years, while ignoring Casas and all the other classic lucha guys. You're not doing that. You're starting with Illmatic and [insert], and just haven't got much further than that.

 

I dunno. I think if I was a lucha fan I wouldn't give a damn if you ranked Casas and nobody else, if that's where you were in your lucha viewing.

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Well I guess it's more like if I'd listened to 36 Chambers, Ready to Die, Liquid Swords, Straight Outta Compton and Capital Punishment and the decided that only Biggie is worth bothering with. Which to any rap fan is a patently nonsensical view just as my views on Lucha and pretty nonsensical to Lucha fans. It's like damning the rest by exalting the executeption.

 

And let's face it, I dig Cota because he's just like a US heel and dig Casas because he works like a US babyface. It's like a backhanded stab at all the Lucha I haven't connected with.

 

Much more comfortable saying I won't rank em, just as many have said they won't rank minis or Joshi.

 

I reserve the right to call an 11th hour audible though, if I feel the calibre of people going in is getting too low. I'd call that right around the Haku / Earthquake / Bossman sort of mark. If guys like that start creeping in, I'd probably rather pull the trigger on Cota / Casas / Breaks to shut them out. Mainly because I have strong feelings about the sorts of standards I'd want from all the guys on my list.

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Well I guess it's more like if I'd listened to 36 Chambers, Ready to Die, Liquid Swords, Straight Outta Compton and Capital Punishment and the decided that only Biggie is worth bothering with. Which to any rap fan is a patently nonsensical view just as my views on Lucha and pretty nonsensical to Lucha fans. It's like damning the rest by exalting the executeption.

 

And let's face it, I dig Cota because he's just like a US heel and dig Casas because he works like a US babyface. It's like a backhanded stab at all the Lucha I haven't connected with.

 

Much more comfortable saying I won't rank em, just as many have said they won't rank minis or Joshi.

 

I reserve the right to call an 11th hour audible though, if I feel the calibre of people going in is getting too low. I'd call that right around the Haku / Earthquake / Bossman sort of mark. If guys like that start creeping in, I'd probably rather pull the trigger on Cota / Casas / Breaks to shut them out. Mainly because I have strong feelings about the sorts of standards I'd want from all the guys on my list.

Now I've changed my mind and decided that you don't deserve to put Casas on your list. You can't have Breaks either. I would deny Cota to no one.

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How much WoS would you need to watch to adequately judge Breaks, or anyone else for that matter? I've been doing my European wrestling thread on WKO since 2009 and have chopped and changed my opinions on guys countless times. And even though I've watched hundreds of WoS matches that doesn't mean people are going to agree with my opinions. Take Boscik for example. He's a guy it took me forever to come around on and yet most people seem to dig him straight away. The joy of watching WoS is that it's an untapped goldmine of new wrestlers to discover. I could understand telling people you gotta watch more WoS if I thought Breaks was overrated, but he's not.

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More people will submit ballots without Joshi representation than without lucha representation in the end, I think. I wish neither would happen, but lucha won't be the genre hardest hit. Joshi may not be either, for that matter, just saying.

 

Do you have a sense of how many Joshi workers you'll rank? I have five in my 100 right now. But I think you're right that Joshi will be boom or bust on a lot of ballots.

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I put Casas, Dandy, Santo, and Satanico in my top 100 on the basis that I was going to invest the time into watching lucha and finally get it.

 

After downloading and watching the DVDVR top 20 lucha matches for the 80s and 90s, I've decided to remove them.

 

I can appreciate their skills but I can't get into the matches at all.

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I'm just getting my feet wet with lucha but I find myself watching only singles matches. Casas has been amazing so far. Santo, Panther, LA Park and Ultimo Guerrero are others who will probably make my list. Wish I could watch WoS and PR for the list but I'm just not going to have the time to give anyone an honest look.

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