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What's next for you?


Matt D

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We've been working so hard on this for years now and especially focusing on matches through a very specific lens. There is a sense of "eating your vegetables" that I think people are expressing to some degree, and of boxing wrestlers in to one set of criteria or another just so that we can make a list. As ambitious and enjoyable as this process has been and even though it's opened a lot of us up to wrestling we wouldn't normally watch, or that we might not have watched in such a crash-course manner, I think most of us don't entirely find the ideal wrestling viewing one where we're constantly keeping a top 100 list in mind.

 

So I'm asking what's next for people? We've found lots of different strands to explore out of this process, roads that we couldn't fully go down to the depth we wanted. Or maybe it's comfort food, or being able to revisit some things without having to think too much about it.

 

1. First and foremost, it's 80s NJPW. Fujinami and Choshu and all that. I'm probably going to nab the 80s set.

2. More WoS. I have a lot more to watch. I still have only dipped my toe in for all that's out there and i enjoy it a lot. It's a great way to spend 20-30 mins at a time, and I really like Kent Walton.

3. Joshi. I don't even know where to start. I have some sense where NOT to start, mind you. I could watch Aja Kong all day, but there's also a lot of storytelling elements you don't get in almost any other sort of wrestling that makes it an interesting thing to explore.

4. Shootstyle. I'm not big on the really punchy stuff, but the more grapply stuff...

5. I'd love to watch Continental at length at some point. Maybe I'll get there.

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As I mentioned on the latest WTBBP, this project kind of felt like a personal failure to me because I set my watching ambitions too high. As a result, I'm hopeful to spend a little bit of time in the aftermath to just watch wrestling on a whim and not to "scout" how someone should be ranked. I foresee that being my focus until the summer months and then I should be revitalized and can dive into a project with focus (hopefully the Portland or NWA 80's stuff)

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As I mentioned on the latest WTBBP, this project kind of felt like a personal failure to me because I set my watching ambitions too high. As a result, I'm hopeful to spend a little bit of time in the aftermath to just watch wrestling on a whim and not to "scout" how someone should be ranked. I foresee that being my focus until the summer months and then I should be revitalized and can dive into a project with focus (hopefully the Portland or NWA 80's stuff)

Wrestling match hall of fame?

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As I mentioned on the latest WTBBP, this project kind of felt like a personal failure to me because I set my watching ambitions too high. As a result, I'm hopeful to spend a little bit of time in the aftermath to just watch wrestling on a whim and not to "scout" how someone should be ranked. I foresee that being my focus until the summer months and then I should be revitalized and can dive into a project with focus (hopefully the Portland or NWA 80's stuff)

Wrestling match hall of fame?

 

 

 

Also something I could get behind and think it would require less binge watching overall.

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For me, I'm just gonna chill out and watch more TV stuff. I do still think the heart of wrestling is in watching angles and storylines play out from week to week. I've never watched "for" great matches, really.

 

Gonna do more stuff like the Titans Mystery Theatre, maybe watch random eps of TNT, Superstars, Primetime, JCP, week-to-week Mid-South, stuff like that. More towards what Liam has been doing here (http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32796-a-wrestling-year-1986/), but with less structure and very likely no write ups. That's kinda more towards how I enjoy watching wrestling.

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For me, I'm just gonna chill out and watch more TV stuff. I do still think the heart of wrestling is in watching angles and storylines play out from week to week. I've never watched "for" great matches, really.

Yea this is why I eventually decided I couldn't do a singles list. I just like watching TV wrestling way more than I like trying to watch just for great matches. The only time I can really do that is for one of the DVDVR 80s sets and mostly because those are laid out in chronological order so you can still see feuds build and progress.

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I'll be doing T2P reviews on my Dragon Gate blog soon after the deadline. That's been in my back pocket for awhile and I'm excited to get to that because I haven't formally reviewed any of those shows.

 

After that, I really want to dive into WAR some more. Don't know exactly when or how, but everything about the promotion intrigues me.

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For me it will probably involve a lot of not watching wrestling at all.

 

I know I made the vegetable analogy last night, but really my vegetables for this project wasn't so much watching matches or wrestlers or styles that I don't know or like as much. My vegetables were sitting down to watch matches at all. A year or so ago I crossed a certain line with wrestling where I was no longer obsessed with it, and no longer had the attention span to sit down and watch an entire match. I didn't even watch any WWE for months and months. I've come back to wrestling almost entirely to participate in this project. That involves a lot of watching, and even then it took me months and months to get to a place where I could sit down and watch matches like I needed to be able to do. And even now, I've been on a roll lately but I still really have to be in the mood to do some watching.

 

When this project ends my reward will be to not have to seek out wrestling matches at all. I will follow NXT because it's actually enjoyable and I can sit through it, and I'll watch PPVs with my mother, but I probably won't even look at WWE TV, and won't Youtube or seek out any other wrestling, at least for a while. I just don't have the attention for it anymore.

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For me it will probably involve a lot of not watching wrestling at all.

Ditto. I've got literally hundreds of books sitting around waiting to be read, and a To-Watch List of movies and TV shows which is well over a thousand titles long. There's plenty of non-wrestling stuff in the world which deserves attention.
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I've had a couple of watching projects I've slowed down on as I've been narrowing down my list, so I'm going to catch up with those. 1994 Raws, CHIKARA from the beginning, and I've been thinking about going through the Main Events and Superstars on the Network for some nice 5-10 minute TV matches.

 

I've also got 2-3 months worth of Coronation St to catch up on, my girlfriend is getting annoyed at it filling up our SkyBox

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Well post-WrestleMania I send you all sketchy DMs on Twitter, for those that are on Twitter, about Greatest Match Ever. Which I hope would be an easier process for those here for one reason or another with multiple people here already having released Top 100 Matches lists.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=56ff9de99688d9fc085e80af963b075f

 

Outside of that I will be focusing on 2016 as Tanner and I will be trying a WKO-esque list called the WDKW100 which hopefully would be without the stigma or odd barrier to entry to that forum. That place got me into a lot of different wrestling that I never would have otherwise but the "John Cena or Hiroshi Tanahashi" question even tongue-in-cheek is a bit off putting if not for me than for others opinions I would like to see contributed to.

http://wrestlingwithwords.com/forum/index.php?threads/wdkw100.343/

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The process doesn't end for me. I'll keep working my way down the list of nominees. Right now I'm still on 'D', so I have a long way to go, and a lot more wrestling to watch before I feel I can say with confidence 'these are the 100 greatest wrestlers ever'. Of course, I'll slow down a bit, and will probably make room for other watching. But I'm not burnt out on this project or close to it.

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After this I plan on trying to make a list of the top 50 ( U.S. only) Tag Team matches. I've been compiling a list during this process and will need to add to it still then narrow it down. I'm in no hurry to finish, just something I've always wanted to do.

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I'm hoping that we don't see the Portland set for at least a few months. While I'm familiar with a huge chunk of the matches that will almost certainly be on it (and they're all going to be great and people will love it), I need a little bit of a break from list making.

 

I was talking to Loss a little while ago about making lists in general and how specific criteria makes things easier. He said it he was more interested in something like "best match of a specific year" or what not, but that's not hugely appealing to me save for the discussion maybe. On the other hand, he didn't find "best hot tags" or what have you too compelling at this stage of his watching. The middle ground I thought was interesting was more narrative based, but also match based. Something like "Best big man vs little man matches" where we see how different wrestlers handled the same narrative challenge. I don't think I hooked him with that though.

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Since Matt D just brought up the apparently impending Portland set, I have a question as a (relative) newb to the board. When you guys all refer to the "All Japan 80's set" or the "1990 Yearbook" or any of those, what specifically are you referring to? I gather they are homemade comps, but are they still available or were they more of a "you had to be there when" kind of deal. Always feel like I'm outside looking in on some of those discussions. Thx.

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Since Matt D just brought up the apparently impending Portland set, I have a question as a (relative) newb to the board. When you guys all refer to the "All Japan 80's set" or the "1990 Yearbook" or any of those, what specifically are you referring to? I gather they are homemade comps, but are they still available or were they more of a "you had to be there when" kind of deal. Always feel like I'm outside looking in on some of those discussions. Thx.

PM goodhelmet.

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Since Matt D just brought up the apparently impending Portland set, I have a question as a (relative) newb to the board. When you guys all refer to the "All Japan 80's set" or the "1990 Yearbook" or any of those, what specifically are you referring to? I gather they are homemade comps, but are they still available or were they more of a "you had to be there when" kind of deal. Always feel like I'm outside looking in on some of those discussions. Thx.

PM goodhelmet.

 

 

Got it. Thanks.

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I'm going to continue my Yearbook watching project. I'm watching them all from 1990-1999. Up to February of 94 right now. I also have a bunch of season sets of various Japanese promotions, Memphis and Mid-South I want to dive into. Also going to check out Continental. The stuff looks awesome but I haven't had time to sit down and watch it from beginning to end.

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It's not impossible this could be the last "looking at the past" wrestling project I'm ever involved with as my focus these days tends to be on the modern product, particularly the indies. The idea of any match ranking project is increasingly unlikely as I find ranking matches to be nightmarishly difficult and rarely fun unless it is something really select (I.e. my Southern indie MOTY list from last year, and even that was kind of annoying).

 

It's possible a project will come around that will grab me, but it's hard to see what it would be at this point.

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As I mentioned on the latest WTBBP, this project kind of felt like a personal failure to me because I set my watching ambitions too high. As a result, I'm hopeful to spend a little bit of time in the aftermath to just watch wrestling on a whim and not to "scout" how someone should be ranked. I foresee that being my focus until the summer months and then I should be revitalized and can dive into a project with focus (hopefully the Portland or NWA 80's stuff)

Wrestling match hall of fame?

 

Also something I could get behind and think it would require less binge watching overall.

This could be a great new topic. I could easily get behind this.

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Next for me will be finishing my WWE Top 100 matches to see before you die list. I just listened to the multi-part podcast on this, and a buddy of mine and I are going through and re-watching many of the matches and giving them star ratings and our thoughts. I have about 35 or so more matches to re-watch from that list.

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