DylanWaco

Doesn't Whiplash have a match with Rampage Brown from this year?

Post more Whiplash.

Portland and Puerto Rico are both very much in the works. My guess is Puerto Rico will likely drop first.

The trios with Escorpion and friends v. the highspot brigade is a ton of fun, there is a good Arkangel/Hooligan/Nitro trios and Cerebro Negro and Dr. Cerebro turn up in Monterrey looking as good as they have looked in a couple of years.

Another sleeper top five contender - Tracy Smothers

I like Hector, but he's the worst Guerrero

Sleeper top five contender Too Cold Scorpio.

I loved Saito v. Hennig too. GREAT finish, probably top five on the set. I forget where I had it exactly but pretty sure it was in my top thirty.

Well that explains that. I was about to ask how the race for one tightened and now I know.

Tim, thanks for the comments as always. Otani and Kanemoto were on my list of 107 (which looking back should have included another forty or fifty names I whiffed on) . I think Sasuke was too. Ohtani came fairly close. In his best year I thought he might have been the best wrestler in the world and that was at a point when the competition was really steep. The problem I had with him is that I really only feel like he had two or three years as an excellent worker and then a lot of decent stuff around the margins. Tajiri is not praised as much for many reasons, but I actually think he's a stronger career performer and in some ways I think his peak was even more impressive because of what he was working with (it doesn't hurt that I saw every match of his that made tape during his ECW run and he never had a bad one). Kanemoto didn't have the highs of Ohtani but in a way reinvented himself more successfully and has had great matches even in recent years. But there are a lot of guys with similar resumes to Kanemoto who didn't make my list. The other guys you mentioned I wouldn't really consider, though that's not a knock on any of them (Tanaka will probably benefit when I go back and watch some FMW). DiBiase is a fine wrestler, but I personally don't like his pre-WWF work as much as I like the pre-WWF work of guys like Martel and Hennig and those two barely made the final product (Hennig would probably drop off on a second run, because Arn should have made the list for sure). I know that's a debatable point and I didn't get the Mid-South Set (though I've seen all the highly touted Ted stuff from there) so maybe my opinion would change if I caught that. In any case I don't want to shit on dead. I think he's viable for any top fifty. Toyota....you aren't going to get much from me there. I think she's overrated. I haven't soured on her as much as I have soured on some other people over the years (Takada, Inoki, Koshinaka), but I could live without ever seeing her wrestle again. I felt kind of bad about my list being light on Joshi, but she wasn't someone I even thought twice about. Nakano, Kansai, Kudo, Nagayo, Asuka, Sato, hell even Kyoko Innoue are people I would rate above Toyota. On Austin, I'm not terribly high on his pre-WWE work and his WWE work is littered with down periods from injury or sports entertainment schtick that destroyed any chance of producing. I don't think he was bad in WCW - he had some matches there I really liked - but I don't think he was a great worker or even close to it until 96. I'd rate his best periods pretty high (96-98, 2001) and his best matches very high (last two Mania matches v. Rock, the two best matches with Bret, Over The Edge v. Foley), but I actually don't think he has a huge, meaty, resume. Finally, Valentine is one of the guys that has benefited the most in my eyes from the 80's projects and the explosion of available footage. I used to find him pretty boring or bland, but now I think he's easily an all timer. The available Wahoo stuff is awesome, he was probably no worse than Backlund's second best opponent (I think it's him and Patera for one/two), I love the Garvin feud, he's got little one off matches v. guys like Owen, Steamboat and Carlos Colon that are past his prime and I feel are outstanding matches, I have grown to love the Piper Dog Collar Match over the years, I felt he did a great job carrying the Dream Team who had some really underrated matches including a match with Tito/Steamer that would rate near the top of the best tag matches the WWF ever ran, I like the available Hogan match more than most and the Tito feud...my god the Tito feud. Aside from Colon v. Hansen there is no feud from the 80's that has slipped through the cracks as much as that. All time great feud, with several excellent matches. Valentine was awesome.

When you break down the Hansen resume it's pretty insane. I was very close to rating him over my beloved Funk.

Congrats to Lee for being the other voter to get the top two matches correct

Obviously there are guys who I think should be included in that poll who aren't, but my answer is Fujinami

Escorpion has quietly become one of the best guys in Lucha over the course of the last year. After that match Virus is now right there with Casas and Rush for the best guys this year. Fucking great match, top five of the year. I enjoyed the non-Canek parts of the Wagner Jr/Park/Canek match from IWRG, which also had a crazy atmosphere. The Puebla mini's match is a ton of fun

This set had the worst commentary. Mark Lowrance was fucking awesome by the way

The key lesson of these sets is to never give up because the deadline always, always, always gets extended.

I had Rheingans v. Martel at 19. I could have easily rated it a few slots higher or even a few slots lower, so I sort of crammed in the middle of the pack of where I thought it belonged, I still don't understand how anyone could think it was a bad match, but we've been over that before. I did have that Wahoo/Manny strap match in my bottom ten, but it wasn't the lowest rated Wahoo strap match on my ballot

I can't even mentally process that. I know different strokes and all but there are some opinions that are so bizarre that I can't even fathom them being anything other than trolls.

Haskins has been all over SAW with that the team this year. In fact The Untouchables are feuding with Damien Wayne/Lance Erickson right now. That said the best tag match on that SAW show is the Smothers/Brody v. Team IOU match which is the best Smothers performance in years

i sent mine in as an excel ballot so I'm too lazy to type out a top 25 right now or even a bottom ten. But I am interested to see what matches people think they may have been the high voter on. Being to lazy to go back and look at other people's ballots I will guess I might have been the high voter on Alexis Smirnoff, Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs. Midnight Rockers & Curt Hennig (6/28/86) which I had at 8.

I should have waited for Jerry to post his ballot before I submitted mine. It would have motivated me to push Rheingans and Martel up a few spots. As it is I had it at 19, right in the meat of a brutal top 35 or so where I felt the difference between 9-35 was really minimal.

Sent mine in. Goc will be happy to know that I have Mad Dog v. Blackwell lower than Exposer does. He will be unhappy to know it isn't much lower.

My ballot will go in before the first one way or the other, but with the decimation of the old board and the constant crashing of it during the process it shouldn't be a big mystery why the number of ballots in has been small

Cole is a perfect example of a guy who would likely be really great in the WWE, but on the indies he just seems like a dude with potential who could go either way

Who in the hell had Mad Dog v. Blackwell in the bottom ten? That is shocking