THIS LIST HAS NO CREDIBILITY~! (aka everyone makes their own list about the PTBN WWE 100

[Matt D]

15 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

FTFY

Pretty ironic that the criteria for their WWE list spells out "NJPW"

I'd go with CMLL

C - Chinlock engagement during the third match of a house show.
M - Magical powers to make a 2 minute Attitude Era TV match entertaining.
L - Luck in convincing Vince that your bladejob was actually you getting busted open hardway.
L - abiLity to win the King of the Ring and somehow get over with the gimmick

[SirSmUgly]

32 minutes ago, Matt D said:

By that logic, he'd make a fairly fitting #50?

(Henry could be 49)

Sure, but the issue is that Michaels is more than that.

The tricky thing about him is that he has been a part of an inordinately high amount of great matches and segments, but the question is how to separate his work from his presentation. For example, how much do I give Michaels for being a part of that all-time great Rockers breakup segment that people who watched wrestling as a kid, but don't watch now still remember and bring up if wrestling comes up in a conversation? What's the science there? Was it like 30% Michaels, 30% Jannetty, 40% Heenan and Monsoon with the "Didja see that? Jannetty tried to dive through the window to escape!" "Will you stop!" exchange?

Like, fuck if I know. That's the problem with Michaels. More than anyone in the history of the company, I'd argue, he has had the benefit of everything he has done being presented in a way that seems historically important. I could put him at #5 or #95, but then again, if his promo and ringwork sucked, would anyone care even with the presentation? You yourself pointed out that HHH wouldn't make your list, and he wouldn't make a lot of lists here, but he's #2 behind Michaels in terms of how he's been presented as special and historically important. Yet I wouldn't rate HHH, but I'd consider Michaels for my top five.

I mean, problematic as Michaels is, he has the ability to take full advantage of his presentation in a way HHH (and a lot of guys) have not been able to do that. That's gotta be good for better than #50 all time in the company, right?

[Sammo~!]

25 minutes ago, tbarrie said:

 

My instinct is that Shyster doesn't make the list. Fine worker, but I don't see him on a "best ever" list.

Well, it's a best in the WWE list. There are guys like Harley Race or Dusty who don't rate very well based solely on their WWE work, but make an all time list elsewhere. Flair is most people's #1 but based solely on his WWE run he doesn't sniff top 10. IRS is a memorable gimmick that lasted far longer than it should have. My comment was half joking as he's in the category of guys like Val Venis or Godfather, as characters who were memorable for their time and place but don't have much impact outside of that. But I've got a soft spot in my heart for the fightin' tax man, I don't know why.

[JohnnyJ]

Michaels is hard to rank because if you watch him on a week to week basis he's pretty underwhelming. But when you start separating the high quality stuff from the crap he does have an impressive body of work. Part of that is opportunity. Part of that is skill. Part of that is longevity. 

I know that if you tell me you put together a youtube playlist of random HBK matches, I'll pass and opt to watch "the top ten moves of jerry flynn."

[Matt D]

19 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Sure, but the issue is that Michaels is more than that.

The tricky thing about him is that he has been a part of an inordinately high amount of great matches and segments, but the question is how to separate his work from his presentation. For example, how much do I give Michaels for being a part of that all-time great Rockers breakup segment that people who watched wrestling as a kid, but don't watch now still remember and bring up if wrestling comes up in a conversation? What's the science there? Was it like 30% Michaels, 30% Jannetty, 40% Heenan and Monsoon with the "Didja see that? Jannetty tried to dive through the window to escape!" "Will you stop!" exchange?

 

How much do you give to Pat Patterson? I mean then you get the problem of how much of Cena's matches do you give to Arn Anderson? And that's another crazy issue.

I personally think that late era Michaels (and this is a theory I've put forth before) is a much better director than he is an actor. I think some of the emotional weight he tried to bestow upon the Flair and Taker matches is hugely impressive. I just think that while he has tremendous athleticism, he doesn't have a great acting range (especially compared to a guy like Taker who surprisingly does) and he ultimately gave himself a role that was more challenging than he could handle. It goes from dramatic to melodramatic to even, at times, outright parody. There are other problems with his comeback run, of course, just like their are problems with his 1996 run (past the hissyfits, namely a misguided and self-conscious need to have Hogan-esque comebacks when Bret had shown that there are other ways to finish a match as a smaller WWF babyface ace).

As for @JohnnyJ's comments, all I can say is that I looked at GWE for PWO on a holistic approach. I wanted to learn as much about a wrestler and his ringwork as possible, to try to figure out what made him tick and the truths, as best as we can ascertain (The Patterson Dilemma) as viewers, which is actually, in my mind and in a wholly comparative sense, quite a bit. You don't just look at the very best matches. You look at all the matches you can; you can learn things about the best matches by watching the worst.

[OSJ]

7 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

1.) Austin. Nobody combines in-ring, character, and drawing like him.

2.) Hogan. For all the obvious reasons.

3.) Bruno. Again, obvious.

4.) Cena. The longevity at top is just stunning.

5.) Eddy. Because he's the best wrestler that ever lived.

I'm going to play off Fowler's list because I like his reasoning, even if I come to slightly different conclusions...

5. Eddy. Because he's the best wrestler that ever lived who didn't murder his family.

4. Cena. I'm also good with this, the longevity and number of great matches is really something special.

3. No, no way does Bruno get my vote when Superst*r Billy Graham is Right There. Yeah, he was pretty pedestrian in the ring, but his promos always made it seem like you were going to see something special. And what's really great about Graham is that while you never did see that something special, he could con you into buying a ticket next week with the same bullshit. 

2. I'm going with "what do I re-watch"? I do not re-watch Hogan WWF matches (NJPW is a different story), however, I re-watch Randy Savage matches frequently, this spot is all Macho Man.

1. Austin was a total phenom for a short time, again, I can't recall the last time I re-watched an Austin match from WWE, (Austin promos and run-ins are a different story), however, Bret Hart is probably my most re-watched WWF wrestler who isn't named Daniel, Eddy, or who murdered his family. The Hitman carried the company through the worst of times and while he may have mailed it in on house shows from time to time, once the cameras were rolling, you got a tremendous performance night-in, night-out.

[Wyld Samurai]

21 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Was Savage a major draw? 

H

[Marty Sugar]

All-time?

Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, Bruno. All made huge money in their days.

[Wyld Samurai]

2 hours ago, OSJ said:

I'm going to play off Fowler's list because I like his reasoning, even if I come to slightly different conclusions...

5. Eddy. Because he's the best wrestler that ever lived who didn't murder his family.

4. Cena. I'm also good with this, the longevity and number of great matches is really something special.

3. No, no way does Bruno get my vote when Superst*r Billy Graham is Right There. Yeah, he was pretty pedestrian in the ring, but his promos always made it seem like you were going to see something special. And what's really great about Graham is that while you never did see that something special, he could con you into buying a ticket next week with the same bullshit. 

2. I'm going with "what do I re-watch"? I do not re-watch Hogan WWF matches (NJPW is a different story), however, I re-watch Randy Savage matches frequently, this spot is all Macho Man.

1. Austin was a total phenom for a short time, again, I can't recall the last time I re-watched an Austin match from WWE, (Austin promos and run-ins are a different story), however, Bret Hart is probably my most re-watched WWF wrestler who isn't named Daniel, Eddy, or who murdered his family. The Hitman carried the company through the worst of times and while he may have mailed it in on house shows from time to time, once the cameras were rolling, you got a tremendous performance night-in, night-out.

The problem with Austin is that by the time he made it as The Man he was broken down. I lost interest in his actual matches after Owen dropped him on his head he never was the same. 

I wasn't sure if Savage drew money. You would have thought that Vince would have  gave him the ball longer instead of bouncing it off him a few times. It was as of he was a little too cautious of Savage as the forerunner. 

I'm not big on Cena, and I'm not even sure you could say his reign was during a boom period. Vince had been looking for the ultimate company guy for 30 years and he finally found a guy willing to be his Babe Ruth in John Cena. In comparison to everyone that came before him I think he is the weakest of the lot. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

8 hours ago, S.K.o.S. said:

I can definitely understand taking drawing power into account, but pop culture relevance is a very strange metric to be using to rank the top 100 WWE wrestlers imo.  What they did outside of wrestling seems irrelevant.  Why would it matter that Rock became a movie star?  Might as well take into account Cena's Make-A-Wish charity work or something.

Also extends to their ability to draw new fan bases into a product as opposed to guys who would watch anything and did during the Diesel/Mabel era. 

Using the Rock as an example, he was that good as a wrestler, he was able to parlay that momentum and support into being the biggest box office draw in Hollywood. That certainly has to be considered. Especially when you consider his early films were generally gone to almost exclusively by wrestling fans in the same way they'll watch WWE films now. 

Is Cena's make a wish work a recognition of his bigger appeal? Can see the argument if it was in context to a "decent human being" criteria against say, Shawn Michaels 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I'll have a go at this. Based on (but not exclusively), length of run - importance to the "timeline" (Buddy Rogers to me, gets bumped up heaps, as without him as a credible top guy in the early days branching away from the NWA, there's no WWE), how much they achieved in WWE against being a top guy elsewhere beforehand (Flair, Lawler, Rhodes bumped down due to this. And defining WWE as it were at the time of their run, not what has been added to it in hindsight - i.e a different list for greatest wrestlers of all time), how they parlayed their run in WWE into bigger/better things (Rock gets bumped up, Lesnar to some degree, maybe Cena too.)

1) The Rock
2) Hulk Hogan
3) Bruno Sammartino
4) John Cena
5) The Undertaker
6) Andre the Giant
7) Buddy Rogers
8) Steve Austin
----------(this is where it got difficult)-------------
9) Bob Backlund
10) Shawn Michaels
11) Bret Hart
12) Roddy Piper
13) Randy Savage
14) Triple H
15) Sgt Slaughter
16) Superstar Billy Graham
17) Chief Jay Strongbow
18) Pedro Morales
19) Bobo Brazil
20) Chris Jericho
21) Brock Lesnar
22) Jimmy Snuka
23) Mick Foley
24) George the Animal Steele
25) Randy Orton
26) Edge
27) Big Show
28) Kane
29) Kurt Angle
30) Ric Flair
31) The Ultimate Warrior
32) Killer Kowalski
33) Jeff Hardy
34) Mr Perfect
35) Eddy Guerrero
36) CM Punk
37) Ted Dibiase
38) Jake Roberts
39) Booker T
40) Rey Mysterio
41) Pat Patterson
42) Greg Valentine
43) The Iron Shiek
44) Tito Santana
45) Don Muraco
46) Ricky Steamboat
47) Batista
48) Razor Ramon
49) Trish Stratus
50) Rick Rude
51) Yokozuna
52) Paul Orndorff
53) Honky Tonk Man
54) Larry Zybysko
55) Demolition
56) Jim Duggan
57) The Miz
58) Big Boss Man
59) Diesel
60) Jerry Lawler
61) Sid
62) Roman Reigns
63) JBL
64) Lita
65) Mark Henry
66) Dusty Rhodes
67) Sheamus
68) Daniel Bryan
69) Chris Benoit
70) Rob Van Dam
71) Christian
72) The Dudley Boys
73) Goldust
74) British Bulldog
75) Matt Hardy
76) Seth Rollins
77) Rikishi
78) Dean Ambrose
79) Goldberg
80) Kofi Kingston
81) William Regal
82) X-Pac
83) LOD
84) Wild Samoans
85) Mr Fuji/Professor Tanaka
86) Bray Wyatt
87) Jeff Jarrett
88) Owen Hart
89) Alberto Del Rio
90) Harley Race
91) Billy Gunn
92) Ron Simmons
93) Rick Martel
94) The Mountie/Jacques Rougeau
95) Dolph Ziggler
96) Ivan Putski
97) Mike Rotunda
98) Ken Patera
99) Jack Swagger
100) Koko B Ware

[OSJ]

@RolandTHTG:

That, sir is a very well thought-out list. Of course, I'm looking for nits to pick, but it's difficult; my gut feeling is that you have Eddy too low and Bobo too high, but that may well be due to my seeing a lot more of Bobo in other feds and getting to see all of Eddy's prime work in WWE. Larry Z. seems a bit low considering how huge his feud with Bruno was, may flip-flop with the Big Show (a man who has had an amazingly long career doing nothing of any importance whatsoever). Hmm, I get ready to fuss about Benoit's placement, and then I consider the beef I have with Bobo's rating and realize, yeah, you've got it about right for him. The punch-punch, german suplex, diving headbutt, snot rocket WWE Chris Benoit wasn't quite the same guy that we knew and marveled at in Stampede, ECW, NJPW, and WCW.

My only major quibble? I'll take a twilight run of Ronnie Garvin over anything that Dolph Ziggler has done or will do in his career.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I think you're right re: Zybysko and would move him up a lot more. Probably above George Steele maybe?

Eddy's WWF run I think is quite overrated in the scheme of things, everyone I have above him had a longer run there than he did. A relatively nothing 2000/2003 where he had great character work, An awesomely underrated in-ring 2002, a few month run on top that didn't do much for ratings or gates that caused him to break under the pressure, in limbo for a year and then had that awesome program with Rey. Benoit objectively had a better run there than Eddy for mine, but if you're including....the unfortunateness and the subsequent impact on the timeline/company, I'd move him from above Flair/below Angle to where I had him.

Bobo for being such a top/upper midcard guy for so long, at a time where it was nigh on impossible for non-whites to do so, and breaking that barrier for so many guys holds credible. I think its relatively high, but most of the guys immediately below him didn't really do a lot more within the WWWF/WWF/WWE either. Just that his run has had more flow on effect.

 

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

8 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

All-time?

Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, Bruno. All made huge money in their days.

Reasoned like a true worker, bruddah. 100% correct, asses in seats, everything else is conjecture, emotion or opinion...

- RAF

[Marty Sugar]

9 hours ago, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

Reasoned like a true worker, bruddah. 100% correct, asses in seats, everything else is conjecture, emotion or opinion...

- RAF

And I'm an INDY worker...money isn't even supposed to be my thing!

[SorceressKnight]

On 6/2/2017 at 0:21 PM, Matt D said:

Based on their criteria, which as I understand it is: 

N: Nuance (Longevity, Flexibility, Intangibles)
J: Jump Up Factor (Memorable Peak Matches, Moments and Storylines)
P: Promo Skills & Character Work
W: Workrate

Can anyone make a coherent argument for Hunter? I'm likely not doing this, but were I to, I don't think he'd make my top 100. The Bryan match is the exception that proves the rule. He's the absolute King of Bloat, both in his promos and his matches (things like the Last Man Standing with Jericho really haven't aged all that well because of it), and for every Batista turns on him moment, he's got a Katie Vick or Hunter Beats Booker after leaning on the racism or whatever. I'm pretty sure I'd put 100 WWWF/WWF/WWE guys over him without too much trouble. 

The most coherent argument there would be the Nuance by far.

Whether or not HHH is a top star or not, his longevity as a top star in the ring (and the intangible of being able to seamlessly move into being a authority figure without a problem, while still being seen as a figure of menace throughout the sport enough for his one match a year) has to be mentioned as a good case. It's not enough to say "he's in the top 5 or 10", but enough to be top 100 easily.

This would also probably work for The Undertaker's case for a similar argument: Both guys had a lot of longevity and a few memorable moments and peak matches, but the character work was also suspect sometimes (and the workrate got better with age in large part due to a limited number of matches.) The Undertaker's highs were higher than HHH's, but his lows were far lower (even when HHH was bloated or with Katie Vick/Hunter vs. Booker T, there were never moments where you could argue HHH was the WORST wrestler on the roster. With Undertaker, 2001 during the InVasion and 1999 with Big Show were times where you could make a case for that.)

[joseph2112]

On 6/2/2017 at 1:21 PM, Matt D said:

I'm tempted to do this just to put Mark Henry one spot over HBK (who, frankly, is hugely problematic in output, influence, selfishness in promos and ringwork, etc, with his best work being with the Rockers and that generally being despite himself at times). The problem with that, however. is that it puts Henry way too low on the list. 

The only problem I see in this argument is that if you want to count all of Michael's bad stuff against him, then you have to consider that before the 2005/06 Mark Henry, you have to take into account that he was lazy, overpaid, hurt all the time and part of some of the worst angles in wrestling history. 

And just to leave in-ring work out of it (because anytime that comes up Michaels and Angle are easily the two most polarizing figures maybe ever) what was Mark Henry's top position in the company? Smackdown brand split champ. I can't think of anytime he was in a higher place than Michaels. 

[Matt D]

4 hours ago, joseph2112 said:

The only problem I see in this argument is that if you want to count all of Michael's bad stuff against him, then you have to consider that before the 2005/06 Mark Henry, you have to take into account that he was lazy, overpaid, hurt all the time and part of some of the worst angles in wrestling history. 

And just to leave in-ring work out of it (because anytime that comes up Michaels and Angle are easily the two most polarizing figures maybe ever) what was Mark Henry's top position in the company? Smackdown brand split champ. I can't think of anytime he was in a higher place than Michaels. 

Thoughts:

1.) Well, I guess that's why they're 49 and 50 and not 12 and 13?

2.) It's very hard to blame Henry for booking in the same way you blame people who have more stroke like Michaels and Hunter.

3.) I think you're underrating earlier Henry to some degree in-ring. The Goldberg match was a little before that. Even so, I'm much lower on Michaels in general. He's more physically skilled earlier, but so often uses his powers for evil (though not always as indicated above). In a lot of ways that's worse than someone who's more harmless.

4.) If I learned anything from PWO's GWE process, it's that things get extremely boring extremely quickly if you lead with drawing power/card placement/Q factor. A lot of that stuff is mostly quantitative and the second something like this becomes an mathematical exercise, it's virtually the end of the discussion. Frankly, the same thing happened when it came to listing how many "great matches" people had on tape. Arguing for Flair as GWE based on the fact he had been in position to have more taped great matches than most other people in the 80s was easily the most tedious and boring argument possible. It didn't look at input in any meaningful way. It didn't look for patterns. It didn't play with context. There was no soul to it. The best part of this sort of project (and why I'm glad people are starting to talk about it here AND ideally getting this "Drawing" bit out of their system now so that it goes in a more qualitative direction, as Facebook is a terrible medium for this sort of discussion) is engaging with people on comparative qualitative metrics (qualities). 

[nate]

I'm actually less interested in this list, than I would be a "rank every competitor that's ever been in WWF/E" survey.  That's where the money is, top 100 BAH!

[AxB]

Fallah Bahh's never been in WWE though.

[JohnnyJ]

On 6/3/2017 at 4:21 PM, joseph2112 said:

The only problem I see in this argument is that if you want to count all of Michael's bad stuff against him, then you have to consider that before the 2005/06 Mark Henry, you have to take into account that he was lazy, overpaid, hurt all the time and part of some of the worst angles in wrestling history. 

And just to leave in-ring work out of it (because anytime that comes up Michaels and Angle are easily the two most polarizing figures maybe ever) what was Mark Henry's top position in the company? Smackdown brand split champ. I can't think of anytime he was in a higher place than Michaels. 

Henry was green when he started and came up during the worst era for making a case. You could argue that the fact that he endured all of that and came out a great promo and worker should improve his place. You could also argue the opposite.

 

[OSJ]

On 6/2/2017 at 8:53 PM, RolandTHTG said:

I think you're right re: Zybysko and would move him up a lot more. Probably above George Steele maybe?

Eddy's WWF run I think is quite overrated in the scheme of things, everyone I have above him had a longer run there than he did. A relatively nothing 2000/2003 where he had great character work, An awesomely underrated in-ring 2002, a few month run on top that didn't do much for ratings or gates that caused him to break under the pressure, in limbo for a year and then had that awesome program with Rey. Benoit objectively had a better run there than Eddy for mine, but if you're including....the unfortunateness and the subsequent impact on the timeline/company, I'd move him from above Flair/below Angle to where I had him.

Bobo for being such a top/upper midcard guy for so long, at a time where it was nigh on impossible for non-whites to do so, and breaking that barrier for so many guys holds credible. I think its relatively high, but most of the guys immediately below him didn't really do a lot more within the WWWF/WWF/WWE either. Just that his run has had more flow on effect.

 

You're probably right about Eddy, but allow me a bit of sentiment. ;-) Eddy was after Arn and El Samurai my favorite ever, so I'm inclined to think rather well of him. Hell, he got pretty great matches out of a lumbering oaf like JBL, that should count for something... 

Bobo gets a lot of credit for being a beloved star, when there weren't many non-whites cast in that role. Some of the credit is fairly deserved, some not... I think Bearcat Wright was a far better performer, and overall more important to the business (in both positive and negative ways). But for his time in a NE fed, that was actually pretty receptive to non-white performers, he was certainly a major piece of the puzzle. Not that I want to re-watch any of his matches. ;-)

And yeah, Larry Z. has to rate above the Animal, drew more money and never descended to a mid-card joke.

[Brian Fowler]

Eddy's late 2003 through mid-04 run is literally my favorite stretch by anyone in the history of the business. Nobody has ever been better than he was then, in my mind. And he was already my favorite wrestler in the world before that. I think it's literally impossible to overrate it, while acknowledging that I just did.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

30 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

Eddy's late 2003 through mid-04 run is literally my favorite stretch by anyone in the history of the business. Nobody has ever been better than he was then, in my mind. And he was already my favorite wrestler in the world before that. I think it's literally impossible to overrate it, while acknowledging that I just did.

Not trying to be a dick - but what am I missing?

From memory - won the US title tournament, feuded with Big Show over shit/burritos, lost decisively, feuded with his brother in a fairly underwhelming program, had the great run with Angle, then the JBL stuff that wasn't really all that well received at the time, aside from that time Eddy nearly bled to death in the ring?

After he dropped the title, sort of floundered around for months in nothing tag teams, rehashes of the Angle program, title multi-man matches until the Rey heel turn?

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

On the other hand, 2002 where he got RVD's best matches ever out of him, some awesome stuff with the Rock, solidified Edge as a main event/upper midcard guy better than Angle did, and some awesomely great tag matches with Benoit against pretty much anyone was mindblowingly good. And to think he could have had a PPV match with Austin in there too.