V2 WWC Quarter Finalists

In order of the group they were in, the best eight acts in wrestling today (according to this website) are;

AJ Styles
Brock Lesnar
Kevin Owens
Roman Reigns
The New Day
Seth Rollins
Dean Ambrose
Sasha Banks

The debate for today as this doesn't continue until Monday.

Is this a fair reflection on wrestling today? Do you feel it is too WWE heavy? Are there any in the list who have benefitted from "the luck of the draw"?

Who would be your top 8 from the original participants?

I think as comments indicated, you can only vote for what you are watching, so we saw some good wrestlers dropped because they just haven't wrestled enough in this time frame (e.g. Bryan & Zayn), or because people aren't watching their work.

And when a range of wrestlers from WWE, NXT, ROH, TNA, PWG, LU, etc. is taken then there is probably a very small group of people on this board who can truly say they've seen enough of all the work to vote. So the alternative is to only vote on "mainstream" which given comments of people not watching TNA since BFG look like WWE & NXT to me. And I'd be really against that as I think if one person says, I'm going to check out Jay Lethal, or Mike Bailey, or Pentagon Jr, on Shinsuke Nakamura then this poll has achieved an objective of spreading interest.

Looking at the list I don't think there is anyone on the list that I'd make a passionate argument shouldn't be there. So, again I think that is job done, we don't have a Crazzy Steve, Baron Corbin or Sin Cara here.

As we said, this is a snapshot. And I did find the narrative of NXT coming out of the first round interesting that they are in a transition with their popular wrestlers either moved to WWE or injured and the new blood (Crews, Gable & Jordan, etc) too new to make an impact. I do find it interesting that 5 or 6 of the 8 we can strongly link with NXT. I'd be quite surprised if someone could make an argument that Samoa Joe or Finn Balor should be wrestler of the year. So, interesting to see where Zayn comes back and how they go from here.

I think probably the biggest shock for me is Cena not making this list. I think he has a better body of work than at least two on the list.

There's a clear winner for me, who I've watched work a lot of matches this year from 5 to 30 minutes and not only hasn't had a bad match, but has barely put a foot wrong and has elevated everyone he's worked with. He'll probably not win though

I think this was always going to happen, even when trying to watch the other people in the list, one or two matches simply isn't going to give me a good enough idea of how good that person is, where as with WWE I'm getting the full package, I get all the build up and the pay off. I get to see them talk week in and week out and wrestle lots of different people.

I think there is also an unfortunate truth that WWE has moulded perceptions of how wrestling should be. I'd love to say that I can stick on any kind of wrestling and enjoy it, but it's simply not true, WWE has shaped what I have come to expect and the truth is because of that I'm now probably more of a "sports entertainment" fan than I am a wrestling fan. I do find it difficult just to watch a wrestling show for the wrestling, it doesn't pull me in.

I agree with the first part, but haven't the same experience with the second.

I watched a couple of Jay Lethal matches, because my ROH knowledge is pretty low.  But that wasn't enough for me to be able to genuinely weigh up his case against others in his group.  You've kind of got to follow all the promotions to a relatively close degree if you are to be able to judge everyone on the same platform and I kind of think you'd be down to very few voters here if that was the requirement.  

I take it that you mean the WWE product as the talking, the matches that don't have a finish and the final pay-off match(es).  Rather than how WWE presents a match.  I think the weekly promotions (TNA, NXT, ROH even LU) has this.  I'd also argue that some of the indies have the same strategy (Progress in particular).  

So, out of the promotions discussed here, maybe only PWG and New Japan are just about matching up wrestlers and seeing what will happen (though you can see some progress in stories, like Mt Rushmore, the Bullet Club, Okada vs Tanahashi, etc.).

But, I get what you mean, for me it is investment in the characters, not necessarily how the promotion is put together.  So, I've no idea what Nakamura says after being in the ring, and I'm not sure I've heard 5 words from Mike Bailey, but I'm invested in their work when I watch them because I have a previous body of work I've seen to fall back on and "I know them".  Countering that I was watching something yesterday, DragonGate I think, and I've seen like two shows from that this year, so I do find that harder to sit down and get into because BxB Hulk, Cima and T-Hawk are still not guys that I really know.  Of course finding the time to build up that catalogue of seeing these guys so you can slip into another match of theirs is the problem.

EDIT: I think I also remember you saying that you like how WWE is presented, e.g. the huge arenas, the Titantron, etc. and you find it harder to watch wrestling viewed by a few people in a hall.

And I can see this. If you went from watching Wrestlemania one minute to Battle of Los Angeles the next that's a big change in how things are staged.

To be honest, I think that mostly a good crowd comes over as a good crowd. And I think a crowd really helps you get invested in the product. And again, I'd say that most of the promotions have that. I think something like LU is really very cleverly staged, where you've got maybe 200 to 300 fans, but I think they make it feel like an arena show.

But yeah, I get this. New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom feels big, because it is. Huge crowd, Titantron, big entrances, etc. Some of New Japan's house shows that they've shown this year, I'm really not as invested in, just because the staging doesn't draw me in like the big event does.

I think a big issue for me is production values, TNA and RoH both have significantly worse production values than WWE. NXT's is okay, they keep it nice and simple which it helps, but generally the more indie promotions don't pull me in because they look so amateur, it does alter the way I perceive the matches. 

Lucha Underground on the other hand is just too weird for me, they have better production values but probably go a bit too far the other way for me. I've found it really hard to get into it to be honest.

NJPW is next to impossible for me, without the speaking, the wrestling style not really appealing to me and the lack of English commentary outside of the one show mean I just can't enjoy it. The wrestling itself can't pull me in and I think that's true of pretty much any wrestling promotion. People have talked of ROH's fantastic wrestling style and quite a lot of my favourites have wrestled there, but the production values and the differences from WWE have make it difficult for me to really invest.

WWE do a lot of things wrong and I think that's all the more frustrating for a fan like me, because I can't simply just watch a different wrestling promotion, because I think I'm a WWE fan and I want good WWE rather than simply good wrestling. If I was a big Doctor Who fan, but it kept disappointed me, I wouldn't be satisfied watching a smaller production that is in some ways similar to Doctor Who, it might do a lot of things better than Doctor Who, but it's not Doctor Who and I think that's the same with WWE. The closest any promotion has ever come was TNA in 2009-2010, where it genuinely beat WWE on so many levels and was starting to grow and resemble a true alternative.

Yeah, I'd just remembered that as you were posting and I agree.

TNA I've found really hard to get into. And I've seen good matches in it. But when you can see that the 3rd row back is the end of the crowd and hell, most of those guys aren't into it, then I'm quickly out too.

It seems odd even to me saying this, but I'd like some of those guys in TNA like Eric Young and Bram to get a hair cut. And that's hugely influenced by WWE and the "look" their roster has. I can't really put my finger on and it justify it, but to me it is like WWE has set the look that a wrestling TV show should have and TNA just seems to jar against that, and not in a good way.

LU. Well, I can totally get people not getting LU. And, maybe I sound hypocritical now, but I celebrate the difference of LU. I just think that you can't compete in a fair fight against WWE, WWE is just too big. So, really making your show massively different, having these lucha guys wrestle a style that isn't in WWE, having this out there storyline. Look, its going to work, or it isn't. For me it does. For you it doesn't. And that's fine. I hope it works more than it doesn't. And it might ultimately lead to them going under, but I applaud the fact that they've not tried to be a WWE clone.

I've never much minded about production values, provided the shows actually watchable, which for most major Japanese, UK & US Indy companies they generally are, multi cam set ups, commentary and lighting, they may not be as slick match to match as WWE but it doesn't put me much up nor down, as for crowds I actually prefer smaller Indy crowds most of the time, I feel excitement carries more easily and you get a better buzz, plus the crowds are often more passionate than your average WWE crowd

There are sometimes where admittedly production values do inhibit my enjoyment, the New Japan single cam shows aren't ideal for me, I just can't engage with them in the same way I do with the full production, but given that they are only humouring the world subscribers by chucking a cam in what is essentially a house show, you want to see unwatchable production though check out Lucha indys ooft!

Dr Gregory House MD wrote:you want to see unwatchable production though check out Lucha indys ooft!

I've seen smartphone coverage that beats some of these.  Still, they can be fun for a few minutes on YouTube. Investing in a GoPro for some of these guys would be like going fully professional!