Showing posts with label You Better Recognize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label You Better Recognize. Show all posts

WWE's "Supposed" 50 Greatest Wrestlers of All Time

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

What the hell, WWE? Seriously, this is your list? For those of you who don't know, WWE is putting out a 3 disc set of their 50 greatest wrestlers of all time.

If I put out a list like this, I consider a few different things, since you can't take just the wrestling into consideration:

1- Wrestling ability

2- Mic work/ ability to get over with the fans

3- Overall contribution to pro wrestling, in general

It seems that the WWE has taken my third point and turned it into "people who haven't screwed or left WWE for another company". Cases in point? Take a look at the list:

(1) Shawn Michaels
(2) The Undertaker
(3) “Stone Cold” Steve Austin
(4) Bret Hart
(5) The Rock
(6) Harley Race
(7) Ricky Steamboat
(8) Andre the Giant
(9) Rey Mysterio
(10) “Rowdy” Roddy Piper

(11) Eddie Guerrero
(12) Triple H
(13) Gorgeous George
(14) “Macho Man” Randy Savage
(15) “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig
(16) John Cena
(17a) Dusty Rhodes
(17b) Ric Flair
(19) Edge
(20) Jerry “The King” Lawler

(21) Lou Thesz
(22) Terry Funk
(23) Hulk Hogan
(24) Bruno Sammartino
(25) Chris Jericho
(26) Ted DiBiase
(27) Fabulous Moolah
(28) Classy Freddie Blassie
(29) Randy Orton
(30) Pat Patterson

(31) The Iron Sheik
(32) Jimmy Snuka
(33) Mick Foley
(34) Kurt Angle
(35) Buddy Rogers
(36) Gorilla Monsoon
(37) Junkyard Dog
(38) “Superstar” Billy Graham
(39) Jake “The Snake” Roberts
(40) Big Show

(41) Jack Brisco
(42) Sgt. Slaughter
(43) Kane
(44) Nick Bockwinkel
(45) Jeff Hardy
(46) Dory Funk Jr.
(47) Bob Backlund
(48) Rick Rude
(49) Batista
(50) Killer Kowalski

My Notes:

1. Hulk Hogan BARELY made the top half at 23. Sure, Hogan is a no-sell, tired gimmick douchebag. But Hogan was not just a big part of keeping WWE and wrestling relevant in the 80s, his work with the NWO almost put WWE out of business in the 90s.

2. Shawn Michaels is #1? Sorry Mr. Wrestlemania. If I'm taking into account EVERY wrestler for this list, you barely make my Top 10...I can easily put Austin, Rock, Bret Hart, Flair, Hogan, DiBiase and Taker ahead of you. WWE must have made this list on HBK's retirement high. Sure, his last two Wrestlemania matches are arguably 2 of his top 3 matches EVER, but I don't think he's better than the other 49 guys on this list.

3. Mysterio's #9. Rey, I love you, but your wrestling, especially against 300-400 pound guys, is nowhere near believable, nor have your finishers ever made me go "ooh, that probably could really hurt in real life". You weigh a buck sixty wet. Sure, it could be that the WWE wants wrestling style diversity on this list, but this screams of "lure the Hispanic viewers into buying our stuff" more than anything else. If that's the real truth, WWE should be ashamed.

4. Read my lips- Kurt Angle (34) was one of the top four wrestlers of the ENTIRE 2000s, along with Austin, The Rock, and Triple H. He was probably the most complete package of that entire era. Even with all of these great wrestlers, he's still deserving of the top half of this list, at the very least.

5. Worst of all, and the most outright snub, is that you have Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes SHARING #17. Flair should be Top 10, hands down. Not only do you bump him spots, but you make him share? That's just outright indignance on the WWE's end.

WWE, I know that it must feel shitty to have wrestlers go work for other promotions. But this is like a girl breaking up with a picture of her boyfriend after he already dumped her. It's petty, it's shameful, and it's a slap in the face to all those who worked their asses off for the business, not just WWE.

Add people, comments or whatever. I've said my piece for now.

Qranking out Questions

Friday, November 12, 2010

If you don't know yet, I'm a HUGE trivia buff. So it comes as no surprise that Qrank is one of my favorite trivia apps on the iOS, and even if you don't have an iDevice, you can still play the game by finding it on Facebook. The best part? IT'S FREE.

A game of Qrank in progress. Note the
three current events questions in the
400 point zone marked with a leaf. There's
also a question counter at the top that
keeps a tally of right and wrong answers
for that game.
The premise is simple: there's a game board with 20 questions, as seen to the right. Questions are ordered by difficulty and split into zones worth 200, 400, and 1000 points. Each day, 4 different categories are used, and any unused question with a leaf on it means that the question covers current events, so if you're an avid news reader, you're more apt to be more successful with those questions. You can play any 15 questions on the board, but the big catch is that you can only play the game once a day. So once you've played all 15 questions, you're done.

The game has a cavalcade of achievement badges attached to it- one of the most notorious being one that requires you to play the game every day for 365 days. But the one that I was most adamant about earning is called "Published", and is only given to players whose submitted questions are used in the game. It's a really smart way for Qrank's creators to generate content without running into writer's block.

So I've submitted a couple questions, but imagine my surprise when I saw that I had earned the Published Badge myself. I was a little nervous because I hadn't played the game in about a week, and my question could have been used anytime over that span. But I was lucky enough to catch it on the day it was used- the writers edited my question by switching the question content and the post-question anecdote, but I'm ecstatic that it was even used in the first place. Check it out below- sorry I didn't get screens of the four answer choices.

If you're not playing Qrank, you need to. Even if you're not a trivia buff, it's a great way to spend a couple of minutes each day- hey, you may even have a shot at beating my score!

Google Loves Me, This I Know

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Not too long after I posted the latest set of trivia questions, Drew Scott from the incredibly awesome blog Blasters to Babies told me that he looked up the answer to one of my trivia questions, and lo and behold, my blog was the #1 return on Google. Drew even captured the screen, so I could trophy it around all day and night.
Life is good if you're the Trivia and Pancakes man.