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Originally Posted by .isolated
Even based on in-ring skills alone. My god. I'll ignore the spinkick wonder for now. Brock Lesnar at 96? Really? Come on, man.
edit: unignoring Waltman now. You mentioned consistency. He had consistency in WWF? He had two memorable matches and one of them unknown to most because it happened on Action Zone. How many memorable matches did he have in WCW? How many spinkicks did he throw? Waltman was boring af because if you saw one Waltman match, you've seen them all. How many memorable Brock matches have their been? Of course you can argue that his matches now are repetitive but his run from 02-04 and 12-SS 14 was anything but repetitive and he's the definition of consistent.
This is a person who has a top 100 matches of every single year of the 1990s, so a top 100 for 90, for 91, for 92, etc. Not just PPV matches, but TV, house shows, anything and everything.
Without looking, I suspect Waltman is being helped out considerably by his week-to-week TV. And that there's more there than that match on Action Zone.
Have a look at his nomination thread:
http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.ph...-sean-waltman/
I'll quote some bits:
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Interesting candidate.* If I was just looking at the first few years of his career you'd think he'd be a cert for me; from the PWA matches with Jerry Lynn and Wellington Wilkens, to the Global Light-Heavyweight stuff, to the 1993 NJPW Super Juniors Tourney to his first few years in the WWF there's a bunch of memorable, great matches.* He was even doing it on the syndicated shows against the likes of Pat Tanaka, Ted Dibiase and Blake Beverly in the early days, add to his Raw match against Bret, the King of the Ring match against Owen and some tags alongside Marty Jannetty and even one with Barry Horowitz against the Quebecers.* From there I'm drawing a blank up until his Chikara match with El Generico at King of Trios.* I didn't watch much WCW from when he was there, so I'd like to think he has some good stuff in his resume from that period (the ladder match with Guerrero for instance), but he's one of the few candidates who's stints in the 'Big Two' (especially his Attitude era run in the WWE) I want to have another look at.
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He was an absolute prodigy early in his career. It's the 1991 Global stuff with Lynn that has gotten the most play since more people have seen it, but he was phenomenal in PWA against Jerry Lynn in various matches. He had a match with Wellington Wilkins that is pretty high concept for U.S. wrestling, and something I'd recommend everyone check out. Then, in 1992-1993 he had strong matches in Universal and against Sabu before having his WWF run that most people have seen. I'm not one for really factoring wrestler comments into my opinions, but when so many guys have talked about how the company used him as the barometer to see who could and couldn't work, and then you watch footage and see how that's true, I think there's absolutely something to be said for that. He never reached his full potential as a worker because his personal life was in shambles much of the time, but he had a great grasp of psychology and knew how to get the most out of his athleticism. I wouldn't advocate him for the top 80 or so of a ballot, but for what it's worth, I think his 1990s surpasses that of Eddy Guerrero when taken in full. If Eddy is getting on your list on the strength of his 1990s -- meaning he'd place even without the WWE run -- you owe it to yourself to watch some more Sean Waltman.
So it looks like he's being helped out considerably by those first few years too.
You can scoff or shake your head in disbelief if you want. These guys are the most knowledgable fans anywhere online. And have been for a long time.
You can also see that not everyone will be ranking Waltman. And as I said there'll be those who don't rank Hogan or Austin too.