Lucha on the PWI Top 500

9 thoughts to “Lucha on the PWI Top 500”

1. What type of list is that – must be a ‘biggest draw’ type thing because if it is ‘best worker of 2006’ it is farcical.

   There are 45 other luchadors who have done better this year than Volador Jnr? – yeah right…..

   Even lower for Virus and Sagrado??

   HIM!!! at 133 above pretty much all of the 20-somethings CMLL stars. two words – fuck off!

   Tigre Metalico higher than the far more polished Tigre Blanco – i’ll assume that was one they forgot.

   Out of interest, i know he hasn’t appeared much if at all in Mexico, but where’s Ricky Marvin on the list. I’d be expecting him to be extremely high up.

2. I think it’s a “who would win a match” thing. Or at least in theory it is.

   Marvin’s at 230; I missed him and Blanco, I guess.

3. Texano over Ron Killings? Killings is former NWA champ for god sakes.

4. PWI usually makes it clear when they publish the list that it’s not the Top 500 wrestlers in order of how good they are. It’s basically how popular and successful they were they were in the past year (remember all those top 10 finishes by Hogan and Luger).

   And face it, Killings has had one lousy year. Marvin, while good, hasn’t done much and has spent most of the past year in Japan.

   Though, Chessman is still a good 100-150 places below where he should be. I can almost guarantee that after the top 150, it’s more a matter of “ok, we gotta fill out 300 more positions, who’s left?”

5. Waitaminute… I have to ask this – when did you (cubs) become a Chessman supporter? I was always under the assumption the fact you couldn’t get into AAA tied into you not being able to appreciate the work Chessman does?:/

   Your “rescue effort” point is quite valid. I also hope Bucanero makes the jump to AAA and gets programmed with Chessman. Bucanero has the ‘rep’ of a great worker so people may tune in to see him and be surprised by the fact there is someone who can keep up with him. Bucanero vs Chessman – Hair vs Hair at Triplemania 2007! A man can dream…

   As for the list, it’s PWI so what more has to be said. The most surprising thing for me was Skayde being ranked so low since Quack was in charge of placing all the Mexicans on the list. John Molinario used to be a good friend of mine and was the PWI Mexico reporter before Quack came along. Back in 1998 he actually explained how the PWI 500 worked. They just told him to pick the top 25 Mexicans and rank them, then the editors would insert them every once in a while in that order. There are no “Ultimo Guerrero is better than Fit Finlay” arguments, it’s just a matter of “well we’ve gone 15 spots without a Mexican so time to stick one in”.

   Chessman being so low on the list is probably b/c Quack doesn’t watch much (if any) AAA footage. You can tell the guys in AAA were pretty much listed on star power only if Cibernetico is #109.:) Try #901!

   Every time I see a list like this, it inspires me to think about how we should come up with a top 50 current luchadors list. But there are just too many complications to deal with.

6. comments:
   -Shocker is the top AAA rated guy… are you kidding?? Besides Chessman, I can not understand why Gran Apache, Pimpinela & Billy Boy are on the list, and Secta/Fuerza have been on TV more than many CMLL guys… It looks as if championship have some meaning here… Texano Jr, Maximo, Sagrado… Mexican Atomicos was of no help for Secta?

   -Guerreros del Infierno + Atlantis have 8 guys in the top 80!!! Apparently, also helped Dr X, Sangre Azteca, Nitro and even Hoolingan… hell, Arkangel de la Muerte!! At 269 he’s the lowest Guerrero… besides Loco Max… Blue Demon Jr is the lowest ranked Perro.

   -I love Hooligan(‘s work) but he’s only been a limited time on TV to be considered seriously… same goes for Tigres Metalico & Blanco… Mascara Purpura has been more in TV and has looked good, the only bad thing about him is… well, he’s tecnico… :)

   -There are only a dozen or so Laguneros in the list…

   -Does this list has any influence with prommoters all over the world? I mean, for a guy in Japan, Mistico is more attractive since he’s #5 than Hombre sin Nombre at 280?

   >>Or we could just send a Chessman comp to the PWI offices so they can make their fake lists better, I dunno.

   Who puts the list together? I think that in the old times, or at least before ’99, Molinaro did his top 20 or so lucha guys and the PWI would interleave it into the overall list, so at that time, if you removed every non-lucha related guy from the list, one could get the idea of the good lucha workers as opposed to the random feel of this year’s list. For instance, considering the 98 PWI and the Huricanrana! newsletter:

   1998—-1998—-1998—-1998
   0veral Ranking- Omiting non-lucha guys
   (Huricanrana! Ranking)
   PWI Ranking-
   1- (2) 18- El Hijo Del Santo
   2- (n) 20- Ultimo Dragon (n= not elegible, I guess)
   3- (1) 25- Juventud Guerrera
   4- (n) 28- Eddy Guerrero
   5- (13) 34- Negro Casas
   6- (9) 37- La Parka (Original)
   7- (11) 41- Psychosis
   8- (4) 47- Dr. Wagner jr
   9- (12) 56- Blue Panther
   10-(8) 71- El Felino
   11-(x) 75- Jerry Estrada (x= was elegible, but did not make the Huricanrana list)
   12-(19) 81- Octagon
   13-(10) 84- Papi Chulo (Mr Aguila)
   14-(25) 93- Atlantis
   15-(n) 99- Konnan
   16-(28)101- Silver King
   17-(7) 107- Rey Mysterio Jr
   18-(x) 112- Villano IV
   19-(5) 127- Venum Black
   20-(27)135- Heavy Metal
   21-(16)161- Mr Niebla
   22-(x) 168- Hector Garza
   23-(x) 171- Fuerza Guerrera
   24-(x) 183- Emilio Charles Jr
   25-(21)204- Abismo Negro
   26-(x) 206- Blue Demon Jr
   27-(x) 214- El Dandy
   28-(x) 218- Super Parka
   29-(x) 224- Pantera
   30-(x) 229- Apolo Dantes
   31-(15)238- Mosco De La Merced
   32-(x) 244- Pentagon
   33-(x) 249- Perro Aguayo Sr
   34-(x) 261- Villano V
   35-(29)268- Shocker
   36-(6) 276- Black Warrior
   37-(x) 278- Lizmark Jr
   38-(x) 287- Perro Agayo Jr
   29-(x) 290- Universo Dos Mil
   40-(x) 304- Pirata Morgan
   1998—-1998—-1998—-1998

   Huricanrana! Had a top 30 list, and that #30 was Rey Bucanero… the list in the newsletter was not done by Molinaro alone, or at least in that year, a few of us got to vote there, Jerry Estrada was a personal favorite of John, I guess it shows…

   Notable guys ranked in Huricanrana! Newsletters who were not included (besides Bucanero) in the PWI are:

   Ludxor(26), Virus(23), Zumbido(22), Charly Manson(20) and Ultimo Guerrero(14)… if the PWI list was published by September, maybe these guys were under the radar at the time, since they have better runs in the second half of the year (Ultimo won Mr Aguila’s mask on Spt 11th)

   On a positive note about the PWI 500 list, is that 1/6th of the list has lucha-related workers, which is impressive considering that there’s not a large body of wrestlers working in the USA. Or at least, not in any USA company. It might mean that the wrestling business has shrunk in the past and they have to use lucha guys to fill up the space… I don’t know.

   …

   Chui

7. The story I’ve read is Mike Quackenbush (289) does the Mexico rankings, and I’m like 64% sure he may read this board, so he’s free to choose a fake name and defend his gross negligance here.

   I should be seeming him live soon (the same night as the Anniversary if I get my act together), so maybe I’ll use the list as heckling material. Perhaps “you are SO not 100 spots better than Chessman” isn’t short enough to shout, tho’.

   I don’t think major promoters take this list seriously. The smaller promoters might. Still, these are the same promoters who hype La Parka based soley on his WCW stint and probably don’t have the contacts to bring the guys in if they wanted to.

   I think PWI’s including more lucha (and more non-US) because they’re aiming at the ‘smart’-er fanbase nowadays, and they lose some cred if they’re just putting random US indy guys in.

8. Seeing that 1998 list brings back so many memories. If I still had my old computer I’d be able to share the top 30 I shared since we all got to vote. I’m pretty sure it was full of AAA guys who never made the final list though. Molinaro definitely used to be a huge Jerry Estrada mark. I remember when El Mohicano was working TV regularly opposite Oscar Sevilla and John would talk about how he was a future Jerry Estrada II.:) Then again, at that same time I was thinking Guerrero 2000 was a future Juventud Guerrera based on one match so yeah…

   The list strikes me now as very WCW influenced. You can see all the guys with regular WCW jobs were higher on the list than the better workers who only worked in Mexico.

9. ***I think PWI’s including more lucha (and more non-US) because they’re aiming at the ‘smart’-er fanbase nowadays, and they lose some cred if they’re just putting random US indy guys in.***

   But isn’t PWI’s ‘Markishness’ part of its charm? One guy I didn’t notice at first but was not in the list: Juventud Guerrera.

   I bet Bihari’s list for HR was 1) Mr Aguila, 2-30) AAA guys. :)

   Yes, the list was very WCW oriented, Villanos V and IV where in WCW and the PWI list, but III was in Puerto Rico, and not in the list… I intended to post an introductory paragraph to explain that PromoAzteca had gone out of business and that WCW had hired most guys… Juvy had lost his mask and pushed at the top spot to replace Misterio who was out with a knee injury, but the post was getting to be the longest comments ever and I deleted some things…

   I think we should come up with a top 50 or so list… the problem is that the footage is not available to everyone at the same time.

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