Top 100 Greatest Matches Ever (2023 results)
Jul 27, 2023 19:41:00 GMT -5
Post by Cap on Jul 27, 2023 19:41:00 GMT -5
With the top 5 upon us, I have a proposal that I wanted to run by everyone. It seems the integrity of the project may be getting close to being compromised. I see negative comments regarding the usual suspects always dominating the top of the list, etc. This, to me, looks like the reason for so-called "strategic voting" or "spiteful voting". For example, seeing 6/9/95 in ballots in the 90-100 range or in some cases off ballots completely. Don't get me wrong, I realize voting on subjective art is, well, subjective. And I may be taking this way too seriously. I personally feel that being as objective as possible on a subjective subject that there is no way there are 100 matches (to date) better than 6/9/95. I hate to harp on that match specifically, but since it has been #1 for 3, possibly 4 years running and most of the comments has been regarding it specifically, I chose it as the example.
This brings me to my idea. A separate list. A Hall of Fame if you will. Qualifications being that if a match finishes in the top 5 for 4 consecutive years, then it enters the Hall of Fame and becomes ineligible for voting. It would be kind of like an enshrinement.
This allows new spots at the top of the bi-annual list and avoids the fun of voting from getting stale or compromised.
Currently, now that only the top 5 are left this year, 3 matches qualify for the proposed "Hall of Fame"
Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue - 6/9/95 (#1 in 2019,2020, 2021. Top 5 vote 2023)
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi - 1/20/97 (#3 2019, #5 2020, #3 2021, Top 5 vote 2023)
Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori - 4/2/93 (#4 2019, #2 2020, #4 2021, Top 5 vote 2023)
So I want to start by saying we should probably table the idea until the rollout is done. I think we should focus on this years results for a bit. I'm going to give it some thought and save my thoughts for a bit after we have had time to digest our results.
I'll be a touch more detailed as to other part.
As for the basis of the suggestion, I don't think there is any real reason to think the integrity of the project is in danger (though I haven't yet looked at the raw data on the spreadsheet this year). My impression is that there may be a few things that make it look that way. 1) We have a community that champions its favorites and has some good faith banter about that from time to time. 2) We have been talking about the greatest matches of all time for like 4-5 years and you run out of ways to say "this is an all time great". 3) And this is the most important I think... we have a community that has been increasingly willing to not just question canonical matches, but also to accept that our personal tastes can and should determine what we think is "best" more-so than virtually anything else. I don't see any evidence that this has led to strategic voting. Rather, I think it has led to honest voting, where people - hopefully - feel less like they will be held over the fire for not voting for what others vote for. I'm as guilty as anyone of partaking in the aforementioned banter, but I i hope everyone knows that is in good fun.
There may always be good faith conversations about how to balance subjectivity and "objectivity" in a project like this and how to approach it, but with so many ballots I think that is what we really want. This list should feel like a collection of our individual tastes and how they shift and move over time as we learn about, watch, think about, and write about more wrestling.
Maybe all of that is obvious. Others have approached this with more brevity than my long winded ass. It feels like I'm just repeating things we have talked about as we have discussed the mission of the board and what not over the years, but the long and short, is that while I understand the concern and I genuinely appreciate the focus on the integrity of the project, I think the board is accomplishing its mission and I would personally need to see more evidence that there is foul play before I would see a problem.
That all said, I'll reiterate what others said while I was typing this out and what I said at the beginning: Let's table any changes for now and just focus on the list. We can circle back to it later.