Austin Region, New Orleans Subregion, First Round (8)Chris Benoit vs.(25)Dean Ambrose

[nightmare]

So since titles & legit skill in the ring are somehow low on the scale of importance....

We should all consider that voting criteria comes down to positive/negative business impact only. The actions of individuals that have made the business better or more enjoyable through their actions inside or outside the ring.

That means it goes Benoit<Ambrose<Chris Nowinski<the guy who makes the awesome PPV promo videos<Jim Johnston.

Your WZT 2016 winner... Mr. Melody Jim Johnston.

 

[Dave]

Here's the thing, after a very quick search for "wrestlers who have killed" on Google, I've come across yma few surprising names who have killed someone in their time on the plant. We all know about Jimmy Snuka. But I personally didn't know about Scott Hall, Verne Gagne, New Jack and The Great Khali to name but a few. To reference the main argument from Coco that Benoit nearly killed the industry, I would point out all of these incidents.

Wrestling has been through this long before Benoit and will probably go through it again. Benoit didn't almost kill the wrestling business, he was just unfortunate enough to be actively wrestling when he did the deed. Wrestling will persevere through everything.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Benoit is a guy you hire when you have a three or four hour show to fill with wrestling, not a guy you include in a greatest ever show.

Ambrose kind of sucks the big one so far but he has more charisma and acting ability in his tongue and greasy hair than Benoit has in his oddly geometrically shaped body and damaged head.

Vote Kofi.

 

[Tastycles]

Here's the thing, after a very quick search for "wrestlers who have killed" on Google, I've come across yma few surprising names who have killed someone in their time on the plant. We all know about Jimmy Snuka. But I personally didn't know about Scott Hall, Verne Gagne, New Jack and The Great Khali to name but a few. To reference the main argument from Coco that Benoit nearly killed the industry, I would point out all of these incidents.

Wrestling has been through this long before Benoit and will probably go through it again. Benoit didn't almost kill the wrestling business, he was just unfortunate enough to be actively wrestling when he did the deed. Wrestling will persevere through everything.

Traffic accidents, in ring accidents and being senile are not the same thing. You appear to be missing the point. When Bemoit did what he did the mainstream media turned on wrestling to such an extent that it nearly got shut down. That didn't happen in any of the other cases because they didn't involve a wrestler losing the plot because of wrestling. The only one that is close is Verne Gagne, but he barely knew his own name when he did that and the guy he killed died because he was a frail old man close to death anyway. That is not the same as killing your wife in the prime of life then strangling a seven year old.

 

[Stormtrooper]

This is, by far, the winner of idiotic post of the round. Congrats.

Because the WWE is burying [name redacted], it doesn't mean that you or I have to. [redacted] was a fantastic wrestler zthat was gifted with terrific wrestling abilities; both in an out of the ring. He displayed to everyone during his wrestling career that he could mix it with the absolute best of them and come out successful at the end of it all. Dean Ambrose is yet to pick up any sort of high profile win against anyone on the highest level in the WWE.

Voting for anyone other than [redacted] here is a joke.

Fucking hell, are you serious with this horse shit? I usually don't knock how someone chooses to vote but this is beyond stupid. It's in the realm of Hogan loses because he can't climb a ladder stupid. Anyone who uses this argument is stupid.


I'm voting [redacted] for all the reasons stated and because he entertained me more. Next year I may say different if we get this match but as it stands I'm voting for [redacted]

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this every year. I know I've done it before (I'm 99% sure I had this conversation with X either last year or the year before).

Watch a match featuring this guy you speak of that doesn't exist. You know what you see? Him getting concussed, which was scientifically proven to cause the serious brain damage he had at the time of the murders. Chairshots unprotected, diving headbutts, etc. Before I gave up trying to watch said wrestler that doesn't exist, every time he used his head or his head hit anything I saw him murdering his wife and child.

I didn't ignore him because of WWE. I ignore him because he is the biggest piece of shit in wrestling history and I can't help but see the innocent victims of his choice of wrestling style. It's my own choice, and it's really the only one if you look at the big picture.


So everyone should vote Ambrose, because no matter how much you like him he isn't the biggest piece of shit in the history of professional wrestling.

 

[nightmare]

I really think that "shutting down" is an overstatement. Up in arms, sure, but closing up shop it was not. It was handled like most situations in high profile sports cases with the attention it got & the focus became about why it happened. Then everyone was all about the concussion issue & no more chair shots to the head, not "everyone boycott wrestling & close the doors forever"

During the steroid scandal there was more talk of possible sanctions, regulations & the effects of dipping ticket sales than it seemed to be in the Benoit tragedy. The business agreed it was horrible & most implemented the no head shot thing, while Vince decided to just erase the guy. That was his way of avoiding further controversy by showing his matches & then they became more active concerning concussions and they way they are handled by staff/performers.


Benoit has the credentials to beat Ambrose. What he did was awful & unacceptable, but it does not change how great he was before that. The history of wrestling is filled with those who abused drugs, spouses, broke laws & even murderers. Some of them worse than others. So if we eliminate guys in this to account for the shitty things their personal choices caused, then this tournament would be without some big names. 99% of the time these things may be acknowledged, but are not factored in because voting is largely based on draw/accolades.


This is more over the top than normal & nobody voting Benoit is advocating murder, they are just acknowledging Benoit was a better wrestler. Since that cant really be argued against easily, some are just skewing what people say to imply they are ok with what Benoit did instead of really trying to show Dean could win on his own merits.

Nobody here thinks murdering your family is ok. So quit with the silly implications before it gets too crazy & bleeds over to other threads eliminating deserving talents for their shitty personal choices (cough* Hogan) regardless of how illegal or immoral they were.

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

I won't vote for someone who shouldn't be acknowledged.

Ambrose goes to the next round.

 

[nightmare]

Cool, so since WWE recently decided they shouldn't acknowledge Hogan & severed ties with him, then you won't be voting red & yellow this year.

 

[Navi]

Those voting against Benoit are setting a new precedent. So now, we can hold what wrestler's do outside of the ring and outside of wrestling as a whole against them? Hmmmm.......

This tournament get's better and better year in and year out. Now we can use what wrestlers might do in the future as an argument for them and now we can use what happened out of the ring against them. I love it.

There is no reason whatsoever that pertains to wrestling that Benoit should lose this match. Those of you using his tragedy against him are just doing so to vote for Ambrose. Because that's literally the only way you can justify a win for Ambrose.

Vote Benoit

How are we setting a new precedence? Some have made it very clear as to why they have voted and they are not all the same. And I have no idea why you think everyone should think the same way you do.

I voted for Ambrose because in the world of sport entertainment, he entertains me. I think he's great. Is he the best wrestler on the planet? No, but I don't care. I like the guy and aside from what he did, Benoit never entertained me the way that Ambrose does.

Now I don't pretend to know everything there is about professional wrestling, and there are times I feel I know nothing, but I know what I like, and that's why I voted the way I did. So how is that wrong?

So by your arguments, then, you're going to vote against everyone that's brought a negative light on the industry, right?

So you're going to vote against Hogan then in all of his matches, because very few have been more negatively viewed by the media than Hogan. Which, as a result, has brought a negative light on the wrestling industry. Especially for the steroid scandal in the early 90's. Which was, ironically, brought back with the Benoit incident.

The two events aren't even on the same planet. Benoit hurt others, Hogan hurt himself. You really can't compare them. I feel sorry for Hogan, and I feel nothing at all for Benoit.

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

Cool, so since WWE recently decided they shouldn't acknowledge Hogan & severed ties with him, then you won't be voting red & yellow this year.

Hogan said offensive things that a publicly traded company can't stand behind.

Spare me the moral equivalence.

 

[SSJPhenom]

How are we setting a new precedence? Some have made it very clear as to why they have voted and they are not all the same. And I have no idea why you think everyone should think the same way you do.

I voted for Ambrose because in the world of sport entertainment, he entertains me. I think he's great. Is he the best wrestler on the planet? No, but I don't care. I like the guy and aside from what he did, Benoit never entertained me the way that Ambrose does.

Now I don't pretend to know everything there is about professional wrestling, and there are times I feel I know nothing, but I know what I like, and that's why I voted the way I did. So how is that wrong?

I'm sorry; I was assuming that everyone was taking an objective look at this tournament and voting accordingly. If you vote strictly on who you prefer, by all means carry on. It ruins any chances of having a decent debate, but if that's how you vote then that's how you vote.

I like Ambrose too, huge fan, however, in terms of strictly wrestling, I think Benoit was better. That could change down the road, but right now, that's what I think. If you want to debate that objectively, then let's do it.

Didn't mean to assume how you voted was wrong.

The two events aren't even on the same planet. Benoit hurt others, Hogan hurt himself. You really can't compare them. I feel sorry for Hogan, and I feel nothing at all for Benoit.

I don't feel sorry for Hogan at all, like Benoit, he made his own bed with his decisions, however, those decisions have nothing to do with how I view him in the context of the wrestling business. I don't like Hogan very much at all as a wrestler or person, but objectively speaking, he's quite possibly the greatest ever.

 

[nightmare]

Hogan said offensive things that a publicly traded company can't stand behind.

Spare me the moral equivalence.

Yet that action caused a similar but not equivalent erasure from mentioning him close to how Benoit was handled. You said you couldnt vote for someone who shouldnt be acknowledged, so I was just confirming your commitment on if you chose to continue to vote in other matchups using this criteria.

Hell, Benoit's one major fuck up is pretty bad, but would it not also be considered immoral to back a former steroid using using cokehead who commits adultery while being a bit of a racist douchebag? I think someone's life and teachings were made into a book that frowns on any of the above separately, let alone racking them up like a bingo card.


Just fucking around here & pointing out how absurd this all can get. I get why you choose to vote against him, but the moral needle can certainly fall in a negative way for more than just Benoit. I just choose to put those types of shitty things in a separate box & try to vote in the tournament based on more relevant criteria toward our end goal, dashed with a little humor as needed.

 

[NSL]

This tournament has been going on for 10 years now, and every year, the best of the best (trust me) are asked to submit a list of guys they feel should be in this tournament, and the seeding are done from these lists. Obviously there was a large enough number of people willing to focus on Benoit's in-ring performance and accomplishment over the other bullshit. They also thought highly enough to rank him as a 9 seed overall, even with some people keeping him off of their list, or knocking him down a bunch of spots, based on that.

So, clearly, he's done enough in his career to warrant this spot, and be ranked so much higher than Ambrose. The fact Ambrose is winning is just absurd.

PaRT of the voting process here is supposed to be legacy/impact on the buisness. Coco's points are valid.

Even with that, Benoit is still that much more superior to brose that he deserves the vote.

Ambrose is honestly sort of shit, Benoit is one of the best ever.

I'm not sure if Ambrose has ever won a match, we're Benoit has beaten the mount Rushmore of guys who were....selective of who they put over. This was pre-Daniel bryan. A guy that short going over clean for the big belts was absurd.

Ambrose has accomplished next to nothing, while Benoit did it all.

Basically what this man is saying ^^^^

 

[NegativeFeedback]

This tournament has been going on for 10 years now, and every year, the best of the best (trust me) are asked to submit a list of guys they feel should be in this tournament, and the seeding are done from these lists. Obviously there was a large enough number of people willing to focus on Benoit's in-ring performance and accomplishment over the other bullshit. They also thought highly enough to rank him as a 9 seed overall, even with some people keeping him off of their list, or knocking him down a bunch of spots, based on that.

So, clearly, he's done enough in his career to warrant this spot, and be ranked so much higher than Ambrose. The fact Ambrose is winning is just absurd.



Basically what this man is saying ^^^^

He hasn't made it to the Quarter-Finals since the 3rd WZT, and has been eliminated in the first two around in all the others, including his landslide loss to Rob Van Dam last year, who's a perennial WWE midcarder and most recently, a glorified jobber. It's rather ridiculous that Benoit is a #9 seed in the first place anyway. He jobbed to everyone and their mother in the WWE. He had one solid 4 month title run, and even then, he was not main eventing any PPVs, playing second fiddle to whatever Evolution was up to on Raw.

Chris Benoit is a great athlete, and probably one of the best of all time, but all of that is non-kayfabe. And if you want to bring in non-kayfabe stuff, then the fact that he killed his kid shouldn't be off-limits. Hell, I'd also argue that the tragedy transcended into kayfabe as well since it's the only logical reason why none of the characters have ever mentioned or acknowledged him.

In any case, I voted for Ambrose because he's more entertaining than Benoit ever was, and I wanted to see him take on Austin in the quarter-finals. It had nothing to do with Benoit being a psycho, but it definitely doesn't hurt.

 

[NSL]

He hasn't made it to the Quarter-Finals since the 3rd WZT, and has been eliminated in the first two around in all the others, including his landslide loss to Rob Van Dam last year, who's a perennial WWE midcarder and most recently, a glorified jobber. It's rather ridiculous that Benoit is a #9 seed in the first place anyway. He jobbed to everyone and their mother in the WWE. He had one solid 4 month title run, and even then, he was not main eventing any PPVs, playing second fiddle to whatever Evolution was up to on Raw.

You say that like "playing second fiddle" to HHH, Flair, Orton, and Batista is a bad thing...

And I'm not saying he deserves to win the entire thing. His lack of charisma and mic skills, and his short title reign, wouldn't make sense in that case. But, he deserves his place in the tournament, and as a 9 seed, you wouldn't expect more than 1, maybe 2 wins, and a third only if the gimmick match really fell in his favor, such as a submission match.

And the 4-month title reign still beats out Ambrose's title reign...since he hasn't had one yet. There's a lot of arguments that he's the best of the three from Shield, but who won the title last year at WrestleMania, who is most likely going to win it this year at WrestleMania, and who is being fed to Brock Lesnar?

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

In terms of legacy, Coco and Tastycles' drum about almost killing the industry rings somewhat true. That was the immediate impact - a spotlight on steroid abuse, drop in interest and drop in ratings.

Long term, the wellness policy, rehab, banned and then reduced (odd order I know but whatevs) chairshots to the head, the investigations into concussions affecting wrestlers and sports-people.

Both the positive and negative impacts related to Benoit's murder-suicide are very interesting to compare and contrast with each other and in 5-10 years from now it will be even more interesting to see what the legacy of the stricter wellness policy and greater concussion research will be.

Benoit may have been poor on the mic and the history of wrestling is littered with people who were awful with promos and consequently never made it anywhere. Benoit's talents were such that he was over through his skill in the ring alone and connected with the audience without words. I can see why people like Ambrose but of the new breed of potential main-eventers, I can only think of Bray Wyatt as the one who may have a worse win-loss record.

 

[Rayne]

I voted for Dean Ambrose for three reasons.

1) Chris Benoit killed his family.
2) Dean Ambrose didn't.
3) I've got my priorities in life straightened out enough that I find it impossible to support a child murderer because he also had a good German suplex.

 

[Dave]

I voted for Dean Ambrose for three reasons.

1) Chris Benoit killed his family.
2) Dean Ambrose didn't.
3) I've got my priorities in life straightened out enough that I find it impossible to support a child murderer because he also had a good German suplex.

You are so edgy. Can I be a part of the cool kids club?

For the record, Benoit was more than just a German Suplex machine. He was one of the finest technical wrestlers to ever grace a ring. Vote for him or don't vote for him, I genuinely don't care. But don't bring your weak ass, bandwagon jumping arguments here as if you live on the edge.

 

[Rayne]

You are so edgy. Can I be a part of the cool kids club?

For the record, Benoit was more than just a German Suplex machine. He was one of the finest technical wrestlers to ever grace a ring. Vote for him or don't vote for him, I genuinely don't care. But don't bring your weak ass, bandwagon jumping arguments here as if you live on the edge.

I didn't realize being anti-child killer was an edgy statement to make, I'm old and can't keep up with trends anymore.

 

[nightmare]

Still waiting for those ringing endorsements based on Ambrose's ability and accolades.


Should I just assume there are none & he goes on to beat everyone this year? He surely could beat Hogan given the fact he has so many positive personal references of character over the man.

 

[Rayne]

Moral equivalence is AN argument, but in practice I've never met a person who honestly equated stealing a candy bar with murdering a family.

 

[The Brain]

There are a lot of responses that I read while not logged in yesterday so forgive me for not going back to quote and addressing people personally.

Some people are saying Benoit almost killed the business and are voting against him because of the overall harm he did to it. I think that's an exaggeration I don't think WWE ever came close to closing its doors as a result of the Benoit murders. Sure, some changes were made, for the better I may add, but WWE wasn't going anywhere. Some of mentioned the steroid scandal of the early 90s. Those against Benoit naturally misinterpreted those comments (intentionally I'm sure to weaken the argument). Nobody is suggesting pro wrestlers doing steroids is worse than a man murdering his family, but honestly that was a bigger threat to the business than the Benoit murders.

Someone mentioned that Verne Gagne also committed murder. That argument was correctly countered by stating Gagne was not held responsible because he was 83 years old and had Alzheimer's and was not in a right frame of mind. What was not mentioned was the study on Benoit's brain after his death that showed damage to his brain resembled, guess what, an 85 year old Alzheimer's patient.

For those voting against Benoit (not for Ambrose) because they have morals, to each his own. Personally, I don't take it that seriously. My vote for Benoit doesn't mean I'm willing to forgive his actions because he was a good wrestler. I don't feel like I'm supporting a murderer. I feel like when asked a question of who would win a match I'm simply giving an honest answer.

Let's put the murders aside for a minute. You can quote that one sentence to make me feel like a terrible human being if you want. Let's put them aside not because they don't matter or are less than important than wrestling. Let's put them aside because they aren't relevant to this conversation. If Chris Benoit retired in 2007 and was living happily ever after with his wife and kid right now would he get your vote?

 

[Rayne]

I disagree that Benoit's murders are irrelevant to the conversation; it asks people to place Chris Benoit the professional wrestler in a vacuum. That's all well and good if we're measuring the speed of light, but I don't believe that a man can be measured in a vacuum; that is, without making a mess.

 

[Tastycles]

If Chris Benoit retired in 2007 and was living happily ever after with his wife and kid right now would he get your vote?

I can honestly say no he wouldn't. If it weren't for Randy Orton, he'd be my least favourite main event wrestler ever. Honestly, though it's irrelevant. My bone of contention in this thread isn't people putting the murder to one side, it's the bemusement that some people don't want to. You feel you can, that's fine. Yet if someone can't, they shouldn't be accused of lying or 'pretending they care' when it's certainly not beyond the realms of contention that someone can't forget a murder.

The other point I'd address is the Gagne issue. Gagne had the brain of an 83 year old with Alzheimer's because he was an 83 year old with Alzheimers. Benoit's brain was like that because he repeatedly took risks he shouldn't have. Christopher Nowinski is probably the preeminent expert on head trauma in wrestling, and he said that Benoit "was one of the only guys who would take a chair shot to the back of the head ... which is stupid." Obviously Benoit wasn't to know what would happen ultimately, but the fact is if he was in a state mentally, it was largely his own doing.

 

[Navi]

If Chris Benoit retired in 2007 and was living happily ever after with his wife and kid right now would he get your vote?

I can honestly say he wouldn't get my vote either. Maybe I'm the worst wrestling fan ever because I watch wrestling to be entertained, and Benoit was boring. Some say he's the best technical wrestler ever to enter the ring, I say okay, but he has no charisma, promo skills weren't there, and that's my biggest complaint with Reigns who I love, and he'll be a three time world champion next week.

So yea I find Dean Ambrose wacky, funny, does things that only he can get away with, and makes me want to watch him to see what he'll do next. As Jon Moxley his in ring work was much better than it is now, that I'll blame on the WWE.

Benoit went as far as he was going to go, with Ambrose the sky is the limit it they let him. But then I'm the kind of person who goes to the track and bets on a horse because of it's name so make that of it what you will.