Lurker > Maniac64

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

SockoressKnight posted...

Steve Austin vs. The Rock
Snoopy vs. The Red Baron

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Ramza

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Not the Hand Grenade?!

If only Soldier Ant was there

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

IhatethisCPU posted...

....I swear to fucking fuck if my +3 is the difference *in favor* of the person that got the +3...

<_<

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

ZaziGuado posted...

Also I was very pleased to learn that Greg Woods is an Iowa native and graduate of the University of Iowa like myself. I'll cheer for whatever his favorite team is too.

Yep that made me very happy!

Teams I have some support for are: Minty Maniacs, Snowballs, Turtle Sliders (now that I know they exist), Team MoMo, Rojo Rollers.

I'll also cheer for Chocolatiers (Minty Ally), Green Ducks, crazy Cats Eyes, Hazers, and Balls of Chaos if no one I support is involved in a heat.

My bottom three remain Speeders, Primary, Orangers

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Yeah there were a few break points where a single vote even a new +25 couldnt move someone up the rankings and one of them being after #3 is pretty crazy.

The board definitely had a definitive top 2.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

GentlemanGamer posted...

I don't see what voting for Biden, or thinking he is the better choice has to do with the fact that is is absolutely a bad sign that lunatics like Bolton and Powell are voting for him. That is incredibly a bad sign to anyone who knows anything about those men.

You must have missed where Bolton isnt voting for Biden. He made that very clear that he wont't support Biden. So no bad sign there, heck you'd probably call it a good sign that Bolton refuses to vote Biden even when he hates Trump.

He just also wont vote for Trump.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

NBIceman posted...

That was my writeup, by the way, so if y'all think it's subpar like I do, you can direct your critiques here!

Oh shoot. I'm really sorry for not giving you credit in the post.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

And ultimately, I think thats because a ranking of this nature encourages to look at different aspects of individuals careers and contributions under a microscope, whereas the career of Shawn Michaels was really more than the sum of its parts in a lot of ways. He was never the number one worker in the world or the number one draw or anything like that, and those are the criteria on which we tend to judge the candidates for this sort of project.

But theres something to be said for pure memorableness, and he has that in spades. The fact that he is so unique as a contender for the title of GOAT is in itself something of a point in his favor. Those contemporaries like HHH and Randy Orton, while they still found spots on this list, didnt make it nearly as far as Shawn, so it cant all just be manufactured hype. Somehow, some way, this wrestler, who has plenty of marks against him (no pun intended), manages to rise above the divide between the hardcores and the relative casuals and reach heights that, to some degree, are only possible if he has some support from both sides. And while I could spend more time trying to pinpoint the exact reason for that, I do think a lot of it is just abstract. HBK sticks in our minds one way or the other, and when you look at the competition that surrounds him up here at the top and see the concrete reasons and statistics that brought them to that level, maybe all that really needs to be said is that theres simply something special about this man, and that it doesnt matter if we actually understand it. Just that we know we enjoy it.

[matches to come later.]

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

#3: Shawn Michaels
Total Score:266
# of lists: 16
1st place votes: 1, Whiskey Nick

HBK occupies what is, at least in my estimation, a completely unique spot in the collective mind of hardcore wrestling fans like us. The WWE Machine, at some point, decided to start pushing the narrative that he is, in fact, the greatest wrestler of all time. In a vacuum, thats not particularly outlandish or even that weird in any way. The problem is that the WWE Machine also likes to push the narrative that guys like Triple H, Randy Orton, and Big Show also belong in that conversation. The WWE Machine is largely so completely full of crap that, when it says something like Shawn Michaels is the best ever, even those of us who think he has a fine case for that title get kind of uncomfortable. It makes him feel somehow simultaneously underrated and overrated, because if youre like me, his was one of the first names you wrote down as a lock for this list only to watch perplexed as he slowly slid down the eventual list of 25 as you compared him side-by-side with others.

In other words, I have the awkward task of explaining to yall why its completely reasonable for him to have finished in this spot despite the fact that he barely squeaked into the top 20 for my vote.

Michaels doesnt have the in-ring output of Kazuchika Okada or the Four Pillars or even, arguably, someone like Ric Flair. He doesnt have the drawing prowess or subversive popularity of the Rock or Steve Austin. The history books are absolutely overflowing with controversial stories of his backstage politics and all-around dickish and/or borderline criminal behavior. Look through the right lens (or wrong lens, I guess, depending on your perspective) and you could come up with a lot of reasons why HBK doesnt really belong anywhere near the top of a list like this.

But he is. Why is that?

Look, I could sit here and try to give you all a blow-by-blow account of his career. I could take you through all of his most famous and important matches and title reigns and character moments and put them all in their proper historical context. I could start from the humble beginnings and work chronologically through all the stages of his long career and try to sum up the legacy he left as a talent. I could give you the full Shawn Michaels picture and tie it all up in a neat little dispassionate bow and we could all go about our business.

Honestly, though, plenty of people more talented and more knowledgeable than me have already done that. More importantly? I actually think that kind of scientific approach does him a disservice. To me, the things that made Michaels a great wrestler werent necessarily the same things that make other people great wrestlers.

Now, thats not to say that he doesnt have a library of incredible matches to his credit. And he always seemed to be ahead of the curve in some way, or at least at its forefront. Even back during the days of his team with Marty Jannetty (lol), he was doing things that most of his contemporaries just werent doing. He may not have had the first ladder match ever, but he had the first one ever on a big stage, and people still talk about it to this day. He may not technically have had the first Iron Man match, but he had the first one that mattered, even if that match itself is kind of widely derided and laughed at these days as much as anything. He did have the first Hell in a Cell, and theres a pretty solid number of fans today whod probably still call it the best one. And youve obviously got the Wrestlemania 25 bout that has often, even in this ranking, been remembered as the greatest match WWF/E ever put on. Itd also, I think, be a pretty ludicrous claim to make that there werent periods where he was wildly popular with the masses in one way or another.

But at the end of the day, I think this is what it all comes down to: I truly dont think I would be a professional wrestling fan were it not for Shawn Michaels. At the risk of sounding overly poetic or even pretentious, this medium, this niche entertainment, this strange art form that we all hold such fondness for operates and rests on a precarious position thats contingent upon performers capturing the imaginations of their audience. And while that kind of thing can be most easily seen by young kids that still believe in kayfabe, it extends to people like us as well. I will never ever be a fan of the idea that pro wrestling is inherently stupid and we enjoy it by embracing the stupidity. I find that reductive in the extreme and more of an easy way to excuse the dumb things that do happen than anything. But I do accept that when we turn on a wrestling match, were making an agreement to hunker down temporarily into a universe where the logic of the world at large need not really apply 100% of the time as long as there is internal logic.

Michaels made a career out of wrestling matches against guys bigger than him. Id hesitate to look at him as the bastion of a philosophical transition in that respect because, outside of a few key examples, the WWE still favors big guys with big bodies even today, but he was something of a trailblazer as the first true case of a smaller guy really being the cornerstone of the company. And it worked because of his aura. Larger than life is a descriptor that is incredibly overused and misused in this business, but its not out of place where HBK is concerned. He always felt like a giant because his personality was so huge and shone through in everything he did as a performer. He always seemed to somehow naturally be the perfect marriage of wrestler and entertainer. There was never anything accidental with him. Every movement and gesture he made in the ring, every promo line, every entrance flourish and gear change - Michaels committed to the cartoonish, over-the-top nature of his company and era and made it into something that somehow gave him an air of legitimacy. Even in the gradually shifting environment of WWE during his later years, he was still often the smaller guy in his matches, and I think it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle just how rarely he won any important bouts in even the last decade of his career. But he never once felt like he didnt belong, and it was always easy to find yourself getting sucked in. If he was fired up, so were you. If he was selling with pain etched on his face, you felt it. Michaels never really lost a step when it came to injecting emotions into his matches, and when you get right down to it, thats among the most important abilities a wrestler can have. It might be number one.

This was easily the most difficult writeup I provided for this project, and its not because I dont think Shawn is deserving of his placement. I do, at least for the most part. But I also had him ranked below most of my other writeups who, in turn, I believe finished pretty fairly ranked considering the voter base of a list like this. Theres a lot of bizarre dissonance in my mind when it comes to this guy.

[continued in next post]

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Galuf

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Snake5555555555 posted...

Ipkiss vs. Broly
ertyu vs. Kirby

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Haha there is literally a rule that they can terminate your feed if you boo the WWE or wrestlers.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Flubs are not my issue with JR. Not understanding the product or supporting certain gimmicks is the problem.

And arguing about move names.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Where is Firestone made?

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

CybrMonkey posted...

Hopefully she is on the shortlist for whenever they finally gin up the courage to kick JR out of the booth.

Please. He is like the 5th best commentator they have now. Not even counting Jericho.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Did he give the lower blood oxygenation claim?

I've heard that one and seen multiple doctors debunk it.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Ramza

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

greengravy294 posted...

Se7enthrust vs. Corrik
USA vs. USSR

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

NBIceman posted...

Okay, yeah, that perspective makes sense.

Yep I figured it was just a misunderstanding of my issue.

I'm a big tag team guy and definitely want real teams beating paired up singles wrestlers 9 times out of 10.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Like honestly if they hadn't claimed it was random teams I would have no issue with the tourney and would be happy actual teams did the best.

But they had to claim it was a gimmick style tournament that I enjoy and then didnt actually do the gimmick.

It's like if they announced a falls count anywhere tournament but every pinfall attempt happened in the ring anyway.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Sorry I wasnt clear.

Yes the actual teams should win. But there shouldn't be multiple actual teams in a lethal lottery tournament. That's the whole point of doing random teams!

Instead the only people in random teams were ones who didnt have a tag partner to begin with. And even in those cases I think everyone is paired up by face/heel alignment. So why pretend it is a random team tournament if you arent going to mix up any established teams?

That's why it's the worst lethal lottery.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

So the "random teams" tourney ends with the two actual teams in the final.

Worst Lethal Lottery ever.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Mr Lasastryke posted...

that's a really stupid reason to not vote for biden.

biden: *constantly talks about how much he hates socialism, whether it's relevant to the topic at hand or not*
republicans and independents: OMG JOE MAY TURN SHARP LEFT

You arent seeing the campaign ads conservatives are putting out. That is the common theme, that Biden is going to be a puppet of the extreme left.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Just waiting on a writeup

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Paine and Rikku are going to give me a good number of dead character saves.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Yes

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

This has been a very enjoyable topic to read

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

As for the final event

Minty! Minty! Minty! Last place in qualifying but a DOMINANT win in the event! Also teo individual holds for Minty Fresh who was a real overall star for the team. Might be time to talk about who should be captain next year.

Gold to start and end it and a 3rd place in the final standings. Some real rough patches but a great year overall! And the most gold medals!

Just wish it wasnt the Speeders on top...

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Finally watched the showdown

brutal. Snowballs didnt make it like I feared. A good start falls apart and they never competed again..

and now that I know Turtle Sliders is a team I cant help but put them in my top teams with Snowballs and Minty.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Vince literally cannot comprehend fans not agreeing with him.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Jericho & Luchasaurus team? That's just crazy

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

I'm scared to watch and see if my Snowballs made it.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

#4: Kazuchika Okada
Total Score:237
# of lists: 12
1st place votes: 2, War, Jakyl

Writeup: NBIceman

If you happened to flip the channel to Spike TV in 2010 or 2011, you might have seen a brief appearance on TNA Impact! by a handsome young Japanese fellow known simply as Okada, on excursion from his home promotion of NJPW following the completion of his time as a Young Lion. If you were particularly, er, lucky, you might have even seen him during the short time he was called Okato, sporting a look inspired by Kato from the wildly unpopular Green Hornet movie that had just come out. He worked sporadically, lost almost all of his matches, and never did anything the least bit important.

Fast forward to February 2012, where in his second match following his return to Japan, Kazuchika Okada ended what was at the time the IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign with the most defenses in history in front of a (worked) 6200 fans. Fast forward again to 2019, where he broke that record himself in front of a (real) 6300 fans on a comparatively much smaller show after long since having cemented himself as the best wrestler in the world.

Every so often, youll run into someone who will tell you that Okada has really never been as popular as his success would imply. Most of these people are diehard fans of a certain Okada contemporary, and some of these people even post on this board from time to time. ALL of these people either have no idea what theyre talking about or are arguing in bad faith or both. Hiroshi Tanahashi was the one who kept NJPW afloat when the company really needed him, and he deserves every bit of the credit he gets (high placement on this list included) for that, but the man who succeeded him as the ace is the man who truly catapulted it into its most prosperous, profitable, and prominent era ever. Not only is he beloved in his homeland, there are many, many Western fans that would not be watching New Japan (or really any Japanese wrestling at all) were it not for Okada; hes second only to Omega in terms of instrumentality to NJPWs forays into the USA.

But twenty years from now, I think the first thing most fans will think of when Okadas name is mentioned are the matches, specifically in that aforementioned record-breaking reign. Beginning in June of 2016 and ending almost two years to the day later, it includes no less than 4 defenses (counting the one where he lost it) that would each be named by a pretty significant amount of people as their personal pick for the all-time best wrestling match if you did a poll of all wrestling fans, plus 10 other matches (counting the one where he won it) that rarely dropped below the level of legitimate MOTYC. Oh yeah, and every single one of those matches did great business. Id have no hesitancy whatsoever in calling it the greatest title reign in wrestling history.

Add that to his other runs with the title and yearly output in the G1 and youve got a truly incredible lineup of work. Put Okada in a big spot and he will deliver every single time. Hell, the guy even bucks the normal trend of top NJPW guys taking it easy in tag matches most of the time. Hell have great matches with bad wrestlers, incredible matches with good wrestlers, and transcendent matches with great wrestlers. Hes smooth in the ring and athletically gifted to the point where it almost doesnt even look like hes trying sometimes. He always knows exactly where to place a high spot in a match to make it memorable and ensure a huge reaction from the crowd, and he constantly makes tiny modifications to his moveset that keep him from ever being truly predictable or figured out. Perhaps most importantly, he has a rare (almost completely unique) gift for bringing out the best in his opponents and guaranteeing that they come out of their match looking more impressive than they did before, even in defeat. He knows exactly how to play to others strengths, exactly how to sell and how much to sell, and exactly what role to play in any given situation based on fan response. Hell have high-paced sprints, technical showcases, all-out slugfests, long epics, and everything in between without ever looking like hes outclassed or doesnt belong. Okada is in a class all his own when it comes to in-ring storytelling; no one in history can take something ultimately simple and turn it into something magnificent in such a variety of styles the way the Rainmaker can. He never does anything too complicated - were talking about a man whose two most well-known moves are a dropkick (even if it is the best one ever in wrestling) and a lariat - but he does everything as close to perfectly as weve ever seen.

Modern hardcore fans like us may sometimes forget how lucky we are. We look back with reverence on eras like that of AJPWs Four Pillars and the height of the NWA or the territories in general, and though tape trading and sites like YouTube make it possible for us to still appreciate those days to an extent, the experience of following them day in and day out or being at shows live cant be replicated, especially considering theres plenty of matches only available in poor quality and plenty more that have been lost to time entirely. And even the most fortunate of diehards couldnt see every show to begin with.

We have the incredible fortune of having EVERY performance of a singular talent like Okada just a few clicks away from us at any given time, including as theyre happening. And yeah, those will be preserved for future generations, but we get to see it all in real time, and theyll still envy us for that.

Oh, and by the way, hes only 32 years old. So, yknow, theres an argument to be made, considering when wrestling peaks often come, that we havent even seen him at his best yet. He may already be a legend, but the legend is far from over. As his former manager used to remind everyone, Kazuchika Okada is simply on another level.

https://vimeo.com/107076466 - Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (April 7, 2013)

https://www.facebook.com/njpwworld1972/videos/1433531383393253/ - Kazuchika Okada vs AJ Styles (July 5, 2015) (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x63hll5 - Japanese Commentary)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4su5k7 - Kazuchika Okada vs Tomohiro Ishii (August 6, 2016)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x58fxo5 - Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega (January 4, 2017) (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x631r9p - Japanese Commentary)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kc9k6 - Kazuchika Okada vs Katsuyori Shibata (April 9, 2017) (https://vimeo.com/248582752 - Japanese Commentary)

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Dang that's awesome.

What is NL?

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Also wishing good luck to Ramza since appointments made me to late for a 3rd save.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Yeah that's fair. Hard to argue against that.

And she can always resign later

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Tidus

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Barret

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Coke va Pepsi
Marvel vs DC

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

One Piece Pirate Warriors

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Faris and Galuf are both great

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris

Canada with the double rep.

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"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris