The main reason I lean towards using competition scores as my primary guide is because I trust the critical assessments of decades of WYYC judges–even in the “limited” context to which they are applying their critical eyes–infinitely more than I trust my own, largely ignorant, assessment. I mean, if I could go back in time to every WYYC and ask every judge who they thought the GOAT was, treating their answers kinda like “votes”, and go with whomever got the most votes over the course of the last, say, 20 years, I’d probably go along with that. But I can’t do that, and it seems to me that the closest analog to that is to look at how they scored WYYC competitors instead. I don’t know any other usable source of information/data I could go by.
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And I think that’s great - “know thyself”.
But also TRUST yourself to see what’s good. One of the beautiful things about yo-yoing has never belonged to the GOATs or judges any more than it belongs to the kids on playgrounds rocking their first babies. You have every right, even in your own “largely ignorant assessment” to decide what speaks to you.
I’ll stop now. 
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For 1a Gentry Stein
2a Shu Takada
3a Hajime Miura
4a Yet again Hajime Miura
You’re talking to someone who firmly believes that one is only ever entitled to (or should trust) their informed opinions. I’m simply not informed enough to decide–even for myself–who is yoyoing’s GOAT.
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Ok. Well I’ve been around a minute, so feel free to trust mine in saying that there’s not one. 
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Oh man I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you’re choosing a restaurant for dinner or a tv show to watch 
. I don’t think anyone is asking you to decide definitively who is the GOAT. It’s just a fun topic of conversation; Who do you think is the GOAT. Just share an opinion, it doesn’t have to be backed by anything. It could even be you. 
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In my opinion, Gentry is the GOAT cuz he has the best hair.
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Wrong. Charles Haycock has the best hair.
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Zslane are you into advanced stats at all? I’m out of touch now but I was really into the initial advanced stats that emerged for evaluating hockey.
What’s funny is that the basis of the stat that is still a fundamental way to evaluate puck possession started as a way for a goalie coach to get a better idea of his goalies’ performance.
Yuuki Spencer = 
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I couldn’t say definitively, but I think you could make cases for Evan Nagao, Hajime, Shu, Mickey, Yuuki Spencer, Takeshi M, Tyler V, and Paul Han all for GOAT.
There’s others also, those are just the people who come to mind immediately when I ask myself who the goat is.
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I think that Gentry is the goat as far as performance value. He’s really the one of the first ones that I’ve seen that puts on a really good show. That involves hitting the music well (which actually takes a good sense/understanding of rhythm) and avoiding standing in one place doing tech like the plague.
Not sure wanting to bash anyone but it seems like a lot of yoyoers just spend all their time in their room trying to do some weird technical inverted chopstick thing, and it shows.
I think that he really makes yoyoing into something that really looks good onstage. Something that many people could take a cue from.
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These are contradictory sentences. It requires no experience for someone to make a “gut instinct” decision. Your gut may change as you gain experience however.
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You’re probably right. I hope everyone grokked what I was getting at anyway.
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As far as modern 1A is concerned, this is the only correct answer
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I know that you guys are talking about 1a, but I think that just in general Hajime Miura is the best. Two world titles at once is a lot.
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Definitely not just talking about 1a, it says all styles in the title!
I agree that 2 first place finishes in one contest is very hard to beat
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Confirmed; Charles Haycock is the GOAT
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Watching charles really reminds me of what i believe a modern jason lee would look like.
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Charles is also a Kendama ninja as well
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