I read Earl's opinion of the best 9-ball players once, and he had Louie and Wimpy on it. A few others also, but I'm not remembering the others. He did leave himself off the list, iirc.
As we all know, there has been a lot of speculation about Earl for a while now but, we "ALL" have to say:
Earl showed a lot of class by not including himself on the list eventhough, even the people that didn't like Earl would have agreed that he MOST DEFINITELY belonged on the list.
Some people (a couple on this site too) cannot help but put themselves in the spotlight when telling stories about people that are/were great.....eventhough, they themselves weren't "spotlight worthy", not even on their best day.
Sometimes people tell themselves they're this or that until eventually, they believe it themselves.
Earl was/is a very, very nice person. He is much more than just a pool player. Very intelligent man.
Jeff