Greatest Wrestler Ever - G. Badger's Sort of list...
Entry posted by TheBean in From the Editor
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Greatest Wrestler Ever is in the reveal stages. I was gonna put a list together but, it wasn't to be. I'm not a good person for lists. Do you know what I mean? I'm not a list kind of guy. Sure I'll have a shopping list or or a to-do list but I struggle with these kinds of lists. It starts out as fun but it eventually takes over my fucking mind. "Just Right" thinking is what it's known as in some circles 🙂 So there's no way I can get a list of 100 of my favorite wrestlers together in any fucking order at least. Yeah, ordinal lists are a problem.
It's cool to see a bunch of other people did. It's also cool to see some youngbloods on the board. Hope you folks stick around! As I said elsewhere, it be cool to hear some different views on some old matches on the Match Discussion archives.
Back on my original blog, I did a big list of my favorite projects from the first 350 posts. I'm going to share that here with you. It's really the best way I feel like a I can participate in the GWE experience/excitement. If you're looking to the GWE stuff for new people and matches to watch, I hope this helps. I'm pretty sure you're still going to watch wrestling afterwards, right?
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Early-mid 80's AJPW is really awesome stuff. I think it's a fantastic way for someone to get into old school wrestling or Japanese wrestling. You've got lots of legends and it's got a even mix of U.S. & Japanese stars. Then when Terry "retires", Brody is in NJPW and Riki & co. join for a few years, it feels like a brand new organization. Similar to the early days of NOAH or when Akiyama & co. go to AJPW in 2013. Hansen, Tenryu & Terry Funk are my #1, 2 & 3 wrestlers of all time. Jumbo, Misawa and Riki up in the top quarter for sure. I would probably put Dory Jr. there as well. Seriouly, I see people ranking Baba but no Dory Jr.!? 😁Then personal favorites like Ted DiBiase, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Ashura Hara & Kuniaki Kobayashi are shining in this era too. Top 50 guys. This is prime stuff. Here's the best of what I saw:
- Bruiser Brody vs Jumbo Tsuruta (10/14/83)
- Dory Funk Jr. vs Stan Hansen (AJPW 11/28/83)
- Baba & Dory Jr. vs Hansen & Brody (AJPW 12/10/83)
- Jumbo Tsuruta vs Kerry Von Erich (AJPW 05/22/84)
- Brody & Hansen vs Baba & Dory Jr. (AJPW 08/26/84)
- Tiger Mask II vs Pirata Morgan (AJPW 12/08/84)
- Brody & Hansen vs Terry & Dory Funk Jr. (AJPW 12/08/84)
- Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW 12/12/84)
- Kuniaki Kobayashi vs Tiger Mask (AJPW 06/21/85)
- Riki Choshu vs Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW 06/21/85)
- Kuniaki Kobayashi vs Tiger Mask (AJPW 08/31 aired 09/07/85)
- Stan Hansen/Ted DiBiase vs Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW 08/31 aired 09/07/85)
- Ric Flair v. Rick Martel (AJPW 10/21/85)
- Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW 11/30/85)
- Shoehi Baba/Dory Funk Jr v. Jumbo Tsuruta/Tenyru (AJPW 12/12/85)
- Stan Hansen/Ted DiBiase vs Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu (12/12/85 aired 12/14) only 1/2 aired
- Tiger Mask vs Great Kabuki (01/28/86)
- Genichiro Tenryu vs Ashura Hara (04/12/86 AJPW)
- Tenryu & Giant Baba vs Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase (07/05/86)
- Stan Hansen vs Terry Gordy (09/11/86)
- Tenryu & Tsuruta vs Giant Baba & Tiger Mask (11/28/86)
You'd be wise to check out 1985-86 for Animal Hamaguchi, Isamu Teranishi and Super Strong Machine (Junji Hirata) as well. No "classics" but really exciting wrestlers in great matches. These guys are fucking great! Definitely personal favorites that I watch for in New Japan and IWE as well.
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Tatsumi Fujinami became one of my favorites because of my 1988 New Japan project a few years ago. My admiration definitely increased when watching New Japan 1980. Fujinami is the quintessential technical pro wrestler. Top 10 wrestler. I highly recommend watching these:
1980
- Tatsumi Fujinami & Kantaro Hoshino vs Dynamite Kid & Steve Keirn 01/18
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Dynamite Kid 02/05
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Ashura Hara 04/03
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Chavo Guerrero 05/09
- Kengo Kimura vs Tatsumi Fujinami 09/25
1988
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Big Van Vader (04/27/88)
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Riki Choshu (05/27/88)
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Riki Choshu (06/24/88)
- Tatsumi Fujinami vs Big Van Vader (06/26/88)
- Antonio Inoki vs Tatsumi Fujinami (08/08/88)
Other pretty recent recommendations are:
Genichiro Tenryu vs Tatsumi Fujinami - 04/29/96
Hulk Hogan vs Tatsumi Fujinami - 03/12/82
👆Click the links to go to Wrestling Dream Battles blog 👍
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Tiger Mask I is absolutely worth checking out especially beyond his matches with Dynamite Kid. I think the hindsight "bad reputation" Tiger has gotten is from just how hard those matches were hyped. And don't get me wrong those are amazing matches at first but I've probably watched them all 5 times each. Only their final encounter holds up after multiple viewings. Tiger Mask/Sayama has one of the best runs ever. Some of my favorites from his New Japan tenure are:
- Tiger Mask vs Gran Hamada (11/05/81)
- Tiger Mask vs Steve Wright (04/01/82)
- Tiger Mask vs Black Tiger (05/26/82)
- Tiger Mask vs Bret Hart (07/30/82)
- Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Black Tiger & Pete Roberts (08/27/82 NJPW)
- Tiger Mask vs Pete Roberts (09/10/82 NJPW)
- Tiger Mask vs Gran Hamada (02/03/83 NJPW)
- Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid (04/21/83 NJPW)
- Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (06/02/83 NJPW)
- Tiger Mask vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (07/14/83 NJPW)
Then you have his stuff in the original UWF and WoS. I don't know if he'd make my top 100 due to the brevity of his quality but certainly top 25 of the 1980's wrestlers.
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I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to dig into FMW. As an ECW fan in high school, FMW always seemed like the cooler cousin of ECW...if just for the Tanaka vs Awesome stuff. In my VHS days, I had BJW & IWA Japan stuff but not FMW. Eventually I got an Explosion Death Match comp tape. Then a few years later, I got the Highspots Hayabusa comp which was very good but not great as a taste of the true best of Hayabusa. So finally sinking my teeth into the meat of FMW has been fulfilling. As garbage/hard core wrestling has fallen out of mainstream favor for a long while, I think the memory of ECW and FMW is fading. So I'm glad to keep the flame burning. I need to watch more but my absolute favorites so far are:
- Atsushi Onita/Tarzan Goto vs M. Kurisu/Dragon Master [Kendo Nagasaki] (FMW 04/01/90)
- Masato Tanaka, Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa vs Kanemura, Hido & Hosaka (FMW - Exploding Barbwire match - 09/01/96)
- Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Gannosuke (01/06/98 FMW)
- Hayabusa vs Masato Tanaka (03/13/98 FMW)
- Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke (04/30/98 FMW)
- Jado & Gedo vs Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka (05/05/98 FMW) HM
- Hayabusa & Tanaka vs W*ing Kanemura & Kodo Fuyuki (05/27/98 FMW) HM
- Tetushiro Kuroda vs Masato Tanaka (06/19/98 FMW)
- Hisakatsu Oya vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda (12/12/98 FMW)
- Masato Tanaka vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda (FMW 02/27/99)
- Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (FMW 03/19/99)
Masato Tanaka and Mr. Gannosuke are definitely top 100 guys. Tanaka's case gets stronger as he's awesome in the 2000's & early 2010's. I would say top 35. He is probably my favorite wrestler of all time BUT in my mind, that's not what the Greatest Wrestler Ever is. But maybe that's why I didn't put a list together 🤔😋
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I'm very glad that I've been able to find and enjoy early ROH. I wasn't quite sure of what I was in store for as I wasn't sure just how developed some of guys were. And you can definitely see some chinks in their armor on some of the lesser known matches but, on the big recommended matches below, they delivered. As you can tell, there's a handful of guys working at that high level but the matches never seem repetitive. I threw in a couple other matches from IWA-MS may as have been in a ROH ring.
The list below has some usual suspects but I bet there's a couple that you don't know:
- American Dragon vs Low-Ki vs Christopher Daniels - Era of Honor Begins (2002)
- American Dragon vs Christopher Daniels - Round Robin Challenge (2002)
- Christopher Daniels vs Low-Ki - Round Robin Challenge (2002)
- American Dragon vs Low-Ki - Round Robin Challenge (2002)
- Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles - Road to the Title (2002)
- American Dragon vs AJ Styles - All Star Extravaganza (2002)
- Low Ki vs American Dragon vs Steve Corino vs Samoa Joe - Final Battle (2002)
- Bryan Danielson vs Paul London (ROH - Night of the Butcher 12/07/02)
- Samoa Joe vs Homicide (ROH Do Or Die – May 2003)
- Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels (ROH Glory by Honor II - September 2003)
- Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (ROH War of the Wire - November 2003)
- AJ Styles vs Bryan Danielson (ROH Main Event Spectacles 2003)
- CM Punk vs AJ Styles (Tradition Continues 2003 ROH)
- Samoa Joe vs Homicide (ROH Death Before Dishonor 2, Night 1 07/23/04)
- Bryan Danielson vs Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (TPI 2004 Finals 09/18/04 IWA-MS)
- Bryan Danielson vs Chris Hero (TPI 2005 09/24/2005 IWA-MS) HM
- Low Ki & Homicide vs Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal (Punk: The Final Chapter 2005)
It looks very likely Danielson could end up winning the 2026 GWE. I can't rate him that high especially since I haven't seen much of his 2011-present work. I'd say top 50 and undoubtedly top 10 best wrestlers of the 2000's. AJ Styles is right up there with him...like I would probably put AJ ahead of Bryan because of his adaptability. He can wrestle American Dragon's style but also do the traditional high flyer style and more when he gets to TNA. Samoa Joe makes the top 100 but I'm not sure where. Top 75-85? CM Punk should be on the list. If we're talking total package then top 50 perhaps. Certainly top 25 of the 2000's.
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I'm going to keep posting some of these match guides (battle guides) over on Wrestling Dream Battles. So if you're planning on watching more wrestling, you'll find some great recommendations there. Ones that are planned are: Joshi, Dragon Gate USA, AJPW 2010's, Ring of Honor 2009-2010's & Early 2000's Puro. Hope to see you there!
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