anarchistxx

Re: Kevin Owens Kevin Owens doesn't have to look like an athlete - there is more to a good look in wrestling than muscles and physique and a pretty face. Many ECW workers didn't have a good body and yet still looked the part. Everything about Owens' presentation is horrible, not just his body but his clothes, his facial hair, his expressions, the way he moves. He doesn't look like a real wrestler or work like a real wrestler. He literally would not look out of place in a backyard wrestling video, and not in a good way.

Ah, got it. I've not really been following your intricate ranking system.

I did list Kenta Kobashi way above Steve Austin, though.

Then again, I hate skyscrapers. I like old, solid, sooty, red brick industrial mills.

This is a hell of a stretch. Depending on your standards, he arguably had three great matches in May 2001 alone. His work that year especially in the heel run is incredible and now seemingly underrated. The bloody self conscious epic with HHH which is one of the better matches of its type. The X7 classic with The Rock that effectively summarised and ended the "Attitude Era". The fantastic television matches with Chris Benoit. The torn quad tag. The Kurt Angle series, especially the Summerslam match which is a contender for the best match in company history, and the interesting rematch that they centre around the piledriver. The random fun stuff like the Spike Dudley feud/match taking place on Smackdown - that type of mini feud just doesn't happen any more. The stuff where he tried to raise the Hardy Boyz up, or the random match with Tazz and the whippinh. The incredible character work and promos, glorious stuff like "Steve Austin appreciation night". The way he turned at the flick of a switch from goofy 'lost his edge' Austin to desperate psychotic madman doing anything to keep hold of the strap.

Kevin Owens - absolute garbage. The prime candidate of someone who seems like he is playing at being a wrestler. Nothing seems natural. His matches are badly structured, he throws the bombs around at the finish and does the shocked "can't believe that didn't beat him" expression through all the near falls, but he can't build a match for shit. Then there is his terrible look. He is a man that validates Vince McMahon's prejudice against indie wrestlers who only appeal to the smart fans and can't draw a dime. His promos are mediocre. He has no real natural charisma, his movement is all wrong. A solid midcard hand at best and doesn't belong on a list like this.

Seems a strange criticism. Jeff doesn't exactly have an expansive move set. He brought the crazy ladder and table stunts maybe, but they weren't exactly confined to 90s indie wrestling, unless you class ECW as an independent. Even then, Shawn Michaels was diving off ladders a few years earlier, if arguably a little more smartly. It has been the last few years if anything where the indie influence has crept into WWE, both in the move sets and the wrestling style. I voted for Jeff Hardy for similar reasons as Matt Sydal. The prototypical babyface loved by all demographics in the audience. Managed to carry this great aura and presence about him despite rarely cutting promos, and never cutting good promos. He gave his matches a reckless, exciting, authentic feel - he did all the flips and flops and they actually seemed high risk because he seemed like a wild "fuck it, I'll see what happens" daredevil rather than a trained gymnast. I still love those early ladder and TLC matches - what they lack in psychology they make up for in energy, carnage and fun, and they also have six characters in them who all have separate personalities, styles and identities rather than the dozens of cookie cutter overacting guys that WWE churns out.

A little surprised to see I ranked TAKA so high. One of those oversights where you forget to move him around. To be fair I've seen and loved a ton of his stuff, but for someone ranked at my #27 he sure doesn't have a treasure trove of incredible matches or memorable shit. To be fair K-Dojo had some fantastic stuff and his AJPW run was really fun and solid for the most part - one match he had with Dick Togo from 2005/2006 was superb.

And Christopher Daniels next out to add insult to injury. Zero charisma, zero authenticity, works like a robot. His matches are like watching someone play a wrestling video game.

Can't believe the fucking Big Show is ahead of the likes of Kyoko Inoue. Madness. He has stunk the place up for at least a decade, and a smattering of decent matches can't make up for the avalanche of shit he has been involved in.

Kind of dug that I had Kojima & Sydal side by side as top voter in a tie. They are poles apart. I will always go to bat for Matt Sydal, he could have been the Rey Mysterio of this generation, in terms of a wonderful seller with spectacular offence who could appeal equally to the male and female elements in the crowd. He was consistently over despite having the smiley pretty boy face look and character that male audiences tend to turn on. Such a crisp, tight worker. Satoshi Kojima I ranked mainly on consistency. Don't think he ever blew me away as a worker (although the 2005 match with Keiji Muto is one of my favorites), but he has had so many solid matches over his career it is hard to leave him off.

Yep, she was 79 last time. Joshi fandom was at an all-time high in 2006... it isn't now. To be fair I think Joshi fandom was long in decline even then - it is just that Smarkschoice was pretty much the house board for that style. Edit: Snap, El-P above.

Dump Matsumoto seems crazily low. Not one of my all time favorite joshi workers but thought she would be Top 150 for sure.

Are you discounting Harper's indie run? I took Tenta over Yamada and Morishima, as both of those didn't make my list and Tenta did. Only seen a couple of indie matches IIRC from Luke Harper so if he is in there on the basis of that stuff, fair enough. I can't imagine anyone thinking Tenta was a better fat guy than Morishima for anything other than childhood nostalgia - on the simple metric of great matches he lags for behind for a start. Morishima has more athleticism, energy, better on offence, better bumper. Hard to compare as the two styles they work are about as vastly different as you get.

Bradshaw, fucking hell. Most of his votes should probably be added to Eddie Guerrero's total since he is taken seriously almost entirely on the basis of that match. Luke Harper and Earthquake over Yamada or even Morishima is pretty crazy to me as well.

Look up stardom world on youtube. They have started a streaming service through youtube for 4.99 a month Thanks, a very reasonable price, will definitely consider it. Do you know whether Arisa Nakajima works there much? Her match with Shirai is one of the best of the decade so far. Where, on this board? Edit: found it, thanks.

The Lollipop story reminds me of one time as a teenager I was randomly browsing channels at 1AM eating cereal or something, and came over (no pun intended) an entire wrestling show that solely consisted of fully naked women. This was just on some ordinary channel, not pay per view or anything. There didn't seem to be any overt sexual content, other than that implied by the fact there were nude ladies (all slim, busty and attractive in a porm star type of way) rolling about in the ring. It struck me as strange at the time and seems even more bizarre looking back. What was the market for this stuff, purely to titillate lonely men? Considering the amount of guys who think it acceptable or even a source of great pride that they spend hours of their time and thousands of their dollars at strip clubs, I can imagine something like this has a market. It appears to be the Naked Women's Wrestling League: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Women's_Wrestling_League First hit on Google is predictably PornHub. Carmen Electra seems to have run the thing. Watching five minutes now and the commentator literally just said "Shades of Billy Robinson" as one girl worked on the leg of the other, with the main purpose of most offence being to contort the opponent into a fetal position for a better view of her vagina. "Before creating the Naked Women's Wrestling League, the creators tried other products that featured naked women, such as online gambling, before settling on nude female wrestling." Kept sliding down the sleaze scale until they reached the bottom and it finally stuck. There has to be a place for this in the women's wrestling sleaze story thread down the page.

Kind of wish I had voted low for Io Shirai. Been meaning to get more into Stardom for some time, but haven't seen enough of her work to justify placing her, although what I have seen has been excellent, especially 06/20/15 vs Star Fire. It certainly pains me a little to see dross like One Man Gang or non wrestlers like Bobby Heenan ahead of someone with so much natural talent and charisma. Haven't seen much of OMG outside of the major promotions though, so I'm sure someone will come in and school me on his qualities. Anyone got good recommendations for Stardom shows or matches to start with? Is it available online, or is it good old fashioned tape/disc traders?

Alberto Del Rio, ugh. Don't think any other worker in history has had me reaching for the fast forward button so often. Mike Awesome and Davey Richards side by side seems strangely appropriate. Doug Williams would have been higher if I had known he was nominated, an easy top fifty pick for me and maybe higher.

Only twelve voters left from that poll, then. About 20%. Suppose a decade is a long time. Turnout for this was excellent, organisers did a fantastic job.

Paul London was my cut off point for quite a while until it became Dusty Rhodes.

Dean Ambrose is nowhere near the level Daniel Bryan was at, and probably never will be. His reactions were matching that of Steve Austin at his peak. When he turned n Bray Wyatt after the cage match the roof nearly came off, it was astonishing. Ambrose gets a good reaction but nothing close to that.

Nope. Fantastic wrestler. Natural charisma, superb look, highly influential, very graceful while still making things seem like an dangerous trainwreck, connected with the audience - one of the only 'good looking' type faces to be consistently and massively over with all demographics in WWE. He has also been involved in a ton of great matches. Even if they were often garbage prop filled stunt fests, he was still incredible at ramping up tension, danger, desperation, putting over that fatal flaw in his character where his desire to take risks and shock the audience often cost him his victory and his health. And that he was able to do that so subtly. Matt Sydal made my list for similar reasons. Probably the most athletic, graceful flyer of this century, and the great lost sympathy face of the past few years. Incredible bumper and seller. Over the both the men and the women in the crowd, despite the insecure male crowd tending to sneer at pretty boy nice guy babyfaces. New Jack is probably the strangest on my list, but fuck me I enjoyed watching him. Aura.

Hoping for a ridiculous trainwreck of a show myself. As long as it isn't boring. The only match that is going to come close to delivering is Lesnar/Ambrose, the rest of the card is horrendous. Triple-H/Reigns had/has potential until you realise it is just going to be worked as your dreary HHH prototype main event.

You just described the majority of WWE matches over the last few years, since they started having long workrate style television matches.