Graham Crackers

It's a cop out answer but honestly, I think we're perceiving different things. I think it appears cooperative when wrestlers spend a long time sitting in a hold and selling pain instead of searching for a counter. I think it doesn't make sense to soften someone up with holds that never actually win a match when there are other submission holds that regularly finish matches. I think a lot of pinning combinations outside of lucha look very loose. From what I've seen I don't think Parv is thinking about these things and it doesn't get in the way of him enjoying American grappling. That's fine. Parv's gripes about lucha don't really cross my mind when I watch it. Oh well.

Trauma II made my list over number I due to his edge in matwork. Hashi fell off my list along the way. If I'd turned in a top 150 I'd have had so many NOAH midcarders. I'll be honest, had we not just wrapped up the Lucha set I probably wouldn't have ranked Hombre Bala but Los Bucaneros gave me more wrestling joy in the last two years than anyone else. I wish I had more time to push Pequeno Pierroth. I think he is one of the most consistent week to week performers on TV in the last ten plus years.

My friends and I have been calling Shinsuke "Japanese Danny Brown" for years. I genuinely thought it was a Molly gimmick.

I'm up there as A Stock.

Shit, I honestly didn't think about Todd Morton this whole process and had no idea he was nominated. I would have seriously considered throwing him up near the bottom of my list.

I have Yuki Ishikawa at number 6.

Another reason I'm excited about another DVDVR set is that I'm excited about a more focused communal viewing project. Even with the Lucha set being smaller it was still cool to see who was watching it and what they were into. I miss that kind of thing when it was at the scale of something like the AJPW set. The yearbooks look fun but I feel like the existence of a ballot and a deadline forced more debate.

I find it much easier to rank matches than wrestlers. Building on that, I still haven't found a happy medium between quality and quantity of output. A wrestler like Tamon Honda who I absolutely adore but has had fewer opportunities due to his midcard position found himself in a wildly different ranking on each draft of my list. Overall, I had fun but I'm way more excited about the next DVDVR set.

Just turned mine in. I wish I had devoted more time to watching Euro guys and Buddy Rose but otherwise I think I'm happy with what I turned in.

Which Japanese wrestler will you rank highest? Fujiwara Which Japanese wrestlers do you expect to make your list? Fujiwara, Misawa, Ishikawa, Hashimoto, Tenryu, Choshu, Fujinami, Togo, Tamura, Kawada, Ikeda, Maeda, Otsuka, Sano, Taue, Liger, Jumbo, Kobashi, Akiyama, Honda, Usuda, Takayama, Nishimura, Kikuchi, Fuchi, Tajiri, and Onita are locks. Ono, Kanemoto, Yatsu, Anjoh, Hamada, Yamazaki, and Masa Saito are all strong possiblities. Who was the best of the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s to come out of Japan? 70s: Hard to say. If we're just talking natives I'd say Fujinami given the footage I've seen. That said, I haven't seen a great deal of 70s IWE but 70s Mighty Inoue seems like someone I'd like to investigate further one day. Too bad I probably won't have time to devote to that anytime soon. 80s: Fujiwara with Choshu and Fujinami not too far behind. 90s: Misawa followed by Hashimoto, Tenryu, and Ishikawa 00s: Very inconsistent decade. My gut reaction is Ishikawa but he was MIA for large chunks of the decade. Akiyama had a few great years but I thought his character transition in the early part of the decade was really awkward. Honestly, Misawa probably had an overall better 2000-2009 than him but I could hardly justify calling him WOTD. Tamura was awesome as U-Style's ace but that was short lived. Hiroyuki Ito was great for a minute too. This was really a decade made up of midcard guys in Japan having brief awesome runs. That means guys like Tamon Honda. Takayama was great for half the decade. We lost Hashimoto. Frustrating times. 10s: I don't feel like I'm qualified to answer this. Who was your favorite Ace? I probably prefer Misawa to Hashimoto but I'd rather watch Hashimoto work with much lower ranked guys. Who was your favorite top challenger? Tenryu Who was your favorite under the radar guy? Is Alexander Otsuka under the radar? What about Sano? Who was the best at their peak? Fujiwara in 89 Who has disappointed you the most? Those BJW guys.

I do still think that's among the best double count out finishes ever but that's because I usually hate that finish. I thought this brawling was good enough to save the finish.

Nominating: Los Bucaneros Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala y Verdugo vs. Atlantis, Angel Azteca y Ringo Mendoza (3/88) Now this is a fucking great trios match right here. Los Bucaneros strike again with their brutal triple teams and intricate stooging/miscommunication but this time against an even more spectacular tecnico trio. Angel Azteca was a pretty spectacular young high flyer at this point but Atlantis really shines here in what is one of his absolute best matches. That over the top rope tope he hits is superhuman as are those breathtaking midair armdrags where he leaps and spins before coming down and grabbing his opponents in midair. Those are spots that require cooperation from all parties but they are so perfectly executed here with such good timing that it's easy to forget how the magicians really perform their tricks. When I first watched this I missed the low blow and thought we completely missed the finish. Seeing the lowblow doesn't prove to me that we didn't miss anything but it does at least give me a sense of where the match went from there. El Brazo, Brazo Del Oro y Brazo Del Plata vs. Hombre Bala, Pirata Morgan y El Verdugo (10/27/89) Early 90s Brazos matches are one of my favorite things in wrestling so I was excited to see more 80s footage of one of my favorite teams. Over the course of this set Los Bucaneros have become one of my favorite trios units so my hype level going into four straight Brazos vs Bucaneros matches is pretty much maxed out. This was a great trios match albeit not at the level of the top trios matches on this set (I'm sure I will still rank it way higher than it deserves). This is a high workrate trios match and that's an environment Los Bucaneros excel in. Everybody matches up really nicely though Morgan/Oro, Bala/Plata, and Bala/Oro were my favorite combinations. I marked out like crazy for Porky countering the monkey flip, not only because he is fat, but because it's one of the most graceful monkey flip counters I've ever seen. Porky countering the sunset flip will always be awesome. Now I'm really excited to see that Morgan vs Oro match. El Brazo, Brazo Del Oro y Brazo Del Plata vs. Hombre Bala, Pirata Morgan y El Verdugo (11/10/89) This was fucking awesome and is a contender for best trios match on the set. I know I've said that before and it's going to be hard ranking all of these great trios matches but I can't imagine this one not holding up on a second viewing. I love the way this goes from Brazos comedy with Bucaneros stooging to brutal fight. I've said it before but in addition to being a great bumper Morgan is one of the stiffest brawlers on this set. I loved his selling of Plata's onslaught in the first fall, especially when his teammates had to drag his lifeless carcass back to their corner. Hombre Bala wasn't one to be fucked with either. He really unleashed hell on Super Porky. I loved the story of El Brazo becoming the weak link after being busted open which forces Oro and Plata to fight for their lives and the finish brought that full circle. I really like in a match like this when they tie up every loose end for the finish. El Brazo gets taken out by a missed dive by Porky leaving Brazo de Oro to defend himself against a pack of wolves. Awesome awesome pro wrestling. Nominating: Los Terribles Cerebros via tons of reviews Phil already wrote as part of the Complete and Accurate Black Terry.

Nominating Pequeño Pierroth Mascarita Dorada/Astral/Ultimo Dragoncito vs Demus 3:16/Pequeño Pierroth/Pequeño Black Warrior, CMLL 8/13/10 Some nice mat work at the beginning could have put this over the top but I still can't complain. Wrestling these days is full of flashy offense but rarely is it done this well. The tecnicos supply some jaw dropping aerial maneuvers and your rudo team features two of the best bases, if not the best in wrestling today. There are a lot of cool heels and cool rudos out there so it's great to see rudos who will make real asses of themselves. When it comes time to cut them off the tecnicos also do a great job of getting tossed around. This had a great rhythm, some great overlap between falls, and I think everyone's control segments lasted the perfect amount of time. When it comes down to it, this is a match I could see myself watching over and over again. Pequeño Pierroth vs. Demus 3:16, CMLL 8/2 This came pretty close to being my MOTY for 2010 that's mostly based upon the third fall which features some truly transcendent wrestling. The story of two mini rudos giving it all for a shot at the normal sized division is unique and it's the two best modern minis (with Pierrithcito being my favorite mini of the last few years). The transition from chops to punches as this gets more intense is perfect. The biggest flaw of this match is that like most modern CMLL it suffers from short opening falls. Minis Cibernetico 8/17/10 Thank god Demus won the Bicentenario. Demus is awesome and all but Pierrothito is one of my favorite guys to watch over the last few years and I don't know if I'd care about the CMLL minis quite as much without him. This is a showcase for Pierrothito but also features some really spectacular mini high flying. Pierrothito matches up well with Bam Bam for the last stretch.

My gut instinct is that Blackwell/Patera/Adnan should be listed as one team under Freebird rules.

Honestly, I could totally see Matt liking One Punch Man.

My most recent draft has 28 lucha workers on it. My locks are: Satanico, Casas, Hijo del Santo, Dandy, Rey (more of a US worker but for the sake of completeness), Morgan, Blue Panther, Virus, Atlantis, Sangre Chicana, Black Terry, Solar, Super Astro, Fuerza Guerrera, Negro Navarro, Perro Aguayo, Emilio Charles Jr, LA Park, Super Porky, Brazo de Oro, Dr. Cerebro, Cassandro, and Espanto Jr. Rayo de Jalisco Jr. is my number 100. Pierrothito is a strong possibility for my list and I only just realized he isn't nominated. I'm going to do something about that in a little bit.

I like Hamaguchi but I think that out of all of the IWE wrestlers that Mighty Inoue is the easiest sell for a list like this. Inoue has great matches/performances in IWE as well as in All Japan. Hamaguchi never felt like more than a solid hand to me in his New Japan matches and was just kind of there in All Japan. Even Teranishi had more memorable performances.

The real reason I was upset about my last computer dying was all of the stuff I'd downloaded from megaupload and sendspace.

I think the 80s sets should be enough to nominate Hamaguchi

You should have been watching JAPW and IGF.

Jumbo vs Maeda. I remember there being a mention in an old observer (1988 maybe) that Jumbo was pushing Baba to work with the UWF guys.

No way is he as good as Yamamoto.

Ka Shin isn't amazing but he was underrated, probably because he was more focused on schtick than workrate.

When Fujiwara is caught in a hold and he looks like he's going for a rope break, then rethinks it and counters. Anytime wrestlers use their hands to block strikes, or even better, use boxing head movements/footwork. Dundee working over Lawler's blindside in the '85 LLT match.