Dylan Waco

I am certain that Pogo and Bastien have three reviews on the board, because I've done them. Not sure about the others. Someone help me with this, because while I am trying to be liberal and error on the side of inclusion, I don't want to complete throw the established rule out either.

Discuss Here.

Discuss Here.

JVKs argument here may have inadvertently convinced me to vote Bryan over Flair

The finals of the 96 tag league

Someone hit me with a list of Kanemoto's top 10 or so matches from say 95-2005. A lot of that I will have seen, but not in years. I have some thoughts on him already from things I've watched recently, but I'd like to tackle some more stuff first. Ideally I'd want these recommendations to be available online somewhere, but if not I might can track them down in my collection.

The 5/5/95 retirement match with Onita is one of the biggest matches and shows in wrestling history that no one talks about anymore. Tremendously innovative and I would argue influential flyer. Was very beloved among hardcore FMW fans and was absolutely a guy that all tape traders were obsessed with in the late 90s and early internet days. Not as influential as Sabu, but a bigger star in his home country. Probably one of the more interesting figures from the 90s that people never seem to bring up. RIP.

Agree. I could probably be convinced that Liger's peak is 86-04.

I haven't really contributed or paid much attention to this thread because this formula approach isn't for me (glad it got Parv back into the project though). That said I do want to say that while I agree that Liger's peak should not be 89-10, I've watched a lot of post-NJ v. NOAH stuff Liger in the last few days and it is WAY better than what I would have guessed. Not saying it's all time great stuff or anything, but things like the match with Billy Ken Kid from 07 were very strong bouts. I'll write more about Liger in his thread when I finish watching the stuff I want to, but my point here is that the entire issue of "peak" can be a tough one.

No clue where yet, but he falls in that tier of guys who have no shot at being my number one, but I still see as excellent wrestlers. One thing that I think helps his case a lot is that we have good matches of his from nearly every corner of the Earth. You can say "who cares, I care how good someone was where they worked most of the time" and that's fine, but the fact that Togo could have good to great matches in South America, Puerto Rico, the U.S., England, Finland, Germany, Japan, et matters to me because it shows he could (and did) make a go of it anywhere. The thing about Togo that's also worth considering is that he's not a one trick pony. Yes he was super fun as the lucharesu working chubby junior with the vicious senton, but reinventing himself as an almost Memphis-inspired badass with a big punch late in his career is just as impressive. I know Loss loved his best stuff from 2010, and so did I, but that he was so awesome is both is what makes him stand out to me.

His stock is going up with me over the last few weeks as I've watched several of his brawls and god damn is he great in that setting. I'd always sort of known that, but I'd never really paid attention to it because so much of what I think about when I think of him is his stock offensive spots and how genius he is with them. But the genius extends to the brawls where he plug his big dives, or building to the camel clutch, or whatever into a truly crazy display of unrestrained violence. Maybe he has an unfair advantage because of the color of his gear, but watching him a blood soaked brawl always seems to connect with me on a visceral level. There have been some disappointments - I thought the first fall of the first Dr. Cerebro match I watched was terribly uninteresting, but by and large watching him go to war with people is awesome. I hadn't really considered him as someone with a shot of being my top luchador, but I'd say he's at least played his way into the periphery of that discussion.

I still love that match v. Barry Horowitz from LA I think. I also still really like the match with Terry Taylor which I think were from MSG. Those were as the Blue Blazer. He had a match with Greg Valentine that I absolutely loved. I remember a good One Man Gang match too. I watched one of the Liger matches last night and was entertained by it, though it was more a really fun good match than a great one. I really loved the team with Yoko at the time, and remember thinking they were very underrated when I went back and watched tons of random WWF for the SC WWF matches poll. I haven't thought a lot about Owen one way or the other to be honest, but I'd like to rate him.

I actually agree about Masters original run being better than people remember. He was actually a pretty great bumper during that period for example, and I remember thinking he was awesome in the New Years Revolution Elimination Chamber match at the very beginning of 06.

I choose to see Terry Rudge as the spiritual wrestling father of Regal and Finlay and Taylor. I enjoy Saint a lot of the time, but I think what OJ is getting at is that Saint is the spiritual wrestling father of Colt Cabana. Lots of aw shucks upstaging with schtick that's presented and treated like a cute play, rather than a grappler taking someone to school. At times I do enjoy that,but at other times it pisses me off, and he leans on it too much for my liking. On the other hand I do see Saint as a unique talent for his place and time, who had lots of matches I really like. And I thought his revival run decades later was super fun for whatever that is worth. His flash and comedic touches do have a place, and I don't think they always obscure the fact that he is really fucking great. I'll probably rate him at the end of the day, but there are at least six Brit scene guys I'll have above him. Maybe 7 or 8.

One thing about Big Show v. Andre comparison, is that if you are like JVK and feel Andre gets a bit of a pass for his down periods and inconsistency, but you also think Show is good....I'm not trying to be provocative here, but Show smokes Andre in terms of volume of good matches on tape, and while I prefer Andre's best stuff, I think Show's best stuff is really great, with a genius Mayweather performance that is great in a way we never saw out of Andre. Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for Show over Andre. But f you are someone who accepts the idea that he's been a good worker for a long time, and your critique of Andre is volume, inconsistency, dogging it...well.

Ray Steele and John Tatum

I think you should be forced to rank him

People like Johnny Weaver, The Scotts, Swede Hanson and Rip Hawk, Wahoo, Blackjack Mulligan and others definitely have a place in the cultural memory of the town. That said, the only one who really feels like a cultural figure that is part of Charleston proper is Rufus. Aside from Flair who of course has remained on television since the era, no one gets referenced more by fans of all eras when talking about Crockett Promotions wrestling in this town. In my neighborhood I've had talks at the bus stop with guys about wrestling several times and Rufus almost always comes up first, and is universally remembered the most fondly.

Kind of shocked he wasn't nominated sooner, not so much because I think he's a great worker, but because he's always had a sort of cult following in certain segments of hardcore fandom. Very entertaining wrestler, with lots and lots of fun matches. Not many I would call great, but I do love the way he carried himself, and love his team with Rude.

SLL was a huge advocate of his during the World Class process. I'm not sure he'd advocate for him in a top 100, but he loved the guy. I think he had some good stuff in World Class, but I was mostly unmoved on the idea of him being a hidden genius in that setting. I have liked some of his Crockett stuff, but Freebirds era Garvin really is horrific.

What matches should I watch Parv? I've watched some Valiant matches but have no real memory of them.

I hate Ole. I know he's a guy that certain fans love, and I wouldn't be shocked to see a certain type of fan include him on their list, but to me he's every bit as bad as Brody at eating a match alive, and with fewer matches I can think of offhand that I actually like. I didn't even like the Tenryu match others tried to push as something special from All Japan. Probably did deserve to be nominated, but no way on Earth I'd ever vote for him.

I don't think Gagne is the Gibson to Brunzell's Morton. But in terms of where they would fall for me on a massive list, I could see them very close. I do think Gibson probably had better peak performances, and I like him as a heel which is something I can't even conceive of Greg doing effectively. On the other hand I think if you were breaking down the High Flyers as a team, it's much closer to a 50/50 proposition than the RnR's are.

Yeah, I actually don't see Greg as an outlandish pick for this, but I think the type of people who might actually consider him aren't likely to vote (namely people who grew up in AWA country). He really did have a lot of good matches teaming with Brunzell over a ten-plus year period and I don't think that should be undersold. People can say Brunzell was the better worker, and I'm not saying they are wrong, but it's telling to me that Brunzell's WWF team was vastly worse despite the fact that many people seem to cling to the absurd notion that Greg sucked. I also liked several Greg singles matches a good bit, including a match with Curt Hennig that I thought was great and one of Curt's better matches as a heel in the AWA. Mechanically he was awkward...kind of? I think it was more his body type than the way he worked to be honest, as he genuinely did some cool stuff too like Gagne Indian deathlock thingy, and I think his babyface comeback was really good and underrated. You can call it hokey if you want, but it connected to the people in a Backlund-y way and that matters. I would take Gagne over David Von Erich every time, for gangly, physically awkward dudes, who have a kind of unconventional working style. He's not my favorite, but I have zero problem calling him a very good worker during his peak years which weren't insubstantial in length.

Totally disagree with that. Greatly prefer Saggs, in part because his wild unprofessionalism actually enhanced his matches. Would actually have loved to see him work Necro Butcher, Super Dragon, Nick Gage, and some of the other crazier indie brawlers of the last fifteen years. I like The Nasty Boys more than most, but neither one of them is a serious contender for a singles GWE project.