Childs

You'd see a form of babyface control when the younger All-Japan guys worked Jumbo. Not a classic face-heel dynamic, of course, but they were working as spirited underdogs. I'm thinking of the 3/9/88 Tiger Mask match and the 10/24/91 Kawada match. in which the younger guys used a lot of headlocks to manage/control Jumbo, who would obviously destroy them going toe-to-toe. The ultimate goal was different, with hierarchy taking precedence over good vs. evil. But it struck me as a variant of babyface control. I feel like Steamboat worked a fair amount of headlock/arm control sequences as well, though perhaps fewer late in his career. I think he did them to demonstrate he could outwrestle the heels in a straight-up context.

I'd be game to do a puro pod.

And still no one has stepped in to make a case for Tanahashi. Does the man have no fans on this board?

I would honestly be interested in reading an intelligent rendering of Tanahashi's case as one of the best guys in the world. I've never thought he was irredeemably awful, just really uninteresting for a guy who's routinely described as the best of the best. He's the clear ace of a fairly hot promotion, so he's obviously doing something right for somebody. I just never see it.

Yeah, Satanico got a bit overshadowed by all the Dandy praise. But he'd be at worst top five and quite possibly No. 2 on my best wrestlers of 1990 list. He was excellent in both trios and singles throughout the year and after the '80s set, I wouldn't be surprised if I have him in my top 20 all-time.

Something like 6/9/95 is definitely richer if you have some sense of the Misawa-Kawada dynamic, and I'm all for people going back and watching everything. I just wouldn't want someone who's curious about Japanese wrestling to avoid diving in because of some belief that he/she must know EVERYTHING to appreciate anything. I started watching fairly haphazardly and was able to backfill as my appreciation deepened. And now, god help me, I've seen every New Japan and All Japan match that made tape in the 1980s.

Yeah, but we have hardly any tape of their work. He's obviously not rating the biggest lucha stars.

I agree with OJ; there's no use in beating your head against the context wall. When I decided to get into Japanese wrestling seven or eight years ago, I read jdw's '90s pimping posts and some other threads at DVDVR, and then I just started watching the most acclaimed stuff. As Jerry said, it's not that hard to gain a feel for the most important wrestlers and rivalries. For one thing, they remained pretty consistent in NJ and AJ, with pushes of new stars developing very slowly. I mean, if it bothers you not to understand every word of commentary, that might be a problem. But there's not a good way around that. If you want to dive into the '90s, the yearbook threads here are a good resource and give a real sense of how things developed. Also, there are a ton of people here to field questions.

God, Vince is great biography fodder. Interesting business narrative, tons of color, lots of facade to try and work around. Wonder if anyone will ever take a big swing on that one?

I hadn't watched this in a long time and went in hoping to find something redeeming. But no, the criticism is merited. Misawa gave a tuned-out performance and Kawada a nonsensical one. The armwork from Kawada was fine in theory, but they pushed it too long for it to be meaningless, yet not far enough for it to carry real weight. We didn't get any kind of great, layered comeback from Misawa. He was either on or off. And Kawada made some really strange decisions, like following a string of head drops with a submission attempt on the arm he hadn't worked. The crowd even shit on that one. Anyway, despite all the punishment to his neck, Misawa never seemed in danger of losing. The finishing stretch, with Kawada, trying to survive, was pretty good. But even that felt like a lower-quality version of something they'd already done. Definite low point in their great rivalry.

They delivered about 3/4 of a great match. I liked the dynamic of Kanemoto stalking Samurai with kicks and submission attempts and Samurai trying to be opportunistic with his offense. But at some point, Sammy popped right up from a big Koji move and went straight into his comeback without selling. And it was like a switch had flipped. After that, they went all highspots, with no sense of pacing or meaning. I don't much like Kanemoto as a flyer; he was better at playing a nastier, more grounded counterpoint. I agree with Loss that it's still a good match but what a disjointed experience.

Love that New Japan card.

He's not a genius; he's a shrewd man of immense personal force.

I had no idea what the fuck was going on a lot of the time, but this was an entertaining bit of mayhem. Tajiri delivered a spirited performance as the one really athletic guy in the match. And I enjoyed seeing '80s relics Kimura and Ishikawa as the tough veterans. The Tajiri-Kimura fight on the outside was probably my favorite sequence, in part because they're guys I know really well from other settings. Glad this made the set.

This was really good, and I'm surprised how much I've liked the Liger-Koji stuff from this year. Kanemoto wrestled with less attitude but more focus than he demonstrated in their February match. And I liked the way they paid that off, with Liger selling that his leg was too weak for him to mount the kind of sustained finishing run he used to win on 2/16. You still had the slight problem of Liger's offense looking a lot nastier than all of Koji's non-kick stuff. But they found a way to advance the rivalry regardless.

I dislike a lot of pimped joshi for reasons I've stated without condescension. If I'm pleasantly surprised by a match, that's not a backhanded compliment; it's just me saying I like something in a style that's not my favorite. Could just as easily be about 2013 New Japan or Chikara or a Davey Richards match.

Larry Z's condescension was a sour note, but otherwise, this was a nifty addition to Nitro. They did a good job using Tenay to set up the excitement ahead, and the wrestlers paid it off by hitting a succession of spectacular spots. And yes, the crowd ate it up. The exciting undercard stuff was part of the reason I watched Nitro more than RAW during this period. I still appreciate that they tried this stuff, even if they didn't quite know what to do with it.

I've never quite gotten why people love this match. Michaels did look good in his return to the ring, and you had a huge amount of star power for a RAW main event. But the work wasn't anything special. Now the angle, fleshing out another permutation of the Hart Foundation storyline, was pretty great. The WWF absolutely had it rolling by this point, outshining WCW for the first time since the NWO debuted.

I was half paying attention to this the first time I watched it, so when I saw the dragon suplex, I assumed Otani won. But then I saw Tajiri celebrating. So yeah, it felt like a bit of a cheap finish, though I guess it was in the same spirit as 1-2-3 Kid beating Scott Hall. It was interesting to watch Otani play the Liger role, with Tajiri as the upstart. He did the cocky thing well.

World-class performance by the FBI, especially Smothers. The Eliminators were a truly awful team, but with Smothers and Guido providing every bit of structure and character, they really only had to look tough and hit their spots. Rich was great at ringside as well.

I had never seen this match or heard anything about it, but it was a total blast. As Loss and Tim noted, the NWO guys did a great job making the bayfaces look like superheroes in front of the hot N.C. crowd. Hard to imagine how they could have done better fitting Greene into the match. There wasn't a dull moment to be found here and this is a WCW MOTYC.

I got a huge kick out of watching Morton do all the classic Morton stuff in this setting. And he totally got himself over! Really good match overall, with exciting momentum shifts and a sense of genuine rivalry centered on Hayabusa and Gannosuke.

Really good showcase for both guys, with Regal showing his usual attention to detail and Ultimo working pretty stiff in addition to hitting his flashy stuff. If you're building a case for Regal as an all-time great, his work with guys like Psicosis and Ultimo has to be a big feather in his cap. Hard to imagine many U.S. heavyweights doing better.

Yeah, April '94 was really something, with one of the best Carnivals ever, the Super J Cup, a top-notch WCW ppv and the great Lawler-Dream Machine brawl. If Wrestlemania XX had been two weeks later, we might have a runaway winner there. Current NJ isn't really for me, so I can't imagine thinking this was the best G-1 ever, though they obviously dished up a lot of what their fan base digs. The '91 G-1 was the best from the era I like.

What about Dynamite Kansai? She's come across really well on the yearbooks. Not saying she'd be No. 1; I'm just curious if she's near the top group for the more joshi-inclined. It's telling that for harder core joshi fans, Toyota is a no-doubt contender for the top tier. She would never sniff my list of best wrestlers, but I guess that's more about my problems with the style than anything else. I'll happily acknowledge that she worked with remarkable stamina, and she could be a great face-in-peril when she wasn't racing ahead to the next missile dropkick. But the bottom line is I dread her matches.