Childs

My tier one is probably more guys who are solid in my top 10 than guys who would all have a shot at my No. 1. For example, Dandy probably wouldn't have a shot at being my No. 1 because we have relatively little footage from his peak years. But at his best, he's the best luchador I've seen, so I felt wrong leaving him out of the top tier. Lawler was probably the toughest guy for me to leave out of my top tier, but I guess I naturally weigh him against Funk and Flair in my mind. And I know I have him below them. It's tough because the very best Lawler is some of my favorite stuff in wrestling history. I just feel the guys in my top tier hit the very highest level a little more often. My opinion might change if we had a more complete record of Memphis arena main events. It definitely helps the Japanese guys that most of their biggest matches were filmed. Anyway, I viewed tier one as top 10, tier two as top 25, tier three as roughly top 50 and tier four as anyone who'd have a shot at top 100.

Savage-Flair would struggle to come across as a main event after all that stuff.

Curious what you mean by strangest, Jerry?

I started to sketch this out ... Tier 1 - Hansen, Misawa, Kawada, Tenryu, Flair, Funk, Dandy, Fujiwara, Jumbo Tier 2 - Lawler, Kobashi, Choshu, Fujinami, Hashimoto, Rey, Vader, Liger, Buddy Rose, Han, Casas, Santito, Danielson, Bockwinkel, Morton, Eddy, Bret Hart Tier 3 - Savage, Steamboat, Eaton, Windham, Satanico (probably higher with more footage), Taue, Dundee, Regal, Finlay, Billy Robinson, Tully, Arn, Tamura, Cena, Austin, Steve Grey, Marty Jones, Blue Panther, Baba, Hase, Naoki Sano, Ishikawa, Martel, Pirata Morgan, Dick Togo, Negro Navarro, Dick Murdoch Tier 4 - Tajiri, Maeda, Ron Garvin, Henning, Valentine, Santana, Kikuchi, Otani, Pillman, Yatsu, Owen Hart, Steve Williams, Luger, CM Punk, Jun Akiyama, Mick Foley, Daisuke Ikeda, Gran Hamada, Masa Saito, Masa Fuchi, Butch Reed, Ted Dibiase, Terry Gordy, Andre (higher with more footage), Scorpio, Bill Eadie, MS-1, Minoru Suzuki ...

I watched Punk-Lesnar again last night and liked it even better on repeat viewing. Punk actually did a really good job selling; he never moved in an unpained way after Lesnar went after his ribs/back. He also did an excellent job layering his comebacks, with the crowd seeming a little more hooked every time he took it to another level in trying to put Brock away. Lesnar was Lesnar. His athleticism never ceases to impress, and even the simple stuff he does looks more brutal than it would coming from almost anyone else. But what always gets me is how well he sells and works with emotion given that he mostly doesn't give a shit about pro wrestling. Finally, they made great use of Heyman, who really needed to be part of the finish given the impetus for the feud. This didn't have the "holy shit" factor of Lesnar-Cena, where I had no idea what would happen. But WWE main events don't get a lot better.

I don't agree with that at all. His singles series with Hashimoto is one of my favorite things ever in wrestling. He was also damn good working singles matches against the UWFI guys, lesser NJ guys such as Koshinaka and Sasaki, a greenish Kojima, etc.

I agree that the style was about to do downhill, but you guys are drawing an awfully stark line in the sand. The Misawa-Kobashi in October and the Kawada-Kobashi from 6/98 are truly great matches, or at least I thought so the last time I watched a few years ago.

Was the 1996 Carny poorly represented on tape? I know the only stuff on the yearbook came from the 3/31 and 4/20 shows. And I don't think I've even seen a clip of the Misawa-Kawada draw.

I knew Tenryu wouldn't be on the set a ton, and I thought people would enjoy seeing him work in a cage against a sort of freak show team. My intentions were not deep. Tenryu was a significant enough performer that it's worth tracking him in different settings across the yearbooks. And the match delivered on its promise, with Tenryu taking a big beating from Abby and Goto, then staging a fiery rally highlighted by a cross body off the top of the cage. Kitahara and Kikuchi didn't bring a ton to the table, but the energy of the match never flagged. I'm glad I advocated for it.

I'm not sure how this could've been much better given the talent involved. Ogawa looked a little more comfortable here than in their first match, and the whole thing carried the ragged intensity of a real fight. I particularly liked the ending, with Hash surviving the combo that put him down in April and finding enough space for a brutal knockout kick. This felt like neither a typical New Japan main event nor high-end shootstyle. But it clicked as a pro wrestling spectacle.

I've always enjoyed this, particularly the way Otani and Kanemoto fit so perfectly with Kaientai. These are the two Japanese promotions that rocked at big, multi-man tags, so it is a bummer that we never got a full feud with Liger heavily involved.

What was up with Piper just standing there while they triple teamed Flair? It was clearly intentional because Ric was moaning Piper's name. But they never revisited any tension did they?

I enjoyed Gannosuke playing a traditional scumbag heel and dishonoring the stip. But I probably liked the post-match better than the match itself. Hayabusa certainly had some physical tools and plenty of courage. I just never felt the emotion he displayed afterward in the performance. He just seemed like a guy attempting highspot after highspot.

Ditch, after running the yearly polls for 2000-2009, did you come to any overall view of the decade? Better than we thought at the lowest points? Incredibly depressing? Just curious.

I first saw this when Will was visiting D.C. and we were at Phil's apartment looking for the perfect match to end a fun evening of wrestling watching. We all marked out for how sharp Malenko looked and for the awesome punches delivered by 1997 Bobby Eaton. The match felt a little shorter to me this time around, but I still loved the same stuff about it. I prefer Malenko in tighter matches. As for Eaton, it's hard to watch him in the early '90s and then here without regretting all the matches we didn't get in the middle of the decade. Regardless, it's nice to have these glimpses of WCW's absurd late-decade depth on the yearbooks.

I leaned toward thinking it was a shoot. Both guys moved differently than they did in most of their worked matches, against each other and everybody else. I didn't see the feeds, and the finish felt very organic. Good stuff either way. RINGS is kicking ass this year.

I'm not even sure I knew this match happened, but it was excellent. Both guys did a great job of conveying their characters through the work. It's interesting how Austin's selling was actually more important than his brawling in establishing him as this indomitable SOB. And Bret really worked more viciously as he embraced his heel persona. At first, I wondered if the match would feel tacked on after they gave such a definitive performance at Mania. But they continued to evolve in their roles and kept the antipathy vital. I think I agree with Loss about this being the best WWF feud ever -- so many interesting dynamics that were backed up so perfectly by the matches.

Didn't have much use for this other than as an anthropological glimpse at a US indy from '97. Manny still looked pretty good, but Thompson didn't bring much to the table.

Definitely worth tracking down the full version, Loss. This was probably the best match of the Carny. It's obviously not their best match, but it was a hell of a bombfest with a steady, effective build.

Yeah, Kawada's work going after Kobashi's injured arm was really good, but it never meant as much as the limb work in the Misawa-Kobashi from 1/20. Still a very stiff, well-worked match, and I liked the finish, with Kawada stalking in search of a knockout. I'll say the same thing here as I did about Misawa-Kawada. Viewed in a narrow context, this capped off an interesting, excellent night of wrestling. Viewed in full context, it didn't really click.

Misawa started this off wrestling like he was the boss, flipping the opening dynamic of the January match. I really liked the vicious look on his face as he applied the facelock early. But Kobashi's performance never felt as distinct; I didn't come away with a sense of what he was trying to do. So the match as a whole felt more like them doing a bunch of Kobashi and Misawa stuff than like a well-thought-out battle. They were great enough that it still ended up as a hell of a match. Just not memorable. Kawada-Misawa is such a strange dual experience. On the one hand, it was an interesting way to play out the end of a tournament, and it unfolded logically in that narrow context. On the other hand, it was a terribly underwhelming way to hit what should've been a key note in the decade's greatest in-ring rivalry.

Ogawa clearly had no idea how to move around in a wrestling sense. But at least he came off as imposing, and his takedown move to set up the finish looked pretty badass. As Loss and jdw said, great performance by Hash to hold it together.

Yeah, this was an overly spotty mess compared to the best MPro stuff. But it was fun to see them do it in a different setting, and a lot of the spots still looked amazing.

This made for an interesting contrast to the March cibernetico, because they built it more like a traditional match, with lots of early matwork and a clear sense of rivalry between the teams. Casas-Santo provided the thread that ran through most of the match, and their interactions all stood out. I kind of wished they were part of the finish, though I understood why that wasn't the case. All kinds of cool match-ups and moments here, with Shocker's tope and Silver King's performance standing out. I wasn't in love with Felino running the gauntlet at the end, because it seemed to come out of nowhere and unfolded a little too easily. But it was certainly memorable. Hard to imagine anyone not enjoying this.

This was probably the first great match between these great rivals, though I agree with OJ that they topped it in '98 and '99. I loved all the little bits of nastiness, from Ikeda biting Ishikawa's toes to Ishikawa repeatedly punching Ikeda in his taped ribs. They came up with so many great counters. But at root, these guys worked off one of the most traditional dynamics in combat sports -- great striker (Ikeda) vs. more rounded fighter (Ishikawa). And that just never gets old if done well. This was another 30-minute draw where fatigue and desperation elevated the last few minutes. Not sure I liked this quite as much as Loss, but it would probably be in my top 10 for the year to date.