Childs

OG Dragon Gate fans see Mochizuki as an all-time, all-time great, and I have just never understood that. I've tried watching the pimped matches, and he never pops off the screen as a character or a technician.

As Rah suggested, Jun is hurt by the fact his career has been somewhat incoherent over the last decade. He's never settled in as the great elder statesman in one promotion ( though I guess that's sort of what he is in DDT), but he also doesn't feel like a great marauder in the Tenryu mode. He's probably a non-factor for your average fan of modern New Japan. He gets a lot of credit for his late career on this board, and I don't know whether to feel bad for him, because for all I know, this was the path he wanted. You can't even really say he failed to escape the shadows of Misawa and Kobashi, because at some point, he stopped engaging with his career on those terms. He's looked good in the ring for 29 years, which is a hell of a thing, no matter the context.

Could you expound on this? I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure and it's interesting. edit: I messed up the quoting there but I was referring to the end of what you posted above, about Shawn's destructive impact on wrestling as a whole.

Haven't gotten to that later stuff yet. What turned for you?

I mean, anytime you whip out the term "debased reprobates," we're on the right track.

I love this guy. He carried himself like a big star and he could go, either technically or as a brawler. As with many of the French catch standouts, it's going to be hard to decide how to rank him based on a relatively small sample (though we have more of him than a lot of others). But he was a blast.

Watching Navarro wrestle against Solar and the Chikara guys in a Delaware banquet hall remains one of my absolute favorite live wrestling experiences. He just came off as such a badass, even in middle age. The mat wizard part, we know, but this was not a man you'd fuck with in any context. I find him difficult to place, because we have limited footage from the first part of career with the Misioneros, and what we have is a mixed bag as I recall. But I'd feel wrong leaving him off.

It was an awesome bit of chaos. The ROH vs. CZW feud hit some high peaks. The Cage of Death blowoff is also worth watching if you've never seen it, though it's much more heavily booked than the six-man and lacking Super Dragon.

Tully vs. Garvin was nearly as fun a match-up as Flair vs. Garvin, because Tully could throw hands when the situation demanded it. Such a talented all-around pro wrestler. I'll probably rank Arn higher because of versatility and consistency, but I prefer Tully at his best to Arn at his best.

So perhaps he should have put the mask back on? Fat Tiger.

Though I agree Misawa's case is carried by his sublime peak, he was good enough often enough during his brokedown phase that I don't hold that against him. I have more trouble with his Tiger Mask period, because it wasn't short, and he really never figured it out. Injuries played a part in it, but for somebody who was understood to have vast potential, he delivered precious few memorable performances. It is a trouble spot when I compare him to the small group of guys who were in his league overall.

5/25/79 vs. Fujinami 6/15/79 Choshu & Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Hiro Matsuda & Masa Saito

Don't sleep on his match with Zbyszko from the 2/10/90 interpromotional show. I would also strongly recommend watching some younger Saito from the late '70s. He was an incredible athlete, high on the list of wrestlers who could snap you in half without taking a hard breath.

Savage represents the greatest conflict between head and heart for me. He was my favorite wrestler when I was 10 years old. I will never forget that the middle-aged woman sitting next to me at my first WWF show legitimately hated him. I will never forget how awesome I thought that was. He holds up in all the ways that won me over then. I also don't think he was a great wrestler for all that many years. Maybe 1984-87 with flashes after that? It's a thin resume for a guy many people see as a top 20 contender.

The Destroyer might be the great wrestler I missed the train on more than any other. He was good. I understand, intellectually, what others are pointing to when they praise him lavishly. But he has never moved me in the least.

To me, he's only more input than output if you define output by classics. I can spend a week watching nothing but Barry Windham matches from 1986 to 1993 and have myself a damn good time.

Tenryu did not become a great wrestler until he was almost 40 and still had a long peak as a great wrestler. I will never not think that's wild.

Yeah, my big takeaway in considering Ohtani five years ago was that he consistently looked good as a heavyweight, which made him more than just a high-peak candidate. He's added more good matches in the time since, so I'm confident he'll find his way to the middle of my ballot. I'm not sure he's a guy I need to spend a lot of time revisiting, unless some particularly interesting strain of debate arises.

I also ranked Henning in 2016, and I think I made the mistake of crediting him for what he could have been more than what he was. I loved him as a young babyface in Portland and as a budding top guy in AWA, but when you try to identify his peak, there's not a lot of meat on the bone compared to so many of the other wrestlers we're talking about.

Cool, thanks.

I think you're right about both of them falling. It doesn't feel like the winds are blowing toward lots of in-depth discussion on Mid-South and Crockett, but we'll see. Five years is a long time. Dibiase received a lot of focus last go-round, because Parv was a loud advocate.

If you read back in this thread, you'll find two whole pages on Dibiase vs. Windham.

Have you done one of your (most helpful, excellent) lists on Wrestle Yume Factory? That's a promotion I know nothing about.

I'm with you. In retrospect, he's one of the few candidates I feel like I put on because I was supposed to. There are at least 30-40 wrestlers I didn't rank whom I find far more interesting than Ted.

I formed my opinion of Inoki watching him week to week as we went through all the '80s New Japan footage. With another five years of perspective, I can say that was not the best way to judge a guy who excelled in big matches and peaked in the '70s. So one of my little sub-projects this time around is to look at Inoki with fresh eyes, and there is a very good chance he'll make my list. The inconsistency will probably keep him out of the top half, but he did a lot of things that I value highly. I just watched the aforementioned Oki match for the first time in awhile; there's this incredible visual moment when Inoki is staring defiantly at Oki after taking a string of headbutts, and the blood starts slowly trickling down from his hairline. From there, the crowd is ravenous for his comeback, which arrives swiftly and violently. You have to respect a guy who can create that kind of drama in a wrestling match.