Childs

I would recommend combing Loss' top 100 lists at the end of each year from the '90s Yearbook project. If you click on the years in The Matches folder and scroll down below the month listings, you'll find them. There are other good NJ matches from the decade, but that's a great jumping-off point. Here's a link to 1990:

Yeah, I was going to point to those tags (not the Jumbo-Choshu singles Broadway, which is a bit of a chore) and obviously the Tenryu feud that followed.

I'm an obvious Hansen fan, but it strikes me as absurd to say he's lacking high-end singles matches. He had at least very good matches against Inoki, Baba, Backlund, Funk, Andre, Tenryu, Vader, Bockwinkel, Blackwell, Slaughter, Henning, Colon, Williams, Kobashi and Kawada. Some of those - Andre, Funk, Kobashi, Kawada - have received acclaim as true classics in DVDVR votes. Even his "mismatches" against Jumbo and Misawa produced some really good stuff. Your taste is your taste, and I respect few posters more than OJ, but I don't think that view jibes with the consensus from past projects in which Hansen has been a central figure.

This has always been my take on it, as much as I try to value both input and output. We're throwing around names like Arn and Finlay, and while I understand they can't go classic for classic with Kobashi or Flair, they were integral to great matches. I'm going to be more suspicious of a case for great input if there's no great output.

I think I heard Alan say they have a rec list on the GWE 2021 Slack channel. That should be easy enough to transfer over here.

Misawa's surprise win over Jumbo is the ultimate example of this for me. Very good match, not nearly as good as their rematch three months later (I know some disagree), but it's the one that endures because of the finish, the atmosphere in the arena and everything it set up.

What's the general view of her Japanese career? I've seen a few great matches but have little grasp of the total picture other than some vague sense that she was uneven.

He's on my deeper exploration list - beloved enough in some corners (I know Alan4L regards him as the GOAT) and good enough in matches I've seen over the last two years that I want to get a better grip on his whole career. I've never vibed with Dragon Gate, but he seems like one of those workers who can take his basic package on the road and thrive anywhere. I imagine his acclaimed matches will always feel like overkill to some voters, but I expect him to be one of the bigger risers in the final tally.

That's interesting; I think Steamboat and Rey would do well for me by this approach, because they maintained such a high base standard. Yes, you might catch a Dragon vs. Muraco match from WWF or unmasked Mysterio from the WCW death spiral, but chances are you're going to get a straight run of good shit.

I had a similar experience to Matt when we were going through footage for the '80s All-Japan set. I was looking for a reason to put an '89 Steamboat match on, because I thought it would be interesting, but man, did his act not play in that setting. The opponents weren't very good (I'm not a fan of Misawa under the mask) but still. That said, Steamboat's case is deeper than a few handfuls of frontline matches. I don't think he was less than really good in any of his major U.S. runs from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. In fact, we might have more good matches from his '91-'93 WCW run than any other period of his career. You just have to accept that his approach was not adaptable to every setting and every opponent and that he couldn't really transform himself. That keeps him out of my top tier, but I'll still find a place for him in the middle.

I like Roman being booked as an actual heel rather than the baddest man on the planet. If they have the patience (famous last words), his eventual loss should be great.

They didn't put him over that strongly. He had to be bailed out by his lackey.

Somebody rip off a pimping post on Okabayashi at some point. What little I've seen didn't make a GWE-type impression, but I'm weak on that strain of modern Japanese wrestling.

Why would he need hidden gems though? I could see some people refusing to vote for him because of out-of-ring stuff and some younger voters choosing not to engage, but I see no reason to reconsider his in-ring legacy. He was the best local ace ever.

I've come around on Tanahashi since the last time we did this, largely because he's done such a good job working around his declining physical tools. I find brokedown Tana more compelling than the ace who was fighting to hold off Okada. I also found his early work surprisingly good when I went back to watch some of the G1s and other shows from NJPW's "dark" years. He was way more interesting than Nakamura.

A lot of his New Japan stuff is on tape. Might have to take a look at that sometime during this project, just to see how he fit in a very different role. I feel like I've also seen a few of those British matches against Doug Williams and Robbie Brookside, though I don't remember where. I'm comfortable saying he was a great wrestler in 2003 based on his ROH matches against London and Styles, but I don't think it will go down as one of his banner years.

Agreed, I just figure if you're only going to watch six, might want to see him work a singles match in Japan.

vs. Buddy Rose, Portland 4/26/80 w. Piper vs. Rose and Wiskowski, Portland 8/2/80 w. Santana vs. High Flyers, AWA 8/29/82 vs. Jumbo, AJPW 7/31/84 vs. Bockwinkel, AWA 9/20/84 vs. Saito, AWA 4/24/85

This is a good point to keep in mind. I guess my take is that Toyota did more, more, more of everything, so the flaws of the style feel more magnified with her. As we discussed in the 2016 portion of this thread, you can make a strong argument that she deserves as much credit for her ambition as she does criticism for her excesses.

Chigusa is solidly on the list of wrestlers I regret omitting the last time around. I need to take a fresh spin through '80s Joshi to figure out where to situate those workers. I think Masami was the only one who made my final 100, which feels wrong.

I was baffled by the folks who declared it a negative, draining experience in the immediate aftermath (not you Steven; I understand your POV). The GWE years were the most fun I had on this board, and I'm hoping the 2026 go-round will nudge me to re-engage. There was a natural exhale at the end of it and a sense that a lot of conversations had culminated. But I was always sorry that it turned into a gloomy slog for some, because it was the opposite for me.

I agree with you. Even though it was frustrating to watch the disconnects between the discussion and the broader vote, I would still prefer to leave the door open. We just need to do everything possible to bring people into the discussion, because that's what endures.

The thing I liked least about 2016 were all the randos who voted after not participating in any of the discussion. But I'm not sure what you do about that; I wouldn't want to see onerous requirements that might dissuade fresh outlooks.

I'll take part of the responsibility for the '80s Joshi set breaking down. I found the footage amazing to watch in bursts but difficult to plow through week after week. I'm not sure why; perhaps I'd feel differently now. But I can attest to everything Steven is saying about Hokuto; her work jumped out almost as soon as she appeared on tape. It's still a shortish run for an all-time great, but it's not like you're left with a lot of questions about what she could do.

Punk was an actual match. So it's more than two but fewer than a dozen.