Childs

I really feel Bock would be a No. 1 contender if we had a good sampling of his '70s work.

He is.

I forgot about the Henning matches. I loved those and they speak to him being really good several years after his perceived peak.

Arn elevated everything he was in, and his volume of good stuff is huge. Great tag worker, excellent TV singles worker, added all kinds of nifty touches to multi-man matches. Could swing from comedy to deadly seriousness as smoothly as anyone. He's a guy you'd want in your wrestling company and the perfect representative of the MattD school of what makes a wrestler good (or at least my interpretation of that). A worthy top 50 pick.

Kengo was one of the most pleasant surprises from the NJ '80s watching. His '87 matches against Fujinami, in which he abruptly turned vicious on his longtime partner, were great hidden gems. That said, he never consistently hit that level, even for a year, and I'm unlikely to give him much consideration.

Savage was my favorite wrestler as a kid. He just had a unique way of moving around the ring that pulled me in from almost the first time I saw him. Great at projecting his character into his work, made a fairly basic offensive package seem bigger than it was, delivered huge in big matches. I don't see him as a top 10 candidate because his volume of great stuff was limited compared to the best of the best. But he'll fall in the 30-50 range.

He's got a shot for me. He was the best babyface worker in the WWF for a few years, and his series with Valentine was among the best in-ring feuds in company history. My gut tells me he's a just-miss once I really consider everybody. If his peak run had been twice as long, he'd be a lock.

To my eyes, he did, at least compared to other American workers who were on the same level in that era. A lot of the stuff he did to garner sympathy in the U.S. just didn't click with the All Japan fans. I'm sure they respected his ability, but they didn't react to him like they did to the Funks, Flair, even Snuka.

Steamer is probably hurt a bit by the absence of footage from his Mid-Atlantic days. We assume he was very good to great for a lot of that time based on his reputation and the handful of classics we have from the early '80s. But he probably won't get full credit for that time. And he's a guy who had some real nothing years in what should have been his prime. The Steamboat of '92-'94 was an incredibly consistent, excellent performer, but it would be wrong to act like he maintained that level from '85 to '94. There's also the Flair line, which is at least somewhat valid, that he never worked heel. To add to that, he struggled to get over in Japan. He'll be a tough one for me -- no doubt he makes the ballot but I could see him falling anywhere from 35 to 75.

I've never gotten the intense love Yokota inspired in some corners. And I don't mean that as a knock on her. She was very skilled--way ahead of her time as an offensive wrestler especially. But her performances have always left me a little cold. Right now, I couldn't envision putting her on my ballot over Masami or a few others from the same era. She's someone I'll probably try to revisit for this project.

I try to distinguish a little. I like Hashimoto more than Kobashi, but I'll probably put Kobashi higher on my list. I won't vote for a wrestler I outright dislike watching, however. Toyota is the most obvious example. I know she was remarkable and connected with fans, but she wouldn't make a top 1000 list for me. I think Loss tries harder to be objective than I do. I know Will is more comfortably subjective than either of us.

Yeah, I forgot the Funaki match. Great young lion vs. established star showcase.

We've talked about this in the year-by-year threads, but Ricky Morton got pro wrestling in a way very few have. He deserves all the praise for his classic babyface tag work and his great series with Flair (one of Ric's five best opponents for my money), but I was impressed by how seamlessly he made the transition to heel with the York Foundation. He delivered a fantastic heel performance in his match with Robert Gibson from Bash '91, even if shitty booking and a stale promotion made it feel meaningless. The guy just knew what he was doing. Morton vs. Eaton ranks right up there with Choshu vs. Fujinami among my most vexing questions of the poll. They'll both do really well.

Maeda has a shot for me because he carried some of that special Choshu quality where things felt bigger just because he was involved. Now, he created some of that air with bullshit like the shoot kick on Choshu. But he had forged a special connection with his audience before that. Old man Ueda eliminating him in the 3/26/86 NJ vs. UWF match might be my favorite moment in wrestling history, but it only worked as well as it did because the crowd absolutely bought Maeda. And that was still the case by the end of his RINGS run, even though he'd surrounded himself with more gifted shooters for years. Plus, his greatest matches were really great, from the Fujinami match, to the Fujiwara stuff to the match with Takada in Dec. 88. He was inconsistent, yes, and certainly less physically dynamic than the best shoot stylists. But he stood out.

I don't think anyone comes close from Japan. Several had a run of 15 good years. Tenryu gets to 21, '85-'05, and I don't think there's a case to say he had any significant dips as a performer during that run. *Maybe* 1997, with WAR heading downhill and minimal interpromotional action. Even then he had matches with Anjoh and Fujiwara to show that he was still Tenryu. Someone like Liger has a peak that kicks in around '88, he had some time off for injury, and his 2005-2008 doesn't have much in the way of high-level quality. If you broke Tenryu's career into '83-'94 and '95-'06, you'd have a top 10-20 career and a top 40 career. Combining them is insane to even comprehend. Going through random '90s comm releases and TV blocks, Tenryu is a guy who you keep finding in hidden gems. His best '80s and '00s work is well known; you could almost see his 1989 leading into his 2000. That's a top 10 career ('83-'89 + '00-'06). Throw in the '90s? Top 5. Even after 2006 there are a handful of compelling 'Tenryu as high-end Baba' outings like the Misawa memorial 6-man from 2009. What always amazes me even more is that he produced two top-50 careers worth of quality after he turned 35.

That's Tabe's set and yes, it's great--best Han primer imaginable.

They run Fairfax, Va. sometimes. You probably don't want to drive to Salisbury. Don't think I would for a house show.

Sure, there are at least 50 other really great wrestlers. There's your argument. And I love Eaton.

I agree with Chad that this match crackled with Tenryu in and died a little whenever Koshinaka entered. But I still dug it. It was a match that really demonstrated the importance of hierarchy over face/heel, because the crowd got totally behind Tenzan when he was trying to fight off Tenryu, NWO or no NWO. I loved Chono outdirtying Tenryu with that momentum-stopping low blow near the end. And they really captured the duel drama of Tenzan trying to put away Koshinaka and Chono trying to keep Tenryu out of the ring with the way they shot the finishing stretch. Move for move. no way this was as good as the All Japan tag from the same day. But they did more with less.

The time passed easily, but this was unmemorable by NJ elimination standards. Why book it so Liger, Kanemoto and and Ohtani were all gone by the final four? It wasn't like their eliminations were great moments either. They just went out on moves that would never beat them in a million years in a meaningful match. I guess Liger wanted to give Ka Shin a boost, but I just didn't give a shit about the final group. Neither did the fans.

His career has just gotten too heavy to deny. It's unfortunate he was ever framed as a disappointment, because yeah, it's awfully hard to be good--and often better than that--for 22 years. Many great matches, has been excellent in different roles, has developed varied skills over the years. Somehow, his lack of one blow-away period still makes him feel like a longshot for the top 20-25. But I'm not sure that feeling holds up to logic.

I mean, there might be a 20th century plumber who did his job better than Teddy Roosevelt, but I'm still not naming an elementary school after the plumber.

This is one of the few names on the list where I just don't see a case at all. I mean, I like him and think he was a badass, but where's the greatness?

Ohtani's a tough one, because even his run as an elite jr. heavy was pretty short for a GOAT conversation. His SC placement looks even nuttier now. But God he was good at his best. I'd say his rivalry with Liger produced the best cruiser series in history, and that was just as much Ohtani as Liger. I'll probably end up listing him.

I wouldn't say most of those guys had their best matches with Punk, but they did have great matches with him, and his greatest hits list will be enough to make me consider him. I give him credit for being a guy who put thought into making his programs and big matches great, when he was invested in them. He wasn't a great physical talent, and I'm not sure a lot of his indy work helps him in this company. I'm not going to dismiss him though.