NintendoLogic

I don't want to turn this into a Tanahashi thread, but I don't understand what's so terrible about his offense. I guess the Sling Blade is kind of weak, but everything else looks fine. As for Sasaki, I guess I just don't get the appeal of guys taking turns chopping each other for ten minutes.

The funny thing is, this is how I feel about Tanahashi.

Kenta Kobashi vs. Takao Omori All Japan Pro Wrestling, 4/15/00 From what admittedly little I've seen of Omori, he strikes me as by far the lesser half of No Fear and a giant load in general. Kobashi, on the other hand, is still in his big moves overkill phase. The first few minutes are pretty uneventful with Kobashi doing chops, Omori doing European uppercuts, and both busting out chinlocks. Kobashi takes control after whipping Omori into the guardrail (it should be noted that Omori does the Bret Hart sternum-first bump) and works an abdominal stretch when they get back in the ring. Omori gets back into it with a football-style shoulder tackle. Things really start to pick up starting with a struggle over a vertical suplex. Omori eventually gets tired of struggling and dropkicks Kobashi's right knee. From there, he piles on the damage, ramming Kobashi's knee into the ringpost and doing a shinbreaker through a table. He goes for a chair, but KYOHEI~! ain't having that, so he settles for a leglock on the outside. Back in the ring, and Omori applies a figure four. After Kobashi makes the ropes, he goes for a scorpion deathlock. Kobashi puts up too much of a struggle, so Omori rakes his eyes. OK, that was pretty cool. After making the ropes again, Kobashi hulks up and makes his comeback by chopping Omori in the head. That couldn't have been too pleasant for either party. Omori eventually cuts him off with a swinging neckbreaker and a missile dropkick. Kobashi goes for a rolling chop, but Omori ducks and hits a pair of rolling dragon suplexes. Kobashi evens things up with some rolling chops and a release German. Running neckbreaker drop follwed by a half nelson suplex gets two. Scoop slam and fist pump from Kobashi, which means it's moonsault time. Omori cuts him off by going after his bad leg (nice to see the leg work wasn't completely forgotten) and powerbombs him. Diving knee drop from Omori gets two. We then get a do-si-do sequence as both duck the other's lariat attempts and Omori hits a spinning heel kick. He finally hits the Axe Bomber, but it only gets two. Omori goes for a second one, but Kobashi counters with a sleeper, leading to a sleeper suplex. He then goes for a powerbomb. Omori counters but runs into a LARIATO~! It only gets two, though. Kobashi goes for the powerbomb again, but then he just kind of drops Omori. It looked like a botched attempt to powerbomb him into the turnbuckle. Kobashi is unfazed, and his second attempt is successful. Some more rolling chops are followed by a second half nelson suplex. Omori wakes up with an Axe Bomber, but Kobashi completely no-sells it and blasts him with a LARIATO~! Normally, something like that would piss me off, but I can see it as Omori being so drained that he couldn't put anything behind it. Besides, it's Omori, so fuck him. Kobashi picks Omori up for another LARIATO~! and finally puts him out of his misery. The beginning was rather nondescript, and the end was quite excessive, but the middle portion was where it's it. You know, you could say that about a lot of Kobashi matches. There's a fair amount of Kobashi goofiness (as jdw would say) for those who hate that sort of thing, but the good far outweighs the bad. This will likely finish somewhere in my top half.

So I'm officially throwing my hat in the ring for this project. I've decided to start with the 103 bolded matches and subtract the three Big Japan deathmatches because the style makes me physically ill, leaving me with an even 100. We start off with a doozy. Jun Akiyama vs. Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling, 2/27/00 Misawa gains control in the opening minutes after an exchange ending with a dropkick. Akiyama catches his first break after countering a diving headbutt attempt by Misawa, and things really start going his way after he drop toeholds Misawa neck-first into the guardrail. Akiyama spends the next few minutes introducing Misawa's neck to various inanimate objects, culminating in an Exploder on the ring apron. Say what you want about Akiyama, but the guy knows how to target a body part. Once the action returns to the ring, Misawa tries to get back in it with some elbows, but Akiyama cuts him off with a DDT. From there, we get a lengthy stretch of Akiyama working various neck holds, from a quasi-Koji Cluth to a reverse cravate to a chinlock to a figure-four headscissors. The inevitable Misawa comeback begins when Akiyama applies a sleeper. Misawa pushes Akiyama into the corner and hits him with a back elbow and a springboard dropkick. After taking a few moments to recover from the beating he took, Misawa busts out the facelock, which gets two after they do the whole "guy passes out from a hold so the guy applying the hold goes for a pin" deal. Just when it seems like it's going to be just another day at the office for Misawa, Akiyama catches him with a dropkick on the top turnbuckle and knocks him to the outside. Akiyama then takes the opportunity to reintroduce Misawa's neck to the guardrail with a calf branding. Back in the ring, and Misawa's neck takes more damage from a Gotch-style tombstone piledriver and a diving elbow smash. Exploder gets two, and the Budokan is on the verge of exploding. Unfortunately, Akiyama then applies a neck crank, which sucks the air out of the building. After Misawa makes the ropes, Akiyama goes for a brainbuster, but Misawa hits a spinkick. German suplex hold from Misawa gets two, as does a subsequent Tiger Driver. Misawa then goes for the Emerald Flowsion but settles for a release German. A second Tiger Driver gets two. We then get a rolling elbow, Exploder, pop-up, second Exploder, delayed sell sequence. Akiyama makes it to his feet first and hits an Exploder and a brainbuster. He finally puts Misawa away with a wrist-clutch Exploder. They were working holds a bit too long for my tastes, and the no-selling at the end was pretty annoying, but this was still an incredibly well-worked and smartly structured match. It's not quite on the level of the 90s classics, but it's not that far off. I'd be shocked if this ended up outside my top five.

My top five would go something like this (in chronological order): Keiji Mutoh vs. Vader, 8/10/91 Masahiro Chono vs. Keiji Mutoh, 8/11/91 Antonio Inoki vs. Vader, 1/4/96 Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto, 8/2/96 Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki, 8/2/98

But Dave would say that even if we're comparing 80s matches to other 80s matches, we're doing it from a 21st century perspective. He's also said that if a match is thought to have sucked when it happened, it still sucks even if it ages better than matches that were considered great. So I ask again: if that's the case, is there any value to watching old matches, to say nothing of discovering previously unknown footage?

I've rewatched Punk/Lesnar several times, and it's had such a profound impact on me that I've had to adjust my list. Sorry, Portland.

It's official. Punk/Lesnar is my current 2013 MOTY.

So if contemporary opinion is all that matters and how well matches and wrestlers hold up decades later is irrelevant, is there any value in watching old footage? I'd like to see Dave address that.

I don't mean to sound like Bryan Alvarez, but Cutie Suzuki ran the ropes about as well as Kelly Kelly.

Remember when I promised to kill you last, Robley? I lied. Too soon?

So is Brody someone whose work holds up so well that big guys still study his tapes to learn how to work? Or is he someone whose work doesn't really hold up but it doesn't matter because wrestling is all about time and place?

Sure, but you don't need to watch matches to get that. You can just have someone tell you. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with watching everything if you have the time and inclination. But it's not an absolute necessity. If you're intimidated and don't know where to begin, don't be afraid to start at the top. There are plenty of knowledgeable people who can help you fill in the blanks.

We're obviously not talking about complete blank slates. Everyone here has seen enough wrestling to know what they consider good and bad.

Allow me to join your friends in mocking you. I think the notion that you need to watch a bunch of mediocre lead-in matches to appreciate a great one is a crock of horseshit. Take 6/9/95, since it came up earlier in the thread. I've never seen the lead-in match where Kobashi injures his leg, nor do I ever intend to. Why would I? He's got a big-ass fucking bandage on his leg. What more do I need to know? 99% of the time, everything you need is right there in the match.

That's the thing, though. Watching wrestling is supposed to be fun. It's not something you should have to force yourself to choke down because it's good for you.

I think all this talk about context is overblown. Do you really need to be familiar with the Misawa/Kawada rivalry to appreciate 6/9/95? Do you really need to know why exactly Hokuto and Kandori hate each other to appreciate Dreamslam? I don't think you do. To the OP, it sounds to me like you view puro as completely inscrutable and you're afraid to even try to approach it. Don't be afraid, just dive in. For the most part, the matches speak for themselves. If you're intimidated, my advice would be to focus on All Japan because it most closely resembles American heavyweight wrestling.

I just realized the correct answer: Ultimate Warrior.

So I finally managed to watch Punk/Lesnar and Cena/Bryan. The former has been getting pretty much universal praise and I don't have much to add on that front, so I'll just say that it was fucking awesome. It looks like it may have to eat my words, because it has a serious shot at surpassing Okada/Tanahashi in my MOTY rankings. I don't know that it was better than Cena/Lesnar, but it ended the way the Cena match should have. I didn't think Cena/Bryan was nearly as good, and there were quite a few moments that annoyed me. I found the slapfight near the end particularly cringeworthy. Still, it felt like an epic title match, and Bryan winning felt like a big moment, so it's an easy thumbs-up.

Killer Khan?

If I'm not mistaken, if there hadn't been a huge walk-up crowd for the first Wrestlemania, Vince would've gone bust in his first year of national expansion. So that future revenue was by no means a sure thing.

I really hate how the wrestlers are portrayed as living paycheck to paycheck.

Vince was successful in the 80s because of his creative vision. The 90s were more about things falling into place for him.

Vince's success in the 90s was due more to luck than any kind of brilliant creative vision. He didn't win the Monday Night Wars with Rocky Maivia and The Ringmaster, he won them with The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Girls, Girls, Girls would at least be upper midcard, right?