DR Ackermann

I believe Patera has said that the boulder/McDonald's story didn't happen anyway close to how people said and that Saito wasn't there at all.

Also when I say very good to great that would be in the 3 3/4 to 4 1/4 range if you were going by stars.

Looking back at my notes I actually rated the 1.28.86, 2.5.86, & 1.24.87 tag matches w/ Yatsu against Jumbo & Tenryu as being really good to great. None of them blew me away though and the rest of his tag matches in AJPW were either OK or good. Of the tag matches & trios leading up to the the big 5-on-5 gauntlet in NJPW I only had one of the matches rated as good, the rest were just OK. When Choshu has to go long I feel like he suffers a bit, but I would also say that is a reason why I'm not a huge fan of Jumbo. So many long matches. It could just be a case of viewer fatigue because I watched a lot of those matches pretty close together. Maybe some reevaluation is do on my part.

I guess I'm in the minority, but for me most of those tags were just way too long and repetitive. There were two of them that i thought were really great though. Can't remember which off the top of my head.

Would anyone else agree that tag matches aren't Choshu's forte? Don't get me wrong, he was in some great tags, but going through 80s All Japan, so many of his tags with Yatsu were a fucking chore to get through. Same with 80s New Japan before he made the jump to AJ. All Japan always had to have super long tags so it's even more noticeable there. On the other hand I think he adds a lot to the multi-mans I've seen in 90s New Japan, especially in the NJPW vs WAR feud. If you agree with me, do you think that hurts Choshu in relation to someone whose of similar quality but was great in singles and tags?

Good match. The first half was alright and in the second half they really kicked it into high gear. This should have ended with the doomsday device dropkick and backdrop slpash. It would have been fine if the first german suplex afterward finished it, but to have to do two is overkill and only serves to set the bar higher and higher which will eventually cause problems.

Ok match but Mutoh looks like he's taking a night off. Owen overshoots on his moonsault and then Mutoh undershoots on his.

Austin wrestles a guy named Germany and busts out a German suplex!

This was one of the dumbest and creepiest things I've ever seen in wrestling. Who thought having Warrior get in a little girl's face and commanding her to "do a handstand for the Ultimate Warrior. Do a handstand for the Ultimate Warrior," was a good idea? This is what intensity and love are all about? wtf?

You can throw Casas on that list too.

I went through the list of people I have as potentially being on my final ballot and selected all the ones I see making my list for sure and surprise, surprise, it came out to 36 guys. There are probably 20 or 30 more that I'm 90% sure will make it, but these are the ones I'm 100% on at this point. 1. 2 Cold Scorpio 2. Akira Taue 3. Barry Windham 4. Bill Dundee 5. Billy Robinson 6. Bobby Eaton 7. Bret Hart 8. Daisuke Ikeda 9. Dick Murdoch 10. Dustin Rhodes 11. Eddie Guerrero 12. El Satanico 13. Genichiro Tenryu 14. Greg Valentine 15. Jerry Lawler 16. John Cena 17. Jumbo Tsuruta 18. Jun Akiyama 19. Kenta Kobashi 20. Mitsuharu Misawa 21. Nick Bockwinkel 22. Ric Flair 23. Ricky Morton 24. Ricky Steamboat 25. Riki Choshu 26. Ron Garvin 27. Sangre Chicana 28. Shinya Hashimoto 29. Stan Hansen 30. Tatsumi Fujinami 31. Terry Funk 32. Toshiaki Kawada 33. Tully Blanchard 34. William Regal 35. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 36. Yuki Ishikawa

Using that logic does it make any sense for you to keep making the claim that Ric Flair is the best wrestler of all time? Why would you even argue it, you have too many gaps. I don't mean this to sound like I'm attacking you, I just feel like you're over thinking the whole thing. You should definitely take part in the project. The whole point of this website is to talk about wrestling and the poll process/results will only enhance the conversations. Should someone not keep a journal because of the fact that they know whatever they write down in the moment might not be how they'll feel in 20 years?

I probably wouldn't put Jericho over Cena (even though they'd be in the same range for me), but if I was making the argument, it'd likely due to a working at a variety of places (ie. WAR/ECW/Mexico/WCW), preferring Jericho's mic work over Cena's, and preferring Jericho's style of work (more cruiserweight-style than Cena) over Cena. Remember, a lot of people don't like the WWE style, and still think there are no good Cena matches. I see plenty of people on places like Reddit grudgingly say Cena is a good wrestler, but only "when he's with awesome workers" or something like that. It's amazing how so many "smart marks" view these guys in a way that's completely opposite of reality. Jericho is seen as this great ring general, when that is what Cena actually is. Cena is seen as bumbling idiot who looks like he just got out of wrestling school, and that's how the majority of Jericho's career actually was. People knock Cena for being awkward but go back and look at Jericho's career. He was sloppy as hell and was constantly overreaching on spots that were just outside of his athletic range. Seriously look at their output. Cena's been wrestling for 15 years. Jericho's 15th year was 2005. Take his whole career and it doesn't even come close to what Cena has done in 15 years. Arguing for Jericho based on the number of places he worked is pointless because he sucked in all of those places. It's cool to hate Cena and love Jericho. If Cena was 'cool' this wouldn't even be a conversation. Preferring one style over another is one thing, but execution is what matters.

Following up on what Bill said about old man Lawler, everyone has seen the TLC match with Miz, right? Has Miz had a better match than that?

It very well could be be based on Vader. He debuted in New Japan in December of '87 and the arcade version of Double Dragon 2 came out in December of '88.

Two of the three Invader 1 matches I've seen have him brawling into the stands. That's got to be one of the scariest things for a wrestler to do if you're a heel in Puerto Rico. Fucking insane. Almost makes ECW brawls seem silly. Both of those matches (vs Embry; vs Ron Starr) are some of the best brawls I've seen. Looks like Invader 1 might be in contention for GOAT brawler.

Yeah, Funk has the standout performance but he couldn't have had that match with anyone else. Funk's selling is made even better because he's getting an all time ass-kicking from Hansen. A the same time, Hansen isn't eating him alive. There's a natural flow and Funk's fantastic, over-the-top selling is matched by Hansen's, but on a much subtler level. Watch it again sometime. I wasn't in love with it the first time I saw it either but now I'm with Steenalized. Favorite match ever.

When Hansen was on the Ross Report he described his style as "act and react" saying that he never knew what he was going to do until he did it. His opponent would have to react to whatever he did and then Hansen would react to their reaction. That made the action in his matches feel spontaneous and exciting. There's an urgency and grittiness to his matches that you don't find very often. Everything feels like a struggle and a fight, even when he's working the mat. Mix that in with his amazing selling, underrated offense and his seamless transitions to high spots and I think Hansen has to be a top 5 candidate at worst. The 4.14.83 match between Funk and Hansen is a match everyone should check out if they haven't seen it. Both guys are doing what they do best here. This is why they are GOAT candidates.

That's not exactly how it usually worked out. Vader would get knocked out of the ring and fly into the barricades in the first 2 minutes of a match.

Vader's bumping really hurts him in my eyes. It's not the bumps themselves, but when he does them. He always bumps too much too soon.

I've seen very little Marty Jones, but if that Terry Rudge match on YouTube is a good representation of his work and there's enough footage then he could do very well on my list.

So Black Panther is the younger one? That would make sense because I remember hearing he was the older one and if Cachorro is already 25...

No I gotcha. I just found the tweet so I went ahead and posted it.

You can this time. He's 25. https://twitter.com/luchablog/status/471481002498326529

Great podcast. Kris Z mentioned that Cachorro was 20 or 21, but if i remember correctly Cachorro said on twitter this last summer that he was 24