Jmare007

I had Lawler #6, mainly for his 80's and whatever 70's there was out there. I did watch some 90's work but I wasn't able to do a real deep dive. I wonder if that's gonna add to his case for me or take him down a peg this time around.

Yup, he was #2 for me last time and I can totally see myself putting him #1 this time around. No matter what I watch from Terry, he hooks me in. Kinda hard to follow up what Elliot said because I feel the exact same way. And yeah, new Funk stuff showing is legit one of the highlights of my fandom each year. It's crazy that no matter how stupid high expectations I might have over something (like the Harley Race match), the Funker matches it or exceeds it. He's wrestling's God, indeed.

As with pretty much every highly tounted lucha guy, I was really impressed with the way Virus was able to execute basically every single thing he wanted to do in the ring. And when you add the fact that a lot of that was either very innovative or very complicated/high risk, I can completely see why people love him. Having said that, the only match that really had me invested was the Metalico one, and what made it so compelling was Metalico's urgency, knowing that he was no real match for Virus -the difference in how much effort Metalico put on everything he tried to do and how "easy" it came off for Virus was really glaring- and that he had to throw the kitchen sink to have a shot at winning. I'm by not means faulting Virus of anything, that last match was basically a last showcase for Metalico so it made sense that Virus kind of took a back seat and was just there to show flashes and establishing he was indeed better. But at the end of the day I did not leave the watch party wanting to seek out more stuff. At this point I think I'll end up just watching more Casas (btw, really liked the trios match at the WP) because he's basically the one guy I legit wanna see more when it comes to Lucha. Felt that way in 2016 and continue to feel that way today.

Hard disagree. Once live crowds are back we'll see how long they last booing him. The Mania crowd booed Bryan too because they loved Edge so much. Nah, he can do it again in 5 or 10 years when the new guys comes along

Goddamn, sounds like an epic fight in Attack on Titan. This dude is gonna be a MASSIVE babyface when he turns...hopefully in no less than 2 years.

Great fucking match, I hope WWE uploads the whole thing without the commercial breaks on youtube.

Roman's new theme is flames.

So bubba @KawadaSmile how much time you think they are giving Roman and D-Bry? Do they try to have a MOTYC to send DB off to parenthood or they go more storyline heavy so Cesaro can step up for Backlash?

I don't think Cena was more over in that period of time than before so it's not like it made him more popular per se. So not sure "gave people what they wanted" applies. Guys like Rollins and Owens lived and breath that style and they basically tanked RAW. I can't not hold it against Cena when he was a guy who actually stood out because of being "big match John" without having to go full indy, for lack of a better word, in the previous years. He adopting it and only having IWC praise to show for it doesn't really move the needle for me.

I soured on "PWG Cena" FAST. When we voted for 2016 that was just starting with the Owens feud being half a year old and then it got worse as time went on. At some point his matches stopped being great-compelling and became funny with the excess and random big moves. Was that awful? Well, no. I wouldn't go that far at all. But it was a disappointing development for a guy I was really high on before 2016. The Reigns match was such a let down too. I don't see myself ever being as high on Cena as I was five years ago.

Very good highs but not a chance in hell of making my ballot. I watched too much "bleh" Del Rio stuff every week on WWE TV to overcome the times he had great matches. He was a very situational guy, it really depended on how motivated he was and the type of match he was having (or his opponent).

I said it in their threads, but Takuya Nomura and Fuminori Abe are two names I can totally see putting in my ballot with more chances to show what they are made of in the next 5 years. Shit, I might just need 1 or 2 years to be convinced.

Yeah, I'm always puzzled by people letting this kind of shit fly with Dave. He's a reporter and journalist with 40 years of experience and sometimes he doesn't do the most basic shit any journalist has to do. Not to mention he's a communicator that has an increasingly hard time communicating his thoughts. I get that WOR is an uncomfortable grey area as Dave can just be shooting the shit with Bryan but he's constantly giving material for people to pile up on him (and yes, there's a lot of times when that's uncalled for). That's journalism though. Specially when your job is reporting on stuff people don't want to be public. Some sources will try to use you for their own agenda, leak you shit and talk off the record, and then act like your public enemy n°1 in public.

I hope Roman wins clean next week and destroys D-Bry, forcing Cesaro to become extra aggressive and go for revenge for his friend. I wonder if Bryan will be back for a Summerslam match on RAW or his hiatus will be longer. He's gonna be part time regardless but that's gonna be close to when his contract supposedly expires.

Hash was top 10 for me in 2016. I wanna revisit him fully to see if he can keep that spot with a more critical eye. He's still one of my favorites but I wanna put him to the test just like Misawa.

There's the interview. He's not retiring and he's not "dead inside" lmao. He's puzzled at how he felt and took it as a sign that going part time is the best way to go. He never even implies he's retiring. He even goes into saying he didn't want to be in the Edge vs Roman feud because he felt it was strong by itself and that maybe that was why he felt "weird" that day.

That's not what happened at all, wtf.

Random mannerism theory.

Lol, if he pulls that shit off (working with WWE + multiple promotions) then he's beyond teflon in Vince's eyes.

I think this takes from the Okada thread could work better here. Takeshita is a worker that I "waited" for, for a long time until I just gave up. He's still very young so I don't deny he could've figured it out in 2020 but his run as Ace of DDT was mostly a disappointment to me. I think the biggest spark I saw from him during that period was in the 2018 Tag Team Shuffle tournament DDT did with Big Japan, were Takeshita actually worked differently and did great against very different opponents in fun tag matches (topping it off with a really good final). I thought he was going to shine from that moment on but it was once again same ol' same ol' with him as soon as he went back to solely DDT. Saying Okada is miles behind him playing different roles is kinda baffling to me because Takeshita has been always been a bleh Ace in my eyes -in terms of in ring performance- at least up until middle of 2019 when I just gave up and stopped watching him. Even reading Makai's nomination I thought every singles encounter he had with Endo as an Ace always lacked something to take it over the top and qualify as a legit great match, same with the Sasaki matches (though I have a bias against Sasaki as his strikes are so bad I can't into him at all, even though I know sucking at striking is kinda part of his character). I do like most of his matches with HARASHIMA and Shuji Ishikawa. though that's always been more because of his opponents than anything Konosuke ever did. I feel like Kono was never able to get out of a "go go go" style, as he's not good at selling and his matches are about bomb throwing and making early work rather meaningless. And I wouldn't be against that to be honest if it weren't for the fact that a lot of the times the crowd does not react to him as much as others. And that's mainly because he lacks in the in the charisma department. For that reason I think he works best in tag matches because his offense -which is probably the best Japan and has been for quite a while at this point- and overall style suits better when other people are doing the heavy lifting in the other parts of a match. This sounds way more critical than I intended to. I think it's because I've always had so much hopes for Takeshita as I saw him as a once in a generation prodigy and I just have never seen him rise up to that (admittedly stupid) expectation. Having said all that, I'm all for changing my mind. Specially if he turned things around since the 2nd half of 2019 till today. Any new recommendations? I've been meaning to watch the Akiyama match so I'll get to it.

If only we could have an "invader Okada" run in another promotion

Hugo is carnying it up 24/7, he's one of the least trusted "sources" out there so take everything he says with a grain of salt. I love the dude but that's just how it is with him. Edit: And yeah, he does have some scoops from time to time but that's always in the middle of a pile of bullshit he just says for clicks and attention.

Damn, what changed for you to then love Shibata concussing himself almost to death against Okada?

Has anyone this century been able to pull off a "hug it out" type of match/segment like Bryan and Kane did in 2012? It's pretty crazy to think they had a crowd go crazy over them trying to hug or not. Sure it was in Chicago, but that kind of crowd can just start trolling and making fun of it and make the segment all about themselves instead of being lead to react like Bryan and Kane did. Does that kind of stuff qualify more as a promo even though they didn't talk and it was all about charisma and body language?

I get it, but let's not forget New Japan sold out a Sumo Hall without a main event announced (it ended up being Cody vs Kenny vs Kota) less than 3 years ago and they constantly outdraw every other promotion in Korakuen without any marquee or title matches. I'm looking purolove and: -Three days after drawing 300 people at Korakuen twice, they drew more than 600 with Great-O-Khan & Henare vs Naito & SANADA maineventing. This was the first show to break the 300 people barrier in that building after four consecutive shows getting 300 people. Before that, they had 500 people on three shows that had New Japan Cup matchups. They have another big run of shows in KH this week with bigger cards so we'll see how they do. -In February they had 6 Korakuen Hall shows that drew in the 450-600 people range. -DDT had three Korakuen shows in March, two drawing more than 500 people and 1 above 600. That plus the 600 people in the one they had in April. Looking at the numbers, it's not that concerning as I thought in my first reaction to what MoS posted. Though it's evident there's less interest. Not sure overbooking the building is the answer as they've overbooked it since October last year and they are just seeing attendance drop since March and other promotions surpassing them.