Jmare007

From match 3 on, every match has had at least 1 insane bump.

They always go long if they want/need to ever since the Network started though.

?

Not a good look for the main event and the ultimate opportunist.

Save it for Summerslam so Big E can take the belt in front of a crowd.

Of course Vince books the face to lose in his hometown.

That was a better bombfest than Sami vs Owens. I thought it was a really great showcase for Riddle.

This feud is about a scooter?

These two continue to be insane.

Over/Under on him pulling his hair gotta be what, 10 times?

The layout of the match fine, but not a lot you can do with Nattie and Tamina.

Nia with the Peter Griffin!

After the piped in noises from yesterday I have no clue when the live crowd is actually reacting.

LMAO!!!

Saudi crowds started the trend!

Fiend should've tried to dive onto Randy, got RKO'd and end the match right there.

At least they got that one right.

Are we getting fake blood tonight? Randy wearing white after like 17 years.

You are in luck pal!

Fiend vs Randy starting? Thank Terry Funk.

Asshole heel Tana is best version of him, imo. It's too bad we only got it in small doses because of his role and status in New Japan. IIRC correctly Tana also big leagued Marufuji during that G-1 calling him something close to a "young up and comer" or along those lines

You are right, for some reason I was placing in my mind that the tag gauntlet and Fastlane matches in 2014 and not 2015. Those two matches are easily his best performances that year.

@elliott I'm sure other folk will do the heavy work of doing the year by year cases but instead of giving you a list right now of why he was a BITW candidate I'll give you a list of years were I think he wasn't, just so you can get more grounded expectations. 2014: 4 months of work before out with injury, enough good and great stuff to at least say "if his neck didn't give out, he could've have a case". 2015: Basically 3 months of work before he had to retire due to concussions. He still had good matches with the likes of Luke Harper and even Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler but his year never really get going to even try to hypothesize like with 2014. 2016: retired 2017: retired: Also, 2001 he might not be "best in the world" but for sure it's a year that makes his case stronger as he's a damn rookie and is putting out classics already. So that year shouldn't be dismissed or skipped if anyone wants to do a deep dive on his work. I'm actually kinda interested in a case for 2003. There's the London match and he still puts other good matches in ROH but he barely works there (5 matches) so if he has an argument, it would be because of his New Japan (were it's basically a bunch of tag matches) and England runs. How much of that do we have available on tape? While we are in a year by year breakdown, 2009 and 2010 are also interesting years to me. I felt he had become kind of stale in 09' as a singles performer in ROH, but signing with WWE meant he had that farewell tour in ROH that turned it around for him. His case is mainly done in other promotions though, like his appearances in Chikara, PWG, AAW and wxW. 2010 is a prime example of his versatility, imo. Not only is he able to stand out in WWE despite being presented as a loser and a geek/nerd on TV but him getting "kinda fired" (that's such a curious time) leads to a short and awesome indy run with him working a fuck ton of places and doing EVOLVE, AMBITION and DGUSA were he does shit he wasn't doing in WWE to great results.

One of my goals to revisit in 2 years or so. I've always been a fan of him but never considered him for this sort of thing so I wanna go watch how high he can get.

Disagree about Nakamura, it took until 2009 for him to become a consistent compelling performer (and he REALLY put it all together after his CMLL stint a couple of years later) and by that point Tana had more great matches and that awesome Champions Carnival run in 08'. I don't think either was that much of a standout before 07', they had good stuff for sure but not eye popping "best out there" level, specially on a regular basis as they would eventually do. All the 2010's New Japan guys will do really well this time around I think. Tana was one of four modern performers that made my top 50. Him making his case stronger from 2016 to 2026 will be a nice look for me.