Jimmy Redman

Fuerza might not end up my highest ranked luchador, but he's definitely my favourite. What a ridiculous, goofy bastard. He is absolutely everything I want in a rudo. People have mentioned them, but he just brings so many little touches to matches, and they're such Fuerza touches. All of the ballshot work, all of the overambitious diving and faceplanting, all of the insane bumps, he can't help but stamp a match with his personality. And yet he has this uncanny ability to stand out while at the same time not overshadowing the other guy or guys in the ring. He's awesome. A top half guy for me.

Super Astro is definitely a guy I'm looking at. Just such a pretty high flier. Unbelievably graceful dives. Someone above said it, that his relatively simple dives look so much better than anything more complicated that has been invented since. I'm in love with his reverse diving headbutt. I like that Blue Panther singles match, and he's been great in every trios I've seen him in so far.

All of this. Seriously, as a joshi novice, there were a bunch of names you'd hear pimped as the biggest joshi girls, and she was never really one of them. So it was only when I began really watching 90s joshi that I realised how awesome she is. How is she not pimped more? She's great at basically everything - working "big" against smaller girls, getting her ass kicked by Kong, bossing shit in JWP and then being the outsider coming in for the Toyota/Yamada tags, she's good at dropping bombs, running around, holds, strikes. Her kicking the shit out of Yamada in those tags is as good as it gets. She may be my second-highest ranked woman at the end of the day.

Perrito is someone I'm thinking about, but at the end of the day I might want to rank him more than I actually will rank him. When he's on he's so on, just a great heel with that touch of transcendence about him. But on the other hand I don't know if there's enough of a body of work there. He's on the bubble.

OJ basically makes the argument for Jones. In that 75-85 decade he was great, and overall probably has the best body of work of any WoS guy. His best stuff is great, and he is also good at getting something watchable out of just about anyone. He'll be on my list and above everyone from WoS besides Breaks. MAYBE Rocco.

I love the Demos and Eadie's work in that team. I've liked the glimpses I've had of him as Masked Superstar too. He's someone I'm quite fond of and would love to sneak onto my list, but I couldn't in good conscience without seeing more of him in singles. Another for the "Maybe - if I get around to it" pile.

To me sort of has a similar case to John Morrison, in that his biggest strengths are being in two of the best tag teams of the 00s, and in working for a company that gives him the opportunity to have good matches every week on TV. AMW were great, as were Beer Money, and he has that all-time Chris Harris match. I also really like the cage match with Roode, but the finish and general TNA fuckery around that time leave a bad taste in my mouth. Outside of that I don't see that there's enough meat there to merit his inclusion, not even above someone like John Morrison, who to me has just as good a tag career, but much stronger singles performances.

Sugiura I generally put in the "too much" pile. But I will say, the thing about the overkill style is that there's always that one time where the overkill works and the result is something bombastic and awesome and thrilling. I feel that way about Sugiura vs Go Shiozaki from 2010. I have no idea why but for some reason all of the million head drops worked for me there in a vacuum, and I loved it. Wonder if anyone else likes that match as much as I do. Still, getting one special match for every 100 matches of bullshit isn't something that puts him on a list like this.

I love Asuka so much. I'd love to rank her but I'd have to have a good look at her pre-NXT work to do that, so it's a question of whether I am able to do that in time. Seems like there's a decent assortment available online to dive into, but if anyone has specific match recommendations I'm all ears.

This bird is great. I've really enjoyed her going through my joshi binge. She's a pipsqueak little thing but she will out-bitch everyone else in sight, throwing in these really cool little heel touches while everyone else is running around dropping bombs. I'd love to see more of her too, if anyone has recommendations.

Patera is a guy of whom I wish there was more readily available footage of his peak. He's another guy that gave me this immediate impression of "why did nobody tell me this guy was good??" when I started watching older stuff. I love the Backlund match and the Sheiks team, so I just wish there was more out there of him.

Yeah, I would put Londrick on a tag list but I don't see a case for Kendrick himself. He was fun in 2003 as the weird guy on SD, and fun in 2008 as The Brian Kendrick, dancing around and quoting the Art of War with Zeke, but even in that period he didn't exactly light the ring on fire, even compared to the people around him like Jeff Hardy or Shelton. And when he went to TNA, I remember thinking "this guy is the reason WWE wants to script everyone up" because him with the leash off was just awful; trying to be weird for the sake of weird and just being incredibly annoying. And again, not really offsetting that with anything particularly good in the ring. I'm not sure what there is of his indy career, but yeah I don't see it.

Not a chance. One of the most overrated guys going around. Felt like he was hiding at the cool kids' table during the Smackdown Six and Los Guerreros stuff, getting to go along for the ride and be in tonnes of great tag matches without standing out in any way. Apart from the miraculous Rey match at GAB 2004 I can't think of one singles match of note in his whole WWE career. Mechanically fine but unbelievably boring.

Going to give some neglected candidates some love. I can't believe Alan at least hasn't come in here to go nuts over this guy. I enjoy what I've seen from him, as a skinny kid walking around with possibly the biggest chip ever seen on a human being's shoulder. He's a hateable little prick, but also has a magnetism and a fire to him where you can't look away, and end up impressed by his sheer determination, even if it comes from a place of such...unpleasantness. That Kanemoto match from Dec 2009, I think it was a BOSJ match or something, is the best example of that. Awesome spectacle. He's not a guy who I'm considering for my list or anything, but he makes an impression.

I was marginally more enthusiastic about Rock when this began than I am now. I always assumed I'd have Rock on my list, but now I'm going to have to think really hard about it. For a megastar who has insane charisma and super heated and fun main events, I have him below Hogan. He does have more matches than you'd think on the surface. Many Austin matches, the Hunter feud, the '98 ladder match, Hogan match, Brock match... His 2002 is interesting because for the briefest of moments he is thrown into Smackdown Workrate Wonderland and is having long main events with Benoit and Eddie and shit, which is cool to see. I am also a big fan of the first Cena match, although it was more due to Cena, and now it seems the main thing Rock brought was not blowing up during it. Main things I'd want to revisit would be the Foley matches and Jericho matches. Depends if I have time to do so before Mania.

Joe is a guy who was so cool, so unique and so great during his peak that I don't really mind that he drifted into nothingness in TNA for a while there. I blame TNA for that, not him, and I think him immediately looking so much better once he stepped foot in NXT bears that out. Joe had something about him, that je ne sais quoi that makes him stand out from everyone else around him, makes him so attractive. I was just talking about it with Hokuto, and Joe definitely had it in the mid-00s. When he came into TNA and went on that initial run...it's so hard to explain with a straight face now, but back then it felt like a real moment in time, a chance for TNA to make something of itself. Joe brought that sense of being a genuine attraction. That whole body of work from 2004-06 is really immense. He elevated basically any match he was in with his aura. You could watch him beat the shit out of just about anyone. His ROH Title run was great, I think things like those Punk matches more than hold up. I love the Kobashi match. And that first 18 months in TNA was so super, with AJ, Daniels, and the rest of the XD crew just banging out hit after hit. It was all built around Joe's ascension, and it was so cool to enjoy that before the rug was pulled out. Even after that point, there's still good stuff to be had. Joe vs Monty Brown vs Rhino is the greatest random three-way brawl you've ever seen. He had a great PPV match with Christian in 2007 sometime. I don't like their initial feud, but I do like the Joe vs Angle Lockdown 2008 match, where they go all faux-MMA and give you another glimpse of a future that TNA might have had. And the Aries match from 2012 is awesome. Now that he's in NXT there's stuff like that random Ciampa match which shows what he's still capable of.

I'm another one who grew up only knowing about Slaughter as a gimmick, and once I began watching 80s wrestling I was completely blown away. This dude is the nuttiest bumper. I think every single match of his there's some point where I go all Holy Shit when some insane bump lands him on top of his head. Total psycho. Like peachchaos says above, he was good wherever he went. He has a slew of great shit, and his very best stuff is among the best matches of the 80s. Honestly I think he's one of the very best workers of the 80s. He'll be pretty high for me.

Yeah that sounds bizarre to me on the surface. Marufuji is kind of like KENTA, but turned up to whatever it is that makes juniors overkill matches uwatchable. He's way more spotty, his spots are way more convoluted and he isn't nearly as good as KENTA at selling, babyface fire, timing, projecting toughness, etc. Both 'fuji and KENTA are great at getting the shit beat out of them by someone bigger than them. But that's about it for me. KENTA is miles better. Marufuji is insufferable most of the time.

This is basically me too. It's not just that she was in the Dream Rush tag and rematch, but she was essential to them - her and Kansai's thing was the driving force in those matches. I actually really like her stuff with Toyota too. The hair match and aftermath is so emotionally overwhelming to me in a way that even the Chiggy/Dump version couldn't match. I think a key thing about women's wrestling to me is the opportunity to ratchet the emotional intensity up to 1000, and no more so is that demonstrated than there. I'm considering her. If I do it will be at the bottom, but I'm actually more likely to put her on than Chiggy at this stage. I know she kind of comes off as a Chiggy imitator so that sounds weird, but again, her heightened emotional stuff resonates more with me than when Chiggy did it.

The thing about Tully I love the most is that he manages to be a completely craven POS while not sacrificing any of his physical toughness. Tully is a wrestler. He's a tough bastard, he's solid, he has skills in the ring, he can brawl with the best of them. Clearly he can fight. BUT, he's also just a total asshole. He doesn't really WANT to fight, when it comes down to it. Not really. So when the going gets tough, he uses whatever shortcut available to him to get out of it. He could stand and bang, if he wanted to do things the hard way, but he verily does not. It makes him a different kind of heel than someone who seems totally unthreatening, like a Miz type. With Miz there's a certain sense of, well, he kind of HAS to cheat and be a dick because he has no toughness and it's the only way for him to survive against real men. It's a survival thing. With Tully, you get the sense he could get by just playing by the rules, because he has enough talent, BUT maybe not enough talent to be at the top on his own merits, so he has to cheat and scam his way there. Kind of, in another weird comparison, how Sasha Banks deep down wants to be a babyface, but she only started winning after she turned heel, so she sticks with being an asshole because it got her to the top in a way that being a face didn't. Being a heel is easier, so she takes the low road. Same with Tully, although not in the sense that he wants to be a face, at all. He's a total prick and he's a heel for life. BUT he cheats by choice, because it's the easiest way for him to win a match, not the only way for him to win a match.

I really like KENTA. I think he's one of those guys that I instantly liked at first sight, and just have to come up with the reasons why from there. I see why a lot of people here wouldn't dig someone like him, and to be honest on paper he's not a guy I would usually dig. Overwrought juniors matches aren't really my thing. BUT with KENTA I think he rises above it and manages to be good despite the style and environment he works in (or did work in, I should say now). He brings the best out of a questionable style, to put it that way. Like Alan said, he has tremendous fire and intensity and can really lift a match with a well-timed burst of emotion. He takes a great shit kicking, and makes a good comeback. He adds a real oomph to his moves too. I like his selling as well. I know it's problematic for a lot of people but again, I find him more to be the exception to the rule in his environment. He's great physically taking a beating and selling, and also in showing that he's still in pain even while running around and going back on offense. I also think he straddles the line between 'dominant ace of junior division' and 'small guy trying to compete with heavyweights' quite well, and it's a dual-role that I tend to enjoy. He's great showing contempt to some junior challenger, and then turning around and completely eating it from a guy twice his size, and looking credible and doing good work in both settings. I think he had a really strong 2006, and a really strong 2009, with a lot of good work in between. I haven't kept up with him much in the 10s until he hit NXT, but his 00s run is enough for me.

It is, but when I see people touting him as a Top 10, Top 20 candidate, that IS the standard to compare him to, to the guys who I have on that level. And yeah I do understand that about the matches and wasn't exactly expecting him to take centre stage. It's just the combo of basically being wallpaper in those matches, as well as seeing other guys - Tenryu, Taue - do the 'angry vet' thing so much better, and 'angry vet' is the role he's settled into in the last decade or so. It was just an example of how little an impression he makes on me, in any situation. This is all my way of saying that I'll rank him, but probably in the second half of my ballot somewhere. I just don't see him as an elite worker.

I have to admit I find Akiyama kind of underwhelming, especially relative to the high praise he's getting from so many. I think more than anything I just find him a little...bland. Even allowing for puro guys not being the most colourful characters on earth. Like, with the Four Pillars, I can watch them and immediately see how each one has his own unique character and how that plays out in the ring - Misawa the stoic ace, Kawada the grumpy asskicker, Kobashi the intensely emotional offense machine, Taue the giant jerk. In comparison Akiyama comes off to me as just...The Guy That Came After Those Guys. I can't pin him down. Things get better as we move into the late 00s and he becomes the pissed off old guy. But I've enjoyed that role better when played by others, and I still don't get a sense of Akiyama putting anything unique into that role either. He doesn't stand out to me. I enjoy his matches when the other guy is bringing something interesting to the table: Ogawa in 1998 being the plucky underdog, KENTA in 2009 selling his neck, Inoue in 2006 being an utter, utter shit. I watch the Revolution 2005 tags and all I can think is how much better Tenryu is, even at 55. He's just The Other Guy in the match. I'm not dismissing him, because he's been in an awful lot of good matches over a very long period of time. I really love the Misawa 2000 torch-passing match. But I definitely don't see him as an upper tier candidate.

Anyone watched Ballers? Sure it's not exactly a stretch but it's a TV show, there's no action involved and it's more talky and dramatic than his usual fare.

Yeah, the idea of "sacrificing" a Mania to make new stars is good in theory, but they're also trying to fill up a gigantic stadium. Obviously the name of Mania draws by itself, but at the same time when you're trying to fill close to 100,000 seats, you will go for all the star power you can get. The last thing they want is a stadium with thousands of empty seats, especially when they're trying to claim attendance records. To really follow through on the "sacrifice" they'd need to book a smaller venue (even a smaller football stadium) that they'd be able to sell out on the Mania name in and of itself, so they don't need to worry so much about using new guys to draw. But that's a conscious choice I don't think they'd ever make when there's so much money to be made in going as big as possible.