Jetlag

Honestly? Shiozaki is among the wrestlers who killed my interest in Japanese wrestling. And in recent years he's looked way worse than as a young guy. At least the Fake Kobashi act had some charm.

I gave a pretty vague comment 5 years ago. I was mostly referring to the Mistico matches, and his various big matches he was having in from the mid 2000s onwards where it's always the same formula. Quick first two falls, then the same robotic finishing stretch built around 2.999999s with no build. I didn't even like the Atlantis match much. Having watched some of his earlier work, I gotta say he was actually a pretty decent worker from around 1998 to the early 2000s. I could see him being a legend if he had more matches in the classic lucha style.

One of the best women workers of the last two decades, although she suffered a hard dropoff with the decline of ARSION. From 1998-2002 she looked incredible. I still look forward to checking out more of her work in the "dark period". She actually reminds me of 2 Cold Scorpio a bit. Athletic worker with extremely sharp offense who can do it all.

He looks absolutely phenomenal in the Inoki match. Everything else I've seen him in has been solid to good, although I was hoping to find more like that performance. I know a weird guy who insists his match vs. Abby is the best thing AJPW did in the 70s. Apparently he was a big star in South Korea and I have a feint hope to see some of that stuff be unearthed sometime.

Great worker when it comes to killing the joshi scene and getting away with it. She's carryable when in the ring with a good worker, and can be pretty dreadful otherwise. I don't think she would make my Top 100 female wrestlers.

She looks good here and there, but she also often looks like every other piece of trash spot blowing no selling Toyota clone. The Maekawa match series is telling of this as some of these matches are good to great and some of them are abominations. Not really someone I consider among the best from an era that was struggling hard to begin with, but I am willing to be swayed with some recommendations.

She looks damn great in GAEA. Which is insane, because she was like a 17-18 year old girl at the time. Her intensity matches anyone in pro wrestling history. In some ways it's more intrigueing than her "prime" work, because her prime is mostly just her carrying lesser wrestlers, and in at that period she had settled less into a "routine". I've not really seen much talk about it and it's a crying shame. I can't remember where I had her last time but Meiko is cruising comfortably into my #1 spot for women wrestlers if I keep finding gems.

I wouldn't put Munenori Sawa anywhere near my list and I'm definitely not gonna put a Munenori Sawa imitator near it. There are so many cooler BattlARTS workers you could rip off, where's my Carl Greco imitator?

Nomura looks like the most talented guy in all of Japanese wrestling once in a while. Problem is he is stuck in a promotion that does fuck all with him, and usually working those robotic bloatsters which is probably the most boring style of wrestling in all of human history. I recall him being in maybe half a dozen matches worth watching in the past decade, which is laughably little even compared to workers who worked in eras where much less matches were even filmed. It's not his fault, obviously. It this rate I can see him building a listworthy resume in maybe 10 years.

Fuyuki seems dreadfully underrated. He has a ton of hidden gems in the 90s. And Fuyuki Gun were just awesome. Fuyuki is the glue holding that stuff together by being a spectacular prick. I have yet to dive into his FMW stuff, but if it ends up just being half as awesome he should be a lock. https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/search/label/hiromichi fuyuki Genichiro Tenryu & Koki Kitahara & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Jado & Gedo & Hiromichi Fuyuki - EPIC Alas, the final! And this was a total blast, too. Basically Fuyuki Gun try to do their usual spiel and run into a brickwall. Tenryu and crew wouldn’t have their triple teaming shit, and Fuyuki and his goons got the tables turned on them. Mostly Hamaguchi and Kitahara potatoeing and stretching Jado and Gedo. Anytime Tenryu would come in he would kick someone in the face or chop them in the throat really hard. Fuyuki looked damn great and may have been the best guy in the match. He would constantly run in to make these really violent saves by kicking people in the face, then drop elbows, slap Tenryu, are lariat someone in the jaw. It was as if you had two Tenryus in the match! It builds to a really hot second half with Hamaguchi running wild, and Kendo Nagasaki running in to cause more chaos with a fire extinguisher. It could have ended on that interference spot Attitude Era style and it would’ve been pretty great, but then we also get Kitahara having his leg taken out and stubbornly trying to survive against the nefarious Fuyuki. Great shit, a worthy cap of to this great tournament that produced more great matches than an entire month of 2021 pro wrestling. Wrestle and Romance. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Itakura & Ichiro Yaguchi & Hideo Takayama It’s nice to get a full version of that NSPW main event. And this was a pretty great match. Everyone looked good potatoeing the shit out of each other. Fuyuki was so great here punching and stomping these kickpadded wannabe shooters into oblivion, at one point even doing a Terry Funk combo, and as usual there were numerous cool cut offs and double teams from Fuyuki-Gun. Yaguchi was doing a sambo gimmick here, and he is a lot better as a dimestore Volk Han with cool kicks than as a shitty facepainted brawler. At one point he just ragdolled Gedo with a cool wrist throw and that was probably the coolest thing he ever did. Itakura was cool here working fast paced junior sequences with Jado and Gedo, and Hido was there to kick, bleed and get the life beaten out of him. Miss when wrestling was simple and violent. BRAND NEW HERO BIG CHALLENGE: Takeshi Sato vs. Kodo Fuyuk Man, I could watch Fuyuki do high pitched yelling and beating the crud off of a sucker all day long. Really fun match with Sato hitting hard kicks from odd angles and Fuyuki just creaming him. Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsutoshi Goto vs. Ashura Hara & Hiromichi Fuyuki Another round of beefy dudes clobbering eachother. This wasn't peak WAR interpromotional material, but I still probably liked the best out of all the matches on the show. Particularily because the whole match felt thoroughly violent, and Fuyuki and Koshinaka were really at each other's throat. They randomly broke out into this super violent exchange that lead to a poor sap getting punched repeatedly and all was right in the world. I continue to enjoy Goto in these Heisei Ishingun tags as old guy with 2 moves who comes in to lariat and backdrop fools and nothing else, altough there was some sloppiness on his part. Hara's career was winding down but he could still take some big bumps. These matches pretty much write themselves but they still work in some things you won't expect. The Great Kabuki & Masao Orihara & Keisuke Yamada vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado This is an awesome looking match up on paper, and it really delivered on it’s promise. The Fuyuki & underlings trio really is one of the most consistently entertaining acts of the 90s in their scummy evilness. And Orihara is a sleazy treasure in this match, flying in and out of the scenery, having heated exchanges with Gedo etc. Kabuki is also awesome just tagging in, hitting awesome punches and superkicks and spraying mist. The juicy part is the heat segment on Yamada, which is really well executed and also really bloody. There was also an unusual intrusion when Yamada’s sister(?) tried to save her brother from Fuyukis nefarious tactics and Fuyuki shakes the shit out of her, it was totally unexpected an really underlines Fuyukis scummyness. Yamada survives a ton of punishment in this, almost too much, but then again he was bankrolling everyone and putting all these awessome IWA Japan shows together, so I guess I am fine with it, and the finish is a good one. Kendo Nagasaki vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki (WAR 11/29/1994) Insane spectacle, which may have been even better than the previous match between Tenryu and Kitahara (which was great). Easily the best Nagasaki singles match I've seen ever, hell it's probably the best for Fuyuki too. This is a lumberjack match which in WAR means guys dressed like ninjas or wearing devil masks and tracksuits are stalking near the ring. Initially it's fun with both guys being locked in the ring to potatoe each other, but things take a crazy turn when Nagasaki takes a big bump to the outside (a remarkable thing in itself) and for no reason decides to shove Tenryu aside. Tenryu gets pissed off and they proceed to hurl chairs at each other as you can feel the tension growing exponentially. Jado & Gedo proceed to get involved, braining Nagasaki with a chair, leaving him bleeding like crazy. It leads to this really fascinating ending run where they just keep escalating the violence while guys from the outside keep getting involved. Nagasaki is especially of the charts here, bleeding and absorbing some sick headbutts and lariats but then turning around and doing some psychotic things, throwing the referee around, teeing off on Fuyuki with chairs, undoing the ring ropes to strangle his opponent, hitting his awesome superkick. I've never really thought of lumberjack matches as a great stipulation or cared for matches that have guys not involved in the match getting involved., but fuck this was great.

I've absolutely loved his late career run in IWA Japan. He's looked quite great as a sleazy Tenryu carrying a seedy garbage promotion. Also, he's in that WAR tag which has to be in the Top 10-20 2 vs. 2 matches ever: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/search/label/great kabuki The Great Kabuki & Masao Orihara & Keisuke Yamada vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado This is an awesome looking match up on paper, and it really delivered on it’s promise. The Fuyuki & underlings trio really is one of the most consistently entertaining acts of the 90s in their scummy evilness. And Orihara is a sleazy treasure in this match, flying in and out of the scenery, having heated exchanges with Gedo etc. Kabuki is also awesome just tagging in, hitting awesome punches and superkicks and spraying mist. The juicy part is the heat segment on Yamada, which is really well executed and also really bloody. There was also an unusual intrusion when Yamada’s sister(?) tried to save her brother from Fuyukis nefarious tactics and Fuyuki shakes the shit out of her, it was totally unexpected an really underlines Fuyukis scummyness. Yamada survives a ton of punishment in this, almost too much, but then again he was bankrolling everyone and putting all these awessome IWA Japan shows together, so I guess I am fine with it, and the finish is a good one. Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda & Keisuke Yamada vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Shigeo Okamura & Kishin Kawabata (Broken Glass Window Death Match) This was supposed to be Matsuda/Yamada vs. Ishikawa/Okamura, but Ishikawa gets on the mic challenging Kabuki and it becomes a 6 man tag. This was a wild brawl which was made more entertaining by the tough old guy charisma of Ishikawa and Kabuki. These guys bleeding and punching and booting each other was awesome. Yamada and Okamura were working really hard here, starting with a great exchange that saw Okamura dropkick Yamada in the mouth. The brawling seemed more vicious here than usual in these Korakuen Hall brawls, there was very little of guys wandering around and dragging each other up the stairs and more guys beating on each other and throwing chairs. Yamada ends up taking the insane bump into the glass, cutting up his body, and then eating an insane neck compressing suplex from Okamura, you can tell he really wanted to put his company on the map here with his crazy Honmaesque performance. Really gritty entertaining brawl, exactly the kind of stuff people are looking for when scouring old deathmatch fed tapes. After the match Kodo Fuyuki attacks Kabuki, setting up another really exciting program (sorry, Tokyo Pro wasn't exactly a hot commodity in 1997 anymore). Koki Kitahara & The Great Kabuki vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Masao Orihara, WAR 7/14/1992 - EPIC Do yourself a favour and make it a priority to watch this match asap. Literally one of the most awesome brutal spectacles I've ever seen. It starts out with Tenryu chopping Kabuki in the throat in the middle of an exchange, leaving him suffocating on his back, which sets the tone nicely. The early Orihara sections were pretty fun, as every couple minutes he would try something stupid and get punished swiftly. Kabuki & Kitahara end up putting a massive assbeating on him. Kitahara looks like such a killer in this match, just walloping everyone with kicks left and right and dealing them kicks to the eye and the skull, and Kabuki looks great aswell, dishing out extra mean punches and kicks. It also helps that you can really whip Orihara around, he would eat a neckbreaker and his head would just bounce off the mat. Oriharas initial comeback was pretty much perfect as he ditches his junior offense and just tees off with reckless kicks. Later he would hit these great looking dives. His springboard crossbody is an example of a perfectly timed highspot. Tenryu wasn't in the match a ton but he would occasionally walk in and remind you who he his. Earlier Kabuki had blindsided him so, after he Orihara hit a dive and left Kabuki prone outside Tenryu would casually stroll over and clock him with a chair. It's these kind of moments that help make this sort of match so much more intense. Tenryu going mad with the pre-PRIDE soccer kicks, not letting off and leaving Kitahara bloodied is why he's Top 5 all time. Note how he would also put over his opponents, with Kitahara almost KO'ing him and Kabuki pretty much beating him silly with the punches and super kicks. What a fucking match, I wouldn't be shocked if this ends up in my All Time Top 10 as far as tags go. Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto - EPIC Leave it to a bunch of sleazy dudes and old geezers to have one of the funnest bomb throwing sprints of the year. You know any match with Tarzan Goto & Ryuma Go in it is pure money. If you don't, I hereby decree it. I was expecting a wild brawl, but they mostly stay in the ring and stick to the all star team of Tarzan/Go/Kabuki waffling the shit out of the sleaze greenhorns. Matsuda & Okumura aren't all that great, but that DOES NOT MATTER because they were here to get punched in the face and kicked in the throat a whole LOT. The exchanges between Goto & Yamada were insanely gory and easily the highlight of the match. I also unexpectedly loved Kabuki, who is supposed to be way over the hill and corpse-like at this pound but still BRINGS it - by doing what he always did: throwing punches and thrust kicking dudes really hard. I can't believe people widely don't like this dude - even his nerve hold was awesome! He was KILLING the poor guy with that nerve hold. I imagine if this had a grand stand exchange between Goto & Yamada at the end or something this would have been near all time level, but as it stands it was basically 3 badass vets waltzing in to kick the shit out of anyone and it kind of ruled. Also, do not watch this match if you dislike lariats, because this had about 30 of em. The Great Kabuki & Arashi vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okamura The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment. Kabuki & Nagasaki vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okumura, IWA Japan 7/20/1998 The crusty main event! Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.

Gresham has to be one of the most baffling underwhelming wrestlers I've ever seen. Clearly he is very knowledgable on wrestling and aims for a style that goes against the trends, but he's just been a spectacular failure when it comes to having great matches. He reminds me of those Benoit clones you'd see in RoH. I would absolutely rank him below Zack Sabre Jr, and Zack isn't sniffing my top 200

You guys are going to have to enlighten me. It seems his reputation mainly shot up due to getting into a promotion that people actually watch. What are his Top 5 matches? Keep in mind I loathed that Mochizuki match 5 years ago.

It seems his momentum has been tanked by being in RoH, which nobody watches anymore. I could see stuff like him vs. PCO being entertaining.

I started a Toba OCD catalogueing project a while ago: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2020/12/tanomusaku-toba-documentation-project.html Watching him has quickly become an obsession. I don't think I've ever seen anyone acknowledge him as a great worker, more of a fun oddity DDT guy, but fuck he is a great worker. Modern wrestling sure could use a lot more Tobas thrown into the mix. Recommended Matches: w MIKAMI & Takashi Sasaki vs. Great Takeru & Phantom Funakoshi & Asian Cougar (DDT 5/25/1998) - GREAT w Super Rider & Neo Winger vs. Phantom Funakoshi & Exciting Yoshida & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/22/1999) - EPIC vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 1/30/2000 - EPIC w Takashi Sasaki vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Super Rider, DDT 4/19/2000 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Takashi Sasaki, DDT 4/20/2000 - EPIC w Koichiro Kimura vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Exciting Yoshida (DDT 7/6/2000) - EPIC vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 11/19/2000 - GREAT w Tsunehito Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Tomohiko Hashimoto, DDT 5/26/2001 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001) - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Kota Ibushi & Daichi Kakimoto, DDT 12/28/2005 - EPIC w Ranbo Yoshida Okuntun vs. Kota Ibushi & KUDO (DDT 8/8/2007) - EPIC vs. Shinjuku Shark, XWF 9/8/2008 - EPIC w HARASHIMA vs. Masashi Takeda & Takashi Sasaki, 1/25/2009 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Munenori Sawa, DDT 5/10/2010 - GREAT w MIKAMI vs. Hikaru Sato & Akito, DDT 9/29/2013 - GREAT Regardless where you stand on the merits of boxing gloves in wrestling, that is one hell of a career Top 15, and I'm not done deep diving him. It seems DDT moved him out of prominence in the mid 2000s after giving him many main events earlier on, which sucks and seriously made that company a lot worse.

I was thinking that I hadn't watched a single Toyota match in the last 5 years. But then I checked, and apparently I watched her vs. Bison Kimura in 2019. Bison made the match fun. I think I've seen enough Toyota for a lifetime.

Osaka Pro pretty much served as a retirement home for ex-deathmatch whipping boys. Buffalo, Kikutaro and Kuishinbo Kamen all used to get carved up. Kamen (Akinori Tsukioka) was also a very talented wrestler in his IWA Japan days. Before Osaka Pro, Buffalo was Keisuke Yamada. He started out working obscure feds like Oriental Pro and NSPW doing shootstyle bouts: As you can see, he made use of his judo background. Eventually he joined IWA Japan becoming the owner(?) of the company. He would work really hard on those cards, bleed like mad and take crazy bumps. Even in the deathmatches he would display more skill than you usually saw in these brawls. He had especially great chemistry with Tarzan Goto. He also fought Goto in Shin-FMW a few times, although Shin FMW footage is extremely difficult to find. He had a pretty great match against Ishii of all people in 1998: As far as his IWA Japan work goes, you can pretty much just search his name and watch any match he's in and you can be guaranteed that he will work hard, bleed and give his all. I really want to dive more into his Black Buffalo work because I've seen him looking pretty damn good in random matches.

Legendary German wrestler with some dingy handheld footage surviving from very late in his career. Apparently he horded some films of 70s German wrestling in his archives that couldn't be converted by the limited means of his family. Someone had the faint hope that his son signing with WWE would make it possible to have the footage restored, but that never materialized. Alas, all we have of him is the epic Morowski match in 1980 and a few good to great houseshow performances in 1981 and some very clipped stuff in 1986 where he faces the likes of Vader. I imagine if the French had filmed some of his appearances in Paris in the 60s we'd be raving about him similiar to his arch rival, Lasartesse. Notably he was very famous for not just being a good technician but also renowned for his toughness and bleeding, as well as acting as a literal shooter for the promoters by carrying a gun on him.

She really wasn't in many high profile singles matches. That happened in the second half of the 90s, which is an underexplored/forgotten period. Her early JD' run had some potentially great match ups that ended up clipped. I was tearing my hair out going through the 1996 JD' TV and seeing how they would always hack everything in half due to only having a 1 hour TV slot. Apparently, her career ended as she broke her arm in a random trios match. She didn't even get a retirement tour. Travesty.

Alright: Masao Orihara - the more I watch him, the more great matches of his I find. His 1994 singles against Otani is an absolute superclassic that I had never heard of until I started going through random WAR handhelds. Really good at getting great stuff out of mediocre indy juniors like The Great Takeru. Excellent base with a knack for cool athletic spots that you won't see anyone else do. Long career where he shows up in great matches from 1992 to ca. 2011. He has some great scrappy matches in the WAR/NJ feud. Finally, one of the coolest wrestlers ever with his unique singlets, mohawks and face paint. He worked so many different offshoot feds I'm sure there's a still a few hidden gems to find. Tanomusaku Toba - extremely unique with a surprising number of epic matches under his belt. Excellent ragdoll bumper, always forces his opponents to snap out of their usual routine, and of course, spectacular with the constant barrage of stiff punches and kicks on his opponents. I imagine boxing purists won't like him, since some of his punches are obviously showy, but his stuff works for me. Great tag worker who has a cool dynamic with MIKAMI, has a handful of really cool singles. I hope to unearth more under the radar DDT to showcase him. Koichiro Kimura - very interesting worker who would serve as a pillar of DDT while working shootstyle. Great with the violent kicks and submission holds. His work as Super Uchu Power is stellar as he is the perfect combination of baffling sleazebag and violent psychotic asskicker. Footage is a bit of an issue as I need to dig up more DDT handhelds and what not. Had some good matches in RINGS and FUTEN too. MIKAMI - he looks really good in early DDT. Great combination of a shootstyle grappler, an innovative junior, and a surprisingly stiff worker. He formed a great team with Toba. His 1999 singles match against Takashi Sasaki is kind of the beginning and end of Japan indy singles. I've checked out some recent work of his and he still looks like a good worker. I want to watch more of him but from ca. 1998 - 2002 I'd say he was great. Keisuke Yamada/Black Buffalo - super interesting worker. He looked good in the early 90s working as a shootstylist. Then he became the hope of IWA Japan and kind of started wrestling like Tomoaki Honma. Spunky young fired up guy who is willing to bleed and has a knack for unique violent spots, and can do actual wrestling too. I need to watch more Black Buffalo but I've seen good stuff from him in that role as well. Dr. Adolf Kaiser - one of the most unique TV wrestlers in history. This man performed the evil, vaguely naziesque, arrogant, effeminate Doctor of Philosophy to a tee. His strategic approach in matches reminds me of Billy Robinson and the choke finish is very unique for its time. He wasn't afraid to eat serious punishment too. Jose Tarres - I just now noticed he has only 2 whole matches on tape so I should probably take back this nomination. Inca Peruano - a truely unique wrestling genius, like if Negro Casas was a stoic 50s grappler. Both excellent technician as well as a tremendous heel worker. He also has a really strong rudo cases in his team with Anton Tejero. Andre Bollet - outrageous heel character who could do both stiff heated brawling as well as really graceful wrestling, all while looking like a balding dumpy car salesman. If this list was about heat seeking heel shtick alone he would be a lock for the top 10. Still have a few matches of his to go through, but people should be aware of this French star. Bert Royal - he had some strong matches in World of Sport, but the French footage gave us him in his physical prime working an all time classic match against Tony Oliver and another really heated match teaming with his father. Both a tremendous technician and a tremendous fired up brawler. Lino Di Santo - Italian worker who I think is easily slept on but has shown up in the French footage with insane consistency. Good technician, but also a good storyteller.

People should check out Ishiis early work in promotions like WAR, DDT, CAPTURE, IWA Japan, even Michinoku Pro. It's more interesting than the groove he got into in 2010s New Japan.

I'm doing a series of 1997 GAEA reviews which feature some strong Chiggy performances on my blog. The best I've seen so far was her & Hokuto vs. KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto, which I reviewed over at the GWE board. There is more good stuff coming up as I'm reviewing 1 1997 GAEA show per week from now on. I also watched all of 1998 GAEA and the Chigusa matches that stood out to me enough to write them up on here were: vs. Maiko Matsumoto, 10/23/1998 vs. Toshie Uematsu, 1/15/1998 vs. Makie Numao, 2/22/1998 vs. Sonoko Kato 2/21/1998

In 2016, Chigusa was one of the wrestlers I came out hating the most after watching many of her hyped up matches. After watching lots of GAEA, I've come around to her as she is undoubtedly one of the greatest rookie squash workers of all time, and is in some expertly laid out tag matches. Her big matches are still a mess though, I'm afraid.

Nominating Masao Orihara, Tanomusaku Toba, Koichiro Kimura, MIKAMI, and Keisuke Yamada/Black Buffalo via the blog and Dr. Adolf Kaiser, Inca Peruano, Andre Bollet, Bert Royal, and Lino Di Santo via. segundacaida.

Koki Kitahara is one of the most fascinating hidden wrestlers. Tubby mulleted asskicker in a rainbow colored gi, who is a skillful grappler but mostly devolves his matches into violent blunt force asskicking. The CAPTURE project is fascinating. I'm currently trying to catalogue every match he's been in: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2020/12/koki-kitahara-documentation-project.html