Jetlag

IIRC wasn't Trauma II accused of kidnapping and raping his girlfriend? Did anyone care about his matches being streamed? How about Ian himself, who has done many a rotten thing, including paying recovering addicts in drugs? Will people unsubscribe to NJPW World, the WWE Network etc. because of the scummy things some of the workers there have done? If they give in, they might aswell start deleting a quarter of their library. I guess this is a recency bias towards recent scummy things that may or may not have happened.

Their previous match in 1995 almost put me to sleep. This was much better and livelier, as it starts hot with Kobashi hitting a wad of big moves to take the green and silver tights man down. Kobashi's opening control segment was fairly great, as he was mixing it up, it's always nice to see a simple move like an arm roll between all th head dumping suplexes and neck chops. Eventually, Misawa cross-eyes Kobashi with an elbow, to which Kobashi responds by trying to attack the arm, but eats an elbow to the wrist for his troubles in a really cool spot. Kobashi quits the arm work, which would turn out to be a mistake as Misawa survived his ongoing destruction and eventually ended up dealing the big elbow blow and then just laying waste to Kobashi with a series of near KOs. The second half of the match was fairly drawn out due to the length and thus a bit of a slog. I also felt the amount of punishment Misawa took was absurd (hey, that's nothing new though) and thus Misawa could have done a better job surviving, instead of relying on his inhumanly high HP. Kobashi's overly theatrical selling was also distracting to say the least. All that said everything here made sense and the finish was suitably epic. Their best match so far and a good continuation of their story.

So, am I getting this right? People want Powerbomb.TV dead now? Boycotting them won't hurt Elgin, or IWA... it will hurt all the other companies, and our boy Black Terry Jr., who need exposure.

Thanks. Your match is -- Terry Funk vs. Virgil, NWC 10/7/95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8shykrinpoY&t=1006s

Wow, what? I thought this was boring as hell. The least of their matches so far. It was largely a strike based match, which is always nice, but the lay out - Kobashi dominating and getting nearfalls - felt dry at this point and they didn't really do anything to flesh out their ideas here, as opposed to the 93 encounter. It had a few good spots, but so do all of their matches, and for the rest of this there was nothing that hooked me in.

I watched the full match. It was a handheld and a pretty fun one where you see everything going on and also get the fan reactions near the camera, which is always really nice. The match started out extremely similiar to their 91 match with Kobashi getting the better of Misawa in a smart way and then hitting a big dive and a DDT on the floor. It follows in the same fashion as the 91 match with Misawa making an easy comeback and some blatant restholds. Kobashi was controlling Misawa more and running through his offense, which I'm not hugely into, but I did like that the match felt as if Kobashi was really trying to play his cards right to beat the man. Finally, the match gets something going when Kobashi desperately tries to avoid Misawa's facelock and goes for the Sleeper in response. I liked that Misawa was basically going for the kill halfway into the match, and it was interesting to watch Kobashi coming up with different ways to stay on the top. The match became more strike heavy which I liked more than Kobashi's bulldogs and all that crap. There was a cool moment where Kobashi hit Misawa in the back of the head with a dropkick and followed up with some big legdrops, and Misawa absolutely brained Kobashi with some elbows. I think the match would've been more epic if Misawa's comebacks hadn't been so easy and Kobashi hadn't thrown out his Moonsault so early. As it stands this feels a lot like a grander upgraded version of the 1991 match with some new stuff thrown in and more intensely fought in parts, so I liked this a lot, but in total I felt like they threw out a little too much and should've stuck more to some of the themes they were working into. The underdog stuff is cool but I would've liked them to emphasize a little more on the in-ring stuff that they did and lost in the shuffle.

This was interesting to compare to the handheld junior matches from W*ING in the early 90s. This had a fast beginning with Kobashi blitzing Misawa with a huge dive and a DDT and then Misawa transitioning back to control without much fanfare. We follow this with some "I armlock you some and then you headlock me some" work which was ok but pretty dry. Finally, a good transition gets going when Misawa works his way back to control, but is caught with another DDT in a cool spot. Kobashi follows with a completely unnecessary apron dropkick, no wonder you're a cripple now, dummy. They put on a quality finishing with a few good struggle/reversal spots and Kobashi seemingly having the upper hand on Misawa. I didn't mind the finishing stretch as they were always trying to prevent the other guy from hitting his stuff, so it didn't come across as your turn/my turn.

Very basic match, with a great heel tactic at the beginning to set up the Cerebros getting the hell beaten out of them. Lots of stomps to the face and heads getting bashed into chairs, all 4 guys bleeding and bathing the arena in their blood. Black Terry Jr. deserves a Pulitzer price for filming this feud, because his work gives you all the super close ups of terrified bloody faces and the crazy heat this match had. Even the choking, biting etc. came across as genuinely hate filled, adding to the intensity when you had Hijo literally at Terry's throat. They end up working a really fun finishing run with the crowd hugely into Terry, him busting out a cool DDP diamond cutter, Loco taking a moonsault on outstretched legs, crazy Dr. Cerebro dive and all that. Rudos end up playing their cards better and get some more heat afterwards.

I think American Luchacore was something like this, run by Sami Callihan and a few other wrestlers. There is lots of DIY / work splitting going on in many independents, with wrestlers doing various tasks to save money, but I'm not sure if this really qualifies as collectivist. I think it may have something to do with most wrestlers not having a clue about all the paperwork and organization that goes into running events, let alone doing it in such a way that they make money. Also, wrestlers are crazy and can't get along.

Not everybody likes brawling/deathmatch stuff, so I don't have a hard time believing someone would prefer junior Onita. I'm not a huge fan of the exploding barbedwire stuff myself.

Awesome grappling match with the Doctor looking great. Good to know I can thrust myself from 7 years ago on... some things. Some people have talked about how lucha has just as good storytelling or psychology as all the other wrestling... which it doesn't really need to have, because lucha is great as it's own thing. This match gave me the same giddy feeling I get from a high end WoS or shootstyle mat contest, while being it's own thing entirely. Sometimes, you just wanna watch awesome wrestlers roll around on the mat and in the case of mexicans that often involves lots of freaked out wristlocks and rolling surfboard holds and whatnot that you don't see in any other kind of wrestling. And that's why lucha rules and doesn't need to be measured up to a bollocks standard of Flair matches or whatever. You can go on about all the symbols and meaning of all this, with Cerebro carrying a green worker, headbutting him a bit for his trouble and the kid upsetting the veteran some and all that... but in the end, I'll come back for the grappling.

Oh, dammit. Now I gotta watch all the BTJr vids they have before the service is gone.

Are you on the GWE forums? I'm curious why your expectations are so low. Or, I'm being trolled into a reply. I suppose that's possible too. As usual with lists like these, as soon as a collective of individuals is working on it with each vote given the same weight despite the gaps between them in expertise and input of time, you will see a general drop of quality in the outcome as opposed to looking at each list individually and picking out the best one. That is why democracy doesn't work, and the only way get a great or even perfect list is to wait for a monarch or god to bestow it to us, or until it is deduced by scholars from a credible source e.g. the Bible. From what it looks like now, the GWE forums list will have a heavy bias towards 80s/90s stuff. Then you replace all the generic canonized recent NJPW classics in the Reddit list with classic canonized picks e.g. AJPW matches, women's matches and territory stuff, then your outcome is about the same. This is not to smite Reddit users or GWE forums users, since I will participate in the GWE and am looking forward to the outcome. The best type of list, in my opinion, does not aim for accuracy or representation, but rather, hilarity and honesty, as seen in the WKO lists of yore. As far as Onita goes, I remember him vs. Chavo being quietly really good.

Okay, Danielson/Fish at 100 is such a funny pick it feels like something a poster on this site would do as an inside joke. I assume after the Top 50 canonized picks were getting pretty sparse. EDIT: Okay, Jim Duggan match in the Top 100? This list isn't half bad. I'd be shocked if the GWE forums produces a better one.

Watched Kzy/Jimmy Susumu: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41097-kzy-vs-jimmy-susumu-dragon-gate-52017/ Wasn't all that bad at all. Check it out. Actually wouldn't mind seeing more Kzy.

Ah, Dragon Gate, we meet again. I've always said Dragon Gate was fucking boring, and there wasn't a ton exciting about this match as they move through each section in very obvious fashion, but in total it wasn't half bad at all. I'm kinda surprised this match doesn't seem to have much hype to it, because it had all the ingredients of a modern classic, and did a better job at it than the praised NJPW main eventers. Heck, it may be better than the Dunne/Bate match from the same month that got a bit of talk, because unlike that match it made me actually get into on of the characters. The work here is really solid: all the moves look good and some even have a nice snap to it. Often this merely applies to the big highspots with everything between the spots looking lazy, but there is some nice basic armwork from Kzy in the match, and Susumu nearly chops his head off with a lariat at one point. Kzy looked pretty good in general, getting good sympathy and bumping like a madman spiking himself repeatedly on his head to make Susumu's moves look deadly. Sort of like a leftover T2P worker with some interesting holds and a nice dive. His selling of the neck wasn't flawless, but he did sell it and it wasn't as obvious as Jimmy sold his arm on and off. I didn't get much of a sense of Jimmy Susumu, who had a moveset lifted straight from a Fire Pro edit and not much else beside. Most importantly, they worked this at a healthy 20 minutes instead of 40. I smelt the outcome from the first minute, but they did enough interesting stuff to make me forget about it. You can nitpick this type of match to death, saying it was just a by the numbers indy match with a bunch of half assedly sold limbwork, contrived transitions and big moves thrown out which are not even followed up by cover, but all that's to be expected at this point I guess.

Match for Richeydwards Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams 4//10/94

Billy Robinson is the name that they always drop when they talk about Thatcher doing those seminars. Apparently he's done seminars for Billy Robinson in britan, and also trained with Josh Barnett. He also did one match at the Inoki Dojo, so there may be some of that in play too.

I'm having more fun watching random 90s indy undercard matches than the super main events of today. If someone offered me the choice between a 6 hour comp of Masayoshi Motegi matches and a 6 hour comp of 6.75 star matches from todays NJPW/WWENXT/Superindys I'd gladly pick the Motegi. I'm saying this without any irony, as I've seen Motegi have better matwork sections, selling performances, highspots and generally engaging matches than nearly any currently active dude. I'm not exaggerating when I say Fugofugo Yumeji in 1997, a rookie jobber then, had a better understanding of how to lay out a match, add stiffness and hate to it and build to a finish than most main eventers right now. On the GME discussion board, Gordi mentions it's crazy how a match like Ikeda/Ishikawa (the half hour broadway) that doesn't have any major highspots or exaggerated emotions can be so great, possibly one of the greatest of all time even, and those kinda matches are sorely lacking. It seems pro wrestling has become a video game with wrestlers trying to get the Meltzer high score, and often when I'm watching matches, I feel like I'm getting sexually assaulted with self conscious epics.

Hey look, it's a match from the "dark ages" of NJPW! This match is a seemingly impossible achievement, as it's Chono in a long match that's actually good! And not only does Chono NOT look like a decrepit fossil of yesterdecade, he actually manages to go toe to toe with Takayama in some memorable exchanges! Chono for once gives a shit and sells Takayama like the huge deal that he is, getting the crowd solidly behind him in the process as he gets his ASS kicked. Takayama was tremendous here as a kickpadded cocky Stan Hansen to Chono's Baba. In fact he did beat the crap out of Chono far worse than Hansen ever did to Baba. I loved that after Chono had overwhelmed Takayama with punches and controlled with some holds for a beat, Takayama lands a single knee and it looks like Chono is seconds away from having his lights turned out. Chono getting destroyed and actually selling all this (for SYMPATHY~!) was great, and they are clever enough not to go too epic for the finish. There is ONE great transition and awesome destruction, teeth are gnashed and noses are bloodied, and that's all you need. Just some good old japanese wrestling destruction and that never gets old. A MILLION STARS!

Barbarians the lot of ya. This is one of my favourite US matches of all time. I'm not one to steal other people's reviews, but one YouTube commenter put it very eloquently: This is just super high end US wrestling from the get go. As high end as a Regal/Finlay match, stiff, tight, everything looks great. Awesome lockup to start, then gigantic hip toss bumps from Tully, CRAZY CRAZY HOT crowd, Tully destroying Garvin in the corner with awesome combos, Garvin fighting back with great looking headbutts, boots to the face and huge elbow drops. The motherfucking PIN ATTEMPTS in this match are great! Garvin is just grinding down Tully, elbow to the face, using his legs to pin the arm down, trying all kinds of different ways to beat that fucker. This is how you make your matches look legit. I also love the 80s workrate spot where Garvin leapfrogs into a backslide or his flip over pin. Garvin really was trying all kinds of different things to pin Tully. There are some clever spots too, especially Garvin selling his hand while trying to hold onto the ropes and Tully just pulls the tights. Another thing I love about this match and old wrestling in general is how violent the "bash opponents head into the ring/corner" spots feel. Now, there are a few problems that have been mentioned on the match: 1. is the length, which I didn't have a problem with, because this match is a total madhouse without any restholds or dull moments, and they keep busting out the good stuff to keep you entertained. 2. is the meandering, which I thought was intentional as Garvin didn't have his greatest weapon and thus couldn't figure out how to beat Tully and it was resolved in the awesome bullshit finish 3. is how dominant Garvin was, which I thought was okay as he merely gave a strong challenger performance and the challenger one upping the champ greatly is part of the usual title match formula anyways 4. Tully's leg selling, which again I didn't have a problem with as the legwork was just a small fraction in a very long match and Tully was still but hobbling minutes after it happened before he recovered 5. is the commercial breaks, which is the biggest problem with the match, altough it's not a true US TV match if the heel doesn't have the upper hand post commercial break I guess. Overall this is pretty much everything right with pro wrestling in my book.

This is something I loved in 2011 and I'm pleased to see it holding up extremely well. This starts out like a friendly maestro's match with some 10 minutes of high quality matwork between 4 barrel chested fast moving dudes, with all kind of cool holds thrown in. Then Apache increases the intensity by twisting Navarro's leg in a nasty way which sets up the rising tension in the 2nd half. Angel Mortal, a guy normally stuck carrying half baked spotblowers in AAA undercards looked really good here, having some great takedowns and understanding his role as a pissed off Navarro put him through the meatgrinder. I think this was the first match where I realized what a badass Navarro was and he is awesome here destroying dudes with his mix of painful looking command-esque wristlocks and MMA submissions. Eventually Apache starts breaking up submissions and I loved that something as simple as Navarro throwing punches to the kidney serves as an escalation of violence here. Then you got Apache throwing really great punches of his own aswell as Terry having to solve the 2 on 1 situation. Really simple match with not a lot of bumps or big moves (not counting awesome leg twisting submissions) but it tells a tremendous story and works really effective.

This was plenty great whenever Tenryu was brutally assaulting Takada with punches and kicks to the face. He also did a phenomenal job putting over Takada's kicks and submissions, flying over the guardrail and going crazy when Takada put on his trademark weak leglock. Takada was plenty average and you get the sense Tenryu could have had this match against any kickpadded shootstylist. However, Takada's selling for the stretch run was okay enough and he did kick Tenryu in the chin a bunch to make for an epic enough finish, I have no idea why he went for those weak slaps, Takada being Takada I guess. He does get what's coming to him as punch drunk Tenryu just runs through him. Strong match but not in the same universe as Tenryu/Anjoh.

Aaaaaah! Pro wrestling! WAR Hoshino!!! Hoshino immediately goes to town on goofy original costume Liger and just destroys him with barrages of awesome punch combos and rights and lefts and then some. Liger fires back with an awesome flurry of palm strikes only get punched in the FACE again and sinking to the 3rd rope selling this like a pro. After eating a truely Murdochian asskicking of punches, stumpy leg kicks and elbow drops, Liger makes a brief comeback directing a charging Hoshino to the outside and then crushing him with a sideways suicide dive against the guardrail. Hoshino won't back down though, as he posts Liger, slaps the referee and then fires back with a big plancha of his own! Liger does some of his goofy early mannerisms, such as going into fighting stance like a video game character, and not really having great comebacks, but he does love to kick Hoshino in the face here. Hoshino continues his utter dominance with fun ways to work over Liger such as ripping his mask, kicking him in the face or busting out a cool leg stretch/pin combo. Hoshino eats one of the nastiest koppu kicks I've seen but is able to gain the upper hand using his speed again and gets a nice string of nearfalls before Liger has to the steal the win in a flash. What is this bizarro world match? This had a really great opening that was hinting at a hidden classic and then turned into a fun somewhat flawed junior match. Still, way too fun, with Hoshino getting big chants and of course continueing his beating on Liger after the match with the ref doing a flip bump for a Hoshino punch. Liger really doesn't look like he'd have arguably the greatest junior match ever just a few days after this, but I was glad he let Hoshino have this match anyways.

Well, Tim Thatcher is a tribute wrestler for sure. He's still not great and his selling is still weird, but atleast he's made a niche for himself and all that. When I heard "indy shootstyle" I just assumed you were talking about that brand of cafeteria shootstyle, because that's what all indy shootstyle is to me. Atleast I've never seen an indy match (atleast outside japan) that I'd label shootstyle ala UWF or RINGS, not even that match linked in the first post. Altough it doesn't matter a lot to me. Of course the original shootstyle doesn't really look like real fighting either, so for me it's a little nonsensical to get all uptight about what is and isn't shootstyle... atleast there is a very noticeable difference in skill between your Tamura/Kohsaka matches and your average indy schmoe attempting some armbars.