Jetlag

Some person is uploading 5$ bin 2000s joshi by the bulk on YouTube, and I'm happy because I can watch Carlos Amano matches. And this was a pretty fun veteran technician's match. The whole match is highly polished and Nagashima actually has really mean offense too for such a tiny girl. Amano is all flying headbutts and she has spectacular flying headbutts. There's all kinds of variations on them: flying headbutt to Nagashima on the top rope, Flying Headbutt right into a nasty Nagashima low dropkick that looked perfect, flying headbutt tease into a cradle which Nagashima reverses anyways etc. Kinda veers into joshiriffic territory at times, with a brawl on the outside where they end up balancing on a height like in a Pirates of the Carribean swordfight and an exchange of german suplexes, but other than that this is all perfectly fun stuff and I really dug some of the slick spots they pulled out towards the end of this.

I will never not find T2P nifty. Sure, these matches are a littly exhibition-y, and you can't help but think that they could use some of the spots they throw out in the opening here for greater effect later, but they were experimenting after all. Surprised no US Indy has ripped off T2P yet, to be honest. I'll take this stuff over the movezzz matches that PWG et al are doing these days. And there is even a little story here, as you have a power vs. technique matchup and Ogawauchi attacks Kondo's legs to make up for Kondo's short distance lariat and slam attacks. Especially liked how Jun bumped huge for a Kondo german suplex to put over his strength. Ogawauchi lands some world class kick aswell that wouldn't look out of place if Daisuke Ikeda threw them. Some great counters in the last couple minutes. Come for the weirdo grappling, stay for the classier things. Surprised no T2P stuff made it into the Best of 2000s Japan project.

I wasn't even aware of that service. Thanks!

Did you see these SCI matches live? They don't seem to be out on DVD yet. Riddle/Rave sounds really interesting.

I want to recommend Pat McGill vs. Enrique Torres. I think the match may have been from LA. I haven't seen a ton of pre-70s wrestling but it had just the kind of tough as hell grappling you'd like. Parts of it reminded me of amateur style UWF, including a leg lock sequence unlike anything I've seen in other old matches. It's a short match but worth watching.

I'm one of those guys who lost their exact ballot. I remember jumbling around with the order a bit right before submitting it. Tier 1 El Hijo del Santo Shinya Hashimoto Yoshiaki Fujiwara Negro Casas Terry Funk El Satanico Mitsuharu Misawa Dick Murdoch Toshiaki Kawada El Dandy Genichiro Tenryu Stan Hansen Jerry Lawler Rey Mysterio Jr. Yuki Ishikawa Vader Kiyoshi Tamura Buddy Rose Jun Akiyama Akira Taue Steve Grey Daniel Bryan Black Terry Daisuke Ikeda Blue Panther Naoki Sano Volk Han Ric Flair Negro Navarro Marty Jones Virus William Regal Tatsumi Fujinami Ricky Steamboat Pirata Morgan Barry Windham Nick Bockwinkel Fit Finlay Takeshi Ono Eddie Guerrero Dick Togo Alexander Otsuka Terry Rudge Billy Robinson Jim Breaks Ron Garvin LA Park La Fiera Bill Dundee Yoshihiro Takayama Masa Fuchi Sangre Chicana Yoji Anjoh Yoshihiro Tajiri Butch Reed Aja Kong Riki Choshu Tsuyoshi Kikuchi Sgt. Slaughter Greg Valentine Jushin Liger Wahoo McDaniel Fuerza Guerrera Kenta Kobashi Terry Gordy Tamon Honda Meiko Satomura Jumbo Tsuruta Tully Blanchard Perro Aguayo Steve Williams Joe Cortez Tier 5 Villano III Akira Maeda Dustin Rhodes Bobby Eaton Osamu Nishimura John Cena Arn Anderson The Destroyer Atlantis Akira Hokuto Yoshinari Ogawa Steve Austin Tier 6 Yoshiaki Yatsu Shinjiro Ohtani Katsumi Usuda Gran Hamada Lizmark Too Cold Scorpio Solar Andre the Giant Great Sasuke Koji Kanemoto Mariko Yoshida Antonio Inoki Chavo Guerrero Sr. Franz van Buyten Jaguar Yokota Carl Greco

So... are we gonna disseminate this list like the WKO100? I just posted it on a german message board and people are already complaining about Dolph Ziggler not being there.

Oh look another debate about the 619. This really is the old folks home of wrestling message boards.

I don't see how people can have a problem with this Top 100. I mean, you all have your own Top 100, right? I know my Top 100 is the best. So what if 150 people vote the Beatles as the greatest rock band ever and didn't even include Demilich in their Top 100... I can just ignore that and listen to Nespithe again.

So Fujinami beats Hashimoto. Huh? Did people love the 80s set so much? And his junior work too?!

Hash was my #2. A little shocking only one guy had him at #1. He is THE japanese wrestler in my eyes. With Casas out too, that means 4/5 of my top 5 are gone. I think the average vote for Casas and the number of #1 votes says it all. Altough I think people praise him for his clowning too much. The guy is an awesome wrestler.

Bobby Eaton has that great punch too. Easily enough to knock him into Top 30. I had him at #75 or so, but him in the Top 30 is cool. I'm more puzzled about Dustin Rhodes finishing so high. That guy has some really big chunks of bad in his career. If it weren't for his awesome 2010s runs I may not even have included him.

Shawn-Cena-Santo is a hell of a triple. I'm a little surprised I was the only one to lift him all the way to the top. He has that "mystique". I didn't have Hart on my list at all. Carl Greco was my No 100, and Hart ain't no Carl Greco. Not gonna whinge about Hart though. People like who they like. With Santo, Satanico, Dandy, Fujiwara and Murdoch 5 out of my Top 10 are gone. EDIT: I just noticed the average vote for Santo is 22. Damn!

I sift through the current joshi that gets uploaded once in a while and I have to say 97% of it is so bad I think it would take a miracle for the scene to get back to it's old form.

Good to excellent matches in 4 decades is still an achievement that not many wrestlers can boast Especially not Brock and Punk. Fujiwara was among the guys I considered for my #1 spot. He ended up being my 2nd highest ranked japanese worker. So 2 DVDVR 80s sets can give you an 80 place bump?

Since you called me on Bull's great matches, what are those great matches in 4 decades in several different styles ? I'm asking simply one per decade. 80s Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84) 90s vs. Regal at Uncensored 2000s vs. Benoit in 2006 2010s vs. Tajiri at WNC Now that was easy!

Finlay has great matches in 4 decades in several different styles. It's not all in that 2006 run. He's still about 15 spots too low. Aja took some beatings during the discussions, with people calling her overrated and boring etc. I actually watched some of her Arsion stuff in the last week and it wasn't too hot. She also really hasn't done much in the 2000s compared to Satomura. Wonder if I haven't overrated her placing her in my 60s.

Hell no. I'd like to see Punk or Brock having an epic match with Zack Ryder.

Hokuto is someone I almost didn't rank because I saw a few really disappointing matches from her "peak". Don't think she was a Top 5 worker in 1993. Good thing her 1990-92 period is underrated. The idea of Han as some kind of spotfest worker is ridiculous. He was a LOT better than Tamura at getting good matches out of shitty dutch kickboxers, aging karate guys or other untrained dudes. Stuff like Volk Han vs. Sotir Gotchev isn't praised along with the best of RINGS stuff but it exists and it's very very good. Tamura had the problem that he could look like he was eating up and squashing guys, as if he wasn't in trouble at all, which is why like half of his U-Style matches feel like squashes, while Volk was a master of looking beastly and vulnerable at the same time.

Is it telling that none of these guys made my list at all? The one WWF guy who I ended up loving even more after watching loads of his stuff for this project is Greg Valentine. Mostly everybody else just got kinda grinded into dullness. By the way, Valentine finishing ahead of all these guys is really gonna irk some people. I know your average smart fan doesn't care at all for him.

It mystifies me how Baba gets so much support. Andre is more compelling at working holds and a better giant than Baba. I recall a lot of matches where Baba added nothing aside from gangliness. What are those epics? I watched all the Nakano I could find and there wasn't anything GREAT. LCO are good but not Top 100. But yeah they are good. Better than Chris Jericho easily. I like them both as singles workers a lot.

Gosh it's been like what, 6 years since they last met? Satomura has mostly been putting skinny young girls over, so her fighting a bigger, threatening opponent was nice and refreshing here. Aja is looks fatter and slower, but ain't bad at all here, as she came across as a lumbering menace. All of Satomura's basic holds and attacks to soften up Aja ruled, really she may have the sharpest offense in the world, and when they trade blows, they are just killing eachother. Also has a few nifty spots and Aja's signature selling to keep you interested. Could have done without the wandering crowd brawls and the slightly over the top finishing run, but their selling is so good I'll forgive it no problem. Also, I love Meiko busting out the Scorpio Rising.

Bull Nakano is too high. Altough I love how it just says "Bull Nakano" in her list of recommended matches. She's def. not a great match girl but what a character.

Brisco did insanely well. Like how on earth did that happen? People have been saying that they didn't include certain guys because "they couldn't dive into them..." does Brisco even have 20 matches to dive into? Not that I don't like the guy, but he's never blown me away like other 70s workers.

Just thought again of Dylan's "Otsuka's like Kurt Angle but actually good". Angle-Ishikawa probably would have been the former's best match ever, right? Please stop that. Otsuka and Angle have nothing to do with eachother aside from being bald guys in singlets. They even suplex people in different ways. I imagine Ishikawa vs. Angle would've been like Ishikawa vs. Sekimoto. Do you have anything to back that up because all pre-2008 Panther is exactly what I want from him.