Jetlag

Krupp is already doing the roman salute during the introductions and proceeds to warn everybody of ZE GERRRMAN KLAH!. Very subtle there, mein Freund. For a guy who is so outwardly heelish, he starts this off with a lot of wrestling. Lothario was clearly a world class pro wrestler at this point. I really dig the detailled selling, such as Lothario leaving his arm up his back after escaping from a hammerlock. The first minutes of this are great, if you can get into this kind of 70s rolling on the mat like I can. Then Krupp locks on some kind of under the shoulder claw hold, to which Lothario responds by attempting to break his nose and I am in love with this match. Then you get the nerve hold and claw sections, but Lothario is such a champ selling for it that YOU will believe in it. Everything Lothario does is amazing and brutal. He works his way back into the match by neutralizing the claw and it's brilliant. The stuff he does has a prime Kawada feel of simple nastiness: chop to the nose, knee drop to the bent wrist, square punch to the face, knee drop to the back of the head. You expect Krupp to get up with his brain hanging out of his nose. Then Jose busts out the stomach claw and we get a battle of the claw holds, with Krupp doing his best terrified B movie actor impression to sell it. This was a better finish away from being listed. Maybe I'll list it anways somehow. It is def. near the top of the list of brilliant matches centered around claw holds. Regardless, take my word: Jose Lothario is the fucking man.

I remember watching the PWFG match and it was really fun. Some comedy and quality shootstyle action. These japanese supershows are really interesting. There's also the Rikidozan Memorial Shows or Indy Summit shows from the 2000s that give you all kinds of weird matchups like Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjo.

This only goes 12 minutes but it's 12 minute of truely excellent wrestling.Even basic moves like a pinfall or headlock look great and intense when these guys are doing it. I really loved the little neck crank Regal busted out. You know it's awesome when JBL on commentary gives a shit. Besides all the gritty, super intense mat stuff you also have the greco headbutts and Benoit chopping a bloodied Regal in the face. These two did some really innovative stuff together when you think about it, crossing the technical finesse of the british style with the deadly stiffness and suplexes of an AJPW classic.

I thought this match was badass. The transation from Nagata dismantling Yoshie to Nagata fighting for his life was great. Yoshie was pretty outmatched in the beginning, but as soon as he got to bring out his arsenal of fat boy attacks thanks to his open hand punch he was just wasting Nagata. At times it looked like he was just short of crippling Nagata. Nagata's one shot comeback ability is cool too and the last few minutes are full of kick to the face goodness while Yoshie is ready to die on his feet. Just good old japanese wrestling goodness.

Oh Carlos, I will never not watch your matches. And she faces off against AKINO who I know can go as she pretty much works like a gender switched Ikuto Hidaka/Katsumi Usuda type of lucharesu shooter so this is an automatic must watch anyways. And this was a damn good undercard match, let me tell you, despite the JIP and all. This starts out a little weird as both are full of disdain for eachother but also working kind of comedic, then move swiftly into slick technical sequences lifted straight from a Hidaka/Usuda matchup and finally end it with all the skull crushing headbutt and orbital bone breaking shootkick glory you can wish for. The selling is decent enough for all you joshiphobics to tolerate it and there are some transitions and counters that just make so much sense: AKINO countering a leaping headbutt by kicking Carlos in the teeth, Akino ending up outside the ring after a missed baseball slide dropkick to set up Amano's dive, etc. Damn tasty sandwhich of a match.

This is one of my favourite joshi matches. I can't really do it justice. Joshi fanatics will tell you GAMI isn't that good, but I love her. Tall, awkard girl with a big belly and completely sullen and melancholic face that is like carved from a rock who can go like a motherfucker is an awesome wrestling character. Lifelong undercarder pushing beyond his limitations vs. established star is one of my favourite match types and GAMI does some really brilliant wrestling here. Gami uses her lucha technique and just totally outclasses Hyuga. Really, there wasn't a single move in this bout GAMI did that didn't rock. Includes the most memorable use of a face rake ever. It's a Hyuga match so it also has the fast pace, brutal skull crushing knee attack moves and headdropping suplexes for you workrate addicts to sink your teeth into. Still, GAMI.

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.