Jetlag

I am amused by Konan Big being nominated years before him.

I recently got my hands on some ultra-rare WYF handhelds, and of all people El Texano shows up on some of them. Seeing him work Z-tier Japanese indy scum and getting good matches out of the likes of Shinigami and Hirofumi Miura really puts into perspective what a great wrestler a guy like El Texano is. He and Silver King looked like one of the best tag teams going and it made me want to go back and go through their 90s catalogue. He still looked great as late as 2005, too.

The Villano III feud is awesome, and lasted well into the 2000s. What else has Rambo done, though? Somebody needs to do some pimping.

You know, I take offense to him being labelled "greatest comedy wrestler ever". Especially when Mokujin Ken has been nominated.

I've nominated plenty of wrestlers in the project so far I might throw up some more nominations given how things are turning out.

Overrated worker who had some really soul crushingly slow and long NEO title matches in the early 2000s. The 60 minute Hyuga match is almost unwatchable, too. I dig the stiff elbows and she has good chemistry with some workers once in a while.

Todays post was dedicated to Serena: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/06/gwe-watching-7-serena-deeb.html She looked quite great in the Riho match, although it still seems ridiculous to nominate her based on a handful of fun TV matches. Her style gives me Eddie Guerrero vibes. Surely, she's gotta have some pre-2020 matches worth checking out? She's been around almost 20 years.

A good worker, but it's a long way to a Top 100, especially when footage is scarce. I recall the Yokota match being a bit of a disappointment.

There's no 30s footage listed in the post, even though we used to have a Google Drive with a bunch of 1930s material. It seems that folder is gone now, does anyone have a backup?

There are quite a few quite great Sasukes 2000s performances. Singles matches against Hayato Fujita, Kenou, and even Ultimo Dragon come to mind. He's probably not as good in the 2000s as, say, Kikuchi, bit still damn good. And much of his matches are buried in random Michinoku Pro TV that could never be widely uploaded.

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-6-tsuyoshi-kikuchi.html Todays post was about Kikuchi. He's really one of best juniors of all time, for completely different reasons than most junior wrestlers. The grittiness of his second career half is just something else and his early underdog work is just impeccable. Even a short houseshow match against Taue feels epic.

I did an Ikeda post today looking at some NOAH midcard matches: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-5-daisuke-ikeda.html The biggest problem with Ikedas NOAH run is that he was almost never treated as someone important. You can tell they had him there to make their guys look strong. But he still makes even throwaway matches better. Always working stiff and selling well.

Abe vs. Toba was the best singles match I've seen Abe in: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/tanomusaku-toba-documentation-project-11.html A lot of that is due to Abe slipping into Tobas match formular, but if he has more matches like that I could see him having a chance at making a list in 5 years.

It seems a few of these candidates have been nominated, with names like Jim Londos and Megumi Fuji. Pro wrestlers who are clearly extremely talented, but cannot accurately be compared to wrestlers who have a lengthy career on tape either due to lack of footage or simply only wrestling a handful of times. Who are some guys who you consider to be great based on a small sample of performances? Obviously, the French and European footage has been ripe with these types: - Tony Oliver. Greatest two match wrestler ever? Just an incredible heel. - Le Big Chief. Menacing crowbar wrestler who I would like to see wrestle Hashimoto - Jaques Couderc. Another brilliant French technician. Only one match on tape. - Clayton Thomson. Only had a few matches air on TWC but has a legendary rep and looks like a great wrestler. - Naoyuki Taira. Only really wrestled for about 1 year, but he looked quite natural at shootstyle. - Marcel Parmentier. We didn't even get a full match of his, but is wily veteran brawler act looks awesome. - Tony Martino. Only appears in two tags and looks incredible doing both technical exchanges and heelwork. - Liano Pellacani. Only 3 matches. Another incredible heel. - Seichi Ikemoto. MMA guy who looked damn good in his U-Style appearances. - Mota dos Santos. Portuguese(?) grappler who could do straight catch and crazy spring matches. Has a nice German suplex. - Aquiles. Legendary brazilian brawler. An archive dropping a motherload of brazilian catch on us would be nice.

Yeah, that's the TV episode I have and which is woefully clipped down.

There was another Meiko/Hokuto singles in 1997, unfortunately only 5 minutes aired. If there's a full version on an obscure commercial release or something I'd kill to get it, because what was shown looked amazing.

Watched some Mochizuki today: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-masaaki-mochizuki.html Pretty underwhelming. He lost a lot of energy compared to his 90s days. The worst thing is he comes across as an indy guy with a kicker gimmick rather than a karate dude. I was also super annoyed with the Toryumon matches all having pointless limb work and interferences. Doesn't help that Mochizuki doesn't have much charisma. They should've kept the role of evil karate guy for Okamura, who has much more sleazy charme.

Actually, Ishikawa and Ikeda had a pretty great match as early as 1994 in Michinoku Pro They matched up two more times in 1995. @Phil Schneider didn't you mention getting a tape of one of their PWFG matches?

There's a bit of Sanniez work on YouTube already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwzFqCFojMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXh2X0Cjkjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TMEIFxmj6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsUd3TEHPjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZ53rWYIVQ The rest of his stuff in the archive: PEDRO CABRERA & ALBERT SANNIEZ VS TONY MARTINO & BERNARD CACLARD (08/31/1968; 35:52) GUY CAVILLIER VS ALBERT SANNIEZ (02/01/1969; 19:11) BILLY CATANZARO & GILBERT LEMAGOUROU VS ALBERT SANNIEZ & BOB REMY (03/12/1971; 42:20) ALBERT SANNIEZ & KADER HASSOUNI VS BERNARD CACLARD & PIERRE BERNAERT (02/15/1973; 28:37) ANGELITO VS ALBERT SANNIEZ (02/19/1977; 10:17) LE PETIT PRINCE & GERARD BOUVET VS ANTON TEJERO & ALBERT SANNIEZ (01/01/1979; 31:38) JACKY RICHARD & ALBERT SANNIEZ VS JEAN CORNE & RENE CABELLEC (09/08/1980; 36:05) There's also him & some unknown vs. the Mercier Brothers somewhere in the rubble. Apparently, he fought Alan Sarjeant on British TV. I'd give a lot to see that match.

I'm not ignoring her Crush Gals run. I've said I consider it overrated, and something I could live without seeing again. But people should watch for themselves. Obviously, we have a different criteria when it comes to this. If someone is a great worker, they should be able to understand what they are doing enough to translate their greatness into different setting, in my view. I love variety, and when in doubt I will probably rank a guy with a long excellent career in a variety of settings over a guy who had a great run doing the same type of territory main event over and over for 10 years. Of course Sano in PWFG and UWFi is the best, but him being good in NOAH rather than bad is a decent push ahead.

It's 2021 and I'm still finding Honda matches I enjoy. Sadly he rarely unleashed his grappling side in undercard tags, but he is really fun as an ogreish guy throwing headbutts and bulldogs and sometimes stiff lariats. A NOAH deep dive will definitely be in order for Honda.

I don't see this at all. Having good matches adds to ones case, having bad matches detracts. Having a bad match once in a while is ok, being bad consistently when you are the centerpiece of a promotion and theoretically perfectly capable of at least having a pretty decent match, to the point of where it kills peoples interest in promotions (and I'm far from in the minority in thinking this) should be a pretty huge knock. Triple Hs reign of terror was bad enough to sour many people on him forever despite him being (supposedly) great at his peak (would probably rank Asuka above him, though). The thing is, there is tons of guys and girls with strong peaks, and plenty of great work outside their peaks. The last countdown had 500 people on the list, with some huge legends like Chicky Starr being at the bottom. That's why we do these deep dive discussions of wrestlers and try to figure out how great they really were. Peak alone doesn't really cut it and that was something that was mentioned a lot during the last project. The wrestler comparisons you made are quite apples and oranges, too. Did Misawa have some bad matches in NOAH? Yes, but he also had plenty of great ones. It never got to the point where he become dreadful to watch or killed peoples interest in the company. To be fair, his bad outings did knock him down a few places on my list. Flair? Admittedly, I didn't watch WWE and WCW on a weekly basis, but I thought he had plenty of good to great matches even as an old man. Plus, he understood his role and he was never pushed as a constant main eventer at the time. Admittedly, I think I had him outside the top 50 last time IIRC. Tommy Rogers? I don't think I ranked him last time. That sad, was he ever booked in any lengthy singles matches? If he sucked in them, then yes that should be held against him. From what I can find, he had barely a handful of singles that went over 5 minutes on ECW TV in the late 90s. Not at all comparable to Asuka who had lengthy main events in singles and various tag formats left and right in almost weekly televised apperances for years. Should people look at Asukas peak work? Yes, absolutely. Never said they shouldn't. I think her peak is quite overrated, often underwhelming (especially the Chigusa singles matches) and not something I have any desire to revisit anytime soon. But they shouldn't just watch her peak and be done with it. Nor should they vote for her based on the matches they liked and dismissing the rest. If you actually watch a decent sample of all her work and still vote for her, honest to god saying that you think the good outweighs the bad and justifies putting her above 400 other workers - go ahead.

Gilbert Leduc Maybe the picture of the stoic French baby face wrestler. Generally understood to be "The Man" of French catch, and he is quite the ace character. Both excellent technician and really great at slugging it out, with a knack for matches that build up neatly. Shows up from 1957 - 1977 and looks good against a wide variety of opponents, from typical heels to giant masked monsters. We've yet to dive into the second half of that period but I have a feeling he'll be excellent from beginning to end. Recommended matches: vs. Warnia de Zarzecki, 5/30/1957 vs. Rocco Lamban, 10/30/1958 w Claude Montourcy vs. Karl von Chenok & Robert Gastel, 5/23/1957

Jack Gallagher He's been really good to great since at least 2011. Probably the best WoS worshipper of the modern era, as he comes across actually authentic doing his stuff and he just executes it amazingly well. Also adopt at shootstyle grappling and hybrid matches. Very charismatic and translated his charisma and style well into a WWE setting. Very good working both technical matches, comedy and lengthy RoH style indy main events. We probably won't be seeing him wrestling again, but hell, he is in the running for the best junior workers of the modern era. Recommended matches: vs. Oney Lorcan, 205 Live 4/10/2020 vs. Chad Gable, 205 Live 6/11/2019 vs. Takuya Sugawara, Zero1 3/21/2013

I dedicated todays blogpost to watching some Murakami: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-3-kazunari-murakami.html The thing that stuck out was how natural Murakami was at his thing. He was 5 matches into his career and already bringing it in a big way. It's not just that he was a crowbar or a mechnical shootstylist, he understood how to play his character, how to set himself up and how to play off other wrestlers. He works wrestlers as different as Ishikawa, Otsuka and Greco in exactly the right ways. He's also STILL wrestling and making people excited when NOAH wheels him out, so that has to account for something.