Jetlag

Does Arn have any singles match on the level of Andre vs. van Buyten or Andre vs. Khan?

Jaguar Yokota retired for 8 years and came back looking amazing. Finlay came back at the age of 48 and we all know how that turned out. I know, I know, the gap isn't as huge as with Dump, but she was younger than Finlay when she came back. I'm surprised so many people are in favour of only factoring in ones prime. Where will Randy Orton rank if we consider only the Top 10 matches of each wrestler? I mean, this forum is supposed to be Pro Wrestling Deep Dive, not Pro Wrestling Surface View. We're supposed to nitpick things like how workers deal with aging and their old crowds being gone, that's the fun in these projects. It's not like post-comeback Dump is hard to come by. There's quite a bit of her feud with Shinobu Kandori online: https://adult.mat6tube.com/watch/180842215_456241097 https://adult.mat6tube.com/watch/180842215_456242311 https://adult.mat6tube.com/watch/10757491_160363739 (yes, yes, porn site, but its pro wrestling, I swear) As you can see, Dump does the exact stuff she did in the 80s. A bunch of heinous, grizzly shit, brutalizing the referee, and having a dozen underlings jump into the match. It's pretty fun stuff honestly and if you enjoy the 80s material I don't see why you wouldn't want to look at this stuff. So, there you have it. First I'm accused of trying to rain on the parade and now I have to tell people to not ignore the post prime stuff because its good. But hey, I enjoyed discovering Dump vs. Aja

Dumps prime is all people watch, it seems. I hope I don't have to explain why exploring unexplored stuff can be worthwhile. I mean, if Dump is #2 of all time, there has to be something in that 10 year plus period worth watching, right? So it stuns me how bringing up the fact she has more to her career than the 80s is an attempted derailing. It's like pointing out how Fujiwara had some great matches in WYF is derailing because that's not his peak stuff. If we are only allowed to bring up negative things about workers discussions are gonna be one sided. Yes, I don't have much to say on Daniel Bryan, Flair, and Negro Casas. People are analyzing these guys to death, there's nothing to be added. And their late career work is being actively discussed as its happening. People also hold Flairs post prime work against him, so if anything I'm making things fairer by applying the same idea to other workers. Are we gonna make "you have to write a 200 word post on Flair before you can comment on anyone else" a requirement before we get this project underway?

Yes but it would still be interesting to talk about, no?

Not to disparage Dump, who is probably the most effective crazy sadistic heel ever, but I dare anyone who's giving her consideration based on a handful of 80s matches to watch some of her post comeback work too. She had 78 matches in 2003 AJW alone.

I wouldn't be shocked if Ogawa vs. Kiyomiya ends up being the best match to come out of Japan in 2021. Meaning Ogawa has had great matches in 5 different decades now. And he looked as good in that match as he did 20 years ago and pretty much carried the show.

How about 7 matches? Le Petit Prince/Francis Louis vs. Daniel Noced/Jacky Richard 2/22/71 Le Petit Prince vs. Albert Sanniez 10/15/77 La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 10/4/69 La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 9/30/67 - EPIC LE PETIT PRINCE & CLAUDE ROCCA VS BOB REMY & ANTON TEJERO (08/18/1980; 36:17) Le Petit Prince & Gerard Bouvet vs. Anton Tejero & Albert Sanniez (7/24/1982 or 1/1/1979) - OJ says this is likely from 1982 The French archive has about 17 Prince matches, so that covers about half the available footage.

I'm not saying its the best ever, but it's really good stuff and it adds a ton to Gotos case. And I'm not the only one who's allowed to see this, I just happen to know a guy, who knows a guy, if you have bought tapes from a few different people then you probably know said guy too, and the condition of selling and buying tapes is that they cannot be shared widely because that is the condition under which they were obtained in the first place otherwise the people in Japan who gave out the footage in the first place might stop giving out more footage and we don't want that. I wouldn't be surprised if Goto ends up cruising into my Top 20, so I'm just putting the disclaimer there in case folks get surprised by how high I'm placing him. I mean, it's the equivalent of discovering someone like Barry Windham working epic 30 minute matches against local yokels in a tiny indy company in the early 2000s, and Barry Windham selling you those tapes but also threatening to cut out your kidney if you put them on YouTube. Last time the rule was that if you saw someone wrestling you can rank them based on that even if there's no footage, so I'm guessing the same applies to footage you can only get from certain tape traders. I mean, there was that Robin Hood/Shu el Guerrero apuestas match that only one person was ever allowed to see, too. FWIW here's the Goto results page with match times: http://fmwwrestling.us/GotoResults.html?

Oya is one of the funniest wrestlers ever. A gangly armed, balding dork who likes to play technical wrestler but is stuck in a garbage fed and somehow has the worlds deadliest backdrop. The face off with Ishikawa in the FMW vs. BattlARTS tag is pretty cool. I also quite enjoy his aging veteran work in the 2000s where he is shaven headed and mostly works tags stretching and smacking people and sometimes dropping them on their heads. I wonder what kind of work he did in his own promotion, Hokuto Pro Wrestling.

Tarzan Gotos work in his own promotion, Goto-Ippah, is absolutely insane. From the early 2000s onwards he was running shows at his restaurant - a concept itself that rules - in front of tiny crowds of maybe 70-100 people at most. And he is absolutely working his ass off on these shows. Not just "eh, he's being a cool guy doing some fun things in these matches", seriously, Goto-Ippah Tarzan Goto is arguably the most ambitious an aging fat guy wrestler has ever been. He's working honest to god 30+ minute epics with Kings Road style complex layout, and he's doing it all in those matches. Working the mat, throwing great worked punches, beating the fuck out of people, putting his opponents (usually tiny GUTS World-tier schmucks) over and always, ALWAYS cutting somebody up. God, has there ever been a more blood thirsty wrestler than Goto? Sometimes he'll bleed himself, and while he's usually working overdog (no shit, he's facing the lowest of the low), he always bumps for his opponents too and makes you respect them. Really fascinating stuff that only a handful of people have ever seen (the guy selling the discs to me made it sound as if somebody at Samurai TV is at risk of losing their job if they get in wider circulation). I know I may sound like I'm telling some carny tale here but it's true, and I wanna say Goto looks world class as late as 2009 and ruled at doing it all.

If Yagi had a Mariko Yoshida-style run of main events in a promotion built around her I'm sure she'd crush most of the competition. That said Yagi/Yoshida is better than any Bull match, and a heck of a lot of other very well respected matches too.

GENTARO One of the most unique juniors of the last 2 decades. An incredibly athletic wrestler, whose love for new generation era WWF and knack for technical moves makes him stand out. He can do it all, from Bret Hart worshipping technical wrestling, to garbage brawling, to highflying, to working hard hitting puro epics, to being an excellent Anderson bros style heel. Has some of the best broadways of the modern era under his belt, against a variety of unique opponents, and yet to disappoint in any setting. I think a deep dive of him is well worthwhile considering he has worked an incredible number of different places in the last 20 years. Matches: 2/3 Falls: GENTARO vs. Masamune, VKF 9/23/2008 GENTARO vs. Spark Aoki, Secret Base 1/10/2011 Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001)

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.