Jetlag

This is a textbook example of how to create an exciting long match with very basic striking offense. The kind of stuff you'd also see in Kawada or Tenryu matches 15 years later. There is NO striking exchange or combo that you see twice. Wahoo uses a few different chops and lands those on chest, head, nose, shoulder, neck etc. Spoiler has great bionic elbows. The key is the pacing and timing. They are fighting on a very close space, just tearing eachother up with blows, then suddenly there will be a big chop or elbow drop that makes you jump. Just great pacing. The rest of this has been covered thoroughly. Just a great violent battle where the first fall is already battled out intensely.

Another fun match from this tournament. Futagami looks and wrestles exactly a gender swapped Katsumi Usuda plugged into a joshi fed, submissions and everything down to a pat. ARSION is awesome like that. Omukai looks girlier but holds her own with a few submissions and pretty devastating suplex moves. Finish is ungodly as Omukia brings out her inner Daisuke Ikeda and finishes her opponent with a combo of high kicks, solebutt to the face and a straight punch. Not a flawless bout but a fun way to spend 6 minutes.

This was another damn good match. Yoshida comes into this match with damaged arms and Yagi has only one goal. Yoshida does some really great selling and strategic adjustments when she realizes she is too damaged to do her signatures properly, so modifies a few leg submissions so she can do them without using her arms. Pretty great stuff and shows she could do more than just lock in spectacular submissions. Last two holds were really intense.

Damn good finishing run here. So many great spots. Bossman goes at it with Misawa like no other, having no problem going "epic" while in his cartoonish police outfit. Loved him catching a flying Misawa with a punch, getting absolutely nailed by an elbow to the back of the head when Misawa counters the enzuigiri, and that assisted Oklahoma Stampede was one of the cooler double team stops I've seen in a while. Good lord that looked nasty. Williams and Bossman make a great team and Misawa/Bossman is an awesome weird matchup. I also really liked Misawa selling Bossmans punches.

Finlay also has an awesome PPV match against a bigger heel vs. Mark Henry. He also does an excellent job carrying indy big guy Jon Davis through a long mat based contest during his indy tour.

If BattlARTS had gone a little longer and he had a dozen or half more matches there I think he'd be a lock. I don't know when or how he first showed up, he is an eternal favourite for me as ideal heel shooter invader, all time great mugging, blood licking freak and somebody I always want to check out. Unless it's an Inoki-booked empty arena cage match, that is.

This dude is a dumb as fuck worker. I recall a long singles match against KENTA being a total abomination. Don't let the fancy kicks fool you.

I've seen very little of him but when he has his working boots on, I think he's a legit great worker when he's doing those weird BattlARTsian mat brawls. He understands exactly what he's doing and created a style that works perfect for him, that he can slot many different workers into. There's a match vs. Chris Hero where he sells dislocated shoulder (or was it knee, can't remember) and it's seriously some of the best stuff I've seen, including a great post match where they pop it back in. As for his deathmatches again I haven't seen much but from what I can tell he is a smart worker who can tell a story even when he's literally just swinging garbage and get watchable matches out of skinny and morbidly obese near backyarders. There is a match vs a morbidly obese guy called Dixieland Destroyer which is a herculean carryjob from Ian. Watch that and check out how Ian is selling getting choked out and tell me he's not great.

I can say Takada is sleeping because I see it in his matches and I can point to examples. Which I did in my post. If you had an argument to why you think he's a decent matworker and why he ranks above, say, Daisuke Ikeda, with examples to point to, or if there was some Takada stuff to fill out his resume, like something against a lesser opponent or an example of Takada carrying somebody, I might consider ranking him. (i.e. not a "big Match") I don't see how sprawling for takedowns and fighting for escapes from submissions is comparable to avoid getting tossed into explosive garbage in any way. These matches are laid out in completely different ways... the comparison goes way over my head.

They are U-Style guys. Sakata was in RINGS too... I don't see why it's pointless to compare shoot stylists when you are trying to figure out who is the best of them. If you think he has a pro style mind, how does he compare to someone like Alexander Otsuka or other BattlARTS guy? And yes, being good at matwork is important, when you are trying to do matwork. You can't work a 20 minute match that is all dramatic ropebreaks and aggressive striking the entire time. So Takada fills the time in between by lying around. You don't get great matwork from Lawler matches simply because there's no matwork in them... there's a long Lawler/Race title match which has some great matwork, by the way. Takada matches have necessary matwork in them (winning chance being by matwork-related submissions or matwork-related rope breaks) and he's an embarassment at it. Even the Vader matches have their dull bits. About the Onita comparison: is that a reference to him fighting dudes like Albright and Vader? Otherwise I'd like to know a match where Takada's clearly driving things with his Onita-like charisma, preferably a match where's not facing a superworker like Sano or Tamura.

OJ, you should check out: Tenryu vs. Isao Takagi and Tenryu/Kawada vs. Kabuki/Mighty Inoue. He doesn't have the punches and toe kicks at all in AJPW but these are probably his most WAR-like performances in AJ. In fact, I have the theory he took that style from Kabuki.

I was entirely referring to his matwork there. I pay attention whenever I'm watching shootstyle. When you're dull that is not going to last long... the last Takada match I watched was vs. Sano and I remember Takada pretty blatantly being a stiff during the grappling sections and Sano literally dragging him through the match. Heck, the finish to the Fujiwara/Takada match in 1990 is Fujiwara being unconscious, waking up and then submitting Takada because Takada was apparently too dumb to lock in a proper submission on a knocked out veteran... which makes me wonder is Takada a buffoon when it comes to the mat, or is it his gimmick that he's a buffon? Eitherways if you are shootstylist and you want to qualify for a top 100 all time in my eyes you should be good at matwork as it makes up most shootstyle matches. I get what you are saying about his strikes, I like the Vader matches, but if we are going by a) aggressive striking and ability to create drama in a shootstyle match what does Takada have that ranks him above guys like Wataru Sakata, Hiroyuki Ito, Ryuki Ueyama? Speaking about pure ability there.

I'm neutral to the Finlay late WoS and NJPW stuff. I really like his work in germany and austria which sets the tone for the Regal feud. There is a match against Schumann from the EWF french TV show that is really stiff and completely outstanding from anything else on that show. Some of his stuff there is fairly junior-ish, so I guess people here won't like it as much, but I also like him vs. 2 Cold Scorpio, vs. Liger and vs. El Samurai in NJPW.

Takada is falling asleep on the mat way too much in my eyes for me to see it like that, really. Is he really feeding holds when he's just a shitty matworker? Atleast Cena will look like he's actually fighting. I like some Takada matches but a lot of the time he's really bland to me. Not as bad as Minoru Tanaka, though.

Common, there's nothing wrong with the Hansen or Vader matches. And the Joe match is all Joe blowing it. I also recall Misawa got the best possible match out of Bison Smith.

There's some 2000s Tenryu stuff where he works as a heel outsider. Couple tags in AJPW and his work in NOAH in particular, especially a tag with Akiyama against Kobashi and Shiozaki. I could see that being worth checking out for you if you are into him working as a prick.

OJ what would be an example of a match where they pummel eachother just enough? IIRC that Tenryu/Yatsu match was stiff as a tree and had just enough pummeling. I recall Yatsu hitting lots of great offense and trying to damage Tenryus equilibrium and Tenryu angrily attacking his kidneys.

I really liked this when I first saw it and it holds up very well on rewatch. The matwork won't make you forget your fancier RINGS bouts, but they created a nice intensity and snap with the constant scrambling for chokes, armbars and aggressive pin attempts. The meat is in they story they are telling. Lots of neat learned spots, aswell as establishing early on that locking up alone with Yoshida is dangerous. Yagi discovers the bandaged arm on Yoshida and goes after it with a variety of flying armbars, until she has the veteran with her back against the wall. Really liked the bit where Yoshida abandons the ropes in order to reverse the armbar but Yagi changes position and it looks like Yoshida has screwed herself. Brutal choke to finish this. Yoshidas defensive style here was pretty great, really. One of the best bouts of the year.

Match recs for her? Only know her as veteran worker who feuded with Sonoko Kato.

Well, I think Meiko can't be faulted for the style she is working. Do you think her matches like that Hojo match would be better if they were worked like a 1993 match? She doesn't really have the opponents to do that, so she has found her own formula that she can stick anyone into and work it out. That 90s style is fucking dead and let's be real going back and watching the matches you can tell why. Can't fault a worker for seeing the pitfalls and taking a new, better route. So I guess this goes to comparing apples and oranges and I think comparing apples and oranges is necessary for this kind of list. The same goes for Casas - I mean give him a break, he's 50 years old, he's not going to do a super intense 30 minute matwork clinic anymore nor is CMLL going to let him. His shtick-ladden arena mexico appearances aren't that different from his 90s work in places like Monterrey anyways. EDIT: Actually I misread that about Casas, but it's not like being the best in the world or in a top 15 in 2015 means you are anything special.

Out of curiousity, do you think Hokuto and Kandori are also non-traditional joshi workers?

Mimi Hagiwara/Rimi Yokota/Victoria Fujimi v. Tenjin Masami/Masumi Sukizaki/Cheryl Day Ah, Devil Masami. Cool to see her so young. This was mostly heels bashing the fuck out of the faces. It felt a little like lucha except with real quick tags and girls running in to break up pinfalls. Yokota and Mimi decide to slow things down a little by doing some armwork but they quickly go back to the fast paced action. Amusing blown spot shortly before the finish where Yokota crossbody blocks Sukizaki's back. I imagine there's an indy worker somewhere using that more or less ironically as a signature move. Fujimi was the best worker in the match, mostly due to her fire and more good chunky girl offense. Ayumi Hori/Rimi Yokota/Victoria Fujimi v. Raquel Rios/Norma Gomez/Yumi Ikeshita (September? 1979) More of the same I guess. Except this also had Yumi Ikeshita who was hellbent on beating the fuck out of everything she met. Goodness gracious what a beating. This was shorter and one-sided. Yokota kind of blends in with the other girls in these tags. Ikeshita wins this with the most hellish Owen Driver. Rimi Yokota v. Mimi Hagiwara (December 1979) This was a damn good matchup. Yokota was in tremendous shape here, especially next to skinny Mimi Hagiwara. Yokota puts in a real beating, working absolutely heelish by biting and pulling hair, but also doesn't forget to show off her holds and put Hagiwara in her place with that beautiful vertical tiger suplex. It was closer to Terry Rudge than Monster Ripper. Yokota really cranks in her holds and delivers some blowaway great legwork, while Hagiwara performed really nicely working underneath. Hagiwara's selling of the leg and graceful comeback attempts were awesome. Can't decide what I liked more, Hagiwara desperately going for a small package only for Yokota to roll through and once again punch the fuck out of her leg, or Yokota calmly briding out of a weak pin attempt from her worn out opponent and continueing the beating. Last cover was thing of beauty. Damn good TV bout here.

LA Park would be near the top of my list.

What are the best Kansai matches then?

Satomura obvious carryjobs include vs. a very green Kana in 2010, vs. way over the hill Tamura also in 2010, vs. Genki in 2004, Hojo matches mentioned, vs. Nanae Takahashi, vs. Kimura in 2006, etc. These are all opponents who don't really have a lot of good matches outside that. Hojo really can't do anything well except selling and all her non-Satomura matches I've seen are crap. Not saying Satomura is a Kawada-tier superworker dragging the Gary Albrights of this world into classics, as most joshi workers are game to some degree and girls like Aja or Kato turn into different workers when they face Meiko. But for me it takes a certain confinement for the style to work and Satomura sets that more consistently and better than damn near anyone else. Again I'm talking about individual performance and not sheer volume or workrate or whatever. I've never seen an individual performance from Toyota, Inoue, Kansai etc. that comes any close to the stuff Satomura does in her average match, not in 1993 or any other time. Atleast not in terms of what I want from a worker, that is good selling, timing, execution, presence, etc. In fact I am surprised OJ mentions Kansai carrying an entire company when I never thought Kansai was very special outside of a singles match against Yamada maybe. I'll probably have to look deeper into it.