Jetlag

I think Nishimura may be one of the greatest big match workers ever. AJPW 28.06.2008 - Suwama vs Osamu Nishimura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEuGLIDTIjg The previous day I said Suwama was impossible to carry in a long match. Spoke too soon, as he looked perfectly fine here. He looks solid doing opening matwork and he does fine selling his leg and putting over that he is in trouble when it is clear locking up with even a wounded Nishimura is dangerous and sprinting across the ring for lariats isn't an easy thing either. This is 100% Nishimura's match however. Every single move counts and is to the point. It really is that simple. Early hold exchanges establish Suwama can hang with Nish, so he gets Suwama on the outside and tears his leg up. Back in the ring Suwama reverses the Figure 4 immediately using his power, but Nish turns it back and really emphasizes that he is locking the move in with maximum pressure. Both guys end up in the ropes and wincing in pain with their legs entangled which is great. Suwama eventually gets the advantage using his power and big blows, while Nishimura makes his goofy looking double handed chops look better than they have any right to be. Early on he takes that corner bump as if he was rocked by a shootstylist, then he later on he takes them like Jackie Fargo hanging from the ropes and getting further worn out with each hit. Second half is Suwama throwing bombs while Nishimura counters with various cradles and submissions that get huge reactions. Nishimura fights like he has nothing left in the tank, takes these backdrop suplexes better than anyone I've ever seen and does this awesome noodle legged selling, trying to withstand Suwama's force. Throughout this Nish comes across as a tough, barefooted maniac with the determination of a terminator attempting to neutralize a tank but eventually succumbs to the blunt force of Suwama's bomb throwing. Hell of a match, Nishimura may be the coolest wrestler of the decade, maybe not technically the greatest, but def. the coolest.

Dull, overly long japanese heavyweight slugfest. I'm a Takayama fan and as usual he throws a share of potatoe shots and nearly dies, but Suwama is sub-Nakanishi level and impossible to carry in a match this long as it will inevitably be dull and lifeless. The guy literally does not know how to do basic things such as positioning or transitions and is shockingly unimpressive for a wrestler with an accomplished amateur background background. Like, I've seen 17 year old amateur wrestlers that can do takedowns and throws more explosive and exciting than anything he did in this match. He did look like a stiffer Tom Magee with his double chops and gentle belly to belly throws.

I have no problem with this match at all. With the length and a bunch of intricate and well timed sequences, it almost felt like a comical take on 90s AJPW epics. Inoue sucks, but that's his thing. When he starts in the match he is completely useless and just treated like a piece of shit. The sequence around his initial comeback is hysterical and like something from a Monterrey trios with Misawa and Ogawa as stooging infernales. Saito has to work for two and time his tags so Inoue can always attack a vulnerable opponent. I really liked Saito here, as he is believable as a serious hitter, but also has these moments where it seems that Inoue's suck infests him. The only thing wrong with him I thought was that he didn't just brainbuster Ogawa on the ramp when he had the chance. Inoue's gradual transformation from being completely out of his depth to somehow staying in the match with some luck later on was very well down and believable, even while doing big nearfalls he was always the same Inoue and didn't just turn into a badass or something. Had no problem with Ogawa and Misawa in his role here was amazing to watch.

Caol Uno has done works? I'd def. like to see them.

I feel like I could name a dozen WWE matches from the last couple years that I liked better than this. And I don't even watch the promotion much. I don't see how it was much different from your usual Tanahashi match, considering he often faces these "strong style warrior" types. He did his usual legwork and dragon screws. Maybe I'm spoiled as Destroyer/Mascaras was one of the first japanese matches I saw and I love the resistance to basic moves and holds in Santo/Casas or Jaguar Yokota matches, but I wasn't blown away but what was going on here. How exactly does a Pretty Boy work? By hitting pretty moves I guess which Tanahashi did here, but that doesn't really make for quality action. I guess a Pretty Boy would make sure his face was alright, similiar to Buddy Rose in the Martel match with the wig, in which case Tanahashi should've checked on his nose after getting punched, or prance around to make sure everyone was aware of his good looks. Again, I thought nothing in this match was bad looking and would've been great if it had meant something. Instead Tanahashi does this low blow in front of the referee and quickly hits a few moves to reestablish his unphased dominance. Compare this Ogawa/Kobashi (a much better skinny boy vs. tank match) where Ogawa hits a desperation low blow while the ref is not looking then collapses. That was in some way the story of this match - both guys establishing that they didn't care for the offense that the other got in on them. For me, a good match is one where every move counts, so a match where no move counts is the opposite. You mention that this only got bad as soon as they went towards the finish, but I felt like that when Tanahashi started working the leg.

I think the problem of this was the layout. I came into this wanting to see Kawada selling and making awesome comebacks against Vader but instead he took most of the matcha and it kind of made Vader look old and slow. Of course, there's nothing wrong with Kawada kicking the crap out of someone and, and Vader when he was throwing hands did look like Vader. This gets Vader vs. Kawada good in the last couple minutes where they obliterate each other. Cool match which feels a bit like a missed opportunity considering it's their only encounter.

I thought this was great, really felt like the best garbage brawl of the decade. The match had structure, every move made sense and counted. KAORU's comeback was very well done, as it was gradual instead of a random transition, she got her comeuppance on Kong and most importantly she found a believable way to control the monster. Kaoru using the table like in Magnum/Tully was awesome and Kong sold great. It wasn't quite Terry Funk selling his arm getting stabbed with a fork but it was great. Match was pretty brutal, everytime Kong hits it's a devastating blow, but did not go into overkill.

Hell of a spectacle, just total chaos with the UFO guys throwing the NJPW homeboys around and Hash and Iizuka not taking that crap. There is such an awesome aura of dangerousness emanating from Murakami and Ogawa and it's really feeding into the atmosphere. When Hashimoto comes in it feels like the roof is about to blow off and as usual his interactions with Ogawa are out of this world. Iizuka also had his finest moments ever in this. Early 2000s NJPW gets a lot of flack for bad booking but this was a hell of away to get the angle over.

This seems like your typical japan big match with filler leg work and a bunch of dump-you-on-your-neck for nearfalls in the last couple minutes. Ohmori was a fresh face but not particularily good in this. Thought there was nothing to see here.

I thought this was a real quality match. Kawada was the king in 2000 and he was really great here. He really has some of the greatest selling and defensive spots, knows exactly how to make a comeback and when he's on offense he's killing Kobashi. I dug Kobashi, especially his failed fighting spirit attempt after Kawada wasted his mid-section, he also took all the suplexes like a champ and him flying into a Gamengiri was ballsy, but he did kind of make Kawada look like a bitch in the last couple minutes. This ended at just the right time.

I just watched this because of the good review it good and what an abomination this was. If I want to watch random moves strung together there's plenty of better joshi available. Tanahashi was pretty good in the first couple minutes and if he'd always work like that I might actually like him, but as soon as the leg work started this turned into endless timekilling, popping up after big spots in order to passionately run through offense, the heavyweight badass working like a US indy junior, etc. My favourite part was when Goto did the lift up the knees-spot to counter Tanahashi's finisher and teased selling his legs only to get up and casually hit Tanahashi with his finisher. Boy that didn't go as planned. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of stuff that would easily qualify as good or great if used by competent workers, but here it was all lost in a shuffle of bad selling and random transitions. Goto levels Tanahashi's shit with a badass lariat? Tanahashi immediately pops up and hits a Dragon Screw, which Goto also ignores. Goto rocks Tanahashi with a series of stiff punches? Tanahashi kicks him in the balls then passionately runs through his signature spots. Goto spikes Tanahashi on his head, teasing a dangerous neck injury and continues to work over it in brutal fashion? Tanahashi hits a random counter and pops up once again. This would have been awesome if it were 20 minutes and laid out by WWE road agents.

How much Mariko Akagi is there? She's looked pretty good on some of the 70s AJW TV that I saw, but it seems there's only short bits, while Sato's had some very good lengthy singles matches. I think Sato's pretty badass. Top 100 of all time is probably a stretch, but definitely watch her matches vs. Yokota and Aoyama. AJW had a very unique style then with lots of gritty matwork and she was great at it.

Watching some of these bouts which I havent checked out before Ray Steele vs. Pat Roach This was a really solid but unspectacular match. If you like your heavys smashing eachother with forearm blows and knees definitely watch this. Also really liked all of Roach's throws, you could tell Waltons Judo talk wasnt bullshit. Hurt by lack of build and three short finishes Alan Woods vs. Vic Faulkner Man this was good. The opening technical stuff was nice if you can stand Faulkner. Then Woods goes after the leg like a fat kid after the last piece of candy. He doesn't even act overly heelish, just rips it up and is a bit of an asshole about it and the crowd loathes him. Faulkner gets super fired up and man watching him here makes me want to put him in my Top 100 because when this guy is fired up he is unbelievably great. Really good showcase match for Faulkner and Woods killed it too. Bert Royal vs. Steve Logan This was another awesome match, really hard fought brutal mat brawl. Royal is a real dick for a babyface and Logan looked tough as nails (probably due to him not reacting to anything). Not much fancy technical stuff, instead you get plenty of nasty bootscrapes, hits to the throat and Logan throwing punches that look like they weigh a ton. Royal actually reminded me a little of Axel Dieter in this. This was as rugged and nasty as WoS gets. Johnny England vs. Kid Chocolate England reminded me of these 5'7"ish bodybuilders you will see at the university gym. I think that gimmick would still work well today. This match was a fairly good mix of heat mongering and wrestling and kind of felt like it could take place anywhere in the world. England did every trick in the book, including dropping his opponent on his hard head in dangerous fashion after the bell.

That 97 Ikeda match, for example, saw Otsuka taking a huge shit-kicking, but teasing that he had a chance if he could connect with a strike. I was really into that, but the pay-off didn't match the build, as Otsuka ended up winning via suplex-spamming. Otsuka's gimmick was that he didn't have any devastating strikes, so he would just dump you on your head until you stayed down. The match had a theme of a lower ranked guy rising up the ranks vs. established star, so naturally Otsuka would upset the renowned mauler Ikeda with some strikes of his own, but in the end it was clear he didn't have the same firepower as Ikeda so he switched to the "nuke it with suplexes" tactic. Pretty cool story I thought and the match was pretty epic and had a bit of an AJPWish "super finish" moment.

I think the closest thing to a "bomb" type move was Ken Joyce's tombstone piledriver. I also remember someone doing a reverse powerbomb of all things, but it was merely to set up a pinning combo. Even something like a powerbomb is done almost gently placing the guy on his shoulders for a pin. I always found this a really cool and unique thing about WoS that it's more about fighting for a pin or submission using your wrestling, instead of knocking the other guy out until he stayed down for a 3 count. Other moves were stuff like hip tosses or back drops that would cause the other guy to take a hard bump. I think Hoffmann used his side suplex almost like a finisher in AJPW and Robinson too with the Butterfly one.

Here's Ishikawa/Amano vs. Kana/Fujiwara Really good match and a great example of what Ishikawa does so extremely well, selling masterfully and getting the absolute best out of an (at that time) limited opponent. He really deserves more discussion and a close look.

I remember having my mind blown when I watched his match vs. Windham where they beat the piss out of eachother and bleed all over the place. If he has more stuff like that he will def. have a spot on my Top 100. In the meantime, I'm not too high on his more junioriffic stuff.

I really like Hidaka. I'd say he's probably the best indy junior next to Dick Togo and he always looks good when working quasi shootstyle, but he also has some stuff that touches on the worst aspects of current junior style wrestling and parts of his career are pretty dead teaming with that slug Fujita or the last 3 years in Zero1. The 2010 Chris Hero singles match is a killer though. Def. a guy worth going back and watching all his stuff, including the ECW run.

I liked Sekimoto when I first got into puro as a blunt introduction to the styles tropes, but in hindsight he feels like the worlds most limited wrestler. He has a total of two facial expressions and I feel like I can count the matches of his that don't go by filler opening work->strike exchanges->signature moves->2,99999 ending run peppered with lots of fighting spirit spots with one hand. Also, I don't think I remember him ever being the best guy in his best matches - his partner Y Sasaki was a better worker than him. Overall Seki ranges from fun to hideously boring and he's nowhere close to my Top 100. I'm a little shocked so many people feel he's that high.

Demus only made his debut in 2004, right? Was he very good as Mini Damian? I think his 2010 match with Pierrothito is a classic, but other than that he's "only" an excellent trios worker.

I don't think Dr. Cerebro is completely out of the question. He had some great stuff with Santito (altough not a great worker then) the early 2000s, was supposedly a freaky matworker back then already (would need to see these 1999 IWRG or Dragon System shows), turned into a really good worker throughout the 2000s with the 2004 tag title match with Cerebro Negro against Virus and Suicida being a real highlight, and was one of the best workers in the world 2009-2011 (where he carried some greenish guys like Multifacetico to high quality title matches). Hechicero seems like another case where there might be lots of cool under the radar stuff. He was in that awesome title match with Valiente in 2008 and a few matches with Caifan that are def. quality stuff. He's had quite the career - spending 10 years in nowhere then rising through the ranks in CMLL in minimal time. Las Traumas are probably the hardest to sell considering they didn't get "good" until 2009 but had sometimes weekly awesome performances after that. They both where close to being the greatest in the world in some years, but vanished for now. Altough I liked their rudo run in IWRG earlier this year.

There's way more "Ikeda working from underneath" than you'd think and he rules at it. He always gets credit for the maulings he dishes out, but his selling ability is as good as anyone elses.

Every match on this list that OJ did should be a must watch http://z11.invisionfree.com/wrestling_ko/index.php?showtopic=2555&st=0 But most probably don't have the time to dig through all of that now. But I've been checking out OJs recommendations for years now and I don't regret it. WoS rules

Greco is all I want from a shoot stylist. A total grappling machine that looks like he would pop your shoulder in seconds. He was amazingly consistent in his first BattlARTS run and always delivered crazy matwork and forced his opponents to go all out. Also has a legit classic with the Ishikawa singles match which is pretty much the perfect grappling match.