W2BTD

I'm not judging. I'm asking how people weight it. The "Who cares?" at the end of my post was meant to describe how I look at it.

RE: Piper in WCW How much weight do you guys put on the tail end of a career where a guy is clearly miles past his prime? For me, I barely consider it at all. It would be like knocking Willie Mays or Johnny Unitas down a peg because of what they did with the Mets & Chargers. Who cares?

On the topic of short peak guys. Do super high peaks like Ishii's last three years or so have more value to you than an entire career of really good work, like a Koko Ware or Austin Aries or Psicosis or Susumu Yokosuka or whoever?

I will say this. Anybody who pushes for Roman Reigns but dismisses Ishii based on a short resume is being hypocritical. I don't even know if anyone specific is doing this, but I bring this up because the Reigns thread seems to have a "he could sneak on!" tone to it, while this thread is pretty much dismissive. Even if you think Reigns has peaked high enough to warrant inclusion or even a discussion of inclusion (crazy talk imo, but that's the chatter), Ishii peaked much much higher and peaked longer, and has an entire careers worth of other decent work to consider (young boy stuff in WAR, Z1 tags with Takaiwa, NJPW tags with Iizuka, Honma, Yano, Don Fujii, etc) while Reigns has 18 months as the third wheel of the Shield being carried by two other guys. Neither guy should realistically be considered when you are talking about the scope of the Top 100 of all time, but at least Ishii's short peak included year of being considered best in the world by more than a few people (not me, fwiw), and he has a long career that goes back to the mid 90's which probably has a bunch of forgotten stuff that would look better than a lot of us might assume it would on a rewatch. Reigns has...bad FCW matches as a super green guy dating back to 2010? I wouldn't vote for him, but I could see Ishii landing on the bottom quarter of a list or two based on the last few years, especially from younger guys with a smaller frame of reference.

The reason Tenzan has been surprising people once or twice per year with a great match or two that they weren't expecting is because he isn't very good. He has a charming charisma about him and ended up being a pretty big star, but he won't be within 1,000 miles of my list.

He's a guy who has reinvented himself to where it;s like he's had multiple great careers. Not only has he not lost a step, he's arguably better than ever and is among the best wrestlers in the world right now. He really doesn't even have a good comp. One of the most unique wrestlers around in terms of the size, scope, and trajectory of his career.

I can't help you with the recording question, but I can tell you that the Chromecast is a very hit or miss product, especially depending on your WiFi/home network setup. The device can not be hardwired, so you are at the mercy of your wifi. Plus the Chromecast itself is a very temperamental device that randomly will lose connection even when picking up a strong signal. I don't have a great network setup and my internet speed is sketchy sometimes, but even when I get desperate and put the router literally inches from the Chromecast to get it to function, the picture itself is still a little choppy and never smooth. Check out the public reviews on various sites, they are all over the board. People either hate the thing or absolutely love it. Mine collects dusts. Can't get it to work, and doesn't work well even when I do.

As a stuffy elitist who can't stand the BC interference sullying my King of Sports, nobody hates the BC nonsense more than me. They walked up to the line in the main event, but didn't cross it. Any longer and it would have hurt the match for me, like it has in some other AJ title bouts. I'm still annoyed about the first AJ title win.

How much of this is previously rare footage that hasn't made significant rounds?

Top 10 lock, contender for #1 along with The Fantastics, Speed Muscle, RnRE, The Rockers, and a few others. Some of the most exciting matches of the first half of the '00 decade, tag or otherwise. KENTA puts in some all time great tag work in some of their more high profile bouts.

Yeah, aside from the Gedo main event at BOSJ in Korakuen, that was the best Taguchi match in a long time. I know i'm probably on an island with the TM match, but it just connected with me. It was a nice surprise when they changed the ten man to an elimination match, because like you said it added some spark to a match that NOBODY wanted to see because we've seen it a thousand times. Only match that did nothing for me was the BC six man. Even the mediocre TenKoji tag was decent enough, and served a purpose in giving the top babyface team a high profile win to keep them strong. That's much better than booking another six man that nobody cares about. Having four singles matches, even though it was all lions, was also a nice change of pace.

This was one of my favorite shows of the year and I could not stop thinking or raving about it the next day. The opener was really strong, and then BAM, the Tiger Mask/Tanaka match blew it out of the water. I loved it so much that I nearly went ****. Tiger Mask as a grumpy "take no shit" asshole is like night & day from his uninspired, dry as sand babyface routine. And in this match, he was a grumpy take no shit asshole. TM was great here, as was Tanaka taking the beating. Tanaka's lights being out at the end of the match, with TM telling him to GET UP, made for a great post match. TM then cut a promo, telling Tanaka to show NOAH what NJPW was all about in the NOAH junior league. Just awesome from start to finish, one of the best squashes you'll ever see. Naito took forever to come out, and is doing a cocky tweener routine since coming back from Mexico. This has all sorts of cool possibilities. Nothing on the show was worse than average. Everything had a purpose, from minor angles like the Tanaka deal, to the main event where the rivals eliminated each other. The main event was awesome & FUN, and the type of match they *should* be doing on RAW once every six months or so but never do because they refuse to break from formula.

Bull Pain?

Since Eddie Edwards inadvertently got name dropped here, we might as well bring up the Dojo Bros tag team of Edwards & Strong. They had a great spotfest style match in 2CW that made my top ten matches of 2013, plus all of the great PWG stuff and some low profile matches in NOAH that nobody paid any attention to because it was post Misawa NOAH. I run hot & cold on Roddy. When he's great, he's great. Great tag wrestler, both with Edwards and Austin Aries. Some really dull runs, too. He'd make a top 500 pretty easily, maybe even a 250. 100 might be pushing it.

He won't come within miles of my list, but he isn't even close to the worst of all time.

Suzuki isn't going to crack many lists for people who require a long list of of high level matches as a major component of their criteria. That is part of what makes him such a difficult person to deal with in a project like this. His highest end stuff is brilliant and as good as anybody ever, but there is no depth whatsoever on his resume in terms of great matches. With all of that said, he's an amazing worker who blows away dozens of guys who probably have triple the amount of great matches as he does. His strength lies in the subtly of his work and the unique charisma that adds to his overall package. That kind of stuff is much harder to quantify or deal with analytically than thinking about a raw number of great matches. Things like great matches and great years are much easier to deal with and to compare than trying to wrap your head around a guy who really has no good comp in terms of style & output. The closest would be William Regal, and even then I have major problems comparing the two. The bottom line for me, is when I think about Suzuki, I come away thinking that there is no fucking way that there are 100 people who were better at pro wrestling than he was. He's got to be one of the 100 best ever. The problem, is I have no earthly clue how to stack him up or rank against the rest of the list.

His entire Dream Gate run from late 2014 to early 2015 was considered pretty great. Tag stuff w/Doi I'll have to come back when I have more time, because those matches were about a decade ago at this point so I'd have to research dates, etc.

We were typing at the same time, lol.

Much like Masaaki Mochizuki, if you find yourself allergic to the DG style, this is the guy you should investigate if you feel like you need to give people from DG a chance, while not wanting to waste time on a style you already know isn't for you. An immediate rec that comes to mind would be the 5/5/14 Dream Gate match vs Ricochet, which was basically an old territory title match, with the heel challenger finding a sleazy way to ground his high flying babyface opponent and is the total opposite of what people would think of a Dragon Gate match involving a guy like Ricochet.

A lock. One half of perhaps the best tag team of the 2000-2009 decade, and a guy who always delivers huge in a big match scenario or when it's his turn at the top for a Dream Gate run. One of the most fluid & smooth workers I've ever seen.

You mean two years (Nov12-Jun14 & Feb15-now), not four months. Roman's singles work was widely panned until the WrestleMania match, with serious concerns from both within the company and among fans that the main event could be a complete disaster if Brock couldn't carry him. Most people were hoping it could just be decent at best. Obviously the match ended up delivering, and Roman gave a career performance. The narrative now, which I find puzzling and don't agree with, is that he's been great since. I don't personally see it, but let's conceded that's true for the sake of argument. Hold that thought. I went back recently and rewatched nearly every Shield trios match available on The Network. What I came away thinking, was that in a vacuum, Roman added virtually nothing to the act. Rollins took the great bumps and did all of the crazy dives, Ambrose brought the charisma to the table, and Roman... well, Roman hung out on the apron, didn't do much of anything, screamed a lot, and was given all of the shine at the end of nearly every match. He literally could have been any big guy with a modicum of charisma who could do a spear. I'm shocked Rollins & Ambrose didn't break their backs carrying the guy for 18 months. And yes, I understand that this was the idea, for those guys to carry the team and get Roman over as a superstar while he developed as a worker, and I have no issue with that, but his work is what it is regardless, which was mediocre at the very very best. He was almost never better than the 4th or 5th best worker in any Shield match. So two years? No way. More like 2 or 3 months. He's been (very arguably) "great" since Mania. Anything else is revisionist history. He shouldn't even have a thread yet. I can name hundreds of wrestlers who had great two month runs.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything, but I have been told that Arik Cannon of all people was very instrumental in taking Tozawa under his wing and extracting all of that charisma you see oozing out of him today.

Good chance he'll be in my top 50. Funny you mention KOT 2009. I'm working on a Chikara story, and happened to acquire a few of the infamous Quack post show emails where he blasts everybody mercilessly. He absolutely buries Aries for his performances that weekend (along with totally burying ROH & HDNet), and vows to never book him again (which he ultimately never did). I was at the same show as you, and thought he was good.

He's a grumpy asshole who doesn't really work the stereotypical DG style though, so if people who typically dislike that style gave him a chance, they might dig him. He has years of early career work in WAR before he entered the Toryumon system that people forget about, too. He worked the 1995 Super J Cup as a 25-year old.

Probably because not everyone is so sensitive like you. And because someday you'll probably have antiquated views that young people find humorous, just like always. I'm not sensitive. I'm just sick of complete bullshit sexist/racist/homophobia etc.. behaviour. Just because its passive or passed as a joke, does not mean it is not detrimental to society. What views will I have that will be humourous to young people when mine change base on knowledge/reason and being kind to others? There was a time I made gay jokes. I don't anymore. There was a time I would laugh at transgender people, I don't anymore. Things change as you educate yourself on the facts and those views never become laughable. If kids of the future will accept new things that I don't currently and there is reason for it, I will accept them too. I'm not stuck in some box based on my age and nor should anyone else be. This whole attitude that it is ok to put yourself above others is fine is complete and utter bullshit. Racism isn't funny, because it hurts people. Anti-women jokes aren't funny, because they are harassed like crazy and only make 70% of what men make. Homophobia isn't funny, because in most States there is no marriage equality. Joking around about this stuff only allows it to continue. If someone says an old person made some weird comment about a girl not having boobs and somebody thinks that is a great/hilarious story. It is bullshit. End of story. If that wasn't the story. then present the story properly and not in some sexist manner. If somebody said the story was at stated later, then not one person would think anything of it. Nearly choked to death at "women only make 70% of what men make". Utter nonsense. Exaggerated sensationalism like this ends up ruining valid social concerns. Anyway, you sound like you're a real blast at parties or while shooting the shit at the water cooler. Jokes are jokes. Anything can be funny. Context always matters. Some people can handle edgy humor and aren't hyper cynical or black/white regarding intent. You obviously are the extreme opposite. But beware. It's a long fall from that pedestal of yours. If you knew me for one second you would know how insanely ridiculous you sound right now. That may be true, but your coming off super uptight in this thread. And I'm obviously not the only one who sees it that way.