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The concept of knocking a guy for actions outside the ring strikes me as an incoherent position. It would firstly be inaccurate to you say you can't separate "the wrestler and the person" so much as that you can't separate "a work of art from a person." It's a key distinction to make since even in a lot of literary criticism with only 1 clear artist behind it, it's still common to examine as simply a product of the surrounding society's values. That's even more apparent in wrestling as you don't just have the 2 guys in the wrestling but also crowds, announcers, production guys, etc. If you view art as simply reflecting an overall zeitgeist, it's as arbitrary to hate a match just because some dude in the ring did something you don't like as it would be to hate it for someone in the crowd did or someone not in the match at all. The haphazard application of this moral high horse to some guys but not to others because "it's not personal enough" or whatever just makes it even more ridiculous. The only way to hate Benoit's actions would be to hate the entire industry surrounding him as that's what really caused what happened.

What was the point of this? The concept of a non wrestler burying a young prospect is bad enough in itself but the deal with Shawn claiming the DX music as his own really made X Pac look second rate

Foley talked about that chokeslam like a week ago on wwe.com. He said the chokeslam was botched due to him somehow being unable to get enough height for the bump, meaning that was just really lucky with what ended up happening.

I always assumed getting the opportunity to bitch online is half the fun of being a WWE fan.

No way was KENTA being uncooperative in the March match. Like I said in the thread, if you pay attention to KENTA's mannerisms and the overall camera work during KENTA's runs of " no selling" the knee, it's obvious it was a conscious part of the story they were telling. Plus, if the goal was to "eat up" Nakajima, the post-match with KENTA getting the fans to cheer for Nakajima would make no sense, and I actually think part of why he did that was to prevent such an impression.

Bagwell mentioned in an interview that if they just waited a week they could have ran the Booker T match in Atlanta instead of the shit Washington crowd they went with that sabotaged the angle before it even started. Based on that, I'm pretty sure the angle was set up to fail from the start.

I've always hated the term spotfest simply because, despite claims that's it's simply a match built off big spots lacking in the storytelling department, I've never seen it applied to much more than matches heavy on suplexes and high flying. I don't see much of a difference between what DG tags and most of the lucha maestro stuff I've seen sets out to do, but I don't see the latter referred to as a spotfest that often. There is also the fact that since wrestling viewing is inherently subjective, any semblance of story will be created by the viewer, so stating it as self evident that a match has no story is ridiculous.

I can't get into his brawls at all, 2001 included. A lot is stylistic misgivings (ie "out of control" brawls always following the damn shine/heat/comeback formula, reliance on cheesy interference/crowd brawling shit), but there's also things like the loose punches that are pretty hard for me to get past. I don't see how he's even close to as good a brawler as Shibata, let alone the GOAT.

Firstly I don't see what drawing something derived from "hard data" more so than working ability. If anything, drawing is even more since you have promotions fudging numbers and it being a mystery which is right (how much did Wrestlemania 3 really draw?) while if you're judging video there's not going to be much argument that what you're watching is an accurate representation of the match. To respond to your example, Mookieghana has a list on his website of the guys who've been on the most AJPW cards that drew 5k crowds and the guy to come out on top is Fuchi with almost as many 5k+ cards to his name as Jumbo and Tenryu combined. If drawing is a metric rooted in "hard data" just because you can list off random I don't see why judging workers wouldn't be when you can list off play by play. As Loss pointed out, there absolutely is a ton of subjecivity in looking at the context and coming up with your own interpretation of the otherwise meaningless data.

It absolutely is subjective in many different ways. But it is also the only category of the three that is at least rooted in some semblance of fact. A million dollar gate is a million dollar gate. 12,000 fans is 12,000 fans. Not all 12,000 fan houses are created equally, but there is at least a starting point before we start arguing about it, where as working ability & influence are essentially 100% subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I don't really understand your reasoning. I mean, yeah, no one is going to deny that a million dollar gate is a million dollar gate, but neither would anyone deny a 450 splash is a 450 splash. Using that metric I don't see much of a different in the subjectivity inherent to judging workers compared to judging draws since both things are heavily dependent on how the voter decides to interpret the data in front of them with the individual moves/numbers

The 2/85 Jumbo/Tenryu tag with Saito in Yatsu's is a great match right up there with the big tags mentioned. Everybody in there is incredible in how they play off the hot crowd and create an engaging match without giving too much away for the rematches. I also dig what I've seen of his 6 man tag work. Him, Yatsu, and Kobayashi against Tsuruta, Tenryu, and Tiger Mask is the best I've seen from his AJPW run. The skill with which he worked in character and made the distinct personalities of everyone involved play as important a role in the match as the stiff action kind of lays the foundation for the 90s AJPW/NOAH 6 man style.

It almost feels like people are rating 80's WWF guys on a curve. If he were in any other promotion I doubt a guy who had a couple good feuds over 5 years would be getting much top 100 consideration, especially when as you said, even if it may be good for 80s WWF it doesn't hold up too well when you compare it to the puro and lucha from the time period.

I thought he was the best in the world in 2011 and 2012, though I haven't seen a whole lot of his stuff from afterwards. I'd also add to that list the tag against Kasai and Numazawa to show his diversity.

The thing to keep in mind with late Misawa matches is that he was probably in the worst shape of any guy to ever wrestle a full time schedule. He mentioned in his book that not only did the 2008 Morishima match send him to the hospital, but his body was in such pain by that point that he couldn't even do basic things like brushing his teeth or washing his face. I think he deserves credit just for being able to do a reasonably good of maintaining the illusion of still being The Man, even if he couldn't do GOAT level matches anymore.

Anybody feel like explaining what's so horrible his post-comeback stuff? I've been watching some of his stuff from 2007 and I'm actually pretty amazed at how well he can lay out matches to turn even stupid shit like Orton match with SCM banned into compelling storytelling. Not seeing at all how you can say he doesn't deserve credit for any of those matches.

I think his best stuff is his 2012 NJPW run when he was having matches with Ibushi and Devitt where he'd stiff the hell out of them in between them doing cool flippy shit.

I rewatched his match with Yamazaki after reading some of the comments and based on that I completely disagree on his shoot style work being "awful." It may actually one of the best short matches I've ever seen in terms of the drama they pack into it, made even more impressive by their doing it by working a slow build instead of going the obvious route of working a crazy stiff sprint. Both guys were also masterful in their selling and the chokeslam came across as a devastating finish without seeming cooperative or out of context at all.

Tier 2 Onita, Hosaka, & Yaguchi vs. Takayama, Sugiura, & Hirayanagi NOAH 9/23 My first Onita match. Now, excuse me while I go watch all his big matches I can find.

I've gone the opposite route in that when I was first getting into AJPW I had a great time watching him but never questioned that Misawa and Kawada were better. But his incredible retirement tag and just feeling the incredible will he had to inspire really made me realize that he might have always been my favorite. Fuck Dusty Rhodes's son of a plumber shit; I really haven't seen anybody better than Kobashi at encapsulating the struggles of the common man in his performances and making me want to keep chasing my dreams. I never think about "overkill" when watching his matches (or any match for that matter) because, as cliche as it sounds, it was his character to show how not just how far hard work could get you but that giving it your all to the bitter end represents a victory in itself. That point when he became the first man to kick out of the TD91 may be the greatest near fall ever.

Interesting, though this a difficult topic for me to answer since I like to think I'm continuously evolving in how I appreciate wrestling and art in general. Compared to when I first started critically about matches, though, I think the main overall shift comes from my studying of philosophy and critical theory. It's led to me adopting a mindset of just being to have the opportunity to see wrestling from all over the world and always looking for a way positive way of interpreting what I'm watching. I think that's a lot more interesting than nitpicking matches to death or feeling guilty over watching do what they want with their bodies. I guess that's led to me going in kind of the opposite direction to people here in that I gravititate towards the more physical and athletic matches without having much patient for the ironic uber heel shit. In particular, I've really become biased for prime AJPW/NOAH style and its derivatives, but again, I try to enjoy whatever I watch so that doesn't mean I can't watch something way far off from that like Lesnar/Taker or Ultimo/Atlantis and just be in awe of the cinematic quality of everything.

I seriously think most of the appeal from Joe's 04-06 period and by extension most of the indie wrestling from back then is from the novelty of indie wrestling being the cool thing and for the first time seeing small-name guys doing a passable job aping puro epics. I tried watching his pimped stuff and and I could get the appeal but I also was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for something that felt a bit less amateurish. Putting him on the same level as the NOAH guys from that period just sounds hyperbolic, let alone basing a top 100 case solely around that run.

What's the argument for Kobashi/Akiyama ahead of Kobashi/Kawada?

I recently watched a handheld on Youtube of him facing Michaels at the Cow Palace that I really dug. The blurriness and weird lighting even kind of adds to match by giving it some dream-like quality that goes along with that what-if factor 90's Jannetty has surrounding him. I doubt the Michaels series and the Rockers run are enough to make a top 100 guy but he could go.

His TNA stuff is really underrated. With how much stock people here place on being a good worker into old age I don't see why him having really good main events with Styles, Foley, and even Hogan into his 50's doesn't get played up more.