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For me it's more his WCW run in general not being as good at it should be. He has the Flair matches early in the run and the DDP feud but outside that there's a lot of other matches that feel very formulaic and uninspired, like the match with Giant at Fall Brawl 1996. The Hogan world title main events were also pretty bad, as mentioned.

Nobody's faulting him for his awful 2000's run? I prefer to focus on the high-end stuff but if it's such a big deal for people in the Flair thread that series of insanely disappointing Fujinami rematches for Legend Pro main events has to count against him.

The idea that AJPW style was going way overboard right before the split is one of the worst myths. If you actually watch the stuff from after they brought in Vader, you'll see that they went in the opposite direction by focusing more on the fundamentals as the bodies of the big stars were clearly breaking down. That they recognized things needed to be toned down may have been why they brought him and the shoot-style guys in in the first place. There were some matches in Misawa's 2nd reign that go a bit far (1/98 vs. Akiyama, 2/98 vs. Ace) but if you watch the more conservative first Akiyama TC match and see how poorly he comes across you'll see it was more about trying to keep Misawa strong without burying his challenger rather than any inherent problem with the style.

I'm pretty sure the Carpentier/Gagne match that's up is from 5/2/1958. Really great match that deserves a thread,

I thought the finish to main was perfect both in terms of how well it was timed in capping off the emotional high point in the match and protecting Brock and Cena going into the predicted HIAC match. I get that we're supposed to automatically shit on it whenever a show ends with a DQ but, fuck, I can't hate something that had me screaming at the screen when it happened and left me in awe of Lesnar's badassery when it was over. Awesome show overall. I missed the opener but Sheamus/Cesaro, Orton/Jericho, and Brock/Cena were all great matches and the others were easily better than the low expectations I had coming in, especially the divas match. Much, much better than Summerslam.

Shamus/Cesaro is the best WWE match I've seen in years. I agree that it felt like a high end puro match with how stiff they were unloading on each other and the cool flash KO finish.

edit: wrong thread

He has a few matches I like (Wrestlemania Austin matches and Summerslam Brock match) but I don't think a lot of his other matches hold up that well outside that particular time period. I tried watching the Benoit match, for example, and I couldn't make it past the half-way point with all the interference bullshit the guys were relying on in place of physicality. Also, as big a box office success as it was, his comeback doesn't reflect favorably on him at all from an in-ring perspective as it exposed him as lacking creativity in laying out cleanly worked matches or the ring smarts to work around the limitations of age. There's also the deal with how short his peak full-time run was that really shouldn't leave him as a lock for 100 if we're also arguing over whether or not Ishii deserves a place for having spent a similar time period working at a much higher level.

I actually thought 8/5/82 held up as being pretty great when I rewatched their series recently. Yes, some of Tiger Mask's moves don't have quite the same effect today as they did back then but the freakish athleticism and fearlessness behind it still shines through just fine. Also, what hasn't been aped quite as much is the sheer physicality that they wrestle the style with, which is really only enhanced by the knowledge of how injured both guys ended up from wrestling like that. I've seen people bring up the mat work to claim that they had no idea how to work but I didn't get that feeling at all and I actually thought they did a really good job in working the matwork into the match's overall story and in applying it in such a way to continue the sense of brutality. Tiger Masks final comeback was also perfect for the dynamic they had. Granted, their other matches don't quite reach those heights but the series definitely adds a lot to his case both in terms of the overall quality and for the context of Dynamite Kid's willingness to work as he did to create a real life super hero out of his opponent.

It's not really the same but I've seen WWE guys mention that in some ways Undertaker actually has it harder having a MOTYC defending the streak once a year since your body doesn't get as used to working as it would if you were on the road year round. I agree that it's really a minor point at best and irrelevant in the context of us considering old school workers who have even less matches available.

The only problem with starting with the Misawa matches is that the guy is so amazing in them it's going to seem very underwhelming by the time you get around to get to his 80's stuff.

30 doesn't seem like a high vote at all. A few months ago Ditch uploaded a 6-man from 1998 with Baba at 60 hanging just fine with Kawada and Kobashi. That is crazy considering that he was having classics 30 years before that, maybe even more impressive than what we're seeing with Casas and Panther given how much more taxing Baba's style was and how much it changed. There's also the deal with him masterminding the best TV ever put out.

Some huge Mil Mascaras fan on Youtube uploaded 2 more Mil matches from 1977 and another from 1978, plus a build-up tag between them. I think those definitely help flesh out his case by showing what they did outside of the much more widely seen 1973 and 1974 matches. It also pisses me off that there's footage of him teaming with with Robinson against Baba and Jumbo that got taken down.

I'm pretty sure "four corners" is a weird mistranslation of the Japanese promotional name for that era, Shitennou (Four Heavenly Kings).

Please

I'm not denying that a lot of his AJPW stuff is disappointing but I also don't see how it's that much different from his US stuff. In fact, I think part of what makes the Williams comparison so unfavorable to him is that while Williams has all these epics to his name, Gordy was generally fine just working a stiffer version of what he'd do in the US.

Brody never selling at all is what's bullshit. The dude pretty much made Tenryu into a main event level guy between the RWTL matches against Tenryu and the TC unification match. The 1988 title win over Jumbo is also a great example of a come-from-behind victory with him really getting the crowd into it and even having them celebrate with him his victory over the native guy. That match also happens to be a good example of him making smart usage of basic holds to set up for the big moments. Further, his singles matches with Dory and Baba serve as early examples of the epic AJPW title match archetype and they lend much of their greatness to how well Brody balances vulnerability with his otherwordly wildman gimmick by selling while on offense.

I don't think there's a disconnect so much as people coming in with a preconceived notion that he should wrestle as a one-dimensional brawler based on his look and hating him for not wrestling like that all the time. I don't think it's hard to see, though, that what got him so over was actually how he defied such a stereotype and wasn't afraid to show he could trade holds with the best of them, while at the same the wildman part of his gimmick gave him a unique unpredictability that meant you never knew how much of his stuff was mindgames or what move he would pull out next. But I guess it's more interesting to interpret that as him just sitting in holds and no-selling while Hansen carried the team 100%, even though there seems to be nothing to support that claim from anyone who wrestled him.

I read a pretty good explanation of that from Meltzer before. When the promotion follows a touring structure with a few weeks off afterwards, you're able to go all out on the big show without worrying about how injured it will leave you. Compare to being booked to work a time limit draw on a PPV then having to do house shows immediately afterwards.

Do any of the Johnny Valentine matches exist on tape?

I've always thought he was overrated as hell. I don't understand why nobody holds it against him for mostly being shit post-1992 even while getting pushed as a main event guy for most of that time. What I've seen of his "great" 80's WWF matches doesn't hold up well when you compare it to things outside the context of an otherwise mostly horrible product. People here like to bash on KENTA and Marufuji matches for being overly cooperative but last I watched Savage/Steamboat at Wrestlemania it seemed way worse in terms of lacking struggle and being obviously planned out.

"Goofy cartoon" is a good way of describing his style. What makes this so interesting to me is to finally get to see greats like Thesz/Gagne/Rogers laying the ground work for the later NWA and AJPW styles by working stiff and serious matches. Davis basically shits all over the tone those guys were going for, though, by calling a mini-war like Gagne/Bastien with the same tone he'd use for a comedy match.

I love shoot style but whenever I see the "why not watch a real fight?" argument I can't help but respond in my head with "because a real fight is usually boring as hell." I really don't see what's so different about shoot style. It's not really any different from any other way guys can put together a match in that you have the exact same goal of simulating violence by filtering out the boring parts while exaggerating the exciting ones. If the problem is that you can't move past seeing it as a second rate imitation of UFC and into seeing it as just another wrestling style it might be a good idea to check out some of the great cross-over matches like Takada/Hashimoto and Kawada/Albright before diving into the RINGS epics.

Guys reusing sequences verbatim is one of my least favorite things. Seeing guys go through the exact sequences just to pop the crowd is not only repetitive to watch but it's basically just a step down from grabbing a mic and telling the fans that they're watching something predetermined.

Of course every match should be in for the same reason. That reason should be because it entertains the voters. If you go with some other criteria you're opening the door for putting on matches that weren't taped and I don't see much point in doing that if this is just for fun and not some attempt at science. I think neither untaped matches nor purely historical picks should be in for the same reason in that the voters would be that missing key insight that comes from deriving the same level of enjoyment as the crowd that saw the match at the time. I also think that the distinction made between "match quality" and "historical impact" is ridiculous.You really wouldn't be missing anything by focusing on match quality when all it really amounts is the summation of a match's context in practical currency (ie the viewer's enjoyment). If context wasn't part of match quality any varying levels of enjoyment would be impossible as every match would just be guys doing nondescript moves.