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The entrances on this are so perfect. We begin with watching Kawada slowly rise up through the floor and finally make that surreal walk to the emerald ring. Follow that with Misawa's music blasting through the arena and the Dome crowd chanting his name in unison. I absolutely love that profile shot of Kawada in the ring while Misawa walks on the ramp. Then there's that nervous look on Kawada when he watches Misawa get into the ring and the amazing staredown between them to start the match. For me this match is already **** before they've even locked up. The opening minutes are largely defined by Kawada overcoming his initial tentativeness. The tight opening lock-ups, the slow breaks, and Kawada showing his residual trauma on Misawa's elbows are perfect tension building devices leading to some snug strike exchanges. The first one, a Misawa elbow vs. Kawada chop exchange, feels a bit like a baptism by fire for Kawada with him letting himself eat Misawa's hard elbows until he's gotten over his fear and can terminate the engagement by kicking Misawa's face off. I also love the aggression Misawa shows a bit later on by fighting back on Kawada's beatdown attempt as a means of cutting off Kawada's momentum. Others have mentioned it unusual to not have Kawada in complete control of the beginning before the match slowly slips away, but I don't think it's that unheard of. 6/6/97 also features a more aggressive Misawa throughout and that's also a match that I'm way higher on than most others, so go figure. Anyway, Kawada going nuts blitzing Misawa with kicks is an awesome moment that drives home that the old Kawada is back. The match's beginning is full of great sequences for in-depth analysis but, to move forward a bit, the one I want to draw attention to most, and where it really hits me that this is a Misawa vs. Kawada match comes after Kawada reaches the ropes off a Misawa RNC attempt (which, btw, is itself a pretty interesting choice given its history as a move Kawada used to use on Misawa and even legit KO'd him with it once). Misawa throws Kawada to the corner but he collapses from the residual effects of the choke in a great bit of acting, whilst a Misawa who's already breathing heavy stoically looks on. Camera gives us a nice close-up of Kawada wiping the sweat from his eyes to regain his bearings after having gingerly made his way back up, then zoom out to him immediately getting his foot up to catch a Misawa rushing towards him. Still selling some exhaustion, he manages to get his foot up again on Misawa trying the same move again, and he then quickly seizes the opportunity to do a running head kick on Misawa, who narrowly gets his hands up but can't stop it. He grabs the ropes while visibly huffing, but doesn't get much respite as Misawa takes the opportunity to get up and clock him with an elbow. Kawada has to think fast to avoid the match from slipping away and responds with a gamengiri that nails Misawa right on the chin, resulting in a double knockdown and some awesome close-ups of their faces. I don't think I did much justice to it with words, but a sequence like that is an awesome example of just what sets these guys apart. So many neat details with such stiffness and great, believable timing, alongside a history that makes every little thing feel like some kind of callback. Calling it a "touring match" or "best of" is hardly a criticism when the base working level on their big matches is so ridiculously high. Even still, "best of" remains an incomplete description of what this match is. If this is them doing their "best of" it's them doing so while in a far more broken down state than they were when they last met, in a Dome show put on by Misawa's promotion, and 5 years removed from their last encounter with the additional history of the AJPW/NOAH split between them. That is to say that, even granting that there's nothing new here (which I don't agree with; the spot with Kawada powerbombing Misawa outside and then having to go back and then, regardless of there not even being a championship at stake, bringing him back in to avoid a count-out is a very creative spot that says so much about their relationship, and features some amazing bit of subtle acting from Kawada as he decides to go through with carrying Misawa back), it still feels like a fresh dynamic to see them coming out as two old gunslingers and running their bodies through the ringer one last time with nothing more than pride at stake. It almost feels like they're compensating by going for the absolute sickest bumps on head drops possible, what with Misawa eating two germans while landing straight on top of his head and Kawada not rolling through at all on a Tiger Suplex. Accordingly, there's some sloppiness as well at the end between Kawada clearly letting go of a powerbomb too early and Misawa's tights coming down. It's sad and uncomfortable at times with a somberness surrounding the overall situation, both just to watch in itself and in knowing how things would end up with Misawa later. But that doesn't mean it's bad. Their feud, with its story of two high school friends torn apart as their rose up through the business, always had a sense of underlying tragedy, so this couldn't be a more appropriate last match for them. It's like watching a funeral procession building to a final burial. The finish stretch is as definitive as it gets. Kawada fails to put away Misawa after completely emptying out his moveset, even pulling out the ganso bomb. Misawa, having survived the onslaught, is left with a Kawada who's utterly gassed out, and he pretty much goes off on Kawada at will. It's a very cool moment seeing Kawada finally kick out of the TD '91, but there's no doubt by that point that he's just delaying the inevitable. The last minute or so has always stuck with me. Kawada completely out on his feet but still unconsciously coming forward because his pride will just never allow him to back down against this man. If I had to pick one moment that perfectly encapsulated the meaning of their feud, it would be this one. ****1/2 --- The promo at the end by Kawada is very interesting. The first few times I watched this, I just believed the story Ditch wrote on his site that Kawada was challenging Misawa to another match and got in trouble for not getting clearance to cut the promo ahead of time, but there's a bit more to it. The actual thing he said during the promo is as follows 「三沢さん、あえて握手はしません。 ずるい話かもしれないけど、今日打つはずだった終止符が打てなくなりました。 三沢光晴はいつまでも、俺の一つ上の先輩の力を持っていてください」 DeepL translation for this is wonky, but Papago has a pretty good translation (with some cleanup by me) "Misawa-san, I won't shake hands. This may be a devious thing to say, but I couldn't finish what I was supposed to do today. Mitsuharu Misawa, please forever hold the power of the senior who's one above me" So, these words leave some room for interpretation. Yes, you could still take it at face value that he just let himself get caught up in the heat of the moment and got in trouble for it purely by accident. But, given how little room the match's layout leaves for an immediate rematch, I'm inclined to take it as a more deliberate shot at Misawa's booking himself go over and that he had no intention of working further. Either way, it's a very interesting way to end things and leaves us to contemplate the huge "what if" of Kawada in 2005 NOAH.

Been watching a lot of her stuff lately after I couldn't get into some other pimped joshi like I wanted to, and female GOAT sounds about right. There's definitely stylistic preferences in play (but I don't think it's possible to rank wrestlers without also ranking styles), but for me it's Kana, then Mariko Yoshida, then everybody else. Over time I've kind of convinced myself that my belief back in the early 2010s of her operating on a different level than any other female wrestler mostly stemmed from the novelty of her being my first big exposure to serious intergender wrestling and joshi shoot-style, but that's bullshit. Nobody did intergender wrestling better than her and I'm still very impressed by her shoot-style ability, doubly so given that she came up at a time when big joshi promotions were actively hostile to her style. More great matches: Kana vs. Ayumi Kurihara (Passion Red 2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEpS8ggfhTs Brutal stuff with several places where I could have sworn Kurihara must have broken a limb. They also had a rematch in WAVE 2011 that's even better, but I can only find the vid on websites that also host a bunch of porn, so not sure about linking it. Kana/Fujiwara vs. Ishikawa/Amano (KanaPro 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWL9AdKh7yM Top tier intergender match with everyone giving amazing performances. A nice companion piece to the more famous tag with Ikeda. Kana vs. Ayako Hamada (SHIMMER 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eKQ2YZ0-_0 Best stateside match I've seen from her. Just these two doing exactly what they're best at and gelling really well in front of a crowd that appreciates it. Asuka vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch (WWE 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfIMuOu9wl0 My view on her WWE work has tended more towards respecting it than getting into it in the same way I get into her Japanese stuff. In something like this though, she gets an opportunity to tap back into some of that classic brutality, and she's also the one driving most of the action overall.

For a long time I wondered why I underrated Meiko/Kana 2011 so much when I first watched it. Revisiting this match, I think the answer might have been that I was just spoiled by living in a time when matches of this caliber would pop up seemingly out of where. This is a phenomenal showcase from all four with no weak points. The opening matwork between Kana and Amano is some amazing stuff reminiscent of RINGS, with them ending up with their legs tangled in a way that would look at home in a Volk Han match. The exchange between Ishikawa and Fujiwara makes for a nice contrast with them opting for a more gritty and less flashy approach reminiscent of 50's stuff. The intergender pairings that follow throughout the rest of the match both deliver big on what you'd want out of them. Fujiwara turns back the clock to give an awesome prickish performance showing no respect to anybody in the match. He plays some great mind games with Amano, though it's unfortunate the camera missed the payoff for it when they went out of the ring at the end. Ishikawa works some really nice big vs. little mat exchanges with Kana throughout the match and sells well. They save the big beatdown for the end, and it's great. Ishikawa eats so many nasty kicks from Kana but he just keeps coming back in a way that makes you wonder if he's getting some masochistic pleasure out of it. On a side note, I really like how this match uses the intergender dynamic. Ishikawa and Fujiwara both come across as highly skilled mat workers who have a perverted old man side lurking just beneath the surface, and that leads to them sometimes not taking the match as seriously as they should. Still, they're both far larger and stronger than the girls, so the girls end up having to dig deep to get whatever advantage they can get. As a result, it really feels satisfying whenever they do gain control of the match from the guys, and I think that's the key to making a great intergender dynamic.

Supremely well worked match rife with symbolism that stands along side Kawada's line-up of masterpieces from the 2nd half of the year. Yeah, this was next-level stiff. 0 pull on those kicks whatsoever and the thud on everything more than made up for the dead crowd. I was reminded of that famous Yuki Ishikawa quote from Ditch's interview where he says he wrestles such stiff matches while imagining he's fighting against people who say wrestling is fake, except here it was like Kawada unleashing his feelings from the AJPW split. Others already mentioned most of the highlights, but the enzuigiris thrown by both guys were ridiculous and I was pretty impressed by how Kawada was still standing after the one he ate from Fuchi. Fuchi was also pretty compelling throughout the match as the old man who would never give up. In terms of symbolism, Kawada enters wearing a "fight for tomorrow" t-shirt which he wore back in the Misawa vs Jumbo era, which can be taken either literally that he's fighting for AJPW's future, a throwback to the match being Misawa's No. 2 guy vs. Jumbo's No. 2 guy, or a jab at Misawa for splitting the promotion. The structure of the match as an extended squash itself also has some meaning attached to it, I'd argue. In a situation like this, I think most guys would do some 50/50 sentimental match, but by instead sticking to the same strict adherence to hierarchy that was AJPW's standard, it's like sending a message that the promotion will continue as normal. Interesting interview with Kawada afterwards as well with him saying that he wanted to match to leave an impression and transmit pain. He also mentioned that he wanted to show that there's more to wrestling than just big moves, which also seems like a shot at Misawa and Kobashi.

It's not going to be much of a controversial opinion to say Andre was awesome in Japan, but holy shit was he awesome in Japan. It's mindblowing to revisit his late-70's and early-80's NJPW stuff every few years and see just how much he'd mastered the art of working as a big man. Even cooler now that we have that added context of his time with 60's French catch and how he developed that style into his own thing. I dare anyone to find a better worked squash match than this. Everything is on point between the character work, the creativity, the execution, and the comedic timing. https://archive.org/details/njpw-misc-tv-sky-a-samurai-classics-1978-1980-60fps/1979.05.25a-NJPW-Handicap+Match-Andre+the+Giant+VS+Osamu+Kido+%26+Haruka+Eigen.mp4 Also, the re-evaluation of his time in 90's AJPW as a strong way to close out his career and the new handheld matches that have come out has been my favorite new movement in 90's AJPW these past few years. The Misawa/Kawada tag was already a bit of revelation and a great match for Andre's limitations, but the Jumbo/Taue tag is just a great match full stop without any "for his limitations" qualifier needed.

Where did the pro-shot version of Kawada's UWFi match get released? Haven't seen it on any classics airings or DVD releases I'm airing of.

Well, I don't agree that Bryan was putting out the same quality of work from the beginning that he is today and I'd rate Misawa's 2000's output over Danielson's 2000's output without much hesitation. Setting that aside, though, it's better to focus more on what he could still do over what he couldn't. Without wanting to repeat the points made in the writeup I linked, late era Misawa is one of the most interesting characters in wrestling with so much meaning to be found just by reading his face at virtually any point in a match. In terms of his selling, usage of strikes, and character work, I would put Misawa's performance in 2008 Morishima match up there with his great performances and it'd be MOTY for me if Morishima's strikes didn't look so shit. Yeah, there's matches in his 2007 title run that disappoint, but he was never terrible and there's others like the Sano and Taue ones that deliver and are built smartly around his limitations. If you watch stuff like the six-mans recommended in the write-up or the big tags from 2007 and 2009, you'll see he was a very smart worker in general for that period who could elevate a match just by being there on the apron. While he wasn't as good as his 90's self, there's still a case to be made for him as a top 20 guy at minimum for every year of the 2000's, albeit in a landscape that had drastically declined since the 90's.

Not sure about the longevity point. Cagematch puts Danielson's total matches at 1900 while Misawa is at 3500. There's probably a good amount of spot shows not listed on Danielson's record but still. Also, old man Misawa still had great presence and some of the best facials in wrestling history. Him vs. Morishima in 2008 is an all-time carry-job in my book. I really like EricR's write-up about Misawa's 2008. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2009/08/13-mitsuharu-misawa.html

Pre-WWE Bryan seems like the biggest disconnect between me and the rest of the board. Maybe it's because I came into his work having already spent many hours watching the Kings Road and shoot-style matches that influenced him rather than having him be the guy who introduced me to those styles, but I often find myself watching his matches from then and asking myself why bother with this when I could just watch the matches he's trying to copy. The 2001-02 Low Ki series is a big example of that. Some of his matches also have things that just scream amateur to me, like that spot in the 2006 UK Nigel match where it's obvious Nigel is hitting the ring post on his own will. I haven't seen his 1 hour+ matches with Joe, Strong, or Aries, but I did watch the 40 minute Joe match from 2004 and thought it dragged. At this point I'd rather spend more time exploring the oeuvre of Low Ki, Necro Butcher, and even Ian Rotten from that period before I watch a bunch more long Bryan matches from that period. I do remember digging his viscousness in the CHIKARA Jigsaw tag (though I'd argue all 4 guys are on fire there and it's by no means a 1 man show), and he did improve in WWE to where I like a lot of his big matches even though the booking and crappy style held him back a bit. With stuff like Cena/Bryan 2013, I think Sleeze hit the nail on the head when he said that the match has been overhyped for the meta-textual narrative surrounding it and the match itself isn't on the level of Punk/Lesnar from the same show. On the opposite end, if you can look past the bullshit surrounding it, I think the 2015 Reigns match shines as his masterpiece and was the match where it finally felt like I was watching a top tier guy. On the whole though, he never struck me as a guy like Misawa with all these endlessly rewatchable classics to his name or someone whom I can just pop in a random match and mark out at the incredible skill on display. I say this with the caveat that I haven't seen any of his recent AEW run, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if he expanded on the excellence shown in the Reigns match now that he's got more freedom and an easier schedule to work with. This is more me thinking aloud and I'm not going to vote here without seeing what's likely to be the best run of Bryan's career, but I'm highly doubtful of it topping Misawa's 90's run. Regarding Tiger Mask Misawa, I think his work from then has become underrated by virtue of the ridiculous expectations retroactively placed on those matches by his later run. Look at it for what it is as a guy doing his best to follow in Sayama's footsteps and then moving onto wrestling heavyweights as a blown-up cruiserweight and it's actually pretty ok. I've always been a big fan of his work with lucha guys from 1984. The 1985 Kobayashi feud was highly regarded at the time and holds up as a good series. I really like his work in six-mans and tags in 1986 especially opposite Kobayashi. I reviewed the 1/86 Kabuki singles and I think that's an underrated match that sets the table for his heavyweight run. Some good tags in 1987 with Jumbo opposite Tenryu/Hara. 1988 was actually a really good year for him between the Jumbo singles, some strong tags and six-mans opposite Kawada where you can already see their chemistry, and Tiger Mask/Taue vs. Tenryu/Hara is a weirdly forgotten match-up even though it's great. Then he's injured early in 1989 and comes back in 1990 to start his big run. I wouldn't argue his 1984-1990 is better than Danielson's 2002-2008, but for me as someone who's higher than most on Tiger Mask and lower than most on ROH Bryan they're not completely incomparable either.

Interesting match to revisit. I first watched this about 10 years ago when the Tiger Mask Misawa DVD was released. I thought the lengthy arm work was terrible and fast forwarded through much of it, but I found myself fascinated by the chaotic and bloody finishing run. It was a bit hard for me to figure out what to think overall about a match that seemingly had such a great last few minutes but such a long stretch of forgettable work before that. Now that I'm older and I'd like to think wiser, I can see that this is both far deeper and more coherent than I initially gave it credit. The key to keep in mind throughout is that this is Tiger Mask's first big singles match as a heavyweight. Kabuki's role here is as the gatekeeper welcoming him into the division and the main point of interest is in seeing how Tiger adapts to this new opponent. Hence, the arm attack and Kabuki using his weight advantage to keep Tiger grounded. Tiger tries to get out of it by going for moves that worked for him against juniors but finds himself frustrated being unable to have much success against this larger opponent. I felt like Kabuki's motivations behind staying in the arm locks here shifted from just wearing Misawa down to actively using it as a means of disrespect, then shifting again to an almost Fuchi-esque sadism in torturing his opponent. Yes, it does get repetitive after a while seeing them spend so much time sitting in arm locks, but I'd argue that was deliberate to make you emphasize with Misawa's frustration. Though he'd later define his run on top by his stoicism, this gives us a chance to get an earlier look at him before he was as good at keeping his emotions in check. It all boils over when, after finally escaping the hold, he throws Kabuki out of the ring and starts walloping him with a chair. Kabuki bleeds big and the crowd really gets into it as they go at it. It was also nice to see Misawa go for an early version of his great subtle arm selling and stage a comeback where he avoided doing too much with the arm Kabuki worked over, which is a thing he'd explore in his later big singles. Seeing Misawa lying in the ring with Kabuki's blood splattered all over him is an iconic visual that I still remembered from my initial viewing, and there's also a great shot of Kabuki sitting in the ring with the faces of stunned crowd members behind him. The match peaks shortly after that with them trading shots in the ring. I loved how Kabuki kept up the disrespect with posing to the fans when he goes to the top rope. Finish is your usual 80's bullshit ending, but I felt the ensuing chaos worked well for the match they built. I'd even argue it more fitting than a clean fall would have been. Really strong slow burn type match that felt like a key point in Misawa's evolution from junior to heavyweight ace. ***3/4

First Flair match I've seen in idk how many years. A good reminder of how his style isn't my thing. On positives, I liked getting a chance to see Wahoo's chops and it made me sad that there's no full matches between him and Johnny Valentine. There's one point where Flair walks to the camera when he's on the outside and you can see Wahoo's hand imprinted on his chest, and that got across the stiffness of Wahoo's chops more than anything else. I also admire the creativity of taking the usual shitty "heel gets his feet on the ring ropes" finish and trying to make it believable. That's probably the first time I've seen someone get a win off the 2nd pin attempt in a row, and it seemed like an intentional story they were building to with how Flair repeatedly places his feet on the ropes in the rest of the match. On the negatives, the matwork looked pretty bad with them both just laying around in loose holds, though it thankfully didn't take up more than a few minutes in the match. Flair also goes way overboard with his selling here with treating basically every Wahoo chop as a knockdown or near-knockdown. Selling just the first few hits like that would have worked to get over the surprise factor, but selling every hit like that looked cartoony and made the chops lose their novelty. I also found the transitions pretty weak. Yes, it doesn't follow the standard shine-heat-comeback formula but you still need sensible shifts in momentum and that aspect didn't really do it for me. Felt like it was built around Flair getting in his signature bumps more than anything else.

Try watching the fight, lol. Funaki starts off with a baseball slide and Suzuki follows with a drop kick. He later sells the finish choke by rolling his eyes into his head. I think it's obvious they were more interested in entertaining fans than having a shoot fight. I've always been in favor of grandfathering in early Pancrase and RINGS for how it marketed itself as a form of pro wrestling and was perceived as that at the time. Rutten/Funaki even placed in the WON 1996 MOTY voting. Doing that also sidesteps the arguments about which Kosaka/Tamura fights are works and which should be ignored for being shoots, when really I think they're all fantastic and add a ton to their cases. Besides, you could make a strong argument for removing early Pancrase and RINGS fights entirely from MMA records just for how the rules with rope breaks and banning grounded head strikes made for completely different fights than what you get in UFC. PRIDE is trickier since that was basically the point where MMA became its own thing rather than a branch of pro wrestling, but I could see the argument for including certain works and shoots that have a pro wrestling feel to them. Frye/Takayama goes in that category for me. I watched it recently and it kind of hit me how it's basically two pro wrestlers adapting the classic your-turn-my-turn puro strike exchange trope into a shoot setting. I'm borderline on Sakuraba's stuff but I'm fine with the Newton fight at minimum. Read a pretty interesting discussion about this subject on Sherdog the other day. https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/mma-on-point-the-secret-world-of-fixed-japanese-mma-fights.4259351/page-2

Watched the 95 G1 Mutoh match after seeing the convo here about and I think I have to agree that the matwork section felt like it exposed Hash's mat game a bit. That section dragged for me and I found myself thinking it would have been a lot more engaging if Hash was more active on the mat instead of spending all that time laying around. Seemed like Mutoh did what he could to push the matwork but Hash wasn't really up to play along. Match improves a shitload after they stand up, though, and Hash's body language is tremendous in making it feel like an epic moment. Mutoh does a lot for the match there too, though, with his explosive movements and facials. Feels weird, but I think Mutoh outworked Hash overall. I will go to bat for the Ogawa series, though, especially 10/99. I remember Hash being next-level great with his selling in that and making a simplistic and one-sided match layout into something extremely compelling. I also respect how hard he went with putting over Ogawa as a killer.

I rewatched the 96 Honda match (plus the 94 match for some extra context) after reading this, and I completely disagree. There's a fuckton more going on with the arm psychology than you're giving credit for. The arm strategy works because Honda knows he's screwed if he just tries to brawl and the lariat arm is an easy weak point. I think people misunderstand the arm attack psychology as being "he's attacking the arm so Hansen shouldn't ever be able to use the lariat" when really it's more "he's attacking the arm so Hansen's going to have a harder time retaking control with it and he needs to be more selective of when he uses the lariat." Basically, attacking the arm gives Honda a means to believably control most of the match against a guy who way outranks him, but there's never any doubt that Hansen still has the lariat in his back pocket. And the strategy actually works pretty well, with Hansen selling the arm quite a bit and generally being way more giving overall compared to the 94 match. I read what you said about Honda's armbar and I expected that he'd just let Honda slap it on and sit in it, but there's some nice urgency in how he immediately goes for a counter and doesn't let Honda fully apply it. Finish makes sense when you consider each guys' place in the hierarchy and how it reinforces it. Honda left himself open for a second and that was all Hansen needed to score the knockout shot, getting across how dangerous he still was at that point. No, it wasn't a forgotten classic but it was good.

Yeah, I think it would cut off a lot of interesting discussion to have the lists mutually exclusive. It would be really cool seeing Frank Gotch get ranked alongside Misawa on the historical list or seeing people make the case for Buddy Rogers based on available footage on the main list. Could also be neat to make it all-encompassing to also consider other wrestlers influenced, training work, and matches produced. That way the discussion on footage guys wouldn't just be a retread of the main list. Also since it seemed the tag list got overshadowed by the main list during the last reveal, it might make sense to set the historical list deadline and results reveal a month or so earlier than the main list. That way there'd be time to put a spotlight on the results there while also building hype for the main list results reveal.

A separate list built around "positive historical impact" while clearly demarking the main list as based purely on performances in available matches or something to that effect seems a pretty good compromise. I've raised concerns in the past about how lists like these tend to shaft talented workers who have gaps in footage availability and give too much weight to workers whose promotions were better with footage, so it's nice to see others catching up to those concerns and them being addressed. I remember polls in the past showing a fair amount of people here do have some sort of interest in 50s or earlier wrestling history, so I don't doubt there being just as much if not more interest as the tag list got. Not really sure about putting in a footage limit for the main list, though. Given that we can rewatch stuff as much as we want, even if it was the only piece of footage we had of him, I think it's entirely reasonable that someone could argue the performance from Johnny Valentine in the Bull Curry match gave them more joy than most other guys' entire careers.

Barring stuff like CZW bumps off buildings, shouldn't it be a plus for these deathmatch guys that they're creative in finding ways to conjure up disturbing and violent imagery within the confines of a relatively sustainable style? Making something that looks like it's really damaging without actually leading to lasting injury is a fundamental skill in wrestling after all. Kind of shocked to see Abdullah Kobayashi didn't even get any discussion at all last time around, actually. Definitely thinking deathmatch guys got shafted.

What the hell people. WWE TV everybody hates is worth a thread every week but someone's death isn't? Has to be up there for most underrated indy performers of the last 20 years. Great mechanic who never really got his due. Best known for his stuff in ROH, but he actually seemed to develop his game quite a bit after leaving ROH. Here's a pretty cool wargames with him that surfaced recently.

Maybe I've been living in a cave, but never heard of there being heat between Rock and H. Thought it was just Rock and Michaels. Given that H losing power has led to Michaels taking over NXT, that's not very good revenge.

Yeah, people seem way to fast to assume it's just another drug relapse. This seems very different than, say, the match with Sting at Victory Road 2011. I'm definitely in the "wait and see" camp.

Couldn't it be just his body giving out on him? Dude's in his 40's, has had loads of substance abuse issues, and has put his body through hell in the ring. Sad to watch, but it's not exactly surprising if he just felt something was off and figured he'd be better off bailing than risking something serious happening.

Loving this thread. Awesome to see the undercard gems get documented like this.

Crazy Vince stories are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

There's also a relatively famous story of Hansen hitting Kobashi's arm with his cow bell during a house show tag in 1995, which led to him bleeding massive amounts of blood and was the reason behind him having to wear an elbow covering for a while. I also remember an RVD interview on his time in AJPW where he claimed having Hansen as his partner was even more dangerous than having Kobashi and Kawada stiff the hell even out of him as opponents.

I get not everyone's a fan of Triple H, but I'm a little surprised at how quiet people seem to be on Meltzer talking about his cardiac event being a serious thing that's led to him being kept away from high-stress positions since. This seems like a huge story if true. Seems like it would put serious breaks on the idea of him ever replacing Vince in the company or even moving beyond a figurehead/trainer role again, not to mention probably marking the end of him working 20 minute main event type matches.