dawho5

4/18/91 is also a must-watch Hansen match. Anything vs. Kobashi after 1992 is probably going to be really good to great. His CC in 1994 was nothing short of spectacular. Then he ends up doing not a whole lot that is the good kind of noteworthy until the 1999 RWTL and the 2000 reboot match.

Which most people will do after starving their way through years in the indies. I can't imagine it's a tough call for anybody. Put your body through the wringer unnecessarily for years on end making little to no money with the chance that you might get screwed out of a paycheck or work a much less punishing style for more, guaranteed money. As much as fans want everything to be about their needs, most guys aren't going to make that sacrifice when they could be living better regardless of what the output is in terms of match quality.

I would agree on what Marty said for about all of it. This match was an example of what they could do with the women's division given a little buildup and gravitas. The early match with Charlotte being outwrestled and having to use her length to keep Nattie away was really well done with lots of struggle. I also dug the slapping and chippiness as the match wore on, especially given how they built to it with Nattie taunting the Flairs and Ric going nuts on the outside. Like it or not, rope running is a part of WWE style wrestling that you're not going to get away from in any match. It wasn't as extreme here as a lot of the men's matches are with half of what you see coming off of the ropes, so I won't complain too much. The ending of the match was really exhibition-y and needed a lot of tweaking. Instead of all the fast rolling, maybe have Natalya keep Charlote on her stomach a bit longer before Charlotte rolls back through. And finally, I liked Paige/Emma a lot more than this based on ring work. If that had been given this kind of atmosphere it would have been absolutely incredible. Looking forward to the Charlotte/Sasha explosion now. In addition, when are they going to get the idea that they need to give people gimmicks that will work on the big show right away? Look at Emma and Adam Rose. Hugely over with the NXT crowd because they have layers. Both have a serious side that comes out in the ring and legitimizes their character despite the goofiness. But they seem to forget that once you hit Raw and Smackdown there are no layers. There's just the big, cartoony "I AM THIS" gimmicks. So you look at Tyler Breeze or Alexa Bliss and you know they aren't going to make it past NXT with any kind of success because the layers that go into their characters are necessary for the audience to buy into them.

Great show as always. I have loved Kobashi in every match I've seen him wrestle in 1993. Kawada has less great stuff to his name very likely because he was always in the secondary role through 92 and was less developed for at least 1990. That and when he had shots against somebody like Jumbo or a big name gaijin in the first three years he seemed to hold back quite a bit. Misawa's dive sequences are more about avoiding a big whiff. When people started moving out of the way he'd grab the ropes and flip over to set up the apron dives. Athletic stuff like that and the diving elbow or frog splash are Misawa staples all the way until the end of his run in All Japan. It seems like underdogs in All Japan take a larger portion of the offense in a match than almost anywhere else. I think it has something to do with Misawa's way of portraying the ace role. He would let the action come to him and counter, which very often meant somebody like Kawada would get in 75% of the offense in a singles match. It almost seems like a way of putting the challenger/underdog over by making them look good for being able to take it to the other guy for so long despite losing. I also think that this reflects in a lot of finishing stretches where if you have the little time bar down on the bottom of your screen it's almost detrimental to your viewing enjoyment. When you see about five minutes left in the match and somebody puts together a long string of nearfalls the first reaction is, "that guy is taking the fall." As for Fuchi, he was always going to be an afterthought after a while. He was a junior heavyweight, which automatically put him lower than even Kobashi in 1991. And his style of offense doesn't work in the post-Jumbo era. Once Misawa & co. start getting away from weardown submissions and a lot of the 70s/80s stuff Fuchi has a lot harder time fitting in to matches against them. Not to mention they all outrank him by a long, long way. I'm not saying it never happens, just that it becomes more rare. Akiyama is a perfect Fuchi opponent for sure though. I do think that Fuchi, along with Jumbo, had a very critical role in teaching the younger generation how to work from 1990-92. There is a great Fuchi vs. Kawada match from 7/18/1991 that I think both of you would love. It shows how Kawada could work outside the box as early as mid-91 as well as showcasing how great Fuchi was during that era.

I enjoyed this show despite never seeing any of the footage. I enjoyed Steven's joke, but I think it needs a certain audience to get over. I would, however, love to see that Heenan vs. Fuji match. From watching old WWF/WWWF footage, the thing that stands out to me more than anything is how into the shows and performers the crowds were as opposed to today. Even midcard guys would be getting huge responses. But today it's special cases like Bryan where the majority of fans get into one guy enough to get that kind of reaction. Or the big reaction Cena gets because of his circumstances. For whatever reason, very likely the death of kayfabe, wrestling fans seem to have a harder time getting behind what they see.

I doubt it had to do with much besides necessity and fit. Without Jumbo the war was really one-sided. Sure Taue was a big name, but even Jumbo with Taue would have been hard pressed to hold off Misawa, a much improved Kawada to the point of being almost on Misawa's level and a heavily pushed Kobashi. Taue had at best Fuchi on his side, and Fuchi was behind Kobashi before the 1993 Kobashi push. Sure Akiyama and Ogawa were around, but that wasn't going to compare to the firepower on the other side. So you look at Misawa's side and Kawada is easily the most heelish of the bunch. Kobashi is 100% pure babyface and Misawa is the reason his "side" exists. So you pull the guy who is closest to Misawa in card placement, who is also easily as prickish as Taue in a different way, and put him in the top spot opposite Misawa with a role reversal. Instead of Misawa chasing down Jumbo, Kawada is emerging from Misawa's shadow and wants to take on his former squad leader to prove that he can be just as big. It also frees up Akiyama to go to his more natural side in the face/heel spectrum at this point. It's also been suggested on this site that Kawada and Taue knew how to bring the best out in one another and teaming them made a lot of sense because of that. I figure it was the only viable option for Baba at that point that didn't involve bringing in outside talent.

The fact that Kawada took until 98 to get his first "real" singles win over Misawa seems pretty widely accepted as the main reason Kawada was never truly seen as capable of being an ace regardless of what came after. It also seems to be seen as one of Baba's big booking errors. My own feeling is that Kobashi being the secondary ace rather than Kawada is largely due to his comparably meteoric rise. I know it took a while, but when you compare it to how long it took Kawada to beat Misawa in a contested singles match it was really fast. Also factor in that Taue had beaten Misawa in singles competition well before Kawada had. I will say for the 1997 Kawada "win" that Kawada's facial expressions during that few minutes were absolutely sublime.

For me it was also a downhill slope because of what it had to follow. It was the extension of Misawa's vision for All Japan, which was more and more excessive as the 90s went on. So it was always going to be a journey forward into more excess. The only saving grace was going to be the new supporting cast developing. As it turns out the best that should have been expected was a crew of midcard supporting players that fill up the card far better than ate 90s AJPW ever could. At least for the first nine or ten years. Part of what hurt NOAH was how everyone was trying so hard to be on the level of the Four Pillars right away. If they had moved their young guys through stages the way Misawa and crew came up it would have been far better for business over time. But what they did was have young guys in 20+ minute matches far before they were ready without a veteran in the ring to guide them. There were a few occasions where Misawa and co. were stuck into longish singles matches with each other before 1993, but those are the exception rather than the rule. And those matches show plenty of promise despite their flaws while the tags those same wrestlers had with one another were far more consistently good. It also helped that they weren't trying to live up to some impossible standards set by the generation before them.

Bray is a three or four spot guy for me. He has those nice spots where he really throws his momentum into it and they look real explosive, but everything else is middle of the road at best. Ryback is yet another failed WWE big man who is almost all physique with little to no in-ring skill. At this point my big question is what sort of attribute does Triple H and/or Steph value that will define future WWE failures in the way that Vince's physique obsession has for the 80s, 90s, 0s and 10s?

I have to comment on the DDT, atomic drop, and back drop. These are all very dependent on the person taking them to make them look devastating. For the DDT watch some mid-90s Akiyama or Misawa (with Roman reigns as part of the Shield coming in a close third). Reigns is also great at making an atomic drop look great. For examples of both by Reigns the 2013 Shield vs. Rhodes feud is good material. As far as the backdrop I think Eddy Guerrero was a guy who made spots like this way better than they normally were. Somehow he would get ridiculous amounts of height on his bumps for these as well as monkey flips. Throw in whatever name you give the move where a guy tosses the opponent straight up in the air and watches them come down on their face/stomach. For whatever reason Eddy could get a lot out of "height" bumps and I always thought that added to his matches against anyone remotely bigger than him.

I question the idea of "accuracy" here. Clearly this is very subjective material that involves a lot of personal biases and feelings towards the wrestling that is being watched. If I think a certain wrestler or style is boring I'm probably not going to put much time or effort into watching. Even if it's something that's been critically acclaimed and is almost universally thought of as great. I disagree with Dylan on Jumbo, but I do understand how he feels about watching him. I can't in any way pretend that it would be wrong of him to leave Jumbo off his 100 if he honestly hates watching Jumbo wrestle. Regardless of anyone's opinion on Jumbo, I can't imagine anyone would make the argument that he ought to include Jumbo despite his feelings because they feel the guy is basically a shoe-in. If that were the case there wouldn't be the need for everyone scrambling to watch all of this footage. I'm sure everyone on here has seen names on this list that they absolutely disagree with and will not put the time into watching. That's one of the main reasons I think accuracy is a hard thing to achieve. However many different ballots are submitted seems equal to the amount of sets of criteria that were used that went into those ballots. Dylan, Parv, Bill, Ackermann, OJ, jdw, Loss and Tim would very likely have different-looking ballots based on their own views on wrestling with different explanations as to why each wrestler was given the spot they were. Which is the right one if we're looking for accuracy. And I think it's hard to have a project like this without some novel picks thrown in, be it because of somebody's personal preference or an attempt to be different by putting an unlikely name really high (or low, or on the ballot, etc.) It's going to happen, but the more ballots you get the less it's going to impact anything. Overall, I think that one of the most difficult aspects of this kind of project is the "what is everyone else going to do?" factor. It's really easy to get wrapped up in trying to make things happen the way you think they ought to. But the reality of it is you're going to have an incredibly diverse amount of responses, many of which don't line up with your way of thinking. The best you can do is put the time and thought into your own list that you can (given how much time you get to watch wrestling) and have that to fall back on when you start second-guessing this or that placement. I can see trying to make a convincing argument for your favorite wrestlers as it becomes an issue, but at a certain point it is on the other voters to see the things they want in the wrestling. You can't force them to see somebody differently if they aren't going to. To Dylan's point above, late career Kobashi is hit and miss, with the misses driving me up a god damn wall. If I do make a 100 I can't see him below 30, but there are ways that his very late 90s and 2000s matches wear on my last nerve to the point where higher than that is not going to happen. This despite my absolute LOVE for his early career. I actually think there is a connection between that and my hatred for his later career, but that's for another topic. This is more to highlight the idea that personal biases will show up everywhere you look. I'm not going to say that Kobashi isn't a great talent, but I personally refuse to rate the guy very highly because he gets on my nerves.

I'd venture to say that a lot of the handling of Akiyama in his early NOAH run had a lot to do with him not drawing. Instead of him keeping momentum after his big Misawa win in Febuary while still in AJPW, he ends up losing steam in his first Misawa singles match. If you want a guy to be the new Ace you have to commit to that push.

I think I may have been worse when I answered the Plan Nine From Outer Space question right while listening to Brainbuster. I only know of it because of a MST3K spinoff, but it's still kind of embarrassing that it was one of the very few answers I knew that show.

That seems like a really effective way of teaching on the job. I don't like the idea that "being carried" is necessarily a bad thing for the wrestler who was. If you were a young guy in the ring with Steamboat or Flair in the mid 80s and beyond, where is the shame in letting them teach you something about wrestling? The only time I can see this being a problem is if the guy being carried is a 45 year old veteran who just never had the intelligence or ambition to learn ring psychology or how to work a match. The whole idea of having veteran guys work with younger guys is precisely so the younger guy can pick up a few tricks of the trade as they mature.

The Bryan spot that got me was him taking the Sister Abigail off the barricade at RR 2013. That was way too much impact for that unsafe of a spot. I'm all for guys making things look good but there has to be a line.

I can only think of one other brawl that can compete with this match. This is (depending on the day) my favorite or second favorite match of all time. I know it's not the best, but I don't care one bit. If you ever wanted to ask me what I love about pro wrestling, watch this and Tully vs. Magnum Starrcade 85. I could try to answer you with words, but none of them would be as accurate as my two favorite wrestling matches. Something that stood out to me on this watching of it was how the 92 TC match was referenced with the Hansen legwork, as well as Kawada's great reversal of Hansen's earlier tit-for-tat wrestling with the lariat nearfalls during the finishing stretch. That and how great Hansen's tumble from the ring after the lariat was. I've read about Jeff Hardy's ability to make his falls look not like a guy who was trained to fall, but like a guy who is falling. That's what I got from Hansen falling out of the ring. One thing you always get from Hansen when he's on is that everything seems organic. That's something I think Kawada very much took from Hansen over the years.

I thought this match started absolutely great. Fuchi kept ramping up the violence as it went to the point where it gets really, really uncomfortable. By the end I actually wanted the match to end so Kikuchi's neck and spine might live to see another day. Maybe it's the knowledge that Misawa met his end because of stuff like this, but it got hard to watch Kikuchi keep getting up. Great stuff leading into the finish and I imagine there are those who don't mind the finish.

In regards to your discussion of cage matches and escape rules, I understand keeping it out of a blood feud for sure. The one time I see that being a viable stip is when you have the most chickenshit of heels who keeps eluding the babyface until the point they have to lock the guy in a cage to get any kind of match out of him. I would also like to point out how it is that Marty (a known Titans associate) and Kelly are the only champions of Brainbuster so far. Anyone else think that there is some sort of Titans conspiracy going on here?

This is a lead-in tag to the singles match in the same month. All the Hansen vs. Kawada teasing you'd expect is there and it is done really well. As a bonus you get Kobashi vs. Hansen. Take into consideration this is just before Kawada jumps over to team with Taue and it's one of the last tours you're going to see this team together (and it's against one of their best opponents in Hansen.) Kobashi is in the middle of his big singles push and Kawada has been steadily rising for a while, so it makes their Hansen interactions very interesting. Oh, and there's some fun with a chair in the ring and a dance around anyone hitting a legal man with it. AND (I saved the best part for last) Kawada "welcomes RVD to All Japan." In, of course, frighteningly evil ways.

If (and I do mean if) all of this talk is founded in reality and Bryan is on the way out, we at the very least got to see him get his moment in the sun at WM last year. I doubt there's a more deserving guy on the roster and I imagine he will put as many guys over as he can on the way out. Not that it will matter once they get re-buried in their subsequent feuds to keep the parity.

I have to think that the "evil authority figure" that seems omnipresent since the MNW started has to have a lot to do with it. What's the point of having someone abusing their power as GM/owner/show supervisor/commissioner/whatever if they don't pick on the main babyfaces and stack the deck against them? How are you going to announce a main event one week and have it consistently changed at the whim of whomever has been put into that role without pissing the fans off regularly?

No argument there goc, that's Ogawa's career match. Partially because you get this palpable sense of Kobashi wanting to wanting nothing more than to kill the little shit once he gets his hands on him.

Kawada wasn't ready to beat Misawa in 94. He had just gotten embarrassed in July of 93 with the massively lopsided finish. The 6/94 match was his "almost" match to put him right on the doorstep and rightly so. It's just that it took four more years for him to finally get that singles win and that killed him. The obvious recent one is HHH vs. Sting. After watching WM 30 I was almost impressed with Triple H's willingness to put people over. But I watched 31 first, so I knew better.

They get better after 1991, but I hated watching them in that year. It seemed like they took the idea of being pushed as "take 80% of the offense in the early match." And they seem to like just laying/standing around in rest holds. Worst match for me was when Misawa/Kawada turned the tables and laid around in rest holds for the majority of the early match. It seemed like some kind of Bizarro Hell wrestling match.

HHH/Steph vs. Rock Rousey w/Stone Cold as ref Sting vs. Undertaker double retirement match NWO vs. DX six man tag Daniel Bryan in some meaningless midcard multi-man/multi-tag team match John Cena facing the newest midcard sensation...and going over Lots of now NXT guys and midcarders in the Andre Battle Royal with somebody who doesn't need it going over I'm sure there's one more midcard feud that shows up, a long-winded Triple H promo with Rock interruption and a diva's match in the piss break spot. I went with less my fantasy booking and more the likely suspects. Depressing as they may be.