dawho5

Hansen's matches against the Four Pillars and also Tenryu in the really late 80s are where he shines. For whatever reason, Hansen and Jumbo never really have great matches with each other. 4/16/89 is fun when Jumbo tries to out-Hansen Hansen, but it's not what that rivalry ought to have been.

Fuji has always been one of my favorite Toryumon/DG guys. Great stuff and I was wondering if you had links for the Yoshino/Mochizuki singles matches and that last 6 man you talked about.

vs. Ikeda 4/26/99 is on youtube, hits a lot of the right notes for me. They work all the different stuff that makes BatBat great, including lucha dives, giant swings and ridiculously stiff headbutts.

I've liked most Tanahashi matches I've watched. And most of the time when there's something I don't like, it's something that shows up in every other NJPW match from this era. So to me, that says that Tanahashi is doing a lot of things right. He is just working in modern NJPW which has some conventions I don't care for. Now the big question is, do I like the work being done by 100 other wrestlers enough to knock Tanahashi down off of the 100? If that's a no, I won't keep him on just to have a modern NJPW guy on the list. But at the same time I won't hold where he works against him if I see that the majority of the things I don't like in his matches are promotion-wide. I'll chalk that up to not liking the style while still appreciating how good Tanahashi is.

I try to look at stuff like modern NJPW and see strengths/weaknesses of the workers, how they adapt to different opponents, etc., when I watch. That's mainly because I don't care for the style. But I won't say that Tanahashi is an awful wrestler because of that. He's clearly a very gifted performer who just happens to wrestle within a system that I don't like (and to be honest he's not exactly suited for and somehow makes it work anyway, which makes me respect the guy quite a bit). I'm not saying I'd put him in my top 20, but he'd definitely get a vote.

I would absolutely agree as well. It's hard to fault Tanahashi for the aspects of his matches that are demanded by the promotion he wrestles in.

Preferably not in this thread though. I understand how things can move from topic to topic, but it's probably a good idea to migrate as they do for the purposes of GOAT stuff. Nobody will be looking for Kurt Angle stuff here.

Nagata is an odd one. When he got his first really big push he was clearly uncomfortable with the role he had to play. But when you get to 2007 (could have been before) he's grown into it and is really, really entertaining as the fired-up asskicker whenever somebody disrespects him. His best matches are against either Tanahashi (who the Hell does this guy think he is, anyway?) or anyone who cheats a lot and/or uses weapons to get the advantage. That riles Nagata up quick and makes for a fun watch.

I'm not a big fan of any names on your list I recognized, but I'll say this. It will be nice to have people advocating for them. I think for this to truly be a serious project, you need to at least take a short look at something outside your wheelhouse even if it doesn't last long. And it seems to me that group of wrestlers will bring at least the chance of that alongside stuff like joshi, lucha, WoS, etc. for a lot of people. Stuff like this ultimately becomes more about broadening your horizons and maybe discovering something you like that you might not have otherwise watched than just the ranking of wrestlers.

All you need is 3 per wrestler. So if you have the match threads, just post up a review for 3 matches and you will be fine. If not, make a thread somewhere (Microscope?) and get 3 reviews in that one.

I think that's one of his biggest problems. He works within the style of main events that he does, which for me handcuffs him. His match structure and execution is great, but it always leads to useless elbow/slap exchanges and endless nearfalls instead of following what is usually a good to great first 15-20 minutes. If you like that kind of ending tacked onto whatever match came before it, then he's fine for you. I don't care for it, but Tanahashi is easily one of the more entertaining guys over the later half of the 2000s and into 2014 as far as the New Japan guys go.

To be fair, a lot of the already nominated matches were 30 minutes or more. 30+ tends to wear me down more than I'd like to admit. My sweet spot is 18-25 minutes. Enough time to build something up, but not so much that it becomes a chore to watch if it's not done really well.

More lasers I say. Pew pew.

Crush Girls vs. JBA was really good. Starting to think the opening limbwork is very often treated this way in joshi matches, so it's just something I'm going to have to accept. One thing keeping it from being filler here is the execution. Finishing run is really well-executed. All four get some big nearfalls, they work a lot in between the falls with big moves strung together to set up the real and false finishes (2/3 falls). Yokota vs. Galactica was great as well. Galactica as the heel is really, really great. Attack during the intros, followed by Yokota mask ripping. Galactica goes to work on an arm and starts biting the fingers! (!!!) Yokota tries working a leg for a little bit but ends up having her arm destroyed. There's a cut above the bicep and Galactica finds interesting ways to work it. Yokota throws some bombs, but it may be too little too late. One thing I am noticing about Yokota is that she's very bomb-oriented and that isn't something I care for.

Since not many are volunteering matches, I'll throw one in. Fujinami vs. Nishimura 9/25/06 It takes place in Japan in 2006, but if you imagine it taking place in the 70s (would have worked well in the States too) it wouldn't have been out of place.

The match I mentioned earlier is: Ikeda/Ono vs. Suruga/Oba 4/9/09 There are better matches of the style out there, but it's more for the purpose of highlighting Ikeda in a role he's not in as often as that of the asskicker.

I don't have time at the moment, but there is a 2008 or 2009 Futen tag where Ikeda works mostly underneath against a guy who looks to be his protégé. It was an odd viewing in that Ikeda took on the role of Ishikawa for the match. After I get home this afternoon I will try to find an exact date.

I never got the need to rank things myself. I just watch the wrestling (or anything else, TV, movies) and decide if I love it, like it, am indifferent, disliked it or outright hated it. There are varying degrees between those, but the point for me is to find things that fall into the first few categories. Trying to actually rank things is always a bit of a challenge for me because I don't always look at things in comparison to something else. As to what Loss (Laser Loss?) is saying undermining the project I don't get it. Seems to me he wants to get it right and doesn't feel like he has the time to do so. That is something I can understand. Working on the 2000s thing I had to hold myself back from going through more than my top 15 again before submitting my ballot. But where is the cutoff point then? Do I get all the way to 100, reorder as necessary and start thinking, "Boy, I really need to take another look at top 20 to make sure I got it right"? But then, going back and watching a few that I hadn't put on my ballot I was really kicking myself for not doing it. So I absolutely understand where he's coming from as far as not wanting to submit a ballot that doesn't hold up to my own review.

This should cover your Ikuto Hidaka needs. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25965-masato-tanaka-ikuto-hidaka-vs-koji-kanemoto-ryusuke-taguchi-zero-one-030208/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25870-tatsuhito-takaiwa-naohiro-hoshikawa-vs-dick-togo-ikuto-hidaka-zero-one-122603/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25777-alexander-otsuka-tiger-mask-iv-vs-carl-malenko-ikuto-hidaka-battlarts-021301/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka There's more, but all you need is 3.

I tend to not worry about what you call a thing and more about if it's effective in doing the job it was meant to do. So call it whatever you like, but if somebody who has watched a lot of a certain wrestler wants to throw out match recommendations I'm perfectly happy to see them.

Of course Kawada/Taue had more great matches, they had a few more years to do so. I would guess that the two things working against Misawa/Kobashi is longevity and variety of opponents in their great matches. That being said, for being together for such a short time they really clicked as a tag team. Any time they wrestled Kawada/Taue it was a great match. I would call that a feather in the cap of both teams. I'm trying to think of any team with better double teams than Misawa/Kobashi, but not really coming up with many.

I'm a disc and a half through the 3 disc Best of SNME set. savage is by and large the MVP so far, with great matches against Jake and Bret. He gets a lot out of Honky Tonk Man and Andre as well as being a tremendous promo. I will say, both Hogan and Andre are better than I remember them. Hogan is great at working the crowd and getting them into a match even if he's not the most spectacular in-ring worker you'll ever watch. Andre has great facial expressions, knows when to give the other guy offense and is really good at making the face work to put him on his ass. Vince and Jesse on commentary (I'm still in 88, so no Gorilla yet) are phenomenal. They both are firmly in the camp of the face and heel sides respectively, but will give out grudging nods of respect when they are due.

Jaguar vs. Lioness was not to my tastes. The first 2/3 of the match was Yokota working over Lioness' leg and Lioness returning the favor, which was really good even without a lot of long-term selling. Then the finish was a bunch of big nearfalls with the legwork completely forgotten. The crowd loved it and a lot of the stuff thrown out was pretty amazing for 1985, but it had nothing to do with the 16 or so minutes that led up to it. Devil vs. Chigusa was great. Gritty throughout, everything was earned. By the end, both were dead on their feet trying to survive as much as put the other away. Finish was perfect for the way the match was worked. Amazing stuff.

I don't think he took any significant amount of time off from wrestling. He's a guy who you almost wish would have suffered a broken arm or leg or something and been forced to take time off (even if it was only 9 months or so). I mean, Kawada broke his orbital bone and he finished the damn match. And continued touring. If you don't think he's a little crazy after that I'm not sure what your criteria is.