donsem43

I guess somebody should nominate Saya Kamitani...

# of wrestlers made the list: 63 # of my top 50 that made the list/made top 50: 42/33 # of my top 25 that made the list/made top 25: 24/15 # of my top 10 that made the list/ made top 10: 9/4 # of wrestlers that ranked 101 to 200: 23 # of wrestlers outside the top 200 (Hipster Award): 14 # of wrestlers outside the top 500 (Contrarian Award): 4 Rank of my #1 wrestler: 2 (Bryan Danielson) Rank of list's #1 (Terry Funk) on my list: 12 # of wrestlers' high vote, excluding #1: 1 (Dick Murdoch) Exact placements: 1 (Arn Anderson (59), before the last correction I had 5 that were 1 spot off.) Highest ranking wrestler who do not make the list: 7 (Dick Murdoch, 148) Lowest ranking wrestler who made the list: 91 (Io Shirai/Iyo Sky, 65) Lowest ranking of wrestler on my list: 567 (Rusher Kimura, 95) Lowest ranking of wrestler on my top 50: 220 (Ron Garvin, 39) Lowest ranking of wrestler on my top 25 & top 10: 148 (Dick Murdoch, 7)

Some great character work by Tully and Arn in the early going of this one. They make it clear that a couple of himbos like the Rockers weren't going to beat a couple of men - real men - who knew the meaning of life. Of course, the Rockers see every cheapshot and blind double team attempt coming leading to both Tully and Arn doing some high quality stooging. Despite this the Rockers never really ever take full control of the match leading to Anderson grabbing Jannetty when attempts a flying headscissors on Blanchard and hotshotting him on the top rope. The Brain Busters don't actually control for very long before hit the finish which itself is kinda borked with Michaels clearly having his foot on the middle rope at an angle that the ref should have seen. The way the match is structure it comes of as a slightly better than what you would usually see on Prime Time or a Coliseum Video exclusive but nothing special.

CyberAgent will also be buying a part which makes me wonder how Japanese competition law works. Maybe they structured the sale to fit for government approval. It also possible that CyberAgent might already have the "For Sale" sign up on Noah or even CyberFight as a whole if they anticipated any issues. This great news for Stardom, which is staying with Bushiroad. I'm sure at least a chunk of the sale money will be reinvested into Stardom. It also frees them up for pursuing any sort of network deal or association without having to be beholden to TV Asahi.

In a interview with Tokyo Sports, Stardom president Okada stated that Hayashishita has not signed with the company yet. The expectation is that she will work the company's current tour then they will make a decision. He doesn't expect her to work with anyone else. That's probably the best way to approach it. I'm sure there are some in the Stardom locker room who aren't crazy about her coming back considering how the way the last couple of years have gone. This give a everybody a chance to air any grievances and possibly work them out.

And she shows up in Stardom on May 26, confronting Kamitani. I guess it not much of a surprise. When she announced she was leaving Marigold she said she wanted to face different opponents, and Stardom is much more liberal about letting talent work outside the company now. Hazuki is basically a freelancer that happens to have a Stardom contract. Hayashishita's also a Stardom trainee, unlike MIRAI, so the roster is more likely to welcome her back.

41 left total, 33 top 50, 21 top 25, 7 top 10 Surprised I have that many left other of than top 10.

Oh, he had it in the replies. The question plus explanationon why they didn't ask it: "if it were Shane McMahon and not Owen Hart who died in the ring, would you have stopped the show?". Michael, producer Bob Mackowycz Jr and I went back and forth and decided it was too heavy a question for the moment." When someone told that this was asked in the McMahon Netflix doc, this was his reply: "Yeah, years after thinking about it and prepping for it. I wanted this one as a more current question. There is no good answer for it, and I knew that other than maybe 'I'd remove myself and let Pat Patterson make the call'"

The question that Jeff Marek came up with but didn't ask was a doozy! I think most modern wrestling media would hurl themselves off a cliff before asking that in the same situation.

Maybe this is me being nitpicky, but should Asuka and Iyo be considered modern Joshi? Asuka has spent about half her career in WWE/NXT. Iyo has spent about two fifths of her career there and a longer time than what she spent in Stardom. Anyway, since a couple of people haven't checked them out I'll link to the YouTube playlist that I've made. Both of these have pretty much everything that has been uploaded by official WWE channels plus whatever matches I could find from their time in Japan. Asuka Playlist Iyo Sky/Io Shirai Playlist

This is mainly how Mercedes worked her way onto my list. Remember in the Horsewomen era when people knocked her because they felt she wouldn't be any good outside of the ultra rehearsed environment of NXT. Now, in the last few years, she's had very good if not great matches with a wide variety of opponents in a wide variety of places. I wrote this in his nomination thread but I'll repeat it here. He's a pro wrestling Mary Sue.

I guess this is a street fight if you count the gym parking lot as part of the street. Anyway, Bad News controls this from the jump Savage as he tries to enter the ring. Savage's only real offense the entire match is some weight belt shots. We get a ref bump after he gets collected by Bad News getting reverse whipped into a table. Bad News gets a visual pin but the ref is still out. Savage gets the win after he slips over a slam attempt to hook a backslide with a second ref counting the pin. While this was super short, less than seven minutes, it was pretty fun. A bit Memphis like in that the post-match was about as long as the match itself.

Somebody wasn't happy with that drop in the GWE.

Iyo Sky being 80th at worst is wild...

Stardom has uploaded one of the best top to bottom cards in company history to YouTube. The 3 title matches + Hazuki/SLK are worth the time to watch.

Back in the early 00's you had people going through all of the AJW and JWP (post split) commercial tapes. The first run of AJW Classics on Samurai TV. GAEA and Arsion were still fresh in people's minds. All of that talk fizzled out after 2006. I didn't help the current joshi scene at that time was deader than an already dead scene in Japan. Things didn't start to really pick up until Meltzer started talking about Stardom, specifically the 12/23/15 Io Shirai/Meiko Satomura match. Then newer fans started watching 90's AJW and some Japanese fans started uploading tonnes of 80's AJW up on YouTube. With current joshi, barely any Stardom wrestlers were nominated. Maybe Kamitani and Starlight Kid do well but AZM finished down at 385 and she's fairly well regarded outside of joshi circles. On the Horsewomen, only Mercedes is the only one who hasn't had drop in favour since the start of the decade. People's view on her might have dropped to if she stayed in WWE.

The only thing that I can think of is people finding BAHU's work and really getting into it. It can't just be a deathmatch thing otherwise someone like Masashi Takeda would have done way better. I thought I was being optimistic thinking he would making it past 250. It's extremely rare to see anyone talk about he in-ring work these days. Reading the non-troll #1 votes it getting more and more clear to me that younger fans need to feel a personal investment with a wrestler in order to think of them as one of the greats. If you are someone bemoaning the drop of World of Sport and older territory guys and want to change that, you need to realize that just going "(Wrestler X) is great!" then listing a handful of matches that people need to watch isn't going to get the job done. You need to a more elaborate, involved sell job than that.

Before this thread, I had only spent about 30 seconds thinking about Lulu Pencil and I watch a lot of joshi wrestling. After I read this thread for last time I'll doubt I'll think about Lulu Pencil for more than 30 seconds. Anyway, I have 69 left. 42 in my top 50.

24.5% of the people who voted started watching in 2010 or later. You're not going reach these people in ways that were common ten years ago. Twitter engagement has been replaced by TikToks/IG Stories/YouTube Shorts. Blog posts have been replaced by video essays. Podcasts have been replaced by interactive streams. You also have to find a way to package it in an attractive way plus find a catchy way to sell it. You can't just plop it in front of people saying "Watch this it's great!" That won't work these days.

I have 76 left but there's about 15 or so, including 4 in my top 50, that I'm genuinely surprised that they have last as long as they have.

Ron Garvin is the closest I've come to a top vote. I had him at 39. Asuka, Arisa Nakajima, Meiko Satomura, Dynamite Kansai, Manami Toyota, Akira Hokuto, Shinobu Kandori, Bull Nakano, Dump Matsumoto, Chigusa Nagayo, Lioness Asuka, Jaguar Yokota and Devil Masami. That's two dozen women left. More than 10% of those left to be named. Not bad, about what I would've guess before this started. Shocked Saya Kamitani didn't get a last minute nomination. She could have at least been in this range fueled by recency bias. Considering how many people pump up her tires, Mio Momono ranking is fairly surprising.

Comedy wrestlers not just getting on lists but receiving extremely high votes.

This is the start of their rivalry that would last for nearly the next 2 years. At this point, Anou had really put everything together as a wrestler while Iwata was snapping the final few pieces into place. The early back and forth is pretty even. Iwata has a clear advantage in striking while Anou does better when the pace quickens. A short excursion to the outside turn the tide in Anou's favour when she kicks out Iwata's leg when she attempts to do a running kick on the apron. Anou's attack zeros in on the injured leg even busting out a Figure 8. Iwata manages to stay in the match with some well timed submission counters and getting kicks in at any opportunity. This goes to a 15 minute draw but the time flies by so quickly that you'd swear it only went half that time. So pretty good chirping at the end foreshadows the future between these two. ***¾

I don't actually mind pre Shield breakup Rollins. Post breakup though...

This is quite the sprint. Just like the Toronto match, Steamboat is in complete control in the early going but he goes for a top rope splash and ends up eating Robert's knees. Jake follows up by focusing in Steamboat's midsection and keeps going back to it throughout the match. Steamboat keeps firing back in strike exchanges to stay in the match. He eventually gets lucky catching Roberts with a crucifix for the win. It's a shame that they had another flash pin finish but at least this one was less awkward then in Toronto.