Venegas

05-06 Roderick Strong is up there, easily. Bonus points for having a bunch of great matches built entirely around his chops, too.

I was one of the two who voted for Super Crazy. I'm kinda shocked he wasn't on more ballots. Longevity may not be in his favor but in 99/00 very few in the world were as fun to watch.

Finlay vs Sami Callihan I and II from EVOLVE 9 and 11 are arguably the two best indie matches of the decade.

Regal's match vs Hash from 95 was a legit all time great match and an all time great performance by him.

I think the whole 'not being a real heel' thing had more to with the ROH fans than Bryan's ability/inability to garner organic heat. Maybe Bryan did indeed have a 'wink wink' approach to his shtick, but so did the fans. The same fans who would boo him 5 minutes into the match would chant 'Best In The World' afterwards. It would've seemed ridiculous in 1980 Memphis, but for 2006 ROH that's the type of crowd they were playing to. These were the same fans who cheered CM Punk for manipulating them with the most brilliant heel turn in modern wrestling history.

I have Volk Han at #4, and Bryan Danielson at #2. I suspect I'm the highest voter for both. Kawada has a very good chance at finishing #1 once I watch more of him.

It's definitely an outside the box idea that can be seen as low risk, high reward. I say why not?

Timothy Thatcher vs Drew Gulak from FIP Everything Burns.

I'm working my way through the Buddy Rose comp made by Will. I'll write at length about Rose once I finish the set.

How do you take a guy like Volk Han, for example, who made tape around 50 times, and compare him to say, Bret Hart who has made tape thousands of times? I bring this up because in my opinion, Volk Han has about 5 matches that are better than any match Bret Hart has ever had. So, peak Volk Han vs peak Bret Hart is clearly in the favor of Volk Han. But, what about the hundreds of matches that Bret proved to be a great worker in compared to the 50 matches of Volk Han? It depends on how you measure quality over quantity. Bottom line, 'peak' performances/periods are usually tie-breakers of sorts when comparing workers, but you can't ignore everything else. However, how a performer was at his absolute best to me is probably the most important thing when looking at a worker historically.

Here's a link to Hero/Davey: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2bbnev_herovsrichards2_sport I really suggest going into this with an open mind. I enjoyed it a lot.

In 2010-2011, I discovered/fell in love with independent wrestling. ROH was all the rage in the circles I frequented on the Internet. The guy who I heard the most about, was Davey Richards. Everyone loved this guy. Some even thought he was the best in the world. I remember 14 year old me watching some matches and really liking him as well. In fact, the first live ROH iPPV I watched was Best In The World 2011, when he won the title. He was my favorite wrestler for a while afterwards. Now, more than three years later, a lot of my views on wrestling have done a complete 180. Honestly, I haven't even bothered to go back and watch Davey Richards in a long time. Here's one I actually haven't seen before: Davey Richards -vs- Chris Hero; ROH Only The Strong Survive. Charolette, NC. Okay, first things first, let's establish some context here. Davey suffered a concussion in his last match vs Roderick Strong. It was pretty crazy because people were legit worried if it was a work or a shoot. So, who does he face in his first match back? The most lethal striker in the company, of course. They start off with some sweeeet mat work. Real neat stuff. Davey probably falls into the Kurt Angle category as someone who does too much running around when they could be a freakin' awesome modern Volk Han on the mat if they watched a few RINGS tapes. Hero kills Davey with strikes and kicks in this. I'm talking elbows, kicks to the back of the head, jumping spinning kicks, anything. Davey did a reaaaaaaally good job at selling the concussion. Real cringeworthy stuff that at times made you feel like you wanted the match to end for the sake of his health. A lot of Davey's criticism comes from the fact that he may kick out of/do too many moves, but I didn't see it here. There were times where I about to throw the overkill flag but Davey would redeem it buy immediately shaking the cobwebs and selling his loopyness. He would always go back to selling his concussion after doing a big move or coming down from an adrenaline rush. The concussion was pretty much the basis of the match. Late into the match, Davey attacks the arm that his drilling his brain in with some nasty armbar variations, and kimuras. Hero busted out everything, in a good way. In a "I'm gonna have to unload shit I usually save for when need be" way. Springboard moonsaults, piledrivers, all sorts of shit. Davey wins with a shooting star press, a spot he only busts out in big matches. Excellent match. Loved it. I can't speak for Davey's other matches, but this right here was a gem. Hero was great here as well.

He had already been scheduled for Comicon. He appeared on Kimmel not too long after he won the belt. Hell... look at his regular appearances on Talking Dead. He has sung Take Me Out to the Ball Park at Wrigley. Whatever media appearances you would have Cena do; you have Punk do with "his own" film crew. He could have done Robot Chicken. Fuck man, the more I think about it... he could have been all over the place. I know you are the defender of all WWE booking but this was all about building up his return... not rushing it and it ended up meaning nothing. He also wanted to stand behind the glass of Good Morning America holding the title. Something like that would've generated a crazy amount of buzz, in the wrestling world at the very least.

Obviously on a much smaller scale, but Low Ki challenging Samoa Joe for the ROH World Title in late '04 would've been huge.

Okada beating Tanahashi in 2012 was pretty big. Aries beating Joe? I know some say that expected but watching show by show Aries didn't seem nearly as big of a threat as Punk, Danielson, or Homicide.

Well, this match is a fucking beaut. I've seen very little PWFG, basically a few Fujiwara matches and the excellent Sano/Suzuki match, but this right here is the best match I've seen from the promotion, and really rivals the best stuff from any other shoot style promotion. They set the tone early with some real nifty mat work. For the first 10-15 minutes, it was pretty much all Shamrock and he was a total beast. Attacking from everywhere and cracking Sano's turtle position numerous times. Side note, but as a grappler I found myself wanting to yell at Shamrock to go for the seatbelt sweep (lock on the seatbelt underhooks, hook your foot on there's and roll back) and lock on a rear naked choke! Grappling has evolved since 1991 but that's literally a beginners technique nowadays and it was open so many times, lol. Anyways, what really set this match from great shoot style match to holy shit this is fucking brilliant status were the strike exchanges. Whenever they'd reach a stalemate on the mat they'd stand toe to toe and just fucking unload on each other, like something out of Gatti/Ward I or Corrales/Castillo I. Very well done too, and the crowd ate it up. So much to say about the mat work done but it was just beautiful from start to finish. The knockdowns were very well done and each one actually felt significant, like it would in a boxing fight. Sano bought some elite selling and probably lead the way, but Shamrock was a freakin' beast all around too. Finishing stretch was very well done. This match is one of my all time favorites now. So glad I watched it.

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him. The NWA champion was SUPPOSED to look vulnerable and like he could lose the title at any time, that was his role. Misawa's role was to be the ace. They are two entirely different roles. The NWA champion was only coming into the territory for a few times a year and you WANTED the fans to think that he could lose every time.The idea of the 'World Champion' getting his ass kicked in every match only for his opponent to slip on a banana peel and lose is just absurd to me. Yeah, you want the local star to look good, but, shit, you're the WORLD CHAMP, shouldn't you look like one? I'd much rather have the fans think "wow, I'm proud of our guy, he came so close but hey, that's the champ" as opposed to "OUR GUY THAT SCREWED! THAT GUY DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE A CHAMP!" The former is a win-win situation, while the latter is making the local hero look good at the expense of the guy who is supposed to be the world champion. I'll continue to go back to the Mayweather analogy. I don't think anyone has gotten much flak for losing to him, if anything, most became bigger stars just for stepping into the ring with him, because he's THE man. That's what a world champion should be.

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him.

What if NBA fans started to rebel against every NBA game that didn't have a three point shot or a slam dunk in every play? What if NFL fans booed every play that wasn't a Hail Mary to the end zone? Case in point, I don't see how it's tolerable that the fans are the ones dictating how a match should look/work. As far as guys getting over in front of certain crowds, I agree that sometimes you can't completely tone out the crowd and not play to them in some form or fashion, but does that mean that Timothy Thatcher is supposed to trade in his excellent technique for unrealistic, choreographed looking highspots? Is Drew Gulak supposed to drop selling in the closing stretch of his matches to get a non-organic reaction while totally disregarding the work done the entire match? I'm just sick of the idea that the fans should be the one dictating how a match should be worked. On the flip side, I think this lies on the workers to a degree as well. How many guys in the world today can draw ORGANIC emotion from the crowd based on the story of a match? Not many, which is why PWG fans (for lack of a better stereotype/example) are so used to spotty, 'OOHHH AHHH' matches as opposed to getting behind the face in peril, or getting frustrated when their guy can't put his opponent away. Chris Hero said it best in his seminar video, it's becoming World Star Hip Hop wrestling. You're walking down the street and you see a fight break out. What will most people do nowadays? Probably pull out their phone, record it, tell their friends "yo I saw a fight lol" and put it up on World Star. Why? Because you have zero emotional attachment to the people involved. Now, what if someone walked up to your mom and punched her in the face. You would feel angry, right? You'd feel emotional, because you have a relationship with that person. There's very few guys out there that are making the effort to get the crowd emotionally behind them as opposed to trying to be the guy that the crowd says "oh yeah, his match is next! This should be fun!" only to forget about it the day after, and rinse wash repeat for every show.

It's stupid. Show that gif to any non-wrestling fan and I'll guarantee you it'll be met with laughter. That's the thing, though. People who share similar tastes to you look at posters on PWO/WKO etc. and assume that they're being over-analytical but it's really just using common sense. That's a stupid, business exposing spot that makes no sense, especially when you consider they were a half hour into their match.

Super under rated. If they didn't have their ROH match in March 2002, this would be remembered a lot more. I don't even necessarily think the ROH match is better - it's just that more people have seen it and both guys were overall better 9 months later. May try to upload this tonight for more people to see. OMG PLEASE!!!! I've been looking for that match for so long, it would be much appreciated.

2004. I haven't seen much 2004 ROH in awhile, and my views on wrestling have drastically changed since, but although I may have a different opinion on some of the matches that I thought highly of, the booking and structure of the product may have been the best for a US company since the 80s.

I thought their match from Philly/Driven was their best and a 2007 MOTYC. Totally different from the other ones and probably the best ROH 'epic' style match. That's when Bryan was incorporating more Jiu Jitsu/MMA offense so the mat sections in that match were something else. I thought they built to the finish very well. I'll rewatch it and give a more descript review but I could see that one being up most peoples' alley.

I don't either. TJP vs Kyle O'Reilly was one of the best matches I've seen from anywhere on earth last year and it was very much a shoot style/Lucha mat based match with logical work. But, bush league/business exposing garbage like no selling and finisher spamming is going to be bush league/business exposing garbage no matter where it's done.

How is that a good thing re: PWG having one style of wrestling? I actually think that's one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to indie wrestling. Why should an audience dictate the way you work your match? Why does every match have to look/feel the same? By the way, I think Ki/Danielson and Ki/Hero are two of the best matches in PWG history, and by the end of both they had the crowd going crazy by what? Logical narrative with meaningful work/selling where most transitions came from the mat? *gasp* and I know that's pre-Reseda PWG but point is if you're good enough, you can have any crowd adapt to your style, which is how it should be, not vice versa. Last comment on this, but didn't Finlay vs Kevin Steen receive a 'This Is Awesome' chant? Re: Sami. I agree with Dylan in that anyone who was consisted the best wrestler in the world should get a look. Had an excellent series of matches that actually topped my MOTY lists two years in a row. There's a lot he can do from here to 2016, so I'll probably take a closer look at his spot on the list when/if he gets called up.