Venegas

There's a bunch of Tamon Honda that I haven't seen, but based off of the Kobashi match and the Daisuke Ikeda match, he absolutely looks like an all time great. I was going to make a list of matches for myself to watch since there's actually a ton of footage of him on Youtube and whatnot but I'll share it for the benefit of the project. vs Gary Albright; AJPW 09/12/95 w/ Masao Inoue vs Shinya Hashimoto & Tadao Yusuda; ZERO-1 04/18/01 vs Daisuke Ikeda; NOAH 09/01/01 vs Jun Akiyama; NOAH 05/09/01 vs Mitsuharu Misawa; NOAH 03/25/02 vs Akitoshi Saito; NOAH 03/01/03 vs Takuma Sano; NOAH 03/16/03 vs Kenta Kobashi; NOAH 04/13/03 w/ Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito; NOAH 06/06/03 w/ Kenta Kobashi vs Minoru Suzuki & Naomichi Marufuji; 05/17/05 w/ KENTA vs Naomichi Marufuji & Minoru Suzuki; 08/19/05 Feel free to add to it if I'm missing anything.

I still have a TON to watch, but at this point someone is going to have to dethrone Volk Han.

FIP Everything Burns (Thatcher/Gulak) and CZW To Infinity (Gulak/Busick) also check out the Thatcher/Busick match from Beyond which is on YouTube for free.

Thatcher is a legitimately skilled catch wrestler and helped instruct seminars alongside Billy Robinson.

Not sure why some people seem to think that there's some sort of anti-indie agenda on PWO/WKO. All anyone really does is point out the obvious fundamental flaws in a lot of the guys who work the super indies.

When dudes are exposed as complete non athletes, I can usually no longer take them very seriously or suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy them. That doesn't necessarily relate to Lawler or why I don't think much of him, but I will say he's very much a late 70's, early 80's type of wrestler, which for me was a pretty dry era loaded with guys who in my opinion would be badly exposed today due to a lack of athleticism. Not so much Lawler, who would probably get over in any era due to his charisma. With that said, I do think Lawler was very fortunate to be in the territory he happened to be in though. Even by the standards of the time, he wouldn't have been as accepted in some other places where the workrate demands were different. I would also argue that from a match quality standpoint, worldwide pro wrestling has never been better than 2013 & 2014. Of course, that's obviously a matter of opinion. I think All Japan glory days would fit right in today, as would vintage ROH (which is sort of cheating, because we're talking stuff only a few years old). Pretty much everything else is being blown to bits by what today's wrestlers are doing in the ring athletically & creatively. As a whole, high level pro wrestlers have never been smoother or as refined as they are right now, and that's because as a whole we're dealing with far superior athletes, and the training is far superior too. There is no more nonsensical & useless stretching taking place, or silly nonsense like not smartening guys up until they hit the ring for their first match. At least not in America. Look at the last two G1's, or something like Cavernario vs Rey Cometa from last night, or Bryan/Cena from last year's SummerSlam. You put this stuff on in 1987 and it obliterates all of it. And Bryan/Cena wasn't even good enough to crack my ten best matches of the year, and a guy like Cometa is hardly considered a world beater (although Cometa would be a legendary flyer with the things he can do had he been around in the 80's. Today he's just another guy.). Dolph Ziggler has TV matches practically every week that would be considered classics if they happened in the 80's. Today, he's an underachiever. The standards are higher now. Much of that is due to athleticism. I'm 100% certain the 50th best match of the year these days would win MOTY most years in the 70's & 80's. But that doesn't matter. It's only fair to compare things in the context of their own time. And it doesn't also mean that sometimes things can't transcend an era and hold up. I'm rambling way off topic now, which is supposed to be Lawler. The rest of this belongs in the dreaded "Do standards change?" thread, I guess. I don't understand this logic. How does modern day athleticism cover up the flaws in psychology/match structuring/selling etc. that's done so much in todays world compared to the 70s/80s where those facets were perfected?I agree. I don't get W2TBD's talking point at all. Because guys who are a 6/10 in psychology and 10/10 in athleticism stand out and make a big splash. Is Dolph Ziggler the equal of Ric Flair in psychology? No. But if you put just about any decent Ziggler match on TBS in 1985 and fandom's collective head explodes at the level of athleticism he shows. Today, he's just an ok guy. I think Joe's point was mostly that whatever the level of psychology they held, a lot of guys from the 70's and 80's would look like shit in the ring today because they wouldn't be able to keep up. I still don't see how this logic makes sense. How come Jerry Lawler had better matches with The Miz in 2010 and 2011 than Ziggler is having with The Miz in 2014? How come guys like Finlay and William Regal look on another level from everyone else every time they make tape, as recently as last year? I'm not a Lucha fan at all, but those who are would tell you that the best workers are guys that are in their 40s/50s. Ziggler isn't a very good example as I feel his pinball bumping style would fit well back in the day, but take just about any indy flippy guy and I don't see what would make any more special back in the 80s than it would now. The crowds back then may react well to their spots and moves, but I doubt it'd get them to be emotionally invested in them like a Memphis crowd would get behind Lawler simply because they aren't being emotionally moved. I don't see any scenario in which someone like Ricochet is anywhere near Fujinami (who had an all time great match in 2006, btw.) Hell, I think Thatcher Thatcher, Cesaro, and Drew Gulak may very well be the three best wrestlers in the world, and one of the reasons why I think so many are high on them is because we haven't seen anyone work that particular style that well in nearly two decades. I can go on and on, but the idea that workers back then would be shit now doesn't make much sense when the best workers today are guys who are bringing back a style from back in the day and/or are guys like Finlay, Lawler, or Negro Casas who HAVE been around since way back in the day.

When dudes are exposed as complete non athletes, I can usually no longer take them very seriously or suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy them. That doesn't necessarily relate to Lawler or why I don't think much of him, but I will say he's very much a late 70's, early 80's type of wrestler, which for me was a pretty dry era loaded with guys who in my opinion would be badly exposed today due to a lack of athleticism. Not so much Lawler, who would probably get over in any era due to his charisma. With that said, I do think Lawler was very fortunate to be in the territory he happened to be in though. Even by the standards of the time, he wouldn't have been as accepted in some other places where the workrate demands were different. I would also argue that from a match quality standpoint, worldwide pro wrestling has never been better than 2013 & 2014. Of course, that's obviously a matter of opinion. I think All Japan glory days would fit right in today, as would vintage ROH (which is sort of cheating, because we're talking stuff only a few years old). Pretty much everything else is being blown to bits by what today's wrestlers are doing in the ring athletically & creatively. As a whole, high level pro wrestlers have never been smoother or as refined as they are right now, and that's because as a whole we're dealing with far superior athletes, and the training is far superior too. There is no more nonsensical & useless stretching taking place, or silly nonsense like not smartening guys up until they hit the ring for their first match. At least not in America. Look at the last two G1's, or something like Cavernario vs Rey Cometa from last night, or Bryan/Cena from last year's SummerSlam. You put this stuff on in 1987 and it obliterates all of it. And Bryan/Cena wasn't even good enough to crack my ten best matches of the year, and a guy like Cometa is hardly considered a world beater (although Cometa would be a legendary flyer with the things he can do had he been around in the 80's. Today he's just another guy.). Dolph Ziggler has TV matches practically every week that would be considered classics if they happened in the 80's. Today, he's an underachiever. The standards are higher now. Much of that is due to athleticism. I'm 100% certain the 50th best match of the year these days would win MOTY most years in the 70's & 80's. But that doesn't matter. It's only fair to compare things in the context of their own time. And it doesn't also mean that sometimes things can't transcend an era and hold up. I'm rambling way off topic now, which is supposed to be Lawler. The rest of this belongs in the dreaded "Do standards change?" thread, I guess. I don't understand this logic. How does modern day athleticism cover up the flaws in psychology/match structuring/selling etc. that's done so much in todays world compared to the 70s/80s where those facets were perfected?

Billy Robinson seems like my type of wrestler. Pioneer of the catch-as-catch can style, trained a ton of awesome guys, and to top it all off, he was Sakuraba's coach! Unfortunately, I've seen zero Billy Robinson. Thankfully, there's a ton of his work on YouTube, and I'm going to watch them all (or most) today. I'll edit this post with the links to the matches I watch and my thoughts on them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGfELeWXeVo vs Verne Gagne; IWE 11-20-74 2 out of 3 Falls Man alive this was good. These guys must have ran the ropes a minimum of five times in total, but with selling, struggle, and narrative, they managed to make every single second of this the grappling war that Pro Wrestling should be. Almost every hold that was slapped on felt like a potential fall-ender. The transitions were very clever and organic. Towards the middle of the third fall I thought this was already an incredible match and then the last few minutes just blew me the hell away. Verne was also a beast in this and deserves credit and a closer look at from me. While not the most 'action' packed match until the end, the struggle for everything kept me glued and the ending was balls to the wall. If his other matches are as good as this one, there's no way Billy Robinson doesn't rank extremely high on my ballot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRs2GpPPRg vs Giant Baba; AJPW 7-24-76 2 out of 3 Falls I liked this even more than the Gagne match. Billy's performance was all time great, and he showed much more character than vs Verne. I enjoyed the opening moments, although I can see some accusing the match of starting slow, but it definitely set the foundation for the great second and third falls. Billy's subtle frustration was awesome, as he would grow angrier and angrier every time Baba got the better of him, to the point of constantly entertaining the thought of punching Baba's teeth down his throat. Very entertaining and exciting work, great selling, and top notch narrative. Finishing stretch was very intense. Can't wait to watch the Jumbo matches....

I think what's most impressive about AJ Styles is that he basically has two careers. From debut-06/07ish he was the poster boy for North American junior heavyweights and garnered a big fan base because of it, although I can see that portion of his career drawing polarizing opinions, but now he's pretty much a very smart mat based worker with junior elements sprinkled in and is universally receiving best in the world praise. I need to go back and re-watch most of his TNA work but this year he's no worse than a top 3 wrestler in the world, with only Timothy Thatcher and Cesaro giving him a run for his money.

The man. If there's a bad Regal performance, I haven't seen it. His WCW run was tremendous and he had awesome matches with just about anyone. Arn Anderson, Zbysko, Ultimo Dragon, Psychosis, Benoit, Finlay, the list goes on and on. The way he's able to get in the ring with just about anyone and plug his style in and make it work is something very few guys in history have done. The Shinya Hashomoto series is incredible and his performance in the first match is one of the absolute best performances I've ever seen in a match. The beginning of his WWE run saw him put in stupid comedy spots until he started working with Benoit, although he had a few awesome TV gems with Austin. The Benoit matches are among my all time favorites. In 2008 he had a MSG house show match vs CM Punk that surfaced that I would call a top 5 Punk WWE match and a 2008 MOTYC. 2009 saw him as the arguable ECW MVP which is impressive when you consider how good Christian was. I was a big fan of the 2010 matches with Daniel Bryan including their excellent 5 minute RAW match which is a perfect of Regal being able to have a great performance/match no matter what the timeframe is. The Ambrose feud in 2011-2012 was awesome, and the Hero/Cesaro matches from last year were my two top WWE matches of the year. Mechanically, a candidate for GOAT. No worse than top 15 for me.

Might be way premature (although we have a long way to go) but I feel the best wrestler in the world deserves a look: Timothy Thatcher: (Reviews taken from WKO; all from this year) vs Drew Gulak FIP 3/14 This is the MOTY. Long story short, after searching around a few particular websites I came to the conclusion that the only way I'd be able to see this match is if I pay the $10 for the VOD of the show. It was more than worth the money. Beautiful technique to begin with. Timothy Thatcher proved he's the best wrestler in the world by properly executing a headlock takeover. Vicious arm work done to Gulak's arm, and to Thatcher's leg, to which both guys sold wonderfully and it was played a big factor down the stretch. Everything was a struggle. Everything. When one of them gained some sort of positioning or slapped on a hold it felt like they earned it. Each transition felt organic and creative. As is the case with elite mat workers, tons of awesome little details were done to add to everything. Lots of stiff shots too. At one point Gulak had Thatcher in a leg lock and they were kicking each other in the head! All the near falls towards the end escalated the story of the match and I bought into every one. Some of the best mat work, selling, and overall work you'll see in North America. Maybe ever. Don't wait for this to pop up somewhere, because it probably won't. This is worth every penny. MOTY. vs Drew Gulak EVOLVE 8/9 Well, they did it again. Starts off with the usual awesome mat struggles that only a handful of people in the world are doing right now which is pretty damn hilarious and sad at the same time. Thatcher gets ahold of Gulak's hand and tries to rip his fingers off. His base is incredible. He came from everywhere going after Gulak's hand/arm in devastating ways. Gulak was also doing some pretty awesome shit with leg submissions, like rolling into leg and ankle locks from outta nowhere like he was Volk Han. Thatcher became more of a snug, aggressive SOB as the match progressed, doing things like driving his elbow into Gulak's face to get out of an armbar. It's as awesome as it sounds. Sickest spot of the match was Thatcher getting ahold of Gulak's hand and doing his damnedest to dislocate his fingers. Gulak's selling was great. It really felt like 'grab the body part of your choosing and make that MFer tap' down the stretch. Must see stuff. These guys (along with Biff Busick) are blowing everybody right now, and this is another gem to add to the trios' resume. Timothy Thatcher is the best wrestler alive. vs Biff Busick Beyond 4/13 (bucky's review) This blew me the hell away. God I can't believe Cordeiro put this up for free. He is a good man but he cost himself five bucks because I was just about to buy this show. You gotta wonder why a million Thatcher matches didn't pop up online during his time on the east coast. I can't remember the last time an American match had such legitimate work in it. Thatcher's counters are so beautiful, the way he fights out of holds instead of resorting to fancy dumb shit. He's got more of a Battlarts feel to him than World of Sport. This was a lot like the 4/27 Busick/Gulak match in the way Busick had to fight for every inch, and that's probably the role Busick is best at. The way he went to strikes thinking it would give him the upper hand, but Thatcher just levels him with uppercuts. Then he decides his only hope is the reverse necklock and looks to grab the hold at any opportunity. Excellent work. Also the fact that they actually build to the strikes makes everyone else look silly when they go out there and immediately work an elbow exchange in the first 2 minutes. I loved this so much. I might add a paragraph here once I've had the chance to rewatch but yeah this is easily a top 5 match of the year.

Obviously, what he did was disgusting and unforgivable. I was 9 when it took place and I remember that day very well. That said, I find myself able to watch Benoit matches unbiasedly. Tremendous worker. His mid 90's peak was out of this world great. Just about everything he did was fluid and looked effortless. His WWE matches with Regal are some of my all time favorites and I'd say the '05 Velocity and No Mercy '06 matches are among the best matches in WWE history. Ditto for the Finlay series, as their Judgement Day match may be my 2006 MOTY, and the KOTR qualifier on Smackdown was very unique for WWE at the time. Is there any 98/99 WCW-00/01 WWF gems that would raise his stock? I know when he first came to WWF he worked Eddie/Jericho/Angle very frequently so I wouldn't be shocked to find some hidden gems between them. I need to revisit his NJ Juniors stuff but if that holds up then I can't see him being any lower than top 15.

I recall the match vs Matt Hardy in 2007 having a hot crowd, but Matt's a terrific baby face. I get what you mean, though, and it could very well knock him down a few spots when we take a look a the 'charisma' factor when narrowing it down, and I say that as someone who doesn't really pay attention to crowd reactions during a match more often than not.

Best wrestler in the world in 2006, which is saying a lot because Bryan Danielson was incredible that year. Master of detail, stiff as fuck, and an awesome mat worker. His indie run provided my 2011 and 2012 MOTYs; both vs Sami Callihan in EVOLVE. I think his post-comeback run was much better than his pre-comeback run , but even then he had awesome matches with Regal on PPV and Benoit on Worldwide/Nitro. I'll need to go back and watch more WoS stuff before I put my finger on where he'll land but chances are he'll be up there for sure.

There's only a handful of wrestlers on earth that have been as good him from 01-present. He mastered the 'indie main event' style, which is an attribute he doesn't get much credit for, and I feel that's evident when you look at the indies since he left, and when you look at those who he pulled career matches out of. Was he a victim of quality of opposition at times and/or booking (matches going 40 minutes when they should've gone 20?) sure, but I think making those matches/situations worthwhile is something that should raise his stock if anything. One of the most versatile wrestlers of this era. Had an epic indie style main event vs Nigel McGuiness, a really sweet shoot style match vs Munenorei Sawa, and an awesome David vs Goliath cage match vs Mark Henry. Was one of the best in the US as early as 2001 at a VERY young age, and by the time 2003 rolled around there was few in the world better. Great, great 'callback' guy. One of my all time favorite spots was in the Homicide match at Final Battle '06, behind the refs back he hits a low blow and a roll up for an incredible false finish as a callback to something he did against Colt Cabana a few months prior. His 2007 transformation as a twist-you-into-knots mat worker was awesome. Stepped into WWE and was one of, if not the best from day one and has gotten even better since. Could see him as high as #1 on some lists, and as low as the bottom half on others. Don't know where exactly where he'll be on my list but it's fair to say that he'll most likely be the highest ranked 'modern' guy on it.

Match for match, the best ever. My favorite worker of my favorite style and as of now, he is very much in the conversation for my #1. It's even more amazing when you take in the fact that he debuted at 30, untrained (an elite grappler though), and was already one of the worlds best. Don't even know where to start, but any match against Tamura/Maeda/Yamamoto/Kohsaka/Nagai/Kopylov is must see, with MANY of those matches teetering on all time great level. His most famous match, 1/22/97 vs Tamura, is one of the best matchers ever, but the scary thing is that I feel that he has around 10 matches that may be as good as that one. A lot of his best work hasn't even surfaced online, but it's on his comp, which everyone NEEDS to own. The big knock on him is going to be his number of matches which is understandable, but I'll counter that by saying that I think his absolute best work is up there with anyone's, and even his second tier stuff was MOTYC level. From the time he was active, it's really difficult to say anyone was outright better than him, and we're talking the same time period as the All Japan glory days. Final thoughts: #1 candidate for me. Everyone needs to buy his compilation set.

I've been lurking this board for quite sometime and let me say that it is far and away my favorite website to frequent. Everyone knows what they're talking about and this forum on many occasions has introduced me to stuff I probably wouldn't have been exposed to anywhere else. Pro Wrestling is my one and only true passion in life. I've watched it my entire life and am constantly searching and or reading about it to soak up as much knowledge as I can. In what may be a shock to some, at the age of 16, I'm more than likely by far the youngest poster on here. As previously stated, I've been a fan since as far as my memory serves me via the WWE. Around 2011, that's when I started to dig deeper into it by exploring companies like ROH, PWG, NJPW and even the original ECW, which was actually my gateway to everything non-WWE as odd as that sounds. So, for a couple of years I was pretty much the typical indie fan who collected every DVD and whatnot. Fast forward to about summer of last year, and on the F4W board I read about the wrestling culture podcast. I never really listened to podcasts but I heard that they recorded an episode where Dave and Dylan list their top 50 workers of all time. I'm a pretty big mark for lists so I was intrigued. Halfway through the episode, there were so many names I was unfamiliar with. By that time, I was very familiar with guys like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Hansen, and even Jumbo, but what in the fuck was a Volk Han?!? I had never heard the name Yuki Ishikawa before. I had heard the term 'Fujiwara armbar' used before, but I'd never seen a Yoshiaki Fujiwara match up until that point. I Google'd and YouTube'd some of the names I was unfamiliar with but even then I knew that I wasn't nearly as intelligent as I thought I was, and if there was so much out there that I wasn't privy to, I wanted to explore it. On a random episode of the DKP show that I was listening to, Rob Naylor mentioned the boards ProWrestlingOnly and DVDVR. Trusting his knowledge, I decided to check those sites out. I was amazed at the quality of discussion and used those sites to expand my knowledge of the thing I love most. Fast forward to now, and my DVD collection ranges anywhere from 80s New Japan, 90s RINGS, BattlArts, and Futen to the glory days of Portland. Guys like Volk Han, Yuki Ishikawa, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara would rank very high on my all time favorite wrestlers list. The Greatest Wrestlers of All Time project is finally what got me to sign up and I cannot wait to participate in it.