DylanZero

I have to say, I enjoy JJ a lot on these shows and he comes across pretty strongly almost all the time in these latest episodes. I wish Conrad would let this fiction writer stuff go though. You can guarantee Jeff hadn't thought 2 seconds about that comment after he said it, and it's been like 10 weeks of Conrad bringing on about it every week. I get that a lot of his shows are built around burying Dave and all that but Jeff just comes across like that's by far his least favorite part of the show. On top of it Jeff has been pretty much completely open to talking about money and how profitable things were and weren't and every time it comes up Conrad acts like Jeff has kept everything completely hidden and is all annoyed for some reason "So wait, you're talking about '94 right? Do we have that number somewhere?" "you don't have to give me a number, dammit, just make a ballpark estimate!" I wasn't a big fan of this week's questions episodes but did enjoy his recap of his debut vignettes from the Ain't I Great episode. Love the idea of him shooting a 2 minute video at the Grand Ole Opry and having to run away immediately because they didn't actually rent the building.

How goofy was Conrad this week? Jeff just explained why JH lied so much about the PPV numbers early on because it kept himself getting his 20k paycheck and then Conrad suddenly has this hard shift into "So like...do ya think he had drug issues to make him do this?" HUH? Like, that totally came out of nowhere in context of the story. I agree with the above and it's humorous that literally every episode of this Jeff is all like "Is this show boring? Does anyone really care?" It's fitting this is a WCW/TNA show as we have the guy on air saying his own show sucks.

Sasha's really turned a corner since her return, blue hair and all. I used to think she was one of the most overrated wrestlers I've seen in my life. The vast majority of her main roster run was actively bad IMO. Even her matches that were praised heavily like those vs. Charlotte were bordering on unprofessionally sloppy. She came across as someone who was a big fan of Japanese wrestling without the capabilities to actually perform them properly. It all culminated in that 8 woman Raw tag where her & Peyton Royce put on one of the worst displays of wrestling ever to make it onto television after which she quickly dipped and it seems like she had probably not been putting in her greatest effort due to being unsatisfied with WWE's booking, which is fair. However she let it show more to the extent it has to be mentioned. Now in fairness, Paige, Charlotte, Alexa, & Royce aren't exactly the best ring generals to judge anyone against. But her elevation after her return was tangible and I've turned around completely. You can't convince me the matches against Bayley in HIAC, Bianca at WM, vs. Asuka and so on are on the same level as those Charlotte & Alexa matches earlier on in her main run that people tried to defend. She's achieved her spot and honestly greatness through hard work which is admirable but to judge her career as a whole, there's certainly warts, which are much much greater than Mayu's, who has been consistently great for 6 years now in both singles and tag settings. While true again her level of competition is significantly better than Sasha's on the whole, it's hard for me to say Sasha has had the better in-ring career when through 2016-the first half of 2019 Mayu probably had 20 matches per year throughout that time that were better than Sasha's best and Sasha's 20 worst performances were probably worse than Mayu's worst. From late 2019-I totally think they're right there and as has been mentioned, Sasha has a couple of legendary matches that you could say if you want to go to an extreme peak in NXT but overall? Mayu to me has to take this cake. Look at her body of work, and not to mention, she deserves credit for being the Ace of one of the most turbulent companies in any country over the last 6 years, with all kinds of roster turnover and company changes for all sorts of reasons. Regardless of a swirling environment and surrounding cast of characters she has been the person in the company to get the most out of virtually all of them. I think that is a place where she signs, like an NBA Point Guard who makes everyone around them better, to counter Kadaveri's point above, I would point to her High Speed Title match from Thunder Rosa from 2016 (good now, but she was very green here), her return from injury vs. Rachael Ellering, one of the most loathed foreigners to work Stardom tours, in 2018, & her empty arena lumberjack match vs. Saki Kashima in 2020. Now, no lie, all of those are better than Carmella or Charlotte and Alexa, but that doesn't mean Mayu didn't get the most out of them, not just by bumping hard and being reckless, but specifically against Kashima used a high wrestling IQ to overcome the obstacles of the pandemic being right at the start and it being a show with a series of Stardom first and making it work better than some people can make pandemic wrestling even over a year later. I like and respect Sasha as a wrestler a lot and love how far she's come a lot, but from matches to tools, I can't go against Mayu, who also to me would be one of the better modern candidates in general in wrestling.

Andre won't be on my list or even come close, I don't know what that has to do with anything. Hokuto's an incredible performer, at her peak the best women's wrestler of all time. But not over Kobashi, who was BITWC caliber for twice as long. I would say peak Hokuto is 90-95 and she was up there, perhaps even at the tip top during some of those. She was for me. But after and before while she was still a great performer, but would not have been a Most Outsanding candidate overall due to output. Kobashi was at that level until 2000 and then again in 2003, also with great matches in other years. It's just a numbers game at this point that provides the difference for Kobashi more than a difference in talent as both are deserving all time greats.

I couldn't explain my thoughts on this matchup any better than this. Hokuto with 5 more years is top 10, likely top 5 all time and could see myself her beating out Kobashi. But as is I can't take her in-ring career over Kobashi's. His run and matches are just incredible.

I'm not certain there's a single person in Joshi who has been better over the last 5 years which is incredible as when she first arrived I remember watching those early shows and thinking she was the worst of the Stardom talent and nowhere near the ones I admired in terms of talent in Hoshiki & Yoshiko. To see her grow into being one of the best overall performers whether in wrestling or in real life is heartwarming. I would say her turning point was around 2015 where things really really clicked, I remember seeing her Gold May title challenge vs. Kairi and being like "Whoa wait a minute." on her and she eventually became to me the best of the Daughters of Stardom outright which I wouldn't have expected. But she rocks, love her ability to make everyone look better, the insanity and reckless abandon she wrestles with, her offensive moveset, her look, everything about her is awesome to me. If she's still going strong by 2026 I think she definitely will be there and a heavy contender for my list.

I would bet if I saw it, I would probably come away thinking that he performed better against that bag of popcorn than Punk did in any match in his career. Also the Marty Jones match was really good, I still think it holds up pretty well but admittedly am a fan of that style. Also do agree with Matt D that the Boy Scouts show tag was a toned down version of the Rumble match vs OE BUT how heartwarming was it to see how hot those kids and families were for Owen? Surely that has to count for something.

Literally I could google Mayu and come up with like 5 GIFs immediately of Mayu going crazy on some bump in a way that HBK never has in his career and Toyota has dozens and dozens of times what are you talking about? Literally just watching one big match of hers would disprove this statement. Even that article Grimmas posted, her bumping style was described that you could also attribute to being highly similar to Toyota's, though worded in a notoriously Mayu way of course. I think perhaps me and OJ are just on different wavelengths to what influence is to you guys because what he said is exactly what I would say irt Toyota's modern influence, and then you are saying these things are apart of a Western overheralding of her and even that it's coming out of thin air in cases. And even then, who exactly would have influenced the modern style more in Joshi? Again I would list Jaguar & Nagayo who both came before Toyota herself, perhaps Hokuto and Meiko in her own way (although even among her trainees their styles I would list as almost universally as not similar to Meiko herself at all in-ring). And then who? You can attribute quite a few things in the modern era to Toyota which have already been mentioned. I don't know if that's true of virtually anyone else of her era.

There's also something to be said for Tenryu able to still work on a WOTYC level into the 2000s. Although one could argue that Hansen had more longevity, the difference between going from the 70s to the 80s was significantly smaller than the 90s to the 2000s. Even Hashimoto struggled afterwards and was broke down (with a few awesome moments) and he was much younger than Tenryu and didn't face the epics of AJPW. For someone like Tenryu to pull that off in his 50s has to be a huge boon to him being one of the best ever. Hansen was awesome and ranks high on the Bull Nakano scale of "no matter what match you watch he's guaranteed to do at least one awesome thing no matter what that makes you love wrestling" but as an overall worker I think I prefer Tenryu. Even in terms of highest highs his match vs. Jumbo was my favorite of either of these guys careers. Hansen is an all time great and I don't have too many real negatives but yeah I go with Tenryu here. He was in my top 3 last time and if he's not in 2026, he won't drop out of the top 5.

I agree her run as Ace was my least favorite portion of her career on a personal level. I meant more her matches vs. Hokuto and Yamada and her tag work. 90-92 is peak Toyota and there's no denying IMO her acting abilities made multiple matches work during that time. After that it wasn't the same on that level and things shifted. Although even in her match vs. Kandori as late as 98 her selling helped make that match too. I do think the stylistic change and just burnout with the company by the time she got that spot to do these things in 1995 played a role but I would agree with you by that point left a lot to be desired. @GrimmasShe had multiple matches against Hokuto and Yamada which were of this, again, one even directly and blatantly ripped off thirty years later. And maybe Mayu did watch and was influenced by DG, but there's nobody in DG she bumps like as much as she Toyota. Obviously her size naturally would effect that so it may be a mirage of sorts on my end, but all of these attributes myself and OJ are saying can also be directly attributed to Mayu as well. To say there's no influence from Toyota in modern Joshi is not fair. Even if you take away Mayu, although again I personally find her killing herself in all her matches quite comparable at worst to Toyota's way, if not directly influenced.

I don't even think he bookends stuff, well. His opening match segments are completely worthless. His entire value is in essentially the last 10% of his matches and even then there's so much he does shitty. Just look at literally any of his submission work throughout his career or this recent rollup he's trying to implement which looks slow and sloppy and bad. BUSHIROAD has put a crap ton of marketing behind him and pushed him for upwards of a decade but his hype has been exceeded over and over to the fans, even at his peak. Whether Tana, Omega, Naito, and just look at the reaction to Shingo winning the title a couple of weeks ago. He's more like McDonald's to me. Always positioned at the top and successful at what he does no doubt, but would anyone call McD's their absolute favorite place to eat? Greco is an amazing worker and hopefully even people who don't know him give him a chance.

Hideki Suzuki One of the brightest spots to ever come from IGF, Hideki's career has spanned from wrestling on BattlArts' last show to BJW champion to now NXT, I absolutely love his work and think he's one of the last to really "get" bridging the gap between real and worked wrestling. We're seeing a bit of a Revival of his style in GLEAT and sadly it's after he was signed to the WWE and gone from the country. That said his matches against a variety of opponents I enjoy not just the way he wrestles and his style but the fact that he makes everything feel earned, a rare trait for a modern wrestler in a pretty cooperative age. I also enjoy his slight differences to his approach depending on the style of his opponent. He still is doing his style but will change how he utilizes it against different opponents from big guys like Strong BJ, to guys not positioned on his level like Nomura & Kamitani to a technical guy like Thatcher to a striker like Nakajima he adjusts well against his different opponents. He just debut as I'm writing this in NXT and on paper he would have a fairly low ceiling in modern WWE but with the in-ring excitement of his virtual mirror Timothy Thatcher I can see a future where he adds to his case, which for me would put him over the top. I encourage everyone to check out his best work, including these matches: vs. Yuji Okabayashi - 5.5.2017 - BJW vs. Timothy Thatcher - 4.4.2019 - Josh Barnett's Bloodsport vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima - 2.16.2020 - Pro Wrestling NOAH

I mainly just made this thread to give Carl Greco a thread against someone pretty random, and lo and behold it turned out to be Okada. But actually think this could be fun as it's someone who is nearly the antithesis of him and what made him great and yet also is objectively far more popular. What say you, my friends?

Each bumps with reckless abandon, often in effort of making their opponents look good. Their similarities are actually extremely basic. Not to say that they are the same in terms of prolonged selling, but moreso the style of Mayu in taking moves is taken quite similarly from Toyota, if not directly. Even then the dramatics and prolonged selling from a match like the one I mentioned vs. Hokuto is similar to many of her modern ilk, but particularly Mayu's style certainly has a lot of similarities.

I can see why someone would be a fan of Jericho and his career. I just am not. At any point. At all. Especially not now where he honestly talked the company from day 1 for me, I thought him being the champion of the hot alternative wrestling company from the get go was one of the dumbest moves they could make. Barry is really good though and at his peak this guy could GO. Pretty one sided contest imo.

This is so one sided against HBK for me that I really can't even begin to imagine a planet where I think he does anything better than her so I won't even debate this. I do think her influence is pretty strong in modern Joshi, though not as much as someone like Jaguar's but to say "nobody" works like her is either unlearned or just disingenuous. Just look at the way Mayu Iwatani sells and her reckless abandon in matches, look at Fujimoto & Tsukushi in Ice Ribbon, even Io has a bit of Toyota in her especially when she was coming up. And that Dump Matsumoto tribute is about one million times less of a worker then any of the above mentioned wrestlers. I think that her selling is underrated and more specifically her being an actress in wrestling which I think is a better way to judge certain dynamics in Joshi specifically. Tell me there was "no selling" in her match vs. Hokuto from 1/6/91, or all sorts of tag matches with Yamada, hell she basically single handedly made that hair angle work to the point Stardom did a direct copy of it 30 years later at Budokan (that made little sense in that particular story amd also was significantly lesser than the original but whatever) Unfortunately people will judge her run with all the 5 star matches and stuff, and that doesn't hold up as well as her early career IMO but also that was her role at the time in the company that others couldn't have pulled off or even remotely came close. I don't think anyone would claim she was a great worker past the early 2000s when the dark ages really kicked in but that's still basically over a decade and even by the very end when she was older she wasn't nearly as broken down as Kong is now. I do think she's a bit unfairly maligned due to her early rep and doesn't get the credit as an overall performer although even with me her run as Ace wasn't particularly to my tastes.

I think Arn blows Andre away. BUT this comparison was unique and immediately made me want to see these two wrestle in their physical primes. A spinebuster on Andre would have been freaking awesome.

Is there something to be said for NJPW's surge in popularity having a bit of an effect on something like this and public opinion on the whole? Even now and last year there are self-proclaimed "Inokism followers" who would rant and rave about how great Fujita staring at Go for 30 minutes straight was and it was high art. If something like that happened 10 years ago I'm almost certain it would have been rightfully mocked and put down heavily by everyone here. Someone like Hashimoto has grown in stature with the unearthing of new matches being found and also a NJPW-centric view of Japanese wrestling among English speakers, whereas AJPW classics are becoming closer and closer to a relic of the past for many fans as there really is no lineage or thread to follow up to today, even though modern NJPW is obviously a lot different than the version Hashimoto was in. On top of that he also has his son who wrestles as well and had a run as top champion of a company, though the impact of BJW is worlds apart from NJPW, I think there's much more interest in Hashimoto in the modern era than Jumbo, whose career effectively ended 30 years ago and has no modern wrestler or promotion that leads back to him. Hash was great. Certainly worthy of being ranked on everyone's list. But Jumbo to me would be my active number one and I don't think there's any way, short of CMLL actually putting effort in and somehow Negro Casas had a strong next 5 years that I could see that changing so even debating on this holds little interest for others as I think Jumbo is quite clearly one of the elite tier wrestlers in history. Hash is great too and the stylistic difference in what Childs said makes sense to me, but there isn't much room for interesting discussion on my end either.

At first look I kind of seemed like it would be an easy vote for Choshu but there's A LOT of quality work with Savage in a much greater variety of situations. What Elliott said about him having more in his back pocket of booking tools can be a blessing or sometimes a curse, particularly in the context of a who is the better in-ring performer contest like this, and he almost always made it a blessing. That said, I think the tag work for Choshu puts it over the top, he just had too many great matches and not to mention how great he was jumping from NJPW to AJPW and bringing the hotness from a promotion that wasn't at it's peak. I went with him. This was a good matchup though, both of these guys are just fun and awesome.

This is a near perfect matchup. Wrestling's most overrated performer in history vs. arguably it's most underrated. Owen is so far ahead of Punk in literally every possible way as a wrestler it's absurd to even compare. You can guarantee one of his fans will say something like "Did Owen have any matches as good as MITB 2011!?" and the rest of us can shake our heads in pity.

Konnan burned bridges throughout his career in wrestling, who knew it would extend to Mad One? (He did do Rey's WWE theme too later on tho so maybe Konnan wasn't too upset about it.)

Oh yeah I just meant in terms of match quality and how they wrestled. Taue was completely broken down for years and more like the president. On a personal level Taue's retirement show was very good and ended with a great moment. But his last "Taue" performance was with Maru in 2006. Kobashi & Misawa both shells of themselves. Even Kawada's mentor Tenryu who was also an incredible old guy wrestler before went out barely being able to move and Okada having to work around him. Kawada still had a really good match with Sekimoto at the start of 2010 with Sekimoto in Zero1 and he still looked like himself, just older. I remember he did one of those talk battles with Tenryu at one of his Produce shows where he was talking about how he was hurting and Misawa's death took a lot of his passion out. I definitely don't think he was passionate anymore (and it's hard to blame him) but I don't think he ever stopped being Kawada in the ring compared to the other guys, at least to me.

His rapping on Psycho and L.A.X.'s theme is hands down better than any actual wrestling he did.

I love Kawada, but as great as his wrestling was it was moreso his overall arc as a wrestler and character and man in the shadow of Misawa. His tragic character arc was what bought my investment and made his inevitable long title run so cool. I also always appreciated that he was the one pillar/Japanese wrestling legend in general who didn't go out as a miserable shell of himself who could barely move. He was still having good matches and still Kawada until his very last year, even though he wasn't where was a decade-2 decades prior, he still held up pretty well. It says something that he has that kind of longevity over his contemporaries and makes him a worthy top 5-10 pick.

As a native Memphian I'm required by law to vote him in the top 10 but the praise for his work and promos are worth it. He really was the man in the ring.