GOTNW

For me Blue Panther’s candidacy is eerily similar to Jerry Lawler’s. I’m often more impressed with his opponents in his big matches, but I can’t really argue with his resume. Like Lawler Panther also benefits from representing and excelling at a very particular style of wrestling (mat-flavoured title match “technical wrestling”). As far as variety goes, I don’t think he was a natural brawler, but when needed I do think he was great at escalating the violence in his matwork and taking a rougher, more violent approach reminiscent of someone like Masanobu Fuchi. I would also honestly say he wasn’t that great at the non-matwork, “workrate” part of technical-style bouts. That is why, if you want pure Blue Panther fanservice, I think you are actually much more likely to find it in his old man maestros bouts than you are in many of the matches during his athletic prime. I am pretty alienated by the idea he is a serious top 20 candidate, unless you are either going to have a very Lucha-heavy or matwork-heavy top of the list. Even in this thread at least half of the posts amount to people expressing their disappointment with some of his most hyped bouts (out of which I don’t think there’s a single one I actually dislike or even consider average) or Panther in general. There are some good posts highlighting his strengths, but no one has really made a convincing case he should be seen as a truly elite top tier Lucha worker. Does anyone really think Panther is better as a complete worker than, say, Casas, Santito, Dandy or Satanico? Are Pantherheads dead set on mythologizing his bouts vs Atlantis the same way Sangre Chicana and Perro Aguayo enjoyers appraise their bloodbaths? Do Blue Panther advocators really get butterflies in their stomach for his sheer presence in a trios like I do for Emilio Charles Jr. or Pirata Morgan going berserk? Even in the genre of mat-based lucha title matches, I think Virus is a better worker than him. I’d say a more realistic evaluation of Blue Panther is that he is akin to a Lucha Taue - universally acclaimed and acknowledged, and while sometimes the beautiful aesthetics of llave or an Apron Chokeslam cloud one’s judgment and invoke hyperbole, when you look at his career more rationally, no one actually thinks he is the best. That is, unless you ignore match structure, selling, charisma and just intensively focus on wrestling ability. You can’t really argue with the beautiful neck bridges Blue Panther does in his 50s and 60s. Still, there’s no shame in being a second/third tier candidate for a list of the greatest to ever do it. I am going to have Panther somewhere in the middle of my list and would absolutely recommend folks who aren’t familiar with Lucha matwork to check him out. It really is an incredibly cool aesthetic. Recommended matches: w/Sergio El Hermoso vs Solar & Super Astro (1987/8/22) w/Negro Casas vs El Hijo Del Santo & Eddie Guerrero (1989/11/5) w/Negro Casas & Fuerza Guerrera vs El Hijo Del Santo, Gran Hamada & Yoshihiro Asai (1990) vs Gran Hamada (1990/11/13) vs Panterita del Ring (1991) vs Atlantis (1991/8/9) vs Ultimo Dragon (1992/1/31) vs Love Machine Art Barr (1992/4/3; mask vs mask; more of a standout angle than a notably great match) vs Angel Azteca (1992/9/4) vs Super Astro (1992/10/9) vs Love Machine Art Barr (1993/18/7; mask vs hair; similar deal as their previous bout) w/Eddy Guerrero, La Parka & Psicosis vs El Hijo del Santo, Jushin Liger, Octagon & Tiger Mask III (1994/5/15) vs El Mariachi (1994/10/30) w/Psicosis & Fuerza Guerrera vs El Hijo del Santo, Octagon & Rey Misterio Jr. (1995/03/17) w/Fuerza Guerrera, Pentagon & Psicosis vs. El Hijo del Santo, La Parka, Octagon & Rey Misterio Jr. (1995/6/18) vs Atlantis (1997/12/5) w/Black Warrior & Dr. Wagner Jr vs El Hijo Del Santo, Felino & Negro Casas(1998/12/11) w/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Negro Casas & El Hijo Del Santo(1999/9/17) vs El Hijo Del Santo (2000/4/9) vs El Hijo Del Santo (2000/5/28) vs El Hijo Del Santo (2001/1/28) w/Arkangel de la Muerte vs El Hijo del Santo & Mil Mascaras (2001/1/28) vs Felino (2001/2/15) w/Super Parka vs LA Park & Safari (2003/12/21) w/Angel Azteca & Astuto vs Charles Lucero, Averno & Mephisto (2004/5/2) vs Charles Lucero (2004/5/9) vs Dos Caras (2004/9/25) vs El Hijo Del Santo (2004/10/6) vs Black Tiger [Silver King] (2004/11/16) w/Atlantis vs Averno & Mephisto (2005/4/1) vs Atlantis (2008/7/11) vs Negro Casas (2008/8/3) vs Villano V (2008/9/19, mask vs mask) w/Negro Navarro vs El Satanico & El Solar (2011/3/5) vs Negro Casas (2011/4/24) vs Felino (2011/8/19) w/ Atlantis & Solar vs Ultimo Guerrero, Felino & Negro Navarro (2012/1/14) vs Negro Casas (2012/1/27) vs Negro Casas (2012/3/2, hair vs hair) w/ El Sagrado vs Rey Hechicero & Califan (2013/4/14) vs Virus (2013/5/12) vs Averno (2013/9/13, hair vs hair) w/ El Solar & Super Astro vs. Black Terry, Negro Navarro & El Satanico (2013/11/17) vs Averno (2013/12/22) w/Black Panther & Cachorro vs Negro Casas, Puma & Tiger (2014/1/14) vs Negro Casas (2014/1/21) w/Black Panther & Cachorro vs Felino, Puma & Tiger (2014/3/24) w/Negro Casas & Atlantis vs Black Terry, Negro Navarro & Solar (2014/8/16) w/Ultimo Guerrero vs Solar & Black Terry (2014/11/15) w/Delta vs Shigeo Okumura & Virus (2014/12/23 vs El Satanico (2015/7/25) w/Negro Casas vs Black Terry & Solar (2016/2/28) vs Hechicero (2018/3/3) vs Virus (2019/3/23) vs Bryan Danielson (2024/4/5)

I had Fuchi placed around 50-60 last time, and thought “hmmm Fuchi was great but was that a bit high?”. I decided to give him a more focused look and the deeper I get the more convinced I am the opposite is the case and he should have ranked much higher than that. One aspect of Fuchi I’ve come to appreciate the most is probably his look. It might not be imposing initially, but it speaks so much. First thing it says is old-school wrestler, and that’s absolutely what you’re getting from him. Second thing you can see is that he is clearly an athlete. Maybe not a bodybuilder, but clearly in shape, something akin to a 2000s UFC career journeyman Welterweight veteran. He’s big and tall enough that he can believably stand up to his peer heavyweights when need be. But he’s also pale and somewhat frail. I remember one time a camera zoomed in super close and you could see acne scars on his face. His skill is great, but physically he’s just barely lacking. Just a little bit more and it would be enough for his stature to be so much greater. I can’t help but wonder if there is a deep pain inside him. If he wore a dress shirt instead of wrestling trunks I could imagine him as a salaryman sadistically daydreaming of taking out the injustices of this world on his annoying supervisors and seniors. Luckily destiny guided him to pro-wrestling instead of an office career and we get to see him brutalize and torture younglings in 6-man tags. Fuchi definitely represents a type of worker. The Arn Anderson/Fit Finlay/William Regal respected role player veteran who helps backstage. And if you want to make a fact-based argument, it’s going to be hard to point to someone who was better at him at being that type. For one, he agented the most revered wrestling of all time (90s All Japan). But as a worker, he has a really sneaky strong case and checks all the boxes. At various points in his career, he: -was a great base for luchadores -had some of the best brawls ever to take place in Memphis and All Japan -had probably the best “role player” performances ever as a torturer in the best run of 6 man tags of all time -worked great junior title matches -went hold for hold with shooters -worked as a sympathetic underdog, eating a big beating if needed You can repeat talking points like “All Japan didn’t focus on the Juniors enough for Fuchi to have a strong enough resume of singles matches”, and that may be true. If you’re talking about a top 10-20 placement. As it stands, I think there’s more than enough volume to deduct that he was a phenomenal pro wrestler. The man carried Hiro Saito and Kuniaki Kobayashi to near-classics. Enough said. For a solid mix of canonically accepted all time great wrestling, flavored Fuchi performances and “you just gotta watch this”, I would point to the following list as a glimpse of his development and variety as a worker: vs Dos Caras (AJPW 1978/8/18) w/Atsushi Onita vs R2 & C3 (AJPW 1979/7/6) vs Chavo Guerrero (SCW 1981) w/Atsushi Onita vs Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee (CWA 1981/8/1) w/Atsushi Onita vs Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton (CWA 1981/9/4) vs Chavo Guerrero (AJPW 1983/8/19) vs Chavo Guerrero (AJPW 1983/8/31) vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (AJPW 1986/4/6) vs Hiro Saito (AJPW 1986/6/12) vs Joe Malenko (AJPW 1989/1/21) vs Mitsuo Momota (AJPW 1989/3/29) vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1990/7/12) w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1990/10/19) vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1991/ 4/16) w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1991/4/20) vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 1991/7/18) vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1991/9/4) vs Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW 1992/1/21) w/Ogawa vs Kobashi & Kikuchi (AJPW 1992/4/18) w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1992/5/22) w/Ogawa vs Kobashi & Kikuchi (AJPW 1992/7/5) vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1993/2/28) w/Kawada & Taue vs Baba, Misawa & Kobashi (AJPW 1994/1/29) vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1996/7/24) w/Toshiaki Kawada vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1997/1/26) vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 2000/7/1) vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara (AJPW 2000/7/11) w/Kawada vs Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka (NJPW 2000/12/14) w/Tenryu vs Kawada & Araya (AJPW 2001/6/30)

After rewatching this, I'm ready to stay my ground on this match. This bout is akin to Bockwinkel vs Hennig from 1986, in that Reigns puts on an all time great performance, and the bout is structured in such a way that it plays to Jey Uso's strengths and he doesn't get in the way of it and stop it from being a classic. Obviously Jey Uso is nowhere near as good as Curt Hennig, in fact Jey Uso isn't considered a very good (you can take out the very) singles wrestler by most. Yet he's still an important part of this and adds to it, because he's limited to what he knows to do. This was an extended squash in which he had to do exactly three things: 1. Act 2. Sell the beatdown 3. Make a comeback akin to one which he regularly made during Usos tags I am not sure if there is a fourth thing in pro-wrestling Jey Uso is good at, but this match required him to do just these three, and he excelled at them. For a company which has talked about "sports-entertainment" for so long, WWE really rarely does match-angles, and it is especially rare that they do them well and actually pull off something more complex. So as an actual match it is more similar to Lawler vs Idol than an hour long wrestling classic. And this is an interesting match because it is so unique. You can make some obvious comparisons: Terry Funk vs Lawler Empty Arena - no fans, epic charismatic performance by Funk Rock vs Mankind Empty Arena Falls Count Anywhere - no fans, epic charismatic performance by The Rock Lesnar vs Cena Summerslam - WWE championship main event extended squash This match is like a combination of all of the above. And you know what, it is much better than Funk vs Lawler Empty Arena or Lesnar vs Cena from Summerslam. And while I'm at it, it's also better than Lesnar vs Cena from Extreme Rules. I don't know if there is any other match in company history where a WWE wrestler feels like a force of nature the way Reigns does here. There is a DVDVR/PWO neologism "negative space" used to describe the times in the bout inbetween the action, and this match is a masterclass in negative space. Reigns commands attention - his interactions with Uso, Heyman and the referee were absolutely perfect, and he had the right offense for this type of match to work - classic US heavyweight ex-football player offence, good worked punches and some rope-runs with a running Tackle to finish things off. Would Gus Sonnenberg and Bronko Nagurski be proud? Honestly - who cares? Have you seen how much TKO stock is worth? This match right here is why. It's a wedding of all the great soap-opera melodrama which has driven the first legitimate revival WWE in popularity WWE has had in 20 years and classic prowres violence. When Reigns starts going berserk and throwing punches in bunches and brutal forearms at an already physically defeated Jey Uso who is held back from quitting only by the power of his spirit while his twin brother cannot stand to watch it and throws in the towel? That's as pro-wrestling as pro-wrestling gets. There's no way this wouldn't be hailed as brilliant if it had happened in 1985 AJW or Memphis. And it absolutely should. Because Reigns throws really good punches. And also he put on a masterful "less is more" performance which serves as a perfect reminder to everyone "wrestling work" is everything done inside the ring and acting and the selling of the action is equally, and often even more important than the quality of the actual action; a statement which should be co-signed by everyone who liked Terry Funk more than Dory Jr. Is it hokey? Is it cheesy? Aboslutely. It's also pro-wrestling. Terry Funk yelling about yellow pigs isn't exactly a profound acting performance. And you know what, call me an educated pleb, but Reigns' performance here seemed like a pretty phenomenal character performance to me. Certainly the best one I've ever seen in pro wrestling. That might not cover as much ground as it might initially seem as matches of this type aren't very common, but I still deem it to be a true statement. I rate this as a 10/10 pro wrestling classic, US match of the year, and while miracles are possible, most likely my 2020s US match of the decade. Interestingly I'm not sure if it wins not only 2020s MOTD but even 2020 MOTY because Ikeda vs Ishikawa also happened in the same year so it's a case where I have to think a bit first. Still. What a damn match.

I've changed my mind and now see this take from teenage me as reactionary, even though I think it's more of a matter of changing my perspective as I grow in age and (hopefully) wisdom than thinking Bret vs Curt Hennig is better or worse than I thought 4 or 10 years ago. I do wish that Ditch post was still up somewhere. We're losing knowledge like libraries are burning in the Internet age. I've said in Dory's thread that I would have the post-Thesz "technical" NA wrestler power ranking as Brisco>Dory>Bret. After doing some more re-watching, I have it as Brisco>Bockwinkel>Bret>Dory, and I'm seriously considering Dory for my list. So, Bret is in this time, and has no chance of falling off, in fact I'm more likely to put him in the middle. I do maintain I don't see him as someone who has a serious case for the top 10/20. But it isn't Bret who has changed (duh), it's me and what I want from him. Looking at his stoic peers of the time like Misawa or Santo, Bret isn't going to do very well in direct comparison. Excellence of execution blah blah - I don't care. Could anything be more boring than a wrestler who just does moves correctly? That sounds like Dean Malenko. I want something more, and in prowres that's either going to be expressed through intensity, sheer beauty or more. And that's where Bret is going to be lacking. He's just not that guy. He doesn't have the intricate matwork you'll see from Brisco, or for a contemporary peer of his, El Dandy. His moves are well executed - sometimes I'll nod my head and say "hell yeah that's how you do a Russian Legsweep" ; but they are rarely breathtaking like a Santo Dive, Atlantis Monkey Flip, Misawa Elbow Barrage or Sliding Kick. Then there's the problem of great matches, cream of the crop, classics and near classics. Again, Bret isn't a case like Misawa/Kobashi/Hashimoto/Kawada/Jumbo/Flair/Lawler/Casas/Santo where a fan of his is going to point you to 30 different matches at that level, and when you adjust that to someone who isn't that into them you get you get a fifth of that which is canonically accepted as all-time excellence. If someone's really into Bret, maybe you get around 5 or 10 of those at the highest or close-to-it level, and then it's just a bunch of good-really good matches which a lot of wrestler who aren't nearly as hyped as him also have. Then there's also the whole deal about him only really being Bret in the WWF under certain conditions, which is one of the reasons why I thought Owen was better last time, I'd watch Owen look spectacular in New Japan or wherever, and meanwhile Bret would look completely mundane outside of his ideal setting. So I adjusted for main-event placement inflation which explained Bret's stronger high-end resume and ranked Owen on the lower end of my list and didn't rank Bret at all. And I would absolutely agree with the idea that Bret Hart was not a great improviser, and if you sent him out there with a very good worker and gave him no time to work on the match it probably wouldn't be special. Despite all of this, I've continued to enjoy his work and appreciate him more and more. Because there is one thing Bret Hart brings to the table and it matter more than anything else to me. I think it's pretty clear, if you've listened to him talk for 2 or more minutes, Bret Hart is a completely delusional egomaniac, and is probably not a good person. This is one of those archetypes which make for a successful pro-wrestler, kind of similar to how sociopaths rise to the top in business in an unregulated free market. Bret Hart takes pro wrestling, how do I say this without sounding ableist... seriously in a very literate and dedicated sense. He clearly put a lot of thought into structuring his matches, transitioning from one point to another and having it all make sense. Pro-wrestling should make sense within its own confines. It shouldn't be especially difficult because the audience is already accepting the ridiculous prerequisition of treating this nonsense as somewhat legitimate combat. If Bret Hart has a ladder match, it's going to make as much sense as a ladder match can, and there won't be a moment where I'll go "gee why doesn't one of these wrestlers just jump on the damn ladder and grab the belt I really am watching phony nonsense". If I'm watching a Bret Hart cage match, I won't have a though of "these guys have forgotten they can win by escaping". There are a lot of nominated wrestlers who can do a Brainbuster or a Suicide Dive, but not a lot of them would think up grabbing Shawn Michaels by the hair after he pushed you off a ladder so you can both fall down and have a cover for why he didn't just immediately win the match. And that's what ultimately convinced me. Bret's dedication and passion and his successful execution of it through his match planning are what keep intriguing me in his work and why I keep coming back to it, and having the willingness to watch their matches is the highest praise I can give to a wrestler as an employed adult with a thriving social life. So, as much as part of me still wants to go "actually these random obscure wrestlers are better than Bret", I feel at peace with my appreciation of him now. In hindsight, that question from the second page to "name a 100 better wrestlers" really wouldn't be much of a challenge for someone who'd be more focused on action itself than I am.

I last watched this about 12 years ago when we were doing the "Best of Japanese Pro Wrestling Before 1980" project, and I remember thinking it was really good, but I didn't rank it in my top 20. This was at a time when "two territorial US wrestlers throw worked punches for 20 minutes" didn't sound very exciting to me to say the least. I've softened my stance on the genre and figured I'd see how this looks now. Well, 12 years later, sorry, this still isn't some sort of super classic. You wanna talk about great punches, there are plenty of great punches here, but unfortunately there's an unignorable amount of strikes which could have by all means been thrown by Triple H, Randy Orton or Seth Rollins, the kind of punch which isn't a ridiculous wide swing and a miss like a John Cena punch, but doesn't actually look good either, and if you're working a match based around great punches, that's gonna take it down a notch. Lawler vs Mantell this was not. Also, if you're having a match based around projecting violence (which is what they were doing, this wasn't an actual display of violence like an Ikeda vs Ishikawa, Hashimoto vs Tenryu, Valentine vs Wahoo), you'd expect it to be treated seriously so that the gravity of the violence is sold. If you ignore common sense in a ruleset for a bit (how preposterous a no-DQ match ending in a no-contest is), this was booked to perfection, with almost laboratory conditions for these two to have the best match possible. A special stipulation which emphasizes violence and a brigade of wrestlers breaking them apart, meticulously isolating their limbs with Murdoch and Kox breaking their grips only to clash into one another again and again. Some of their ideas definitely had potential and could have been executed and dramatized as great moments (like them both falling down after an O'Connor roll attempt and Kox trying to swing at Murdoch but falling down due to exhaustion), but I'm rating this not on potential but on execution, and their execution was such that the crowd ended up laughing at them. That's now how you sell something which is supposed to be a brutal battle of attrition. It may sound like I am harsh on this, but with the reputation it has, I think it's going to be fine, it can withstand some clarity in criticism. Its strengths are still there (a lot of good looking punches, tight lock-ups, a very focused working style which plays to their strengths and a pool of blood), but as far as wild out of control brawls of the time go, this isn't in the same stratosphere as something like Oki vs Sakaguchi from 1975. Still well worth a watch. Great match, 8/10.

Well, that was a lot of gibberish without a clear point. It seems at though I ended up ranking Lawler #44, which is higher than I remembered. I decided to go back and watch some Memphis because: a) as the quoted post testifies, it is a style I enjoyed and found easy to watch even at a time where I would spit before uttering the phrase "80s US wrestling" b) I've become a boomer and my stylistic preferences have moved even more towards the kind of minimalistic wrestling you can see there. Also some things just suddenly make sense. When I was 16 it was all about championships and tournaments and whatnot, hair vs hair matches just seemed like a dumb medieval relic. Now that my friends are balding I'm like "yeah forget about titles it's all about hair vs hair you're already fighting the inevitable you really don't want to get beat up in the process too". So, now I'm old and pretty much the target audience for this stuff. Lawler certainly has the output to be considered a greatest of all time candidate. Has he found his way into the depth of my heart and is now challenging for a top 10-15 placement? That's gonna be a no. I like the matches a bit more now (and I already loved them dearly), but I find it I largely feel similar to how I did 8-9 years ago. For all the talk about offense, I think the "invisible" work is really where Lawler shines. He really knew how to sell and position himself while eating a beatdown, it's really the kind of stuff which should be shown in wrestling school. And of course he is a legendary puncher, his jabs, corner punches and big haymaker swings all look amazing. However, when it comes to throwing smaller and shorter punches, I don't think he is that great. In fact, I came away thinking Dundee and Mantell were actually better punchers than him after watching their encounters. In fact, while I currently lack the immediate reference materials to fully flesh out a concise case for it, my gut instinct tells me I might prefer Dundee and Mantell as workers in general. It might not be the easiest case to make with how Lawler-centric Memphis is as a territory, but looking at their input, it just seems like they work with a bit more snap and manage to project themselves more, and I am pretty confident it has nothing to do with them being heels when opposing him. Luckily my main criteria is "vibes" so if the footage convinces me of it he can have 20x more greatness on his resume I won't budge. Also, I mention this reluctantly because I don't think it's a big deal and I ignore it most of the time and just accept it as part of the style, but the "straps coming down" and the cartoony comeback I am not a big fan, especially in the context of "greatest wrestling of all time" discussion, this means I am comparing it to Antonio Inoki firing up, Lou Thesz losing his temper, Sangre Chicana comebacks with burst of energy exploding in counter straights, Misawa's extended comeback, Santo cleaning house and so on. To me it looks out of place, but different strokes for different folks. Lawler is probably going to move up on my list, but top 20 is probably out of reach. When I think of all time great brawling, in the sense of classical prowres brawling which combines these big mesmerizing personalities and worked punching, I think of wrestlers like Sangre Chicana, Perro Aguayo, Terry Funk, Pirata Morgan and Johnny Valentine, and for me he falls a bit short in direct comparisons. I may end up ranking Lawler over at least 1 or 2 of the mentioned but when I factor in all other styles of prowres I like, there's just too much competition.

I'm not sure I'd phrase it exactly like this and point out the same things, but upon rewatching this I have to say I largely agree with what I had to say 8 years ago. The amount of modern wrestling of questionable quality I was watching at the time probably helped a lot with pointing out the stylistic strengths of 90s All Japan which this match greatly represents. It's understandable why this match is so hyped. It's got a big fight atmosphere, an excited crowd, there's a story to it with Kawada having just won the Champion Carnival and Misawa having reigned for so long that makes it feel this could be the title change. It's worked about as typically as a big 1990s All Japan Triple Crown match could. Hot beginning to start things off>slowing down>picking up again for the finishing stretch. It's got the eye-catching Kung Fu action movie striking and bomb-throwing but it's not ridiculous to the point you could earnestly fault them for being excessive. That's kind of the problem I have with it. It's all by the book. There's nothing to grab me as something special. Misawa's targeting of the knee might be significant to someone writing a piece on the rivalry, but in the context of the match I didn't find it that significant; proficiency in legwork isn't what I love Mitsuharu Misawa for, and it ended up being just another thing which they moved away from later. The body of the match in particular is just them doing stuff. There's not a lot of filler, their stuff looks good, occasionally there are moment of truly captivating violence (like the face kick to counter the Half Crab and Misawa's brutal Shining Dropkick), but there is never an escalation, nor does it really set up anything in the grand scheme of things. In a way it feels like Misawa and Kawada played it safe; which is completely fine. But the match doesn't start feeling special until about 23 or 24 minutes in. The scale of the finishing stretch is something which definitely resonated with me this time, and why I think the match has the reputation it does. It's hard to add much to it at this point. Just an absolute master class of milking heat and dramatizing struggle. My favourite moment of the match was probably when Misawa no-sold Kawada's head kicks in the corner, stood-up and just knocked him down with an Elbow. I've talked about it when describing Hashimoto matches several times, but the beauty of pro wrestling is that it operates outside of logic, much like the real fighting it is (at least vaguely) based on. It's a preposterous spot when you describe it, it's preposterous in execution by almost everyone, but when you're that captivating of a worker and manage to create that magical magnetic atmosphere by using your selling prowress, you can get away doing more. Life isn't fair. 8/10. Even with their flaws, I prefer the 1992 and 1993 Triple Crown Misawa-Kawada matches over this one. The uncertainty of what was going to happen in the 1992 bout (not in terms of the result but in terms of how they were gonna put together the match) and the spectacularity of the 1993 one are more endearing to me than a great execution of a textbook layout.

Continuing the quest of finding my favourite Misawa vs Kawada match, we go here. Is this the one? Hmmm. It's a weird match. The opening isn't very good. Even if you don't like AJPW stylistically there's a certain level of respect and acknowledgment you should have for these two for their ability to chain movements together and put on complex matches. The opening is basically a complete negation of that. They were not synchronized at all, which you could especially see at certain moments (Kawada's weird Shoulder Block where he gently took down Misawa, Kawada bumping huge for an Elbow which Misawa didn't really throw with the swing and intensity of a big knock-down Elbow). Then there's a moment where they re-create a spot from the 1992 match, which was a big turning point in that match, where Kawada throws a kick which lands pretty high on Misawa's chest but it's high enough that when you have an all time great seller in Misawa he can get away with a magic trick and convince you his throat got crushed. It was a filler spot here which was very annoying. Then there was Kawada's armwork which was complete filler, lacking the intensity and conviction he is often praised for, as well as as proficiency in execution. I was honestly ready to give up. But then they started doing moves. When Misawa started kicking Kawada around for the comeback, it really felt cathartic. Alright, enough of this nonsense, the match starts now. And they put on a fantastic fanservice of what I want Misawa vs Kawada to be. If you were to JIP the match from that point on I would see it either as a near classic or a classic. The sheer magnitude of the brutality and their dedication to the stiffness and action was outstanding, Misawa throwing Elbows which basically go through Kawada, who in return answers with beautiful desperation punches. This is a match of which you can make beautiful GIFs and highlight videos if there ever was one. Obviously these two have the common sense to intertwine it altogether with the struggle and build for this not to fall apart, and sometimes the struggle is even more interesting than the bruality - I loved Kawada running towards the ropes to block the Tiger Suplex and Misawa desperately Armdragging himself out of Stretch Plum attempt. Then comes time for the finish which is one of my favourite parts of these Misawa-Kawada matches where Misawa just nukes Kawada with Suplexes and goes over to remind everyone he is the king of All Japan and Kawada is an ugly loser. Speaking of details! Kawada's weak kick-outs really sold his inevitable doom and I loved him just desperately diving for Double Legs as a last resort. So how to rate this? I'm uncertain how I'd compare it to the 1992 bout. Once the match actually starts, it's on another level compared to 1992; much more compact. 1992 loses steam in the middle whereas this doesn't open in an interesting manner. But the beginning of this is worse than anything in 1992. But a bad start is structurally not as bad as a bad middle. But it took a while for the start of the bout to come. I give out a verdict of 8-8.5/10.

When I was about 13-14 I watched all of the Misawa/Kawada singles matches and I distinctively remember having a favourite and it not being the 1994 one. Even though it's been years since I rewatched it by this point, I have confidence my opinion on the 1992 one would remain the same, so now it's time to find out which one I liked the best (maybe it will be the 1994 if it magically clicks with me once I watch for the, urgh, fourth time?). So, what is gonna be my favourite Misawa-Kawada match? Well, not this one! Which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Even if this match doesn't have some great reputation, stylistically it should fit what I like in Jwres and Prowres. It's shorter and more compact than their 1992 bout. About a half or two thirds of this were worked in a very gritty manner, smaller than you'd expect from these two and more in the vein of what Tenryu and Hashimoto would do. Them just grabbing each other's heads and violently smacking them on the turnbuckle was not what I was expecting, maybe they got jealous watching the WAR tapes. I liked them methodically going after each other and hitting nasty shots, but if we're gonna talk about all time great wrestling, and with these two it's almost an insult to give out other comparisons, I'll take the stuff Hashimoto and Tenryu were doing at around the same time over the Misawa-Kawada tribute job. Eventually when it came time for the finishing stretch they settled into what they usually do, and it was nowhere near close to the best version of the stuff they can do in terms of chaining sequences and showcasing spectacular offense. And honestly I think the indecisiveness is the downfall of the match. They didn't dedicate to working a minimalistic match where Kawada's early control would build heat and lead to a big Misawa comeback, nor did they really organize and structure it like a big spectacle (despite actually doing quite a lot in terms of offense they busted out, particularly Kawada) so it just kind of fell in-between. Felt like a 7-7.5/10 match.

I watched the first two volumes of the 80s Joshi set Kadaveri set up, which cover the 80-81 period of AJW and go past Jackie's retirement. Commenting on 10 year old posts might seem kind of rude, especially since we're talking about a worker whom barely anyone hyped-up to begin with, but there aren't a lot of them in this thread and some of them I intensively disagree with so let's just get at it: I have yet to watch a Mariko Akagi match or get to Jaguar's prime, so I can't really comment on that. However I totally disagree with the notion Yumi Ikeshita was better than Jackie. I really like Ikeshita, she brings the vibe of intensity and aggressiveness I live for, but AJW didn't have a very deep roster, and when you compare how they fared at getting good matches out of whatever Nancy Lucy Cindy Mimi the AJW idol factory produced, which is going to be a lot of what they were doing at the time, Jackie completely blows her out of the water. I have yet to really find the proper words to describe the AJW style, but the only thing I can clearly pinpoint to is that there was a lot of moves and irish whips. "Gritty matwork" really seems to be connected to Sato as an individual worker than the house style. Which just makes Sato that much cooler in my eyes. I think this is an unfair description. From my point of view, Yokota had some raw skill and a sense for putting together exciting movement, but she wasn't exactly some sort of genius worker in 1980-1981, and to claim Sato was "every part of it" is to approach the matches in reverse of how they should be. The matches are great, but they are much closer to a Billy Robinson/Terry Funk vs Jumbo Tsuruta where the veteran is clearly leading the young up and comer than they are to an equal effort. Yokota was nowhere near Sato's level at that point. That's it for now. I'm counting on OJ and Jetlag to be in good spirits and not get mad. I'm gona put the Joshi set watching on hold because I'm really dreading the idea of watching AJW without Jackie Sato and Yumi Ikeshita, watch some more Sato and come back to this thread to hopefully hype her up with more detailed arguments.

Here's another match which I haven't watched in over a decade and have no idea how it will hold up. Obviously this was a classic to the eyes of a 13-14 year old who started watching Jwres because of TheSuicidalDragon Youtube videos. Misawa is someone whom I've never stopped loving despite my opinions on prowres changing drastically, and 1997 Kobashi isn't full on Crybashi anymore but is also about 3 years removed from becoming a wrestler whom I actually love. So, now that some matches aren't automatically better than other matches to me because they have more cool moves, does this 40 minute maximalist late 90s All Japan bout hold up? Yeah. This match is worked in a style which, for the sake of the pro-wrestling industry as a whole, probably never should have existed. But it is an undeniable masterpiece of that style. I am a much bigger proponent of prowres minimalism than I am of maximalism, something like this dooms the next generations who are sure to see a highlight video of this and fall for the flash of the big spots without understanding all the layers of structure and meaning underneath them. And they are really what sets this match apart. New standards in workrate have been set since this match has taken place, there are matches that have more apron bumps, more top rope action, more headdrops, but this match remains at the top of the mountain of big action-based prowres. Working a long main event title match by just going straight into it, with the "hot start>cool down>finishing stretch" All Japan layout instead of the classic prowres layout of gradual escalation presents many issues, as those of us who have seen a lot of 90s All Japan can witness. Probably the most common one is that matches feel disjointed because wrestlers lose focus in the middle. This match manages to successfully avoid that. The armwork probably helped with that, but these two just had an absolute command of the pacing. I'd say the secret ingredient was the way they used holds to connect their transitions and control segments, especially in the beginning. Putting on a Surfboard Stretch or something similar when you can't even get a deep 2 count makes sense from traditional Prowres logic, and it was crucial in preventing the moves from losing their impact and blurring together. Another important thing is that there wasn't actually a cool down period. This was a long match which escalated gradually, obviously later in the match you're going to have the dramatic selling and the nearfalls, the middle is where you're either going to have some twists and turns or you're going to get lost. Here they managed to connected the armwork to the big moments without it feeling like a rest period, and the viciousness of the armwork itself really managed to make it as legitimate of a choice as the bomb-throwing. That's a proper foundation for a constantly progressive action-based bout Now that I've covered why this works and doesn't fall apart like most contemporary workrate wrestling, this is just a festival of spectacular offence. And honestly the big headdroping suplexes might be the least interesting thing here. Misawa's Sliding Dropkick, the Belly To Back Suplex over the ropes, that beautiful Elbow Drop…..he really gives you a reminder who the real exellence of execution was, just watching him do his stuff and chain moves in sequences is absolutely wonderful. When he busts out something like that crazy Diving Spinning Back Kick it's almost like a flex. 90s Kenta Kobashi is a necessary evil which needed to exist for something like this to come together, he never saw a move he didn't want to do, and if there's a time and a place for that to come to good use it's a match like this. Outside of one stupid facial expression he made when he wasn't in the ring, Kobashi did a very good job of emoting desperation and perseverance, and his stubbornnes clashing with Misawa's stoicism spiced up the good fundamental built and played into the finish nicely. I would rate this as a wrestling classic. It's definitely the best All Japan match of the year and almost certainly the best pro-style Japanese match of the year, as well as a strong candidate for best match ever done in the style. It's not my favourite style, so MOTY will have to go to Casas-Santito which is probably my Lucha match of the decade. Still, if you're not allergic to the style, it doesn't get any better than this.

I don't remember whether I actually ever rewatched this match and I'm leaning towards not having done so, so it might honestly have been nearly 15 years since I last saw it. Now, to some of you veterans that's just another chapter in the book, but since I'm 27 the moment this review is written, it's an almost scary reminder of how long this nonsense has been a hobby. I have to admit, I was completely flabbergasted by this match. I don't even think Steve Austin was a good wrestler most of the time during the peak of his stardom (98-99), and Bret is someone whom I've remained interested in but hasn't really vowed me as I've given him more chances. This was a classic when I was 13, but so were Chris Jericho vs Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat and HardyECDudleys Ladder matches. Opinions change, mine mostly have, and the odds were stacked against this bout. Aesthetically, this match feels oddly familiar, but also somewhat out of place. It's incredibly reminiscent of an Apuestas fight or a Memphis brawl, which really isn't what I'd connect with 1997 WWF. They use furniture, but it absolutely works in the context of the match. The quality of weapon usage is lost when the violence doesn't feel organic - when LA Park and Rush or Onita and Tarzan Goto are manically going after each other's throats and grabbing anything that happens to be there, weapons rule. When they're turned into a prop, a part of the stage set almost as much as parts of the ring are, they lose their point because they don't escalate the violence. Action-wise, again, it feels like a pastiche of Terry Funk vs Lawler and Perro Aguayo vs Santito. Non-stop intensity with quality face punching, an intelligent use of weapons, slams into the post/apron/barricade. I would say the match is also similar to Minoru Suzuki vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, not in the output, but in that this caliber of a match was only possible due to how well the wrestlers mashed and cancelled each other's flaws. Bret Hart took the business seriously and put a lot of thought into match structure and coming up with cool spots. I doubt Austin could have thought up a match of his caliber if he was the one in charge. But a Bret Hart vs Bret Hart match of this type could have never been a classic. Bret Hart could execute wrestling moves well, but he was never the best at emoting, which is what is going to carry a significant portion of a match of this type. Austin built one of the most successful runs in prowres history basically solely on emoting, and this match is his finest hour. When he comes out, the crowd really isn't going crazy, despite the announcers pretending so. This needs to hit. He is desperate to get over, desperate to become a star, desperate to succeed, and that happens to coincide with the desperation of his character. Austin bumps like crazy here; Bret takes some really nasty bumps too, but a couple of times when Austin went into the ringpost and the barricade it looked like it almost had to have been unsafe. His body language, facial expressions, voice acting, even the blade job, everything was absolutely on point in conveying that sense of urgency and struggle. The finish was absolutely perfect. One of the obvious question in a bout like this would be "how could Austin possibly submit Bret". He did use the Cobra Clutch for a bit, which he didn't even attempt here, and I thought that was a great choice. Stealing the Sharpshooter made for a much more meaningful moment, as did the use of the cables, which presented a much bigger peril as it was much easier to imagine something akin to that being have made a finish. The ambiguity of "will Austin break the Sharsphooter or not" was milked to perfection, and the icon visual of blood dripping from his forehead before he goes down remains powerful even after having been successfully exploited for profit for decades. Impeccable match. US match of the decade, best match in WWE history, and rest assured - a wrestling classic. (Un)fortunately, 1997 is also the year of Misawa vs Kobashi, Casas vs Santito and Volk Han vs Tamura, and while I could rank this above some of these, there's no way I'd rank it above all of them, so it will have to be deprived of MOTY honours.

I had this listed as a classic and couldn't remember it at all, so I decided to give it a re-watch after what has to have been almost a decade. Well, maybe classic was a bit too much, but I would safely put this in the 9 out of 10/near-classic category, it's definitely one of my favourite trios matches. Opening fall starts ok, some fun Ultimo junior mat-sequences and more intensity than you'd expect from a random La Fiera-Wagner interaction, and even when they switch from doing charismatic lock-ups and staredowns to actual work it's still really good, Fiera hit Wagner with one of the most beautiful Bulldogs I remember ever seeing and his Snapmare and Armdrag also looked very good. Still, Santo vs Casas is the real story here, any time they even lock-up it's just magical, they bring an unmatched intensity to even the most mundane opening tropes of prowres. Match really kicks into a higher gear once Ultimo Dragon gets taken out after getting Hammerlock driven into the ringpost and starts selling his shoulder like it broke, that's a perfect example of a spot you'd look at and think "that probably hurts like hell it doesn't really make sense for you to do stuff like that all the time and just treat it like nothing". Once it's 3 vs 2 Santo and Wagner just go berserk, they beat on Casas like he owes them money and suddenly you get an even clearer reminder of what an all time great rivalry Santo vs Casas is and what it was all about in its best incarnation, which is what you're getting here. Seriously, they don't let him catch a break. Casas does an amazing sell job for the massive beatdown, and when it looks like the rudos are fully in control Ultimo Dragon magically appears and just goes over. Huh. Maybe Mexico is crazy and random things just happen. This is what you're thinking? Well wrong because the new Ultimo Dragon has different offense and movements and everything because it's not really Ultimo Dragon it's Felino in Ultimo Dragon's gear. I always make sure to watch the post-match for matches like these so I don't miss more action, and here it turned out very useful because they basically retroactively explained the entire angle by doing close-ups of how Ultimo looked before he went to the back and after he returned. But with all due respect to storytelling, what you really don't wanna miss is the moment when rudos are pissed off, going off cutting their mad promo and Casas and Fiera wack them one after another as they are moving past them on the ramp. Poetic justice! Cinema! Great match and a wonderful example of a well done mix of creative booking and intense action which purposefully moved forward a great rivalry in Lucha.

It's interesting how, for all the talk about the 2006 list being so go-go action oriented, and having taken place at a board literally called "Smarkschoice" with voters using intellectual usernames such as "Benoitsmark" and "This is Workrate", the old timer candidates actually performed better there. Thesz barely made the top 150 last time and was #82 in 2006. When I was making my list last time a part of me wondered whether I was subconsciously influenced by being a contrarian weeb, but I've ultimately come to the conclusion that even if that were true, it is much more likely to be affected in whether I rank someone like Akitoshi Saito or Buzz Sawyer than the top of my list. In actuality I just don't like how American wrestling developed once Harley Race and Ric Flair became important. This is probably part of what made Thesz so interesting to me, together with the reverence for him in the UWFi and among the Catch wrestling circles (amusingly, you could argue Thesz-worship among the Japanese was them being reverse weebs - a Samurai to a Westerner is a Cowboy to an Easterner). Still, that's really no guarantee his work would be on that elite level. Luckily, it is. OJ's responses like "he was just the best wrestler" may seem a bit dismissive, but they are true . But it isn't a statement which is just true on an ontological level, where I would confidently co-sign a statement saying "Lou Thesz is the best American wrestler of all time". It is also true in a sense that the appeal of Lou Thesz and the presentation of Lou Thesz is that he is the best wrestler. In that he doesn't really differ much from a Bret Hart, and you can look at no-nonsense straightmen like Jack Brisco and Dory Funk Jr. as continuing in his style and lineage. I would describe Thesz as being magnetic in his simplicity. Ed "Strangler" Lewis, who was a big inspiration and influence on Thesz, left the same impression on me in the unfortunately limited footage we have of him. Ultimately, what I think makes Lou Thesz one of the greatest of all time are the following: -he worked in a setting which I like stylistically (a strong emphasis on matwork and legitimate wrestling skills) and which fit his strengths -he not only had a great understanding of real grappling, but knew how to transfer it into a working environment and build beautiful mat sequences around it -despite playing a stoic character, he had a great sense of emoting; Thesz losing his temper just means more -he could spice up the grappling with striking and "tricks" like the palm striking his own hand into a Back Elbow, which could be useful both as a revenge towards rule breaking heels and when he was playing a (mostly subtle) heel -he could go through any of the 4 combinations of the traditional roles and types of a pro-wrestler (face/heel x technician/brawler) while staying true to himself and the quality of his work -he worked many greats, but never looks like the lesser great (just for 1970s, where he was already a veteran, he looks completely at home in the clips we have of him going at it with Johnny Valentine in Florida, and clearly outperforms Gotch in their tag vs Inoki and Sakaguchi) -he had a very sophisticated understanding of selling and structuring matches (Thesz vs Gagne 1952/1/25 is to Golden Era prowres what Misawa vs Kobashi 1997/1/20 is to King's Road) I think the beauty in his work is ultimately what sets him apart from wrestlers like Bret and Dory. I might appreciate the thought Bret put into structuring his matches and that he took the business seriously, or the mechanical ability of Dory which could produce epicness against elite opponents like Inoki and Jack Brisco, but neither of them feel complete. Thesz is - which is why I see him more as a comparison to Misawa and Santo in the category of elite stoic wrestling characters who were just "the best". Maybe you could nitpick about Santo here because he had the whole gimmick, but I would turn that around and argue that, with him having the gimmick, it was almost a prophecy for him to be the best. And the beauty of their work is what connects them in my mind. With Misawa, it can be a Forearm barrage or a Sliding Dropkick; with Santo it can be a Hammerfist to get into position for the Camel Clutch or a beautiful Plancha; with Thesz it is a beautiful Drop Toe Hold, a tight Headlock, and, when he loses it, a brutal Knee lift. In conclusion, I have Thesz penciled in my top 10, with a chance of him making my top 5.

I've done a 360 on Oki. At first I was like "this guy is out of this world great why wasn't everyone talking about him before". Then I was like "yeah he looks great in some stuff but then there's actually a lot of matches where he almost feels like a non-presence so it almost makes sense he'd get overlooked". But now I am firmly in the camp which assesses Kintaro Oki was the driving force behind some of the greatest wrestling of all time and was an absolute beast of a wrestler; even if he might not set the world on fire if you autoplay a random tag match, but who cares? Well, maybe you do, but I don't. I'm here for the good stuff, give me enough of it and I'll be forgiving. Terry Funk was doing stupid stuff in Puerto Rico in 1986, are you really gonna look down on the wrestler who had the Lawler and Hansen matches because of that? Anyway. Back to Rikidozan's 3rd and unjustly forgotten student. Do you like minimalism in pro-wrestling? If the answer is no, I don't think Oki is gonna be your guy. You need to really be into it. Even if you claim you love minimalism in pro wrestling, Oki is a test for you. He really might be the most minimalist wrestler of all time. Once you start watching him, try to name one move he regularly does other than the Headbutt. What, you can't? That's what I thought. Who needs moves when you can just stare at someone intensively. Building suspense and tension, almost annoying the crowd before an explosion lets loose and it all turns into a frenzy. This is what Kintaro Oki is all bout. Sometimes it's not about suspense, he'll go out there and just Headbutt someone a million times. But the emoting, the selling, the body language, it's all top notch. Oki just get it, he knows how to project himself like few others do. Right now I'd say his best matches are: vs Antonio Inoki (1974/10/10) vs Seiji Sakaguchi (1975/5/16) vs Giant Baba (1975/10/30) vs Abdullah The Butcher (12/11/1975) w/Kim Duk vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (10/28/1976) w/Kim Duk vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (12/9/1976) vs Giant Baba (10/29/1977) w/Kim Duk vs Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu (1977/12/14) vs Giant Baba (4/1/1978) The JWA stuff has faded from memory a bit, but if I were to go back at it I'd probably include something from there. There has to be more from his team with Kim Duk too. Still, I feel comfortable saying I'm at a point where I've seen enough Oki I'll be watching more not because I need additional information to judge exactly what level of worker he was, but out of sheer hedonism. Right now he's safely in my top 30 and one of the million wrestlers I'm considering for the top 10/15 tier.

Nearly fainted when I stumbled upon this, talk about an unexpected treat. Let's get the negatives out of the way - forget about any comparisons to their 1974 classic. Unfortunately this one is much more brief, and really isn't even a proper match, but is more of an angle. Still, it's Inoki and Oki in a one on one setting. If I get a minute, I'm gonna be thankful for that minute. And no, we're not talking about a minute like the Sakaguchi vs Oki match which was two minutes but the match-angle lasts quite a bit longer longer and has action throughout the entire thing. This is an honest minute-minute and a half of Inoki vs Oki. But it is a glorious minute, with Oki viciously going straight after Inoki, who does an all time great sell of being overtaken by a surprise attack and desperately trying to survive. Tremendous for what it is, a great display of the charisma and intensity these two could bring and something which, even if it may not be the greatest thing since slice bread of its own, displays them using the same level of capability which they used to have some of the best wrestling of all time.

I'm considering Dory. The problem for him is that he's certainly not one of my 100 favourite wrestlers of all time and when push coves to shove, I'll probably want to represent wrestlers who express what I authentically think is great in pro-wrestling like Nikolai Zouev over wrestlers whom I think should be on a list if you were arithmetically analyzing their output. Still, Dory has a very good resume and shouldn't be overlooked. When I was trying to think of comparisons to Dory, the first name I thought of was Randy Orton. World champions respected amongst their peers, mechanically sound, a lot of good matches throughout their career, but don't really have the most flavor in their work. However, when thinking about it, I realized I don't think Randy Orton has any classic matches that I would think of as 10/10, and in those I thought of as great (8-9/10) he was usually having the matches more in line with his opponent (Christian, Mark Henry, Foley). This is not the case with Dory, who I think both has great matches and classics and is an integral part of them. I think an apt comparison is actually Bret Hart. Both portray stoic technical wrestler World champions. Both had reps of being great workers in their time. Both are second generation wrestlers. Both were parts of acclaimed tag teams. If you think of the singles classic matches usually associated with Dory, you'd get something like: vs Inoki 1969 vs Brisco 1972 vs Brisco 1974 vs Hoffman 1975 And for Bret you'd get something like: vs Owen Wrestlemania 10 vs Owen Summerslam 1994 vs Austin Survivor Series 1996 vs Austin Wrestlemania 13 It's all a matter of opinions, so you can skew it towards one or the other depending on whom you prefer, but I think it is a very suitable analogy. I cannot really imagine Dory succeeding in Bret's environment of early 1990s WWF, nor can I imagine Bret succeeding in a 70s NWA style environment. Bret wasn't really a great matworker, and Dory wasn't someone with the versatility of his brother where you can just plug him into whatever style, time and place and have it somehow work out. For post-Thesz US "technical masters", right now I would probably go Jack Brisco>Dory>Bret. But really, WWE machinery aside and "I watched him as a kid" aside, I feel like if he cut anti US-promos, had a cool outfit and a catchy theme song, there'd be a lot more Dory Funk Jr. fans

As a concept of a pro-wrestler, Yoshihiro Takayama is easily top 5 of all time for me. A big man is one of the classic great pro wrestling tropes, but here's one who came up through the UWFi schol and will just murder people with huge knee lifts, forearm smashes, big boots and suplexes, like a love child of a threesome between Gary Albright, Pat Roach and Akira Maeda. You can't beat that. So I've been having a blast rewatching some Takayama, and found myself somewhat surprised looking back at the rankings for the last GWE list where Takayama only finished #123, with guys like KENTA, Great Sasuke, Masanobu Fuchi, Dick Togo, Keiji Mutoh, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Hiroshi Hase all ranking above him. That's not to say I don't think at least some of the mentioned aren't great, but they have all had vocal detractors. I think his rating is more of a reflection of the demographic of voters than the quality of his work, because if his peak had been from 1992-1994 instead of ten years later, I cannot imagine him not ranking at least thirty places higher. You would think Takayama would have pretty universal appeal which would allow him to score a good placement, but apparently not. There wasn't much discussion for him originally, and even then most of it went along the lines of „yeah great peak, didn't last too long, what was he doing in All Japan are there any hidden gems there?“. And that's really not a good way of looking at his career and illustrating exactly what kind of a run Takayama had in the 2000s. Without thinking too much, I can put a pretty solid list of super-fun Takayama matches I'd absolutely recommend everyone watch (see below). Takayama as a monster behind whom Minoru Suzuki is hiding rules. Takayama versus big charismatic personalities (Tenzan, Chono, Muta) rules. Takayama versus overenthusiastic young wrestlers (KENTA, Morishima) rules. Takayama working King Kong vs Godzilla monster clashes (vs Nakanishi, Rikioh, Yoshie) rules. Takayama being the Tom to the Jerry of Ogawa, Inoue or Hashi in cat and mouse matches rules. Takayama fighting versus the greats of the time (Kobashi, Misawa, Kensuke Sasaki, Nagata, Sugiura) not only delivers but usually ends up being the best match his opponents had had in those periods. At his best, Takayama is a special wrestler. The kind of special whom I turn to when I ask myself which wrestlers make watching wrestling special. And as the list illustrates, there is a lot of Takayama at his best. And maybe the best part is that it really isn't a comprehensive list and that there's more out there in that time period alone. I could easily see myself putting him above Kobashi, Kawada and Taue. So Top 10 isn't completely out of the question, though it's more likely I'll put him Top 20-30. Still, Takayama absolutely rules. Recommended matches: vs Izumida (NOAH 2001/3/22) vs Misawa (NOAH 2001/4/15) vs Morishima (NOAH 2001/11/30) vs Hashi (NOAH 2002/2/10) w/Omori vs Rikioh & Morishima (NOAH 2002/2/17) vs Nagata (NJPW 2002/5/2) vs Nakanishi (NJPW 2002/6/7) vs Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW 2002/8/3) vs Nishimura (NJPW 2002/08/10) vs Chono (NJPW 2002/8/11) vs Ogawa (NOAH 2002/9/7) vs Misawa (NOAH 2002/9/23) vs Tenzan (NJPW 2002/8/4) vs Kohsaka (NJPW 2003/1/4) vs Masao Inoue (NOAH 2003/3/1) vs Rikioh (NOAH 2003/4/13) w/Ikeda & Sugiura vs Kobashi, KENTA & Tamon Honda (NOAH 2003/05/09) vs Morishima (NOAH 2003/6/6) vs Tenzan (NJPW2003/6/10) vs Nakamura (NJPW 2003/6/13) vs Yoshie (NJPW 20038/14) vs Shibata (NJPW 2003/8/15) w/Sano vs Misawa & Rikioh (NOAH 2003/11/1) w/Minoru Suzuki vs Genichiro Tenryu & Manabu Nakanishi (NJPW 2004/3/28) vs Kobashi (NOAH 2004/4/25) vs Shibata (NJPW 2004/3/12) w/Izumida vs Rikioh & Morishima (NOAH 2004/6/23) vs KENTA (NOAH 2004/6/27) w/Minoru Suzuki vs Takeshi Rikioh & Takeshi Morishima (NOAH 7/10/2004) vs Nakanishi (NJPW 2004/8/7) vs Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW 2004/8/8) w/Minoru Suzuki vs Yuji Nagata & Kazunari Murakami (BML 2006/6/18) w/Sugiura vs Rikioh & Morishima (NOAH 2006/9/9) w/Sano vs KENTA & Akitoshi Saito (NOAH 2006/10/13) w/Kohei Sato v Shinjiro Ohtani & Takao Omori 2007 (2007/2/18) w/Sugiura vs Akiyama & Rikio (NOAH 2007/4/28) w/Kobashi vs Akiyama & Misawa (NOAH 2007/12/2) vs Minoru Suzuki (Suzuki Produce 2008/6/17) vs Masao Inoue (NOAH 2008/12/14) vs Great Muta (AJPW 2009/3/14) vs Suwama (AJPW 2009/8/30) vs Sugiura (NOAH 2009/10/3) vs Nakamura (NJPW 2010/1/4) vs Sugiura (NOAH 2010/7/10) vs KENTA (NOAH 2011/1/15) vs Go Shiozaki (NOAH 2011/9/23)

This match is special in more ways than one. I watched it when it happened as I was really into New Japan at the time - though I was more of a NOAH fan, into stiffness and workrate, and Tanahashi didn't really offer much in what I wanted out of Japanese wrestling. I wasn't a big fan of Tanahashi's 2011 IWGP run of legwork doom, and was very excited for the emergence of Okada and New Japan being infected with the CM Punk/Christian Cage counter wrestling which took over the WWE main event scene in 2011. As a side note, my working assumption is that Christian (who was the most notable WWE worker popularizing the style at the time) actually got the style from working with Jeff Jarrett, who was working the dramatic finishing stretches built around finisher counters a couple of years earlier. So really, all those of you who love 2010s New Japan have Jeff Jarrett to thank for it In real time I thought this was a very good match, but not as great as it had been hyped. Since twelve years passing and being 27 instead of 15 will change anything in life, including your taste in prowres, I decided to re-watch it, as it had come up when I was thinking of what would be my match of the decade for the 2010s. This was the one match that I wanted to re-watch, as it was incredibly unique and stood out amongst the plethora of modern Jwres I'd seen, and my taste had shifted more towards matches worked in this vein than those built around nearfall drama. Uniqueness doesn't guarantee greatness though, so was I right in assuming I'd now hold this match in higher esteem? Yes. In fact, I was really into this before the bell had even rung. A lot of times you can tell how good of a performance a wrestler is going to have just by their facial expression during their entrance (the dreaded "job face"). Suzuki looked ultra focused, like he came with the intention of having a classic. I'd like to imagine this was instigated by a bonus or a bet, maybe with another wrestler or a sports reporter. TAKA Michinoku comes out with the Suzuki army banner, MiSu fist bumps him and sends TAKA back. As he makes his way into the ring you get a clear view of a young lion directing traffic, and Suzuki spares him. Suzuki comes near the ring to climb the ropes, there's another young lion holding the ropes for him, Suzuki spares him the bullying as well. So we've established this match is going to be serious business, so far so good. As for the match itself, it's absolutely fascinating what a mixture of everything it is. If you look at the moves used, the counters, it is a 2010s match. Rope hanging Armbars weren't really a thing 30-40 years ago. If you look at the structure, you can't miss how 1970s inspired this is. No pinfall attempts before the finish is a big clue, it's something which really stands out if you look at older footage, there is a lot more focus on the actual work and building the heat than just going through moves and using covers as a way to connect the action. Limbwork as the body of the match with long control segments is another. Suzuki targets the arm, Tanahashi the leg, every momentum shift advances the plot. Struggle is another. Moves aren't just given away – everything is earned, the important ones are teased and built to. There are no 1-1 („boo-yay“) strike exchanges, they are worked much more naturally, serving the structural needs of the match at a given time instead of being there as a crutch for a pop, and mostly consist of one wrestler overwhelming the other. So the foundation of the match is very solid. However, a solid foundation doesn't mean this was going to manifest itself as a great match. At his best I think Minoru Suzuki is a pro-wrestling genius. Unfortunately, when it comes to working pro-style matches, I don't think there are 10 matches where he's worked to the best of his ability. Honestly, if I'm being really picky, there may not be 5. Luckily, this one makes the list, we only get the best of Suzuki here. Still, you can't have a classic against a broomstick, Tanahashi is also in this match. And if you were to look at their strengths and flaws, they match up perfectly to cancel each other out: -Suzuki loses focus when he's doing midcard stuff or is against goofy wrestlers. Tanahashi is Shawn Michaels inspired, but he works and carries himself like a champion, so Suzuki is on his best behavior -Suzuki is at his best when he is working control segments that include beatdowns and him stretching his opponent. 50/50 Suzuki matches with endless strike exchanges aren't much better than the standards stuff in the style, and it's a style I don't like much; none of that is shown here -Tanahashi looks silly in longer strike exchanges but can look good when he is limited to shorter bursts, as is the case here -Tanahashi's biggest strengths as a pro wrestler are his selling and his emoting, and that's what he spends the majority of this match doing They do a good job of building a simple narrative, and the commentators do an excellent job of working you into believing this is something more than it is. Suzuki is serious, they open the match with some classic opening chain wrestling, Tanahashi gets him in an Abdominal Stretch and plays the famous Air Guitar. This pissed Suzuki off – he's usually the silly one, yet he is on business grind today, and this is is how he gets played? That's a trigger for a Suzuki control segment – he gets in Tanahashi's face, and like a dumb babyface Tanahashi gets goaded into the ropes for the Suzuki upside-down Armbar. And so starts the Suzuki stretching/beatdown. "Suzuki has the spirit of Showa! UWF! Pancrase!“ The play-by-play guy deserves a raise, you know he knows these exclamations are nonsense as Suzuki is biting Tanahashi's bandage and pulling him by the hair. At one point Tanahashi is going for a Cloverleaf, Suzuki blocks it and Tanahashi transitions into a Figure-4. All time great commentary call by I believe Kazuo Yamazaki (and it makes sense he'd be the one to say this) with a comment that said something like: „a classic wrestling move by Tanahashi….he is purposefully using it to send a message to Suzuki….this is like the NJPW vs UWFi feud when Mutoh used it to defeat Takada“. Now that's a man who understands working, watch Kazuo Yamazaki tapes and vote for him in the GWE I am not the biggest fan of Tanahashi, but it is clear he has wrestling ability, as you'd expect from a wrestler who originally came-up in the Fujinami tradition. Alongside the virtues I've already covered, he has very good athleticism, creativity and a great sense of timing. I don't like how he uses them in many of his matches, but here the base is good. He uses the athleticism to throw himself onto Suzuki's legs, and is constantly using different attacks – Dropkicks, Dragon Screw variations, Chop Blocks, there's always something new in his toolbox, and he times it to perfection. The same is true for the important counters they pull-off, all of them have great timing and execution. Still, Suzuki is the star here. For pro-style work, this is easily his masterpiece and his career performance. The wise commentators bring up The Destroyer, and you can't help but think he was trying to craft a match under that umbrella. You wouldn't presume someone working a hold for minutes at a time would be sending a 2012 crowd into a frenzy, but Suzuki was ready to kick, scream, yell and do whatever it takes to win a bet I imagined him having. For how much I talked about Tanahashi's emoting, it really is Suzuki's emoting, intensity, and to some extent even aura and reputation that primarily carry this match and get it to the next level. As creative as Tanahashi is in his leg attacks, Suzuki is even more creative in figuring out how to counter basically anything Tanahashi attempts into an Armlock, thinking up ways to work Double Wristlocks/Kimuras over and over again without it feeling repetitive, varying many Armlock variations and smartly using his surroundings to spice up the holds during the limbwork. I would rate this bout as a wrestling classic. Unless some new FUTEN is unearthed, this is probably my Japanese Match of the Decade, and could very well end up being my overall Match of the Decade for the 2010s.

Thank you very much for this great piece of audio, I would advise everyone interested in this era to give it a listen, some very intriguing stories. I will just note, for clarity, that no suggestion is made anywhere that this match was a shoot As far as the (un)cooperative nature of this match goes, I think the work speaks for itself and don't really have the will to break down several individual sequences. I will note two important things which have to be taken into consideration if you're seriously going to make that argument. First, it is true that there has been an incredible development of submission grappling in the last century. However, it's important to note in what areas the development has taken place. I'm not an expert in Amateur and Folk-style, I'm sure many improvements have been made there, just like they have been in Basketball, Tennis and every other sport. However, if we're talking about a revolutionary kind of improvement, it has only really been made thanks to new emerging rulesets which allowed competitors to spend a significant amount of time in positions where they are pinned and/or open to being punched. Caddock and Stetcher probably didn't have an amazing Z-guard and De la Riva guard, since there was no reason to develop them under the rulesets in which they competed at the time. If you look at something like a Mount or a blast Double, sure there have probably been additional set-ups with which people have come up over time, but generally, it's the same thing you see today. If anything, I would say modern MMA has largely proved Catch Wrestling is the best base for the sport, the emphasis on bottom play isn't a good idea for real fights, and contemporary Grappling has been way more "revolutionary" as its own niche with super specific rulesets where things like the Worm Guard can exist than at showing what is possible to do in a real fight, even if "real fighting" as a sport has only existed in significant fashion for the last 30 years and expanding what is possible should be happening regularly and naturally for both striking and grappling once they are mixed-up. As far as these guys being lower level fighters, I'm just going to shake my head. Fighting ability isn't acquired through theorizing, but through sparring. You can watch all the Danaher instructions in the world, consistent mat time beats it any day of the week. These guys had spent their whole lives on the mat. Do you really think they weren't very proficient wrestlers, who knew better than not do grab silly Side Headlocks, follow up their Takedowns, or escape positions and holds in ways which were energy efficient instead of intentionally showboaty? Even with all the improvements that have been made in the grappling sports, wrestling itself isn't exactly a young sport, it's been around long enough that I seriously doubt you would see an honest-to-God piggyback, which you can spot here around twenty minutes in.

I first watched this before going to sleep after not being particularly impressed with the earlier prowres clips, wanting to get it off my bucket list, thinking this wasn't gonna be nearly as good as the stuff from the 1930s. I ended up quite enjoying it, so I rewatched it to give it a closer look. First thing's first, any description of this as a potential shoot is thoroughly unjustified. This is very clearly a worked pro-wrestling match with cooperation. No trained amateur wrestler is grabbing Side Headlocks like this in a real contest. Now, for the match itself. I've seen this match described as inaccessible, and I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. If you want to watch this with an understanding of what's going on instead of just staring into blank space, you're going to need two things: 1) good eyesight 2) an appreciation for and a very solid understanding of real grappling (preferably with personal experience, preferably with that experience being something akin to folk-style or submission wrestling) Luckily, I have both, so let's get into things. Any style of prowres has its tropes. It has its base positions. A lot of traditional prowres uses a Side Headlock as a sort of starting position from which you get shot onto the ropes, get into the matwork etc. Shoot style uses neutral positions like the 50-50 Leg Entanglements as they offer opportunity for mutual attacks, counters and, well, „working“. The styles have their ways of creating intricacy (is he going to do this or that?) as well as drama (he almost had him; this doesn't have to be via nearfalls). The base positions here are a bit different. You have the lock-ups, but not the lock-ups of today where two guys just automatically simultaneously grab each other, there is a lot more gripfighting here. Now, in most pro-wrestling analysis, creating additional struggle would seem like something worth celebrating, but we're gonna have to stop here, because everyone who has watched modern IJF Judo competitions will tell you that is absolutely untrue. Gripfighting with the most struggle in the world can be (and usually is) incredibly boring. Wrestling luckily doesn't have jackets which could slow the action down and make breaking grips mission impossible, but still, if you've watched enough legitimate grappling competitions, you probably have enough data to realistically reconstruct why the early pro wrestling crowds weren't crazy about the matches beginning with endless standing gripfighting. With that said, I thought the lock-ups were very well done here, there was enough dynamic movement to keep the action varied and interesting. They used a lot of footwork to try to off-balance one another and were constantly fighting for inside control. The lock-up is also used as a reset position after scrambles, so they always return to it. But it being such a basic position actually made it much more interesting than the lock-ups of today, because they were constantly going for Snapdowns, Leg Trips, Russian Ties, Single Legs etc. So the intricacy of a lock-up is much greater and closer to something you'd see in UWF. The second base position is the turtle position. Stecher's finisher is The Scissors Hold. Translated to modern terminology, it is a basic Back Mount from which he would turn his opponents into pins. This basically means much of the bulk of the match is built around the threat of Stecher's finisher. We go from standing grappling to matwork, from lock-ups to the turtle position, over and over. The turtle isn't just about turning over the guy for the pin, it is also about riding him, or, on the other hand, him getting up and resetting the position. So there's more than enough things for them to address and create intricate sequences around. By now you should've realized this match is essentially worked Catch-as-catch-can, which is why it could get easily confused for something unscripted. And if you like the aesthetics of something shootier, there is plenty of things to enjoy here. The highs of the action here are the takedowns and the scrambles, and we got a lot of quality in both departments here, some really nice takedowns like the Judo-esque Leg Trips, a blast Double, a Double Wristlock takeover (I told you this match was a work), and the Single Leg is struggled over so much it could even be argued it is another base position. The scrambles you could copy/paste straight into UWFi matches like Tamura/Anjoh and they'd fit right in. This was a really good match. I'd rate it a 7 or an 8 out of ten, the video quality and the lack of points of references make it harder to draw definitive conclusions. It's hard to judge how dramatic it was – there were some nearfalls near the end, but the actual drama of whether someone's shoulder were going to be kept above the ground seems stronger in the 1913 Fristensky vs Smejkal bout. Here the escapes are more dramatized, but I'd say this stuff certainly doesn't look as exciting as the matches that that came in the later 1920s and the 1930s, which is when the theatrics and the elaboration clearly started gaining ground. But the meat of the match is really good.

LondosMania is running wild! This is the match which best showcases just how popular he was, the crowd is absolutely rabid here. There was a significant size difference in this bout, but due to the amount of time they spend on the mat or hunched over due to, ahem, wrestling, it didn't really stand out that much. If anything, the increased legitimacy of the style actually made Londos work better as a threat than a modern style would. Londos is short, stacked and incredibly explosive. When I was trying to think of comparisons to him, I thought of Yoel Romero and Daniel Cormier, legitimate wrestlers for whom the short stature can be an advantage since it makes it easier to get to the legs and take the opponent down. What I probably most love about Londos is how authentically he works to his strengths. It's basically the reverse of the Ishii syndrome, where you have a a five feet tall midcarder who wants to work like he is a foot taller dominant main event badass because that's how he sees himself. Londos doesn't just use his explosiveness to do cool stuff like power out of holds via worked deadlifts or kick away from leglocks, he also uses it for evasion (running away when he finds himself in a precarious situation). It shows an awareness that yeah, he can explode into dominant offensive bursts, but he can also get caught by the bigger opponents and end up in peril. It's selling the threat of his opponent and building to the moments where he does get caught, raising the stakes of the upcoming sequences. I don't want to hear about "storytelling" in WWE melodramas, but this is an example of a match where there are enough layers I would consider the term justified. There's probably an argument to be made, since spots like kicking-away from leglocks and the vicious Snapdown attempts which border on slaps (and sometimes turn into striking exchanges) done here are things you regularly see at Grappling training, that decreasing the legitimacy of prowres working styles is what made WorkrateMania possible. If you don't need to address the obvious physical and skill factors and can just "imagine" whatever, then it's much easier for the action to implode into a collection of stuff you think is cool than if you need to justify why you, with that background, are doing a certain maneuver to a particular opponent. Ok, so this match rules, I've raved about Londos, now for a word on his opponent. Shikat essentially works as a base, which means it is a bit harder to convert what he does great into understandable illustrative descriptions. He's just very good at the important stuff - his timing, selling, positioning, it's all top notch. He knows how to react to Londos' explosions and counter attempts - when to stuff them, when to let him back on offence. He insists on long range Snapdowns because of his size advantage over Londos and uses rugged throws (aesthetic in their seeming uncooperativeness) and simple holds to control him. He even pulls Londos' nose at one point! Heel work, old-school catch tougness or both? Whatever it may be, I see no wrong answers. I think the key ingredient in why this match is so great may be learned psychology. The escalation might not perfectly coincide with how you would imagine a clasically structured match to go today (something akin to Headlock>Bodyslam>Suplex>Brainbuster), instead you get repetition of the holds with varying results with them building onto the previous sequences. I mentioned the Londos kick away escape. First he kicks away to escape, then Shikat catches his kick but Londos sweeps him, then Shikat blocks the sweep by sprawling onto Londos. In a way, it's not that different from what prowres matwork would evolve into the 70s. As the action intensifies, at one point the time comes for them to kick it up a gear, and we get a crazy finishing stretch with them busting out a bunch of slams and the crowd going berserk. Excellent, excellent match.

JIP be damned, this is an all time wrestling bout in my book. Hopefully that has you hooked, because the quality of this contest might be least interesting thing about it. Okay, so it's 1934. We have Whitney Hewitt and Paul Harper, two guys whom I've never heard of before and who (as far as I know, and believe me I've checked) have no other matches on tape. This match has a special guest referee, and is the match of which tape has survived of where that is the case. As I've said, I know nothing about these two, and I almost prefer it is kept that way. Because I cannot imagine there being anything other than a blood feud between these two. You just feel the hate. We've at the point in wrestling history where strikes start becoming in vogue. It's Texas. It smells like an early great prowres brawl, almost an invention of the stuff you'd see in the 70s and 80s. That's the kind of match where I really don't want to see referee shenanigans. But who do they bring in as special guest referee? Jack Dempsey. Come on now. Come on. It's Jack Dempsey, the legendary boxing world champion. He has to get in there. And, without spoiling too much, his presence really adds to the sense of chaos and hateful struggle these two showcase. It's a fascinating match, because it simultaneously reminds of Terry Funk and PRIDE. You get the authentically American stooging many love in the 70s and 80s, but you also get brutal forearm shots, rabbit punches and even head stomps. That's the beautiful thing about matches from this era - modern wrestling is basically being created, things aren't done just for the sake of being done in a manner that they are "because that's how they've always been done", you really can't tell what's gonna come next*. There's some fine wrestling in there too, but it served a structural purpose - it's intertwined with the chaos, it makes the highs seem even higher and is used to set up the brawling spots. And when it's time for if these guys just go at it, working super snug and tight, constantly going after each other, ending up in the corner and the ropes, you really get the sense that an outside force was needed to contain them and guide the action. Amazing. *

Gus Sonnenberg Historical candidate here, you know what comes with the territory. Sonnenberg is someone who became one of my favourites almost instantaneously. Football player turned pro wrestler is a well known trope well alive to this day, and here is one of the first guys to have done it. Like many of his stylistic descendants, his special technique is something between a Running Tackle and a blast Double Leg. It's absolutely beautiful, I could watch him just tackle someone forever. But it's not just the execution. When you watch his matches, it's treated as a big deal - the threat of it is sold huge by his opponents, and the quick nature of it allows him to constantly threaten it, adding another dynamic of excitement to the matches. However, Sonnenberg isn't just a specimen of an explosive athlete - his matches are mostly built around intricate matwork of the time that are a pastiche of amateur style, catch and the creativity of the first workers. And he's really good at both working it and adding authentic intensity to it. For my money, his match vs Count George Zarynoff is the first wrestling classic we have on tape. [1929-03-15-Boston, MA] vs Joe Malcewicz [1930-04-24-Boston, MA] vs Count George Zarynoff [1938-08-03-Los Angeles, CA] vs Bronko Nagurski

It's impossible to read too much into this as we get what seems like a glimpse of the finishing stretch, but it sure looks like it was an amazing spectacle. Super rabid atmosphere here as Londos is slamming O'Mahoney like crazy trying to put him down and he is constantly fighting back with Forearms and trying to hit the Irish Whip. Really dug the Full Nelson head slams O'Mahoney pulled off as well. Someone from the crowd yelling at Londos and calling him a "stupid little guerilla" got a legit laugh-out-loud out of me. Amazing footage of a historically important match, a minute and a half as it may be.