GOTNW

This is the type of match where five years from now they'll show a clip of Owens and Zayn brawling and the finish and then enunciate "here at WWE it is all about THE STORIES. We tell STORIES. STORYTELLING. STORY STORY STORY SHAWN MICHAELS IS THE GREATEST WRESTLER OF ALL TIME" but in actuality the match is a total spotfest. I mean. It was fine for what it was. Just them blowing through a bunch of stuff I could have liked and cared about if they gave me reason to care about them. Vastly inferior to last year's ladder match, even in a match that is an inherent trainwreck like this one the lack of ring generals like Bryan and Harper hurt the match tremendously. **1/2

I watched what I did like three weeks after the show (which was a pretty great decision on my part) and still haven't gone through the entire thing. I just might have to do that as I'm not sure I can fit all my one liners in the one remaining match I haven't reviewed yet.

Man I don't blame AJ Styles for not getting a four star match out of Chris Jericho but I should have had him lower on my GWE list. This was just....I don't even know. AJ should revisit those Ohtani tapes because he's misremembering his big facial expressions after nearfalls. AJ's look really bad. Want to talk annoying WWE tropes? Codebreaker-long pause-kick-out is stupid and served no purpose. Finish was stupid as well and it could've been great-all Jericho had to do was shove the ref onto AJ but he didn't do that for whatever reason and we got another springboard something into Codebreaker counter. Never seen one of those before. And it also showcased another WWE trope we all love-a wrestler going for a move he usually doesn't at that point in te match just to set up a counter. The double Springboard spot looked cool at least (and even that wasn't consistent enough for me to call it logical and something that makes sense as Jericho landed on the apron which he usually doesn't when doing the move). I don't want to talk about 2016 Jericho anymore. Two stars, let us never think of this ever again.

I actually liked this a lot more than I ever thought I would. I've been quite disappointed with Lesnar's recent work but I think this delivered on what I'd hoped to see out of it. I've seen statements that this felt more tame and less violent than the usual Lesnar match and my response to that would be that the violence in the usual Lesnar match is probably overstated. Maybe I just dislike Ambrose enough I was fine with watching him get Suplexed a million times but I truly believe there was more to it. Ambrose's wacky character is stupid in 95% of wrestling roles but it might be great at just getting squashed. I didn't see the weapons as an attempt to reach some huge level of brutality as much as a means of Ambrose having a way to fire back against Lesnar and this match lasting longer than five minutes. In a way it is hilarious that Ambrose is acting like the new age hardcore icon, being endorsed by Terry Funk and Mick Foley and wearing an Onita-esque jacket and then he gets in there with a former UFC champion who suplexes him twenty five times and you remember wrestling is a work. The chainsaw spot was unnecessary but I don't think it hurt the match, Ambrose's gimmick is that he's stupid anyway. I liked the way Lesnar used Germans to transition back into offence here and the way he just planted himself on Ambrose's Double Underhook DDT was nasty. ***1/2

A classic for the ages. Seriously, this kind of thing seems pretty counter-productive, not only because it diminishes everyone on their roster but also because it's going to make The Rock eventually having a normal match at Wrestlemania feel less special because he's now there every year. I'm sure it pops the crowd but I don't think his promo makes much difference business wise. Imagine if Reigns had a flamethrower to burn The Great Satan with.

This was very good for what it was and it is really easy to see why so many people loved it. Personally-I'm just kind of done with this style of wrestling. I really don't have much use for matches where workrate is its own sake. I can still love a spotfest and think it's a great match but I'm not going to be vowed with flashy matches just because they have flash and even for matches which I think have problems with structure selling etc. I would easily take something like Mascara Dorada vs Mephisto from 2/19 over this. Once the initial novelty of them doing all these cool spots wore off they kind of just continued to do more of them and even at just 16 minutes it felt like it went too long to me. Finish was a great example of that, them re-using a spot that they'd already done with Charlote. I'm sure their marketing team has named Charlotte "a natural" but her acting could use some work. Rough around the edges with plenty of blown spots, and to their credit they weren't thrown off by them and kept on going which prevented them from hurting the match that much but it's still not something that really fits a clean WWE exhibition of athleticism. ***1/4

Nothing says peak wrestling like two old out of shape dudes doing a tribute to the Battlarts/BJW feud at Wrestlemania. I liked this way more than I expected, the sloppiness made it feel really gritty like I like my pro wrestling to be. Ideally you'd want workers to know how to sell but the next best thing is for them to just get old enough where they're hurt for real and that's what we get here. I think my problem with a lot of WWE epics is that they try to be these super serious matches when they're actually super ridiculous but this match is such a trainwreck that the fact it's so preposterous and Michael Cole is trying to spout his usual bullshit somehow adds to it. It also features exactly zero nearfalls which is mindblowing for an Undertaker Wrestlemania match. Glad Undertaker was a UWF fanboy, those submission exchanges were a sight to behold and Shane managed to make The Rock's Scorpion Deathlock look like Choshu's. Shane's insane bump was great but it was maybe my fifth favourite thing about the match. Shane trying to cut the cell door and failing miserably was hilarious and so many offence in this match was just them slammig each other on the cage door, steel steps, hitting each other over the head with TV monitors etc. However insane it may sound I'm going with ***3/4 for this one. The finish couldn't have been more symbolic, Shane asks Taker to go at it some more and Taker's reaction is "fuck you it's not 1999 anymore we're going home".

Well it depends on the year...

You're selling DEAN short. He also bleeds a lot and may or may not have missed the table on the balcony bump.

Smh.

Figured I'd just watch whatever now that GWE hell is over for me and I will always pay closer attention to whatever DEAN pimps and this match even got a thread of its own on DVDVR. A trillion jump cuts make this impossible to rate but man there is some neat brawling here. Johnny Valentine may have the best elbow drop ever and Wahoo's chops look out of this world great, the sequence where Valentine starts hitting him with body blows and they're just firing away at each other is magical. Wahoo's chops look sooooooooo great but he also has several variats of them and each one looks neat. Interesting finish, it's a take on a screwy finish we've all seen a million times but I don't think I have ever seen this particular one. Great use of your time if you have 10 minutes to spare.

Tenryu's retirement match and also one of the most surreal pro wrestling matches I have ever watched. Tenryu is just completely broken down here, in the last few years he could barely walk but here he can't even do that and categorizing what he does here as "walking" doesn't really seem right. Still I totally get why this would win the Tokyo Sports Match Of The Year. I've seen people call this match sad and I'd agree with that. I don't think that makes it a bad match though. Wrestling is about emotion and symbolism, not execution. Tenryu can't do anything except stiff the shit out Okada for real, and to his credit Okada daring Tenryu to shoot punch him in the face some more is about as close as I can get to liking him. A lot of Okada's offence doesn't look good, and Tenryu didn't have the strength to Powerbomb him properly but I don't think it really took away from the match. If anything that Tenryu was so broken down added to the match really. You'd have him making all these gigantic faces indicating he's hurtin a lot and you're not even sure if he's selling or just expressing that he's 65. Eventually Okada sticks to just doing the one move he has that looks good (the Dropkick) and it becomes even better. The post-match was heavy. Tenryu's first words about his final being something roughly like "shit I lost" was so great and so Tenryu. Man. I can't remember if I cried or not while watching the post-match. That Tenryu would have something this special against Okada in 2015 is unreal. Compare this to Taue's retirement match and you'll get the best explanation of the gap between them. This match will have a special place in my heart for sure.

Let me tell you something, I don't care what anyone says, I don't care what the fans in the arena thought, this match ruled, the modern New Japan fans and all the weaklings that have been conditioned to have their wrestling clean can buzz off. Suwama and Fujita have REAL HEAT, and the match begins with a long staredown which feels like something out of those epic Hashimoto matches I rated seventy six stars, the crowd is perplexed that they would do this and of course turns on them but Suwama and Fujita proceed to have out of this world amazing interactions regardless, slapping the shit out of each other, brawling all over the place, legit busting each other open, it's amazing. Okabayashi and Sekimoto have their usual interactions, and I like two big dudes running into each other with shoulder blocks and exchanging a million chops as much as the other guy but the money is in what Suwama and Fujita do. For all the shit Fujita gets he had no problem getting his ass handed to him here as he suffered severeal visual defeats in the end. Sekimoto and Okabayashi are way more interesting when they're pushing people off the apron and fighting in a match with actual heat. Awesome WAR tribute match. Man do I regret not ranking Kazuyuki Fujita. ****1/4

For all the talk about niches I had no idea who Buddy Rose was before joining PWO.

I'd have Styles over Eddie Guerrero easily. Like his best stuff more and he's been better for longer. Eddie is like Rey in that he was really awesome as that TV worker that could also deliver anyway you put him in longer matches excpet his run is 10 years shorter.

How many GWE lists of this (or at least somewhat comparable) magnitude have there even been? Seems like a stretch to call the list boring when the only thing we have to compare it to is the 2006 one which might as well be summed up as "love workrate xx". Don't worry the boring picks of today will be replaced with the boring picks of tomorrow and I will laugh as old men will yell when Chris Hero ranks over JCP guys.

No one would be mad if all lists were like DEAN's. There would be no arguing. Only joy and love for the sport of professional wrestling and tiny pants.

I like Tamura vs Tariel Bitsadze as much as the Vader match if not more. Tamura worked with guys liked that both in UWFi and RINGS and I don't really think there's a huge gap between him and Han in getting good stuff out of dudes like that.

I actually felt quite good about my ballot but seeing the results has only made me have even less regrets. Kind of predicted this would happen as well.

One thing I absolutely love about Han is the way he'll throw people around. He won't throw a bunch of suplexes or anything like that but he has these awesome wrist control takedowns that really do give the impression he is in complete control of the match. He'll get Armbared or Choked and then just lift the other guy up and Rampage Jackson him down. He absolutely has his spots but they are like Santo's dives in that you just can't get bored of them due to how beautiful they look and he has so many ways to work them into matches. One of my favourite things I saw him do was react to Mitsuya Nagai leglocking him by dragging him to the middle of the ring. Didn't even think to try to immediately counter it, let alone go for the rope break, he dragged him to the middle of the ring so he could be better positioned once he reversed it and locked in a submission of his own. I'm not sure there's anyone better in selling going down. He'll get hit with blows/kicks and fall so beautifully and convincingly it will change the flow of the match in an instant.

Yea but he never wrestled in Japan. ??????????? Who are you even targeting with that post.

And that's ok. Maybe knowing the context and the natural development of the style that lead to its final form would change your views on it. I don't think it would, but maybe you'd be able to phrase your disgruntlement with it better. But then again you probably wouldn't care for the style's predecessors as well.

That's an oversimplification if I've ever seen one. Internal consistency of pro wrestling is extremely questionable, even within specific styles in a specific time and changes drastically depending on time, location, promotion etc. I mean you've gone on record stating you don't really love wrestling outside of the US so I see it more as an issue of you being willing to accept non "The Thing vs The Hulk" takes on pro wrestling than an issue in styles that do that themselves.

I will also note Shooto (and Pancrase depending on what exactly we're talking about) as well as various Vale Tudo tournaments/promotions existed by that point as well. Shoot style has its own internal logic that differs from promotion to promotion and is completely different than MMA, let alone UFC in 2016. I'm not surprised someone who only loves american wrestling *doesn't get it*. I'm sure Goodear could find pretty of good reasons to back up his viewpoint. I mean if anything by standards such as "we know what real fights look now" and "wrestling as a con art" I'd say shoot style holds up pretty well, especially compared to all other wrestling. Unless you're going to have counter-arguments why it isn't stupid you might as well not even bother responding.

You could say the same thing about pro wrestling as a whole.