GOTNW

Ditch's interview was with Ishikawa who seemed a little insecure about the whole thing. Ikeda has the time of his life going mountain climbing with his dog and replying to his GF/wife/IDK's comments on his photos like he's a teenage kid in love for the first time while also occasionally having super ultraviolent stifffests for the hell of it.

Wait, what's the name of that lucha guy OJ hates that threw a hooker of the balcony that had a great chain match vs. La Fiera? Wasn't he listed already? edit: it's jerry estrada

Kobashi was an incredibly hard worker and always gave it 100%. Plenty of people say Bret phoned in performances on a regular basis. If you want to play what-if, that's not what Kobashi would have done in his spot. (that might've even been brought up earlier but fuck this last page is full of essays)

At a certain point I think it comes down to what you value as a fan and how much time you're willing to put into a certain worker. If you're taking a Matt D style holistic view at things consistency is going to matter more than if you're just watching a guys best-of set. Both "I love this guy because he has these great matches" and "I acknowledge the great matches, but can't rank him due to how inconsistent he is" are valid and no one is going to argue they aren't (obviously the quality of the matches can also be debated). What I really find perplexing is that someone who has done the week to week, holistic watching will decide to rank a wrestler just because of the great matches even if it is not something they are personally satisfied with. But hey-it's their list.

My post-GWE project will be binge watching a bunch of Mile Zrno stuff so I can rank him #5 for GWE2026. Obviously consistency is the big hurdle there. Can't believe I didn't think of that when you asked this: as now a million names come to mind. Mutoh is probably the best example.

My favourite Kobashi period is from when he blew his knee in 2001 or so until 2006 because he could still do enough to construct a great match the way he knew how to but couldn't go overboard with doing stuff for the sake of just doing stuff. In that time period he also developed some tropes that are haunting japanese wrestling to this day but he had the charisma to pull them off.

Koshinaka ended up being a tough cut for me. Love him a lot but no way is he as good as guys like Black Terry, Super Astro and Lizmark and others I had to make room for. I don't even know how many of my guys have already showed up. Like.......half my list? Ok not. Maybe a quarter.

I will admit I am guilty of using something similar, but it would be "epic match theory" more than anything, and I only somewhat used it when ranking people in like my top 20 and comparing their absolute peak. I don't really think there are wrestlers who I don't think are at least very good at matches I think are epic. For matches that are great it can be a case of more of a guy with a particular skillset, or, as Matt would describe them, "a tool" following along. In fact I was very conflicted on how to rate Danielson because he was the driving force in so many great matches but I don't think he ever really has a match I thought was truly transcendental. First names that comes to mind for me is Roderick Strong. I don't know how long his list if but Randy Orton would fit the description as well. As mentioned above, having a skillset that great opponents could use to get to those results. Maybe being reeled in by the agents or something similar. Would need to think more about it. This is almost impossible to answer for me as a general thing. Whas is the goal of the match? What is the greatness of the performance?

Based on what, exactly? Based on anyone ranking someone they dislike, let alone hate, because of it. And because I fundamentally disagree with it also but I'll save that for the other thread you started.

The verdict on great match theory is that it's a complete failure.

I don't think there was much disparity. I think Dave was reluctant to jump on the bandwagon in 2011 when his readers voted Tanahashi WOTY but he was already on it in 2012.

Nakamura's transformation happened in 2009 when he turned heel and formed CHAOS. 2011 is when I think when he started doing Michael Jackson tribute stuff or whatever but he was already super great in 2009 and had the character down, it was just a slightly different character. Modern New Japan rise really happened in 2012 with the big Okada push and them doing Ustream IPPVs but Tanahashi's long IWGP title run in 2011 also got a lot of recognition.

Oh boy. Low vote on Ono. Before Jetlag starts throwing rocks at me for having him like 13 spots below Usuda I'll note it's probably his fault for not uploading stuff sooner. But I also have stuff other thant that I never got around to watching so.

Eddie Kingston-13th best wrestler ever. Okay. Kohsaka, Ono and Usuda should be appearing soon because anyone I like can't do well. Casas and Satanico will surely improve their placement but outside of them I don't expect lucha to do that good.

Murakami is fucking great. I had him like 74 but that feels too low now that I think about it. Matches vs. Ishikawa, Ohtani abd Nagata are all legitimately great as is the Hashimoto/Iizuka tag and he's always entertaining.

I imagine Super Delfin at #11 would cause similar reactions to Kendrick's high vote if more people knew who he was. A single #1 vote getting someone to 354 seems fitting. I think we'll see at least two wrestlers who'll get #1 votes not make the top 100.

Come on, an obscure Russian guy from RINGS, 16 years after shoot-style went out of style. I find it pretty amazing, in a good way of course. Always liked Kopylov. He is the second best known RINGS foreigner, nowhere near close to being a true obscure RINGS guy. This is a place where people are predicting a top ten finish for someone who's spent the last twenty years being an annoying WWE commentator so you'd hope something going out of style wouldn't matter as much. I didn't even vote for him fwiw, but him being here does reflect on how the other 20 or so shoot guys I ranked might fare.

Someone voted New Jack #1 didn't they?

Kopylov getting 4 votes isn't amazing in any way. If anything it's disappointing to me since I'm pretty sure at least two of them were people who I talked into submitting a ballot at the last minute. I was wondering how modern guys who were nominated would do, quite surprised to see Rush hasn't shown up yet (I think?).

I learned to trust my gut instinct and I've found it to be by far the best thing to go by. Rationalizing it has been incredibly gratifying.

Nice to see someone ranked Sugiura higher than me. When I thought about it more I realised he had the last great heavyweight ace run in japanese wrestling so that earned him a solid placement.

We've changed gears folks. I really wish I could've made space for Kazuyuki Fujita. Ditto Angel Azteca. I realized he had title matches vs. Emilio and watched a bunch of his trios after I'd already finalized my ballot. Oh well. DEAN's list is a gift that keeps on giving.

Big pop.

I kind of expected there would be weirder pics of someone who wrestled in what appeared to be an underground sex dungeon but this will do.

Nakano (( I'm happy I wasn't the high vote on him but seeing him go out this early displeases me. #1 vote got a wrestler 125 points right? I wonder how high that amount will get someone.