GOTNW

There's also the riot in the Sumo Hall after Vader beat Inoki.

Can you see yourself going top 50 with him? I have him fairly high (in comparison to the consensus of him being a guy that could make the bottom of a list).

He has a great match vs. Sakuraba from UWFi as well and don't forget the NOAH-New Japan feud. And I loved his match vs. AKIRA from 2000 as well.

Probably something like 1987 New Japan. All the UWF guys plus Hashimoto, Choshu. Fujinami, Hase, Koshinaka, Kensuke Sasaki.........Vader as well actually.

I think it's more a matter of the format of the matches than anything. I like Yatsu but I feel like the only difference between him and a modern guy like Suwama is how much the match structures of the 80s better used their similar skillsets.

Is Shuji Kondo nominated? That guy has cool strength spots at least. Anyway. Kaz Hayashi. Junior wrestler of the country of Japan. Being a modern puro fan meant I often had to watch pimped matches for they either included one wrestler I liked or just to keep in touch. Then I'd watch the match and it wouldn't be as good as I'd heard it was. Kaz Hayashi is the wrestler who would face a wrestler I'd like in a disappointing match. I'll give him props for taking stupid bumps in irrelevant Worldwide matches twenty years ago to amuse DEAN. And his match vs Shuji Kondo from 2006 is great. It has all the flaws of a modern junior match (limbwork that gets completely blown off, excess etc.) but somehow all of that didn't really matter to me. Eventually he turned into Marufuji except a much duller version of him, he lacked the creativy to come up with as much stuff as Maru did so he just hit his finishers more times to compensate. Mostly he is just another guy I'm glad not to watch anymore. There are parts of his career I'm not overly familiar with but I don't exactly feel like wasting my time on revisiting non-Fuchi 2003 All Japan juniors or whatever.

I find it incredibly bizarre that a WWE guy ripped Madoka's moves. Does he have some good matches? Probably yeah. But basing it on performance quality (which I put a lot more stock to than having a three star match every six months) I think he's been pretty terrible for the majority of his WWE career. Hard to care for a guy whose offence is goofy as fuck and only looks good when he botches it and hurts someone for real. Though I'd probably like him more if he did that more often. I won't even try to deny. The nose-breaking Miz GIF is incredible.

Yes sir.

Meltzer is just one man though. If anything if we're going by other places what you'd notice is that wrestlers who worked, I don't know, Battlarts and IWRG would simply get replaced with various guys like Kenny Omega, Ibushi, Tanahashi, Dragon Gate flip masters as well as more workrate indy guys. Orton would probably do worse on those lists if anything.

I would definitely say you are crazy. WKO 2011 has him at 46 which seems about right for someone carriable.

Come on now, Orton's peak should be zero.

vs. El Samurai and Dr. Wagner Jr. from the 1997 BOSJ are some of his best and most famous matches. There's a great BOSJ final vs Masahito Kakihara from 2003 on youtube. He had a great match in the 2006 G1 vs Nagata but that's outside of the period you're asking for.

Shinya Hashimoto vs Keiichi Yamada-NJPW ?????? This a three minute JIP but look at the names involved, no way do I miss out on a chance to see more Hash, they are both young lions here, what we get in this clip is non-stop action, everything Hashimoto does looks great, he busts out a bunch of neat slams and kicks the daylights out of Yamada who is no slouch either. Finish is really sick as Yamada Powerbomb Hashimoto on his head and then follows that up with a Diving Headbutt for some reason. More insight into how cool young Hash was. Cagematch says he has matches vs. Yoji Anjoh and Tatsuo Nakano in the 1987 Young Lions Cup and if those exist on tape I should probably find a way to watch them.

Now that I've looked around it is a mistake on my part. I don't think there's much merit in me arguing with you about most of this-it is your system after all. I'm pretty sure I could name 30 memorable Akiyama opponents fwiw. I'll give it a shot: This would be the least time consuming thing to bring up: Doesn't this penalise someone who isn't a classic brawler or tehnician but can do both? As for things that could maybe sway you: No way was Liger a top 30 wrestler in the world for that long. I could see extending his peak up until the New Japan vs NOAH junior feud (which would be giving him 2003/2004) but anything after that would be stretching it. I understand you've seen zero of Sasaki's 2000 stuff but he improved massively and has several years where many would argue he was at that elite level. I'd suggest check out his matches vs Kobashi from 2005 and maybe something from 2004 if you haven't just to show how he worked when he was at his best. It would be just a point or two in his favour but I don't think I care enough about Kensuke Sasaki to argue properly for him.

Sure, but that's what you usually give bonus points to. And it's something I'm willing to accept as a reason why you wouldn't give him a 10/9/8 in role-playing. Maybe this is a better way to phrase it-what skills do you think he doesn't possess that a worker with his career narrative should have to earn the maximum amount of points he could in your system? What types of matches do you think he could've worked that his american counterparts or predecessors like Jumbo did? Squash matches? Sprints? Longer bouts? Maybe something more matwork oriented? Why is Jumbo a 5 but Akiyama a 2? If you're giving someone bonus points for being successful (over) in another environment but also giving them more points for "the ability to play different roles" and basind their higher rating in their field on them being successful overseas you're kind of giving them points for the same thing twice, does that matter to you that much? Do you not think a worker who can play different roles in the same environment should be rewarded as well?

Fujita "Jr." Hayato isn't accurate. Hayato "Jr." Fujita would be but no one uses it. Including me despite knowing that's how it should be spelled. But then again so many japanese names are misspelled I differentiate between the correct ones and the most common ones altogether. edit: Ok I checked wikipedia has the correct spelling at least.

Akiyama is the last guy out of the All Japan folks I'd point to as being one-dimensional. In fact I'm not sure there is a more versatile All Japan lineage performer. Like. Ever. The idea he is a "2" in being able to play different roles is so ridiculous that the only way I can take it seriously is if you haven't watched enough Akiyama matches to properly evaluate him. Which is fine in itself. But just because someone who is a "ten" exists doesn't mean someone like Akiyama who showed great range throughout his career is a two and I doubt gimmick matches and brawl carry 8 points in your category. Jimmy mentions this: Care to actually go through all the boxes?

Ability to work different styles/and roles for Akiyama is like.....seven at least. I'd give him ten without thinking about him but. I honestly don't see how anyone could realistically give him two. I'd give him +1 for being able to work heel as well. Sure, he it wasn't him working like Abdullah The Butcher or whatever, but playing the subtle, outmatched heel Akiyama did is something I find far more complex and interesting than just working as a "bad guy". We also need to take into account that by the time Akiyama's heel run had started "heels" had longe since been cheered heavily in Japan. But I do think he was great at it. And his track record against rookies and less capable opponents shows how great he is at structuring matches, carrying other folks etc. I would also take away the +1 for being company ace since that was never what he was and replace it with the aforementioned +1 for his heel work. But he's great as a rookie, great in those mid-late big All Japan tags, great as an upper midcarder challenging for the Triple Crown, great as a heel breaking out and getting his first main event push, great as a grizzled veteran torturing young boys.....come on. I understand you haven't seen much of his late work but two is just......not right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9JhBUGaJTY

I don't have much to add about Grey except that he is an excellent worker and will surely make my list, which is remarkable since he works the type of character I'm not really predisposed to liking. But his skill is absolutely undeniable.

Katsuyori Shibata's name isn't properly spelled.

Reasons why I love Ogawa and matches with a certain amount of stars aren't really intertwined iny my mind. Have you seen his match vs. Rikioh from ~2006? That's the first one I thought of anyway.

Gotch is hard for me. He looks good in what we have of him but we have so little. Obviously he gets more attention from me than he would if he wasn't such a legendary and influential figure but that's exactly why he is problematic for me. Pretty much all my favourite wrestling can be traced directly back to Gotch and his influence in both shaping the traditional New Japan style and training wrestlers is enormous. As I've said before influence is something I sometimes I take into account and with Gotch it's so significant that I have a hard time leaving him off because of it. I could see making him my #100.

Even if I did think of Flair as highly as you do my answer would still be yes. In fact I'm kind of surprised no one's compared the two that much since Danielson really is the closest you'll get to a touring champion consistently producing long, great matches in an era where wrestling works so differently. 1.Triple H 2.Randy Orton 3.John Cena 4.CM Punk 5.Sheamus 6.Dolph Ziggler (the match you weren't crazy about was voted MOTY in a WWE poll but they had like 3 other matches I liked as much and some of them almost certainly more) 7.Cesaro 8.Ryback 9.Big Show (Bryan is one of the only guys who knew how to work to his strenghts) 10.Mark Henry (ditto) 11.Wade Barrett 12.Seth Rollins/Tyler Black 13.Roman Reigns 14.Dean Ambrose (no singles match IIRC but a billion tags) 15.Bray Wyatt 16.Luke Harper 17.William Regal 18.The Miz That's just his WWE run. Not to mention I could still give him stuff from that run alone (he had a really good short match vs. Great Khali on NXT. The Great Khali doesn't have a lot of good matches.) And I'm sure others will probably think of something I haven't. 19.KENTA 20.Chris Hero 21.Lance Storm 22.Munenori Sawa 23.Nigel McGuinness 24.SHINGO 25.Roderick Strong 26.Low Ki 27.AJ Styles 28.Katsuhiko Nakajima 29.Takeshi Morishima 30.Super Dragon Done. And many more could be named.

I'd say there is no chance Bryan doesn't have at least 30 memorable opponents. (I'll come up with a list if someone else more enthusiastic about 2000 indies doesn't)