GOTNW

Taue is a weird one for me because I think there are probably plenty of years where he wasn't a top thirty guy. But really that's true for so many guys you've given those inbetween years it seems silly to make an exception of Taue. I'd say giving him at least until 2003/04 would be a given and an argument could be made for 2006 as that's when he had great matches vs Akiyama and Marufuji and a high profile tag vs. TAKEOVER alongside some fun undercard stuff. There are still some fun matches after that point but the 2007 match vs. Misawa is cleary them working through their physical limitations, even if I did think it was a great match.

I have no idea on what basis are you cutting off Taue's peak at 2000.

I loved NO LIMIT, and junior tag wrestling is hardly my favourite thing. I think he was really good as a heavyweight before the injury. It slowed him down and despite occasionally putting on really good stuff it took him a while to really find himself. His new character is amazing and probably salvaged his career. Not a contender for me this time around but a guy I quite like.

Eh. I enjoyed it but Liger was clearly out of his element and lost at several points in the match. Can you elaborate? He wasn't nearly as fluent in his escapes and transitions as Virus.

Eh. I enjoyed it but Liger was clearly out of his element and lost at several points in the match.

Shane McMahon isn't really a big *star*, but he is a big deal to wrestling fans, especially ones that are closer to you typical WWE fan than anyone on this board or DVDVR. The reaction over here is undermining his return, if anything. Everyone on my local board loved it (and that is mostly teens to early 20s with a few exeptions) and somehow I tend to find that the best thing go by these days. I doubt a casual fan is going to say "how dare a favourite from my childhood return!". So I would say "people not excited about Shane McMahon's return" are a very peculiar group.

The "desert island matches" thread made me think of this and I believe it is something that should at least be brough up. Here's the thing-I have Daisuke Ikeda in my top 20. That's going to be weird to a decent chunk of people who haven't ever heard of him, but to the folks that have the biggest complaint I imagine would be both his work in NOAH that wasn't nearly as good as his Bat-Bat stuff, and also the amount of great matches he has. The first point I could simply counter with the oh so original-I don't care. It's not really any different to me than a wrestler slowing down in their post-peak or being unmotivated in a certain period of their career or whatever. Plus I was a fan of his before I saw any of the shoot stuff. Maybe I just like midcard NOAH 6 man tags from 2003 more than anyone else. Whatever. My second counter point would be that while it is a solid argument-his great work is spread out through a big enough period of time for that not to matter. But the third, and probably the most important one to me, is that my desert island matches would all include Ikeda stiffing the shit out of someone. I can't imagine anyone claiming Ikeda has more great matches than Bryan Danielson but I am much more likely to rewatch the short Ono match ten more times than I am to revisit random Bryan Danielson ROH title defences. And when someone's absolute peak is that high I'll come up with whatever convoluted explanation need be to justify my ranking.

The "free trial" part sounded good, "not available in your country" did not.

Can someone please point me to a match that isn't like an hour long that demonstrates his supposed sucking? He's looked good in everything I've seen of him.

KENTA, Cena, AJ, Nakamura. Brock is probably falling off at this point. I've considered Zayn but I don't think he'll make it.

The people who are in charge now were in charge then though.

It was aimed at fxnj fwiw.

It's not like Kobashi was ever working with slobs either. You mentioned Kobashi carrying folks to career matches like Kawada in another thread and I don't buy that for a second. Even in his GHC run from 2003-2005 there are some disappointing matches like vs. Nagata and vs.MiSu.

The negatives don't always matter to me to the same degree. That's one of the reasons I could never use a universal criteria.

Let's not forget guys who aren't here anymore-Edge, Shawn Michaels, Rey, Batista etc. didn't leave that long ago.

Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs Keiji Mutoh & Satoshi Kojima-ZERO-1 2.5.2003. This match isn't perfect. It's great, but I need to get my "why it isn't perfect" talking points out of the way before we get there. You'd want this match to be great. I mean, you'd want every match to be great but that's just not possible but here you gave four big stars in a big interpromotional tag and two of them are great and two of them have some merit in their work so there's potential at least. The problem here was that some interactions simply didn't work. Ogawa vs. Mutoh and Kojima just isn't what you'd want it to be, Ogawa is this unstoppable killing machine and yet he's forced to take their weak as shit offence and sell ridiculous stuff he'd never sell in a singles match. Ogawa vs Muta was ruled, and I'm sure an Ogawa-Kojima match would've ruled, but that doesn't translate into working the opening portion of a tag match. Still because Ogawa is really good at wrestling he'll bust out cool judo throws and counter a Figure Four Leglock with a punch, and it's not like the action is ever bad per se. The first time Hashimoto and Mutoh squared off wasn't all that great either, some fun exchanges built around their signature spots, and an especially amusing one where Mutoh hit a shitty Shining Wizard and Hashimoto sold it for a bit only to get up and look him like "you're shitting me right? that's your big move now" only to attempt his own Shining Wizard which, techique wize, probably wasn't even as good as Mutoh's but because Hashimoto is fucking huge it looks like it would hurt you and to his credit Mutoh sold it really well. What's really memorable in the part two thirds of the match are the exchanges between Hashimoto and Kojima (who is also a great Hashimoto opponent one might not immediately think of in case you're wondering). Kojima had really mastered fighting as a fiery underdog against more established opponents and Hashimoto is the best, while he gives Kojima plenty you also get awesome stuff like him reacting to Kojima not hitting him as he'd need to take him down with awesome gigantic facial expressions followed by taking Cozy's head off. And then there's the finish, which is so awesome it's hard to put it into words and it's followed by an AMAZING post-match segment as well, it is the kind of chaotic brawl you want out of pro wrestling and it's hard to top Hashimoto wrecking fools and Ogawa throwing shoot punches. ****1/4

I'm not sure if there's a better place to put this but I'm not doing a tag team ballot for these reasons: 1)the singles list is the one everyone's really been paying attention to and talking about. The tag team ballot didn't have nearly the same amount of discussion and the candidates didn't undergo nearly the same amount of scrutiny. 2)It's skewed heavily towards 80s american wrestling which I don't care for much and at some point I realised I'd be much easier to just complete the singles list and do one list right than do two I probably wouldn't be satisfied with. I'd also have to nominate like 50 japanese tag teams so....why bother really.

I don't see why this is so "controversial". I actually thought about nominating him months ago but forgot, last night someone reminded me and boom. I guess he kind of sucks mechanically and the criticisms of him "wrestling" Kurt Angle and such are probably valid, but boy could he produce spectacles. I won't rank him-but really we're at a point where we've had about 700 wrestlers nominated, might as well bring him up and discuss the merits of his work as well.

Shinya Hashimoto & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Shinjiro Ohtani & Takao Omori-ZERO-1 31.8.2004. Hashimoto's last match. This is the kind of gnarly, gritty match I love, it's kind of a shame Omori is in there because this would be a bonafide dream match with someone at least on say.......Masato Tanaka's level. Not that Omori sucks, but you kind of have to beat a good performance out of him, which Fujiwara manages to do, it's kind of hard to fuck up trading slaps in the face with him and Omori even does this really cool spot where he goes to punch Fujiwara's head and hurts his fist. Hashimoto is all business, obliterating people with kicks, but his strikes, while still quite good, don't seem to have quite the intensity they had just a few months prior to this due to his shoulder injury. Still both Ohtani/Fujiwara and Ohtani/Hashimoto interactions are golden and these kind of ZERO-1 tags have a special charm. ***3/4 Shinya Hashimoto & Kazuhiko Ogasawara vs Steve Corino & Tom Howard-ZERO-1 5.4.2003. These matches are like the antithesis of the "constant highspots" bullshit I've come to hate. I will take Steve Corino stalling over some springbaord reverse ace crusher bullshit counter where you can't tell what's going on and whom it's supposed to be hurting (and the wrestlers don't even give you an answer to that as they just no sell it and move on to the next spot) any day of the week. Anyway this is shine>heat>comeback so a southern tag I guess? Really great bit at the beginning of the match where Corino tries to go toe to toe with Hashimoto and throws some really good strikes only for Hash to decapitate him with the greatest Kesagiri Chop my eyes will ever witness. Ogasawara is a wacky karate guy I guess, and Corino and Howard make fun of him, showcase their ignorant yet amusing stereotypes about japanese culture in an extended workover, use the most cliche missed move spot ever to set up the hot tag and then Hash comes in to fucking go over. But before he does that Corino gets a little more heat on him and you remember damn Steve Corino used to be fucking good at wrestling. ***1/2 Shinya Hashimoto & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Tom Howard & The Predator-ZERO-1 30.7.2002. Featuring the infamous team of The Predator and Tom Howard, best known as the guys whom I would put the tag titles on when booking ZERO-1 in King Of Colosseum II. Or the guys that would job to the team I'd actually want the belts on. On a somewhat related note I have now reviewed enough Tom Howard matches to nominate him for the GWE. Though I am pretty sure there were already three reviews of his matches on Segunda Caida which diminishes my "accomplishment". The Predator has a chain. I wonder if he's working a Bruiser Brody gimmick. He doesn't sell a lot for Hashimoto-only when he really needs to, but Hashimoto is also his boss so he kind of needs to sell for him anyway. Confirmed. Howard does this stupid spot where he puts his arms behind his back and challenges his opponent to hit him, Fujiwara falls for it which I can kind of buy because he's a smartass but I wished he'd have headbutted him in the head instead. Hashimoto comes in and he tells Howard to fuck off for he has no time for this shit. Howard, aware his future bookings are at stake, decides to fight for real. I am all about hot tag Hashimoto, and there's a pretty cool narrative going on as you wonder how much times does Hashimoto need to drop the guy who doesn't sell on his head in order for him to lose. There is also the possibility that Hashimoto will tag in Fujiwara was no reason only for him to eat to pin. Only one way to find out- PM me for a link of the shady chinese site hosting it. Or find that DVD you bought 13 years ago. So two ways I guess. Fuck. ***1/2

Yujiro Yamamoto http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33364-yujiro-yamamoto-vs-munenori-sawa-battlarts-8302009/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33366-yuki-ishikawa-vs-yujiro-yamamoto-rjpw-10252011/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33365-alexander-otsuka-vs-yujiro-yamamoto-battlarts-2152009/ Rush http://segundacaida.blogspot.hr/search/label/Rush Shane McMahon http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/29264-stephanie-mcmahon-and-testmankind-vs-shane-mcmahon-wwf-smackdown-082699/?hl=%2Bshane+%2Bmcmahon http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30396-shane-mcmahon-vs-kurt-angle-wwf-king-of-the-ring-062401-street-fight/?hl=%2Bshane+%2Bmcmahon http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/29361-hhh-chyna-vs-test-shane-mcmahon-wwf-monday-night-raw-092099/?hl=%2Bshane+%2Bmcmahon

9 minutes of these two grappling around sounds like a good time to me. You know how it goes. They go through a lot of positions. Then Ishikawa gets the mount and throws shoot punches. Then they do more swank grappling. Maybe hit each other really hard if they feel like it. It's good stuff I promise. You kind of forget RJPW has pinfalls but those are for wusses anyway. Ishikawa does a beautiful roll through into a grounded Cobra for the win and that's a GIF in the making. This is a weird match up to talk about for me because it seems so self-evidently good that I really have nothing to add. If you like these two you'll like this match, even if it is just a small taste of what they can do.

This is the stuff right here, one of my favourite things about Otsuka is how unique and interesing his transitions are, he'll go from a Scorpion Deathlock to an Indian Deathlock to a Sleeper in one fluent motion in about three seconds and that's just a random example from an early mat exchange. The finishing stretch has some amazing stuff, like Yamamoto using Cena's Giant Swing counter we lost our shit for about 4 years earlier and just an awesome sense of struggle with Otsuka going for badass throws and Yamamoto trying to counter with any way he can. It's also really cool how Otsuka makes even pro style moves like Piledrivers and even a Frankensteiner seem more legit with how nicely he sets them up and executes them. Stars; a lot of.

Yujiro Yamamoto is the only guy whom I wish to nominate who doesn't have the three reviews on the internet so I'll try to at least bullshit through them. There is one thing I don't love in this match. A spot where they dare each other to kick each other as hard as possible. And even that I managed to enjoy as I happen to love watching them kick each other really hard. You get the slick matwork you'd want, they shoot slap and kick each other in the face really hard and they even incorporate a really good legwork segment in there. I really don't think of Dragon Screw Legwhips as something that I particularly like or dislike in my wrestling, but here Sawa pulls them off as violently as humanly possible and Yamamoto's sell job is accordingly good. Finish plays off of that as well. Good stuff from our Battlarts boys here.

Munenori Sawa http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25988-yuki-ishikawa-munenori-sawa-vs-manabu-hara-super-tiger-ii-battlarts-111608/?hl=%2Bmunenori+%2Bsawa http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/21922-ikuto-hidaka-munenori-sawa-vs-yuki-ishikawa-yuta-yoshikawa-battlarts-083108/?hl=%2Bmunenori+%2Bsawa http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/21913-yuki-ishikawa-alexander-otsuka-munenori-sawa-vs-daisuke-ikeda-katsumi-usuda-super-tiger-ii-battlarts-072608/?hl=%2Bmunenori+%2Bsawa

Well Reigns is nominated so...