GOTNW

It's a 4 minute JIP of a 30 minute draw that includes mostly slow motion action but it's also Karl Gotch vs Billy Robinson so you take what you can get. Some nice stuff displayed here including a nasty Gotch Style Piledriver and Robinson's signature Backbreaker (which was also set up wonderfully). Not much is shown but you're better off watching it than not watching it.

This was apparently Gotch's first match in Japan, seeing rare footage of prime Gotch is such a treat, we get lots of nifty matwork as you'd expect. Gotch's German Suplex here is as picture perfect as it gets and I believe was used as a sample when the move was animated for Fire Pro and some other games. Though it is nice to see how much of Gotch's knowledge was preserved in the traditional New Japan style this still had some things that were lost to time, like Gotch's brilliant counter to Yoshimura's attempt of countering Gotch's indian deathlock with a sleeper (2:30), countering a counter attempt to a Hammerlock I'm not even going to try to explain etc.

I don't think it means much. None of the promoters are aware of things outside of their bubble. Everyone just does what they want anyway. Do you really expect WWE to go outside of their comfort zone? CMLL and AAA have their owns things, which just won't change. For me New Japan is probably at its low point. For feds that do try to experiment (DDT, Evolve, Lucha Underground) it's possible they can grown their own niche and brand but you just can't grow past a certain point these days. In general I think pro wrestling is in a much worse place than it would be if there weren't so many people who are convinced there is only one right version of pro wrestling. There are a lot of unexplored ideas I'd like to see get more focus.

Cena looked like a good candidate at first glance but I wonder if it simply isn't a case of the positives outweighing the negatives. Like, his offence doesn't look that great but he's great at making it seem like it's a big deal, structuring matches, selling, having huge dramatic facial expressions not even Kevin Dunn can miss, so is it really that shocking he's a really good wrestler despite not being especially good at throwing punches and bumping?

This is just mind boggling to me. I really don't think Danielson has a major weakness. He's good at striking, matwork, structuring matches, character work etc. Yikes, quoting other people is a pain in the ass on this board, even when you turn off HTML. Anyway, unless I'm misunderstanding the intent of this thread, Danielson more than fits the bill. He does not initially look like a star. He's not someone you'd see and immediately expect big things from. Divorce yourself from a decade of knowing him, his matches, his reputation, and his Meltzer rating. Now imagine you're seeing him for the first time. Do you expect him to be a future WrestleMania main eventer? His mic work, in particular, was not always strong - and some would argue that he's still not among the elite all-time great talkers. Yet, he made that simple, humble, plainspoken speaking style work for him. He also made his simple, humble look work for him. He is far greater than the sum of his parts. I'd also nominate Bret Hart for this category. You are. It's aimed at discussing how someone fares as a worker.

The first name I thought of was your guy Hashimoto. Think if you were some kind of scout and watched Hash and Mutoh work out side by side in 1985. Would you have fathomed that Hash would evolve into the far greater worker? Now, in hindsight, you can break Hash down and say his charisma and ability to construct a match were as much tools as Mutoh's fast-twitch athleticism. But they're less obvious tools. See this is where I'd love to actually have footage of Hashimoto and Mutoh from 1985. But by 1987/1988 Hashimoto seems so obviously great that I'd absolutely take him over Mutoh (whose strenghts at the time included, uhm......doing a backflip) as did Choshu.

Honestly sloppiness isn't that big of a problem with Tenryu. Most of his offence looks very good in my opinion. His facial expressions, character and general grumpiness to me are all "parts" that are as important as any other.

This is just mind boggling to me. I really don't think Danielson has a major weakness. He's good at striking, matwork, structuring matches, character work etc. I'm pretty sure I saw it used for Tenryu and Choshu actually, which I would find a lot more interesting to discuss than Okada

I've seen this mentioned several times, I might go back and find quotes with it's usage but anyhow it is a line of thinking I absolutely don't agree with. I think it would make for an interesting debate but right now I'd just like people to point to wrestlers who they think fit that description and why.

From what pre-WCW work I've seen of his Finlay doesn't seem like some great euro-style worker (though there are glimpses of that) but him having good/great matches over a large period of time is definitely something that will help his case even though I imagine he won't rank very high for me.

I'm trying to put into words how much I liked this match but I don't think I'll be able to do this justice. If the match was about ten minutes shorter I think it could've rated it as a top ten match of all time. It's still an absolutely incredible match, an the crowd never really dies but after a certain point they just aren't buying the submissions as much as they did and it's more of a "clap for rope breaks/escapes/general effort" thing. This was a perfect showcase for both wrestler's abilities, the matwork was phenomenal and they managed to escape a perfect sense of one-upmanship. It is a match that manages to excel both at the little things and the big things, there's a moment where Inoki does a bridge and Fujinami tries to drive him to that and I swear Inoki did the most beautiful bridge I've ever seen, the kind of thing that could only be possible because of stuff like this: The crowd was fucking insane, you get shots of people standing up and not leaving their feet for about ten minutes just mesmerized by the drama of the match, Inoki firing up while Fujinami had him in a Figure Four was one of the greatest spots I've ever seen and Fujinami responded appropriately by pushing himself up as far as he could and trying to rip apart Inoki's leg, the struggle over everything was so well done here and the match also served as a great display for their character though I'd find it understable if people used to gigantic bumps for irish whips and WWF wrestling didn't pick it up (not actually trying to call anyone out here fwiw), Fujinami has a chip on his shoulder and while being a great athlete in his own right doesn't really possess Inoki's strength and they play it up really well, Inoki goes for an illegal Sleeper in the beginning and Fujinami sells it like a huge threat, later on Fujinami uses the same maneuver several times but never manages to damage Inoki as much as Inoki had damaged him, I think that came off really well every time Fujinami would grab a hold for a longer period of time where, he'd just come off as the most tenacious wrestler ever, and later in the match when Inoki stars slapping the shit out of him and Fujinami sells it enough so it doesn't come off as no selling (especially with his facial expression) but no sells it enough so the crowd can put his awesome facial expressions together with him refusing to go down to Inoki's strikes and it's this humongous amazing moment and everyone is losing their shit and pro wrestling fucking rules mate. I also find it amusing how Fujinami's character seems to consistent both in his on air presentation and in scummy backstage videos and stories (him slapping Kevin Nash comes to mind, also there was a video where him and Inoki just yell at each other for five minutes and Fujinami responds to Inoki's weak fifth grader bully slap by Bas Ruttening him). ****3/4

Johnny Ace http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/15588-toshiaki-kawada-vs-johnny-ace-ajpw-championship-carnival-032794/?hl=%2Bjohnny+%2Bace&do=findComment&comment=5718326 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/11456-mitsuharu-misawa-jun-akiyama-vs-steve-williams-johnny-ace-ajpw-summer-action-series-ii-090596/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30305-mitsuharu-misawa-jun-akiyama-vs-steve-williams-johnny-ace-ajpw-real-world-tag-league-113096/ Alberto Del Rio http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25363-sheamus-vs-alberto-del-rio-wwe-smackdown-030714/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25373-alberto-del-rio-vs-big-show-wwe-smackdown-011113-last-man-standing/ http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32658-tlc-2015/page-4

I'm not sure how you get to the conclusion he brought nothing to the table in those matches other than kicks. I already pimped the Fujinami G1 98 match as an example of his selling and the Naoya Ogawa match as an example of his understanding of struggle over transitions. I believe there's a match from Masakatsu Funaki in 1990 where Yamazaki's selling performance really helped establish Funaki as a serious player. Anyway I'm not sure I could think of an example of Yamazaki having a good match against a subpar opponent but I find it silly to blame him because I think he faced good opponents. Then again I am way higher on UWF bubble guys than most. Actually I just remembered I liked his matches vs. Mutoh and Chono so there. I vaguely remember Osamu Kido as the least good guy in New Japan tag matches.

Yeah, I get that, but as I said that's not something that matters terribly to me. Espanto Jr. mask match isn't really a brawl, feels more like an incredibly gritty title match with blade jobs. I liked the Brazo De Oro match as I watched it but honestly don't remember it much.

I don't put much stock into blading but I am interested in the prospect of Santo being a better brawler. For matches in which they aren't pitted against each other Casas has the La Fiera, Bestia Salvaje, Mocho Cota and Rush brawls while for Santo I can think of matches vs. LA Park, Perro Aguayo and Super Parka. I'm sure I'm missing some on both sides but it doesn't seem like a slam dunk.

Shoot style isn't something that was created in a vacuum. The first New Japan show was main evented by Karl Gotch. New Japan provided training for the original UWF group. Maeda was the intended heir to Inoki. I believe by now you should be familiar by how succesful the New Japan vs UWF feud was. It was even repeated ten years later vs UWFi-again drawing INSANE amounts of money. I wish I could find the numbers for how much the first Takada-Mutoh dome show drew but I'm pretty sure it was the biggest gate for a japanese wrestling show ever. If shoot style had been a true niche PRIDE wouldn't have been successful to the point of driving Inoki insane so much he made New Japan more shooty and started pulling ridiculous booking, which went on from about 1997-2005. To say shoot style is a niche you would have to ignore the history of New Japan, Japan's biggest wrestling promotion. Even today you have the president of New Japan begging Maeda to come to his show, Minoru Suzuki and Sakuraba having a UWF rules match after which they played the UWF theme etc.

This isn't the first time an off topic discussion has happened in one of these threads your boy will be fine. Not that you'd care if it was someone else. I'll leave you alone when you stop spouting nonsense. Now this is something constructive that actually gives me an idea of what you were aiming at. The better question then is what isn't a niche to you if that's where you'd categorize hip-hop.

Glad your quality contribution is continuing mate. Continue pushing your narrative of "these things are important are important because I say they are".

Shoot style is only a niche because that fits your narrative. In reality someone like Maeda was a far bigger star and way more influential than Jumbo.

I don't think any of Triple H's garbage matches except the Foley ones were great.

Wouldn't make a top 500.

He didn't become a NOAH regular until 2008 though. The two Kobashi matches in 2005 may have been all he'd done beforehand. His 90s run was solid but that's not where his case lies.

Katsumi Usuda vs Masanobu Kurisu-Big Mouth Loud 29.12.2005. This is my kind of wrestling right here, I was coming in hoping for this to be a festival of ultraviolence but they chose to work the mat which I would have also accepted, I don't really ever remember watching Kurisu roll, he looked good here, doing neat stuff like using his knee to bend Usuda's ankle which you'd expect to see from Fujiwara. This "matwork" section also included Kurisu shoot headbutting Usuda like ten times. The crowd didn't seem to pick it up but I sure did. Just as I was accepting this match for what it was Kurisu fucking threw Usuda out of the ring and started blasting him chairshots, this culminated with him shoot chairshotting Usuda so hard you got one of those situations where you aren't sure if the guy bladed or he just hit him that hard, this was a blast, can't imagine a more fun way to spend six minutes.

When done in tags his Springboard Dropkick is probably my favourite transition ever, the way he'll just come flying into frame is unreal and so fundamentally brilliant it comes across as unexpected the 15th time you see it as it did the first time. He even made it work the one time I saw him botch it by bullying the ref after the match and claiming the ropes were too loose.

Glad to discover you are in fact human and loved that match. I wrote a gigantic post about that match and all the layers in it but it was in croatian so no direct c/p unfortunately.