GOTNW

This might be true. Might. I struggle to find anything he does insulting. But he doesn't really have a single major quality. And what makes him better than say, Suwama, Morishima, Sugiura, Go Shiozaki, Takaiwa, Kojima or Okabayashi? What is your argument for Sekimoto as a top 20 guy of all professional wrestling ever? What are the matches that he has produced that you are so high on that you would put him on that level?

It may be a "Kobashi match" in terms of layout, length and such but Kobashi was also constantly put in a position to produce those matches while Honda wasn't. If anything it was worked in the vein of NOAH epics-which weren't exclusive to Kobashi.

I like modern puro a lot. Sekimoto just doesn't do it right. He's always felt like a video game wrestler, nothing he does feels organic or particularly significant. The Suwama matches got pimped as MOTYCs and I swear you can find better Yano/Iizuka tags. Dull strike exchanges, no layout, it was a chore to sit through. Before everyone got injured there were probably at least 5 guys I preffered in Strong BJ only.

Misawa deviated from his formula and played a more classic FIP in the 2007 Sano match, which I also consider a lot better than the Morishima-Sasaki match. There was no reason for Misawa to work FIP in a match supposed to get Morishima over as NOAH's new ace, especially in his current condition, and Morishima playing FIP would've been a huge gamble. Competitive title matches are how NOAH operated 90% of the time and Misawa's formula gave Morishima his career match in 2006. They played it safe. It was/is a highly regarded match, more so than Morishima/Sasaki (which I actually slightly prefer myself).

That match was 90% Honda. Which was completely fine. Not getting in the way of someone else's masterful performance is an important quality to have.

Angle is someone I am predisposed to liking. He works fast paced, does a bunch of suplexes and has shown glimpses of quality matwork. I really like his high-end stuff. I am insanely high on his matches vs Austin at SS01 and Undertaker at NWO06. He never bores me in a way that my least favourite wrestlers like Randy Orton do. But I don't get the case for him. There is very little high-end Angle stuff. Other than the matches I mentioned there's a few overrated matches that were only ever hyped because of low mainstream wrestling standards at the time (vs Benoit at the Rumble and vs HBK at Mania), his TNA stuff which ranges from good (if you enjoy the style-which I do) to terrible (as in-I enjoy your style but you are terrible at pro wrestling fuck dude sell, show emotion, do something please just stop doing finishers and cage moonsaults k?). His peak was what, 2001-2003? And his flaws have been overly documented so pointing them out would be redundant however something I haven't seen him get criticized for and that bothers me a lot is his tendendcy to do counter spots which make no sense at all in the context of the match just because they looked cool the first time he did them. I find him entertaining as a reckless spot machine but he's not a better professional wrestler than say, Masao Inoue.

Hello there. I decided to join after months of lurking because of the fact that the focus of the board is on analyzing pro-wres matches and open-minded discussion instead of frivolous nonsense and the only similar board I frequented is now pretty much dead and has/had a narrower span. I'm 17 and from Croatia, got into WWE by accidentally catching it on TV. As soon as my fandom grew and I started youtubeing everything I got into puroresu which fit my stylistic preferences more because I am inclined to like anything with more of a sportive/shooty feel to it as I was a kickboxing/MMA fan primarily before I got into pro-wres. I like contemporary lucha but I have pretty much no clue about its history. My favourite pro wrestling thing is Tenryu punching people in the face.